Happy NOW / Happy New Year

The rabbits are not celebrating the new year. Neither are the eagles. We pity them, for they neither celebrate our calendar nor do they have one of their own. How wonderful it would be to stand in the midst of a delirious crowd and shout 'happy new year'. Will they ever know that? Will they ever know the feeling of standing with great expectation for the new year? I guess not! The rabbit is contended to merely run between the bushes avoiding dogs and the eagle is happy to find a hot air column so that it can soar up and fly at great heights!

But, what we miss in the lives of the rabbit and eagle is that they always live in the NOW. An eternal NOW where the case for a psychological time does not exist. The past, future all condensed into the current moment. Is there anything worthwhile in that state? Perhaps. They do not have to worry about 'career growth' for starters. Can we even imagine such a state? A state where we do not seek some form of fulfillment of ourselves, or salvation, or enlightenment etc in the future, which the rabbits and the eagles can seem to pull off so easily! Of course, their case is helped by the absence of a mind. But, the presence of a mind, as in our cases, does not imply that we need to constantly look forward to the future to be happy.

Wishes for happy new year keep coming relentlessly on sms, phone, email, orkut / facebook, instant messenger etc. Some people even use many of these simultaneously. This could very well be a symptom of a desperation to have a better than previous year and thus find fulfillment! Each person has to investigate their own mind to find the truth of this for themselves. May be, for a change, we could try to live the way of the rabbit and the eagle for a year. May be, just may be, that millions of years of evolution that perfected their ways of lives might also have some wisdom that the human mind, which has evolved only for a few thousand years may not yet have stumbled upon! In that case, like the rabbit and the eagle, we will simply celebrate the moment- each and every moment!

Of course, nothing wrong per se in celebrating a mind made event, but we might gain something if we understand the workings of our mind that almost madly pushes us to celebrate it. Once we clearly see it, we can enjoy the mind made event but still have our feet firmly in the NOW!

Happy New Year! More importantly, Happy NOW - the eternal NOW!

Music meditation

Music mediation:

• Select your favorite melodies and put them on a playlist with a duration of about 30-40 minutes.
• Go and sit in a comfortable position.
• Start 'truly listening' to this song - to every beat and every word.

Rules: :)

• Not allowed to sing along.
• Not allowed to imagine things from the past that might pop up in relation to the song.
• Not allowed to think about anything random.
• In case you realize that any of the above happens, stop doing it immediately and come back to 'truly listening' to the song.
• Simply listen intensely to every beat, every word being uttered in every song and do nothing else.

Initially this might be hard but with practice its easy to sit comfortably in simple awareness of the song being played! Enjoy the delightful freshness, calmness and peace at the end of the 30-40 minute duration. Pay attention to the choice of the songs. Melodious songs with lyrics that are neither violent nor lustful are preferable in my opinion. Pure instrumentals without any lyrics are also great. This kind of supported meditation helps to slowly move towards unsupported meditation where one can sit simply with awareness without any specific external object (like music in this case).

Where is chithappa?

A young girl, all of 5 years and extraordinarily precocious, asked this question today - as she was staring intently at the photograph of a person that was decked with flowers, a person whom she spoke to about a month ago. There was a certain fear in her eyes - the look we have on our faces when something inexplicable has happened and when we have a gut feeling that its most probably not good. Everyone hushed. No one knew what answer to give the kid. The mother, in all her motherly affection, came there and said, he was gone out and will be back soon. The mother then quickly changed the topic and the kid immediately forgot her chithappa.

The question now is that, is she the one who is caught in fear or is it the adults around her! Yes, the girl is extraordinarily precocious. Without exaggeration, she can easily fit into a class that is two grades above the one she is at. So, giving her the 'truth', at this point, might scare her more than what she can handle. But, the reason death remains unknown to her and that it is something that she has to be scared of is certainly something that she has picked up from the adults around her. This clearly shows how a defective software, aka the conditioned mind, gets passed on from generation to generation.

When death is such an absolute certainty, we constantly live in total denial of that - of ours and of dear ones near us. Buddha says of all meditations, the greatest one is the one done on ones own death. Trying to understand it and overcoming the fear of our own death is without doubt one of the best ways to awakening. And then, one need not look like an ass in front of a five year old when she asks 'Where is chithappa?'

Worms in cow dung

'Like the worms in the cow dung, the moment the cow dung dries they are finished, however much progress they have made.' - Nisargadatta

Dreams

'Dreams are not negotiable' - Paulo Coelho

She

It has been a week. Time flows by even though people claim it to be a illusion. But, ask her and she will say that she really hopes that the events of the last one week were an illusion. After the first two days, there have been things to attend constantly making her forget herself in them. Finally, she found some quiet today. After four hectic days of receiving people, she finally got some time alone to spend with him. She desperately needed that to spend some time with him. For her, that was him - a framed photo of him.

The shy smile which she last saw so long ago was back in the photo. She was desperately trying to forget the rest, the tears and the painful expressions of the last few months, nay the last couple of years. She was trying to connect to the him in the photo whom she so desperately loved. She was appealing to him, the framed version of him, to utter a few words to her. All her feminine emotions started to express themselves. She was a picture of uncontaminated love, affection, care and tenderness - holding the photograph of her beloved. In those few moments her eyes said it all.

They say time heals. One really hopes it does.

Inshallah!

Problems in understanding spiritual literature

Reading and understanding spiritual literature is an important tool in assisting ones own realization. Of course, it is not absolutely necessary. Ramana, as every one knows, read none initially. Nevertheless, for most people, its an important tool whose importance wanes and grows at different times in ones effort for realization. But, there are many issues that I faced in understanding. Listing them here. Might be useful.

• The biggest and most important problem is that of appropriateness. Different books are useful at different stages. I think, for beginners, JK's writings are impressively incomprehensible! But, beyond a point the truth of his writings become clear. So, its important to choose appropriate books and authors. A lot of exploration is needed to find out appropriate literature.

• The second biggest issue is that the different people use words differently and there is a constant conflict to give different meanings to words. For eg., a lot of writing in this subject is on fear. Fear usually only means fear of being eaten by a tiger but rarely about the fear of not making it in the society (which is what is meant in this subject). So, a lot of patience is required here to dig through the subject to find out what the author means. Very often, I find that in discussions with friends, there comes a point where we have to define almost every non-trivial word. This makes it a little hard to begin with.

• The third issues is lack of what is called vitarka - scientific reasoning without a prior bias that looks down upon the subject. When scientists talk about youngs double slit experiment, we gape at the results and explanations with child like wonder. This is great. But, when any genuine spiritual writer starts to say things, our patience with them is minimal and our pseudo-intellectual biases convert our reasoning from vitarka to kutarka, which is reasoning with a prior bias that looks down upon the subject. Spiritual truths can never be recognized with kutarka.

• Another issue is the esoteric nature of the subject. For beginners, its a bit like learning a new language where every book teaching that language is in that language itself. Its hard, but with patience the breakthroughs come. Many times, a prior understanding of the truth to some extent is needed to understand more. In reality, a real time shock in life is needed that will shake the egoic structures. But, most of our lives are so fragile that our normal flow of life provides them in umpteen amounts.

• Another issue is that spiritual truths cannot be studied like how we study human anatomy. A sincere effort is constantly needed for personal transformation also. Without this, no progress can be made. Most people are only interested in intellectual understanding without serious personal transformation. In my opinion, that is not possible. Personal transformation is the hardest as it requires a total abandonment of ego!

• Another issue is that words are many times inaccurate and seldom possess mathematical precision. Also, authors sometimes miss out words that would make things clearer. For the author, the context might make the meaning obvious, but may be not for a beginner. This is true with all books but is probably more likely in this subject. For e.g., When JK says 'an action that is done with a desire in mind, can produce no genuine change for the good', people usually ask 'how is it possible to do an action without a desire in mind. When food is given to the hungry, there is the desire of elimination of their hunger'. Of course, this objection is correct, when interpreted in the way the listener did. What, I think, was actually meant there is the action done with a personal desire - the desire for greatness or moksha or something else!

Sraddha and Bhakthi

Sraddha* without bhakthi** is arrogance, while bhakthi without sraddha is laziness!

* By Sraddha, I mean an attitude of total commitment to all future events and activities. A state of mind where one is determined to give ones best for what is to come.

** By Bhakthi, I mean an attitude of total acceptance to everything that has happened and is happening. A state of mind that offers absolutely no resistance to what happens. Even better, a state of mind that welcomes gleefully everything that happens, even if it is diametrically opposite to what we were trying to accomplish with sraddha!

Bus Meditation

I travel to yoga class thrice a week and use public transportation. Since the bus I take starts right from near my house, I get to sit down also. I've found a nice way to spend those 45 minutes.

The idea is to keep the eyes shut for the entire journey and constantly ensuring that at all points I know where I am exactly - to recognize every bus stop, to know how far (approximately) one is from the next bus stop, recognize every turn and every signal, recognize the bakery shops and chip shops by smell, recognize major landmarks like subways and flyovers, recognize it every time a new person sits beside me etc. The prime purpose behind this meditation is that, to accomplish this perfectly, one has to constantly be aware of what is happening and be totally present. Otherwise, we might suddenly find ourselves being totally lost in our thoughts about office, home etc..., not knowing where we are. If this happens, one should quickly come back to the present and continue the process from there on. I recommend this practice strongly for everyone who is sitting in a bus that is going through a well known route. I am extremely calm and energized at the end when I get up.

For beginners to mindfulness, it will point out very clearly the dysfunction of the mind and for people who have been introduced to it already its a wonderful way to utilize the torrid commute times in the cities!

தூசு

தீயினில் தூசாவாய், விழித்துகொள் என் நண்பா!

Higher self

The higher self beckons!

Fragile lives

Thirumandiram 145

ஊரெலாங் கூடி ஒலிக்க அழுதிட்டுப்

பேரினை நீக்கிப் பிணமென்று பேரிட்டுச்

சூரையங் காட்டிடைக் கொண்டுபோய்ச் சுட்டிட்டு

நீரினில் மூழ்கி நினைப்பொழிந் தார்களே

The neighbours gathered wailing loud and long,

Denied him now a name, called him corpse,

And bore him to the burning ghat and the body burnt,

Then a ceremonial dip--and memory dies as the hours lapse

Thats how fragile our lives are! Is there moksha from this fragility?

Second

Love might be the first god. Nevertheless, a good belly laughter comes a close second.

Silence might be the music of the gods. Nevertheless, the sound of rain droplets hitting anything / everything comes a close second!

Question from No Impact Man

No Impact Man, the dude from New York, has this question in his blog

In search of a unifying theory of all our problems

When you look at the climate problem and the difficulties we have dealing with it and you combine that with a consumer culture that doesn't seem to be making people happy, you'd think we'd be able to find a solution. You'd think we'd be able to do better by ourselves.

But things are moving so slowly. What I want to know is why? What is the fundamental human flaw? What is the single underlying assumption about how we live or what we do that is causing us to damage ourselves and the habitat we depend upon for our health, happiness and security?

.

.

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What is the underlying problem with everything? What is it about us that, if we could work on it, would solve our difficulties? In short, what is your unifying theory of all our problems?

Many people have posted their answers as comments. I reproduce my comment here. If you have thought about this, please provide your thoughts as comments in the above post.

All of spirituality has been at this problem for a long time - from the Buddha to Christ to the many other mystics / yogis of the world.

Fundamentally, each of us think that we have an individual psychological existence that is trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Hence, we are constantly at war with others who come in the way of this objective. This results in we constantly living in either the past (remembering painful events) or the future (hoping for wonderful events). But, when one stills ones own mind and carefully trains it, we realize the falseness of this concept of an individual. Varying religions refer to this differently as maya (hinduism) or the original sin (christianity) or dukkha (buddhism). This is the root cause of all trouble.

The human society and all of its constructs is primarily for the human mind, of the human mind and by the human mind. Given that the human mind is dysfunctional (that it cannot be still for even a brief while, the individual seldom has control over many of thoughts in it like fear, anger etc), no change in any construct is gonna result in any significant change in the way our society functions. Only a total revolt of the individual where the individual transforms himself / herself totally to let go of all conditionings and psychological fears and desires can heal the dysfunction of the mind. And only when the society that has a good number of such people, can all the violence in it start to heal.

Love and god

The greatest principle of sufism according to the book 'The sufi message - vol 5 (spiritual liberty)' by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Ishq Allah, Ma'bud Allah'

God is love, lover, and beloved

Mind

Meher Baba on mind

A mind that is fast is sick

A mind that is slow is sound

A mind that is still is divine

Single singam

Rough translation of a poem by Kabir found in a book I am reading. I just loved it!

Diamonds are not found in heaps

The fragrant sandalwood trees do not grow in rows

Lions do not move in herds

The spiritual man has no followers

PS: You need to watch rajni movies to understand the title.. :P

Bewilderment

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” - Rumi

Lessons from samadhi pada

The first chapter of yoga sutras, samadhi pada, was completed in yoga class yesterday. There is the question of what is it that one has learnt from it. Not just words and definitions but what one has truly learnt.

This chapter talks about the highest state of human consciousness called samadhi and the siddhis (special powers) that a person at this state obtains. Of course the special powers do not mean super-human powers like the ones Neo had in the movie Matrix :P. One of the siddhis is about being able to see the truth with utter clarity and reside in that state permanently.

Sutra 48 in Chapter 1 says:

ṛtambharā tatra prajňā

The wisdom in that state is filled with clarity and is unerring

What this implies to me is that my normal state of living does not possess truth and clarity to such a high degree. This does motivate me to find out what is so wrong with the normal state of living and makes one inquire into ones life. This is the biggest lesson from the first chapter of yoga sutras for me.

Non-acceptance

Eckhart Tolle says

See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

I wish I had the courage to live this!

Doership => Sufffering

The only doer is Narayana. There is no other doer. Any attempt by us to grab the doership from Narayana sets us up for suffering.


This is true even if we have to physically support someone relentlessly for close to a year!

Present - Future

Temporally speaking, the termination of the present leads to the future. Whereas psychologically, the termination of the future leads to the present!

Agent Smith dialogue from matrix

Agent smith says this to Neo in the third part of matrix

'...temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect that is desperately trying to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose...'

WOW! This seems so spectacularly true to me when applied to most 'egoic' human emotions (fear, pride, desire, anger, etc...)!!

Blank cheque

A master said today

All of us, when we are born, are born with a blank cheque from god. The amount typically filled in by most of us is 50 paise. May be one or two of us fill in 51 paise or 52 paise. This is the sad state of affairs here today! To make things sadder, the reason why most people do this is that everyone else fills in 50 paise. There is the very rare individual who fills in a million dollars and everyone is so shocked about it! His entire family, friends and so called well wishers strongly advice the person from going against the conventional wisdom of filling in 50 paise.

All this was said in the context of finding a noble vision for oneself. He was telling that only a life spent in trying to actualize a noble vision can be fulfilling. Instead, 99.999% of people spend their lives trying to satisfy their needs, wants, cravings and desires. Of course, nothing wrong in having them but spending all of ones life on that is what the issue is. He was saying that trying to achieve happiness through such means is so trivial and such people never get to know what a fulfilling life could be like.

As he said those words about a blank cheque from god, I was reminded of this old tamil poem:

நந்தவனத்தில் ஓர் ஆண்டி - அவன்
நாலாறு மாதமாய்க் குயவனை வேண்டிக்
கொண்டு வந்தான் ஒரு தோண்டி - அதைக்
கூத்தாடிக் கூத்தாடிப் போட்டுடைத்தாண்டி

Rough translation

A mendicant in the sacred garden
Prays for 10 months, and
arrives with a vessel
Unfortunately, he plays carelessly
and breaks it!

He was also talking about the famous example of the two stone cutters. The first one when asked what he does, said he cuts stones. The other, when asked what he does, says he helps in building the Taj Mahal.

Most people whom when asked, 'What they do', answer they work in xyz company. I have hardly come across someone who said they are working to accomplish such and such a thing. Even when I was in academia, I met only one professor who talked about the beauty of the scientific problems that she is trying to solve. Such is the state of affairs.