Right Approach to Observation

A few questions were raised by my friends today. The first is about my belief in rebirth. The second was about the role of the Guru: whether the Guru is actually necessary for the spiritual pursuit. I feel that both these questions are interrelated and the answer lies in the right approach of observation. 

We observe all things with our senses. These senses give inputs to the mind which interprets these inputs and makes sense of them. Do we see the limitations of both these processes? Our senses operate on a very narrow band of reality. For example, we can see only a very narrow band of electromagnetic waves called light. We are not able to see even the ultraviolet and infrared waves. We can listen to a very narrow band of sound. Similar limitations exist with respect to the other senses.

To a certain extent, we have tried to overcome these limitations of senses with the help of scientific instruments. For example, with a microscope, we can see what we can not see with the naked eye. With the telescope, we can see too far away. We have also made machines such as X-ray machines and ultrasound machines that can see the waves that we can't see and convert the outputs into human-readable formats. However, our ability to understand such inputs is quite limited. For example, we have not yet been able to observe what goes on inside the Earth despite living on the Earth for so long, leaving aside other planets and solar systems and more than 200 billion galaxies and each galaxy having on average 100 billion stars like the Sun. We have yet not been able to observe the activities inside the atom. We have only wild guesses about the quantum world. Thus, we understand that there are limitations to the observation through senses. 

Now coming to mind, it's a very powerful tool with certain inherent limitations. The human mind has been able to understand many mysteries of nature yet it is far away from having a complete understanding of the same. The human brain has done billions of research and has written millions of books, yet it is nowhere near the understanding of basic forces of nature, the happenings inside the atom, the crucial questions of life and death, the genesis of this universe, how life took form on earth and so on. 

The human mind operates with two very basic limitations. Firstly, it evaluates every new possibility against the existing knowledge. Generally, we are reluctant to accept any new possibility that goes beyond our logic. The underlying foundation of logic is our own experiences and knowledge. All the great inventions in the past have been due to the leap of faith taken by the scientist. The greatest of the scientists could not believe their own discoveries because the moments of faith are followed by the doubts created by the mind. Galileo's discovery about Earth rotating daily and revolving around the Sun was also met with opposition from within society and fellow astronomers. He was tried and found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. 

If I could imagine this movement on a global scale, it's the same as the expansion of the universe. The entire universe is expanding from just a dot after the big bang. Each of the stars and planets is moving away from the center of the universe at a very high speed. Yet at the same time, planets have their own ecosystem. They have their own mass, atmosphere, rocks, and mountains. Earth, for sure, has life forms and we don’t know about the other planets. So there are two movements, one to move with the expansion and the other to hold on to the accumulation and sustain it. The same two movements exist in the human mind also. We wish to expand to the universal truth and at the same time to hold on to the knowledge and information we have. When we are born as a child, the first movement is very strong and we wish to explore everything. We wish to expand. As we grow up, we become overloaded with the burden of knowledge and information and slowly give up on the first movement.

The second limitation of the human mind is that we accept only those ideas and concepts which suit us. We are very fragile and insecure and therefore cling to the ideas that give us security and safety. We don’t wish to examine death because that reminds us about our temporary existence and makes us comfortable. Like a pigeon approached by a cat, we close our eyes and just pretend that death will not catch us. We subscribe to the idea of heaven and hell because that suits us. We all feel that we are doing good deeds and will lend in heaven and that gives us psychological security. We believe in the concept of “God” as someone who will take care of us as a child and the moment we have difficulties in life, either we start begging or cursing the same God.

Coming back to the original issue of Guru and rebirth, the question arises that with these limitations of senses and mind, what is the right approach to knowing reality. I feel strongly that first of all, we need to have a commitment to truth. If we have this the rest will be taken care of. If we focus on truth, we will be able to observe the truth all around and if we focus on insecurity and fear, we will see insecurity and fear all around. It’s a choice.

If we focus on truth, the existing knowledge and information, the fear of death, the fear of social disapproval and all the psychological insecurities become meaningless to us. We start observing things as they are and not from the spectacles of what we wish them to be. We examine the reasons for the apple falling from the tree, the earth revolving around the Sun, and the realities of life and death. We will observe many such things with an open mind. We will be able to relate some of these observations to our present knowledge and information and some go beyond that. We neither accept or reject them. Rather, we just make efforts to know the truth.

We see each of the objects on Earth being attracted toward Earth. We observed and gave it the name of gravity. We have so far not understood the cause of the gravity but we know it exists. Just our lack of awareness of the underlying cause does not make it unscientific. We have also discovered the formula by which this force can be measured by our observations. The problem with the spiritual path is that we do not wish to observe. We are in a hurry to reach conclusions that suit us. That allay our fears and insecurities. We need a guru who can put his hand on our heads and pass on the result of his sadhana to us. We have no fundamental interest in knowing the truth. The truth about the United States was discovered by Columbus and not his Guru. The role of the Guru is limited to showing the right path. If a person is committed to knowing the truth, each and everything around is a teacher. The biggest teacher is death which teaches us the temporariness of this body and mind but how many of us want to take this lesson?

Coming to rebirth, I feel that most of us believe in rebirth out of our strong desire to continue to live after death and most of those who reject this concept, reject it because they do not want to compromise on their enjoyment by investing energy for the next life. I feel that this entire concept is ill-founded. When this entire universe has come out of the "dot", we all have also come out of that. We are as vast as the universe and that’s why our basic nature is to expand and explore. It is the same "dot" that is manifesting in all of us. After death, the body will again merge into Mother Earth, and the “dot” is again free to come back in another life form to explore whatever is left to explore.