Ultimate Pinnacle of The Human Quest

24 January 2003, 12:01am IST
SADHU VISHWAMURTIDAS.

What is life? This question has been discussed and debated by the most sublime minds in each century. The answers they arrived at have been varied.
Here are a few examples. ‘‘A life without introspection is not worth living,’’ asserted Socrates around 400 BCE, while in the mid-1880s, evolutionist Charles Darwin spoke of ‘‘survival of the fittest’’. ‘‘Crush the infamy!’’ wrote French philosopher Voltaire in his effort to forestall the omnipotent Roman Catholic Church in Europe during the late 1700s. ‘‘Give me freedom or give me death,’’ was the cry of the Americans during their freedom movement. ‘‘We will fight till the last drop of blood of man and beast,’’ said Winston Churchill to the British people at the onset of the Second World War, and was told ‘‘Quit India’’ in return by Indians under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership. ‘‘Because it is there,’’ replied Edmund Hillary when asked why he scaled Mount Everest. ‘‘In ten years, we will put a man on the moon,’’ promised John F Kennedy at the onset of his presidency. ‘‘Make love, not war,’’ exhorted the hippies of the 1960s. The above are a fraction of the thousands of slogans, pledges, oaths and mottos mankind has chanted across continents throughout his-tory. Whose ideology is ‘correct’? Which maxim reflects the highest, most lofty truths? Which slogan can bear the test of eternity? Are there any peaks to ascend higher than Everest? Are there any planets to voyage towards beyond the solar system? Are there any worlds beyond ours? Are there any depths deeper than oceans, beyond the heart’s and the mind’s? Socrates was forced to drink hemlock, Darwin’s theory has long collapsed, the Roman Catholic Church has become more democratic, the British have quit India, Hillary has scaled Everest, America has put man on the moon, the hippies have made love. What next? A thousand more slogans and goals? A thousand more efforts and journeys? A thousand more struggles, undertakings and fantasies? Technology will continue to flourish and man might eventually succeed in harnessing all the resources of the universe. He might even encounter intelligent life forms in other parts of the universe, befriend them, and hopefully, strive for the common benefit of both species. But achieving one goal after another, realising fantasy after fantasy, a thoughtful person finally asks: ‘What is the end of this?’ The heart experiences no peace in the spinning maze of events that surround it. Mindless indulgence of desires only brings with it frustration, anxiousness and regret. Man searches for the zenith, yearning for a climactic, eternal joy that seemingly evades his every advance and remains tantalisingly out of reach. Where must man hunt if he wishes to fulfil this aspiration, this alluring, unrelenting dream? The outward search has gone on long enough. He must now turn and seek within, in the very core of his existence, where lies the substratum of consciousness which has made all materialistic pursuits and enterprises possible. The stream of consciousness we experience within ourselves throughout our lives ties together all events of physical existence like the silken string that holds together a necklace. In its realisation, man and woman will meet their journey’s end, the Omega point, a place of final rest and the dawn of a new existence in the divine self and the beautiful, blissful Lord within. As Lord Swaminarayan says in his Vachanamrutam sermons: ‘‘The human soul perpetually peers outward towards mundane objects of the five senses, but never looks inwards to see himself. Such a soul is the most ignorant and wretched of all.’’ Socrates wins.

(The author is resident of Shree Swaminarayan Temple, Mumbai; website: www.swaminarayan.org)

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In harmony with nature

Oct 31, 2010, 12.00am IST
KULBIR KAUR.

The Supreme Being is Karta Purakh, the Creator, transcendent and All-pervasive. Creation is His manifestation. "True is He and true is His Creation, All has emanated from God Himself", says fifth Sikh Guru Arjan.

Nature has all attributes of its Creator. Vaheguru, the wondrous Master, is the data or giver as well as karta or doer. Nature is but His creation and cosmic play. Nature teaches us humility. You are humble when you are satisfied with yourself, your life and the world around. In all religions, humility is regarded as the first step towards Self-realisation. Lack of humility leads to 'haumai' the feeling 'i am', that is, ahankar, egoism or self-centredness which is considered not only as an inner disease but as root cause of all evil impulses. A man full of haumai or ego, manmukh, is oblivious of the interests of others. He asserts his own needs, and this makes him selfish and arrogant, separating him from other human beings. Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, gives the example of a Simal tree which is very tall, symbolising an arrogant man, but this tree bears no edible fruit, and so is of no use to other life. He says, "The Simal tree is tall and straight/ But if one comes to it with hope of gain, what will one get?/ Its fruit is without taste, Its flowers have no fragrance/ Its leaves are of no use/ O Nanak, humility and sweetness are the essence of virtue and goodness/ Readily do we all pay homage to ourselves,/ Before others we refuse to bow."

Haumai is a major block in the way of realisation since it is not compatible with the practice of simran or remembering the Lord's Name, the two cannot coexist.

What is the way out, then? How to get rid of ego, the biggest hurdle to spiritual development? The first step is to realise and acknowledge the presence and power of God. Compared to the vastness and scope of God and His Creation what we are, but tiny specks on the Creation canvas? Guru Nanak regards Nature as both the manifestation and abode of God. He feels the presence of the Supreme Being in every object of Nature hills, mountains, valleys and oceans. Nature is a source of joy and peace. He says, "In Nature we see the Lord/ In Nature we hear His speech/ Nature inspires the divine awe/ In Nature is the essence of joy and peace."


Guru Nanak reminds us that each one of them is an embodiment of the divine light, which He again explains with reference to Nature, "The drop of water is in the sea,/ And the sea is in the drop of water, who shall solve the riddle?" Man is, therefore, a part of Nature and God, his goal being to merge in Him. A journey from being a manmukh or ego-centric person to a gurmukh or God-oriented one liberates you from ahankara or ego and all suffering.


Gurmukh meditates upon Nam or Sabda, bani in the form of kirtan, living life as a householder, earning an honest livelihood and sharing it with others. Therefore, it is not surprising that community service is at the very core of Sikhism, entirely relevant in current times.


October 20 is the day of the installation of the Guru Granth Sahib as the Eternal Guru.

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Multi-dimensional life

Oct 5, 2010, 12.00am IST
P V VAIDYANATHAN.

Anekantvad is Jain philosophy that perceives life as being multi-dimensional. What we think we see is only part of life, rarely the whole.


Though most of us operate from our periphery, often saying and doing things spontaneously, without thinking or planning, we are all eventually guided by our centre. What is our centre? It is usually that core collection of feelings, beliefs, conditionings, thoughts, biases, prejudices, ideas, perceptions, points of view, and opinions --- basically whatever we think we are. This centre is often mind-based, not being or soul-based, for those things always operate out of silence and love. The soul or being is our real centre, as opposed to the mind or ego based 'pseudo-centre' from where we frequently and unknowingly operate.


Very few of us operate from pure love. Invariably, we tend to operate from fear, or its subsidiaries, like hate, greed, envy, avarice, mistrust, anger, competition and frustration.

The Jain concept of Anekantvad is beautiful. It says that any truth is relative to the perspective from which it is known. Reality is comprised of innumerable substances, both material and spiritual, and these too are constantly changing and in a state of flux. Raw materials that make up material and spiritual things too, are impermanent. And hence, it is near impossible for ordinary individuals to see the whole truth, the complete truth, of reality. What we often see, due to our limited vision, perspective, point of view, our senses and sensibilities, or beliefs, our social upbringings, our limitations is a thin slice of life, or reality. What we see in not the untruth, but it cannot be the entire truth, which is too vast for mere mortals to comprehend, and is also constantly undergoing modification and evolution. It needs a highly evolved or enlightened soul, of the calibre of a Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus or Nanak -- or the 24 Thirthankars, who form the foundation of the Jain religion -- to be able to see and understand that whole truth.


The most common story cited to illustrate anekantvad is that of a king who called six blind men to touch and describe an elephant. All of them came up with different answers, calling the elephant a rope, fan, snake or wall. While they were partly right, they were nowhere near the whole truth. All of us see the world and life from our limited perspective. If we knew this, then we would not be in conflict with others. But we assume that what we know is the whole truth and that the other is wrong. And hence there are conflicts all over the world, basically because my truth does not agree with yours, although both of us don't know that we are both only partially correct, and are both likely to be wrong. We strongly hold on to our partial or wrong concepts, and fight over it, tooth and nail. When the final picture emerges, or with the passage of time, when we look back at the past, we will often see how our words and actions were often wrong.

Anekantvad, once understood, will make us realise that our knowledge is partial and incomplete. We form our central core from this partial truth, and hence are prone to get into conflicts with others. If we recognize that we don't know the whole picture, we are likely to become less aggressive and more humble, which will pave the way for more peace and joy on earth.

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Working with values

Sep 6, 2010, 12.00am IST
Janina Gomes.

Professional life flowers best in situations where collaboration and partnership with others is the norm and where there is mutual trust and understanding.

However, when employees are driven to deliver results on the basis of unhealthy comparisons, there is trouble. When the Bhagavad Gita speaks of the need for action and remaining detached from the fruits of one's action, it is saying what our elders often repeat to us: To work with detachment.

Sometimes, hierarchy can help smooth the flow of development. An atmosphere of mutual trust and give and take can ensure that participation is democratic. There are spiritual models of functioning based on hierarchy that do promote spiritual growth. There are, however, also holistic models that are more flexible and that ensure a two-way flow, where every aspect of our lives – physical, psychological, emotional and social – is integrated.

This model requires participants to have spiritual and emotional maturity. A head honcho would combine intellectual prowess with compassion and kindness and enforce discipline without stepping on toes. The strengths of each individual would be tapped and together a family of employees is created, anchored to eternal values.

A value-driven organisation has a different mindset. The open way of functioning ensures that each individual is valued for what he can contribute. No unfavourable comparisons are made. If at all, comparison is only meant to create a higher benchmark and so is aspirational.

Too much emphasis on academia and brilliance and on rewarding results has sometimes given rise to lopsided priorities. What often get rewarded is superficial success, and not long-term commitment and loyalty to the organisation or mission.

The business world is changing. Management practices are now increasingly including a spiritual perspective. There is so much more listening than talking. There is a greater sense of cooperation and collaboration in a spiritually empowered marketplace.

Although the younger generation is much more market savvy than the previous generation, they do require spiritual inputs to cater holistically to changing environments and values. The words love, acceptance and transformation are back in circulation in the workplace, thereby giving less room for authoritarianism.

New Age spiritual teachers are faced with the task of conveying in contemporary easy-to-understand terms the priceless messages contained in sacred texts of yore that explain eternal values, so important for right thinking and living, whether at home or at the workplace. There is an effort to find what unites rather than divides. The quest for eternal values like love, peace, joy and fulfillment are being given fresh lease of life.

In the pursuit of holistic development of employer and employee, a professional worker is required to be not just excellent in his job but also display evolved qualities that make him less militant and more cooperative, less of a complainer and more of a doer. The more the employee is engaged in service of others, the less he tends to focus on selfish motivations and ends that might sometimes egg him to veer off the straight path. And service thus rendered with a positive and wholehearted approach can only add to common benefit.

Definitely, there is a place for professional excellence in your working life. But that has to include also spiritual progress that will get reflected in the quality of work you do as well as in the manner in which you relate to others in the workplace and outside.

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Inception and the subconscious

Sep 6, 2010, 12.00am IST
Jui Pagedar.

Hollywood director Christopher Nolan has stirred the creative world and enthralled fantasy-loving cine buffs by mixing the psychologists' old muse —dream reading — with a high-tech, special effects bonanza called ` Inception.'


He has understandably made some compromises with the plot — car-chase, shootouts, killing et al — to keep the audience engaged while dealing with a complex subject and a mental game which could otherwise have easily gotten swallowed in psycho-technical mumbo-jumbo.


While western audiences marvel at this " James Bond meets Matrix" tale, very few are perhaps aware that Sri Aurobindo, the renowned mystic and spiritual master had spent considerable years through his Integral Yoga, probing what he called the `subconscient' human mind and came up with some interesting insights on universal consciousness as a whole.


Sri Aurobindo discovered, for example, that there are several realms of consciousness beyond the physical world we live in, and that these planes of consciousness are in fact the other worlds that are as real as we take our own world to be. When one sleeps, he said, the subconscient mind is freed from the shackles of the mind that operates in the physical world, travelling across those other worlds soaking in experiences, both good and bad, that are needed for further consciousness evolution of the individual in the dream state. Our skepticism or ignorance notwithstanding, these "other worlds" not only coexist with our physical world but they also impinge on it in myriad ways.


According to Sri Aurobindo these other worlds are stacked in a spiral of lower and higher levels of consciousness. We have good dreams or nightmares, depending on where our subconscient mind chooses to travel in the labyrinthine spiral, with each level having several sublevels. Without our being aware, we draw upon these worlds for some of the vilest, crudest or most noble and sublime ideas that eventually shape our known world. It isn't surprising therefore that for a Jesus who comes to redeem our world we are also visited by others who wish to subvert and destroy it.


Sri Aurobindo believed -- through his own experience of yoga spanning over 40 years -- that through regular practice one can raise one's consciousness to various higher levels until one reaches what he called the supra-mental level, the pinnacle of evolution. (He never took others' word for any kind of truth, and insisted on testing it through self-experience). Sri Aurobindo made another profound revelation that unlike what scientists tell us, man is not the pinnacle of Nature's evolutionary cycle. Human beings are transitional beings. We will undergo transformation and reach our ultimate evolution level when we reach the highest plane of consciousness. However, we will have to delve deep into our subconscient mind and begin rising through the spiral consciousness to reach the pinnacle.


Sri Aurobindo's spiritual endeavor was not, however, aimed at his own personal salvation. He wanted to share his experience with others and inspire them to follow this path so that it would lead to a spiritual revolution in us and usher in lasting peace. He didn't accept the old spiritual belief that one could reach moksha only if one quit this so-called wretched world and ascend to a heaven above. "It is here on this earth that we can create heaven and find release in our own lifetime," he said. The writer follows Guru Siyag Siddha Yoga system.

juipagedar@gmail.com; website: www.the-comforter.org

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Wheel of existence

Sep 7, 2010, 12.00am IST

Pythagoras's is the first experiment in creating a synthesis. Twenty-five centuries have passed since then and nobody has tried it again. Nobody else before had done it, and nobody else has done it afterwards either. It needs a mind that is both scientific and mystic. It is rare.


There have been great mystics like the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. And there have been great scientists like Newton, Edison, Einstein. But to find a man who is at home with both worlds is difficult. Pythagoras is a class unto himself.

The synthesis was needed then as it is needed today because the world is again at the same point. The world moves in a wheel motion. Samsara in Sanskrit means 'the world', it also means the wheel. The wheel is big: one circle is completed in 25 centuries.


Twenty-five centuries before Pythagoras, Atlantis came to an end because of man's own scientific growth. Without wisdom, scientific growth is dangerous. It is like putting a sword in the hands of a child. Now 25 centuries have passed since Pythagoras. Again there is chaos. The wheel has come to the same point.

Uprooted, life loses meaning as values disappear. A great darkness descends. There's no sense of direction. One simply feels accidental. There seems to be neither purpose nor significance in life that seems to be all chance. It seems existence does not care for you; that there is no life after death and whatsoever you do is futile, routine and mechanical. Everything seems pointless.


Chaotic times can either be a great curse, as it happened in Atlantis, or can prove to be a quantum leap in human growth. It depends on how we use them. It is only in such great times of chaos that great stars are born.
Pythagoras was not alone. In Greece, Pythagoras and Heraclitus were born, just as in India, we had the Buddha, Mahavira and others. In China, there were Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Confucius, Mencius, and Lieh Tzu. In Iran there was Zarathustra. In the Brahmin tradition, there have been many great Upanishadic seers. All these great masters were born at a certain stage in human history, 25 centuries ago.


Now we are again in great chaos, and man's fate will depend on what we do. Either we will destroy ourselves like the civilisation that destroyed itself in Atlantis; we will be drowned in our own knowledge; in our own science or, there is a possibility that we can take a quantum leap.


Ordinary people, the majority, live in unconsciousness; so they can't see even a few steps ahead. If we can create a great momentum for meditation, for the inward journey, for tranquillity, stillness and love, humanity will be born anew. A new man will be born. And once you miss these times, then for 25 centuries again you will remain the same. Only a few people will achieve enlightenment. Here and there, once in a while, a person will become alert and aware and divine. The greater part of humanity goes on living in hell.


I feel a deep spiritual affinity with Pythagoras. I am also bringing you a synthesis of East and West, of science and religion, of intellect and intuition, of male and female mind, of the head and heart, of right and left. I am also trying in every possible way to create a great harmony, because only that harmony can save and bring new life.

(Talk: Osho; excerpt from Philosophia Perennis, courtesy: Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com )

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A tryst with love

Sep 7, 2010, 12.00am IST
Pranav Khullar.

I'm not sure what woke me up – the strong call of the muezzin or the peacocks.

It was three in the morning, according to my watch. That's the right time to wake up, my guide had said to me the previous evening. I looked around for him. He was fast asleep and snoring, too. The tomb of Salim Chisti seemed still and calm, a milky white in the darkness.


Another couple of hours and the month-long fast of the holy month of Ramadan would be over, giving way to festivity and Eid celebrations. I got up cautiously, the Archaeological Survey guide still snoring to my left. I stood there, in the huge, roofless quadrangle around Chisti's tomb. I could sense a prairie-like placidity.


Even as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that a few devout were at prayer already, savouring the last day of the holy month. Kneeling on their rugs beneath the open sky, lifting their hearts directly towards a divine presence, they mingled with the silence at Fatehpur Sikri, Agra.


The enormous Buland Darwaza, the ornate gateway some yards away, stood out in the night like a Sphinx, a symbol of man's search for meaning. Beyond it, on the outside was a world of differences and identities and roles. Inside here, one had crossed the threshold to enter a world of oneness and harmony that seemed to precede all existence. I closed my eyes.
I remembered Jiddu Krishnamurti's words: "Truth is a pathless land... the mind that goes into itself goes on a long pilgrimage from which there is no return." I wondered when our role-playing would end, when we would be jolted to awareness of the faith beyond all faith.


The cool, crisp air coming in from the desert seemed like the proverbial creative breeze, revealing deeper truths than what we normally seek. The peacocks continued calling out vigorously even as the devout poured their soul into prayer.


When I opened my eyes, the first rays of the sun had just lit up the red sandstone of Fatehpur Sikri. While my guide could be seen sleeping at a distance still, there was no one else in sight. I rubbed my eyes. The devout had left, it seems – or had they evaporated in the morning sunlight? The young caretaker of the Salim Chisti tomb was waking up. The epiphanic moment had passed.


The fast of Ramadan gave way to peace that could be felt all around. Instinct told me that this peace cannot be held hostage – neither by threat of war nor any other kind of violence, because the power of love and bonding is so much stronger than divisive forces that seek to shatter the peace. Love is the ultimate answer to all.
The epiphanic moment may have gone, but the experience had left behind the lingering taste of a timeless truth – of man's essential Self, beyond his created self. As I wound my way back to the hustle and bustle of the bazaars of Agra, I felt like a Qalander, a free soul myself, having stumbled upon what seemed like an ancient secret – a secret that is ironically programmed in our DNA, yet forgotten and held captive by the ego. Eid, therefore, is a beautiful reminder of our tryst with love, with fellow beings and creation itself.

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Buddha, sangha and dharma

Sep 8, 2010, 12.00am IST

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

On the spiritual path there are three factors: Buddha, the master or the presence of the enlightened, sangha, the commune or group, and dharma, your true nature. Life blossoms naturally when there is a balance between the three.


The Buddha is a doorway, and the doorway needs to be more charming than what lies beyond so that people come to the doorway. If you are out in the street and there is rain and thunder, or scorching weather, you feel the need for a shelter. You look and find a doorway. Have you noticed that then, the doorway is more inviting and joyful than anything else in the world?


Similarly, the closer you get to the master, the more charm, newness and love you feel. Nothing in the world could give that much peace, joy and pleasure. It's like depth without a bottom. This is a sign that you have come to the master.


Once you enter the door, you see the world from there, from the eyes of the master. Then in any situation you will think: How would the master handle this? See the world from the eyes of the master and the world looks so much more beautiful as a place filled with love, joy, cooperation and compassion.


Looking through the doorway there is no fear. From inside your home, you can look at the storm and the bright sun too; yet you can be relaxed as you are in the shelter. Such a sense of security, fullness and joy comes. That is the purpose of having a master.


Sangha is charming from a distance, but the closer you get, it pushes all your buttons and brings out all the unwanted things from within you. If you think a group is good it means you are not yet completely with the group. When you are totally part of that group, you will find that some bickering will come up. But you are the one who makes the group so if you are good, your group will also be good.


Sangha has a reverse nature to Buddha. Buddha makes your mind one-pointed; sangha, because it is of so many people, can scatter your mind, fragment it. Once you are used to a sangha, it loses its charm. This is the nature of sangha. Still, it is very supportive. If it were repulsive all the time, then nobody would be part of sangha.
Buddha uplifts with Grace, love and knowledge, Buddha pulls you up from above, and sangha pushes you up from below.

Dharma is to be in the middle. Avoiding extremes is your nature to be in balance, to smile from the depth of your heart, to accept entire existence totally as it is. Often you crave for Buddha and are averse to sangha, and you try to change; but by changing sangha or Buddha, you are not going to change.


The main purpose is to come to the centre deep within you, which means to find your dharma. A sense of deep acceptance for this moment, for every moment, is dharma. All problems and negativity are generated from our mind.


The world is not bad; we make our world ugly or beautiful. So when you are in your dharma, your nature, you will blame neither the world nor the Divine.


Dharma is that which puts you in the middle and makes you comfortable with the world. It allows you to contribute to the world, be at ease with the Divine, to feel part of the Divine.

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Trust is your third eye

Sep 8, 2010, 12.00am IST
Osho.

Trust is an inner eye. Just as the two outer eyes are for seeing the universe, there is a third eye inside of you whose name is trust. With this eye of trust the divine is seen. The eye of trust means the eye of love. There are some things which only love can know. There is no other way to know them.

If you love someone you will see certain things in the person that no one else will see. You will see in that person a sweetness that no one else can see. That sweetness is delicate and the touch of love is needed for it, only then is it revealed. You will hear the echo of a song in that person that no one else will hear. To hear it one has to come closer than anyone else has come. Only you are that close.

This is why beauty begins to manifest in the person whom you love. People think that you fall in love with someone who seems beautiful to you. They are wrong. The one you fall in love with begins to be beautiful – all of life's grandeur, all of its dignity is revealed in the person. And it is not that you are imagining it. As soon as the eye of love opens the invisible begins to be visible to you, the unperceivable begins to be perceivable. The presence of what is hidden begins to be experienced. Without any door opening, someone enters into you.

"Finding upon waking the doors yet bolted,


Who knows by which door he enters and leaves."

This is a very lovely couplet from Bihari. The beloved is sleeping with all the doors and windows of the room bolted, yet in her dreams her lover visits her. Later she wakes up and sees that the doors are still closed with the bolts in place, just as they were. Who knows how he enters and by which route he leaves?

"Which way do you enter, which way do you depart? From which window do you peep?" This window is called trust.

Someone living in logic will never know anything deeper than the material; his life will be meaningless. He may well collect money, but all his wealth will be left lying there when he dies and he will have missed meditation. And it is only meditation that will accompany you in death. Such a person will not attain the ultimate wealth. Only the one who has the eye of trust within attains the ultimate wealth.

Trust is the culmination of love. Trust is the faith that what has not already happened so far will happen. Trust also arises from what has already happened: there is such beauty in this universe, there is such light, such music...the throat of each bird is filled with song.... There is beauty in each leaf, light in each star; this universe is so full of magnificence, there must be some energy or other behind it.

Trust means trusting that there must be some energy creating all this colour. Trust means trusting that where so much beauty is being showered, the source of such beauty must also exist.

Trust means accepting the existence of the source from which you receive these subtle, delicate indications.

Excerpt from Die O Yogi Die .

Courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

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Work is what you make of it

Sep 9, 2010, 12.00am IST

Sreeram Manoj Kumar.

Work and mentally renounce the fruits achieved thereafter. Don't let the shadow of personal prejudice affect how you perceive work.

This is the essence of karma yoga. The wise work for common benefit whereas the ignorant work only for themselves or their near and dear ones. A farmer has control over how he works in his fields, but not over the harvest. Krishna tells Arjuna: "Yoga is karmasu kausalam, doing work skillfully in the first attempt."

Work is external but our attitude to it is internal. A certain attitude may make us feel work is miserable while another kind of attitude makes it pleasant. By cultivating the right attitude, we will become spiritual. That is meditation.

Once in a village several people were engaged in construction of a temple A wandering sage passing by wants to know what is happing there, so he asks a person cutting stone: "What are you doing?" The labourer replies with frustration: "Don't you see that I am cutting stone? It's a hard stone. Look at my hands! They have become red. Work is hell. And to make matters worse, you ask me what I am doing. How I wish I were not doing this!" The sage asks: " I see you are cutting stone, but let me know what is coming up here?" The stonecutter replies that he has no idea; it does not concern him. He is disinterested.


The sage next goes to another man and asks him the same question: "What are you doing?" The man replies: "I'm cutting stone here; that's my job. For eight hours of work I get paid Rs 100. I have a wife and children to take care of. I'm doing my duty." The sage asks him: "Do you know what is coming up here?" He says: "Yes, they say they're making a temple. How does it matter to me, whether what is being constructed is a temple or a jail, as long as I get paid?"


Then the sage goes to a third worker who is also cutting stone and poses the same question. The man replies: "We are building a temple. There is no temple here; every year at festivals we have to trek to the temple in the next village. You know, every time I hit the stone I hear wonderful music. The temple work has put the sleepy village in a festive mood." The sage asks: "How long do you have to work on this project?" The man says the timeline is not his concern for as soon as he wakes up in the morning, he gets ready for work and begins cutting stone. He tells the sage that he spends the entire day here, taking a break between mealtimes. "When I go home in the night and sleep, in my dream I think of this construction and feel grateful that I enjoy the work I do, I am truly blessed," he said.


Three men doing the same work have three different attitudes. The first person thinks it's hell, the second looks upon his work as his duty. However, the third worker thinks what he is able to do is a blessing. If the work it self had the qualities inherently, good or bad, then, these three men might have felt the same. But in reality, it's not the work itself that is good or bad. It is not the work that disturbs us but something that's subtler; it's the attitude we have towards work.

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River of enlightenment

Sep 9, 2010, 12.00am IST
Bindu Chawla.

Long before the universities packaged the deeply spiritual science of Hindustani music into classroom textbooks, the masters used very little verbiage to communicate its essence.

They explained little, but when they did, it was in the form of idioms, proverbs, hyperboles, and adages. But these would show you the world!

For instance, lesson one, they would say, 'paanee karo', asking you to repeat. Like the word simran or internal repetition in scriptures, you were to repeat the notes, phrases, scale, and words, not just a few times, not for some time, but for hours – nay, for years, till your words and musical phrases flowed to perfection.


Renowned master Ustad Amir Khan Saheb would often nod and hand over the so-called 'simple' prescription to his disciples: "Hmmm, sapaat..., karte raho". The word sapaat means 'straight', and he referred to the straight up and down movements of the scale or the raga, to be repeated at length till the gems of enlightenment about its inner nature began to flash through your mind in intuition, and the raga shed its heaviness, flowing out of you like a river of enlightenment.


Once, when Khan Saheb had just finished singing a big raga seated among his disciples, Pandit Amarnathji smiled at him and said, "Khan Saheb, you have turned the singing into light music," at which one of his gurubhais saw red, thinking it an affront. But Khan Saheb smiled at Panditji affectionately, saying "I appreciate your understanding". He knew what he meant to say. That the greatest of music 'sounded' simple though an immense amount of hard labour had gone into reaching its state of lucidity.

On another occasion, after he performed the muhurat for ` Garam Coat,' a film whose music was composed by Panditji, his disciple, Ustad Amir Khan Saheb asked, "Son, how long did you take to compose this song?" It was the beautiful 'Jogia se preet kiye dukh hoye', a Meera bhajan sung by Lata Mangeshkar. "About 15-20 days", was the reply. To which Khan Saheb said, "If you were to take the same amount of time to compose your rendering of any raga before each concert, how would it be..."? It was the same lesson in 'simplicity'.


Beyond the rational mind, it was repetition alone that took you to the highest peak in your sadhana —to samadhi state, union with the Supreme. The very words aalaap and taan in the Hindustani khayal refer to dhyana or concentration on the raga's form till the point of its dissolution in the mind during singing, both slow and fast. Aalaap means to expand or 'spread the notes wide' during slow unfolding of the raga's scale, and taan means to 'stretch them taut' in the faster portion, as the artist reaches the peak of exhilaration in dhyana, forgetting all else. And in the process, taking along his listeners as well!


Pandit Amarnathji would say that the image of the raga's scale in your mind should be horizontal, not vertical, talking of the raga's inner direction during meditation, which is meant to take you to another kind of 'high'—and to the 'mental release'. Finally, as he said, "meditation means not to concentrate on anything when you sing".


That is why, when Panditji sang it, the raga was no longer a ladder-like scale. It was an aural poem.

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Prophet said be realistic

Sep 9, 2010, 12.00am IST
Maria Khan.

The Prophet's Mecca strategy was based on realism. Realism is an essential part of the teachings of Islam.

When the Prophet of Islam started his mission in Mecca, during the first 13 years he had to face severe opposition from leaders of the Quraysh tribe who ruled Mecca. To counter the atrocities committed by the Quraysh, Umar Farooq, the Prophet's companion, sought permission for an armed conflict with the Quraysh. But the Prophet was not in favour of confrontation. Conflict, he realised, would have been counterproductive in this case. The Prophet's Mecca strategy was based on realism. Realism is an essential part of the teachings of Islam.

There are two ways of dealing with a problem. One is planned action after due consideration. The other is impulsive action driven by emotion, without a thought for possible consequences. The Prophet followed the first; he avoided confronting those hostile to him and migrated from Mecca to Medina.


While in Medina, the Prophet dreamt that he and his companions were performing Umra in Mecca. Prophet Muhammad and his followers set out on a peaceful journey to Mecca. When they reached Hudaibiyyah near Mecca, the Quraysh stopped them. At this point, the Prophet started negotiations for peace with the Meccans. The Hudaibiyyah Pact, a 10-year no-war pact, was signed between Muhammad and the people of Mecca. One clause laid down was that the Prophet would not enter Mecca. He had to return to Medina from Hudaibiyyah. The conditions he'd agreed to were disadvantageous to Prophet Muhammad and his companions, but he realised the importance of a treaty that guaranteed peace in the region for a decade, and enable him to teach Islam unhindered.

A non-confrontationist approach was preferred. The Prophet was a stronger believer of status quo – not just accepting a situation passively but taking action of an exalted nature. Controversies are sorted out. At this stage, the unwise think that if they surrender, their prestige will suffer. However, a wise person refrains from entering into any further conflict, as that only results in greater losses. With an unemotional approach and reasonable thinking, both sides can move away from the point of conflict and find ways to resolve the issue. The Prophet did exactly that. He removed away from the area of conflict and diverted his energies to the peaceful propagation of Islam.

The Prophet firmly believed that one should not react impulsively to a problem. It's better to find a way out using the opportunities available. Even if one has to accept all the conditions of the opponent, to begin with, it might be pragmatic to do so.


After sorting out controversial issues, one can strengthen oneself to the point where the equation of power changes and the issue gets resolved without any conflict. This is what the Prophet did at Hudaibiyyah.


After he returned to Medina, two years later, as a result of his preaching, there was an enormous increase in the number of his companions. And when the Meccans violated the pact, the Prophet marched with his companions peacefully towards Mecca. The peace treaty gave the Prophet the opportunity to strengthen himself. Seeing the increased number of his followers, the Meccans embraced Islam without any bloodshed.

It's in nature's scheme of things that where there are problems, there are also opportunities. Success can be attained simply by availing of those opportunities. But people generally get entangled in problems thinking that unless hurdles are first removed, the journey ahead cannot be undertaken.

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Everything is relative

Sep 10, 2010, 12.00am IST

R K Gupta.

By the time you read this, we would have traveled great distances. We would have moved through space - the earth, the solar system and the galaxy of which we are a part, are all moving at tremendous speed.

We are no longer where we were a moment ago. Yet relatively speaking, with reference to our own surroundings, we are in the same place. Buildings, towns, cities, rivers, oceans and mountains, all of them stand in the same place with reference to each other, although in absolute terms this would not be so at all. A person located in space might see us moving, but we ourselves do not see this. This is what relativity is.

Everything is changing every moment but in a short span of time, the change is not noticed. In fact time and relativity are interconnected. An atom and its sub-atomic particles all rotate on their own axis. The fundamental particle, that is, the smallest sub-atomic particle, also rotates on its axis. The time taken by it in making one rotation on its axis is the fundamental unit of time. Every particle and all celestial bodies have their own time. We are aware of the moon-day, which is much shorter than an earth day. The rotation of the particle around its axis is what relativity is. Since the particle moves around itself, for the viewer, change keeps occurring continuously. It is the relationship between the seer, the one who sees, and the scene, which determines relativity. This duality between the seer and the scene is the root cause of relativity.


Philosophically, what is called maya or illusion is in fact relativity. Things are as they are, but different viewers see them differently depending upon their own relative position. In other words, it depends on their perceptions. Maya does not mean falsehood or non-existence; it is anything and everything that is constantly changing and therefore, causing an illusion. Since things keep on changing, they do not have permanence and hence they are called illusionary. The same things put differently or in different circumstances appear differently.


The example of a fabric is apt to illustrate the nature of things. A piece of fabric is an arrangement of yarn. Yarn in turn is a combination of fibres and fibese are made of molecules and so on. At different stages they all look different but their reality remains unchanged. It is the manifestation of the same fundamental existence in different forms that gives it different names and character and the viewer sees them differently.


At the level of consciousness, the field of relativity is set because of i-ness; that is, because of the feeling of 'I' and 'you'. This duality of 'I' and 'you' is the subtlest level of relativity. Every person sees the whole world from his own perspective. He keeps himself at the centre of the whole world around him and relates every thing to himself.
All creatures thus see the whole of existence from their own perspective and gain different impressions of the same event or happening. What is good for one becomes bad for the other and vice-versa, which gives rise to agony and suffering. But when this feeling of duality ceases to exist, one sees the same Self that is present and acting in all living beings, which makes the perceiver realise the truth.
That is, it confers on him the ability to penetrate the veil of relativity. It then makes him content and peaceful.

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Eid, festival of peace

Sep 10, 2010, 12.00am IST
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

Eid is celebrated on the first date of Shawwal, that is, the tenth month of the Hijra calendar. During the festival, Muslims exchange gifts, greeting their neighbours as a mark of solidarity and brotherhood.


It is reported that when the Prophet of Islam saw the new moon at the coming of the month of Shawwal, He said: "O God, make this moon a moon of peace for us." This saying of the Prophet expresses the true spirit of Eid that is meant to promote spiritual values among people and create a peaceful environment in society.

Rituals observed on the day of Eid are very simple. Muslims wear new clothes and visit the Eidgah to offer two units of the Eid prayer. In this prayer, they call to mind those teachings of Islam that advocate peace and spirituality and pray to God to bestow His blessings on humanity and help all men and women to promote a healthy society.

After completing this prayer at an Eidgah, Muslims visit their relatives and neighbours to offer greetings, meeting them with the invocation: "May the peace and blessing of God be upon you."


The full name of Eid is Eid ul-Fitr, that is, the Eid that marks the breaking of the fast. In the spirit of Eid ul-Fitr, God and His greatness are acknowledged, His blessings for humanity are acknowledged and thanked. The faithful make a promise to Him that everyone will live together in peace. There is no prescribed ritual for Eid ul-Fitr except for the two units of namaz or prayer.

Generally it is held that Eid ul-Fitr is the Eid of sweets. They are not a religious part of Eid ul-Fitr, but certainly they represent the spirit of Eid, for sweet dishes are always considered to be the sign of love, compassion and good wishes. Gifts of sweets distributed on the day of Eid represent the true spirit of this Islamic festival.

The Prophet of Islam once said that an exchange of gifts promotes love in society. So, sweets are not simply sweets: they also have a spiritual meaning. Sweets represent not only the spirit of Eid, but also the true spirit of Islam.

Prayer on the day of Eid is offered in congregation. All Muslims, including women and children, gather together in congregational prayer in order to promote harmony and brotherhood, not only among Muslims but others also.


Eid comes just after the final day of fasting. The month of fasting and the day of Eid ul-Fitr both represent two very important features in Islam. The Prophet Muhammad said that the month of fasting was a month of patience. That is, it is a month of self-restraint, a month of self-discipline, a month of self-control, a month of promoting duty-consciousness.

Eid ul-Fitr represents the reward of God, which will be granted by God to those who observe one month's fasting. In other words, fasting represents dutiful worldly life and Eid ul-Fitr represents the reward that will be given in return by God to man.

According to tradition, the day of Eid is the day of divine reward. When believers observe their duty in the month of Ramzan in the true spirit of the season, God declares: "O angels, be witness that I have decided to bestow upon them paradise in the world hereafter."


In short, the month of fasting represents the responsibilities of the believers in this world and Eid ul-Fitr represents the reward given to them in the world hereafter.

http://www.cpsglobal.org/

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Overcome ego!

Sep 11, 2010, 12.00am IST
SATYA NARAYAN.

Who doesn't wish for happiness? Can money buy happiness? Do great achievements bring true happiness? Riches, success and achievements may bring name, fame and pride, but they do not always bring happiness.

If lack of money and success creates sorrow and suffering, their possession does not give happiness either. The question then is how can you be peaceful and happy, irrespective of whether you are a success or failure in life?

Krishna says in the Bhagvad Gita: "There is neither intellect nor bhavna (feeling for God) for the ayukta or the one who is not united, and to one devoid of bhavna , there is no peace. To the one without peace, how can there be happiness?" Krishna says, clearly, that unless a person is tuned into God he cannot have peace and without peace, he cannot be happy. Krishna also says that an un-united person does not have intellect.

So if you want happiness, unite with God. For this, you don't have to abandon the pursuit of riches, success and achievements. God is self-knowledge and wisdom of sameness towards all beings because all are God. An egocentric person remains alienated from wisdom that is God. If you are free from ego, you look at all beings as God and so are united to the wisdom that is God. You will be free of sorrow and will attain peace and happiness.
Krishna says that we do not have right to the fruits of action and, therefore, we should perform actions, leaving the fruits to God. How can you avoid worrying about the fruit while performing actions? When a person regards the fruits of action (success or failure) as 'mine' and performs focused on the object, he is automatically worrying about the fruit.


Moreover, in doing so, he fails to abide the law of God, which says that one does not have right to the fruits. What you have to really do is to steady your intellect with the thought that the fruits of actions are of God. And when the fruit accrue in the form of success or failure, joy or sorrow, you have to mentally renounce the fruit to God. Since you do not contemplate the objects, you will not be attached to them. You will break the chain that starts with attachment and gives rise to desire, anger, delusion, confusion of memory, loss of intellect and death. Your intellect will become steady.


Krishna calls the wisdom of steadying your intellect by renouncing the fruits of action to God as Buddhi-yog or discipline of intellect. In this state you can be freed from constant births in different bodies. If you don't, you are bound by actions. You lose your intellect due to attachment, desire and anger and perish, only to take another birth in a new body.


To steady our intellect we have to bring change in our thoughts. We have to remain engaged in usual actions and enjoyments as earlier but with a steady intellect fixed on the thought that all fruits of action are of God. This will free us from desire and ego, and gain eternal peace and happiness.


The same wisdom that will give peace and happiness to us will also give us Self-realisation and make us immortal. It will lead our world to a new age where we will live in peace, happiness and oneness, realising that we are in union with God.

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You are what you think

Sep 12, 2010, 12.00am IST
Asaram Bapu.

Self is immutable and so is the Supreme Self. Therefore be one with the immutable.


Why do you allow yourself to be swept hither and thither like a straw? You become peace-less in the face of petty troubles – a notice from a government department, not being able to have your way, not being able to gratify your senses, a slight to your ego, a servant not saluting, not getting approval or recognition in some matter... how small you become!


As you think, so does your mind become. Therefore, please think of God.


Don't let your mind go towards any person or thing other than God. Focus.
You are told that God is in everybody and everything and that His will be done. It means the Lord abides in you. Thousand of gamblers are playing games; let them play. You think of playing with the Indweller Lord and so turn your mind inward. You shouldn't exhaust yourself capitulating to kinsmen labouring under delusion. God's will be done means accepting whatever is happening whether or not it is to your liking.


Some people, when they meditate, expect some type or depth of meditation. Don't predetermine any type of meditation nor have preconceived notions of the results it should produce. As you sit for meditation, tell Him, 'O Lord! Hail to you! Thy will be done!' This is meditation and reflection, too.
Whatever you do with your body, do it for the pleasure of Indweller Lord. Don't work for sense-gratification or for ego trip. Work with a view to propitiate the Lord. This is real service. If people seek your help or service by flattering you, be careful and examine yourself whether you are being motivated by adulation or you are rendering service for the pleasure of the Guru or the Indweller Lord. If you exercise this care, your service will become much rewarding and your nature will be sweet.


Those who work for appreciation and fame end up quarrelling and fighting with each other.


Reject your ego. Doing so is good for you. Give your acceptance by saying, 'O Lord! What you will is for the best of all! Thy will be done!' God, the Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute and Freedom Absolute, wants you to be like Him. God's will being fulfilled means God will make you God. The Supreme Brahmn wants to see you as Brahmn for you are in substance one and the same as Himself.


Instead of praying for a particular kind of weather, pray to Him, 'O Lord! Thy will be done!' Then whatever the weather may be, it will not cause any trouble to you. Just give your consent. If somebody hurls abuses at you, say in your mind, 'God! You are great! Through these cuss words, You are destroying my ego. O Lord! Thy will be done!' This in itself is a great sadhana. If you think 'Oh my god! It is very hot...' you will be tormented by hot weather. But you want to enjoy the rain -- summer heat is essential for the rains to come. Summer heat is essential also for making one strong enough to tolerate cold as cold is essential for making one strong enough to tolerate the summer heat. Insults are necessary to make one able to assimilate appreciation and fame. Death is necessary for one to assimilate life. The Lord is doing all that is necessary for you .

www.ashram.org

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Cosmic Awareness is True Human Identity

31st December 1999,
DAISAKU IKEDA.

THE door is about to open on the twenty-first century. Will it witness a continuation of war and inhuman cruelty? Or will it be an age with expansive horizons of peace and hope? We stand at a major crossroads. Undeniably, the twentieth century has benefited us greatly in techno-scientific progress. In some instances, however, disregarding humanity, progress has launched on an arbitrary path frequently with tragic consequences. A stern examination of the extent to which this progress has actually contributed to human happiness must form part of our efforts to pioneer a path of hope into the next century.



Mere change in calendar dates will not bring about a sudden change in the nature of the age. Only human will and action can create history and open new horizons. Economic globalisation today proceeds at a furious pace. We must have the vision to orient it in such a way as to contribute to the creation of a global civilisation.


The heart of the problem is not capitalism per se but indifference to both global justice and ethical standards. Can we afford to reject everything alien to market principles and enforce ideas across the board in the name of global standards? Instead of cut-throat competition, we should strive together to create value. In economic terms, this means a transition from a consumer economy to a constructive one.


Setting aside the economy, what interests me as a Buddhist is how we should address the problem of identity. I believe the correct identity base must be a global -- even cosmic -- awareness. A borderless economy results in homogenisation and a standardised consumer culture. The inability of the human spirit to be satisfied with an impersonal identity as a consumer inevitably generates friction, which in turn engenders a kind of particularism -- something akin to the new isolationism.


There is no greater good than empowering humanity and revitalising society. Like politics, economics and education, religion is devoid of meaning unless it contributes to this process. Religion should also help people discover themselves anew, find liberation, reform their consciousness and elevate their souls. Fulfilling these functions constitutes the real worth of religion in relation to reforming the times. Only then can it contribute to overcoming the identity crisis and bridging the gap between ``local concerns'' and the "over-arching goals of global civilisation''. We must attempt to discover a new cosmology.


Gautam Buddha's Lotus Sutra describes a Bodhisattva of the earth as a person committed to the work of restoring a sense of cosmology to contemporary society. In concrete terms, this means being a master of the art of dialogue and a standard-bearer of soft power. The following three traits summarise the character and mindset of a Bodhisattva of the earth:


To be rigorously strict towards oneself, like a sharp, autumn frost.


To be warm and embracing towards others, like a soft, spring breeze.


To be uncompromising when confronting evil, like a lion monarch.


Only a person embodying all three can be a master of dialogue. Which is the most reliable tool to lay firm foundations for lasting peace. We must first identify the nature of the problem and then employ dialogue -- the essence of soft power -- to remove, one by one, the obstacles to its solution. In our information-saturated society, we are inundated by readymade stereotypes obscuring the truth of people and situations. This is why person to person dialogue is more than ever in demand.


No one really wants war. Unfortunately, isolation breeds mistrust and this breeds conflict. Convinced that humanity cannot afford to isolate any country or ethnic group. To make the new millennium an age of peace, we must explore means of deinstitutionalising war. The best way to start is by encouraging dialogue. The second is the reduction of the international traffic in arms. To profit from warfare and carnage in other countries, to use it to enhance one's own national influence and prestige, to callously sacrifice human life for one's private gain.


To view the future as an extension of the present is passive and defeatist. The future is something we ourselves must shape and create. We must not passively wait for things to change, we must make the twenty-first century an era free from nuclear weapons, the start of a new millennium of harmony and peaceful coexistence founded on respect for the sanctity of life. We can and must create a global civil society that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.

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Please pay attention

Jul 30, 2010, 12.00am IST
MARGUERITE THEOPHIL.

We have needed to 'originate' the Slow Food Movement to counter the life-attitude connected with fast-food culture; only then do we feel we can get to something that we once had, but lost! What we had lost is the attention that goes into creating and savouring a nourishing meal.

While previous years were all about multitasking, we now hear and read people asking us to please "uni-task", coining an odd-sounding term to remind us to pay attention, even enjoy, each thing we do. It would be funny it if weren't so sad. Nicolas Malebranche, a 17th century philosopher said, "Attention is the natural prayer of the soul." If that is true, most of us have forgotten how to really pray.

Thich Nhat Hanh in The Miracle of Mindfulness , writes about how he and a friend once sat under a tree sharing a tangerine. The friend began to talk about plans for the future, becoming so immersed in it that he literally forgot about what he was doing in the present. Popping a section of tangerine in his mouth, before he had begun chewing, he lifted another slice to his mouth again. The teacher gently suggested, "You ought to eat the tangerine section you've already taken," startling him into realising what he was doing. "...as if he hadn't been eating the tangerine at all... If he had been eating anything, he was 'eating' his future plans."

Educators speak of the shrinking attention span of young people today, but few schools teach children the gift of savouring the moment. There are some parents who say that the capacity for attention is theirs to claim.

There is another aspect to attention: attention to others around us.

Psychotherapist Pierro Ferrucci refers to attention as a precious gift. People who are suffering may need advice, diagnoses, interpretations and interventions, but still more do they need sincere and complete attention. He points out that attention, being completely available, may well be the most coveted gift: "We silently hope that someone will want to do that for us... Attention is a type of friendliness and the lack thereof is the worst kind of rudeness. Attention is the means that allows us to let friendliness flow. Anyone who can't give others attention, will never be friendly. Attention gives energy, while the lack of attention takes it away."

From yet another angle, we learn that what we give attention to grows. Even when it does not actually grow, it certainly seems to, because we tend to see little else.
Often people I meet in therapy mistakenly think they must only focus on what's wrong. Sure, things could be wrong; even very wrong. But is that all that's happening in one's life? When they make a list also about what's going right, they are shocked at how long or how rich it actually is! Life is a mix of what we label good or bad not to mention that there is often good in the bad and also, on closer look, some bad perhaps in the good.
We need to learn to pay attention to our entire life, not just parts of it. Focusing only on problems is draining, exhausting. Knowing there is already some good shifts us out of a 'poor me' place and pumps us with energy to work on what we need to work on.
The writer is a Mumbai-based personal growth coach and workshop leader. weave@vsnl.net

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Be aware, embrace life

Jul 11, 2010, 12.00am IST
Acharya Mahaprajna.

The whole world is one; it's a synthesis. Life is possible only through cooperation. All species and sub-species, all that exists, is the result of synthesis, of integration. Disintegration means decay. The order of the universe would get disturbed with division and discord.

The science of environment underlines the importance of union for survival, of the desirability of not interfering with natural processes, of not upsetting nature's equilibrium, so that there is no confusion.

Greed and exploitation of natural resources has led to pollution, including that of the earth's atmosphere. The protective layer that scientists call the ozone layer surrounding earth shields us from the ill effects of direct radiation from the sun. The erosion of this protective cover could mean the end of life, if nothing is done to reverse the erosion.

It is therefore essential that we cultivate a constructive approach towards the environment. For the evolution of constructive thinking, it is necessary to purify our consciousness. As it is, our consciousness is battling impurities; it is so identified with things and ideas. It must rid itself of all identification, so as to be capable of fitting in with the other and with society. Violence, untruth, and sense of possession and domination characterising our consciousness now needs to be got rid of. Our consciousness must be cleansed of these impurities; otherwise our approach will continue to be negative and destructive. The first step towards achieving this goal is to transform our outlook from the materialistic to the holistic. By becoming more aware.

This is not an impossible goal; it can be done if an individual can learn to be sober, simple and tolerant; and become more a witness who is aware.

A negative attitude is caused by our materialistic approach that has made us too attached to material things. The moment we attain to the boundless depths of meditation and see things for what they are, we would be able to assess and understand the true value of material objects, and would never aspire to gain domination over them. We would then realise the essential humanity of the other and see the other as being a part of us. Otherwise, every situation will seem problematic; problems keep multiplying without any possibility of a solution. In such a scenario, even religion becomes a problem.

The only way out of this vicious cycle is to become less rigid in our thinking and in the way we feel and act. Get rid of stereotypical conduct that makes us live a life of dejection. We need to be mindful and compassionate.

There are two kinds of insensitivity: Confused vision and thoughtless conduct. A mediator must clearly understand that the first priority is to chastise attitudes by getting rid of ignorance. This would require experimentation and experience. Learn to experience truth. Practice meditation. Mere accumulation of information and even knowledge is not enough. Theory without practice is of little use. But practice combined with theory yields valuable results.
Know the value of the present moment. Gain insight by being a witness, by becoming more aware. May we benefit from this discovery! Whatever hard work we have put in, whatever experience we have acquired, let us capitalize on that and use it to make life worth living. May our hearts be filled with an intense longing for liberation so that we may progress undeterred on the path of awareness and oneness. That is the way to freedom from problems. Therein lies our salvation.
(As told to Lalit Garg)

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Wheel of existence

Jul 13, 2010, 12.00am IST

Pythagoras's is the first experiment in creating a synthesis. Twenty-five centuries have passed since then and nobody has tried it again. Nobody else before had done it, and nobody else has done it afterwards either. It needs a mind that is both scientific and mystic. It is rare.

There have been great mystics like the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. And there have been great scientists like Newton, Edison, Einstein. But to find a man who is at home with both worlds is difficult. Pythagoras is a class unto himself.

The synthesis was needed then as it is needed today because the world is again at the same point. The world moves in a wheel motion. Samsara in Sanskrit means 'the world', it also means the wheel. The wheel is big: one circle is completed in 25 centuries.

Twenty-five centuries before Pythagoras, Atlantis came to an end because of man's own scientific growth. Without wisdom, scientific growth is dangerous. It is like putting a sword in the hands of a child. Now 25 centuries have passed since Pythagoras. Again there is chaos. The wheel has come to the same point.

Uprooted, life loses meaning as values disappear. A great darkness descends. There's no sense of direction. One simply feels accidental. There seems to be neither purpose nor significance in life that seems to be all chance. It seems existence does not care for you; that there is no life after death and whatsoever you do is futile, routine and mechanical. Everything seems pointless.

Chaotic times can either be a great curse, as it happened in Atlantis, or can prove to be a quantum leap in human growth. It depends on how we use them. It is only in such great times of chaos that great stars are born.

Pythagoras was not alone. In Greece, Pythagoras and Heraclitus were born, just as in India, we had the Buddha, Mahavira and others. In China, there were Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Confucius, Mencius, and Lieh Tzu. In Iran there was Zarathustra. In the Brahmin tradition, there have been many great Upanishadic seers. All these great masters were born at a certain stage in human history, 25 centuries ago.


Now we are again in great chaos, and man's fate will depend on what we do. Either we will destroy ourselves like the civilisation that destroyed itself in Atlantis; we will be drowned in our own knowledge; in our own science or, there is a possibility that we can take a quantum leap.

Ordinary people, the majority, live in unconsciousness; so they can't see even a few steps ahead. If we can create a great momentum for meditation, for the inward journey, for tranquillity, stillness and love, humanity will be born anew. A new man will be born. And once you miss these times, then for 25 centuries again you will remain the same. Only a few people will achieve enlightenment. Here and there, once in a while, a person will become alert and aware and divine. The greater part of humanity goes on living in hell.

I feel a deep spiritual affinity with Pythagoras. I am also bringing you a synthesis of East and West, of science and religion, of intellect and intuition, of male and female mind, of the head and heart, of right and left. I am also trying in every possible way to create a great harmony, because only that harmony can save and bring new life.

(Talk: Osho; excerpt from Philosophia Perennis, courtesy: Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com )

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Buddha, sangha and dharma

Jul 13, 2010, 12.00am IST
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

On the spiritual path there are three factors: Buddha, the master or the presence of the enlightened, sangha, the commune or group, and dharma, your true nature. Life blossoms naturally when there is a balance between the three.

The Buddha is a doorway, and the doorway needs to be more charming than what lies beyond so that people come to the doorway. If you are out in the street and there is rain and thunder, or scorching weather, you feel the need for a shelter. You look and find a doorway. Have you noticed that then, the doorway is more inviting and joyful than anything else in the world?


Similarly, the closer you get to the master, the more charm, newness and love you feel. Nothing in the world could give that much peace, joy and pleasure. It's like depth without a bottom. This is a sign that you have come to the master.
Once you enter the door, you see the world from there, from the eyes of the master. Then in any situation you will think: How would the master handle this? See the world from the eyes of the master and the world looks so much more beautiful as a place filled with love, joy, cooperation and compassion.
Looking through the doorway there is no fear. From inside your home, you can look at the storm and the bright sun too; yet you can be relaxed as you are in the shelter. Such a sense of security, fullness and joy comes. That is the purpose of having a master.


Sangha is charming from a distance, but the closer you get, it pushes all your buttons and brings out all the unwanted things from within you. If you think a group is good it means you are not yet completely with the group. When you are totally part of that group, you will find that some bickering will come up. But you are the one who makes the group so if you are good, your group will also be good.

Sangha has a reverse nature to Buddha. Buddha makes your mind one-pointed; sangha, because it is of so many people, can scatter your mind, fragment it. Once you are used to a sangha, it loses its charm. This is the nature of sangha. Still, it is very supportive. If it were repulsive all the time, then nobody would be part of sangha.


Buddha uplifts with Grace, love and knowledge, Buddha pulls you up from above, and sangha pushes you up from below.
Dharma is to be in the middle. Avoiding extremes is your nature to be in balance, to smile from the depth of your heart, to accept entire existence totally as it is. Often you crave for Buddha and are averse to sangha, and you try to change; but by changing sangha or Buddha, you are not going to change.


The main purpose is to come to the centre deep within you, which means to find your dharma. A sense of deep acceptance for this moment, for every moment, is dharma. All problems and negativity are generated from our mind.


The world is not bad; we make our world ugly or beautiful. So when you are in your dharma, your nature, you will blame neither the world nor the Divine.
Dharma is that which puts you in the middle and makes you comfortable with the world. It allows you to contribute to the world, be at ease with the Divine, to feel part of the Divine.

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Try to be a witness

Jul 19, 2010, 12.00am IST
TALK: OSHO.

See the dictionary under the letter 'h' - only there will you always find happiness.


In life things are very mixed up. Like day and night, life and death, you have happiness and unhappiness. Life is rich because of polar opposites.
The very idea that one would like to be happy forever is stupid, and the idea will only create unhappiness. You will become more and more miserable in your greed for elusive eternal happiness.


Then who is the happy person? The happy person is not one who is always happy. The happy person is one who is happy even when there is unhappiness. Try to understand it. The happy person is one who understands life and accepts its polarities. He knows success is possible only because failure is also possible. So when failure comes he accepts it.


I remember one incident of my childhood. A great wrestler had come to my town. Everybody was interested in wrestling, so the whole town had gathered. I have seen many people and many wrestlers in my life but he was really rare. He had something of Zen in him.


For 10 days the wrestling continued, and every day he defeated a famous wrestler. Finally, he was declared the winner. That day he went around and touched the feet of all the 10 persons who he had defeated.

Everybody was puzzled about why he did it. I was a small child, I went to him and asked him, "Why did you do that? This is strange."


He said, "It is only because of them that I am victorious. If they had not allowed themselves to be defeated, I would not be victorious. So I owe it to them. My victory depends on their defeat, so really I feel greatly thankful to them. There was only one possibility: either I was to be defeated or they were to be defeated. And they are good people, they accepted defeat."


This is a very Sufi or Zen idea. Things are interdependent: failure-success, happiness-unhappiness, summer-winter, youth-old age, beauty-ugliness - they exist together.


Then what should the attitude be? When happiness comes, enjoy happiness; when unhappiness comes, enjoy unhappiness. When there is happiness, dance with it; when there is unhappiness, cry with it. That's what I mean when I say 'enjoy'. If you can accept unhappiness as smoothly as you welcome happiness, you will transcend both. In that very acceptance is transcendence. Then unhappiness and happiness will not make much difference to you, you will remain the same. When there is sadness you will have a taste of it; and when there is joy you will have a taste of it. And sometimes bitter things also taste beautiful.


And sadness has something of depth in it which no happiness can ever have. Happiness has something shallow. Laughter always looks shallow, tears always look deep. If you want to be happy always you will become a superficial person. Sometimes it is good to fall into dismal depths of sadness. Both are good. And one should be total in both. Whatsoever happens, go totally into it. When crying, become the crying, and when dancing, become the dance. Then the ultimate happens to you. By and by you forget the distinction between what happiness is and what unhappiness is. You enjoy both! So by and by the distinction disappears. And when the distinction has disappeared, there arises something which is eternally there, which remains always there. That is witnessing.
Excerpted from Sufis The People of the Path, Vol 1 . Courtesy: Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com

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Good health comes first

Jul 21, 2010, 12.00am IST
Satya Narayan Sahu.
The recently concluded FIFA World Cup football in South Africa caused worldwide excitement. Indians were overtaken by the passion of the game even though India was not participating in the event.

It is easy to get infected with the spirit of the game in a globalised world with its vast media networks that enable people to watch the game even at odd hours. Often such infectious spirit drives us to indulge ourselves on the material plane and remain immersed in superficial aspects of life. Drinking beer and watching football in Germany might have temporarily taken its people away from the humdrum business of life and made them feel elated for some time. But every sphere of life, including the sphere of sports and games, must explore the infinite dimensions which impact human existence and about which we are not adequately aware.

When Swami Vivekananda returned to India in 1897 after his historic trip to America where he addressed the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893, he delivered a series of lectures. In one of them he linked the attainment of spirituality to football. He said to the youth: "You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Bhagavad Gita". Good health is the first step to strive for perfection. It involves overcoming weakness and acquiring confidence and spiritual dignity. It means cultivating self-esteem.

Scripture-reading is not sufficient if we are driven by frailties and temptations. Exercise is the key to achieve higher and finer objectives. Vivekananda was giving precedence to the individual's right to quality health which can provide access to many other wonderful realms. He said that Indians remained lazy because they were deprived of strength and energy. He explained our inability to work in terms of our physical weakness. He even painfully noted that the root cause of selfishness and disunity among Indians was our weakness manifested in fragile body and spirit. He earnestly pleaded for measures to strengthen our physical and mental health.


A scholar saint of worldwide fame, he advocated that health considerations must precede the quest for religion. "Our young men must be strong, religion will come afterwards. "You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman when your body stands firm upon your feet, and you feel yourselves as men," he said.


Passion for football must promote good health and purity of mind. The pursuit of sports and games will truly help us realise the essence of life which often gets overwhelmed by existential compulsions and loses its meaning and significance. Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das, a close associate of M K Gandhi had said that mere excellence in the field of football and cricket will not make a nation. He meant that nation-building involves building of character and cultivation of values. When Swami Vivekananda linked spirituality with football he was stressing as much on the ability to play that game as the capacity to realise divinity, a far more exalted goal than that of mere nation-building. What is required is the balanced blending of physical and spiritual dimensions. It is indeed a coincidence that on the sesquicentennial year of Swami Vivekananda's birth the World Cup was held in South Africa.

The author is Joint Secretary, Rajya Sabha Secretariat. The views expressed in the article are personal

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Food for creative thought

Jul 23, 2010, 12.00am IST

All of us at many points in our lives have experienced a beautiful Aha moment, when we felt very good within while doing something new or something that was innovative. Text by Brahmakumaris.


We smile to ourselves, perhaps even congratulate ourselves when we experience that wow factor and we say: "Wow! I could do this... how awesome is that!" We become as happy as a child filled with joy at learning to walk for the first time or ride a bicycle for the first time ever.
The more interesting thing is that these acts might not always be big ones; they could be as simple as doing a presentation in a new way, solving a complicated problem with a simple idea, making a few changes in the way one's home is organised, bringing home new flowerpots to make one's living space feel special, or even making your own favourite songs list or planning ways to pleasantly surprise friends and relatives.

One of our innate urges is to be creative, and do new things to make changes and bring freshness into our lives. If we like this creative process so much, why are we not able to do it at all time? To understand this, let's see the process that is a source of these aha moments. Observing babies and little children, we can easily see that they are naturally curious and creative.
As we grow older, we find that every moment that we spend in our life, we are involved in a beautiful process, a process that continuously makes us creative. Sure, we do have our dull moments, even destructive moments, depending on the choices we make. It is a process that we can't seem to escape from or stop and it is responsible for everything surrounding our lives. That's because it is part of our thought process that plays a major role in the way we live our lives.

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Mind: Good servant, bad master

Jul 24, 2010, 12.00am IST

The mind is the reason behind a person's bondage or salvation. Pious and benevolent resolves and actions purify the mind, remove all faults and lead to final salvation, says Lilashahji in a discourse.

The same mind, when it becomes impure by impious resolves and actions, promotes insentience and binds one to bondage of this world.


Take your mind to task everyday! Constantly counsel your mind. "O restless mind! Now be quiet and steady. Why do you disturb me by wandering all the time? Time and again you run after sense pleasures and worldly relations, seeking company in relationships but don't you know that they are short-lived? You have been forced to abandon them in all of your previous lives and will have to abandon them in this life as well. So immerse yourself in meditation of your True Self that is always with you, that is Bliss Supreme."
The mind is deceptive. Never trust it. Keep a constant watch to see whether the mind is following your commands. Keep a vigil on its activities at all times. You have to always be ready to discipline the mind with the stick of insightful discrimination, ready to take preventive action and restrain the mind from engaging in any act of transgression against established principles and time-tested social norms.
Never allow the mind free rein because it is an incredible treasure house of tremendous powers. It is such a fast horse as can easily and quickly simply gallop towards its goal if only given good direction by keeping it in control. Without restraint, it is most likely to go berserk and throw you into a pile of thorny bushes. Always keep a tight vigil on the mind. Do not give it free time at all; otherwise it will suck you into undesirable activity. As the saying goes, 'An idle mind is a devil's workshop'. Therefore, always keep the mind engaged in some worthwhile pursuit, something that requires application of the mind.


Ruminate on the Self, study the scriptures, listen to the discourses of the wise and those with positive knowledge and engage yourself in chanting the name of the Supreme Being. Never allow the mind to run free. And when it strays, as it frequently will, prod it and rein it back. Just as a large animal can be controlled with a goad, the mind will also come under your complete control with constant monitoring and discipline. The mind has no sovereign power of its own; you yourself have created it. It is your own child whom you have spoilt with excessive pampering. Insightful restraint is the key to keep a loved one from straying. A sapling must be protected until it grows and turns into a tree. Similarly, your constant vigil is required to protect the mind from going berserk.


Towards accomplishing this, the following experiment could prove instructive: Lie down flat on a blanket. Leave the body loose and relaxed. Keep yourself completely calm. Forget the whole world and when you'll think with a tranquil mind, you will see that all events of happiness and sorrow are the results of your own past deeds; and friends or foes are only instrumental in bringing to you what is your due. When you are awake, the world exists; and when you are asleep, it ceases to exist. In effect, the world is unreal; it's like a dream. This is the Truth and this is ultimate reality.


As the mind comes to realise the Truth, it will become calm and silent. A silent and serene mind is always pure.
Lilashahji is Asaram Bapu's guru. www.ashram.org

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Guru is a circuit breaker

Aug 6, 2010, 12.00am IST
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

A city without streets, a king without treasure, a merchant without business and a life without a guru are all considered the same. Why the emphasis on guru? Why do you need a guru?


Life sometimes seems very complicated. There is pleasure, pain, happiness, suffering, generosity, greed, passion and dispassion. When our life is full of such opposing values, our mind sometimes becomes unable to handle these complications and just breaks down.


It is then that you need wisdom to guide you through troubled times. Guru is that wisdom. You might have noticed you give great advice when you are not involved in a situation but the same is not true when you are in trouble. This is because wisdom dawns when you are out of the mess. Guru is one who is out of the mess. He watches the chaos, amidst the chaos.

Guru is like a circuit breaker. When you cannot handle life, your guru comes and saves so that you remain sane and balanced. If there is a compelling desire that bothers you, your guru is there to offer solace. You offer all your desires and pain to your guru. Having a guru means being able to relax and smile all the time, walk with confidence, be fearless and have a vision. That is wisdom.

Guru is a tattva -- an element, a quality inside you. It is not limited to a body or form. Guru comes in your life in spite of your refusing or being rebellious. The guru principle is so vital in life. There is an element of the guru in every human being. That wisdom in each has to be invoked, awakened. When this element is awakened, misery in life disappears. In our consciousness, wisdom comes to life when guru tattva comes to life. When we have no desires of our own, then the guru tattva dawns in our life. Wake up and see that our life is changing every moment and feel grateful for whatever you have received.


Guru Purnima is to review your growth. This review will give you encouragement. If you think you haven't grown enough on the spiritual path in the past few years, then you have not utilised the knowledge. If you feel you are stuck somewhere, then the realisation that you are stuck is also growth.
That is why we celebrate Guru Purnima. It is the day when the devotee arises in full gratitude and feels grateful for the great knowledge he has received from the Master. It is time to review how much knowledge you have ingrained in your life and how you are growing in knowledge. This may bring about a realisation for scope of improvement, which in turn will bring humility in you. Be grateful for the way this knowledge has transformed you. Just think how you could have been without this. Gratitude and humility together make bloom a genuine prayer inside you.


On Guru Purnima, remember all gurus of the past. When your life is full, you get a feeling of gratitude then you start with the guru and end up adoring everything in life. On Guru Purnima the devotee wakes up in full gratitude. The devotee becomes like an ocean moving in itself. Guru Purnima is a time to celebrate and rise in devotion and gratitude.

www.artofliving.org

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