What is Learning?

Learning is an on-going process for most of us and all the creatures to get to know new stuff and to survive in this Universe. When can we learn? Or, let me ask how can we learn? If you go attend some lectures, can we really learn? I think yes, we can if our mind is not filled with any assumptions on any particular concept that we want to learn about. On the other -hand, if we go with an empty minded with no thoughts about that particular concept, then we can learn from the lecture or from the speaker. This would be a new thing as well. Otherwise, what you listen would be what you would want to learn which you already knew from your conditioned mind or thoughts about any particular concept.
Let me put it in other way, if we go to some place trying to find a solution for a problem, we don't see the problem clearly rather than concentrating on the solution.
If we cannot see a problem clearly, how can we find solution for the problem? Why do we think anything as a problem and trying to find solution all the time......why cannot we just observe what we go through and try to make ourselves peace inwardly? ...guess topic has changed to finding solution to the problem....well...that is a miracle of mind, eh?

Frustration

In this so-called highly competitive world, Frustration would be one of the most common state that most of us would be in some time. Why do we get frustrated? Is that when we know something or realized something but not our beloved ones or work mates with whom you need to deal with?

Just because we know some thing does not neccessarily mean that we have understood it clearly. For example if you know the solution for problem A and you end up explaining to your work mate, after several hours of discussion you are in vain and frustrated thinking your work mate is a real dumb person to understand this problem.
This may have happened to most of us....may be because your work mate's prespective is different from yours. He may be hard to be convinced by anyone...may be strong or adamant on his opinions due to his conditioned mind...

Samething happens within our families as well...everyone of us would be having different experiences and life surrounded with different societies, age group or beliefs....our mind gets conditioned based on these external factors eventually....and we end up conflicting our thoughts even with our parents, siblings, spouse whose external factors would be same as ours before few years or months.....
does that mean people change??? okay...how to rectify this frustration...may be patience....wait for others to understand or probably better way would be dont try to convince others....who are we to change others mind? ..Tolerance....that would be the key to get over frustration....wow...too many implications on our life....why do we need frustration in first place?

Do we have trouble in agreeing what we are?

Some of the questions that I wish to ask this Universe or God or nature....
why do we compare everything or everyone with some other thing or someone else? why cannot we agree who we are and what we have? Some of you might have seen some parents asking their kids for more performance by comparing theirs with some other kids or with his/her brothers/sisters. I think that is where that kid must be confused in accepting who he/she is and what he/she has.
We all are gifted with some special character...why do we need to ignore what we have and try to impose what others have considering that the other person's qualities are more superficial than our ones. When I think about it....I feel like we are confused with the reality or the simple facts. Why cannot we try to observe ourselves to find out what we have...no matter if its good or bad...who is there to decide anything good or bad? its either your experience or some one's assumptions....based on past. Do we need to stop observing ourselves for these past driven memories or thoughts? why cannot we realize what we have and try to be in contact with them?

Are we living in past?

When I read some of Jiddu Krishnamurthi's work, I got some of these thoughts and questions. Are we all human beings living in past ? Are we spending our most of the time and energy in trying to justify our own actions. Have you noticed....we often try to impose ourself what should be on what it is. For example, if we start doing something, we have a predetermined idea on that action about what that action should be. In this circumstance, are we trying to do any new action or sticking with our old idea and naming it as new action?
Our mind is conditioned with the past experiences, the way how we were brought up, leading to the assumptions of duality (such as what is right or wrong, what is good or bad...). Due to this conditioned nature of our mind, we afraid to think something new...something against our assumptions...something that we do not know. It seems that we live our present, and think about future based on our past. JK suggests that one must observe the present with the blank mind...with no assumptions...irrespective to the conditioned thoughts. When he start observing the present, he sees new things...new discoveries can then be found...with new ideas...thus our mind nourishes with fresh ideas....so try to be open yourself and let your mind observe yourself.

Is god in both Religious and Spirutual?

i find confusing whenever i come across these two terms spirituality and religion. i call myself as spiritual rather than religious. well...what s the difference? here is where i started plotting something interesting......
if you believe in any god in any specific religion, it would be religious . on the other hand, if you believe in god but believe that he/she is too big to fit in one religion (thanks to tantra t-shirt quotes!), then that s spiritual.

if you believe that god is love - religious
if you believe that love is god - spiritual

Finding god only in temples/churches/mosques/gurudwara - religious
Finding god and enjoying his creations everywhere - spiritual

In both the cases, god's belief is there however the boundary seems to be quite broadened in spiritual part.

still trying to explore :-)...be back when i come to realize more

any reason for all of our rituals?

Being a part of normal human being in this Universe, we are taking part with or without interest in all the rituals either our family does or believes in.
Here is where the question arises if we need to justify our actions or we just follow others actions without questioning any one.
Say Family A is from Religion A and their neighbour Family B is from Religion B. Both the families do very different religious rituals and beliefs. Family A thinks they are better than B. Family B thinks the other way around.....Why this different of thoughts...though we all are part of same Universe....

Should we call it as lack of universal thought? or may be selfishness....

Love and Desire

i found there is a very close boundary between these two feeling desire and love.

Selfish love seems to be desire to me....and Universal love seems to be Love to me....

here are few scenarios to describe these feelings:
Desire:
If you want something say a Ferrari, your only goal seems to be getting that Ferrari...(you are attached to the goal and fail to concentrate on the actions to get that Ferrari like working hard to earn more ....) This can be termed as desire. When you don't get what you desire for, it hurts you very badly.....that's where your emotion overpowers your intellect. You fail to act at that very moment rather than collapse. Do you think our life is just confined to those objective pleasures? Isn't it something bigger than that? I feel that having goal and working towards the goal is healthy. However, getting yourself attached to that goal would not be an intellectual thing to do for human beings. If you attach towards your actions, even if you don't attain your goal at last.....you don't feel dejected because you were attached to the action that you did and you know that you did it at your best.....you would have realized your mistakes during your course of action and make use of that experience in your future actions to attain better goal.......okay, back to our previous problem....desire is your objective attachment and hurts you if you don't attain.

Love:
You are walking in a serene street. Seeing a child playing with a ball...enjoying that very moment...that charming smile on his/her face...suddenly falls down and starts crying. No one near that child....what do you do?..don't you just run and pick that child and check if she/he is fine?...at that very moment, do you expect that you get reputation from that crying child or from her parents? or do you expect someone to reward you for that action?...No....you just do that because when that child fell down, you put your feet on that child's shoes and realized that child's pain and helped him/her. This helpless help can be called as Love. Help may not just in actions...it may be even a thought. Most of us might have a healthy, comfy lifestyle, however when we get to know some news about bombing in Iraq, poverty in Africa, or any other natural calamities in any where......don't we feel in that very moment about the suffering lives? That is also Love.

Foreword

Being part of this Universe and society, we all have numerous thoughts about our self or someone else. Thought has become irresistible process of any human nature. Going in-depth on this concept, I felt that any one's thought is something like a leaf falling from tree on an autumn evening due to environmental factors like wind, season, etc....please try to imagine how that leaf falls from tree...not in a straight manner, no one knows where it is going to land on earth, it is all based on the environmental causes during that time....

This blog is going to have some of my thoughts like a falling leaf from tree....have got inspired by Paulo Coelho's Like a Flowing River. This book was presented by my Rakhi sister Awi.