Ocean! A Wonderful Teacher

A man was going through an old village on one sunny morning. His heart was dancing in joy by looking at the landscape and the greenery of that area. He was already accustomed to the pine and cedar trees which are hundreds of feet in height. The pine and the cedar trees of that village baffled him. They seemed to be four hundred years old but their height was just one foot in length. After inquiring about this strange phenomenon, he came to know that the man who was taking care of these trees won't touch their leaves and branches but cut their roots as they grow. Since the roots won't go deep inside the earth. Therefore, their heights were just one foot in length. The law of the trees states that to touch the heights of the snow-peaked mountains, they have to go deep inside the earth. The same law holds true for humans also. Go deep inside yourself to attain the heights of a higher level of awareness.

How does one go deep within himself?

Those who only see the outer will only see the chaos in their life. Those who penetrate deep inside, who are courageous enough to look at the invisible life energy permeating in all living beings will attain bliss, peace, and silence in their life. The rule is the one who is incapable of fathoming his depth will not be able to reach the heights of the snow-peaked mountains. Let's understand it through an analogy of an ocean.

Have you ever seen the ocean?

You have never seen the ocean. You have only seen the waves. Eyes have given you only an outer view of the ocean which is full of waves. You haven't seen the depth of the ocean which is full of calmness.

What lessons can we learn from the waves?

If waves have eyes, it is possible that the waves can have eyes because we too are waves in the infinite ocean of the divine. When any wave looks at the other waves then it seems to her that other waves are quite different from her. She inferred this from the fact that if both of them are the same then if other waves are rising then she also has to rise along with them and if they are falling then she also has to fall with them. Since this is not happening she assumes that she is different from them.

She developed enmity towards other waves because they were trying to annihilate her. She was in fierce competition with them which makes her miserable. As the wave looks around herself, she will never be able to see the ocean. She will only be able to see the surface which is full of alien waves. The moment she turned her eyes within herself. She came to know that she is a part of an infinite ocean. In fact, other waves are also part of the same ocean. All of them can't exist without the ocean. She laughs at her own absurdity. Now everything seems to be divine to her. The other waves are also part of herself. There won't be any hatred towards them because they are an extension of herself.

We are also like waves and impersonal(Divine Soul) is an ocean within ourselves. The root cause of the misery is we are not yet rooted within ourselves. We are living at the periphery and the center is yet to be found. Bliss, silence, and peace is the outcome when we reached our inner center. All living beings seem to be part of ourselves because the same divine soul resides in them. It becomes impossible to hurt others. Everything becomes sacred and divine. Once you experience the joy of oneness then your eyes become compassionate towards others, ears become tolerant, and you start speaking the language of the divine.

Your greatest awakening comes, when you are aware of your infinite nature. Amit Ray

Life is full of music. We can learn some valuable lessons from music. The waves and ocean are similar to that of notes and music. Waves can't exist without an ocean, notes can't exist without music. Likewise, humans can't exist without the divine soul. Waves and notes are limited but Ocean and the music are infinite. Likewise, humans are limited, they have boundaries but the divine soul present in them is infinite. The soul(Life Energy) is the invisible that is holding everything together, connecting it but can't be seen. A visible thing can easily fade away but the invisible can never be faded away. There is no way it can.

Everything that is visible is linked to the invisible. You and I are separate but this is an illusion. Pay attention to the invisible that connects me and you. To experience that invisibility is to experience the music of life. The problem is we have not yet developed the sensitivity to listen to the music of life. We are so focused on notes and missed the divine part that is connecting the two notes. Pay attention to the invisible or soundless that is connecting the notes. Music, ocean, and soul are vast and infinite. Our senses are limited and limited can't comprehend the unlimited. To perceive the infinite, go beyond the world of senses.

Silence is the language of the divine. Why is it so?

The collision of the two objects produces sound. It can only be heard by the impact of two entities. When you become completely integrated inside then inner clamor disappears. When you experience oneness and become one with the divine soul. The world of duality disappears. Everything is connected with each other. You will see the same divine life energy in everybody. A feeling of oneness. The entire world becomes unity and the sound can't be produced by a single object. Silence, peace, and blissfulness descend over you when you experience the oneness.

It is only in alert silence that truth can be. Jiddu Krishnamurti

You will experience the state of deathlessness by merging with the divine energy. How is it possible?

Life can only be lived when you are fearless about death. When the wave turns her eyes inwards, she came in direct contact with an infinite ocean. She has experienced the deathless. Now she knows when she will die then she will take refuge in the ocean. She has tasted the nectar of immortality. She will definitely die as a wave but as an ocean she is immortal. Likewise, when a man dies, he will leave his body like a wave but after that, he will take refuge in the divine soul. Now no one can kill him. In fact, he was never born and he will never die. He is immortal.

A meditation technique on the music of life.

Store in your memory the melody you hear.

Only fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are but man.

But if you listen to it,

remember it faithfully,

so that none which has reached you is lost,

and endeavor to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which surrounds you.

In time you will need no teacher.

For as the individual has a voice,

so has that in which the individual exists. A Voice of Silence

Store in your memory the melody you hear...

There are certainly some events that have happened in your life like the loving look of loved ones, the sweet voice of birds on a beautiful morning, etc. that make you silent, peaceful, and blissful. Store those moments in your memory and meditate over them. The problem is we meditate over the moment of suffering. When someone abuses us we repeat it fifty times in our heads as if the event has happened the fifty times with us. Man dwells on his suffering because he craves sympathy and love from someone.

Life within you grows when attention is paid to you. When no attention is paid then the flower of life withers away. Attention is the root cause for the longing for love. When someone gives you attention when someone looks at you with a loving and smiling face you grow. Don't crave attention by dwelling on the miseries because it makes you even more miserable. Don't attract attention by making someone else miserable because then you will go on becoming more miserable than you were before. Others are simply an extension of yourself.

When we are happy we don't share our joy with others. We make others miserable by sharing our misery. Don't suppress your misery but express it in solitude. Lock yourself inside the room and cry as much as possible. Throw your anger in the limitless sky but never throw it on others. Make a simple rule in your life: Never discuss your unhappiness with others. When you are with someone let the bubble of happy memories within you come over the surface. Share your happiness with others. It reduces the suffering of other people. The more you live in happiness, the more your happiness will increase.

Only fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are but man.

But if you listen to it,

remember it faithfully,

so that none which has reached you is lost,

and endeavor to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which surrounds you.

Whenever you become silent ad peaceful, create a space within your heart and store those moments there. Relive those moments over and over. Now, we have piled so much rubbish within our hearts that we are only reliving the miserable moments which make us even more miserable. As you start reliving those peaceful moments you will start attracting more and more peaceful and blissful moments.

Laws of life will be completely reversed in the spiritual domain. In ordinary life, opposite attracts but in spiritual life like attracts like. By and by your heart is filled with blissful moments and all the piled-up rubbish will be thrown away. You become the living embodiment of blissfulness.

In time you will need no teacher.

For as the individual has the voice,

so has that in which the individual exists.

When you have reached the ultimate source(become one with the soul). You don't need an external teacher. Your soul becomes a guide for you to navigate the uncharted territory of life.

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An Anthro-Vision in Life

Once there was a man going through his village on a beautiful sunny morning. He was enchanted by the warm sunlight. His heart was mesmerized by listening to the sweet voices of birds. Suddenly he came across three men doing some work. He asked the first person, "What are you doing?" I am breaking the stones, replied the man. He repeated the same question to the second person. He replied I am doing chores to earn my living. Finally, the young man turned towards the third person and asked him the same question. The third man looked very calm and serene. There exists a glitter in his eyes. He said I am building one of the most beautiful temples in the world. The perspective of all of them was different towards their work. Having the right perspective will drastically impact the quality of our life.

The goal of Anthropology is to give the right perspective to external events. According to Britannica, "Anthropology is the science of humanity that studies human beings ranging from the biology and evolutionary history of HomoSapiens to the feature of society and culture that decisively distinguishes humans from other animal species". Initially, it emerged as the study of myths, rituals, symbols, and artifacts of the strange culture along with their institutions and social culture. As time progresses, its principles can be used in other fields to gain a better understanding of the world.

The key principles in Anthropology that give the right perspective of the external world are:

1. People create different webs of meaning around the same thing.

2. Look at the things from the bird's eye as well as the worm's eye

3. People often looked at the tip of the iceberg and overlook the things that are submerged beneath them.

4. Focus on one micro-level topic or set of practices and then gradually widen the lenses to capture the entire landscape.

People create different webs of meaning around the same thing: Many times things are told to indicate one fact but they are interpreted in an entirely opposite way. An example of Tea will serve as a good example here. The people of America view tea as an addition. Sugar and Caffeine will help them to thwart their sleep in the late afternoon. The same tea will be viewed in China as a subtraction. It is taken as a meditative tool that helps them to attain calmness in their life. Tea companies need to put emphasis on the fact how does their product is viewed by the people who are living in different cultures. The sales of any product are more likely to improve if they are advertised in any country according to their culture. The value of Anthropology is to provide transnational cultural translation for the era of globalization.

In Anthro-vision, Gillian Tett writes...

In the mid-twentieth century, Gerber(Food company) tried to expand its international operations by selling baby food in West Africa using jars decorated with the picture of a smiling baby, a common advertising image in America and Europe. But in some African cultures, the picture on the tin is expected to represent the ingredients of the food. "Accustomed to seeing the contents of a packaged food depicted on product labels, some villagers assumed that the jars contained not food made for babies, but the food made of babies." Are Americans cannibals, they wondered?

It is also more likely that the same message can be interpreted in a different way by the different people of the same family or an organization. The father is pressurizing his son to wake up early and read quality books so that he can stand upon the shoulders of giants. Son is interpreting the intentions of his father as a masochist. Interpreting the intentions of others in a wrong way is the core reason for conflict within the family or in an organization. The core teaching of anthropology is to don't form any assumptions. Simply listen to people and try to understand their perspectives.

Look at the things from the bird's eye as well as the worm's eye: The underlying idea behind this principle is to change the frame of reference to effectively find out the solution to a particular problem. When the cases of the Ebola virus started increasing in Sierra Leone, the health officials of European countries issued some guidelines like quarantines to reduce the impact of it in Sierra Leone. The people of Sierra Leone became violent when these rules were enforced upon them. They even started killing health workers.

The health officials of European countries started worrying about the strange behavior shown by the people of Sierra Leone. Any outsider will look at those people as if they are barbarians. They hired some anthropologists who had previously done the research in Sierra Leone so that they can figure out why are they behaving like that?

Anthropologists found that whenever anyone died in Sierra Leone, those people kissed their dead bodies. Health workers forcefully try to prevent people from touching their dead bodies. The native people felt like the outsiders were trying to break their culture which was a huge blow to their ego. Anthropologists advised the health officials to make some amendments to the guidelines in such a way that will prevent the contagion along with that their cultural values should remain intact. There was a huge decline in cases in Sierra Leone after the amendments done to guidelines. The lessons learned during the Ebola crisis would be utilized during the covid-19 pandemic.

The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable. Paul Broca

The above example shows that sometimes the change in the frame of reference will help us to see the problem in a new light. It's wrong to assume the behavior of others through intellectual reasoning because physical experiences and habits mattered deeply. Policies can be much more effective when you work with communities and bring them into solutions. Never impose your innovative ideas on others. It's much better to look at the world through their eyes and observe how they respond to them. Disasters happen when people neither pay attention to the external context of what they were doing nor to the internal context of their world. Before making any decision ask yourself...

1. What would happen if I have to look at the organization from the eyes of the lowest member of the staff?

2. What does an outsider see if he looked at the organization?

People generally looked at the tip of an iceberg and overlook those things that are submerged beneath them: People sometimes behave in strange ways. It is a mistake to assume that they are bad people. Sometimes circumstances were arranged in such ways that make them behave like that. Try to look at the things from their standpoint. It will help you to feel the pain of others and develop empathy towards them. People often attribute the success of others to luck. They are just looking at the tip of an iceberg. They don't pay attention to the hard work and toil one has undergone to attain that success.

Ethnography is a technique that fosters the skill of looking at the world from different standpoints. The pillar upon which ethnography stands are:

1. Look around and gaze at the world like a child.

2. Ask open-ended questions.

3. Have a compulsive curiosity.

4. Try to walk in someone else shoes.

If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts. William Graham Sumner

Zoom in and zoom out to get the overall picture. Don't form any assumptions about people. Simply listen and try to understand their perspective. Pay attention to what people talk about and also to what they don't.

Focus on one micro-level topic or set of practices and then gradually widen your lenses to capture the entire landscape: This principle has enormous applications in present-day scenarios. A wide array of skills are needed to become successful in life. One must know how to acquire any new skill. In the beginning, one gets intimidated by looking at the entire domain. It appears as if one has to remember a zillion of things. The key thing is to focus on one micro-level topic and learn everything about it. As time progresses expand your horizon to capture the entire landscape. If you have eight hours at your disposal, give six hours to increase the depth and two hours to widen the breadth. You become an expert over the span of years.

Life is all about survival. Generalist species have far more chances of survival than a specialist. A cockroach has more chances of survival than a panda. Be like a bee in the garden of flowers. Pick up pollens (knowledge) from as many flowers (domains) to increase the surface area of luck. Success is the result of thousands of iterations and micro-actions.

Humans instinctively shy away from cultures that seem strange. There exists an infinite number of variations in this world. It is foolish to assume that our practices are always superior to others. Anything strange always look intimidating. People generally discard them. The truth is what is embarrassing or intimidating is always revealing. It is only through patient listening and observation one comes to know about their worldview. Embrace openness and let yourself collide with the unexpected. It will expand your horizon and you will be forced to rethink what you already know.

Conclusion: The principles of anthropology will help us to see the world in a new light. It fosters empathy towards others that accelerates progress when we work with them. Smart people assume that everyone thinks like them. They dismissed the behavior that look strange to them. This mindset would be disastrous for the world. Don't rely on statistics and surveys. In fact, use observation and open-ended conversations. Look at the world in a holistic way. Remember this fact, That may be my worldview but it's not everybody's.

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The School of Essenes

Is there anything that is present everywhere?

Darkness is everywhere. What is darkness? Darkness is an absence of light. It is eternal. Everything comes out of darkness and will go back into darkness. Every religion portrays God as light. The school of Essenes is the only school that portrayed God as darkness.

Why has God been symbolized everywhere as light?

Human beings are afraid of darkness. God is the creation of the human mind. How can humans worship something to which they are afraid? There are evolutionary reasons behind afraidness. When man lived in the savannah, the day was more secure. He can see far away and protect himself from predators. In the night, anyone could come and attack him. He was helpless during the night. Fear of darkness had gone deep into his psyche.

When the fire was discovered, the man started worshipping it. It protected him from the enemies during the night. That is why fire is worshipped as God.

There is an ancient meditation technique on darkness to achieve peace and bliss in life. The technique is

In rain during a black night,

Enter the blackness as the form of all forms. The Book of Secrets

Before entering into this technique, let's understand the few basic things about darkness.

1. Darkness is eternal. Light comes and goes but darkness remains. Darkness is a cosmic womb that gives birth to everything. Absolute silence is present there. Any seed that flourishes into a big and beautiful tree germinates in darkness and silence. When it dies it is again dissolved into darkness.

2. Darkness teaches us about receptivity. It allows everything to pass through it. You are able to see light because darkness allows the light to pass through it. To succeed in life, allow life's constant pounding to pass through you. It gives you ripeness. You will attain a state of inner harmony because nothing disturbs you.

3. The source of light is Sun. It is dependent on the Sun. Anything that is dependent on others can't be infinite and eternal. Darkness is sourceless. It can't be confined. Hence it is infinite and eternal. God is also infinite and eternal. That is why Essenes symbolized God as darkness.

4. Darkness travels faster than light. Light takes some time to move from point A to point B. Darkness is present at points A and B at the same time.

5. Darkness is total relaxation. Light is disturbing. It won't allow you to sleep at night.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first and is waiting for it. Terry Pratchett

A man is defined in light. Light gives him boundaries and distinctiveness. In light, you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, saint or sinner. In the darkness, all these distinctions are dissolved. No boundaries exist in darkness. Everything merges into another and forms disappear. Ego can't exist when one disappears. Ego disappears in darkness. That is why man has an aversion to darkness. He needs light so that his identity should remain intact. The dissolution of ego is the core teachings of all religions.

The above-described technique is possible only when you develop friendliness towards darkness. Be loving towards it. You will achieve total relaxation when you enter into darkness without any fear.

Let's dig deeper into this technique.

On the rainy night when there are no stars and moon. Enter into the darkness as the form of all forms.

How can you enter into the darkness?

It is very easy to look at a light. Light always emanates from the pointed source. It is easy to look at the pointed object. Darkness is everywhere. Stare into the vacuum and allow the darkness to enter into you. It gives you deep soothing and total relaxation.

Try this technique before going to sleep. When there is total darkness inside the room. Lie down on the bed as if you are inside the womb of your mother. The presence of a mother gives you warmth. Her unconditional love will fill your body with peace and bliss. Likewise, darkness is the cosmic womb. Allow the darkness to touch you from all sides. Slowly, slowly you will enter into a calm and relaxing state.

When you wake up in the morning, carry the patch of darkness within you. Eating, Sleeping, talking, walking carry it with you. People who are sensitive enough will start feeling the pure vibes radiating from your body. Your presence will induce a subtle joy in their being.

Faults will disappear from your life when you carry the patch of darkness within you. Faults exist when you are prone to get excited. Carrying a patch of darkness will help you to stay rooted at your center. External events won't knock you off from the center. Suppose you see a beautiful car on the road. The desire arises within you to possess it. The heat of the desire will be consumed by the coolness of darkness within you.

Someone has insulted you. His harsh words will be consumed by the darkness present within you. The patch of darkness will never let any external event disturb you. By and by, you will attain mastery over yourself. Nothing is more powerful than self-mastery. The poison of lust, anger, envy, and greed will be consumed by the holy darkness within you. You will start experiencing the subtle joy, silence, and bliss in your life.

Conclusion:

1. Stare into darkness and let it enter inside you.

2. Develop sensitivity towards it as if it is a cosmic womb.

3. Carry the darkness wherever you go. You don't get excited and tense. You will start living in deep silence and bliss. The quality of your life will be very different.

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