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.

Awareness and soul

* * * * * * * * * *

Suddenly it dawns on me that I am an organized bundle of agitations, agitations in a pool of calm, peaceful ocean of awareness. Awareness as such with no agitations or disturbances has only ‘nothing’ to be aware of. But when agitation happens awareness is aware of the agitations, the bundle of which I am. The entire creation perhaps happens that way. Or is it that the agitations themselves are creations of the awareness?

* * * * * * * * * *

As I open the door early today morning and step out to my courtyard, the sun is already up, it’s rays playing beautifully on the fresh green leaves and the pink and blue flowers. The colours are unusually brilliant. The shining broad leaves of the anthurium are throwing out emerald rays brightening up the pink of their flowers. In the background of the creepers, fanning coconut leaves, the scene is enchantingly beautiful. Is the beauty really in the scene, or in my mind and mood?
Clearly there is a pure awareness free of thoughts and emotions within my body, which illumines my thoughts and emotions as well as the scene outside.. When I am asleep what happens? Awareness is apparently still there with nothing to be aware of. Gopi was lying inertly unconscious in the ICU in a hospital in Calicut. Was he still aware? If so, was he aware of ‘nothing’? What does such awareness mean? Awareness in such cases illumines ignorance? Soman in his house in Calicut does not remember a lot of his past, and what he remembers is all mixed up. He can’t also hear properly. He is also ‘aware’. What does that awareness mean and how does it contrast with Gopi’s awareness? One may conclude that pure awareness is awareness without an object to be aware of.
But the awareness is clearly not there when a person is dead. That is to say, there is no awareness as an organism when the organism is dead.. There may still be rudimentary awareness in each disintegrated substance with which the body was once constituted. Because the person is not aware when he is dead, awareness cannot be the soul, if there is something that is called a ‘soul’. The soul, if it is subtler than awareness it can only be the power that makes the awareness possible. I have read somewhere recently that soul is the entity constituted by the mind, intellect and the ego, which survives the body. But where is it when we are in deep sleep? Soul is a confused word, much abused and used indiscriminately, and therefore better avoided. I am inclined to leave the soul alone till I can feel it within myself sometime.
May be, awareness itself is what makes awareness possible?

posthumous fame

There is a craving or craze for people to be famous and to be remembered by posterity. To be remembered by the world after a person’s death is considered to be the greatest of all achievements. 'Fame is the spur that clear spirit riseth' etc. - Milton
To be known by a great mass of people for work or achievements in a particular field is fame. But does fame actually matter? On deeper thought and finer analysis I find that fame does not contribute much to a happy living or existence here or hereafter. The boost to one’s ego may create an illusion that fame gives happiness.
Mahatma Gandhi is world famous. What is it to him today that he was famous in his life time, and is still famous now?
I was well known among exporters in the major four cities of India when I was in one of the Export Incentive Departments of the Finance Ministry in the sixties and seventies. I was also well known among the Malayalees of Delhi as the Vice President or the General Secretary of the Delhi Malayalee Association and of the International Kathakali Centre. For two decades I therefore got recognition and advantages, including several foreign trips. After retirement I could also establish a good practice in the Department Tribunals with my contacts.
But what does it matter to me now that I was fairly well known then. The advantages that I got then are the only thing that mattered. Nobody knows me in Delhi now. I was in Madras in the fifties and sixties. Nobody in Madras knows me now. Just like that why should anybody know me in this world when I am gone away from it?
What I am driving at is that being known by people who matter, as well as those who do not matter, is significant only in the sense that one gets certain advantages while one is known. This applies equally to fame.
For those who are no more, fame is irrelevant. It is therefore absurd to desire to be remembered by posterity. Best of creative work is done just for the joy of doing it.

why space is limitless

From childhood I often had a gut feeling that only I exist, and all the rest are make-beliefs. Somebody seemed to be playing a trick on me. When I look in one direction all the things there appear in their place before me. As I turned my face, things in the other direction appeared. When I closed my eyes perhaps nothing is there at all. Similarly things are there as solid only when I touch them! It was a childhood fantasy-play while sitting alone. Perhaps all children had similar experiences sometime or other.
Now I feel that this could actually be true in the spiritual realm. The awareness deep inside me is a powerful luminosity which not only illumines everything that I perceive, feel, think, and act, but it seems to be also the source from which all these illusory universe of mine emanate and project them out as if from a film projector! Two verses in ‘The Ode To South Facing Form’ (Dakshina Murthy Stothram by Adi Sankara, translated by Ernest Wood.) seem to confirm it.
Surprisingly it is fascinating to find that this would also explain why the sky -that is, the space- is limitless. When a powerful light source projects itself all around from a point, its rays travel on and on forever expanding limitlessly the coverage of its brightness. Here, what is projected is not light rays but space itself, from the source point in the form of an expanding universe! The source point could be the source for a Big Bang!
Because the space emanates from within and spreads out, naturally there is no limit to the space. Yet, for practical purposes everything is there as it is in this space! The entire universe is there in that space arising from the source within oneself! Even intimations can still come to the earth from outer space. An illusory intimation from an illusory space to an illusory ego!

Why has the space no end?
Because the space starts from within you and expands endlessly outwards!

faith pushes to goal

* * * * * * * * * *
I have a theory, or rather a hunch that needs to be proved to be convincing. It is, that
Faith pushes one to move without conscious effort towards the goal one cherishes.
This is perhaps why prayers seem to get answered, and offerings to the Holy are found to be fruitful. The actual result depends upon the degree or intensity of the faith.
I can offer an example.
I was to retire on the 28th of February 1985, while working as a presenting officer for the Govt. in the Excise and Customs Tribunal. I had decided to set up practice before the tribunal after retirement, and by the middle of Feb, I was naturally very anxious and worried as to who will have enough confidence to engage me to argue their cases. I had mentally decided that I shall surrender the fees that I get for my first appearance as offering to my favorite deity Mookambika for which I shall visit Kollur at the first opportunity.
Around fifteenth of Feb I chanced to meet, Mr.Mehta of M/s Rallis India on the corridors of the Tribunal and casually said ‘hallo!’ as I used to know him while working in the Department dealing with export incentives. He just stopped and said that they are looking for someone competent to appear before the tribunal “B Bench” dealing with machinery, and whether I can suggest somebody. I said, half in jest, ‘sorry, I am not yet retired; or else I could have myself taken up the case’ and added, ‘unfortunately I am retiring only on 28th of this month’. He said it was fine as the case was to come up only in the second week of March. We agreed for a reasonable amount as fee. I appeared in the case, we won in our arguments, the judgment got published in the journals, I got my fee check, and on the first opportunity, I visited the Mookambika Temple.
After the first case of this fairly well known company of the time, briefs started pouring in, and a very busy phase in my life started, which lasted for over eight years till I myself put a stop to it, to go home aiming at a quiet peaceful contemplation in Tellicherry.
If you want to, you may believe that Goddess Mookambika blessed me because of my offerings. Or, you may believe that my prayer was answered because I was sincere in my prayer. Or you can believe that my faith worked wonders in me. Or you can believe that an unknown force within me, created by my faith, goaded me with correct timing to make me act as I did to bring success in my attempts. Or you may even say that coincidences do happen in life and we need not attach too much importance to such events.
For me the happenings were very significant and real. God is within you and you invoke it with faith, prayer or offerings.
Can I watch and observe how it works within me? Or if I look, will it refuse to function or disappear altogether like a mirage?

universe without perceivers

Not a single leaf or flower of last year is there now in my garden. But for anybody visiting me, my garden is as beautiful as ever, exactly as it was last year.
Not a single person who was there fifty years ago is there now at the central circle of our town. Yet the place looks more or less the same.
Nature maintains the world, and the universe, to look more or less the same for a lifetime. Changes are imperceptibly subtle. Sunrise and sunset is the same as they ever were. Even after the earthquake and the tsunami, world looks again the same. The beauty and the ugliness continue.
The maintenance of this universe will have no meaning if there is nobody to perceive it. The living beings, while still being part of the universe, perceive its beauty and ugliness. They are thus destined to be happy and sad. And it is they collectively who maintain the universe. The observed has no meaningful existence, - nay, an existence at all, without any observer.
For who else is the universe maintained? Can the universe exist if there is no observer to observe it? One observer should be there at least outside the universe. Shall we call that God or Reality or Creator?
Or, is it that all perceivers or observers are Him, because they serve the purpose of existence and contributes in its creation by just being?

journey inward

RUMINATIONS AND REMINISCENSES - Ekkentros

From somewhere thoughts surface to my mind. I am curious to know from where they come, and therefore I start observing closely and carefully the inside of my mind. I want to find out what exactly is behind the thoughts that produce them and make them surface. After a close watch for quite some time I notice that the sources of the most important thoughts are my feelings and emotions of the moment.
There are different kinds of thoughts. Continuous murmuring thoughts are one type. If we examine closely we can find they are trying to conceal, camouflage, and cover up some emotion lying deeper in the mind from erupting into disturbing thoughts. Another kind of thoughts is the type that we use for solving mathematical problems. These thoughts that we use as the reasoning power, are most efficient when the mind is calm. As a matter of fact only when the mind is calm, the mechanism of problem solving can properly function. Reversing the role, one can also use these reasoning thoughts to calm the mind. When disturbed I have often tried solving difficult mathematical problems to calm my mind. For example, stating and solving the De Moivre’s Theorem step by step to ward off disturbing thoughts was one of the tricks I employed for years when I was younger. When thus used its function is similar to that of the murmuring thoughts.
It is the thought that is involved in solving a mathematical problem in the normal circumstances that makes me doubt the general idea that thoughts are conflicts arising from desire. What is the desire here, which is conflict? Can we call the desire to solve a mathematical problem as a mental conflict resulting in production of thoughts? That would be stretching the idea too far to fit into the theory. So, I am inclined to say that all thoughts need not arise from desire as told by some masters.
Important thoughts, or disturbing or nagging thoughts, have anxiety behind them. For example, suppose I am thinking about my printer that is given for repairs. I think about the possibilities of getting it set right, the ability of the repairer, the possible cost and the worry if a new replacement has to be acquired. The emotion behind all this is fear of expenses and fear of the unknown troubles I have to face. I may also be angry at the mechanic/technician who may be careless or slow. Another immediate example can be the very thoughts behind my writing these lines. Why do I write? There is an urge to express. This urge is an emotion in the category of happiness or elation. It is part of the enthusiastic mood.
But is there an emotion behind every thought? In the morning today I had been thinking about a friend of mine in Delhi and the nice time we had together for years. Our quarrels, our work together and the time we enjoyed. Was there an emotion behind those simple memories? Yes, there were. Pleasant and unpleasant memories boosting up or reducing the Ego. Regular reassurances seem necessary for the ego, which is afraid of its reduction in size. Fear seems to be the basic emotion behind thought most of the time because the ‘I’ is aware of its fragile existence and require constant boost. Even the pleasant thoughts in which we sometimes linger on and indulge in for considerable time have the emotion of happiness behind it, and that is why we are inclined to settle on them. But disturbing thoughts being more powerful, there may be a lingering emotion of fear hiding somewhere behind even while we enjoy the pleasant thoughts. I think that finally we can confirm that emotions are behind all thought. The satisfaction of solving a problem is also an emotion.
In noting down these things here I am ignoring what all any psychologists might have said. I do not bother to find out what they say and rely entirely on what I see directly from my mind.

So if thought has to be manipulated, controlled, or made quiet, it is the emotion or feeling that has to be tackled. Feeling includes all feelings, physical as well as mental. A slight physical discomfort can distort all thought. The sight of an object can trigger the memory attached to a particular feeling linked to the thought. Any temporary emotion, i.e., mood can trigger thoughts suiting that mood.
Understanding the way in which the memory is actuated by a sense object, or rather observing the way in which the senses and memory co-ordinate, can perhaps help tackle the feelings raked up by any sight, sound etc.
But the feelings or emotions, including any discomforts, arising from the body can be controlled, if at all, only by altering and toning down the bodily conditions and functions. I say, ‘if at all’ because the feelings and emotions that come from congenital body conditions or defects may not be amenable to any change. That is to say, that if I am constantly afraid, or if fear is the basic emotion in me because of a defective gene, I have to live with it all through, and I have no escape. Or is there a remedy? May be a mutation of the gene may help. But is it practical? A bodily discomfort or a depression caused by an ailment can be cured, of course, by medicines.
Now coming to emotions arising from the Mind, I have to define the Mind here as not the thought active at the moment, but only underlying memory and incoming sense impressions. Any incoming image, whether from inside memory or from outside through the senses can trigger an emotion. It seems futile to try to control emotions by using thoughts because thoughts are partly the results of impressions of emotions stored in memory. It is like one emotion trying to control or counter another emotion. Or like anger trying to replace fear. One may argue that the reasoning power, viz. the intellect is independent of emotion. This I beg to disagree. Reasoning power is only a tool to be used by desire. And desire will sooner than later succumb to emotions or feelings. Behind every reasoning also, one can find a hidden emotion.
Ultimately, what I find is that thought, memory, mind and intellect all play to the tune of the emotions, and emotion on its part is a physical manifestation in the body depending on the conditions, circumstances, and inborn nature of the body. A person with a healthy body and a good heredity only can have a good emotional balance. And such a person only can have a silent mind. Once you have a silent mind, it is likely that it remains silent even if the body loses its health thereafter.
Having said that much, does that mean that if I have a defective gene I have only to suffer with no hope? If I have a physical defect or ailment I can only resign to my fate?
Here is where understanding and awareness come to the rescue. The impasse is perhaps crossed by an understanding arising from a constant alert attentive awareness of the emotions/feelings, their behaviour, and their very movements.
It is not the thoughts that one has to be watchful about but the emotions/feelings.
We think the feelings, never feel the thoughts. (Gurdjieff?) It is by thinking them out that one exhausts the emotions, - unless one is able to act them out.
When the mind is quiet, when thoughts have come to a stand still, you stay with your emotions, the emotions being ever ready to burst out into vigorous running thoughts.
How to bridle the emotions; how to dam their outward flow as they churn into thoughts? By immediate, spontaneous action, or, by finding out the means by which emotions are made not to arise at all?
Will emotions subside when you stay with them with no thoughts present? I find that they do not subside altogether. But their intensity is reduced. One may be able to live with them as facts of life. A state in which the unavoidable disturbances do not affect the mind.
When you have a slight ache in the stomach, you feel that ache. It is there as a fact. You stay with the feeling of the ache. Does the ache disappear just because you stay with it, not worrying? It may or may not. If the pain increases one may worry and even panic. That is to say, you think about the pain, how to remedy it, what to do if it does not go away etc.,etc. If one does not worry at all, that is, if one does not convert or transform the situation into thoughts or problems leading to tensions, he may silently watch or feel the movements of the pain, from which observation a spontaneous remedy may emerge. Ultimately he may go out and consult a doctor. That is beside the point. But the worry, tension, and panic are not there. For this moment, you live with the fact of physical pain.
Now let us look at a parallel with an emotion in the place of an ache or pain. I am sad. I am also afraid of losing my job. I am thus depressed. Can I live with the depression as a fact? Can I feel the depression as I feel that pain in my stomach, without converting the depression into all sorts of fearful thoughts and ominous possibilities? When thought does not interfere, that is, when I do not indulge in thinking about the adverse possibilities, circumstances, and consequences of the situation, I stay with the depression as just another condition of my body. I feel the depression. I observe its movements. It is just there. It is painful. But it is not unbearable. A remedy may emerge. Or one may have to live with it. In the understanding of these things the anguish or agony vanishes.
But is it just getting resigned to fate?. Like getting resigned to death because there is no other alternative?

whisper continues

But belief can be used for good or bad purposes. Belief can be used to cure certain illnesses where the disease is due to certain wrong beliefs, notions, and habits.
And I think that 99% of the astrologers and tantriks do not believe in the capacity of their practices to predict things with any degree of accuracy. But they all use other's beliefs to make a living. they hardly know their own future.
The settled feeling of a real fact comes from the mind (MANAS). the skepticism also is that of the same mind. The intellect, the reasoning part is different - it can test the authenticity of a belief.

An Inner Whisper

What is the point in believing in anything at all? Should the mind not be free of all the cluttered up nonsense including even some sense? All the notions and beliefs may be false.
Once I am convinced of a fact on 'seeing' it straight, where is the need to believe? Fact is a fact, whether you believe it or not.
Belief is necessary only when one is not sure of a fact. most often a belief is of a non-fact because somebody else said that it is a fact.
As a child I sincerely believed that snakes Rahu and Kethu swallowed the sun and the moon during eclpses just because I was told so by elders. I had to take bath after an eclpse to wash of the poison if any which I might have caught in exposure. As a little child I also believed that the king of Gods, Devendra, sitting in heavens caused the rains to fall on earth. Many such stories on several phenomena were part of my belief system in chidhood. when I grew up and was in school, I believed that God Siva or Goddess Bhagavathi can get me good marks in my exams, and a good offering or prayer to them could get my guardian's permission to go to a cenema theatre.
As an adult i believed whatever was written in Geetha, Upanishads, and other scriptural texts as much as I could understand them. where things did not tally with my experiences I tried hard to reconcile them by streaching my reasoning.
But now at this late hour I dont want to believe anything of which I do not have direct experience or can directly feel. All other things are subject to my scepticism.