2010 – A New Odyssey
This post – my first in 2010 – was triggered by an intense debate I was having with my own self. ‘What should be my 2010 resolution?’
Each year till date, I had made resolutions only to find myself breaking them at the drop of a hat. Most of them were too ‘trivial’ to be called as ‘resolutions’, but nevertheless, I had honest intentions.
Life is a fast learning lane and these ‘resolutions’ for me became better and better especially as I entered my forties. What should I do in 2010 that I need to work consciously towards? Increasing my income, having a zing in my work routine and having less political adversaries was necessary but could be achieved without a ‘resolution’. So what should it be? Something that is more challenging to achieve? And my thoughts hit on a common concern that we all have.
We are concerned deeply with what is going on in the world, with the confusion, the chaos that exists throughout the world. People have no direction and are trying to find a solution in the past, from their own traditions. There are the fundamentalists who accept the Bible or the Koran or the Bhagvad Gita as their authority. There are the fundamentalists who look to Marx. In every country, there are too many books because traditions are interpreted differently. This drives chaos.
What is the root cause of all this confusion? We should find the cause, for every cause has an end. But most of us look at symptoms. We say it is due to overpopulation, bad government or lack of leadership, lack of morality etc. Or is it the environment? The environment created by the governments having no proper leader, no righteous guru. What is the cause of this?
Have we relied wrongly on the authority of tradition, authority of books, authority of leaders, gurus, and so on? When we depend, we gradually become weak and feeble. We become incapable of thinking clearly. Newspapers tell us what to think. All the meetings, the discourses that we attend, instruct us to think in their way. Advertisements and movies give us doctored view. We have made our own race highly ‘dependent’ – dependent on someone to guide us.
Is it possible to be a light to oneself and not depend on a single person? Inwardly and psychologically, one doesn’t have to depend to think clearly for oneself, to observe one’s own reactions and responses, if one can be completely a light to oneself. To be a light to oneself requires great freedom, a very clear brain, not a conditioned brain.
From the moment we are born, the brain is being conditioned, shaped by tradition, by religion, by the literature we read, by the newspapers, by parents and so on.
Can this conditioning be resolved? Is it possible to free the brain? In our confusion and our desire for security, we have created a world outside of us as society, which is corrupt, immoral, confused, everlastingly in conflict. To ‘free the brain’ means that we have to begin with our own individuality. We must free it from our past knowledge, influences and illusions.
Individuality is a form of isolation and, therefore, we are all at each other’s throat all our life, trying to be ‘better’ individuals. We need to take a giant step forward in liberating ourselves from our own self. The idea is to be ‘impersonal’.
While making new year resolutions, I argued with my own self on various fronts.
Your colleagues are better off financially than you..so what?. They experience better materialistic pleasures than you do. So what? They travel the world in their careers..so what? Their employers reward them more than probably you get…so what? They have larger homes than you do…so what? Some of your colleagues hate you and inflict hurdles on you because they feel threatened by your abilities…so what?…
The thoughts are many, but can ‘changing’ any of these ever be called a new year ‘resolution’? Are our ‘resolutions’ merely of a selfish nature or can we think beyond – inwardly?
Now respond to the same arguments above..but ask ‘what next?‘ instead of ’so what?’. You see that the perspective will change.
Comparing with others may work us up to others throats. We may win momentary wars but we will continue to fight our battles for ever. There is no respite. There is no calm.
Today; I may be the target; tomorrow another. The conflict does not end. So am I the loser? Or are they? Or are we all?
I know that this post will not give concrete answers….but will definitely help you weigh your new year resolutions in a different way!
Welcome 2010!
Related posts:
Tags: 2010, authority of tradition, chaos, conditioned brain, discourses, individuality, new year resolution, Odyssey, resolutions, what next?
