I think we all have these 3 personalities that always are taking charges of our minds, lives constantly. I notice it in me more and more. The bad thing about it is that – these 3 archetypes aren’t evenly distributed.

The Critic

Obviously the critic is kinda kicking everyone’s ass. You could notice it if you start to watch your self talk. Or when you are in front of a mirror. Or you watch people as you stand in a line at Starbucks. The Critic is always making opinions, giving negative feedback – about me, about my environment, about the people I interact with. It’s kinda how we navigate this world. It does has very good use though – judgement. The Critic can judge fast and it’s very useful in certain situations. But we let it dominate all other things and thats when it kinda ruins our lives.

The Rebel

We all know this person. Especially if you had rough teens. We all rebel in various ways. Usually – internally this rebellion is against that Critic and externally it’s directed towards parents, siblings, colleagues and rest of the world. You may think there isn’t any rebel in you, but trust me there is. It might be subtler – like you love grunge or dub step or eat really spicy food. This rebel kinda helps us break through the threshold of your limits placed by the Critic. This guys lets you break through the glass ceiling that the Critic put in place. Without the rebel we can’t do a lot of things that we admire ourselves for.

The Witness

Then there is this witness – probably occupying like 0.01% of our being. The ironic thing about witness is, it doesn’t do anything. I mean literally like anything at all. It doesn’t prompt you to do any action, it doesn’t prompt you any thoughts either. It’s just witnessing, running the cosmic tape recorder and recording. Why is the Witness important? Remember what Archimedes said? “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth“. This witness is the place for us to stand. The place where we can move things and the Earth (metaphorically). The witness is the place where we are nothing and yet notice everything. The witness is the position where you see who you actually are.

A lot of religions, new age societies have named this witness as God, Universe etc.. pick one you like but it’s a special one.

The trick is to make all these 3 psyches balance. It’s not easy. Our default mode is Critic and it’s probably going on by now how this blog post is BS (believe me mine is telling me the same too!). What I have noticed is that the only way to increase the Witness’ role is through contemplation, journaling and meditation. The rebel will automatically take care of itself.

Personally I am giving myself till this year end to add some of these practices more often to my life and make them active part so that I am in a better place with Witness and be able to live a meaningful life.

Today listening to NPR program about music, dads, family, education-  triggered a lot of feelings from my past. I was sitting there in garage till the program finished. I am not in a great mood to write a lot about it as of now but I always thought 2 songs summarized it very well.

1. My childhood – can be summarized in Alanis’s song called Perfect

2. My education – can be summarized with Pink Floyd’s song called Another brick in the wall

All my years growing up, my dad always talked about how I need to find my purpose. The purpose of my life. He used to talk a lot about ‘maqsad’ == purpose. I liked it couple of times but hated it most of the time. I thought it was rhetorical. The teenager in me ignored it. When I started to work, I was happy with my life. Getting paid well and loving what I do and not to mention working with my best friends and getting drunk!

I thought I realized the purpose indirectly. But my dad didn’t see it that way. He kept talking to me about it. Now after all these years – it has me all stirred up. This thing has been on my mind since September and my visit to India last month has made me wonder am I really living the purpose of my life? I mean I am happy and content. I have the best family and friends. My work is cool and I love what I do. But there is something missing and I can’t really put my finger on it.

It’s very rare I come across people who really know what they want in life. I mean money, power etc are laudable goals but not really good enough to qualify as purposeful life. I have some friends who are leading purposeful life. They are on the path which is basically their life. And I have a lot of friends who are like me – happy, content in the moment but missing the overall purpose.

I have no idea what mine is. Dwelling heavily on philosophy and religion – gives me answer which basically says that the purpose of being born as a Human is to reach God. But I don’t know how to do that. I mean without uprooting the lifestyle I have now. Thinking in terms of work – I think of a lot of things that come close to being purpose but not good enough.

As I close my eyes to go to sleep every night, my dad’s words ring in my head. I can’t let it go. I need to figure this out and I don’t think there is an easy way other than just facing it. I really hope I find out soon, because this thing is killing me.

What a life. Now it will be – what a legacy. I admire Steve Jobs for his ruthless nature with details. Very few people are both adamant and right. Steve Jobs was. He has been right about a lot of things and there are many things I see now which I think now as a customer to Apple has placed me in the right place too. I know that from open source point of view – Apple isn’t all saintly. But whatever it is, it was the making of Steve Jobs. No where it is possible to be a company like Apple.

I have been digesting his passing away since yesterday. It feels weird and I have 2 things to write about.

1. How I came to know about Macs: When I finished my college I took one year off to study and prepare for IIMs – the prestigious management institution. People spend a year to prep for the entrance test because if you get into IIM your life won’t be same again. During that period – this was 1995, I came across a newspaper ad about how there is a Macintosh computer expo in one of the 5 star hotel. I didn’t know what a Macintosh is but looking at the picture, it looked like a standard PC and I was interested in anything that is remotely like a PC.

At that time I was really wanting to own my very own computer – which was really pricey to have but I went in to check Macs out. It was awesome. The computer smiled when you turn them on and the way it looked was beautiful. Then I saw the price tag – I was like shit. It was like 2500$ even back then. There is no way I can ever afford to buy one. I spent about an hour there wandering and looking at all the models.

I knew I couldn’t buy a mac, but my interest in a mac was spiked up. So, I went straight from there to a book store and bought a Mac for Dummies book. I studied it from end to end and there was an end to that story. After I came to US in 2001 – I have always had an eye on Mac. I checked the apple site often and always looked at the price tag and felt bad about spending so much money on something which I wasn’t sure would be useful for my work.

Finally in 2007 we were about to move to India for a year, my job was ending, we got rid of all the stuff we had and I had just enough savings to buy one. I bought my first Mac Book Pro on June 29th 2007 just 4 days before I left for India. It also happened to be the day iPhone got released and the store was mobbed and I probably was the only guy buying a laptop that day. I remember on that day we were going to our friends place for dinner straight from the store and I was just waiting to get back home and checkout my very own Mac.

I was a Ubuntu Linux user till then and after a painful incidents of my computer stalling and my win PC not working like the way I wanted it to – I made the switch. I had too many gripes about macs – like no right click button, not higher resolution that win pc etc – but all that were gone once I started to use it. No matter what you say about Mac’s closed nature – the hardware rocks. I have never had any serious issues with my mac ever. After that – all I bought was macs. Sangita uses Mac Pro, we have a Mac Mini running as our media center. Airport for wireless. iPod for music etc. Mac gave me peace of mind.

2. Detached Sadness: How could it be my blog post without me feeling something. I have been feeling bummed for his death. I have no personal great incidents with SJ or anything but all this thinking about his death – has made me reflect on couple of things.

a. I noticed that how weird my thinking is that all the time Steve was alive, when I looked at his pics in media or his talk all I thought was what media was telling me. It never occurred to me that there was a person behind that monster character that media is portraying him as. Just 2 day back I saw an article about how SJ parks in handicap spots and that too occupying 2 spots. And I thought what a jerk. But I totally missed how he is a person behind all that noise. A rather warm person. Just goes to show how swayed I am by the stupid media.

b. I was talking to JD last night about this and I was saying how death kinda gives me no place to stand. Like my mind goes into this gaping void where I am speechless and can’t think of anything else. As we talked I realized that I am not that afraid of my own death but I am afraid of far greater thing than that. I think I am afraid that I would die without realizing my purpose in life. That was kinda crazy as it occurred to me.

I think Steve Jobs was all about that – single minded purpose. And he marched to his own band – that made him epic. And my greatest fear came to me that I would die with the music stuck inside me – never getting a chance to realize my purpose. It’s still reverberating in my heart and I am still pondering on it.

It does make me sad.

It’s been said that long time back in 1973 he traveled to India to visit Neem Karoli Baba but just missed him by few days. Neem Karoli Baba passed away few days before Steve arrived. It’s the same Baba whose disciples are Ram Dass and Krishna Das and I think it’s a fitting tribute – a bhajan by Krishna Das on Baba.

Suffering is the unyielding attachment to that one stale thought obsessively. Behind these attachment there lies *witness*. When I pull back from these attachments I sense the “gap”. The gap is ever present, I am just not aware of it.

Gap is the cosmic dust that fills the universe.

Gap is the space between trigger and response

Gap is the void that needs no filling

Gap is the sound of the one hand clapping

Gap is what Rumi, Hafiz, Gibran experienced and J.Krishnamurti, Yogi Paramananda talked about, Lincoln, Gandhi, MLK did in actions.

Gap is the humm of life.

I experience it only when I pull back the senses. It’s time.

What came first? Mind or Matter?

Science: Matter came first and then Mind followed

Math: Mind and Matter are 2 dependent variants of the system. Wtf?

Spirituality: Mind came first and created matter.

Philosophy: Mind, no wait it’s matter. Oh shoot – can be both.

Religion: My mind came first and your matter belongs to me!