Probable Solutions

Progression of ideas:

1. What is the situation? Awareness of Self and World.
   
2. What is the general problem? A sense of doership coupled with a lack of purpose.
3. What is the symptom of the problem in human? All knowledge is subjective and all actions are a result of conditioning. The situation is unsettling.
4. From inquiry, what are the probable solutions to the problem? a) Get rid of dualism to eliminate self-other split, b) Get 'objective' knowledge to understand everything, c) Live in duality and operate with subjective knowledge but understand you are not the doer.
   
5. Probable Sol #1: Get rid of dualism. Hint: Lose yourself, what remains is non-dual.
   
6. Probable Sol #2: Get objective knowledge. Hint: Lose the subject, what remains is objective.
   
7. Probable Sol #3: Understand non-doership. Hint: Reflect on the core of your being. (Subject of next blog.)
   

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Dissolving Duality: an Unsolvable Problem

As long as the ego (sense of 'I') exists in an individual, duality exists. Actions of an individual, motivated by reasoning on imperfect knowledge is bound to have effects on the individual as the ego presumes responsibility for the knowledge, reasoning and actions. As there cannot be any objective judgments such as right/wrong, good/bad etc about such actions, the individual is in limbo.

When the ego dissolves (this depends on whether ego is a real/illusory entity!), I think, all actions will become completely unselfish. When there is no doer (ego), there is no ground for the effects of actions to affect the doer.

How can an individual with ego attain the state of dissolved ego? I don't think it is possible because all actions of the individual with ego produces effects that affects the ego and only bolsters its presence.

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Root Cause: Duality

Effect: Uneasiness due to uncertainty

Cause: Duality

Cause -> Effect: {Duality + Body/Mind} -> Imperfect knowledge -> Uncertainty -> Uneasiness

Symptom of the correct solution to the problem: To be at ease every moment

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Stating the Purpose of Existence: an Unsolvable Problem

Existence: Everything. Examples: The chair I am sitting on, dust on the ceiling, a distant star in a different galaxy, mental concepts like atomic theory, patriotism etc.

Awareness: The fact that I am able to make this claim about chairs and stars means I am aware of chairs and stars. Somehow, I know these things are different from me (as I am also self-aware). Labeling them and scientifically understanding and manipulating them stems from this awareness.

Also stemming from this awareness, is a question: why is there an existence rather than nothing? Basically, what is the purpose of existence?

As an analogy, what is the purpose of a cell phone? Because man invented it, we can firmly state its intended purpose. To put it simply, one way to state the purpose of a cell phone is, it can be used to talk to a distant person. The important thing to note here is that, in stating the purpose of the cell phone we did not mention how a cell phone looks or works. The implementation of the cell phone itself is not needed to state its purpose.

It is my premise that the parts cannot be used to state the purpose of the whole. In our cell phone example, we used the concepts/objects: use, talk, distance, and person etc to state the purpose. Moreover, we did not mention the screen, keypad, antenna etc which are parts of a cell phone to state its purpose. But the parts need to be used to describe how the parts put together achievs the stated purpose.

From the cell-phone example, we can note that there is a difference between: a) stating the purpose of an object and b) describing how the parts of that object satisfy its purpose. The purpose of any object is stated using objects and concepts external to the object in question. Whereas, description and relationships between parts proves how the stated objective is achieved.

Coming back to the original question, what is the purpose of existence? We should, similar to a cell phone, be able to state the purpose of existence without involving the parts that make up existence. But the problem here is that existence encompasses all objects and concepts. There are no objects or concepts above and beyond existence that we can use to state the purpose of existence. We have to conclude, then, that it is impossible to state the purpose of existence.

The purpose of existence is beyond man's understanding. So, complete, perfect knowledge is impossible, for we have a question (what is the purpose of existence?) for which we cannot reason an answer. Hence, knowledge in the conventional sense is useless to solve this particular problem. This being the case, as long as we are aware of existence (duality), this problem will prevail and remain a cause of uncertainty.

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Problem (Observation: 5/5)

Uneasiness due to uncertainty. Uncertainty due to incomplete knowledge.

Everyday Life (Observation: 4/5)

What is the basis for your action?



Courtesy for picture:
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
Author: Gerd Gigerenzer, Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classic)

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Human Society (Observation: 3/5)

Why such extreme inequality?

Ten million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases. 25% of hungry people are children.
(just one of the many inequalities)

Links:
http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/introduction/hunger_who.asp?section=1&sub_section=1
http://www.fao.org/es/ESS/chartroom/gfap.asp#