It was the talk of 1974 when an Art Show Rhythm "0" was performed by Serbian artist Marina Abramović in Studio Morra, Naples . It was 6 hours Show which lasted from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The work involved Marina standing still before the audience, those who were invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet etc. There were no separate stage for audience, infect Abramović and the visitors were sharing the same space, making it clear that the latter were part of the art performance. 

Purpose Of Rhythm "0": To know the Human Propensities in this type of situation, where everyone was absolutely free to do to her whatever he wishes for. As she was standing before audience with commitment not to resist. To check that what people could have in their mind and for what extent, they could go.

Abramović said the work "pushed her body to the limits". Visitors were gentle to begin with, offering her a rose or a kiss. Art critic Thomas McEvilley, who was present, wrote:

"It began tamely. Someone turned her around. Someone thrust her arms into the air. Someone touched her somewhat intimately. The Neapolitan night began to heat up. In the third hour all her clothes were cut from her with razor blades. In the fourth hour the same blades began to explore her skin. Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her blood. Various minor sexual assaults were carried out on her body. She was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or murder. Faced with her abdication of will, with its implied collapse of human psychology, a protective group began to define itself in the audience. When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina's head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions."

As Marina described it later: "What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."

Rhythm "0"  was not an art work only, It exposed the buried desires of Human being and bring them to the surface. Let's discuss it from different perspective;

We often have such type of deep rooted elements inside us that were pressed forcibly owing to the concern of society and its (so called) value system or with the fear of Law breaching and punishment. Most of the times,we are not aware of the forces of these instincts and they remain hidden in our innermost, as soon as favorable moments are there, they pop up and trigger the motion.

How do these elements intrude and become the part of our mind?

As the proverb says , "As you sow, so shall your reap."

Nature teaches us perfectly, as Aristotle says , those seeds sprout only,  which are sowed in land . Keeping this line in view, let's us ponder on our daily activities, suppose we commit any wrong, we try hard to hide it. In reverse to it , if we do good deeds, we expose to the people resulting in losing their (Good Deeds) values; as we throw seed on barren land with no use. This way, we sow the seed of blunder only inside us and these uncontrolled forces get nested in our mind and we are not aware of their practices. This practice has been going on for many ages . Sometimes we get astonished with our own deeds saying,                                                          " Ah ! How could I do it ? "

If freehand given, the peaceful environment turns into the condition of Anarchy and It unveils the ugly face of Human predisposition. As in this show, it took a little time for so called civilized humans to become animals.

As Guru Arjan Dev Ji says in Sri Guru Granth Sahib;                                                          

They belong to the human species, but they act like animals. They curse others day and night. Outwardly, they wear religious robes, but within is the filth of Maya. They cannot conceal this, no matter how hard they try.

                We are not alike inside and outside. We always wear mask to pose what we are not and these masks keep on changing from person to person in different conditions. So our chunk of energy get vanished while maintaining the hoax fabrications of life.

Now question is; " Are we carrying our fake personalities?"

The answer lies in our Introspection.

Conclusion: We should not take ourselves civilized as we are living in ( so called ) civilized society, we become civilized only with the inculcation of values. We usually looking ourselves into the mirror while dressing up to make it sure how we look like but we often forget to look into our mind which reflects our personality actually what we have. So, to channelize these forces, we need to go into our Innermost with the help of Introspection and meditation tools . This is the way to repair our Inner World.

Let's look inside and become aware of these hidden elements so that we could become the master of our deeds....

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https://psychocare21.blogspot.com/2021/10/human-trap-and-hidden-forces.html

Harjas

Human Trap and Hidden Forces

  The life is a journey to be the master of our senses but we live our whole life in the slavery of them. We are taught how to look at the outer world without paying even least  attention towards the inner sides of us. The life, we are living, is not being lived by us, actually life is being driven by the forces of five elements; Lust, Wrath, Greed, Attachment and Ego , dominance of them, act as a trap making us helpless. With the absence of self awareness, life even becomes automatic and mechanical.                            

 Suppose a person used to go to office daily with his bag, and one day he has to take a Lunch Box with him , you would be surprised to find him back without Lunch Box. Now question arises how someone could forget to carry Lunch Box back. The answer might be something else if you ask to the person concerned, but one thing is clear that the Lunch Box is not the part of his daily routine. This is the Mechanism of life. Our senses respond to the stimuli outside as governed by the hidden elements inside us. Suppose a person wants to get rid of greed but he can't, as soon as opportunity appears, his deep rooted  greed gets activated automatically making the person helpless. 

                 A monkey is caught in trap due to greed otherwise it is hard to catch. A large animal like Elephant slid to trap owing to dominance of its lust. Birds are caught in net as they don't know about trap , they only see their food scattered . Wherever we go, whatever we try to do, hidden trap is lying every where and interestingly we can't see this as we get blind with the activation of hidden vices inside. In our house, we often see rat trap, a piece of bread is put in the trap, a rat doesn't see trap, it sees only a piece of bread inside. Traps are unimaginable suffering for all those who encounter it.

 These five elements enslave our body and put it on auto driven mode. Though we can't see them with naked eyes, but results of their functioning  come to surface with different forms of sufferings. 

We never say I do anger, infect we get angry and the mechanism of relieving, as suggested by Psychiatrists, is to become aware of our  angerness. A good number of examples are there of so called religious preachers those who teach the people how to tackle with the vice "Lust" but they, themselves entrapped in lustful activities, becoming the Head Lines of NEWS. The whole advertising industry is working on this formula. How can we deny the exploitation of people, made by some companies in the name of doubling their deposited money?  How many people are there who become prey to so called Love (Attachment)and faced emotional crises in their lives? The World has faced the Wars and mass destruction, initiated by the arrogant Dictators.                                                                                                                  Surprisingly, we know clearly about above mentioned stuff , even NEWS are there to endorse these unlawful  businesses, yet we get entrapped. Then question arises, "How is it happening?"                                                                                                                          The  presence of unrestrained secret forces, working in our innermost, is the only root cause of this problem. This process puts us into Trap and unfortunately we hold something and someone responsible outside. Instead of looking inside and mending our ways, we try to repair the World outside. It gets even more worse when we start finding solution again outside, without realizing the root cause of our problems lying inside us. 

                                          I remember a story of a lady saint who was finding her lost needle out side of her home in the full moon light. She was old enough, so for sympathy sake, some of her neighbors came out to help her out. It took a lot of time for all but they couldn't find. At last one of them asked lady saint," Where is your needle lost?" She replied, " Inside the home." Every one got mad and asked ,"why are you finding outside then, you should find your needle where it was lost." She smiled saying that this was what I wanted to teach you all. I came out due the light of Moon as there was dark inside my home. So this is the story of all of us. We often find ourselves out side where as we are lost inside. Actually, the troubles , we encounter in our life , are not coming from somewhere else and no one is responsible for them, these are the consequences of our deeds. As we know, our deeds are governed by Five Vices.                                                                                            We usually spend the whole life finding faults with others and get upset. Here we commit blunder, this is wrong formula and with it we get astray,  With this type of life, we get upset and treat the others same way. We create toxic environment surrounding us and become easily prey to some kind of mental Disorders.As Guru Nanak Dev Ji Says;        

          Dadda: Do not blame anyone else;blame instead your own actions.

          Everyone wishes others move according to him.We often say someone's behavior  is intolerable. Is it possible to change everything or everyone as we like? Answer is "NO". We can't change every one but with mending ourselves we can be able to change the world. As Guru Nanak Dev Ji says:                                                                                              

Conquer your Mind and Conquer the World.  

                                                  Now main issue is, "How can we be at Peace?"                            In the Saloka of Baba Farid Ji , I found a befitted answer to this question as;

If you reform yourself,you shall meet me, and meeting me, you shall be at peace.

Whatever we wish for that is inside us, searching outside is the confusion of mind.             As Guru Arjan Dev Ji says;

I have quit searching outside; The Guru has shown me that the God is within the home of my own heart.

        Now let's consider it another way. The Five Forces are Evil only when we are slave to them. As soon as we explore ourselves,we recognize our root,  We learn the right uses of these forces, we become owner of our life. With our awakening of  deep sleep, awareness leads us and trap becomes clear to us.Coming to Conclusion, Trap is Nothing; It is our Ignorance.

Let The Ignorance Fades Away and The Awareness Shines The Path...

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Harjas

 

Depression and Human Outlook

  Life is very complex , unpredictable and ever mutable. Nothing is permanent and perpetual on this Planet. Everything what we see and feel (Even an iota of Particle) has its own entity, frequency and momentum. Whenever we try to hold any part of life which is in flow, we become restless and the whole biological and psychology set up turns into some kind of disorder.To understand the flow and to be in flow,is the philosophy of life.

 “That which offers no resistance, overcomes the hardest substances. That which offers no resistance can enter where there is no space. Few in the world can comprehend the teachings without words, or understand the value of non-action”                                    Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 

Now in these days , life is very fast. Every one is working like a cog of machine hence creativity seems to be missing in our daily life style. In hectic schedule and time bound activity, we often forget to evaluate our potential . Our circle of aesthetic sense is shrinking. We are getting more engaged to our routine work . This is what the mechanism of life today . We have no sufficient time to go deep into ourselves and repair our inner world. As Guru Nanak Dev Ji Says;

Nanak, the whole world is in distress. He, who believes in the Name, becomes victorious."

To know outer world is knowledge but to know oneself is true wisdom. According to WHO , approximately 280 millions people are affected with depression worldwide. The number of women suffering with it is even more than that of men. Although there are known and effective treatments available , still 75% of people with low and middle class income , remain deprived of it.

In lack of awareness and education ,this problem is getting worse day by day.

Unaware people make it dangerous while associating it with superstition and black magic. This practice is prevalent in many part of the world. The people who perform it (Black Magic),entrap the innocent people. In the name of so called unscientific treatment, they exploit the emotions , trust and assets of them. No. of examples are there showing the bad results of these measures.

What is depression: According to American Psychiatric Association, Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act

Depression is a rift between expectation and reality .It seems to be absence of Nowness . The behavior of the person with depression,is characterized with the element of some kind of complex. In other words we can say that it (Depression)affects the sufferer Biologically and Psychologically. It always makes the patient feel low Physically as well as Mentally. If I am to define it(Depression) in single line,that is; Depression is the state of indifference in Mind, Body and Spirit. Mind is the master of every type of activity . If mind is stuck with any thought of complex either superior or inferior, it starts working accordingly.Depression is the condition of hopelessness. So, as we see, every spiritual master focuses on mind to uplift the life of human beings .                                                                                                                                                                   

                  While discussing the Classical Depression Eli Siegel says; Finding the world dull so that we can be superior to it is the cause of classic depression. However, it can take all sorts of specific forms. ( The Philosophy of Depression) 

Types of Depression: 

Persistent Depressive Disorder : When the phases of depression last for two year , it is called Persistent Depressive Disorder.

Postpartum Depression: It is the after baby birth depression and last for two weeks, in this phase mother feels low and exhausted.

Psychotic Depression: The person affected with this kind of depression develops Delusion and Hallucination.

The Seasonal Effective Disorder: It is common in the season of Winter when there is less exposure of Sun Light.

Bipolar Disorder: In this condition person feels sometimes low and sometimes experiences extreme high. These moods are called “mania” or “hypo mania” depending on the severity.

Causes of Depression:

• Abuse: Physical, sexual, or emotional abuse can make you more vulnerable to depression.
• Age: Elderly people are at higher risk of depression. Loneliness, physical issues, social deprivation and unfulfilled expectation make it more worse.
• Death or Loss:  The death or loss of a loved one, can increase the risk factor of depression.
• Gender: As per the study presented by WHO, Women are more prone to depression than that of men. Reason may be the more hormonal changes, occurring at different phases of their lives.
• Genes: In some cases this problem is found genetically, that comes with the travelling of affected genes from one Biological generation to another.
• Major Events: Sometimes major overhauls in life like Marriage, Divorce, Migration, Loss in business and Loss in job etc. leads to the cause of Depression.
• Substance Use Disorder: Addiction of any kind of Substance like Alcohol, Cigarettes, Opium, Opium husk and Synthetic Drugs etc. plays a vital role in aggravating the condition of Depression.
• Other Disorders: Disorders like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder(OCD),Tardive Dyskinesia and Dyslexia etc. might worsen this problem.
• Chronic Diseases: People suffering with any type of chronic diseases are easily exposure to Depression.
• Certain medications: Some drugs, such as isotretinoin (used to treat acne), the antiviral drug interferon-alpha, and corticosteroids, can increase the risk of depression.

Symptoms of Depression: Numbness , Loss of interest in normal life, Trouble in eating & Sleeping , Decreased energy , Decreased self esteem , Short temper nature , irritating behavior , poor management of relationship and persistent thought of something bad happening etc.

Mechanism Of Depression: When some unexpected thought triggers the mind, it disturbs the whole Biochemistry of body. The disturbed body further generates the perplexed thought which again imbalances the Biochemical reaction in mind. In this way, this process keeps on going and becomes a vicious circle.

Treatments: First of all it should be understood that depression is a mental disease and it is curable. Various treatments are available now in these days with different approaches to it. As it is a mental disorder , so there is not a specific treatment suitable for all. Everyone has it's own behavior with different sustenance power to cope with it. In this way , it is up to the Psychiatrist to decide after examining the patient and intensity of disorder what type of approach to be adopted . Here we will discuss some common techniques only. 

Psychotherapy: Psychotherapy is generally used to describe the process of treating psychological disorders and mental distress through the use of verbal and psychological techniques. 

Cognitive Behavior Therapy: (CBT) is a talk therapy designed to helps you change any negative patterns of your behavior that may be contributing to worsen your depression.  

Interpersonal Therapy: Interpersonal Therapy is based on the idea that depression can be related to our relationships. Therefore, with this technique, Therapist helps you improve your relationship. No. of other therapies are there which are useful to cope with it. 

Medication: There are many different medications that can help reduce the symptoms of depression.  To be honest I don't come from the Medical Background, so I can't go to the details of it. But for the convenient of my readership, I have created Hyperlink of word of Medication. Please explore yourself.

 Lifestyle Change: Ups and downs are the part of life. As we see the report ECG, we find this pattern over there which endorses the existence of life. Being sometimes Low and High is rhythm of Life but get crippled with any fluctuation is the matter of concern here. With the change in lifestyle one can be able to improve the severity of Depression. It requires initiative to take first, as one sees some improvement, efforts get multiplied automatically in the direction of upliftment of the state of mind. 

What comes in the list of Lifestyle Changes; 

1. Daily Exercise 2. Healthy Diet 3. Meditation 4. Yoga 5. Good Sleep. Above said tips could be helpful in elevating the mood of sufferers to bring them in the normal momentum of life. We should accept the life as it is. We can't avoid sorrow and joy, but working on ourselves , we could be able to take them equally. Acceptance of life in every format is the Mantra of living a healthy life. But it is easy to say than to apply, for this , where we are to work on our health, introspection and meditation are also required to repair our innermost . Be contented with what you have, do your best and have Patience , you would find yourself in ecstasy. 

Best Wishes for beautiful life ahead!

Harjas

The Miracle of Innerworld

  Let me start with the historical stuff related to the martyrdom of 5th Guru of Sikhs named Guru Arjun Dev Ji. He was forced to sit on the burning red hot Tavi by the contemporary Mughal Emperor Jahangir. The Guru Ji was calm and composed while sitting on red hot iron plate .

Now question arises how could one sit on fire with at ease and without any reaction? This was possible only with the inner power what the Guru Ji had. Until and unless we explore our inner potential, we live our life in dark and slavery.

I usually quote a story of an elephant tightened with a rope. Actually I had read this story in my childhood but honestly the depth of it was not clear at that time. How can a huge animal like elephant be held with a simple rope ? The answer of this question is rooted in the psyche of the elephant. When as a calf (Baby of Elephant) it is caught and tightened with a simple rope .It (Calf) tries to break the rope and gets failure and this experience is engrossed in its (Calf) subconscious mind.

Now the real issue starts which remains continue with elephant for rest of its life. The fear of failure it experienced as a calf. Due to this, a large animal like elephant with the power of rooting out even big trees, is held with a simple rope because it stops trying.

We can discuss this story from different aspects i.e. the calf grew physically and turned elephant but the experience it had as a calf remained same.

It can be associated to the Classical Conditioning Theory given by Pavlov. According to this theory there is a pairing of the rope and the elephant.

So extract of this story is illusion. With this type of illusion we spend our whole life. We usually remain in oscillation like a pendulum of clock while facing ups and downs in life. Usually we live our life working with outer world.

Fear comes out of illusion. Illusion creates duality. So illusion is the factory of different types of disorders , society facing now in these days. Then, how can we overcome illusion?

Introspection is required . The persons who did inward journey,they came out of darkness(Illusion),became fearless as i cited above, they sang songs of Waheguru(God)while sitting on red hot iron plate.

The mind is everything. What you think you become so. All the Miracles Happen in this area.Abundance of richness is there our inside . We must be able to explore that treasures. With the help of true Master, we can know our potential.

Let's work on our innermost.

Harjas