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 19 Feb 2007 @ 13:30
I. What is a New Civilization Zone?
NCZ is a goal-oriented community. This goal is the conscious evolution of human beings. The tool of this conscious evolution is knowledge – knowledge in the form of science and technology . This tool – knowledge - helps the human evolution at their collective and individual livings. At the collective living, it is done by subordinating the desire-dominated man-made institutions to the dispassionate discipline of knowledge. There, it helps in planning efficient self-governance in every sphere of human activity. Such planning ensures the saving of human-energy from wastful social conflicts. This saved energy when ploughed back to the common benefits of the society, provides people leisure-hours, high standard of life and peaceful life. These three things enable human beings to turn towards spirit. This collective turning towards spirit helps the evolution gain acceleration. In this way, the community is helped by knowledge in providing more freedom to its members,enabling them to become more efficient in the matter of their democratic self-governance and thereby making them available collectively a cultural ambience that is condusive to turn towards spirit. At the individual living, a person is helped by knowledge – or science – in understanding brain, mind, paranormal phenomena etc. and realize the existence of mysterious spirit, its world and laws.
New Civilization Zones are visualized democratic local communities of sponteneous growth, spreading slowly all over the world. From their very birth, these communities are seen motivated by the spirit of rebellion against the organized immoral force of multinational business corporations operating in tandem with nation-states, which adversely affect individuals’ spiritual well-being and communities’ social harmony. These communities are seen pursuing in different countries vastly different localized objectives of their initiative but still they are seen globally a single force united in certain common and well defined basic principles.
One of the most important halmarks of these communities is that they do not require for their birth and growth an outside initiative by an external force. They do not need the support of some conspiratorial organizational planning at national or international level.
In their birth they are seen sponteneous though geographically scattered in different places but thereafter they must grow further in their location, number and power.
Also, it is seen as a slow social process taking place over decades, which may run into centuries to overpower the present civilization. This process is seen fuelled by today’s deep discontent of human spirit and her disapproval of inafficient and wasteful institutions of our civilization. This rejection on the part of mankind seems the sheer historical necessity of our times in the evolutionary march of mankind.
The smallest New Civilization Zone may consist a single individual but to survive it must grow further into a communitity. This Zone is seen as an embroyo of a sovereign habitation of human beings governed by its own laws and far superior in institutions to the old world’s economics and culture. They must grow out of their miniscule size of a few individuals to a status of democratically controlling governments of villages, cities and eventually entire nations.The key to their defense against the strangulation by the old world lies in their superiority of number and capability.
II. The basic principles of New Civilization Zones:
1. NCZ, a community empowered by knowledge:
The community puts the highest premium on knowledge and assigns a grading to different branches of knowledge according to their relative importance to human life. The top slot goes to the human spirit. In these zones individuals are guaranteed the peace of one’s inner life against encroachments by uncalled for economic and political intrusion. In these zones, persons leading their peaceful inner spiritual life are regarded a valuable social asset, as being the fountain of social morality and good of fellow human beings and in return of this valuable contribution by them they are guaranteed means of sustainance without any further demand by molesting them with economic and political pressures. The second grade of knowledge in importance is Science. Out of the best available stuff of community, which has no inclination to pursue spirit’s demand, would be deployed to study science and uncover the mysteries of Nature. Next to the first slot, the highest respect of the community goes to scientists. The fruits of their labor are not available for sale, inside NCZs or outside to the old world. The contribution in the form of edge-technology made by the scientists is exclusively community’s asset, which would be a closely guarded community’s secret (and would be an important element in defending the community against coersion by the outside – old – world). In return for this valuable social contribution, these people would be guaranteed the best of the available means of life’s sustainance. The third slot in importance goes to commercial activities. These activities may be planned by the scientists so as to suserve the best interests (mind the grading here) of people and would include elements of planned production, distribution and consumption. The rest of the community that is not able to come up to the first three gradings would be a valuable human resource to be deployed that may be needed by the community in pursuit of its first three goals.
2. NCZ, a community of more freedom:
The zones are able to provide more economic freedom to individuals by eliminating the immoral element of cornering profits by those who plan and control economic engine in the old world. This is done by planning the three basic elements of economy: production; distribution; and consumption. The consumption element is guided by informed incentive; distribution element is controlled by community; and production element is planned to meet consumption- needs by scientific combination of human and natural resources for optimum output (no watage of human-energy in the form of unemployment etc. finds place in these NCZs). In NCZs production is a creative enjoyment. These communities are also able to provide more political freedom by employing the information-technology in constantly expressing the will of people in the matter of self-governance. These zones would be transparently self-governed by the available technology and zealously guard themselves against manipulation by money-power (which power would be under social scan and control). Also, these zones would transcend archaic monoliths of religions into the modern day systematic inquiry into things spiritual and thereby provide more cultural freedom.
3. NCZ, a community of less needs:
While the dissemination of information of whatsoever nature would be the backbone of these communities, advertisements to psychologically lure people to unnecessary needs would face non-cooperation and buycot by the community. Such activities would be starved of public's response and rendered meaningless.
4. NCZ, a community ensuring its defense by expanding into and absorption of the old world:
This growth and expansion are the sine qua non for the suvival of these zones against the hostile old world. There is a plain truth expressed in these columns, which is long and consistently recognized by leaders of mankind in different ages. It is the force of this truth that would surely find resonance within secret chambers of hearts of billions of ordinary people through out the world and get amplified over a period of time in the form of a compelling global demand by them for an alternative civilization. NCZs are nothing but this alternative civilization.
5. NCZ, a community owing alligiance to an alternative world and civilization:
By their very definition, NCZs are rival to today’s sovereign nation states. They aspire to absorb and eliminate the modern day nation states (which establish their hegamony by deceitful, immoral and brute force of violence and money, and supress a justified human spirit’s aspiration for real freedom). These zones rely on the power of people as against that of state. They promote decentralized lacalism as against centrlized multinationalism. They assert the rights of individual over community, of community over nation and of nation over the globe that is united to usurp individual’s freedom. These Zones make their own political constitutions and laws to govern them as islands amid the ocean of this old world. They print their own local money to give them financial security and stability. They recruit their own police to enforce their laws. More >
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3 Feb 2007 @ 07:57
You work for a living. You work and work hard. It is good. But the bad thing is that you work not in the interest of your own self but of others. You are working in a small organization – an organization always given to earn money and make profits – that is in mortal competition with other bigger such organizations. Or, you are working for a bigger one, which is in life and death competition with the still bigger ones. In their scheme of things your life – a supremely precious thing to you – finds no place at all. Even if they seem to care for you, they care for you because they care for their own profits more. You really work hard – almost all the time available to live your life – just only to be able to pay your bills, which are the necessities of your life, and to sustain your life in the needed working condition. You are a slave. If you do not relish this cobweb, in which you are entrapped, you are a rebel. Hey rebel ! get free your life out of this cobweb. But how?
You live in a democratic country. You are fed on the intoxicating dose of a supposed great nation. You elect your own government that rules you. You are made to believe you rule yourself. You are called upon to make sacrifice for your nation. It is good thing. But the bad thing is that you do not elect your government. The truth is that you are made to elect a government. The trick of the trade is money. The money manipulates democracy – lobbying, media and all the dirty money games. Money elects a government and the government provides protection to money. In their scheme of things, you as a person do not count anywhere. If they seem to care your life, worries and rebellious thoughts, it is because they care more for their money. It is a cobweb of modern democracy. If you have got wind of this snare, you are a rebel. Hey rebel, get free of this cobweb, which is indeed very strong. But how?
You have this your life. It is precious like no other thing. You do not live your life, you spend it and spend it serving the selfish interests of others. If you spend your life attending to and caring for your inner inclinations and urge, it is good. But if you do not live your life for your own sake but spend the same catering to the selfish interests of other people, it is bad. If you feel your precious life is being wasted in this manner, you are a rebel. Hey rebel, get you free of this cobweb. But how? More >
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1 Feb 2007 @ 09:03
The document is complete. It consists of two parts. The first part deals with the exposition of basic principles of a new civilization and the second one deals with the application of those principles to different facets of a collective living of human beings. What remains now is the carrying out of social experimenting by applying those principles to the realities of our world. Let us see how we are able to bring a change by shaping new things in this respect in coming time.
I, as a human being, cannot do anything except playing my part of the things ; and neither you as a person can do anything, except playing your part of the things ; in fact, no body can do anything, except being a part of the process taking sides, this or that way. In the ultimate analysis of things, there are certain subtle forces that are always operating behind everything that are happening and we human beings are only instruments of these forces. We human beings are nothing more than this, even in the cases where we plainly seem to be leading and determining things in the decisive way. Leaders and history-makers have only played their assigned roles (assigned by the forces that created, guide, sustain and determine the fate of all that we know as existing and all that we do not know that they also exist) they are held to have created history.
There are forces that do not want to allow any change to take place; they want to postpone the impending change, as along as possible, because that change will destroy the things they created. There are forces that want to bring a change to the present set of things and want this change to happen as early as possible, because it is the demand of time, which is due.
Let us be instruments of the forces that want change.
This document needs extensive grammatical editing. I hereby give license to every person who may be inclined, to so edit it. Also, it is desirable that this document is translated into other languages. Therefore, I further hereby give license to all those who may like to undertake the work to translate this document into any language.
Now, let us do our part by making efforts to replace words with actions and deeds. In my opinion, a secured mutual communication through e-mail of our ideas regarding conceiving and executing global action-plan is better than discussing them through our comments on these open pages. I invite and welcome e-mails from all those friends and comrades who may like to communicate in this regard.
Henceforth I intend to use my NCN newslog for communicating: (1). news about any action-plan or project that may be jointly conceived and undertaken by our friends. (2). my views on current national or international issues and problems. And (3). answer to any questions or comments that may be posted to my writings.
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27 Jan 2007 @ 12:17
Our world is divided, as ever, into two kinds of peoples. The ones who are satisfied with the present set of man-made institutions and circumstances, and those who feel the present is seriously fraught with serious defects on many counts and are restless to search for a better alternative; the ones who are charmed by achievements of modern science and hold that soon it is going to utter the last word on every thing, and those who feel that for the material science chiselled by Mind and its reason the horizon of ‘real truth’ shall remain as distant as ever. Let us accept this division of our world and let us take sides. The former category belongs to the current, the old civilzation and the later one to the new emerging one that is yet to get its due respect.
Let us recapitulate now what we have been saying in these articles so that logical conclusions may be derived from them and practical agenda may be formed for global action.
Beyond biological needs of life, the psychological anatomy of human being is of a very complex nature. Mind is there; it provides light of reason in the dark animal existence, but mind alone is not there. Neither mind is the highest light.
Reason should be used to the fullest extent as mind provides light and guidance to animal instincts and unguided desires of men. This light of reason must guide man till the light higher than mind is not received by human being.
Biological structure of man, with its organs and their senses, has its own separate workings and demands, like food, air etc. But biological nature is not the frontiers of human existence. Beyond body senses, there are desires and human cravings and impulses. They have real existence and constantly urge man, in plane and subtle manners, to satiate them and their liking. Not only desires are there mind also is there. Mind has its own separate world and its logical aspirations, and it demands their fulfillment. It is the world of thoughts, ideas, reason, logic and symmetrical harmony.
But senses, desires and mental thoughts combine together and create cacophony calling upon human being to pay attention to their respective demands. This cacophony is what we know as an individual's 'personality'. Depending on the sifting conglomeration of senses, desires and thoughts, this individual's cacophonous personality remains in constant flux of change.
If this cacophony is quieted and these urgings are subdued, then a guiding light descends upon human being that is higher than the blind darting urge of sensual pleasure, or the twilight of treacherous dark desires, or even the rational light of mind.
This higher light reveals the real nature of things. It lets human being know the absolute truth of all that exists by way of providing him a very personal experience of the essence of things by an identification with them rather than creating a mere hazy idea by mental analysis. This knowledge dawns on him like the morning light wherein his mind's limitations are exposed.
Once this light's dawning is there in an individual's experience, it becomes morally justified for him and for those who bring faith on him to accord to this light a place higher than mind. It also becomes justified to test all human decisions, however momentous they may be in importance, in the light of this power.
This higher light, power, truth etc. reveals itself to human being in a manner that is absolutely real and concrete, knowable only by identification (therefore, known to the person only who has received it), beyond mental comprehension, eternal in existence, beyond language's description, and therefore, mysterious to human mind.
This light reveals to the persons who receive this light that there are myriad gradations of consciousness beyond our material world. It reveals that these gradations of consciousness are as real as this earthly life existence. And it reveals that it is possible to explore their extent, nature and purpose in the universal scheme of things, and to utilize this knowledge to advance the cause of the purpose of human-stay in this material world.
In the light of this power, it becomes apparent that this world is transient, under constant transformation, illusory relative to the Truth revealed by this power and created for a specific purpose in accordance with superb plan beyond mind. For those who have experienced this light and those who bring faith on the truth of such experience it becomes morally justified to use the temporary stay of human being in this world to the maximum benefit in consonance with the supreme purpose and plan. In the light of that power it becomes clear that there is an element in human being that is eternal, that never dies, that take birth after birth till the purpose of coming in this world is achieved as per that superb plan.
Therefore, it becomes morally justified for an individual to pursue the agenda of human life in this mortal world as dictated by this light. Equally it becomes morally wrong to dedicate human life to cater to the demands of senses, desires and reason as these demands insist for their supremacy over the superior purpose that this light may reveal and create hindrance in the path of its agenda. It becomes proper thing for an individual, as revealed by that light, to control his desires, sensual indulgence and mental questioning that tries to put this light into doubt and lead human being astray from the sole agenda of this light. All means and methods (shown by religious teachers, yogis, sufis, saints, mystics etc.) that help to control, quiet and finally uproot sensual animal instincts, desires and doubts of mind are justified as they serve the cause of this eternal light.
At the individual level it is justified to control one's lower impulses. At the social level, logically, it is justified to curb the spread of desires and gearing of society to meet those desires. It cannot be the ideal of society to meet demands of these desires by resorting to means of demand and supply, cheap and excess production, competition, monopoly, advertisement, replacing men with machines to make goods cheap, using technology to render unemployment rather than creating leisure-hours for employed persons etc. Machines, ideally, should be used to curtail working hours of the people engaged in industrial production of goods by weaning them from the hands of those who use them to earn their private profits to the social detriment. It is justified not only to avoid the exploitation of natural resources to the maximum possible extent but also to leave them unused surplus so that on the one hand man may elevate himself to a higher level than a mere consuming animal and on the other these surplus natural resources may be available to the succeeding future generations of mankind.
Therefore, it is necessary to formulate an action-plan in consonance with this view point. This action-plan by virtue of its substance and reach should be comprehensive in nature and global in scope. We have already suggested an action-plan in the form of the Charter of New Civilization in one of our earlier articles, which is again given here for ready reference.
CHARTER OF NEW CIVILIZATION GLOBAL INITIATIVE
HAVING FAITH:
THAT planet earth is our common home and we human beings have inherited it from our forefathers, in trust for our own use and for the use of all other life-species dwelling on earth of the present and of the succeeding generations.
THAT all life-species are sacrosanct and they deserve survival and preservation at our hands.
THAT all man-made disputes – whether social, cultural, economic, political or any other - arising from conflict of interests are capable of being resolved by human beings in peace and amity;
THAT mankind is an evolving species being at the apex of life-evolution on earth yet being at an intermediate stage only; and
THAT mankind is capable of exploring the unknown micro and macro universe, harnessing the unveiled secrets of nature and its forces, and is capable of thereby to consciously shaping her destiny and the destiny of earth and of universe;
AND BEING CONVINCED
THAT mankind is living under the threat of annihilation at her hand by the use of weapons of mass destruction;
THAT a firm and sustainable human-unity is the only effective and workable guarantee to protect human race against such threat of self-annihilation; and
THAT such human-unity can only be established on the solid foundation of the commonality of human-interests, the commonality of purpose of life of human beings on earth and the commonality of the destiny of human race;
WE, THE CITIZENS OF EARTH, CALL UPON
PEOPLES OF ALL NATIONS, FAITHS AND CULTURES
TO
ACCOMPLISH, in common interest,
COLLECTIVE SURVIVAL of all life-species on earth by observing peace, good order, complete and global disarmament and respect for and conservation of nature;
FREEDOM, from political, economic, cultural and social oppression, within national and international organizations of human society, by guarding the individuals’ human rights and the interests of organized society;
COMMON PROSPERITY of peoples by utilizing technological advancements and scientific management of global natural resources to avoid waste, unsustainable exploitation and natural imbalance, and to bring efficiency;
GLOBAL UNITY among different subdivisions of mankind by promoting mutual respect for diversity, understanding and harmony in diversity; and
ENLIGHTENMENT of human beings by encouraging them to imbibe the knowledge of science, from material science to psychic science, and encouraging them to remain always open to change of convictions. More >
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14 Jan 2007 @ 05:34
There is necessity to shift our focus, in taking decisions and planning things, from this our one life to the one that is spread over many such lives. The happening of rebirth cases has to be studied, in the interest of human beings, by our science, the science whose scope and reach are enriched by its transformation from the present monolithic form to an elastic multidiscplined vibrant one.
There is the realization today on the part of science that there are some facts that exist there but are not scientific in nature. Its very movement, that is, the rapid progress of science, is hastening the moment of their admission. The more science uncovers the secret mysteries of Nature, the nearer would be the moment of dawning of New Civilization.
One such truth that exists there but is not admitted by science is the survival (of human beings) after death. One encounters almost daily across the glob cases of children who claim to remember the past life. We are not concerned here with any explanation of this phenomenon. It is the truth of the existence of such cases that is relevant here. Science realizes that they exist as hard facts but does not admit their existence. Or, it saves its face by ignoring their existence. It brings no credit to science. No body expects science to explain each and every thing existing in Nature. But one surely expects science to be honest in its commitment to truth. We all know today, science is developed enough to investigate “scientifically” and certify the existence of such cases
How “survival after death” cases are relevant to the culture of New Civilization? It is this way. We hold that there is this single life of us that we have at our disposal in this vast world and, logically, our priorities in life are determined by this fact – or, belief that is augumanted by science’s silence on the subject. We focus on this present life, plan for this life and take this life’s interests as the ultimate interests. What would happen if tommorrow science admits that there is survival after death? What would happen if such survival is taught in science classes in schools and a new generation steeped in such conviction takes over us?
It is apparent the focus of human society would then change from the interests of a single present life of individuals to the interests that may be there to be cared by them for a continued life after death. This dawning of the reality augumanted by the scientific aura would lay the foundation of a new culture – the culture of New Civilization. The culture of New Civilization would be qualitatively different from our present – the old – civilization. The habits, priorities and ends of our life would be different in New Civilization from our present one.
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5 Jan 2007 @ 16:29
We all know the transformation of classical physics into the physics of relativity and then of qantum mechanics. It was a leap forward in the unknown domain of knowledge. When one looks back today, he gets the uncomfortable feeling of the slow pace of our march forward on the path of knowledge. It seems really long for our physics to come out from the beliefs steeped in the simplistic Newtonian mechanical notions of Nature to astonishingly fresh concepts of Eiensteinian Relativity universally operating in Nature. But, then, humanity took an uncalculable span of time to put her knowledge that was mere of a speculative nature than a science onto a firm pedstel of Newtonian mechanics. It seemed obvious that on the part of humankind there is geomatric progression in the rate of uncovering mysteries of Nature.
Our science once more seems to be on the verge of a new and further transformation. What could be the nature of this lurking transformation? We may get a glimpse of this new understanding of Nature by comparing the essence of our modern concepts of unified field of energy with the old and outmoded Newtonian concepts. By this comparison, we find that matter and its properties are not absolute in quantum of content and their behaviour as was once thought. The impending transformation should bring a further new freshness to our understanding of Nature. In which way and on what front of our knowledge, it could happen? There is a grat probability that this time it should relate to the operating universe of human mind and brain, which is its biological seat. It may commence with the nenoscale investigation of biological brain. It may commence with establishing the co-relation of mind’s specific functions with brain’s specific chemical structure of neurons, the neurons’ synaptic connections between its various regions, the significance of transmitting of electric impulses therein etc.
If what we have been saying in all these articles here is correct, then one thing is certain to be established by science by such investigation. It is not only the brain’s biological structure at nanoscale that determines the mind’s thoughts – and other mental functions – but, equally, it is the mind’s thoughts and other functions that determine, change and rearrange the brain’s nanoscale structure. And, this mutual interrelation is not confined to brain and mind. It goes much beyond that. It covers the whole physical body. And, this interelation of biological and life’s functions is not limited to human beings alone. It operates universally wherever the duality of biology and life exist. It is much like wave and particle duality of quantum mechanics. You observe life only where it is bound to biology but it can exist sans biology also.
We have already indicated elsewhere in our articles on these pages, biology – and for that matter, all Matter – is pure energy, the amount of which is equivallent to mass multiplied by a number obtained by squaring the speed of light, as we all know. However, the fundamental energy is not only the ultimate truth but also conscious and blissful, which subject also has been dealt with by us in detail in our previous articles.
The transformation of science, which is being hastened by its rapid progress today, would not confine its scope to subjective feelings of mind alone. It would transcend human mind and relate itself to the reality existing there in Nature in an objective and verifiable manner. Here, at this point the essence of all religions condensed into a neat spiritualism may meet science and form a new confluence of two diverse streams of knowledge.
One such connecting common point for study between science and spiritualism could be the interrelation between nanoscale structure of biological brain and spiritual exercise of faith and prayer. Faith in Divine and a sincere prayer to Him are the commonest phenomenon in religions and spiritualism, and their impact on human brain at the molecular level may be conveniently studied by science today. The material consequences that might be brought into existence by these spiritual exercises not only in biological brain but also in in the surrounding material hard world may also be studied today. There are already signs that science is moving towards establishing some link between biological brain and the way we think, remember and deal with our surroundings. If we further find, with the progress of science, that religious or spiritual faith and prayer bring about a biological change in human brain at the nanoscale and a predictable “divination” takes place in the surrounding material world, what would it show? If it is repeated that yields the same consequences again and again, what would it show? Can one conclude that there is a force that is real and that is cannalised by altered biological brain and reflected in one’s changed mind, the change which is always brought in one's personality by religious or spiritual faith and prayer? And, if a predictable “divination” also takes place in the material hard world by the force of faith and prayer, what would it amount to? If the progress of science brings forth these interelations between “faith” and “Matter: in a positive direction, then one can truthfully say that the force is there, it is real, it is energy and it is conscious also. It would be a meeting place of two diverse disciplines of knowledge. It would be a confluence of two separate streams of knowledge.
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24 Dec 2006 @ 07:32
You worship a deity. You prostrate at the feet of the idol. What do you do in this case? You simply condition your mind. One does not do anything by praying to the idol. By such an act, one only affects his mind.
You worship your God. You prostrate before Him and offer your submission and subordination to Him. You do not do anything affecting anybody but your mind. It is not your mind alone that is affected by this very intimate and personal process. Your desires, your inmost wishes, even body feelings, in addition to your thoughts, are affected in a subtle manner. They all are conditioned. Thereby you bring a change in you.
You imagine there is God and that He is in the idol, or that He is all pervading and not in th idol alone, which is the same thing in its effect on your mind. You bow before Him and offer your complete self to Him. You do so unconditionally. What do you do by such an act on your part? You do not do anything but condition your mind, desires and body feelings. It is an act that affects nothing but you. You are completely changed by this process. Your inmost personality – subconscious and unconscious parts of the personality – becomes a totally changed new structure.
You read a holy book and bear faith on its sayings. What do you do to yourself by such an act? You change yourself. You bestow your inmost respect to this holy book and do not forbear a single thought of disbelief of the sayings, or the book’s desecration by anyone. Such a thought does not find a welcome place in your consciousness. By such an actone does not do anything to the holy book. He simply conditions his mind, urgings and feelings.
Or, you do not believe in the existence of a God or any holy book and believe that it is your conduct – your actions – alone that matters in realizing the ultimate wisdom, truth or enlightenment. You give a particular direction to your conduct in your life. What do you do to your personality? By this process you simply change yourself, that is, your thoughts, cravings and feelings.
In their substance and impact on human consciousness, what is the difference between one and another of these seemingly contradictory modes of religious faiths? None at all. Essentially, they all bring a psychological change in a particular direction in one’s total personality. One may follow a path that suits his nature and the path would bring a change in his personality, which is the sole means to progress on the evolutionary path of consciousness.
We all know the manipulation of semi conducting materials that science and its derivative branch – technology – are pursuing today. What is this manipulation? It is re-arranging the molecular structure of the material concerned to make atoms’ electrons flow in the designed fashion possible. Prescriptions of all faiths are akin to this manipulation of one’s consciousness whereby the flow of energy of supreme consciousness – and such energy is not a fiction invented by philosophers but a hard reality – is enabled in a desirable fashion. By resorting to these prescriptions you change yourself and then the miraculous consequences – bizarre, as termed by non-believers - follow that are there for all of us to see, observe and scientific study. You get something. You receive something – something that is as real as hard rock, that is incomparably enlightening and empowering, and that was not there before. Faith and prayer, in fact, help the one who is sincere in his resolve and call. It does miracles. It is a tool. It is a lever in the hands of human being – a being that is ordinarily ignorant, egoistic and unwilling to desire or even welcome a change for his betterment. More >
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21 Dec 2006 @ 09:26
The culture of New Civilization is the culture of science. It cannot be otherwise. And, the culture of science is the culture of truth. So far, there is no problem. But the problem arises the moment we are called upon to define the truth according to science. Science stands for truth but this commitment of science to truth is subject to one condition. This condition is that a fact aspiring to be certified by science as truth must fit itself into its rigid frame of (scientific) investigation. This rigid frame of scientific investigation is elegant but a monolithic concept oblivious of its shortcomings. Chiefly, these shortcomings are twofold. Firstly, science by the very nature of things can advance one step at a time. Whenever it encounters a problem, which it is called upon to resolve, it scans the available knowledge on the subject concerned, builds a hypothesis that uses that available knowledge as known factors of the hypothesis and proposes a new hypothetical solution to the problem under study. We know that at the time Newton discovered gravity and laws of its mechanics, it was not possible for science to speculate about gravity as the curvature of space as propounded by Einstein later on. To make this speculation possible, the classical physics needed the deadlock of explanation presented by the so-called Minto Morley dilemma. Today, there are several facts crying for explanation by science but there is no required preceding knowledge available on the foundation of which science could offer a hypothesis. Secondly, science is still classical in its character as opposed to relativistic in nature. It still applies the concepts and techniques in its investigative field that are classical in approach, though theoretically it has accepted the creed of relativity. The moment it applies this relativistic concept in its approach and thinking, all bizarre things happening in Nature would become scientifically possible.
We have dealt with this classical character of scientific investigation in our earlier article (please refer to my article on scientific experiment, hypothesis, theory and law) and it is not necessary to repeat those things here.
In its commitment to truth, science has to realize and admit that there are some facts that are hard realities of truth but are not admitted so solely because they are not amenable to scientific explanation based on present scientific knowledge. This realization and admission on the part of science would enlarge the domain of truth and delimit the scope of “scientific nature” of its investigation. Such an attitude on the part of science would enhance its prestige as truth seeker rather than diminishing its stature because it is truth alone that has given a part of its aura to science.
This realization – the realization that there are some facts that exist there but are not scientific in nature – is already there on the part of science today. Its very movement, that is, the rapid progress of science, is hastening the moment of their admission. The more science uncovers the secret mysteries of Nature, the nearer would be the moment of dawning of New Civilization.
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11 Dec 2006 @ 14:14
Barring a few articles that are more focused on the current problems of national and sometimes international importance, we all here are belaboring to define New Civilization. What does New Civilization constitute? How would it be like? Perhaps, there is unanimity among all of us here on one aspect, that is, it would not be like our current civilization. But, here also, from this point on there is no further unanimity. Some of us are not satisfied with – or do not approve – the cultural aspect of our current civilization, while some others may not approve the economic aspect of the same and so on. There may be different reasons or factors for this disapproval. They may range from purely personal point of view to one’s responsible social concerns. This is rejection, partially or completely, of our current civilization. But this is not more than this. This is not enough on our part. This whole exercise is negative.
How can we define New Civilization? What is its quintessential? What are its telltale signs?
Perhaps, there is unanimity in this regard on one point that New Civilization would be founded on knowledge – the knowledge of truth that exists there in Nature. The New Civilization, per force, would be established on the strength of its logic. What are the characteristics of this knowledge? Firstly, this knowledge must be universally known and accepted as such by the humanity. In other words, it must become the part and parcel of the collective consciousness of humanity. Secondly, it must be scientific in nature. It must be established by science, even if only in the negative manner and approved by it. And, thirdly, this universal knowledge must be so overwhelming in nature and scope that it should overflow the parametric rigors of scientific investigation. In other words, science should concede the existence, as hard fact, of the reality of the new claimant to truth. More >
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4 Nov 2006 @ 13:11
Human beings may manage their business of self-governance under the imperatives dictated by the force either of Mind – that is, reason – or of Desires. Reason and desires are two totally distinct dimensions of human consciousness. Rarely, the two coincide and support mutually. Most often, what is reasonable in a given situation, finds itself in conflict with one’s desires. And, what one desires in a given situation, most often offends the reason. The explanation for this conflict lies in the difference of their respective origin. Desires originate from the bubbling energy that seeks to find space to enable her to manifest and materialize. Reason originates from the universal symmetry that seeks to impose discipline on that anarchic energy.
In the affairs of management of human self-governance, one has to accord a place of primacy to either of these two generically different organizing forces. From the life’s evolutionary point of view, the force of reason is higher than that of desires. The lower life’s kingdom – from plants to animals – is organized in its working by this lower force of desires, which has a wide spectrum ranging from the basic instinct of self-preservation to dominance. In human beings also, this lower force of desires plays a greatly significant role. However, human beings have evolved the faculty of reason that tends to rein in these desires when they go unreasonable, push them to the secondary place in a dark remote corner of sub-consciousness and usurp the place of primacy for her. Organizing the affairs of human self governance on the principle of the working of desires belongs to our inferior civilization. New Civilization cannot be guided and inspired by desires. It has to be reasonable, however harsh and unpalatable it might be to the secretly lurking desires. It is the demand of human evolution. It is the demand of our times. It is the demand of our Earth.
Reason dictates that people, who are now comparatively more enlightened, should govern themselves – that is, they should organize their collective life on the democratic principle. Reason also dictates that Earth is our single common home in the vast universe and the interests of mankind are common. We also know that the secrets of nature – that is, the scientific knowledge – and the exploitation of these secrets in the form of technology – machines and tools in the hands of mankind – are a common property of mankind. This miraculous property – the force-multiplier lever in the war against nature – cannot be allowed to be usurped by a few for their own private use. This force-multiplier – machine – must be solely employed to the benefit of mankind. Human beings now must be afforded freedom from long and routine productive working. They must be afforded complete leisure, except for a short working period. Science tells us it possible, technology makes it possible and reason dictates us to organize our affairs on this principle.
There are three elements that work to negate such an organization of human beings in their collective life. Firstly, a few of human beings who profess to own machine wean its use from the common good of mankind to their own good and these few, by this unholy diversion, accumulate unearned wealth. Secondly, this wealth is used by them in tempering the collective consciousness to justify their unholy position. And, thirdly, they bring the uncovered scientific secrets in aid to advance their selfish cause. It works as vicious circle.
This vicious circle can be broken by bringing in the information technology in the affairs of democratic self-governance that would ensure the elimination of the evil impact of wealth in the self governance. It is organizing the collective life of human beings by the reason. It is pushing desires out of the seat of driver and placing reason thereat in the forward movement of life. It is ushering of the New Civilization on Earth.
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19 Oct 2006 @ 13:42
I feel it opportune and relevant to insert a few lines once again by way of a reminder about the whole purpose of writing these articles in this news log:
1. All my articles taken together are intended to serve as the background material for discussion by an eventual Earth Summit of Peoples for New Civilization.
2. These articles are merely my ‘opinion’ on the subjects under treatment and should not be treated more than that.
3. The articles are intended to evoke a high quality of informed comments and counter comments from the visitors of the site.
4. One may notice that the draft charter of New Civilization Global Action, which is available on these pages, contains the practical conclusions derivable from each of these articles and sets an agenda for action for the same.
5. In my opinion, it is desirable that a core committee for holding the Earth Summit may be got together. An energetic person may come forward to take the initiative in this respect. The first Summit need not necessarily be a great global gathering. Even a miniscule world gathering dedicated to New Civilization would send a right signal for an early rising of Earth. Will Ming, the mechanic, bell the cat?
6. In addition to these points, I wish to seek help from any quarter. It is desirable that the articles in this news log may be translated for wider global audience. Is there anybody who can help in this regard?
7. It would be better to link these articles to some other relevant websites for enhanced reach. Is there anybody who can help in this regard?
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14 Oct 2006 @ 15:15
Now science has provided the technological capability to make democracy more true to its basic principle. Democracy as it obtains today cannot obstruct for long the far reaching impact of information technology that is now common place. Democracy is theoretically the ideal mechanism of self governance invented by human beings. It is but natural that in the collective living of a group, all individuals may not always agree while taking decisions.
Human beings in their evolutionary history have co-existed for long and devised many forms of dispute-redressing mechanism to ensure their continued comparatively peaceful co-existence. And, now we have a dispute-redressing socio-political engineering that we call democracy. Democracy is a form of human self governance. Its basic principle is the rule of the majority over the minority. In the collective living of human beings there are always recurring moments when they are required to take collective decisions, and often, momentous decisions. While taking decisions, the unanimity of decision makers is ideal but almost always elusive. And, therefore, the next best thing possible is to take decisions by majority of the decision makers. Taking decisions by majority that bind majority and minority both is democracy.
It is natural that the minority, which did not agree to the majority view but found a much disliked-decision imposed on it by the operation of majority rule, would search for some loopholes to thwart and diminish the impact of the unpleasant majority decision. We are not talking here of the mundane routine scandalous politics that intermittently occur in democratic countries. We are up for serious things here.
The crux is that on crucial economic issues that vitally affect human beings in their collective living, the majority must find benefit in the decision that is taken by the majority notwithstanding the opposition of the minority. However, we find that in economic matters the minority is rich to the detriment of the majority who are poor. This is impeccable proof that here democracy, the rule of the majority, has been thwarted by whoever got illegitimate benefits and by whatever means.
We must purify democracy by the application of science. We are not against anybody. We hold that human beings are mere instruments of forces that guide the course of events, at micro and macro scale in this grand universe.
We stand for the truly majority rule and surely the majority would benefit by its own rule in economic matters in contradistinction to the benefit of minority. The minority has usurped machine, that saves human labor, from the hands of majority and yoked it in their own selfish service by rendering millions jobless. The minority monopolizes machine so that it may earn private profit by the work of machine with the less human labor needed. The minority has become rich and the majority has been reduced to poverty, though this majority is still flaunted as rulers. In the rule of majority, the majority cannot be poor and minority rich. It is distorted democracy. The science has come, as ever, to play its redeeming role to change the things in a forward movement.
How the science can be applied to democracy? We elect our representatives for a fixed term. They represent us for this term. We need the application of available technology on this issue in two ways. Firstly, the initial electoral process is presently much influenced by artificial means. The objective image of prospective representative is allowed to be bolstered by lobbying forces. This bolstering needs money that is not sufficiently available with the majority of population and their true aspiring representative is rendered disadvantaged. This could not be helped yesterday; today it can be remedied. The voting must be done only through the suitable device of information technology and without any role for the intervening economic forces in any manner.
It is possible. And, it must be done to redeem democracy from the hands of minority and accumulated money. Secondly, we must employ the information technology once again to constantly approve or disapprove our initially elected representative. Of course, we need stability of the term of representation. Also, our representatives need insulation from momentary passions of the electorates who may disapprove leader’s unpopular decisions under the heat of the moment but may later on approve them on their cool calculations.
These are some of the problems that the technology enabled true democracy would have to resolve. There may be fixed a critical approval index below which a representative must quit. However, the technology should be used to constantly elect our representatives. Our leaders should be our representatives and they should be so at every moment. There cannot be anything like fixed secured term in true democracy. The fixed or secured term must be provided only to offset the undesirable impact on the cool decisions of our representatives. In fact, the real remedy of this problem lies in educating and enlightening our people and not allowing our representatives to continue despite electorate’s disapproval. Theoretically, the electorates know their interest best and the elected cannot continue in the face of disapproval by their electorates.
For the democracy to become true today, the application of technology is necessary. For a democracy to become vibrant and healthy, it is necessary that its citizens should be educated, informed, empowered and enlightened. More >
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27 Aug 2006 @ 10:07
New civilization can not be founded on the misuse of machine. Science and its deductive use in technology are the fruits of labor of the collective mankind, and therefore, these must be used to serve their collective interests. What are these interests of collective mankind?
In essence, the development of mankind as reflected in her civilization is the story of her struggle against the odds of Nature. Basic requirements of human existence – food, cloths and shelter – have to be won by human beings by persistent and bitter struggle against Nature. Nature does not yield easily; it does not give out its secrets to an assaulting race – human race - in an easy way. The story of uncovering of Nature’s secrets – the history of the development of science – is the story of human beings’ struggle, development and evolution.
This precious labor of mankind rendered over millennia bears a fruit in the form of machine. Machine functions as the lever in mankind’s struggle against Nature and makes miraculous things happen possible, which would otherwise be impossible. It makes the struggle less arduous and perilous for her.
Machine should be allowed by the offing new civilization to play its full potential as a lever to lessen the mankind’s hardships in all conceivable dimensions. What is this full potential use of machine? It is to use machine solely for the purpose of reducing the period of time of work for human beings collectively in the process of production of goods and not to allow it (machine) to yoke to the service of profits -earning by a few among the race.
New civilization is all about the application of our current knowledge – that is, science – to the process of our self governance. It is about the application of our scientific knowledge to the economics and the politics of our self governance, and to the management of our collective resources. New civilization would be enabled and sustained by our current scientific knowledge only. Without this enabling help from science – and its derivative, the technology – it is not possible even to dream of a new – impending – civilization. To enable a new civilization to happen, there are two pre-requisites. Firstly, the secrets of Nature uncovered by science must be made known through education to the overwhelming majority of mankind. And, secondly, the educated overwhelming majority of mankind must be enabled through information technology to govern themselves more efficiently.
Human beings are making rapid strides in science today and their consciousness is steadily rising. With this rapid march, in coming time it would no longer be possible for a minority of mankind to ensnare the majority in the harmful current politico-economic distortions of our civilization. Machine – with all its enchanting potentials – has to be used by our race solely to reduce the working periods of billions of our production workers – and reducing not into hours any more but into bare few minutes. It is possible. It can be done and it should be done.
It is a problem not related to an ideology and politics getting inspiration from the same. It is not Socialism. It is not Communism. It is putting Mind in the driver's seat in the place of Desires in the matter of management of human affairs. It is by-passing Socialism and Communism in the process of transformation of Capitalism into New Civilization. It is a problem related to the science of management. With the help of management technology available to mankind today it is possible to manage machine to the good of overwhelming majority and to wean it from its current misuse by a minority of our race. It is possible today for human beings to consciously fabricate the required political and economic institutions of self governance geared to that end of collective good. A futuristic new civilization, its economics, its politics, our science and technological capabilities go hand in hand.
A new civilization, as we said, is all about efficient self governance of our race. Its politics is the politics of efficient self governance, that is, democracy enabled and sustained by our current scientific technology. What we, the democratic people, practice today is a form of democracy that is on its way of being rendered obsolete. The impending new civilization can not and should not be constructed on our current form of democratic functioning that is almost on the verge of being outmoded. Our current democratic functioning is on the way of being rendered outmoded because although our technological capability today makes it possible for us to constantly build, express and utilise the people’s democratic will in electing or recalling our representatives in the democratic self governance but still we chose to cling to the old fashioned current democracy wherein our elected representatives are simply allowed to continue despite ostensibly losing their electorate’s mandate. It is possible today with the aid of information technology to make our democratic self governance more near to the reality. The new civilization must invent a live democracy where constant monitoring of representatives’ performance would allow their electorates to replace them at will with their instant and better choice. It would be more democratic in form and efficient in self governance. Only when we use science and technology for this more democratic and efficient self governance, we would be able to stop the current misuse of machine in the way of yoking it to task of profit-earning by a minority against the collective interests of the majority.
This misuse of machine by a few against the interests of more of our race gets life-sustaining support from the institutions of our outmoded democracy. These few have developed vested interest in perpetuating this outmoded democracy. It is so because democracy is all about the rule of majority over minority and if the majority were allowed to rule themselves in the form of this new live and efficient democracy, they would, without doubt, not allow a minority to misuse machine to serve their own private ends in the darkness of collective ignorance. They can do so only by unyoking machine from the task of profit-earning. They would rather use this lever to lessen their toil in the collective manner by curtailing their productive work-period from hours to a few minutes! And, then, the overwhelming majority of mankind may enjoy the balance twenty-three hours in tune with their private fancy!!
It is all possible today. Let new civilization work towards this glorious task.
Further reading links:
Injury to Nature More >
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5 Aug 2006 @ 18:04
In New Civilization's economic management machine must be used to 'Free mankind from the slavery of gross natural laws' and not 'For merely earning profits'. Using machine to earn profits is the singular evil of Capitalism, which must not be allowed in the new civilization's economic system.
Machines and mechanized industries may prove for human beings their boon as well as their scourge. If the culture of human beings is spoiled by inflating their demands to an unlimited proportion and in order to meet those inflated desires and demands, industries are set up, then this chain-process (of first inflating people’s desires and then meeting them) may lead mankind to self-annihilation by her inter-conflicts. This chain-process may lead to a situation where even our planet earth is reduced to an inhabitable place for human beings. But if the culture of human beings is maintained healthy – that is, if the desires of human beings are restrained in the light of higher consciousness – then, machines and industries can very well meet the legitimate needs and desires of human beings. They, that is, machines and industries, can save their (humans’) labor and thereby afford them opportunities wherein they may retreat back to the soothing company of benign Nature to enjoy the pleasure of life’s secrets and make rapid stride to receive the light of higher consciousness on the evolutionary path. In this manner machines and industries may become useful tools to accelerate the slow natural process of human evolution.
Our economics holds that for the production of goods what are basically required are: labor, capital and natural resources. It is correct to say that for the production of goods human labor and resources provided by Nature are required but it is wrong to hold that for the production capital also is required. The necessity of capital as an essential element required for the production of goods is there because of the degradation of human culture. Capital is money. And, money can purchase human labor and Nature’s raw materials. But the truth is that human being and his labor is not salable commodity and collective living of human beings is not market where life’s fruits could be justifiably traded. And, neither can the natural raw materials be purchased from Nature by paying money. The natural materials are freely gifted to us by Nature and, unless human being is compelled directly or indirectly to do so, he and his labor is not available for sale. Capital as a necessary ingredient for the production of goods is needed only in that society and culture where human beings are compelled directly or indirectly (that is, for economic reasons emanating from socio-economic system) to offer themselves for sale in labor market and where the natural wealth is owned and possessed by a few individuals. Such a culture is degraded and such a society is ugly. Such a society is founded on the exploitation of one human being by another. In such a society, the ultimate sinister aim is simply to earn profit to meet the demands of desires. There the earned profit in the form of capital is used to purchase human being and his labor. The defiled culture of such an exploitative society alone swears piousness of sinister machinations of profits, capital, market and sale-purchase of human beings indirectly – that is, through their labor. It is not proper. It is human degradation and fall. It is retreat on his long evolutionary path. It is stepping backward on his forward movement. Human being and his labor is the wonder of Nature, which should not be a salable commodity. Natural resources are the priceless gift of Nature, which should not be the private property of an individual purchased by paying money. There is no need of capital for the production of goods. Capital is a medium of exploitation. To hold the necessity of capital for the production of goods is the sign of a shameful society and its culture.
The problem of unemployment is linked to science, technology and the desire of human beings to earn profit. Science offers knowledge to human beings. It (science) provides them the light of knowledge of the wonders of Nature in the form of scientific hypothesis and laws. Technology utilizes this knowledge to contrive machines. Machines save the labor of human beings. The greater the discovered scientific knowledge, the better would be the technology based on that knowledge. The better the machine, the more saving it would bring in the human labor. This saving of human labor can be utilized in two ways. Firstly, on the availability of better machine, the surplus laborers may be fired. In such a situation, the amount of work done (or, the production made) would remain the same but the profit earned by the owner of the machine would become more. However, in this position many human beings (who were fired) would become unemployed. The second way of utilizing machine is that on the availability of machine the surplus laborers are not fired but their working hours are reduced. In such a position, the amount of work done would remain the same and no laborer would be rendered unemployed. However, in this event the amount of profit earned by the owner of the machine would become less.
The root of unemployment is not in machine but in the desire of earning profit. To earn profit is to earn money and the advantage of earning money is that with its power the owner of the machine is able to satisfy his limitlessly inflated desires. Limitlessly inflated desires and the nitty-gritty of the provision of means to satisfy those desires is the root of the burning human problems – the problems of poverty, disease, ignorance, exploitation, violation of basic human rights, economic and social injustice, wars, discrimination between man and man, and nation and nation etc. With the advanced science and technology that we have at our disposal today, there is no place for these burning problems afflicting mankind, provided machine is used not to fire surplus workforce to yield more profit to the capitalist but to reduce the working hours of workers.
To eliminate unemployment in our socio-economic life there is no need to reject machine – as some utopian idealists hold – but to replace the present system where desires are allowed to control and derive the economic engine with a system where the light of higher consciousness dictates and lays the norms of economic growth. The desire to earn profit as the sole driving force of the engine of economic growth can only be replaced by a better deriving force – life governed by the light of higher consciousness – only when the collective life of human beings – society, government, cultural values – is oriented to the task of helping human beings to evolve further and become better individuals.
Social Justice
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4 Aug 2006 @ 15:20
Capitalism is bad because this society intentionally inflates human beings’ desires in a calculated manner by resorting to advertisements etc. and ensures provision of means to satisfy them. This is nothing but gearing the society to the ideal of sensual enjoyment. Enjoying sensual pleasure is not the end-destination of life on its evolutionary path. In pursuit of its avowed objective of inflating desires and satisfying them, Capitalism resorts to the economic mechanism of earning profit – generating capital -, buying human work – the priceless exertion of life on matter -, selling product of that work at a premium and again earning profit – a vicious circle. To ensure the safe and smooth play of this mechanism, Capitalism evolves capitalist democracy and market culture. In turn, it gives birth to economic exploitation, dazzling wealth and abject poverty, societal injustice and repression. There is no way to escape these inevitable and unfortunate socio-economic byproducts in Capitalism. Capitalism brings about degeneration in human beings and their culture and Mankind is bound to reject Capitalism sooner or later.
Socialism, and its refined form – Communism - , is also a bad social system. This society in order to create abundance of material comforts for its citizens resorts to social engineering wherein chains are put on its citizens’ mind’s creativity. Socialism is comparatively better than Capitalism on the count that it ensures the provision of means to meet the essential needs and legitimate desires of its citizens. But the evil part of this system is that in order to ensure economic justice it creates the dictatorship of a few people – who are almost always merely ordinary human beings in all respects and controlled by their petty desires and animal instincts – over the vast number of common people. And, this dictatorship encompasses every sphere of human activity - the most agonizing part among them being the human mind and its creativity. In order to eliminate any chance of opposition that may eventually turn into challenge to the social system, this system as of necessity can not and does not permit human mind’s free thinking lest it may have remote semblance of incongruity with the established norms. It is slavery of thoughts and mind.
There is need of a social system better than Capitalism and Socialism that may allow the freedom of thought and mind to its citizens but at the same time impose on them the discipline of the light of higher consciousness. The discipline of higher light cannot be imposed on the society by enacting laws. Such a discipline is possible only when there is a majority of those people who have accomplished the higher light in their consciousness. If there are no people in that society who have experienced higher light of consciousness and the discipline is sought to be imposed by laws and rules, then such society would be reduced to that of religious priests, fathers and mullahs. The society and the state of religious priests, fathers and mullahs is not better than Socialism; it is worse than even Capitalism.
Further reading links:
Peaceful democratic revolution More >
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3 Aug 2006 @ 13:36
Then, there are other questions also. Is it possible that the march of science and technology would make the 'direct' struggle of people with nature possible and bypass the social mechanism of Capitalism and Communism? In any way, in the dialectical scheme of things, modem 'Communism' is the 'dead end' of social evolution. Would this 'dead end' usher in the first stage in a new social evolutionary course of a race of beings that must be higher than humans?
These are some of the thoughts that spring up in one's mind when faced with the vehemence of claim that dialectical materialism is a 'scientific' law of social evolution.
However, the truth may not be so simple in its operation in nature. Scientific investigation of Nature today shows that the concept of "dialectics" is an oversimplification of nature. Nature is much more complex in its constitution and movements, and, continuous strides of modem science tell us, our knowledge of this complexity goes on changing without stop. Perhaps, the only scientific attitude today is that one should always be open to change his rigid view of nature and its laws. And this flexibility is in the interest of truth, whatever it might be. Hegel had understood the movement of Nature in a way better than Marx and Marx by turning his dialectics upside down has distorted it.
In fact, Karl Marx made Dialectics stand on its head by claiming supremacy and universality of matter and Divine Lord - Idea of Hegel - a mental thought being a mere product of matter.
However, despite the conflicting positions held by Hegel and Marx over the supremacy of idea or matter in nature, the dialectical nature of change remains identical in its operation in nature. These dialectical principles of change fall under three heads.
• Firstly, he said, there always exist universal and irreconcilable contradictions in every thing.
• Secondly, these contradictions bring about a change in the thing concerned. This change at a critical point takes the shape of transformation of quantity into quality of the thing resulting into forward movement at a qualitatively higher step, or revolution.
• Thirdly, the forward movement follows a spiral pattern where lower stages are repeated again and again at ever-higher levels. This dialectical process of forward movement may be understood as spiral evolution.
Mind is a powerful tool to understand truth at the disposal of life and it is a model of evolution constructed by mind. However, mind itself is the product of life-evolution and is not capable to realize real truth lying masked behind appearance. Till one goes beyond Mind and realizes Truth of the existence in the Light of higher Consciousness, Mind is his useful guide. Mind is illumined by non-other than the sole Divine Light, though in its receiving it distorts this Light much.
Mind, as though through haze, gropes for and receives in return some rays of Light, of truth. Therein lays the usefulness of this mental concept of revolution and evolution. We leave it to the reader to discern for himself any sign of its operation in Nature's Life cycles. If found so operating, human Mind in this may get one more extra reason in support of the impending unique revolution - revolution that transforms mankind's consciousness from mundane existence to the highly conscious goal oriented human life - in human history.
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30 Jul 2006 @ 08:09
Marx has admitted that he stumbled upon the concept of dialectics, on which his entire philosophy is founded, while he was a student of Hegelian Philosophy of History. He claimed that with Hegel this Dialectics was standing on its head and he simply made it stand on its feet. Hegel maintained that it is the Idea, the Spirit, that is real and there is conflict between two irreconcilable contradictions elements inherent in this Idea. This conflict is between thesis and antithesis, and their conflict is resolved by emerging synthesis. Out of this conflict, this contradiction, human history is evolved. Therefore, the history, with all its evolved institutions, is merely an unfolding of the Idea. Marx says that he retained the dialectical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis as propounded by Hegel but made the historical conditions the real thing and the Idea a reflection of these material conditions in human mind, in his thoughts and culture. Hegelian invention was an accidental discovery by Marx and its correction was his genius. He also very frankly admitted that principles of capital working he discovered from the study of British economy and the revolutionary element he learnt from the French revolutionary Communes. It was his brilliant mind that integrated these three diverse elements into a harmonious philosophic edifice that logically explained human history, economics and culture, and gave hope to the exploited millions of salvation in impending Socialist and thereafter Communist society.
What are dialectical principles?
Engles says:
Outlines of the General Plan (for the application of dialectics to Nature): (1 )... (2).... (3) Dialectics as the science of universal inter-connection. Main laws: transformation of quantity and quality - mutual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes - development through contradiction or negation of the negation - spiral form of development.
He further says:
And indeed they (laws of dialectics) can be reduced in the main to three: The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa; The law of the interpenetration of opposites; The law of the negation of the negation.
The founders of Marxism claimed that the dialectical process was a universal one, governing from material natural phenomena to the evolution of human society.
F. Angles says:
We are not concerned here with writing a handbook of dialectics, but only with showing that the dialectical laws are real laws of development of nature, and therefore are valid also for theoretical natural science.
Therefore, it was claimed that the predictions made by the application of these laws were accurate and scientific. By applying these "laws" to capitalist society, prediction was made that this society would transform, as of necessity under the natural process, into Socialist society and this view of Socialism was dubbed as scientific Socialism. It was claimed that in due course of time, when old habits of capitalist mentality die under the new social system, Socialism would transform into Communism and state would wither away. It was explained that in socialist society "each would work according to his capacity and get according to his work" while in communist society "each would work according to his capacity and get according to his needs."
'Dialectics' as conceived by Hegel and applied to 'material world' by Karl Marx is a 'mental construct' and it has all the limitations, which mind has.
When dialectics is applied to material world in general and history of mankind in particular, dialectician is faced with the problem of irreconcilable nature, that is, how to reconcile the 'human will' with the 'dialectical determinism'. To reconcile the irreconcilable 'will and determinism', it was proposed by F. Endless and K. Marx that dialectical principles operate in the 'general' way and not in 'specific individual' instances.
When this explanation is applied to social history of mankind, the time scale of operation of dialectics is extended to centuries, if not millenniums. In this situation, though the past (of human history) seems to be explained by dialectics in logical manner, the future changes predicted by dialectics may not be verifiable in decades or centuries.
The dialectical model has a peculiar component of spiral form of its (evolutionary) movement. When dialectics is applied to human history, it predicts that the 'primitive Communism', or the first stage of social evolution of history, would be repeated at higher level of the 'spiral' in the form of "scientific Communism'. Marx pointed out that in primitive Communism, there is 'direct' struggle of people with nature as there are two contradictory classes (nature and mankind), that there are no social class conflicts there and that owing to this absence of social class-conflicts there is no 'wastage' of human energy in the form of social class conflicts.
Likewise, in the 'modern' or 'scientific Communism' also there would be 'direct' struggle of people with nature as there are no two social conflicting classes and no wastage of human energy.
Then, how the 'modem Communism' would progress further in the dialectical terms? How the 'modern Communism' would become the 'thesis' and would give birth to the 'two contradictory' elements inherent in it? Would the 'modem Communism' embark on a new uncharted course of evolutionary life history? Would the 'direct' struggle of people with nature effect the very constitution of mankind, or in other words, would it change the human race into a new and higher race?
These are profound questions that are thrown open by the dialectics, if that be the working mechanism of nature. More >
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26 Jul 2006 @ 14:21
A well- known revolutionary philosopher of nineteenth century (Karl Marx) claimed to have found the underlying principles of revolutionary change having universal application. He, however, admitted that he borrowed these principles from an earlier philosopher (G.W.F. Hegel) who had propounded them under a term "dialectics". Dialectics of Hegel was a process that consisted of three parts: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. Thesis is the starting point and can be considered to take place at any point and every point in every thing or object under study in the whole process. By virtue of its very nature Thesis always contains a contradictory element, that is, its antithesis. The existence of Antithesis along with Thesis is the very condition of the existence of Thesis. The conflict and contradiction between Thesis and Antithesis bring changes and give birth to conditions and things that are incompatible with Thesis and can not be reconciled within its legitimate confines. Over a period of time these irreconcilable contradictions go on accumulating and at a certain point of time a drastic change takes place resulting into a new harmonious Synthesis that reconciles the contradiction of Thesis and Antithesis.
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Hegel in his understanding of universality of Existence, to the extent it is possible to understand it by Mind, is very close to Divine Lord, Supreme Master Sachchiddananda. He puts his understanding of the matter in his Philosophy of Law and Right, # 21 in these words:
The truth, however, of this formal universality which is by itself indeterminate and receives its determination from each material to which it is applied consists in a universality which determines itself, which is the will, is freedom. Since this will has the universality, has it itself as the infinite form, as its content, its object and its end, it is not only the will which is free in itself, but also the will which is free for itself- the true Idea.
Idea- that we may refer to as Divine Lord, operating through history has been put beautifully by C.F. Friedrich thus:
History is seen as the march of freedom through the world. This march of freedom is interpreted as what the world spirit wants, as it seeks to realize itself. And in its effort to realize itself, it employs peoples, world-historical peoples to do its work.
According to Hegel the movement of universal Idea in its effort to realize itself through the history follows this pattern of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. Karl Marx borrowed these Dialectical principles from Hegel to explain change in human history and thus to prove the inevitability and justification of impending economic, political and social change.
However, he claimed that Dialectics of Hegel, where Idea is made supreme and universal, was standing on its head and he had turned it upside down where the matter- and not the idea-was supreme and universal out of which ideas, thoughts and mind originated.
Marxian concept of dialectics in its abstract form may be summed up thus:
• There is nothing in Nature that may be called an absolute truth; all human concepts about natural phenomena are relative in their contents.
• Whole Nature is in motion; no part of it is static.
• This motion is generated by a mechanism that is brought about by the inherent irreconcilable contradictions inherently present in every entity, or constituent, of Nature.
• These contradictions give birth to conflicts that distort the harmonious structure of that entity. These conflicts accumulate in the quantitative form in that entity up to a certain limit. This limit is the critical point up to which these conflicts can be accommodated by that entity without changing its nature or quality. The moment these conflicts cross this critical limit, the quality of that entity changes or an upheaval takes place and the old entity becomes qualitatively different thing.
• This process of change never stops in Nature, whether one likes it or not. This process is termed by Marx, and his friend F. Engles, 'Negation of Negation' . Here, a thing comes into being or takes its birth by negating a thing that was having a well-established place and this new thing, after enjoying a well- established place for certain time, is itself negated by a new thing. Over a period of time this pattern of change appears to human mind as spiral evolution.
• This dialectical process is an integral part of Nature's function. Though the general principles of dialectics operate with mathematical accuracy, in their detailed applications they operate in very flexible manner, depending on so many factors; nonetheless, in overall contours they always operate with mathematical accuracy. This faithful accuracy of its basic principles and their universality in operation make it possible for dialectics to forecast and predict. These two philosopher revolutionaries devoted their entire life in applying these dialectical principles to physics , anthropology , society , economics and, even, military science . They created a brilliant philosophical edifice called Scientific Socialism or, better known as, Communism. More >
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25 Jul 2006 @ 13:41
Commodity is the sum product of five human elements and one element of Nature’s gift. The cost of commodity is determined by the interaction of these six quanta. These elements are: firstly, the knowledge of the technology that enables the manufacturing of the concerned commodity, secondly, the human labor that makes it possible to transform the raw material into commodity by the application of the enabling technology, thirdly, the management that puts these elements of labor and technology in the required productive order, fourthly, the motive on the part of the initiator to go ahead and start the process of manufacturing as result of which commodity is manufactured and comes into being, fifthly, the enabling environment provided by the established government of the time which guarantees that the elements of motive, labor and technology would be permitted to put themselves in the required productive mode and lastly and sixthly, the raw material provided by Nature on which these five human elements work and turn the raw material into the finished commodity.
Commodity may be considered a recipe of five ingredients – knowledge, labor, management, motive and enabling environment encased in the eggshell of nature’s gift. The recipe of these five elements sometimes even without the eggshell of nature’s raw material is capable of acquiring the properties of commodity and in that case these precious human elements are called service. The service is a commodity.
Each of these five human elements plays equally crucial role in the production of commodity. We may visualize, with regard to the first element, that every commodity bears within it an essential constituent element of knowledge. Production of a commodity requires an inherent element, without which that commodity can never be produced, that is contributed by Mind. This element adds to the cumulative cost of this commodity. For producing any commodity we need the required technology without which its production is not possible. For example, for producing an airplane we need the knowledge of a large number of concerned branches of science – aerodynamics, electronics, propulsion, metallurgy etc. – and of their associated sophisticated engineering. In the case of simple commodity, say potato, we need the knowledge of agriculture – putting seeds in the soil, irrigation, providing fertilizer, tending the crop etc. – without which it is not possible to grow potatoes.
Let us take another example from the life of primitive human beings, a stone dart. The primitive man needs to have the knowledge of the utility of a pointed stone in hunting an animal, he needs to know the technique of stone-chiseling, he needs to possess the knowledge of correct scrapping of the raw material – the unwieldy crude stone piece – that must be not too less and not too much scrapping of the raw material etc.
This knowledge of science is the product of Mind and in the process of production of commodity this element of Mind is deposited as an element of value in commodity. No commodity can be conceived of without this element being present in it. The contribution made by Mind in making the production of commodity possible is an inherent constituent element of commodity. This element of Mind or knowledge may be made possible by a single individual, by collective and common knowledge of society or by borrowing it from others. This element of Mind interacts with Nature through the human agency and gets embedded there in the product or commodity. In the finished goods or commodity the element contributed by Nature in the form of raw material on which other necessary elements related to human beings act turning this Natural – raw – element into finished commodity works like an eggshell wherein human elements get themselves deposited. Likewise, commodity also bears within it labor and remaining three essential elements.
It is possible to arrange these six elements in different interrelations. We may take the case of motive and put it in two different relations with the rest of the elements to find out the difference it brings in the resultant economic system. If we allow the human desires to fuel the motive, that put the remaining elements in the required order to produce commodity, then the resultant economy would be profit oriented capitalist one. On the other hand, if in the place of desires mind is allowed to fuel the whole productive process and put the remaining elements in the required order for producing commodity, the resultant economy would be planned socialist or communist one. It is the motive that determines the character of an economy. Also, seen from the point of view of the chosen motive, the ingredients of the concerned economy acquire different meaning and contents. There is universal misconception about capital. It is assumed that capital is one the ingredients that is always necessary for producing commodity. While capital is necessary ingredient in an economy whose motive element is desire fuelled, it is not necessary in an economy whose motive is dominated by planning by mind. More >
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22 Jul 2006 @ 15:45
We intend to end the present series of articles on the history of new civilization, though for the time being and till the opportune time comes, with a few observations. What is the relevance of history with a civilization that is yet to take birth? It is this: The new civilization cannot be founded on something that is totally new in its essence. The realty - the essence of truth - has to be discovered again and again by the marching mankind. It is a discovery of something that has always been there, though we think we had not grasped its essence and meaning in our previous discoveries as we think we have grasped today with our larest discovery. But the truth is that it was discovered in the past also, albeit with a different content and meaning. We have to discover this essence once again with a content that is acceptable to us and with a meaning that is understood by us, that is, the essence of realty couched in the modern scientific language and seemingly new in substance.
This realty was discovered in the past also by many known leaders of mankind and by many more who are not known. We do not have the appetite for now to refer to them here. We want to skip to the subject that is more important in utility and relevant in guiding us onto the correct path that lays ahead for mankind. What do we understand by new civilization? How different would it be from our "current" old civilization? What would be the basic features of new civilization?
Evolutionary agenda of Mankind
Nature is on its ceaseless task of evolving an instrument better than Mind. We have pointed out elsewhere that Mind follows a thought-processing method wherein there is separation of a part from the whole and then integration of this ‘now understood’ part into the whole. It is a trial and error method. All hypotheses – that are based on reason and logic of Mind – follow this blind method of trial and error. This method is flawed on account of its inherent weakness. Therefore, all truths discovered by this method – that is, by Mind – never expound a truth fully and completely. All scientific discoveries and their underlying scientific laws – like the laws of gravity, law of conservation of energy, et al – regularly undergo periodic modification.
But what we human beings know, animals do not. And, what animals know, plants do not. Each life-species has evolved over a long period of time her instrument of knowledge, which is still under the process of evolutionary refinement. Man is no exception to this process. Man and his Mind are undergoing change. It is axiomatic to say that it has always been so since the debut of Homo-sapiens on our Earth. But, significantly, this change is rapid today. Science is playing a decisive role in this process of evolutionary change. Science does affect not only the human being’s day-today life by offering levers to him in his struggle against Nature but his Mind also. His Mind grows more complex. With the advance of science, man becomes more capable to understand nature, and that includes his own life, and more aware of the limitation and insufficiency of the instrument (of Mind) that he is equipped with. This awareness is reflected in his growing sense of hollowness somewhere within and inability of science, despite its dazzling achievements, to account for many open questions.
Man and his science have reached a place where all branches of knowledge are converging onto a single point and a single query is staring them for answer: what is the nature of universal existence?
A new instrument that is better than Mind in efficacy and higher in evolutionary stage is in the offing. With the new instrument in place, Mind would not be discarded but would be relegated to a subordinate position in one’s life. This instrument would know the truth by a method where human consciousness would identify itself with the object rather than the method wherein consciousness disintegrates and re-integrates thoughts of objects into a harmonious whole. It would be a method of heart, which would replace and dominate the method of Mind – reason and logic. Though the new method still would be a mere shadow of the eternal Presence but there would be less distortion of this light in the process of downward percolation in its case than in the case of Mind.
New civilization ought to be dedicated to this evolutionary phenomenon and must be founded on its requirements. New civilization is not the civilization of human beings who are equipped with this new instrument of truth-perception but it is a civilization of those people who are ready and preparing to welcome the new advent. New civilization is the transitional civilization: a meeting place of two civilizations.
New civilization and the efforts to make its debut as early as possible is a serious subject and the same do not merit to be played lightly at our hands. New civilization cannot be made to happen and establish itself in a short period of time. It is bound to take not decades but centuries, if not more. Also, its happening is not dependent on human efforts. Individuals’ efforts, if made, may shorten the gestation period and help in a smooth birth that may become long awaited.
Nature is full of paradoxes. Yet it is the inability of our Mind that makes things look paradoxical. One such paradox of Nature is that it is cyclic in its operation and yet the things are not repeated again in exactly the same manner. It looks like a spiral evolution where things and events appear again and again, which are basically the same but in new forms to meet the new situations. History is no exception to this cyclic process.
We find in history seeds of human culture that sprout again and again in new forms but with the same qualitative contents to meet new situations brought into existence by the passage of time. We foresee that these seeds are once again ready to sprout in the fertile soil of our times. Our times are fully ripe for the germination of the old seeds. Our times are fret with problems that are unparalleled and unheard of in human history. These problems are so grave in their consequences and so encompassing in their scale that they put the mankind’s existence in peril. These are ideally fertile times for germination of the old seeds – that had saved mankind many a times in the past – once again in new forms. Mankind embattled with these problems is once again ready to listen – as in the past – to the teachings that have been taught in ages past in different contexts and different forms.
A new civilization that offers this old seeds in new form to bail out mankind is the need of the hour.
There are three signs of new civilization. Firstly, it would be based on the new understanding by human beings of the prime realty that has always existed there. Secondly, this understanding of the prime realty would be uniform for human beings and would not be divisive in nature as it had been in the past. The evolution of Mind would not only remove the geographic distance among different sections of mankind but it would also remove the difference of perceptions of the prime realty among these sections. And, thirdly, this prime realty, though still mystic to Mind, would be supported by its reason. New Civilization has not yet dawned on our Earth, where people have already gone global. Whenever it makes its debut, it would be compulsive in its utility and global in its reach. But this utility would not be its chief strength. Its strength would rather lie in the realization by our race that it has re-discovered the realty in a manner – so called scientific manner – that is the only one acceptable to reason and that this realty though always existed there but remained mystic to Mind. This realization would profoundly change mankind’s priorities and its institutions of collective living would accordingly undergo a revolutionary change. All these institutions – economics, culture and politics – could then no longer be allowed by the enlightened collective societal life to further the egoistic agenda of individual or collective living.
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13 Apr 2006 @ 16:39
Just before his death, a lay householder, Kanda, requested Buddha to accept an offering of a meal at his house. Buddha accepted the request, went to his house and took meal. It was his last meal. He preached the Truth to the householder and departed from there to Kusinagar. After crossing Tsaku and Hiranyavati rivers he arrived at Sala grove- a quiet and secluded Ashram-
and took his seat.
After resting for a while he went to nearby Hiranyavati, entered the water, took a bath there and came back to the grove.
Then he told his disciple Ananda who was nearby to prepare a clean place between two Sala trees by sweeping and sprinkling water and arrange for a sitting mat for him and while telling so, addressing Ananda, he said' at the coming midnight I shall leave my body.'
On hearing such words from the mouth of his Guru, Ananda's breath was choked and his heart sank. He started weeping but somehow he spread the mat etc. and informed his Guru.
There was weeping all around by the assembled disciples who were in good numbers. Buddha lay down on the mat with his head towards the north, on his right side and resting his head upon his hands like a pillow with his crossed feet - one leg resting on the other; and he slept for some time. After a while, he arose from the sleep and addressed Ananda thus:
'Go! Tell the Mallas, the time of my decease is come;
'They, if they see me not, will ever grieve and suffer deep regret'
Ananda, weeping and listening the bidding of his Guru, went along the road to the Mallas and informed them 'The Lord is near to death'
The Mallas weeping, crying and grieving proceeded and bewailing reached the place where Buddha was. With piteous cries, they reached the grove and weeping, adoring and bowing to his feet prayed Buddha to behold his failing strength. Tathagata Buddha, composed and quiet, spoke thus:
Succession of Births & Deaths:
Its end
Lord Buddha uttered thus:
'Grieve not, the time is one for joy; no call for sorrow or for anguish here. That which for ages I have aimed at, now am I just about to obtain; delivered now from the narrow bounds of sense, I go to the place of never-ending rest and peace .
'I leave these things, earth, water, fire, and air, to rest secure where neither birth nor death can come. Eternally delivered there from grief, oh! Tell me! Why should I be sorrowful?
'Of yore on Shirsh's mount, I longed to rid me of this body, but to fulfill my destiny I have remained till now with men (in the world).
'I have kept (till now) this sickly, crumbling body, as dwelling with a poisonous snake (that is, full of desires); but now I am come to the great resting place, all springs of sorrow now for ever stopped.
'No more shall I receive a body, all future sorrow now for ever done away…
Walk your-self on the Path:
Do not take Words as Path
Lord Buddha further taught:
'Seeking the way, you must exert yourselves and arrive with diligence - it is not enough to have seen me! Walk, as I have commanded you; get rid of all the tangled net of sorrow...
'Keep your heart carefully (keep check on your heart) - give not place to listlessness!
... Man born in this world is pressed by all the sorrows of the long career (that is, pressed by the results of his life-long exertion in pursuit of his desires); (man is) ceaselessly troubled - without a moment's rest - like a lamp blown by the wind!'.
The Mallas, all, hearing Buddha's loving instructions, inwardly composed restrained their tears and, firmly self-possessed, returned back to their villages.
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13 Apr 2006 @ 16:31
It is not that only evil forces are there to obstruct Yogi on his path of Divine enlightenment; he has equally supportive forces on his side. If it were not so, no mortal being however great he might be would ever be able to withstand the opposition and get victory over the hostile forces. There are also equally powerful (and ultimately more powerful) supportive forces that encourage and help the seeker.
Boddhisattva, in his endeavor, was supported and encouraged by these forces; when he maintained his calm, resolve and perseverance, the good and helping forces thus urged Buddha:
'Lust, hate and ignorance (these are) the rack and bolt, the yoke placed on the shoulder of the world; through ages long he has practiced austerities to rescue men from these their fetters; sitting on his right-established throne, he now shall certainly attain his end.'
'Like as when some cruel chieftain slain, the hateful band is all dispersed and scattered, so the lust of Mara disconcerted, fled away. The mind of Boddhisattva now reposed was quiet and peaceful.
These are real spiritual experiences which over the ages have been replicated by all great Yogis and realized souls and even today one who embarks on the path of spiritual enlightenment may very well experience on way to the Divine destination, that is, Enlightenment:
'Boddhisattva having subdued Mara, his firmly fixed mind at rest, thoroughly exhausting the first principle of truth, he entered into deep and subtle contemplation (that is, entered into a higher level of consciousness in meditation). While self-contained, every kind of Samadhi in order passed before
his eyes.
Experience of Enlightenment
During the first watch of night he, in his Samadhi, had an experience of a particular state of consciousness referred to as 'right perception' (note: the Truth, the highest plane of Consciousness where all that exists is experienced in its right perspective and no question anymore is left to be answered) and as a result thereof in recollection all his former births passed before his eyes. He vividly recollected them all:
'Born in such a place, of such a name, and downwards to his present birth, so through hundreds, thousands, myriad, all his births and deaths he knew; countless in number were they, of every kind and sort; then knowing, too, his family relationships, great pity rose within his heart. This sense of deep compassion passed, he once again considered 'all that lives' (that is, he again experienced the ultimate truth of all that seems to live) and how they moved in six modes of life's transmigration, with no final end to birth and death;
Experience of Absolute Truth
Ashvaghosha recounts the experience of Gautam, who had become Buddha by now, thus in his ‘Budhcharitam’:
'He rose in consciousness through the planes and sub-planes of material existence. He linked the various component parts of self to the Self which uses them, and the Self by the faculty of Buddhi (intuition) to the Maha Boddhi (utmost wisdom) of which, in his inmost being, he was a manifestation on earth. Finally he bound in one the Self which still is human, and the SELF of pure Enlightenment. The journey was over, and a new Buddha, the fourth of his line, was born.
This was pure spiritual experience of the highest order - of Divine, called by Buddhist Sramanas the Law, Hindu Yogis Sachchiddanand and Sufis Allah - that a mortal being in human frame could have had. It was an experience that opened before Buddha the secret of the cycle of creation, existence and destruction of all that exists in universe.
This secret was neither meant then in that ancient age nor is it meant today in modem times to be divulged to ordinary and worldly man. Equally, then as well as today, neither has it been possible by any amount of intellectual exposition to understand it nor permissible by the rules applicable to that mystic and secret world to let worldly minds comprehend the Secret.
The Law of Buddha, Sachchiddananda of Yogis or Allah of Sufis is beyond words. Only one who attains it or Him knows the secret and the rest fight over words. More >
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13 Apr 2006 @ 16:13
The great Rishi Gautam, having firmly resolved by oath to achieve the Truth of seeming existence or perish in the attempt, sat in meditation beneath a tree (later on called the Boddhi Tree). Such firm and unflinching determination of resolve by the seeker of Divine Truth is the first and foremost pre-requisite for entering spiritual path and obtaining success in the endeavor. In his meditation he had in ascending order of consciousness many in number and varied in significance, spiritual experiences. At the outset he was assailed by the evil forces of doubt, fear, enticement and mental insanity.
An ordinary person takes these feelings of doubt, fear etc. a product of his own mind but a Divine seeker recognizes them, more and more clearly as he proceeds further on the path, concrete forces acting from outside on him. Once again one is reminded of the ancient teaching that these things cannot be mentally analyzed to find the truth of the matter but have to be lived and experienced to know the worth of the teaching.
Hostile Forces
As he gradually concentrated and withdrew himself from out side world in his meditation and became increasingly conscious of the inner world of subtle beings, the great Rishi (who was not yet Buddha) was confronted by the evil force called Mara - such names being mere symbols to facilitate our comprehending of things spiritual and beyond human mind - and received threats of all sorts thus:
Seeing the Muni quiet and still and preparing to cross the sea of the three worlds, that is, engaged in concentration and bent upon to know the Divine secret, Mara addressed him:
'Kshatriya! Rise up quickly! For you may well fear! Your death is at hand; you may practice a system of religion for yourself, but let go this effort after the law of deliverance (of others); instead you may well pursue the path of almsgiving whereby the religious merit will be earned and the tumultuous suffering world will be appeased and so in the end you will reap your reward in heaven; in such renowned and well established way (of charity) former Rishis, kings and men of eminence have walked; but the path (leading to penury and alms-begging) which you are pursuing is unworthy of you.'
'Now then if you do not rise, you had best consider with yourself, that if you give not up your vow, and tempt me to let fly an arrow (or attack you with non- human bewildering arsenals), how that Alia, grandchild of Soma, by a mere touch of such arrow, had lost his reason and became a madman;
Then he was made aware the fate of Rishi Vimala who, by pursuing a similar path of Divine knowledge, had become bewildered and lost his true nature; he was also warned to consider how inferior he was to those great Rishis of the bygone ages and urged to quickly abandon his pursuit.
Doubts, allurements etc.:
Attacks by Hostile Forces
One who treads the path of spiritual enlightenment encounters, in the early stages of his Sadhana, such seemingly sane and reasonable urgings of mind and as he progressively becomes intense in his endeavor these urgings no longer seem his own mental product but assume concrete, foreign and menacing form.
However the Boddhisattva (Gautam) did not hesitate in his firm resolve.
Then Mara assembled its army- host having peculiar and dreadful forms around him and this wicked goblin troop encircled on its four sides the Boddhi tree. Some were bent on tearing his body to pieces and others were on to devour him whole. However Boddhisattva remained calm and undisturbed by this commotion of these lower beings and not a hair of his was moved or harmed by them.
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3 Apr 2006 @ 13:55
Continues Christmas Humphreys with his narration of Buddha’s firm resolve to pursue search of the answer to his questions:
The purpose of his search was clear: the answer to his questions; the Truth behind birth, old age and death. He was out to secure the Secret that Nature has hidden from ordinary mortal man. The Secret of the existence: Why after all birth is there, and, if once born, why there is sickness, the old age and then death. He was not to be contented with anything less.
This is the Secret that Seers, Sages, Sramanas and Yogis have been searching and unraveling since ancient times in India, and thereby, conquering death and birth in this transient and painful world.
He visited first Aiara Kalama, a noted sage, and studied with him, but he found no answer to his heart's imperious demand. So he went to Uddaka, another sage, and received the same reply. He passed through the country of Magadha to the town of Uruvela, and there settled down in a grove of trees to find Enlightenment.
For six long years he meditated, practicing the utmost physical austerities until he all but wasted away. He conquered fear; subdued developed and controlled his mind, but still he did not find Enlightenment. Finally he realized that not in austerities could truth be found. He decided to eat again, and the five ascetics living with him departed in disgust. All lusts of the flesh; he accepted a bowl of curds from a maid, Sujata, and having eaten and bathed, seated himself in the lotus posture at the foot of a tree, determined to achieve without more delay the full fruits of Enlightenment. It was the night of the Full Moon of May, and he was thirty-five.
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9 Mar 2006 @ 15:38
Buddhcharitam (Life of Buddha), a Sanscrit book written by Buddhaghosha (150 AD), describes the unusual events following the birth of Buddha. On the birth of Buddha, in the garden of Lumbini rare and special flowers bloomed out in great abundance out of season. All diseases and afflictions among men without a cure applied of themselves were healed. Various cries and confused sounds of beasts were hushed and silence reigned all around. The self-caused angelic music was heard all around and the whole world of sentient creatures enjoyed peace and universal tranquility.
However, his royal mother, the queen Maya, finding her son born under such extra-ordinary circumstances and a beautiful child of heaven adorned with every excellent distinction could not control her excessive joy and died thereof after seven days of his birth. Thereupon, he was brought up by Prajapati Gautami, his foster mother, whom he regarded as his real mother.
Christmas Humphreys describes the early life of would-be Buddha in these words:
Buddha, as a boy, lead a normal easy life of a prince but from earliest of his boyhood he was never satisfied for long with worldly pleasures and had been self-possessed and pre-occupied with unusual questions of inquiring mind. At the age of sixteen he won his wife, Yashodhara, after exhibiting his strength in fighting, wrestling and archery in a contest and had a son, Rahula, by her.
However his mind was not at rest in pursuing worldly ways.
Once he heard a maiden singing, who fell in love with his manly beauty as he passed by her, saying: -
Happy indeed is the Mother,
Happy indeed is the Father,
Happy indeed is the Wife,
Who has such a Husband.
Very well said, thought Buddha-to-be. But what is it which, extinguished, makes the heart eternally happy; for flesh will grow old and will die? He realized that it was lust and craving in all its forms, the extinguishing of which was the end of suffering. He was then twenty- nine.
His father tried to keep him away from his unusual thoughts by arranging all means of worldly pleasure.
But one day, while on an errand with his charioteer in attendance, he saw worldly woes with his own eyes: first (he saw) an old man, then a sick man and then a dead man. At the sight of each of these he asked his charioteer the meaning of what he saw. 'This comes to all men', said the charioteer, and the Prince's mind was troubled that such was the effect of birth, the common cause. Then he saw a recluse with shaven head and a tattered yellow robe. 'What man is this?' he asked, and was told it was one who had gone forth into the homeless life.
He returned to the palace, deeply pondering, and, that night, while his pleasure girls lay sleeping in unbecoming postures at his feet, he revolted from sensual pleasures, and at the same time the flame of compassion awoke within him. Not for the first time, but now with overpowering effect, he felt the positive call to save not only himself but all mankind from birth in the world of suffering. He bade farewell to his sleeping wife and babe, and in the silence of the Indian night went forth with Channa, his charioteer, and Kanthaka, his stallion. At the edge of the forest he alighted, cut off his long black hair with his sword and sent it back to the palace by the hand of Channa. He exchanged his princely robes with those of a beggar, and went forth into the homeless life, alone.
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5 Mar 2006 @ 07:07
It is of great wonder that nothing is stable in the world. Great persons come and exert to the limit of human endurance and after great toils attain dizzying heights in their chosen fields. But the time demolishes to dust their achievements and sweeps away their memory. While the world is real, as real as hard rock, its ceaseless formations and form's transient nature render it almost unreal; and it is more so when things of the world are seen from the ever -permanent spiritual realities playing hidden behind the appearance. Then, it is not more than a dream where -like in an ocean - ceaseless waves of form and oblivion, creation and destruction, rising and falling are continuously occurring.
But then the dream also has its reality - as hard as rock. And, world is there, things happen in the world, great human beings are born here, they toil, accomplish marvelous results and over a period of time every thing is lost as if nothing was achieved.
Spiritual wisdom tells us: persons - great or ordinary - are born for specific purpose and events happen for specific purpose. Heart rending story of the birth and decline of Buddhism in India is one such happening. Despite all the evil forces that resisted spiritual enlightenment at work, despite all the mortal effect of time,
Buddhism has been able to accomplish its intention, the intention of the good of mankind.
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2 Mar 2006 @ 16:44
A child possesses by nature certain positively precious virtues that make him childlike. And, these virtues are acknowledged the foundations of civilization of mankind. To become childlike, a grown up person has to unlearn many things that he or she has learnt over the growing years. Lord Jesus Christ summons a child and put him in the midst of his disciples and tell them to be like him, to be like child. To properly understand the secret of this commandment, we have to appreciate two aspects of this teaching. Firstly, what virtues are there in a child, which are not found in the grown up persons and the grown up disciples are told to learn once again from child; and secondly, what is the utility and purpose of acquiring once again these virtues by tedious practice and learning.
How old a child should be to serve the example, an infant, a child of 5 or 6 years of age or an adolescent boy? What is the guiding star to find the answer? There are certain virtues that are ingrained by nature in child with his or her birth and which go on eroding in child with his growth over the years. And, modern times, these virtues are systematically sought to be eroded by our education. It is really very difficult to unlearn the things that we have learnt over the years and to learn once again the things that are childlike.
A child, not only of human beings but even a young one of animals to a great extent, is sincere in his or her approach. There is no trace of deceit in his behavior. What he or she says, he or she means it. Sincerity is the first virtue that a child possesses and grown ups are made by surroundings to unlearn and substitute with deceit. On the path of evolutionary ascent of consciousness, or in spiritual matters, sincerity is the first requirement. Without sincerity in full measure, spiritual awakening is unthinkable. Without this virtue, all pretensions of spirituality are farce, all preaching is deceit and all claims are the service of anti-Divine.
When Lord Jesus Christ uttered the following words, he meant this virtue of sincerity: Matthew (23-25) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. (6-5) And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men…. (6-7) But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. (6-9) After this manner therefore pray ye…. (6-13) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: (23-24) Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
The second virtue that a child possesses is that of surrender of his care and well-being to his or her parents or guardians. A child is dependent on the support offered to him or her by the guardians and there is not an iota of rebellion on his or her part against the command of the guardian. In evolutionary journey of human consciousness towards Divine, there is second requirement, rather imperative of the first category, of complete SURRENDER to Divine care and protection. Just like you make an experiment in material science and get the confirmation of the supposed result (hypothesis), one can make an experiment here in this field. You be complete sincere in your efforts and then surrender to Divine with the complete sincerity (like a child does to his parents) and then compare the results of your experiment. You will find miracles take place; things happen that science cannot explain; you may try to explain by bringing an element of chance. But then go on repeating your experiments and get the miraculous results, till all scope of explanation by chance is eliminated. Thirdly, a child does not have many thoughts. His mind is not yet developed and mature. There are not his thoughts to intervene and oppose his sincerity and surrender. He has FAITH in his parents. These thoughts in grown up persons have very great authority in all matters. They come uninvited when we are called upon to be sincere, bear faith and surrender to Divine and oppose these foolish acts; they reason: it is illogical; it cannot bear fruit; the very idea of sincerity or faith or surrender is ridiculous! It is a conspiracy to dull our personality, these thoughts assert. But let one be wise. You should make an experiment and verify the result yourself. Uttering of Lord Jesus Christ are not vain speaking in this respect. Happenings that are deemed impossible by reason may occur even in modern times also as the happened during the life of Lord Jesus Christ, as attested by Matthew, when he says thus: (14-25) And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. (14-26) And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is spirit; and they cried out of fear.(14-27) But straightaway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. (14-28) And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. (14-29) And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. (14-30) But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. (14-31) And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
But can you overrule the objections of your thoughts, tell them to wait and embark on the path of experiment? It is really difficult to unlearn many things and become childlike. Lord Jesus Christ had taught this secret to mankind ages ago, when he said:
Matthew: 20-21: Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me 20-25- When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? 20-26- But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. (21-21) Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done (……) to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
Why should a person be sincere, bear faith or surrender to divine? Why should he or she toil to unlearn things that he or she has learnt with great efforts and labor over the growing years? Why should he or she become childlike? We are not concerned here with the people who do not want to proceed further and go ahead. We are not concerned here with the people who are self-content with the present state of their existence. We are concerned with those who, though having every thing that the world can offer them, feel that there is something lacking in life. We are concerned with them who toil tirelessly in their life, get what they wanted and then realize that all these rewards of hard work are not that satisfying as they had expected, that would be made to leave the world still unsatisfied and without possession of these hard earned rewards. We are concerned here with evolution; moving ahead and ascending towards a plane of consciousness that is higher than what human being presently possess.
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28 Feb 2006 @ 16:52
The whole creation is divided into two opposite elements: the forces that serve Divine and the forces that serve all that that is opposed to Divine. On the path of communion with Divine, march is not easy. It is climbing up. It is struggle with oneself also. There are elements with ourselves also that serve the anti-Divine. In the steep climbing there is struggle all around: within oneself and struggle with the forces of anti-Divine that are there outside in the world. There are allurements, if these measure fail, then there are threats; and threats of all sorts. In this path of onward journey there is only one protection: protection provided by Divine. Nothing else works here. This protection is provided to those who SURRENDER to Divine. And, this exercise calls for complete sincerity on our part. This is the secret and this is the key. Through out the history of spiritual development of mankind, or the evolution of her consciousness, we consistently find this secret and key in operation. It has been with Lord Jesus Christ, it has been so with Lord Buddha, it has been so with all other pioneers of mankind’s civilization.
When an individual is opened up to Divine and comes into His communion, he no more remains fixed with the frame of reference of human being; he no longer sees things from the point of view of human beings. He, then, knows the secret of all secrets; he knows what human being knows and also that which the human being does not know and, till he remains what he is, cannot know.
The greatest problem confronting a human being who has got communion with Divine is this: he knows the secret of secrets; he has compassion on those who do not know; he is moved by that compassion to inform that secret to all those who are ignorant of the same and need to know it. But he is put to the task of finding the suitable means to convey the secret, the message. It simply cannot be conveyed through mere language. Then, Divine visionaries, prophets, seers and sages try to communicate the message through examples, parables, paradoxes, personal conduct and the story of their own life. We find so in the case Lord Jesus Christ also.
Saint Matthew informs us of Lord Jesus having said thus: (13-34) All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them.
He further says thus: (13-35) That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying. I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundations of the world. Matthew 13-10; And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 13-11; He answered and said unto them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 13-13; Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not: and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Lord Jesus Christ was in with communion with Divine and he always spoke as a person of authority who himself had seen the realty and knew the secret of secrets. He spoke as he was commanded to speak by Divine.
Saint Matthew speaks of the Lord thus:
7. 28 (Lord Christ) And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astounded at his doctrine; 7. 29; For he taught them as having authority, and not as the scribes.
A human being in body and flesh has several limitations and constraints; he is not only limited in knowledge of things around him but he is rigidly stationed in a specific time-frame. He lives and acts with the events and circumstances that are placed ready made before him. He has no escape from this severe limitation. And, even an individual who has communion with Divine, though living in the knowledge of infinite and the secret of secrets, is made to accept by Divine the limitation of dealing with the events, personalities and circumstances of his particular times. Though such person knows the purpose and fate of his life, he knowingly and willingly completes his part of the cosmic play. Things in our mysterious universe are predetermined in their nature in the ultimate analysis, and yet they do not seem to us to happen that way. Though the unfolding of universe is a cosmic play, of which plot and theme are made out beforehand by Divine left only to be acted upon, nonetheless this play has to be acted upon by its actors with all the seriousness that could be there. The only difference here is that the ignorant ordinary human being (and all life) conducts his part unknowingly and the prophet conducts his part with full knowledge. Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet of mankind, spoke of the eternal truth and the words in which this eternal truth was conveyed thus:
Matthew 24-35-; Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Given the hard facts that the contents and nature of the message that prophets intend to communicate to the ordinary and ignorant laymen are the secret foundations of universe and that this subject for its conveyance to public admits only a language couched in parables and indirect indications, the task of prophets becomes doubly difficult. On the one hand, they are constrained to employ parables and examples to make things clear and unambiguous, on the other they have no alternative but to use contemporary circumstances, events and personalities, even though they the message they convey in this manner is immortal and applicable to all times that are yet to come and that have passed.
For the ignorant and ordinary people who live in the times of a prophet, and therefore are aware of the context of the peculiar circumstances then prevailing, it may not be too difficult to grasp the inner truth of the message. But it is not so simple for the people in later ages. These succeeding generations find themselves placed in distance not only of time but of circumstances and contexts. These later generations of people are apt by natural human tendency to take those words that were used thousands of years ago and in different circumstances in their literal sense. The depth of the intent sought to be conveyed by symbolic parables is rendered shallow by over simplification. The profoundness of the message is reduced to mere scripture. It is natural thing. It is the effect of time that is eternal on the message that is eternal.
However, despite the ill effects of time, there still remain in the utterances made and the parables used ages ago by prophets golden keys that are capable of opening the gates of secret treasures once indicated by them. These keys are preserved intact in the parables and examples used in the language and serve as the sustaining and life giving force of the prophetic message.
Let us try to locate these golden keys in the words of Lord Jesus Christ.
Saint Matthew says thus:
18-1; At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2- And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them. 3- And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4- Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 13-38; The field is the world; the good seed are children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
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19 Feb 2006 @ 11:10
Historian Edward Gibbon (in his book: Decline and Fall of Roman Empire) remarks a very interesting aspect of the life of early disciples of Christ (that is, a few hundred years after his death) that has an important spiritual significance. It was their freedom from verbal fundamentalism and sincerity of heart. Gibbon observes:
It has been remarked, with more ingenuity than truth, that
the virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred years after the death of Christ. We may observe, with much more propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah were indulged in freer latitude both of faith and practice than has ever been aliowed in succeeding ages...
(The Gnostics, the early adherents) were almost without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt, where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the body to indolent devotion. The Gnostics blended with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets which they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible world.
This historian further says:
It was the universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics that the daemons (demons) were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of idolatry. These rebellious spirits who had been degraded from the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to seduce the minds of sinful men. The demons soon discovered and abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards devotion, and, artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from their Creator, they usurped the place and honours of the Supreme Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of involving the human species in the participation of their guilt and misery.
Gibbon further informs us thus:
The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any adequate notion. ... It was universally believed that the end of the world and the kingdom of Heaven were at hand. The near approach of the
wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles, the tradition of it was preserved by their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their literal sense the discourses of Christ himself were obliged to expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the clouds, before the generation was totally extinguished, which had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or Hadrian... The doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism. A mysterious prophecy, which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which was thought to favour the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly escaped the proscription of the church.
He continues:
The divine inspiration, whether it was conveyed in the form of a waking or of a sleeping vision, is described as a favour very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on a women as on elders, on boys as weil as upon bishops. When their devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse, they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in ecstasy what was inspired, being more organs of the Holy Spirit, just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. ... The expulsion of the demons from the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they had been permitted to torment was considered as a signal, though ordinary, triumph of religion, and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apologists as the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity.
The awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner, and in the presence of a great number of spectators; the patient was relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, and the vanquished demon was heard to confess that he was one of the fabled gods of antiquity, who had impiously usurped the adoration of mankind. But the miraculous cure of diseases, of the most inveterate or even preter-natural kind, can no longer occasion any surprise, when we recollect that in the days of Irenaeus, about the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being esteemed as uncommon event, that the miracle was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that the persons thus restored to their prayers had lived afterwards among them many years.
Gibbon very rightly notices that the earliest Disciples of Christ had more devotion of heart (that is of the real worth in spiritual attainments) than skill of mind (that may make the faith look and appear more reasonable or acceptable). He says:
It is a very honourable circumstance for the morals of the primitive Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors, were derived from an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors of the church, whose evidence attests, and whose authority might influence, the professions, the principles, and even the practice of their contemporaries, had studied the Scriptures with less skill than devotion; and they often received in the most literal sense those rigid precepts of Christ and the apostles to which the prudence of succeeding commentators has applied a looser and more figurative mode of interpretation. Ambitious to exalt the perfection of the Gospel above the wisdom of philosophy, the zealous and of patience, to a height that it is scarcely possible to fathers have carried the duties of self-mortification, of purity,attain, and much less to preserve, in our present state of weakness and corruption.
A true devotee of Christ at that early period knew the value of controlling his sensual tendencies and desires in the matter of realisation of divine Light and he tried to gain mastery over them. Gibbon states his keen observation in this regard thus:
The first sensation of pleasure was marked as the first moment of their abuse. The unfeeling candidate for Heaven was instructed not only to resist the grosser allurements of the taste or smell, but also even to shut his ears against the profane harmony of sounds, and to view with indifference the most finished productions of human art. Gay apparel, magnificent houses, and elegant furniture were supposed to unite the double guilt of pride and of sensuality: a simple and mortified appearance was more suitable to the Christian who was certain of his sin and doubtful of his salvation.
The true followers of Christ, at that puritan period of early Christianity, knew well that the desires of human beings distract them from the path of divine pursuit. These Christians, much unlike of today, ranked the celibacy at the highest in the order of virtues. Gibbon takes notice of this conviction of early Christians when he says:
The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever related to the commerce of the two sexes, flowed from the same principle; their abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual, and degrade the spiritual, nature of man. ... It was their unanimous sentiment that a first marriage was adequate to all the purposes of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined into a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death. The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a legal adultery; and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous an offence against Christian purity were soon excluded from the honours, and even from the alms, of the church. Since desire was imputed as a crime, and marriage was tolerated as a defect, it was consistent with the same principle to consider a state of celibacy as the nearest approach to the divine perfection. More >
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15 Feb 2006 @ 14:37
Nature is full of paradoxes. Yet it is the inability of our Mind that makes things look paradoxical. One such paradox of Nature is that it is cyclic in its operation and yet the things are not repeated again in exactly the same manner. It looks like a spiral evolution where things and events appear again and again, which are basically the same but in new forms to meet the new situations. History is no exception to this cyclic process.
This again reminds one of dialectics of Hegel and Marx. We had promised in our earlier articles to deal with Dialectics as propounded by Hegel and (its claimed repositioning upside down) by Marx but so far we have not been able to fulfill our promise. We intend to deal with it at the appropriate time.
We find in history seeds of human culture that sprout again and again in new forms but with the same contents to meet new situations brought into existence by the passage of time. We foresee that these seeds are once again ready to sprout in the fertile soil of our times. Our times are fully ripe for the germination of the old seeds. Our times are fret with problems that are unparalleled and unheard of in human history. These problems are so grave in their consequences and so encompassing in their scale that they put the mankind’s existence in peril. These are ideally fertile times for germination of the old seeds – that had saved mankind many a times in the past – once again in new forms. Mankind embattled with these problems is once again ready to listen – as in the past – to the teachings that have been taught in ages past in different contexts and different forms.
A new civilization that offers this old seeds in new form to bail out mankind is the need of the hour. Before dealing with the mankind’s present problems of far reaching consequences and their promised solution by such new civilization, we think it appropriate to have a look at human history to see how the mankind’s eternal and (always) burning problems were then tackled by the teachings of eternal truth.
First let us see how this eternal truth or prime realty was perceived by different individuals in past ages and how the consequential teachings have become corrupted with the passage of time. Words are never able to convey the entire spectrum of individual’s real experience. (In this connection, please refer to my earlier article titled: Language). We have already indicated in our previous articles that this realty is mystic to Mind being beyond its reason and the words used to communicate this realty are always symbolic in their contents; the words in such matter should never be read and understood literal sense.
Also, we have indicated in our articles that Desires pollute the downward stream of descending Light of Heart. This Light percolates down to our Mind, Desires and sensual feelings and uses them as its instruments of action; however, in this process this Light is much corrupted and polluted at each downward meeting instrument. In these articles we would also try to show how the individuals in past ages taught to rein in one’s desires and ignore reason’s logic in opposition to the descending Light of Heart. First we shall take the experience of Lord Jesus Christ and how his intimate disciples and immediate followers tried to control their sensual enjoyment, desires and reason’s obstructions in the early Christian history. The more near we are to the source, the more pure is the stream and the more distance we go from the original source, the more polluted becomes the downward stream. Therefore, we shall try to confine our observations to the nearest point of the source.
Saint Matthew, one of the disciples of Jesus Christ, informs us in his Gospel of the wonderful spiritual experience that Jesus had. Saint Matthew says:
And Jesus, when he was baptised, went up straightway out of the water: and, 10, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: (17) And 10 a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Saint Mark also reports of this wonderful spiritual experience of Jesus Christ in his Gospel in these words:
And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.
Another disciple of Jesus Christ, Saint Luke speaks of this experience of Christ thus:
Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptised, and praying, the heaven was opened, And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son: in thee I am well pleased.
This is an experience of descending Supreme Being into the human consciousness and it of the highest order that persons completely devoted to Divine get when Divine's grace is there. It is impossible to describe this experience in human language, for it is beyond all normal experiences of ordinary human beings. However, over the ages attempts to describe the same for the benefit of mankind have been made by those who have had such light. Very many images and similes have been coined in their efforts of expression. One of them is an image of the descending of something like a dove from above into the receiving person's consciousness. The peace, complete assurance in the form of an enlightenment, happiness in the form of a bliss and answer to all questions or doubts one may entertain (before this experience), which are brought by this supreme experience are beyond the capacity of words to convey. We shall refer to historical records of some other persons who have had similar spiritual experience.
Temptations:
By the King of Evil Forces
Now, as we know, the experience of Supreme Being is not an easy thing. It takes a very long cycle of time on the path of creation and according to the scheme of things that is supreme secret of Nature. The period of one human life is flicker of moment in these matters and the secret scheme is unfolded over a period of time spanning very many human lives.
From the relative point of view of the Divine Working happenings are determined before hands and still, from the relative point of view of earthly world, things do not happen until there is determination of the highest order on the part of the individual concerned. This determination of the individual is always sought to be shattered by the fountain of evil forces, namely, Shaitan, Mara or Asura.
Like Buddha and many other divine people from prehistoric times, who had to combat and defeat the Evil Head, Jesus Christ was also confronted with the anti-divine and sought to be threatened and then allured by enchanting promises. But he spurned the allurements and held fast in his determination to tread the divine path.
Saint Matthew, the disciple of Jesus Christ, informs us how Saitan tried to allure Jesus Christ in these words:
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, (6) And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Saint Mark in his Gospel tells us that when Jesus Christ saw heaven opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and a voice coming from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, he was immediately driven into the wilderness. St. Mark says:
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Saint Luke, the disciple of Jesus Christ, describes the Saitan's demeanors against Jesus thus:
Being (in wilderness) forty days tempted of the devil And in those days he did eat nothing; and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whosoever I will give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
But Jesus Christ rebuked the Saitan for his threat and refused his allurement. Lord Jesus held fast to his determination to serve the Divine and to none else. More >
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Our apparently glittering civilization, with all its marvelous achievements, is hollow deep within and a new civilization, that would be richer in inner content, is striving to be born to take the place of the old one. The propelling force of this process is the 'PLEASURE' of man and the pleasure of a man is better than the pleasure of a pig, because man is never satisfied with himself and he longs to know the unknown while a pig is preoccupied with self-indulgence and satisfied with its existence. |
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