How to deal with Likes and Dislikes - in the Context of ancient Indian Philosophy

Sister and Brother Photo by Amr Elmasry on Unsplash

Almost everything that we do and experience in our everyday life is the outcome of likes and dislikes- our own and that of others. When the little one wants nothing but junk food for dinner, when the old man mutters between his teeth eating the Biryani, when the mother is horrified by her daughter's choice of dress, when the daughter-in-law wants to replace the old kitchen utensils, when the painter chooses the pink colour, when the critic dismisses the artwork, when the commuter chooses the window seat, when the young man delights in playing video games,... It is all a play of likes and dislikes.

The Digital World - a new dimension

Internet forums, new websites, blogs and social networking sites prompt their users to freely express

their views. Sitting in a corner of the world one can by clicking on a button, affect, for better or worse, the personal and social lives of individuals living thousands kilometers away. Web-businesses too are built and dismantled by the power of these like-dislike expressions. Every moment thousands of people across the world use these icons to express their opinion on all kinds of content and issues.

Truly, likes and dislikes are the wheels of our lives.

But a point often missed even by sincere spiritual aspirants is that we strengthen our bondage to the mundane superficial life every time we identify with our likes or dislikes.     

Over time repeated likes and dislikes deepen into strong attachment and aversion which prevents sane judgement. Attachment is that which follows the experience of pleasure. And aversion is that which follows the experience of pain. Each of us has attachments and aversions accumulated as cultural attachments over our many lives and also acquired in the present life.

The Kathopanishad tells us that the Supreme Self present in every individual created the sense organs with natural outgoing tendencies. It is therefore that a man perceives only outer objects with them and not the inner ever free, blissful Self. In the Bhagvad Gita too, Sri Krishna warns,

Attachment and aversion of the sense organs, for their respective sense objects are natural; let none come under their sway; they are one's highway robbers.

Flowing by their very nature toward the sense objects, the turbulent senses rob us of our powers of discrimination. Hence we identify ourselves with body and experience the fruit of action.

 The Analogy of Fish Basket

Sri Ramakrishna

The story of the fisher-woman narrated by Sri Ramakrishna explains the power of the senses. Once a fisher-woman was a guest of a flower seller. She came there with her empty basket, after selling fish in the market, and was asked to sleep in a room where flowers were kept. But, because of the fragrance of the flowers, she could not get to sleep for a long time. Her hostess saw her condition and asked for the reason of her restlessness. The fisher-woman said, 

I don't know, friend. Perhaps the smell of the flowers has been disturbing my sleep. Can you give me my fish-basket? Perhaps that will put me to sleep.

The basket was brought to her. She sprinkled water on it and set it near her nose. Then she fell sound asleep and snored all night.

We all have our own cherished fish-baskets. It may be our attachment for a person, a thing or an idea which prevents us from appreciating the fragrance of divinity ever present within us. It is only when we see the fish-basket for what it is, that we begin our spiritual journey. The attempt to break free from the bondage of likes and dislikes is the preliminary step in one's spiritual journey.

Some Methodologies to overcome the likes and dislikes paradox

To overcome attachment to the ephemeral world, scriptures and saints advise us to give such attachment a higher turn by cultivating a love for moral and spiritual values and activities. 

Detachment

One of the prescribed methods is to detach ourselves at will from our sense experiences. To detach is to abstain, now and then, from the sense objects that strongly attract us. Traditional religious vows and worship are designed to help us in attaining such a detachment.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness or keeping a constant alert watch over the cravings of the senses and the workings of our pet ideas is another simple and effective way. 

Understanding Real Worth

The process of discriminating and realizing the real worth of sense experiences is one more powerful practice.

Sri Ramakrishna says,

Once I had the desire to put on a gold-embroidered robe, wear a ring on my finger and smoke a hubble-bubble with a long pipe. Mathur Babu procured all these things for me. I wore the gold-embroidered robe and said to myself after a while. 'Mind! This is what is called gold-embroidered robe'. Then I took it off and throw it away. I could not stand the robe any more. Again I said to myself, 'Mind! This is called a shawl, and this is ring and this smoking a hubble-bubble with a long pipe.' I threw those things away once for all and the desire to experience them never arose in my mind again.

Prayer and Japa

Sri Sarada Devi

    

Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi often advised devotees to be engaged in prayer and japa. Repeating the Lord's name subdues the outgoing tendency of the senses and purifies the mind. Such a purified mind is then drawn to the Lord. 

Sri Ramakrishna declares that we can realize God when we direct towards Him, the combined force of three attractions:

1. the mother's attraction towards her child
2. the chaste wife's attraction towards her husband
3. the worldly man's attraction towards worldly possessions

The power of aversion should be directed towards that which obstructs our spiritual progress. In the first step we have to detect and develop a dislike towards our 'fish-baskets' . Once established in this, one should strive to become indifferent towards them. And in the final stage, we will be able to see and accept them as manifestations of the Lord.

Conclusion

The purpose of life is to go within and realize the Supreme Self. But anger and hatred or attachments and aversions keep us entangled with the outer world and rob us of equanimity. The challenge is to remain unaffected and give them a God-ward turn.  

How Can We Achieve A Balance Of Our Negative and Positive Energies- Yin and Yang

Yin-Yang Symbol holds its route in Taosim

If we try to concentrate upon the above symbol of Yin-Yang, we may reach four stages : 

1. examination
2. discrimination
3. joyful peace
4. simple awareness of individuality

In order to understand we must think about the structure of the Universe. First let us consider the basic Reality. The Reality considered as the innermost Self of any particular creation or object, is called the Self/Soul/Atman. When the Reality is spoken on its universal aspect, it is called Brahman. Christian terminology employs two phrases - God immanent and God transcendent which make a similar distinction. Again and again in religious literature we find this great paradox restated- that God is both within and without, instantly present and indefinitely elsewhere, the dweller in the atom and the abode of all things. But this the same Reality, the same Godhead, seen in its two relations to the cosmos. These relations are described by two different words simply in order to help us think about them. They imply no kind of duality. Atman and Brahman are one.

 

The Taoist Concept of Yin and Yang

Taoist says

All things exist as a contrast of opposites. We call these opposites Yin and Yang. We cannot conceive of these opposites independent of each other

As a box can be formed by designing and shaping one or more material and the box has two fundamental things, one is wall and other is empty space. Both are necessary to form a box. They define each other. Without walls, the space inside is part all space and cannot be distinguished. Without the space inside, it would make no sense to call what remains in walls because it would just be a solid block.

Opposites define each other. The very words we use to describe things have no meaning without their opposites. If we breath in there must be breath out. Taoists refer this opposing quality as Yin and Yang.

Yin and Yang literally mean dark side and sunny side of a hill, the two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life.

Yin is a symbol of earth, femaleness, darkness, passivity and absorption. It is present in even numbers, in valleys and streams and is represented by the tiger, the colour orange and a broken line.

Yang is conceived of as heaven, maleness, light, activity and penetration. It is present in odd numbers, in mountains and is represented by the dragon, the colour azure and an unbroken line.

The both are said to proceed from the Great Ultimate, their interplay on one another (as one increases the other decreases) being a description of the actual process of the universe and that is in it. In harmony the two are depicted as the light and dark halves of a circle.

Photo by paul morris on Unsplash

 

What is this Cosmos ? What is it made of ?

Indian Philosophy teaches us the cosmos is made of Prakriti the nature, the elemental, undifferentiated stuff of mind and matter. Nature is defined as the power or effect of Brahman - in the sense that heat is a power or effect of fire. Just as heat cannot exist apart from the fire which causes it, so Nature could not exist apart from Brahman. The two are extremely inseparable. The later puts forth and causes the former.

Why does Brahman cause Prakriti ?

This is a question which cannot possibly be answered in the terms of any man-made philosophy. For the human intellect is itself within Prakriti and therefore cannot comprehend its nature. A great seer may experience the nature of the Brahman-Prakriti relationship while she/he is in the state of perfect yoga, but she/he cannot communicate her/his knowledge to us in terms of logic and language because, from an absolute standpoint, Prakriti does not exist. It is not the Reality- and yet not other than the Reality. It is the Reality as it seems to our human senses- the Reality distorted, limited, misread. 
We may accept, as a working hypothesis, the seer's assurance that this so, but our intellect reel away, baffled, from the tremendous mystery. Lacking super-conscious experience, we have to be content with picture talk. We come back gratefully to Shelley's famous lines  :

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1050403/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley-Life-like-a-dome-of-many-coloured-glass-Stains-the-white-radiance-of

Philosophically, they may be rather vague- it is not clear exactly what Shelley means by 'Life' - but they do provide us with a useful and beautiful image; if we think of Brahman as 'the white radiance' , then Prakriti is represented by the colours which disguise the real nature of its beams.

Chapter 2 of Tao Te Ching

As soon as beauty is known by the world as beautiful, it becomes ugly.
As soon as virtue is being known as something good, it becomes evil.
Therefore Being and Non-being give birth to each other.
Difficult and Easy accomplish each other.
Long and Short form each other.
High and Low distinguish each other.
Sound and Tone harmonize each other.
Before and After follow each other as a sequence.
Realizing this, the saint performs effortlessly according to the natural Way without personal desire, and practices the wordless teaching thru one's deeds.
The saint inspires the vitality of all lives, without holding back.
He nurtures all beings with no wish to take possession of.
He devotes all his energy but has no intention to hold on to the merit.
When success is achieved, he seeks no recognition.
Because he does not claim for credit, hence shall not loose it.

http://cargofilm-releasing.com/films/becoming-who-i-was/caption

This chapter discusses some wisdom of dualities. The sages use this knowledge of dualities to live their lives with the Tao.   
Wu-Wei known as unattached action, effortless action, or the action of no-action is big deal concept of Taoism. It can be defined nearly as living in the moment, being relaxed and not obsessing over outcomes.

Final Thought

To sum all this up briefly, creation is here described as an evolution outward, from undifferentiated consciousness into differentiated consciousness, from mind into matter. Pure consciousness is, as it were, gradually covered by successive layers of ignorance and differentiation, each layer being grosser and thicker than the one below it, until the process ends on the outer physical surface of the visible and tangible world. 

It is necessary to keep this idea of evolution clearly in mind if we are to understand the process. The process is meditation. For meditation is evolution in reverse. Meditation is a process of devolution. Beginning at the surface of life, the meditative mind goes inward, seeking always the cause behind the appearance and then the cause behind the cause, until the innermost Reality is reached. When it is practiced intensely, it can take the mind very far, right out to the ultimate borders of undifferentiated matter.         
 

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