Emergent Nirvana - The Dialectics of Living with Honor.

1st Jan 2012. We call it a start of a New Year. But I can't understand what is so new about it? I can't feel the coming of a New Year. It is so disconnected from Nature. Nothing much has changed in Nature. I still feel the cold. I don't see new leaves bursting forth to clothe the naked trees. The sun is still mellow in the northern hemisphere. The days are still shorter than the nights that induce me to sleep more than I do in summer. But the darn clock on the wall would not let me do any of that. I would have to get up and run and rush playing our daily games by the rules that we (my friends and I) have set up. I would have to adapt to the timepiece and all the routines that are entangled with it. I am continually caught out of breath in the vortex of meaningless rituals into which we are desperately trying to breathe life into to create the inauthentic lives we live. I am not allowed to adapt to the rhythm of nature as per my own natural tendencies and inclinations. But still we keep shouting hoarse asking people to follow their hearts and save Nature and adapt to her ways to prolong our continuation of life on earth.

Wonder as to why we have gradually synchronized with thousands of mental concepts and constructs that we formed with impunity and fancy aided by a system called formal education much of which goes against basic human rights that might have otherwise allowed us to live like members of the human race. For whom? For what? For whom the bell tolls? What is so special about the human race that makes us believe that we are separate from nature?

What made us follow thinkers and leaders who till date haven't been successful to create the 'desired future'. Are we still continuing our nomadic journey through the heavily inhabited deserts of our unkempt minds in search of the 'Promised Land'. Where might be this land? Whose land is that? The Capitalist got it wrong. The Communist got it wrong. The religious teachers got it wrong. The scientists got it wrong. The Gurus got it wrong. The Governments got it wrong. The lives of common men and women continue to be crushed and even the thin line that is left behind after their death is mercilessly obliterated by the grinding wheels of our 'structured civilization' that takes no cognizance of such events and phenomenon. We are still no where. Our food, clothing, shelter, living, meaning in our lives are all threatened. That surely isn't civilization.

Where did they all go wrong? I think it is our ritual of honoring the false concept of rise of the 'individual' based on the belief of a 'self identity'. Therefore, we want to improve ourselves. Therefore, we search for definite traits of a creative individual. Therefore, we are madly searching for so called 'leadership traits' that make us better leaders. Therefore, we define ourselves, the things that we see around us, the factories, the organizations, our love or sense of belonging, in fact everything around us. And then we define what is good and what is bad and what is desirable and what is not so desirable and what we must do to improve ourselves and what we must do to get richer and better. And how might we teach others the same. We are so concerned with being an individual. All these are simply 'false'.

This is a lie that can never be supported. We simply can't live alone. We are never ever alone. We live in relationships -- with other humans, animals, plants, objects, the energy fields that fill up the cosmos or the universe itself. And as the nature of the relationships change they evolve in terms of strength, quality and complexity. Caught in the web of numerous relationships we are constantly being modulated and changed. Our choice, therefore, lies in the way we pay attention to those various relationships, constantly responding to the pulls and pushes of those relationships, living for those who bring meaning in our lives and learning from those modulations in our relationships. It affects our collective mind, health, learning and living. Death is experienced in the closure of a relationship giving birth to a new one or strengthening an existing one.

These relationships are teeming with thousand possibilities of every kind that we need to care about, provided we learn from the continuing dialectics contained in each relationship. It allows us to see truth in different perspectives and dimensions -- all valid but never totally encompassing. It brings in the possibility of the 'excluded middle' as the real possibility of creative living or living as a real member of the human race. 

Since it is all about relationship in the dialectic mode it is not about improving ourselves and making ourselves better, stronger or richer. It is all about improving one or many relationships that entangle us. We are as good as the web of relationships itself. The individual improves through the dialectic motion exhibited by the relationships one is entangled in.

We can't live the path unless our web of relationships becomes the path itself. There is no shame, guilt or fear of being such a changing path informed by the nature, quantity and quality of the connected and interdependent relationships. This is because the path is constantly evolving to new states of becoming through its constant movement shaped by dialectics of the relationships. The path goes nowhere in any linear fashion but evolves to the subsequent stages. We can only be the change by remaining open & attentive. There is no manipulation. We don't play a zero-sum game. There is no need for any personal ambition to excel since all improvements are matter of co-creations. The relationship evolves or gets stuck.

The co-creation would depend upon recognizing reality through detached application of discrimination.

Such co-creation would be creative only when it flows from insights gained from a situation.

Such co-created evolution would be about actions that spring from the depth of choices made by the elements with the web of relationships fuelled by the collective will power of the relationships.

It is about harmony, melody, dancing to the rhythms of nature and enjoying the freedom of flow that comes from being centered in the middle of the dialectic play of energy fields within relationships.

Our collective ability to negotiate increasing complexity of such collective evolution would depend on whether the relationships bounded by space, energy fields and time acquire the --

Right Dialectic Mindset of viewing reality

Right Centering, Attention & Intention

Right Will and the power of communications

Right Practice

Right effort to co-create, design and facilitate the higher and complex evolution of relationships

Right Learning

Right Living

Right Actions to bring forth into reality the lessons learned from living the relationships

I call this "Emergent Nirvana" that has a rhythm of a collective moving through cycles and exhibiting patterns, which gives us the power to design our own lives centered on co-evolving relationships developed through co-operation, collaborations and co-creation.

To be this path of Emergent Nirvana and to live this path we would be our own Gurus where the existing relationships would offer us the necessary lessons of Relevance, Resilience and Reliability to be the change and evolve to increasingly complex planes of a fulfilled existence.

A Stranger to Myself – Design Kata 3

The idea of ‘motion’ or nomadic life runs deep in our Indian culture. Our rivers travelling endlessly across the vast landscape giving life to the parched lands are personifications of goddesses (symbols of creativity), reincarnations (symbols of state transformations), the timeless whirl of bhikshus and monks wandering for alms (in exchange of advice and wisdom for better living), jhum cultivation obeying the rhythms of nature, clusters and settlements in steady flux of self organizing movements, sadhus (seers) and pilgrims, mobile fairs and haat bazzars (markets), itinerant pilgrims, performers, pastoralists, bards and tellers of myths all embody the notion of ‘motion’ all performing simultaneously on the thin veneer of our ancient but extremely flexible and adaptable ‘culture’.

No wonder South Asia is home to the world’s largest nomadic population always on ‘motion’. Nowhere else is there such a variety of people herded and ceaselessly moving in a self organizing manner giving rise to complex patterns nor can the diversity of peripatetic professions be matched.

Yet in our post modern times the sedimentary have increasingly come to represent the ‘civilized’. The mainstream (the sedentary) stands oblivious to the pull of the wanderers and the scribes and the worlds of the nomads have been circumcised’ to the odd curious enthusiasts. Little wonder, nomads are considered ‘strangers’ where ‘strangers’ in principle are ‘undesirable’ people.

And how does this ‘undesirable’ attitude surface? ‘Indifference’ is the shield used by ‘foreigners’ (the non nomads) when they meet nomads. Insensitive and aloof the foreigner seems deep down beyond the reaches of attacks and rejection that he nevertheless experiences with the vulnerability of a living and tortuous ‘medusa’.

Such a ‘medusa’ painfully brings on an ‘identity’ of ‘being’ something distinct from others with a fixed character of its own. What it fails to realize or let go is that our identity is changed in a nomadic style by the journey we undertake in life where both our ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’ towards ‘reality’ is recomposed and evolved. What we fail to realize or give up or let go is that in this transformation every step forward is a step backwards too. Without this necessary stepping back I can’t go forward. The migrant (nomad) is here and there too at the same time. The exile from the ‘nomad’ life can be deadening with the lack of ‘stretching’ and ‘folding’, which every movement entails. Such ‘stretching’ and ‘folding’ is nomadic symbolizing ‘movement’ that can be creative. It can also be an affliction but can also be a transfiguration. Whatever it might be it is a vital resource to create the necessary movement from ‘being’ to ‘becoming’.

If that is so what happens to my identity of ‘being’. My ‘being’ existence is actually non-existent. Is my identity not with ‘being’ but ‘becoming’? Do I live always on the edge of a frontier – a place for separation, transition and new articulation of a state that I haven’t seen or enjoyed before? In ‘becoming’ am I relieved of the odd task of constantly creating a boundary and jealously guarding it against attacks or rejection by constantly stepping back to cross or transgress it?   

I realize that I am stranger to my ‘becoming’ state. What would happen is not know to me. What I would do as a response is also not known to me. In the state of becoming I change myself physically, mentally and spiritually and nothing is known to me in advance or ever would.

What helps me do that? Obviously the mind which itself is ‘nomadic’. I can use it the way I would like in order to evolve, change, be creative and change the course of my destiny. I know the ‘why’ but I still remain a stranger to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ in any given moment in my movement.

This video link below shows how we integrate our right and left brains in real situations and how such integration leads to ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’. Though I would always remain a stranger to that ‘becoming’ I refuse to remain a stranger to my present moment that informs my ‘becoming’.

http://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain.html

One thing I am sure of. Nomadic life – physically, mentally and spiritually – is usually the most gainful and risk free mode of survival as it allows freedom from the limitations of confined space and time created by the limitations of rational concepts, ideas and notions.

Living the life of a nomad is fun too since I would always remain a stranger to myself. It is a practice I love. Rightfully it is a Design Kata since it helps me to create what I want to. The practice is through meditation where both the right and the left are not only integrated but allowed to come into play simultaneously as a contextual response to real situations.

Would you like to join the fun of moving by being a stranger to yourself in the nomadic way?

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

The world has been changing so fast that it scarcely seems to be the same every other day. In 1997, when India was punished for going Nuclear and letting the world knows about its nuclear capability; In Europe, the euro had not been introduced as a common currency; Amitabh Bacchan was still young and Madhuri Dixit was not so plump; Hong Kong had not yet been handed back to China; Google did not exist; the dragon’s  dominance in the world economic map was still a far cry and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were still four years away ---- Deepak was frustrated , why is his father not listening to him.

Deepak wanted to change his father’s old “Ambassador “car (a distant cousiin of 1941 model Austin) for a new Generation X car. The newspapers were full of advertisements. “Exchange your old car for a new one, and pay on easy monthly installments. Deepak was trying desperately to convince his father but he was adamant. What his son is not aware of are the many cherished memories attached to the car. When Deepak was born he was brought from the local hospital in this car. Deepak had grown up with this car.

Deepak graduated and got into a Post Graduate Business Administration course.

He wanted to change the world too soon. He has now acquired a new motorbike with a funky look. He has changed his attire and wardrobe. Everything he has changed with the passage of time but he is still not able to change his father’s outlook, attitude and business policies. His father still goes to the factory in a white sweat shirt and a cotton trouser. He still mingles with the factory workers. Tries to gauge their feelings. Hugs them when he is overjoyed and also hurls choicest abuses when angry.

Now India has opened up. Private bankers have come in. “Gone are the days when a nationalized Bank staff would talk to you rudely”. Smart young people are now manning the private banks with their plastic smile, trying every moment to access a customer in terms of business he would give. But India is different. People can differentiate between the artificial and the natural. The common man can do wonders. He can shun Ray-Ban, Reebok and prefer locally made under garments. He uses Debit Cards instead of Credit Cards. The billions of middle class Indian market use their own thinking based on their sincere feelings for their families.  

Deepak comes to the factory in a Ford but his father still comes in the old car. People love his father more than him. Deepak had tried to implement all his “imported management policies” in the factory. His father had given him the required space. Some were successful while others miserably failed.

Deepak wonders why things don’t work here. He has tried to implement most of the case studies that he has learned. He is impatient. Why India is so averse to change? Is there a physiological factor playing among the Indians? A change is required but why there is so much resistance?

What he fails to notice are the small meaningful energetic changes that keep taking place against seeming changelessness.

He forgets that small changes are much more powerful than big artificial ones. There is actually no resistance. How can one grapple and fight against something that has no resistance at all. So, no big changes can be brought about in India by copying something or somebody else. It is always a state of becoming not being. That is the ethos of the land called India.

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