The Road Of the FourthDan

Just a little over a month ago, we endured the day the whole world decides to celebrate romantic and sexual love. And as a single person it was a little difficult to endure - but as I look back at it now, it was difficult because of my state of mind. I knew it then too, the irritation caused by the display of affection and the anger caused by the pain of not having someone eclipsed any sense of logic that was pointing to the obvious - Valentine’s day itself is not the culprit. The culprit is a deadly mix of our human nature to want that what others have (and claim to enjoy more than anything in the world) and sometimes a sense of inferiority caused by the lacking.

Regardless, I was in a terrible mood for some time that day - I even wrote a long blog post about what I really felt about this day that was a travesty upon single people in the world - and thankfully had the good sense to leave it as a draft to look upon it later in retrospect. I did just that today and the first thought that came to mind is - how much emotional state of being can change over a period of just a month.

The second thought that does come to mind is that, while it was not right for me to be angry / jealous / envious / hurt about being single in a world that seems like it is full of lovers in our faces - it needs to be accepted that the want for love is a fundamental need.

Maslow dedicated a whole layer of his pyramid to love: Friendship, Family and sexual intimacy (which I think can be encapsulated in Romantic intimacy and is what I’m going to focus on)

The funny thing about the pyramid is that generally you cannot proceed to higher layers and fulfill higher needs on the upper layers of the pyramids if the needs on a lower layer or not met (sort of like another system I’m normally working with)

However in Hinduism, like most religions, detachment from all ties like friendship, family and romantic intimacy is encouraged as it actually aids the achievement of Self Actualization / Enlightenment (I will use those two terms interchangeably for now). I actually agree - I don’t believe a person HAS to have even any of those three type of loves to be able to be happy - much less reach enlightenment.

However we all know ourselves and have lived our entire lives with wants and needs, long enough to know that they come naturally. Using monkeys in a lab set up, scientists actually have proven that a mothers love is necessary for normal psychological growth and behavior. It blew my mind when I read that most of human pleasure comes from the release of dopamine - a chemical neurotransmitter that’s created during the times we enjoy something. It’s mostly created during two events:

1) when we eat

2) when we have sex / are in love

Why?  Because of evolution, we’re wired for survival - and the two things we need to do to survive are feed and procreate. So the brain is programmed to automatically reward us with joy when we do something linked to our survival - on a purely anthropological / biological level.

At any level - as a human being, a living animal to the electrons in the atoms of our cells - we all try to move from a state of unrest and higher energy to a state of stability and lower energy. That means we try and run from pain and run towards joy. It’s what we’re programmed to do. The closest thing almost everyone will get as the answer to “what is the purpose of life” is “the pursuit of happiness” (with an implied “and the escape from pain” stupid )

However is that a need? Pumping dopamine into our brains? Dopamine is a highly addictive substance - which would be the root explanation for every sin and vice imaginable. Because we are addicted to dopamine we run towards what gives us joy - whether it be gluttony or lust… or any of the other sins the Vatican have declared… and your local legislation has declared a crime.  So dopamine is the enemy? It’s the fruit in the garden of eden, whose temptation if we succumb to - we incur the pain of hell. I think I’ve just decoded the biblical story of Adam and Eve!  yay

Before I get a head of myself and write “the Christ Code”, I should also point out that gluttony and sloth and the sins are all excess versions of things that are actually normal and sometimes needed for survival. Ever watch the movie “Se7en”? I’m a big fan of David Fincher, and as tribute to that movie I’ll list those seven deadly sins caused by an unregulated addiction to dopamine.

The need to eat to live  :  The excess is Gluttony

The need to have sex : The excess is Lust

The need to win at competition : The excess is envy

The need to sleep : The excess is sloth

The need to get money / material objects : The excess is greed

The need for self respect : The excess is pride

The need for defending ones self : The excess is wrath / anger
(this is one exception to the “dopamine addiction causes sin” theory)

What’s the moral of the story? The same answer to a lot of things, and one of the central pillars of hinduism, buddhism, greek philosohpy - Balance.

The need for romantic and sexual fulfillment must at least be acknowledged. But it cannot be allowed to overrun your senses, judgment, action and life.

I hear that about 80% of the world’s population carries an inferiority complex. I can see it in my own experiences too, from dealing with people I have met who have confided in me. Lately I have found that even I suffer from a deep rooted one, that hasn’t quite gone away. I know, you might be asking yourself - why am I then reading the blog of a person who hasn’t quite got it figured out? My answer would be - entertainment

OK, honestly, because “figuring it out” is the hardest thing one can do in this life. Heck, that 80% I talked about surely hasn’t figured it out, and neither has most of the remaining 20%. But then, I’m comparing myself to them - which is one of the root causes of the inferiority complex. I created the definition for myself “insecurity = fear of inferior” in my last blog post. Since then I’ve been scouring books and the internet trying to find a way to deal with inferiority complexes, and not as surprisingly- I found very little. You see, most books that come out that promise to make you successful, talk about how you can become successful on the outside - wealth, spouse, achievement. They don’t mention much about dealing with the inside.

Of course, there are exceptions. NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming, from what I’ve seen is a sort of hypnotherapy. Which works pretty well, when executed, but I don’t have enough knowledge on this topic yet to recommend it.

The only other source I have found that helps people deal with their insecurities, inferiority complexes, etc - is spirituality. Not religion mind you, but spirituality. The two (religion and spirituality) are quite different, but they are not contrary. They can blend very nicely and go hand in hand, as they have for tens of thousands of years so far. It’s only lately I think, that people are able to separate themselves from religion and still be spiritual - which I think is not just perfectly fine, but maybe recommended in today’s world of using religion to create divide. However religion gives the vast fabric of guidelines and knowledge that can be used to better your spiritual advancement. The point is - Spirituality is, in the end, one of the greatest ways to stop misery. The other two ways I believe, are medication and cognitive therapy. I think some self help books, and those that teach about maintaining an attitude of gratitude for the Law of Attraction teach a system that borders on cognitive therapy. Which is why they also tend to succeed in creating a massive change both on the inside and the outside of a person. However they still focus on material attachment - or at least they do not focus on balancing or moderating that attachment, which is the opposite of the spiritual approach.

But is material attachment important on the road to vanquishing inferiority complexes? Yes and No. One of the earliest lessons I learnt while dealing with my inferiority complex caused by weight issues was: There are two ways to overcome that feeling: deal or solve what is causing it. i.e. make peace with being overweight, or stop being overweight.

While the latter sounds more direct and permanent, it is only a stop gap, if the weight problem is not the root cause, but just one of the weapons of the root cause. It will only be a matter of time before you find something else that causes you to sink back into misery.

In which case dealing with it sounds like a better example. But deal with it and live a life being overweight? That doesn’t sound right either.

Sadly, as much as I hate to say it, the lesson that I can never seem to learn and inculcate - yet the one lesson that keeps coming back to haunt me from the universe - is that balance is the key. You are supposed to be mindful of your weight, in this example, but not to the point where you punish yourself for looking overweight and feel bad about the effect it has had on your life so far.

The ultimate destination, is after all, to overcome the inferiority complex. Being over weight is an external thing. As within, so without. Once you overcome the inferiority complex, you can then focus, without being sensitive to the thoughts of your life-engineering process on whatever you want. I.e. once you overcome feeling bad about your weight, you can then work - with patience and slow progress on permanently overcoming the weight.

Weight is still under ones’ control, and is thus an easy example. The tougher scenarios are the ones where the resolution is not completely under your control - such as finding a partner / spouse or dealing with one. This is a situation where it is even more important that you resolve inner issues to prevent it from causing you to get further apart from your goal.

So what’s the bottom line? Dealing with a problem that apparently affects a significant part of the world is funnily tougher without enough directly obvious resources. However the quest should not end - find tools that suit you like spirituality and NLP and at least try. Don’t feel bad about yourself - every negative emotion that we have is linked to this one root problem.

Fear: We feel we will lose something, making us worse than we were before - or others
Anger: We feel that someone thinks we are less than who we are
Envy: We feel that because we do not have what the other person has, we are less

All of these deal with a feeling of ‘lacking’.

Regardless of whether you use spirituality to deal, or LoA to manifest with the lacked - who we are is enough. Just existing is good enough. This is where detachment works quite well, because that’s why people who renunciate. They don’t feel they lack anything, because they’ve given up the need for anything - except their basic bodily functions of eating, breathing, excreting and sleeping.

Two men come across a tiger in a jungle. The tiger starts running towards them from. One of the men starts putting on his sports shoes. The second man asks “are you insane? putting on sports shoes won’t help you outrun the tiger!” To which the first man replies, “no, but I just need to outrun you”

There used to be a time when “survival of the fittest” was the reality of the situation, present directly in daily life as opposed to a guiding principle of evolution. But that was a more linear, lateral version where fitness implied physical fitness.

Does this principle apply in todays world? The average man lives in a city where safety is pretty good, where tigers are only found in zoo cages, where he’s capable of living a successful life without much attention to physical fitness. Survival, in its literal form, is a guarantee (except if his arteries clog up early and he has a heart attack, or if he ends in a car accident)
But I believe it applies in other planes now. Survival today has been replaced by success, and to achieve success you have to dedicate to being fit in different aspects.

For example, three men apply for a job - A, B and C. C is not as qualified and experienced as A and B. So he is rejected.
A and B are equally qualified and experienced. But A has better interpersonal skills. So on a regular day A should be able to impress the interviewer better. But A is suffering in his relationships, and has come to the interview not focussed as he’s just had another big fight with his wife. Thus B wins, because he has better peace of mind and seems the more stable, happier, team playing person.

The survival instinct is programmed into man. When we are alerted that our survival is uncertain, we immedately go into a heightened sense, and the flight or fight sequence initiates. It’s inbuilt. I believe that similarily, the survival of the fittest principle is also programmed into us. We know instinctively that unless we’re at a sufficient level of fitness in a cetain aspect, we may not achieve success.

It is the fear of being inferior. And I believe that this is what an insecurity is.

Why are we afraid of being inferior? Because we may lose something or lose success at something. Usually it’s respect of others, even ourselves. Sometimes it’s success at a relationship, or at a job. Losing at anything is not something the ego handles well, especially if it is because we are not fit enough. So like the resistance against an imperial dictator, our insecurities live within the far regions of the city where they can hide and look for weaknesses to strike against the tyrannical ruler.

What happens when the brave soldiers of the insecurities manage to hit the death star of the Darth Vader called Ego?

Ka-boom.

In the words of another great master from Star wars called Yoda:
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

George Lucas, creator of star wars, actually was inspired from the hindu epic, the Mahabharata, where krishna pointed the same out to Arjuna.

So at the root of it all - hate, anger and suffering - is fear. Fear of being inferior. Fear of losing something. And this is what stops us from having true peace of mind - and thus allowing our minds to be at thier fittest.

The next logical step should be to eliminate fear, right? Maybe not. Our instincts were put there for a reason. A fearless person is a person who may not be prioritising and judging the situation correctly - it’s the extreme opposite of a person who is paralyzed by fear - and still equally wrong. Dealing with the fear by summoning courage is probably the better way. However that is just one way - some eastern religions such as hinduism prescribe that giving up your attachments is one way. The concept of “moksha” or liberation, works on many levels, the most basic of which is the liberation from attachment. And giving up attachment implies also giving up any fear of losing the object of attachment.

But we’re still living in the material world. Do we have that option?
Fear of losing something is, in a balanced way, a good thing. It keeps you on your toes. It is only when the fear gets out of hand that an insecurity is born. An example is - being aware that eating a little too much can make you easily overweight can be a mild fear. And that fear of becoming overweight can keep you fit and healthy. But when that fear destroys your self-image to the point where you’re constantly asking people if you’re  thin / attractive would not be a comfortable state of being, to say the least.

How do we balance fear? It sounds like the most outrageous thing. But I suppose we can, by being aware of our fear and not letting it run amok and cause havoc. At the end of the day, we could balance between fear of losing and total liberation from the attachment that causes the fear. Or we could go all the way and take life a little more lightly, and go full-on with the non-attachment. i.e. “who cares if i’m fat?”. But then prepare for the consequences of gaining weight and losing “attractiveness”(to most people). But then you won’t survive, cos you have to be fittest - in every aspect

There is (at the time of writing this post) 6 billion people on the planet. And the population is just getting bigger and bigger every second. Sadly, unlike a computer program, life doesn’t scale itself to accomodate scaling of people. The biggest example of this is traffic jams. The infrastructure stayed the same, but more people have been added to the system. Nothing happens to the infrastructure, the effect is only on the people. The road on which the traffic jam occurs doesn’t change one bit. But the people undergo stress, lose time and peace of mind thanks to that traffic jam.

There’s another scenario where having more people around trying to compete for the same thing as you works against everyone - comparison.

When I was in school, I used to appear in one of the top three positions in my class consistently. But my folks weren’t ever satisfied (or if they were they made sure not to show it) and instead they motivated me by comparing me to people who’d have done better. I came in First Rank only once - in 3rd grade, and even then they didn’t give me the praise I hungered for. Later they told me it was thier way of good parenting, because that way I wouldn’t let constant praise get to my head and become arrogant. Fair enough.

But one of the things they said stuck with me throughout - “Do not compare yourself to those you are better than. Compare yourself to those who are better than you”. Valid logic - that’s how one improves in a world where grades in predefined syllabus is everything and competition results defines your future. You get complacent if you compare yourself to those you are better than, and stop improving. But you also never feel satisfied with yourself, because there is always someone better than you who you can compare yourself.

I think what I will teach my child (when I have one) is “Do not compare yourself to others”. This way he/she works to better himself/herself.

But competition can be good for you, because it pushes you to succeed and grow. I myself have benefitted from that concept in school - and I was satisfied immensly with the efforts I made, even if I came in second place - just because of the marvelous growth in character and discipline that happened. So competition can be a good thing - and competition’s automatically implies comparison. And without comparison, would we be able to function? There wouldn’t be something called “quality”. So, I have to revert back to my dad’s version. But I must add a disclaimer that ensures he knows where to stop with the comparisons too.

So it becomes “Do not compare to those worse than you. Compare yourself only to those better than you. But compare yourself only to learn how to better yourself - not to look down on yourself or others“

Comparing yourself to people can become a virus. It damages your self-esteem and provokes the ego to defend itself. You develop insecurities about things you are not good at, or do not have. This is obviously not a great way to live, and it’s hard to break out of that pattern.

How does one break out of it? By trying to replace a competitive attitude with an abundance attitude.

Instead of trying to justify a lack of something within you, or an advantage someone else has - try and imagine that instead of competing with that person, you wish well for them and want them to have everything - just like you. If they have succeeded more than you, then it is a good thing. I know it’s hard at first to think like that, but with practice it probably can be achieved.

Suppose someone is rich because of a company thier parents left to them, and you are struggling to send money back to your parents - or they have had flings all thier youth and now have a beautiful marraige, while you’ve been single throughout - just think “good for them” sincerely and end it there. Thier success does NOT magnify your failure - if what you were was a “failure”in the first place. Your success at something where they have not succeeded does not imply a complensation or your “win”.  You getting what you want is not related to whether they have it or not, and since when they’ve had it.

Try to think instead, that you live in a world where everyone should and can be happy and get what they want - even if they already do and you don’t. Be positive enough to believe truly that you and everyone deserve to have everything, and they just got some things earlier - but you will get yours soon. And that is where the other people cease to exist in your equation and you focus on manifesting that into your life.

Being grateful about the things you do have, without thinking if other people have that thing to be grateful for or not, is also a way to help overcoming the negativity that stems from comparison. Your statements of gratitude shouldn’t, for example,  even start with “Sure, I”m not as rich…but…” but it must certainly have “I’m still grateful I have my health”.  Comparison that way, can be bad for the Law of attraction and manifesting good things in your life.

Have you ever run a marathon? Even a 10k one? (as opposed to the gruelling 42k one which I haven’t attempted yet) It’s an interesting thing.

You show up at the start.
You run.
You pass the finish line.

Simple, isn’t it?
It’s fun too. Getting to the start position, excitement in the air of a beginning of a journey, people all huddled together with friends, laughing and smiling. The gun goes off and the adrenaline pumps to the beat of the music in your MP3 player, and you settle into a smooth rhythm running against the cool wind and the early morning sun brightly shining but not hot. Even if your friends are with you, you race ahead or are left behind and then it’s every man embarking on his individual journey against the endless horizon…

But usually the fun doesn’t last - stress from your muscles start to creep in, the pain from pounding your feet against the gravel of the road starts to affect your  knees and your energy,  you start to lose your energy and start getting tired, you get thirsty… and you start wondering - “why the hell am I running when I could be in the audience, looking on and enjoying thesmelves, or better yet sleeping comfortably at home!”

But you’ve started the marathon. You’ve signed up for it. You went online, thought to yourself while in that cushy seat behind the laptop “going for a marathon will be great for me! A worthy achievement to make sure I stay committed to my health n fitness”. You’ve only finished a quarter of the distance and you feel like you can’t go any further.

The gallop turns into a stride, and that into a walk. Eventually even a full stop, where you catch your breath and suddenly whoosh! - you see the crowd that was behind you suddenly charging forward like a stampede. And you see people who are older, younger,fitter, more out of shape than you leaving you behind - and you say “this can’t be right -I can do better” and off you go again.

After a few kilometers, the energy runs out. Your muscles are screaming “STOPPPPP”  and you oblige. You would have kicked yourself but even if your foot could reach your rear, you’re too tired. And you start slowly walking along, lost in your tiredness and thoughts. Suddenly someone pats you on the back and tells you to keep moving! You’re motivated again! You CAN do it, and you try and keep pace with that person and just that keeping pace helps you through so much more distance.

By now the thick crowd of thousands has been hammered into a evenly distributed thread of people stretching from the fastest runners to the slackers kilometers behind - everyone is running at their own pace and has their own pace. And then you sight the finish line - at first it angers you again that there are people who at that very moment have no idea of the amount of pain and tiredness you’re dealing with. But then you look at the actual finish line - and suddenly you find energy you didn’t think you have, and you spend every bit of it running past people. You’re carrying yourself, and you’re pushing past the pain, but now the object of your goal is just minutes away.

And finally you pass through the finish line. In a way it was no great feeling. It’s just walking under another door. But in another way, you’ve just finished a marathon and you’re proud of it. It’s over! First of all, no more pain! Second of all, no more pain!

And the medal they hand you means nothing - the thought of finishing it is enough. You tell people you ran the marathon, and they’re amazed and filled with respect and awe. They salute you for having the fortitude and discipline of doing something they weren’t able to do. Honestly, they can’t even see the logic of waking up early and pushing themselves through something like that.  You know that even though it feels good - you didn’t run the marathon to impress people. You did it for yourself. And that does feel great in the end. It stays with you for years on after too, a reminder that you are a person who at that point of time for sure, was one of discipline. And you remember the journey of the marathon with fondness - the journey itself made you a better person in a way.

Life has many marathons. They’re totally optional - you can decide if you want to run or sleep at home and both choices would be valid. You can choose the length of your marathon depending on how far you can run, or how fast. Even while running, it’s upto you how fast you want to run, and whether you’re going to let the strain stop you from running. You choose also if you want to take a break, or quit entirely. It’s also a mind game, where you’re comparing people who’re running with you - trying not to wish you were one of the people who wasn’t running.

But you run anyways. You run because you chose to run - and that is not from a point of blame - it is perspective on character. You run because of who you are. And the running itself, and the satisfaction of reaching the finish line more than medals or prizes help make it worth it.

Ask any marathon runner whether crossing the finish line was worth the effort it took. You’ll probably always get a yes.

Some time ago, Steve Pavlina talked about creating habits effectively with the use of something he called “the 30 day trial“. Pretty much based on the idea that if you do something for 30 days consistently, you can turn it into a habit. He recently used it to do a 30 day trial of raw food, where he blogged in detail every day (including photos).

It inspired me to do a few things:

1) I tried exchanging some of my meals for raw food (mostly fruit) and I could notice that within weeks my weight / flab levels dropped. I haven’t tried a trial where I was doing that 24×7, but I plan to.

2) Think of applying the 30 day trial on somethings I want to do.

Currently I’m occupied by a couple of goals, that I’ve not been able to target and finish easily or early enough. It can be argued that these are formidable goals from where I started from, but then I take the blame for being terribly inconsistent sometimes.

I have a separate private journal where I chronicle the journeys towards those goals in detail, but I can give some overview here, without going too personal (It’s still not rocket science to trace my real name from this blog if you know how to hack a little )

But what habits do I want to inculcate?

These are the ideas for the 30 day trial I would love to do:
1) meditate and do yoga everyday
2) keep my room absolutely cleaned everyday
3) train myself in taekwondo everyday
4) read a non-technical book everyday
5) speak to a stranger everyday
6) sketch a portrait everyday
7) read and blog about a few shlokas from the bhagvat gita everyday

It’s still a small list. But if you have any good ideas, feel free to know in the comments section.