Question: How can I get what I want?....then...What do I really want?....Is there really some unchangeable thing which I really want?
I can keep abstracting it higher and higher but I might end up with a vague term like happiness or satisfaction which is still not clear. Finding what I want may not be that straightforward. Because what I want is a dynamic entity and my priorities change from time to time esp. with change in my circumstances. The definition of me itself in fact is intimately tied to my environment from birth till date. I cannot exist in this manner without my environment at the other end.
I am so related to the environment in every way...I can literally see it myself...I feel very lazy if I keep lying down in a dimly lit room for long...when I have an intense conversation, it fires up all my brain circuits...socially I stay much more active...when I am in the college, lab or walking on the street in cold weather, I feel quite awake...a good event elevates me, while stress makes me feel ill, passive, dull and I try to escape it by withdrawing (sleeping or dull stupor)...If someone tells me to be spontaneous and not self conscious, that makes me feel even more self consciousness...certain people evoke certain feelings and moods out of me...infact each person I meet does that...everything around me evokes me
Questions about finding the right things
Now, the part which I am finding difficult to address is that, if everything around me evokes the 'I' then my environment is paramount...The executive questions come up...Am I in the right place? playing the right game? Meeting the right people? Pursuing the right experiences?
Questions about what is right
To answer that, is anything that invokes positive, pleasant emotions and feelings in me right?
If I answer that with a 'yes', then again there is another level. The feelings that objects evoke from us is dependent on our world view, conditioning and perspective.
Questions about what is real? Am I adequately exploring? Am I aware enough? What is true knowledge?
In that case, changing these parameters are like altering global variables. They could open up many new experiences and even dramatically change perceptions about events and objects I think I have understood. There might not be anything right or wrong in the first place.
Then I could end up being paranoid at another level that is 'what perspective is really real, one that includes all the others? Is perspective even real? What is real in the first place? Is there a higher self, higher mode of operation which I need to seek? Is seeking just another trap of desire again? What is this entire cycle about? What is the highest knowledge?
Now, after reading about zen etc, they even break down the system of language itself saying that it is only possible for language to convey distinctions and it is impossible for it to cover something all inclusive like the uniting truth. In that case, maybe everything is just vibrations and that is the highest knowledge and everything that I know right now could just be an illusion. Maybe I am meant to be just like a bird chirps when it wants to. In that case, what is the part controlling me right now? Is chasing experiences really as important as I think of it to be? (especially considering the rule of duality that the definition of pleasure itself is intertwined with suffering. In other words, if I have an extremely exotic experience, my whole frame of reference may shift and my current position may feel like suffering compared to that, thus maintaining the duality equation)
Question about Who and what is the 'I' that wants enlightenment? What is beyond this duality? What is the truth?
This is the more fundamental question. Maybe the I which is intellectualizing all this with language and exists inside me between my eyes does not even exist as something separate. Language is after all an abstraction for the real thing. The real reality may simply be experience without any words that can convey it. Its like God putting into words how he created an earthquake. It might take millions of years to even describe it, single language is like serial processing and cannot describe a reality where everything is happening at once.
THE END
I can keep abstracting it higher and higher but I might end up with a vague term like happiness or satisfaction which is still not clear. Finding what I want may not be that straightforward. Because what I want is a dynamic entity and my priorities change from time to time esp. with change in my circumstances. The definition of me itself in fact is intimately tied to my environment from birth till date. I cannot exist in this manner without my environment at the other end.
I am so related to the environment in every way...I can literally see it myself...I feel very lazy if I keep lying down in a dimly lit room for long...when I have an intense conversation, it fires up all my brain circuits...socially I stay much more active...when I am in the college, lab or walking on the street in cold weather, I feel quite awake...a good event elevates me, while stress makes me feel ill, passive, dull and I try to escape it by withdrawing (sleeping or dull stupor)...If someone tells me to be spontaneous and not self conscious, that makes me feel even more self consciousness...certain people evoke certain feelings and moods out of me...infact each person I meet does that...everything around me evokes me
Questions about finding the right things
Now, the part which I am finding difficult to address is that, if everything around me evokes the 'I' then my environment is paramount...The executive questions come up...Am I in the right place? playing the right game? Meeting the right people? Pursuing the right experiences?
Questions about what is right
To answer that, is anything that invokes positive, pleasant emotions and feelings in me right?
If I answer that with a 'yes', then again there is another level. The feelings that objects evoke from us is dependent on our world view, conditioning and perspective.
Questions about what is real? Am I adequately exploring? Am I aware enough? What is true knowledge?
In that case, changing these parameters are like altering global variables. They could open up many new experiences and even dramatically change perceptions about events and objects I think I have understood. There might not be anything right or wrong in the first place.
Then I could end up being paranoid at another level that is 'what perspective is really real, one that includes all the others? Is perspective even real? What is real in the first place? Is there a higher self, higher mode of operation which I need to seek? Is seeking just another trap of desire again? What is this entire cycle about? What is the highest knowledge?
Now, after reading about zen etc, they even break down the system of language itself saying that it is only possible for language to convey distinctions and it is impossible for it to cover something all inclusive like the uniting truth. In that case, maybe everything is just vibrations and that is the highest knowledge and everything that I know right now could just be an illusion. Maybe I am meant to be just like a bird chirps when it wants to. In that case, what is the part controlling me right now? Is chasing experiences really as important as I think of it to be? (especially considering the rule of duality that the definition of pleasure itself is intertwined with suffering. In other words, if I have an extremely exotic experience, my whole frame of reference may shift and my current position may feel like suffering compared to that, thus maintaining the duality equation)
Question about Who and what is the 'I' that wants enlightenment? What is beyond this duality? What is the truth?
This is the more fundamental question. Maybe the I which is intellectualizing all this with language and exists inside me between my eyes does not even exist as something separate. Language is after all an abstraction for the real thing. The real reality may simply be experience without any words that can convey it. Its like God putting into words how he created an earthquake. It might take millions of years to even describe it, single language is like serial processing and cannot describe a reality where everything is happening at once.
THE END
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