6 Elements of Harmonious Living

Every moment of your life is precious because you get it only once and it passes on whether you misuse it, disuse it or make the best out of it. Purpose of living a moment, every moment should be getting a happy feel. There are only 6 elements of living which are indispensable for each and every human-being. And, mind their order of priority as provided by their placements below.

Beware, the 6 subheads below may sound well-known to you through noises all around from vested interests to drive you crazy and loosen your purse for them, but the senses I attach to them are different from what you may be knowing. So, please check out precisely through the details.

Your Inspirations

Forces in the form of persons, nature and wherever you put your faith on are your inspirations like the air you breathe in every moment of your life. They are the sources of your spiritual strength you need every moment of your life. But these sources may be misguiding you too, if you have not chosen them by yourself but gone by advices of others, your routine education, or as told to you by your parents and social contacts. Religion is such a mischievous guide often thought to be an inspiring force.

Your parents must be the first and foremost inspirations for you but not their advices on other inspirations. Problem of modern parents is that either they are too busy to be too good, or too misguided to be too bad to you. Respect them as your parents, but judge their ways of life lest these corrupt your life too.

What is not realizable by you through your intellect and wisdom of your sensory organs can't be an effective inspiration to you. The best inspiration is one that moves with you every moment of your life and inspires you at your pace. Some books may pass this test, so are their authors - living or dead.

Some people opine that a spiritual guru is a must for uplifting force of life. This is sheer nonsense. If you need a real guru, go to your primary school teacher or someone like him - the greatest one to inspire you so far. For final guidance in this matter, ask your own spirit of life and none else.  

Your Spirit  

Apart from owning the physical persona, you are a spirit composed of your wisdom and intellect, built on your instincts, education and experiences so far. Your self-esteem, self-confidence, value system, etc are important attributes of your spirit. Respect these and keep these beyond bargains of your routine and commercial life.

Your spirit is your guide every moment of your life, particularly in moments of distress and excitements.    

Your Persona

Basically your health is your persona but it extends beyond that to what is usually known as your personality that includes everything in you including your spirit of life, discussed above. It is built through breathing in clean air, intakes of healthy food, body-care for protection from climatic extremities through clothing and shelter, physical hurts, etc and regular physical movements of your organs - for productive work, a creative endeavor or an exercise. Better use your physical movements for productive purposes and for saving yourself from paying for others services to you. Better be self-reliant as far as possible.

Your mental health is an important part of your persona as it is that of your spirit. It is ultimately determined by the concepts of life you pursue in your routines, relationships and profession. Being crazy, having a craving, getting excited or distressed often, etc are indicators of bad mental health. Some people consider a good memory as an indicator of mental health which I beg to differ seriously. In my view, it is immaterial what you forget but what you remember is important as an indicator of your mental health.

Outcomes of a healthy persona are your feeling healthy every moment, your impressive looks, and your sensuality for healthy relationships with your chosen persons. Never mind if you are not accommodative to everyone for your family and social relationships. None is made to accommodate all.   

Your Relationships

Each one of us has relationships, or is expected to have, in four sectors - with the self, within the family, within one's society, and with professional colleagues, superiors and subordinates. Anybody failing in having a sweet relationship with the self would fail in making any relationship of some value. Loving your own values is the criterion of relating to the self.

It is better to have good relationship with everyone coming in contact, but it is the best to take care of your value system through your relationships too. So, don't worry if you are at variance with some persons in your contacts.

Again, it is not important whom you drop from developing sweet relationships, but it is critical whom you keep in contacts. Ultimately, you are known by the company you keep. So, don't tarnish your image by pleasing everyone, be your real self in developing relationships.  

Your Aspirations

Etymologically as well as in practice, aspirations are set just opposite to inspirations - former for influencing the external world and the latter for getting influenced by the external world. Human life has a purpose of coming into existence and living for a long period of time for is intellectual evolution.

Every work has an intellectual value in it, respect it, enhance it and continue with it. This makes every moment of life a moment of intellectualism. So, live purposefully every moment - at home, at work and even during a relaxation. Set your goals on long term, medium term, short term and even for every momentary step of your life and move on with them.  

Your Economy

Human life has evolved differently from natural way of living, hence has economic considerations at every moment of it. Take care of your personal economy through working productively enough for a living and support to the family. But don't nullify yourself with the productivity syndrome - keep on working for wealth losing health and other pleasures of living. Keep a balance between personal, working, family and social life. For an average person, recommended durations are 12, 6, 4 and 2 hours, respectively, on an average in a day for a happy and contented lifestyle.    

Meaning of Being a Perfectionist

Though perfection means having zero tolerance, perfectionism does not mean to ensure zero tolerance, but to keep it in mind in order to do one’s best as a performer and work for minimizing tolerance in the performance. This target makes the performer to go on improving his/her performance every time, all the time.

Perfectionism, being indeed unachievable, has been thrown to trash by many persons. I pity them and differ with them on their notion of it. In-spite of my conviction, like everybody else, that the perfection is never achievable, I am adamant on being a staunch votary of pursuing perfectionism. Here is my logic.

How many shooters hit their targets right? I think very few are able to do that. Those who often miss the target for being novices or for other reasons of their own, should they forget about the target and keep on shooting in the air without any objective? I think, your unanimous answer would be 'no' because there has to be an objective target for making efforts to hit that. Same thing is true for being a perfectionist wherein the target remains without ensuring the targeted outcome.

With an aim for achieving perfection, most of the time you are not going to achieve it, but you will do your best in your performance if that remains your target. Nobody can be a good performer without having a target in mind similarly, nobody can do his/her best without perfection as the target. Therefore, every perfectionist aims at doing his/her best, and with every new effort, he/she finds him/her closer to perfection than before.

What is true about perfectionism is true about ideology too, which I discussed in another article of mine on functionality of intellect and wisdom. Ideology too remains unachievable in most of routine actions of a person, yet its remaining as his/her standard norm, the person gets wiser day after day and goes on moving closer to it. Had there been no preset ideology, there won't be any target for achieving with the performance becoming without any objective.

What creates doubt in people’s mind about perfection is its intolerance to deviation, while tolerance essentially remains a way of life for each of us. With tolerance remaining unspecified in definition of perfection, it is not set at all but measured on the outcome for reducing it further in the next effort. This remains the objective of the perfectionist. The deviations in outcome from being the perfect may be different for different fields, at different times for different performers. But surely, the perfection must remain everyone’s target which means trying to do the best to minimize the deviation.   

Thus, perfectionism is not a mere slogan but a practical way to go on improving performance with a hope to become perfect some day. 

Collapse of Social Conscience

In the year of 2000, I came to my native village Khandoi in district Bulandshahr of Uttar Pradesh State of India after I had almost left it in 1961 for my further studies, career and professional duties. I had decided to close on my Engineering Profession and involve myself in Social Engineering with the objective of improving quality of life in rural India to begin with my own native village. On my arrival in the backward village from a developed urban culture with flourishing profession, people were astonished and when I told them that my objective was to work with them and for them for getting better services from the government and administration, they seemed to welcome me. But it proved to be a faked gesture as just a formality.

My Struggle on Electricity Front

With my basic concern of improving quality of life of people in the village I presumed that the people would welcome if I get them better electricity supply, transport facilities, etc. I knew the universal fact that everything has a cost, and better services would mean more cost to the people. I began with electricity supply to the village having a badly shattered electricity distribution lines from the government monopoly. People were hardly getting any supply and whatever was available was with voltage fluctuating beyond limits of tolerance, and with no reliability. Only thing people liked about electricity supply to them was that it was freely available to them for the government monopoly company never bothering for revenue against their electricity supply. Their losses were compensated for through government funding. In return, the officials concerned were happy for no complaints from the people about their poorest possible services. So, things were going on peacefully with both sides satisfied in their own ways.

But this was not the picture in my mind for which I had arrived in the village to resettle myself permanently. I didn't want anything free that costs money, and I wanted to have good quality of electricity supply and related services from the officials concerned. I insisted on villagers to have authorized electricity connection and pay for electricity consumed by them. About 100 agreed and became authorized electricity consumers while other 400 insisted on relying on stolen electricity.

With my efforts and contacts at the highest level, things related to electricity supply in the village were improved. This facilitated the authorized consumers as well as those involved in electricity thefts.  Irony of the situation is that unauthorized consumers of electricity are actually source of personal incomes of officials hence they have no interest in having authorized consumers for their organization.

In due course of time, condition of electricity distribution network has been deteriorating for carelessness of officials and its misuse by the people. As soon as I get it corrected, misuse is increased and situation begins deteriorating fast. So I have developed a feeling that by getting the network in good condition, I serve those involved in electricity thefts thus promote misuse of electricity.

I Give Up

Electricity supply case was first test case of my social concern, wherein I have been proved wrong. Now the situation is that the Government officials meant to serve people, as well as the people themselves have become highly immoral, and both are very well serving each other's purpose of getting maximum from others' pockets with paying for what they get. Both seem to be made for each other and complementing each other with their illicit characteristics. Persons trying to intervene to improve the situation are out of sync of both and disliked. This is where I stand today in the village. So I give up on my concerns for the rural people and their problems.

What I am to Do, Now

I can't help my society in improving quality of life of people as a native of the village, but there is nothing that debars me from improving upon my own strength through studies, research and authorship as a global citizen. So I have decided to remain indoors for most of the time and devote myself fully to study of Vaidic scriptures which indeed have scientific knowledge of immense value to humanity, not only of the present but for a long time to come. The most important part of this knowledge is related to human health, promising lifespan of about 500 years.

I have been experimenting with knowledge available in Vaidic scriptures to improve upon my own health and hence my lifespan. I have set a target for myself to have the lifespan of about 250 years. I am quite hopeful on this and making good progress. I want to prove to people that Vaidic scriptures are of great value to humanity through my own life. 

What does it Mean to Humanity

Every individual is principally concerned with three subject matters - his/her own life, his/her Society, and the Governance he/she is bound to follow. For each of his/her actions and efforts, he/she looks at the outcome balance with respect to these 3 concerns, with an expectation of some positive results through his/her own perception. 
Irony of human life is that all these concerns can't be taken care of simultaneously for mutual confrontations of these. Therefore, the individual sacrifices his/her own interests on one concern or the other. For this sacrifice, he/she wishes to get compensated for through other concerns. If this compensation is missing, the person refuses to make sacrifices.
In all such cases, it is the Society that is ignored and suffers the most in the individual's concern for his/her own life and his/her compulsions under governance system. Ignorance and sufferings on social front too cost the individual heavily but secondarily and mostly in the long run, causing increased sufferings for the whole humanity in the long run. This is why humanity has been suffering on account of social discipline.
As far as India is concerned, the situation has been perilous for a very very long time, and there is very little concern for it by individual members of the Society. Hence, the doomsday for India is closing on a dark future for the Nation, Society and the Individuals.   

Having Progressive Psyche with Pleasure of Contentment

There are two philosophies of leading one's life. One says that a person must work for progress and on this path there is no need for him/her to stop. Currency coins of this philosophy are words like 'competition', 'dynamism', 'advancement', etc. Henceforth, we would be calling this way 'progressive philosophy'. Another lifestyle philosophy advocates developing a feeling of satisfaction with what has been achieved to enjoy life. Although, this seems to be the objective life is meant for, it is opposed by progressive philosophers on grounds of developing complacency, hence is counter-productive. We term this 'contentment philosophy'.

The contentment philosophy has been the hallmark of religious and spiritual preachers throughout human history, but for others only. They themselves have been found involved in amassing unlimited wealth, authority, luxuries, etc for themselves through doing business of virtual commodity of God. Although, these exhibitionist preachers seem to have massive following in common innocent people but none of the followers follows what is preached to him/her in his/her practices of real life. Hence, for the followers being faked like the preachers themselves, we keep them out of our preview through this discussion. Even then, the contentment philosophy doesn't lose its luster of bringing happiness to human faces.

In practice, we enjoy water when thirsty, rush to grab a meal when hungry, we stop taking these after our needs of these are satisfied, and feel contented. This doesn't mean that we would never again enjoy taking water, or rush for a meal. This is where and how the contentment philosophy is pursued by everyone even without any preacher or even being aware that we follow a philosophy day-in and day-out. We need no exhibitionism for it, it is purely instinctive in all forms of life. Even with this universal pursuance of contentment philosophy, we are not rejecting the progressive philosophy for its immense contribution to progress and development of human civilization.

Two above-said philosophies may be graphically depicted as shown below.

 

Two Philosophies of Life

From the above discussion, it appears that the two philosophies have their exclusive fields of application in human life, and these can't be mixed up. These two exclusive fields of life may be named as 'home' and 'work' using contentment philosophy and progressive philosophy, respectively. This is what I propose to counter here. Two philosophies may be made complementary to each other with accrued benefits of both for every individual.

Pause in between to Enjoy

The third philosophy as hybrid of the two outlined above is to have pauses in between progress efforts to enjoy gains of the progress already made. I would like to name this philosophy of life as 'Propause Philosophy', depicted in the diagram below.

Propause Philosophy of Life

Specific steps of pursuing this philosophy are -

Plan for making progress efforts with a fixed short-term and conveniently achievable target for reaching in the step,

Pause on reaching the target, review the progress made and enjoy until you feel rejuvenated for the next bout of efforts,

Plan for the next step of efforts with another specific target for achieving,

Continue the process of efforts and pauses mutually sandwiched, … …

With pursuance of this philosophy, it appears that time of pause goes waste during which some more progress would have been made, which is not the case in reality for three solid reasons. Firstly, the wholesome purpose of life, efforts, progress and achievements is to find happiness. Unless you have it through pauses, whole process of living remains a waste. Secondly, each pause rejuvenates the person to make efforts with higher efficiency for getting better results with lesser efforts, the the rate of progress at each step is enhanced, adequately compensating for the loss of time during the pause. Thirdly, every pause provides an opportunity for reviewing the past efforts and results thereof suggesting what might have gone wrong as a lesson for the future steps. This further improves performance. 

Process of Ageing

Time stamps a lasting impression of everyone's body and mind. In the first quarter of century, both grow and get enriched. Second quarter of century witnesses slower rate of growth of body coupled with higher rate of growth of mind. Third body growth is stagnated but growth of mind continues with enhanced rate. Fourth quarter of century finds the body maintaining status quo and the mind continuing to grow.

Ageing Process

Ideally speaking, the process continues and may cover a few centuries until the body begins to decay reaching the terminal stage some day as depicted above. It all depends on how an individual maintains his body and mind in healthy and active state with key being discipline in all aspects of life with rejuvenation in between through pauses as stated above. Human experience of Vaidic Era informs us human lifespan may go up to about 500 years.  

Considerations for Age Factor

With age of a person going above 50, steps of efforts and target need be designed with consideration of ageing on the body and mind. Firstly, the person must engage him/herself in more of intellectual activities coupled with reduction in physical exertions. Secondly, the steps of efforts and targets must be gradually reduced with aim at enjoying life, rather than destroying it with hard work.   

Worst-Governed and Most Corrupt State of India

Within 3 year rule of Yadava-Muslim junta government in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) has become the most backward and the most corrupt State of Indian Union. People of the State were fed up with this government within one year of the government in office, hence they voted in large numbers to BJP lead by NaMo when an express promise to dismiss the corrupt and religion-based government was made by Modi's representative and election manager in U.P.. But after coming to power, not only the promise was forgotten, Modi extended his friendly relationship with the Yadava head of the government, and a personal relationship with Mulayam Singh Yadava, the seed of corruption in U.P. politics. Now, any official, person or organization can get any benefit from the government after paying commensurable money to politicians heading the government for which all rules are sacrificed.

Contradiction

While the present government of U.P. has raised salaries and allowances of State Legislators from INR 55,000 to INR 99,000 per month, pension provided by the same government to senior citizens is INR 300 per month. minimum wages for a regular government employee comes to about INR 30,000 per month while Planning Commission of the Nation has estimated that INR 28 per day is enough for survival of a family of common people. Can there be more Aristocratic rule than that is going on in India with the label of Democracy in the State of U.P. Since the Authorities have usurped all the powers in their hands to deal with the people in any way they like, the Autocracy can't be fought out by the suffering people under legal framework of the Nation. Unruly bloodshed of those in power seems to be the only option available to people to correct the situation.

Electricity Supply Administration

Chief Minister of the State is also the Minister Incharge of Energy Department, and is credited to make it the mst corrupt and the lmost deficient in in supplying electricity to people of the State, except to constituencies of Yadava family members and some Muslim dominated areas of the State. For all others, particularly to rural areas, the supply is often in minutes. While the officially declared roster is for 12 hours a day, the average supply duration remains 5/6 hours a day, with the rest diverted to sponsored thefts of electricity for apparent personal gains of officials and administrators of electricity distribution management. Here is an example - Electricity supply during night of 11/04/2015 had been for about 30 minutes to the Author's village Khandoi, for 20 minutes during daytime of 12/04/2015, and for 10 minutes during night of 12/04/2015 up to 6 am time of writing these lines.  A complaint was sent to Helpline and MD of the Discom, but with no results. This reminds me of days of Mayavati rule in U.P. when every complaint used to create a flutter in the officialdom concerned. Yadavas have no regard to public grievances.

Politics of Vote

India's distorted Democracy based on victory of maximum votes rather than real Democracy based on victory of majority votes, usually a political party gets elected to power with support of about 30 percent of the population. Yadavas got elected to power last time with votes of Muslims, Yadavas and some related classes only, and they plan to return to power in the next election too with the same support. For this, their concern is limited to Muslim and Yadava voters only for whom they are doing everything under their control - even with use of all sorts of unfair and mean means. All State funds are being provided to these communities only to retain their support with total neglect of the rest of the population of the State. All public resources of the State are being directed to legislative constituencies dominated by Muslims or Yadavas with a single point program of retaining their support. As a result, about 70 percent population  of the State is miserably suffering under the present government in U.P. State.

Triple-Attributive Human Nature

Swastika

We learn from Vaidic scriptures that the Nature in its virgin form is balanced with two parts of goodness (Sattwa), one part of defensive spirit (Raja) against evils, and one part of destroying the evil forces (Tama). With this balance, everything remains calm, quiet and in order for the evil forces remaining fully controlled and goodness prevailing the environment. This applies to every society or any other naturally-evolved system. Same balance is present in personality of a newly born baby working fully under control of his/her natural instincts for survival and growth.

Then come formal and informal education into play, with grasped part of it by an individual called his/her intuition. Major parts of both the education and the intuition being artificially maneuvered by seniors of the person may be right or wrong, having one or more of the above-said trio of attributes deficient or in excess. Hence the balance may not exist, causing disturbances one way or another, whether it is a social order or an individual's personality, or a medicinal material. The disturbance is the cause of all the motions.

Under balance of three attributes, everything remains calm and quiet, materials remain non-reactive, society peaceful, and individuals just survive through procreation. The situation is what is often called the Nature (Prakriti).

Humanity moved differently from keeping the natural balance through gradual evolution of individual intellect and social civilization to add comforts and conveniences to human life - for producing more results with less effort. With every individual trying to find more comforts and conveniences, they began competing with each other, leading to exploitation of less resourceful by those becoming more resourceful. This added more distortions to human education systems, hence more disturbed individual intuitions. In the din of disturbances, the balance of three attributes was forgotten.

Female and Male

Every individual being has attributes of both male and female. A person is commonly known to be a male or a female based on what attribute dominates in his/her body. But what we mean here by male and female are the basic attributes constituting a persona. Female attribute is the procreative force (Prakriti) attained through balance of three attributes of goodness, defense (of the self) and destruction (of the enemy). For this balance, the female attribute is not active, hence needs external support for protection of the self.

In contrast with female, the maleness has an unbalance of the three attributes of goodness, defense and destruction, with one or more attribute dominating the personality. This imbalance eliminates his procreative capability, and makes the person active, and principally work as procreator through the procreative female. Thus, the male can't procreate by himself but needs a female body as medium of procreation. Conversely, the female can't procreate without the active male. This mutual dependence of male and female attributes for procreation makes the two complementary to each other. In-spite of complementation, the male attribute is always an active ingredient while the female attribute is its passive complement. This also supports my earlier derivation 'whyhumanity is male-dominated'.

Genesis of Attribute Thesis

The above-said three-attribute thesis was framed during Vaidic Era through study of 4 female personalities of those days - Swastika, Seetaa, Lakshmee and Saraswati, wives of four sons of Purooravaa of Deva race - Brahmaa, Raama, Vishnu and Lakshmana, respectively, the founder of the first Nation on the Earth on Indian subcontinent. Until that time, only city states existed. Brahmaa was not only the seniormost but most innovative theorist and scientific thinker. With unprecedented development of the Nation, many wild races came to land with malicious intentions of establishing their political domination on the land and people for their exploitation. Four prominent of these wild races were Yadu, Asura, Dravida and Yavan forming a junta against the Deva race. Their leaders killed Brahmaa. This raised a thunderous revolution in minds of Deva race people for getting prepared for defense of the self and destroying the enemy, as only their goodness was not enough for moving on their mission.

Lakshmee

While Seetaa and Saraswati took charge of Goodness attribute (Sattwam), Swastika took charge of Defense attribute (Raja) with form of Durgaa, and mighty Lakshmee took charge of destroying the enemies with form of Kaali. With this organizational setup, they continued on the path of development with crowning of Chandra Gupta Maurya as the Emperor of Indian Nation. Thus, the three-attribute thesis was established and materialized. 

  

An eBook Relevant to Each of You

The Self of a person is neither his/her body nor his/her mind, neither his/her physical health nor his/her mental health, neither his/her intrinsic characteristics nor his/her extrinsic conduct, but a sum total of all such things forcing him/her to think and lead his/her life maintaining his/her social relationships. Thus, 'The self' is the overall constitution of the person under consideration. It is even more individualistic than the person appears to be for the external world for each of the constituents of the self is individualistic too. If we want to pinpoint one thing that is the closest to the self is the individuality of the person that isolates him/her from all others yet makes him/her part of the society and environment surrounding him/her.

Psychology is the study of a human-being the way he/she thinks and relates him/herself with the external world through his/her speech and actions. Thinking of a person is most often different from his/her conduct, but still depending on it. This proves that the person intentionally creates this difference between this thoughts, words and actions. The psychology takes care of this fact of human life and incorporates in itself reasons of this differentiation.

This makes 'Psychology of the Self' a study of the wholesomeness of a person, leaving nothing to be discovered, to be developed, or to be deployed. Hence the study has to be vast, exhaustive and detailed and go through the minutest information on the person. This is possible only when an individual is specifically studied. Therefore, the eBook 'Psychology of The Self' doesn't deal with the specific information of any individual but paves way for reaching that information when the concepts provided in the volume are applied to a specific individual.

Such a vast study can't be carried out or written about in specific time-frame but goes on for a long period with new frontiers coming to light. The Author had been working on this project for 14 years and writing articles every now-and-then. The eBook is the collection of such articles of the Author written by him on the subject.