Sunday, February 28, 2010

Grown up

A person can be considered to be a grown up only when they do not have to be lied to!


Update: This comment from KG needs to be up here:

A less egoistic one-liner would be: A relationship can be considered to be grown up only when there are no lies between the entities involved. Or something like that.

Tamasic unconsciousness

Tamasic unconsciousness in people whom we deal with has this peculiarity of drawing one into the game by making one feel guilty that one is responsible for their suffering that arises out of their tamasic unconsciousness! Beware!!!

Game

Its a bloody game damn it! Do not take it too seriously! You MUST be kidding!

Fav Thirumandiram - 603

எண்ணா யிரத்தாண்டு யோகம் இருக்கினும்
கண்ணார் அமுதினைக் கண்டறி வாரில்லை
உண்ணாநாடிக் குள்ளே ஓளியுற நோக்கினால்
கண்ணாடி போலக் கலந்துநின் றானே

Even after practicing yoga for thousands of years,
They did not have a glimpse of that beauty,
But, when silently sought within,
Its presence is seen clearly like in a mirror!


Can he get any more direct? When its within us, why seek it through outside practices? When its within us, why seek to become?

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Rebellion

The only rebellion that is needed is the rebellion against the mind made sense of 'me', the ego!

No other form of rebellion (like rebelling against any other ism, rebelling against sexual repression, rebelling against money etc are not absolutely needed). It is completely possible for some of these to enable the rebellion against the 'me'. But, the focus is on the rebellion against the 'me' because it is the actual need that gives raise to the other partial needs. Any partial rebellion is on a slippery slope and is bound to degrade. Many times such partial rebellion end up causing more violence than the causes they set out to rebel against (like maoism, for e.g.). Hence, the rebellion against the 'me' is the fundamental rebellion that is needed if a violence free human society is to be dreamed about!

பார்த்தசாரதி

பார்த்தா, எங்கே உனது சாரதி?

Illusion & Disillusionment

One is disillusioned only until one sees the illusion!

Mystical vs Ignorance

The mystic is mystical only until the non-mystic is ignorant!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Guru Test

Would you still be on the spiritual path if your guru were to get caught doing something you think as scandalous (say getting drunk big time and beating someone up or participating in an orgy)?

If so, awesome! Else, its obvious you have been simply following like sheep! :)

Remember the student of zen who burnt his masters library saying they are the enemies of zen!! That is the real student. In my opinion, the guru is needed only to point out the darkness in us (even that is not absolutely necessary, one can do it by oneself). After that, its up to us! Imitation only furthers the darkness!

JK on loneliness

JK on loneliness in the Commentaries on Living
What a strange thing is loneliness, and how frightening it is! We never allow ourselves to get too close to it; and if by chance we do, we quickly run away from it. We will do anything to escape from loneliness, to cover it up. Our conscious and unconscious preoccupation seems to be to avoid it or to overcome it. Avoiding and overcoming loneliness are equally futile; though suppressed or neglected, the pain, the problem, is still there. You may lose yourself in a crowd, and yet be utterly lonely; you may be intensely active, but loneliness silently creeps upon you; put the book down, and it is there. Amusements and drinks cannot drown loneliness; you may temporarily evade it, but when the laughter and the effects of alcohol are over, the fear of loneliness returns. You may be ambitious and successful, you may have vast power over others, you may be rich in knowledge, you may worship and forget yourself in the rigmarole of rituals; but do what you will, the ache of loneliness continues. You may exist only for your son, for the Master, for the expression of your talent; but like the darkness, loneliness covers you. You may love or hate, escape from it according to your temperament and psychological demands; but loneliness is there, waiting and watching, withdrawing only to approach again.

Loneliness is the awareness of complete isolation; and are not our activities self-enclosing? Though our thoughts and emotions are expansive, are they not exclusive and dividing? Are we not seeking dominance in our relationships, in our rights and possessions, thereby creating resistance? Do we not regard work as "yours" and "mine"? Are we not identified with the collective, with the country, or with the few? Is not our whole tendency to isolate ourselves, to divide and separate? The very activity of the self, at whatever level, is the way of isolation; and loneliness is the consciousness of the self without activity. Activity, whether physical or psychological, becomes a means of self-expansion; and when there is no activity of any kind, there is an awareness of the emptiness of the self. It is this emptiness that we seek to fill, and in filling it we spend our life, whether at a noble or ignoble level. There may seem to be no sociological harm in filling this emptiness at a noble level; but illusion breeds untold misery and destruction, which may not be immediate. The craving to fill this emptiness - to run away from it, which is the same thing - cannot be sublimated or suppressed; for who is the entity that is to suppress or sublimate? Is not that very entity another form of craving? The objects of craving may vary, but is not all craving similar? You may change the object of your craving from drink to ideation; but without understanding the process of craving, illusion is inevitable.

JK on the activities of self

JK on the activities of self in Commentaries on Living
The activities of the self are frighteningly monotonous. The self is a bore; it is intrinsically enervating, pointless, futile. Its opposing and conflicting desires, its hopes and frustrations, its realities and illusions are enthralling, and yet empty; its activities lead to its own weariness. The self is ever climbing and ever falling down, ever pursuing and ever being frustrated, ever gaining and ever losing; and from this weary round of futility it is ever trying to escape. It escapes through outward activity or through gratifying illusions, through drink, sex, radio, books, knowledge, amusements, and go on. Its power to breed illusion is complex and vast. These illusions are homemade, self-projected; they are the ideal, the idolatrous conception of Masters and saviours, the future as a means of self-aggrandizement, and so on. In trying to escape from its own monotony, the self pursues inward and outward sensations and excitements. These are the substitutes for self-abnegation, and in the substitutes it hopefully tries to get lost. It often succeeds, but the success only increases its own weariness. It pursues one substitute after another, each creating its own problem, its own conflict and pain.

JK on the desire to harm

JK on the desire to harm from Commenatries on Living
The desire to do harm, to hurt another, whether by a word, by a gesture, or more deeply, is strong in most of us; it is common and frighteningly pleasant. The very desire not to be hurt makes for the hurting of others; to harm others is a way of defending oneself. This self-defence takes peculiar forms, depending on circumstances and tendencies. How easy it is to hurt another, and what gentleness is needed not to hurt! We hurt others because we ourselves are hurt, we are so bruised by our own conflicts and sorrows. The more we are inwardly tortured, the greater the urge to be outwardly violent. Inward turmoil drives us to seek outward protection; and the more one defends oneself, the greater the attack on others.

What is it that we defend, that we so carefully guard? Surely, it is the idea of ourselves, at whatever level. If we did not guard the idea, the centre of accumulation, there would be no "me" and "mine." We would then be utterly sensitive, vulnerable to the ways of our own being, the conscious as well as the hidden; but as most of us do not desire to discover the process of the "me", we resist any encroachment upon the idea of ourselves. The idea of ourselves is wholly superficial; but as most of us live on the surface, we are content with illusions.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Seed != Tree

It amazes me that, so very often, the seed of a banyan tree fools itself into believing that its the banyan tree!

Monday, February 22, 2010

JK on inward poverty and freedom

JK on inward poverty and freedom from Commentaries on Living
The greater the outward show, the greater the inward poverty; but freedom from this poverty is not the loincloth. The cause of this inward emptiness is the desire to become; and, do what you will, this emptiness can never be filled. You may escape from it in a crude way, or with refinement; but it is as near to you as your shadow. You may not want to look into this emptiness, but nevertheless it is there. The adornments and the renunciations that the self assumes can never cover this inward poverty. By its activities, inner and outer, the self tries to find enrichment, calling it experience or giving it a different name according to its convenience and gratification. The self can never be anonymous; it may take on a new robe, assume a different name, but identity is its very substance. This identifying process prevents the awareness of its own nature. The cumulative process of identification builds up the self, positively or negatively; and its activity is always self-enclosing, however wide the enclosure. Every effort of the self to be or not to be is a movement away from what it is. Apart from its name, attributes, idiosyncrasies, possessions, what is the self? Is there the "I," the self, when its qualities are taken away? It is this fear of being nothing that drives the self into activity; but it is nothing, it is an emptiness.

If we are able to face that emptiness, to be with that aching loneliness, then fear altogether disappears and a fundamental transformation takes place. For this to happen, there must be the experiencing of that nothingness - which is prevented if there is an experiencer. If there is a desire for the experiencing of that emptiness in order to overcome it, to go above and beyond it, then there is no experiencing; for the self, as an identity, continues. If the experiencer has an experience, there is no longer the state of experiencing. It is the experiencing of what is without naming it that brings about freedom from what is.

JK on Individual and Society

JK on Inidividual and Society from Commentaries on Living
The collective will and its action, which is society, does not offer this freedom to the individual; for society, not being organic, is ever static. Society is made up, put together for the convenience of man; it has no independent mechanism of its own. Men may capture society, guide it, shape it, tyrannize over it, depending upon their psychological states; but society is not the master of man. It may influence him, but man always breaks it down. There is conflict between man and society because man is in conflict within himself; and the conflict is between that which is static and that which is living. Society is the outward expression of man. The conflict between himself and society is the conflict within himself. This conflict, within and without, will ever exist until the highest intelligence is awakened.
We are social entities as well as individuals; we are citizens as well as men, separate becomers in sorrow and pleasure. If there is to be peace, we have to understand the right relationship between the man and the citizen. Of course, the State would prefer us to be entirely citizens; but that is the stupidity of government. We ourselves would like to hand over the man to the citizen; for to be a citizen is easier than to be a man. To be a good citizen is to function efficiently within the pattern of a given society. Efficiency and conformity are demanded of the citizen, as they toughen him, make him ruthless; and then he is capable of sacrificing the man to the citizen. A good citizen is not necessarily a good man; but a good man is bound to be a right citizen, not of any particular society or country. Because he is primarily a good man, his actions will not be antisocial, he will not be against another man. He will live in co-operation with other good men; he will not seek authority, for he has no authority; he will be capable of efficiency without its ruthlessness. The citizen attempts to sacrifice the man; but the man who is searching out the highest intelligence will naturally shun the stupidities of the citizen. So the State will be against the good man, the man of intelligence; but such a man is free from all governments and countries.

Krishnas chariot

When there is the opportunity to travel in Krishna's chariot with the lord himself as the driver, why choose to get down and travel by oneself?

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Ghost in us

All of us (99.9% of population) are hosts to a ghost within our bodies. It makes us fear and desire; makes us apprehensive / hopeful of future and regretful / proud of our past; makes us view people who have a different idea / different color / different god etc as things that can be sacrificed in establishing our own. The ghost is not the same in everyone, though the process by which it comes into existence is same. It has different names but for a given person it has one name. Mine is called Parthasarathy.


The ghost is the individual residing inside the body - the individual which is the sum total of all the thoughts that has happened in the mind since the birth of the body. The presence of these ghosts all over the planet is manifested in the form of the atrocities that humanity has been committing on itself and on other living beings. While it is important to setup systems to prevent these ghosts from mutilating the host bodies of other ghosts and to setup mechanisms to assist the bodies that have been affected, it is primarily important to those of us who are concerned about all the violence around us to give a one way gate pass out to this ghost inside us! For without this, we cannot hope to even start genuinely addressing the madness the ghosts have unleashed on humanity.

There are different ways and means to show the exit gate to the ghost. Folks like Buddha, Christ and Sankara have, in my opinion, been trying to drill exactly this into our heads. But the ghosts are so adaptive that they made these normal (biologically) human beings into special deities so as to give a new means (in the form of their devotees) for the ghost to continue its existence. When the ghost leaves, a normal (biologically) and healthy human being exists who genuinely wishes for the well being of all of creation. Such a person feels that he/she and any other person are like the fingers of the same humans hand. Such a person can never imagine the possibility of they benefiting at someone else's expense. At that point, duality ceases and advaita commences. Sankara, who most probably was such a person, when asked to describe himself from this perspective said, 'Aham Brahmasmi'!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Effortlessness

Effort is such a hallowed word in my circle (friends and family) and in most middle class Indian circles that effortlessness is only understood as laziness - physical and mental laziness! But, another interpretation / understanding of it arises when one understands the nature of the mind that drives effort. If one pauses to observe the unstated and not thought of assumptions behind effort, one might come up with a new understanding of effort and hence of effortlessness.

Why does anyone put in any effort at all? One immediate reason is to fulfill basic necessities and provide some physical security. Fair enough. But, is that the only reason motivating effort? Aren't we subconsciously constantly trying to get somewhere, constantly trying to make something of ourselves? "Make something out of yourselves else you will go to the dogs" - I bet almost all my Indian friends (possibly true around the world) have heard some variant of this exhortation so many times in their formative years. Either motivated by the 'carrot' of achieving something in life or motivated by the 'stick' that one might receive for not making something out of oneself, we are constantly running behind that imaginary state in the future where one would be successful! This applies equally to the executive who wants to climb the corporate ladder and to the sanyasi who wants to climb the spiritual ladder and meet God. For both, their life 'which is' and is in the present moment becomes a means to be sacrificed for a ego projected future 'which may be' and is in the future.


Effortlessness is simply the refusal to put in any effort to become something in the future. If we observe how we / our friends/family get tensed the moment we drop one of the efforts to become something in the future, we can clearly understand how much we are bound by this desire to become something in the future. Freedom from this binding is effortlessness. Such effortlessness does not imply sitting at home and whiling away time. It simply effortlessness towards making oneself greater as one understands one is already complete and needs nothing more to be more complete. Action may then flow from the individual towards other more useful things. This is what, in my opinion, Mr. Moolar sang in tamil long ago,

செயலற் றிருக்கச் சிவானந்த மாகும்
செயலற் றிருப்பார் சிவயோகம் தேடார்
செயலற் றிருப்பார் செகத்தோடுங் கூடார்
செயலற் றிருப்பார்க்கே செய்தியுண் டாமே

Resting in effortlessness is being suffused in grace,
Effortless people don't try to reach Sivas abode,
Effortless people dont conform with the world,
Only effortless people hear the good news!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Effortlessness

செயலற்றிருக்கச் சிவானந்த மாகும்!

Resting in effortlessness is being suffused in grace!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Dance - Dancer

Don't ogle the dancer. Enjoy the dance!!

Friday, February 12, 2010

பார்வை

தன்னை மட்டும் கண்டால், கடவுள் தெரியாது!

When you see only yourself, God will be missed!

Messenger

Truth realization is like receiving a kiss from God. Similar to how one cannot receive a kiss from ones beloved through a messenger, so cannot truth realization be received from a messenger (read guru / master / acharya / priest / scriptures / religious practice etc...)

Peace

Peace is not an experience like the other 'mental' experiences like agony, ecstasy etc. Peace can be understood only when one understands lack of peace. Lack of peace is merely the conflict between 'what is' and 'what ought to be'. Hence, peace is simply unqualified co-operation with 'what is'.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Guru interaction

அகலாது அணுகாது தீக்காய்வார் போல்
குரு அவர்களை சேர்ந்தொழுகுவாய்!


Courtesy: Saint Thiruvalluvar, Father Anthony!

Belief

"There was once a student who bought a maths textbook and believed that all answers given in the answer key for the exercises in the textbook to be correct, without ever learning to verify it. Sadly, he never became a mathematician! Ironically, all the answers in the answer key were correct!" - Father Anthony de Mello

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Mortality

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on mortality
To a disciple who begged for wisdom, the Master said, "Try this out: close your eyes and see yourself and every living being thrown off the top of a precipice. Each time you cling to something to stop yourself from falling, understand that it is falling too..."

The disciple tried it out and never was the same again.

Monastery living

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on monastery living
The Master ordinarily dissuaded people from living in a monastery.

"To profit from books you don't have to live in a library", he would say.

Or even more forcefully. "You can read books without even stepping into a library: and practice spirituality without ever going to a temple."

Enthusiasm

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on enthusiasm
To the women who complained that riches hadn't made her happy, the Master said, "You speak as if luxury and comfort were ingredients of happiness; whereas all you need to be really happy, my dear, is something to be enthusiastic about."

Spiritual immunization

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on spiritual immunization
To everyones surprise, the master seemed unenthusiastic about religious education for the young.

When asked why, he said, "Inoculate them when they are young and you prevent them from catching the real thing when they grow up."

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Bliss

Overflowing Bliss!!!

Silence

Can we be silent? Absolutely silent - like a corpse. Silence that encompasses silence of the vocal chords, silence of the mind, and freedom of the mind from noisy emotions like fear and desire? Indeed, at that level of silence, we might be superficially similar to a corpse. The only (and huge) difference is that we are alive, totally alive, at that point!

May all our actions consciously proceed from the depths of such silence!

And as my dear friend rightly pointed out, this union of conscious action arising from the depths of silence would be one fabulous interpretation of the famous hindu image of ardhanareeshwara - meaning half shiva (supreme male god) and half shakthi (supreme female god)!



Thursday, February 04, 2010

Some quotes

Some quotes from Prof Menon's class today.
  • "I am. When required, I think" (in response to Descarte's 'I think, therefore I am')
  • "Lets talk later about how our well-beings are interconnected. First, lets observe that our ill-beings are interconnected"
  • "Lets live our lives in the world of form after being firmly established in the world of the formless"

One thing I observed today from the class is a neat technique to be aware of ourselves when we loose awareness and jump into a conversation. The technique is to mark our most frequently used non-trivial word in conversation and commit, really and seriously, ourselves to not using it for a day or so. It keeps coming again and again and along with it, our lost awareness! :)

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Trishanku

I am not asleep. But, that does not mean I am awake! The kick of knowing that I am not asleep, is putting me back to sleep! Aham Trishanku!