Response-ability -- which is first ?

I was thinking of this word responsibility , simply put, it is the ability to respond. The sentient being's reciprocation, an ability to believe and also convince others that "I am alive". this is obviously not present in all other insentient beings, like, wood, table, chair, etc... these are objects that need to be cognized by the incognizable conciousness. Knowledge about our existence is present only when we exist. Knowledge and existence go together. Knowledge of an object is cognized only when we exist. Who is cognizing this object, not the insentient body of ours, it is the sentient nature of conciousness.



Ability to respond is present in all sentient beings, from animals - to an entire set of evolutionary creatures... until us human beings. But the fundamental difference is we human beings can think beyond the realm of our body, insentient state, try to comprehend who is cognizing the objects around, who is experiencing pain , pleasure... etc



If existence is required to absorb knowledge around us, which one came first? Is it the objects that we ought to cognize or the knowledge of objects around us, or the knower. What is knowledge worth without a knower, what is a knower worth without the knowledge, and what is knowledge and knower worth in a world of nothing?



So the secret of existence of this world is in the fact that things that we approve of as the world around us, needs approval and recognition, saying, "I know this is a car,I know to drive, I know I have to do this... etc". So similar to the objects, insentient, objects, it is the fact that we ought to apply to others too, the intangible, elements created by the mind, emotions, feelings, all these come to life only when we approve of it. We know and approve of a feeling that is right there in us. Hence this entire world that is around, our feelings, interactions with others everything is just a an "Identify - acknowledge" process. The funny fact, is this same identify - acknowledge process continues in the drream state too, from the Waking state. There we still identify and acknowledge elements, both sentient and insentient, how many times have we been waking up from a chasing lion/ tiger. yes, at this waking state, we do have a sense of relief that the tiger was just in the dream, but the approver / acknowledging person is also approving the fact that "I" was experiecing a dream, and none of that was real, now "I" in another state.

Truly the same way, the ability to respond exists only in two states, Waking and the dream. Now there is another state, where there is no dream, no acknowledgement, identifcation, process happening, it is just "being" state, the state of deep sleep. how many times have been through this, day in and out, when we come out of it, it is a sense of total forgetfullness, we dont remember a thing what happened, why ? For the simple fact, the ability to remember is fathomed only by our cerebral process, this is put off completely, the mind doesnt control any more. have you ever wondered, we cannot get into deep sleep mode programatically, ie, we cannot predict someone getting into deep sleep. We may have sleeping pills, that drowses us away into non-activity stage, but it is still not deep sleep. Ouyr minds are active even then, dreams / hallucinations are possible. in the deep sleep state, mind, body nothing is being acknowledged. There are two important inferences that can be drawn out of this.
a. We automatically are given a glimpse of the secret to happiness in this world(so called identified, acknowledged world), which we dont analyze.
b. We dont need, body, mind or any of the structure that we claim to be ours in place, to be happy.

In the deep sleep state, there is a witness, which whitout the use of body , or mind equipement "sees" the state, but cannot explain, as if it has to be explained, we have to borrow words out of this world, but that will never match the actual experience. So the experience beyond this world in the deep sleep state, holds the answer to all our issues.

Analyse, what is that, that knows the experience, but cannot describe. !!

Roles - as a actor in life

Birth, brings out the opportunity to don several roles we ought to expect. Right from birth, be it a girl / boy, we go through a myriad of roles to evolve ourselves. Son - Brother - lover - husband - father - father inlaw - ... what not... it is never ending.

are we really born to go over all these roles, and yet understand the reiterating eternal truth that this life is not to go over all these, but to be used as a tool to get out life itself. You would have donned the same role in your previous birth ( for all those past life believers), even otherwise, in the same life span, we don the same role or have the opportunity to take up a specific role multiple times, but most likely we correct our mistakes and learn from it. that is exactly the same law applied to rebirth. In every birth, with a little realization, we evolve to the next best state. all we require to run this life is just mere grace, who are we, to even decide on our wants, wishes, dislikes etc... we dint come with any of these when we were born, infact our crying entry into this world is a good enough metaphor to prove that the journey henceforth is painful.

Are we able to do justice in any role that we have donned, by the time we realize our mistakes, majority of our life span is gone. Back biting, bitching about others, kith and kin, hate crimes... what not, majority of all these trivialities form our life, and dictate our daily activities. what is wrong in accepting one's imperfection, that is the first step to evolution. No one being can be perfect in all the roles donned. Claiming to be perfect in a role is utter foolishness, as if that would have been the situation, the guideline for a role would be the bible.

Expectations, out of each role, is another googly to the entire spin of life. We don a new role, and expect things to be normal, where as the interactional elements in the society, or family has its own expectations. See the stark irony, expecations are themselves perceptive phenomena, and we expect each of the interactional element;s expectation to match and yield positive results.

Why waste this precious life over such trivialities, focus on something constructive, something that is more real than surreal... focus on how to get out of this life without getting caught in all this triviality. the only answer that is there for all these trivialities is seek who is the one enjoying pleasure / happiness, or experiencing pain / grief.

hold on to Ramana's feet http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/teachings.html

Selfless service is the key to getting out of this attached detachment.