Instinctive Perception

After a very long time, I did struggle to think of a suitable title to a blog of mine....!

Even now, I ain't/am not, quite sure! (whether it is 'the' apt one'!)...

Well, (or ...While) we all know, most varieties of life forms learn instinctively (or, let us say, for the sake of.... our couch-potato-convenience, 'they have it in-built' in them!)....

Kids of monkeys just know how to climb... Kids of fishes know how to swim... Kids of lions tigers, etc know how to hunt their food.. Also, the mom's of these kids do not get admitted into maternity-ward, nor do they take the kids to a doctor to find out 'what ails them'...

While we all know... (what I said above), what baffled me was... these life-forms/species, even know what to do when there is a natural calamity like an earthquake/tsunami etc... Some 7 or 10 generations prior to that would not have seen such a calamity, in those small creatures!

Okay... doesn't matter to us (only some botanist/biologist... 'needs' to know these things, to 'somehow' get his doctorate, etc... and our food is linked with the salary that comes with an assured job that we have already with us !)...

Now, when our memory doesn't suffice as a point of reference... 'google it'... It is so comforting!

Are we humans, really stripped off, of 'such' perceptions? Some few people , at times turn out to be right, when they blurt out their 'gut-feelings'... instinctive-feelings... whatever (Hey....!!... the use of 'feelings' ... only confuses us further! Feelings seem to relate with 'emotions' apart from the feel of heat, taste, smell, pain, etc... because... it is a 'feel' of that 'gut' an abstract thing, .... when we already don't feel anything-more, about what passes down the throat!!!)....

When somebody exclaimed “eureka”... was it a result of a 'thought-process'?... the abrupt 'discovery'? (The deer clearly 'discovers' whether the tiger/lion.. prowling within its striking-range is hungry-enough or not.. and that-decides... whether to run away to safety or not... Unlike most of us who run away from a cockroach/home-spider/chipkali-lizard/etc...! Now, keep debating whether that deer 'refers' to its data-base server, the memory, or the brain's processor/whatever, before deciding!)...

The learning-curve... We know, kids have it more!

So, there is a 'chance' that their instinctive-receptivity is slightly better, since the data-base has more of 'free-memory' than occupied bites! (Oh! I bungled... the base where the data is stored, not the base-of-data-bulk!)....
Big-people (scientists, who had nothing better to do, when their credentials reached far higher than that of anybody around them, to 'now-ask'.... what are you doing?), tried observing 'babies' to learning to swim (they dropped the babies into large tubs of clean water), tried observing babies discover the typewriter keys, when only one of them was kept unlocked and the rest cannot be depressed, and a key 'a' corresponds to mention of/hearing-of a 'sound' designated to it... They say, the learning is faster (and without much of adult-intervention!... School teachers are said to 'interfere', rather than intervene... and it is psychology which says so, about our education system!)

The question that I see before me was therefore... 'are we humans endowed/equipped with lesser instinctive-receptivity, than other species?'... or “is it that we somehow ended up allowing a continuous interference of memory-reference, which effectively blocked this instinct-receptivity?...

When a mosquito bites, the cells around that place 'fight back' and we feel the swelling, itch etc... The instinctive response is still available... When medicines are unavailable, we still get-well, but with a slight delay... meaning, medicines are right within us too!...

Somewhere, I started suspecting the word 'intellect' to be linked with instinctive perception (while the mind, with its memory 'looks' for something that is already pre-supposed! At banks, people search for a 'difference' in the books of accounts... and just-keep-searching.... Elderly people 'look' for the specs, and kids remind, “grandpa' it is right on the top of your head”... These are examples of memory-driven-searches, where our sensory tools are directed by thought to focus, not allowing inputs, as they are on the outside!... The 'difference' , the culprit was right under their 'noses' with several 'ticks' against it, but the discovery happens later when looking at it with a 'blank-mind')...

Another interesting thing is, we easily spot a stone, but tend to overlook a snake coiled nearby it!

What happens, when we happen to preserve this 'instinctive' learning, via observations not dominated by mind, its memory etc?

What happens, when our 'safety-concerns' keeps tagging us along all the while, quite needlessly too.. and thus-perhaps, blocking that instinctive urge to observe+learn?... I don't know! I can clearly mention my own experience, for instance... I did 'expect', that my colleagues around 'may' feel persuaded to observe, why I 'happened' to be doing things a little faster, and with far-better accuracy too? It is about 'data-entry'... a very safe example, when odds are against me... The learning of 'how to key-in', was only when the gadget is/was available, and that happened when the proverbial-learning-curve was supposed to have faded out, with age... I happened to do it more than twice as faster than 'average' people around! It got 'noticed'... The monitor, monitored by eyes at far-off-place echoed having noticed it.. People around 'sensed' a threat... the bosses might ask, “Can't you too do something closer to it?”... And ironically, the 'bosses' ended up imagining my 'limits' to be beyond their imagination-too!,... Actually, they did not allow their own equipoise to function, logically-atleast... They scrambled to throttle me, probably driven by their target-chase, to somehow-get-things-done, rather than expanding their potential to reach untapped resources in 'resources of other humans' around!.. Well, my senses were 'normal'... I could see, the situation was not going to be any different, even if re-located (as offered to me later during an exit-interview)... Like any rubber-band, there was indeed a limit, up to which I could be stretched, and beyond it, it was just going to be 'stress' and not stretch!... I quit!... But that is not the point... Two divergent ways of deploying 'observations' neither of them accompanied by “instinctive-intellect”, or rather, an observation not driven by memory-oriented-concerns! For me, it was almost like an animal which moved out of the 'danger-zone' a little ahead of humans... (Yep/yes... several others 'dropped-out' prematurely, even without the gold of the 'golden-handshake', but not without significant damage to their nerves!)... If somebody were to ask me (and they did too), 'why quit so early?'... like a dumb animal, say a donkey, I too gaped at them, fumbling for words to be superimposed on my gut-feeling the sensation that 'when going gets tough, the tough get going-out'!

This 'repulsive' response is not something new for me... What was new was the 'deep-instinctive' communication that seemed to 'seal' the bond of a perpetual relationship, between two pairs of eyes, that of mine, and the teacher, when they met for the very first time, ahead of any known form of conventional communication!... Almost like a humble timid and tiny creature like me sensing the imminent, obvious and irreversible spiritual-gulp from a giant-predator, right in front, reassuring so mightily, that any escape from it is now... out of question! (Oh! Only a mind can question! Animals don't question us, ever!)

Yours (whatever in me that persuaded a blog of this kind),

psn (28th of April, 2015)

Appealingly attractive

Appealingly attractive!

There was a video clip .....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPi4HTtqBEQ

Both the toys are quite “attractive”....

But the 'attraction' offered by one is repulsive to the baby, while the other evokes a cheer!

When both are placed together, the sharp-attraction of the repulsive one over-shadows the soft attraction of the other one!

A student seeks an appealing attraction, towards his work/project/submission/whatever, from the evaluators.... The student's judgement about what-might-appeal to an evaluator contributes to the 'presentation' style of what ever is submitted...

There was a movie 'Sindhu Bhairavi'... It was a novice at music, who educated the master of music, into 'how to present' a subtle music in a more appealing form, toning down the complexities at its initial stages!

A few successful salesmen earn their salary more-due-to their appeal finding skills, rather than the quality of product itself....

A spiritual seeker does not bother about any appeal in others towards his own 'seeking' ... If it seems to irritate the others, he moves out of their way! The tools and techniques of Aghori's for instance, evokes a repulsive emotion in 'normal' people, and hence they seek a recluse to pursue their activities of quest...

A spiritual Master, happens to be the best-one at forging an appeal into something that cannot be even “presented” in a perceivable form, to a disciple stuck into just-sensory-levels...

The Mastery of this 'forging an appeal' is almost like a self-evaluating-software, when it is about a spiritual arena, and the indicative yardstick is perhaps the yet-another-subtle capability of the Master to 'sight a potential candidate' when even the candidate himself is unaware of it!

At least about worldly aspects of handling the material-life.... are we going to outsource our own perception, into the hands of somebody who hones his skills into deciding as to what should appeal to us? Ha..! That is what the present day TV commercials seem to be doing! They almost decide what we ought-to-like! The news-media is not to be left behind! They decide our emotional inclinations too! Isolated instances of theft, molestation, insults, abuse etc dominate the priority far above global concerns like environment (which can wipe out the human race, if neglected), or starvation (which topples the balance against other life forms!).. etc..

Sensitivity perhaps decides the direction and force of appeal, as to who wins the tug-o-war!

Yours, Unappealingly unattractive,

psn(24th April, 2015)

Okay Gadget!

“OK Google”

It took a few days for me to grasp, what it meant, when it said “Say OK Google”...
I had seen it early enough...  But it did not persuade me strongly enough like those Income tax authorities, who say it  with also some 'dire consequences', and we just comply, ...  whatever our other compulsions!

But when I did see, that it responds to anything 'suffixed' to that “OK Google”...  it opened my eyes! Whew!...   That's what I have been doing with even people around!  Making the “right kind of noises”..   and getting away with it!...

“Pleezz”...   And it is mandatory for the other fellow in the seat to park his bottom a little more squeezed to allow mine to be 'housed' in that narrow space! A tailor will look baffled, when his quick calculations out of 'tape-drill' pratice says 'impossible-fit' in that half space!

“Okay, put your hands up NOW!”...   This may not work in rural India as yet!...  The cop says some other slang (utterly irrelevant to the action sought to be invoked, and yet the response is invariably super-accurate!)....

Am I 'treating' others around like some gadget?  (Somebody reminded me, 'We love gadgets, and use people' or something to that effect!)...

Oh!  The teacher on the spiritual path said “surrender”...   and most of us tried offering our purse, savings, our-gadgets....  a few even offered their own lives! He said 'none of these I want...  it is your surrender!'....     Means?...  'surrender' itself will do?...    (Sounds almost like ... 'just saying OK Google'... is alone enough...  no further words needed?...   Bah the 'action' part is what gadgets look out for, and dealing with everything and everyone around as we would with gadgets, I guess, I too became a 'gadget-like' thing!...  And here the suggestion is 'dynamic state of surrender'?)....

Oh!  Maybe...  that 'reverence' culture that we had, in ancient days, not bothering to even looking at, and then transcending the 'freedom-culture' (West-like)... might be the 'in-thing' of those days...   That 'reverence' style of looking at people around... obviates the need-even to 'surrender'...   Oh! It almost seems like, they just played the 'reverse-roles'..  almost like saying “I am your gadget, Okay?...  do unto me, as you would unto yourselves!”

Yours Okay!
Psn (19th April, 2015)

Our Dealings!

The moment we step out of the house (even if it is a 'home' indeed!), we resolve to deal with 'everybody', a little more effectively!

With a targeted audience, the 'dealing' is preconceived... where as with 'chance encounters' we leave to our emotional-disposition, of that moment, about how to react.. ...

When indoors, we seek that little bit of emotional dealing too...

The 'indoors' ... if it is a home, we 'expect' an exclusivity of 'commercial' angle from the others, while we merely camouflage ours! If that 'indoors' is an office (a regular meeting place), if it is a madhushaala (dumping emotional garbage), if it is a court-room, a quasi-judicial authority(about to adjudicate an appeal against his-own-orders!), the emotional aspect of the 'dealing' is bar-gain-able!

Why do we 'need' to deal at all? (a lone dweller on an uninhabited island, doesn't exactly deal... he 'meets' a situation!)...
A life-timer, inside a prison cell, finds the need to 'deal' with his several-of-caretakers, so that he finds a 'little-bit-of-freedom' (the “basics” is still the same, he is a life-timer!).. The warden, the watchman, the kitchen-food-in-charge... if dealt with well... it affords some 'rest' to his nerves!

Are we not 'life-timers' on this planet?

Are we not 'watching' a baby, all the time... instead of just 'guarding' it, caring it... (the baby gives us a 'look'... as if seeking approval for a mischief it proposes to undertake!... It clearly tells us, “hey, I am right-on... into your class... getting trained, ... 'how to serve a life-term' on this planet!)...

Some of us, really keen to 'free' themselves a little-bit... like those famous 'Nagpur Oranges'... the fruit inside is a bit free within the peel, when it is excellently-ripe!

Freely yours,

psn(13th of April, 2015)

post script: (Oh! During my visit to Mumbai, which was Bombay then... A trip in a local train, made me think of bulls and buffaloes being taken in an open truck to the market for sale... they stand with ropes tethered to wooden bars fixed across the upper edge of the truck's side-walls... In that train, people hold/hang-on... to the bars, packed... standing with eyes 'transfixed', looking into nowhere...! They too go to the 'labour-market' , sell their energy/efforts... back in the same way... in that local train, packed like animals... indifferent to each-other! No dealings during the 'commuting'! Coordination, between two humans, is a matter of chance! The word 'coordinates' as a concept, has wonderful sense/meaning... The location gets 'fixed' if the coordinates are accurate!... In ancient days, any 'sensible' ritual gets started with 'fixing' the coordinates well... “Mamo-paatha-samastha, duritha kshayadwaara..” etc... May be those ancients looked at 'subtle levels of coordination'!).