Know thyself

The most important fact in life that remains a total mystery is to discover oneself. I have found this to be of paramount importance mainly because I think once a person knows what he or she is, the more s/he becomes content.

Of course, being content and civilization don't go hand in hand. Being content is to find out why nature has made you, what is your purpose in life, what is your dharma. To deny these facts is denying the very fabric that makes life on earth possible. After all we need to remember that however far we progress, we still are limited by nature. We are nature's beings, we were not created by us, but by nature.

I am also not in favor of saying that we just sit tight. Human by nature are born with brain that has capacities higher than any other animal on earth. You cannot be not chewing if you have teeth. The tact is to chew the right thing. Humans have every right to know how nature plays its games to control the earth, and universe. And that right we have exercised. Forensic experts can now put a face to a killer whose blood stains are found on the spot of murder by studying the DNA. I can write this article and put it for virtually anyone, who has telephone and modem, to read. Science and scientists, Engineers and Doctors have opened up whole avenues of doing things that only lead to conclude that we are knowing the nature better and better.

As is with everything, even this coin has a flipside. The side that shows that Internet crimes are a cause of panic to everyone, that animals are getting killed everywhere, that we are using up natural resources, and that this year the world has seen such weather conditions, it never had before. Why?

To learn and to know are 2 different things. History shows that while we invented our first petrol(gas) run car, we never imagined that we will be running short of gas, that they can pollute too. When we developed injections for protection from diseases, we will make ourselves so populous that we will start hogging in all the natural resources. And while we continue inventing more things for our convenience we always conveniently overlook its long term implications. I need not explain more, but in a nutshell, by learning about nature, we have made ourselves more vulnerable than becoming more adaptable to the nature. Ha! What a paradox! I think what we forget, and what I already mentioned earlier, is that we have not created earth. It was a creation by natural factors, it was a chaos that made it, it was right combination of chemicals. If we mess it up, rather than gelling with it, someday its going to go really awry.

So where does it all start? It all starts by knowing oneself, knowing one's own dharma and finding a role that suits us in the world.

In the end, I know I am opening another argument - the inventors dharma was to invent things. And that is where conscious comes into picture, that is where education comes into picture and that is where culture comes into picture. That will be next part though.