The Importance of Forgetting

I have been practicing meditation for years now. A simple daily 30-40 minutes routine end-capped by breathing exercises. There have been many gifts that this practice has given me. The chief among them is the realization that the default state of human consciousness is happiness.

So where does unhappiness come from?

J.. Krishnamurti, the philosopher, has approached the human enigma of the pursuit of happiness from many angles. To my mind the deepest and most fundamental of which is captured in this paragraph from one of his lectures:

Happiness is not the product of time

The thought process brings about psychological progress in time, but is it real, as real as chronological time? And, can we use that time which is of the mind as a means of understanding the eternal, the timeless? Because, as I said, happiness is not of yesterday, happiness is not the product of time, happiness is always in the present, a timeless state. I do not know if you have noticed that, when you have ecstasy, a creative joy, a series of bright clouds surrounded by dark clouds, in that moment there is no time: there is only the immediate present. But the mind, coming in after the experiencing in the present, remembers and wishes to continue it, gathering more and more of itself, thereby creating time. So, time is created by 'the more', time is acquisition. And, time is also detachment, which is still an acquisition of the mind; therefore, merely disciplining the mind in time, conditioning thought within the framework of time, which is memory, surely does not reveal that which is timeless.

Collected Works, Vol. V,139,

The operative thought is that happiness is timeless and conditioning thought within the framework of time, which is memory, does not reveal that which is timeless. 

In other words forgetting is the key to happiness. Countless pop psychologists have told us that it is important to live in the moment. And like with many a worn-out cliche, beneath this commonplace assertion lies an abiding truth about the human condition.. 

Living in the moment is to let go of the past. This letting go. it has been my experience, cannot be a consciously willed act. It is a scrubbing that is accomplished by the deeper reaches of human consciousness.  Dreaming, I believe, is a manifestation of this scrubbing but it is slow, done in small doses, painful, unproductive and not under our control. Meditation is quicker, far less painful (in fact after a point quite joyful) and under our control. However the most striking manifestation of this scrubbing is in the highest of human activity - the act of creativity and creation. Most artists, sportspeople, writers, scientists, thinkers and even managers will tell you that their highest achievements happen when they enter the "zone". This "zone" is the same "zone of acute consciousness" that results from deep meditation but the crucial difference is that it is entered through the act of doing as opposed to the act of withdrawing. In other words in losing oneself (all one's memories, disappointments and joys) in the here and now of an act. It is the "blink" that Malcolm Gladwell writes about. It is the central core teaching of devotion to selfless "karma" or duty that is the central teaching of the Bhagwad Gita:

karmaṇy evādhikāras te

mā phaleṣu kadācana

mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr

mā te sańgo 'stv akarmaṇi

In fact one of the strands of thought that the highest reaches of physics is now exploring is that time itself is a chimera that is only a manifestation of the mind and not a physical reality. Julian Barbour in his provocative book "The End of Time", Barbour lays out the basic evidence for a timeless universe and shows how at the same time we experience in the world in a intensely temporal way. It also points the way towards the bridging of the greatest chasm in modern science - the gap between classical and quantum physics- leading to the holy grail of The Grand Unification Theory. 

 For those of us who dismiss high faulting philosophy, physics and/or teachings and would like to see direct and more tangible evidence that "forgetting" is anything more than one of the numerous in-capacities that advancing age subjects us to, may I point to an abstract of an article from a recent issue of Scientific American titled "Forgetting is Key to a Healthy Mind". So there you have it, any which way you like it. Or you can just forget it and turn the page.

   

              

  

Drafting Change: A Letter to Narendra Modi

Dear Narendrabhai,

It looks like you are set to be the next Prime Minister of India.

If you do, it would be clear that the singular mandate you have been given is the mandate to change the status quo.

Here is an idea that I believe can bring lasting change at the core of Indian society:

The Draft: A year of mandated  and paid community service for all young people through internships with the various arms of the Government and the Services. To begin with we could start this program with all college graduates.

As soon as I put this idea down on paper I can hear the hue and cry rise from all side. "An impingement of individual rights" some will protest. Others will say it is impractical and too expensive to afford. In fact one of the themes you and  your current election campaign is pushing is that of "Less Government. More Governance" and this idea seems to fly directly in the face of such a theme.

"Less Government More Governance" is an idea from the capitalist right, borrowed by your campaign, lock, stock and barrel, from the Republicans of US and the Tories of UK. India is a unique place and time where change will not come through borrowed ideas. Anyway what does "governance" mean?  Wouldn't the involvement of the people directly and hands-on in projects of the government be "more and  good governance"? Wouldn't the direct scrutiny by eager young minds of acts by the government be "less and better government"?

As for costs, yes the costs will be untenable if we put this army of young people on unproductive tasks. But surely we can avoid the MNREGA trap of putting people, figuratively speaking, to dig trenches and then refill them? Surely we can use the talents and the clear-eyed enthusiasm of India's educated young to productive use in sectors where the government has a role to play? If we do so, I can bet my bottom rupee that the money we spend on the Draft will be more than repaid in both qualitative and quantitative terms through impact on the quality of life  as well as impact on GDP.

As for the rights of the individual, what good are rights without responsibilities? Total freedom is a contradiction in terms. Like Vivekananda says you cannot give up the world unless first you earn and have something to give up.

Narendrabhai I am told that you are a believer in the teachings of Vivekananda. As you would know, a central tenet of his teachings on education is "man-making". And a person is made in the first few years of working life. That is when he or she assimilates ideas and passions. A year in community service will give this assimilation a far greater scope and depth than landing straight into the rat race, which is what most young people currently do.

In community service a person is much more likely to imbibe the paradigm that what we give to our work is much more important than what we get. A paradigm that not only makes for greater productivity all through a person's life but for greater happiness too.

Finally, it is my belief that a year spent in public service  will persuade a lot many brilliant and dynamic young people , for the right and informed reasons, to choose politics and public service as a profession.

With best regards  

    

      

   

Comfortably Numb

Time was when my generation was young. And pain was our fuel.

Time was when rebellion was our default state. Rebels without a cause maybe but rebels still.

Time was when  money was just those few notes in our pocket, soiled and crumpled, something to pay for the cigarettes and the bus fare and the occasional street food treat and not a string of electronic zeros defining our self-worth.

Time was when we rooted for the underdog because we were him and not because it made us feel good.

Time was when we had the freedom of the dirt road instead of being prisoners of the white lines of the freeway.

And then life happened.

Success happened. The underdog became someone who didn't make it and the devil did take the hindmost. And money became the deep shadow in which forgotten, long dead dreams lay.

Middle-age happened. And as the aches and pains of an aging body multiplied the aches of the soul are forgotten.

Life happened. And we all became comfortably numb.


PS In the 70's when I first heard "Comfortably Numb" from the seminal Pink Floyd album "The Wall" I thought of chemically-induced mind expanding trances. How was I to know that 40 years or so down the line it would take on a meaning almost exactly opposite? Whatever the meaning, it remains one of rock's greatest songs with an all-time great guitar solo embedded in it. Enjoy.

             

                                                         

                                                              "Comfortably Numb"

Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home
Come on now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts

There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb

O.K.
Just a little pin prick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.

                  

The Outsider

Have you felt on the outside of whichever side there is? Welcome to the exclusive club of the Outsiders. Except that, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, a club for Outsiders is no club because, by definition, its members do not belong.

But seriously,the Outsider has always been a fascination with all students of mankind and society.

Colin Wilson's book  "The Outsider"  is a fascinating study of the Outsider in literature and his place in the modern mindset.

Dostoyevsky made the Outsider an angry young man and Salim Javed took the cue. Tennessee Williams explored the social politics of the world of the Outsider and Woody Allen made tons of money in portraying the Outsider as a yuppie.

However there are two books of the post Colin Wilson era that are, to my mind, searing completely unique portraits of the Outsider.

The first is "Waiting for the Barbarians" by J.M. Coetzee, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

It is about a middle-aged magistrate of an insignificant outpost of a unnamed empire, seemingly disintegrating under the weight of his "outsiderness". However, at the core of his hero, Coetzee discover a rock of rumination that nothing can change, nothing can reduce. This book would leave the student of the Outsider personality type wondering whether being the consummate Outsider is being the consummate philosopher.

The other book that belongs to the very top drawer of Outsider literature is John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces". Toole himself was the archetypal tragic Outsider. Very gifted as a writer, Toole was rejected by the establishment and suffering from paranoia and depression committed suicide at the age of 31. His mother's efforts got "A Confederacy of Dunces" published which then went on to become a cult classic and posthumously won Toole a Pulitzer Prize. The protagonist of  "A Confederacy of Dunces" - Ignatius J Reilly - is what Toole would have been if he had lots more moxy and a lots less self-pity. Ignatius Reilly breaks the typical tragic hero mould of the Outsider. In many ways the character Woody Allen plays in his movies is Ignatius Reilly given a coat of Manhattan polish and a popular culture airbrush.

The art of advertising at its most powerful takes memes that are outside the mainstream culture and insidiously adapts them to build mainstream brands. Apple starting with it's "1984" commercial was built on an Outsider meme. The iconoclast image that this strategy built for Apple survives (just about) many advertising mis-steps since.

It is not advertising alone that has demonstrated the atavistic appeal of the Outsider meme to the modern psyche. Look at twenty-first century politics. Obama was the ultimate Outsider as a Presidential candidate.

His difficulties as a President only proves the first principle of being an Outsider. Sort of the opposite of  the refrain from "Hotel California" - "you can check out any time you want but you can never leave".

Does India now have it's own Outsider contending successfully for power? Mod as an Outsider? It might be a startling new framework with which to examine this man who might be important to India's fortunes this decade and perhaps decades to come.    

The Unknown Known or Bringing the Poles Apart

In 2002 Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush Jr. era US Secretary of Defence, in a Defence Department briefing brought, to borrow a Bushism, "brought the poles apart". He juxtaposed the "Known" with the "Unknown" to explain his engagement strategy in Iraq. While some supporters of Rumsfeld justified it is a brilliant distillation of a complex issue, to most others it was a distillation of the simple truth into a clumsy lie. As is clear from the accompanying Known-Unknown matrix, as rather clumsily drawn by me, it is clear that I am no admirer of the man (what makes the use of this device by Rumsfeld more egregious is that he borrowed it from the phrase "the unknown unknown" first used by Keats, the Great Romantic poet).
Strangely Rumsfeld in his exposition of the known and the unknown left out the fourth quadrant - Unknown Known. Could it be that the man could not count the number of quadrants in a 2x2 matrix? Unsurprising as that would be, it is more likely that his subconscious prodded him not to go there. His subconscious must have known what was unknown to him. That he was defending the indefensible. The Known Unknown, so to speak.
Beyond the ridiculousness of Rumsfeld, the Unknown Known, to my mind, is a sublime distillation of a core assertion of the Vedas: "Everyone of us knows everything there is to be known". In essence we know but the veils of the world makes self-knowledge the "unknown known".
"Bringing the poles apart" or splitting opposites into a self-referential is a nice way to reflect on dualities. Good and bad, Ugly and and Beautiful. Big and Small. For example the Small Big Man is the puffed up ego and meanness of the big I while the Big Small Man is the endearing humility and generosity of the small i.

               
    PS: Unlike Rumsfeld who publicly claimed that he does not read his own memos (in response to a question about the infamous one he wrote about torture of war prisoners) I do read my own posts. After reading this one I decide to google "Unknown Known" and was pleasantly surprised to find that a well-known documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris, has mad a documentary on Rumsfeld which is slated for release on April 2nd this year. Guess what he has chosen to call the documentary? Yes - "The Unknown Known"!. Errol's interview with Los Angeles Times about his encounters with Rumsfeld makes delightful reading. That is if you, like me, are an unfan fan of Rumsfield.         

Fear

I had a colleague, during one of my many corporate stints (all of them all too brief, I am afraid, so to speak), whose favourite opening gambit while delivering his considered view was " My fear is....".The guy, despite being highly intelligent, very hard working and being a loyal soldier, has had one of those "thus far and no further' kind of careers.

Is fear something to be afraid of? Far from it. I once worked in a factory that had hired a Japanese quality control consultant. He told me a fundamental principle of the famed Japanese approach to quality. "Think of every defect as a gem because it is  a precious opportunity in the quest for the perfect" he said.

Fear is also an opportunity provided, of course, you are not afraid of it!

My colleague who was afraid all the time - afraid that an idea was too radical, afraid that the client would reject the plan, afraid, afraid afraid - stopped at being afraid instead of seizing each moment when his sphincter muscle tightened as a moment of incipient insight and competitive advantage.

When TS Elliot wrote in his poem "The Waste Land" about showing "fear in a handful of dust" he was implying that fear is a chimera beyond which lies the truth. It is quite revealing that the quatrain that follows this assertion is among the most beautiful and lyrical that Elliot has written:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,	20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,	25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.	30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;	35
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,	40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.

From the sublime heights of Elliot let me climb down to earth. "Dar Ke Aage Jeet Ha" (beyond fear is opportunity). Gulp! Because as this intrepid copywriter implied, fear can be conquered as long as you had this variety of fizzy drink at hand. Obviously the man (or was it a woman?) did not fear reducing the sublime to the trite. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? Who indeed?

  

                

Summer, Elections and Holi

As I laze around this Sunday morning, summer, elections and Holi are in the air. The early smells of summer give me two things. A bout of hay fever and a sense of possibilities. The hay fever is to do with a strain of pollen that summer releases in the air and the sense of possibility has its origin from those days from my childhood and youth when exams got over and the summer holidays stretched out before carrying a promise of renewal.
The lazy discovery of the new you in cousins you met after a gap of years and the revisiting of favourite books, music and haunts. There was also of course the allure of the completely new. The mysterious new girl who moved into the neighbourhood. The pile of new books in my father's study. The promise of a holiday to a new place.
These days the sense of possibilities I feel is part nostalgia, part the vicarious sensing of the onset of joy I can sense in the kids and the teenagers I run into and part the promise of renewal that awaits me only if I can let go my prejudices, regrets and resentments just as a child drops all the tensions and disappointments of the school year and leaps into the delights of summer holidays.
 For us adults, given the much greater freedom and control we have over our own lives, every new day should be a joyous leap into the delights of renewal and newness. At least that is the wistful promise that the onset of summer makes to me these days, soon to be forgotten in the endless remembering of the past that adulthood seems to be.
Elections are neigh. Checked the electoral rolls online and both Jyoti and I found our names missing. Spent a weekend filling in a spiffy form online and then standing in meatspace queues to re-submit it to clueless clerks in a musty tehsildar office.
 Once again the promise of the young and modern belied and denied by the drag of the old and rusted. Very much like the larger picture this election presents. Will another election go by where nothing much will change. Will the promise of a PM who is his own man and not a 'durbari' (courtier) and of an opposition that is an activist watchdog instead of being Delhi mandarins sniffing around the corridors of power and Parliament, be once again denied. Will the strongman is found to have feet of clay and the activists loses steam and sink into effete "chotta-peg jholawallah" and/or "drawing room socialists" existence?
 I am filled with a looming sense of disquiet when I have a feeling in the gut that it could very well happen. Think of it. Of every rupee we earn the Government claims 60 paise in the form of income tax, service tax, sales tax and excise duty. In fact the poorer you are the greater is the share of your income that the Govt. claims in terms of indirect taxes.
 So why do we the people make such bad choices when it comes to choosing who gets to spend the major part of our income? Or more realistically why do we have such only poor choices to begin with? Is it a collective failure of the imagination or just the same lethargy that persuades many of us to let our bodies run to seed. Baffling.
 Holi is the festival that signifies the conquering of the evil within us by the good that is us. For me Holi is not the rather raucous party where grown-ups give themselves the license to act as juveniles and the real juveniles, secretly peeved, try hard to out do the pretenders in bad behaviour.
The quintessential Holi moment for me is in the evening before when families and neighbours build a bonfire and gather around it to watch good triumph, once again, over evil. In a past Holi this moment inspired me to write a few lines of poesy which I posted on this blog.
 I revisit them in this post today in anticipation of this evening's bonfire.

Bonfire of the Vanities
I have smiled at shallow triumphs
 And long mourned the loss of what I did not own
I have dwelt long in the shadow of my desires
 I have constructed an ego built of my senses
 And with foolish bravado fought the chimera of misery
 I have looked for God in vain meditations
 And reserved action for the pursuit of Mammon
 I have sought love in the cravings of flesh
 When love was within and all around manifest
 I have played to weakness when strength beckoned
 And belittled myself to myself/
 Enough say I, enough this night
 This Holi night, as I go back millennia
 People hunched around an ancient hearth
 A primeval force, pure and cleansing
This bonfire of the vanities