१।
एक अनजानी-सी राह पर,
चल पड़े थे बस कभी,
न कल का पता था,
और न मंजिल का,
और न कोई अंदाज़ा ही,
कि क्यों चले जा रहे थे,
बस एक अतृप्त प्यास थी,
और एक अमर मृग तृष्णा।
२।
खिचे जाते थे,
अभिभूत किसी परा शक्ति से,
कभी हँसते, कभी रोते,
या फिर कभी यूँ ही,
असीम क्षितिज को निहारते,
पर न कभी राह खत्म हुई,
न कभी मंजिल हाथ आई।
३।
पर उदविग्न मेरे मन को,
ऐसा लगता है अक्सर,
कि कोई तो है कहीं,
जो इन सूनी-अँधेरी राहों में,
दूर एक छोटा-सा, टिमटिमाता,
दिया जलाए जाता है,
अपने अस्तित्व, अपने होने का,
अनुमान दिए जाता है।
४।
शायद वही एक राह है,
वही एक मंजिल,
उसी के प्रकाश का प्रतिबिम्ब,
हर जीव में दिखता, हल्का-धूमिल,
शायद है वही स्रोत,
इस जीवन स्वप्न का,
और वही एक आधार,
हमारे उत्पत्ति-विलोप का।
५।
शायद वही था,
जब कुछ भी नहीं था,
और सिर्फ वही है,
जब ये सकल विश्व है,
अगर यही है वो सत्य,
तो राह कैसी, मंजिल कैसी,
जब वो ही है अकेला पथिक,
तो चिंता कैसी, उलझन कैसी।
- Copyright: Awanish Gautam (10th-Dec-2010) :-)
Monday, December 13, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Speaking Truth: Do we have any other go?
This article is all about finding out the logic behind "speaking truth" rule. What is wrong if everybody start telling lies. We have practically seen that telling lies in many of the cases really helps :)
Since childhood, we are always told that we should always tell truth. We often stop following this advice is a different story (and this behavior must also be covered in this article). May be because one of the primary reasons of deviating from this rule is that nobody explains to us what exactly truth is. Note that we are not going to talk about the "ultimate universal truth" here and I would confine myself to explaining the day-today meaning of truth. Also, we need to understand that there is a subtle difference between "true/false" and "right/wrong". The later is more of a action oriented behavioral pattern. In other words former leads to the later one in most of the cases.
So, how do we define "truth"? In my opinion a statement is true if it reiterates the commonly perceived and well accepted notion of reality.* Too confusing isn't it? Ok, I shall take an example. Let's see somebody comes to you and says "it is raining" when you know that you can see that "in reality" it is not. Then you straight forwardly declare that the statement was false.
Now when I have defined truth in my own terms, lets proceed further and discuss the actual topic. What would happen in a world where nobody ever tells truth? Would there be any difference? Certainly yes. First, going by my definition of truth, it would not be possible to explain the reality. Secondly, it would not at all be possible to have a meaningful conversation with anybody. Imagine a person coming to you and saying "it is raining, come under my umbrella" when it is not raining and he does not have an umbrella at all :). In general terms, we would call all the people of this imaginary world "crazy".
The conclusion is, we are surviving because most of us speak truth for may be say more than 90% of the time and not because we tell a lie in <10 br="" cases.="" of="" the="">
Also, I would say that recreation of reality is possible only with truth. I would talk about one of my experiences for explaining what exactly I mean by "recreation of reality". Once I was standing in a railway reservation queue and the counter was still not opened. Just before the counter opening time, many of the people started breaking the queue and within few seconds, there were an entirely different set of people standing at position 1,2,3 etc. The previous number 1-10 people was very disappointed and annoyed. But suddenly one of the gentlemen in the queue came up with a brilliant idea. He asked all the people in the queue to tell their original positions in the queue. Obviously there were many people who started telling lies. But surprisingly most of them were correct in telling their actual position in the queue. Again that smart gentleman started asking everybody who were the people standing before and after them. There were many people who recognized the persons before and after them correctly. In this case telling a lie was very difficult because two people had to agree with the answer. Based on their answers and mutual agreements, that person was able to recreate the actual queue almost perfectly. Of course there were people placed wrongly but the number of such people was very less. Hence, we see that recreation of the original queue was possible only because many people did tell the truth and did not lie. Imagine a scenario where 90% of the people in the queue were lying. In that case it would not have been possible to recreate the original queue and do justice to honest people.
I have come to a conclusion that may be 90% of the times telling the truth only helps us. Imagine, you are having severe pain and you tell a lie about it to your doctor!! Imagine, if you tell everybody that you are not human!! Imagine, you always lie to your boss whatever the case is!! Imagine, you always write your neighbor's wife's name in place of your wife's name ;)!! Imagine, you always write incorrect PAN number in your tax returns form. Huh! I can't imagine what would happen if all of us have to really live in this kind of world.
Now, we should also discuss why do we tell a lie? In most of the cases, we tell a lie in case of conflict of interests and we do not want to be at the losing end. So, we try to recreate a false reality for our personal benefits and short term gains. The idea is to convince everybody that this falsely created reality is the real one. But, all the people who tell a lie know that a lie can survive only between plenty of truth. Because for a person who tells lies most of the time, his/her credibility itself becomes questionable. Also, for the person who is at the receiving end of this lie would certainly have his own idea about reality and he would always question the credibility of the falsely created reality. So, telling a lie is a very tricky affair because the chances of getting caught are very high. This is one of the reasons not all of us always lie. Also, telling a lie also creates a lot emotional trauma inside a person. Most of us feel guilty after telling a lie and a sense of wrong doing prevails. For many of us, it is very difficult to get out of this feeling. This is one of the primary reasons why many of us vow not to tell a lie in future (but they always fail :)). Now imagine the credibility of a person who has never been found telling a lie! He gets respected by the society and always has a high morale. In many of the cases, they are very fearless. So, it is very easy to conclude that telling a lie is very tricky and achieving personal gains out of it has its own bad side effects.
Also, we should always keep in mind that we can be at the receiving end if somebody else is telling a lie. All in all, in long term if we calculate the difference between the gain because of a person telling a lie and he losing because of somebody else telling a lie could be minimal.
At the end, I ask the ultimate question: At a broader level, do we have any other go rather than speaking the truth?
Now you only decide :)
* Reality is always space time and observer dependent. It also depends on how verifiable the statement is :)
Note - In this article, I have not covered the scenario when a large collection of people start telling the same lie. Does this falsely created reality actually becomes reality in this case? ;)
Since childhood, we are always told that we should always tell truth. We often stop following this advice is a different story (and this behavior must also be covered in this article). May be because one of the primary reasons of deviating from this rule is that nobody explains to us what exactly truth is. Note that we are not going to talk about the "ultimate universal truth" here and I would confine myself to explaining the day-today meaning of truth. Also, we need to understand that there is a subtle difference between "true/false" and "right/wrong". The later is more of a action oriented behavioral pattern. In other words former leads to the later one in most of the cases.
So, how do we define "truth"? In my opinion a statement is true if it reiterates the commonly perceived and well accepted notion of reality.* Too confusing isn't it? Ok, I shall take an example. Let's see somebody comes to you and says "it is raining" when you know that you can see that "in reality" it is not. Then you straight forwardly declare that the statement was false.
Now when I have defined truth in my own terms, lets proceed further and discuss the actual topic. What would happen in a world where nobody ever tells truth? Would there be any difference? Certainly yes. First, going by my definition of truth, it would not be possible to explain the reality. Secondly, it would not at all be possible to have a meaningful conversation with anybody. Imagine a person coming to you and saying "it is raining, come under my umbrella" when it is not raining and he does not have an umbrella at all :). In general terms, we would call all the people of this imaginary world "crazy".
The conclusion is, we are surviving because most of us speak truth for may be say more than 90% of the time and not because we tell a lie in <10 br="" cases.="" of="" the="">
Also, I would say that recreation of reality is possible only with truth. I would talk about one of my experiences for explaining what exactly I mean by "recreation of reality". Once I was standing in a railway reservation queue and the counter was still not opened. Just before the counter opening time, many of the people started breaking the queue and within few seconds, there were an entirely different set of people standing at position 1,2,3 etc. The previous number 1-10 people was very disappointed and annoyed. But suddenly one of the gentlemen in the queue came up with a brilliant idea. He asked all the people in the queue to tell their original positions in the queue. Obviously there were many people who started telling lies. But surprisingly most of them were correct in telling their actual position in the queue. Again that smart gentleman started asking everybody who were the people standing before and after them. There were many people who recognized the persons before and after them correctly. In this case telling a lie was very difficult because two people had to agree with the answer. Based on their answers and mutual agreements, that person was able to recreate the actual queue almost perfectly. Of course there were people placed wrongly but the number of such people was very less. Hence, we see that recreation of the original queue was possible only because many people did tell the truth and did not lie. Imagine a scenario where 90% of the people in the queue were lying. In that case it would not have been possible to recreate the original queue and do justice to honest people.
I have come to a conclusion that may be 90% of the times telling the truth only helps us. Imagine, you are having severe pain and you tell a lie about it to your doctor!! Imagine, if you tell everybody that you are not human!! Imagine, you always lie to your boss whatever the case is!! Imagine, you always write your neighbor's wife's name in place of your wife's name ;)!! Imagine, you always write incorrect PAN number in your tax returns form. Huh! I can't imagine what would happen if all of us have to really live in this kind of world.
Now, we should also discuss why do we tell a lie? In most of the cases, we tell a lie in case of conflict of interests and we do not want to be at the losing end. So, we try to recreate a false reality for our personal benefits and short term gains. The idea is to convince everybody that this falsely created reality is the real one. But, all the people who tell a lie know that a lie can survive only between plenty of truth. Because for a person who tells lies most of the time, his/her credibility itself becomes questionable. Also, for the person who is at the receiving end of this lie would certainly have his own idea about reality and he would always question the credibility of the falsely created reality. So, telling a lie is a very tricky affair because the chances of getting caught are very high. This is one of the reasons not all of us always lie. Also, telling a lie also creates a lot emotional trauma inside a person. Most of us feel guilty after telling a lie and a sense of wrong doing prevails. For many of us, it is very difficult to get out of this feeling. This is one of the primary reasons why many of us vow not to tell a lie in future (but they always fail :)). Now imagine the credibility of a person who has never been found telling a lie! He gets respected by the society and always has a high morale. In many of the cases, they are very fearless. So, it is very easy to conclude that telling a lie is very tricky and achieving personal gains out of it has its own bad side effects.
Also, we should always keep in mind that we can be at the receiving end if somebody else is telling a lie. All in all, in long term if we calculate the difference between the gain because of a person telling a lie and he losing because of somebody else telling a lie could be minimal.
At the end, I ask the ultimate question: At a broader level, do we have any other go rather than speaking the truth?
Now you only decide :)
* Reality is always space time and observer dependent. It also depends on how verifiable the statement is :)
Note - In this article, I have not covered the scenario when a large collection of people start telling the same lie. Does this falsely created reality actually becomes reality in this case? ;)
Friday, April 02, 2010
Vision for my life!
After spending almost half of my life and abandoning many of my previous (so called) vision statements, I have started pondering on this question again - "What should be the longest term vision for my life?". Sometimes when I lay back and think about it, it feels ridiculous that I am having such thoughts ("vision" and all!! bullshit!! what am I trying to prove? I am not an ordinary person but a "visionary"???). Why can't I just enjoy my life with my happy family (which fortunately I have) and forget thinking about all this non-productive ideas?
But all my efforts till now have gone in vain. The more I have tried to suppress this thought, the more stronger it has become in due course of time. No doubt I go through some phases when trying to get rid of this thought becomes very difficult. This time the matter is serious and desperation levels are high. My wife has started showing concern about my absent mindedness (because my mind is always preoccupied with such thoughts). Am I going crazy?
But enough of my cribbing. Let me tell you what have I really thought about it till now. I would try to put all my thoughts in the form of questions and my analysis of it. Please note that I am not trying to conclude anything in this blog. I can not; even if I want to. I am still suffering from "What is the vision of my life?" syndrome. I am just trying to share my thoughts which might be useful for somebody who is suffering with the same dilemma.
Q - Why should I have a vision for my life?
A (stands for my Analysis) - Sometimes I feel that in taking care of all the nitty-gritties of my life, I am missing the bigger picture. I can not be here just for 'living' this life. I am here to contribute. I am here to make this life worth remembering and thinking of. I want to feel that I am an integral part of this whole drama of life and I am making a difference. And for doing all this, I should know what exactly I have to do. And for that I should have a vision which gives a direction to my life.
Q - Why having a vision is so important anyways?
A - Many a times I get this strange thought that I am about to die and I am looking back at my life; from the time of my birth till now. I get very scared when I feel that I would be seeing my life as a meaningless bread earning affair. My God! I spent whole my life processing different kind of food and transforming it into shit?? And for generating this shit, I worked so hard!! No way! These should not be my thoughts in my last moments in this incarnation. I should do something remembrance of which would bring smile on my dying face.
Goals are very important for quantifying what did I do in my life. And goals without a vision are useless.
Was I able to attain the final goal of my life? But asking this question makes sense only if I have a vision.
Q - Should I have a single vision for our lives or it can be more than one?
A - Most of us have one or both of the below mentioned reasons for living their lives as they are as of now:
1. They want to achieve something for self.
- I call it personal vision.
2. They want to do good/bad to others. 'Others' may include their family, friends, society, country, world etc etc.
- I call it a grand vision. The degree of grandness depends on who those 'others' are.
I think everybody on this earth, in someway or the other has both of the above mentioned motives behind all their actions. I agree that the weightage of these two keeps varying throughout our lives. But at a broader level, these are the two generic visions which drive everybody even without we noticing it.
So, it is good to keep both of the above mentioned visions. Also, for me it looks like a vision can be divided into small goals. Here we should not confuse goal with vision. We can have a vision which keeps us driving and it can be divided into small goals.
Q - What should be the expiry date for a vision?
A - I think visions should be timeless. But note that by timeless I do not mean impossible to achieve. We should be able to just keep working towards it. It keeps giving us new goals to achieve.
Q - How should I conclude on a vision of life?
A - Firstly, while thinking of a vision, one should not consider his/her capabilities. Farther the vision of future are, better they are. Visions are not goals which have to be "achieved" but are constant driving forces. This is one of the differentiating factors between vision and goal. Vision helps us in deciding goals.
Secondly, a vision should be based on principles (which do not change). In my opinion, vision should be derived more from the spiritual plane than worldly one.
For deciding on grand vision, I would say benefit of others should be given the prime importance. Also, if we have to expand this vision to others, it has to be made a shared vision. So, it should be sharable with like minded people.
Conclusion - For me, it is a constant process of learning through introspection. So, it is very difficult to conclude anything. I would expect that readers would provide me more clarity of thought and help me in deciding a vision or two for my life. :)
But all my efforts till now have gone in vain. The more I have tried to suppress this thought, the more stronger it has become in due course of time. No doubt I go through some phases when trying to get rid of this thought becomes very difficult. This time the matter is serious and desperation levels are high. My wife has started showing concern about my absent mindedness (because my mind is always preoccupied with such thoughts). Am I going crazy?
But enough of my cribbing. Let me tell you what have I really thought about it till now. I would try to put all my thoughts in the form of questions and my analysis of it. Please note that I am not trying to conclude anything in this blog. I can not; even if I want to. I am still suffering from "What is the vision of my life?" syndrome. I am just trying to share my thoughts which might be useful for somebody who is suffering with the same dilemma.
Q - Why should I have a vision for my life?
A (stands for my Analysis) - Sometimes I feel that in taking care of all the nitty-gritties of my life, I am missing the bigger picture. I can not be here just for 'living' this life. I am here to contribute. I am here to make this life worth remembering and thinking of. I want to feel that I am an integral part of this whole drama of life and I am making a difference. And for doing all this, I should know what exactly I have to do. And for that I should have a vision which gives a direction to my life.
Q - Why having a vision is so important anyways?
A - Many a times I get this strange thought that I am about to die and I am looking back at my life; from the time of my birth till now. I get very scared when I feel that I would be seeing my life as a meaningless bread earning affair. My God! I spent whole my life processing different kind of food and transforming it into shit?? And for generating this shit, I worked so hard!! No way! These should not be my thoughts in my last moments in this incarnation. I should do something remembrance of which would bring smile on my dying face.
Goals are very important for quantifying what did I do in my life. And goals without a vision are useless.
Was I able to attain the final goal of my life? But asking this question makes sense only if I have a vision.
Q - Should I have a single vision for our lives or it can be more than one?
A - Most of us have one or both of the below mentioned reasons for living their lives as they are as of now:
1. They want to achieve something for self.
- I call it personal vision.
2. They want to do good/bad to others. 'Others' may include their family, friends, society, country, world etc etc.
- I call it a grand vision. The degree of grandness depends on who those 'others' are.
I think everybody on this earth, in someway or the other has both of the above mentioned motives behind all their actions. I agree that the weightage of these two keeps varying throughout our lives. But at a broader level, these are the two generic visions which drive everybody even without we noticing it.
So, it is good to keep both of the above mentioned visions. Also, for me it looks like a vision can be divided into small goals. Here we should not confuse goal with vision. We can have a vision which keeps us driving and it can be divided into small goals.
Q - What should be the expiry date for a vision?
A - I think visions should be timeless. But note that by timeless I do not mean impossible to achieve. We should be able to just keep working towards it. It keeps giving us new goals to achieve.
Q - How should I conclude on a vision of life?
A - Firstly, while thinking of a vision, one should not consider his/her capabilities. Farther the vision of future are, better they are. Visions are not goals which have to be "achieved" but are constant driving forces. This is one of the differentiating factors between vision and goal. Vision helps us in deciding goals.
Secondly, a vision should be based on principles (which do not change). In my opinion, vision should be derived more from the spiritual plane than worldly one.
For deciding on grand vision, I would say benefit of others should be given the prime importance. Also, if we have to expand this vision to others, it has to be made a shared vision. So, it should be sharable with like minded people.
Conclusion - For me, it is a constant process of learning through introspection. So, it is very difficult to conclude anything. I would expect that readers would provide me more clarity of thought and help me in deciding a vision or two for my life. :)
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