Some are proud of their achievements,

and some are proud of their riches.

But the ones that sleep well,

are the ones humble enough to seek the REAL.

And when the eternal sleep comes,

then you have to leave everything and go.

But the ones who seek the REAL have nothing to let go.

So, be sure of the real value of the things you aspire,

before you go after the objects that you desire.

Just like our dreams, 

this world of ours is the imagination of GOD.

However, how we live our life is 

left to our own imaginations.

We are not what we are made up of

but what matters is, what we make out of it?

Like the way we are captivated by the ornaments we keep, 

although solely  gold only is there,

We are imprisoned by the body we keep,

although solely GOD only is there.

So, use the body as just an over coat,

which gets replaced when it is worn out.

Remember you are just the will in reality,

Which gets obscured as an human entity.

So, exercise your will to perfection,

and not let the mind its deviation.

Everything that we perceive is an illusion, 

where attachments cause affliction,

because attraction and repulsion during perception cause disruption.

So, do not accept what comes up in the mind as the best solution,

But keep correcting it in logical progression.

However, our ego keeps us always drifting,

So, to kill it is important in the very beginning.

This world may consider you as ordinary,

but for GOD each one of us is noteworthy.

Each one of us have talents galore,

hidden inside thoughts all over.

To unearth them from the mine,

is the important work which is to be done.

If your problems seem insurmountable,

you are placed high in the big game table.

These are the rules of sport,

which make the game full of import.

All you need is to get your PRIORITIES right,

then success is sure to betide.

Consider your life as it is a movie,

and ACCEPT what comes along without worry.

However the suffering of pain feels very real,

So, be CAREFUL about how you deal.

Remember these words of wisdom,

and sail through in this universal kingdom.

DEEPAK RAM

1.  Philosophy and Psychology

Our minds can be enhanced to a great extent by applying the principles of philosophy and psychology. Religion uses these principles to lay out a format for preaching their followers in their own way. However the principles are just logic and can be decoupled from religion. The practice of philosophy and psychology happens by research on the nature of the intelligence of the higher powers and the nature of the intelligence of the mind respectively.

Philosophy for me is the realization that perceptions with higher powers' view of the world will lead to purposeful and intelligent mind. Philosophy helps us to understand the higher purposes in life, which allows us to be in align with our higher powers.

Psychology for me is the realization that perceptions with right priorities and perspectives will lead to purposeful and intelligent mind. Psychology helps us to understand the mechanism of our mind, which allows us to upgrade ourselves.

Both psychology and philosophy lead to one another. After upgrading our minds by philosophical practices and knowing higher purposes in life, psychology tells us how to do that. After upgrading our minds by psychological practices it progresses to philosophy to explore the higher purposes in life.

2.  Meaning and purpose in life

We can find good meaning in life by exploring and experiencing different aspects of ourselves and the world, according to opportunities and privileges we have, however by ensuring to avoid pitfalls. Other aspects that provide meaning to our lives are overcoming challenges provided by the world, sense of belonging to the group one is identified with, and social services and contributions. Many people fail to avoid pitfalls which result in not so good experiences. If one has a strong hope and a desire to improve by looking at his or her faults it is possible to raise from the pitfalls and rise high. Blaming someone or circumstances is the only stumbling block, which one has to avoid.

There are three major purposes in life. They are sustenance, fulfillment and entertainment in the chronological order of sequence of attainment. The activities for sustenance are to ensure material requirements. The activities for fulfillment are to ensure mental satisfaction and mental upliftment. The activity for entertainment is to ensure the creation and watching of interesting stories. The problem with many is that either they look for only sustenance or they go for entertainment before fulfillment. Entertainment should be only on spare time after ensuring the activities for sustenance and fulfillment.

3. The illusion of life

This universe like any complex, vast and workable system has to be thoroughly tested. If thoughts and feelings of a creature have to be tested, the tester has to become the creature to test it. However, to change forms as per wish to test a creature is only possible if the nature of the tester is a formless one. Moreover, the form that we see must have been first designed by a formless entity, because  the question about who designed the first form becomes meaningless, if it was a form that developed it. However, there can't be more than one type of dynamic entity forming the universe, because seamless integration of more than one type of dynamic entity without any disorder any time is not possible. If there is a single formless entity it must cover the entire expanse or the whole universe due to the reason that it has to be in equilibrium. This means there was no place for anything else other than the single formless entity, before any form could have been developed. Moreover, we are taking about existence, which must have always existed. Therefore it can be concluded with certainty that this universe is a single, ubiquitous formless entity, which may be called, ‘The being' or 'The Brahman'.

If we consider that the universe is a single formless entity covering the entire expanse, then it is obvious that it cannot move, because there is infinite length to move, requiring infinite force to do it. If we consider that 'The being' can’t move and the universe is expanding, planets and the stars are rotating and revolving, and objects and creatures are moving about, then we can conclude with certainty that the moving objects that we see are mere changes in visible patterns on the 'The being'. The fact that objects can be seen in the mirror when they are not in that position also suggests that our vision is the projection or a reflection on 'The being'. In other words the matter that we see is just a surface visual property of 'the Being'. Since 'the being' cannot move, and the universe, which is a reflection of patterns, which constantly moves, we can conclude that when we feel a pain or pleasure, the sensitivities are actually experienced by different spots of 'The being', even if  they are experienced constantly at one part of the body. In other words when we feel a pleasure or pain, the sensitivities have to keep moving to catch up with the movement of the universe in terms of rotation and revolution of earth and movements of our body.

The sensitivity of pleasure or pain can also be considered as just a property in the space in between the atoms because there is no movement in the being and only the properties change by means of execution codes representing patterns sent from somewhere else in 'the Being'. Obviously some codes lead to change in visual effects and some codes lead to change in the sensitivities. Moreover, there are some strong indications that the universe is maintained by some sort of programming on 'the Being'. For example the fact that light behaves like a particle or wave depending of whether it is observed or not clearly suggests that the travel of light happens by some sort of programming. Another fact that suggests that universe exists by programming is that quantum entanglements between particles at large distances at near instantaneous speeds is only possible by prior planning of execution of programs by numerous processors all over 'the Being', much earlier than when we do the experiment, that is when we decide to do it in our mind.

The above points conclude that our bodies are insentient, or without life and the pain and pleasure we experience are impersonal or coming from random spots of 'The being'.

A side effect of the above reality is that the part of 'The being' experiencing pleasure or pain now could be the same part of 'The being' that experienced pleasure or pain some time back for some other person or any other creature. This fact suggests oneness and equality among us in contrary to our mindsets, which always makes us to compare with others for our psychological contentment or elevation.

In conclusion, this universe and the lives of people and animals are illusions while in the reality there is only a uniform, ubiquitous life form, 'The Being'. The bigger illusion is that our bodies are insentient and the pain and pleasures that we experience are actually experienced by random spots of 'The being'.

How does we the realization of the illusion of life help us?

When we consider the life as real and gross our level of suffering during even the least uncomfortable situation is very high. We take ourselves too seriously and hence our problems also are perceived huge. However, when we consider the life as an illusion and subtle, we will take things more lightly and we will suffer less even while going through uncomfortable situations. When we take ourselves less seriously our problems are perceived with less intensity. Because of lower intensity of perception we suffer less, things become more manageable, there is more bandwidth for new insights and there is more self control. There are only three things good or bad that can happen to us. The first one is the changes in our body and our belongings. The second one is changes in our sensitivities of pleasure and pain. The third one is changes in our thoughts. The first two are illusions because they are impersonal. The body is insentient and our belongings are mere reflections of light. The sensitivities are impersonal because our pains and pleasures are fleeting and travelling sensitivities of the underlying life appearing to last in the body due to the travelling reflections of body along with the sensitivities. In other words the sensitivities last only for a nanosecond at one spot of the underlying life and hence they are mere illusions for the body. Therefore, only our thoughts matter. The thoughts really make a difference and are most important of the three. Therefore we should color all thoughts about the changes in body, belongings and the sensitivities as good because they are mere illusions.

Life is about three main aspects. The aspects are to see, to feel and to think. All actions that we perform are for the purpose of maintenance only. Therefore all our achievements are secondary to our primary functions of seeing, feeling and thinking. Seeing and feeling becomes common place when we realize their true nature. Thinking happens in two ways. The first way is the output from the mind to our will as a suggestion. This happens subconsciously. The other way is the input to the mind from our will which happens consciously. Our inputs by way of conscious enquiry and self affirmations are the only ways for improving the intelligence because subconscious inputs are often not sufficient for our growth. Therefore our conscious inputs are the most important aspects to help us to do well in both the three main aspects of life and as well as for success in maintaining life. Four things that everyone aspires are good health, more wealth, more power and better self control. Self control is the most important of these four aspects because without this one the other three can be easily lost and also because with maximum self awareness and self control you can be good with very less of other three aspects. Self control can be achieved to the maximum extent by being one with the source or reality. This can be achieved by first understanding the illusions of life and practicing to be one with the source of life or reality.

How to be one with the source or reality?

You are just the ego. Everything else is not you. Problem happens when the ego identifies with the body which is just a reflection and gives it more importance than what it deserves. Ego takes birth from identifications with some patterns as self. Ego is maintained by identification with thoughts and feelings. Desires and fears add fuel to this identification. The ego hides the reality from us and we become part of the samsara, or the drama of life. Therefore to realize the true nature of the world, we need to first give up our desires and fears, following which we need to disown the body as mere reflection. Furthermore we need to realize that the sensitivities that we feel are transitory but appear constant due to the travel of the reflection of the body along with fleeting sensitivities in the life source. In other words the sensitivities do not last more than a nanosecond at one spot of the ubiquitous life source, even though for the body the sensitivities appear to remain for a longer period, based on the present story of life. Therefore we must realize that the sensitivities are not personal to us, but are part of 'the being'. The sensitivities appear to be present for some duration due to the body's (reflection) movement along with the sensitivities.

After realizing the illusions of body and sensitivities one (our will attached to the ego) must do self affirmations by regularly identifying with different spots outside of the body. In other words we must do the affirmation 'I am that' referring to anything outside the body. When we do this affirmation for a long duration our identification with the body and the sensitivities keep reducing. 

Conclusion

Being identified with the source of life by realizing the illusions and practicing to be one with the source by self affirmations, bring about the kind of self control that is necessary in conditions of extreme sufferings. All types of knowledge and practices can have a place in future and hence should not be ignored but maintained somewhere with the future generations.

4. Mind matters

Mind does the job of thinking and deciding based on the priorities we have maintained for various aspects of life. Firm opinions or exaggerated priorities for various aspects are formed when a mind with high level of desires, fears and ego perceive the various aspects of life. Due to high intensity of perceptions during such cases, our intelligence becomes skewed and our mental bandwidth gets clogged from repeated thinking. Therefore, to start having some control over our minds we need to practice to perceive everything with lower intensity so that our thoughts do not overpower us. 

Thought Management:

We need to realize and remember that thoughts initiated by our wills are different from the automatic thoughts of the mind. Only the thoughts that are initiated by our wills are stored in permanent memory, and only such thoughts become part of our intelligence. The thoughts initiated by our wills are the endorsements by the will of the incoming thoughts, answers to conscious questioning the mind, the conscious contemplation by the will and the conscious reading by the will, from an external source. Thoughts that automatically come from the minds are from a different database. Such thoughts come as extrapolation by the mind of information derived from our sense perceptions or from previous perceptions of high intensity. These extrapolations by the mind serve various purposes. Sometimes their purpose is to create interesting stories. At other times great insights come through these. These also challenge us many times by misguided extrapolations that test our intelligence. Therefore, we need to keep improving our intelligence, as a process, which is separate from the incoming processes of the mind. We need to just take the hints from the incoming processes of the mind and evaluate them correctly by means of deep and calm questioning. 

There are three main areas where our memories are stored. 

a) Automatic regular thoughts come from thought priority queue. These come from our creators' intelligence as an extrapolation of information perceived by our sense organs or from our memories.

b) Our mental inputs and deep reasoning happen from the permanent memory. These are initiated by our wills. Mental inputs are like thinking about or reading about some important statements which improve our cumulative impressions of memories. Deep reasoning is referred to as questioning our minds for improvements and finding possible defects in our existing ways. 

c) Thoughts that form our habits come from habit maps. These thoughts are stored along with habit cues and they trigger when the cuing conditions happen.

For effective thought management, we need to learn to perceive things with less importance or priority so that the thoughts from thought priority queue do not overwhelm us. We need to involve more with mental inputs and deep reasoning and just get the hints from priority queue and habit maps. While our minds keep popping up interesting and unreal stories from priority queue, we need to change our attention to where it is advantageous to us by questioning our mind on what is really important to do at this moment. To get the right answers to these questions we should have provided the mind with suitable mental inputs about the priorities and principles we wish to inculcate.

P.S. There must also be some memory areas in the mind for random thoughts.

5. Contemplation

Contemplation is a means to improve our intelligence by mental inputs of some principles, as a regular practice, in order to correct the priorities of various objects, events or aspects which got exaggerated importance due to possessiveness, desire and fear. Some of the principles or philosophies which help in correcting the skewed priorities of perceptions are as follows: 

1. Everything is as it should be for the moment because there is lot of experience put in to arrive at this point by our higher powers.

2. We are sufficient for the role we are playing for the moment. We need not be perfect at all moments and gradual improvements is what we should look for.

3. Nothing is personal. Process improvements and story lines are more important than personal achievements. None of our achievements and failures are personal. They are just parts of the story and for the purpose of the story.

4. Everything is justified to happen at the proportion at which it is happening. Surely there is a reason for all the negative things that happen. We need to find the reasons with an open mind by putting ourselves in the higher powers' shoes.

5. All are equal if all things are considered. There are more things in common between people than the differences. Most of the differences between people are only in terms of different mental upgrades happening due to different conditioning initiated by self or others. In other words the basic mental capacity is the same for all. Each one is made to appear different by our higher powers, to suit the story lines. 

6. Life is an illusion or a virtual reality. Therefore, we should ensure to not to take anything too seriously. We suffer more from taking things seriously than from anything else. It is prudent to consider our life as a video game and not take our challenges and failures seriously.

7. Everything is for the good. We will realize the goodness of the events later.

8. All differences in perceptions are zero if all the relevant aspects are taken into consideration. The difference between rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, week and strong are only due to our conditioning. We can look at them all as equal if we try to change our way of perceptions.

9. Challenges and misfortunes are there to help us identify our improvement areas to grow. Our growth will have value only if it happened against the odds of challenges and misfortunes.

10. Stories being formed by our higher powers are more important than our personal milestones. We are just playing our roles with the stories in perspective.  

11. Higher powers are always there for our support. They work as per their plan, which is based on our needs and that of our external world. We need to carry out our endeavors based on our best understanding and whereas our higher powers support us based on their priorities. We need to try to sync up our priorities with those of our higher powers.

Since mind's activities are gradual and incremental in nature we need to do contemplation on regular basis to be able to find observable changes in us.

6. Success and types of wealth

When we say a person is successful, we reckon that the person has achieved something which very few have achieved. But the word success may be defined as accomplishment of a goal. However, success should not be looked at in absolute terms. In my view the goals and the level of accomplishment of the goal should be based on the resources and  constraints one has and level of difficulty one has been put through. Therefore, in my view, success is understanding ones resources, constraints, objectives, opportunities and risks and acting accordingly. We build ourselves and our companies as products and specifications to market ourselves and our company to improve our chances to attain our individual and group objectives. The resources include our body and intelligence, time, people, money and other assets one has. The constraints include required resources one does not have and any other disability one has. The objectives include achievement of those goals which give contentment. One may be content with very little where as others may not be contented with a billion. This depends on ones mindset. The opportunities include our individual ecosystem. The risks include loss of health, resources and our specification.

Based on the above logic, following conclusions can be drawn. 

a. More one has intelligence and resources the higher should be the objectives for success.

b. One can be successful even  if he or she  is contended doing nothing. Only our mindsets make us perceive otherwise. This way of being successful is easier said than done. Such a person has to improve upon his himself (product) while ignoring the specifications.

c. Success is a relative term and can not be compared with others.

One may put forth an argument that success should be based on contribution to society. Therefore, one can not be successful without doing anything. I want to defend with these points.

a. Not everyone has to contribute. The pace at which we should progress should not be too fast or too slow.

b. If our creators wanted they could have made it too easy for us. In all likelihood there is no scarcity of resources to make this world. However to provide us the learning opportunity and for us to have some seriousness god have inducted some scarcity.  Considering this aspect we should not work too fast or too slow, but just in the pace which ensures good learning process. 

c. Real freedom is to do what one feels interested in, rather than what the society feels each one should do. Based on pros and cons and individual resources and constraints, each individual should chart her journey. Moreover, it is the diversity of intelligence and other resources that make the world interesting and sustainable.

Who defines our own state of success?

Our marks card is our state of success in our institutions' point of view. Our promotions in the company is our success in our company's point of view. The profits in the company is success in the industry's point of view. Apart from these we should have success defined in our own points of view, which considers a small component of weightings to the others point of view and major weightings to our own points of views based on our own constraints in achieving our own goals. Our objectives are not just our career goals but includes various other responsibilities. For example for someone the answers to following questions may define success, in addition to academic and career view points.

a) Are you frequently questioning your processes and your mindsets? Are you in a path of continuous progress? 

b) Are you confident about taking the responsibilities towards job and family.

c) How do you face challenges at home and work?

d) How do you feel when you are put into difficult situations?

e) How satisfied are you with your life?

f) Have you utilized your time and resources in the best possible way?

g) What are your constraints and difficulty levels in your life? How are you managing them?

h) Have you been a responsible towards family and society?

i) How balanced are you while handling fights?

j) How many times you smile in a day? 

k) How satisfied are you with yourself?

l) Are you regularly noticing signs of improvements here and there?

m) What are your glaring defects? How will you address them?

o) Do you feel that you are not less than anybody?

p) Are you flexible enough to consider others' view points? Do you try to change others too much?

Our own assessment of success is more important than others' points of view because we alone know our constraints and only our own points of view decide about our level of contentment. However, we should be true to ourselves.  This is the minimum requirement for a self appraisal. 

Types of wealth

Most of us estimate our level of success from the amount of wealth we have accumulated. However, apart from financial aspects few other types of accumulations are very important in our lives. Therefore one may say that apart from financial wealth, there are other types of wealth. The important types of wealth are described below.

There are five main types of wealth. First one is the money and other resources which enable comforts in life. Health is the second type of wealth, which is the basis of existence. The third type of wealth is our knowledge and experience, which is useful to achieve things and to cherish them. The fourth type of wealth is our family, relatives, friends and associates. Their importance can never be overestimated.  The fifth and most neglected type of wealth is psychological wealth, which provides intelligence and enables mental stability during adversities. Psychological wealth is gained by regular contemplation of important aspects of life along with their relative priorities. 

The bottom line is that each one of us are successful as we can only do as per our potential. There are attractive and repulsive forces, which take us away from our potential. If these forces are stronger than our potential, naturally our achievements suffer. So, considering the forces or constraints, each one is successful. All that is needed is just a shift in our perceptions to feel satisfied and successful. The panache for all unsatisfactory experience is to change our perceptions. Our feelings of success or failure is ultimately determined by our perceptions. One can perceive success either by doing what our mind reckons as success or one can change the perception directly. It is prudent to thoroughly research and guide the mind about what is success taking into considerations, all the relevant aspects. For example for a person who is facing lots of challenges, just smiling at the end of the day after completing the days work, itself is a great success. All the five types of wealth are equally important and therefore we must invest in all the five types of wealth creation. Instead of looking for a specific type of wealth we should have gratitude for the type of wealth we have and try to grow in the area conducive to us.

7. Happiness, love and bliss

When we are happy about getting something, we give more importance to getting that thing than to be happy, thinking that getting that thing made us happy. Therefore, when we lose such a thing we become unhappy. Therefore, we can remain happy if our priority for being happy is more than anything that may happen. How much a particular aspect of life gives us happiness and the duration of happiness are dependent on the amount of importance we give to that aspect. Similarly how much unhappiness a particular aspect of life makes us and duration of sadness are dependent on the importance we give to that aspect. Therefore to maximize happiness we should have gratitude for what we have and reduce the importance of what we lack. We should also downplay our problems so that they do not overwhelm us. 

One more thing that we can do to remain happy is to decide on something which will always happen and will give us maximum happiness. For example we can daily contemplate with firm belief that the passing of a day gives maximum happiness. When we do that, we will frequently realize the passing of a day with enhanced happiness. This happiness will gradually overshadow everything else. This type of contemplation leads to a very gradual change but will be very effective.

Happiness, love and bliss are similar states, with differences in reasons for the state and degree of their fleeting characteristic. To be continually blissful, we need to either perceive everything as blissful or our attention should be always on something blissful. While the first one is difficult as in this case we need to change our ways of perception, the second one is practically impossible as our mind continually brings in new thoughts, where our attention goes automatically. We could try a combination of both the approaches. In this, while we try to perceive everything as blissful, we also try to bring back our attention to something that is permanently blissful. When the reason for the bliss is an external state, it is more fleeting than when it is for an internal state. When the reason for bliss is for the internal state associated with body or mind it is more fleeting than when the reason for bliss is at the state of intelligence. However, to achieve continual bliss based on our intelligence, it takes very long time as in this case we need to undertake philosophical practices to upgrade our entire cumulative impressions in our memories. 

One of the important things to achieve is to love everything around as they are. The things that block us from realizing true love are our likes and dislikes. Real love is experienced when we realize equality mindset. Our selective likes and dislikes are impurities in our mindsets, which create attraction and repulsion. The attraction and repulsion give rise to wants and aversions. When a mind with wants and aversions come across unexpected facets of reality, the state of bliss gets disturbed. To achieve a continual state of bliss we need to work on every aspect that could break a state of bliss. Our mind should be trained to perceive all those aspects as good.

Love with a reason is not the true as loving with a reason is actually loving some aspect of our desires than the person, thing or any other external or internal state. You do not need a person to love. Its all in the mindset. The closest word to love is to admire and that of pleasure is to want. When you admire something which changes its state then our state of happiness will also change accordingly. Therefore we should choose to admire something that remains the same for our lifespan. One such thing is continuous passing of time. When you admire fully there is no space for want. When you fully want something there is no space for admiration. True love comes from our sufficiency and yet something to admire about. When we are not sufficient it is a combination of want and admire and therefore is just a glimpse of admiration and desire. When the admiration comes from sufficiency it has a higher position than wanting. We progress from higher levels of want to higher levels of love.

In summary, to be continually blissful, we need to either perceive everything as blissful or our attention should be always on something blissful. We are happy or sad by an event only because we give more importance to that event than to being happy or sad and paint the event as happy or sad based on our priorities in life. In other words we will be always happy if we could change the priority for being happy to be more than anything that may happen. This requires regular contemplation on the priorities which we wish to have. One way of doing this is to imagine about all the things that made us unhappy in the past and perceive them as they were for our good by smiling through. This will change our mindsets about those situations and will enable us to be happy when these situations come by in future. When we truly love a person we see our reflection in that person. In that state there is no difference between us and our surroundings. To achieve this state a lifetime of philosophical practice may be needed.

8. Intelligence, knowledge and expertise

If our creators wanted they could have made us more intelligent and knowledgeable. It is very clear that their main intention is not to get things done from us for them but to make an interesting world with lots of stories along with sustained learning opportunities for millions of years. Therefore, they have made sure that things are not too easy for us and we need to gradually improve ourselves to understand and master our world. It is because of the same reason that a man with experience can do better that an intelligent novice. The gradual path of learning is planned so that the development of the world is at the right pace and also to enable creation of desired stories. It is because of our creators’ plan of slow progress, that we forget what we study and have to do regular practice to remember the subject. One important side effect of the slow learning process is that we will never be able to suggest improvement areas to our creators, who have millions of years of experience. It is the first experience of the world that made our creators the most powerful. Our creators gained immense knowledge and expertise by applying intelligence to the resource of life for billions of years. 

Our intelligence can be called as a process of using our will to estimate, analyze and extrapolate the information perceived by the sense organs and the mind. It can also be called as the skill to use our will to enhance our knowledge, expertise, connections and other resources based on logic and the right allocation of time, effort, resources, and people. It is the dynamic processor of the mind. It enhances our knowledge and expertise by questioning the mind for improvements. The quality and quantity of our knowledge depends on our intelligence. Our intelligence is active at every moment in deciding our next thought and action and also in estimating, analyzing and extrapolating the information from sense organs and the mind. Our intelligence decides where our attention points to at the current moment and our knowledge and expertise depend on the time of attention spent in the respective area of knowledge and expertise. In other words intelligence is just processing of memories based on some criteria in another memory location. Similar to in a computer there cannot be any processing or intelligence without memories or knowledge.

There are two aspects in developing intelligence. One is the questioning our mind for improvements and new perspectives, whenever a new thought comes. The other one is spending time on the particular area of interest to acquire incremental and cumulative expertise. The first aspect improves the speed of development and the second one increases the number of reusable solutions. There should be clear discrimination between our propensity for general improvements and the acquired experience to tackle known issues. The first aspect is like sharpening the knife and the second one is learning how to cut different types of vegetable.

One of the areas where our intelligence is usually lacking and needs to be improved is estimating the priority of information. When the priority of some aspects is excessive there is wastage of time and inaccuracy of results. The incorrect priorities are due to character defects that stem from excessive desires, fears and ego.  Philosophy is one of the means of correcting the priorities of various aspects of life. 

Another area of improving our intelligence is to train our minds to look into depth and width of the issues against availability of time and other resources. 

Intelligence is at the best when the mind is peaceful and there is a habit of querying our thoughts, actions and perceptions at the right intensity and frequency. 

Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Quotient: IQ and EQ tests are not accurate measures to compare intelligence of mankind. We cannot compare our intelligence with others because each one has different circumstances. The IQ and EQ tests only test the expertise to solve particular domain of problems. The IQ test tests the expertise in the math, logical reasoning, vocabulary etc. EQ test tests the expertise in the emotional or philosophical domain. Both IQ and EQ are the result of questioning and researching in the respective domains. Our knowledge is nothing but our memories. Expertise is the memory of using some skills. These are mere accumulations of memories. The process of developing expertise is doing incremental practice in the domain of the expertise. Usually it is a gradual process unless someone is gifted by some super power. Some just study the books while others develop the habit of cultivating reasoning and questioning beyond what resources are available and become an original source of information. Having resources or guidance to get a head start is a necessary condition for developing expertise in any domain. However the main aspect to develop is the habit of questioning for improvements. Such an individual will shine in any area of interest in a reasonably conducive environment.

9. Developing self-worth and confidence

Our self-worth should be such that we nether reckon ourselves inferior nor superior to anyone. Such a perception is possible if we think all are equal. We need to understand and realize that we are carrying out roles in life based on the plan of our higher powers. The plan of this world is not on the basis of perfect roles for everyone but of seriously interesting ones with lots of nuances and incremental changes. Those people who have higher achievements have it due to the kind of roles they are playing and for the roles they are playing. They are able to achieve their goals due to the support they get for the roles they are playing. Moreover, our higher powers don't give importance to only the achievers. The apparently non-achievers are significantly important for the maintenance of the ecosystem and for their story content. Therefore, we all have the same worth in the eyes of the highest powers. 

In summary, we need to realize that considering all our circumstances and the belief that god is fair for everyone, we are all equal in terms of our worth.

Confidence doesn't come from surety of success alone. It comes from the realization of our sufficiency to handle the situation. We need to develop ourselves to feel sufficient besides preparing ourselves for the tasks in hand. Confidence comes from true self-worth when it is independent of any outcome. We need to realize that failure is a part of life and not get attached to success alone. Confidence comes when we reckon that nothing really is at stake. When results do not matter and giving your best shot only matters. Giving too much importance to others affects our own confidence. We should reckon that everything evens out and thus all are equal. Looking for perfection in all matters also affects our confidence. Therefore to gain confidence in facing the situation we need to first downplay the situation and make the situation appear menial and manageable. 

In summary, self confidence comes from the realization that we are sufficient for the shot of the scene of the story being directed by our higher powers. We need to only prepare for the future scenes, but for the current scene we are fully sufficient. Our higher powers know us in and out and are sure that we are perfect for the present scene.

10. Desires and fears

The desires and fears when they are excessive they lead to incorrect perceptions, which in turn lead to our giving too much importance to the aspects we desire and neglecting other equally important aspects. This results in skewed intelligence. At their right levels all desires are useful. Moreover, some desires help us more than others. If we desire to be smiling irrespective of circumstances, it is a good desire. Desire to put in our best efforts in our endeavors is a good desire. The desire to look for equality among all people is a good desire. The desire to seek happiness in life is good desire. Problem is when we desire particular results which are not in our control like marks in exams, promotion in career or profit in business. Such things depend on various factors and such desires affect our thinking and cause stress. A small measure of desire of such things cause motivation and an excess of these desires cause disappointments, stress and affect intelligence. We are not ready to get what we desire because our desires only gets factored in our decision making. However, for right decisions we need more things than just desires. For example there has to be considerations for peace, consideration for others, consideration for facts, consideration for decorum, consideration for logic, consideration for acceptance of higher desires, consideration for priorities and perspectives along with the desire to progress. For many people, the strong desires and fears make them overlook the other necessary aspects needed for sound decision making. In other words it is desirable to have right desires, at the right intensities, in the right times of our lives.

When fears are at the right level they make us take action towards enhancing security aspects in our lives. However when the fears are excessive, they cause worries and anxiety. We need to identify all our fears and work on them individually. The action on them may be a change in perception or doing something to prevent what we fear. 

In summary, desires and fears, when they are excessive, they lead to skewed intelligence and they also affect our peace of mind, which prevent us from relishing and appreciating the beauty in apparently trivial aspects of life. In other words desires and fears, when excessive, they reduce the total number of satisfying moments in our lives. Moreover, we will lose a lot of flexibility in our available choices when we have do not have the tendency to accept what has happened or could happen. Besides desires and fears, our expectations  about what is fair for us to get in life, including that of fair fruits of action, may be the cause of immense frustration and disappointments.

11. Expectations and fruits of action

We expect all good things to happen to us and fear bad things from happening. But our lives are like roles in the movies, based on the stories scripted by higher powers, and on the needs and capabilities of the individuals. Therefore we should reckon that only a few can get lead roles and also that there may be misfortunes in life which should be handled and coped with. If we wear the shoes of our higher powers we will know what to expect in life.

When we develop good relationship with our children or parents we give more importance to them than ourselves. Similarly when we develop good relations with god we should give more importance to him than ourselves. God wants us to live our lives with the best of our abilities. However, if things do not go according to our expectations it is just because of the stories scripted by god. Therefore when we give right importance to our god we will accept any negative outcomes and perceive misfortunes and failures with sportsmanship. The stories are more important than our individual roles. There is no way god can develop a story where all favorable things are happening to everyone at all times. Surely the experienced god must have some way to maintain fairness, revealing which will affect the script and the stories yet to be directed. 

If end result is only important than the final end result of everyone is death only. Therefore the journey or the process should be rejoiced and cherished and not the end result. All our actions are happening from the decisions taken from the priorities by which we tend to perceive the various aspects of life. If all the priorities are well balanced then right actions will result. When right actions match up with right opportunities the right result will happen. Moreover, as mentioned in earlier topics there are five types of wealth. The fruits of our actions may come off in any one of the types of wealth and also to any member of the family any time in the future. In short there may not be a direct and immediate consequence between action and the result. It is believed by many that we should not worry about results and only concentrate on efforts. Although this philosophy is useful, the problem is not the results but about looking for the right results. Looking out for results are no problems if we have the right priorities for important aspects of life. For example if the priority for being a better person is more than the marks in school then we will be satisfied with better me even with fewer marks. We should not look a particular result in isolation but understand how they relate to one another along with the relative priorities of one another. Our expectation from others and from fruits of actions lead to loss of flexibility in our choices in life. Moreover, we need to realize that we plan our actions based on our priorities in life and the higher powers decide about the end results or fruits of our actions based on their own priorities. 

In summary, we should have realistic expectations, along with those for negative results. We should focus on the things on which we have control, and let the higher powers decide about the end result. To be free from frustration and disappointments, we need to do some research about the likely causes of frustration and disappointments and try to have some acceptance about them. We need to realize that in such a vast world, with many centuries of progression, there will be myriad ways that circumstances may crop up for anybody and depending on the individual story, all possibilities of both positive and negative outcomes exist for anyone. We panic from adversities only due to not preparing ourselves mentally for the negative outcomes, that can crop up from any situation, any time, for anybody. 

12. Challenges and Misfortunes

Challenges and misfortunes are internal and external constraints imposed on us to induce the right level of difficulties in order to make our lives interesting to us and to the observer. There is value for our accomplishments only due to the difficulties faced in achieving success. The challenges in life are very important for us. Without the challenges life will soon start to become boring. There cannot be any psychological growth in us without the challenges faced by us. For example if we imagine staying in the same grade for three or four years, we will realize how life will become boring without challenges. Thus higher challenges virtually keep us growing in higher grades. We do not appreciate the challenges only because our focus is too much on the end result. Facing challenges successfully give us the thrill and experience. We just need to shift our attention from results to the pleasure of handling them. The misfortunes in our lives provide challenges that help us to grow psychologically. Psychological wealth is gained from experience of meeting challenges. Thus there is a component of goodness in misfortunes. Challenges and misfortunes provide opportunities for learning and improvements which enables attainment of satisfaction and fulfillment in life. Challenges and misfortunes also provide surprise elements in our lives for the purpose of having some seriousness and suspense in the world. Moreover, without challenges and misfortunes it is not possible to create lots of stories. Personal growth along with challenges and misfortunes provide the direction for story lines needed for sustained interest for the observers.

To face challenges and misfortunes properly we need to learn to perceive them correctly. When  our attention is on blaming someone or feeling dejected rather than finding solutions, we lose the time and opportunity for learning to handle and growing from such situations. Therefore our first response to challenging situations and misfortunes should be that of acceptance. We need to reckon that the primary objective of our lives is to be part of an interesting story. In a story all situations are justified.

The bottom line is that we usually get it wrong about what we should accept and what we should question. We should accept what happens outside of us and question what happens in our minds, instead of our natural tendency to do the other way around.

13. Internal defects and Self Improvement

The two main methodologies for self improvements are managing internal defects and managing internal process improvements. The internal defects are defects in our perceptions and internal process improvements are process improvements related to our perceptions.

Internal Defects:

We are used to finding defects in our external systems and resolving them. In our efforts to develop our external systems we hardly spare time to develop our internal system, the mind. Mind is an important tool which which when developed improves the efficiency of all our endeavors. One of the problems in identifying our internal defects is our ego, which wants to make us believe that we are perfect and all defects are in the external. We need to counter this by saying to ourselves that everybody's thinking and actions are defective. There are defects everywhere by design to provide us an interesting learning curve. As with external systems, more we reckon there are many defects in our perceptions, the more we will find them. We should never reckon that our thoughts and actions are perfect, but instead, should realize that there is lots to improve upon. 

Along with 'presence of defects' mindset another mindset that helps to improve is 'I do not know a lot' mindset. The feeling of confidence that we know a lot hampers our ability to find our own defects. More we reckon our ignorance, the more the inward flow of knowledge.

Internal process improvements:

The five main ways for internal process improvements are as follows:

1. Giving importance to improving our quality of perceptions:

One of the best ways of improving our quality of perceptions is to keep saying to ourselves that how we perceive is more important than whatever we are perceiving. It helps in this endeavor to believe that everything is justified for the moment because we do not know the underlying reason for that thing to happen. When we do this there is no room for upset or blame and there is only room for improvements. In other words we should regularly keep affirming ourselves that the improvements in perceptions are the most important aspects in our lives.

2. Developing a mindset for improvements:

One of the best ways to develop a mindset for improvements is to keep saying to ourselves that there is always a better way and to know the better way is more important than any end result. There are three things where we may focus during our endeavors. Ourselves, the process improvements and the result. To optimize the performance we need to minimize the importance of ourselves and the end result and reckon that there is nothing else existing other than process improvements.

3. Developing a habit of questioning:

One of the basic ways of self improvement is to develop the habit for questioning for quality and improvements, as a way of life. Some of the questions which we should regularly ask ourselves whenever we need to make a decision about an issue, are as mentioned below. 

a) What are the negative consequences of the issue? 

b) What are the positive consequences of the issue?

c) Are there more related aspects to the issue? 

d) Are there more causes for the issue? 

e) Are there more solutions to the issue? 

f) Are there more stake holders related to the issue? 

g) Am I giving the stake holders enough importance? 

h) How will higher powers view the whole thing? 

i) Is this long term or short term problem? 

j) Is the decided solution long term or a temporary solution. 

k) Is there more depth in the issue to unearth?

l) Are all aspects related to the issue being balanced as per the priorities.

m) Is there more risk involved than what I thought?

0) Is there more time to decide about the issue?

p) When is the appropriate time to decide about the issue?

If we regularly read the above questions, the answers to these will progressively come across to us when such situations arise. 

4. Handling our internal defects:

We should regularly spend some time with ourselves to find our mental defects and resolve them. The process involves first remembering all issues we faced during the day and making a list of areas where there could be improvements. For each defect we need to come up with mental inputs which would do the correcting operation in the mind. Final step is that we should regularly implement the resolutions.

5. Maintaining a peace of mind:

Peace provides the calmness and emptiness that is necessary for performance and progress. Without calmness of mind, there wont be enough bandwidth in the mind for questioning for improvements. To understand this concept let us  imagine we are studying for an exam. We will do our best when in regular intervals we keep our mind calm for some time and then question our mind for what we have learnt and also evaluate our learning with a progressive mind to know or guess more about the study. It is the calmness of the mind that provides the necessary drive to arrive at the right level of progress. Without peace of mind the calmness is not found. One of the important ways to keep our mind peaceful and manageable is to try to perceive everything with lower intensity. We need to understand that the mind is unmanageable and disturbed only when we give too much importance to some aspects of life. Therefore, to get an hold on our minds we should identify areas where it wanders frequently and start downplaying the related aspects. The excessive desires and fears are the root cause of such high intensive thoughts. 

In summary self improvement is all about the drive to improve with a precondition of peaceful mind and a habit of questioning before deciding.

14. Perceptions and priorities

The quality of our perceptions is based on the priorities of related aspects present in our memories. One of the important rewarding aspects of our minds is that we can alter the way we perceive different aspects of life by altering the priorities of the aspects being perceived. This can be achieved by repeated mental inputs of some statements which alter the cumulative impressions of the relative priorities of the aspects in considerations. For example we can decide to be smiling even in distress by repeatedly imagining the situations of distress and smiling through. By doing so the priority for smiling will become more than the distress situation, thereby enabling us to smile under such a situation. The negative emotions are not the problem. It is the negative shade that we paint during our perceptions of the problems that make us unhappy. If we keep saying to ourselves that challenges are good we will not get bogged down by the challenges. Our mind will then reason out why the particular challenge is good. What we firmly believe will have higher priority and the aspects related to our firm belief will be more effective. We need to get deeper into the issues to realize the hidden truth of goodness in all aspects of life. If we look for positives in everything we will find positives. It is only our incorrect perceptions which are the cause of our sufferings. Correcting our perceptions is one of the main endeavors in our life. We are as we perceive. Therefore, we must learn to perceive in a way that is advantageous to us. 

Few other examples about where our mental affirmations can help are our perceptions about beautiful people and about the rich people. If we keep saying to ourselves that to be not good looking is good and to be poor is good, our minds will find reasons for those statements to be true and our perceptions about them will also change accordingly. Although in reality there is nothing good or bad, some strong affirmations will result in faster change in perceptions.

Our priorities of perceptions for different aspects are related to one another. The following comparisons help us to understand how the relative priorities of various aspects reduce the absolute importance of these aspects. If money is too much important, then we ourselves are that much less important compared to money. If we are ourselves high in importance we should not be dependent on anything or anybody. If we are dependent on others then few other people are also important for us and to that that extent we are less important than when we are absolutely independent. If health is very important then that much money becomes less important. If happiness is very important then to that extent our physical health is proportionally less important . If happiness is all you need nothing else should be too important. But righteousness is more important than being happy. Therefore happiness is not absolutely important . But things other than being righteous are also required in life. For example aspects like  a sense of direction, purpose, meaning, peace, decorum, creativity, stories e.t.c.  are very important besides the above aspects. Therefore we must have appropriate weightings for various aspects, with being righteous as the top priority. We usually have our intelligence with the priorities of perceptions as unknowingly developed by our environment during our early ages. If everything is in track then it is good. If we are not happy then we need to redevelop our priorities of perceptions. This is a long drawn process as it involves gradually updating all the past perceptions. This process involves first contemplating on those statements that keeps the mind calm followed by regular affirmations of those statements that correct the skewed intelligence.

In the nutshell, we need to regularly provide inputs to our mind with right affirmations to correct our priorities of perceptions, which in turn leads to better perceptions.

15. Basic features of our life

There are only four basic features in our life. They are maintenance, thoughts, feelings and action. 

The maintenance of our bodies are based on our physiological conditions and availability of food, water, shelter and air. The internal and external constraints that we face to maintain our bodies provide necessary challenges for our psychological growth and also to provide necessary platform for creating interesting stories for the observer.

Our thoughts and feelings are based on each other and on the perceptions of sense organs. These can be mastered by application of philosophical principles. Although our thoughts and feelings primarily contribute to our quality of life, they are also part of stories for the higher powers who have access to them.

There are two types of actions, internal and external. External actions are for providing outputs, external to our bodies, while internal actions are for providing inputs to the minds. All our actions are usually directed for the end result of individual or others' maintenance, comforts and fulfillment. However, the end result of all the actions are the perceptions of feelings, which can also be altered by application of philosophical principles. Moreover, our actions are  important for the support of the story lines. Therefore all our actions in fact mostly contribute to the observer. 

The bottom line is that although our egos make us feel that we ourselves are very important and the world should provide us with all the comforts, all our features provide constraints to present challenging situations for us and also to provide necessary conditions for creating interesting stories for the observer. The quality of performance of all the features of our lives is determined by our perceptions, which depend on our intelligence and expertise. The best way to go about our lives is to improve our perceptions and also ensure to create interesting stories for the observer. Nature is going in a right way where in there is a right mix of constraints for everyone and everyone tries to do his or her best based on his or her mindsets against the odds of conflicting and differing mindsets and resources, thereby creating interesting stories for the observer. Needless to say that our survival greatly depends on the sustained interest for the observers.

16. Nature of life

We have seen in topic 3 that this world is an all-pervading, single life entity, which can be called 'The Being', which can change patterns in its memory space and experience projected imaginary sense perceptions based on the patterns. We will go little deeper about "The being".

If this universe were a single entity, which can see, feel, and think, then the vision, feelings and thoughts have to be just imaginations, because there is nothing else other than the single entity. It has to look only within itself. There is another aspect besides the imaginations. That is consciousness of imagination (pleasure, pain and feelings) by some other part of the being (our mind, or will). This consciousness part when switches consciousness between various imagining parts of a specific being in a time sharing algorithm, it gives an illusion of being the form. Without this feature there cannot be simultaneous activities of seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling and smelling in a being. These activities happen based on some impressions or codes in the being. One part of the being is responsible for writing codes or impressions and sending them to all parts, which are programmed to act as per the codes. The codes and transmission techniques are probably developed from self awareness. Thus there are three facets to 'The Being'. They are consciousness, impressions, and imaginations. It is similar to a computer, which has many inputs spaces, which create and read patterns or impressions in its memory space, many processor spaces which translate impressions into code and vice versa and many output spaces, which through imagination converts the code into objects of the world. The computers like feature use the impressions and imaginations aspects. The other important aspect is the consciousness which witnesses the imaginations of other parts of the being, in a time sharing algorithm. When we see something it is consciousness of some sort of imagination of the pictures formed by some other the part of 'The Being'. The objects seen behind a mirror clearly proves that our vision is an imagination in the sense that we see something which is not there at that position. Similarly sounds we hear can only be thought of as consciousness by one part of being of imaginations of sound by some other part of the being. Similarly the pains we suffer are consciousness of one part of the being of some kind of imagination of some other part of the being. The hints for our vision, feelings and thoughts to being imaginary, is our dreams in which we see, feel and think, totally different from when we are awake. Only in an imagination such changes in perceptions of reality is possible.

One part of the being can be in one of the three states, a state of being an impression, an imagining state or a state of being in conscious of some other state. The three states are like being in a state of being part of a pattern, being in a state of looking internally to imagine the stuff based on the state of patterns and looking externally at other memory spaces which are looking internally to imagine the stuff, based on the patterns. All changes in imagination and consciousness only happen by execution of patterns received by the individual memory area as in a computer. 

In summary, this universe is a single life entity, which has three facets, viz. consciousness, imaginations and impressions.  Moreover, if I simultaneously perceive vision, thoughts and feelings, then I am definitely being aware of three different parts in a time sharing algorithm.

Now the question arises 'Who am I?'. At one level there is just 'the being' and everything else is an illusion. However, logically we are just the part of consciousness attached to the individual will, as it is what through which we experience the world. Each part of 'The being', that has a separate will, is an individual entity, experiencing different realities. Moreover, the impressions of the decisions of the individual wills, although they are stored in separate memory space, is like its appendage, because, till the individual entity is bound to the 'human being', these memories form the intelligence of the individual entity. Therefore I am the conscious will with some memories attached.

I cannot be something which was created by someone else. Therefore, I am that part of the being that creates something and that which was not created by someone else. My body and mind are created by someone else (god) and so those are not me. The free will, attached to my body always existed in the space assigned to my body. So I am the part of 'the being' (consciousness) which is attached to my will. 

This world is joint collaboration of the will of god, our individual wills and the features already present in 'the being'. Nothing can be made from nothing. So 'The being' always existed. The only thing that differentiates me from the creator (god) is their privilege to access and edit the impressions of all of memory spaces. The other memory spaces like me  are only programmed to witness the sense perceptions, thoughts and feelings and make decisions about them. In other words, the other memory spaces do not know that they have free will. Before they could know about their free will, they are sabotaged by the creator memory space, such that the other memory spaces do not have time to experiment and discover themselves. We just have a small window of options to decide from our thoughts and feelings. 

I am just one autonomous memory space in 'the being', which is programmed to witness and decide about what is being projected by some other memory spaces. I make my decisions based on the priorities maintained in a distinct memory space of 'The Being'. What I see, feel, hear, taste and smell are the projections of different autonomous memory spaces of 'the being', about which I am programmed to be continually aware. There are three main features of the human mind. They are vision, thoughts and sense perceptions. The vision is some sort of imaginative projection based on a database of impressions at some other memory space. The hearing, smell, taste, pain and other feelings are related to the imaginations of sense perceptions by the memory spaces in the space covered by our body. The thoughts are continuous semantic interpretations of the perceptions and other impressions, along with some extrapolation. There is one memory space for visual aspects, one for thought process and few others for feelings. I am the memory space being conscious of these different memory spaces based on a queue, similar to a CPU pipeline, with a small window to decide about the thoughts provided to me. In a single entity with multiple facets (impressions, consciousness and imagination) without time sharing of consciousness with imaginations of different memory spaces, such a world is not possible.

In summary, I am just a will representing a part of consciousness, in an autonomous memory area of 'the being', which regularly becomes aware of the imagination of vision by a different part, along with the imagination of thought processes and feelings by some other parts, which are programmed to appear to be coming from a human being, in a time sharing algorithm. I am not anything else or the complete human being, because, I can be only be that part, over which I have total control, and that which was not made by some other part. 

17. Life after self-realization

The realization that our bodies are life-less and is just an imagination of all-pervasive soul is the fundamental realization that releases all the bondage of this world. Even if we realize that this life is an illusion or a virtual reality, there is sufficient thrill in it to embrace it. After achieving self-realization, we will reckon that we are taking part in the virtual reality as a role in a suspense movie (similar to playing a video game) based on our own understanding of the script of life and will not take anything personally or too seriously. The intensity of pleasure and pain will be much lower after self realization and our minds will be clear and peaceful. However due to the imagination of the soul and some identification with the body, the discomfort due to pain cannot be fully avoided even after self-realization. Therefore it does matter about how we deal in this virtual reality.

There are three broad things to achieve in this world. They are as follows:

a. Achieve to learn to get our external life situation as good as possible. This will enable comforts in this life for ourselves and our family.

b. Achieve to learn to get our internal life situation as good as possible. This will enable us happier moments in this life for ourselves and our family.

c. Achieve to learn to get better grade in life as per our understanding of the highest power's view. The easiest way to achieve this is to regularly put ourselves in the higher power's shoe and question about various aspects of the universe. In my view, to be interesting, unique and trying our best to improve are a few of the aspects which are important to secure a high grade.

Our ultimate success depends on our intentions and decisions, which is what karma actually is. For this we need to understand our roles and perform them with the best of our abilities. We should realize the story behind our roles. If we are a senior member of the society, then, our intentions should be to create interesting stories, along with ensuring continuity of life. When we do so, we are in align with our higher powers, because, couple of most important aspects that our higher powers look for in their decision making are ensuring interesting stories and continuity. Testing people with relevant scenarios and giving opportunities for learning by providing some hints are some of the means to achieve it. 

18. Disease, aging and death

Decease, aging and death appear very gruesome only when we have not prepared for them. Our perceptions about them in the right perspectives will enable us to go through them in a better way. We need to accept that everyone goes through these in different stages because our life is built to go through these. For our creators disease, aging and death are  important features to develop interesting and serious enough stories of life. Disease, aging and death provides us with challenging and constraining situations. These situations are vital to make our lives interesting for us and for the observer. One way to pass through these situations is to daily contemplate that our bodies are not sentient and the underlying life never dies. We are there to carry out our roles and after the role is over we will be a child again. More than the pain of these situations the fear of pain causes immense suffering. It will greatly help to alleviate our sufferings if we daily contemplate to reduce our desires, fears and ego. In fact by daily affirmations we can perceive these situations to be advantageous for us and live a happy life even through these situations. Like there is life insurance for financial aspect of our life, regular contemplation for preparing for disease, aging and death is like an insurance for the psychological aspect. In other words if we daily say to ourselves that disease, aging and death are good, after few months our perceptions about these will become positive and we will no longer suffer from these even when these come to us. When we have a positive feeling towards pain, its intensity reduces to some extent. There will be just slight discomfort due to pain, which can be managed through medicines. Doing such affirmative practice will increase the number of good moments out of our total waking moments.

In summary, if we regularly imagine ourselves in various types of diseases, including all their related complications, with a kind of acceptance that they are for our good, we will not be bothered about those situations, before we experience those situations and will also be better prepared to experience those situations, when they come to us. This is similar to pregnancy, faced by women, who take it gracefully, expecting that the end result will be good. Even diseases, aging and death will be perceived as good if god came and told us that we will be reborn as cute child. Therefore, if we believe that our god, who has to work with trillions of beings and for trillions of years, would have a maturity to develop a system, which will be reasonably fair for all in the long run, then it is reasonable that we not fear anything and instead work out of all situations. It is the fear of those situations, which make more damage than the actual situations. Therefore to maximize good moments in life we need to regularly make mental affirmations that disease, aging and death are for our good. 

19. All our purposes, psychological

We all want to be rich, healthy, be recognized by the society, be a celebrity and have the power to change everything around to feel fully secured. While we need to have luck, resources, intelligence and opportunity to achieve the above, many of us do not have sufficient levels of these requirements to achieve the above four objectives. In our path to achieve the objectives many of us realize about the lower limits of the extent we can achieve them. However, our belief in those objectives has created desires, fears and ego. We often compare with some of our extended family members, who have achieved more than us and we feel sad. We also feel sad when something happens, that affect our finances, health, honor, power or security. However, if we think deeply about the four objectives, we will realize that the reason why we want to achieve the above objectives is that we reckon achieving them will make us happy and make us feel better than others. We believe in those objectives so much that we never thought that anything else could make us happy or feel better than others. However, on some self awareness we will realize that we reckon the four objectives will give happiness and psychological leverage only because we gave importance to those four objectives. Our mind basically works on the relative importance of various aspects of life. It is like a computer and just processes based on how we input information to it. For example if we believed lack of wealth is advantageous than being rich, then we will try to acquire only how much is needed and not envy others who are rich. Off course it is very difficult to believe in such a thing if we have spent lot of years believing otherwise. The point I want to convey is that there is lots of scope to tweak our minds to feel happy and psychologically great, without achieving most of the objectives, we thought were necessary.  We need to just change our beliefs or priorities about important aspects of life. We can change our beliefs by regular self affirmations which work like patches that suit our life conditions. Most of our problems are due to our beliefs  in the four earlier mentioned objectives. For example our problem may be we do not have enough money, we have diseases, people do not respect us, or we lost something and we can’t accept certain situations. All of these do not matter so much if we realize the true nature of this world and our life. In fact there is a way to feel good about ourselves psychologically, without achieving the four objectives.

This brings me to the consolidation of my main realizations in psychology and spirituality. For the sake of this topic I call them the five principles.

The realizations in psychology and spirituality that I consider very important are as follows: 

1. Mind is in better control if we start perceiving everything with lower intensity. Moreover, we will be more intelligent and mindful when we are able to perceive everything with lesser intensity. Only side effect to perceiving with lower intensity is we will not remember our memories after few hours. We should manage this aspect with keeping alarms and time tables.

2. We can perceive everything the way we want for example we can perceive hardships as better than luxury, poor as better than rich, diseased as better than healthy, stressful as better than calm. Only when we perceive some things as negative they affect us more. Our decisions every moment guide our life more than anything else. If we are able to decide to be calm, peaceful, happy, contended, grateful, accomplished, successful and enlightened every moment there is no room for negative aspects in our life.

3. Mind works based on relative priorities of various aspects of life. Therefore, we must spend efforts in maintaining right priorities for important aspects of life. For example if one gives more importance to the results than his own psychological status, there will be less peace and more anxiety. To relatively improve our psychological status we should downplay the results to such an extent that achieving it is like just drinking a glass of water. 

4.  Only Brahman exists and our body and mind are just illusions created by property changes at its different points. When the body moves, only the coding patterns for visual property moves and when the body feels something the coding pattern for feel property moves parallel to the movement of the body.

5. Anything exists for us individually only when we pay attention to it. We should take a cue from the fact that light behaves differently when it is observed compared to when it is not. Similarly our problems should be thought about only when we are trying to find a solution for them. Having known that all that exists is Brahman and coding patterns in it, why we should brood about anything unless it helps us. Our attention should be more on our daily routine and daily improvements in our psychological status.

We can apply the above realizations to create patches to our mind to enable us feel psychologically elevated, irrespective of our life situations.  In fact our problems affect us only because we have not raised ourselves psychologically above the problems or we have given too much importance to our problems. In other words we should raise our psychological level relatively higher than what ever we may get to perceive to the extent that nothing affects us. One way of doing this is to keep bringing up all our likely issues and downplaying them by applying the above five principles. In this condition, we will be just doing our small bit to involve in the story that is getting unfolded, while ensuring our needs are met and having no wants and identifications with any group.

Click on links below to read the e-books from google drive.

1. We live in the Illusion

2. You are what you decide

3. Comprehensive Mental Upgrade

4. Words of Wisdom

5. Intelligence Demystified

6. Dynamics of Human Life

7. Guide to Awakening

8. Psychological Facts

9. Random Blogs