u/Independent-Ruin975

'Michael' was released recently, it got me a bit nostalgic about my adolescence where I used to watch his music videos and live performance recordings on loop. I am around 24 years old now. So, it was about 10-11 years back. I got into watching his work again after many years, and for me the experience was much richer.

I felt that there is this thing about individuals who have etched their names into eternity (relatively speaking). Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jackson, Tom and Jerry (not an individual, but you get the idea), Albert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Beethoven, Shakespeare and so on. If you absorb yourself into their presence when they are at their best, it feels like something greater than mere skill is enveloping you. They have this sense of magnetism around them that it feels almost supernatural.

Of course, this may be explained in some part by our social conditioning and how carefully they had engineered their surroundings to make them stand out. However, I feel a bit skeptical about such dismissive explications. I wonder if it has something to do with how they had touched their limits in some ways or the other. There is this "...nischalatattwam jivanmuktihi" thing in one of the verses composed by Adi Shankaracharya where he says one-pointed involvement towards anything soars one to the divine.

There are various self-reported accounts of these individuals where they did not feel like they were doing anything as an individual, but something else entirely was working through them. Utter cessation of the need of making any decisions is reported, where the body and mind act spontaneously in a brilliant fashion, as if mimicking godliness.

I have read about something called "Ojas", which is a dimension of energy in yogic terminology which envelopes a person, thereby reducing the friction one has with the outside world, making one's presence more impactful. Sadhguru has spoken about this as well.

I do not know. But I am convinced to a great extent that there is something about this kind of heavenly charisma that we do not yet understand.

>"Etha tumhe, kālāmā, mā anussavena, mā paramparāya, mā itikirāya, mā pițakasampadānena, mā takkahetu, mā nayahetu, mā ākāraparivitakkena, mā ditthinijjhānakkhantiyā, mā bhabbarūpatāya, mā samaņo no garūti. Yadā tumhe, kālāmā, attanāva jāneyyātha - 'ime dhammā akusalā, ime dhammā sāvajjā, ime dhammā viññugarahitā, ime dhammā samattā samādinnā ahitāya dukkhāya samvattantīti, atha tumhe, kālāmā, pajaheyyātha."

~ Aṅguttara Nikāya, Tikanipāta, Kesamuttisuttaṃ (Item 66), p. 49.

English translation: "Come, Kālāmas. Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, 'The ascetic is our teacher.' But when you, Kālāmas, know for yourselves: 'These things are unwholesome; these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if accepted and undertaken, lead to harm and suffering,' then you should abandon them."

He told us to reject,

• mā anussavena: Oral tradition or repeated hearing.
• mā paramparāya: Lineage.
• mā itikirāya: Hearsay.
• mā piṭakasampadānena: Scriptural authority.
• mā takkahetu: Pure logical reasoning.
• mā nayahetu: Inferefential reasoning.
• mā ākāraparivitakkena: Evaluation of superficial reasons.
• mā diṭṭhinijjhānakkhantiyā: Personal preference.
• mā bhabbarūpatāya: Teacher's charisma.
• mā samaṇo no garūti: Respect towards the teacher.

It is important to note that this rejection does not imply rejecting these altogether, this rather implies rejecting these as pointers or paths to absolute truth or realisation. That is to say, you have to reject these in the ultimate sense, not in the utilitarian sense.

Keeping that in mind, we should find it striking that we, in Isha, are aligned perfectly with this message in practice. Sadhguru's words are contemporary, they are obviously not direct translations of Buddha's message. However, rejection of scriptural authority, rejection of lineage-based authority, rejection of hearsay and moreover rejection of pure logical deductions and mental meanderings are deeply embedded into Isha. So much so that we often forget that we are called to be like this.

>"Do not believe what I say, and do not disbelieve what I say. Just see what works for you."

How many times have we heard this in so many different ways from none other than Sadhguru himself?

>"The whole existence is the image of the ecstasy of the creator."

I will now attempt the futile task of articulating the inarticulable.

I thought expectations are counter-productive because they are inevitably unfulfilled. I realised that is not accurate. Regardless of whether an expectation is fulfilled or not, it still shall lead to dissatisfaction. Expectations are dissatisfaction!

Listening to this chant, albeit temporarily, I experienced a state of utter joy. In that joy, I found out that there was no need for expectations. When I am truly blissful, I feel like whatever happens would be a celebration. Expectations are preemptive categorisations of the future into likes and dislikes. When I like being me totally, there is nothing which I am capable of disliking. That is the death of all future dislikes as well, because the future no longer exists.

I could not hold onto that state for long, though. Nevertheless, I feel blessed to have been flirtatiously teased by this glimpse of eternity. In all Her grandeur and such, She chose to woo me, of all people!

Amor fati. Sat-chit-ananda. Existence-consciousness-bliss.

I am a chess hobbyist (peak 2534 blitz online, FIDE Classical 1795), a software developer (worked on multiple reasonably large-scale projects), I sometimes write fiction, poetry and essays which are generally well-received by strangers, I read too much (fiction: romance, drama, comedy, sci-fi, thrillers, fantasy and all, non-fiction: pop-science, history and philosophy). I also plan on learning to play a musical instrument, being a big fan of the piano and violin. To me it is not necessarily about competing, it is about having a richer experience of life. I tend to love a diverse range of things, activities and people. It pains me to see that a lot of people around me see me as someone with special abilities. I do not like it because I can clearly see that most of them are capable of lot more than they think.

They all start by asking the same type of question, "Do you think at this age / at my level of intelligence / for someone like me it is possible to learn this well?"

"Do you really want to learn it?", I inevitably ask.

"Yes."

"Then why do you care about what I think? Start learning!"

The same thing goes for aging, their beliefs about being incapacitated due to aging is much more extreme than what aging has actually done to them, in most cases.

Simply put, do what you really care for, and do not start by expecting to lose. You did not create yourself, the extent to which your system is capable of is most probably not in your conscious awareness. Get into it without limiting yourself psychologically.

You will surprise yourself.

We are too hung up on psychologically limiting ourselves rather than doing what we truly want to do.

I am a chess hobbyist (peak 2534 blitz on chess.com, FIDE Classical 1795), a software developer (worked on multiple reasonably large-scale projects), I sometimes write fiction, poetry and essays which are generally well-received by strangers, I read too much (fiction: romance, drama, comedy, sci-fi, thrillers, fantasy and all, non-fiction: pop-science, history and philosophy). I also plan on learning to play a musical instrument, being a big fan of the piano and violin. To me it is not necessarily about competing, it is about having a richer experience of life. I tend to love a diverse range of things, activities and people. It pains me to see that a lot of people around me see me as someone with special abilities. I do not like it because I can clearly see that most of them are capable of lot more than they think.

They all start by asking the same type of question, "Do you think at this age / at my level of intelligence / for someone like me it is possible to learn this well?"

"Do you really want to learn it?", I inevitably ask.

"Yes."

"Then why do you care about what I think? Start learning!"

The same thing goes for aging, their beliefs about being incapacitated due to aging is much more extreme than what aging has actually done to them, in most cases.

Simply put, do what you really care for, and do not start by expecting to lose. You did not create yourself, the extent to which your system is capable of is most probably not in your conscious awareness. Get into it without limiting yourself psychologically.

You will surprise yourself.