Life

The Order

I remember not being able to articulate the ṛ phoneme, and so when the old man said, “ṛtaṃ ca satyaṃ ca,” I said, ’litam ca satyaṃ ca."(4) I must have been four or five. I never thought of what they meant. I was supposed to sing these old songs so many times that every cell in my body was supposed to savor the memory. It was not reciting the mantras but reliving the recollections of hundreds of generations.

I have often failed to capture the dynamism when balancing myself in satya. It is as if one slips away or fades away when I embrace the other. Yāska could capture both, as he saw materialization as completion of the dynamism that makes action possible. Some notice the flow and the others the water; some see matter and the others, energy. Old man saw both. And so he was a paradox for all. He was at the same time attached and completely detached.(5) When he told me how to plant corns, he was teaching me how to be a teacher.

There, I believe, is an order of things, the way they are. This does not mean that I have to like it or accept it. I may be the extension of ṛta that was ought to be maintained, and I may strive to maintain it, this does not mean that ṛta could not have consolidated into matter.

Kālidāsa saw life as an aberration and death as the natural course. For three decades, old man waited in the porch, in front of the shrine that he built for meditation, counting hours and days, for no time, negation of being, of non-being. And he told me one day, his waiting has been over. Even though I now can differentiate ṛ and l, I am still mixed up between ṛta and satya. May be one day he will teach me more when we meet again.(5)

horror house

if you are divinely inspired, the best thing you could do is to write horror stories so real that every reader gets nightmares and finds it hard to come out of them. look around yourself, look what god has achieved. this is the only way you can make god jealous.

Lyft

I woke up with a non-stop ringing just to realize it was my son who was supposed to arrive from Seattle last night. I checked time and it was one in the morning. His flight was arriving at midnight and so he was kind in telling us that he will take a Lyft. We were meant to see each other only in the morning. The story I heard from Gayatri and Ishan completely woke me up. And like many of my stories, this also touches the boundaries of the real and the surreal.

The elderly lady who picked him up and other passengers started driving in different directions, entered the wrong way, and drove through different lanes without a seat belt. She stopped in different gas stations but insisted someone else has to fill up the tank. While the passengers were unsure what to do, she told them the story of how she killed a guy three months ago in a car crash and it was not her fault. And she threatened the passengers that if anybody were to write a negative review, she knows their address.

Not knowing what to do, Ishan ran when the lady stopped the car for another passenger. In the middle of the night, he ran several blocks so that the crazy lady does not follow.

The maple tree

I cannot miss this lonely maple tree as I walk to the class. The screen of consciousness as if remains blurred while going to the class but when I return, the tree appears again; this time more pronounced than before. This may be the only tree to tell me about the fall, the dark red that I encountered while in Weimar and in St. Louis. A leaf falls as I walk by, as if summoning me to stay for a while.

Many seasons have passed since I have stopped noticing the change. Life is not even a stream but just a routine;(5) all we do is repeat the life that we once lived decades ago. This makes life bearable as we can sleep-walk through the reality. We have already plastered smile to our face and have swallowed the poison of life, there is nothing confronting us to evoke the core of our being. And we have comfortably conditioned our being with the chores that we live for. This maple tree wants to shake my core, to make me recall the days when I used to encounter the seasons and when I used to fly in the fantasy land of my own creation.

The life we have carved has no seasons. This flows forever till it stops altogether. We are blind when it comes to noticing the recurring events, the cycles that the pagans celebrated in their ecstatic ayahuasca dance. We have the timers; we have digitized time as it helps us forget the recurrence. This helps us live in the fantasy that all that surrounds us is completely new. If not from our clinging, this helps us achieve nirvana from our memories.

But there stands a lonely maple tree defying the stream, mocking the routine. And the fallen leaf confronts me as if a mirror. The leaf is too heavy for me to carry, as this is sapped with the memories from the past. I escape the maple tree as this is much easier than to drive again through the streets that I walked long time ago.

The coral tree

I felt for over a week I have lost something. Because I could not identify what it was, it made the loss all the more unbearable. Forgetting is not just the lapse of the memory of some objects; it is a loss of part of yourself, the part entangled with another time. And the loss of yourself, a part integral to you, causes grief. This is a different type of grief; this is a non-directional grief. The grief that I myself do not know what for. There is just darkness, but I am not grieving the presence of this darkness. This darkness is merely a signpost for what used to be there.

The other evening, I realized the coral tree that used to be there in the next block corner was no more. And then I saw the first light. It was the loss of the coral tree accompanied with my lack of awareness of it being removed that was dragging my being. I know the coral tree is gone and I know my memory will also fade away, I just needed to realize it for one time before its being was erased. We both deserved a farewell.(5)

The First Day

My first day of school was also the first day of the school itself. We were some twelve kids with three teachers. I do not recollect any of their faces but vaguely remember the names. Since there was no school building, we were gathered around a giant Pippala tree. Class one, literacy; Class two, advanced literacy; Class three, more literacy. Since they only had three classes, they dumped me in the third.

I believe one teacher opened a restaurant later for a living. There was another teacher who wore a wrist watch and had a horse. At the end of the day, he challenged me to recite five chapters from the Vedas, and upon completion, he gave me his day’s earning.(5) My father was not happy about the episode, as he thought I was betting on my knowledge and squeezing teachers.(4) The next day, he made me return that money.(5) There were some rocks for us to sit but the slope in one edge was very steep, making me giddy.

I found no passion in the class as I already knew what they were teaching. All I could think of was the transparent waters flowing in Thopal whispering into my ears, daring me to run out of the class and dive deep. Mango trees loaded with green fruits down the slope glittered in the sunlight, making my mouth water.

Reflecting back, I love this day for teaching me apoha, negation. Schools are not there to teach us something new. They are there to teach us negating our being and to look for the idea of freedom by negating freedom.(5)

Spiritual Activism

I have been closely following the postings of some of my friends and I read the comments from some friends as to why should a teacher, a philosopher, or a visionary bother what is happening in the mundane world: this has always been a messy fish eating fish world any way. I lived in the same mindset for a good part of my life. I have come to the realization that silence and retrieval to the cave is not an answer. I for one do not speak to influence others and I mean it. I have not even written my books to influence people. This is not my model. I have no missionary zeal. Writing is a mode of speaking, and speech is thought in crystalized form. I speak because it helps me become what I want to be. I have to speak because the inner me expresses through speech. And through my speech I constitute myself.(4) My activism help me realize who I am and the ways I can discover my higher being.

Train of thought

It takes some seven hours in train from Yajnakarta to Malang. That is contingent upon the train not halting in the middle, not moving back and forth, among infinite other possibilities. It is strange that we choose one reality among so many possibilities. Living in possibility is being in its pristine form. Reality is dreaming one dream at the cost of dreaming through possibilities.

In some moments, the now converges with the dream reality of the past and the future, and I wake up to find myself in the train surrounded by family. But I soon dive into another mode of time that is no time in the sense that that is perpetually here, colliding with now and running as its shadow, the past and the future I mean. I go back in time to my childhood and dive deep into the future of finding myself at the end of the rope, and actualize this now as construed in no time: the moment I notice it, it evaporates. The only time that exists is the time that does not. If now is the time supposed to endure, it by default cannot endure and therefore what I grasp, by the time I grasp, is its absence.

In the past and the future, I see dreams. The dream of the boy at the hotel in Yajnakarta who wants to be an engineer, the dream of the girl at the train station who wants to be a model, the dream of the farmer working in the field and the dream of the buffalo grazing in the swamp. When I encounter a crowd, I confront one million dreams. So many dreams, everybody is rushing towards actualizing their dreams. The people deprived of their own script, their own culture, their own means of actualizing their subjectivity, are given dreams or the empty case of dreams. I have also had dreams. I know how dreams are expensive, how dreams are heavy, how dreams are fiery and engulfing. In the train of thought, I encounter some of the abandoned dreams, some of the half-actualized dreams, and compare them with the dreams of the crowd. So little these people know that they are not supposed to carry a dream. That their dreams are orchestrated by the meta-dreamers that parasitically live on their dreams, and there is a series of meta-dreamers that ends with the orange monster carrying a giant swastika (← Trump). So little these dreamers know that almost hurts me. A naughty kid comes bumping onto me in the train and I come back to reality. I ask him to read, and he says, a, b, c, d, e. He has apparently finished his education. I can see pride not just in his eyes but also in the eyes of the parents. I am very familiar of this pride that I have seen in Bangelore and Kathmandu.

I confront my youth or its shadow left behind by the time that has swallowed most of my being. I see some dissolving faces of friends that once were inseparable from the core of my own being. I come back to now, the now that keeps expanding and enveloping the totality of being for brief before it absolves into the oblivion of the world of the other series, the series of the past and the future. All I see is dreams, some dreams that I had personalized and some others that I believe belong to others, I have given some dreams for them to dream and they have given some for me to live with. So many dreamers and so many dreams; I wish we were not deprived of actualizing them, to fill them with our being and be inside those dreams. I wish the kid could offer a dream to have a dignified life.

Deleuze and the Himalayas

He has deluded me twice: once I lost Different and Repetition and purchased a new one. I had only finished introduction and conclusion. I got a new copy and someone took it. And then, in one fine morning the book appeared in a corner of the shelf. I was not sure whether it was a copy or the original, the original simulacrum I mean. I saw my notes and convinced myself that it was the original. This time, I wanted a company of Deleuze while climbing the Himalayas. I also needed to compare the height of Deleuze. Wrapped in a backpack and wrinkled in different angles, poor copy gave me its company all the way till the base camp. And I did try to read it even in Gorakshep while gasping for some oxygen.

My first breakthrough was then, while struggling for every new breath. Each breath had its own originality, its newness, and it was not a shadow of the first breath, each repetition filled with new life. Oneness has perplexed many, and most have failed to recognize inherent difference. It is like failing to observe the crevices and the slopes and simply seeing mountains as a mountain.

But then I lost the book at the airport. It was a bit chaotic and I was over-exhausted upon return. Like an apparatus, the book appeared on my doorstep once again. I can see it aging, we have aged together, I mean myself and DR. There is a real difference between these two losses that they were not. I was not aware of when and how I lost it, when it happened the first time. I had a specific date and place for the second loss. Each finding has its own originality; it is not a simulation of the first; each experience is unique, the felt dimension of bliss authentic and new. Being happy for the happiness felt in the past is still being happy.

Tallness of a mountain or the depth of a book are ought to be felt. Mountains are not tall on their own; they are just mountains without names and concepts.

Kalidasa and Arab

Exiled in Ramagiri, Kalidasa suffocated. More than him missing his beloved that sparked the flare of love and as a consequence, the exile, he felt he had lost his soul by being away from the Himalayas. Had he not composed erotically explicit songs and not caused public gossip, Vikrama had kept his blind eyes when it came to the courtly affair between the queen and Kalidasa. Vikrama knew well that Ramagiri would teach Kalidasa a good lesson, as there is nothing more painful than to be chopped off your extended body that envelops the Himalayas.

Hidden from the public eyes, when Kalidasa climbed Namche and encountered the Himalayas in their most glorious morning shine, he uttered: asty uttarasyāṃ diśi devatātmā | The queen, he knew, was a fluke. Himalayas, on the other hand, were interpenetrated with his being. Touching the big rocks, he uttered, father, let me have the sight of your charming daughter, Kaushiki. And Kaushiki as if chased him with her melodious sound. Her glorious hairs scattered in the rocks curled and resonated the dance of Shiva.

The higher Kalidasa climbed the more engrossed he became within nature. Forests changed their show and snow-caps frequented. Longing in his soul to merge with the “Divine Soul” that he called the Himalayas, he continued his journey.

One day, he met Arab on the roadside, perplexed and helpless with his sick wife. Unaware of modern contamination, Arab and his wife drank waters from the fountains and became ill. And elevation did not help either. It is then that Kalidasa’s medicinal wisdom became useful. Arab and Kalidasa became the best buddies for the rest of the journey.

During the last camp, Kalidasa started his prayer, composing love songs in praise of the Himalayas. Arab recalled his God. Next to Arab was an American couple. Taken aback, Kalidasa noticed the horror the couple felt. The poor guy even dropped off his fork and was literally shaking, turning even more pale. In other occasions, Kalidasa would have laughed but after the exile he had become somewhat sensitive.

Only Kalidasa and Arab can understand each other. They both have no desire for themselves: Kalidasa wants to be connected to the mountains and Arab to his God. They are not there for the glory of climbing, or for some cardio. Kalidasa does not repeat the same songs, he is like a flowing river. Arab likes only one song. At the end of the day, they both are singers. They both love. And they both cannot anticipate much in return, as one is in love with rocks and the other with the rock-maker.

Ever-rest Dog

I did not know whether it was dead or alive. It was sleeping alone on a hilltop rock in the chill of Pheriche morning. As if summoned by Bhairava, it stood up, wagged its tail, and started following us. It climbed uphills and downhills and crossed the bridges alongside us. Sometimes it greeted a dog company or two, but most of the time, it escaped the entire village by walking through the forest to catch up later. For an hour, I would think the poor dog stopped following us and it would dart out piercing the shrubs. I shared some biscuits, the only thing that I could. When I stopped to filter water, it realized thirst and when I snacked, it felt hunger.

Our climbing down from Tyangboche was already late and the lady that fixed our lunch took two hours to serve some noodles. No matter how quickly we rushed, it was dark by the time we started climbing up before getting to Namche. In the forest, there were two occasions where the dog noticed some beasts and stared barking wild. At one time, he even stepped back and demonstrated fear. But when he heard me howling, he electrified and joined me for the chorus.

When we finally reached our destination, I wanted to say farewell to our beloved companion. But he had left us without saying farewell. I felt sad that the friend who walked with us for 14 miles was nowhere to be seen. In my dream, I saw him again. This time he was tired climbing uphill back. I yelled at him for not waiting. He seemed dying. Luckily I had my bottle for me to spare some water. It was happy I came back and gave him some water. I gently lifted its head and then woke up.

Monjo’s genius

Monjo is some ten kilometers from the Lukla airport. Although there was still some daylight, clouds were gathering and we could hear some thunder. “We have to call it for a day” said one kid. There are two dozen homes making Monjo a town. Before we could decide which hotel to enter, a Buddhist nun looked at us and said, my cousin has a hotel here. The hotel was not any particular, as the rest of the hotels during our stay were more or less the same. What makes us recall this particular one is the hotel owner, a middle-aged Sherpa, deaf by birth, who never gained speech.

With some sounds mixed with signs, he loved conversation. His wife had to mostly translate between us. I had to double-verify everything, for I wanted to make sure that I understood them properly. What thrilled all of us was the heartily nature of the couple in keeping us engaged. But what I found astounding was the fact that the hotelier had himself designed the lodge, mostly did the labor work himself, and moreover, learnt to install the solar plants and himself installed the plant, and does all the necessary electrical fixing at home. The food was good, and we took one of the best showers before starting the journey next day.

Partly to verify the facts, I shared the Monjo station experience up in Namche and even in Lobuche, and the hotel owners there confirmed not just the narrative but also that he has recently built another hotel in Lukla. He may be one of the brightest persons I have ever met in my life.

Udayana

I am reading Udayana these days. He devotes the first chapter of his “Insights on the Category of Self” to examine Time and Causality. I was shocked, surprised, and confused to find out in my dream last night that I was reading the very last page, and I had read all Raghunatha had to say, and all Shamkara Misra had to say, and all Bhagiratha had to say, and all the rest of the commentators had to say. I woke up questioning myself, how could I have the chapter on time finished?

Consciousness

Suśruta maintains that consciousness manifests during the fourth month of pregnancy and the mind evolves during the fifth month.

The garden

Just a month out and the season is gone. I had to take care of myself too, but time does not wait for me. The week I went out was pretty busy and I could not prune the guava that gives fruits for six months and the pomegranate trees that give the best fruits and also the apples. Mangoes and jujube do not need pruning but the other trees do. And it is too late now as they are already blossoming.

Plants do not need pruning. This is simply a human anticipation imposed onto them. There is no teleology for being a plant. Plants just are. They do not need deadheading or grafting for their purpose. This is not how the nature taught them to live. But for me, it matters when two different guava varieties cross-pollinate and the flavor is mixed and uniqueness is obscured. I was welcomed by a tall guava plant and the giant pomegranate bush upon my return. In my absence, they had grown pretty fat.

I do not know if plants appreciate my love for them, as mostly I am simply cutting off the branches here and there and trimming the tops now and then. If I cannot make my brothers listen to my whims, why should these plants accept my request to have them be trimmed? We only talk about the hardship of parenting children. We do not feel the pain they undergo when we stop them from climbing tall trees or sliding down the hill.

My friends say I have a green thumb. I do have thumbs but not sure if they are green. Plants do not talk back and we humans have our ways of conditioning other’s reality. If I am not content with the reality that is given to me as mine, why should my brothers or children be content within the reality that I have tried to impose on them? These plants only know how to grow. They have no plans for the upcoming days of hardship. Horticulture is about studying life and its interrelationship with others, the others that are silent, the others that have their own desire to express themselves, the others that we believe cannot make their own decisions at times and we make the decisions for them. And at times, they suffer. Like the Rudraksa plant that I have left outside, or the little bilva sapling that could not endure this winter.

I am used to potting so that I can maximize the space. The backyard I have can be occupied by two plants and I want tens of them grow together. Plants compete but unlike the politicians, they do not cut the deals and sell their dignity. They continue to express until they have to abruptly halt. I have tried to manage the space for mango or guava so that they can make the best of the limited space. But I hate topiary; I have not tried to micro-manage. There were times when I had to cut some major branches and I know my actions were wrong. And I had to transplant some of the saplings just about the time they felt comfortable in their tiny pots. I told my friend, it would be like keeping a whale inside an aquarium. But repeatedly I had to force them out of their comfort zones.

As I look through the window and see the off-shaped plants in crammed space, I look back and find my own ego, my own inability to act on time. I will not be here forever but if these plants are not properly trimmed, they will be uprooted as I depart. We these days consider a waste when we water our plants. I am glad I know these plants and I am glad I have known them since they were little saplings. Plants are not fake so they do not express thanks. Plants are real because they just are and are not trying to prove or be something that they are not. I only wish I had the heart to pick up the snips one more time. But this is getting late; evening is enveloping the sky, and I know my time is finite. But I only wish these plants felt the care and the love that I shared in the language of pruning and trimming and cutting. I have been told that plants do not feel pain. If they did, they would also feel the love that I shared in their company and they would forgive me for my intrusion in their lives and my efforts to shape their lives the ways I saw them fit.

Cardona

Cardona multiflora is a rare plant, with the size similar to Phyllanthus emblica. Revered as an embodiment of Ixtlilton, the god of medicine, the Aztecs revered the shrines of Cardona. Now found mainly in India, there is no trace of it left in the lands once ruled by Nahuatl, and even the myth that this was brought by Indrajit to earth upon his victory over the Aztec gods is hardly known. If you have met a herbalist, a Vaidya, you would know how we try everthing for everything and if the patients survive the process, the last herb is given the credit. In the ancient manuals like Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya, Cardona is prescribed for speech therapy. An ancient sage herbalist even said, vāṅ-malānāṃ cikitsitam, the medicine for speech related defects. Now the Indologists have given a more accurate translation and they believe this must be for throat diseases. Unfortunately this is not found effective.

Now they have shrines to worship Cardona. The plant has lost its real significance but is revered for supernatural purposes. They mainly use this to combat lovzihad and other modern plagues that haunt the software engineers.(4)

I was pleased to see the basin surrounded by four rivers upon my trip to China. I was mostly impressed of its herbalist for identifying the genus and categorizing the plant properly. I saw some fragrant blossoms of the tree and I could even count some new saplings, teeming with life hanging in the garden of Lao Xi. When I sat under the tree, I heard the voice as if coming from the tree, why shall I do my studies? And an answer came back reverberating my being, I shall study because that is what I constitutes my being. And the wind kept blowing and the tree kept singing some archaic songs. I wish I could capture all the Cardona songs.

Battling for life

Life

Battling for life, a friend asked me yesterday, why should she be attached to life so much, specifically when the body itself seems crumbling. Since death is inescapable and the entire struggle for life seems prolonging the battle, it does seem at times that the fight is not worth. I could have invoked Shastras or could have played emotion card, I did neither.

To tell you the truth, I myself had to deal with this question. Not because of illness in my case but rather being subjected to repeated violence, I did question the value of our obsession for life. There is one naive attachment to life, a basic biological instinct. I do not call this love for life, for this is just the way nature has programmed us. But nature has also programmed us to walk out of her programming and to program her instead. So any answer to the question without these reflections would not touch the heart of the question.

Then, why should she favor life over death? Polemically speaking, living gives us chance to die but dying does not give us the same choice. Of course, you can invoke rebirth and all, but I am interested in what is phenomenologically given. But what response should I have for the above question if I discard the polemical one?

The ethical stance is debatable. For all those who have liberated themselves from the shackles of God, invoking the dictum that life is the gift of God is meaningless.

I think we have to appreciate life for different reasons. One, it is while alive that we gain our freedom, both the freedoms from the nature and from our own habits and all the determined modes of being. If we invoke the texts that claim continuity of life after death, even they cannot say you start where you have left. Tomorrow is a new day altogether. A new life comes with new anticipations and now realities. But this life, it is now, it is here, it is real, and it has the opening towards infinite possibilities. And these possibilities can be actualized only while living.

But we do not and should not explore philosophical reason for life. For most people live a non-reflective life. Like the automata, they function predictably and all their dreams and anticipations are predictable. But they never question, what is the point of life? For this is not the question for the automata but for those who have the prerequisites for actualizing freedom.

This ability of higher reflection allows us to return back to the basics. And to enjoy our basic modes of being. Accordingly, life is for enjoying food and music and experiencing sex and love and some heartaches. But those who are interested in liberation would say, this is silly. Because for them, liberation is an escape. They are convinced that there goes a train between bondage and liberation and you are allowed to take the train only when you are free of desires, taṇhā. But when you are free, you savor and rejoice the world with such vivacity that is not even dreamt by those living guided by instincts and trying to escape the chain of instincts which they have called liberation.(4)

Only a free person can be really happy. And you can actualize this freedom while alive. And as a free being, you can live, and when you have lived full length of what life has to offer, you can also die. This self-determination of death is in itself yogic death. And this way, you will have seen all spectra of life. And this reflective life is possible only to those who once see the stretched face of death and walk out of it alive.(5)

विश्वास-टिप्पनी

“Freedom is the ability to choose your own chains.”

Some arguments against biological determinism

We are told that all our actions are biologically determined. Meaning, everything we do is predetermined. Not just that, everything we think about or we feel is also predetermined. Some philosophers such as Daniel Dennett have extended the argument and said, the self is just an illusion. Before I take these arguments seriously, I have to admire the marvel of contemporary philosophers and scientists to discover that they are actually the machines. Biasedly speaking, I prefer to have God delusion than machine delusion. But seriously, what if we are machines and we think we are autonomous entities?

The first relief in that case would be freedom from moral limitations. Why should I be responsible for something that I did for which I had no choice? Of course, we do not want any chaos in society but if all our moral orders are for social management, we should punish both the victims and the perpetrators for any harmful incident. For the victim is as much responsible for determinately facilitating the event as the perpetrator.

But of course I can determine the argument the determinists would make: our sense of morality is biologically given and so we have to act morally as this is the way we are programmed to act. But, is not that counterfactual, that we are able to act otherwise than the way we are determined to act and that is, to act morally?

But there is more to excavate here. Why do we think that freedom is an aberration? If freedom does not exist, why does nature make it the central most drive for all the species? Nobody desires to be bound and all want to be free, within the limits of the freedom that they are capable of exercising. Why are we determined to be free? I have no arguments against it, if the determinists argue that we are determined to be absolutely free.

I find the argument of determinism vs freedom a dialectical process: we are exercising determinism to discover our freedom, if we read the way the species have evolved. The very concept of determinism a dependent concept, only upon freedom that determinism makes sense. For the being of determinism, we need the being of freedom. And why should our beliefs be true or false if they are already determined to be as such?

When we say having limited choice is in itself determinism and it is a false sense of freedom when people make a choice, specifically between yes and no, or blue and red pills. But the idea that we have a choice gives rise to an epistemic sense of freedom, the freedom that becomes the basis for an exploration of real freedom. Yes, our choices keep us determined but they also give us the sense of freedom and from this, we extract pure freedom as an exalted concept.

To say nature acts blindly or to say mutation explains pure determinism is similar to saying, there already was a clear map to every single step of our evolution. Not only that we do not know how to explain diversity today based on a few amino acids, we are helpless as it comes to determining the end-goal of the course of evolution. The freedom that nature exercises is in constituting difference, evident in gene variation. We could never be different if our modes were predetermined. For our difference would be self-given within the very first building block of our physicality.

I would rather say, nature is striving towards freedom and the intrinsic drive that makes genetic mutation possible is actualization of freedom. And if this is illusion, so is determinism.

Your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

विश्वास-टिप्पनी

Neither completely determined, nor completely arbitrary - it’s inbetween - probabilistically determined.

Purpose:

Just because purpose is a human invention,
this does not mean that other beings act purposelessly.
And we can expand the idea of purpose to the inanimate objects,
and the entire cosmos then becomes teeming with purpose.
We are then forced to investigate the purpose as such.

There is no denying that the purpose of the body is the body
and of life, life.
If mutation allows the body to reconfigure its now presentation,
being embodied lets the life to flow.
Time strings itself in the beats of life
and in every sequencing of the amino acids.
Body as such cannot exercise as much of freedom as the mind therefore.
And the purpose is easy to metrify here.

With humans, simple rationality collapses.
We are able to act purposelessly.
These acts erupt in the modes of love and of hatred.
We are able to act altruistically and wage wars purposelessly.
And yes, there are some who would teach biology to decode purpose in every acts,
just like there are others who invent purpose in a rock rolling down the hill.

Freedom and purpose pose as antithetical to each other.
The more subjects act with purpose,
the less they exercise freedom.
Walking is purposeful, but one needs to be free to wander.(5)
Mind-wandering is likewise the same, as thinking,
including thinking about purpose, is purposeful.
To say that humans enjoy more freedom is not a mere anthropocentric idea.
Humans are capable to act more purposelessly than other animals.(5)

All what we consider purpose are determined biologically and culturally.
They both limit and determine our existence
and they both impose some purpose,
and to exist in the body and to retain membership in society then becomes our purpose.
Our imagination of purpose,
our fetishization of purpose,
allows us to invent it in the cosmic scale,
the purpose of the cosmos, the purpose of God, and so on.
And this leads to a paradox,
and being human is to live through this paradox.

The paradox is, we invent absolutely free entity in God
and we impose upon it the purpose that we can invent.(5)
Meaning, the absolutely free entity has to act according to the purpose as determined by us.
Some of us, anyway.

Whether in different hats or in different ties,
we have made an occupation of determining the purpose of the absolute.
And this is where we discover our true purpose.
To be able to capture the totality while ourselves being a mere particle.

And some of us would surrender to the unknown and say,
only that knows the purpose,
not recognizing the travesty of our imposition.

Purpose, meaning, teleology: all these are human constructs to place us at the center of the universe.(5)

Reception

When Siddhartha left his palace, he was not embarking the network of million franchises. When the giant elephants stroll through the forest, they give birthplace to million dung-beetles. The nature of a banyan tree is to grow tall. For some, it is a lovely shade or a nesting ground. For others, it is just a bunch of firewood.

Your being here is a blessing. How the blessing is received is not for you to decide.(5)