I recently reread Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

My favorite passage from the book:

“The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way–an honorable way–in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

When life does not go according to plan, and it so often doesn’t, you feel distressed: disappointment, stress, anxiety, worry, fatigue, irritation, anger, frustration.

The more detailed your plan, the more invested you are in it, the worse you feel when it doesn’t work out.

And when the plan doesn’t work out, you make it more detailed, put more effort into it, trying harder and harder to ensure that the plan works out the next time.

You plan more and more, to avoid disappointment, you try harder and harder, as the plans twist tighter and tighter, constricting your present life, making it hard for you to breathe, to breathe in the vitality of your existence.

So one day you say: I want to leave it all. Give it all up. Retire from the rat race, freedom from the bullshit. Move away to the mountains.

But you soon realize that this too is strangely unsatisfactory. The tightness of the plans are gone now. But once the breath returned, you asked, “What am I breathing for?”

When I tell people about Nirvikalpa: The Center for Human Potential, I’m often asked what the word “Nirvikalpa” means.

I usually answer, “Beyond the limitations of the mind”. Sometimes I am met with an incredulous or surprised look. After all, most of us have come to believe that the mind is our greatest asset, and that any development of our potential should be through the development of the mind.

However, the word Nirvikalpa suggests another perspective of the mind. A perspective that is shared by mystical faiths , both East and West - from mystical Christianity, to Sufism, to Hinduism, Buddhism, to the Kabbalah, Existential philosophers, Jungian psychology, and more recently, some psychiatrists and neurophysiologists: the perspective that our mind is a construct; that instead of helping us in our path towards a higher consciousness, our mind in fact prevents us from evolving further, holding us back, limiting us, even imprisoning us in old patterns and old ways of being.

So what does the word “Nirvikalpa” mean?

The answer, which doesn’t really go down well at your average cocktail party ( I tried it one time and the host asked me what I had been smoking…) is as follows:

Like many Sanskrit words, the word “Nirvikalpa” is actually composed of smaller words strung together, like pearls on a necklace. By itself each word has its own meaning, but when strung together, the meaning is transformed into something larger, more profound.

So, Nirvikalpa = Nir + Vi + Kalpa

Depending on how one interprets each component (Nir, Vi, and Kalpa), Nirvikalpa can mean many different things.

Kalpa means a unit of time, and according to Vedic cosmology, is 4.32 billion years. After each Kalpa, according to the Vedas, the world dissolves, only to begin again.

Kalpa, is also closely related to the word,”Kalpana”, which means imagination.

There can be no imagination without time, the word suggests.. And no time without the imaginations of the mind.

The word “Kalpa”, then, suggests that time itself is a figment of the imagination, a construct of our linear mind.

But Kalpa has another meaning - it can also mean “Rule” , or ” “Ordinance”.

So, if we add the prefix “Vi” to Kalpa, we get the word “Vikalpa”.

(It so happens that the prefix “Vi” in sanskrit can either intensify the meaning of a word, or, paradoxically, diminish the meaning of the word - and people say English is confusing!)

The word Vikalpa is then best translated as ” A state of mind that exists within the framework of linear time” or “A state of mind that understands the world and objects by language and constructs, but does not see the ultimate reality that lies beyond language and thought” or even , ” A mind that is not free of social constructs, prejudices, and preconceptions.”

Which finally brings us to Nirvikalpa

The prefix “Nir” in Sanskrit, means “Without”, or “Beyond.”

So Nirvikalpa then is best translated as ” A state of mind and being that exists beyond the limitations of time, space, and individual consciousness.”

Nirvikalpa is the absolute unfettered freedom of consciousness that exists beyond the limitations of the mind.

The word tell us that if we could break free from all our limitations, nothing is beyond reach.

It hints at the possibilities that exist within us. If we go beyond the mind. If we embrace infinity.

I passed through Dubai recently, and noticed that almost every Emirati in the news is a “His Highness” or a “His Excellency”. (I am not sure what it takes to be royalty in these parts, but when it comes to honorofics, one expects a degree of restraint.)

Anyway, I read this story in the Gulf News. Apparently, a 1 year old baby (her name is Nayana) has been charged with “staying in the country illegally” and was going to be deported. (What??? They expected the baby to stand in line for a visa?)

Her mother, a nurse at a hospital in Sharjah, was understandably distraught until, after a year of uncertainty, the minster of “interior” , a certain Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan granted Nayana a visa.

The Sheik said,”Every effort must be made to help those in trouble, no matter who they are, or where they come from.”

Very magnanimous of him. I think the Lieutenant deserves an upgrade to “His Excellency”.

f a developing country is the wild, then a developed country is a zoo.

The zoo looks like the real thing, only more ordered. The temperature is regulated. The watering hole is never empty. The food arrives on time. And the predators are kept in check.

In the wild, the animal eats what it kills. There is a flood one day, and a drought the next. Predators run free and some animals live long and proud, others are killed as soon as they are born.

The liberated, dangerous, chaos of the wild. Or the constrained, safe, order of the zoo.

Where would you rather be?