Quest for an Answer
A Page from My Life Diary
From
Life Wanderer
10th October 2005
Quest for an Answer
Today I had a very humbling experience. I was participating in an institutional meeting run on co-operative basis wherein every member had equal vote. The occasion was General Body Meeting. The members were not well informed about the matters to be discussed at the meeting and some vested interests were subverting the whole process to their advantage. I knew the whole game through and through and was desperately trying to inform the members on factual matters. I had partial success and to some extent I was able to educate and alert the members. However, in a meeting of some 50 persons, I was the only one who had done full homework. The members were driven variously by their outward impressions of the governing body members, their own selfish motives, their own personal grudge against me due to some past instances and mostly due to just their eagerness to finish the meeting early. The members with vested interests took full advantage of this situation and were able to quiet me. It was a frustrating experience. In order to make members understand the situation and the game the people were playing, I became more assertive and aggressive. This worked to a large extent. There was deliberate commotion created by some members. I raised my voice and fully utilised my persuasive and argumentative skills backed up by the factual data I possessed. In the end, I can rate my success as 30 %. Considering that some members (on my side) initially took it as a hopeless situation, this 30 % success is a good achievement. But I was not comfortable as the balance 70 % could not be achieved. I get angry due to the deceit and dishonesty of the people and try to correct these people in so far as I consider it my duty to do so. I have a high sense of duty and social responsibility. In the end, when I am writing this note, I have a bitter taste of the whole episode.
Now, after you have read it, I want to share with you my personal observations and the insights I am having. These may startle some.
Being logical, rational and truth seeker puts you in a deep trouble unless you are also political. I consider it as mutually exclusive qualities. But in today’s world, one has to be political first and foremost. I am absolutely sure that I do not want to play politics. While at the same time, I can also not keep quiet when wrongs are done in my immediate circle of environment.
I feel I should practice the art of ‘letting go’. It does not mean not putting any effort to correct the situation. It only means that beyond a particular point, I should not try to assert myself. I should put the limit to my assertiveness and aggressiveness and persistence. Beyond those self made limits, I should allow the situation to take its own turn – may be against my desired outcome. I \must be quietly persistent with my efforts. I should not retire from the active scene. I should engage myself in the action. But I must observe the limits of my action. I should also behave myself decently. When the other person is not behaving decently, I used to give ‘tit for tat’. This should not happen. I should let go.
The above thought used to give me frightening scenario when I am constantly on the losing ground due to these self imposed limits. It may even happen. Let it be so. I should not cross my limits.
What are those limits ? I feel that I should not do anything which puts bitter taste of the incident. When somebody has abused me and I teach him a lesson and may be I succeed, It still leaves me in a bitter taste and I do not feel comfortable for abusing the other person or in other words, for lowering my level to the other person. In the process of getting things done, I get gradually lower level of my personal worth. Therefore, it is a bad bargain to get the things done but lower my self worth. So what is the alternative ? I feel the alternative is to ‘let it go’ beyond a particular point of effort.
We are taught of ‘getting it done’ by putting our best and trying hard. I feel this is wrong. I am realizing it now. We are constantly being bombarded by the environment about the ‘competitive advantage’, getting 110 % of our efficiency, being successful, winning. But what about happiness ?
Some people who get caught in the similar dilemmas, adopt either of the following options 1 They just give up trying and start doing Yoga, meditation, spirituality etc to find the answers.
2 They accept the situation out of frustration.
3 They change themselves to the ‘ways of the world’ and join the league of political, selfish and half-truth people.
4 They convince themselves that they will won their rewards in afterlife and then do not try at all.
I am rejecting all of above. Not on any ground of ‘principal’ but just because I want to be true to my own self. That is why I called it life’s dilemmas. I accept that it is a dilemma and I do not have a full answer. But I know for sure what is NOT an answer. The path I am going to follow – I am not sure how much successful I will be. But I want to be a happy person and success is not a guarantee for happiness. At the same time, my intrinsic nature of truthfulness and warrior does not allow me to make half efforts or avoid conflicts. I am not going to any spiritual guru to get the solution. I am also not seeking solutions from Gods. Being in the above dilemma, I do not have definite answer. But I am getting to a firmer conviction that I must always try, be assertive, be persistent, be truthful and be warier. But do not take it to the end – fight to finish. Leave my fight somewhere inbetween when I am starting to realize that I am exceeding my limits or getting lowered down in my personal worth. And then let it go. Move forward. Whatever may be the outcome. I may not be successful. I may not even be happy. But at least my search for the answer will be on. And I will be more true to my own true nature. This will give me strength. What worse is going to happen ? Taking the reasoning to its logical end, I may lose everything. But my soul will be my own. Nobody can take it away. And the search will be on.
The fight to the finish entangles you in the process with the events and the objects of the situation. Letting it go makes you free of such entanglements. And I feel that to be free of any entanglements is of immense value. It makes the path clearer to you and you get good insights about the correct path.
Unfortunately, I am not seeing any person around me who is following my way.
On earlier many occasions, due to my above qualities, I landed in deep mess. I ‘over did’ it. People were hurt. I lost friends, I lost sympathy. I was totally alone. I was ditched. And on top of it all, I also lost the battle. But almost miraculously, I was literally lifted out of the mess and put in a clean ground – again to get into some another mess. I was very definitely helped by the divine grace. At every juncture of deep trouble in my life, I was offered help by people – as if being directed by some higher power. But before the help was offered, I went through hell. And it was mostly due to my fool-hardiness. The world is full of political, selfish and deceitful people. And I dashed against my opposition like a bull. It does not take great imagination to know what will be the result.
I am also proud and happy in retrospect that on most occasions, I had fantastic success and I did many things which are very much commendable. And all this in seemingly hopeless situations, The problem is that in the process, I made many enemies and I exceeded my limits of decency. I was aggressive and pushy. Moreever, I lost the political game and end result of every battle was frustratioin.
Now is the time in my life to do some introspection. In fact I am doing the introspection constantly. But the path I am following does not offer ready made answers.
When I see spiritual gurus offering advice of love and peace, I get a strong desire to kidnap these guru, shave their beards and hairs, make them look and dress like very ordinary person, make them travel in the horribly crowded suburban trains of Mumbai and then ask their advice about love and peace. Will they be able to practice what they preach ? Very much doubtful.
I am convinced that the path I am following will lead me forward in my search for realizing the Truth of My Being. Staying confident and comfortable in life and ENJOYING LIFE without fear, anxiety, deceitfulness and degradation of my self worth. I am not a seeker for god, heaven, Nirvana etc. I am a seeker for STABLE HAPPINESS. My own TRUE SELF is like a diamond. I want to fully realize my DIAMOND NATURE.
Life Wanderer
Meditation on Death
A Page from my Life Diary
From
Life Wanderer
14th October 2005
Meditation on Death
We do meditation in various ways. But meditation on death sounds a little eerie. It may sound a little frightening to some. Death for us is like the dark side of the Moon. In spite of whatever the spirituality may teach us about the transition of human soul which takes place at the time of death of man, deep in our consciousness there is a silent, unspoken fear of death.
We all know that we are going to die one day. Though many people may wish for immortality, nobody expects to live for ever. In spite of this accepted reality of practical life, the statement that ‘you are going to die after X number of days’ sounds like a bad omen. We live as if we are never going to die.
Having worked in a hospital for many years, I have seen death as a matter of routine occurrence. It was routine for us but exceptional for the patient and his relatives. I have seen patients and his relatives more worried about the bill than the prospect of recovery. At the same place we have star babies born very frequently and the jubilation that followed. Here I do not want to sound philosophical. I am amused by the play of life and death and how we take it.
I have myself gone through a deep traumatic period of personal crisis in my life. I used to be always concerned about the course of events that will unfold and my role in it. Every success used to bring with it further web of human relationships and the tension about the outcome of my future endeavors. Hardly in my life I have enjoyed my achievements unperturbed by tomorrow. The only good thing was that in the midst of all this crisis I was in constant search for a stable and secure station in life. This kept the fire in me burning bright. It kept me alive in a deeper sense.
Then in one day, I got a breakthrough. In the process of ‘mental discussion’ about the various possible outcomes of my various actions and the tension it created on my life, I tried to think about the ‘worst case scenario’. I fearlessly extended my argument towards its logical conclusion. In the worst case scenario, I will be dead. It was the end of the road.
Or was it really ? I decided to explore further. What happens when I am dead. How will I know ? All the theories of the after death scenarios are only hypothesis for me. I was not interested in unverifiable hypothesis. Were I ready to die ? Certainly not. I was a fighter, I told myself.
Then the idea flashed in my mind. How about just thinking that I am dead without actually dyeing ? I closed my eyes. I told myself that I have now died. Then I did a silent meditation on the ‘nothingness’ which I was most likely to experience after death. Having reached this stage, I decided to further extend my logical reasoning from the point I left just before I died. I started to do the job of mental discussion of worrying about the possible worst of worst case (first worst for my living period and the next worst for my after death period) scenarios.
And here I got a crude shock. I tried to worry but could not do it. Again I tried hard to worry. I could not manage it. There was now the question before me which I could not answer : What is the relevance of the situations, events, relationships, tensions etc of ‘my living era’ to my new situation of ‘after death era’ ? Unless I am able to establish the core requirement of ‘relevance of things to my present (i.e. after death stage) situation’ my mind refused to co-operate with me in my intense desire for worrying about something. I tried hard but could not do it. In my situation of ‘after death’ I am neither able to influence the events nor in a position to enjoy ‘life’. I am in a ‘no-thing’ stage. It is neither happy nor sad mental state. I felt highly uncomfortable with this ‘no worry’ state and quickly returned to my terrestrial existence of ‘pre death stage’ of living. I felt much better now. I again started the process of worrying. I could do it now. It is a stage of ‘something always happening’ - may be just the act of worrying over the things.
In this process of ‘living and dyeing’ a more subtle change was taking place in my ‘mental constitution’. I did not notice it first. It became apparent after several ‘cross jumps’ between life and death. The intensity and the depth of my attachment to the emotions – whether happy or sad – got considerably softened out. I could not as intensely feel sadness or happiness in my ‘living state’ as I used to feel before my crazy experiments with life. I could still do the same logical argumentation and worry about the things, but the ‘charm of worrying’ has gone out of my life.
My further meditations on the subject gave me new insights. Earlier I had handled the issue of ‘relevance of things’ in my ‘post death’ state and in my ‘pre death state’. Now I moved a step further. What is the actual relevance of things in my ‘continuous state’ of pre and post death ? This was a tough question. Not because it was difficult to answer. It was tough because the answer was not palatable. It shook my whole basis of logical reasoning foundation. I realized that the things which are causing me most annoyance, worry, tension etc are not going to remain when I die. And I am sure going to die someday. So why I carry a baggage which the airline authorities at the departure lounge are not going to allow me to embark on the plane ? I had gone through the experience of having to painfully leave my baggage behind in such situations. This had happened in the case of actual air travel. Now the situation was very much similar. All my mental constructions will have to be abandoned at the departure lounge of Life. And on top of it all, this will be done very abruptly and ruthlessly and rudely. I would have felt very much insulted had it happened in any living situations. I would have certainly avoided the course of events which will sure lead me towards such an insulting situation. I had my self respect. Then why am I meekly accepting such an humiliating situation in a situation of death when all of a sudden all my valuable possessions of tensions, worries, joys, excitements are stripped off me ? I will need to have a re-look at how I live my life so that at the time of my death my passage is honourable and my self respect is not harmed.
This led me to the final analysis. There is nothing actually worth to feel sad for. Life is a play. You should play it till the whistle blows. The rewards for this play is not in the number of goals you score.
It is in the very act of playing !
Life Wanderer
Little Things in Life are Precious
A Page from my Life Diary
From
Life Wanderer13th October 2005
Little Things in Life are Precious
We are always fascinated by the small people making big bucks. We are having a pet term for it as ‘Rags to Riches’. We all want to become part of ‘rags to riches’ story. Usually there is a single or very few incidences wherein the person has played his cards right and lo ! He is eventually a very rich man – like Bill Gates. We are then told of the importance of hard work, dedication, spotting the big opportunity, getting help, market intelligence, having a product breakthrough etc.
Actually you may be wondering what I am up to ? Yes we are having rags to riches stories and we want to make it big in a similar way. What is wrong with it ? What is your objection to it ?
Yes, you put it right. I do have an objection to the way we get mystified by these stories. Frankly, every time I hear a new rags to riches story, my stomach used to turns inside out for I having missed this opportunity. I used to feel that I am some how being left out of the God’s lucky draw. I was highly uncomfortable with my jealous attitude. It will not help me a bit in getting rich – I used to tell myself. While at the same time, I could not deny the logic in my argument. Rags to Riches Stories do have an element of ‘lucky draw’ in it. Whatever may be the qualities of hard work, intelligence, product break through etc which have gone into making of this ‘rags to riches’ stories, it was not enough. It was not the whole story. One has to be at the right place at the right time and with right people and with the right environment….. Isn’t it a matter of luck ? If it were so, then what is wrong if I refuse to appreciate the winner of the lottery.
After much deliberation, introspection and meditative thought in the matter I have come to the conclusion that I am right. There is nothing in rags to riches stories for the common man. He can not emulate the success of these lucky persons. So what is the solution ? Here is the solution.
We must grab every small opportunity passing our way. Luck is the ability of the person to be consciously and constantly aware about spotting and grabbing the stream of opportunities which pass our way – everybody’s way. These opportunities may be very small opportunities indeed. They may not have the appeal of ‘rags to riches’ story. But surely they have the potential of adding to your wealth. Unfortunately, with our eyes to the skies for spotting a big breakthrough, we miss several small breakthroughs passing our way. And when we do not get any big lotteries, we stop trying. We resign to our fate. On the other hand, the person who always grabs the small opportunities, gets richer and richer. We should remember the ratio of getting richer is compounded in geometric proportion. The man gets richer in the ratio of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc and not 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. The reason is that the confidence of the person who grabs the small opportunities is boosted by his success and this in turn pumps up his ability to spot bigger and better opportunities.
Now I am making a very daring proposition. I have applied it to myself with good success and have also seen it being profitably used by few other people. If we want to increase our sharpness and alertness for spotting the small opportunities passing our way every day, WE SHOULD STOP DREAMING ABOUT BIG BREAKTHROUGHS LIKE THOSE FAMOUS PEOPLE. This may raise many eyebrows. I will explain the reasons why I am making this bold proposition.
The alertness and awareness is directly related to the ‘here and now’ focus of attention. There are some breathing and meditative techniques for achieving heightened state of awareness. But first and foremost, we should stop dreaming. We should start living. Living consciously and with full awareness. We should stop playing lotteries. Secondly, we should learn to transform the little irritations and resistances and hesitations into free flowing energy which can be used for the much needed ‘forward push’. We may have to call a friend every 3 months and keep the contact alive. We know that he is a good source of possible opportunity in future. The reason we do not call him is not that we forget. The reason is subtle and sub-conscious hesitation. This may be due to our past experiences when after calling the friend, he was not available, his household gave us rude replies, he was busy and told us that he will call us later and did not called up and we took it as his avoidance of our contact… there may be many reasons. We may not even discern that we are having such hesitations. But we may not just call him. How many such contacts are we losing ? Far too many. All these contacts are like seeds. They may or may not work out. But we must sow the seed before we come to these conclusions. This is only just one example. Life offers ample small, tiny or micro opportunities continuously. Everybody is potential lucky person in a very tiny way. But who is interested in small gains ? We all want Big Gains.
I will make another daring statement. If you are not a scholar, you are lucky. You earn more money if you do not study and score good marks and get admission in prestigious institutions and become doctor and engineer. In good many cases this holds very much true. We all know the cases of our friends and relatives who did not study, were therefore slow starters and suddenly in their thirties they make it very big in some catering business or tourist industry or some franchise chains etc. The reason is that because of the lack of good qualifications, these people become more mobile. They can look for and take up versatile type of jobs. On the other hand a highly qualified MS doctor can not run a dept store even if he does not get a good job in his field. Though this is not a universal rule, it is a good pointer towards the validation of my theory. We should be mobile. We should not narrow down our stream of opportunities. We should not demarcate our poverty level.
In order to follow this path, you must first remove the clutter in your mind about the fixed dogmas and notions about the method of earning money. We need also to do certain types of Yoga and do the Prosperity Meditation. But even if we do not do this, just the simple rule of not letting go of an opportunity just because it is smaller than our ‘entry level’ standards will go a long way.
The issue here is not just the monetary gain you make. The issue is of far more profound. When we take every opportunity presented to us – small, micro or big or very big – we send a very clear and loud signal to the Universe. This signal is that of warm and loving welcome to the Goddess of Wealth.
And this is the Master Key.
Life Wanderer
Did You Commit Suicide Today
A Page from my Life Diary
From
Life Wanderer
12th October 2005, Dasara
Did You Commit Suicide Today ?
What Suicide ? Me ? What do you mean ? Are you in your senses ? What makes you say so ? Are you crack ?
These are the typical answers one may expect for the title question. Yet most of us commit suicide several times a day. I know this statement is not palatable to us. Some may say that it is in bad taste. But it is true. Here is how.
What is suicide ? Suicide means intentionally and voluntarily killing one self. Ending our existence on this terrestrial life. This is a major event and needs a major step of crossing the line between intention and action to commit suicide. For every suicide committed, there are at least 1000 suicide candidates returning back from line of actual action for want of courage or last minute prevalence of rational mind over desperate mind. I am not referring to any of these.
The main motivating force for suicide is to find an escape from the present dead-locked situation. There is a frustration and desperation. It is giving up trying to find the solution as all the efforts to tide over the difficulty have failed. The inner energy to try harder has vanished. This is what I am trying to emphasize when I ask the title question.
We all want to do something. Sometimes we succeed. Many times we fail. When we fail, we keep on trying till we succeed. However, the struggle for trying takes its toll on our personality. It puts its permanent scars on our mind. Then we give up. We stop trying. We resign to our fate. Sometimes we strait away accept it. But many times we give it different color by saying that we do not want the intended result, we have something more important thing to do, it is not worth the struggle, I will get it at some later date, I will try in different manner at some other time, I am a different person now and has become Yogi etc. If we honestly do the everyday analysis of every minute of our life from morning to next morning, we will discover that our life is full of compromises. It may be a very minor thing as pressing the toothpaste from the wrong side, keeping the toilet seat cover down, allowing other person jumping the queue to elevator of the building, tolerating the suit not pressed properly, silently accepting being pushed by the man behind you while alighting from the bus. It may be major thing like being ignored at office in increment list. Not getting ones recognition while the boss promotes undeserving colleague on some extraneous grounds. Then there are in-between cases when we grudgingly accept the bad road conditions, higher taxes, corruption in government, hooliganism, bad management of educational institution, unemployment etc.
What happens ? We lose our zeal and enthusiasm for trying to better our life. We get into the little corner of our life for comfort and safety of the cave. Our rational mind convinces us that the trade off between the cost of the struggle and the reward thereof are not matching and it is a bad bargain. We then give up. But we do not accept the defeat. This is the worst part of the story. We give our retreat different names as indicated above. We kill a tiny fragment of our personality every time we need to but do not try to better our life. This is what I call Suicide of a Bit of our Life. Bit by bit, a major chunk of our personality is finished much before we die.
This has its major cost in terms of lack of enthusiasm and zeal to enjoy life. We then find readymade entertainment as our escape from the frustration of failures. These escape routes can be as benign as watching TV to as damaging as alcoholism, womanizing, gambling etc. The worst is yet to come. The immune system of our body gets considerably weakened and we are more susceptible to sickness.
On the other hand, trying to better our life conditions without getting the secret key is also damaging. It may sometimes cause more damage due to insults, defeats, spoiled relationships, loss of money etc.
I feel that the solution lies in always trying to better our life conditions without getting emotionally involved in the struggle. We should always be communicative about our feelings and wishes in a very clear, non offensive, polite, non-pushy non-selfish but fearless manner to the other party. We should also try to do something about the situation to be improved. While doing this we should have the love and wellbeing of the other person in our heart. We should not be violent. But we must try. Always try. If we are not passionate and emotional and egoistic in our efforts, we will not tire out with continuous struggle. In fact we should not take it as a struggle. It is the game of life. We should perform our part happily.
Many a times we have frustrating situation of having a scope to do very little or nothing in improving our situation in certain circumstances or locations. I have a easy and interesting solution for this. Remember, we must keep the fire alive. It should not die out due to lack of opportunity. I help other non-known or not-connected persons in a non-monetary way. When I buy fruits in the market, I give one or two fruits to the beggar on the street. I give fruits or sweets to our society watchmen, my driver, postman, washer-man, milk man, house maid etc alternatively. While giving the fruit or the sweet, I do not have the feeling of charity or help. I give it in the sense of returning the favour of the mother earth in having me these things. I share the wealth of the mother earth with her children. All are her children – whether they can afford to buy her wealth or not. These people are not used to receiving these gifts. It is my experience that invariably these people are greatly moved by my gesture. I get my benefit in terms of trying and succeeding in improving the welfare and goodwill of my immediate environment – may be even to a very very tiny extent.
Other thing I do is do the job of cleaning in a very small way our immediate surrounding. I do it myself. I may sweep the floor in front of my house, plant trees, do flower arrangement, burn incense sticks, water the plants outside my house, pick up rags and small paper or plastic chits lying on the floor outside my house, give water to the thirsty dogs and cats – something I am not supposed to or normally expected to do by the Society. I do it with a satisfaction that I am taking positive step in improving my environment. This gives a happy and joyous signal to my Universe and it goes on in a chain effect to improve the living conditions on this planet. I know that these are only the token things. They are only symbolic things. These will not remove the corruption from the government, they will not improve the traffic jams, they will not reduce the crowd in the local trains. I will certainly need to do something about it. But whether I actually do anything about it or not, I am keeping the fire in me alive by doing the small things mentioned above. These small things does not make me hero. Nobody probably notice them. There is no appreciation from the society for these works. I am not concerned about these. In fact when nobody is likely to notice the good work done by you, it is the best way to do the good work. The reward for such good work is 24 carat gold. There is no ego satisfaction from such work as nobody is there to appreciate your work.
The big work like going on a crusade against corruption makes you hero. Here is the danger of heightened Ego. One may reach the height with constant danger of crashing to the ground. I am not against such endeavors. But they are not for every man. For us, we have to do small, insignificant jobs in the field of social action with little or no appreciation. But we must do them. How to go about it is a different issue altogether. If one is eager to take part in such social action but does not know how to start, he can keep the fire alive by doing the things mentioned above.
I am having an idea of starting an initiative of involving common people in apolitical manner in the non-aggressive social action. It does not include starting a violent protest against the corruption and booking the corrupt officials. It means making mass awareness of these issues and inducing the masses not to be party to corrupt practices. There are many projects which do not require anti-establishment actions. I am particular about these matters as I do not expect Great Sacrifices from a common man. We need to do little things. It is enough. It will keep the fire alive. Those who have a call, can go for bigger actions. The masses can at least do little things instead of committing micro-suicides every day.
Let us make a vow to stop committing micro-suicides. Let us be watchful about these things. Next time somebody else jumps the queue, tell him on his face in a polite and non-aggressive manner. But you must tell him. He may be a bully with menacing face. Do not get scared of him. If he insults you back, you need not take the battle further. You may then ignore him. But you must take the small first step. If you do not then take the second step, it is OK. Do something beyond the normal call of your duty and responsibility. Do little bit. Not great things. But do you must. Be forward moving. There is nothing like staying neutral. If you are not forward moving, you are not static or neutral. You must then be backward moving. You are committing micro-suicides.
This is what I call the true sense of respecting the Life.
Alternative to Alternative Medicines
A Page from my Life Diary11th October 2005
Alternative to Alternative Medicines
The Allopathic Medicines are treated as the Mainstay Medical System. It has its advantages and disadvantages. The main objection to allopathic medicines is that it is drug based, unnatural, toxic and harmful to the body in the long run. People who are fed up of the dis-advantages of Allopathic Medicines are in search of the Alternatives. Therefor we have the combined grand alliance of the opposition party called Alternative Medicines. This party included everything other than Allopathic Medicine. It includes Ayurvedic, Homeopathic, Reiki, Naturopathy, Yunani etc. The main advantages of the Alternative Medicines is that they do not harm the body while curing the disease. On the other hand they are slow to heal as compared with the Ruling Party of Allopathic Medicines. Alternative Medicines are also considered as New Age lifestyle.
I am writing this note to raise strong objection to the mentality of people using Alternative Medicines. Our mentality has been so focused on the mind that we treat our body like we treat our car. When we go the doctor, we actually take our body-car to the garage-clinic of the doctor-mechanic to repair our body. We feel that if we follow the advice of the doctor in terms of diet, rest and tablets we will get cured. If we are not happy with the Allopathic Medicine, we go to Ayurvedic Doctor with the same mentality of the body-car. We expect the Ayurvedic Vaidya (Doctor) giving us similar advice with Ayurvedic Science and we follow his advice in the hope that we will get cured without any side effects. We continue to treat our body like our vehicle. We stay in Mind in Ego-Centric Manner. Our centre of consciousness is in the taste buds in our mouth. Once we enjoy the taste of our food – may it be spicy, sweet, alcoholic etc – we enjoy the intake. The digestive system is taken as our slave. It is supposed to follow the law without any deviations. Digestive system does not have any ‘taste’ of its own and therefore we suppose that it does not communicate to us about its preferences. We get drunk and we say we enjoyed the Party. We means Who ? We means my taste buds, my ego, my mind, my passionate self. The body does not figure in this – though she has to clear out the mess we have made of ourselves.
When we do Nature Therapy, we take the diet as prescribed by the therapists. The mentality is the same as that of body-car and doctor-mechanic and clinic-garage. This is a great mockery of the whole healing system.
In reality, I make two branch of medicine as ‘I’ Medicine and ‘It’ Medicine. In the I medicine, I try to heal myself, with or without the additional help of medicines, by harmonizing my body with my mind and spirit and consciously ‘living’ in my body in a loving and joyful manner. In the branch of ‘It’ medicine, I treat my body as car to be maintained by regular service checkups and garage repairs – irrespective of the branch of medicine I use – whether it may be allopathic, naturopathy, Ayurvedic or any other. Most of us are in the second group of ‘It’ medicine. In such scenario, we can not call the naturopathy as the new age medicine, nor it is a holistic medicine. In fact it is not the medicine which is holistic, it is our approach to our body which is holistic. But to change our approach from ‘It’ medicine to ‘I’ medicine require conscious efforts on our part. This we find it difficult. ‘It’ medicine can be purchased by paying money. All we have to do is take the tablets. As simple as that.
The ‘I’ medicine can not be prescribed. We have to practice it ourselves. It is a part of our lifestyle. We can not ‘buy’ our cure. We have to cure ourselves. It is a matter of separate study as to within the group of ‘I’ medicine, whether I should use Allopathic or Ayurvedic medicine, or whether I should avoid the use of any medicine as far as possible. I do not want to dwell on that aspect in this note. Here I am focusing only on ‘ I vs It ‘aspect of healing. The people who do Yoga may claim that they fall in the I category of the medicine. I refuse to give them membership in the I Club. They are still in the It Club. Most people who do yoga are not able to live consciously in their body and harmonise the body and mind. When they do the Pranayam, they are mainly concerned about the in breathing, out breathing, duration of the breathing etc all the technical part. Yoga for them – and also for their teachers – is mainly of Asanas – body postures. What use is of body postures and breathing technique if the mind-body harmony is not established and the living consciously in the body in joyful manner is not done ? Body postures and breathing techniques offer very little help to achieve this objective.
We can follow ‘I’ medicine without any naturopathy, yoga and pranayam – though they will certainly help - by simply living consciously in our whole body. Living joyfully, stressfree in a playful manner. We need no religion or branch of medicine to heal ourselves, while all the medical science in all the branches can be used in a judicious manner to play a 10 % part in our healing system.
Allopathic medicines are out and out ‘body’ repair system. But the people following alternative medicines and the doctors of these medical branches are guilty of fraud because alternative medicines are supposed to be ‘I’ category medicines. We use I category medicine in It category system. In other words, we use petrol to run our bicycles ! If bicycle does not move with petrol neither bicycle nor petrol is to blame but the seller of the petrol and the owner of the bicycle is to take the blame. When we turn to the alternative medicine from the allopathic medicine, we are actually hiding the hole in our life pattern. If we fail in the business of selling stationery items, we turn to textile items. We fail there also because we fail to realize the importance of good business techniques and hard work – be it in stationery business or the textile business.
To my horror and dismay, I have come across internationally renowned practitioners of holistic medicine who treat people for a hefty fee. These people very well understand the importance of body-mind in the healing and healthy living. There is no objection to their charging hefty fees. Making money is good for health. What is of concern is that the people coming to them come with ‘It’ mentality and these doctors make very little, if any, effort in explaining and persuading them to follow the practice of body-mind consciousness. The next stage of specialization in holistic medicine is color therapy, sound therapy and cosmic rays. What use is of color therapy if the person getting the treatment is only interested to ‘repair’ his body ? Even Reiki system of giving healing energy violates the fundamental cosmic law of respecting the personal space of the person. If a person gets cured by receiving healing energy from other person, then does it not mean that he is only ‘repairing’ his body by healing energy instead of medicines ? His role is only to make payment to the healer. Rest all is done by the healer. Exactly the same with the repair of your car. You only pay to the garage man and rest all is done by him.
Now the main question is – how to live consciously in the body, how to harmonise the body-mind in a joyful manner. Well, this is a subject of another note and I will handle this topic some other time.
Life Wanderer
Right Vs Right
11th October 2005
Right Vs Right
(
Right is taken as meaning just, proper, fair etc. The other meaning of ‘entitlement, privilege, due, justification etc’ is not implied in the following note)
We are often caught in the selection of right from the wrong. We want to do things which are right. We expect everybody to do the same thing. We believe that if everybody is honest, does right thing, does not harm other etc we all will be living in a paradise on this planet. The problem, according to us, is that there are some people who are unscrupulous, selfish, liars, cheats etc and there are many people who do nothing about these ‘some’ people.
The religions Guru of all the religions bombard us with the lessons of ethics, morality, virtuous living etc. Social activists tell us about the social evils. We are born and brought up in this atmosphere of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ things.
With all the life’s experiences behind me, I am coming to the opinion that the problem lies in defining who is ‘we’ and who are ‘they’. We have basic assumption that there is absolute truth. And that truth is on our side !
When I am saying that I am right and the other person is wrong, that other person also feels that he is right and I am wrong. He may even be far more aggrieved party than me. He has his version of the story and it may be an honest version according to him. But I am blinded by the belief in ‘my right’ thing. On many occasions the battle is between ‘my right’ Vs ‘his right’. If we remove the common factor of ‘right’ from this equation, it simply becomes ‘Me’ Vs ‘He’.
So then what is the solution ? The religious guru will tell us to ‘love each other, to do sacrifice, be peaceful’ etc. I am afraid it is not the solution. I do not wish to forgo the right (meaning entitlement) of right (meaning justified thing). And why should I ? Afterall I am right and he is wrong.
Some may suggest a fair compromise. Again it will not be solution because any compromise only postpones the problem, it does not solve.
The above is not a hypothetical situation. It is very very real and we face these situations several times in a day. We only do not realize it.
The legal minded will try to interpret the law in the particular matter. But law is designed by humans and the interpretations is to be done by human and there is ‘right’ way of interpretation and ‘wrong’ way of interpretation. So the question becomes about the law being on my side Vs the feeling of the other party that either the law is on his side or the law is not applicable or the law is unfair or the law is misinterpreted. It poses more questions than it answers.
I am offering somewhat different solution. We all should assert our way of doing things and at the same time try to understand as to how the other party believes that he is also right. If we try to honestly know the mind of the other party, we will understand that behind this battle of ‘Right Vs Right’ there is another hidden element of what is beneficial. What is beneficial to me is not necessarily what is right. If I am fighting for what is beneficial to me, then the rules of the game are totally different. The Jungle Law will apply in such situation. Let us not confuse these two issues.
We may not find any right and perfect solution for this dilemma. Anybody who offers a ‘packaged’ solution is cheating. But we will realize that there is no ‘absoluteness’ to our firm conviction about the ‘right’ thing. We will also come to know that the battle really is between not right Vs wrong but between ‘my right’ Vs ‘his right’. In such situations we should be guided by our own individual ‘call of the Self’. If we feel of forgoing our right (i.e. entitlement) to right (i.e. justified thing), we may do so, or we may continue the battle. There is no definite solution. If the call of our Self is to fight and we give up after listening to some Guru, we will keep the problem un-resolved in our mind and the ghost of this unresolved conflict will subtly and behind the scene influence our future thought pattern.
Instead of finding or even expecting to find any definite solution, we should understand that it is the process of resolving the conflict which is important. This process of conflict resolution will give us many insights of the nature of human mind and this insight will make us more mature and add more depth to our understanding the Life. The most fundamental condition for this Process to become beneficial to our understanding of the Life is that we should look behind the veil of Ego and try to see and understand the real issue involved. It will help us understand a bit of Truth. Instead of being a stressful event the ‘Truth Conflict’ will become a game of life and the joy of Play will be ours in abundance.
