Swabhava and Prabhav

A short discussion at home, that my mom was narrating to me. Just felt that probably I should write it down.

She was listening to a pravachan of Sadhvi Ritambhara. She was describing this thing about Swabhava and Prabhava. Mother and Parenting the children creates it's influence on children almost upto the age of 12. What they get upto this age essentially becomes their swabhava (nature). Then comes the age of Prabhav (influence). After this age, the impact of what parents may say keeps on reducing, and the Prabhav keeps increasing. This is the time of conflict in the mind of the growing up teen and the youth. The youth can stay in conflict, but ulitmately the peace of the mind comes only when he can reconcile all the Prabhav in the life with the Swabhav, because that is his/her true-self. The further one goes from it, the more the grief. Some come back to swabhava, and some stay in the prabhava.

Interesting take. Isn't it.

Flatten your Jelly

De bono's book on Lateral thinking in first few chapters talks about the nature of mind. That mind is like jelly. The contours or how some drops of water would flow on jelly is a function of both. The prior contouring of the jelly, and also the way the water falls on it. Sometimes, it just flows on the same contours or channels, sometimes new channels are created but they stay to be a function of the old channels.
Sometimes in life, when we are stuck and don't seem to be making headway, let's become conscious of our own Jellies in mind. What has driven those contours and channels in past. Has the weather changed. Are they just relics now, serving no purpose.

-- Yours truly

Looking within

Most decisions, possibly all, have already been made on a deeper level than the sentence level of mind, and my going through a reasoning process to arrive at them seems at least redundant. The question, "What do I want to do?" may often be a fearful reaction to the unconscious decision I have already made. It's quite different from "What I really want to do?" These questions acknowledge that at any given moment I am experiencing a variety of thoughts and emotions and that I want is a state which is most central to me. If I can experience that then what to do will be obvious and probably will follow naturally.

If I feel angry I don't have to ask what I want to do, because on the level of anger the decision is already in place to make someone feel guilty. And on the level of my core, if I feel love, the decision is already made to act without harming. The question, therefore, is not what to do, but where within me Am I looking.

--Hugh Prather

Reflections, emotions, learning

Certain periods in life become truly golden. Circumstances can pull you into a whirlpool of experiences and reflection. I have been humbled by what all is left unlearned, in the unchartered territories of mind and soul. I am still learning, but even at this moment, I do have something I can share with all.
As individuals and society, we are passing through a phase of extreme personal risk. Traditional social frameworks of protection from toddlers, to adolesence to youth are being subjected to immense challenges. I realize, very painfully so, that as a standard method of learning, there is no education system to build us emotionally stronger and be able to understand and feel these.
I personally, have been very privileged and lucky to reach a certain leadership level in my organization, that the company felt it worthwhile to take me through expensive experiential courses on self actualization, reflection, balance and EQ etc. These were all simulated conditions, but they gave extremely good insight into how mind and emotion works.
Some people are lucky to experience some of this reflective process early on in their life by even a passing adherence to techniques of things like meditation, either according to Yogic traditions, or the buddhist way. Which ever way we choose, an ability to be driven by emotions and yet be able to reflect on it is an art that comes through training. This training of mind is not so difficult. I see a huge difference in response systems of people, who have been trained to reflect and those who are not. Given that this is such a strong determinant to individual and human progress, I am apalled at the little attention it receives in social and educational context.

Many simple examples that make a difference.
If a child cries in front of you, The most typical response is, please don't cry.
Another response is,
that oh, you feel like crying. what happened. First is a self protective response (apathy to child's pain), vs. second one is empathetic. Notice, that in both we are not talking about what action we take to stop crying (like provide him what he wants), but where do we start to converse with him. This difference of response can be noticed by the child very early on and is the first essential training to segregate the desire from the pain of not achieving it.

Or take another example. A constant focus on I, my needs, my freedom, my space, is a quick reminder to the mindset of a small baby who feels it to be truly the centre of universe. While some focus on I and self is essential, if ego boundaries are not extended, it very clearly shows that the personality has not entered the phases of adulthood, which is essential to build in a capacity to nurture and care for others, and loosing the centrality of self in the process.

Experts would be able to give many more. There are so many books written around self help. People read it by bed time and sleep. There are few lucky like me, who go through experential courses. The fundamental question I have is, if unmanaged emotions are the single biggest destroyer of peace for self and society, why is it discussed so much in fairy tales and tv serials, but so little in curriculam and essential learning. To leave this to the vagaries of individual families is too risky a proposition and it needs to become a common knowledge. Why do so few people know about Jo Hari Window, or about Kolb's learning cycle. There may be matters of style, but if we can trickle even some of it, we would atleast buld a certain language of describing and communicating emotions. If we go around and ask, the differences between the words apathy, sympathy and empathy, so few people would be able to correctly differentiate. Infact, empathy is clearly confused with sympathy these days, that one needs to be very cautious when the speaker does end up using it.

Why is it all important and essential to the growing child. We are aware of the risks that surround us (internet, strangers on web, perverted minds and what not). We are also aware of constant bombardment of advertisements, desires, signboards. We are also aware of tv serials that continually dump emotionally high experiences, but no reflection. How does a child know, what is real and what is fantasy in all of this. What we learned in our child hood, just does not apply as a mechanism to manage this influence. Most of the time, our responses to the agony of child are very traditional as our response system has not been taught to handle these. We need to get into a learning phase and understand for ourselves, whether I am the originator of his/her agony, can I deal with it, or do I need professional help. This bit of an ability to distinguish is today key to growing a healthy child.

One common mistake that parents are making today is assuming that the child is maturing in thought process much earlier. This is false. The media is able to make the child act as if he is mature and is able to activate his defenses to ward off the challenge of questioning. The tricks to do this, are becoming pretty well known. I am realizing that as parents/guardians we are often bang on, to identify a trouble, but without some of the knowledge to manage it we either create a disaster by pushing our agenda too early, or under the justification of child's maturity, we go into our comfort zones. None of them is a proper response to the trouble they are in. We need to investigate deep and sincerely before we apply our prescription or seek any help in the areas of child/adolesence/adult psychology. There is this whole domain, that as average otherwise intelligent human beings, we are completely illeterate.

We need to make ourselves aware that we are imperfect to handle all this world is presenting us today. We need to consciously work on learning and training our minds to gainfully react. We need to make our children aware to deal with a lot of this. Many schools are now helping do this, but unless we agree and accept this learning of school and internalize at home, it is a bunch of contradictions staring at child's face.

Why do we need to study psychology. The common thought about psychology is that I am fine, so why should I read. But then why do I read, physics, maths, chemistry. None of them we use. Because we need to pass exam. It is pretty sad to note that we spent hours and hours reading because on fiction,love, emotions and hate, and love to spend time, watching play of emotions on KSBKBT, or MTV roadies or SKS etc, and yet we do so without even going through even a single chapter of reading on emotions. It is sad part of our education system not to do this, but sooner we realize, I think we should catch and read any such book. They are disturbing because they talk about mind and feelings. They make us feel ashamed of who we are, but then so do books on physics and maths, don't do the same, when we are not able to solve problems. Emotions are as much part of our living as much as science is. As much as we cannot drive a car, by understanding what accelerator, break and clutch is (and it is painful to learn a car), so it is living life without going through a conscious, painful focused learning on this.

Why does it pain me. Left, right and centre people love to call themselves committed on social websites. Not even realizing that these are social websites are experiments which are just about 2-3 years old, in an immensely long history of humanity. Do it, but please first read what love is (not from movies, not from fiction but books on reality of how mind works). I would recommend page 69 to 170 from the book "road less travelled". If you feel, it is heavy reading, then I must caution my dear friend, you are in for a heavier time in your lives.

The challenges you all face are very unique to the times we live in. We have not been taught this by our parents, because there lives were never at so much risk, and I also say that even they have serious difficulty managing emotions. Luckily they were given two skills of life, which we were never provided. One is discipline of mind, and second is value of sacrifice. They have lived in a world, with little emotional risk, and where ever they have faced they have leaned on these two. So while they are good at managing themselves because of faith and adherence to values of discipline and sacrifice which are a personal art, they have found it very hard to manage us. We are making serious fun of ourselves, coming in a world that is very tough and real, the moment you come out of laptops and computers without these essential skills of discipline and sacrifice, and without understanding what emotions are.

When I see some of us in pain, My worry is not as much whether you would choose this decision or that. My pain comes, whether it would be a decision based on sincerety to self, inter-relationships, care, grace and a long term happiness, not brought of hate but true love for all. And I am not talking the love you typically think. My definition of love is in page 69 to 170 of the book road less travelled.

When you have learned some of this. You would see your ego expand not at the cost of other's ego, but to include it. You would feel hurt, but would feel sorry for the person in front of you, and won't feel your own existence in question. You would be able to extend your hand of help, without loosing your own security. and so much more.

Some interesting lectures I find on topics related to thoughts here are these.

Guru

If I look back at all the teachers I have had, the ones I have really loved are those that made me aware, and not those that tried to teach me. My periods of maximum learnings have been those when I was made aware of myself and not those, when my teachers took me away from myself and attempted to make me something else, which I was probably not (don't know, because I was not aware).

Guru, doesn't teach. He makes me aware of me, myself and my coherence with the surroundings.

Fears and Freedom

When I look at the generation next, my siblings, I find something strange. They are liberated just about enough to be able to dismiss the fears of the older generations as just old. At the same time they are still not able to get over their own. Why do they find marrying outside of the own caste pretty ok, and yet look for astrologically the right date.Just a thought that crossed me while we got into an intense discussion.

Assertiveness: What is it really

I was in an interesting discussion at home, last night. We were debating what assertiveness is. These debates are useful. Sometimes, articulation of these abstract notions, brings a clarity in thoughts which I would otherwise just leave in the realms of subconscious. Anyways, so here is what I thought.
One, is that need for whatever we call as assertion is always relative. It is with respect to an environment, people or a condition. If these do not exist, the assertion looses it's meaning.
Second, assertion intends to bring about change. This is either in the environment, or in our personal approach with respect to environment.
Third, since the assertion comes from the fact that it would bring about a change, it has to start from an empathy with the current, and an understanding of why it is the way it is. Without this realization, it is not assertion. It is something else.
Fourth, assertion comes from a sense of righteousness. It is not a selfish righteousness. There is an inherent feeling in one who asserts that the net common good would increase if the objective of assertion was met. Sometimes, it may just help me improve my relative self esteem, vis a vis, the rest, but again the objective is that it is important to do this, because it ultimately helps the situation.
If I can consolidate the above in some simple way, it is a statement of a position, derived from an empathy towards a current situation and feeling a sincere need to change it for common good. If the objective of assertion are met, it typically should lead to a satisfaction at a spiritual level. If it is not giving inner happiness, but ends up appeasing a personal ego, it is not assertion but probably, if I may say bully or a win in simplest terms.

Our children, do we care

This was posted long time back, just copied into the new blog. So time references look off...

Not random thoughts. I realized that the more I consume, the less I am leaving for my children. From being a cliché long time back, now when I can associate real faces with the word children, I realize how criminal it is. I feel so proud that the company pays for my fuel, and I guzzle a tonne of it. I have driven more than 70,000 kms already. And I have deprived my next generation of as much.

I came into Houston, last week. I hired a taxi. The driver was an Ethiopian. We had a conversation on things, about Bombay, about why Ethiopian’s run so well in Marathon. But we also talked about the weather in India, and in Houston and in Ethiopia. He said, when he left Ethiopia 26 years back, the weather was so different. They would see the sun but not the heat. But now, when he goes there, the weather feels so warm. The one thing that struck me was that if one country that was not responsible for this, it was Ethiopia. And if I could borrow, some philosophy from Einstein, here is what I thought. If the acts we are doing today, can impact somebody so far off, in a country like Ethopia today, and all of it was happening in space, why would it not impact the things in time. How is that poor country, that is the showpiece of everything that has gone wrong with the way we treat our earth, different from what my own kids would face just a few years from now. If the change has to begin, it has to begin here, it has to begin now.

The answer is not in making the future of our children secure by earning more and providing them more. The answer is in consuming less and less and only what is justified. Having money does not give us right to be indiscriminate on the environment. And if I want to see that the future of my children is becoming secure (going into the future), I would know that if there is a happiness spread in my environment which is powerless to speak. Somalia, Ethopia, Bangladesh, Maldives, Melting Himalayas, Ravaged Amazon forests, Destroyed nature in cities like Bangalore.

It’s not a joke. It’s more real than you think. If you don’t believe what I say, just think about this article and look into the eyes of your child. I promise you won’t be able to because you are killing them.