Thursday, March 31, 2011

Common man vs Nuclear bomb

Q: How can we stop our present political chaos and the crisis in the world? Is there anything an individual can do to stop the impending war?
K: Obviously, the ever impending war cannot be stopped by you and me because it is already in movement; it is already taking place; ... the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed. But, you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all what we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war.

An American lady came to see me a couple of years ago, during the war. She said she had lost her son in Italy and that she had another son aged sixteen whom she wanted to save; so she talked the thing over. I suggested to her that to save her son she had to cease to be an American; she had to cease to be greedy, cease piling up wealth, seeking power, domination and be morally simple - not merely simple in clothes, in outward things, but simple in her thoughts and feelings, in her relationship. She said, 'That is too much. You are asking far too much. I cannot do it because circumstances are too powerful for me to alter.' Therefore she was responsible for the destruction of her son.

The first and the last freedom, pages 182-183


Q: All except a few do not want war, so why do they prepare for war?
K: I am not at all sure that the majority do not want war. Do you know what war means? War means destruction - killing and maiming one another, with the noise, the brutality, the ugliness, the appalling miesry of pain. You have seen it on films; that is war. Do you know how war has come into being? It has come because in our daily lives we destroy one another. Though in the temple we talk about the love of God, in our business dealings we are cutting one another's throats. Also, we have wars because we have armies, and it is the purpose of an army to prepare for war. Do you mean to say that an army man would want to give up his position, his job, his money, in order to have peace? He would not be so stupid.

So, all of us in one way or the other are preparing for war. You can prevent war only if, in our daily life, you realize that you are no longer a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim or a Communist. If in your daily life you are kind, generous, affectionate, loving, then you will have a different world. Then, instead of squandering money on armaments, you cane make this world into a paradise. But it is up to you. You have the government you deserve because you are part of the government, because you are politicians in your daily lives, and you want position, power and authority.

The Collected Works, Vol 17, page 280
Benares, India, Dec 17, 1967


Q: Are individuals impotent agains the atomic or hydrogen bombs?
K: You may try to create public opinion by writing to the papers about how terrible it is, but will that stop the governemtns from investigating and creating the H-bomb? Are they not going to do it anyhow? They may use atomic energy for peaceful as well as destructive purposes, and probably within five or ten years they will have factories running on atomic energy, but they will also be preparing for war. They may limit the use of atomic weapons, but the momentum of war is there, and what can we do? Historical events are in movement, and I dont think you and I living here in Benares can stop that movement. Who is going to care? But what we can do is something completely different. We can step out of the present machinery of society which is constantly preparing for war, and perhaps by our own total inward revolution, we shall be able to contribute to the building of a civilization which is altogether new.

After all, what is civilization? What is the Indian or the European civilization? It is an expression of the collective will, is it not? The will of the many has created this present civilization in India, and cannot you and I break away from it and think entirely different about these matters? Is it not the responsibility of serious people to do this? Must there not be serious people who see this process of destruction going on in the world, who investigate it, and who step out of it in the sense of not being ambitious and all the rest of it? What else can we do? But you see, we are not willing to be serious; that is the difficulty. We dont want to tackle ourselves, we want to discus something outside, far away.

The Collected Works, Vol 8, page 262
Benares, India, Jan 9, 1955

Wake up Common Man! The ball is in your court!


Q: Will there be an end to these evil wars and violence?
K: A little boy asks because he is concerned with the future, with tomorrow, with a world that is becoming more and more violent, with wars, and more wars. He says, 'My future is being created by the older generation, and they have produced these monstrous wars', and he asks, 'Will there be an end to it?'

There will be an end only when you are non-violent. You must begin as an individual - you cannot make the whole world non-violent in a flash. Forget the world; be, as an individual, non-violent. I do not know whether you have ever wondered what the older generation have done to this world. The older generation have produced this world of violence, greed, hatred; they are entirely responsible for it, not God. They have lived a life of brutality, self-concern, callousness. They have made this world, and the younger people say, 'You have made a filthy world, an ugly world', and they are in revolt. And I am afraid that their revolt will produce another form of violence, which is actually what is going on.

So this problem can only be resolved - this problem of violence, of wars in the future - when you, as an individual, find out why you are angry, why you are violent, why you have prejudice, why you hate, and put them all away. You cannot put them away by revoltin against them but only by understanding them. Understanding them means to look, to observe, to listen. When the older people talk about all the ugly things they have made, listen closely, give your attention, which means give your heart and mind to this. You know, in the past five thousand years there have been about fifteen thousand wars, which means three wars every year. Though man has talked about love - love of God, love of my neighbour, love of my wife, of my husband - talked endlessly about love, they have no love in their hearts. If they have love in their hearts, there would be a different kind of education, a different kind of business, a different world.

The Collected Works, Vol 18, pages 261-2
Benares, India, Dec 10, 1967

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

JK answering some pointed questions

Q: Why dont you face the economic and social evils instead of escaping into some dark, mystical affair?

K: I have been trying to point out that only by giving importance to those things that are primary can the secondary issues be understood and solved. Economic and social evils are not to be adjusted without understanding what causes them. To understand them and so bring about a fundamental change, we have first to comprehend ourselves who are the cause of these evils. We have individualls and so as a group, created social and economic strife and confusion. We are responsible for them and thus we, individually and so perhaps collectively, can bring order and clarity. To act collectively we must begin individually; to act as a group each one must understand and change radically those causes within himself which produce the outer conflict and misery. Through legislation you may gain certian beneficial results, but without altering the inner, fundamental causes of conflict and antagonism they will be overturned and confusion will rise again; outer reforms will ever need further reform, and this way leads to oppression and violence. Lasting outer order and creative peace can come about only if each one brings order and peace within himself.

The Collected Works, Vol 3, page 226
Ojai, California, June 25, 1944


Q: Why do you waste your time preaching instead of helping the world in a practical way?

K: Now, what do you mean by 'practical'? You mean bringing about a change in the world, a better economic adjustment, a better distribution of wealth, a better relationship - or, to put it more brutally, helping you find a better job. You want to see a change in the world - every intelligent man does - and you want a method to bring about that change, and therefore you ask me why I waste my time preaching instead of doing something about it...

To act, we must discover the impediments that prevent action. But, most of us dont want to act - that is our difficulty. We prefer to discuss, we prefer to substitute our ideology for another, and so we escape from action through ideology. Surely that is very simple, is it not? The world at present time is facing many problems: overpopulation, starvation, division of people into nationalities and classes, and so on. Why isnt there a group of people sitting together trying to solve the problems of nationalism? But if we try to become international while clinging to our nationality, we create another problem and that is what most of us do. So you see the ideals are really preventing action. A statesman, an eminent authority, has said the world can be organized and all the people fed. Then why is it not done? Because of conflicting ideas, beliefs and nationalisms. Therefore ideas are actually preventing the feeding of people, and most of us play with ideas and think we are tremendous revolutionaries, hypnotizing ourselves with such words as practical. What is important is to free uorselves from ideas, from nationalisms, from all religious beliefs and dogmas, so that we can act, not according to a pattern or an ideology, but as needs demand; and, surely, to point out the hindrances and impediments that prevent such action is not a waste of time, is not a lot of hot air.... So, there can be right action and therefore radical, lasting transformation, only when the mind is free of ideas, not superficially, but fundamentally, and freedom from ideas can take place only through self-awareness and self-knowledge.


The Collected Works, Vol 6, pages 54-55
Colombo, Sri Lanka, Jan 1, 1950

Aurobindo on Quest for Truth

Some writings of Aruobindo that I came across in the last few weeks. These were written more than a century ago and are as relevant today. Just replace European with modern indian and Indian with ancient indian in his writings!

Man may be, a he has been defined, a reasoning animal, but it is necessary to add that he is, for the most part, a very badly reasoning animal. He does not ordinarily think for the sake of finding truth, but much more for the satisfaction of his mental preferences and emotional tendencies; his conclusions spring from his preferences, prejudices and passions; and his reasoning and logic paraded to justify them are only a specious process or a formal mask for his covert approach to an upshot previously necessitated by his heart or by his temperament. When we are awakened from our modern illusions, as we have been awakened from our medeival superstitions, we shall find that the intellectual conclusions of the rationalist, for all their pomp and protest of scrupulous enquiry, were as much dogmas as those former dicta of Pope and thelogian, which confessed without shame their simple basis in the negation of reason. It is always best, therefore, to scrutinize very narrowly those bare, trenchant explanations which so easily satisfy the pugnacious animal in our intellect; when we have admitted that small part of the truth on which they sieze, we should always look for the large part which they have missed.

How shall we recover our lost intellectual freedom and elasticity? By reversing, for a time at least, the process by which we lost it, by liberating our minds in all subjects from the thraldom to authority. That is not what reformers and the Anglicised require of us. They ask us, indeed, to abandon authority, to revolt against custom and superstition, to have free and enlightened minds. But they mean by these sounding recommendations that we should renounce the authority of Sayana for the authority of Max Müller, the Monism of Shankara for the Monism of Haeckel, the written Shastra for the unwritten law of European social opinion, the dogmatism of Brahmin Pandits for the dogmatism of European scientists, thinkers and scholars. Such a foolish exchange of servitude can receive the assent of no self-respecting mind. Let us break our chains, venerable as they are, but let it be in order to be free,—in the name of truth, not in the name of Europe. It would be a poor bargain to exchange our old Indian illuminations, however dark they may have grown to us, for a derivative European enlightenment or replace the superstitions of popular Hinduism by the superstitions of materialistic Science.

Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think,—to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface, free of prejudgments, shearing sophism and prejudice asunder as with a sharp sword, smiting down obscurantism of all kinds as with the mace of Bhima....

Let us not, either, select at random, make a nameless hotchpotch and then triumphantly call it the assimilation of East and West. We must begin by accepting nothing on trust from any source whatsoever, by questioning everything and forming our own conclusions. We need not fear that we shall by that process cease to be Indians or fall into the danger of abandoning Hinduism. India can never cease to be India or Hinduism to be Hinduism, if we really think for ourselves. It is only if we allow Europe to think for us that India is in danger of becoming an ill-executed and foolish copy of Europe.... We must ... take our stand on that which is true and lasting. But in order to find out what in our conceptions is true and lasting, we must question all alike rigorously and impartially. ...

Neither antiquity nor modernity can be the test of truth or the test of usefulness.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Essential nature


Its essential nature is a straight blue wire without any knots whatsoever! Is that so hard to believe?

Ending Needless Havoc

This is an extract from the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which arguably launched the environmental movement in America. The extract is the last paragraph of the chapter Needless Havoc. This graphically describes the kind of suffering that humanity as a race is inflicting on all of life. There are certainly karmic consequences to all of this!

Incidents like the eastern Illinois spraying (discussed by her prior to this extract in the book, check out the link above to that chapter) raise a question that is not only scientific but moral. The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.

These insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the one species of which we desire to be rid. Each of them is used for the simple reason that it is a deadly poison. It therefore poisons all life with which it comes in contact: the cat beloved of some family, the farmer's cattle, the rabbit in the field, and the horned lark out of the sky. These creatures are innocent of any harm to man. Indeed, by their very existence they and their fellows make his life more pleasant. Yet he rewards them with a death that is not only sudden but horrible. Scientific observers at Sheldon described the symptoms of a meadowlark found near death: "Although it lacked muscular coordination and could not fly or stand, it continued to beat its wings and clutch with its toes while lying on its side. Its beak was held open and breathing was labored." Even more pitiful was the mute testimony of the dead ground squirrels, which "exhibited a characteristic attitude in death. The back was bowed, and the forelegs with the toes of the feet tightly clenched were drawn close to the thorax ... The head and neck were outstretched and the mouth often contained dirt, suggesting that the dying animal had been biting at the ground."

By acquiescing in an act that can cause such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished as a human being?

Image from the book Silent Spring


Now, one may argue that the individual cant do much about the government policies immediately. True, but when one stays engaged with these issues, there certainly are openings through which one may engage with the policy makers. In addition, we may also consider the kind of impact mosquito repellants, cockroach killers etc that we regularly use in our houses have. Sadly, there are many ads that promise that even the last cockroach will be dead in the house. So much for non-violence!

Talking of mosquitoes, in an urban, especially middle-class or lower middle class and lower class urban setting, is tricky as it indeed might be a great problem. I remember reading in the book 'Autobiography of a Yogi', that Yukteshwar Giri, guru of Paramahamsa Yogananda, advised him to get rid of his mosquito consciousness, when Paramahamsa Yogananda was madly swatting all of them, while Yukteshwar Giri was peacefully sleeping even though a swarm of mosquitoes were buzzing around him. I used to wonder about that, for it defeated all my understanding. When a mosquito bites, the immediate reaction is to swat it. Its almost like dropping a hot vessel. Above all, how does one rid oneself of mosquito consciousness?

I dont claim to understand it now totally, but I feel I have a window into it. Typically we are trained by society and by ourselves to treat the mosquito as an alien invador who is out to destroy us and so we swat it with all our might, the moment one of them lands on us. Needless to say, the little creature goes through great pain as its puny body gets crushed under the tremendous force of our hands. Instead of this view against the mosquitoes, if we can develop some stillness within us and compassion towards the mosquito, we will not be jolted into swatting it. Instead, we can simply flick it from our body. There are millions of them around us, that swatting or flicking really makes no difference to the probability of we being bitten again (I understand this might be extremely difficult when a swarm of them attacks one or ones little kids at home. Despite that, this a worthy goal to be pursued). Such simple day to day acts help us develop the vitally needed inner stillness and also stokes the divine flame of compassion within us!

Only when the vast majority of us are immersed in such compassion, will the needeless havoc portrayed by Rachel Carson can be brought to a halt.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Links

A cinema unfolding here!


People with a conscience are usually perceived as threats to the established order!


Those who dont learn from history (read Fukushima / Chernobyl / Bhopal / Three Mile Island) are condemned to repeat it!


Sunday, March 20, 2011

Yoga via Responsibility

This is a long (crazily?) email that I wrote to a bunch of friends. Please read and give feedback if interested!

Yoga as a form of self-empowerment (physical / physiological / mental / spiritual) is fantastic and is definitely needed for most people but I disagree with any style of Yoga where responsibility towards the society and the world at large is not center stage, especially for the privileged ones of the society. Modern day yoga gurus talk about yoga only as a form of self-empowerment. This easily leads many to disassociate themselves from the way they live their lives. They are happy to do their practice (whatever that is, non-practice inclusive) but never think of questioning and getting to the root of this world in crisis. This, I feel, is shirking of ones dharma. For the educated and the well off, spirituality will have to be centered around their responsibilities towards the world in crisis and not anyhow else. Let me explain.

Spiritual minded people never tire of saying that the world is a very connected place. I would like to elaborate. The world is a connected place not just in its well-being, but also in its ill-being. As I use electricity to type this write up out, I am responsible for many forms of violence around the world that are inextricably connected with the generation of electricity. There is lot of evidence available in the Internet for the person who is interested, hence Ill only briefly touch upon it. All ways of power generation have their share of violence - destruction of pristine forests and the lives of tribals in the case of hydroelectric power, threat of nuclear radiation leak and problems of waste storage plague nuclear energy, destruction of landscape in coal mining and serious health disorders for the miners plague coal energy. The list is endless and the point of this mail is not to list all of them. Instead, it is to point out how we are all interconnected in the ill-being of the world. Similar is the case with oil consumption. I would offer that all of us have a role to play in the continuance of many violent regimes around the world, for it is the presence of those regimes that guarantee us supply us oil and natural gas, without which neither would we have food nor medicine (food and medicine production these days are heavily dependent on petroleum energy). It may very well be argued that one can do precious little onself about these autocratic regimes. But, the point is about taking up responsibility and not about action. Right action will automatically emerge when one is reponsible. People these days do readily accept that we need to minimize our consumption of energy, as they are available in limited quantities. This may be a good enough responsibility for the average person (say a clerk in a government office) in the country, but this may not be true for most of us who are more directly responsible for driving the world in terms of its modern day lifestyles.

As engineers and managers, many of us design systems that form the center pieces of many social and economic systems. This is where things get a lot dicey. There is no one correct opinion here. Problems usually arise because people cling to one position and prefer to ram it in, which obviously is not on. Despite there being many valid positions, all positions will have valid points. In my opinion, one will be able to discover the truth for oneself only when one takes up total responsibility for the entirety of what we do. Consider the case of a terminally ill person in the family. Despite us knowing that treatment is of no use, we continuously try to do what best we can do. Despite there being many options in front of us, we continuously try to figure out the most appropriate one. All of this stems from the responsibility we take up for the situation. Similarly, if we take up responsibility for the well being of the world, responsibility for ending of violence, we will certainly cut through the differing perspectives and do the best that one may do for the well being of the world. Without this, minds of people are often only filled with ways and means to maximize oneself - whether through money, or career, or fame or something else. People also falsely interpret this as their karma or duty. I personally cannot imagine a duty that does not involve responsibility towards the world, though the form it takes for different people may vary. For someone it may be to step out of systems they perceive as violent, for another it may be to use the money they earn to set things right and for someone else it could be something else totally different (which my limited world view may not be able to imagine). Sadly, this may appear as a boring life to people as we are all trained to think responsibility is stuff to be done away with as soon as possible so that we may go and entertain ourselves. Nothing wrong in entertainment of course. But, living ones life for entertainment is like living so that one may continually taste a sweet every day. In my opinion such a life is meaningless and is a wasted life. The chance of attaining fulfillment in life would have been completely forfeited by the individual.

Coming back to our livelihoods as educated people, the money we earn is inextricably linked to companies making money on the stock market (either directly or indirectly), which primarily is run on greed. Yes, there may be a few exceptions (I would love to know them, as I dont know of any at this point), but primarily stock market is a place to make money without any responsibility (eg: bhopal gas tragedy, those who made money when Union Carbide's stock was high, have no responsibility in the disaster that ensued). Most people seldom think of these issues. I feel everyone needs to strongly consider if they really want to be part of such a system and contribute their time towards this and not merely make decision on the money they get or that they like doing their job. One needs to have a solid dharmic reason to do so (and there may be so). Even if one has one, one may have to continuously evaluate it with regards to changing situations of the world. I dont think its a good enough excuse to say I like doing it. I may love doing math, but if the only use the math I solve is to enable some military equipment manufacturer (in which case it would have been funded by such an organization), then one needs to really think about ones responsibilities towards the earth and whether one is really doing the activity to maximize well being. Our body naturally is repelled by many forms of food (as an inbuilt biological defense against consuming unwholesome foods), but we regularly masquerade all that by applying many forms of masala on the food. I feel much of the work that is done by the intelligentsia of the world today is like that - by successfully disconnecting themselves from the complete picture and being satisfied with the fact that they enjoy doing whatever that is that they are doing. Many computer scientists who worked for IBM during the second world war, may have been happy with what they were doing, but in the larger picture, the technology was being supplied to Hitler. The trained and educated folks, in my opinion, working for big corporations need to take responsibility for this (obviously, the watchman at a corporation does not have the same share of responsibility). Similar is the case with a cricketer or an actor or an ad-film maker (the challenges and questions they may have to consider will of course vary, but the spirit of it will be the same). Given that almost all engineering disciplines are strongly interconnected, its not just the mining engineer who needs to consider his responsibility towards working for a mining company which unleashes violence on tribals, the software engineer who writes sotware that runs the stock market, where this company thrives are also equally responsibile. So is the case with chartered accountant who handles the aforementioned companies accounts.


Some of the issues that we may have to consider are whether the system improves well being of people on a whole. If not, is it absolutely needed right now for we have no alternative. For eg, many organic farmers are of the view that chemical fertilizers are absolutely not needed but, many farmers having been used to chemical fertilizers may not have the skills to farm without them. So, such fertilizers may be needed at this point. Considering these and many such factors one may have to look within to discover if one has a dharmic reason to particiapte in the institution one works in. It may also be worthy to consider that ancient indian civilization, which was organized around establishing peace in the society, never went the technological route. Another factor is to see that most of the developments through modern science and technology have been motivated by corporate profits and / or military needs. I am of the opinion that things that come about with a wrong motivattion are unlikely to contribute to social peace, unless it goes through a major purifying process.

I do totally agree that its not easily possible for many people to look at the larger picture, especially when there are hungry kids at home. I totally agree with that. I completely realize that what I have presented here is objective reality as I see, plus my own subjective view points. Despite that, I would like to argue, there are lots of pros in what I say. One needs to consider them deeply, take total responsibility for the well being of all creation, look at the personal responsibilities and take an enlightened decision. This in my opinion is true spirituality, for here, the entirety of ones life reflects the fact that all life is connected. The Buddha is not regarded as the highest flowering of human consciousness, not just because he accomplished something special, but because he took responsibility for the well being of all of creation. And this, in my opinion is spiritual progress. One also needs to guard against the tendency to be a hippy and chuck all institutions because its fashionable and then abuse people within social/economic/political systems that one does not like. Changes can be brought about from within as much as from outside. But, it is possible that some institutions are so corrupt, that tearing them down may be the only option (I feel there are a few of them in todays world in whose existence many of us play an active role in). Only when one takes up total responsibility one will have the courage to see it, for many times, if ones livelihood or lives achievement is interconnected with the system, we may not have the courage to consider that option seriously.

An asana teacher, gets the student to do as much asana as he or she can do but not more. The limit is strictly observed but is constantly pushed forward. Similar is the case with responsibility. It should be taken up as per ones capability. Anything more may destroy us and is counter productive. But, within our limits, one needs to maximise what one can. Responsibility lies in the heart and that in no way depends on external reality. The external action one may take does, of course, and that is for each individual to decide for himself / herself. Again, the example of a terminally ill dear one is a good analogy. What we may do actually, depends on very many factors, but in our heart, because of the total responsibility we have taken, we go the full distance. This development of the heart is spirituality and this is what seems to be the shortest route to spiritual evolution and this is what I refer to as Yoga via Responsibility.

The yoga of responsibility naturally pulls in all other forms of yoga. It has no differences with any other form of yoga or any form of spirituality or science. It is happy to incorporate all of them so as to take ones life on more responsible paths. When one is established in responsibility, one quickly realizes ones lack of spiritual maturity and realizes that it has been the single biggest collective disease of humanity, thereby developing the wisdom (gnana) / devotion (bhakthi) / right action (karma) / personal empowerment (raja) to take up more and more responsibility. This may not be a new concept and may have been elucidated by many past spiritual masters. I am simply trying to contextualize this, as I see it, to the 21st century educated person. Fifty years ago in India, one may have needed to evaluate ones participation in the social system of caste and today it is something different, depending on where one lives in India.

Environmental degradation of every aspect of the biosphere, food systems being poisoned with chemicals of every kind, educational system being used to produce people who can only think and that too without their hearts, corporations working ruthlessly to make money without any scruples, people dividing each other based on so many categories and many other issues plague our world. Some of these systems have their uses too, of course. I would like to reiterate here that this write up is not debate for or against organic food, or for or against modern ideas of growth and development though I may have touched upon these subjects. The point is to raise awareness about these issues and request the reader to take up responsibility for many of these issues that are so pertient to our lives and figure out how one is going to respond to them skillfully. This very process of sincere responsibility for the well being of the world will naturally lead to one spiritual evolution. In fact, for a person who is totally established in that state, even ones own spiritual evolution would not matter so much! Only responsibility for the world will remain. This in my opinion is (or at least is close to) the exalted state of consciousness, which the incomparable Patanjali, refers to as dharma mega samadhi!

Monday, March 14, 2011

பூமி குலுங்கினால்

பூமி கொஞ்சம் குலுங்கினாலே நின்று போகும் ஆட்டமே

Opposites

Opposites - from Ox Herding
Positions arise from our love of certainty. And certainty, when we examine it, depends on the slicing and dicing of experience into opposites: this, that, this & that, neither this nor that.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Vitarka to Ānanda, via Vicāra

If a famous urban legend is to be believed, there is at least one lady somewhere who believes that the earth is resting on the back of a turtle. Apparently, someone tried to point out the logical fallacy in her belief and asked her what does that turtle stand on? She was taken aback a little. She thought for sometime and said that the turtle is standing on another one and there are turtles all the way down! This is the classic example of the inability to make simple rational arguments. But, this can be easily solved with simple training in rational arguments. This ability to make rational arguments is called vitarka in Yoga.

Conventional schooling these days, one may argue, gives reasonable training to make rational arguments. But, sadly, it takes away the ability for the next step, vicāra. This is a subtle level of arguing that needs personal evolution and not just grey matter in the brain. This requires subtle watching of oneself. It requires the ability to identify ones own personal agendas, personal beliefs etc that bias oneself in the quest for truth. Even if there is a single bias, the truth will elude the individual. This is a tough shift to make for most people.

Modern education training, teaches people to laugh at many ancient spiritual truths and thats exactly what prevents them from moving from vitarka to vicāra. True, nothing needs to be accepted without evidence. Modern education, not only teaches this but also biases the individual against ancient Yogic truths (through many subtle and not so subtle ways). Similarly, many religious fanatics constantly gloat over the greatness of their religions without ever realizing that the gloating comes because they associate themselves with their religion and hence their pride is essentially a pride about themselves and has nothing to do really with their stated facts. When an individual realizes these biases in the arguments they make and modify their stance by addressing these beliefs, the arguments made are called vicāra.

This vicāra is a most fantastic one. Once learned, this can be used to take oneself completely to the highest truth. But, it also requires tremendous determination and sincerity for the discovery of the truth. Most individuals identify themselves with a mind made sense of person which emerges from a collection of beliefs about who they are. In the process of vicāra, due to the passion of truth and the understanding that biases prevent dicsovery of truth, the individual starts removing the beliefs from hi(m|r)self one by one. This is the most fantastic process of spiritual awakening. The buddha said, like the log floating in the river, neither get stagnated on either bank, neither sink but reach the sea of nirvana. Similarly, flow on the river of vicāra and reach ānanda. The ego is a stone tied to the log, if its heavy, the flow will be affected and the destination may not be reached. If the stone is dropped, the flowing process will be smooth.

When all the beliefs are gone, only emptiness remains. This emptiness is the state of ānanda or total bliss. All suffering is a form of resistance to the truth. Since, all biases that prevent the flow of truth have been removed from the individual, the individual can never suffer anymore and hence the state of ananda is accessible to the individual. This process of vicāra, is at once most slippery and most simple. Until all beliefs have been totally abolished, the individual derives a sense of individuality from their beliefs and removal of the same will be painful and seems like madness. But, when the truth is desired sufficiently strongly, the individual will find the motivation to do the same. They can also be inspired by well motivated individuals who have been on this path before. But, the good thing about this is that one need not manually remove every single belief. The individual built over the mind made beliefs are structures ultimately and hence, removal of one or two key beliefs can lead to a collapse of the entire system pretty fast.

Remove they key stick, and the structure collapses instantly!

Yoga calls this state of deriving ones sense of individuality through these collection of beliefs as asmita. But, when one moves from vitarka to vicāra and holds on to vicāra firmly, asmita can be transcended and ānanda within may be discovered with ease! This, in my opinion, is a correct interpretation of Patanjali sutra 17 in the first chapter
vitarka vicāra ānanda asmitārūpa anugamāt samprajñātaḥ

Ending time

Realizing that I am a continuous process, which did not begin at conception and will not end when "I", a structure of convenience dies, allows me to go beyond my ego. If, in a flash of insight, I perceive the universe itself as a continuous process - to which I belong - in a state of perpetual emergence, then time is dissolved, be it cyclical or linear. I have reached timelessness. This elating experience makes everything simple, full of light, and I feel I have been freed. Clocks and watches no longer tick away my life with each passing second.

-- Andre van Lysebeth in his book 'Tantra: The cult of the feminine"

What does spirituality say?

You see a weird plant with iron chains for branches and with elephant tied to the chains! Their ears are hollow and have stars lining their periphery! Furthermore, Sachin and Rajini are having a duel and are firing at each other via the elephants ears! Finally, and most fantastically, you see your name written on one of the bullets and you want spirituality to explain! What does spirituality say?


WAKE UP!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Poems by Georg Feuerstein

Inconspicuous Guest

An inconspicuous guest
stands perfectly still
in the crowded vestibule of consciousness.

Amidst the endless chatter
he remains unnoticed,
but he doesn't mind.

His usefulness begins
when his presence
becomes a persistent rumor.



Buddhas Apple

When the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree,
a different kind of apple dropped,
leading to a more benign discovery
than Newton's.

For Gotama learned to escape the gravity
of mind's ingrained patterns.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Catalog of my books

Parthas Book Catalog

Do let me know if you would like to borrow any!

நடுநிசி யோகிகள்

நேற்றிரவு முன்று மணி அளவில் மாமன் பாடினான் யோகசூத்திரம், மருமகன் உறங்குவதற்காக!

Friday, March 04, 2011

MahaKaal


Time is your own making,
Its clock ticks in your head
The moment you stop thought
Time too stops dead.

Do not compute eternity
As light year after year.
One step across that line called time
Eternity is here!

-- Angelus Silesius

... because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place...

I rejoice that things are as they are...

-- T.S. Eliot

Responsiblity

Neither blame thyself,
nor exonerate thyself,
For the ills of the world
are too serious
for such games!
Instead,
cling to the middle path!
Middle path, thy name is,
Responsibility!