History’ (which represents the writer’s interpretation of that event and not necessarily the actual event and hence it cannot be trusted blindly) and ‘Present’ are to be studied for human tendencies and not for events. We look at history (events, wars/conflicts, daily life) mostly from a human perspective and not how nature would look at it. What situations trigger what kind of reaction (at individual level and at the level of society) is what is there to study (not the events, people & their names or dates of events, date of births, ….).
Persecution of Socrates (470-399 BC), Galileo (1564-1642), Jyotirao Phule (1827-1890), …….
Society (or people) repeated the almost similar tendencies with social reformers from different timelines and places. And hence the events may appear physically different but they all share the same psychological structure. (These people were not prosecuted for their actual actions but for challenging the authority. Weakness is afraid of others becoming powerful, not the strength (Video 246). Weakness is afraid that ‘if it loses its upper hand, it will lose its value in others mind and hence others will begin to forget about it’).
Also, what these great people did was not great at all (eg. to educate girls is not a great decision but the most objective, logical and fair one. Anyone with basic common sense would do that (Video 169). But why didn’t everyone think so …? (Video 178). Society did what they thought to be right & logical. What society didn’t realize that their logic was conditioned by the environment they grew up in (i.e. a bubble of false reality) (Video 236). It was never their logic at all (Video 238), (Video 213), (Video 314) – Our logic & common sense take the shape of our environment and we interpret anything that is ‘Different’ as ‘Wrong’).
Revolutions were very normal and obvious actions from the perspective of creative people.. It is others’ foolishness that made them appear great. When we practice illogical habits for too long, the most logical actions also appear wrong in comparison (Video 145), (Video 152a). Had society itself been smart or objective, the existence of these people wouldn’t have appeared any different.
True logic appears offensive or arrogant only in comparison with the false conditioned logic and not its own (Video 203). We forget that what’s crazy today may reveal itself as logical tomorrow (Video 204).
( More specifically ‘Ordinary people are physically useful, but blind. They are not necessarily evil’. )
Greatness (i.e. craziness) does not exist on its own, it needs weakness to compare itself with. We want these people to be great, so that we can falsely treat ourselves as ‘Normal’. It is an attempt of the ego to avoid the fact that ‘we are weak or blind’.
( More specifically ‘Ordinary people are useful, but blind. They are not necessarily evil.’ )
Another problem with accepting the fact ‘we are weak’ is that it comes with inherent responsibility to become normal (or not staying weak & idiot). But if we falsely treat ourselves as normal, then there is no feeling of weakness. And we can treat ‘becoming great’ (in reality ‘truly normal’) as an optional act and not a mandatory task. We go through life completely unaware of the fact that we are all blind and irrational by birth. From Buddha’s perspective people are idiots. Either we can treat him as great and ourselves as normal or we can treat him as normal and ourselves as blind. We find it easier to go with the first option to avoid feeling like a fool.
One might argue “People work hard. They know so much about science and technology. They raise kids. ………….….”. We don’t realize that all these actions or knowledge makes them useful and they can still be completely blind. People who went against Galileo, Phule, ….. also had jobs and kids and they were still wrong. And if others with technical & non-technical skill-set can be wrong, so can we.
The best thing that can happen to anyone in this world is that they become a truly objective/ normal person. There is no such thing as ‘becoming great’ (Video 261), (Video 261b).
When we don’t see what pattern of life is being repeated, we think the event is new. A person is not an individual but a stack of behavior and thinking patterns. What we call history, is not something that happened naturally but the result of what we (or our ancestor) created through every single decision they took (though it was not planned as whole).
Are these events really different from one another …? They may share different physical forms (which depends on how much power one possesses) but stem from the same psychological tendencies (Video 181). Physical details of such events are irrelevant, they keep changing based on timeline, place and one’s conditioning. Every generation thinks they are somewhat better than the previous one, while repeating exactly the same patterns. How can that be …? What is the point of history, if we are not going to learn from it …? (Video 298).
Most events we witness are mere different physical forms of trivial and irrational emotions/feelings (anger, hatred, envy, excitement, ….). Are (so-called) historical events really great …? (again: ‘Future’ & ‘Present’ is nothing but history repeating itself with slightly different physical forms and hence not so different). We look at history as if something incredible happened in the past, but what’s the reality …?
If we go through 8-10 more events like these, the entire mystery about history & present will fall apart (as we shall see in other articles) (Video 63a), (Video 63b). Shall we allow someone else’s stupidity to become an element of our admiration …?. Most of our daily normal activities are also mere repetitions of various patterns. We just don’t see what those patterns are.
We teach things the wrong way in school, no wonder kids don’t like it. If we teach the essence of our actions, students and people will be less distressed and more interested in studying history and present willingly. But why haven’t we done so yet …? And what right do we have to put someone under distress by making things unnecessarily difficult for them …? (Video : kids don’t want to do homework). Just because they cannot advocate for themselves, does that make us right …? (Video 325). The problems you don’t solve are the problems your kids are gonna have to fight for (Video 312).
( especially the fraudulent rules that are based on human irrationality (Video 298))
Maybe we are not as smart as we think we are. Weaknesses always find it difficult to fall out of the line. The way history is taught today, it clearly hasn’t been much useful considering the ongoing conflicts (kids life in school, adults life at workplaces, emptiness, depressions, wars, …). Anyway, nobody is going to give us any special appreciation for maintaining things the way they are.
Also, our mind wants mystery. If everything is known, then it becomes directionless and hence unstable. So, we value things (art, sport, religion, traditions, expensive stuff, profession, pyramids, Taj Mahal, ….) on the outside more than ourselves in order to extract a false goal and false sense of knowledge from them. (Mind engages itself in many unnecessary details such as ‘to find out what happened, when and how it happened, how many people were involved, details of how that event unfolded and many other subtleties’). Maybe we are afraid of being problem free (Video 72b).
Similar is the case with ‘God’. God or Brahmin is a state of mind where there are no (irrational) thoughts and hence no mind at all. It is a state of being where there is no remembrance and irrational emotional experience (Video 179a), (Video 179b). But we don’t like this definition. It goes against everything that we have been taught so far and also we don’t want to feel like a fool (because it means everything that we have been doing in the name of ‘God’ was wrong all along). So, we want the ‘God’ to be mysterious, something that is un-achievable so as to extract a false goal because our mind is afraid of being empty (Video 43a), (Video 43b).
Anything can be made right by turning it into a common experience, no matter how absurd it is (Video 236), (Video 8). And we utterly fail to question those things.
( Take a pause …. )
What is the difference between a sword and a gun …? Is this a true definition of development (to repeat the same psychological tendency with slightly different physical forms).
If yes then why are people still in conflict with one another …?, why is there so much distress (at individual and social level) …? Are these things really that valuable (considering the randomness of nature) …? If this kind of development is going to solve the interpersonal problems then ‘OK’ but our daily life is proof that it doesn’t work and there is no meaning in repeating the same cycle (with different physical form). What makes us think ‘it will be different this time’ …?. And if I do what everyone else is doing, do I have the right to expect different results …?.
Insanity : Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
( especially the fraudulent rules that are based on human irrationality )
If two people in a family are in conflict, is it really a wonder that two nations on the earth are in conflict as well …? Once, India & Pakistan were one nation. Today, they are at each other’s throats over the Kashmir issue. Is that really surprising …? And, is the issue really about ‘Kashmir’ or the feeling of superiority, inferiority & control …?.
The day something else becomes more important than the current problems, meaningless observations about it will vanish (Video 168a), (Video 230). But we don’t get the opportunity to see that alternate reality.
(If a Fate repeated certain patterns, it was never a Fate)
Is it really difficult to break free from our problems, addictions and craziness …?
—> [ Vietnam war Heroin addiction study : https://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits by James Clear (Author of Atomic Habits)
In 1971, as the Vietnam War was heading into its sixteenth year, congressmen Robert Steele from Connecticut and Morgan Murphy from Illinois made a discovery that stunned the American public. While visiting the troops, they had learned that over 15 percent of U.S. soldiers stationed there were heroin addicts. Follow up research revealed that 35 percent of service members in Vietnam had tried heroin and as many as 20 percent were addicted—the problem was even worse than they had initially thought.
Lee Robins was one of the researchers in charge. In a finding that completely upended the accepted beliefs about addiction, Robins found that when soldiers who had been heroin users returned home, only 5 percent of them became re-addicted within a year, and just 12 percent relapsed within three years. In other words, approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight.
To Change Your Behavior, Change Your Environment ] <—
We can try to solve our problems by keeping the surrounding & habits the same (something that is difficult and ineffective). Or we can change our surrounding/ system in such a way that problems will cease to exist (simple and highly effective. Change in circumstances in itself becomes a therapy (Video 168a), (Video 230) and it gives us instantaneous results) (as we shall see).
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