Selfishness & Selflessness - A Way of life, A sense of purpose!

Selflessness & Selfishness

Yet another knot of illusion in the world are these two terms which are so closely related to the same entity the “self” or “I” but yet so complex in its own ways. They perplex our life’s in ways that we are totally unaware of their nuances and its impact on our behaviors and or existence. For the benefit of my readers I wanted to bring some clarity to these contradicting subjects of human behaviors. I will try to articulate them to the best of my abilities and encourage you to contribute or challenge me more ☺. And I hope that my writings will stimulate you to learn more about yourself and bring more awareness to you.

For the context herein I refer to the self as “I” , the gross “me” as we see and feel ourselves in this world.

Selfishness-

As long as we are and will continue to be in this world the “I” needs to exist in one way or the other and for it to exist it has to satisfy all basic and necessary conditions of existence.
The “I” has all its needs, vanities and sanities and therefore all our actions are either inspired to keep the “I” happy (Selfishness to Narcissism) and or are in the direction of protecting the “I” (having its self Respect)
A person who continuously ratifies the needs of his “I” is subject to the dualistic pleasures and pains in life
There is no Escape for the “I” from the worldly nuances
I must clarify that there is absolutely nothing wrong and its fundamentally needed that one constantly gratifies the needs of “I” to be successful and happy in many ways. The more he is successful in gratifying all his needs the more “I” will be significant in such individuals and thereby will be subject to all its nuances.

Selflessness
Selflessness is state of mind where there is an absence of short term gratifications to the “I” contrastingly it’s a state of mind where the manifestation of such behaviors tend to have a fulfillment of a long term needs of the “I”. Such “need” need not necessarily be an impact on the self but could be something like helping other cancer patients in the backdrop of a loss of close kith and kin to cancer. In such cases the gratification from such behavior’s is still owed back to the “I” . Here the “I” is more subdued in comparison to a person with acute awareness of the “I”
Considered be the nobler side of the self in general – is a illusionary side of selfishness and would still ratify the self in one way or the other.
In other words and I emphasize “generally” many of our acts which we believe is selfless in indeed gratifying the notion of the self or the “I” in us.
The exceptions to these are those individuals in the history who have achieved a state of complete absence of the “I” – well yes they then seize to exist – It isn’t death exactly may be I don’t know yet or may be with the limited human abilities of any sorts of assessments we could only call the person dead.
A lot of “Nice People” in world will exhibit this behavior of tending to be selfless – while the reasons of such manifestations could be a million beyond the scope of this article. I read the book “ No more MR Nice Guy” by Dr. Robert A Glover which propounded the theory of focusing on continuously gratifying the needs of the “I” in order to be successful in many relationship’s overall. His articulation is founded on such reasons that are core to “Nice Peoples” selflessness in general*.


SO!, In contrast to both these thoughts I feel that people who tend to me selfless are generally the ones who have a matured or advanced or rather different state of emotional responses and a different state of mind and character and therefore are different individuals that the ones who have acute awareness of “I”.
People with acute awareness of the “I” tend to be oriented more towards materialistic advancements of ones needs ( Including emotional)
People with higher degree of selflessness tend to see the “Self” or the “I” in larger communities than restricted to individualistic state. The “I” is more seen in the “WE”. The sense of “I” and its aspirations are channelized to mobilize fulfillment of a larger cause. This could then transpire to building of an ability to influence masses in certain directions.

It is therefore that either selflessness or selfishness are both acts of gratifying the self.
A condition ( unknown to me- I could only imagine it mathematically) where a person is at his epitome of selflessness tends to be closer to a state of absence of self. And I could only imagine that he therefore medically could seize to exist, or spiritually may have attained self realization.
Meaning a more evolved state of mind would have less individualistic needs alternatively the needs are much broader.
It is totally important that for one to exist, or exist peacefully one therefore needs to have a sense of purpose
That sense of purpose could be – buying more gold, having more fun, cars, girls, clubs, publicity, more attention etc for those individuals who are happy in these little gratifications of the “I”
That sense of purpose could also be – Uplifting of communities, Large Scale influence or being the catalyst or contributions to such influences, conscious or subconscious sacrifices of individualistic needs, etc.


I'd say whether selflessness or selfishness that it should be a choice that you make to be in harmony with yourself. A choice that defines you and your behavior’s. You must we all aware of the nuances of both the choices and accept either or both of it with utmost honesty and be at peace with it. There isn’t an right or a wrong thing with either of them! Since both are actually ways of life linked to the same “I”.

Overall – When I look at the world that is now steaming with Arab uprisings, many debt crisis and therefore instigates a “surface treatment” retaliatory response like the occupy wall street indicates a moral deficit in the world that could potentially subdue such trends intrinsically. The “more” of decades have left us with “Less” of tomorrow. The reason being an unprecedented and overly consumption of resources leads to over gratifications of the “I”. this also indicates that the demographics is mostly contained of individuals who have a greater sense of “I” and a greater need for gratifying the “I”. There is absolutely nothing wrong and is definitely needed. However if the world where to have a few more individual’s as leaders who could demonstrate a greater will to a sustainable growth and or sharing the joy a little more with the communities a sense of balance could then prevail in the world. A sense of such hope could then inspire us to move forward with a great leap of faith about our tomorrow. A sense of balance in both selflessness and selfishness could then make this world a better place to LIVE ☺
Best wishes to all of you, for 2012. May this year bring to us many more reasons to smile, Hope, Play, Sing, hug & love each other. May it be ever fulfilling and transform conscience to make us more better individual’s.

The dualities, The paradoxes! My theory of evolution and existential illusions

Wish I could use mathematics to explain this and I hope one day I can, but I will try the same by using the semantics – keep in mind that the meaning of the semantic terms herein aren’t as definite as mathematics so use the best of you comprehensive skills to imagine the same mathematically.
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All the matter in this universe and therefore all its constructs though are all distinct in its gross forms of manifestations, the very abstract of it all is very dualistic in nature. The dualities are both a part of the same universe! And exist endlessly with subtle balance between them and or bringing themselves from a constant state of volatility to a state of equilibrium where both are evened out and or are in space in a free form.

And this state of constant mobility between each other, causes the life to transition form one phase to many other phases. Transition therefore is the sort of default characteristic of the matter and the universe, and therefore life in all its forms.

When in a free form in space, these dualities that are opposite to each other in all its characteristics tend to be in state of movement fueled by the inherent energies in them and thereby of that in the universe.

Though the absolute is fully balanced, any cross section of the absolute space tends to have a random sample of dualities in varied degrees derived from its absolute.

These variations which are in conflict with each other cause that section of the universe to manifest a matter that is trying to tend to its natural state of balance ( which is the absolute). The matter again is inherently dualistic and will at one point of time, again be in the space in its free form.

While in the process of achieving its natural state of free form balance, there is a spectacular maxing out of these dualities within the given scale of the cross section. It would completely tend to its extremes to be in either of its dual forms and therefore then the matter would relieve itself out of such a cross section

Any given cross section would have all the potentials to achieve this state of free form, but I have to understand more what causes a few to max out or what factors could cause those few to outpace while the rate of change in others is still at a slower pace.

SANGFROID SEA

I sailed away from the shore
Miles away and more…
On a no moon night in turbulent waters questions were rife..
I riveted myself and pondered on matters trivial to material life…

Waves of needs & tides of abundance, to possess and let go,
Gross pleasures & naïve chastity , Jealousy and empathy,
Sainthood & barbarianism,
Devotion and sedition or any such polarities
I seek to orient my centroid of cognition unto you..oh Krishna my lord!!
Hold me and take me to your sangfroid sea of love & bliss at your lotus feet…

Random Thoughts

All varied forms of gross matter can be consolidated to positive and negative form of dualities that exist in everything. Neutrality is just an absence of orientation!

One of the reasons for Jealousy is an underestimation of ones own self worth..

Ramblings at the ganga that

Just recently i had been to calcutta on 14/1/2010 to get some peace and some questions answered for myself. it was a wonderful journey to the ganga that near belur mutt and dakshineshwar.
here are few of my ramblings through the days.


1. there is no truth other than "krishna", you have to live in truth that works for you to remain sane! alternatively you can live with the generalized mainstream truth.
2. your truth is unique for you and is driven by your values
3. you can change your truth by intellectually altering your values and inhibitions.
4. religion, law, nation, or policy or society is for those who are limited, it is to follow and conform for sanity
5. everything is impermanent or transient by nature except the transience
6. there is nothing called as you! you are not real but a monumental illusion ( Some say i'm what i choose to be - my choices, my actions _ LImited to the manifestation of Chitta)
7. your gross has no identity or your identity is not the gross!
8. for the materialistic world, that dwells in the perception of several sense organs, you are who you choose to be. Therefore you can choose to be anything at any times,
⁃ therefore there is no one set of identity that can describe you unless you choose to be the same one choice
9. there is no purpose in life! you have to give a purpose to life to have some sanity
10. life in itself is a purpose (?) - for what? any clarity or discussion from readers is welcome
11. there is nothing called as love but what manifests as need for each other is glorified as love.
12. there are only needs of different flavors beautified and sanctified for several reasons
13. in the game of emotional needs, two people who are beggars of this need have to satisfy each other of their needs in varied forms and times to keep the fundamentals of a relationship alive
14. every bondage always has its own terms and conditions, the bondage of emotional need has the most severe ones and also severe repercussions.
15. Of all the needs of a human being, emotional needs are the most strongest one that could propel or make one sink
16. imaginary variable in an equation is a big failure of our intellectual imaginations.
17. When one gives up several needs, the terms and conditions of a bondage decreases
18. He starts to be released of the trap slowly, but one mistake while trudging this uphill road can make you fall the depth of Antarctica.
19. While on this journey, when the gross needs, emotional needs, materialistic needs and all other needs start to diminish, the existence of the gross or connection to the gross starts diminishing
20. To reach this level, one has to pass through several hurdles of illusionary traps, sacrifices and utmost love to krishna,
21. On what seems like an end of this journey, the person has no bondage, and his mind is rooted only in krishna, the soul has started its connections to the absolute.
22. at this state slowly the gross seizes to exist, though i sometimes see this as my journey, i have not experienced such a sort of gross disconnections as yet. rather i get tempted to get back to the world
23. at some state i think when one is aware of the gross , the awareness of the soul increases. Perceiving the absolute increases, existing in the gross diminishes.
24. at some similar further state, the soul departs the gross to be one with him, and this is not DEATH.
25. this whole journey i feel can be accelerated with utmost devotion by means of music and singing from the heart!.


bonded with things of impermanence
bonded with all that is transient by nature
we are bonded to occasions of joy and lamenting
there is no escape from these dualities, but one could try to be in the game and be disconnected from these dualities, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf or like the mercury in a test tube.