Maya And Leela: Utility In Life’s Futility
By Santosh Jha
Copyright 2013 Santosh Jha
Smashwords Edition
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Other Titles By Santosh Jha
Onlyness (Fiction)
Back To Bliss: A Journey To Zero (Fiction)
Autobiography Of A Duffer (Fiction)
Naked Solutions Of Dressed Up Life Woes (Non-fiction)
Habitual Hero: The Art Of Winning (Non-fiction)
Why We Flop In Love (Non-fiction)
Wisdom Of Wellness: Perpetuity Of Poise Of Purpose (Non-fiction)
Decipher Destiny: Decode God’s Will (Non-fiction)
Youth Sanity In Crazy Culture (Non-fiction)
Redeem & Reinvent The Art Of Lost Wellness
India Beyond Stampede Of Stupidities (Non-fiction)
Karta: Life Inspiring Essays Of Cognition, Consciousness & Causality (Essays)
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Smashowrds Edition, License Note
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Let Us Talk Like Friends: Welcome Note
Maya: The Confusion of Illusion
Maya Smiles As Self’s Leela Enthralls
Au Fait With Probabilistic Superposition
Singularity Of Purpose In All Wisdoms
Maya’s Viraat Swaroop: Cosmic Viewpoint
Ultimate Ingenuity To Unravel Maya
Road To Song And Dance Of Maya
Obscure Joys of Entangled Communication
Being Our Own Media And Regulator
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I feel truly happy to tell you that this, I do not intend to be a book. Rather, it is like friends chatting up, sharing whatever we can together to enhance the wellness space.
It is my humble belief that any person, in whatever state of consciousness and positioning, is in some special ways, better than a wisdom-book, for the purpose of life & living learning. I must tell you, I have learnt and more importantly, unlearnt, primarily from people. Books somehow are people-material in text-format.
Almost everything, which has a utility at one stage of life, stands a good chance of qualifying for futility later. For all thinking people, the larger conflict of life and living experiences is unraveled and expressed in multi-dimensional cyclicality of utility and futility.
The inquisitive mind and its curious energy cannot leave a thinking person to rest in perpetuity of peace as the world we live in is colossal and the questions of life and living conflicts and conundrums are infinite. We shall see that this unsettling energy is a huge gift.
Most of us, who live in modern contemporary world of complexities, have questions as what a good and righteous person should consider as ‘perpetual-utility’ in life, amidst the general feeling of futility of everything around. What is this singular life and living positioning, which can make us live the life in a state of consciousness, endowed with true utilities, shunning away all those futilities, which land us in pain and regret?
Hundreds of years back, spiritualism and philosophy offered us answers but in time, they have lost trust with us somehow, as they seem to ‘misfit’ with modern ideas. We shall talk about these issues in the light of a ‘new thinking’, which assimilates and integrates all wisdoms – spiritualism, philosophy and science.
It is such a beautifully satisfying fact that core ideas of all wisdoms are similar, only varying in their interpretative details. We shall also talk about this similarity here.
However, first, we have to come down to one common premise, which shall help us is the fruition of the issue at hand – Being In Perpetuity Of Consciousness Positioning Of Utility In Futility.
There has to be a humble admittance – Any word, however well meant and well spelt, is a possible suspect of ‘misrepresentation’. There is a simple reason.
Do you remember when your flight is about to land, the pilot aborts the landing, jolting your peace, just because something as insignificant as a ‘stray dog’ happens to be on the runway?
You already know, how similar is the fate of human words, which we all accept as the best and worthy carriers of human ‘intentions’. This airplane of human words, carrying good and noble intentions need to make a good, smooth and safe landing on the runway of another human’s mind and consciousness, which again is worthy and hugely able.
Still, the good intentioned words sometimes fail to land on the mind of others, as there is some ‘insignificant’, yet potentially fatal obstacle standing midway the runway!
It is believed, “If the hypothesis is right, the idea is accepted as right”. If two people have an assimilative and integrative attitude, one can easily see that root trouble is in subjectivity of the hypotheses. This helps in resolution of conflict of ideas.
Friendship is one positioning, where assimilation and integration about divergent hypotheses has larger accommodative space. A seed is more objectively accommodative in space than a grown up tree. Friendship is seed positioning.
That is why, at the very start, I very affectionately requested you to be my friend and accept this all as one long conversation between friends. Kindly, accept this not as a book but a ‘confabulation’ between friends. This, I am confident, shall engender smoothness of navigation and fruition of the entire exercise.
As a friend, I must tell you, I have put up a ‘price tag’ on it to fund my charity endeavors. All proceeds from this and other works of mine shall go to charity.
With all humility and sincerity at my behest, I wish to tell you, it needs to be said that there is only one person on the earth, who can say that he has understood. Otherwise, this domain is reserved for a metaphor called God. This is not available for humans.
It is also a heart-felt realization that our very worthy ancestors, who had the intelligence and courage to face the worst, life made them to, so that we inherit a better beautiful world, have already said almost all good things. What I can do is present them in new set of words with novelty of references.
The only justification of me telling them is that all goodness and wellness ideas and words need to be repeated and retold, to add to their all-pervasiveness.
At the age of 46, I can say with innocence that getting old is such a beautiful and satisfying experience. It makes the ‘self’ accept the ‘utility and fruition’ of holistic, assimilative and integrative consciousness. Getting old has probably pushed ‘me’ close to the ‘eligibility’ of perhaps beginning to understand as what essentially is there to be understood!
I chat up with you to share with you whatever is part of my consciousness. All wisdoms say, human is designed to live in state of ‘flux’, a state of instinctive semi consciousness. To jolt oneself out of this, one must challenge itself; something humanity has done since millions of years. What stays with you is what sinks in. Wisdom is what we internalize.
I share with you whatever I have internalized in my life.
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Maya: The Confusion of Illusion
The higher consciousness of frictionless reception alone has the eligibility to accept that this is sheer joy. For an average consciousness, instinctively inclined towards reactionary positioning, it shall look like we are labeling the energy of confusion about life and living realism as joy.
No doubt, this energy of ‘confusion’, as accepted in popular culture, is the undercurrent. However, we are talking about the human inventiveness and asymmetrical artistry of ‘playful-metaphorization’ of this ‘confusion and chaos’ into something ‘meaningfully and intuitively enjoyable’, in time-space situationality, which stands as the sheer joy.
Vishnu, the protector God in Hindu religious faith, says it in the most revered ancient book of wisdom named Geeta, ‘sansaar chhanbhangur hai par mithya nahi hai’ (the world is ephemeral but not unreal/untrue)’. ‘Ye maya, naashwaan-nashwar sahi, magar, nirarthak aur niruddeshya nahi (the life and living realisms are transient and mortal but not meaningless and purposeless)’.
This is somehow also what the supposedly most intelligent person ever in the history of humanity, Udhishthir, the legendary wise man of Mahabharat epic, while answering to the ‘yaksha-prashnas’ (angel’s questions) said. When the angel asked him, “kim ascharyam”( what is the greatest wonder of the world), Udhishthir replied, ‘har pal, har oar, har vastu ke naashwaan hone ke spasht saakhchhya hone ke bawzood, maya-sansaar ki nirarthakta sthaapit nahi ho paati (every moment, everywhere, there are irrefutable proofs of everything being mortal, still, the uselessness and purposelessness of life does not get established)’.
How can it be, when God himself is ‘saying’ that it is not useless! It can never be as never ever one can expect and accept uselessness and purposelessness being created and orchestrated by God. Anyways, how can one label the brilliant energy of billions of years of evolution as waste, useless and untrue? Yes, ephemeral and mortal is everything.
Just see, how religion, philosophy and science, which have been positioned in the popular culture as competing and mutually exclusive, are singular on the most important question of life – the utility and purpose of life! It is not amazing; it is simply an innocent truth.
This is the greatest wonder as well as the greatest joy and satisfaction! The infinite and intrinsic inventiveness and artistry of humanity, despite the mortality and transient situationalism of the life and living realisms, is the wonder even God fails to understand and unravel. This has been mentioned in the ancient Indian religious traditions.
How beautifully satisfying! The ‘joker’ plays its ‘tricks’ in the ‘circus of life’ and everyone laughs. Truth also claps along with the audience. Everyone is happy and thrilled! What is untrue and useless, even when the show of the circus is ephemeral?
The joker of life’s randomization throws up its rainbowish tricks and tantrums and, everyone is happily part of the show’s symmetry. Some may laugh, some may weep but all participate in this randomization show.
This energy of inventiveness in response to the randomization of life’s show can be anything but not untrue and purposeless. Had it been, the life would have wrapped up the show millions of years before. In ancient Indian traditions, this randomized and ephemeral life show has been referred as ‘maya’ and the energy of inventiveness of all living being, especially humans has been labeled as ‘leela’. We shall talk about these two ideas in totality with a holistic, assimilative and integrative perspective, using ideas from all wisdoms – old and new.
Scientists sum up the above ideas nicely. They say, “Any species sustains and survives because of the energy of the intelligence of its inventiveness and it is this very intelligence, which leads the species to its extinction and end”.
The logic is simple, though sounds unpleasantly inappropriate. The life realism is ‘mortal’ because it is not ‘useless and purposeless’. Had it been useless, there would not have been life. Moreover, as it is not unreal and untrue, it shall be created and mitigated in a cyclic order of infinity.
This realism is the exalted positioning that every human has to attain. This is the position of sat-chit-anand (absolute existence, absolute consciousness and absolute bliss). This position is symmetrical with the realization that if there is a God, the cosmic energy of creation; it is this energy of inventiveness. Moreover, if there is a Devil or Destroyer, it is the same energy of inventiveness. This is the non-dualistic consciousness of sat-chit-anand positioning amid the conflict of dualism. All religions say, ‘god is in everything’.
The big question now is; how to understand the energy of this maya structure? Where rests this energy? It seems, this energy is that of inventiveness and its source is the human instinct. This instinct has all the doors of inventiveness. It is important to understand the mechanism of this instinct well.
However, before we begin to understand the mechanism of instinct, it has to be admitted that this process of understanding is also subject to ‘human inventiveness and symmetrical artistry of playful-metaphorization of confusion and chaos into something meaningfully and intuitively enjoyable, in time-space situationality’. This cyclic interplay of maya structures is mesmerizing.
In addition to the above conundrum, the fact remains that we are in a state of realism where there is a huge debate about ‘instincts’ and its role in human destinies. The psychologists and sociologists now argue that humans are no more instinctive. The reason they extend is:
To be considered instinctual a behavior must:
a) be automatic
b) be irresistible
c) occur at some point in development
d) be triggered by some event in the environment
e) occur in every member of the species
f) be unmodifiable
g) govern behavior for which the organism needs no training.
The absence of one or more of these criteria indicates that the behavior is not fully instinctual. Under such watertight definition, nothing of human stands as ‘instinctive’ in today’s world of info superways and info overdose.
The modern science, based on contemporary knowledge of brain and nerve mechanism however believes, most of what humans do or can do is ‘instinctive’ and even learned or experienced behavior can only be present when brain accepts and converts it into ‘instinctive’ behavior. Even if something is considered as conscious behavior, it always has larger influences and shades of instinctive behavior.
A secondary point is the huge confusion among people about the word and idea of ‘instinct’. The confusion is that the term instinct has entered into the popular language expressions as widely used metaphor to describe it either as ‘gut feeling’ or ‘intuition’.
The semantic conflation is not only this much. Many people believe, gut feeling or intuitive emotions are either their heart ‘speaking to them (instead of mind)’ or it is the ‘voice of the soul’. Most believe, the soul and heart voice cannot go wrong, as they are voice of humanity’s instinctive goodness that God has created and endowed all humans with.
Science does not accept it, as it now has the knowledge of brain functioning and the operative mechanism of neurotic plexus of human body. Unlike religious ideas, science says, human mind is value-neutral and almost like a computer with factory-loaded operative system but most of what constitutes human behavior in societal system is learned behavior, which in time becomes part and parcel of his or her instinct.
Remember, even a software we load externally in a computer, shall be finally run by the mechanism of the internal operating system (OS). The operative mechanism is always our instincts, the external programming of ambient culture, which we often accept as our intelligence, needs to work its way only through the instinctive operations.
That is why; the gut feeling and intuitiveness are so much conditioned by popular cultural influences that it is impossible for a human to make a distinction between his or her ‘instinctive’ behavior and ‘conditioned’ behavior. This nature and nurture divide is a huge issue.
You think, all this is so confusing and chaotic! Yes, it is but this is the joy of it; the cyclic situationalism is the joy. The instincts condition the environment and cultures, which in turn conditions instincts and this goes on. Nature shaped the components of nurture; nurture then started shaping the nature and so on. What we are today is such a mega conflation of millions of years of ‘nature-nurture-nature’ dialectical evolution that it is impossible to segregate the two. We need to accept that we have become a complex living conundrum.
That is why, when we now ask ourselves, ‘who am I’, we cannot be sure the answerer is speaking from his or her nature or nurture. The inventiveness and symmetrical artistry of playful-metaphorization is at its best. All answers are true but no answer is objective and, now, another answer to yakshha prashn of ‘kim ascharyam’ is added.
The answer is, “Every moment, everywhere, everything seems to herald the supremacy of me and self. Everyone says he or she knows himself or herself and his or her priorities. Still, in reality, nobody knows exactly who and what truly is this me and self.”
In such a scenario, the entire spiritualism lands in the realm of confusion and conflict. The ‘design of God and His ‘expectation’ for and from humanity itself becomes a huge conundrum. Religion, spiritualism and philosophy work on the premise of the ‘self’ being an objective realism, with born capability of a general will and in instinctive possession of universal goodness. However, this hypothesis seems the primary source of confusion and conflict.
Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu says in Geeta, “the ultimate karma for a human is to become nisprih”. The meaning of this word ‘nisprih’ in contemporary world is almost impossible. In Geeta, there is a powerful metaphor of akaam karma.
There is a suggestion of a consciousness, which is unattached with instinctive self. That is why; even when someone does an act or behavior, the energy of it should never come from its purpose and end result. Instinctive reaction is considered to be energized by the purpose and fruition of end results. Nisprih consciousness keeps it unattached to the fruition energy.
This is hugely confusing, tough to understand. The suggestion is; everything needs to be done but nothing needs to be done for doing it! Everything needs to be done, which is positioned there to be done yet, in doing it, there must never be the notion of ‘me’ or ‘self’ involved with it. Even when, we look like involved in doing everything, there must never be the feeling and attachment of ‘me’ or ‘self’ in it.
This is mega confusing. The prescription is, “the beingness, the instinctive-me, the intuitive-self, everything shall be there when something is being done yet, there must never be an ‘attachment’ with it.”
This is a big challenge to keep one’s being unattached with the instinct. The trouble is, to do so; one has to be completely sure what this ‘instinct’ is? What part of it is the share of ‘nurture’ and what part is purely nature. This gut feeling or soul voice must first be purged of adulteration of ‘socialization’ and cultural benchmarks, then only one can be sure of the authenticity of it.
The big question is; is it possible to purge the soul voice of such adulterations? Is it possible to segregate the nature-nurture divide? Is the amount of objectivity, which is required for such action possible? Is it possible!
Now, we seem to have the real ‘yakshya prashn’ of ‘kim ascharyam’. The biggest wonder of this mortal world seems to be, “The truth is neither finite nor established and static, still, every human believes, what he or she understands is the truth and what he or she chooses is the finite-static-established positioning of truth. In addition, there is this infinite and acute desire, urge and endeavor to make this truth prevail and perpetuate on everyone and everywhere is his or her primary duty”. Why and how?
The larger point, which needs to be understood is; if ‘nisprih’ means being unattached, then this unattachment should be not only from the instinctive ‘me’ and its actions but from the truths of the subjective soul voices too. How can one be ‘nisprih’ if this unattachment is partial and incomplete?
To be ‘nisprih’ is a big attainment. Being ‘nisprih’ means rising above the maya structures. This means rising above the “human inventiveness and symmetrical artistry of playful-metaphorization of confusion and chaos into something meaningfully and intuitively enjoyable, in time-space situationality.”
It is a huge challenge to rise up to this level of objectivity. Science says, objectivity is not possible for humans. In fact, it is not possible even for machines. No machine can work on hundred-percent efficiency. In fact, religion too says it is impossible for humans to attain hundred-percent objectivity.
Most human minds have been trained to accept that only one thing has been stationed in the cosmos as completely objective. That is God. That is why; every human has this ultimate benchmark of attaining godliness. Like, it is every machine’s pursuit to attain cent-percent efficiency. However, this does not seem possible ever.
If divinity is attainable, then it cannot be the final destination. If godliness is attainable then where is the utility of the benchmark of divinity? Godliness is something, which is beyond the limits of attainment of humanity.
In religion, objectivity has such a difficult positioning that it is even beyond perception of average humans, let alone it being achievable! Geeta elaborates the desirability of karma in the following way: ‘Life is ephemeral but not unreal; one needs to be unattached but not detached; being ‘nisprih’ looks like being recluse but it is not the same; doing without sense of doing is true action; the action and behavior, which is purged of instinctiveness are true action and behavior; all actions sho