Experiences and Realizations

By reading, you agree that you will read this site at your own choice and will rely on anything stated herein at your own risk . No writer is willing to take the liability of proving the truth of any statements. After reading this link, you may click here or the same symbol at the end of this link, for further reading.

Contents of this link (or section) will be written when categories become too many. Currently, there are mainly two categories: (1) Contemplation on our current culture and realities, and (2) "Experiences Closer to Daily Lives". No directly "after death" matters will be posted here.

Current Owner's Writing:

A contemplation on our current culture and reality (Daily Life Experiences are at the end of this section):

We have billions of items of entertainment, relaxation, etc. However, those who have eyes to see, can see that we really do not have a secure world or society to legitimately enjoy them (although we foolishly indulge in those neglecting what we should do and let the earth flood with human sufferings, tears, bloods, etc.) In spite of that, most of our celebrities are some sort of entertainers, fun- or art-creators, etc. In addition to these, money-makers are manipulating the mass in the name of style, fashion, modernism, coolness, and in hundreds of other ways for making money and becoming billionaires or multi-millionaires. We, a herd of sheep, jump to put our money to all the above categories of people, their promoters, middlemen, etc. All the millions of thinkers, discoverers, inventors, who gave, probably, 99% for our lives and advancements are not much in the picture. Athletes for a few years or even scandalous persons become celebrities and multi-millionaires; whereas, those who contributed for the almost eternal (or very long-term) benefit of the human species had/have to suffer from financial hardship.

Almost all of us are led by our spontaneous (not by brain) nature. Sometimes we are, as if, in a binge-talking and what we say does not carry much sense. Not only that we do not think, analyze, and realize the reality but also we brainlessly ridicule, if somebody tries to open our eyes. We do not realize that if we the people jointly do not take charge and assume our supreme authority, the tax-eaters (running after self, as all do) cannot do any better.

Our inner doors are closed and outer doors are wide-open to be influenced by persons with ulterior motives or knowing many pieces of information but devoid of wisdom or farsight and to follow stereotypes and business as usual, which pleases us immediately but harm all in the long run. Some persons think that selfishness is the problem. It is actually the opposite: Almost none of us fully realize what we should do to be the maximum gainers over the whole life and run after thoughtless/shortsighted priorities. Our current selfishness is nothing but jumping to fire like the insects to die.

Are any of our great think-tanks realizing that criminology, detective and intelligence sciences, police, etc. cannot fully stop the menaces of crime and terrorism and we have to attack the problems from another side too based on what Buddha, Jesus, etc. said? Mainly with will and initiative, and conveniently with a small fraction of the total budget for the Department of Defense and related security and law-enforcing agencies, we could open a new frontier and establish a mechanism to keep all 6-billion people in touch, to inspire all to cooperate, help each other, encourage, train, and help children and others as needed to be able to find happy ways of life, instead of ruining own and others lives.

There is a story that two monkeys could not make two halves of a pie to each others satisfaction. So they asked for help from a third monkey. The third monkey put two pieces on two sides of the balance. When a side, say, side 1 was heavier he ate a portion from that side to make it equal. However, now, the other side, say, side 2 became heavier and he ate a portion from that side. Now, side 1 became heavier and he repeated his method until no more of the pie was left. This is so true everywhere in our society. Two parties fight over little things. Because of this, it has been customary to hire a broker. For example, a real estate agent (in USA) may receive fifty thousand dollars for selling a costly house. Whereas, in dealing directly without a real estate agent, sometimes, the seller and buyer may fight or even end up in courts just for five thousand dollars.

All the fights and destructions among nations or individuals is another variety of this foolishness. Capable people not caring about society or less capable persons' suffering and, in turn, criminals harming society or others, is yet another variety of this foolishness.

My very long-term view is that the human community should accept in principle that someday (when a particular station (super computer or whatever) can locate each and every individual on earth) autonomy will be extended as far as possible to national level, state/province, etc. downward but the whole of earth will be like a union or a federation (modification of Einstein’s One World as needed). People will be free to live anywhere. This will gradually reduce the extreme and irrational martyrdom for boundaries. No body will depart with boundaries; then, why die for boundaries! Steps should be taken immediately to stop the current killings, other violence, and oppression. Those mixed up people harming each other should be separated by the international community. That God gave some land to some people is an absurd claim by totally irrational people and should not be honored. Land should not receive more importance over human suffering; it should be distributed proportionally (to the size of each group).

________

If the zoo animals under training had realized that there were no alternatives to obeying the orders of the trainer, they could have avoided a lot of torture. Only when the pain becomes unbearable and they discover their helplessness, they let their wild nature surrender to the reality and learn to submit. Slowly they start enjoying what they have to do. We are doing exactly the same thing with our born nature and ego. Only a few gain clear understanding about human lives and interactions with other humans, human establishments, and everything around (near, over the earth, and the outer space) early in life. Most of us have to receive a lot of beating or numerous frustrations before coming to terms with the reality. (Realizing that if I want to be happy, I have to be happy with whatever happens to me after employing my meaningful best efforts; the only thing, if at all, that is under my control is myself and nothing else. A few just renounce everything or become monks because, in the face of all suffering, diseases, injuries, deaths, etc., all our pleasures and comforts are ridiculous to them. They seek for eternal truth and/or after-death benefits.) A few fortunate (or unfortunate, if death is not considered the end of everything) ones never achieve realizations due to lack of suffering. Some unfortunate ones (by all means) never achieve realizations whatever the amount of suffering.

A great shock becomes unbearable in the beginning. Although time heals pain, some will not let it go. I think, those who have not arisen at a level such that own visions and realizations are sufficient to guide through the darkest phases, a person better have something (ideology, faith, or whatever) to have strength or solace from or depend upon (i.e. the last hope or straw to grab to). However, this must not be such that it infringes on the rights of any other.

We do not realize how miserable life can be until we experience it (in any matter, we never listen to what experienced ones say). Similarly, we do not realize that, sometimes, friends may be more valuable than a half of our possessions and, as a result, ruin friendship for little things. Nothing in the world likes to play "peek-a-boo" as much as happiness does. The more we chase it, the more it tries to hide. When we live by reasons, duties, strong minds, moderation with detachment and without chasing happiness, then happiness, with the feeling of being neglected, stays nearby and tries to attract our attention.

As long as humans behave like brain-less beasts to bite (harm) each other or do not respect the basic principle of non-infringement on the rights of others, I do not know how much good other realizations or philosophies are going to do. I thought of writing a lot of my realizations and philosophies about life. Now I am thinking that it is better not to make life high-rise and heavy with realizations and philosophies, when the foundation of life, society, is so weak. Let me keep realizations and philosophies to a minimum and spend my time and energy more on the foundation, until the foundation is strong enough to not make those realizations and philosophies sound like jokes. Following of all the details of the scriptures is useless (a joke) if one does not have self-control in view of the consequences.

Most of us realize that murderers, rapists, and other criminals ruining their lives are fools. Do they? No. Or, even if they do, they cannot control themselves and, as a result, ruin the lives of others and themselves helplessly. Many of us also cannot control our pursuits of ready-made pleasures provided by nature's design and suffer the consequences (may not be punishment by state). It needs a lot of contemplation to be convinced that it is irrational and then determination or resolve and repeated practice (never giving up because of seeing that I cannot help) to finally gain control against helplessly being drawn to (over) indulging in easy-pleasures. We have to act meaningfully for the maximum "good" over the whole life.

There are certain pleasures which have no bad consequences but which are ready-made to an extremely limited few and not to the rest. Some asserted that even if they are not ready-made to most of us, some can discover those by practice. There is some natural joy of existence, when body and mind is in perfect condition. Keeping certain gross sense enjoyments to a minimum, we can enjoy the joy of existence more. Otherwise, we lose it.

A university guard called us by hand signal from more than a quarter mile away. Then he showed us that his name was in the university catalog. We may not realize but we are doing exactly the same thing in different forms. We say to almost anybody we meet things which we think enhance our images. Our half-awake condition due to lack of serious contemplation on the effects of societies on individual lives is the root cause of existing human suffering. Farsight on the consequences of our actions is missing.

We have so many celebrities and geniuses showing amazing skills, talents, and thought powers in their fields. We all know what most politicians are busy with (interest groups and strategies for winning elections). Probably, because God doomed us to suffer, serious thinking and initiatives to make our lives /societies more secure and joyful, are missing. As mad are we for a little visibility, so obsessed we are with those who got a lot of visibility (mainly with entertainment-celebrities, very little with scientists and other great intellectuals). I never understood what an autograph or a photograph with a celebrity (for which many are so mad) does to our security and happiness. We all are after marketing of products and entertainments (by science, technology, industry), creation of hypes and hypnosis (rarely directed towards making societies better), politics or interest groups, etc. and thinking that the more we spend, the better will be the economy and the better will be human lives.

Theories of our compartmentalized disciplines are depriving us of good common senses. Neither, I approve of the declarations (or mis-interpretations or mis-recordings of what the prophets or real saints and sages said) by some ignorant fanatics (who are after earning money or importance in an easy way), engaging human beings against human beings. Common sense has to be enriched with all human knowledge (experiences, realizations, inventions, discoveries, etc.).

All our eggs or initiatives do not have to be on "money or material" or "selfishness or self-image" only. By spending only 1% of our thought, time, etc., we can reduce a lot of human suffering by the atom-bomb like power and inspiration achieved through all-hands involvement, as proposed in the home page (and some other sections) of this website.

Except for the technical ability, we are not worth the name 'humans'. Through social work, the greatest experience of my life is that these near-beast humans can be inspired and engaged in angelic activities by creating some hype, hypnosis, dramatization, or hoopla, or by giving some visibility or importance to them. If we do not utilize such an advantageous "reality," then there are others who will take the opportunity of our inaction to misguide some human beings to exciting destructive activities.

We not only claim ourselves humans but also add "civilized" and religious and other adjectives. Millions of children on this earth (within our reach), and not on another planet, suffer from starvation, mal-nutrition, lack of treatment and other cares, and many of them die. Other human sufferings also are really not beyond our control. Leaving them aside to suffer and die, we make drama with some one child somewhere, animals, etc. We finish our duties by paying some money in the name of charity. We spend time worrying about color matching in dresses and what not, make designers multi-millionaires or billionaires in the pursuit of fashion. Millions of entertainments are there to kill our time and take money directly or indirectly. We spend billions and billions of dollars for flowers, cards, gifts, and similar other things, which could/can save millions of healthy born children.

I saw in Kenyan safaris that a cheetah is only slightly bigger than big house-cats. Big animals even in a big herd run in panic to save each one's own life; thereby, giving to the cheetah the opportunity to kill. Instead, these big animals could have stood together and hit the small cheetah with their horns, if it dared to remain nearby. So much of human suffering in various forms is created similarly (lack of initiative to unite and resist evil). Then there is also foolish harming of others or society for self. If I become immoral and greedy for self, others will not be saints to be losers, by giving me the opportunity to be a gainer. The shortsighted gain made by an individual, ultimately, comes back as a huge (many times more) unseen loss because all (6-billion) harm our total this way.

When I reflect seriously on everything I did or do, sometimes I discover that some were meaningless or irrational. This may be the reason that so many people asserted that the person, community, organization, or nation that does not have time to reflect, will deteriorate/degenerate. I am not expecting others to be saints. All I have to say is laugh and be merry and enjoy but in a farsighted way. If societies are not in good shapes, we shall be only awaiting some disaster to ruin our lives suddenly (which could be avoided by establishing good human cultures or societies, by utilizing our unity, brains, and other resources). It gives me a lot of pain seeing how we all are suffering meaninglessly. However, if this is God's design and not many respond to my invitation, what can I do!

_____________

Daily-life Experiences

At my early youth, I used to make fun or shows by eating excessively. Once I heard one expression, "It is not good." No body ever explained to me that the consequences will show up later. Since I was not experiencing any problem at that time, that expression hardly stroke my consciousness. Although the problem started showing up after 6 or 7 years through hyper-acidity, I did not realize it until it became disabling over a few years. This is just one of many such experiences. Almost all human beings suffer many times due to different causes because of lack of knowledge or experiences. All of us suffer and forget and remain busy with shortsighted priorities (many of which are inessential, frivolous, trifles, or of minimum benefit while killing too much time), and let others suffer the same way unnecessarily. Almost all human sufferings (due to poverty, crime, cheating, insecurity, various social and family problems, etc.) are due to lack of joint action. I have always been puzzled with such a human culture.

We have to be always watchful on what has started not suiting our health anymore. The same thing which was never a problem may start being a problem at one point in time. Examples: (1) We used to keep a portion of the bakery things in the freezer, after keeping a portion in the refrigerator for eating within a few days. For many years there were no problems. At one point, I was suffering too much but after analyzing all my food-intakes I could not detect any reason. It took me a long time to finally discover that those bakery things made by a particular company and kept in the freezer by us were not suiting me any more. Even a small fragment made me extremely sick, although my wife could continue eating those. (2) After eating "tanduri chicken" many times in life without any trace of red color in stool, at one point, the stool started being red after eating the same thing. First time, I thought it was blood. My physician advised me to go to emergency (hospital). What a hassle and expenses I went through for a few months! Nothing could be found. After eating "tanduri chicken" again another time, I realized what happened.

- It is a personal decision whether to spend money (a lot for an average salary) for the satisfaction of showing your name in a book. I never paid the money for myself and did not care even to check whether they published my name. When someone in a third-world country receives a letter stating, "Congratulations! After a lot of deliberations, your name has finally been selected to be published along with (some number) most influential leaders of the 20th century. This is a rare honor. etc. etc.," he/she thinks, "I have finally won the world. I am going to be a celebrity from now on." So many other dreams go with this. I had to pay about $300 for someone, even by choosing the lowest priced version. When he received the book, he was very disheartened. Let me not write explicitly what type of business he thought it was.

Almost all human beings try to reciprocate. If X misbehaves with Y unreasonably and Y endures it without misbehaving in return, X will try to return a favor sooner or later.

In U.S.A.

- When I paid credit card balances fully within the specified date, no interest was charged. When even a small amount remained unpaid, interest was charged not only on that small amount but also on the whole new balance. In interest free financing (for car or whatever), the condition may be that if the whole loan cannot be paid up by the contractual period, the borrower has to pay interest on the whole amount of the original loan. If by accident or under unexpected circumstances, a default occurs somehow, this will be a disaster.

- Once two of us took a taxi-cab. I got down where I needed to go by paying to the other rider a little more than half the amount on the meter at that time and asked the other rider to pay the full amount at the end. The cab driver charged each of us what was on the meter. Therefore, if only one person is not paying at the end, make sure that the cab driver agrees with your plan.

Overall, rule of law (not even the emperor is beyond law) is a thousand times better than other methods. In some places, cheating by wit, even if it does not violate law, may be severely punished by the mob. Although apparently good in some cases, and I am extremely intolerant of cheating (whether by violating law or not), mob rule should never be accepted.

When I first came to this country, I did not know that customers are duped without violating law (law cannot mention millions of situations that may arise). From one corner of a store, I saw the price of something written in big letters; nothing else was visible. I just picked up couple of those things. After going home, I was surprised to see a much higher price. When I came back to check what happened, I saw that at a disproportionately distant corner and in very small letters, "with a coupon from a newspaper of ... (date)" was written.

Another person's experience: A water filter company sales person, say, Du called her. Du said that instead of spending so much money for advertisement, the company was paying (prizes) to some customers to promote their product to the customers' friends. The prize could be a car, $5,000 in cash, or $5,000 in shopping spree. She had to buy the product herself with $425 and fill out a form after using the water-filter (later, she realized that it was so that they can refuse to take back a used product). From television shows, her idea about shopping spree was a sort of 'gift certificate' to buy some products from specific places. When the prize came, she realized that she had to buy things with money from her own pocket. The 50% reduction in price was nothing but cheating without violating law because she could buy those things in less than 50% price elsewhere.

We spend money to keep telephones or internet for our use. Junk mails, e-mails, and telephone calls breaking my meditation are making lives miserable. Solutions suggested by some do not work. To make people listen, they will start by saying, "You have been selected to receive a prize of a million dollars." Then you find that it is a preliminary selection. After you do certain things, the final selection will be made. Some accept this culture thinking that vigorous entrepreneurship makes economy better. However, they do not realize that money is important for survival. After that, life is more important than money.

I took my car to an auto repair shop for maintenance inspection. They found so many things which needed urgent repair or replacement and came up with an estimate of a huge amount. I paid for inspection but did not proceed to repairing. For a verification, I took the car again for inspection to another shop. This time they found a different set of problems which needed to be urgently taken care of. I disregarded everything and could drive the car without any problem (except for usual maintenances) for quite a number of years.

Another time, when I could not start my car, I called my motor club to tow it to the repair shop (of a dealer). Since the battery was new, I thought that there must be a serious problem and, therefore, did not request the motor club to try to start the car. The repair shop said that the alternator was out of order and suggested to put an old but working alternator. I agreed because my car was old too. They charged me $475. In the meantime, somehow, I learnt that when the car does not start, sometimes, it can be started by keeping the gas pedal pressed half-way while cranking. So when the same thing happened after several months, I tried it and it worked. Only God knows what the repair-shop did (duped me or not) the first time.

Because of noise in the heating system blower housing, I paid $77 for a heating company employee to come and give me an estimate. He asked $346 for the part and $120 for installation. Since the part was a blower wheel, without any electrical circuit, that price appeared unusual. Later I bought the part in $18.88 and insatlled it myself.

On January 4, 2002 some television network aired a show. Some expert made very minor changes to appliances like turning a vital switch off or loosening a wire connection, to make the appliances out of order. Hidden cameras were fitted to record what the repair-person really did. From the segment I saw, there was only one case in which the repairman did not cheat much because the homeowner showed familiarity with the appliance and watched closely what the repairman was doing. In all other cases, although the repairmen really fixed the minor problems like making the switch on or tightening the loose wire, they lied and charged the homeowners huge amounts of money. Some repairmen even unnecessarily tore apart working parts, put new parts and charged highly.

Those among the watchers who did not know that repair-persons cheat, now they know about it. So what? Still, they do not know how to avoid being cheated. Whereas, if all consumers were in dialogue and cooperation (for example, through the United Humankind Organization, as proposed in the website), we could find ways to avoid being cheated. Others may come up with better suggestions than mine. I can suggest at least the following: We can expose the dishonest repair-persons by continuous experimentation. Once they realize that any of the repair they are requested to make could be an experimentation to check their honesty, they would not cheat anymore.

Sights or Observations

A woman was shouting in a bus in anger (no target in the bus). It is convenient to assume her to be mentally deranged, as we conveniently blame the low class people for committing crimes, by sitting in our own cozy place without caring to know why they are doing these. (Some high class people earn billions by committing crimes and paying fines in millions.) As I put my attention seriously, I realized that she was facing problems and wherever she goes for help, she is directed to some other office (not here, not here; elsewhere) and she could never find that "elsewhere". Oh God! Why are we behaving like brain-less beasts to allow such human suffering, which we could jointly eliminate!

I saw a teenage mother walking to the bus stand with her baby. It was so clear that even at this age, she lost all interest in life and she was cursing herself for the mistake she made. We shall also join to curse her and to think that she alone is responsible for her suffering. When world famous married and near or above sixty persons make such mistakes, how can we think so! Did we explain enough to such kids the suffering to follow after a moment's fault? We should show different movies on such mistakes and consequent sufferings repeatedly so as to penetrate the consciousness of vulnerable teenagers.

I saw children crossing high-speed roads in the dark, without realizing that motorists cannot see them until it is too late for the motorists to stop. Apparently, they were not trained adequately. Please see sections, "Suffering and Causes" and "Our Short-Sights" of the main website, for more.