Mind and senses

Market never permits anyone to make a distinction between what is essential and what is not essential. Market always demands us to accumulate the maximum irrespective of the necessity. That is why, market believes in production and marketing rather than producing something to meet the need. Market propagates greed; hence, the slogan ‘greed is not bad’ is really the expression of a life pattern that is devoid of the application of ‘viveka jnana’. Any life that is not being lead by ‘viveka njana’ always claims the maximum rather than the minimum. Market always believes in perception rather than introspection. Market always takes you to the outer world, ignoring the inner essence. That is why, market depends on propaganda through advertisement. The ad language never believes in a one-to-one correspondence between the world and the reality. It always gives a false hope of overcoming all the difficulties which are to be faced by every human being. Take for ex. the age withers us; no cosmetic is capable of preventing this withering nature of human beings. But, market gives a false guarantee that a particular cosmetic product can prevent us from getting withered. The false hope always conceals the reality and takes us to a world of unreality. Naturally, one may not be able to make discrimination between what is real and unreal in a world that is being driven by the norms of market economy. Therefore, the most important philosophical problem to be faced by the present generation is the inability of making discrimination between ‘nitya, anitya, vasthu, viveka’. Such a power of discrimination between ‘nitya, anitya, vasthu, and viveka’, as referred early, can be attained only by realising the fact that there is limit for worldly pleasures. By worldly pleasures it means that any experience that can be attained by means of our sense organs and mind. The limitations of our sense organs and mind must be the limits of our experience and pleasures. Since the limits of our experience are the limits of our pleasures, naturally we cannot go beyond a limit. Without knowing this fact, humans are thinking too much of getting pleasures through sense organs and mind. Our psychic operations also are not free from inherent limitations of our sense organs because whatever is seen in explicit form in our sense organs can be seen in implicit form in our psychic apparatus. The psychic apparatus is only the sum total of all the subtle operations of the sense organs. That is, sense organs are the gross form and mind is only the subtle form. Therefore, whatever is seen in the gross form also can be seen in the subtle form. But unfortunately, the humans are thinking of extending the possibilities of human experiences through sense organs and mind. If one wants to get rid of the pain which is the corollary of the pleasures has to make a clear cut distinction between the possibility and limitations of the worldly pleasures. This has to be realised first. The ‘Advaita System’ says that one has to abstain from the deployment of worldly pleasures here and elsewhere. This is known as ‘iham’, ‘uttra’, ‘artha’ ‘bhoga’ and ‘vairagya’. ‘Artha’ is a technical term in Indian Systems of thought. ‘Artha’ means any experience that can be derived through sense organs and mind. In this sense, ‘Artha’ includes pleasure and pain. The result of experience of ‘Artha’ is ‘Bhoga’ and ‘Bhoga’ includes all possibilities of the sum total of all human experiences in the ordinary sense. Since ‘Bhoga’ includes pain and pleasures and since one and the same object of experience as we have explained earlier is capable to give the diametrically opposite feelings of pain and pleasure. Then one will not be in a position to ascertain what would be the final form ‘Bhoga’. That is ‘Bhoga’ creates uncertainty. Therefore, it is advisable to create equal distance from both pains and pleasures. This is what is known as ‘Vairagya’. Raga means attachment to worldly experiences and virago means absence of such attachments to the ‘Artha-bhoga’; that is the sum total of all worldly experiences. It does not mean that one has to cut away totally from the world, which is impossible because everything including humans in the world is the part and parcel of time, space, matter and continuum. But unfortunately humans want to indulge in ‘Artha-bhoga’ thus destined to lead a life of uncertainty. In order to overcome the anxiety created by uncertainty, humans want to possess more and more of worldly things. The worldly things can be classified as power, wealth, positions and fame. That is why we want to get unlimited powers, wealth, positions fame and everything to unlimited extend. So a dictator who wants to possess all the varieties of power from alpha to omega is really doing an unsuccessful effort to get rid of the fear created by uncertainty. This is sheer ignorance because the poor fellow does not know that being a limited entity he cannot go to unlimited extend in space and time. Therefore every dictator has to face his necessary defeat in history. The uncertainty and the resultant anxiety have to be either avoided or eliminated. Otherwise, nobody can lead a normal life. Fear Psychosis is one of the major diseases of our times. We are afraid of death, afraid of losing power, losing wealth, losing positions, losing fame …….. We are afraid of being attacked and getting defeated. If one is not able to remove this fear psychosis, one cannot be happy, even if he/she possess wealth or fame to unlimited extend. Therefore, what we need at present is to find out an effective remedy to remove the fear psychosis. It is at this point that one has to seek an alternative method of life practice. That method demands us to focus on the minimum, each one requires to sustain one’s existence in space and time. That minimum can be ensured by the practice of ‘iham, uttra, artha, bhoga, vairagya’. This advises us to keep equal distance with pain and pleasure. Vairagya does not mean that one has to renounce everything that can be experienced by the sense organs and mind, it is humanly impossible too. Since man is a spacio-temporal entity and since he has to depend on space and time to ensure his existence, he cannot renounce everything in space and time. He needs food, shelter, cloth etc. Vairagya does not mean the practice of compulsory starvation but it demands that one has to stick on to the minimum food, minimum shelter and everything that requires to keep one’s existence on earth at the minimum.