Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
10 September 2019
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“Mind’s Hunger”
Wisdom questions that in a world which is without cause or effect could the word ‘more’ mean anything? Knowledge informs that the word ‘more’ surely has a meaning, but could the meaning be real? It just cannot be real in a causeless and effect-less world.
Wisdom reveals that the world is said to be a singular process of uncontrollable and unpredictable sophistication, which happens eternally and spontaneously. Nevertheless, the word ‘more’ is present in the mind of man and logic in knowledge informs that to be successful in life man should aim for ‘more’.
Knowledge of religion is first off the block to preach about the effects of ‘more’. It says in no uncertain terms that the effect of ‘more’ is the cause for hell. Man lives in fear of entering hell, yet he is unable to live without having more.
Knowledge in religion informs that more prayers to God and more charity to the poor and needy is the path to heaven. Man and woman live in the hope of reaching heaven.
Man loves to possess and the more the better. He is taught to possess more and this is the advice of many to as many. It starts in school to have more grades and to perform well - to get ahead in life, so to speak. Man is advised to be more ambitious and aim for the stars. To have a dream and chase it is the mantra of present-day man.
The trait to possess, preserve and prevent loss is deeply rooted in man’s mind. The need to survive induced primitive man to collect. He collected more out of necessity for he had not yet discovered the terrain he lived in. Man migrated and discovered mother earth.
Mother earth, on the other hand, presented him with its gifts of food. Taste was the first sensation to induce him to have more. The stomach was the focus for the mind in primitive man.
Knowledge taught modern man to have more and preserve food in ways he could. Life has sophisticated tremendously in preserving food, be it in the supermarket or home. Man moves about the world more efficiently and comfortably by land, water or sky than before.
Food is close to hand and made easy to carry across the desert, over long distances or even into outer space. How could man complete expeditions of mammoth proportions without having more? Even to the present day hunger is paramount for man because hunger is deeply rooted in the mind.
As life sophisticated, the focus shifted from the stomach to the mind. Man soon began to hunger for knowledge. He wanted more knowledge ever since he got a taste of it.
The taste of more knowledge gripped man as did the taste of food before. So, the search for more food and the quest for more knowledge ran parallel to each other, and it is so even to the present day.
Wisdom reveals that every moment contains the five elements air, water, heat (fire) and earth in time and space. Wisdom reveals that the five elements evolve as what is present in any moment.
Wisdom reveals that what is present in any moment in life cannot be more or less than what is present in a particular moment. Wisdom reveals that man neither makes any moment in life nor the five elements heat, air, water, earth, time and space.
The enlightened have rightly proclaimed that man is not the doer and that man will have what he is meant to have and no force on earth can stop it.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
The path of life for man has been a remarkable one of discovery and sophistication, albeit illusory. This has brought gifts to him from life that he could only have dreamt of, even if that. This, in its turn, has fuelled his appetite for more and more, even denying his fellows a fair share. The consequences of this are well-known to all of us, even from a young age. The path of life for man, however, educated or uneducated, is blessed with the revelations of the enlightened whose deep understanding of life and nature are transformative. Such is the gift of Dr Vijai’s articles. The pathway towards the reality of life itself for mankind.
Julian Capper, UK