Mindfuless & Synchronicity

I heard about a molecular biologist who quit his job to become a Buddhist monk. That piqued me so I read an interview back in Dec, rather a conversation between the now monk and his neuroscientist friend here.

Singer: So rumination would be the opposite?

Ricard: Totally opposite. It is also well known that constant rumination is one of the main symptoms of depression. What we need is to gain freedom from the mental chain reactions that rumination endlessly perpetuates. One should learn to let thoughts arise and be freed to go as soon as they arise, instead of letting them invade one’s mind. In the freshness of the present moment, the past is gone, the future is not yet born, and if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom, potentially disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace.

Mindfulness and consciousness and wakefulness have become very synonymous these days that yogic meditation is no longer blanking of the mind but insisting on the flexibility of the mind.

Let's say, a stranger gives you a foul look while walking out of the gate of a mall. You notice, then wince, then whimper, then ruminate, then inflict yourself with all kinds of extraneous thoughts, intensifying that trivial and foul encounter. Mindfulness to me is snapping back to the oncoming present with such ferocity and immediacy that the time lapse between the foul look and now is reinforced to engage only in the streaming present [like: make of iron gate, tarmac road, getting into vehicle, some Amul poster] to attenuate that lapsing vibe. Then in five minutes of mindful engagement, when you recollect that foul countenance, it has lost its vigour to hurt you anymore. You tend to laugh at it now. Silly me! By the way that foul look was funny. If such arresting and mindful wedge was not inserted, that foul look would have catapulted to a foul day with errant rumination.

This definition of mindfulness to insert a buffer in our unpleasant interactions is also gaining currency in our modern parlance. As Ricky the monk has put it, "In the freshness of the present moment, the past is gone, the future is not yet born, and if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom, potentially disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace."

 

I am not very well-versed with Quantum Mechanics, so I am not familiar with that correlation. But I will take your word for it as I have no knowledge of advanced sciences or ancient wisdom likewise. I only dabble skimpy.

I need to read about this Kalikambal. Thank you for introducing the temple to me. I admire sacred architecture.

Yes, I liked that sentiment in flux which is much needed in corporate world even more if you are working in an aggressive environment with shrieks and tolls. You cannot go home every day with bleary eyes over some offhand remark. First principle I was thought: when someone screams nasty at you, just continue doing your work, they will buy you beer the next day over their gratuitous screams.

Hey: Ranting and shrieking and wild emails in impeccable English are common in my field. Mindful of the present!
Hehe: A lot of beers were bought for this teetotaller.

 

Dear Viswa,

You are coming out with subjects steeped in philosophy and spiritualism, like Sri Krishna’s Bhagavadgita, while we are all like the confused Arjuna not knowing how to move On with our daily life, with so many problems staring at us menacingly. Beautifully written, but it’s tough to understand with our below average IQ!

Agatha83

 

Dear @viswa and @Iravati,
Sorry for intruding between conversation of two intelligent persons. Due to diminishing grey cells and being a person of average intelligent I find it difficult to express my thoughts in relation to the topic.

According to a layman' defenition mindfulness suggests awareness or vigilance.

But for a pschycologist mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you carefully observe your thoughts and feelings without judging them good or bad.

Synchronicity generally means to us as coincidences which occur in our life unexpectedly. In vernacular the saying is, "Kakkai eravum panam pazam vizavum".

For those who deeply analyse synchronicity is the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality .

PS

 

Dear Viswa uncle,

What a post! It was a treat for me to read your post and the following discussions. I must confess it was beyond my reach. Trying to be mindful has been in my mind safely for last 18 months at least. How I am implementing this is a day to day challenge. One story comes to my mind, told by Thich Naht Hanh about shielding your self. Story goes as below,

Suppose there is a storm raging – you don’t mind, because your house is solid. You close all the doors and windows, and although the wind is blowing fiercely outside, and there is rain and thunder, you still feel safe in your home. The island of self is like that. You have to practice, to learn, in order to allow that shelter, that island within yourself to appear for your use. During your daily life, learn to dwell in that safe island of mindfulness within you. Then you will be protected from provocations, you will be protected from anger, and from despair. There are many elements around you that are ready to invade you, to attack you and to deprive you of your peace and stability. So you have to organize in order to protect yourself and to build up the practice of dwelling in that island of self.

Psychologists say that rumination is one of the first sign of depression and how to stop rumination is to concentrate on your breath and calm the thought process. While we live in past or future we also tend to overestimate the happiness and sadness. When it comes to the present when a sad thing happens we face it and move on but when we were in imagining mode we make it more serious. Similarly, we tend to think If we have A or B or if we do A or B we will be delighted. But the moment it happens, we tend to think something else which will make us happy. Again solution for this problem is being in present and be mindful.

Thank you, uncle, for making me think.
warm regards
Vani

 

Ayyo Pushpa! I confuse myself at times. So, no wonder I confuse others. There is interplay of three terms in the conversation "conciousness", "universe", "quantum physics". I agree when I reread my own post, I was shabby on "mindfulness". Let me try to simplify the other variants for you. Again, this is ruthlessly simplified context of our discussion, hence subtleties have been collapsed to write up something in as few words as possible. A smash-up of the Aeon, Templeton and Smithsonian articles I have come across over the years.

The premise of this discussion: how to explain and harness consciousness?

There have been two distinct camps on "I feel and I and am aware of self." How did this consciousness emerge in me? God created it. We have Camp Design who believe that we were created in this manner to experience consciousness. Hold on! But where is God? He is nowhere to be seen. Then came on board Camp Random with a scientific ambush saying, "There is no God. We emerged out of randomness. There are many universes. We are one such universe in random where the conditions were congenial for cosmic inflation, quark, electrons, atoms, molecules, bacteria, fish, dinosaur and man, that too with consciousness to develop". Camp Random are relatively new kids on the block starting from Age of Enlightenment, that is 17th century. Generally, Camp Design in their temples and Camp Random in their labs get along well, each admiring and introspecting the wakefulness in man. I am, I exist, I feel!

Then barged in new campers in the field. Dude, this "Design" and "Random" is diffuse. Can we have another modelling on why I am here and how do I explain my consciousness? We have Camp Psychism. OK, I have consciousness in me which was either pulled from below or pushed from above. Which one is feasible?

Psychists believe that consciousness was rubbed off on us from the "top" or "bottom".

Camp Micropsychism argue that if man has consciousness, then the descending lower strata also should have consciousness: animals, fish, bacteria, atom, electron, quark, and that string. This does NOT mean that they have the same level of consciousness that we do but they have a degenerating consciousness, which means, man has more, animals have less, fish has so-so, bacteria, umm, atom, stop. These campers study and research the emergence of consciousness from bottom to top hence they are Camp Bottom-Up or Camp Micropsychism.

Not favourable to inanimate atoms sprouting consciousness in that glorified ascension, no matter how undetectable and puny in the lower level, Camp Cosmopsychism swooped on the field to explain the same phenomenon that Camp Micropsychism was struggling with. These enthusiastic researches are also dubbed as Camp Top-down because they proposed that consciousness was pushed from the top and not pulled from the bottom as the rival camp argued. Man is conscious because the higher being, the universe, is conscious. Universe is conscious and sentient! And we, on the lower denomination, are also conscious because of that omniscient and pervading cosmic consciousness.

These are few notable theories and models to explain why I feel and am aware of my presence as well this moment where I am typing to Pushpa and why is my presence so fine-tuned to experience all this.

Camp Design and Camp Random and Camp Psychism have good intentions to probe the fundamental inquiry: why do I feel and why am I here. They employ varying tools to seek that answer.

This discussion has undertones of Camp Cosmopsychism : "consciousness" and "universe", and when you hear "consciousness" and "quantum mechanics" switch to Camp Micropsychism. On a crude timescale, this is how I would place them all.

Camp Design (God: ancient) -- Camp Micropsychism (bottom-up: mystic science) -- Camp Cosmopsychism (top-down: mystic science) -- Camp Random (Multiverse: radical science)

Then, there are distinct aspirations from these conjectures.

Micropsychism: harness consciousness from lower atoms (L) -- Man -- Cosmopsychism: tap into the higher universal consciousness (R).
(In mystic pursuits, monks aspire [L] or [R])

Viswa’s writing is overlaid on this fertile research on universal-cosmo consciousness. I just defined and set the premise for discussion, the research isn’t abstruse but may be abstract, hence notation might demystify.

P.S: Psychism, micropsychism, and cosmopsychism are technical terms in the academic field and not made-up constructs. Quantum physics and entropy and entanglement and Einstein's dice, some other day.

 

Thank you for the nice elaboration the distinction between the two.
It is now clear why Swami Vivekanandar said
FAITH CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS.
It is mindfulness that saint Agasthya could order the mountain lie low till I traverse back this route!
Regards
God Bless Us All Always.