THE TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGE

There is a technological momentum that is gathering speed like a digital tsunami rolling over the world, leaving us breathless and flailing to catch up. This wave is a reality of our times which we have to face, a challenge put to us that needs a response. We need to take a collective deep breath, pause and look at what is happening. Can we not reflect for one minute? We need to look at what is being created for good and ill. Then decide if this is where we want to go and then how it should be done. Are we to be led about by the nose? Remember the train has left the station and we are on the ride with or without our consent. The challenge for all of us is to look at all the personal and social implications of this movement and how best to channel it into ways that are best for all of humanity not just the powers that be. Are we individually going to have some input and control over this digital wave or are just going along for the ride and accept the consequences passively. What we have to understand clearly is that throughout man's history we have progressed greatly on the technological level and this change appears to moving almost exponentially. Throughout our history we have climbed an amazing technological ladder but simultaneously our ability to understand ourselves, deal with our all too human frailties and participate harmoniously in the wider world of human relationships and community has barely progressed since we left the caves. This is the great conundrum and challenge of our times: we can increasingly understand and utilize the outside world for our purposes but we are hollow and primitive inside. We are playing with fire and our internal resources are not up to the task. The great challenge is inner change not the outer technological momentum. Unless we quickly catch up and understand ourselves and our relationship to our fellow man we could be in for a very difficult future. I don't believe that man yet has the depth or intelligence to wield the great forces we are unleashing about us. Unless we meet this challenge now the consequences could be dire. We are at an event horizon of the heart and mind where we have to start taking personal responsibility and have the courage to meet the problem head on. We need a growth spurt of the human spirit and if we can't expand our abilities to cope as people on this planet we might end up facing the extinction of all that is great and wonderful in the human experiment.

LOCATION

I am able to do all this while living in a tropical forest in an obscure part of southeast India. In touch yet sublimely removed, observant yet able to see as from a great distance giving a detachment that enhances clarity. It is lovely to wake to the exotic and varied calls of birds hidden throughout the glade, a riotous cacophony of sound. To have a light breeze rustle then waken the torpid great trees while the bamboo groans as it reaches ever higher into a searing scorch of sky. The music of nature descends into my thoughts like an aural landscape and a vibrant silence lies; just out of reach. A peace enfolds the morning air and reason sits quiet; in awe of nature's presence. To work in this setting is a privilege and a blessing. Being is a state of grace.

...and patience needed when sporadically torn from the web. Yet that has it's charms too...

SATCHITANANDA

This Sanskrit word steeped in the philosophical being of the Hindu tradition is one of the great conceptions of the ancient world, still relevant today. I have a personal interpretation of what this idea implies for all of us.

SAT: Existence, Being: We are here in this world. No discussion is possible without this essential fact as the central reality. We have this one unique chance to be here and participate in this life story.

CHIT: Consciousness, Awareness: our innate human ability to know we are here, to be aware of it; yet bound to our knowledge of it's ending, recognizing the fleeting nature and preciousness of life. Also, our ability for some control, choice and will in this existence with the responsibility that implies which was only instinctual before our species arrived upon the great tree of life.

ANANDA: Bliss, Ecstasy: the quiet joy in being alive on this planet at this time, to be able to celebrate that revelation and to keep it stamped upon our hearts as we make this journey full of light and darkness.

This three part concept defines the basis of our being, the foundation formula for seeing in the now: what it is and how it feels. The amazing fact that we are part of this lonely, miraculous planet that by sheer fortune allowed us to eventually walk upon it and to be able to do so with sensitivity, awareness and reason. To enjoy the absolute fortuitousness of it all.

NOW HERE MAN

....he's a real nowhere man...

Be Here Now.

There is somewhere we have to get to, yet we are already there: now.
Time divides into three parts as we all know. The past which is the accumulation going back to the beginning of it all, if there was one, which begins for us at birth and includes all memory. It contains all the traumas, abuse, pain and joy that we have endured. We carry all this around, reminding us of all our mistakes and regrets including what we didn't do we wished we had. We constantly analyze and obsess over this history and allow it to condition and taint everything that happens in the present. Then we have a future into which we project all our past and then try to use it as a blank slate to write all the wishes and desires we have never accomplished and as a very clever escape from the now. So then the future is written....
That leaves us with the now. Now is the great wave which we sit upon for eternity, endlessly moving on that continuum which is the present. Yet how much of the memory of the past and our fantasies about the future impinge on that present. If we watch carefully we realise that we drift through life in a dream which we occasionally wake up from and realise where we really are, which is the now. Is it possible to just be in that moment? It appears we need distractions and amusements; or to dwell upon the past which has left us behind or worry about a future which never comes in the way we imagine it, thankfully. We can have no real future if it is a mere projection of our past. What we need to do is sit wide awake in the now. And then figure out why it doesn't seem to be good enough for us as we seem to be escaping from it as fast as we can.

Be a Now Here Man

It might be good for you.

GUIDELINES FOR DISCUSSION

I would appreciate if all dialogue on this blog proceeds in a considered and rigorous manner. The main components consist of: respect which means accepting that we all have our own world views and biases which need to be challenged but in a clear, fair and polite way; listening which is the most critical component as we do so little of it today and way too much talking, in other words, reflect upon what another is trying to articulate and understand it as best you can before responding; be passionate in discussion but not emotional, care about your views but don't personalise the individual or the discussion. I want to raise the tempo of discussion to a higher level not to recede to the babble of conversation that is accepted as normal discourse in the modern world. This should be a learning process for all. Debate is good, arguing and trying to shout down or wave our egos at each other is not needed or wanted.
Thanks.

DNA



DAMN NEAR ANARCHY

HELICAL UNRAVELLING

ORIGAMI EYE



DNA is the code of all life. The genome is the map.



What I propose to do with this blog is decode rather than deconstruct, explore rather than just observe. Since I was child I loved the stories of the explorers of old: Magellan, Cortes, Columbus, Cook. The sagas of their adventures fascinated me as they travelled into uncharted waters and lands. That type of exploration is gone and the results of it in retrospect have not been too great; but we will leave that for another discussion. So an exploration into any and all aspects of life is what I propose to do. Hopefully a dialogue will ensue. The warf and woop of life is the subject. I will constantly try to develop new themes of discussion and try to tackle them from as many angles as possible and try to extricate the valuable from the wasted, but then is anything wasted in the universe.



I will lay down some guidelines, signposts next....