IIMB Alumni Association

The Seven Principles of Conscious Living

These seven principles are meant to be viewed and evaluated from a ‘working hypothesis’ standpoint, and not as a claim of ‘objective truth’. In other words, the reader is encouraged to ascertain, for himself or herself, if these principles enable him or her to live more consciously.

1. The Principle of a Unique Purpose

There is one, unique thing you are here to do. You have one unique frequency, like that of a tuning fork. You are here only for that reason, and no other. Like in any golfing situation, there is only one authentic stroke. You have your own script to embed in the divine scroll.

Your connection to that unique essence is the key. No amount of wealth, power, and acquisitive trail can fill the gap of NOT having that connection with your essence.

That unique essence is the cutting edge where the ‘part’ and the ‘whole’ become seamless. What does that mean? Just as you are a whole being unto yourself, you are also a part of a larger body called humanity. In being with your unique essence, you actually become truly ‘whole’ unto yourself, and truly a ‘part’ of the other whole, in a way nobody else can be! As such, any paradox of individualism and collectivism dissolves in your unique essence.

Do you often ask yourself ‘What is this all about? What am I doing? Is this all there is to life?’ despite making your bonuses, travelling for exotic holidays, and acquiring the next fancy car? If you do, then trust that the real thing has been missing. Don’t be dismayed or worried about it – the very awareness that the connection with your essence is the most important thing – will begin the process of initiating the connection. In that sense, the most valuable thing of all is the one which is available to you anywhere, any time, free of charge – your connection to your essence!

Just waking up to the glorious imminence of that connection is the most natural, spontaneous, and exhilarating thing you could do.

2. The Principle of Emergence

In every thing, there is a glimpse of divinity, however subtle or fleeting it may be. It is not the state of things that is important, but the directionality of emergence that is. Emergence of a higher order, towards perfection and harmony. Sensing that directionality aligns you to your unique purpose.

Visualize the sun creeping in through the wall of trees, which separate you from the full force and exposure to the wall of light. Life is like that. As you begin to be aware of the directionality of emergence of the sunlight, trying to reach out to you and into your awareness, you can construct a symbolic representation of how the beauty and glory of reality can open up to you.  It is as simple as that.

An egg, if broken from the outside, ends a life. If the same egg breaks from within, an emergent life force begins to manifest itself.

Understanding the principle of emergence may require you to let go of the traditional notion of space and time, i.e. the past-present-future construct. In the paradigm of emergence, something emerges from something else, period. It may happen instantaneously, or later, in any place that you are, connected with anything you felt somewhere else. Time and place are included in the emergence paradigm, but transcended as well.

In other words, emergence incorporates space-time for perceptual reference, but is not hindered by its limitations or constraints. Do you begin to see that?

The principle of emergence is intimately related to, and a direct manifestation of a transcendental divine intentionality that is inherent is everything that exists. Whether material, or non-material. Simply being aware of, and opening up to that intentionality will allow you to connect with your essence and discover your unique purpose.

Another way of coming alive to the emergent intentionality is to just think about key events in your life. How one thing led to the other and formed a long chain that may have appeared to you like a series of co-incidences. Well, you have a choice here. You can think of them as co-incidences, or you can think of them as some inherent intentionality causing your emergence into the self that is reading this page, right now!

You decide which conscious choice of belief best serves you. It is finally about what you choose to construct for yourself that becomes your reality.

A framework is needed to enable you to look for, find and be satisfied by data in your life, and help you determine what makes more sense to believe in– divine intentionality, devilish intentionality, or neutral ground i.e. the existence of neither. Keep that question alive in your awareness, and discover your own answer.

3. The Causal Agenda Principle

Most of us would have studied, heard of, or can intuit about a pyramidal structure called the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. We will dwell on that hierarchy in a bit of detail, because it is important to make some key distinctions here.

To refresh your memory, there are five need categories which explain the nature of human motivation.

a)      Physiological needs – they explain the motivation to breathe, eat, drink, procreate and use  the loo

b)      Safety needs – they explain why we run like hell from danger, lock doors, take vaccines, pay hefty insurance premiums,   have smoke detectors in kitchens

c)      Social needs – they explain dating sites, party hopping, the greeting card and the teddy bear industry, and the Christmas turkey

d)     Esteem needs – they explain the not-so-subtle art of bragging, conspicuous consumption, the use of mirrors several times a day, congratulatory messages (sometimes qualified with ‘sincere’, just in case), and most autobiographies

e)      Self actualization needs – they explain some people climbing Mt Everest and probably not making it back in one piece, the unshaven look of most artists, Hitler’s impassioned speeches, jihadi terrorism (believe it or not!) and the Buddha’s renunciation of his worldly life

Now some actions are driven by more than one need. You could argue that for the Christmas turkey the need is of food as well, which satisfies hunger. And unshaven artists need to project a casual look for self esteem. And terrorists do what they do eventually because a deep, underlying sense of insecurity.  The key point is that usually there is one primary need that drives every action.

The key point of the hierarchy is that to progress to a higher need, the lower need has to be satisfied first.  In other words, if the artist in unshaven because he does not have money to buy a razor or pay a barber, then he is unlikely to be inspired to make a visual depiction of an orange sunset or fruits in still life.

On this subject, we will now examine the concept of a ‘motivation compass’. A compass is something which provides some sense of direction to the action taken. And also provides a sense of priority on which action is most urgent and important. Your motivation compass is therefore a conceptual framework which helps you decide what to do, and when. An infant’s motivation compass directs him/ her to first seek milk/ food, then wetting the diaper, then sleep, then a toy, and so on.

Maslow’s hierarchy, internalized in every individual, creates the motivation compass for him/ her in every moment in life. Whether awake, or asleep. Even dreams originate from the motivation compass, albeit unconsciously.

We will now examine some finer points or distinctions, with examples. These distinctions will provide a well rounded appreciation of the motivation compass, which can then enable a more considered introspection to your own actions, and your eventual nature as a human being.

1. Instinctive versus intentional choices

You may note that as you progress up the pyramid, your choices become more intentional.  You are more in direct control of how you enact the directive from your motivation compass, and be self aware while doing it. When you reach out for food or water, or when you have the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome, it happens largely through instinct rather than intention. Even logging on to the facebook page, or liking people who praise you unabashedly, happen kind of involuntarily. However writing a poem, or playing the violin, is more an act of intention and inspiration.

We need to make another related distinction here which may be a bit confusing at first. Many acts of creativity tend to happen spontaneously. The Hungarian psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls that the flow zone, a zone where there is a fine balance between the challenge and the ability. If the challenge facing you is much higher than your ability to deal with the challenge, you have anxiety. On the other hand, if your ability far exceeds the challenge offered to you, there is inevitable boredom. Only when the two are balanced do you have the optimal flow experience. In the flow state, it’s as if the violin plays itself through you, rather than you having to play the violin, assuming you are a good violinist and have chosen a piece which is not way beyond your comfort zone.

When you are in your most natural, authentic state of play, ‘effort’ somehow disappears. But you still make the ‘choice’ consciously and intentionally, and then surrender to the flow of creative juices.

Maslow’s first four levels are more instinctive, whereas the final level is largely intentional.

2. Deficiency motivations versus growth motivations

You will also note that the first four levels are driven by a sense of lacking something. Lack of food, shelter, companionship, recognition, approval etc. In the fifth level, your orientation shifts. Your motivation is to grow and break new ground, rather than plug your physiological and emotional holes.

You may say that at the fifth level, there is also a lack of something. Of fulfilment, real satisfaction, and lasting excitement. That is true, but only when there is narcissistic focus on the self as a consumer of things, as opposed to the world out there for which one produces or generates things. The focus shifts from ‘me’ to ‘everyone including me’.  In that sense you transcend and include the ‘self’.

3. Survival agenda versus causal agenda

This is an easy one. In the first four levels, it is all about survival. Survival of the body, the material possessions, the emotional self, and the ego. In the fifth level, it is about causing things to happen, rather than protecting your narrow identity. In the causal mode, the self becomes an instrument for creation, or causation. The creative evolution of the self finds new meaning in furthering the collective cause, rather than just the individual cause.  You now see how this links to the previous point.

4. Tension reduction versus Tension Induction

The first four levels seek to mitigate tension. Tension arising from the deficiency, and the consequences thereof. The fifth level induces, and welcomes creative tension. The role of tension here switches from a destructive to a constructive one. As you will recall from your own experience, any creative process brings in the tension of ambiguity, of pattern management, of evolution. In business, that is the crux of the leap any budding entrepreneur makes.

To draw a conceptual parallel with chaos theory, the creative process increases the chaos in the system till the system suddenly makes a leap into a higher order of existence, where the increase in complexity eventuates as an evolutionary step jump into a new space.

The propensity to embrace creative tension is an intrinsic characteristic of the growth motivation, or the causal agenda described in the previous points.

5. Pain-pleasure principle versus Chaos – Harmony principle

In the first four levels, the focus is to avoid or mitigate pain, and increase or gravitate towards pleasure. It may so happen that what exactly constitutes pleasure or pain is interpreted in a limited context, resulting in a sub-optimal operation of the motivation compass, and incorrect decisions or actions. Have you not felt that some decisions taken by you were wrong, or too hasty, or downright stupid?

Until and unless you are truly ‘grounded’ in wisdom and right perspective of things, your motivation compass can misguide you. And you makemeaning from, and ascribe significance to things in a sub-optimal way. You tend to achieve local optima, instead of global optima.

A local optimum is the solution to a problem defined in a narrow context, isolated from the open system in which it is situated. A global optimum is found in a wider context, where more variables, inter-dependencies and motivations are addressed.

The concepts of making meaning, ascribing significance, and achieving optima, are central concepts in our lives. It is not enough to be aware of these concepts, but also to know how to be able to trust one’s judgement about these things, while ploughing through the territory of life.

The fifth level, in its genuine avatar, dissolves the obsession of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. It orients the motivation of creating harmony from chaos. It is not that it likes pain or shuns pleasure in a masochistic way, but that it is just indifferent to both.  In its pure form, the self actualization impulse treats success and failure as transient things, or as waves of circumstance to which no attachment needs harbouring.

‘…..If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same…..’

-       Rudyard Kipling

Imagine the freedom that comes with such a disposition. The question is, will this disposition weaken the fire of ambition, or the burning urgency of getting things done? And even if this disposition is desirable, how on earth does one get it? Read on.

Take versus give

The final distinction is perhaps the easiest to make, but the hardest to practise. The first four levels orient us as takers, graspers, or accumulators. The fifth level has the potential to re-orient us as givers, without the attendant paranoia of loss and insecurity.

How does this re-orientation happen? Simply by the willingness to see things in a different context. This level obviates the need to have to ‘grasp’, because it has the potential to create such mind-boggling abundance that there is enough for everybody, and more!

4. The Principle of Wholeness

Every unique purpose has an equal role to play in the causal agenda.  Without a baker and a butcher, the society of just teachers and philosophers would never be complete. No one is more or less important than the other. The beauty of complementarities is what makes each of us fit into and support each other’s roles to complete the bigger jigsaw. Our wholeness lies in living our unique purpose fully, unabashedly and passionately.  It is only the resonance of that unique essence which catapults us into Level 5 of Maslow’s pyramid, and enables us to fulfil our causal agenda.

Purposefulness provides the impetus, and directionality to the emergence process of our inherent goodness, or potential. Achieving wholeness is the climax of the emergence, a climax which never subsides. In achieving that wholeness we become the ‘perfect part’ of the larger whole, which is humanity. Wholeness of our individual self is oriented by the discovery of and actualization of our unique purpose. Wholeness of our civilization, or humanity is oriented by the purposefulness of humanity, which is infinite harmony and perfection. If any one of us does not play, or falls short of playing the specific tune we, and only we can play, then the bigger composition falls short as well.

5. The Principle of Koans

Koans are designed for our evolution. Because the ability to hold multiple perspectives, even if some of them appear to be contradictory, opens us up to the grounded level of being which transcends the intellect.

Koans uses paradox to dislodge the student from the inadequacy of logical reasoning while making sense of trans-rational truths--an extremely useful tool for highly intelligent students who fool themselves into thinking that talking about enlightenment is a substitute for the actual experience of enlightenment.

Look for koans in your life. You will find them everywhere. Do not be in a rush to resolve them with your rational, logical mind. Just savour the goodness, truth and beauty in each one of them. Your life tapestry will become richer with every passing moment.

6. The Principle of Intelligent Selection

Do we really need to wrestle with different claims of what reality is? There may be a simpler way of resolving various claims of the territory, all of which are nothing but map-making processes used by the map-maker based on his unique perspective.

You see a room through a window. The room appears to be in a certain way, with the objects in the room in a certain configuration, or order. You may even see the room through a set of coloured glasses which impart a certain hue to all that you see. Imagine someone else seeing the room from another window, different from yours. Is it worth the argument with him about how the room is? Isn’t that totally meaningless?

Almost all conflict, or even wars, stem from this instinctive desire to defend a certain point of view, by negating or pooh-poohing other points of view.

The Room with a view, as seen you by you or anyone else, is a valid map of the territory of the room. However, by its very nature is an incompleteview.  We should not confuse validity or truth with completeness or the absolute truth.

Absolute truth is as ephemeral or experiential as God is. We can never see it, we can only hope to experience it through our lens of vision. It is too great to be trapped by points of view, or words, or arguments.

Intelligent Selection is a paradigm that is more than just a simple word play of ‘Intelligent Design’ and ‘Natural Selection’, in postulating how things emerge and evolve. Things just are. The rainy day outside just is. The notion of it being dull, or sullen, or moody is our own ‘window’ view of the rainy day. But we have the full freedom to select how that rainy day is, for ourselves.

Is there much point in debating whether the rainy day was made by an intelligent designer, with a certain purpose, goal or desire? The intelligence seems to simply be in our selection, or choice, because that is what really serves us and our purpose.

Consider the matter of faith, often a bone of contention between scientists and philosophers. The need to be right is a limiting condition in the way of our growing and moving towards perfection. Rational fundamentalism is the first barrier and constraint to our moving into the trans-rational stages.

Faith is allowing your sight to go beyond what your eyes can see. Blind faith is no good. Conscious faith is more important than a notion of clinging dependence creeping into the notion of faith. Blind faith is pre-rational- it accepts without testing the claims, as told. Conscious faith is also about belief, but it first understands, then tests, then collects the data directly from awareness, and hence is it trans-rational. It transcends and includes rationality. There is a leap no doubt, the leap is simply to allow the emergence of realizations, meaning and conclusions, without the usual ‘stuckness’ that comes in the way. Not to adhere to beliefs because someone else said so, but allowing open-minded scepticism to formulate our own theorems of reality.

The immanent sense of goodness, of what works and what doesn’t, is itself an indication of a divine intentionality that orients the distinction of what is desirable and what is not.

The truth of this realization can free us from the need to suffer.

Often we complain about the cards we are dealt with. In a game of poker, for example, or in the larger game of life itself. That mind-set de-focuses our energy from the only thing that is real for us- which is to play the game in the best way, given what cards we have.

That is intelligent selection. We make that selection according to our consciousness capacity.

7. The Principle of an unconditional Source

‘There is one point of being, in the universe, which is not conditioned by any need, or want, or desire. Since that being does not want anything, everything belongs to him. All things naturally gravitate to that unconditional source, simply because pure love is naturally given to all who come.

Like a radiant magnet beyond the limits of time and matter, beyond measurements and calculations, the source attracts all because nothing is desired and all is given. The love of the source is like spiritual sunlight. Physical sunlight awakens the flower hidden in the seed, and facilitates the birth and bloom of the flower. Spiritual sunlight of the source reveals to us our forgotten reality, our hidden potential, and our original goodness.

The source reveals us to ourselves. Then, if wish, if we choose, we can nourish and develop that awareness, but only to the extent that we maintain the ‘channel of communication’. Otherwise the current short-circuits, cuts, locks or discharges into other directions, and after a while there is a black-out. Humanity is on the cusp of a massive black-out.

Meditation is one exercise of pure awareness, to re-link ourselves to that source embedded in nothing and yet everything. As we re-link, a purification takes place, which liberates the mind from the limits of ‘I’ and ‘my’, the shackles of a conditioned past, and allows it to taste the sweetness of the unlimited. This relationship with the unconditional source encourages me, and allows me to emerge my spiritual strength and live consciously.’-   Anon

This article was contributed by Neelesh Marik PGP '92