Sunday, February 20, 2005

Confusion

3 years ago, I was soo sure of the world, my views and my place in this world. I was incredibly confident that I knew how things operated and what was needed and how to fix the problems of the world. Now, its not so clear. I'm trying to find my place in this world and what it is that i really believe. Its probably the toughest thing I've ever had to do. Ya, i know it doesn't seem that way to many people but its a big deal to me, to figure out where I stand and where i'm heading. One thing i'm sure about is that i'll be in New York next year, just not sure what i'll be doing, which isn't that comforting.

I've been trying to come to terms with what I believe about God and all that. This is a tough one, especially given that I have no real experience of God. It really does work out to only being faith and belief which is sooo scary because it is entirely possible if not probable that God doesn't exist and is merely created by the human mind to avoid the abyss of loniliness. God gives comfort and order to our lives, it is really a daunting if not scary thought to think that God doesn't exist. It removes purpose and significance from our lives, it leaves us in oblivion of our own making with no helping hand or escape in sight. Thats what I'm trying to face, where do I find myself. I really want to believe, so strongly but I don't know how to do that and not do it blindly or with any foundation in my own experience.

The God issue is a deep and very profound issue in my life but another issue is that the more I get to know women and less and less i understand them. They confuse me beyond comprehension, i'm not sure what they mean when they say stuff and even when I decipher the words I have no clue as to what they really want or are saying. The more I try to understand the less I do. I'm a very straight forward person so everyone knows where they stand with me, If I'm cool with you I'll let you know and if i'm not cool with you, I'll let you know that too. The most important part is that I'll mean whatever I say. Not so with women, they say one thing and expect me to know what the hidden meaning is, its like slamming my head into a wall, it gets me nowhere to try and understand what they are trying to say. I get my sisters, probably because they think more like guys than girls because of living with me but I can't figure out any other women, I'm thinking that maybe i should just stop trying to figure them out and accept my fate of never understanding them and in the process make an ass of myself. If you have any clues or insight please let me know cause my ass is lost.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Introspective Living

Over the past few days I've been thinking a lot about what it is that i know. I don't merely mean in the epistimological sense of what can be known or what it means to know but I mean in the more conventional sense of what I know; what i've picked up through experience and also through simple book learning. I have amassed a lot of knowledge, an enormous amount actually. I would consider myself well read in terms of world religions, philosophy and cultural traditions. I'm not very well read when it comes to world literary traditions meaning the great novels and books of the world. My interest lies more with literature that deals with more philosophical issues. I try and keep up to date on many of the linguistic theories and studies that have to do with the ancient world, for some reason the ancient world fascinates me. I love to find out about how the ancients viewed the world, what they thought and how they fundamentally viewed existence.

While i was thinking about all this stuff, it dawned on me that Eastern thought specifically Indian thought isn't just or merely just an intellectual exercise, to determine how intelligent or persuasive that I could be. It is meant to stimulate the mind and then lead to living a live based on that knowledge. Its become apparent to me that I've lost that vital and sustaining notion. The acquization of knowledge must have a ultimate purpose, a raison d'etre so to speak. What is it? It is liberation and salvation from the bonds of ignorance and impermenance. Previously, I've written about the Buddhist idea of No-Self which is fundamental to entire structure of Buddhist thought, if that notion of No-Self falls so does the ediface that is Buddhism. In a similar vein, Advaita Vedanta or simply Non-Dualism of Sankaraacharya is built upon the idea of absolute identity of Individual Soul and Supreme Soul. Of course, the premise is that there is an individual soul and supreme soul which are real, the self is necessary.

In Buddhism, knowledge frees one from the bonds of samsara and into nirvana which is the cessition of all things, meaning the end of all thought and suffering through understanding that from an absolute viewpoint all this possesses no real/independent/intrinisic existence and reality. The self itself must be removed. Advaita echoes a very similar concept, all things have no real existence apart from Brahman, therefore the only real entity is Brahman and all else has no reality apart from that. Even the idea of a individual self, in the final analysis doesn't possess any real independant reality, the individual self ceases to exist upon knowledge of Brahman or moksha/mukthi. Even the God with personality in Advaita does not really exist but only exists conventionally as long as one is within the confines of ignorance. What finally and ultimately exists is a unqualified undifferentiated Consciousness, it is not a conscious entity but consciousness itself. It is beyond all qualities and all relations, it can be referred to through negatives, meaning you say what it is by saying what it is not, it is not death therefore it is life, it is not insentient but is sentience and so on. This is very intellectually appealling but it is not meant merely to be just that. It is meant to be lived and followed, that is why Sankaraacharya was also a great mystic devotee, who composed many devotionaly hymns and prayers. The point of all this, is simply to say that I need to get back to my roots and try to live these truths and ideas that i intellectually study and maybe by trying to live them i will gain a deeper and more foundational understanding of them.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Delirium

This entire past week from monday night till about today, I was sick. It wasn't very fun. I was bedridden from monday night till about thursday, i literally slept about 15-20 hours a day and was delirious. I was convinced that the positions i slept in gave me different sicknesses, what sicknesses? Not a damn clue, i just knew i would get different diseases. I had many weird dreams all involving me wearing some weird outfit, including skintight rubber with a tail, go figure. So basically i got nothing new to report aside from the fact that i'm pretty close to normal now, although my roommates think normal and me never belong in the same sentence.

On a side note, I know i've written about this before but the more and more i see life the more and more i really truly do believe that nice guys do finish last. Trying to be a nice guy really won't get you anywhere except pissed off, its really not worth it, because whatever you did to try to be nice will be forgotten and you will inexoriably end up in a worse place than you started off. I just know it takes a lot out of me to try and be nice and it bites ass when that comes back in your face, moral of the story be a dick and life will work out the way you want because there is no real "things will work out for the best" world, or everything will be fine world.

Sadly, the world we live in is a terrible place, which only appears to have rhyme or reason. We make rhyme and reason moreover we make order in our minds from the pointless world around us because otherwise everything we know and hold dear means nothing. Things don't work out on this world, they work out for some but for others they don't and for those they have to make due with the pieces that are around them and build some semblence of a life. Rather sad and bleak view, i know but can anyone honestly refute it, given the overwhelming evidence? Hopefully you are all the ones it will work out for, but again hope is a two edged sword it nurtures some sense of sanity and belief yet in many cases it is a faulty belief without any real basis in probability and only exists in possibility.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Weekend in the Big Apple

I was in New York City this past weekend, i went up to visit a friend Neha from college, who had flown up for some Jain broad retreat. It was a good weekend, I took the bus from boston to new york on thursday afternoon its about 4 hour trip, not too bad. I did take some books to read for school but I should have known better, I don't do work while at home why would i do work on a bus or in nyc. We went out together on Thursday night to this place called Hudson Hotel, it was a nice place and we met up with a friend of mine in the city. It was a fun night. I also went out on Friday night, again a fun night. NYC is great for the fact that its open till like 5 in the morning and that makes the night much more fun.

I had a couple of weird things happen to me on Saturday night. After we all went to this club called Earth NYC, which by the way serves pani poori with vodka instead of normal water, interesting. It was some indo party and i got claustrophobic really fast, too man indian people in one place freaks me out. I'm sure most of those people are professionals and successful but from my experience they tend to lack a lot of culture and heritage, damn straight its a mass generalization but its a generalization based on experience not something I pulled from my ass. I had to leave after a while, i really couldn't take that many indian people, its sad my tolerance for ignorant indians has dropped significantly since college, I guess i expect that as they age they would develop more culture and a wider outlook on life rather than so self-centric. This is not to say that there aren't any indians with a wider outlook and culture but they tend to be few and far between. Sometimes when I watch them interact, I find myself thinking "Do I act like that?" and sadly i think the answer is sometimes Yes. I try not but sometimes being around them just brings you to that level.

Anyways thats all beside the point, the two weird things happened to me that night. I was walking down 8th Avenue around 2am. I basically walked from 17 street to 59 street on 8th avenue, it gave me a good idea of how much New York changes within a few blocks. As I was walking up 8th avenue, this dude sees me and pulls his car over and is like "Hey". I turn over and look at him, i figured he needs some driving directions or something. So i walk over a little bit and respond "Ya, whats up" and he says "Do you know where Lincoln Tunnel is?" and I who have only been to NYC like 7 times, clearly don't so i tell him that I don't but he can ask the taxi down the street. So far very normal, then next second he is like "I am not from the city, are you?" and i respond "Nope, i'm just visiting" and he says "Do you like massages? Cause I like them a lot?" and i was like what the bloody hell, what kinda question is that. I stop for a second and think about what is this dude really asking, before i can respond he says "My shoulder and back really hurt, want to massage me?" and now I'm like holy shit, i'm getting propositioned by a dude. I was like "Umm, dude I ain't into that, I going that way (pointing away from him) " and i walk away. Crazy

Then within 10 min this other dude walks up to me and says "Yo homie, do you need anything?" and I'm like what the hell? "Umm no, I'm cool" and he says "Naw man, if you need anything girls, drugs, whatever, i'll hook you up." and I'm like "It cool buddy, i'm aight." Geez, what a city within 5 blocks I meet some weird shit, crazy world. ya its all random but thats all i have for the 3 of you that are reading this, i'll give you something more thought provoking at a later time.