fear and angina

Fear has been all through my life the main basic prevailing emotion. It was no consolation thinking that perhaps everyone was like that. As I grew up I could make out that it was not so. All were not at all as afraid as I was. On the slightest provocation fear and terror envelop and engulf me right from childhood. Of course, the trauma I suffered from witnessing the dropping down dead of so many of my playmate brothers every now and then might have been responsible for a feeling of severe insecurity. But that could alone not have made the feeling of terror persist till ripe old age. Time cures the wounds of such events.
And now I understand why. I chanced upon a convincing reason. I recognize now that the congenital insufficiency of my physical heart is responsible. Even as a child I used to have anginal discomfort or pain whenever I ran fast either in a race or exerted in play. Only now I come to understand that it was angina. On seeing my angiograph CD, I found that all along I had been surviving on a loosely connected ‘collateral’ connecting the multiple ‘blocked’ coronary artery to supply blood to my heart muscles. The doctor who took my angiograph did not tell me that much when he showed me my beating heart on the computer; but I recognized and asked him. He said yes, it was a collateral vessel which could have fully served the purpose had it been well connected to the main heart supply vessels. He said, ‘a bye-pass surgery is even now possible’. I did not choose to have the operation.
And books say that a sinking deep fear is part of Angina! It was there all through. I was born with fear in my heart. And possibly my baby brothers all died because of the insufficiency of their hearts!
* * * * * * *

Mind expands in two ways:
The space in the mind expands in two ways and six dimensions. First three dimensionally in space and then three dimensionally in time. It expands towards past and future directions. And it stays expanding in the present. But the vast infinite space is one complete whole! This is sometimes felt when the mind is still, and sometimes even in deliberate attempts of going deep into the past (regression?)

concentration and meditation

My idea of meditation is not any concentration or focusing attention on any particular deity or god. Focusing and concentration are when you chant a ‘mantra’ or when you seek a favour from your deity. Even then what is concentration? On what do you concentrate? Is it on the form of the god, the humanized concept of the form or ‘linga’? When I tried it in my student days as a boy, I was confused as to where to end the periphery of the form. Should I concentrate on the face or the eyes? Or the conceptualized and elaborately described form of the goddess or god, or on the detailed image represented by the stone sculpture? The focusing can be on the whole form with the surroundings as well, or merely on the face or the eye. A one-pointed concentration could be on a single eye or even on a point in the centre of the eye when the object of focusing progressively shrinks. The point can further shrink into ‘nothing’ as the point contracts or approaches zero. Only then there will be full focusing.
This ‘nothing’ can then give a feeling of expanse into the whole mental space because the concentration has left the rest of the vast space empty. When the mind expands into the whole infinite space in which everything seems present, but nothing surfaced to attention, one has a feeling that, that inclusion of the whole is real concentration.
I find that as said by J.K., meditation is a state of mind where no thought is present. Some Buddhists call it the ‘the nature of the mind’, or Rigpa. It is said that if you concentrate on the form of the lord you can get visions of the deity. I believe that it is all for getting some boons or acquiring special powers which they think is possible, but not for getting at the Truth.
In the state of mind that is meditation there is a feeling of concentration in an endless expansion of the mind where everything is dynamically dormant.

fear and fear of 'fear'

Palpitation of the heart generates a sort of sinking feeling, a fear, the fear of death. Here, fear is a physical phenomenon.
‘Fear can actually be recognized as something independent of the thing feared. Fear of death is only this fear in its pure form projected as fear of death, a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach with any image or symbol of death.
All other fears are also similarly projections of the same fear, mixed with the symbols and images of the thing feared. Once I perceive this directly within myself I have no fear of ‘fear’, and therefore no fear of death

love vis-a-vis devotion

I feel that ‘Love’ is an insufficient and inappropriate word to be used with reference to God and devotion. Yet for want of a better word it is still used.
There is devotional love, compassionate love, affectionate love, sexual love, and love with admiration, respect and awe. In most religions one or the other type of love is seen to be more stressed than the others. For example, in Christianity, compassionate love has more stress, in Islam it is affectionate love and brotherhood that has more stress. Hindu religious idols evoke devotion, admiration and awe in their devotees rather than any feeling of compassion or affection. There is no doubt that all gods, prophets, and saints are known to evoke devotional love.
The emotional aspect of oneness, or the craving for unity is here mixed with various other emotions creating the distinctions mentioned. But people use the word ‘love’ loosely to denote all the variations and mix ups, thus creating difficulties in clear understanding of each other while communicating.
Love at the devotional level signifies the presence of God, but cannot be said to be God itself, because love is ultimately only an emotion. But it is the only unifying emotion, and therefore helps to be one with God. Looking within oneself one can see that sexual love, like hunger and thirst, is an instinctive requirement of the body combined with a craving for unity, whereas pure love is a unifying and ennobling emotion without any craving or bodily need.

what is meant by 'mind'?

What does the word ‘mind’ denote?
What do we mean when we say ‘mind’? Generally, the word is used to denote any or all of the functions of the brain. There are several aspects of the functions of the brain referred to by this word vaguely creating confusion in communication. We have memory, intellect, the feeling of ‘I’ness’ without ego, the ego with feeling of importance, awareness, consciousness, conscience etc.
‘Memory’ is information, records of things, events, feelings, emotions.
‘Intellect’ is reasoning, logic, capacity to measure, calculate
‘conscience’ is the part that has a settled feeling of conclusions, or unsettled feeling of doubt, or skepticism.
‘ego’ refers to the part which feels self importance
‘I’ness is the simple feeling of ‘I’ without any feeling of importance
‘awareness’ in its pure form is, I feel, attention without an object to be attentive about.
While communicating with others it seems necessary to distinguish these suggestively in order to avoid misunderstanding, unless I am referring to all of these together.
When I say that my mind is quiet, what I mean is that all aspects of the mind are dormant and none is active, although alert.

nagging uncompleted tasks

Uncompleted tasks always nag. They lurk behind the present engagements. They lie and wait by the side for attention. And they threaten one with consequences.
Things not done and remaining to be done linger in my mind. Residues, pleasant and unpleasant, of things already done also linger in my mind, and come up floating to the surface every now and then.
Fear of something misfiring or bursting suddenly, lurks and nag.
These generate restlessness.
Restlessness aggravates bodily discomforts.
Discomforts in turn bring up the unaccomplished tasks to the surface and aggravate the restlessness.
Residues of things done not so satisfactorily also nag.
Where is the escape from restlessness when one can’t complete everything one is obliged to?
Eighty-one years of storage is there in my memory – rather heavy. And there is also the built-in memory acquired by birth. And the possibility of some memory in the server in outer space can not also be ruled out.
At a given moment in the present, all these memories try to come up to the surface waiting for an opportunity of a right mood suiting them to come up. If one which is about to surface is suppressed or kept aside for the time being, another, more powerful, gets the upper hand and starts running in my mind. The active mind can thus be never empty. But if I am fully conscious of the comings, goings, and other operations within the mind, I am able to be free of the movements at least for the time being. Then, in spite of any activity in the mind, I am able to ignore all of them to look deeper for anything new underneath or beyond. One can look in the background for anything never seen or experienced before.
But I have not come across anything significant or spectacular so far. It is disappointing, but the journey is interesting. Thought has to be silent, most of the masters say. Can the mind be that silent?
How true, ‘only thought one is addicted to in old age, not Truth’, said the sage!

The Source

It is somewhere there within. I mean the source from which everything including my awareness emanates. But it is too subtle and evasive to locate or to perceive, or to feel. It eludes grasp.
The problem is perhaps that I expect it to be somewhere inside the brain. And the tradition says that it is in the heart like a flame shining ever steady. Heart represents Love. Does it mean Love has to fill the heart and the head? But Love, as I understand, is still an emotion, perhaps a result of the presence of the source, and not the source itself.

The source may be somewhere in the body/mind/intellect system, or even anywhere out side it, or even in another dimension altogether!

mood, food, and genes

My thoughts come from my mood
Pleasant mood create pleasant thoughts.
Uneasy mood generate uncomfortable thoughts.
Mood comes from food.
Mood comes from food filtered through my genes.
I am the only one who can feel my genes, if at all.
No nutritioner can feel my genes.
I myself have to find the food that creates good mood in me.
I will better have my own food.

* * * * * * *
Right advice:
They always advised.
They advised that,
I should have the right food,
I should have the right breathing,
I should have the right thinking,
I should have the right control of the senses,
I should have devotion to the right divinity.
And they knew what was right.

I swallowed and followed
I ate the food they said was right,
I breathed the way they said I should,
I thought the way they said was right,
I controlled the senses, as they prescribed,
I went devotional as they instructed,
But nothing went right.

The hard way I found out that their advice was traditional.
It was never their experience.

But alas, they were sincere and correct.
I find from my own experience,
That I must have the right food,
That I must have the right thinking,
I must have the right control of senses,
I should have the right devotion,
And I should find out what is right for me, myself.

pure awareness continued

I can now feel the alert awareness or the attentive awareness while awake, and the part awareness in the dream state. And I know also about the dormant awareness while in deep sleep, at least by the feelings I sense at the point of falling into sleep and at the point of waking up.
As I understand it, the body with its alert, attentive nervous system and senses is just equipment powered by ‘pure awareness’, or by whatever other name by which one may call the ultimate source that powers my body and mind. I stop at my body and mind, and do not go up to the ‘other’ and the universe because everything outside my immediate existence is only part of my mind. But for my mind they can not exist for me.
This pure awareness is not withdrawn from me in sleep. Only the equipment is at rest with minimal awareness necessary to sustain the body. But in death the equipment, the body perishes and is no more functional. Is the power, the awareness just cut off like when electricity is cut off from fridge, TV, or the bulb in disrepair? Yes. It appears so. Therefore, while still alive, I have to feel that power within that pulsates, that creates awareness in my system. The window through which to look can only be the awareness within me, my own awareness. But can the fridge feel the current that powers it?
MY AWARENESS HAS TO BE AWARE OF ‘PURE AWARENESS’.
That is perhaps the only way by which I can feel the ultimate reality.

pure awareness or pure consciousness

From the time I started reading spiritual books in English after college, I have been reading and hearing the words ‘pure consciousness’ and pure awareness’ too often, but never doubted what the words meant, accepting the obvious meaning that came to my mind, without an iota of doubt. But now I am confused.
Of course I know that I am aware of something. But do I know any awareness without that something? The legendary smile without a cat?(apologies to Louis Carroll). Can awareness stand independent of the thing I am aware of? I don’t find it possible. I can be aware of nothing in particular. That would mean that I am aware of everything in an expansive way, in an expansive mood.
When I close my eyes I am not aware of any impression of things in the outside world that may be approaching me towards my eyes. But the blank screen, the colourful screen before my closed eyes, I am aware of. And I am aware of all the noises, the touch of the breeze from the fan, etc. And I am also aware of all things that can come out of my memory. But if I do not divert my attention towards any of them I may not be aware of them at the particular moment. In any particular moment my attention stays with some object of which I am at that time aware of. And what is that attention? I notice that it is focused awareness.
If the body and mind is in alert attention throughout, can you say that it is in pure awareness? Then the nervous system as a whole is awake and alert. No thought is present in the mind. Can you call it pure awareness?. I don’t think so. The state is something temporary, and limited to the body and mind. Then what is the nature of pure awareness? It must be something behind the alertness, making the alertness possible. It must be the one which illumines me- makes me tick, pulsate - and all that around me up to all space. Is that right?
Throughout the waking state attention is every moment on something or other. I therefore find that awareness and attention are existent along with the object of awareness. Therefore, ‘pure awareness’ or pure consciousness is something other than awareness, perhaps the power that makes awareness possible. A new word has to be coined. Existing words have other meanings and may be misunderstood and ‘misused’.
Another question is what happens in deep sleep when there are no object present? Awareness of ‘nothing? Where lays pure awareness then? Keeps the body alive? Why not try to ‘feel’ the awareness in sleep? That can perhaps solve the problem. Is +80 too late to try?

murmuring mind - the Broca's Area?

I had been chanting a mantra in my childhood 'to acquire knowledge and learning'. But as I grew up I abandoned it for several reasons, not realizing its importance, and because it was 'inconvenient' in the hostels of the colleges where I studied. Although I felt guilty later I could not revive it becase I had forgotten parts of the essential preliminaries. Now I find that mantra sounds can be effectively used to calm the mind as well as to create a mood of reverence and devotion.
I sit in the easy posture and close my eyes. The sight is cut off. I am able to bye-pass the mental images and the incoming sounds by being attentive to their comings and goings. I am able to ignore them.
But the part of the mind that controls speech is murmuring. It is a chatter-box giving a continuous running commentary. The ‘Broca’s Area’in the brain is a restless child. I try to calm him down with a toy to play with. The toy is a sound or a word, say a ‘mantra’. The mind goes on repeating it instead of indulging in running commentary or murmur. The sound or word has particular significance to me in so far as it is sacred for me, given to me by my father, and attributed to be created by a great Rishi. It creates a mood of reverence and devotion.
That part of my mind is thus continuously engaged. The attentive awareness is now left free to witness the goings on in the mind. Drowsiness attempts to creep in. Alertness resists it. Any resistance is conflict. It interferes with calmness. Something interesting, something new has to pop up in the mind to ward off boredom. Memories are ever ready to come up. But I don’t want them. They create nuisance. Then what, what can be new? Look more keenly and wait?

a travel inward

I sit in an easy posture, relaxed completely in order to watch, to feel, the happenings in my mind. Some call it meditation especially when the mood is one of reverence, devotion, or surrender. But I do not want to call it by any name because the intention is one of pure observation by means of direct feel. The idea is to try to feel the life pulsating within me, and to feel the source if possible.
I close my eyes. The closing of the eyes cuts off incoming impressions/images through the most important sense, the eyes. But I am unable to cut off the numerous sense impressions coming to me from all around through my two ears. I can be alert and attentive to all of them,- the chirping and singing of the birds, the distant dog barking, an electric motor running in the next house, television sounds from another house, the sounds of people talking as they pass bye the pathway on the northern side, a crow crowing from the tree outside, etc.,etc. I can pick and choose which one to be more attentive to. That means that my awareness that is spread about, can be condensed and focused to any of the particular signals. Similar is the case with the signals coming through the other senses, of touch, taste, and smell too. Or I can also ignore all. If I ignore them my attention/awareness is spread out thinly over all the sense impressions and the memories trying to erupt from behind the quiet mind. The mind has been otherwise quiet because it is engaged with attention to the sense signals. Of course, along with the sound signals their corresponding images also appear before my mind's eye for a split second and disappear as the next signal is focused on. Without the image of the crow, the call of the crow is nothing but an unpleasant sound signifying nothing. All these I am able to ignore, waiting keenly to find out what else is there inside, apart from the memory and reactions to sense impressions coming from outside.
Now, the senses of smell and taste are neutral. Smell can become active when some fragrance or order wafts by my nose. The taste in the mouth remains neutral. But the sense of touch is different. It seems to be there throughout the body, not at the skin level alone. It prevails even inside the body in a sense of alertness of every cell. I feel the breathing and heart beat going on. I can often make the whole body alert, and feel myself in a cocoon of alertness, snug and happy in a sort of nuzzled warmth and light. This I am able to bring about deliberately so as to be quiet, observant, and alertly aware of what next. One can be in that state for as long as one wishes.
All memories and sense impressions are ignored and I am left in a feeling of restful relaxation, a sort of euphoria. Some of the relaxation and euphoria remain even after I get up and go about.
BUT NOTHING NEW COMES UP, WHY? Is there nothing else inside, or through the inside, beyond?

depression, dream and meditation

I had an uncomfortable dream yesterday night. I dreamt that I was out of job, and was frantically looking for one. Hardly any money was left with me. What I have cannot last more than a couple of weeks. I am of middle age and carelessly dressed. Now I was waiting in the bus stop. But buses all go past without stopping. Finally, an emergency bus, a stop-gap arrangement, came to pick up those who are stranded. It was actually a truck with canvas top, and iron bars to hang on. In my frustration I got into it, and traveled standing holding on to the iron arches propping up the canvas. Somebody known to me is starting a new business venture for which I can be helpful with my experiences. I may perhaps get a job. I was going to his place. Nothing is definite. The whole situation was very depressing. Anxiety pervaded the very atmosphere. The route through which I was traveling was unfamiliar and strange.
Now, did the depression and mood in which I was while asleep bring about the dream, or the dream brought about the depression? It can be only the former. Because of some bodily imbalance like indigestion or palpitation of the heart, a mental disturbance must have developed while in sleep. The mood then apparently had some similarity with the mood I had in real life when I got stranded for over six months without a posting on my return from abroad after a foreign tour while in government service. Because of the whim of a higher official I had to run from pillar to post during that time without pay or a chair to occupy in the department where I was working. The dream shows that the residue of the trauma of those days is still lingering in my mind although the incident was of thirty years ago. The route that I had taken at the time to get back into position was also unfamiliar. But the dream had mixed it up with the situation some fifty years ago when I was originally looking for a job and had sought help of business relatives.
In dreams I don’t find any logic. Of course, elaborate reasoning is also sometimes dreamt. They appear perfectly logical in the dream. But they appear funny and stupidly illogical on waking up. Intellect does not control the reasoning then. Images seem to come up from moods and emotions dictated by the condition of the sleeping body. In fact I found uncomfortably bloated gas in the belly on waking up from the dream.
I can neither agree nor deny that supernatural intimations sometimes come up in dreams. It is possible as Dr. Brian Weiss has demonstrated intimations of future in his regression techniques.
I find real intellect suppressed in dreams. Images appear at random and get connected by habit or moods. But in deep sleep even random images get disconnected and disappear altogether.
However, in meditation where the intellect is alert, reasoning and logic are present in the background, ever alert. They do not allow disjointed images without logic to interfere. Here, what I mean by ‘meditation’ is, roughly, sitting completely relaxed in a mood of surrender or devotion (not necessarily religious, but an attitude), and being just aware of the happenings in the mind. Illogical dreams do not occur to me in meditation. In fact I am unable to get a dream in meditation unless I doze off.
It is perhaps the strong presence of logic and reasoning acquired from my interest and habit of mathematics, that I do not see any scenes or images in meditation. My experiments with regression (Dr. Brian Wyss methods) also yielded no results of past life episodes. In the method for regression the mind was absolutely alert even in the lying down position.

heart beat and secret purpose

Often suddenly at night, my heart pounds away very fast without warning, and wakes me up from sleep. Strangely, I can hear my heart hammering off far away as if from a forge mill a kilometer away. Then I put in half a pill of Sorbitrate under my tongue to bring down my heart beat, spit it out after half a minute, and then go back to sleep not bothering to worry any more about it.
But who beats my heart so fast? I know I don’t do it. Then who, what? I am not aware from where the instructions are sent to my heart to beat fast. In sleep I am not even conscious enough to do it even if it will follow my bidding. Of course there is nothing strange or funny. I put food into my stomach, and the digestion just happens. I am not consciously aware how. Even a simple thing like the growth of a nail of mine I am not aware of. But awareness itself is very much there ready to be aware of anything, and I can clearly feel the awareness except when I am in deep sleep.
All these are apparently part of the phenomenon of Life, and it is meant to be so. Things are deliberately hidden from me for some secret purpose. I am therefore inclined to believe that even my wondering about the source of this life and my efforts to apprehend the secret is part of this inscrutable purpose. Will it not be foolish to continue my probe, the futile effort? Yet, I can’t stop, there is no time left. Everything may disappear when I wake up from the dream.
* * * * * * *
Past fact is fiction
Once an event has happened, the happening has become history. It is his-story, the viewer’s story. What is said to be a fact therefore depend on the perception of each viewer. It comes from individual impressions. Its reliability can be questioned.

All facts are therefore in a way, fiction. Real fact is always something else other than the view of each.

irritations and moods

I don’t know why very small things irritate and disturb my mind now. Is it a sign of old age, or is it normal, and I notice it only now?
I gave my car for service to a known garage where I personally know the management and many of the workers. While leaving the car there I had not bothered to remove from it a few things like a torch, a pair of sun glasses, some extra tools etc. But when the car was delivered to my house in the evening these things were missing. When I asked the mechanic who brought it he promised to check up at the garage and bring it back. Afterwards I was told over phone that they could not found. On contacting the management they said that none of the workers, who are all absolutely reliable, had seen it! But they had taken the car to some other place for washing. But there also none had noticed it. Thus these articles were lost. I could only be angry at myself for being careless in relying on their non-existent care and honesty.
Last month I gave an emergency lamp for repairs to an electronic shop. The owner technician was a friendly fellow known to me for several years. A pleasant smart chap. After a couple of days when I enquired he said that the battery needed replacement, and it would cost Rs 250/=. To avoid botheration of too many visits to the town I gave him the money and asked him to deliver it to my nephew’s office nearby. One week passed and nothing happened. I rang up. He said sorry, it was ready, but forgot to deliver it because of the busy festive rush. He will make arrangements to give it immediately. Five days again, and no news. He was out of station this time. His assistants in the shop had no idea where he had kept it! On his coming back he said that when he was checking it up before delivery, some sparks came out of it and it had become out of order. He would repair or replace it soon. Now it is more than a month. I have neither the lamp nor the money. But I have instead a nagging irritation of my foolishness in trusting an untrustworthy.
These incidents themselves are insignificant. But the irritation and uneasiness of blaming myself nags every now and then. Then I feel angry at myself. I know that I am being silly. But is the uneasy mood responsible for the nagging irritation, or the irritating memories create the mood?

Residues of actions and omission of essential actions accumulate in the mind. When my mood is depressing, they surface and pop up making me resentful about myself. Left-overs of unpleasant experiences linger on unless I am vigilant enough to notice them and understand them

mind s a tool

I wish that I had known it early enough
That my mind is not me.
My mind is only a tool.
I should have used it as a tool.
And not become a slave to it.
I could have used it to enjoy.
I could have played with it.
I should have sympathized with it.
But I should have never obeyed its dictates
Identifying myself with a mere tool.
I am the master!
I struggled all along not knowing it early enough.

But it is true. Nothing matters! Absolutely nothing matters. Of course, nothing matters at the age of eighty plus. But that is not the point. Nothing actually mattered all along. From birth to this day everything happened as it should. Only I thought it otherwise, and unwittingly wished, had it been otherwise!
Bodily discomfort and pains had always been there. They taught me to endure. Mental discomforts made me think and look for the source. Things happened as it should.
When not enjoying and not in peace, endurance is the way.

artificial life and divinity

What is this, my life in this world that is about to end? Is it just a quality of material when arranged or ‘organized’ in a certain pattern? Physically it is called an organism. Can life be really created artificially?
There is the GENOME project. A complete genome of a bacterium Micoplasma Genitalium has been successfully constructed in the laboratory of J.Krait Wenter Institute, Rockville, US. It is reported that Daniel Gibson & group did this by chemically combining the required parts artificially created.
Now, the significance is that, it would clearly appear that life can be created from materials by correctly joining them. That would support and reinforce the materialist point of view.
We know that when an organism’s ‘organization’ is dismantled, life goes away from it. If re-organized, or re-fitted back, will life come back automatically? Magnetism in a piece of iron comes when its molecules are arranged in a pattern, unidirectional, and goes away when the arrangement is disturbed. Will life come in and go back similarly in an organism when materials are put together and dismantled?
Indeed it looks as if it would. They have now created an organism, howsoever rudimentary its life is, from inert materials! But is there an intelligence that makes life or magnetism jump into materials when its parts or ingredients are put together in the correct pattern? And it is not a simple quality that jumps into the human genome. It is a complex, complicated, intricate system that functions in plant, animal, or human life. Which super-intelligence makes it come about?

DIVINITY is still relevant!

devotion, rituals and meditation

I am walking along the river bank in the early morning fog. When I walk very fast swinging my hands vigorously, my mental processes are slowed down as if physical activity slows down the thought flow. Thoughts come back when I slow down my pace and the breathing also slows down. Although in brisk walk the mental process is less active, I can not say that the mind can be silent or still in physical activity. Surprisingly, it is when I sit down absolutely relaxed with no physical activity at all that the mind too is calm and can be really quiet. When the mind is thus quiet, thoughts do not interfere with my attention. I am then free to see, hear, feel and smell the surroundings with full clarity as they are in the present. What I see then is of course, real without distortion. But what has it to do with Absolute Reality?
I was brought up in a highly religious, although not orthodox, atmosphere. Head of the matriarchal family was an allopath doctor. Father was an educated and religious person. Temples, rituals, prayers, devotional chants with utmost reverence to deities were routine. We, the children of the house learned mantras to chant them with all the disciplines of connected symbols and correct gestures. I concentrated on the image of the deity in the temple, and also the conceptual images in my mind. We praised the deities in Sanskrit poems with utmost devotion. I do understand now that they helped to develop devotion and reverence in our minds. But in those days we did not know anything about the purposes. It was just because we believed that we will achieve material benefits, prosperity, learning and good health if we perform all the rites to please the gods. Any spiritual advancement, or approach to Reality was nowhere in the picture.
Is my present inquiry into the mind and self compatible with those practices? Prayer and devotion are clearly processes in the mind connected with imagery and thought, and therefore they are of the past. How can it reconcile with the activities to get into a silent mind in order to direct the attention towards the mind and its source? A lot of confusion arose in my mind when as a young man I slipped from chanting mantras into the practice of meditation, the technique of achieving a still, silent mind.
Now I do understand that I cannot ‘create’ a silent mind. I can only probe into the mind, understand it, and look further and further within. And in that process the mind may become still and silent. It is also true that discriminative thought and attention create the possibility of understanding the processes of the various states of the mind, making it possible to develop wisdom.
Then, I feel, that intelligence can be complete, filling devotion, reverence, and wisdom in a silent mind.

enjoyments at eighty

In old age I do not find any positive desire as such. Desire for enjoyments and pleasures are deliberately brought in or invoked for avoiding or counteracting discomforts and pains than for their own sake. There is nothing new in enjoyments and pleasures. Or it is just to go along with a habit.
But experiment with my own mind is a sort of pleasure or joy. Everything there is what I have not noticed or experienced so far.
Stillness of mind can not yet ward of physical pain or in full the mental discomfort arising from physical pain. Now at this age all my discomforts seem arise from physical imbalance. The mental ones are being slowly overcome automatically without much effort.

mental blocks, dormand disturbances

As an experiment to find out what could be the result, I do sometimes manage to keep my mind empty with no thought present. I notice then that the thoughts are laying dormant underneath in the subconscious although I don’t know what thoughts. Yet the mind as a whole is alert and attentive. Still, the mind is blank, and remains a clean slate with nothing interesting happening.
Unless some past memory, or projected future, surfaces with clarity, what is the point in keeping the mind quiet?
The reason for the blank mind is some mental block. My mind has developed a tendency not to allow thoughts to come up because any thought that come up of its own may be disturbing. And I have also a lingering belief that it is necessary to keep the mind free of thoughts for effectiveness of meditation. As a result nothing surfaces from the blank mind. The blockage has to be therefore broken. But not deliberately. Any compulsion is again the block. It has somehow to get broken of its own accord.
But even the blank mind has its value. When the mind is silent, I see myself, that is, I am aware of my ego or what I call my own image of myself, as an entity which is entirely fictitious. But it is a useful entity, and there is no need to get rid of it. Can I see something past it, something beyond? Or is there nothing beyond?

stomach agitates the mind

Most of the disturbing thoughts I have, almost all of them, have their origin in the STOMACH! Or so I am tempted to conclude. It is the irritation, the disturbance, however mild, that creates uncomfortable thoughts. Don’t we find that nightmares at night go away after a glass of cool water taken in? It is similar. Even in waking stage the position is the same although I may unconsciously divert my attention elsewhere to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. When I am attentive I am able to detect the phenomenon.
And it is now well known that agonizing thoughts and tensions of the mind can or do create stomach problems. It is therefore a two-way traffic. It is a vicious circle. Stomach trouble creating thought/mind disturbances, and disturbances of the mind creating stomach troubles!
For a lesser degree this may be true in respect of other organs also. May be for other people this may be more true in respect of some other organ in their body.
And, I have forgotten to say the obvious. I have been a heart patient, and any mental disturbance used to trigger palpitation of my heart, and any palpitation of my heart used to agitate my mind!
ARE THOUGHTS CONTOLLED BY MY BODY? Must be, normally, unless I am consciously attentive to be otherwise.

atheism and miracles

Materialism, rationalism, and atheism need not be anti-spiritualism. If one has gone deep into one’s own mind and psych, and probed to find out the truth of the matter, one may come to one’s own conclusion about the existence or not of a superior intelligence that runs the phenomena of life and existence. No body can find fault with such a person for concluding that there is no spirit or God. All the same every human being must feel within himself that there is a super-conscious intelligence behind the phenomena of this universe, and his life in it. How can this most complicated and wonderful system that we see around us occur without a most powerful energy with equally powerful intelligence? My own mind is proof enough for me. If anybody feels it and behave otherwise his mind must be defective or underdeveloped. One is free not to call this extraordinary energy, power or intelligence by any particular name because the names have all been misused for ages and has different connotations and meanings for different persons.
But a problem can arise when we attribute miraculous powers to the Reality and believe that it grants boons on prayer out of turn, cures incurable diseases, and materializes things unnatural from empty space if you placate it enough.
I think therefore that it is not the existence of an Ultimate Truth that is under question or dispute, but the existence of a God in the shape of a human being, stone, or otherwise who grants boons. Such a divinity with miraculous powers may be non-existent.
Finding out the nature and possibilities of an ultimate reality is the finding out of the secret of nature itself. Why should anybody object to the attempt to find out something, why object to the search itself saying or concluding that it is not necessary because there is nothing to find out? This is where I differ with the atheists.
Spiritual pursuit is a subjective probing. Objection to the probing is stupid in the sense that by denying the probing one is discarding half the knowledge, that is, the knowledge one may gather from an intuitive mind, the knowledge that may come from the unused ‘right brain’.
Well, all said and done, I know that I have a will as part of my mind, my little intelligence. This will can change or create things. The extent to which changes can be effected by it may be very small. But it is there. Similarly, the highly superior intelligence in the universe must have a highly superior intelligence that has the power to make extraordinary changes. Power to bring about miraculous changes cannot be ruled out although whether it actually does so or not is another matter. Belief in miracles cannot be therefore said to be altogether illogical or unreasonable, or impossible. But no miracle is governed by reason.

likes, dislikes and sin

We have, or rather I have, natural likes and dislikes. They are in my genes. I can’t help it. I do not know why they are there or how it functions. Opposite poles attract and like poles repel, it is true. Man is attracted to women, the opposite sex. Men like some men and dislike some others. All that is recognizable. I like oranges. Some one else hates it. We do not know from where within us these likes and dislikes originate. Where does hate come from? From where comes spontaneous, unconscious love?
Emotions and thoughts come from desire they say. Just because some spiritual master said so, should I accept it, agree? Do I see within myself it as a fact? Emotions, likes, dislikes, desires come from somewhere far deep within me. Physical conditions do prompt or trigger them but they originate from somewhere else much deeper. They are not to be denied by me; they cannot be ignored or rejected by me as good or bad. They are there. I try to understand them and to find out how they behave. One can sometimes play with them consciously and manipulate them, but never ignore them, suppress them or reject them. They will persist if ignored, they will create unpleasant conflicts in the mind and stay put there if suppressed and rejected. Such conflicts and feelings of guilt remaining hidden deeper in the mind are the only ‘sin’ I can understand.

unreliable memory and backward movement

Memory is always of the past. There cannot of course be a memory of the present. And memory is most unreliable. Inaccurate recording, emotional disclourations, later modifications, and incorrect reproductions make it unreliable. Therefore one need not believe in the past.
They correctly say that the past is dead and gone. Be in the present. Do not go to the past. But even otherwise how can one go back to the past? Impossible! If you do it, i.e., even if it is possible, it would be a fresh journey in the present. Going backwards is always a fresh movement, a new forward movement. Therefore, backward movement is a new forward movement. It is always ‘forward in time’. ANY BACKWARD MOVEMENT IS A FORWARD MOVEMENT IN TIME

illusion or maya and idols

In Adwaitha Vedantha philosophy there is the famous analogy of the snake and the rope to illustrate the concept of Maya (Illusory nature of phenomenal life), in which the rope in darkness is mistaken for a snake creating panic. The real thing is the rope which is the emotionally neutral Reality that is mistaken for a fearsome snake, the agonizing ups and downs of everyday life. Day to day life is thus only an illusion, a play of the mind on the Reality because of the darkness or ignorance of the viewer..
Strictly speaking, the conceptual God or his power attributed to the idol in a temple is similar. The stone idol is mistaken for God. But there is a difference. The power and imagery of the idol is a deliberately created illusion for a purpose, and not a mistaken identity. The idol with imagery being just a tool, is finally to be dropped. But, for a devotee who is not aware of the purpose, or that it is a deliberate creation, the snake is as real as any other. He can only live with his delusion and go ahead with his belief to get whatever relief or benefit his belief can give him. He cannot use it for a greater purpose unless he overgrows his belief.

granite memorials and stone gods

Parking the car by the side of the bridge, we walk along the winding road beside the river. It is foggy early in the morning. The thick mangrove bushes on the other side of the river are hardly visible through the mist. The river is full in high tide; and yet it is calm with hardly any ripple. At a distance, far off in the river, I can spot the reflection of the cemented graveyard memorial of an unknown person. Yesterday I have seen a red hibiscus flower on the memorial placed there perhaps by the dead person’s wife who lives in the small cottage adjacent to it. As we pass by it there is a mild feeling of sadness and depression in me.
A granite memorial in a cemetery is just a stone. Yet, when one looks at it the stone appears charged with a lot of emotions, depression, fear, sorrow, disgust and sadness. It surfaces also several imageries as well, of bones, ashes, decay, worms, last rites, and even ghosts.
In contrast there is the stone, sculpted or not, in a temple. It can evoke awe, devotion, fear, love, wonder, and reverence. Corresponding imagery also appear. They are automatically posited and attributed.
The mind plays both the tricks, the negative relating to the memorial and the positive relating to the temple stone.
Similar is the case with other ritualistic stones also. They are never neutral, emotionally. But boulders, building stones and similar common stones have bland neutral effect.
Image worship has arisen from this character or ability of the mind to impose emotionally charged attributes on inanimate objects, giving them life, movement and power. After all, all gods are conceptual, created by imagery. Whether it is of the memorial or the temple, all power to the stones comes apparently through the mind from an ultimate source deep behind and beyond

looking at myself

“In the smile of the flower that blooms there dwells God; in the cool breeze that caresses there dwells God; In the river that flows quietly, in the grandeur of the mountain, in the trees and the sky, there is God; We pray to thee, Oh, Lord!”
This is a rough translation of the prayer I heard coming through the mike in the voice of a child at the start of to-day’s morning function at our club. It was just part of a silly ritual. On arrival there I had felt that the whole atmosphere of the anniversary festivity was silly, sham, superficial. How sad for an organization in which I am a member!
At that moment of sadness and self-pity it suddenly dawned on me that Man invariably prays stupidly not knowing, not apprehending, what is God or even knowing whether there is actually a god as presumed. Poor Man! He can never understand the secret of Life! And he does not know that he cannot know. And yet he prays, - just because he does not know.
Next day, I saw myself in the video recording of the Anniversary. I felt sad seeing that old man struggling to reach the mike to say a few words (was he lisping!) and chant a few lines of Bhagavad Geetha. That was me! And is that the real me, the physical me now? But I never felt that bad while at it on the stage! Seeing yourself in reality is a strange experience! Naturally on the mental and spiritual side also the image of myself would need revision!
In fact I had not actually looked at myself, seen myself, or perceived myself or felt myself in the real sense. So far, my impression of myself was a built up imagination. I have started only now to look, to see, and to feel myself.
This looking is not the type of meditation in which at the beginning you see or feel thoughts entering your mind and disappearing, slowly making the mind calm, quiet, and finally emptying it. This is different. It is the opposite. I see or feel the thoughts, understand them, understand their relationships, how they are part of me, how they constitute me, how they behave, wherefrom they emerge, study their unique character in relation to what is ‘me’ and what is not ‘me’, and what is their common peculiarity, if any.
My thoughts are unique. My body is unique. Its genes are differently constituted from those of all other human beings. Therefore its functioning has its own peculiarities.
My body and mind are what they are to-day because of certain qualities and defects inherent from birth, and on which the present system of the life of mine has been built up brick by brick.
I have been breathing all through my eighty-one years. But how many times have I actually noticed or paid attention to the peculiarities of my breathing, or was really conscious of the rhythm of my breathing? Only for a small fraction of the long time. Perhaps when I had difficulties with it. That was just for avoiding discomforts. Similarly the beating of my heart. They do their work, whether I am conscious of them or not. I digest my food whether I am aware of it or not. I am not conscious of umpteen other functions of the organs of my body, most of which are highly complicated. I am in fact aware of only an incredibly small number of the infinite actions that my body performs every moment. But now I understand that I could have been aware of very many more functions of the body and mind had I been more attentive to them.
Understanding one’s instinctive and spontaneous behavior with the outside world, or noticing the pains, irritations, and discomforts of the body, is not what is meant by knowing oneself. Neither is it identifying and recognizing a self or ‘I’ within one’s mind, eliminating or subduing the thought processes.
It could be only the complete acceptance of all of one’s thoughts, all of one’s emotions, all of one’s irritations and discomforts of the body and mind, so that one is free of them, and free to use them or discard them. Use for what? Just to pull on with this life as long as it lasts with minimum discomfort. Greater things, if any, could be bye-products. * * * * *

surface thoughts a hurdle - seeing the real

.Minds journey towards the depth of the sub-conscious is somehow blocked by the thoughts lying dormant at the surface of the mind. Alert attention has to penetrate these ‘surface’ thoughts lying hidden as fears, anxieties, resentments and other emotions in order to go into the deeper layers of the mind.
Is awareness nothing more than mere alertness of the network of the nervous system? Or is there an attention that does not depend on the alertness of the nerves and the physical brain? Is pure awareness beyond the mind? When the mind is quiet and still it appears so.

* * * * * * *
To see a thing straight without the accompanying imagery and emotional content is what is seeing the real. Any other sight is unreal.
* * * * * * *
Emotions stir up thoughts. But thoughts are constituted of memory. Therefore thoughts actually erupt from memory when emotions trigger them. If one puts up or stays with the condition of the body and its emotions, whether it is pain, discomfort, pleasure or happiness, physical or mental there can perhaps be inner peace all through. One has to be watchful when the emotions get converted into thoughts. Intellect with its discrimination can control and manipulate thoughts at this stage to one’s advantage.

mood and liver condition

In the early fifties of the last century, there was a Collector of Customs in the Madras, who was well known for the fairness of his decisions but at the same time for being very tough on discipline. Those days cargo by air was almost nil and air travel was very few, and that too by small aircrafts like Dakota or Skymaster. The collector was very powerful as he, an erstwhile member of the Imperial Customs Service, controlled all incoming and outgoing ships and aircrafts through which came every important commodity of daily use in the country, including, talcum powders, bicycles, pins, pencils, sewing machines, motor cars, and what not, which were all not yet manufactured in India. Passengers came to Madras mainly by two ships, the S.S. State of Madras and S.S.Rajula from Singapore and Malaysia. Influence with the customs was a prestigious matter to the whole populace of the city because the prosperity of the city depended on the activities of transit and trade in the port The customs officers were also very important and highly influential people, some of the middle and lower level officers, being members of the prestigious clubs of the city, and owning even race horses, by virtue of their ‘family background’.
Immediately after independence, one day the collector called all the officers of the Department for an immediate meeting. The hall was full. From the Preventive Officers at the lower level, Superintends, Appraisers and Principal Appraisers at the middle level to the Asst. Collectors at the senior level, over hundred officers were present. All were apprehensive of any possible disciplinary procedures that might be introduced restricting their freedom. But nothing of the sort actually happened. He said that he had received a letter from Delhi alleging rampant corruption in Madras Customs, especially among the preventive staff manning the customs clearance of passengers coming through the ships from Malaysia. The collector invited comments. Many officers spoke explaining how the allegation was false and why such complaints arose. The passengers wanted to bring in too many articles as baggage and luggage, and indulge in smuggling. When they got into trouble they complained to the Ministry at Delhi. Mostly it was the middle men and agents who promised help pretending to be close to the officers that were primarily responsible for bringing a bad name to the Customs.
After hearing all speeches patiently he said, “don’t irritate me with such talks. I know fully what is happening. What has been happening all along in the previous years is happening now also. Habits do not change immediately on the exit of the foreigners. Do not pretend to be saints. But now the blame is on me and I am to tighten the measures. Left to myself I would not bother to change any practice. I would like to let things lie as they are without troubling you. But when it comes to the question whether it is my blood or your blood that has to be let, I would rather prefer that it be yours. I can stomach neither your irritating talks nor digest the insulting remarks of somebody in Delhi who has never seen a harbor.”
It looked as if his stomach was responsible for summoning the meeting!
A few days later a leader of the newly formed Preventive Officer’s Association approached him and asked him what was the norm or criterion for transferring Preventive Officers to the then subordinate offices in ports like Cochin and Vizakhapatnam. There was a reason for his question. Nobody was willing to go out from the lucrative postings in Madras port. Very few opted for transfer. Therefore the convention was to send the junior-most or a newly promoted officer. The convention was broken in the case of the joint secretary of the Association and the secretary was agitated over it.
The collector, taking some time to look up from the file he was peering in, replied, “It depends on the condition of my liver. Now, get out!”! The officer was shocked into silence and had to pocket the insult. The association, which had just got recognition then, was not strong enough to react in any way.
The incident, leaked out through the stenographer, was quite a quote for years in Madras Customs. “That depends on the condition of my liver” became a joke or an answer to many a question among friends.
Looking back now I wonder what a profound statement it was that the collector made! Most of our thoughts, behavior and talk depend on the condition of our liver, stomach, kidney or any like organs. Thought and behavior depends on the health of the body. When I have an irritable bowel I am not able to think with any calm or balance of mind. Then I see disturbing dreams at night. Any little discomfort in the body affects our thoughts, actions and talks. Definitely, for a calm and quiet mind one needs a healthy, happy, body. When the body is in pain how can one be happy? It is impossible. Unhappiness will be lurking behind all through temporary feelings of happiness. Happiness is therefore as much a condition of the body’s health as the state of the mind. And, the state of the mind at a given time is determined by the emotions of the moment. Emotions again largely depend on the various secretions in the body. Although thoughts in the mind can reinforce the emotions, I find that they arise from emotions. Therefore body is always the culprit which creates unhappiness. It has to be kept healthy. Or one has to go beyond it. If one can be in a state of the mind beyond the condition of the body he may perhaps find equanimity of the mind including euphoria even while in pain. But is it possible? Is staying with the discomfort, staying with the pain, staying with the irritation, staying with the anger, without converting them into thoughts, going beyond emotions? Will emotions subside if not fed by thoughts? Possible.

euphoria is not real

WHEN?

The tap is open: water flows out.
The fan spins on,
Time ticks away.
Life leaks out
The tank has to empty itself.
When?

* * * * * * *
Blank mind and euphoria:
My eyes are closed. My mind is alert. There is nothing in the mind. No particular thought is erupting except some small ripples of no significance. It is a clean slate. In the placid waters little ripples can always arise here and there. One is aware. Although alert the mind is blank.
Then thoughts arise. Is it the state of the mind where it is kept open and empty? The very question makes it not empty! When that subsides, the mind is calm and one is engulfed in a sort of pleasant warmth, a sort of euphoria.
But what has it to do with Reality? Is not the feeling caused by body secretions like endorphins, enkephalins, and pheramones? I think that one can stay in a state of ecstasy for some time by using the technique of ‘vacuumizing’ the mind. Anything further will happen?

medicine for anger

Medicine for Anger
I am angry. I am angry with him. But I don’t want to be angry. He has always been a nice well behaved youngster. I gave him money because I had absolute trust in him and because I had some spare cash at the moment. I did not even expect it back. Let it go if it becomes useful to him, I thought. But he had said that he wanted it only for fifteen or twenty days to tide over a delay in collection of his own dues. It is now one month and he has neither turned up nor contacted over phone. May be he is in some difficulty, I don’t know. His mobile phone is dead. And, after he shifted his room the land line is not yet in place. I am getting angry with him more for not contacting me, more for not behaving as I expected him to do, than for not returning the loan. After all, had I not written it off even while I gave it? Yet I am getting more and more angrier. I don’t want to be angry.
Streams of thought about him and the loan persist in my mind and reinforce the anger more and more as I try to ward off the anger. And the anger, nagging and exerting itself, generates more thoughts about him and about the incident. Why can’t the anger subside, writing off the loan from my mind? How can I make another behave as I expected? That would be impossible. I can’t change others. I must change myself. I should not have the anger bothering me. I can not always nurture a resentment or ill will in me if he does not at all repay the loan. Why should feelings of goodwill that got built up in the course of a few years be lost in one incident? Again thoughts persist. It is because once the angry mood is triggered in the mind, it remains for quite some time. It does not go away. Out of control thoughts arising from the mood takes it up making it stronger and stronger.
Suppressing the thoughts does not help so long as the source, the problem, is not resolved.
How to get rid of the mood itself? And thereby, the anger?
The entire thing got abruptly solved and dissolved when he rang up to say that he is coming to see me right now, coolly apologizing for the delay.
All the thoughts, the anger, the resentment, the speculations and anxiety were unnecessary! And they disappeared in a jiffy! Feelings of goodwill reappeared instantly!
But the question still remains, how to get rid of anger?
Will some medicine help?

restful mind

Restful mind:
Sometimes the mind seems to be incapable of being calm and quiet – still. There is always a lurking apprehension, restlessness, as if waiting for something, or something is impending to happen. There is a curiosity to probe what it is. Is it a fear of something unpalatable happening, or just the result of physical irritation, discomfort, uneasiness?
Can the mind be still and quiet in spite of the disturbances, irritation or apprehension arising from the body? There seems no point in waiting for these things to subside or to be subdued and eliminated.
Through all of them the mind has to be at rest.

Mind

When I read about the mind in any book or magazine the meaning of the word mind confuses me? Is it the running thoughts, the storehouse of sense impressions, the memory, the vacuumized brain, or merely the space meant for thought? Or is it all these put together? If there are no thoughts can it be still called the mind? The word is loosely used with no precise meaning conveyed, I feel.
The mind is perhaps the storehouse of memory from which no single item or piece of memory has yet arisen to become a thought. Thoughts are therefore different from mind, but part of the mind

looking at myself

Looking at myself:
“In the smile of the flower that blooms there dwells God; in the cool breeze that caresses there dwells God; In the river that flows quietly, in the grandeur of the mountain, in the trees and the sky, there is God; We pray to thee, Oh, Lord!”
This is a rough translation of the prayer I heard coming through the mike in the voice of a child at the start of to-day’s morning function at our club. It was just part of a silly ritual. On arrival there I had been feeling that the whole atmosphere there of the anniversary festivity was silly, sham, superficial. How sad for an organization in which I am a member!
At that moment of sadness and self-pity it suddenly dawned on me that Man invariably prays stupidly not knowing, not apprehending, what is God or even knowing whether there is actually a god as presumed. Poor Man! He can never understand the secret of Life! And he does not know that he cannot know. And yet he prays, - just because he does not know.
Next day, I saw myself in the video recording of the Anniversary. I felt sad seeing that old man struggling to reach the mike to say a few words (was he lisping!) and chant a few lines of Bhagavad Geetha. That was me! And is that the real me, the physical me now? But I never felt that bad while at it on the stage! Seeing yourself in reality is a strange experience! Naturally on the mental and spiritual side also the image of myself would need revision!
In fact I had not actually looked at myself, seen myself, or perceived myself or felt myself in its real sense. So far, my impression of myself was a built up imagination. I have started only now to look, to see, and to feel myself.
This looking is not the type of meditation in which at the beginning you see or feel thoughts entering your mind and disappearing, slowly making the mind calm, quiet, and finally emptying it. This is different. It is the opposite. I see or feel the thoughts, understand them, understand their relationships, how they are part of me, how they constitute me, how they behave, wherefrom they emerge, study their unique character in relation to what is ‘me’ and what is not ‘me’, and what is their common peculiarity, if any.
My thoughts are unique. My body is unique. Its genes are differently constituted from those of all other human beings. Therefore its functioning has its own peculiarities.
My body and mind are what they are to-day because of certain qualities and defects inherent from birth, and on which the present system of the life of mine has been built up brick by brick.
I have been breathing for nearly all through eighty-one years. But how many times have I actually noticed or paid attention to the peculiarities of my breathing, or was really conscious of the rhythm of my breathing? Only for a small fraction of the long time. Perhaps when I had difficulties with it. That was just for avoiding discomforts. Similarly for the beating of my heart. They do their work, whether I am conscious of them or not. I digest my food whether I am aware of it or not. I am not conscious of umpteen other functions of the organs of my body, most of which are highly complicated. I am in fact aware of only an incredibly small number of the infinite actions that my body performs every moment. But now I understand that I could have been aware of very many more functions of the body and mind had I been more attentive to them.
Understanding one’s instinctive and spontaneous behavior with the outside world, or noticing the pains, irritations, and discomforts of the body, is not what is meant by knowing oneself. Neither is it identifying and recognizing a self or ‘I’ within one’s mind, eliminating or subduing the thought processes.
It could be only the complete acceptance of all of one’s thoughts, all of one’s emotions, all of one’s irritations and discomforts of the body and mind, so that one is free of them, and free to use them or discard them. Use for what? Just to pull on with this life as long as it lasts with minimum discomfort. Greater things, if any, could be bye-products.

ego,s suicide?

The learned spiritual teacher who gave a talk to an elite audience yesterday said that most of the problems and agonies of individuals arise only from their ego. The ‘I’ and ‘mine’, have to be got rid off. Eliminating the ‘I’ is the purpose of spiritualism so as to prepare oneself to approach divinity.
I have been hearing this too often. The ego, the culprit, has to be killed! It seems to be there in all the spiritual texts. It looked to me as a sort of extortion to commit suicide! The saying itself is traditional, and by repetition it has almost become a cliché that nobody pays much attention to, as if it is a saying taken for granted in any spiritual talk or discussion.
But for the understanding of the present day minds, there is a slightly different approach to the same idea or fact, which appeals to me. The EGO can never be eliminated. It can only be quieted. Elimination of the ego is suicide. Only when the person dies the ego gets eliminated from the body. Here what is meant by the EGO is the constant feeling of ‘I’ and not the boosting of the ‘I’ with self importance.
‘I’ is necessary in day to day life. Like the mind, and being a creature of the mind, ‘I’ is a useful tool that can be used positively and constructively. Here the user is also ‘I’, activated and identified by the underlying reality.
‘I’ is quiet in real meditation, may be even for a few moments only. But on coming out of meditation, ‘I’ becomes as active and as virulent as ever, unless the ‘I’ is understood while in meditation or otherwise. Every aspect of ‘I’ has to be directly perceived and understood before it can become quiet. When the ego is quiet one can go ‘beyond’ it. Or at least try to feel what is behind it illumining it. Direct perception of the ego in meditation eliminates its virulent negativity and allows itself to be quiet even on coming out of the state of meditation. Attention to all passing thoughts, images, visions, emotions, regression incidents etc. help to perceive and understand the ego allowing itself to be totally quiet until evoked for use.
As an example let us take the ego’s fear of death. Fear of death is part of the ego, the ‘I’. In meditation you either feel or perceive as an outsider, the nature of the fear of death with all the accompanying symbols, images, noises and visions. You notice the underlying fear and understand that there is actually only ‘fear’ underneath and not ‘fear of death’ in particular’ It is the one fear as a single emotion that is projected as fear of death, fear of disease, fear of losing one’s job, etc., etc. On understanding this, the fear, losing its identification with death, becomes quiet. That part of the ego is then quiet even after coming out of meditation, because the knowledge of the nature of fear remains with the ego. Simple fear as a dormant emotion may still be there because of one’s physical chemistry, but its intensity slowly fades.

Sybols of Terror and fear

Symbols of terror and fear
Behind the ancestral joint family house we were living way back in the twenties of the last century, there was a hill known by the same name as that of my family. It was a hill with naturally terraced slopes thickly vegetated and with wild growth of tall trees like teak wood, jack fruit, mango, and a large number of other jungle wood. There were even a few sandal wood trees. While climbing up one could see hares, rabbits, and wild fowl running about. At night we could hear the howling of jackals, wild cats and the hooting of large owls, known to be an omen signifying death somewhere in the area.Once we reached the top of the hill we could run on flat plain ground carpeted with green grass stretching from one end on the right to the other end on the left, where there was the famous Siva temple. Portions of the flat plain nearer the temple was rugged with black boulders. During the Onam season we, the group of boys and girls in the house, of eight to twelve years age, used to climb up the terraces to reach the top where there were plenty of bushes on the sides full of flowers of all hues to pluck and gather.I would run up the first few terraces with all energy and enthusiasm, but would have to immediately slow down breathless while others would happily proceed to move up much ahead. I would feel tired with a sort of heaviness crushing my chest. Stopping for a minute or two, I would attempt to catch up with the others. But a sort of fear and loneliness haunted me then making me afraid of being left alone Yet, I would push myself up, not wanting to be considered unfit to go up.On the third or fourth day of the first truck up on my being allowed in the team, as I parried for breath, I noticed some newly half burnt and charred logs of wood kept by the side at the edge of one of the terraces. Suddenly, a funny feeling engulfed me making me sad and afraid. Something was eerie there! Other boys told me in whispers that the logs are left-over of the cremation of some dead body. Somebody had died a couple of days earlier. Terror struck me in the pit of my stomach as if it was waiting for a reason to strike. I somehow pretended as if nothing had happened, but while returning made it a point to walk as far away from the logs as possible covering myself from it behind other boys. The fear remained and haunted me at night, the dark, charred logs appearing before my closed eyes.Thereafter, I felt terror and torment whenever I crossed the charred logs, any charred logs, and sometimes even those which had no connection with any cremation or death. It was as if the terror was always there within oneself waiting for an opportunity to haunt. Charred logs, a symbol of death served as a trigger.As time passes one wards off from the mind all fearful and uneasy thoughts and symbols to get along with day to day life. Emotional upheavals of everyday life and absorption in work help one to keep aside what is unpleasant and fearful. But they are never forgotten altogether. They come up and surface later on whenever the mood is depressing.The opportunity for going into the phenomenon came when I suffered a heart problem at the ripe old age of seventy-five years. I had to get an angiograph done. Now I have a CD showing the beating of my heart and the blood vessels supplying blood to my heart. From the time of my birth I have been having an insufficient blood vessel supplying blood to my heart, and I have been living all along only because of a not-so-efficient connecting vessel from one side of the heart to the other known as a ‘collateral’. A sinking feeling, with fear and terror, is part of the problem whenever any exertion is done with an insufficient heart.Connecting everything together, I came to the following conclusion. The insufficiency of my heart started manifesting itself as soon as I climbed a few terraces of the hill of my childhood. I started becoming breathless, started having the sinking feeling and the fear of death. At that exact moment I noticed the charred logs that had a connection with death, and got mentally fixed to it. A coincidence or not, the insufficiency of the heart, the breathlessness, the fear and terror, the charred logs, cremation, dead body and the natural fear of death, all combined together to create an obsessive fear of charred logs! Does Destiny or Almighty pre-plan such a thing to teach a person an elevating lesson? I wonder.

Blank mind?
When the mind is deliberately kept silent, it is blank with no thought allowed to be present. But it is not naturally silent, not spontaneously quiet. Lurking behind, waiting to erupt out are fears and thoughts not allowed to come up and surface.What are they? Fears to be tackled, tasks to be completed, disputes and controversies to be settled, problems to be solved, and emotions that are suppressed. When all these are lurking below the surface of the blank mind how can deeper and deeper disturbances lying dormant in the subconscious come up breaking the barrier of the superficial thoughts and fears near the surface?Therefore what is in the surface has to be first allowed to come up and exhaust itself by directly seeing them and understanding them, if thoughts and emotions lying dormant deep within are to be noticed and tackled. Therefore it is not advisable to try to create a silent mind in order to avoid facing minor disturbances. What is needed is only not to go along with the disturbances identifying with any part of it. Let them come up. Just observe them for what they are, superficial unrealities.Often when the mind is naturally silent also, it is a blank. Is there then nothing underneath striving to come up? Is it really blank? Yes, and No. Yes, in the sense that no thought or image recognizable at the moment comes up. But No, it is not blank, when you consider the screen before the closed eyes.There is a screen in front of the closed eyes. The screen then slowly develops pixel dots of different colors. Clouds of different colors move one over the other forming clusters and shapes of no significance. But they are pleasantly bright. As you feel a little relaxed (drowsy), the shapes get meaning and significance. They become people, things, scenes, buildings and landscapes. Sounds appear from nowhere. What is deep down below may come up.Or may be, one is dreaming or hallucinating! Yet they are from far down within.But if the mind is in alert attention, although blank, it is a clean slate, a clear color screen with no images or shapes. Such a relaxed state is silent, peaceful and enjoyable. But what has it to do with the power that runs the show?

living with snakes

` J.Krishnamurthy once said that living with the mind is like living with a live snake in the room. One has to be very alert and attentive.
I would like to add that living with one’s mind is more like living with a snake and a bottle of scotch. Whiskey is tempting. But one cannot risk being less alert and less vigilant. One does not know whether the snake is deadly or not. Vigilant, alert, attentive, one has to take a big risk if one wants to succumb to temptations. Images of pleasures come up on the surface to attract and tempt. Dangers lurk everywhere. Not one snake, but so many are there. In spite of all the dangers and temptations, and among them and through them life has to go on with a peaceful mind. Being peaceful and calm underneath is definitely difficult. But if you study and understand all the snakes, and their behavior, one can manage.

limits of meditation

When you become old, umpteen well wishers and friends advise one to do so many different things for spiritual pursuit, that one is bewildered at first.. One person advises doing japa(repetition of the name of a deity) or upasana(pleasung a deity by concentration and tantras). Another advises chanting of Mantras. Meditation of a particular type is another’s suggestion. Raja Yoga of hundred types are there says yet another. Service of the poor and needy is promoted by somebody else. Devotion can achieve anything says another.
All of these, I am sure, are effective. But, it all depends for what purpose one is making the spiritual effort. Some say that all the approaches lead to the same result, namely, self realization, apprehending reality, receiving God’s divine Grace, or achieving Godhood.
I beg to differ. A circus man practicing relentlessly on a flying trapeze can only become a good trapeze artist, not a bar player or a cycle acrobat. Similarly a man practicing Raja Yoga to get some special powers may be able to get those powers in the long run. But he may never be able to apprehend the reality or feel the Source. A man with deep devotion may feel the divine grace and be ecstatic all the time. But it may not mean that he has encountered the Ultimate Reality.
But the Ultimate Reality may be a fictitious imagination of the mind. Nobody can know, until and unless it is suddenly encountered. Therefore what one can do is only to strive to directly perceive and understand the self completely, first in it’s ego or ‘I’ form, then in it’s blank un-manifested form (pregnant nothingness), and then still deep below the sub-conscious mind, whatever is there. From that the rest may follow, if at all.
In meditation, one can only go deeper and deeper inside the mind and attempt to know/feel/perceive to the extent of the knowable. That is to say, that one can go and find out only up to the limits of the knowable, up to the point one is allowed to directly perceive, and one is capable of perceiving. It is just an approach to the infinite, never reaching there, but always on the path in an endless journey. That is perhaps its beauty and grace too In meditation, you can see/perceive only that which is shown to you, and only that which you are capable of seeing and knowing.

Future is past!

Psychiatrist Dr. Brian Wyss has quite successfully done regression to the future with some of his patients! Does that mean that future has already happened and therefore is the past? Memory of the future! That must be the basis of all predictions. Memory of the future. It can at best be indications of tendencies and possibilities subject to alterations by will or change of circumstances.

past and future are present

Let me narrate an old event in my life on which often I still get angry about the injustice done to me by an Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign trade when I came back from a tour of Europe, and that too sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Affairs, an organization of the Ministry of External Affairs. (Skip this para to go to the intended point straight if so desired) It was far back about thirty years ago. I was then employed as the Dy.Director, Export Promotion, in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Delhi. I had taken leave and permission from the Govt. for the tour following all formalities. All arrangements were made for departure to Athens in Greece with the support of the Secretary, External Affairs, Mr. M.A.Vellodi. A week or so before the date of departure, it appears that the then Addl.Secretary of foreign trade had got transferred and a new man had taken his place. The new person, one Mr.Venketaraman asked for me and wanted me to cancel my leave and join back. When I was orally communicated it over the phone, I immediately contacted Mr. Vellodi, who told me that arrangements already made cannot be changed at the last moment, and that he shall speak to the Addl.Sacretary. He spoke, and I proceeded on tour to a few countries in Europe. When I came back after about thirty five days I was shocked to find my place occupied by a junior officer who has been promoted to occupy my place. Instructions were left for me not to join and to approach the Finance Ministry for a posting. I promptly went to the new Addl. Secretary and asked him what mistake I had committed to deserve this, explaining the circumstances. What he said then looked very strange, illogical and callous. He was not a person who would change his own decisions! He added that I could approach the Finance Ministry for a good posting. Actually at that time there were no vacancies in Finance to accommodate me. I had to just suppress my anger and go about representing my case to all and sundry. Mr. Vellodi in the meanwhile was posted to the Atomic Energy Commission and left Delhi and was shuttling between Bombay and New York. He rang up a few people and had found out that the Addl.secretary, Veketaraman, I.A.S. was piqued that I went against his wish because of the support of Mr.Vellodi, an I.F.S.Officer, although very much his senior. I had to roam around in New Delhi, with no job, no posting, and no pay for over ten months before I got a posting in the Customs and Excise Tribunal. I had ever since been wondering how a person of responsibility can act so irresponsibly and take revenge with such venom for an imaginary insult. Even if I invoke all charitable feelings and arguments, I find myself unable to reconcile the indignation against this arrogant I.A.S. officer.
Well, that was all in the past. Moments that had passed off years ago come back again and again in the mind because of the deep sense of injustice engraved in my brain. The past is dead and gone; the future is indefinite and yet to come. Both are unreal. Therefore live in the present, say all master spiritualists. The present is the only reality and real fact that we know about and perceive, they say.
Yes, but I add that the past is also in the present because my memory is today’s memory and not yesterday’s. It is the memory active just now in the present. Similarly for the projected uncertain future. The problem is only when one goes along identifying with the memory of the past or the projected and imagined memory of the future and lives in it, unmindful of the present. Then for the moments you are in the past, you have no attention in the present. The valuable present is lost. Thus, living in the present does not mean forgetting the past or being unaware of the possible future. It is in fact having full attention to the present. In the background of the past and the foreground of the future, the present lives going beyond the past and the future.
Past, present, future, are all in the present.
But what about the moments in the present when one is bored or when one is in circumstances one is not interested in? Why should one pay attention to such a present? The answer has two aspects. One is that awareness by nature is automatic, effortless, and choice less. It just happens. It is not something deliberate. Attention is nothing but awareness of inattention, (J. Krishnamurthy), or focussed attention. The second aspect is that the present is always new and fresh and is perceived as new and fresh. Boredom comes in comparing with the stale past and being inattentive to the present.

Watch Your Thoughts?

When we hear spiritual advises like, ‘go inward’, or ‘watch your thoughts’, some of my friends ask me what does that mean, and how to look ‘inward’ and ‘watch’ the thoughts. There is no place like ‘inward’, and thoughts are not something one can ‘look at’ to watch!.
Quite true. Those who are alien to the techniques of meditation, and those who are not used to praying deep with their eyes closed, may find it difficult to understand these terms. But one can easily start by closing one’s eyes and watching his breath go in and come out. Starting from there, one can become aware of several things happening in one’s own body and mind. Some movements like gas in the stomach would be easily noticeable. Some may be able to feel their heart beat or pulse. Slowly attention can be diverted to one’s thoughts in the mind, emotions felt at the moment and the disturbances popping up from outside as well as inside. In the closed screen of the eye shapes may appear as if on television screen. The shapes may move and change. If one goes along with the thoughts identifying with them, then there may not be any difference between the open eyed normal thoughts and the closed eye attention to thoughts. The idea is not to go along with the thoughts as if ‘I am thinking’, but to look at the television screen before the closed eye waiting for things to be shown, patiently, alertly, anxiously, as if at any moment something new might come up. After a few times one will be tempted to do it over and over again because one does not know what all things might come up!

There are more than one hundred and twenty different ways that I have come across in books, by which one can start practices to go inward. Choosing one that suits oneself is the trick

Ego's suicide

The learned spiritual teacher who gave a talk to an elite audience yesterday said that most of the problems and agonies of individuals arise only from their ego. The ‘I’ and ‘mine’, have to be got rid off. He said that eliminating the ‘I’ is the purpose of spiritualism so as to prepare oneself to approach divinity.
I have been hearing this too often. The ego, the culprit, has to be killed! It seems to be there in all the spiritual texts. The saying itself is traditional, and by repetition it has almost become a cliché that nobody pays much attention to, as if it is a saying taken for granted in any spiritual talk or discussion.
But for the understanding of the present day minds, there is a slightly different approach to the same idea or fact, which appeals to me. The EGO can never be eliminated. It can only be quieted. Elimination of the ego is suicide. Only when the person dies the ego gets eliminated from the body. Here what is meant by the EGO is the constant feeling of ‘I’ and not the boosting of the ‘I’ with self importance.
‘I’ is necessary in day to day life. Like the mind, and being a creature of the mind, ‘I’ is a useful tool that can be used positively and constructively. Here the user is also ‘I’, activated and identified by the underlying reality.
‘I’ is quiet in real meditation, may be even for a few moments only. But on coming out of meditation, ‘I’ becomes as active and as virulent as ever, unless the ‘I’ is understood while in meditation or otherwise. Every aspect of ‘I’ has to be directly perceived and understood before it can become quiet. When the ego is quiet one can go ‘beyond’ it. Or at least try to feel what is behind it illumining it. Direct perception of the ego in meditation eliminates its virulent negativity and allows itself to be quiet even on coming out of the state of meditation. Attention to all passing thoughts, images, visions, emotions, regression incidents etc. help to perceive and understand the ego allowing itself to be totally quiet until evoked for use.
As an example let us take the ego’s fear of death. Fear of death is part of the ego, the ‘I’. In meditation you either feel or perceive as an outsider, the nature of the fear of death with all the accompanying symbols, images, noises and visions. You notice the underlying fear and understand that there is actually only ‘fear’ underneath and not ‘fear of death’ in particular’ It is the one fear as a single emotion that is projected as fear of death, fear of disease, fear of losing one’s job, etc., etc. On understanding this, the fear, losing its identification with death, becomes quiet. That part of the ego is then quiet even after coming out of meditation, because the knowledge of the nature of fear remains with the ego. Simple fear as a dormant emotion may still be there because of one’s physical chemistry, but its intensity slowly fades.

Stream of Consciousmess and meditation

Yesterday night I saw a restless dream in which I was standing at the edge of a rock on a hill. I can see the beautiful valley down below covered with bluish mist. But something inside me was disturbing. Some strange being came to attack me. I had no way of escape as I would fall down the precipice if I try to run. Suddenly I remembered that after all, the beast does not know that I can fly off. I am somebody who knows how to fly, the only difficulty being in taking off from the ground. But here the advantage is that I can first fall off and then vigorously move my hands to fly till a resistance of the wind is felt by the hands. Only sometimes it may take a few moments before I felt the resistance, in which case I would have dropped down considerable distance downward before I could fly. There was of course a lurking fear that the attempt at flying may fail. Yet I flew. The resistance was felt and I flew smoothly above the trees and by the side of coconut trees, avoiding electric lines and telephone cables, and occasionally standing on some walls, and then taking off again. Sometimes I am out of control and speed off at a tangent. But altogether it was pleasant. Then my hands got tired and I came down landing on a grass clad meadow. By then it was getting dark and the scene was all silhouette. An eerie feeling came upon me although I wanted more of the flying.
What was all this? Was it a jumbled up stream of consciousness flowing confused with some desires, or was it some wish fulfillment, or unearthing of some past life memories of previous lives lying dormant deep down in the sub-conscious mind? The difference between the dream stage and the waking stage is that I can see only what is shown to me in a dream while I can look at things I like in the waking state. The Will works in waking.
In the type of meditation I am practicing now I am diverting my attention in such a way that I see only what is shown me by my subconscious mind. In short it is a sort of dream while awake, alert and attentive. The idea is to unearth and exhaust what is underneath.
I am aware that I am aware. I am aware of my breath moving in and out. Within that rhythm my heart is beating. I can even hear the beating of heart these days as if some power machine is hammering off rhythmically far away. An image of hammering machine crosses the mind. A distant dog now barks. I am aware of the blurred image of some dog coming to my mind. Birds chirp. Vague images of birds surface simultaneously and disappear. There is the constant background noise of crickets humming. An image of space with the continuous prevailing noise of crickets appears and stays. I am aware of a dull discomfort in my stomach. Moving gas, asks the mind? An unsure image of some gases passing through twisted tubes cross the mind. I am aware of a constant running commentary going on for recording all these. Some questions are trying to surface from down below, but the mind is not interested and the attention is just waiting. It is waiting. It is waiting. I feel a cool breeze. A coffee cup appears before the mind with the smell of coffee and fades away. Again waiting. A strange fear tries to pop up. It is a familiar fear, the usual one. Let it be there. May not be able to persist. It is a potential threat. Ok. Leave it. Waiting…The cricket’s noise in space is still prevalent. A cock crows. The image of cock passes quick. Waiting. Waiting….. something is trying to come up from underneath the mind. Now it is trying to project out on the screen of the eye. An old ruin of a huge house with thatched roofs and mud walls! Am I feeling sleepy? Perhaps. I open my eyes.

Destiny and Will

It was one Friday evening, a Christmas eve, when I was in my X Std in Kannur Municipal High School, staying with my advocate uncle that I had an unusually strong urge to go home to my mother’s place about ten kilometers away. Those days one had to go by train to cover this much distance, crossing a broad river in between. Normally I used to go for week end visits on Saturdays in the mornings. This time I somehow managed to get permission from my uncle and left on Friday itself by the evening train. Sometime after midnight that same night my mother passed away in child birth. My elder brother staying with my father’s brother in Kannur also felt the same way and had reached my mother the very same evening to see her before her death. Even now I am unable to reconcile the coincidences. We were destined to see our mother before her death. Or was it her wish which worked? She was an unusually intelligent, alertly conscious woman with lots of faith. The trauma of her death lasted days and months for me making me depressed, insecure, and miserable with a haunting fear twisting in the pit of my stomach. It was all fate, people said. Time and getting absorbed in engagements slowly cured the depression. The question of fate and destiny lurked and remained.
It has always been a paradoxical question; if I am living as predestined, where is the place for my free will? Will has then no meaning at all. Could it be that I am even thinking only what I should by what is preordained? I know that I have the awareness that I am aware. Animals are ignorant that they are aware and go through life mechanically, or instinctively. Man also lives instinctively, perhaps, most of the time, but with awareness and self-consciousness. But like an animal, man also lives and dies without knowing why he is doing so. The secret behind existence is not revealed to him. If the secret is known to everybody, perhaps the charm of life would be lost, or all human beings might feel silly and refuse to go on living. A scheme in which ignorance is clearly perpetuated seems to be in force, and perhaps even the awareness of his consciousness allowed to him is part of a trick to keep him wondering what it is all about!
But can’t the boundaries of the self be expanded beyond the limitations? That may be possible for a few, as it would seem. Otherwise how can there be so many masters in the spiritual world? Why should they alone be allowed to have a glimpse of the secret? ‘Boundaries of the self exceed the measurable universe’, says DR. Brian Weiss. May be true: Has to be true.
It would appear that actually destiny, like time, is a flowing river at its own speed. Human will can either synchronize with it and wade along or fight its way in the river. But there is no point in complaining about the ways of the flow. Within the limitations of destiny, Will can play its part. But we are predestined to flow along the river. Swim smoothly along with the river flow without tension.

death and sorrow

(Extract from an old e-mail sent on the sudden death of Sudhir) We cannot take the matter of weeping lightly. It is beyond reasoning or philosophizing. Yet we do both in an attempt to escape from the sorrow. Sorrow is an emotion which is there in human system, often accumulated enough, waiting for a trigger to release it. Death of near and dear ones is perhaps just one of the triggers. If there is no event triggering the mechanism, the human mind will invent something, even an absurdity to release the welled up emotion of sorrow. Lewis Carroll brings it out in a light vein when he says that the Walrus and the Carpenter wept like anything to see such quantities of sand! 'If only some seven maids with seven mops swept the beach, could it be cleared of the sands?' They doubted it, felt sad and cried! The beautiful nonsense and its absurdity bring out the profound Truth of the fact of sorrow! A spiritual leader in Rishikesh wept and cried like anything because his favorate tree was on the other side of the Ganges! This is not to treat lightly the anguish in the sense of loss felt or the love and compassion for the near and dear one lost. The anguish arises partly from self pity and partly from Love. The self pity is painful and the love gives relief from the pain. The tendency is therefore not to avoid the sorrow but to indulge in it with a feeling that one is somehow paying back a debt to the departed.
Death is of course going out of THIS existence. Whether there is any other existence, we do not know. There seems no way of knowing because even if one feels inclined to believe what some great spiritual masters say from a direct perception by them, it may not be true and could be just a trick of their mind. We do not remember from where we have come. It stands to reason that we cannot know where we are going to also. May be that any possible existence after life may be much better than that in this life.
For quite some time now I had been feeling like a passenger at the fag end of a long railway journey nearing his destination. I don't know where I am to alight and what is in store for me there. I remember the things that I saw and happened to me after boarding the train, but nothing earlier than that.
And I have only one thing of which I am absolutely sure. That is the awareness within me.