My World: The Proximate Community
There is something about the Banyan tree that draws me to the temple, some echo of childhood perhaps. the millions of green leaves that shield the sharp afternoon sun, the many branches that dangled swaying gently in the wind, all gave the place a sense of peace, acceptance, and comfort. Below, the shiv temple stood calmly. Idles, carved out of black stone, an elevated pillar (to the left), a magnificent temple bell, dangling majestically from the ceiling. Somehow this place seemed to cradle me. I sat cross-legged on a bench, that looked over the temple. Facing me sat a middle-aged man muttering to himself a chant, that I was sure I had heard. A pregnant lady and her husband sit on a bench to the left, mother and daughter (5 years) walk by, the mother's gaze fixed toward the idle in the temple and daughter skipping behind her, lost in wonder. We all live in our little worlds in this vast complex, universe.
We are products of our past. Our memories, identities, dogmas, constantly being written and rewritten. We have all been deeply conditioned to either believe or disbelieve in certain ideas and ideals. From the day I was born to this moment, as I sit here writing this essay, my mind has been undergoing constant change. We have been indoctrinated by the education system, by dogmas of faith, by authoritarian governments. Etc
However, we have all been brought up differently, which makes no two individuals alike. We are all comprised of different elements, from which we tend to act, respond to events. This is our world. This makes every one of our worlds unique. Our worlds constitute people, ideas, memories, beliefs, experiences. Etc This I would like to call the proximate community. Every thought adds and discards, stains, fractures, and manipulates this enormous pool of accumulated knowledge. This is our identity.
We have multiple identities, economic, social, political, family. Etc we live in a self-centric world, where the “self” is non-existent without identification. We long for more clarity on “us” and “them”. We need to constantly exclude, discriminate and “other” others in order to acquire clarity on the self. As human beings, our brains are wired to be self-protective. Every thought is intended to cushion the “self”. Often even, promote, propagate the “self”. This is an endless process of embossing and stripping elements to fit the ever-changing identity.
How do we break free from our worlds?
When in a new environment, we are forced to breakout out and free from our worlds(bubbles). Our world, our bubble, is constantly changing based on the information we repeatedly synthesize. So, what does it mean to “break out” of this world? Is that even possible? Why does it matter that we break free from it?
By and large, our worlds are restricted to certain, very specific influences. This is typical because our proximate community (this includes, family and friends, people we follow on social media, YouTubers…etc) remains constant. When in a new environment (this could be in a place where we are unfamiliar with the language, culture etc) we are hyper-aware of our surroundings. This I would argue, initiates” Breaking away” from our world. We receive information through our senses and process that information through our conditioning (our past). This is the process of “meaning-making”, making sense of the information in our own contexts. This process, I would argue is a step towards bridging the gap between our worlds and the “other”. Which is in essence breaking away from our worlds.
When one is stripped of the safety net that our identity provides us, we are forced to rethink, re-examine, our surroundings. This is breaking free from ourselves. It took me some time to get acclimatized to the Shiv temple under the banyan tree. Initially, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I was being perceived. The human tendency to worry about perception is nothing new to a different environment, in fact even in college, much of our day is consumed by thinking about “what others think about me”. However, in a different/ new environment, our identities aren’t as frozen as they commonly are, in a familiar place. 1 hour into the exercise (of sitting under the banyan tree) I was still trying to fit myself into the place. This involved finding reasons for the association, acquaintance with certain familiar, defined, or unfamiliar, undefined set of ideas/principles. This new flexible, mouldable identity is a step towards breaking free from our world.
When entering a new place, we have a tendency of coming in with a set of preconceived notions and assumptions. When I walked into the temple area, I was already looking forward to a “peaceful” experience. The longer one spends in a place, the stronger the relationship between the person and the place. This acquainting of oneself with a place happens over a long time. Eventually, I discovered that the shiv temple had a spiritual ethos of its own, and it was not one that I had imagined it to be. It was one that I was not able to fully relate to or comprehend.
What is this transformative process of acclimatisation to a place and breaking out of our worlds/the bubble?
Observation:
To understand what observation is, we shall first examine what observation is not.
As human beings, we anticipate events and label them even before they have occurred in real-time. this is what I saw myself doing, most of the time I spent under the banyan tree. I would construct elaborate tales of the people who had come to spend their afternoon there. I watched every move, the way they walked, the clothes they wore, the expressions on their face. Etc I discovered that all the information we draw out of a person is pretty much entirely from their face and their clothes. We then segregate the information drawn into different boxes in our own heads. These would include boxes labelling peoples economic background, people’s views/ approach to life, people’s values. Etc.
Often, we see only what we want to see, completely discarding information that doesn’t fall in line with a certain set of principles that we have been deeply conditioned to follow and are longing to prove. This motive has been taught and retaught to us by different forces in society. Our conditioning is central to the many decisions we take while sorting information in our own minds. This selectivity, that is involved in information analysis is dictated by a strong motive (our conditioning). It is vital that we are aware of ourselves and or our conditioning, which ultimately dictates the conscious and subconscious choices we make.
While sitting under the banyan tree, I had a few instances of observation. Every piece of information we take in, eventually undergoes a process of analysis and changes, resulting in motive. By it I mean, through our senses we take in information, once this information reaches the brain it gets sorted. This sorting of information could be thought of as a form of labelling. We are constantly labelling and tagging information which eventually results inconclusive thoughts. These conclusive thoughts could be understood as a process, construction of bias, prejudice.
After having examined our thoughts, we realise how delicate, flimsy and frail they are. Discussion and deep examination of our thoughts and motives bring about self-awareness. The deeper our self-awareness, the more open we become as individuals. This openness has the potential to unravel multiple avenues of exposure. As we expose ourselves to greater variety, our minds become more malleable and plastic. This plasticity in perspective is necessary when exploring/ living a new/unfamiliar environment. Self-awareness also changes our attitudes towards our judgements. We typically have this notion that what we have seen, heard, learnt and think are absolute and unmitigated. But when we become aware of the process of formation of highly biased views, we are able to take our own judgements lightly, without getting deeply attached to them. Occasionally, we may even retrace our thought process, and try and identify, why we may feel the way we do on certain subject/ideas. Etc This method of examination furthers our understanding of ourselves and the human mind.
The Banyan tree over the course of two and a half hours became a part of me. Going back to the same place a week later, in my own time, the place didn’t seem as alien as it initially had. There seems to be a strong bond/ acquaintance between me and the place. I realised that through this exercise, something that was not in our world had become part of our world. This led me to wonder about the influence of technology in our world. How does our world expand and grow as we grow? How many worlds are we part of? These were some provocations that I was left with for further exploration….
Observation is the total denial of analysis
- Jiddu Krishnamurthy
