Think Global, Act Local

Even earlier, having a global vision was desirable for all to improve their environment, culture and economy, it has become now imperative due to the Internet revolution, which is the greatest innovation to bring the whole humanity on a single platform. Particularly in the field of business and economy, no person or nation can afford to remain isolated from the global perspective.

But all the nations and regions of the world are not the same - geographically, historically, culturally and economically. They differ with each other to a wide extent, and this factor can also not be ignored by any body or any nation. This puts humanity in a state of confusion - which way to go - global or local, while a symbiosis between the two has to be maintained. What we can do for this symbiosis - the solution lies in having a global vision with location-compatible actions. This is a spatial consideration.

Another similar consideration is whether to think small or big. Here the action is same - thinking, having two dimensions separated by time, hence is temporal. The basic question which arises in my mind is ‘whether a big thinking is devoid of small thinking’. My own answer to it is NO in bold, because every big thing, abstract or physical, is made up of small, and even tiny, things.

Thinking big is good but ignoring small is the worst. Every big thinking needs to be supplemented by small thinking or small thoughts. This is basic to nature because we don’t find anything in nature which is not composed of tiny things. Same principle applies to even thinking.

To think big, you can not go directly to a large canvas of thoughts. You will have to first think minute things - put them under command of your sub-conscious mind, and then go to a little larger things - put them under command of your sub-conscious mind, and then go further to larger things and so on… I call this process as ‘evolution of thinking big’.

Now question is when one can think of big things at any point of time, why to go through this lengthy process. Big things can not be thought of at any time, and if that is done it is called day-dreaming. When such day-dreamed thoughts are implemented, a disaster is inevitable.

Thus, these two - spatial and temporal considerations are themselves symbiotic, and have to be taken into consideration by all of us to take the humanity on its onward march of progress and development.

Male-Female Relationships

There are four ways a male relates to a female - father-daughter, brother-sister, husband-wife, and son-mother. Out of these only the husband-wife relationship is evolutionary and all others are natural. So, we will deal here only with this evolutionary relationship only which is not only instinctive but also compulsive up to some extent. No male is complete without his wife and vice-versa. The present perverted culture is trying to substitute this male-female relationship by gay-ism and lesbianism which are not only unnatural but also born of corrupt mentality.

This relationship is basically made for the purpose of procreation to continue the humanity chain. Apart from this, it has many other dimensions - the most important being sexual attraction and fulfilment of desire born of this attraction. Although, the flow of feelings of attraction may get initiated in any direction, but it is most often from male to female. Main reason for this directivity of attraction is that the women may have to pay a price in the form of pregnancy for their attraction while the men remain free. This pricing makes the women more conservative than the men.

In human and only in humans, sex play is more for pleasures of it rather than for procreation. On an average, out of 200 love-games, only one is for procreation, and all the rest are for pleasure sake only. This indicates that pleasure of love making is immense. It is of course a matter of thorough knowledge of this art on both the platforms - physical as well as psychological.

Men and women need each other for different reasons at different age. While young, sexual pleasure is the main purpose while in old age, mutual support and care takes the prime place. In between they need each other for caring and raring the offspring.

Men and women are naturally made complementary to each other - men for strength and the women for delicacy both becoming a combination of delicacy and strength ready to confront all situations successfully.

Although different cultures assign different roles to husbands and wives but the best combination is man as earner for the family and woman as caretaker of the home and children. Modern cultures are breaking out of this tradition and the children are paying the price for it darkening the future of humanity.

Like every other relationship, husband-wife relationship puts bar on liberties of the two to a great extent. Those failing in curbing their liberties pay a price through life-long singleness. Such persons may get all satisfactions elsewhere but the psychological satisfaction is found nowhere.

Today First, Tomorow Later

While writing on this beautiful theme, a proverb comes to my mind - ‘child is the father of man’. Looks odd and demands application of a little bit of intellect for its understanding. Just as a father has given birth to a child - in the most usual sense of it, a child would give rise to a man because without the childhood, manhood would not come into existence.

This puts stress on the fact that time flows in one direction only - from yesterday to today to tomorrow, and certainly not in the reverse direction. It can never be reversed. So, we need not to bother for the past just because we can't do anything about it. However, we can make some use of it by learning some lessons from the experiences we had.

Our present is a product of our past, and we can’t do anything about our past performances because that opportunity is gone with the passage of time. So, there is no use of harping over our past performances, their signature are already there in our present. Probably, some mistakes done in the past have made us wiser today not to commit those mistakes again. Probably, some best moments of our past spilled their rejuvenating influence on us, this is also imprinted on the canvas of our present. So, we are what we are today, it very well includes our past.

Just as our past has a shadow on our present, same way our present shall have its influence on our future. Just as we can’t perform in our past, we can’t do that in our future also. One opportunity has gone and the other has not yet arrived. What we can do is only what we can do today. This has two implications - it eliminates burden from our mind about our past and also our future, making it more efficient to work for today. Secondly, concentration on today brightens our tomorrow, automatically, without our bothering about it. So, live in today only, and nothing more.

Living in today means what? Make every moment of it a memorable moment, make every performance of it a remarkable performance, make every hope of today a hope for eternity, and make every relationship of today a relationship for ever. Your today is the essence of your whole life, live it like no body ever lived. Why worry for tomorrow, when we can make it today itself. Make your today so bright that its glory shnes for ever.

Vipassna : Mind-Body Consonance

Just like we have vowels and consonants in scripts wherein the vowels are omnipresent - as vowels and as well as part of consonants, in physical world we have mind and body wherein the mind is omnipresent - as mind itself and as controller of the body. All of body metabolism are governed by mind - mostly sub-consciously. A sub-conscious mind gives some liberty to the body to function almost autonomously and err to get sick.
A prominent Theo : Gautama Buddha, not the Siddhartha Buddha of Boddha Dharma fame, propounded a way of mind lookingafter the body functioning consciously and curing its ailments, if any. This technique is called Vipassana - meaning ‘psycho-analytics’ of the body.Posture for Comfortable SittingThe usual tradition of sitting with legs fully-folded at knees, both feet close to each other knees, and knees almost touching the flat ground in level of the buttocks, called Padmasana, gives some abnormal twist to the knee joints and so can not be adopted for long except through long practice. Its long practice stretches and twists the knee ligaments beyond their normal stretch loosening the knee joint which is adversely felt in old age when the ligaments get further loosened. This posture of sitting is not recommended in Vipassna but any comfortable posture suiting the subject is recommended. The idea is that no body part must be over-stressed as to draw mind’s attention to itself for a comfort.

Isolation of Mind from the World

The place and situation of the subject must be calm and quite not to disturb him/her and distract mind from the body. For further isolation, eyes of the subject must be softly closed to prevent outside view but not to put any strain on the eye balls and the eye-lids. The body should have minimum of touches of hard/tight clothes and must be fresh and clean to avoid any in-between itching. The backbone must be straight naturally but not strained in any way. Hands may be put one over the other in the lap withunstressed and free arms.
Not to get disturbed by the digestion process and not to disturb it in any way, the exercise must not be taken up within an hour of taking the meals which should be light, easily digestible and nutritive. Oatmeal or wheat porridge,Saboo-dana, seasonal fruits, etc. are highly recommended.

Focusing the Mind

Now, with body in full comfort and mind free from any disturbancesfrom the external world, the subject trains his/her mind to observe his/her natural breathing without disturbing it in any way until the mind calms down and gets trained to focus. In the first session, it may take 15-20 minutes but later even 5 minutes are good enough for this initial step of Vipassna.

The Exercise

Now move the mind’s attention consciously to the place joining the two eyes and the nose. This is the easiest place in the body for a sharp focus of the mind. When the focus is reduced to a point, move the attention very slowly in any direction on the body surface and keep on moving to cover almost the whole body. In this process, the subject keeps on visualising the body through his/her mind’s eye as it moves from one point to the other. All along, the mind remains fully conscious of its movements and visualizations. Such a practice need be continued from half an hour to one hour for about a week. During this practice, the mind gets fully trained to consciously control the body functioning.
The next and the final phase of Vipassna is to look inside the body through mind’s eye gradually moving from one organ to the other and mentally asking them ‘how do you do?’ Any minor ailment in the body will get minutely noticed by the mind and a corrective action will be started. However, if there is some major ailment, the mind need to observe it, analyze it and focus on it for some time to start a corrective action.
It is observed that any body ailment may be cured by this method, but the duration of cure may vary depending on the seriousness of the ailment and the nutrition the body gets during this process.

Nutrition

Since the mind remains in conscious state for durations longer than normal, it needs a good nutrition. Simultaneously, since the body undergoes a lot of corrective actions inside as a result of this exercise, it also needs good nutrition which must be suitable to the organs going into corrections. The basic principle behind food item selection is that a food item feeds a body organ best if its natural shape resembles the shape of the body organ

Selecting a Life Partner

In general, a mate means a companion at work or at home or for life. But here I limit myself to the last part - our companions for life to share our griefs and pleasures. Two persons may agree to be mates on two considerations – complementary to each other, or supplementary to each other depending on their intellectual and prosperity levels.

At higher level of intellect, a complementary mate proves to be better because of the two making up a wholesome unit through complementing each other. This is a philosophical choice and has a beauty that no one is complete without the other. Together, they become capable of facing a wide variety of adverse situations. But for this, as I said above, they must have a deep and well-cultivated understanding of each other - not highlighting each others weaknesses but covering them with each other’s virtues. From management point of view, this choice is optimal. But the all people of the world are not intellectuals and can be generous to hide their mates’ weaknesses.

The second choice of a supplementary mate is based on the fact that most of us want a support from the mate for our actions – right or wrong. Choice of such supportive mates has the plus point of a lasting relationship but has a lacuna of both being blank in some aspects of life. This makes them dependent on external help at a price. This choice works better for persons with lower level of intellect but having a high level of prosperity.

This second choice, and the most common answer to the question is based on a general egoist approach that my mate must have interests and capabilities matching those of mine, so that we match and dare not clash with each other. This is also said, in other words, that we keep a harmonious relationship. From social point of view, this choice is more acceptable.

This analysis indicates that people, poor in both intellect and wealth, have no possibility of having a real good mate. For them, old social system of marriages arranged by parents and relatives without bothering for the prospective mates’ choices. My society’s in the world have this system working, where the mates have no choices but social compulsions. In these societies, marriage is considered a must and divorce a taboo. Mates have no where to go but to remain tied to each other – rightly or wrongly.

The above two choices are like preferring your inner voice either coming from the mind or from the heart. In other words, we must know - whether our minds are more important or our hearts. To be very frank, voice of the heart varies with circumstances and very fluid in general, while that coming from the mind is rock-strong and stable. In love and in marriage affairs, often heart dominates the mind. I wonder, too many divorces in the modern world are caused by the fluidity of hearts.

With all said and done, finally to avoid the intellectual controversy outlined above, the best way out is to select a mate after attainment of quite a good amount of maturity by age. At that age, the decision shall be sounder and more influenced by mind. But if a criteria is to be set, it must be of sexual compatibility of the two mates which matters a lot in maintaining a family relationship. Sexual compatibility itself imposes a condition of physical compatibility, which in turn, ensures compatibility of temperament also because physical structure of a person, more often, determines one’s attitude towards life.

Personality Shift : Sensitive to Sensible

Sensitive persons often have problems under hard realities of the world because they see the wholeness of things in the form of final results while the sensible persons try to understand the situation analytically and through it try to resolve the problems or get satisfied through reasoning. Therefore, to be happy, it is essential for the person to be more of sensible type rather than purely sensitive. This may require a little bit shift in personality traits from being sensitive to become sensible. This is a difficult exercise indeed but still possible through practice and patience. Here are some basics for being more sensible.
1. Decomposition of the Problem : Sensitivity is an artistic trait of personality while sensibility is the science of it. Therefore, for a person to be sensible, he/she has to have a scientific attitude towards things and situations. This requires resolution of the problem into its components to find out where the real problem lies. This is not possible through an overall view of the problem. A problem may be decomposed in two ways – in temporal or in spatial dimentions. For a layman, temporal decomposition is easier while a spatial decomposition requires some expertise which is beyond the scope of this article. For temporal decomposition, the problem is decomposed in chronological order of events and each component is then logically understood.
2. Understanding Limitations of the Self : Nobody is capable of achieving everything. What one may achieve depends on what he/she is and what his/her circumstances allow him/her to achieve. People often know their plus points but fail to understand their limitations. This leads to desiring without deserving and ultimate failures and unhappiness. It is not only the personal capabilities which determine the result but circumstances also play important role in deriving results. So even the most deserving persons may fail under adverse circumstances. This requires full understanding of the self and the prevailing circumstances.
3. Cause-Effect Principle : The most fundamental principle of nature is the cause-effect principle, according to which nothing happens without an adequate cause of it and conversely every cause has its effect. With this principle in mind, one can easily understand reasons for his/her problems and even may try to resolve them to achieve success.

Of Sensitivities and Sensibilities

This post is an impulse aroused in my mind by a friend, whose super-sensitivities are overshadowing her sensibilities for the time being. I hope to awaken her sensibilities back to normal.
Sensitivities and sensibilities are respectively arts and sciences of life - complementary to each other. In routine, these are related to heat and mind, respectively, of a person. These two traits are highly developed in humans and are, in fact, produces of mind.
There are personalities which are extremely sensitive opposed to those which are extremely sensible. None of these suits the practicabilities of life, which essentially need a flexible blend of the two. By flexibility, I mean circumstancial factors must change the person's blending ratio of sensitivity and sensibility. Rigidity of this ratio is also undesirable.
A sensitive person loves to see the things in their wholeness while a sensible person is analytical. Accordingly, a highly sensitive person fails to analyse the situations while a highly sensible person fails to see the things in their wholeness. For example, for a highly sensible alchemist, human body is merely a synthesis of some chemicals. He/she fails to see the built-in psychology of the body which is a produce of the body's wholeness. Such persons often fail in the practical world. On the contrary, for highly sensitive person, the body is pure and abstract psychology the composition remains out of his/her sight. Such persons often ignore their physical needs and get sick easily.

In a prfectly blended personality, sensibility and sensitivity are in love with each other and in ever ready state to accomodate each other. The reverse happens when the pesonality moves towads any of the extemities - the sensibility and sensitivity are always at war with each other and the person loses harmony or rythm of a beautiful life.

This piece to logically understand what a perfect personality means - a flexible blend of sensitivity and sensibility. So, look at yourself and if need be redesign yourself to be a perfect person.

Sexual Relationships

Sex-play is the most intuitive and the most creative art. It involves science but is not a science in its practicability. To restrain and streamline sexual relationships, institution of marriage is traditionally adopted, but even this could not stop forced, commercial and friendly sexual relationships.

In traditionally conservative societies, men play primary role in evolving a sexual relation. This gives an impression that men have more sexual desires than women. This has also developed the profession of female prostitution since the prehistoric times. Male prostitution is however recent and limited to a few localised societies.

Extra-marital sex is of two types - commercial through the institution of prostitution and friendly as an outcome of frustration from the marital sex. The third - forced sex, is called a rape and is quite inhuman and most of the cases impossible. I wont like to deal here with this forced sex.

Prostitution evolved for two reasons - some women need money for a living so they make commercial use of their bodies' sexual organs. Secondly, some men have no married partner or are not satisfied with her, so they go to prostitutes and satisfy their desire. But very few prostitutes care for satisfying their customers. There is no loving element in such a relationship. It is just fulfilment of timely needs of the two. Aids virus has become a stumbling block for this profession.

Friendly sex is probably the most prevalent relationship all over the world wherein two of opposite genders agree to have sex-play for fun or for satisfying an urge. Since, it involves agreement of the two, they care for higher level of satisfaction of each other, even more than the marital sex. Often it is not a one-time arrangement but lasts long till the circumstances keep on favoring. Such a relationship develops a loving relationship of the two in-spite of its social and legal disapproval. Institution of marriage has been aiming at prohibiting friendly sex but has been miserably failing. It is evidenced by ever-growing incidences of friendly sex all over the world. It has taken the role of physical dimension of a loving relationship. Most often, it is treated as Love.

Love may be a component of sexual relationship but not necessarily, while sexual relationship is necessarily a component of love. Therefore, for a successful marital relationship, mutual satisfaction of the two in sex-play is important.

Most of the animals and birds have sex just for procreation but humans have it for pleasures of it much mmore than for procreation. Why, it is so ? It is the evolved design of the human body which makes sex an act full of pleasures. A human couple enjoys sex in a physically stable posture and do so for hours, while the animals and birds do it in unstable postures and can have it for a few moments only.