PREFACE
Naqs Faryadi Hai Kiski Shokhi-e-Tehreer Ka,
Kagzi Hai Pairahan Har Paikar-e-Tasweer Ka...
This is the immortally celebrated lines of the legendary poet and cult celebrity of Indian subcontinent Mirza Ghalib, who is known to have said it impromptu, in front of the king and patron Bahadur Shah Zafar, reflecting brilliantly on the ‘Reality’ of reality and that of his own life situation. The lines have many shades of meanings embedded in the metaphoric selection of words and syntactic formulation. It sure expresses the twin core realities of human life-living – Depravity of culture and Illusion of reality.
The couplet speaks about how a piece of reality (a sketch on the paper), is standing as an accused, pleading innocence, in front of the court of justice, because someone, just for the sake of sadistic fun or egoism, has filed a complaint against it. The second line insists that the piece of reality, standing as ‘accused’, itself is being presented as ‘true copy’, even when it is wrapped in the muffling dress of ‘paper’. In other words, the ‘Reality’, which is being ‘judged’ for its culpability is being presented not in actuality but as an imagery or metaphor of the reality.
This speaks of the two classical dilemmas and confusion, every human life-living is destined for. First is the ‘Illusion’ of reality, as most of the times, the reality is only a supposed imagery of a reality, missing the details of the entirety and holism of actual reality. It speaks volumes on how hypocritical humanity seldom rises above the instinctive stupidity of ‘accepting’ a metaphor or ‘representation’ as Reality. Second is the ‘externalities’ of the ambient and localized milieus, primarily the elements of populist and predominant cultures, which dictate, who stands as accused-culprit and who runs scot-free as success. The Illusion of Reality and Slavery of Milieu/Culture are the two ever-pervasive elements in the life-living of every person, which is a Scammed Destiny. Sadly enough, even when the person himself or herself thinks he or she is at its Free Will, to make decisions of life, it is actually the embedded and undersurface twin-energy of illusion and cultures that shape and fix destinies. Average person is actually a slave, not a free person. One can imagine, what societies and human systems, comprising these slaved consciousnesses, are and what they in turn facilitate for larger humanity! Garbage in garbage out! And still, not even being aware; rather blissfully upbeat! This presents the probable advocacy for an ‘alternative’ reality for larger humanity…
This is the contemporary position of modern science, which has made great breakthroughs in neuro-science, brain research and Reality in general. Before that, aware and intelligent humans have expressed this bitter and scammed reality through different media of art and literature. This also is not a new knowledge as ancient Oriental philosophy has loads of writings on the same situation, since 3000 years back. This is what Buddha referred to, when he spoke of breaking the walls of his house. This is Unshackling the mind consciousness of the Incarcerating ‘walls’ of Illusion and Culture. We need to first unravel and decipher the twin ideas of illusion and cultures. As is the old and tested methodology for understanding a complicated and tough idea with simplicity and ease, we use a simple metaphor for it. This is something we all are familiar with and practice. However, we need to be warned that a metaphor is never the holism of Reality. It is only for understanding a reality in its entirety.
So, what we do, when we think of making the best use of our vacations and decide to travel to a popular tourist destination? We do good bit of thinking and loads of planning before embarking on the journey. We want to Optimize the joy and satisfaction of the precious vacations and therefore, wish to take into account all possible aspects of the journey and visit to the destination. But then, the core trouble is that we usually do not have any or much Information and facts about the place and the facilities available at the destination. That is why we Pre-Plan and make efforts to have as much information as possible and make preparations suitably.
Someone, who may not like to leave anything on trial and error, may opt for tour package of a renowned tour operator and buy a guided stay and sightseeing, etc. Very naturally, there is good likelihood that everything would go great for this individual and his or her family as everything is handled by corporate finesse and benchmarked standards.
However, another person may like to take everything in his or her hands and not opt for former option. This person shall search online, access reviews of the sights, hotels, restaurants, transport facilities and a whole range of information. This person may prioritize his or her options by risking it on a budget hotel and then splurge the saved money on extending his travel to deeper countryside. In other words, this person may opt for something, which has his or her total and perfect Free Will, in all the choices available and would not like to conform to the ‘pre-decided’ packaged or benchmarked, populist options of his or her travel, stay and sightseeing, et al.
We sure cannot judge and decide on the merit, worth and utility of the two choices made by two different persons. It may be possible that both optimized their joys and satisfaction as per their desire and wish. It may also be possible that one got it right and other not. May be, both end up dissatisfied. In any case, we cannot judge which option is better. Both options had different shades of joys, satisfaction, thrills and even Free Will. Also, both options have probabilities of going right as well as flop. Moreover, right-wrong, satisfaction-dissatisfaction etc, are subjective entities and therefore, objective judgment is does not seem a probability here.
However, if we compare the above situation with our life-living, we can probably be in better position to ‘judge’ the utility-worth of the two options. We are born to specific parents, family, society, culture, geography and history. It is like making a trip to a place for tourism. Given the scale of life on earth, many since ages have considered the time period between our birth and death as ‘vacation’ and people as ‘tourists’.
In our lives too, there are broadly two options – first is like opting for a life-living, value system, faith, beliefs, habits, customs et al, which the parents, family, society and culture ‘packages’ for us. This package is standard, popularly benchmarked one and a settled option; therefore very naturally, this ‘package’ may well be considered ‘safe’ and as most things come as ‘guided’ and ‘pre-planned’, there is no or little personal investment and enterprise of time and energy on thinking and planning. Here, the corporate tour operator is existing popular ‘Culture’ and tour ‘package’ is the prevalent-dominant customs, practices, faith, beliefs, etc. There no doubt is a space for Free Will, even in guided ‘tour packages’, as the person may never ever think he is anyway being ‘guided’ and ‘pre-ordained’. There sure are enough small choices one can make, within this ‘packaged’ inevitability.
The trouble however is, the life-living is a much complex and layered reality than tourism and most importantly, these elements of ‘packaged’ and ‘guided’ embedment is not offered as ‘choice’ to a new born till the age of his adulthood. The tourist however is already an adult and when these packages and guided elements are offered to him or her for his or her free-willed discretion, it is accepted that he or she would make ‘informed choices’. The new born child, as the tourist, has in fact no choice but to take the only and inevitable ‘package’ of ‘guided’ tour, destination stay and sightseeing, compulsorily installed on the mind consciousness of the new born, as he or she journeys into his or her adulthood. A vast majority of people live out their complete life and die, ‘willfully’ adhering to and following the packaged-guided tourism of life-living. They too have small spaces of ‘free will’, as available to a tourist within corporate packages.
The second option in life, as in case of tourism, simply cannot start for a child. It may start only after the new born attains his or her adulthood, years after his or her arrival as ‘tourist’. He or she may think and plan differently than what his entrenched culture, geography, history and predominant belief system presuppose him or her to. This second option of completely free-willed life-living, owning the risks and exploring the ‘realities’ of the destinations and laying his or her own set of rules and routines for the ‘Stay’ at the ‘tourist’ destination called Life, becomes possible only after a certain age of maturity and that too to a handful, to whom maturity comes ‘packaged’ with objective scientific knowledge.
There are very few lucky new born, who have this great fortune to have parents, who raise him or her in a personal-societal-cultural milieus of liberty and self-decision. It is possible and many parents do it. They do not impose their will, culture, customs, faith, belief system, etc on the child. Rather, they inform a growing child of the various options available for choices and let him or her process the Information. The decision can wait but right, true and holistic information about probable shades of realities must always be offered to a child. The evolving brain and mind consciousness of a child may not be in a position to decide with certainty but then, where is the need in most cases to decide? Yes, the parents shall take those decisions, which are generic for all kids like going to school, learning languages, adhering to basic and fundamental disciplines of self-control and respect for others, etc. The specific decisions can wait, till the ‘tourist’ attains knowledgeable maturity.
The core issue here is not about free will or righteousness of choices. We have already talked about how right and wrong or good or bad are not the issue to waste our time and energies on. Reality is always value neutral; it is individual or collective cultures, which assign these subjective elements to a reality. There are larger and more fundamental issues about life-living and cultural ‘packaging’. We now have to come out of the metaphor and enter the contemporary world of humanity.
The larger issue pertains to the hugely non-intuitive understanding and perception of what we accept as Reality. When we perceive Reality as true and right, then only comes the question of righteousness or appropriateness of choices. One very critical element of the holism of Reality is the realism of Time and how average intuitive mind perceives it. In scientific world, ‘Time’ is probably one of the most abstracted ideas the understanding of which the scientists insists requires an evolved non-intuitiveness of consciousness and cognition. This understanding is also at the very core of most realities, which we intuitively see and accept as true and real. The Time, most of us intuitively see and accept, keeps us in Illusion of a vast part of reality, which the holism of reality of Time incorporates.
We need not go into details of time and its non-intuitive aspects. What we wish to talk about is Time may not be considered a linear thing or something that comes and goes. It is very much a constant and enveloping entity. It is like the sky we see, standing under it, always muffling us. The changes, which we usually associate with sky above is in elements that are part of the sky denomination and domain, like clouds, light, darkness, stars, moon, wind, rains etc. The sky remains the same as constant as anything but its visualization and perception changes as elements constituting the intuitive idea and feel of the sky changes. Non-intuitively, the sky above our heads is just a miniscule part of the vast cosmos, which usually is intuitively available for our very limited and restricted visual senses and brain states. The elements constituting the intuitive feel of sky are also restricted only up to a few kilometers of height. Above that the continuity and expanse of sky is constantly singular.
Time is also like the sky, which we intuitively feel as changing but like sky, time we accept, is just an insignificantly minuscule part of the holism of infinite cosmos. Like the sky, the Time is also a reality, contextual to many elements, which are inseparably associated and part of the intuitive feel of Time. Time is felt, as it is to most of us because of the changes that happen with elements constituting it or under its umbrella, like the sky. The situation of earth changes and everything around us suitably changes, linked to the primary change in the diurnal and seasonal changes happening to earth, vis-à-vis the Sun.
Therefore, essentially, when we non-intuitively visualize the idea and feel of Time, we understand that the movement or ‘change’ of time is actually the movement or change of other perceptional elements around us. What Time means? Suppose, there is a place, where there used to be a castle, where ten people lived in the year 1655. A person, who visits the castle in 2021, shall feel the change as there probably would be a crumbling castle or a fading one with nobody living in it. The charm and abundance has also withered away. The person shall feel 2021 and may look at the ruins as vestiges of 1655. The contrast of change makes the timeline well defined. However, if in anyway, the castle remained in the same glory, shine and abundance and the ten descendants of the same family still lived in the same lifestyle and customs as was in 1655, a visiting person in 2021 would ‘feel’ as if he or she has landed in the year 1655. In this case, the timeline gets blurred as change is minuscule or primarily psychological. This ‘feel’ too would be possible because other things changed and this visiting person was born and brought up in the contemporary and changed culture. If this person visiting in 2021 was kept in an isolated jungle, away from contemporary human culture, he or she would not even feel that he or she has been transported to 1655. For this person, there would be no basis to even have the comparison between 1655 and 2021. Intuitively however, a crumbling and dilapidated castle signifies a ‘big change’ and hence the feel of Time-Lapse. Like the sky above, the Time, we intuitively feel is subjectively contextual to changes in elements within the Time ‘sky’. Remove the ‘context’ and the idea of intuitive Time goes away.
The same happens with milieus and culture, in which we are born and brought up. Whether a person and the ambient culture, he or she lives in has the date (Time) of 1655 or 2021, depends not on the flickering pages of the calendar. It depends on the ‘changes’, which the culture and milieu has undergone, in comparison to the ‘changes’ the general and overall milieu and broad human culture has undergone. If we accept this non-intuitive cognition about Time, we can easily accept that Time is not the same everywhere on earth. There are societies, cultures and people still in 16th century, a good part of humanity and their ambient culture still in before Christ period and many lingering in 18-19th century realities. Only a small human population and its ambient cultures may be accepted as living in 2021. This is possible because they have ‘elements’ of those Timeline, irrespective of their contemporary date and year on the calendar. This is the biggest ‘Illusion’ of reality most people live in and are slave of. This illusion simply takes away all semblances of free will and righteousness.
But, the core question is – how can we say, this is 2021 culture? How can we be definitive about current time, when we non-intuitively accept Time as an umbrella and muffling reality and not a linear one? This is important and must be detailed.
Probably, the only single element of human culture, which truly maps the reality of Time, is the function of and ‘contextual’ to the Template of Contemporary Information (collective knowledge pool of humanity). The singular decisive and discerning ‘change’ in the spectrum of contemporaneous information (knowledge) seals the true progression of Time, not in linear arrow but in spherical totality. This is also what evolution probably accepts as progression of Time. This is the element, which stamps its existence on the very entity of perceptional plexus – the human brain. This needs to be detailed and understood in holism.
Suppose, a person living in Manhattan, who has never gone out of New York for whole of his life, is flown to a tribal village in tropical Africa. He would ‘feel’ he has relapsed into timeline of 14th century. Why? Simply because he is used to accepting ‘present’ as a situation, where tall and smart skyscrapers, shining commercial places, well-lighted wide streets, gleaming vehicles, high-tech life-living support system, etc are fixed landmarks. His intuitive perception makes him accept the jungle, thatched huts and muddy pathways, etc as something of a distant past.
Now, take a person from this tribal place to Manhattan and what he feels. Can we match the ‘perception’ and feel of the ‘Time’, the two persons have? They both live in 2021 and both exist on earth at the same date. What is different that differs the sense and feel of time? It is the Knowledge – The Contemporaneousness of Information. It is the singular dimension of ‘change’ that weighs in on Time intuitiveness. Contemporary human knowledge has made a Manhattan and its physical-cultural landmarks possible. The knowledge of humanity evolved, moved and changed since 14th century and now in 2021, it has benchmarked its contemporary knowledge in the form of physical-cultural realities, which we call ‘Contemporaneous’ and it represents the intuitive feel of ‘Presentness’.
To make it clearer, let us compare two different photographs of London in different Timelines. An aware person can tell that one photograph has been taken in around 1940-50s or other is of 2021. Why? Because the two photographs are of the same busy location of London and has images of cars, buildings and people. From these elements of the pictures, one can say they belong to what different timelines as cars, buildings, dressing of people changed over the years. However, take two pictures of Atlantic Ocean or Himalayan Peaks, containing only the ocean waters and snow respectively. Can we still say when the two pictures were taken? Why? Because the element in the pictures are constant! The idea is – intuitive perception of Timeliness is contextual to changes in elements constituting the denomination and domain of Time.
As we have talked earlier, all organisms, millions of them from unicellular to complex animals including humans are One Life – all organisms have singular origin; the DNA that made life chain commence on earth. The mind is also singular. Thousands of organisms, small to big have evolved out of One Brain, which came into existence as organisms became complex and required to move in their ambient milieus for survival optimization. The brain happened as there was this survival need to have a central perceptional processing of complex ‘information’ in the ambient milieus the organisms survived as moving entity. The brain itself creates the intuitive ‘Illusion of Time’, as we humans popularly accept it. This contextual change in Information, which the brain processes and stacks as part of experienced or informed memory, engenders the intuitiveness of Time and its linearity. This surely hints at the probability that we intuitively accept Time as metaphor and not actually Real…
The larger, spherical, muffling and ever-changing external milieu, which every organism is born to, is in non-intuitive Reality, a mega plexus of ‘Information’. Human knowledge, at any point of progression (Time), is only a small fragment of the cosmic ‘information’ plexus. The cosmic reality is a colossal and complex domain of ever-evolving ‘Information’. The information has the Codes of Causalities, which shape up the macrocosmic Reality into microcosmic ones, available to perceptional faculties of hugely limited and restrictive mind consciousness (brains) of organisms. The brain is designed to decode and decipher these codes of causalities, embedded in ‘Information plexus’ of the ambient milieus. This is the primary and essential role of the brain as it is a must for survival optimization of the organism. We can easily see this symbiotic relationship of brain and information processing of the milieus in all organisms, small to big.
It is this relationship of brain and milieus, which create the intuitive perception of Time in its populist form to humans. This in turn stands out as the singular benchmark of ‘contemporaneousness’ of a person as well as a culture. How?
If we accept a non-intuitive perspective, a human baby born either in 2021 or 1221, or for that matter a million years back, begins with singular sense of Time. So, we can say, the timeline for all new born, irrespective of when and where they are born, is always zero. This means, for the new born; be it Manhattan or Masai Mara; the milieu and its culture are irrelevant and non-impacting at the moment of birth. This happens as we can say that the new born has Zero Information. However, soon after the birth, the ambient milieu and its existing popular culture begins to stamp its timeline on the brain or mind consciousness (subconscious) of the new born, as Information creeps in and memories of Information are stacked in brain states. As and when the new born attains awareness of subjective self; this definitive sense and feel of ‘I’, the grown up person accepts the perceptional regime of Time. The ‘context’ has already been formed in his or her mind – one of early memories of experience of Information and other of current Information. It is all about ‘information’, which the brains of different humans receive from their ambient milieus. If human brain or mind consciousness is a soil, it is almost common for all new born. However, whether tall buildings or thatched hutments are erected on this soil depends on the parents, family, ambient culture, historicity and geographical determinism, etc. The date or place of birth of the ‘soil’ does not but the ‘buildings’, which decide the Time for the person. These buildings are metaphors for Timeliness.
Now, what this Time is? If the grown up person, who started his or her life with a zero timeline, acquires and lives up to the entire existing knowledge pool of the humanity available at that point of time, he or she is at the same level of ‘contemporaneousness’, which the humanity at large is. Therefore, his or her timeline shall be the same as in the contemporary calendar of humanity. However, if he or she acquires and practices only that level of knowledge, which collective humanity had in 1221, his or her timeline is the same. The 2021 calendar is an illusion for him or her. This illusion of the larger reality this grown up person shall live till death but the Time shall not change. Simple hypothesis is – Time for consciousness is contextual to contemporaneousness of the holistic Template of Information, at any point of progression of collective humanity.
Timeline evolves as the brain acquires contemporaneous plexus of information of the Reality available to humanity at that point or stage of collective life-living and the mind consciousness suitably lives up the contemporaneous timeline. Human tragedy is that majority of humans are never at the Contemporaneousness of Timeline. They do not have any inclination to upgrade their knowledge domain to contemporaneous levels. Knowledge has never been a priority for human societies and cultures. It is always the handful, who leads and ventures into knowledge pursuits and keep upgrading the collective knowledge pool of humanity. The vast majority of men and women only live and die in illusion of Time – Born in one timeline, yet living in a timeline, centuries back.
The 7.5 billion humans on earth at this point of time and space are in varied timeline – most lagging in centuries and decades; many still in before Christ era of inceptional cultural and civilizational time and space. Though the individual men and women cannot be stripped off their personal culpability; much of the blame is shared by the ambient cultures they live in as these cultures are in a timeline centuries back. The milieu is a huge impact on consciousness. The milieu and its timeline is the localized ‘sky’, the over-encompassing and impacting informational umbrella that muffles individuals under it. Intuitively, they can see only a small part of ‘sky’ and accept it as their ‘universe’. The non-intuitiveness, which can pull them out of the ‘illusion’, is not available to them as this brain-training is not made available to their mind consciousness.
What we are deliberating in this eBook is primarily about the ‘Illusions’ of average human life-living, which the entrenched and generic ‘Intuitiveness’ of un-evolved and untrained mind consciousness engenders for mass majority of humanity. This then entails that we discuss in details about how to develop and engineer this very critical element of non-intuitiveness of the same mind consciousness to break FREE of the illusions and decipher and understand the true Realism in its holism and entirety. The pathway, which we entail here, is that the illusions of the mind consciousness must first be ‘Unlearned’ so that alternative and novel truth and reality of life-living becomes available to our consciousness and cognition. However, in our journey to the Non-Intuitiveness and alternative realities, we shall traverse other domains too and shall make a short stay at various places of worth and utility. This is the true joy of journeying and also the right utility.
As you gear up for this journey, readying to go ahead with this eBook, I humbly request you that you should not burden yourself with unnecessary baggage. Just make a start not bothering about anything. Yes; just keep this small but very worthy ‘tool’ of Skepticism of mind consciousness. Never ever accept what I say and what I propose as a hypothesis. Test everything; doubt and self-explore the veracity and utility of everything with the help of objective scientific knowledge, which contemporary humanity has and is available gratuitously in public domain. If you objectively and scientifically ‘judge’ something yourself, then only you can internalize it. Internalize it but keep it evolving with the evolving knowledge pool of humanity. Be always ahead of the Time, which your calendar shows. This, your non-intuitive mind consciousness shall facilitate and muffle you with joy and satisfaction. Welcome…!
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