In the quest for modern amenities/progress have we gone too far to a place where it can’t be reversed? We are all feeling the heat, literally. Rains are delayed, Water bodies are running dry, forests are thinning, all the signs of natural disasters are showing up – El Nino, etc. What is our response to it? Artificial intelligence? 

I remember Gabbar Singh’s dialogue from Sholay “Agar tumko Gabbar ke taap se koi bacha sakta hai to woh hai khud Gabbar”. In real life we are Gabbar Singh and we are screwing up nature and the only ones who can save ourselves. Nature doesn’t need any help to restore balance, remember it was here before us and it will be here after we are gone. We just don’t have to interfere in its workings or make things difficult for it to maintain an equilibrium that is sustainable for humans.  

How do you do that? The answer is simple – finding balance in our own lifestyles and choosing nature(natural living) but execution is almost impossible. Nevertheless it is worth thinking about and implementing changes in our own lives however small they may be because it is a step in the right direction…

Tat Tvam Asi

So Hum

Aham Brahmasmi

All these are pointing towards the Truth that there is a changing/impermanent reality and there is a permanent/eternal reality underlying it that can be explained only through analogies- much like the rising and ebbing tides will come and go but the ocean will always remain. 

The problem and suffering is in identifying only with the impermanent and liberation is simply knowing the nature of impermanence and accepting “this too shall pass” and what remains, is the eternal – “I am that”. 

This needs the attention to be withdrawn from dance of the impermanent and to focus within to experience the underlying eternal (which, in Yoga, is Pratyahara) – Silence is the path but do you wish to walk it to realise the eternal or are happy with the dance of the impermanence, well that is up to you…

AI is the new buzzword, will it go the nuclear science way? In that, would it be used for creation or destruction? Who knows? 

Intent with which any advent in technology is used is the key – a malafide intent would open the door to hell, whilst a noble intent to heaven. Considering the state of the world, it doesn’t need Artificial Intelligence to indicate what intent is dominant.

In my view, AI is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist and science has raced so ahead of reality that the real problems of the world are in fact increasing – the have nots are still facing the same problems of poverty, lack of medicines, etc whilst the haves are driving around in driverless cars. It simply doesn’t make sense and yet the world is going gaga over something that would only be used to make the rich richer and the poor poorer… And the circus continues….

Earth belongs to no one, yet humans devised ways of owning it by drawing imaginary boundaries over it & fighting over them…Even your own life doesn’t belong to you, life assumes a form – it grows and dies, you were never the form, then what are you clinging to? 

Freedom or liberation is understanding and accepting the essence of being nothing and taking the responsibility of living harmoniously with all other sentient beings – that is Dharma – not the religion you are born into which is just another classification of something that is inherently unclassifiable. 

Freedom and Dharma are both choices of how you choose to experience life as – a Bhogi(Person bound by identities provided by external factors- family, religion, group, country, etc) or a Jeevan Mukt(Liberated Soul). 

Change the context, not the content.

Handicap is not merely physical, it is also mental, financial, karmic and in that all of us are handicapped. Reminds me of the verse

Kabhi kisi ko mukammal jahan nahi milta

Kahi Zameen Kahi Aasman nahi milta…

We try to strive for completeness in the aspects wherein we feel incomplete/suffering since we are looking at the surface, the trick is to dive to the bottom and realise that everything is complete at Source… and it has to be the way it is at the surface. This is acceptance of everything and being your bit as well as you can, till you can…Perhaps that is what Sant Dyaneshwar meant when he described his state as “Ata karne nahi, hone” (Not doing anymore, being)

If you observe, the biological needs(eat/drink, sleep/rest, reproduce, defecate, exercise) may take up 12 hrs of your day and the rest of the 12 hours are devoted to non biological pursuits.

So 50% of  “I” is mostly common for all humans across the globe – in that they have to attend to their biological needs, which is not really the problem unless those are not fulfilled. It is the remaining “Non biological” 50% “I” that harbors delusions of grandeur, especially in “Non Biological” entities/leaders and their followers across the world preferring wars, blatant profiteering, etc over peaceful, harmonious co-existence. If there is anyone deserving of a Nobel Prize then it is the one who brings about this peaceful co existence…

This is a personal choice which is surprisingly not preferred by most people across the world and consequently 100% of humanity has to suffer…

You can only be truly at complete peace when you are yourself at peace, living in a peaceful community/country and the world is also at peace. The latter 2 are beyond your control & can only be a good wish but the first one is very much in your control. If you observe closely, there are 3 causes for our suffering and they are brought upon by our own memory(past), imagination(future) and judgement(present), all 3 need to be silenced for you to experience peace.

Hence Dhyana wherein you are at Source and the mind is silent, this is the best gift you can give yourself and to the world.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti