Quite the Quest

Author: Kavya Patil

  • The Fallacies of the Intellect

    The Fallacies of the Intellect

    As an Indian I was taught at an early age that intelligence is a virtue to aspire and work towards. Your intelligence is compared, tested, taken pride on, criticized and what not. You are left consumed in the growth and the show of intelligence. Finally you spend your youth writing exams and qualifying degrees to prove of that intelligence you claim to possess and you are probably fooled by this rigged system and left feeling all the more stupid. So is this intelligence all that it is made out to be. If you ask me and logical as I may be would answer the need for intelligence for me is able to achieve a couple things in life with probably less effort. So on a social evolution point of view people adapted to think intellect gives you a side entry to certain life goals where you get them faster while not working so hard. Over time an undue importance was given to it falsely putting it on a pedestal. The harder the rat race your society lives in, the more glorified intelligence gets because you fight off a few extra rats.

    So then how do I look at it now. Have I broken the tendencies of this fandom to intelligence and given it, its true place. Have I realised something after being a long standing contestant in this rat race. My new take. We’ve been given a tool, an instrument to use it at will to experience what we need to out of life. Use the tool, dig out the earth and find what may come. Rather don’t get entangled in the hogwash around the tool. The laws of nature deemed you fit with a certain category of intellect because that is what you need to find what it is you are supposed to find in your life. And nature is the most law bound entity. It’s never wrong. So don’t misplace your efforts into questioning your intelligence or making a show of it if you are given a slightly better one. It’s the thing you make out of this tool that truely satiates it purpose. Do the justice to what you are given.

  • The Chariot Metaphor

    The Chariot Metaphor

    Not a nuance, first mentioned in the Katha Upanishad, where Lord Yamaraj compares the mind, body, and soul to elements in a chariot. Let me first give a brief of this exact metaphor.

    The pathway on which the chariot travels are the sense objects, meaning things in this world that can be sensed or felt. The chariot itself is the body, the physical body. The horses pulling the chariot are the senses. The reins are the mind and the charioteer is the intellect. Where does that leave the soul?

    Let’s say as a dilettante I managed to decipher the distinction of mind, body and soul because each of them can be identified as the self. I would have to bet on the charioteer, probably the most important component being the soul. Don’t I decide where my chariot goes? Apparently not! There’s an even more prime piece to the puzzle. The traveller. The traveller!! The soul, the highest reflection of self is simply the passenger. The senses felt, the road taken, the mastery on the reins, the mindfulness and the calculative turns made doesn’t really matter to the self, the traveller. He chooses the destination and enjoys the ride. The most bejewelled, the fastest, the most advanced chariot would not make any difference.

    The traveller is you taking a ride in this body guided by your mind maneuvered by the intellect. Just enjoy it.

  • The Collective Consciousness

    The Collective Consciousness

    This is no more a thought experiment in my mind. It’s an absolute truth I believe in. The essence of self in all of us is not a figment that happened to take on your body or mind. It’s a continuum of something, something divine so above and beyond energy and mass. The limitations of the english language or any language for that matter oblige me to use the word CONSCIOUSNESS. Not because it sounds grand but because I am evidently aware of its existence.

    This thing that I am in the blood, flesh and bones elevated by my thoughts, memories and emotions brought to life by my soul is comparable to a small cell, the unit of biological life. So we in all our glory make up tiny blocks of the collective consciousness. Many spiritual teachings refer to this as the BRAHMA. It translates to vastness.

    This is not an act to buy you as fresh perspective or to tickle your fancy. I want to surrender to this vast existence, I want to lose my sense of being a separate entity rather fall into the infinity. I think we belong to the infinity so parts of it doesn’t make sense. If not believe at least investigate this idea. Let it become your thought experiment at the least.

  • The unrecognised self

    The unrecognised self

    The Kena Upanishad starts with an unknown student asking his teacher how it is that he can experience all of life. What part of you truly experiences it. Let me break it down, for instance the experience of sound, fragrance, touch, remembrance of memories, thoughts of anxiety or fear, emotions like sadness or pride . Is it the ear, nose, your skin or is it your brain with its defined sensory or motor areas. Do you think just a few chemicals at synapses and a low voltage current that passes through the bajillion nerves in the brain is completely enough to explain how we feel so distinctly, so vividly. It doesn’t add up ( at least to me). There is something more and personally I feel it’s there somewhere very deep that I need to look hard. But I’m ridiculously sure it’s there.

    There is me, a ME inside me that experiences it all. I want to emphasize EXPERIENCE here. Imagine the thoughts u feel are not coming from you but they are floating around there somewhere and you experience it like as if you felt a touch. Equal, similar chemicals similar current, just the location of the nerves changes.

    I want to make a distinction and maybe call it the mind and you. Your mind is also a tool which makes you experience life. Its just that its not physical and it’s too internal which made it difficult for us to make the contrast.

    So thats me, my self , or soul if you will. The words here are to just to send the message. Call it what you may but recognize that self who truly experiences life. That’s only the start.

  • The unattainable happiness

    The unattainable happiness

    Imagine the happiest you’ve ever felt. Hold that thought or feeling. Does it bring a smile? Has that happened more than once? Can you compare two happinesses ?(forgive me, trying to make a point) From this point on do you see yourself feeling happier than you’ve ever felt?

    But clearly this feeling was momentary. It came like anger, despair, envy an equal feeling maybe but happiness kept us wanting more of it. We work that rat brain, sorry human brain logically drawing maps to find this happiness. Money definitely has to give me happiness, obviously. Or maybe sometimes fame, imagine being liked by everyone, or owning precious things, or having a loving family, finding the love of your life. Does having all this make you happy. Can you declare that’s a status you will attain and persist in until your life ends. The chase for happiness establishes that we all got a taste of it. We all! no matter our struggles, financial status, our intelligence, our personalities, no matter what.

    But out of all of humanity, didn’t anyone feel eternally happy? No need to chase it anymore. Did they feel satisfied completely and thoroughly at peace? I am not out of place to imagine that right.

    Can I pause this pursuit of the unattainable happiness. Can I take a break from trying to make more money, creating new memories, trying to live the apparent one and only life ( YOLO shenanigans). In my wonder I happened to come across a monk who assured I can and in fact I should be doing that. I felt a soothing balm mending some deep seated bruise.