Pleasure and pain are two most important neurophysiological responses in the brain which mark our likes and dislikes and wire the connection between the body, mind and environment. There is strong evidence for biological connections between the neurochemical pathways used for the perception of both pain and pleasure, which confirms with the yogic view of both experiences being part of the same continuum.
The Samkhya doctrine recognizes that process as the inner mechanics behind worldliness. Attachment arises from pleasure and pleasure is derived from attachment to the experience it produces. In turn pain gives rise to aversion and thus the circle of attachment and aversion strengthens the Vasanas (psychic conditioning) of an individual psyche.
When we undergo pleasurable experience we take it for granted, for its a natural predisposition in our mind and needs no questioning as for the reasoning. One of the resultant states of awakening is an increased awareness of the deep connectedness of all psychological states and physiological conditions. Even if still automatically preferring pleasure to pain the awakened mind is no longer bound by the attachment the experience of pleasure otherwise incurs.
That is because spontaneous realization rests on the knowledge that they (pain and pleasure) follow each other (like the dials of a clock) with the change in the alternating states with which Nature performs all actions. The Gunas (Sattva, Rajas, Tamas*) rotate and bring about changes in physical and psychological states of our system. Even a threshold of pain differs according to the predominance of a particular guna in an individual.
Whatever is the case, the one who set his/her mind on the path of yoga tries his/her best to overcome the cycle of attachment and aversion born of the experience of pleasure and pain. Both experiences produce the subconscious latencies in the shape of the above mentioned Vasanas. Attachment and aversion are rooted in misapprehension of reality which firmly binds the soul to the body by identification of the ''I'' (as a spectator) with the process of a spectacle.
To cut these circuit is to brake free from the chains with which the ''I'' is (seemingly) bound. Seemingly ? Well, the ''I'' is never affected by that which takes place on the level of cognitive (motor-sensory-mental) experiences, nor does it get affected by any fluctuations brought about by the superimposition of those experiences onto the ''I'' (as the perceiver). No more than the images projected onto the screen have an effect on the light which illumines the movie. So is with our experiences in the world as far as the motor-sensory-mental responses are concerned.
(end of part 2)
Notes:
* According to The Samhkya, one of the Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, The Gunas are primordial qualities which constitute Nature. On cosmological level Sattva is the energy of equilibrium; Rajas is the energy behind all motion; Tamas is primal factor behind inertia. In terms of psychological states of an individual, Sattva balances all processes and stands for light, clarity and peace. Rajas is responsible for excitement, passion, desire and consequently for all mental turmoil including pain and misery. Tamas as inertia rules stagnation and ignorance born of total identification with the physiology. Suffice to say that everyone is a mixture of all three energies with minute combination/proportion of the three Gunas which form the basis of an individual psyche.
Friday 26 February 2010
Wednesday 24 February 2010
Mars retrograde
We all have been put through the test since Dec 20th when Mars, the blood-boiler went retrograde, and in the last three weeks in particular, as the planet has entered its most 'destructive' phase. By March 10th Mars will resume its normal course, and soon as February is over we all get some relief. Than two more weeks and we are out of the most demanding time we've been in a while, and that's despite the fact (suggested by many astrologers) that we've benefited by the overall positive planetary combinations. We should understand these that despite the losses the blows were somewhat softened.
Just to remind, Mars is retrograding in Leo, adding extra heat, extra anger and extra pride to already fiery planet. Comparing Western Zodiac with Indian Jyotish: the main characteristics of the planets are very similar so are the behavior and what the planets rule in both the outer and the inner spheres of our reality.
According to the Jyotish, the planets are grouped into benefic, malefic and neutral based on the energetic qualities they emit (from the worldly point of view). Mars (Mangal in sanskrit) belongs to the malefic group of planets, that is the overall character of the planet is unruly and has a fiery nature to it. Other malefic planets are Saturn, Sun and ascending and descending nodes of the Moon. Benefic ones are, Jupiter and Venus. While Mercury is neutral, that means the planet's energy can be colored by the combination of the planets it happened to share the house with.
From the psychological point of view Mars rules the emotions associated with fire element. Passion, anger, courage, jealousy, pride, and everything that makes us burn with impatience. When balanced Mars gives us strength for decision making, courage to face adversity and fearlessness to go with the changes in life. When imbalanced, as during the retrograde period (plus other special transits) the planet is seemed too eager to destroy everything, from the relationships to our inner peace, which are the mirrored conditions in any case.
Mars retrograde in Leo is a double bill. The otherwise assertive energy of leader Leo is being perplexed and thwarted into confusion and self-doubt. On top of that the shadowy qualities associated with Leo become exaggerated where pride and self-centeredness meets its extremes. Multiplied by the Martian energy we can expect an alien behavior from those we thought we knew as our own selves. Internalized anger is also on the agenda as the fire instead of being directed for cooking something nourishing or battling with adversaries is often turned against oneself.
The best strategy during the warrior planet going backwards is to sit it out in a shelter or make sure you use a bamboo stick instead of a real sword if you happened to be a martial artist. Is there anything good during the time when Mars is retrograding ? For sure, when the period is over we'll come out of it with facts and information which otherwise would have remained hidden. Both about ourselves and others. We'll be stronger and more compassionate beings, after being faced with our own limitations and inadequacies. Just like flower field gets more fertile after some blood drops on the ground. Exposure to our limitations would only help us go beyond the limits of our own making.
Just to remind, Mars is retrograding in Leo, adding extra heat, extra anger and extra pride to already fiery planet. Comparing Western Zodiac with Indian Jyotish: the main characteristics of the planets are very similar so are the behavior and what the planets rule in both the outer and the inner spheres of our reality.
According to the Jyotish, the planets are grouped into benefic, malefic and neutral based on the energetic qualities they emit (from the worldly point of view). Mars (Mangal in sanskrit) belongs to the malefic group of planets, that is the overall character of the planet is unruly and has a fiery nature to it. Other malefic planets are Saturn, Sun and ascending and descending nodes of the Moon. Benefic ones are, Jupiter and Venus. While Mercury is neutral, that means the planet's energy can be colored by the combination of the planets it happened to share the house with.
From the psychological point of view Mars rules the emotions associated with fire element. Passion, anger, courage, jealousy, pride, and everything that makes us burn with impatience. When balanced Mars gives us strength for decision making, courage to face adversity and fearlessness to go with the changes in life. When imbalanced, as during the retrograde period (plus other special transits) the planet is seemed too eager to destroy everything, from the relationships to our inner peace, which are the mirrored conditions in any case.
Mars retrograde in Leo is a double bill. The otherwise assertive energy of leader Leo is being perplexed and thwarted into confusion and self-doubt. On top of that the shadowy qualities associated with Leo become exaggerated where pride and self-centeredness meets its extremes. Multiplied by the Martian energy we can expect an alien behavior from those we thought we knew as our own selves. Internalized anger is also on the agenda as the fire instead of being directed for cooking something nourishing or battling with adversaries is often turned against oneself.
The best strategy during the warrior planet going backwards is to sit it out in a shelter or make sure you use a bamboo stick instead of a real sword if you happened to be a martial artist. Is there anything good during the time when Mars is retrograding ? For sure, when the period is over we'll come out of it with facts and information which otherwise would have remained hidden. Both about ourselves and others. We'll be stronger and more compassionate beings, after being faced with our own limitations and inadequacies. Just like flower field gets more fertile after some blood drops on the ground. Exposure to our limitations would only help us go beyond the limits of our own making.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
The Nature of Pain - 1
What is pain ? Is it a release, a protective mechanism, a natural response of the body to danger, a psychosomatic projection, all of these or something else altogether? Can we live without pain, or is it an integral part of our existence? Shall we suppress pain at all times?
The English word derives from Latin poena - meaning punishment pain, or Ancient Greek poine - a word related to penalty. Do we take that pain is literally punishment, or is it penalty in philosophical understanding of the term, like the re-payment for wrong action, whatever that action was. If we accept that view, than painful experiences are self-generational and we all are active participants to the pain we collectively produce even if being unaware of its consequences. Needless to say that the universal computation makes sure to distinguish between the types and forms before making us the receivers of physical or mental experience.
There is neurobiological reasons for the existence of pain which are there to make sure we distinguish our experiences between those that give us pleasure and that of its opposite. Pain marks the pathways of an illness and often reveals the way for treatment. The renowned physician Avicena used to infect himself with terrible diseases in order to undergo the symptoms which allowed him to experience pain first hand and understand the nature of the illness in all its complexity. Pain of all kind and physical pain in particular is a natural response of the body towards conditions where pain acts as a signal of a complex safety net.
Throughout history the understanding of pain changed inadvertently reflecting the existential attitudes towards the experience. Many cultures considered pain to be an important factor necessary for personal growth and maturity of a soul. In some the initiation contained exposure to pain and were seen as the right of passage, the coming of age. It seems with advance of science coupled with development of humanistic ideas, we do our utmost to suppress the pain. Today 'painkilling' is an industry in its own right and part of the overall orientation of our culture with the emphasis on pleasure at all costs. After all who in their right mind would prefer pain to its opposite. As living creatures we all share that aspect, the unconscious desire to prolong pleasure and keep away from pain.
Without drawing any conclusions, what if pain is an inseparable response of our localized consciousness to the environment we live in ? We know that suppressed desire for pleasure erupts as an obsession often in an ugly way. Suppressing pain without re-evaluating its cause is as detrimental to our overall health in a long term as indulging in pleasure without fully understanding the bounding nature of that experience.
(end of part 1)
The English word derives from Latin poena - meaning punishment pain, or Ancient Greek poine - a word related to penalty. Do we take that pain is literally punishment, or is it penalty in philosophical understanding of the term, like the re-payment for wrong action, whatever that action was. If we accept that view, than painful experiences are self-generational and we all are active participants to the pain we collectively produce even if being unaware of its consequences. Needless to say that the universal computation makes sure to distinguish between the types and forms before making us the receivers of physical or mental experience.
There is neurobiological reasons for the existence of pain which are there to make sure we distinguish our experiences between those that give us pleasure and that of its opposite. Pain marks the pathways of an illness and often reveals the way for treatment. The renowned physician Avicena used to infect himself with terrible diseases in order to undergo the symptoms which allowed him to experience pain first hand and understand the nature of the illness in all its complexity. Pain of all kind and physical pain in particular is a natural response of the body towards conditions where pain acts as a signal of a complex safety net.
Throughout history the understanding of pain changed inadvertently reflecting the existential attitudes towards the experience. Many cultures considered pain to be an important factor necessary for personal growth and maturity of a soul. In some the initiation contained exposure to pain and were seen as the right of passage, the coming of age. It seems with advance of science coupled with development of humanistic ideas, we do our utmost to suppress the pain. Today 'painkilling' is an industry in its own right and part of the overall orientation of our culture with the emphasis on pleasure at all costs. After all who in their right mind would prefer pain to its opposite. As living creatures we all share that aspect, the unconscious desire to prolong pleasure and keep away from pain.
Without drawing any conclusions, what if pain is an inseparable response of our localized consciousness to the environment we live in ? We know that suppressed desire for pleasure erupts as an obsession often in an ugly way. Suppressing pain without re-evaluating its cause is as detrimental to our overall health in a long term as indulging in pleasure without fully understanding the bounding nature of that experience.
(end of part 1)
Friday 19 February 2010
What is there to know ?
Ours is a world where information is coalescing in ether element and available at the click of a finger. Think of scientific breakthroughs, a quantifiable data affords the luxury of savoring the ideas that only recently few brilliant minds could stomach. The same goes for the spiritual wisdom, the information age allows us to partake in the knowledge which deemed exclusive for millennia, and in any case was fully revealed for the reserved few. The possibility of an artificial intelligence is no longer a stuff of Hollywood scripts but a spooky reality of those who see the investigation as a normal day job. The world of super-science and the world of spirit seemed to be entering the time of reconciliation. We could carry on. In short we all agree ours is an amazing time.
We also feel strong urge for self-expression and a masked sense of uneasiness from the shear vastness of the task with which we have to balance our inner world and our outer interactions. This dilemma, when magnified proportionately would point to the relevance of our heartbeats multiplied together as the sum total of all our actions which ultimately lead to the way we co-exist as a whole. To make it plane, if I fail to solve the riddle individually I potentially contribute to obliterate the existence of my tribe off this planet. For the actions committed in blindness of ignorance are not an excuse from the repercussions of karmic re-assignment. Hence the birth of a human drama. Reevaluating the Oedipus complex in a light of the universal law of action in freedom from the bounding influence of karma, we bid faraway to the Freudian world of gilt.
Great time to be alive but a tricky one nevertheless. Great for the reasons we all know. Tricky not only due to the idea that there is no common denominator which keeps the pendulum of collective consciousness to swing in coherence other than that of my own power of swinging. But also because it's that much harder to counteract a pendulum rotating in a negative direction. The metaphor perhaps is too stiff, for consciousness is not a pendulum, it is more like an ocean. A mass of liquid light which moves in waves as creation but does not move at its base. It is another theme altogether, we shall go back to the dilemma born of human condition.
What is there to know? What kind of knowledge there is which will give us the platform to live in peace even amidst the calamities of all kinds? After all the insatiable desire for knowing is the very late-motive of an evolved being. Is it possible to know and be satisfied with that knowledge. To have an inner peace no matter what the circumstances we've been put through the inner conflict has to end. Think about it. Contemplate on it. Up until there is a conflict, up until there is the rubbing of anything against anything else there will be smoke. The smoke will veil the eyes from seeing, but if you rub consciously there will be fire eventually. That fire has the power to dispel the darkness. That fire is pure knowledge.
The field of knowledge belongs to the knower, where the knowing is the process. Know that by which everything else is known. Knowing that what is there to know.
We also feel strong urge for self-expression and a masked sense of uneasiness from the shear vastness of the task with which we have to balance our inner world and our outer interactions. This dilemma, when magnified proportionately would point to the relevance of our heartbeats multiplied together as the sum total of all our actions which ultimately lead to the way we co-exist as a whole. To make it plane, if I fail to solve the riddle individually I potentially contribute to obliterate the existence of my tribe off this planet. For the actions committed in blindness of ignorance are not an excuse from the repercussions of karmic re-assignment. Hence the birth of a human drama. Reevaluating the Oedipus complex in a light of the universal law of action in freedom from the bounding influence of karma, we bid faraway to the Freudian world of gilt.
Great time to be alive but a tricky one nevertheless. Great for the reasons we all know. Tricky not only due to the idea that there is no common denominator which keeps the pendulum of collective consciousness to swing in coherence other than that of my own power of swinging. But also because it's that much harder to counteract a pendulum rotating in a negative direction. The metaphor perhaps is too stiff, for consciousness is not a pendulum, it is more like an ocean. A mass of liquid light which moves in waves as creation but does not move at its base. It is another theme altogether, we shall go back to the dilemma born of human condition.
What is there to know? What kind of knowledge there is which will give us the platform to live in peace even amidst the calamities of all kinds? After all the insatiable desire for knowing is the very late-motive of an evolved being. Is it possible to know and be satisfied with that knowledge. To have an inner peace no matter what the circumstances we've been put through the inner conflict has to end. Think about it. Contemplate on it. Up until there is a conflict, up until there is the rubbing of anything against anything else there will be smoke. The smoke will veil the eyes from seeing, but if you rub consciously there will be fire eventually. That fire has the power to dispel the darkness. That fire is pure knowledge.
The field of knowledge belongs to the knower, where the knowing is the process. Know that by which everything else is known. Knowing that what is there to know.
Wednesday 10 February 2010
on the Verandah...
Dear friends,
Welcome to stop by to relax and to unwind for a while... and who knows perhaps something might happen in the space between. Feel free to share or open up a theme, or just sit back and enjoy the exchanges.
For the newcomers, this blog is a natural progression of the past eight years of communication with the wide audience made of advanced meditators and beginners alike.
Yours as ever,
Igor
P. S. The current version of the blog is to see how it goes before we'll move it to a more secure web-blog specially build for that purpose.
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