Rechristening : NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry and Integral Living

[Anurag Jain]

Rechristening : NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry and Integral Living

After much deliberation I have decided to slightly modify the name of NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry and add the words Integral Living. Semantically speakng, they are just two words, but in actuality it adds a totally new and largely unknown dimension to the work I shall be doing in the centre and to the world.

I had already written in my earlier post about what I mean by self inquiry. In this post I shall be attempting to very briefly explain what I mean by Integral Living.

However, before I do this, I would like to dispense off with something that has been preoccupying my mind.

NEEV Google Groups, through which you are getting this mail has about 1500 members. This is a group which consists of school friends, college friends, family friends, freinds of friends, my students, donors and Neev Herbal Cosmetics customers and retailers.

Consequently most of  you have known me as a school mate, college mate, social entrepreneur, social worker, school principal or a school teacher. But today I am none of these. Even when I appeared as one of these I was just provisionally these. They were all progressively changing and evolving forms to understand myself and life. With NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry and Integral Living, I have reached my final avatar, my swadharma, my essential being in form.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this avatar of my being is beyond the ken of understanding or interest for most people in NEEV Google Groups and the world. I may be wrong, but it is my reckoning that whatever I shall henceforth write, may inconvenience the sensibilities of all those who would like to see me, as I was, in my previous roles. If this be the case, I strongly urge you to please unsubscribe from this group. The unsubscribe link appears in the bottom of each mail that comes through NEEV Google Groups. I have no qualms in sharing whatever I have understood about life and continue to explore, but I would certainly not like to disturb people with unsolicited mails. I perfectly understand that you have been a member of this group for whatever I was and was doing in the past. But henceforth I shall be treading a totally different and largely unfamiliar ground.

I consider it my responsibility to state clearly what would be NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry & Integral Living alongwith NEEV Google Groups be all about, so that people may take a choice to stay or leave. There are some people in the group who would personally not like to see my face. Why they chose to stay in the group is bit of mystery. Probably they do not bother even opening my mails, have spammed my mails or simply hit the delete button on seeing my mail. Or perhaps like many of you, would like to continue getting these mails out of a sense of curiosity about what I am up to. Whatever be your motivation for staying on, is fine with me. Once I have stated what I am going to share henceforth, I consider my job done. I leave the ball in your court. Please do not send me mails to unsubscribe you from the group. In a fraction of effort of what it takes to do that, it would be convenient for both of us if you just hit the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this mail.

Having cleared this issue let me come back to the real intent of this mail - "What is Integral Living?"

Integral Living means leading life without a single conflict. At first appearance, this may appear banal, cliched or boring. But the profound is never exciting. It shares a lot with banality in it's external appearance. To our senses and mind that are ever seeking pleasures, we are deluded by the cloak of banality that profundity wears. I do not intend to lift this cloak either. Profundity would want you to penetrate the cloak of banality it wears. You would have to put that effort and that effort is determined by your truest and deepest intention. Shallow intentions shall be quickly deluded and go off in the direction of other pastures that promise more sparkle.

For the millenia that man has lived on this earth, he has always been in conflict. He has been warring and despoiling nature, controlling, dominating and exploiting. In a smaller scale it happens in our day to day relationships within our families, organizations and other social relationships. On a larger scale the same drama is played out between nations.
It seems that humankind has come to accept this way of life. Nay, I may say that humankind endorses conflict as a way of life. Our social life and our organizations make a virtue of competition and struggle, holding out carrots for winners. Conflict fuels our lives, giving us energy to work and live: painting the canvas of our lives with blood and sweat. We all would like to become someone or something. We may not all become Prime Ministers and Presidents but would like to become this or that person - a successful person, a knowledgeable person, a lovable person, a powerful person, an expert, a lover, a bird lover, a world saviour, an enlightened being, a spiritual teacher.......................

So for very, very few the question, "Can we live a life without conflict?" even arises. Even if it does arise, it arises when we are faced with difficulties in life - irreversible losses, deprivation, depression. When it arises in such situations, it is just a clever escape of the mind. It soon seeks satiation through work, relationships, alcohol, drugs or meditation, yoga etc.
Does the question arise in a sane mind, a sensitive mind, a mind that is not psychologically disturbed by personal problems? Can the question arise in a mind which is appalled by what it sees happening in the world without trying to seek explanations or rationalizing it? Because only when it arises this way, it has some power. Most of us are too bogged down, committed as we are to our families, our children's education, fending for our livelihoods, holding our jobs. The dust that this storm raises is so great for almost all of us that questions like this either never asked or lost in the storm.

Integral Living is for those people who have not got lost in the storm of daily living. It is for those who hold out this question like a flaming torch to penetrate the storm. It is for those who make this question, their life - "Can life be led without a single conflict?"

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not starting any school, any path or any philosophy. I am just sharing my understanding. I detest being a teacher (have been that for many years). I am not trying to change the world or influencing people into mine or any way of thinking. Whatever I write stands or falls - I have no personal stakes in either outcomes.
Also please do not misunderstand me when I am talking about leading a life without conflict to mean something in particular. I am not talking of leading a life of non-violence. I am not talking about being an environmentalist. I am not talking of being a yogi or philosopher or a mystic. I am not talking of any specific form.

Also please do not misunderstand me when I am asking whether life can be led without conflict would mean that your life would be free of all conflicts. On the contrary, conflict and disturbance would visit you more than it would visit others till they are totally ended. Living this question is not for the faint hearted.

Pardon me for this but in the next few sentences I am going to make a huge leap and say something that would appear totally out of the blue. I am just going to skip the whole train of my thought and go to the last bogie and state what I mean by Integral Living. I am doing this because the whole train would make many books. At any rate that is all what I am going to write about in all my future posts. My intention here is only to state that much which would help you to take a decision to continue your journey with me in NEEV Google Groups and NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry and Integral Living, or leave it.

Integral Living is about transformation in the consciousness of man. The highest faculty known to man (in general) is the intellect. The intellect has created our human world - our society, our technologies, our institutions and our purpose of life. However the intellect is not capable of understanding life as a whole. It functions in space and time and it fragments life in a duality of opposites. Consequently we are held prisoners to the polarities of pleasure and pain, good and bad, right and wrong, life and death. We chose one polarity over the other because the intellect can function only within the field of space, time and duality. This is the root cause of all conflicts in man.

However intellect is not the entirety of consciousness. There are level of consciousness beyond the intellect. Consequently they are "super conscious". These are levels which function in space and time but without introducing the errors and limitations of duality. The ultimate reality is beyond space and time. The "super conscious" levels of consciousness is not a "gift" or a capacity reserved for a few individuals. This is the evolutionary potential of man. It is possible to live a totally different life on earth because it lies as an evolutionary potential in nature.

The NEEV Centre for Self Inquiry and Integral Living through NEEV Google Groups is a means to share this journey to levels of consciousness beyond the mind (intellect). This is the only way the world can truly change. And it is a heck of a journey !