The right amount of Love

There was an interesting passage in this screed against Quaid-e-Azam:

A man who cannot extend unconditional love to his children, who casts them out for following their hearts, is a cold and callous human being, and not a leader worth following.

I’m not condoning what the Quaid did with regards to Dina Wadia but even so I don’t think material attachments, as a rule, should override ideological underpinnings. Disowning one’s child for marrying outside one’s religion is foolish but there are reasons as to why one would want to disown one’s child.

As an aside South Asia (especially Pakistan) seems moribund in its obsessiveness with the past and after the jump I’ve posted a passage, which my wife sent me, about Mindfulness in the present. Her contention is that the Old World in general looks backward rather than forwards to a gleaming future hence why the best Research Institutes in the world are West Coast USA.

Mindfulness teaches us to become increasingly engaged in the present moment, and not allow distressing past situations or events to keep us endlessly dragged down by their mental and emotional dead weight. Although it is wise to not live with total pie-in-the-sky delusion and to maintain a healthy sense of realism in terms of what has come before may indeed influence what is both current and what will be, many people allow the scars of the past to remain unhealed for what they rationalize, justify or excuse as legitimate reasons to keep them open that unfortunately can create on-going paralysis and self-perpetuated misery. As I discussed in my November 2008 Living Mindfully column “Mindfulness and Addiction,” attachment to pain and misery is often just as common as addiction from pain and misery.

“Many people struggle with an addiction to creating anxiety, pain and suffering in themselves and others, and the payoff they receive (even if it’s negative), including engaging in: approval/attention seeking, denial, verbal and psychological abuse/bullying, justification, pathological lying, blame, victimhood, gossip, attracting “exciting” yet harmful people into their lives, petty drama, control/power, etc. These shadow behavioral addictions, that become ingrained in our internal operating system and neural pathways in the brain, are often the foundation of the more blatant addictions that are being openly discussed in today’s confessional environment about vulnerability to drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, etc

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anan
anan
7 years ago

Very beautiful. This is the goal of religious and spiritual life . . . freedom.

When the origins of the thoughtwaves of the subconscious mind dissolves, this is called:
“Chitta Shudhi”
Patanjali [Father of Yoga philosphy] called it:
“Yogash Chitta Vritti Nirodhaha” [Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuation waves of the subconscious mind ]

Such a person is divine . . . superhuman; and unaffected by anything. An example is the great Palestinian Yeshua ben Yoseph (Jesus); who was unaffected even by crucifixion. I think Jesus entered a high meditative state on the cross to show all of us how nothing can harm or affect us. I think similar parallels can be drawn to John the Baptist, Fatimah, Ali, Hussein, and many of the great Sufi masters; who outwardly seemed to have the hardest lives and the most difficult deaths.

Mindfulness has been with us since the beginning of the human experience and religion.

With respect to the past, what is wrong with remembering all of it, learning from all of it; and being unaffected by any of it? In the Eastern tradition people are reborn until they are unaffected by all their past memories from all their past lives.

Butul Miah
Butul Miah
6 years ago

I don’t think looking to the past is bad when you can get something useful out of the analysis. In Bangladesh[i culture], there is this stupid zealous sentimentality that clings to the past even when it’s long past the point of being of any help. That can become toxic if left to fester.

However, sometimes the best remedy is not mindfulness, but forgetfulness.

Brown Pundits