The Will of Existence

The will of existence is explained here with different phrases interchangeably, it is the will of the unknown, the will of the invisible hand and the will of the whole. Osho brings up the notion of will of existence following the complicated idea of our ‘engagement in shaping our destiny’ yet in absence of control over it, the reign of our destiny is not in our hands but in the hand of The Unknown. The invisible and the invincible hand which in here; Osho refers to Krishna as he appeared at the War as the Charioteer of Arjuna and guided him, held the reign of Arjuna’s destiny and dictated the esoteric knowledge of spiritual transcendence after which Arjuna, having undergone a process of self-transformation realizes the will beyond individuals but of the whole, the will of the existence.

However, in Arjuna’s case he had Krishna who revealed the secret knowledge when he suffered from the existential dilemma but how can we know the will of existence? As it happened to Krishna, his individual will of not fighting the war contradicts the will of existence which in his case was to fight the war and conquer the whole world. Osho says that we never know the will of the invisible but only if we ‘let go of’ oneself, which he means to annihilate all forms of ego and let it flow. The analogy of ‘straws’ in the flooded river is plausible to an existentialist point of view that the straw which strives in hopelessness to stop the river and the other that flows at the will of the river current.

 Emptiness versus Nothingness

As I sat near the window and began to read a book my soul broke loose the prison (body), soaring in the pattering of rain and the rustle of wind across the Fjord, the frequent attack by the sneaky wind over the Fjord sent chill to my bones and fright to my soul. The striking fluctuation of the waves represents the rage of the mighty wind as the receiving waves at the shore slaps the cold, mossy rocks without mercy. Many times have I wondered of how deep this Fjord might be and many times have I asked myself of those ultimate questions, meaning of and life, authenticity and the nature of reality. These very questions ignited my quest for search, fueled by the ideas of great minds. For me, the Fjord before me gives an idea of reality, the true nature of all phenomena and its pseudo-existence. Yet it frightens me, if language could vent my ideas clearly? If there is a mental camera, it could do a great service to project this idea better rather in words which belong to the material world to represent an immaterial thing.

Of freedom

It often leaves me in question and in a quandary when I think of freedom. My fellow Tibetans struggle for freedom where I heard of slogans like “freedom is my birth right”, but that is an issue of national self-determination. I came across many such statements like, “freedom is not free”, “freedom has a price” or “freedom is not a license”. But to clear my idea of freedom I need to portray its shades from every angle and drive out the clouds of confusion in my thoughts.
Freedom in philosophy is a metaphysical problem unsolved from the time immemorial; it has been a philosophical bone of contention among the thinkers of all time. There are schools of thoughts which completely reject the notion of free will or freedom while others advocate freedom as the essence of human life. 

Of Selfishness

As a child, I was brought up in a Buddhist community and am still a Buddhist for no doubt, but as I grew my kind of Buddhists have been changing with the passage of time. First of all, I was taught to think Karmic Law as a fatalistic idea which deluded my visions of life as a child. The motto of the school goes like “Others before self”, which time and again my teachers and elders at the school exhorted to practice and follow. As a curious mind, I used to argue among friends for the absurdity of the statement. Because I saw no reason why we put others prior to self and this is the reason why some of them used to call me selfish.

Angst of human condition

Yesterday I was in the lap of nature, pasturing my flock to the riches of the plain and among the lowly hillocks we played hide and seek. Beneath the cloudless blue sky and upon the soft green lush I could find no space not carpeted with billowing grasses and gleaming flowers. The riches of pasture were my treasury and the flowers of aromatic fragrances were my pleasure. Mountains were my guardian whose protection guards me from the tempest of the evil blow and Pastures my nest wherein I fall slumber, dreaming heavenly Angles passing by the lane across my pasture.

My flock was my only companion whom I care and feed on the rich pastures and fresh rivulets. As Night starts to draw the veil of darkness and heralds the stillness to reign the realm, I led my flock to home leaving nothing behind save the howling of the wolves and the cry of the wailing wind.

The Self

The purport of the word “self” goes beyond our conventional notion of self, it means both material and immaterial self. The knowledge of existence of “self” depends on how we perceive things and the debate has been as old as mountains throughout human existence. Philosophers since antiquity have been searching across the valleys of obscurity to trace the abstract self. The bone of contention has been the idea of an independent self, which never existed and humans have been clinging to the “notion of fixation” and “self” which blinded human intelligence of knowing true self.

John Locke denied the change of personal identity with the change of substance (material) but considers consciousness as an inseparable part of self. To him, consciousness is not the whole, but a pivotal part of what is called the person. It is the perception which is to the person what light is to the eyes. To perceive what is being perceiving and perceived.