Maria Robinson had said,
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and
make a new ending.” Nothing could be
closer to the truth. But before you can
begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that
have been holding you back.
One has to make a new
beginning and Maria Robinson’s thirty ideas as to how to go about doing it is
commendable in the sense that she has put it simply so that it is intelligible
to people, who have no time to stop and think about what is really harming
their lives and their relationships.
But first one has to recognise
that something is happening which you do not want and you want to change it.
Most of us live our lives feeling that we deserved more than what we have and
that life has been unkind to us. Such a feeling arises out of comparisons and
we spend our whole life in misery. We do not stop to think that it is on
account of the choices, we ourselves keep making at different stages in life.
Transformation does not
happen overnight as it is a process. An individual’s transformation begins only
when he is confronted by a crisis in life. For some it could be a slow process
and for others it could be life changing. Every individual is at different
stages of awakening. This can be attributed to his past- his upbringing and
experiences in life. To a large extent his attitude is moulded by the type of
parenting he has been subjected to ( please read my posting on Parenting,
Choices and Life Without Regrets?)
3 comments:
Man is a created being as his life comes into existence as a new beginning; this entity that is born as a new object has not existed before and also will not exist again in future. Hence it is one of its own kind, original, unique, and distinctive. Man experiences his life in an entirely subjective manner and there are no two individuals with the same experience of life. Even identical twins, or even clones have no choice other than that of the Reality of Subjective Physical existence. There is no need to seek transformation if we clearly understand the nature of the 'New Beginning'. Man has to simply understand as to what it means to be a substance and as to what it means by existence.
I have no different opinion regarding the subjective nature of man’s existence. The world is always “as I see it”. It is only when man experiences the death situation, which he always sees in the external world, that he starts to realise that the world is there, and will continue whether he is there or not. Death cannot be a subjective experience, as nothing else exists after that. This could be an existentialist view point, as Sartre asks, “what is death? Death is my total non existence. It is as absurd as birth – it is no ultimate, authentic moment of my life, it is nothing but the wiping out of my existence as a conscious being. Death is only a witness to the absurdity of the human existence.”
It is to transcend this situation and the non acceptability of being reduced to nothingness, that man undergoes a subjective transformation. It is his awakening. He is not born with the knowledge of his own uniqueness till the moment he is faced with the crisis of non existence. Whether you need it or not, transformation has to occur.
It is very difficult for man to “simply understand as to what it means to be a substance and what it means by existence”. So in the process of understanding himself, man undergoes a transformation from a state of ignorance to enlightenment. What enlightenment is a another question. Whether he will find the meaning of life, of ways of perpetuating his existence and finds a way to immortality is a still a question. Of course he may find solace in the belief of a another life, in reincarnation and that death is only the beginning of another existence.
Thanks for that response. Sartre has explained existence, consciousness, human freedom, human choices, the purpose of life, and etc., drawing philosophical insights about man. These philosophical notions, or opinions are not based upon scientific observation of man. Biology is a science in which the subject that observes and the object that is observed are one and the same. Sartre made radical distinction between consciousness and non-conscious objects. Since his understanding of consciousness is not scientific, it has no objectivity. It is just his personal opinion. Man knows death during each day of his existence. Man knows that all living things live by eating or consuming other living things and their products. Man lives by causing death to other living things. There is no life if it is not supported by the fact of death.
http://bhavanajagat.com/2011/04/25/life-and-death-a-changing-world-and-unchanging-reality/
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