Written Messages

Paris 

5. 9. 2020

 

Now let us contemplate on and condense the concluding 3 chapters of this wonderful book authored by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari —- Chapters 19, 20, 21 —- indicating a way for resilience of the energy of pure & profound Understanding without any mental pollution caused by theological thuggeries from priest-crafts of various ‘religions’ as also from politicians (with their vulgarities of vested interests galore, in various nations). We must also be aware of vain Arm-chair ‘intellectuals’ advising us solutions with assertions and arrogance!

 

Chapter 19: Education

 

The question is how to educate our children? A baby born today will be thirty in 2050, and if all goes well, that baby will be around in 2100, and might even be an active citizen of the 22nd century. What must we teach this baby that will help him/her survive and flourish? What skills will he or she need that will enable him/her to navigate in the ocean of Life with Love and perfect sanity? Attempts to spread mis-information and irrelevancies,  gossips or porns must be stopped; we must also save young people from being glued to their smartphones, and many other mischiefs which  continue and multiply. People all over the world are just a click away and it is impossible to imagine what havoc is spreading all over humanity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and writing computer code in C++ will enable us to manage technical needs. So should we not therefore teach 4 other ’C’s in schools —-

 

1)        Critical thinking

2)        Communication

3)        Collaborations

4)        Creativity.

We may downplay technical skills (leaving these to AI and super-computers) and emphasize the ‘Life-skills’, so that boys and girls learn to preserve mental balance in unfamiliar situations. There is need for them to learn the art of dying to ‘I’-ness every moment, which is indeed the art of living in ‘Is’-ness —-in Life— from moment to moment! Let us remember that change itself is the only certainty! ‘Who am I?’ (Sage Raman Maharshi’s  famous teachings of yesteryears) will be the more urgent question than ever before! Let us be warned: not only computers, but humans are also being hacked: Illusions are your (mind’s) luggage. Leave all your illusions behind and run fast to the fountain of Division-free Awareness — the Divinity!

Our so called ‘normal-ness’ keeps us amused and drunk in divisive consciousness as also silly and shallow in the stupid activities of the psyche ‘I’.

Our accumulations and possessions are soaring, simultaneously increasing our minds’ ache,  agony, anxieties, antagonisms and perversions.

  

Chapter 20: Meaning

 

Prof. Harari here goes deeply into the tendency of human mind to remain gratified by stories and surmises.

Hindus have the Puranas, Disney story of the Lion King keeps many thrilled and excited. There is the Muslim story of Allah creating the entire universe and laying down its ‘laws’, then revealing the laws to humans in the ‘quran’. Loyal muslims must uphold these laws so that on the  ‘judgement day’ Allah may pass judgement rewarding the ‘loyals’ everlasting bliss in paradise with 72 women (beautiful and with attractive eyes). And ‘disloyals’ will be tossed by Allah into the burning pits of hell. Allah the Great! Zionists story is also thrilling and Jews must ensure that Israel prospers along with Hebrew language and becomes a moral and spiritual beacon to the entire world. Communism tells an analogous story focussing on class struggles, rather than ethnicity, ultimately establishing the ‘communist paradise’ on earth. There are belief-systems & stories galore to keep human-minds excited and enamoured. But sanity is in the energy of understanding without a single belief whatsoever, under any pretext. We have deliberately not gone into infantile belief-systems prevailing in Christianity, Mormonism and many other medium and small religious sects and cults. Even the quantum physics, bigbang and the evolution story is a tiny part of the Truth Eternal!

 

The mind seeking meaning, does not see that only meaning is to live and love. Formulating a meaning, which organized religions and nationalisms have done, lead only to wars and destructions.

Rituals play enormous roles in controlling and conditioning masses in all religions and in all kinds of political situations and manoeuvers. Priests and shamans have been using all kinds of very simple to very complicated rituals to keep spellbound, masses everywhere. A priest takes a piece of bread and a glass of wine and proclaims that the bread is Christ’s flesh, the wine is Christ’s blood! Tasting Christ in the priest’s mouth! Easter eggs symbolizing resurrection of Christ!! In every religion, everywhere, all kinds of taboos are encouraged and asserted under the banner of ‘holy truth’, ‘spiritual’ or ‘divine’. Meanings thereof are ‘explained’, ‘interpreted’ and promoted vigorously. Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi, Bodh Gaya are sacred places because of meanings attributed by mind and its myths. Otherwise, the universe is only a meaningless hodgepodge of atoms!! There is constant change in life, without an enduring essence, without any complete satisfaction or contentment. Then what is it, that this meaningless mind seeks, when asking for ‘meaning’? It is the most sacred ‘otherness’ — the Unnameable!!!

 

Prof. Harari tells us to be careful whenever Politicians start talking in mystical terms using such words: sacrifice, eternity, purity, redemption. Professor further suggests that we watch human-sufferings at all levels and thus to wake up in Life, Love and Energy of Comprehension.

 

Chapter 21: Meditation

 

Prof. Harari’s 10-days’ stint in Mr. S. N. Goenka’s Vipassana retreat is described here. During the 3-days Kriya-Yoga-programs we consider deeply the profound teachings of ‘Swadhyay’ on the first day, whereby we perceive the phenomenon of fusion of ‘Observer’ and ‘Observed’ leaving only the observation to flow effortlessly in the passive awareness. This is the bliss and benediction of ‘me’- deletion without any trace of ‘me’- dictation whatsoever; making it transparent that movement of ‘mind-I’ must halt for the ‘Holiness’ to be. Thereafter, ‘thought’ moves in discontinuity. It surfaces when a technical function is to be performed (for the body’s needs for survival), then falls back in the sanctity of Silence of the Un-namable-Immeasurable.

Therefore, I am not going into what Prof. Harari has narrated in this chapter.

 

 

Jai Meditation