EXPERIENCE AND MIND- PITFALLS

EXPERIENCE AND MIND- PITFALLS Being aware does not mean learning and accumulating lessons from life;  on the contrary, to be aware is to be without the scars of accumulated experience.  After all, when the mind merely gathers experience according to its own wishes, it remains very shallow, superficial.  A mind which is deeply observant does not get caught up in self-centred activities, and  the mind is not observant if there is any action of condemnation or comparison.  Comparison and condemnation do not bring understanding, rather they block understanding.  To be aware is to observe, just to observe, without any self-identifying process.  Such a mind is free of that hard core which is formed by self-centred activities.  - The Collected Works,  Vol. X",17,Choiceless Awareness - J Krishnamurty.

LIMITATIONS

• ARGUE FOR YOUR LIMITATIONS AND YOU GET TO KEEP THEM.
• WALL IS VERTICAL EARTH.
• IMAGES ARE ILLUSIONS, BUT THE BEAUTY REAL.

• DOES ONE EXIST IN ONE LIMITED PLACE-TIME? DOES ONE EXIST IN THE SAME WORLD AS SAY A WARRIOR  A THIEF, A DICTATOR. ARE THERE DIFFERENT WORLDS FOR EACH OF US?
• FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE SOMETIMES MORE REAL THAN PEOPLE WITH BODIES AND HEARTBEATS.
• YOUR CONSCIENCE IS THE MEASURE OF THE HONESTY OF YOUR SELFISHNESS. LISTEN TO IT CAREFULLY.
• WHAT THE CATERPILLAR CALLS THE END OF THE WORLD, THE MASTER CALLS A BUTTERFLY.
• AS A MAN THINKS, SO IS HE.

GOODNESS; SAINTLINESS FOR MORAL GRANDEUR

GOODNESS; SAINTLINESS FOR MORAL GRANDEUR - Be vigilant not only against sin but against saintliness too.
Many people who had reputation  as a model of moral uprightness, a philanthropist, a champion of less privileged fell from grace for disgraceful acts. Latest example is Rajat Gupta said to have $84 million and best education and positions. He has been convicted for 2 years jail for illegal activities of insider trading.

How could such persons be tempted to commit faults which could cause them to lose all of the fine reputation earned after valuable years of his life. Could it be greed for even more- more of power, wealth, lust, luxuries and so on. Perhaps. 
But could there have been another, more subtle seduction than the lust of even greater achievements?

To be good, and to do good work is admirable. But not if you fall into the trap of admiring the image of goodliness that has been created around oneself and which enhances one's ego, one's sense of self-worth. 
Everyone says that I do great things. Therefore, I must be a great man. As a great man, I can do only great things. Therefore  everything I do must be a great thing, because it is I who am doing it. 
This is the dangerous logic of self-justification, born out of an ego-gratifying public persona that others have created for you and which you have come to believe in yourself. 
A king who had done lot of good work for his subjects and built magnificent places of worship, invited Bodhidharma and asked: 
"What merit do you think I have gained from all this?"
The gruff answer was: "Absolutely nothing."
The outraged ruler then demanded:
"Who is it that dares to speak to a king like that?"
The sage Bodhidharma replied: "A no-one who speaks to another no-one."
With this answer the king is said to have gained enlightenment. He realised that all the good works he had done for his subjects had really been only for himself, for his own glory, for his own sense of ego. And the more he was hailed as the great man the greater grew his ego, his attachment to his belief in his own goodness, which was acclaimed by everyone.
Attachment to moral grandeur of oneself may have blinding effect and motivate wrongdoings and self-justification.
(courtesy - Fall from grace by Jug Suraiya - Speaking Tree TOI)
30 Oct. 2012.

Does the search for experience lead to reality?

Experience nearly always forms a hardened centre in

the mind, as the self, which is a deteriorating factor.

Most of us are seeking experience. We may be tired of 

the worldly experiences of fame, notoriety, wealth, 

sex, and so on, but we all want greater, wider 

experience of some kind, especially those of us who 

are attempting to reach a so-called spiritual state. 

Being tired of worldly things, we want a more 

extensive, a wider, deeper experience; and to arrive 

at such an experience, we suppress, we control, we 

dominate ourselves, hoping thereby to achieve a full 

realization of God, or what you will. 

We think the pursuit of experience is the right way of 

life in order to attain greater vision, and I question 

whether that is so. 

Does this search for experience, 

which is really a demand for greater, fuller sensation, 

lead to reality? Or is it a factor which cripples the 

mind? - J KRISHNAMURTY

The Collected Works, Vol. X",16,Choiceless Awareness

JIVAN KAVITA

જીવન જીવવું 
૧ નવેંબર ૨૦૧૧ ઘાટકોપર , મુંબઇ 

જીવન ઍટલે જેમ સાગર માં જાવું , 
ભરતી માં ના ભારે થાવું , ઓટમાં ના ઑટવાઇ જાવું , 

ઉછળ્યા વીરમ્યા કરે મોજા સાગર માં ,
રામ રાખે આપણને આપણે ઍમ રેતા થાવું .

લાંબા સાથે ના લાંબુ થાવું , ટૂંકા સાથે ના ટૂંકા થાવું ,
છત માં ડિઝની લેંડ સાંભરવું , દુ:ખ માં શીદ ગાંગરવું ,
વસંત માં ના અતિ ફોરમવું , પાનખર માં શીદ કરમાવું ,
મેઘ હોય કે ન હોય આપણે મલ્હાર માં રહેવું ,
ચાંદ ઉગ્યા આથમ્યા કરે આપણે ચાતક શીદ થાવું ,
રામ રાખે આપણને આપણે ઍમ રેતા થાવું .

વિચાર ટપકે કે વહે લેખણી થી, છંદ નો છંદ ના કરવું ,
બારી, દરવાજા ખોલ - બંધ થાય , વ્યોમ માં આપણે વિહરવું ,
સંજોગ વિરહ-મીલન ભલે થાય, આપણે સમતા માં વિચરવું ,
શ્વાસો ચાલે લાંબા ટૂંકા કે જાય થંભી આપણે ના ઉભા રહેવું ,
પરિવર્તનશીલ જગત માં આપણે નિત્ય પર ધ્યાન દેતા રહેવું ,
રામ રાખે આપણને આપણે ઍમ રેતા થાવું .
premji
22 oct. 2012
originally nov. 2011

RELATIONSHIPS- FUNDAMENTALS

The world of relationship
Posted:
Now, there is a different way of working, 
which is to inquire into ourselves and to know exactly what is going on within the field of the mind, not in order to gain some reward, but for the very simple reason that there can obviously be no end to misery in the world as long as the mind does not understand itself. 
And, after all, the world in which we live is not the enormous world of political activities, of scientific research, and so on; 

it is the little world of the family, the world of relationship between two people at home or in the office, between husband and wife, parents and children, teacher and pupil, lawyer and client, policeman and citizen.
That is the little world we all live in, but we want to escape from that world of relationship and go out into an extraordinary world which we have imagined and which does not really exist at all.
If we do not understand the world of relationship and bring about a fundamental transformation there, we cannot possibly create a new culture, a different civilization, a peaceful world.
So it must start with ourselves.
The world demands an immense, a radical change, but it must begin with you and me; and we cannot bring about a real change in ourselves if we do not know the totality of our world of thoughts, of feelings, of actions, if we are not aware of ourselves from moment to moment.
And you will see, if you are so aware, that the mind begins to free itself from all influences of the past. After all, the mind is now the result of the past, and all thinking is a projection of the past, it is simply a response of the past to challenge, so merely to think of creating a new world will never bring a new world into being.
- Jiddu Krishnamurthy
The Collected Works, Vol. X",253,Choiceless Awareness
24 oct 2012

RICH AND POWERFUL - WAKE UP

‎"THE PRICE OF INEQUALITY"
' BY PROF. JOSEPH STIGLITZ, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
The author PROF. JOSEPH STIGLITZ, is Nobel Laureate.
He is one of the few economists who predicted the financial crisis of 2008, and is also credited with starting the "1% versus 99%" debate. He argues that economic inequality leads to instability. He says (and warns) that much of the inequality in the US arises out of rent-seeking- monopoly, exploitative practices by banks and corporate exploitation of public resources. In the Indian context, you will call it corruption but we call it corruption American style, where you give away natural resources below market prices. India is doing it now but America has a long history of doing this.
There is clear association between inequality and instability.
People at the top don't spend too much, (not in absolute terms but proportion of income basis), they save a lot but people at the bottom spend everything.
So you redistribute income from the bottom to the top and demand goes down. That makes an economy weak. That is what happened in the US. We would have had a weaker economy, but the Feds stepped in by creating a bubble that created more demand to offset the demand that was going down. Of course, creating a bubble was creating instability.
Both the IMF and the UN commission that the author chaired came to the conclusion that inequality was one of the major causes for the crises. It is not the direct, precipitating cause that bad lending was, but bad lending was a result of deregulation and the interest rates that were itself a result of inequality. If we don't improve inequality and don't do something else, it is going to be hard to get back to robust growth and prosperity. We are likely to have another housing bubble.
American politics is money-intensive and money-driven. Each of the candidates is expected to spend a billion dollars. When you spend so much, you have to go where the money is, and money in America is at the top. Therefore it is not a surprise that in the campaign you don't hear a lot of discussion about inequality and the 1%.You don't bite the hand that is feeding you in the middle of an election.
GDP IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO MEASURE A COUNTRY'S REAL STRENGTH- In China, if you take into account the environmental degradation and resource depletion, growth is much less that what it seems. You need to debate that in India. your GDP is going up, you have per capita highest number of billionaires but at the same time you have many people in poverty. So the GDP per capita doesn't capture what is happening. In India, the progress in the middle and at the bottom has been less than what
GDP in itself would like you to believe.
FDI in retail in Indian economy-
Wal-Mart is able to procure many goods at lower prices than others because of the huge buying power they have and will use that power to bring Chinese goods to India to displace Indian production. ...Some of the profits of companies like Wal-Mart come from free riding on our society. They don't provide healthcare benefits and assume that the spouses of the workers get healthcare benefits from their other employees or thought some other mechanism. They might not be a good employer.
24 oct 2012

HANDICAPPED JUDICIARY-

WHO ARE INTERESTED AND ARE BENEFICIARIES OF DELAY IN JUSTICE:

THERE ARE OVER FEW CRORES  CIVIL/CRIMINAL CASES PENDING IN THE VARIOUS COURTS IN INDIA. MANY OF THESE ARE DECADES OLD.
MANY ARE SUCH THAT MAXIMUM AWARDABLE PUNISHMENT PERIOD IS ALSO CROSSED AND THE ACCUSED ARE STILL IN JAIL.
(IT IS NOT DUE TO THE COURTS AND JUDGES.
WHO ARE INTERESTED IN CONTINUING SUCH STATE OF AFFAIRS TO KEEP JUDICIARY HANDICAPPED?
WHO ARE THE BENEFICIARIES OF SUCH SITUATION? CERTAINELY NOT THE POOR AND POWERLESS AS THEY ARE LANGUISING IN JAILS SINCE A LONG TIME THOUGH NOT PROVED GUILTY AND WHO WILL ARRANGE FOR THEIR BAILS.)
SENIOR SUPREME COURT LAWYER KTS TULSI IN HIS TALK WITH TIMES GROUP CORRESPONDENT TOUCHES ONE OF THE IMPORTANT POINTS.

HE SAYS THE SUDDEN SPURT IN CRIMES IS AS MUCH A REFLECTION OF THE INCREASING IMMORALITY AND MATERIALISM AS IT IS OF THE DECREASING DETERRENT VALUE OF THE DYSFUNCTIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. IT'S TIME WE STOPPED THINKING IN TERMS OF ILLIBERAL MEASURES SUCH AS ENACTING STIFFER PENALTIES, REVERSING THE BURDEN OF PROOF OR EVEN INCREASING THE NUMBER OF JUDGES.
RATHER, WE SHOULD BE MORE CREATIVE IN APPLYING MODERN TECHNOLOGY TO THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, LEVERAGING OUR COUNTRY'S STATUS AS AN IT POWERHOUSE.

IT'S A TRAVESTY THAT IN THIS SUPERSONIC AGE, WE ARE DELIVERING JUSTICE IN A BULLOCK CART/

WHY DO INDIAN COURTS, FOR INSTANCE, DEPEND ON THE ABILITY OF JUDGES TO RECORD EVIDENCE IN LONG HAND? oR ON SEMI-LITERATE TYPISTS WHO MAKE HORDES OF MISTAKES?

THE OUTPUT OF INDIAN JUDGES IS 25 PAGES PER DAY WHILE THE CORRESPONDING FIGURE FOR THEIR AMERICAN COUNTERPARTS IS 300 PAGES. THIS IS MAINLY BECAUSE AMERICAN JUDGES ARE EQUIPPED WITH HIGH-TECH FACILITIES FOR RECORDING AND TRANSCRIBING EVIDENCE. .... THE APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY TO COURT MANAGEMENT CAN DRASTICALLY REDUCE SCOPE FOR FRAMING INNOCENT PERSONS OR SUBORNING WITNESSES. ...
READ THE FULL REPORT IN TOI HYD. 30 SEP 2012.