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.