Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Back of my mind

Human being – the one animal which god bestowed upon the ability to ‘think’ as in comparison to other ‘animals’. This ‘thinking’ when used as a positive connotation leads us humans to great extents in each facet of life. But when ‘this thinking’ goes on an unconstructive trait leads us humans to murky facets of human survival.

These various facets of human existence are certainly evident in many great achievements and manmade catastrophes in the world. World wars, nuclear bombing, wars both at an international level and national level is one side of the human persona. Love, like, warmth, care forms another aspect. Respect, reverence, admiration, worship can be named as the third. Anger, hatred, jealousy somehow gets imbibed in the human minds leading to some disgraceful actions. These various facets of human nature can be seen in the day to day life depending on the circumstances a person is subjected to.

What interests me though is the fact that this ‘mind’ sets apart all human beings. Brain functions for more of the rational decisions we take in day-to-day life, but the experiences we face in the routine life linked with emotions are stored in human body in a place called as ‘mind’. The nurturing and conditioning of this mind forces the body to function in a certain manner. Unfulfilled aspirations, unattainable relations, unachievable desires can make the mind an unkempt place. But on the other hand successes for the efforts, directed energy, learning from each experience can nutrition the mind to ‘behave’ in an appropriate manner.

Where one can see the human minds going great depths to attain love, gratitude in life, there is an evil side of the human psyche too on display. The so called ‘grey shades’ of human mind. As universally accepted fact that the constructive mind when applied in a productive way can leap in bounds for the human being ,destructive mind can lead us to a path where only hell prevails.

A case example to establish this relation between the true cause of the ‘mindful’ or ‘mindless’ behavior was when I could see both the sides of human psyche in one of the more revered festivals for the Hindus. The much scared act of worshipping the almighty can display a variant of human mentality. The act is same, to worship the lord, but there are several ways to ‘display’ their affection. One can see worshiping the lord being practiced as a business venture: thus commercializing the ‘sacred act’. Putting on exorbitant prices on puja, unnecessarily charging for doing some basic things in ‘sacred places’ have become the order of the day. We are nothing but falling in the traps of these fraudulent menaces. To add to the agony are the unruly fights which happen on streets during procession, in scared places like temples, thus questioning the ‘sacred act’ of worship in totality.

I was utterly shocked and shaken to witness the many rowdy shades of the human mind unfolding in front of me when I happened to attend this year’s Ganesh festival procession. On one hand was the ritual of the procession being followed where thousands of devotees throng such places who are drunk. The sacred act of immersing the ganesh idol is accompanied by these unwanted elements. How on earth can one allow such dirty rudiments? To add to the fury is the havoc they create in such crowded areas when they lose control of their senses. Unnecessarily belting someone inhumanely, unsettling the crowd, eve-teasing women are some of the ‘regulars’ on such an arena. Many people have lost faith in the divinity of the public procession due to these cheapos.

Briefly an analysis ran in my mind after being an onlooker for the procession which was - Human beings though are conferred with the ‘uniquely different’ biological features , differ from each other in terms of individual actions all because of the mind, the emotional baggage that they carry with them.

Perhaps! That is why the phrase ‘back of my mind’

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