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Day 467, Bhaswat Chakraborty

छंट गए हैं बादल निकल आया हैं धुप

अब नहीं कहना कि परेशां हूँ गर्मी के नाफ़रमानी से।I

कल तक ये हो जायेंगे सभ्यता के नुमाईन्दे

आज तो इन्हे हिलने डुलने दो आसानी से।I

मत काटो वृक्ष विकास ओ सड़क के नाम

पेड़ के छॉव, नदिओं का पानी निकालो मत धरनी से।I

कुछ दिन तक काहिल रहने दो बन्दे को

थोड़ा निजात पा लेगा रोज़गार के परेशानी से।I

ये मासूम हैं बहुत नादान हैं

इन्हें डरपोक न समझो नासमझदारी से II

मैं आवाज़ हूँ परमात्मा की

मुझे मत दबाओ इतनी बेरहम सयानी से II

- भास्वत चक्रवर्ती।

#bhaswatspirituality

[truepath]

Day 463, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Success (1). Basics of Success.

Very simply put, success means getting what you want. In layman's terms, success is therefore the positive result of your efforts.

Getting a good start; using the resources optimally; and getting a profitable and measurable result (that more or less satisfies you) are the three basics of a journey to a success. Although we tend to highlight individual success a lot, in fact, success often involves a team or at least a few people of complementary skills. In this and next few blogs let us examine success and accomplishment for fun.

#bhaswatspirituality

[truepath]

Day 462, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems and Suffering (10). Little Learning.

Indeed, little learning is a dangerous thing. It creates sects, communes and self- styled esoteric societies. Complete wholesome learning establishes Humanity.♥️😄

#bhaswatspirituality

[truepath]

Day 460, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (9). Lack of Concentration and Mindfulness.

It doesn't matter whether you are spiritual or not; whether you are a theist or atheist, you still need concentration and mindfulness in order to enjoy and prosper in your life. In fact, the result of almost all cognitive problems can be summarised as a lack of concentration and mindfulness. A scattered mind cannot concentrate and it forgets the appropriate context and actions. Lack of concentration and mindfulness can (does) result in doubts, anger and suffer ing.

The level at which a lack of concentration turns into a serious cognitive and behavioural problem perhaps depends on many factors. However, by itself, a serious lack of concentration and hence, a lack of mindfulness can turn into inferiority complex, personality issues and mental diseases. Distracting pre-occupations prevail one’s life in such conditions. Thus, a person can remain an under- achiever and under- appreciated in the society.

#bhaswatspirituality

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Day 457, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (8). Being Influenced by Social Media and Fake Gurus.

We live in a real interpersonal world with both wisdom and foolishness. We live with other human beings and animals at the least. Therefore, it is not surprising at all that we get influenced by others. We get influenced by other human beings great mountains, sceneries and greeneries. However, when we start getting influenced by so+called popular books and social media and also by many “mind- reading” and “sin-salvaging” gurus, we might have gone too far.

Let us examine.

Have you ever seen a very gentle and intelligent man being over-dependent on a social media or a particular book -- no matter what authority they claim? A person who is playing a spiritual guru and is teaching – “Do not work for spreading your name and reputation”, ironically he makes thousands of followers by propaganda and deceit. What would you call that? From such situations you get brainwashed and befooled. Nothing feels worse than someone taking your advantage when you are helpless and vulnerable. No suffering matches the suffering of authoritarian domination and influential slavery.

#bhaswatspirituality

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Day 456, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (7). Have Genuine Contentment not Complacence.

When you are doing your duties selflessly with due humility and satisfaction what you feel is contentment. Contentment is a state of satisfaction where there is love and peace and it is also socially meaningful. It is like doing a good job for your country or your team or for your family. The job itself may not be a very high profile one, it doesn’t have to be.

Contrast this with a situation where you are doing a high profile job and being selfishly complacent. Yes you are achieving a lot but you are doing all or it for yourself. You are excessively proud of your achievements and everyone else is a is like a little dwarf and an under-achiever to you. This is what happened to Duryodhan when he look at his army and found with false certainty the possible outcome of the great war of Mahabharata. He was smug with over- confidence. This is what pride and complacence do to you.

#bhaswatspirituality

[truepath]

Day 454, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (6). Seeking.

Seeking is a very powerful instinct and is very useful for exploration, discovery and success. Seeking perhaps started very early in evolutionary chain by looking for food etc. Even when the food was found the exploration or seeking continued and thus became a powerful instinct. So much so, seeking still continues after 600 crore years. Even very honest people and devotees of spirituality or God are seeking and seeking forever and hence called “the seekers.”

Seeking for truth and God can sometimes backfire though. Critically speaking, seeking Truth or God is like a window is seeking for space at large or a fish in a river is seeking for water to drink. Very accurately speaking, when seeking becomes a success or a strong desire to which the seeker clings because of overcognition, seeking backfires. Many spiritual seekers fall in this trap. A healthy connection of spontaneous instinct becomes an unhealthy, ugly suffering.

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Day 450, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (5). Difficulty Making Decisions and Commitments.

Human beings have been given a fare amount of free will on top of their genetically or otherwise predetermined aspects. This free will along with a free thinking gives the human beings a power of making a good choice in commirments or deciding among a few options. Every human being is endowed with this decision making power unless for some reason like a mental disease or lack of confidence he is not decisive or hesitant to commit.

Indecision is primarily a cognitive problem but corrective behaviours can heal this problem and bring back the instinctive decisiveness. The more one thinks that he cannot decide or commit the more confused he becomes and then it becomes part of his personality. This kind of damaged and distorted mental habits can take away not only the decision making power but also the other aspects of utilising a free will. If one understands the specific situations where he becomes more indicisive and starts neutralizing those automatic narratives, that is the beginning of restoring the decisiveness. Indecision should not be over- generalized in one’s heart. So, the beginning of the corrective cognition is: “ well I may become indecisive sometimes but by and large I am confident and decisive.”

#bhaswatspirituality

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Day 449, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (4). Believing more in Competition than Human Values.

Once I met a chief minister of one of the states of India on a plane and was talking to him by his invitation. Among a few things, he told me that the key to success in public life is to create enemies which gives the general public an impression of your power and importance. At first it appeared like a wisdom to me. Then later on when I reflected more, I realised what a nonsense people propagate. More shocking is the fact that they (VIPs or so) make this kind of nonsense into their ideals.

When you make enemies, (in order to win always) you lose peace of mind, ethical values and many other virtues that humanity has evolved over the time. You remain so disturbed inside that your so-called accomplishments do not give you any sense of deep satisfaction. Gradually you forget how to relate to peace of mind at all. You become the chieftain of your own-created hell. Welcome to the world of power and influence without a heart!!

#bhaswatspirituality

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Day 448, Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (3). Non-reality due to Judgement and Labelling

Thinking or calling someone a coward or stupid is a serious cognitive problem. In fact, the so- called coward or stupid is actually being honest to his experience of the past and awkwardly preparing for the future. So are we – all of us. That is until we realise our potential at this moment. Once we realize the potential and power of this moment our heart shifts to security and non- judgement.

Relating to past and future is always fearful and seems risky. And most of the suffering comes from this kind of relationship to past and (jumping automatically to future). On the other hand, you don’t have to relate to the present moment rather you (can) live it. And such a living is existence and bliss without any partial ignorance. If one can live for an hour in the present moment, he never, in his lifetime, is to find this world an unfriendly place. He may even be enlightened.

#bhaswatspirituality

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Day 422. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (2). Perceptual Problems and Their Solution.

Cognition includes many mental processes such as thinking. perception, feeling, willing etc, willing etc. Of all these, perception and feeling are highly conditioned mental activities. In other words, unlike thinking which comes and goes, a feeling or perception can stay with you for a long time. And that's why it is lot easier to get attached to a feeling and perception.

Perception is an apparent impression with a very little knowledge inherent in it. One of the common perceptions is our expectation of a permanent relationship.

No relationship is permanent but we cannot free ourselves from this perception. This is why whenever there is a strain or discontinuation in a relationship, we feel miserable to say the least. Sometimes we may even get depressed. If we understand the true nature of this cognitive phenomenon called perception, our expectations will not be that rigidly attached and we can be much happier.😄😄

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Day 421. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Cognitive Problems & Suffering (1). Reactive Thinking and Over-thinking.

Ability to think is human beings'special privilege given by the providence. However, if you overthink or over-react or overcognize any object or an idea, mind can become very messy and painful. This is because the mental peace and happiness come and sustain with clarity and not getting tangled in any way.

All sufferings are basically cognitive problems. So, wrong-thinking over-thinking and biased thinking -- all lead to great suffering. The same is true for perception, feeling and conceptualization as well. In these blogs, I will explain different conditions that lead to suffering from cognitive defects.🌸🙏

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[truepath]

Day 415. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Examining Ego (8). Some Final Words on Chronic and Harmful Ego.

As I have elaborated in my previous blogs that most of the ego aspects are harmful, I will summarize these harmful aspects in this blog. Non-ego has endless advantages and for that matter a healthy ego may have a few advantages as well.

Let me list some of the very risky and harmful aspects of ago: 1) you get into an argument or a conflict on an everyday basis. This may affect or even destroy your healthy relationships and professional setups; 2) you feel that you have to dominate in every situation which is impossible even if you are a king; 3) you mistake directness with rudeness and thereby alienate people and loved ones; 4) you think sweetness and adjustment are for the weak thus gradually dissociate yourself from reality; 5) you submit to anger and aggression and not to reason and understanding and thus gradually become foolish and dull; 6) I, me and mine are priorities of your life and you never understand or enjoy selflessness; and 7) you hardly find patience to listening to others. This last point is extremely important in making others feel respected and for your self respect as well. All these characteristics and symptoms indicate that you hardly understand the problem with your ago. Ego is the main cause of all human suffering.🌸🙏

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Day 414. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Examining Ego (7). Training Ego to Accept Wisdom and Humility.

An ego can rarely go beyond perception and false knowledge. To begin with (in order to train the ego to go beyond perception) the mind has to be trained to some extent for knowledge and understanding. On the other hand, ego has a habit of rejecting good advice and knowledge. It thinks that knowledge and good teachings are a liability rather than something to cherish. Thus, the ego remains in darkness despite having some worldly wealth and power.

The first level of transformation for the ego is probably the hardest one. This transformation involves patient listening and opening the heart to good teachings and wisdom. The more an ordinary ego listens to spritual wisdom, the more it has a chance to get some idea about concentration and insight. At the same time it learns also about self-control and its benefits. Following the first level comes an understanding that the beings and all phenomena are conditioned and and most of this conditioning can be undone. Therefore, all the sufferings that an individual ego experienced so far does not have to continue. That is the second level of transformation by working on selflessness and inviting into an open heart the, light, God's peace and happiness. This is what is bringing true humble self- acceptance into one’s life.🙏

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Day 413. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Examining Ego (6). Training Ego to Open Heartedness.

Ego is narrow, parochial and miserable. It is so ignorant that it doesn’t have any idea about its own narrowness and misery. That happens because of its addictive nature and a false idea about itself and the world. It is also very difficult to suggest to him that there is a better way of living and experiencing.

Now the question arises how do you introduce open heartedness (egolessness) to a stubborn and parochial ego? It is not a child's play and such a teaching of Dharma to an egoistic person requires a lot of skill. You can teach him Dharma initially as something which will benefit him materialistically as well. Since ego is internally hurting and experiencing suffering all the time, a little bit of healing through open heartedness will feel great to him. But beware, don’t crush his ego under any circumstances. A crushed ego can become dangerously destructive. Show him some good and robust examples of ego transformation to a more stable joy and peace. Gradually take him to live and develop through Dharma.,🌸🌸♥️

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Day 412. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Examining Ego (5). Teaching and Training Ego to Let Go.

Ordinarily ego is stubborn, aggressively self- assertive, and untrainable. In other words, ego is addictive and unhealthy. To make it healthy you have to train it so that it gradually frees itself to become benign and healthy. The job is not easy and it takes a lot of knowledge and patience. But it can be done.

Because of the addictive nature of one’s ego, it rarely wants to let go on its own, especially when it comes to an insult or a hurt ego. It keeps the unpleasant experiences inside, repeatedly exaggerates, suffers and becomes angry and vengeful. The first step towards letting go is to witness the negative and unproductive emotions patiently. With such an insight, it becomes somewhat easy to let go the unpleasant experiences. The sign of a healthy ego is that it helps you in any determination to accomplish something. If you find you are now determined to let go all of your experiences and live in the present moment with a wholesome heart, your ego has definitely been trained for letting go. Result is a highly developed mental peace. 😅♥️😅

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Day 411. Bhaswat Chakraborty

Examining Ego (4). Right Approaches to Lower Ego.

There is a famous story of told by many spiritual teachers with regard to what are the limits of humility or a lower ego. A Sanyasi was walking by a field where some kids were making noise and playing something. At a cotner not very far from the field the Sanyasi saw a snake who was about to bite him. The Sanyasi asked the snake after taming it somewhat,”I know you got afraid of me and that’s why you wanted to bite me. But you could have just raised your hood and hiss. With thi choice, you don’t have to bite.” “This will give you your security and kids or people will not be unnecessarily scared of you.”

The snake went a step further and did not even raise his food or hiss when the kids came near him next time. One of the kids picked him up by his tail, swirled him and thrashed him repeatedly against a stone. The morbid snake somehow managed to find his way and hide in his hole.

A couple of weeks later when the snake was still very sick, the Sanyasi was passing by and heard him moaning. Sanyasi figured out that it was the snake whom he met a few weeks ago. The snake told him the story to its entirety. Sanyasi told him very careingly, “I asked you to give up the violence and biting but not to hiss and raise your food.”

Healthy ego doesn’t mean always not reacting. When there is a potential to be harmed, show appropriate anger without being afraid at all. But do not actually poison yourself with over-reacting with anger. 😄🌸

#bhaswarspirituality