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.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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?
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?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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.
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.
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.
Monday, June 2, 2008
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.
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.
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