My Life Diary

Spiritual Science of Upawas उपवास

Spiritual Science of Upawas उपवास

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 6:01 pm 0 टिप्पणियाँ

Intelligence of the Heart.........Shrikant Vasudeo Soman

9th February 2006

Synthesis of Science and Spirituality
It is a set belief that the Brain is associated with the concept of Intelligence and the Heart is associated with the concept of Emotions. It is also our belief that both these concepts – Intelligence and Emotions are sort of mutually exclusive domains.

The management of business, governance of nations, career planning of personal life and education of students is emphasized to be based on ‘rational’ mind – meaning mind devoid of any emotions or brain to the exclusion of heart.

The spiritual practice of any religion of the world – past or present – gives emphasis on Heart rather than on the Brain, on emotions rather than on analyzing mind. This is the main contributing factor in creating a dichotomy between spirituality and materiality.

In Sri Anand Yoga – The Yoga of Eternal Happiness – we believe in the synthesis of heart and brain, with far more significance assigned towards the heart. The state of happiness arises in the heart not in the brain. The brain gives only the ‘virtual’ state of happiness. The Heart gives the ‘real’ thing.

Scientists have established with numerous experiments that the Heart is having an electromagnetic field. This heart field can be detected several feet from the person. Scientists have now accepted that the heart is far more than the simple pump. It is now recognised as a very complex system. It is having its own functional ‘brain’. We now have a totally new branch of medical research called ‘Neurocardiology’, i.e. the study of ‘brain of the heart’. It is now established that the Heart is a sensory organ. It is a sophisticated center for receiving and processing information. This nervous system within the heart functions independent of the cerebral cortex of the brain. It can learn, remember and made functional decisions.

Before we proceed further, please remember that this is NOT an essay in ‘Science of the Heart’. We are also not going to ‘apply’ this information for any practical use. We are only going to use this information as an affirmation and confirmation of the philosophy and practice of Sri Anand Yoga – which is already based on these scientific truths even before they were discovered by the scientists.

Higher brain centres are involved in perception, cognition and emotional processing. These centres are influenced by the continuous signals sent from the heart. There is also an ‘electromagnetic network’ permeating the whole of the body. The communication between various parts of the body is done through this network at a certain level of awareness. This is in addition to the nervous system, hormonal system and other pathways of communication. The major centre of this electromagnetic network is heart. The secondary centre is brain. However, heart generates the most powerful and extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field. The electrical intensity of the hearts field is 60 times greater in amplitude than that of the brain. It permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic field intensity of the heart is 5000 times stronger than that of the brain. This proves beyond any doubt that the heart is the real KING (or QUEEN, if you may like) of the body. Brain is the instrument in the hands of the Heart. The real decision make is the heart.

The brain rhythms tend to get synchronize to the hearts rhythm. The feeling of love and appreciation arise in the heart. It has been demonstrated in several scientific studies that the sustained feelings of love and appreciation is a major contributor of good health. Blood pressure and respiratory rhythms get smoothened by entraining themselves with the rhythm of the heart.

The foundation of Sri Anand Yoga is on Love and Appreciation. It results in higher level of efficiency and harmony in the activity and interactions of the various organic systems of the body. There is a marked reduction in internal mental chatter, elimination of stress, higher emotional balance, intuitive discernment and cognitive performance. The overall coherence of the various bodily systems is greatly enhanced. This directly results in the heightened awareness and sensitivity to our surroundings.

This Universe is filled with the ‘energetic and loving communication’ system. The electromagnetic field of the heart ‘rides’ on this communication network. If this functionality of the heart is harnessed effectively, it would create magical results. The strength of the electromagnetic field has great power to make the surroundings get ‘entrained’ to it. We are already using the term ‘magnetic’ personality without actually realizing that it actually represents the scientific truth. The method and technique of increasing the strength of this electromagnetic field forms an integral part of Sri Anand Yoga. However, it is not the focus area of this yoga. It is only its natural by-product.

It is also established that in order to have good brain development and formation of healthy self worth, the all round positive interactions between mother and the child is absolutely essential. The positive emotions emitted by the heart of the mother, like love, appreciation, joy etc ‘imprints’ the heart rhythm of the child with a life long effect.

In Sri Anand Yoga, we take this process a step further. Though, it may take some time for our scientific community to accept this phenomenon in any ‘provable’ manner, we can already perceive this truth. The electromagnetic field of the group of individuals who are aligned in a coherent manner with strongly charged emotions, create a ‘vortex’ of atmospheric charge of ‘intelligent energy’ which goes on to propagate itself far beyond its ‘arithmetic sum’. A group of 100 persons who are well harmonised in heart field with strongly charged emotional energy, can easily influence a population of 10,000 people and then to 10 million and so on to the whole earth. The ‘chaotic’ patterns in the atmosphere tend to diffuse the magnetic polarity of this energy field. There is another process of ‘Joy Wave’ which can effectively ‘re-polarise’ this diffusion. It is a matter of separate study.

The Group Field is comprised of the individual members of the group who have their own intent, awareness and energy pattern. When this triple attributes of individuality get aligned in the group, it increases the focus like a laser beam. The awareness level creates the depth of the field. The intent gives it the direction and the energy is like a propeller to the rocket. The ‘force field’ which is thus created is far higher in power and effectiveness than the magnetic field.

Let us get back the heart of the matter. Our heart have around 60 beats per second. The ratio of the systolic to diastolic blood pressure is around 1.6 – nearly same as the Golden Proportion. It is not a coincidence. It takes us to the core of the truth of the Universe. The law of golden proportion is one of the important conditions for self-organising systems. Our physical body is a symphony of individual rhythms of various organs and the Heart is the Master Conductor of this symphony.

So far we were obsessed with the statistics of the heart – heart weighs 300 gms of muscle, it pumps 70 liters of blood per minute without interruption for the whole lifespan of a person of 100 years, it beats 100,000 times a day which is equal to 40 million beats per year which is equal to 3 billion pulses per average lifetime. Now we are beginning to take note of the consciousness behind these statistics. Though science has concluded beyond any doubt that negative emotions like anger, anxiety, tension etc significantly increase the risk of heart disease, it is still in its infancy to fully explain ‘how’ and more importantly the ‘why’ part of it. Recently it has been discovered that the heart contains cells that make and release a significant quantity of neurotransmitters. These are in the form of norepinephrine and dopamine. These were earlier thought to be the monopoly of the brain and the nervous system. Heart can also be classified as an endocrine or hormonal gland. It was discovered that the heart produce hormone called Atrial Natriuretic Factor (ANF). This hormone has very significant impact on the functioning of blood vessel, kidneys and adrenal glands as well as on a large number of regulatory regions in the brain.

Heart uses several ‘afferent’ (flowing outward from heart to the brain) pathways to send neurological impulses to the brain. The emotional input is provided to the brain through these pathways. In this manner, the heart is able to influence and even to control many of the autonomic nervous system signals that flow out from the brain to the various parts of the body. It also impacts on the higher centers of the brain. This has direct relevance to the system of Sri Anand Yoga wherein we en-train our heart to re-charge the brain and the body by certain practices of Kriya Yoga. Neurophysiologists have learned as to how the impulses from the heart to the brain can ‘hinder’ or ‘facilitate’ the electrical activity of the brain.

Heart is now considered as a single entity. The brain of the heart is a network of neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins which send messages between neurons. In a similar fashion to the brain, the heart also has complex circuitry and support cells. It enables the heart to act independently of the brain in the head. It makes it possible for the heart to learn, re-member and re-produce the ‘e-motions’. E-motions are in fact the energetic motions of the heart. This discovery has led the scientists to surmise that the emotions are not the antagonist to the rational thought. There is an aspect of ‘intelligence’ to the emotions. Emotions have the rationality of its own. The neurologists have discovered the importance of emotions in decision making. While emotions have the power to put into oblivion the mundane events of our life, the reverse is not true. The mundane events can in no way knock-off emotions from our awareness.

It has now been established that the areas of the brain which are associated with various types of emotions are also controlling the autonomic nervous system. These same areas of the brain are influenced by the variability in the heart rate. This brings us to our starting hypothesis of the intelligence of the heart.

With all this new gained knowledge at our hand, the mankind is still not able to put this knowledge to practical use. Having known that the anxiety affects our heart function and consequently the heart intelligence, we conclude that anxiety is bad for health and life in general. When it comes to the question of how to eliminate this anxiety, the science can not offer any satisfactory solution. Man miserably fails in getting full benefits from the spirituality, yoga, alternate medicines etc because of his fundamental mis-perception of life processes. If we wish to fully benefit from these advances in scientific understanding of our physical body, consciousness and mental activity, we need to adopt a different route.

We need to listen to our heart, our wise and intelligent heart. We need to give the emotions their due and respectful place in our life. We need to re-learn our ability to cry and laugh like a child, be curious of new territories, be adventurous in taking up new projects and above all live life naturally. We need to bring back the Joy of Living in our life. This process, rather than weakening our rational thinking capacity, will immensely boost its effectiveness to the magical proportions from our everyday point of view.

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 11:09 am 0 टिप्पणियाँ

White Collar Rascals - A Long Sigh.......Shrikant Vasudeo

A Page from My Life Diary.....................Shrikant..Soman

We all know rascals. This word itself conjures up our own ‘prototype’ of the person whom we call rascal. I am not here going to define this word. It is live in your mental vision. Everybody’s Rascal is not the same. My Rascal is different from your Rascal. It is a combined morphogenic image of the various ‘rascality’ we have encountered in our life.

During my more than 3 decades of work experience in India and abroad and considerable amount of exposure to social service, I have got an exotic collection of ‘rascals’. These persons are white collar ones. What I mean is that they are ‘gentleman’ type rascals. They dress nicely, they talk nicely, they behave nicely…. everything is so nice about them. They may even go out of their way to help you. Their rascality is to be detected as an ‘undercurrent’ of their personality. I understood the correct meaning of the word ‘gullible’ because of them. They actually demonstrated to me what gullible means. This gullibility was my proud possession. What is gullibility? It is how I acted in the hands of these White Collar Rascals. I was a demonstration of this word. I realised it long time afterwards. I had the tendency to take every person at face value. I was myself ‘straightforward’ in my approach towards everybody. However, much later I realised that it was not my ‘straightforwardness’ but my stupidity garbed under the guise of some nice words. I made a virtue of my immaturity to deal with the tough mean world outside.

This is background introduction to this note. Now let us see some practical examples.

The Great Silent Sigh
I had a boss named Maniratnam (of course I have changed his name). He had apparently learned ‘anger management’ techniques – no, not like Boman Irani type in Munnabhai MBBS. He did not laughed it out. It was different. It seemed that he had lots and lots of pent up anger against me – which he did not dared to express openly – because then he would have to take the trouble of proving his point. He knew that he was much less prepared to take on my counter offensive. He had invented a novel technique. He will call me on intercom and then there used to be long silence. I will hear a long sigh. Then he will speak in a very controlled and monotonous voice. It became obvious that he is very much upset with me and is trying to control his anger. If at all he had to express his anger, the magnitude of his anger would have been nothing short of throwing me out of the window on the 25th floor of our office. This much I could guess by his actions or lack of it. He had mastered the power of silence. He had several tricks under his sleeve. Once when there was no voice on the other end, I could easily guess that it was Mr Maniratnam. I simply asked ‘Yes, Mr Maniratnam, what is it ?’. He will reply ‘Um… … … (silence)……. (long sigh) ….. I will call you afterwards’. This will keep me guessing as to what exactly is in the mind of my boss. Whatever it is, it must be pretty serious and I must have made some big blunders. I will not receive any call from him afterwards. I was also not bothered to call him back. In case I did peeped into his cabin to know what is the matter, he will be having some very minor matter to discuss. I would then wonder as to why did he got so much angry. I had the dilemma here. If I did not ask him the reason for his anger, the real reason will forever remain a mystery to me. Or worse still, whenever I actually came to know about it, it would have taken a worse proportion. On the other hand if I directly ask him the reason, his reply usually would be ‘Who said I was angry ? Common Mr Soman… what is wrong with you… don’t be so silly’. Here is the real rascality of Maniratnam. He was a fine example of ‘eat the cake and have it too’. He will express his anger to me in no uncertain way while at the same time had all the liberty in the world to deny that he was angry at all.

Now you will ask, what did Maniratnam gain by behaving in this way. Here is the main theme – a punch line. He was in the business of keeping me on my toes all the time. He would ‘play’ on me various psychic games and keep me vulnerable at his mercy. There is more to it. I found it out one day when as soon as I kept down the receiver, I dashed straight to the cabin of Maniratnam. I saw a senior person Eric from our central office sitting in front of him. He was trying to gain several mileages out of his behaviour. Firstly, he impressed upon Eric as to what sort of ‘scrap’ material he has to deal with. Secondly, how he has mastered the art of anger management and thirdly and most importantly, he was able to convey the message that he does not have good team under him without having to take the risk of actually defining the real shortfalls of his team and to get exposed with the return fire. This was not an isolated example. He did it as a usual practice. Whenever there was a long sigh on the telephone, it turned out that he invariably had somebody or the other key person sitting in front of him! I learned much of his tricks when he played the same trick on other persons when I was sitting in front of him!

I was saved much damage to my career in the hands of Maniratnam because of my habit of always having direct dialogue with the higher boss and secondly because of my habit of not bothering much about matters which are vague, grey and ambiguous. However, it took me a long time to realise that Maniratnam was a ‘White Collar Rascal’. We can not ‘pin’ them for their rascality. We have just to grin it and bear it.

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 12:54 pm 0 टिप्पणियाँ

Srikensho

A Page from my Life Diary
17th January 2006
Shrikant Vasudeo
Srikensho
Kensho is a Japanese word used in Zen Buddhism. It denotes an initial awakening experience. It is realising our True Nature or the Buddha nature. We have to constantly do the introspection to know the illusionary nature of separate self. The process of perception is through our consciousness. It involves the perceived object, the process of perception and a perceiving object. The actual process of Kensho requires the guidance of an enlightened Master or the Zen Master. The method is known as the constant questioning self about ‘Who am I ? or ‘Koh Ahum’ in Sanskrit.
I find this process extremely useful in Sri Anand Yoga – the Yoga of Happiness. I use it in totally different context and manner. For a common person, doing meditation is a hopelessly frustrating experience. What is commonly done under the term ‘meditation’ is mental simulation of some happy state. It is a sort of virtual reality. It invariably fails to make any substantive impact in everyday life of a common person. The actual reality in here is vastly different from the simulated scenario of the meditated state out there. At best of times, it only helps just as a person under the influence of psychedelic drugs or alcohol have euphoric feeling when he is ‘high’ on drugs. When the effect of the chemical is waned, one crash lands on the ground of reality. This happens only in best of the times. In actual practice and in most of the cases, we do not get even this benefit out of meditation. As soon as one closes his eyes and begins meditation, his mental machinery takes over his brain and he starts thinking all sorts of thoughts. At other times the very process of closing eyes and remaining motionless causes a person to go into a half-sleep state and then straight into semi-wakeful dreaming state. The meditation process gets hijacked without one realising its happening.
In Sri Anand Yoga, we follow different process. Instead of the process of doing meditation in seclusion under the guidance of Zen Master in some Ashram or Monastery for an extended period of time, the process I adopt in Sri Anand Yoga is that of doing a ‘parallel thinking of Kensho’ in every day living experience. There is no Zen Master, no monastery, no closing of eyes, no lying motionless. The impartial, non-Judgmental observing ‘I’ is my Zen Master. My inner mental atmosphere is my Ashram. To distinguish it from the Japanese-Zen Kensho, I call it Srikensho as part of Sri Anand Yoga.
Whenever any worry, tension, irritation, anxiety, excitement creates ripples in my mind, it is the point I have to do the Srikensho. It is a sort of ‘handle’ which I take a grip on. Doing pure meditation in seclusion needs some very high level techniques. It is meant for persons with particular level of spiritual development. The main difficulty in doing ‘pure’ meditation is that we can not think at ‘abstract’ level. Our mind is accustomed to focus on something ‘concrete’. Thinking of ‘joy’ as an abstract or pure idea is difficult to grasp. Thinking of the joy I get when I eat my favourite ice-cream is more concrete and easy to focus on. My mental act of responding to the event which triggers the ripples is at present done in an semi-automatic manner. This connection operates at two levels – reception of environmental data at Brain and reception of emotional data at Heart. The Heart also receives the emotional trigger from the Brain based on its interpretation of the external data received by it in the first stage. Through the process of Srikensho, I have to give an infinitesimally micro level pause between the process of action and the response. This is the Master Key of Srikensho. This breaks the autonomisity of my brain and heart to respond to the external events. There are also some complimentary yogic processes of ‘Solid Breathing’, ‘Energy Kriya Yoga’, ‘Sensual Focusing’ (Sensual = of and relating to Senses) and ‘Earth Rooting’ which greatly help in having effective Srikensho.
Whenever I get upset or excited of something, I immediately ‘grab’ this opportunity of doing Srikensho. I get a ‘handle’ to focus my mind on. I do the mental introspection of the process which causes the ripples on the waters of my mind. There is a limitation of our language to correctly explain this process graphically. Essentially I question my ‘helplessness’ in allowing the ripples to form on my mental water. I realise that I am vulnerable in the hands of my ‘automatic’ instrument of mind-brain-heart-senses. This awareness of the vulnerability is a giant step forward in doing Srikensho. The constant practice increases the fine sensitivity of our awareness to this process of ‘ripple formation’. In order to correctly perceive the process of Srikensho, I give the example of the game of ‘hitting the sliding ball’. In this game, a hollow cylinder of around 2 ft length is kept slanting on the table with an angle of 45 degrees. A person drops a table tennis (ping pong) ball on top of the cylinder. This is seen by the player. He is ready with a ‘hammer’. He gauges the time it takes for the ball to travel through the empty cylinder and come out of the other end at the bottom. As soon as the ball appears out of the bottom of the cylinder, he has to hit the ball with the hammer. This he has to do while the ball has come out of the cylinder and before it falls off the edge of the table. If he is able to hit the ball, he wins. It looks fairly simple and straightforward game. As the player sees the dropping of the ball at top of the cylinder, he immediately gets ready to hit the ball as soon as it appears at the bottom of the cylinder and before it falls off the table. Anybody who has actually played this game knows that it is extremely difficult to hit the ball. In 9 out of 10 tries, the attempt fails. This is just to give you an example of ‘hitting the ball’ in nick of time. Similarly, when we play the game of Srikensho, we have to watch the process of the external process triggering the chain reaction of ‘ripple formation’ on mental water and in the nick of time, put a pause between the two successive elements in this chain. It is difficult, but it is possible. The rewards of playing the game are immense.
This is such a game that even if you fail, you win a lot. Control over self is control over the Universe, which is a projection of the self. Attempt at control in right manner of Srikensho, even if one fails in it, results in giant leap forward in one’s ‘happy’ journey on this beautiful planet. The pinnacle of journey may not have been achieved, but the journey itself brings rich dividends on the way.

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 5:15 pm 1 टिप्पणियाँ

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

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 5:10 pm 0 टिप्पणियाँ

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

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 12:26 pm 0 टिप्पणियाँ

Little Things in Life are Precious

A Page from my Life Diary

From
Life Wanderer

13th 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

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 12:20 pm 0 टिप्पणियाँ

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.

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 11:25 am 0 टिप्पणियाँ

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

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 11:22 am 0 टिप्पणियाँ