To love others and to want them to love back - are both signs of insufficiency of the self.
Beyond a point, self-sufficiency is boring, monotonous, and offers no incentive to continue to live for the next moment.
Both self-sufficiency and dependence lie on the opposite ends of the same scale.
Life is best enjoyed by allowing the self to be liberated of stipulations and proscriptions - allowing the self to slide either ways along the scale, pushed by nothing, but the momentum of impulses.
There are no 'points of no return' on either sides. Whatever such points we perceive are merely our own self-impositions.
Beyond a point, self-sufficiency is boring, monotonous, and offers no incentive to continue to live for the next moment.
Both self-sufficiency and dependence lie on the opposite ends of the same scale.
Life is best enjoyed by allowing the self to be liberated of stipulations and proscriptions - allowing the self to slide either ways along the scale, pushed by nothing, but the momentum of impulses.
There are no 'points of no return' on either sides. Whatever such points we perceive are merely our own self-impositions.
9 comments:
Aaahh.
Balance. Thats everywhere.
To love others and to want them to love back - are both signs of insufficiency of the self. Yeah, both of them!!Love and hatred come in the same package. The one who is so perfect that can not develop hatred, is also incapable of loving. Then he will only love people "all equally", like God's love is said to be. When you love all, it's equal to loving none. In fact, when you love all, "love" itself loses meaning. So I believe, it's true that a complete person is free of this package of hatred and love.
Srishti,
Ironically, I have stated in the post that there is no balance to be struck, precisely because there is no 'ideal' point along the scale of dependence.
Of course, 'ideal' and 'non-ideal' change according to what our ultimate purpose is.
In my experience, if that ultimate purpose is to derive maximum pleasure out of life, then one must totally do away with the concept of striking a balance between self-dependence and independence. The state of highest self-dependence is one of content solitude, wherein you don't need anyone in your vicinity nor acknowledge their presence. It in turn may have various degrees, like fantasizing, introspecting, deducing, simply experiencing some sensations (like listening to music/eating chocolate) or emptying the mind completely (say, while you're traveling in a bus seated in a window-seat with wind blowing in your face; you watch the landscape pass by, and yet nothing REGISTERS in your mind). And of course, complete dependence is the most intense form of love. So much so that you feel, if not for the one you love, life would hold no meaning at all, and every single thing you do would be with this awareness of their existence.
But it is rare that we enter of either of the extreme states.
Very rarely we do, but doing so takes highest degree of impulsivity.
Most important for pleasure is to forego the notion that one state is better than the other or that certain degrees of one of the two states are to be avoided.
Important is to recognize our most unadulterated urge at any given moment, and if possible, to allow the self to slide into that mode. But as you could see, "if possible" is the biggest problem of our life. :) Your friend would be hurt if she wants you to listen to her woeful story, but your urge is to listen to a nice soothing song. ;)
And of course you would be irked, if while you gossip about some incident in your school, your friend instead of laughing at your funny story, is staring blankly at you and smiling mysteriously at some of her own fantasies!
Of course, to avoid social 'accidents' (displeasure), we pretend to be doing what we don't want to do, and those are the moments that unknowingly sow discontent in our lives.
Of course, it would be foolish to never avoid acting on our impulses, but at least when opportunity presents, we must allow our impulses to rule. It is at this level "balance" is involved. :)
Thanks for commenting! TC
Darshan,
I'm glad you've brought up the issue of hatred, too.
I too believe it is not possible to love people equally. Rather, doing so amounts to highest form of contempt for the human in people. To love everyone equally is to gloss over the differences in qualities that precisely make us humans.
Analogously, to agree or disagree with every opinion as a principle, also stems from the same contempt for others' opinions. The most emphatic manner in which I have stated all this is in my post - "worship", where you have already commented.
However, all that is not what I had meant to convey through this post. :D
If you read my response to Srishti's comment, you'll get the post better. Though, actually I feel you must have understood the post, because there was nothing ambiguous in it.
My emphasis was on doing away with the concept of 'ideal degree' of emotional dependence v/s independence on others. Because the moment we fix up a point along the 'scale of dependence' as our "target", we are denying the human in us. :) We would be unknowingly ourselves curbing our liberty.
You might be very surprised to note this, but over the last couple of years, I have started finding the desire of trying to attain perfection needless. In certain ways, perfection is overrated. And I consider this realization a part of maturing and growing up, and not exactly a dilution of my life-instincts. That's what the newer post is about.
Thanks for a comment that reassured me that sanity still persists in some pockets of humanity!
TC.
Hey Ketan, I think I misunderstood your post, and you did not understand my comment, too :P
What I meant is, just like expecting love is a sign if insufficiency, loving someone is also insufficiency. Because when you love one person (or for that matter some people) then that's for your own self (ego) gratification. As long as ego remains (i.e. You remain) you are not one with "the whole". Ideal state, according to me, is to love all equally. Now, there "love" would lose it's meaning. Hatred is, of course, undesirable quality; ability to love (love some, not all, i.e. restricted love), too is undesirable quality. Because, as I said in the earlier comment, ability to love (the restricted one) and ability to hate come in the same package. You lose one, and the other is also lost. Then you sort of become apathetic. You can't do bad, not at all, but you can't do good, too. It's like, when "bad" vanishes from the world, the word "good" loses it's meaning. Then everything is just as it should be. No good, no bad. They were just human words.
Got more philosophical, maybe out of context? Don't know... Bear with it.. :P
Darshan,
Incidentally, all the issues you have raised here have got addressed in my response on the other post. And especially, your ending paragraph (which irritated me), too has a fitting reply! :P
TC.
By balance, I didn't mean a single 'point'.
I meant balancing self-sufficiency and dependency on others. So that it neutralizes in the end.
For example,
I like to believe that whatever we eat produces good germs and bad germs within us. So if I have junk food one day, the good germs in me would be cancelled out by the bad germs produced by the junk food. So if I have junk food for lunch, I'll try to have a healthier combination of food in the night. So it would be balanced.
By this balance, obviously, I wouldn't eat exact proportions, counting the food, so that the germs could be cancelled out.
Maybe some day I'll eat a little more junk food, some day I'll eat more veggies.
In the end, my aim would be to balance my food overall.
I doubt there is a specific POINT for balancing. Sometimes you tip to the right, and sometimes to the left.
Thats what I meant.
"Of course, to avoid social 'accidents' (displeasure), we pretend to be doing what we don't want to do, and those are the moments that unknowingly sow discontent in our lives."
Not always. For example, if my friend gifts me something I don't like, I'll obviously pretend to like it, because I wouldn't want to hurt her. Thats pretending, but it doesn't sow discontent in my life.
"Both self-insufficiency and dependence lie on the opposite ends of the same scale."
I think you mean "Both self-sufficiency and dependence lie on the opposite ends of the same scale."
???
Sowmya,
Yes, that was a typo. Thanks very much for pointing it out!
Now am wondering, good I was not writing some scripture, otherwise so many heads (literally and figuratively) would have been broken over differing interpretations of what I meant! ;)
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