Work is what you make of it

Jul 21, 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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Lasting Benefits Of T'ai Chi

Feb 1, 2005, 12.00am IST
Sensei Sandeep Desai.

When I first visited Bob Bacher's T'ai Chi class a decade ago, I saw students dressed casually, doing movements that looked more than just exercise. They didn't seem to possess much physical strength; yet, they moved with extraordinary co-ordination. Captivated by their grace and composure, I asked: What is T'ai Chi and what benefits could I expect from studying it? Dr Bacher answered: "T'ai Chi is a beach to lie on, not a mountain to conquer. And the benefit is different for each person".


T'ai Chi is a form of martial art but you don't have to go harder or faster to reap fitness and health benefits. It derives its strength from the ability to yield in the face of an attack. T'ai Chi doesn't rely on brute force or speed. Instead, it places a premium on mind control, energy, sensitivity and intention. When your body is properly aligned and relaxed, it generates an amazing amount of power with seemingly little effort. These qualities give T'ai Chi a more spiritual tone than many other martial arts.

At the physical level, T'ai Chi increases oxygen delivery to the body and brain, increasing circulation and alertness. At the mental level, it provides harmless escape from our everyday lives. After work, doing T'ai Chi reduces the physical strain and pain acquired during the day. T'ai Chi comes as a breath of fresh air in a fast-paced world, where everyone seems to want things quickly — two-minute abs, five-minute dinners, and 10-minute walks.

T'ai Chi is enlightening; it is also great fun. The very thought of slowing down, breathing deeply, sinking lower into mother earth, grounding oneself — both physically and mentally — can set you off on a new cycle of experiences. The philosophical, spiritual, health and self-defence aspects of T'ai Chi Chuan are interconnected.

You will be surprised what something so seemingly gentle can do for you. The movements constantly rotate and twist every body part — a process often invisible to the untrained eye — in a variety of different ways with slow, consistent motions. Due to the constant internal activity the body is put through, the body's metabolism is kept working at a healthy level.

A simple, slow T'ai Chi walk can result in lower heart rates, reducing problems of cholesterol and blood pressure. The slow-motion movements increase your breathing capacity by getting your breath to synchronise with them. If you can get more air in and more air out, you will never suffer from asthma and other breathing ailments. The gentle, rounded movements have also been shown to relieve arthritis and other kinds of joint pain. People suffering from arthritis, for example, tend to move less because every move can hurt. And the reduced movement causes the muscles and tendons that support their joints to get weak.

You get out of T'ai Chi what you put into it. The rate at which you progress in T'ai Chi depends on how much, at what intensity, with what seriousness, and how often you incorporate the principles into your life. Your progress in T'ai Chi will not be a constant upward curve. T'ai Chi tends to be more zigzag, with peaks, valleys, and plateaus.

Because T'ai Chi is a broad teaching that contains ancient wisdom and principles of action. As you dive into T'ai Chi, all you need to do for success in your practice is the following: Start and Continue.

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Walking the pathless path

Aug 26, 2010, 12.00am IST
Deepak Chopra.

Sometimes a lesson has to be repeated for thousands of years, not because it wasn't learned the first time but because new people arrive on the scene.

The lesson I'm thinking of was Siddhartha's, a prince on the Nepalese border of northern India. He dropped everything and hit the road, becoming the original, or at least the most famous dharma bum. He travelled from master to master with his begging bowl, seeking enlightenment. As Gautama the monk he became impressively austere. Instead of a loving wife, a warm bed, and feasts, he tried the opposite: solitude, sleeping by the wayside, and subsisting on whatever scraps of food he could beg for.

It's still an appealing choice, because we equate austerity with virtue. If the stress of a chaotic world is too much, perhaps harmony lies along a different, quieter, more solitary road. But the moral of Siddhartha's tale led a different way. Leaving home didn't bring enlightenment, nor did austerity, poverty, starving his body, or trying to force his mind to be still. Instead, Siddhartha became someone entirely transformed – the Buddha – when he hit upon a new road, the one called "the pathless path".

The pathless path isn't a straight line; it doesn't even lead from point A to point B. The journey takes place entirely in consciousness. A mind overshadowed by fears, hopes, memories, past traumas, and old conditioning finds a way to become free. This sounds impossible at first. How can the mind that is trapped by pain also be the tool for freeing itself? How can a noisy mind find silence? How can peace emerge from discord?

The Buddha offered his answer, which is a variant on an even more ancient answer from the seers or rishis of Vedic India: transcend the personal mind and find universal mind. The personal mind is tied to the ego, and the ego is forever swinging from pleasure to pain and back again. But if you look at awareness when there is no pleasure or pain, when the mind is calm while simply existing, a fascinating journey begins. You have made the first step on the pathless path.

This is not to dismiss the other path, the one that takes you away from home into a retreat, ashram, meditation centre, or holy place. They have their own atmosphere; seekers have stopped there for a long time; therefore, the mind can breathe a different kind of air, so to speak, an air of tranquillity and peace. When you arrive at such a place, two things usually happen. You soak up the peace, enjoying the contrast with your busy life at home. At the same time you notice how loud your mind is, how much chaos it has absorbed. So these holy places cannot do the work for you. They can only suggest what the pathless path is about.

Kabir sang of spiritual travellers: "There is nothing but water in the holy pools./ I know I have been swimming in them./ All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word./ I know, I have been crying out to them./ The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words./ I looked through their covers one day sideways./ What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through./ If you have not lived through something, it is not true."


These lines don't deny the worth of spiritual journeying, but they tell us that there is no substitute for first-hand experience. Where you go to find it is irrelevant. The true seeker after truth discovers, sooner or later, that truth was seeking him all along.

DeepakChopra.com

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Arrive At Peace By Consensus

30 October 2001, 12:49am IST
Guruji Rishi Prabhakarji.

Truth and non-violence as a way of life was the path that was lived and advocated by Mahatma Gandhi. the present-day war is against terrorism and we need to diffuse it, by putting into practice gandhian ideology. The solution to violence is not violence but non-violence. we practise democracy of the majority. This suppresses the minority group. It leads to frustration among them, as they are not heard and their grievances are not of concern to the majority that rules. The only way left for them is to seek attention, by terrorist activities. the present scenario where india feels that elimination of kashmiri terrorist will solve indian problems is false. We must allow the kashmiri people to reach a consensus on how they want to live; else it will be the majority controlling the minority. Osama bin laden has made us look objectively at our stand and our ideas about religion. he demands, ‘‘accept islam and follow allah or be ready to be killed’’, as those who do not accept his religion are all his enemies. thus he says, ‘‘my religion is better than yours’’. but if we look carefully, we are not different from bin laden, as we are saying much the same thing. We are divided amongst various religious sects, proclaiming that our religion is better than the other religion. Only we do not have the courage to say it and execute what we believe in. It is only when we stop saying that our religion is better than other religions, can the solution of the conflict appear. then what religion should we follow? What will take us beyond this conflict? truth, as we see it must be our religion. what is truth? It is not what is said in the holy books of various religions, but that which will help you to live in peace withyourself and with everyone else. Decision by majority does not make any decision right. a decision that is agreeable to all, can only be the rightful decision. We must meet and reach a consensus before making a decision. If the decision cannot be made in the first meeting, then a second meeting should be called for. If we fail, we must call a third one. in this way, we will ultimately reach a stage where all members reach a consensus to arrive at adecision. this is a noble way to accommodate everybody. It requires patience, but results in peaceand harmony. since everybody in the world cannot be called for all decisions, we need to organise ourselves into neighbourhood community networks through a group of families or individuals and see to it that all decisions for the community are collectively arrived at. this group can have a representative in the next hierarchy which is again responsible for an equal number of persons. Decisions that cannot be taken at a lower hierarchy will be referred to the higher one. in this manner, the whole globe can be covered. the penultimate institution will be the united world and not the united nations. all national and community boundaries will disappear. This provides an environment for the lowest individual to be heard. this is true democracy. It will not lead to a domination by the majority, and hence will do away with the problem of terrorism, as each community is then awake and alert. one must learn to be peaceful within oneself through silence and prayer to create a peaceful world. the next responsibility is to learn to love and share. this calls for deepening one’s silence and higher understanding or truth. higher understanding, for instance, means that ‘my intelligence, is god given and belongs to every one’. with this understanding, we will be able to share easily what we have, with other children of god. this is the real development of an individual. mere acquisition of wealth and power does not make a better individual. this is what gandhiji meant by ‘living in trusteeship’. selfishness creates problems. growing inselflessness leads to solutions. different people may adopt their own different ways of rising higher. some may do service to other persons, animals, birds and nature, some through prayer, some by introspection and some byinner silence. let india and all nations stop supporting any violent war anywhere. gandhiji’s principle of non-violence is an answer to the problem of violence, and it is for us to implement it. either we learn to live in peace or we are doomed. therefore, we should start making decisions by consensus in all bodies like parliaments, city governments, corporates, co-operative societies, public trusts etc.

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Divine Nature Of Silence

THE SPEAKING TREE
Divine Nature Of Silence

Avatar Meher Baba


Silence is Gods nature.In His formless state in the beyond,silence is absolute and eternal.Silence represents Oneness.Sound represents duality.Sound needs a source and the receiver.As the urge to know Koham was latent in the beyond state,the Word was.As the original urge flowed to the beyond state to manifest,Word was also transmitted and manifested along with the urge.As it manifested,it produced sound.Sound then expanded over all creation and permeated through Gods journey of evolution from Infinite Unconsciousness to Infinite Consciousness.Sound is the nature of maya.We stay with the sound as long as we are overwhelmed by duality.We resolve back to silence once we experience unity.
Word and sound are signs of unfulfilment;a cry of desires and craving.When an individual is at peace with himself and content within,he finds words irrelevant.Silence signifies completion perfection.Sound denotes incompletion imperfection.Our journey began with the sound and will end in silence.Sound is not separate from silence.While silence is the nature of God,sound is quest for Self-knowledge.Silence includes sound.Sound,in its diverse expression and effect,was not intended to create chaos.God takes human form to bridge the gulf between silence and sound,activating the immense possibility of silence to bear upon the movement of sound,and restores lost harmony of thought,words and deeds amongst people.
There is fundamentally no antagonism between silence and the Word.The origin and invariable end of all words is silence.From silence,we come.To silence,we go.The interregnum is Word.
Sound originates from and is dependent on silence though it is allowed autonomy for certain time when it enjoys freedom and a sense of illusory detachment from silence.It traverses through the extremes of opposites such as sorrow and happiness,pain and pleasure until it loses control.Harmony gives way to cacophony and sound degenerates to noise.Ignoring the pure inspiration of his conscience,man uses sound to further impulses of selfish motives,causing commotion and confusion.
Thus,sound loses its moorings.It is not able to withdraw;nor can it absorb itself.Unable to restore harmony in life,it becomes like a faulty siren that goes on and on,causing unbearable irritation.So,we ignore the silence of God which has been communing with us deep within,everlastingly;and get entangled in the uncontrolled,unguided sound.Being tired of this commotion,mans heart instinctively aches for peace and craves for silence but cannot shut the sound off.
At such times,Avatar,the Godman,descends to bring back harmony in the world,giving sound a new meaning,life and orientation.
To remain silent is to poignantly bring out the meaninglessness of words.Through the power of silence,you can counterbalance sound forces.Avatar is stationed at the fulcrum of the universe.His actions create ripples across levels in creation.Such silence reverberates through the breadth,length and depth of the universe.Unique silence of an avatar is distinct from that of spiritual seekers,yogis or mahatmas.
(On this day,87 years ago,Avatar Meher Baba commenced his silence and maintained it for 44 years,until he breathed his last.The distinctive nature of Babas silence is not its duration but the fact that Baba chose to adopt silence to carry out his avataric mission.)

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