Deconstructing Death And The Redesign…
> > > ~ ~ ~ > > >
We are about to deal with an idea, which has its origin over 3000 years back. It sure is tough to visualize a time that far in history but we can understand it and feel it in our consciousness. It was time when there were very few people around and naturally, there was little competitiveness, which we are used to, between people. We can even say that the level of proximity and intimacy between small group of people within a small clan or tribe was far deeper than today. The nature then was wilder and far more intense and people had to always remain in high awareness (alertness) state to pre-conceive and pre-empt any probability that threatened their survival. In such world and life, it becomes so much easy and available to observe even the most intangible of feelings, emotions, ideas, patterns and structures.
Our early ancestors had little distractions of modern and contemporary life. As population pressure on natural resources was very little and needs of life were few, they probably had sufficient quality leisure time. Most wise have accepted; leisure is the pre-state of a knowledge seeking consciousness. In contemporary age, however, where leisure is dreaded, even criminalized and denied with full might of pretentious posturing, it is weird for average person to understand and accept how leisure is so crucial for deep awareness and knowledge processes. Leisure is rather accepted as pre-state of loneliness and avoided.
The poise the early humans in initial civilizations had within and utility they accepted of this precious leisure, led them to be keen observers of every little thing around. They had to because in tough natural state, survival depended on ‘Aware-I’ mode life-living. They could decipher a design, a pattern, a ‘causality’ in almost everything that happened or presented themselves to them.
Human consciousness has the most developed facility of logical-contextual observance and interpolative-extrapolative imagination. These two innate facilities made our ancestors decipher so many patterns in the nature and in their lives. They started to put them into actionable ideas. It is also very natural and we all even today do the same. Those were days, when our ancestors only had the human tools of observations and imaginations as means of corroboration. However, they had the genius to engender such ideas, which were self-evident and self-corroborative in their immediate milieus. They beautifully picked up symbols and metaphors from nature to elaborate and substantiate their ideas. They are part of philosophic and spiritual traditions but actually, they also happen to be the crude resource for scientific enquiry and substantiation.
The ancient philosophy is based not on ideas, which modern contemporary world can label as pure imagination of idle and primitive minds. They can be accepted as observations of realisms, present in the cosmic mechanism and in the microcosm of human lives and the social living of people, who had the most receptive mind consciousness. We have talked about causalities and how any evolved and poised mind consciousness can observe and decipher these patterns of causalities in the milieus – Inside and Outside. That is why the core philosophy seems so self-evident and self-corroborative. The core idea emanates out of a realism, which was, is and shall always remain the ultimate finality. This Finality is Mortality – Death; which we shall discuss here in spiritual-philosophical mode but has scientific insinuations.
To internalize the idea and utility of ‘Mortality’, we need to put aside our consciousness, which is so used to and infested with popular modern ideas and benchmarks. It is a popular way of thinking that death is the end. Classical Indian spiritual philosophy accepted it as the beginning. The core Indian philosophy starts with finality as the initiation of all ideas of life. That is why it is self-evident and self-corroborative. Our worthy ancestors could decipher that even in the definitive and inevitable pattern of mortality; there was overall continuity and immortality, which permeated in the milieus around them. They could decipher that in nature, there were elements, which remained continuous and immortal in totality, even while part of it decayed in cyclic mechanism.
This masterly observation was made available to the genius of imagination and it could be unraveled to them that every life on earth too had core elements, which were continuous and immortal, even when part of it decayed in time. This core observation engendered the idea of two distinct but simultaneous elements of the cosmic realism – the mortal and discontinuous and; the immortal and continuous. They also discovered that within human life too, the same twin elements existed. The body was mortal and aligned to discontinuous cosmic elements but the elemental or generic consciousness, deep within, was immortal and aligned with continuous elements.
The subjective feeling of me, the self as distinct and different from other human being was just a virtual bridge between the twin realisms of mortality and immortality. This core idea became the cornerstone of a philosophy, which is enshrined in the cardinal Indian spiritual system. The yoga philosophy also adheres to this core idea. Yoga in ancient Indian language of Sanskrit means union of the immortal elements within a human being with the cosmic elements of immortality. Yoga is a process of attaining the union of jeevatma (the consciousness of living beings) with parmatma (the ultimate cosmic consciousness). This core idea also led to a belief-system, which decided the ultimate utility and purpose of all lives. Yogic philosophy presents a self-evident and self-corroborative idea of why and what is the true way of living one’s life.
Interestingly; this is what the contemporary, modern and frontier science of quantum consciousness also speaks of. It talks about the continuous and immortal non-local consciousness, which is popularly accepted as soul. This we are not going to elaborate here as it shall create unnecessary bulk of its own. However, what is there to be understood is the commonality of science and philosophy and also; the fact that both science as well as philosophy reach a stage of finality, where the arriving is beyond measurable reality. It is only to be unraveled through very rare artistry of imagination and awareness.
The core idea was tested empirically in the social milieu. The best laboratory to test and validate any idea empirically is the human body-mind mechanism itself. The patterns of human action and behavior corroborated the idea and they finally became a social practice and part of the larger culture of that time. The culture; this core idea evolved, accepted that in life, everyone is naturally inclined to maximize joys and minimize pains. It was accepted that self-welfare is the cardinal goal of life for every living being but this is not an automatic facility for average consciousness. Rather; this is attainable through a very evolved and persevered artistry of self-interface or self-dialogue (aatma-sakchhatkar).
The wise of our civilization empirically observed that living beings are in constant and causative relationship with elements of nature. This nature also exists in microcosmic form within living beings. In nature, there are both mortal and immortal elements. They observed that mortal elements are usually expressed in tangible matter and immortal ones in intangible form. They deciphered that human being could attain their lasting and continuous wellness only when they establish a relationship with immortal and intangible elements of nature and life. The philosophy they engendered says – True And Lasting Relationship Can Happen Only Between Similar And Generic Elements. And, as the true element of body-mind is the ‘immortal’ entity of consciousness, it must always align with immortal elements in milieus for lasting peace and sanity.
This is the idea, yogic philosophy practices in totality and perfection. Yogic philosophy maintains that even the matter shall finally lead to a-matter, tangible shall lead to intangible and mortal elements shall lead to immortal elements. This is because, empirically, true and lasting relationship can happen only between similar and generic elements. The five senses of body mechanism shall initially orient a person to consumption and gratification. However, the same five senses automatically and finally lead to the realization that these consumptions and gratifications are ephemeral, mortal and; essentially painful.
This is self-evident and self-corroborative as every human knows that mortality is inevitable and the ultimate realism. Therefore, the end, the death, the definite mortality is actually the beginning of everything good right in life. Because, death is definite and its inevitability is the single element of righteousness and utility. Yogic philosophy admits it as self-evident for all that all pleasures of body and all joys of gratifications have the inbuilt and inherent energy advocating against it. The energies of attachments and gratifications are entwined with the inverse energies of detachment and renunciation. That is why, within a human being, the desire and will to have a life of absolute detachment and renunciation is as powerful as the desire and will for a life of attachment and gratification.
This has to be understood and internalized. Probably, only humans have this evolved and advanced subjective consciousness to be personally aware of one’s own death. Therefore, every human, as he or she becomes conscious of his or her subjective or personal self, is exposed to this awareness of inevitable reality of death. As death, the definitive mortality and end of life is subconsciously embedded in overall consciousness, it always engenders a parallel and potent sense of futility to all utility, detachment to all attachments and renunciation of all acceptances. Death and mortality creates a powerful advocacy against consumptive and material obsessions, even when a person is at the peak of all indulgences. It happens only to humans as only humans have the required consciousness and it happens because human consciousness alone can be knowledgeable of and experience death. Naturally, 99.9 percent humans have no choice but to stand in perpetual denial and deception of death and mortality and blissfully continue with indulgences, attainments and possessions. This is scam.
The philosophy, which enshrines the ideals of purpose of life as attainment of perpetuity of wellness, therefore extends this empirically self-evident and self-corroborative fact. It says that every human being should consciously opt for a relationship with only the intangibly expressed continuous and immortal elements of nature, both within the nature of the body-mind consciousness as well as the nature outside in physically and tangibly expressed domain. It says that anyone can decipher the practical realism that the flow of energy of gratification is also joyous but it ends up in the finality of pain and emptiness. Whereas, the energy flow of detached consciousness keeps augmenting like a flame in the fireplace, which is self-energized by constant offering of renounced elements of consciousness.
There is this very pragmatic and self-evident realism that the powerful energy of joy in consumption and gratification is entwined with its end in pain and discontinuity. There is this famous metaphor of equating it with the joy of itching. It starts with so much pleasure when we scratch an itch. If we continue with it, it finally ends up in sharp pain and even bleeding in very short time. The idea is that the very core and perennial realization of painful mortality and regret of any gratification joy, even while we are at the peak of its enjoyment is there from the very start. The fruit of gratification has seeds of pain and regret of its inevitable discontinuity loaded within it. The human consciousness is always aware about this reality and therefore, in ignorance, it opts for denial and deception of self. It denies death and continues with pleasurable itch-enterprises. This is scam and primary trade of 99.9 percent.
Yogic philosophy lists three broad types of grief and pain for humans. As it is the essential nature of a tangible gratification element, the person who starts enjoying it has this grief and pain well on in his or her mind that this joy shall finally land him or her in trouble. It is in fact instantaneous. People globally know that more people are dying because of overeating and overindulgence. The moment you overeat, you start feeling uneasy. As is human instinct, there is also a sense of guilt after the action, which we happily ignore and deny but it is stored in the subconscious. This is first type of grief.
The second grief emanates out of the mortality and discontinuity of the very element of tangible gratification. If I have million dollars, I am always stressed and in perpetual consternation that this money I may lose in business or in other way. Worse, the moneys may be robbed or authorities may take it away as tax. Worst enough; I am also unhappy that my neighbor probably has more wealth and better prospect of being wealthier than me.
The third grief is that when I have once got the taste of a particular gratification, it is stored in my memory and subconscious mind. When finally the gratification is no more available to me, its memory becomes an excruciating source of grief and pain.
It has to be clearly understood why and what we are talking about. We are talking about how every matter we get associated with, sparks off intangible feel to it. The feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideology, philosophy et al associated with anything we do and act, are intangible spin offs, which we never ever distinguish as human possessions. This all happens only to humans and it happens because, we are not purely animals and what makes us not purely animal, but a mix of it is the exclusivity of Consciousness. The above-mentioned intangibles are our wealth, our exclusive possessions because as humans we have consciousness. However, this very intangible entity is also our worst curse as we humans are genius in squandering potentials and worth of best of the values. Why?
The complex and layered brain system we humans have; has made this unique Consciousness possible in we humans. Other complex animals also have consciousness but very simple, small and limited one. Human consciousness has evolved in time to reach a level of exclusivity, which is our prized possession but an equally potent tool of destruction and corruption. Our consciousness makes us think, observe and feel in a way, no other animal can do. As we have consciousness, we can sit on the observation of causality around us and can realize a chain of future, which animals cannot. Our evolved consciousness makes us regret, feel and experience. Our consciousness engenders loads of intangibles for us and as consciousness itself is an intangibility, all humans are designed to be ruled majorly by intangibles of feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideology, philosophy et al.
No doubt, we still have a huge animal system under subconscious domain, which works in an auto-mode basis, guided by wired instincts. However, as is the design of our brains and subsequent creation of aware self-consciousness, we humans shall always be conflicted by the intangibles, which our evolved consciousness always throws before us. This is scam of evolution we have talked before. The intangibilities has done us in and it has happened because, we have evolved and complex consciousness plexus, which is exclusive to humans. We are aware of our own death and this cannot be denied. Denying it is scammed cognition. Those who understand and accept death; keep mortality idea at the forefront of their life-living wellness, shall always align with intangibles; especially the best intangibility of Compassion.
That is why, we have no choice but to drop out of the animalistic instincts of survival-optimization based instinctive thinking and shift to consciousness-based aware and thoughtful living, which prioritizes intangibles and not tangibles.
This is what we were talking, when we deliberated about this 3000 year old philosophy. It prescribes that as humans we are designed and destined to remain aligned not with tangibles and matters of consumption but with intangibles like love, affection, compassion, fraternity, association, cooperation, etc. As humans our best possessions are not tangibles of moneys and wealth but intangibles of thoughts, ideas, experiences, imaginations et al. Our body make-up may instinctively assign us to indulgence with tangibles but as we humans are not purely animals; we have consciousness, we are split and shall always be conflicted and confused with tangibles. Indulgence shall always fill us up with regret, fear, anger et al. That is why the righteousness and utility for humans is intangibles.
It is the consciousness, which essentially creates this feeling of ‘I’, ‘Me’ or ‘Self’ in humans. This feeling of self is exclusive to humans and is a definite intangible. Very naturally, it is not animalistic and should not associate with anything animal. Humans are defined by this perpetual realization of the feel of ‘I’ and therefore, humans should always align with intangibles. This is our design. Now the next thing is to understand, why this design is a great possession yet our worst enemy.
As we have consciousness, we are troubled as it makes us decide things on the basis of thoughts, faith, imagination, beliefs, etc, which are all intangibles. Consciousness creates this exclusive sense of ‘I’ or ‘Me’ – a very personal domain. This subjective or personal sense and feel of ‘I’ or self is so powerful media that it accepts all realities only through subjective and personal prism. This creates plurality of reality. Every human being perceives and accepts everything from the perspective of his or her subjective/personal beliefs, thoughts, faith, imagination etc. This in turn creates conflicts between people. That is why there is this singular express need for knowledge of Reality for every human as this alone shall qualify him to be human.
We are born with this design of consciousness, which makes us very distinct from all other animals but this consciousness is a huge trouble because of its association with intangibles as it creates different realities for different people. Therefore, having consciousness as our design essentially scams us; making us half animal and half human. This half animal and half human shall always be the most corrupted and dangerous species in Universe. All of us are born with a scam of evolution and as we grow and mature, we need the holistic knowledge of Reality, so that we de-scam our consciousness and all humans could have singular basis of intangibles. This humanity has never done and that is why this human world remains a mega theatre of scams, scammed cognitions and scamsters.
So, what we are trying to arrive at by mentioning this idea about Mortality and Death, which classical spiritual philosophy has documented well, is the causality between tangible and intangible. Our consciousness has scammed us and it has exposed us to a subjective and personal sense of ‘I’ or self. It is very natural that our consciousness is always aware about our death and mortality. We are aware of our own reality. However, as we are essentially our consciousness and it is invested in intangibles, we must have complete and holistic knowledge of Reality and never ever accept part reality. We need to be very skeptical of our feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideology, philosophy et al as they have the propensity to be subjective and personal. Reality is always objective, singular and a-personal. We also must be brave and confident enough to accept Reality in its holism and entirety.
Not only death; we need to accept all realities singularly and objectively. There is no other option available. Our consciousness has left us with no option. Every human shall be aware of Realities and feel unsettled. However, we all have to ensure that we do not stand in denial of any reality, including death and progress continuously on the journey of knowledge of Reality. This alone shall help us remain in stable and sustained homeostatic equilibrium, physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically and spiritually.
The primary empowerment for all of us is Acceptance. Realities, not only death but all infinite ones, which human life is encircled with, are not only inescapable and unchangeable; they are also very much randomized probabilities. This is first acceptance, which is the toughest one but also option-less. Denials and deception of Realities land us in worse situations than acceptance can ever put us into. Acceptance is the smart choice and also the only choice. Only acceptance can open the doors of compassion of consciousness. It then can make things easy.
Second acceptance has to be about the situation and position of an individual life – I, You or anyone. An individual is not even a dust particle in the vastness of the universe. The Earth, we live on may poorly qualify to be compared as a dust particle, when we consider the colossal expanse of the cosmos. Therefore, second important acceptance is the Humility that you, me or we do not matter in the macrocosmic scheme of things. At best, the entire millions of species on Earth can at best be considered one unit of cognizable Reality, in the infinity of cosmic mechanisms and processes. This humility is the critical element for compassion to sustain and last in consciousness.
Third acceptance is about purpose and role of the life of an individual. The very humanly designed definition and perception of the terms purpose and role is the seed of most of the troubles of human lives. However greatness you achieve in your short life of 100 years, first, it is such a negligible bubble in the life of the universe. Secondly, what is the use if you are not anyway aware of the feel of greatness and the possible accolades, as you are already dead. Thirdly, may be a bunch of people shall remember you as great for few years, which is nothing considering the lifespan of Earth; still, there shall be another bunch of people, who shall abuse and despise you as greatness of all sorts are always good for some and bad for many. We can see it with contemporary greats of humanity. Also, indulgence and consumptive freaks to ‘enjoy’ life as much, before death comes calling, is far greater a stupidity. All consumptive and material joys and satisfaction are designed to last only for a few moments. The ephemeral nature of joys is also inescapable reality. You can never have enough and lasting joys of great food, sex, et al. The ‘Itch-Reality’ is another dimension of the joys, which we have talked earlier. Regrets shall always chase you, deeper you step down into the abyss of consumption and indulgences…
The last and most crucial acceptance is about the design of our own body and mind. When we understand and accept the three core elements of Reality – Milieu, Media and Communication, we can clearly see, what single factor is at the core of all our troubles and how we can solve them all, without any external attainments and possession of life and living.
We have to clearly understand that we humans are different from all other species on Earth in only one way. It is Consciousness. This consciousness in we humans is the worst Scam of the evolution. It should never have happened! Humans should never have happened and worst; Consciousness should never have happened in them. But, it has happened and this single eventuality has sealed the fate of Earth and all species, including humans. Humans happened, consciousness happened and initiation of extinction of all lives in definite future happened. This Consciousness is the Scam – it is the evolutionary outcome of hugely entropic propensities of cosmic construct. Therefore, no human, can escape the inevitability of the extremities of pain, grief and misery in his or her lives. But, denial and deception cannot anyway help us. Only acceptance can help.
There is one single option for all of us to understand it, accept it and then, use this scammed facility called Consciousness to design such a personal model of Milieus, Media and Communication, to minimize pain, grief and misery and; also, optimize peace, poise and prosperity. For this to happen, the singular preparation is to accept the utility, worth, fruition and finality of Compassion. Compassion alone begins the journey of Readiness for peace, poise and prosperity.
The simple and straightforward reality is – we are humans because of consciousness and this consciousness has innate and entrenched mechanism for entropic probabilities. It is primarily because we humans are aware about self as well as the reality of death and mortality of self. The animals are not. This self-awareness has huge entropic propensities, which we all know. Therefore, from the very childhood, every human child must be assigned to an educational and knowledge regime, which prepares him or her to have sound, objective, logically correct and singular acceptance of Reality. Education and knowledge has no meaning, rather it is dangerous for the individual as well as entire humanity, if it does not prepare a growing up child to be knowledgeable about singular Reality. Tragically, this has never happened in human world and that is why the human troubles have now gone beyond correction.
However, an individual can still do well if it understands the Reality and the centrality of Consciousness in the lives of humans. We all need to understand, our consciousness must be in peaceful milieus, it must be empowered enough to act and behave as poised and objective media and needs to have right communication with all milieus, within and outside.
When our consciousness is poised and loaded with objective knowledge of Reality, we shall feel and behave more compassionately. When compassion shall become our first instinct, very naturally, fear, anger, attitude and denials shall begin to fade away and finally, even the worst of Reality shall not unsettle us. Rather, all such realities, including our own death shall become far more acceptable and less traumatic.
As we said earlier, Reality is inescapable and unchangeable. What can change, we must change. What can change is the cognition of the same Reality. Life-living purpose, utility and worth are all about our cognition. Life is how we accept it. The world is how we take it. The purpose-utility-worth is what we accept as. Reality is what and how we accept as. What we insist is that Reality is what it is but it is unraveled to us in a way, our Consciousness construes as a media. Naturally, our cognitions can change if we change our consciousness.
Therefore, ultimately, it is the consciousness, which is our worst enemy as well as the best friend. What we have to do is to have holistic knowledge of how our consciousness works and how this media of consciousness can be skillfully used and utilized to optimize peace, poise and prosperity in our lives. As we have talked earlier, our consciousness has stood us miles apart from all other species on Earth. Therefore, we surely cannot behave and act as animals do. No doubt, major part of our brain design has evolved out of the billions of years of evolutionary chain of animal lives. Naturally, major part of our instincts is animalistic. This is our trouble.
We are neither purely animal nor born purely as human. We however, can grow and mature as humans; for which our mind consciousness has specific design.
Every person must understand this dualism and the trouble it triggers in human lives. We have evolved out of very long chain of evolution from different animal lives. Our body and brain has good majority of parts and organs very similar to animals. The trouble however happened very late, probably some 10-15,000 years back, when consciousness finally blossomed into its contemporary shape in humans. The mechanism for evolution of such a consciousness was however building up since many thousands of years back. This consciousness, which we humans became packaged with, did us in. The scam happened with us. We became the scam. We could not be pure animals but also could not qualify as humans by birth. Such is the design of the consciousness that it rides over the same animal structure. Therefore, every child born is just a potential human being; not an automatic one. He or she needs long and sincere knowledge training to de-skin the animalistic instincts and evolve as pure and genuine human being.
That is why; there may be 7.5 billion people on Earth but only a handful are purely and genuinely humans. Over 99.9 percent of this population is varied mix of animals and humans. It is only natural that these 99.9 percent of global population would largely behave mostly like animals; only partly and occasionally as humans. It is therefore clear that most of these 99.9 percent population would manifest animalistic behaviors like fear, anger, attitude, denial and deception. Only compassion is the pure element of consciousness of a genuine human being and that is why it is so rare!
Therefore, it is simple and clear that solution of all troubles of humanity is in being human. Human world with 7 billion dangerous and hugely powerful half animal-half humans is much beyond point of return to sanity. This world we live in is very predictably on its way to deeper and expansive stupidity, hypocrisy, insanity, destruction and definite extinction in the long run. However, an individual can design his or her own personal model of peace, poise, sanity and prosperity, if he or she accepts this express need to be human; unravel the design of consciousness, decipher the singular Reality of the cosmos and align himself or herself with such elements in external milieus, which are immortal, continuous and intangible.
**