The Other person

A few days back my good friend, Radhul was discussing with me his experiences with the other person inside him. He said that he is very often able to witness from outside as a third man, the conflict between the other person, his ego, the strong guy who drives him and the his super weak real self. While we were discussing this, he said that at that very moment he could see that the other person was getting insecure about his existence being brought into light and that he was trying to convince hid mind that there are no two guys but only one.

The other person is very smart, our awareness about his existence lasted only up till the end of our discussion. By the time we were back home, both of us even forgot what we have discussed. This strong guy, without letting our consciousness know, made us forget about his existence .He knows that awareness is the key to transformation and this transformation means he getting weaker and weaker. So he wont allow this awareness to last. Indeed he is strong enough to push your real self to back seat any day. Our true self is the strongest at birth and the other person is the weakest at that point. But our parents and society start feeding the other person from the time of birth and the true self remain malnutritioned. At the age of 24, the other person inside me is like a strength athlete with over 2 decades of regular training experience and my real self, like a malnutritioned kid who never trained in his life.

This whole discussion we had made me remember a personal experience where I literally got split up into two, where i got to witness a tough conflict between the two guys inside me. One thing that amazed me the most was that, though it was an intense experience, the whole event somehow got coverd up within me afterwards. This happened when I was sitting in front of a girl for whom my real self had some intense feelings for. After years of preparation, I was all set to confess my love for her. This would basically mean a submission of my ego before her. I was not sure whether I would do it, even when I was sitting right in front of her. The other person inside my was pretty confident that I am not going to do it. But this love thing, is like a heavy dose steroid injection on the butt of my real self. So he got stronger, strong enough to give the other person a good fight. At that very moment, i experienced some sort of hormonal rush inside my body and the awareness that my real self is getting stronger made the other person react like a beast. He was pulling my real self down with all the strength he had. I did tell her, how I felt about her, but not in the way my real self wanted to do it.

I remember reading somewhere "Anything that frightens you may contain a clue to enlightenment". This fear is an attribute of the other person inside you. One thing that frightens your real self the most is the awareness of his existence. More you are aware of his existence the more you are on the path.

Diwali Haiku

Pitch black, thoughtless walk
Boom Bam Boom
Happy Diwali

Without Ambition in a world where success is Worshiped !

'Think on These Things' by J.Krishnamurthi is one the best books I have ever read. The below transcript is taken from this book. I happened to re-read the same very recently in the blog 'Beauty we love' . 

"Is it not possible to live in this world without ambition, just being what you are?

 If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, 

then what you are undergoes a transformation. 

I think one can live in this world anonymously, 

completely unknown, 

without being famous, ambitious, cruel. 

One can live very happily when no importance  is given to the self; 

and this also is part of right education.

The whole world is worshiping success. 

You hear stories of how the poor boy studied at night and eventually became a judge, 

or how he began by selling newspapers and ended up a multi-millionaire. 

You are fed on the glorification of success."

-J.Krishnamurthi

Into the Wild

The video above is a beautiful song,  'Society' by Eddie Vedder from the movie, Into the wild. This movie is the real life story of Christopher McCandless, who abandons all his possessions and sets out for a journey to Alaska, to live in the wilderness. At the end of the movie, McCandeless come across the self-realization that true happiness can only be found when shared with others. Indeed a good watch !

I felt that the movie underlines every word that was wriiten in the previous post in this blog!

Change

Ability to see things in its totality, awareness on your thought process, two qualities that you can gain from reading good books. But books dont have the ability to change people. Change can happen only through a rebellion at an individual level. A change will happen only when a person puts into practice those ideas with a complete clarity of thought. I repeat the phrase 'clarity of thought', because if that is not present, the man who is striving for change is just a non-conformist. He is nothing more than a mad man who decides to walk into a burning house just because he want to be different from the crowd. A true rebel is not goal-oriented, he is like a calm lunatic and he lives and dies as a nobody.  True rebellion is difficult and so difficult it is  the change that you long for. The wonderful illusionary future you dream about is non-existant.The best day of your life is today.

- On Reading Philosophy, Dreams, Search for happiness, Revolution | Talking non-sense over the phone with Thepan and Srank.

Mediocrity?

About an year ago, a good friend of mine,a brilliant young man from Bengal was leaving our company, pursuing his bigger career ambitions. He was asked to comment on his 6 years of experience in Software as a Service (SaaS) industry. He gave his answer in a single word - 'Mediocre'. More than a friend, he was a mentor for me and at that point of time, as a fresher I had the same opinion about this industry. But one year since, I find this popular opinion wrong.

Nothing is Mediocre, let it be any profession, software engineer or a street sweeper. Being mediocre is a matter of perspective, a matter of personal choice.