Causality!

Nothing happens without a cause! Well, thats what most of us tend to believe (explcitely or inside our hearts). OK, let me cite a simple experience of mine. I was baking a pizza in my oven, and was a bit lost in my thoughts. And while taking the pizza out, I burnt my palm! Simple reason, because I was not mindful, was not attentive, I got this burn. But can we put it the other way? Because I had to get this burn, I was not attentive...! Which way the cause-n-effect should go?

Because there was a chick, there comes this egg..........or because this egg is here, there was a chick?

SOunds funny and non-sense............but I am quite puzzled by this thread and direction of this thread.......thread of causality! The rule of Karma. Because I swore at my friend, now I miss the train......or because I had to miss the train, I swore at my friend?

Because I am confused, I am writting this or because I had to write this, I am confused?

Empathy!

One of those nice words, that I like in English! "Empathy", word which says so much,.....well at least to me. Putting oneself into another's position. Putting your foot in another's shoe!

I was watching a French movie (name was something RED). European movies are quite nice, a different world from the American movies! Anyway, in it there is this psychopath retired judge, whose neighbours did not like him, and once a while one of the neighbours would throw a stone at his house. Peacefully he was collecting all the stones, ....there were six of them till that day. He was saying to his friend, "I think they must be hating me like anything. I am sure I would have done the same at their place". His friend gets surprised and asks, "you would have thrown stones??". He answered, "Its so natural; given those conditions, anyone would have behaved exactly the same!".

What we call as ourself, our morales, our principles, none of them actually belong to us. We have picked them up in our journey called life. We are bad or good, its as much natural. Philosphers sometime say, its natural to be happy. Its our nature to be "Anand". Then why are we not? Are "WE", different from nature?

If someone is bad its natural, if someone is good, its equally natural. Put yourself in his/her shoes, you can not become anything else! So where is the reason to be happy that I am good or to be sorry that I am bad (or have bad feelings)?

Forbidden Love!

Today I was thinking of a strange topic. And after reading comments from Surya, I felt at least this topic might be of interest, as this will be off utopian dreams! Forbidden love...

Few years back I read a novel in OdiA, "kahibAku lAja" (tale of shame), which described the love between two cousins! Forbidden love. There are societies where cousin love and marriage is accepted. But where they are not, its a shame, its a sin, its a sabotage of culture, to do it. Surprisingly I found recently from a friend who had done the sin of loving his cousin! Might sound disgusting to some. But how can you stop the force of love? It just happens. They might have been close. Then they attend puberty. Find their ideas match. They get closer at a higher level. And before any of them realised, they are in love....or whatever word you chose for this feeling. (It might sound filmy but it IS the fact.) Then what? In the novel, the lovers finally got married, against the will of the society. Here the reality differs from story. My friend was helpless. He knew they could never get married. What they did was forbidden love. He had started a story with no end!

Same way, depending on the society, there can be forbidden loves of so many types. Every society has its own taboos and rules. Starting from extremes of gay-love to simple thing like loving some one from the neighborhood, love can be forbidden.

My point is, what is it like, to be in a forbidden love? When you know that you cant dream of things like "being together for ever"? When you know you cant stake many for one. When you know running away wont be the best option. When you know love is painful, still you cant NOT do it. Does it make love more pure? Or at least as per the conventional philosophy? Because here you love for the present, knowing very well that there is no future! Does forbidden love teaches you the gist of love, to love with no expectations, to work without any desire for the fruit ("mA faleshu kadAchana")?

Love me!

Beloved one saied to his lover, "Sweety, do you love me?".
Sweety: "Of course yes!"
Lover: "Then how come you were kissing that other friend of yours?"
I have gone a bit further, to kissing. People get this conversation even when one of the pair just goes to picnic with another guy/girl. What is pure love? What is true love? Can I love you and also another person? Better put, can I love you and your friend equally? Difficult questions...!

Many peices of philosophies could be found talking this way or that way on this topic of pure-love and definition there-of. But still we are human beings, we feel possessive. We feel insecure. We feel may be my beloved darling will leave me. May be he/she will settle for another person. Threre come two types of insecurity in this. One, is my love strong/secure enough? Second, is my life secure enough to be lived without my heart's love?

Hmmm. Human being is insecure. We all are scared. We all are surprisingly bad at accepting good things! Still....

Coming to the main topic, can a person love more than one at the same time? Un-adelterated love, or to say "sati" as from Indian culture. "Sati" is one with extreme devotion to her husband, loving only and only her husband. "Sati" might be the purest and highest form of love. However, if we go a bit deeper, and see the list of five great "satis" (pancha mahAsati), then we come across ladies whose purity could easily be questioned by common standards. Draupadi, who married 5 men at a time! Tara, who married her husband's brother, soon after her husband's death. And more such cases. (Surprisingly, Tara who married her husband's brother and led a happy life is considered great"sati". I dont know how now a days people think "sati" mean burning the wife of a dead husband!)

The way I understand this confusing stuff, is may be pure love is one which is pure at the moment. May be Draupadi had 5 husbands. But while with one of them, she had him only in her mind. At the moment , she breathed every breath only with him. A sort of standard, which have not yet been achievable by the so called open culture of west. May be we have to rediscover a lot more about "love" and "commitment"!!!

Comparative

I remember quite clearly, when I was in class 5, we had English. In that we had to remember the comparative and superlative versions of some adjectives. Good better best. Sad sadder saddest! Bad worse worst! Does the existence of comparative terms show some type of immaturity in the mass-psychology or culture to say? Those from India, can very well remember that, comparative and superlative terms are almost non-existent in original languages. "achhA" (good), "bahut achhA", "sabse achhA". Not as crisp as good-better-best. Coming to older language like Sanskrit, lets take any word, like "dukhih", or sad. There is NO word like sadder or saddest. The only thing that come to my mind is "ati-dukhih", which mean "very sad", not sadder. Linguists know, how rich Sanskrit is. Hence lack of certain common word can only imply at one thing. The object or feeling represented by that word, was non-existent!" Lack of comparative words from dictionary! What does it say about that culture or society?

Lets change the topic. What do we mean by saying "I am luckier than you to get you as my love!"? Or lets say, "Lalajee loved his eldest son the most! He is the saddest of all his sons, at Lalajee's death". How can I compare who is sadder? How can I say I am luckier? What is the scale to measure? What is the unit? Why is man not happy? Because we compare! We compare everything with everything! From my experience, I feel the day we stop comparing, will be the day for eternal joy!

Can the present human civilisation be mature enough again, to lose all comparative words from dictionary?

Confusion!

Met with an old friend, who asked me why dont I blog..........Hmmmm; "OK" I said. And here I am, writting my first blog.
Is confused personality bad? good? Is confusion good for one? bad? for the society? I hate philosophical questions. Questions where the answer can be both YES or NO! I am confused, and hence think everyone of us is confused. Admit it or not, you are confused. The very fact that you are not stagnant and still moving ahead in life, implies you are confused...still looking for some answer.

One of the common confusions in youth is confusion about what to do with the life? We want something, we desire somthing different, we can work for something different again. Desires and delimiters (from society) make the tug of war, which gives rise to most of the confusion. My friend told me, he wants to be an enterpeuner, but is not sure if he could. He also wants to do an MBA and choose the easier settled life.

Another firend of mine said, I am abominable, because I am confused.

I saw a movie, where the lady character wanna do suicide, as she could stand the confusion of life no more.

Just a second before I was confused about if to write the blog or to go for a coffee or to do some work.

Confusion mean motion. Search for something. Quest to know something. Tryst to hide something. Effort to compromise some facts with the future. It means life.