Tag Archives: knowledge

Philosophy

Meditation on Maya

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Everything has a root! Every idea, every action, every thing that ever is has some root. Getting at the root is often like the voice of a curious child. Where did the apple come from? Where did the tree come from? Where did the sun and the earth and the river and the sky come from? What is the big bang? What is god? And somewhere around these topics you dive for a pearls. You read this and that; practice that and this. You’re just diving down into the ocean, feeling around and coming up with whatever is there. You usually don’t know what you have until you get to the top. Some people are fortunate to have many pearls where they are diving, others have many monsters; but no one knows when some shark will come thru.

What is knowledge? What is not-kowledge? What is a noun? And what is a verb? What is giving? What is receiving? What is knowing and what is not knowing?

We really don’t know what we will find! This is one of the root difficulties we face: we lack knowledge. Right knowledge, some kind of complete knowledge of everything that ever was, is, and will be is incomprehensible for most people even though most will admit that this is the level of knowledge that the universe as a whole is working: right knowledge; complete knowledge. But this is because we usually think of the objects of knowledge as knowledge. Knowledge is not noun, it’s active and non-specific; it’s not the facts, but the way we put facts together. We lack power to change many of the things we would like to change, but this is not because of lack of facts, but the rearranging of those facts to produce action is faulty. Most of us are vastly limited in in our ability to direct and control even our own lives. Cause and effect are routinely studied, but still no one knows what will happen. Actually, everyone knows, but no one wants to talk about it: everything will come to and end someday!

What is infinite? What is finite? Is time linear or circular or both or neither? Where is the root of our lives in time?

Time is another web we find ourselves in. Are we rooted in the womb, or in our ancestors, or are our roots somewhere else entirely. And where will we end? Birth leads to death as sure as anything, but if our roots grow beyond our birth, then it’s reasonable that our branches reach beyond death. And if it’s all circular, then what can we say about the beyond; the beyond will just lead us back to where we are. But as we are, as we perceive this world, we have no control over time. We are swept away as if by a river going to sea. The greatness of time is that it’s the great destroyer, dancing upon the ashes of the past so that new growth might emerge. No one knows what the new growth will be. Every time is completely unpredictable. Or is it? As the planets clock time in the macro-cosmos, so too is the micro-cosmos ever pushed into activity by time. All is moving, all is changing, and all is ever in relationship. We are products of time and time is produced by us: circles swirling with forward momentum. What is moving time?

What is fullness? What is emptiness? What is satisfaction? What is disappointment? What is the root?

I know what moves me: my appetite: for food and drink, love and affection, truth and beauty, or whatever other desire that arises to move about unrestrained. But they’re always restrained, because there’s so rarely a direct route to attaining our desires. We have to enter into relationship. We have to give and receive. Some would say we have to find balance between giving and receiving (between being active and passive); others would suggest we yoke them together.

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Vedic Astrology

The Method of Vedic Astrology

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I want to share a few things about how Vedic Astrology works. Vedic astrology uses predictive methods to test the chart. Quite often one or two fairly specific things will pop out at an astrologer from your past that they will be able to predict to a time frame. The ability to give such accurate prediction lends a heavy emphasis towards fate. For many people this might be the first time they come up against the notion that they personally are not the actor. In the context of astrology, ones sense of ego cannot deny it the power of fate over their lives. This alone can be helpful and bring positive response. But once an astrologer has determined the relative accuracy of the chart, he then knows which energies are working in which way and therefore can figure out which energies need to be worked with in which way. That’s the complicated way of saying that I then know which birth-stones to suggest for you.

From this point it’s up to you. If you can attach some emotion to that stone and that energy then you will get a positive result. Without any input from you and the stone will not work. But even if you wear it continuously after some time it will begin to work since you will naturally form an attachment to it. For those people more inclined to self-improvement from the perspective of Vedic astrology there are various mundane activities that can be incorporated over time. But these things depend on your inclination as much as by indications in the chart. What are you willing to do to fulfill your desires?

Astrology, from a Vedic perspective it is the foundation upon which things like yoga and Ayurveda rest. Astrology can determine our dosha as well as any health complications that might come your way. It can also suggest treatment possibilities. The Vedic birth chart is perhaps the clearest pathology report a person can get. From this point a person can focus their energies in simple ways to achieve positive results in their life. Though of course, even with the help of astrology you will still have to experience you karma, but with grace perhaps we can all lessen the effects of the bad karmas while improving the good karmas.

But same as any other method you use for self-improvement, positive results will be directly proportional to the effort you put in; and the amount of will power a person is able to muster is directly proportional to their belief in the effectiveness of the method. If you have belief in the method (Vedic Astrology in this case), and sincere desire for self-improvement thru this path, then it can guarantee results (by grace of true will, knowledge and desire, results will come).

If your will, your knowledge and desire are all acting in the same direction you will get positive results for yourself. Everything you get comes by this method. The desire created by the thirst gives the will; if you have right knowledge then it’s easy to satisfy that desire; whether it’s a thirst for water or knowledge or something simple like sex. But you have to know how to operate that thing that you want; this is important whether it’s a tap for water, a book for knowledge, the opposite sex for the obvious; or in this case, yourself so that you can have satisfy deeper desires for contentment.
A yogi spends years gathering self-knowledge through their body and their breath, looking inward for the reflection of the outward. Vedic astrology offers a opportunity to look outward at the position of the planets to see the inward reflection. There are always subtle (sometimes even mundane) things we can do to polish that double-sided mirror. Learning to operate our own bodies, minds and senses as well as the material world that surrounds us is how we polish that mirror.

The Vedic astrology of India is quite different from the astrology we grew up with in the west, it can be much more specific in regards to events. It’s not just and entertaining interlude, you have to be prepared to look at yourself in the mirror. The Vedic method is spiritual and philosophical as well as psychological and mundane. Fate is not a random occurrence. But the energies of the planets that help direct our fate can be manipulated. Change, after all, takes place on all levels. But usually change takes place slowly in increments. Regardless of the technique you choose to use, you must give it time to work. Hasty action without full knowledge is often a source and a symptom of what we generally consider to be bad luck while patience tends to produce the opposite.

Philosophy

Behold: Life

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The true nature of wisdom is that it can’t be shared. Each person has their own wisdom that is tied to their true self. The nature of an artist is to try to share their wisdom when the best they can do is share knowledge. This is certainly more satisfying than sharing mere information, but it’s still never enough. It’s not uncommon for artists to speak about being overcome by a kind of madness when they get into their zone. They don’t really know how it happened or where it came from but here it is: their art; their creation. Wether good or bad, nobel or base, authentic or not, this is what the artist has to show for himself. In many ways we value art more than most things, though not in a monetary sense of course.

When inner values spring forth into the material world we feel the inner value but cannot figure out how to give it value in the material world; it just is. And I think for most artists, once the work is complete, it’s in the past, done, time to move onto the next thing. Perhaps we even fear the stasis of our completed projects. And as much as we may identify with our art, we also seek to distance ourselves from it so that we don’t become identified as the work itself. After all the artist hardly knows how the whole creation was made. A person just sits down to something and gets tinkering with their craft and before they know it, behold: a work of art.

Life is the same. How often people say: “I don’t know how it happened: this happened, then that happened and then I did this, I don’t know why, and then all of a sudden this was the result. I don’t know why I chose this or that, I just did, and now….” Behold: life.

How much do we really know?

Travel

Path of Purposeless Existence

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Most of the other travellers I know have some purpose to their travels: musicians, photographers, artists, writers, and healers. They’re passionate about what they do, they’re driven and ambitious, they have purpose. I envy this sense of purpose, the creative process that drives people and affords them a love that is greater than them selves, be it for their family or their art. I’m not talking here of the tourists taking a few weeks to see something different; tourists travel, but travel does not make up a huge part of their lives.

My own travels don’t stop for more than a couple of months. From one place I get the urge to go someplace else. No reason really, it just becomes time for change: for new surroundings, new people, and perhaps a new pastime, of just to find a nice place to go for a walk. Perhaps I’ve become addicted to the fears and thrills of change.

I dabble a little in all things, wandering, my destinations changing with the landscape. I have neither a path of love and passion, nor a path of responsibility. Almost every time I land somewhere I ask myself, “what am I doing here?” I rarely go someplace to do something; I rather go, and than I ask. It’s tiring. It’s often isolating as I’m continually leaving behind friends and family and the familiar.

I’ve tried inventing some reason behind my travels (photography, holistic courses), but it never lasts, before long I find myself wandering aimlessly, leaving everything I was doing to go on to something new. I have nothing to hold me where I am and nothing except the weather and whim enticing me to go anyplace else.

At times I tell myself it’s because I don’t want anything, I’m happy with what I have, but mostly I see the truth that I want more. It’s like an underlying drive for more without any overlying destination. Sometimes I am perfectly happy, but then the underlying desire begins to simmer and then boil and before I know it I’ve done something rash and I’m on the move again. Some people go shopping and buy pointless shit, I buy plane tickets or spend days driving across the country.

It’s unsettling, and I mean that in every sense of the word. There’s no ground but myself and mostly as I travel I’m asking myself, “who am I?” Now I ask you, what kind of ground is that?

Artist and muscian travelers have some kind of outlet for their crafts. They easily come together from shared interest and often draw people and fans towards them. And of course they all have their craft fill their days and their career to drive them. I write; sometimes. I take pictures; sometimes. I take courses; sometimes. But I have no thing I do, no deadlines; no expectations coming from anywhere. I don’t even know where to begin to turn whatever it is I do into a business. People ask me what I do when I travel. I don’t know what to tell them: I do a little of this and a little of that. I’m usually busy, crazy busy for a guy with nothing in particular to do but that’s just it: I ‘do’ merely because I have to: with a body and the march of time doing is all we really have. Broadly speaking, I do philosophy (whatever that is exactly).

I feel the same confusion when people ask me where I’m from. Where am I from? Canada is the only clear answer I can give, and this is a big country. I was born in Calgary and then I moved around a lot. Then I moved to Edmonton and kept moving around a lot, but kept going back to Edmonton. I have nothing in Edmonton though, except work that pays well and doesn’t expect much commitement. (I don’t wish to alienate my Edmonton friends, I love you guys, but Edmonton is no home for me). I wish I could at least say that home is where the heart is, but I rarely feel at home for long and my heart is always with me.

And just as I keep asking myself who I am, the question of what do often arises in my mind. That s right, not only do I not have a clue who I am, I don’t even know what I want. What do you want? Some people just seem to be born with some destination to go with their drive. I have not had this honour. But not knowing what it is we really want is a hallmark of our age: vague unfocused and unconscious desires.

I’m not saying desires do not arise in me. I wouldn’t want to leave that impression for a second. I’m full of desires and a glutton to them. I tend to give myself everything I want and I’ve received more than I could have imagined. But I’ve also lost everything I’ve ever wanted. Sometimes it’s taken away or inadvertently lost, but most often my achievements just fade away like a child bored with his new toy. I just leave things and move on. I often feel a little lost afterwards: My heart broken at the end of relationships; my sense of purpose uncertain at the end of some intensive course or work season; and my very being shaken from intensive practice or experimentation or just by the happenstance of fate. My god how many times do I have to feel the death of some old life followed by the naivety and confusion of a re-birth. Things can never be the same as they were. Experiences so great that you simply cannot see life the way you did before. Everything changes. All the time. And what a rush it can be to fall into the abyss of the unknown.

But I do know that somehow something will happen, from one change will come the next. I don’t know if everything will be ok. I’m not even really sure what that means: That I don’t get injured ill or dead? These things will happen and I’ll still be ok. This is the nature of things: everything will be ok.

Every time I feel like I’ve been left with nothing; weeks later I look around me, knowing I’ve acquired nothing, but feel as though I have everything. The many injuries I have sustained in my life likewise have led me to this path of knowledge that I am on. Knowledge of what? I don’t know. Knowledge of what I need to know.

It’s madness!

You can’t imagine how isolating it is to travel alone. 90% of the time I live in just my own little world. My thoughts, dreams and actions so bundled together so that I can’t tell one from the other. And what is the difference? In regards to their effect on me their reality is equal.

But that leads my to another question that’s often passes thru my mind: “what is real?” Seriously, what is real? Do you know the difference between real and not real. Hind-sight is wonderful for distinguishing, but in the here and now, what sort of test is there to know the difference. Approximately half the yoga community believes that there is reality and illusion, the other half believes merely that there are different worlds, all of with are real.

But lets go back to those times when I’ve felt like I’ve lost everything. It all seemed real enough to me at the time while I was plunged into my own sorrow, but months later I look back and see that nothing had really changed; nothing had been lost and nothing really gained. What’s the reality? That we make our own reality? Then what happens to the objective observable reality we’ve become so familiar with? Considering the limitations of our senses (we don’t smell as good as a dog or see as an eagle), we have to admit that there is much more to the world than what is objectively observable. Why should we rely on just our senses to determine reality when we see the effects of so many things that many people would say are not part of reality.

My mother spent of most her life working in forensics as a psych. nurse. She often wonders aloud if I’m going (or have gone) crazy. I can understand this from her perspective. I don’t know who I am; I don’t know what I want; and I don’t know what is real and what is not. From the perspective of western psychology all these traits point to insanity.

But from my perspective, I see most people pretending to be someone they are not; if I ask them who they are, I will likely be able to point out to them why they really are none of what they say. If I ask people what they want, they will likely share only the basest of human desires with me. And their sense of reality will likely stop with their senses, which would, quite simply leave of most of the phenomena that drives the world. The point is, no one knows who they are or what is real or what they want, they just don’t often stop to wonder about these things, and it’s certainly not considered polite conversation to bring them up at dinner parties. So, we get a world like the one we have where wealth and power and lust rule simply by default. People go on defining themselves thru or living for their work, their family, their possession’s, or their reputation. Personally, I think these people are closer to insanity than I am, they have merely learned to wear acceptable masks. But that is the secret to civilization isn’t it: it’s all in the mask.

It’s no secret in this new age age that we are mostly disconnected from our emotions. I would say also that we are generally disconnected from God, but I don’t want to loose my atheist readers, but even they’ll agree that there is a mass disconnect happening in the world. We know about this because it’s the age of Auqarius; a time when we begin to reconnect. But if this is the age of Aquarius, that means we just advanced past Capricorn: a dirty old goat of a time. But Aquarius and Capricorn are both ruled by the planet Saturn; a kind of dirty old man him-self. Saturn doesn’t like your normal every day people. He doesn’t care much those who are energetic or overly whitty, nor any other who have anything to do with authority and power. He likes to keep to himself or spend time with older people, cripples, the disadvantaged, hermits, or even those who are especially close to the land like gardeners (farmers today are closer to their machines than the land); anyone who is isolated from main stream whether by choice or circumstance.

Asrtrologically speaking, I’m currently in my Saturn period. This is not the same as the dreaded 7 ½ year period when Saturn will affect my moon, but rather Saturn’s opportunity of 18 years to exert his influence over my life. Saturn is the fellow who makes us experience our karmas. Karma can be a bitch, or we can accept it and embrace it. We have no choice but to experience our Karma and we should be thankful to have the opportunity to experience it. In many ways Karma is the fuel we have to burn in this life; the action we must take and the actions we must experience.

When someone harms us and we have no recourse it’s natural to think that Karma will get them, but few people stop to think that Karma has just gotten them. We are all instrumental in affecting each others karma. In other words, we have to dish it out as well as swallow it. Accepting our karma is accepting our own actions as well as the actions of others and the universe at large. Karma isn’t all bad though; actions that produce joy and please are also karmas.

What most eastern thought seems to suggest is that Karma is Karma; it’s neither good nor bad; in this we must find equanimity. We each have our own karmas to experience and we must accept that in ourselves and others. This is one of the main indicators the general disconnection most cultures are experiencing: the level of emotional attachment people have to their karmas. This attachment is taught to us by television and the like in particular and the culture of consumerism in general. Change is presented as such a fearsome exchange that each new thing has to be hyped. The middle path is completely ignored, leaving the people bored

Thinking of Saturn reminds me of my own pointless wanderings. Saturn has taken over my life for the next 18 years. When I look around at my surrounding I see my tent, some old four-wheeler trail, the forest a stream, an over-head power line going thru. I hear the odd car drive past. I’m only as far back in the bush as my Volkswagen Rabbit will allow me to go. Even then I’m only a half hour from town; the nearest house can’t be too far away though I see no sign of it. But isolated enough without cell coverage or other hallmarks of our civilization.

I’m here because it’s free. One of the main hallmarks of our civilization is that it costs money to be a part of. You pay for parking, for sleeping, for news, even for water. Nothing is free in civilization. If anything was free you wouldn’t have to keep working to keep it all flowing. Maybe it’s time to get back into the flow of things.