Who am I ? (part 9) Lets pause....

  In the first two parts of my Who Am I ? blogs, I tried to give an overview of the prevalent philosophies. In the next three, I wanted to share my process of self realization and the necessity to study and validate the realization process, that I underwent. The last three blogs have tried to describe some of the megatrends of Reality like design, intelligence, evolutionary tendencies of existence, free will, determinism, the law of karma and self healing. In the next blogs, I shall try and write about some of the unexplored mysteries like intuition, co-incidence, synchronicity, paranormal and parapsychology, relationship of metals, inanimate objects to feelings, psychic healing etc and then finally - I will try and interweave all these like the warp and the weft to create a seamless fabric of understanding.

While each of the previous subjects and the next ones can be dissected in details and tomes have been written and probably could be written, I have chosen to just skim the surface and present the concepts and principles in a concise form with a view to create a unified theory of existence. Trying all the time, to fit in the maximum matter without recourse to too many anecdotes, details and diversions. In case, any of the readers would like more intricacies, explanations, depthful understandings, do write to me separately.

But, as we journey together in this wonderful space of knowledge and enquiry, we need to pause and question the validity and the truth of these assertions. Is what I write the "Truth" or is it "my" truth ? Truth is relative to the individual and thus when people go in search of the truth, they tend to find whatever it is they’re looking for. All evidence is only partial proof and certainty, a mild form of arrogance. To accept the truth blindly is the same as having no personal convictions of your own . One has to focus the searchlight of reason and logic to separate faith and belief from reality and achieve true transformation in body, mind and soul.

Organized religion tries to convince us that they have the patent on truth and use damnation and salvation , of hell and heaven, or jahanam and jannat, of guilt and temptation using faith, belief and indoctrination as potent tools. Hence, away from the organized religions, indoctrinations, away from the faith and beliefs of others, faith of my community, faith of my family, faith of my religion, faith of my nation - let us continue to embark on our personal voyage, unrestrained by history, tradition, religion and relationship - to understand the critical questions of Who am I? What is existence and its purpose? What is my role in the same? How best can I play this role? Inquiry needs to be made to find the relationship between the knower, the means of obtaining the knowledge and the object, or simply put - the subject, object and the action.

But, how does one recognize and validate "truth" ?

Can science be a reliable model for validation?

Science (latin : to know) is an instrument to find out the mysteries of existence, through its varied division of knowledge : physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geography etc. Technology is only a child of science and is an intelligent manipulations of the law of nature and existence to create tools. The relative level of knowledge is ever increasing and keeps on changing and we cannot just depend on the present level of its development to base our findings. Some examples:

• Astronomers averred that the earth was flat and that the sun moved around the earth

• In the end of the nineteenth century, physicist said that all that had to be discovered about physics had been achieved and if there are changes, they would be at the level of the fourth decimal, till Heisenberg and others came along and completely changed the concepts with quantum physics.

• Twenty years back, doctors and scientists maintained that that there was no connection between disease and the mind. Now doctors says that most diseases in the body are psychosomatic (due to the mind).

Therefore knowledge should be based not on science, but on logic and reasoning using the following methods - direct perception, inference, comparison, testimony, analogy, implication, resemblance, negation, possibility, tradition, actions, exemption and intelligence. While organized religions use testimony, tradition and analogy in the main, we need to use all the processes with more stress on intelligence and possibilities.

So, as we voyage together in the search of the existential issues, please keep your antennae on and keep on questioning as we find answers - different for each of us. We are all unique with our own knowledge acquiring processes and paths.  Let us not follow someone else's route, let us create our own path, our own answers, our own Reality, our own Truth.