Beliefs

A friend told me may be I am just going through a transition. He believes in Astrology, and was talking with reference to that. I do follow the sun signs just for the sake of it. I never subscribed to full time astrology. Somewhere, I could never accept that we don’t control our lives.

I always believed that what we are is essentially a choice that we make. Our life is marked by milestones, consisting of the choices that we made till today. There is something called comfort zones. I think its so hard to get people out of their comfort zones. By comfort zones I mean all the beliefs, habits and values that they have build up over time, from childhood. So essentially everything that you choose is based on your beliefs and the value system that you have imbibed.

But now and then we are willing to give up on all these beliefs, give up all our values. What makes us do that. Essentially its one of our emotions. It requires an emotion very powerful to move us. It could be love, anger, lust, hatred, jealousy, anything. Sometimes we are slaves in the hands of these emotions.

Scientifically, these emotions are just chemical imbalances within the brain, which trigger neuro-activity that drives us. It is very difficult to accept that what we feel is just chemical reactions happening within our brains. But Science keeps proving it is so. Emotions are driven by our thoughts. Thoughts stem from beliefs and values that we hold. This was my understanding of how we control our lives.

I believe in science. But feel that science currently cannot explain lot of things… What about people who have lost their mind??.. (eeks let me skip this, we’ll talk about this another day) Duality theory (particle and wave nature) of electron, Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, non-linear systems, chaos theory. The essence of quantum mechanics states that, results vary based on what is observed. This indicates that our understanding of things are not perfect. This gives raise to a humility that I completely subscribe. Albert Einstein, talks about this humility, which is somewhat religious, though not in the traditional sense.

For a small ant, a stretch of sea shore might appear infinitely long, the same ant, if we assume is sitting on top of a tree, might be able to see that its just a small part of the land mass, which goes to indicate based on what we are capable of seeing, what we understand is completely different. Someday science will be able to satisfactorily explain lot of things.

Astrologically, what happens is predetermined, based on your karma. You could plan everything in minute detail and end up with everything happening according to its own plan. You could do all things that you deem should be done in order to attain something and still see that it never materializes. You could be willing to give your 100%, yet not even 1% is wanted.

According to him, transition is a phase when your life literally seems out of order and things that happen appear beyond comprehension. I cannot fully accept his points, but do believe if something has to happen it will be happen at all costs. Essentially he forced me to rethink on lot of my beliefs.

I believe in God. That makes me a theist. But I also believe that the question if God is there or not can never be answered, at least in the time I am. That makes me agnostic. I believe in prayers and miracles, thats theist again. I don’t support the theory of rituals, that makes me largely atheist. I believe in Love and soul-mates, that makes me meta-physical. I keep pondering over the structures of consciousness, thought, reality, ego, so on and that would make me philosophical. I believe that perception is the key to understanding, that make me Phenomenological. Now I wonder which ones are still in vogue.