Ravinder Jalali
Through this write up I am not trying to convince you of any thing, any new theories, new conclusions, new concepts and ideals. The author has no authority as a person. We have practised our brains reason, logic, and sanctity. Many human problems have come up like, problem of relationship. Why people are hurt or physically wounded? What is state of brain? We must put aside for time being influence of our prejudice, one’s own bias, and one’s own opinion. All knowledge is limited. Each one of us is responsible for our actions and thoughts and the way we are living and if we try to blame the society or the environment, the society is what we have made it. Social structure is what human beings have put together through continuous ambitions and competitions. This is a fact that human beings have never been able to solve their problems, which is a very complex affair. Human beings can not be free from such conflicts.
What is conflict? Do ideas bring about conflict? Do every fall of the future and the present are responsible for conflict? The past is in conflict with the present and with the future. Is conflict the duality of like and dislike, the good and the bad? What should be and what it is. These conflicts arise from these factors. From childhood, the long years and short years of existence, conflict seems to be the one of the major factors of life. If we admit that the conflict is inevitable, natural and is there for thousands of years, why should not be we. This argument is silly. If we examine inside the causation of conflict, perhaps it will end.
To discover its cause, it is not a process of analysis. The analyser and analysed , the one who says that I must find the cause of this conflict and begins to investigate, as if it is outside of him. Is the analyser different from which he analyses? If we have headache and we find the cause, it disappears. Analysis creates divisions between analyser and to be analysed. Analysis is a process of wastage of energy.
Is the cause thought? Is the cause a sense of duality, as what I am and what I should be? This should be a projection of thought, which means that we don’t face what we actually are. We are actually moving away or escaping from actually observing. Is one of the causes of conflict- a time? What is a future, present and the past? Tomorrow is what I am today, modified slightly on the edges, frills. But tomorrow will be actually we are now, unless there is a radical change, tomorrow will be a totally different. Is thought one of the factors of the conflict. Is thought the whole process of thinking, both objectively and subjectively thinking?
We spent days and nights and years in thinking. All our actions are based on thinking. In our relationship with each other, thinking plays an important part. Thinking has done extra ordinary things subjectively. What is origin of thought? Is not thinking a process of memory? Memory is stored in the brain. Memory comes from knowledge. Knowledge is based on experience. Knowledge is limited, memory is limited and thought is limited. Any thing that is limited, it must cause conflict. If one is thinking about oneself from morning till evening, their worries and problems can cause conflicts. So wherever there is limitation, there is a conflict, because that limitation divides and separates. That is when one thinks of oneself, how to become religious, how to be happy, how to be free from all the problems, that thinking about oneself is very limited, therefore in our relationship there always is a conflict.
Therefore thought and time seems to be major causes of ones conflict. Now the question arises is it possible in our relationship with each other, where there is no shadow of conflict? We can not possibly exist by ourselves. We may go to monastery, or disappear in mountain cave, or in search of truth or some God, one can not live with out relationship. Relationship is most important thing in our life. Are we using each other, exploiting each other, trying to fulfil our own desires, our own images in each other?
Is it desire, is it obsession of poseeeviness of each other, dependence of each other, can not live with out each other? So where there is possessiveness, there is weakness. There is no love. When I say that she is my wife, my girl friend. What it means actually? Is it all the pleasure, the pain, the anxiety, the jealousy, the struggle? Is that all part of love? Is attachment love? I can not stand by one’s self. Therefore I depend on someone, friend or Guru. Where there is attachment , there is fear. There is loss. There is a sense deep of possessiveness and there it breeds fear. Our relationship with each other is limited, so inevitably it must breed conflict.
Thought and time is a movement in a brain and love is outside the brain. What is inside the skull? It is very important to know, how it functions, what are its blockages, why it is limited? Why there is a perpetual sense of challenge, thought after thought? A series of associations, reactions and responses, store house of memory and memory obviously is not love. So love is not inside the brain, inside the skull. When we are living inside the skull, all the days of life, thinking, thinking, problem after problem, finally breeds conflict and misery.
We talk of security inside or outside. It is not mortgage, insurance or hypothecation. One must have outward security like car, house etc. Where is the security for human beings? Security means something permanent that doesn’t change. That has no disappearance. Is there such security? The brain needs security otherwise it can not function at highest level. But it has formed various forms of security like illusion, ideology, family, nations etc, and various securities outside. But it has never found inward security of deep abiding unchangeable security. Is there any such security? Then there is no fear of any kind i.e., timelessness. Thought can not possibly provide that security. It is limited. So the brain is always thinking, seeking, asking questions. Who is asking these questions? The man in prison is asking, is there any such freedom? He can only find out if he leaves the prison. But we want to live in prison and have also freedom. We love our prison as we are unaware of it and when it is pointed out , we never break the prison. When there is freedom, there is intelligence. In that intelligence, there is absolute security, unchangeable depends on nothing.
(The writer is a Social Activist)