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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The Psycho-spiritual Dimension of Islam

Feb 26, 2005, 12.00am IST
Hazrat Abu Babaji.

The word "sufi" literally means woollen, although the wearing of wool does not appear to have ever been current among the mystics of Islam. It was, however, first used when referring to a small group of mystics who did wear wool. In Arabic, 'sufi' comes from 'safi' which means "pure", and Sufis are the "pure at heart".



A Sufi can be distinguished from others through his detachment from mate-rial life and his ecstatic devotion to "The Divine Life", free from pain and sorrow. The Sufis are people who prefer God to everything else and God prefers them to everything else.Sufism or tasawwuf, in Arabic, is the inner mystical or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, how-ever, many believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Despite its many variations and expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is that the Sufi surrenders to God in love, over and over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's consciousness as gifts of God or, as manifestations of God.

Allah uses many different ways of awakening people from slumber and attracting them to Him. Once awake, people become seekers and travel on the path or salek. As they start their journey Divine, their thoughts and feelings shift, and they begin to behave and live differently in varying deg-rees. Why the change?

Because it helps them distinguish between the 'reality' that they have always known and the reality that truly is. They begin to realise that the purpose of this life's journey has far greater depth and meaning than they had ever imagined. The innermost part of their self responds strongly to this realisation and the outer mechanics of the person therefore shifts.

There are various spiri-tual paths that attract people but, sooner or later, all these little roads lead to that one main road and unless one travels the distance of this grand highway, one will not get far. To travel on this highway, one must disable and break down the self or nafs, dethroning it from its position of King and ruler, making it the slave. While the terms used may differ, all the mystical paths are in agreement on this fundamental aspect. In Buddhism, they speak of suffering and killing the ego; in Sufism, they speak of servanthood of the nafs to Allah. This also marks the separation between the real traveller and the pseudo traveller. The vast treasury of Sufi teaching and writings points out this fundamental and uncompromising stage of spiritual unfoldment. This road is marked with many teachers and once one surrenders himself to be taught and becomes a salek, he is well on the road to God discovery.

Guided by his teacher or murshid, the salek follows and obeys the murshid, whose job is to prevent the salek from falling into the trap of self. The self uses every ploy to get the traveller off the road that will ultimately lead to the self's demise. Its tool include man's mind, emotions and belief systems — a dange-rous and powerful array of weaponry. One must be most aware and equipped to defy the attempts of the nafs. The irony is that man is in the grip of his demanding self and is a slave to the material world, but he is not aware of it. Modern society promotes 'individuality', which in reality is 'slavery' to materiality, yet it ignores and/or shuns servanthood to God, which is the true purpose of Creation. It is only through servanthood to God that man can actually be freed from servanthood to material life. One cannot be a servant of God and a servant to oneself at the same time.

(Excerpted from 'Sufi Saint of Ooty' by Ramu Baba.)

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Face Examinations Without Fear

Feb 25, 2005, 12.00am IST
Tish Malhotra.

If you are a student and are restless and nervous about the Board examinations, you are probably overcome with anxiety and fear. You find it almost impossible to concentrate, worrying that you might forget whatever you have studied so far. In a booklet titled Letter to a Student, Swami Purushottamananda discusses the crucial problem of examination fear.



He says fear of exams is the biggest enemy of students. Under its stress, some even fall physically ill. The word 'examination fever' has been coined in this context. Even students who have put in long hours of study become nervous at the time of exams. So, the Swami says, don't lose heart, you can definitely gain control of the situation. To get out of the fear psychosis, Swami Purushottamananda requests students to ask themselves what they would gain by feeling afraid. For, fear brings sickness. But by being bold and brave, even an average student can do reasonably well in exams. But if a student shelters fear, it will deprive his mind and body of strength. "The only results can be this: You will 'forget' all that you have studied while writing the exam. It is this fear that makes you write confused answers". He says, "Root out the fear complex lurking in your mind by combining self-confidence with disciplined study; have faith in your own strength and faith in your studies... The strong conviction that you would write the exams well, with a calm mind, is self-confidence. If you can develop this, fear vanishes and enthusiasm springs up in its place".


Students can draw inspiration from the encouraging words of Swami Vivekananda, who had great faith in the power of faith. He exhorted the youth to first have faith in themselves. He said: "The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power". On different occasions Swamiji emphasised that "whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be". He would say: "Never say, 'I cannot', for you are infinite. Even time and space are as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are Almighty".

Vivekananda's prescription for success is: "To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. 'I will drink the ocean', says the persevering soul, 'at my will, mountains will crumble up'. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal...". He further said: "If there is one word that you find from the Upa-nishads, bursting like a bomb-shell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word fearlessness.... Strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is cons-tant strain and misery...".


For students who cultivate fearlessness, and who face the exams boldly, success is waiting round the corner. True, sometimes, unfortunately, even the most hardworking and dedicated of students find that the results are not good. However, even in the worst-case scenario of failure you should not think that it is the end of the world. Swami Vivekananda has taught that there is success and failure in every work. In fact, failures make us even wiser. Constant practice makes one perfect, so no one should lose heart in the process of trying.

For "tomorrow is another day" — with fresh hopes and opportunities, and you should look forward to taking up new challenges and responsibilities.

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Plumbing the Depths Of Soul Music

Feb 24, 2005, 12.00am IST
Bindu Chawla.

With industrialisation and changing values, a world that was getting increasingly mechanised had begun to seriously question, then undermine, the traditional spiritual values of art. And then for centuries, the "art for art's sake" theory was ridiculed by the rationalists who relentlessly campaigned to give art a utilitarian purpose. Only in the past century the moulds got broken once again, to rediscover the abstract in art, returning to the maxim: "Art for spirit's sake".


As a child, the presence of Ustad Amir Khan Saheb at home brought to me my first awareness of spiritual angst, for there was always this inward-outward dialectic to his presence. There he would sit, on the proverbial takht by the window, looking out-side, but with his gaze turned within, absorbed by a singing that was the real (inner) window, to the great ocean of music churning within him.

Often, when he sang a raga, the eyes of Khan Saheb's listeners would fill with tears. Yet, they would not let him stop even after hours of singing. At other times, they would plead with him to stop, for it was too overwhelming to continue to listen to him. One day, on one such occasion, while singing, Khan Saheb came down a level or two for his listeners, and said: " Naghma vahi naghma hai jo rooh sune aur rooh sunaye ". (A piece of music is a piece of music which the soul hears and the soul sings.) This was typical of Khan Saheb's style of communicating. He would 'tell' through embryonic sentences. And here, it was to share the secret that his constant mystic highs came from the 'stimulation' of the soul when singing.

Then the soul began to sing — for itself. Once roused, what it poured forth was what has traditionally been termed as 'revealed' music — the word revealed coming from 're' or 'back' and 'velum' or behind the veil. A music from the far and the beyond. And sure enough, while the ustads of his day practised the vocals for hours daily, Khan Saheb would give two to three hours every morning to the physical or external riyaz, and the rest of the day to what he called ' chintan ka riyaz ', or the riyaz of contemplation, the internal riyaz, of spiritual search, and of spiritual finding.

Speaking of his guru, Ustad Amir Khan, Pandit Amarnath ji said: "He is not at all performance-conscious. He just sings. What you want — he will not pay any attention to that element. He will not produce 'items'... He will sing as though he is singing for himself, he is pleasing himself. And he was his own audience. He was his own listener. If I please myself then you are automatically pleased...". And from here deve-loped the first important maxim of the now re-nowned style and approach of the gharana of Indore which Khan Saheb founded, the first abstract style in Hindustani khayal music: " Apne liye gaao " — Sing for your Self. " Yeh fikra apne ko sunao, phir dekho kaisa lagta hai " — Sing this phrase for yourself, and then see how it sounds, the Indore masters say, while they teach.

So you can judge your music through your own inner mirror, the guru within, while striving for greater and greater truth in your singing.

For his followers, Ustad Amir Khan Saheb is both the musical and the spiritual master. There are no bifurcations. Quite unlike the practice with other Hindustani musicians, for whom the music guru has always been different from the spiritual guru. With Khan Saheb, music is in the Sufi way.

(Today is Ustad Amir Khan's barsi.)

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Samadhi and Different Levels of Experience

Feb 22, 2005, 12.00am IST
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.

What are the different kinds of samadhi? How does going into a samadhi for a long duration help one to evolve?



Samadhis or deep meditation techniques have been classified into eight forms. These, in turn, have been broadly categorised as savikalpa and nirvikalpa samadhis — one with attributes or qualities and the other, without.

With Isha Yoga, people go into different types of samadhis. Samadhi is a state of equanimity where the intellect goes beyond its normal function of discrimination, freeing one from the physical body. In such a state, there is a space between what is you and your body. These samadhis by themselves have no great significance in terms of realisation. Experiencing a certain type of samadhi does not mean you are released from Existence. It is just a new level of experience.

Somebody may go into a certain level of samadhi and stay there for years because it is enjoyable. There is no space or time. There are no bodily problems. He has broken the physical and psychological barriers to some extent. But this is only temporary. The moment he comes out, again he gets hungry, he has to sleep, and again everything comes back.

Compared to a man who is sober, a man who is slightly drunk has a different level of experience, but he has to come down at some point. All samadhis are a way of getting high without any external chemicals. They open up a new dimension for you, without leaving any great transformation behind.

You have not moved into another reality. In the same reality, your level of experiences has deepened. You have experienced the same things in a little deeper sense. You have not become free from the mind.

A person who comes out after meditating for 12 years may not be a realised being, but he could be getting closer. When you go into another reality and stay there for long hours or long years, the grip of this reality is broken on you. Now you have come to an experiential understanding that this is not it. Not just an intellectual understanding, you have seen experientially that this is not it. That is the whole purpose of long meditations. But most realised beings never went into samadhi states.


Gautama never sat for 12 years in one place, unlike some of his disciples. He did not find it necessary. He practised and experienced all the eight kinds of samadhis before his enlightenment and he discarded them. He said, "This is not it". This is not going to take you any closer to realisation. It is just moving into a higher level of experience and you could get further entangled, because it is more beautiful than the current reality. If the goal is set, if you've made realisation the top priority in your life, then everything else which doesn't take you one step closer is meaningless. If you are climbing Mount Everest, you will not take one step sideways, because every ounce of energy is needed to reach the top. Now, if you have to transcend your own consciousness, you need every ounce of what you have and it's not enough.


We have created powerful consecrated spaces where experiencing samadhi states comes very naturally. There are samadhis that are very pleasant, blissful, and ecstatic and there are samadhis that are beyond this. Those who go into samadhi states beyond pleasant or unpleasant, or nirvikalpa, have minimal contact with their bodies. The smallest disturbance, like a sound or a pinprick, would dislodge them from their body. These states are maintained for certain periods to establish the distinction between you and the body. It is a significant step in one's spiritual evolution, but still not the ultimate.

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Effective Management Of the Five Senses

Feb 18, 2005, 12.00am IST
Acharya Mahaprajna.

The first preparative step to meditation begins with the practice of one-pointedness. Maharishi Patanjali has defined it as Pratyahar. Our senses are attracted to external subjects. We need to redirect them inwards. This process the Jain agamas call Pratisanlinta; its practice helps increase concentration and reduces instability.


When the senses go about experiencing the outer world, they communicate with their subjects. Then the mind becomes fickle, and sometimes gets carried away by the senses as by itself, it cannot directly communicate with the outer world. So whatever raw material is presented by the senses is concretised by the mind.

The wavering nature of mind is highly dependent on the instability of the senses. In meditation, you are asked to close your eyes so that you no longer communicate with the colourful fantasies of the outer world. By shutting your ears, you shut out all the noises. Your communication with the outer world has broken. The cessation of the five senses from their subjects, their Pratisanlinta or restraint is in order to prevent increase in restlessness of the mind.


To stabilise the restless mind, it has to be fixed on a single point to enable concentration. Normally, in meditation, this point of concentration is one's breath. As the mind gets fixed on one object, your concentration power increases. As a result, your sensory perceptions get managed more effectively. Then neither the senses nor the mind will create any problems.

The best principle for the solution of internal problems is to thoroughly employ the senses. Preksha dhyan is nothing but an expression of the art of seeing, listening, tasting, smelling and feeling. Balanced management of the senses will result in art. Sketching lines stylishly results in an artistic picture. The lines, individually, did not seem attractive but the artistic combination resulted in a beautiful picture. We, too, can transform our inner world into a very beautiful world.


The ugliness of the inner world emerges in our beha-viour because of the lopsided management of the senses. So don't let your mind wander; practice concentration for stabilisation. The trouble is, most of us don't know how to harmonise our thoughts. The flow of thoughts is continuous. With Preksha dhyan we learn the art of regulating our thoughts in the right direction.


We often ask: "Why should we restrain our senses? Why should we try to make our mind stable? Life goes on anyway". We should ask, instead, "Do we wish to remain on the level of sensual consciousness? Or do we want to reach the world that lies beyond the senses?" The experience of the extrasensory world is so different from that of sensual consciousness. Once the first experience of extrasensory perception sprouts in a person, she visualises a new world.

The aim of Preksha dhyan is to develop the consciousness beyond the senses. Most people do not experience the world beyond the senses and those who have, cannot describe it. To think and imagine is the function of the conscious mind.

The unconscious mind determines the way we behave. All our emotions are linked with it. Our problems are related to our behaviour, and our behaviour is linked with our senses. Finally, there is the super or higher conscious mind. Here, problems are solved. It is the level of the world beyond the senses. Its function is knowingness — that is, only knowing. The word 'only' is used for the world beyond the senses, for the superconscious mind. If one can understand the fact of 'only knowing', and if this can be practised, it can free one of all mental and emotional problems.

(The author completes 75 years of monkhood today.)

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Of Human Thought And Bondage

Feb 9, 2005, 12.00am IST
ANIL K RAJVANSHI.

It is said that one of the first yogic sadhnas that Aurobindo Ghosh did under his guru Lele was to understand the nature of thought packets. By stilling his mind or emptying it of thought waves he could see the thought packets coming from external sources and by actively intervening as they came he could get rid of their effects on his mind. It was as if he could create a filter system similar to that used by the present e-mail programmes to get rid of spam. A similar process was described by Swami Vivekananda who said that when he concentrated on a person or an object, he could see the thought packets connected with them as writings on the blackboard or sky.


The brain is not only a receiver; it is also a transmitter of thought packets. With practice of Sanyam or Yoga we can tune our brains to receive knowledge and thought packets at will and to send them to others. This sending and receiving of thought pac-kets is governed by the strength of concentration. With deep concentration the thought packets can go to great distances via higher dimensions. The distance travelled by mundane thoughts is much less. Sanyam also allows us to get universal knowledge.


How can we perceive thought packets actively? Patanjali says that once the mind is completely calmed, that is, devoid of any thought waves, then it becomes like a pure crystal which takes on the colour from the object which is nearest to it. This calming of the mind by removal or suppression of thought waves should be done carefully under the guidance of a guru because in the absence of a strong will power and wisdom, the empty mind can be controlled by dangerous thoughts.

Human emotions are a product of both the internal working of our brain and external stimulus. Thought packets are a major external input and can make the mind work in a certain manner. When we think about a certain event or a person the internal memory is reinforced by external thought packets. In quite a number of cases our thinking about someone or an event may be triggered by external thought packets received. It stirs memories which sometimes makes us act in a certain manner.

To avoid getting perturbed by external thoughts we need a mechanism to stop them. Though all of us to a lesser or greater degree have the ability to receive thought packets, only evolved people like yogis and highly sensitive people can perceive their source to stop them. This active perception of the sources of thought is called the ability to read somebody's mind.

A simpler process is to think deeply about certain things. Thinking deeply helps in occupying the brain and is like creating a shield for the mind so that it is not affected by external thoughts. This is also the genesis of Karma Yoga where one keeps on doing work without any desire for reward. This helps the mind to focus fully on the work and there is little opportunity for it to be perturbed by any other external influence.

This externality of thought is the genesis of human bonding. The people with whom we have close emotional bonds send their thought packets more frequently. Somehow our brain develops neural pathways which are more conducive to getting these thought packets easily. It develops a mechanism by which it immediately recognises their thought signatures. These packets then make us act in a certain way and are the cause of karma or the human web of love.

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Phenomenology & the Causality of Reason

Feb 5, 2005, 12.00am IST
Kailash Vajpeyi.

Phenomenology is descriptive philosophy. It is like a mirror, showing us what is, as it is and as it presents itself. Phenomenology is indifferent to the process of metabolic changes in animate and inanimate entities. From the very beginning it did not start out as transcendental philosophy. It was taken to be descriptive scientific objective which indicated an inner connection with 'As-it-ism'. Thus the doctrine, according to Herbert Marcuse, simply reflects the fate of a world in which rational human freedom always can take only the initial step freely, to encounter words and uncontrolled necessity, remaining contingent with respect to reason. The reason or causality of reason operates in one direction only which cuts out the possibility of the empirical world affecting the intelligible essence of man. Therefore, phenomenology imprisons this essence in a past without future and stands outside of everything that has gone before it.


If one has to describe it, it is prior to everything. When Kant was developing the 'concept of essence' against the roots of transcendental philosophy his theory was questioned by Hegel and his dialectic. The basic problem with most of the European philosophers was that they wanted to establish an ideal philosophy which would cover different trends of thought and provide a new meaning to life. In Plato's theory of ideas, we find a quest for the unity and universality of being. It has been a constant effort of most of the linkers of the world to find a happy solution to the riddle of life. Like all states of being happiness is also a state of being. We can talk around it, we can describe its symbolism, we can stay in this state for a few moments and experience it but we cannot describe it. It is only an experience; the description of such an experience is only the verbalisation of a symbol; at the most the essence of such an experience.


Husserl undertook to propound a new theory of essence. He defines essence in opposition to the individual personality, calling it contingency of facticity of a cosmic order. According to Husserl, facticity is limited by the correlation to a necessity that does not stand for the mere factual existence of a valid rule for the coordination of spatio-temporal facts, rather, it has the character of essential necessity and is thus related wait i will seto essential universality. For Husserl, 'essence' stands for pure subjectivity that remains as a residuum after the phenomenological annihilation of the world and that processed the being of the world as constituting in itself the meaning of that being — a completely self-contained reality — something existing absolutely.


In Formal and Transcendental Logic, Husserl has accepted the fact that Descartes was the originator of transcendental philosophy. His 'ergo cogito' represents only a particle of the world, whereas the area of phenomenology is infinite. Spatio-temporal facts have no relevance in the field of genuine phenomenological study. In fact, the spatio-temporal world is an abstraction posited by consciousness in its experience — all contents of consciousness are exemplary; they may be termed as full fantasies, which from the point of view of phenomenological prehensions of essence, are nothing.

What significance does ergo cogito carry in the realm of infinity? According to Herbert Marcuse: To know does not mean changing or abolishing any aspect of life, But with Husserl, concern with the present is concern with eternity, whose timeless truth is the only solution to our spiritual distress. Husserl declares: "We must not ignore our spiritual distress for the sake of our descendants before it becomes indestructible evil".

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Getting Connected With Compassion

Feb 3, 2005, 12.00am IST
Anees Jung.

The 12/26 tsunami jolted one back to the mythical metaphor of the Old Testament when God unleashed 40 days of rain that flooded and washed away everything. In that apocalyptic moment came Noah's ark and the opportunity for creating a new humanity. A disaster like the recent tsunami probably signals the birth of a new understanding, believes Deepak Chopra who is baffled but happy to see the armies of the world diverting their activities from war to relief. "What may happen now will be true globalisation, not a globalisation of economic exploitation but one which has at its root the seed of compassion. Maybe nature is telling us 'I am giving you an opportunity to create a new humanity'," he says.


Once the disaster is relegated to history, will that understanding stay? "Then nature will react again till we get it. Or we destroy ourselves," says a hopeful Deepak. "Turbulence in human consciousness at a collective level is somehow connected with the turbulence in nature. So nature's turbulence and our turbulence co-reflect and co-create each other. We contribute to the violence in nature and nature contributes to the violence in us. If we could heal the rift in our collective soul we may actually influence nature's activities." While thousands of humans perished in the raging tsunami, not one animal died, Deepak points out.
Two hours before the tide, elephants broke free of their chains and ran inland. So did the wild bucks, the buffaloes, and dogs. The birds started migrating two hours before the tide swept in. Why? Because they were connected. Deepak Chopra explains that the earth is a living organism. It has a collective consciousness and we are a part of it as is all life on the planet. Because animals don't have an ego or a sense of a separate self they feel the pain and anguish of mother earth. Humans have lost this connection.


Why don't we feel compassion when thousands die in conflict and war? "Because", says Deepak, "we demonise the other and see them as the enemy. Consciously or unconsciously or even through rigorous training, before people go to war, they mentally demonise the other. The tsunami is no demon and its victims are not our enemies. When you go beyond the demonised perception you discover a human being who is just like you. So compassion is possible when you put yourself in the position of the other. In the sharing of suffering compassion is born; it is the flowering of understanding, love and healing. You cannot heal unless you heal the rift in our collective soul. At the deepest level of nature compassion which is connectedness is a fact."


Deepak's son was travelling from New York to Los Angeles when 9/11 happened. "For eight hours I was in deep anguish... When I got a call from him I felt immediate relief. Five minutes later it occurred to me that people are feeling like this all the time — in Palestine, Israel, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, everywhere. Everyday parents, sisters, brothers, wives are feeling it. Why cannot I feel their pain? Because I haven't grounded myself in that field of consciousness. If I am not aware and I don't have creative solutions for problems then I have no right to call myself spiritual. Our measure of spirituality should be awareness and creativity, not puja-paath. To think of the tsunami as God's vengeance or wrath is a primitive notion. If there is a God we must attribute to him infinite awareness, infinite creativity. The abstract God is undefinable. It cannot be conceptualised. It is a luminous mystery."

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Reflections: Death At My Doorstep

Feb 2, 2005, 12.00am IST
Khushwant Singh.

We do not talk of death lightly — it is regarded as tasteless, ill-mannered and depressing. But death is an essential fact of life which makes no exceptions: It comes to kings as well as beggars, to the rich and the poor, to saints as well as sinners, the aged and the young. You simply cannot turn a blind eye to it and fool yourself into believing that death comes to other people but will spare you. It will not. It is best to prepare yourself for it and when it comes, welcome it with a smile on your lips.


Alfred Tennyson wrote: "Sunset and evening star/ And one clear call for me!/ May there be no moaning of the bar/ When I put out to sea.../ ...Twilight and evening bell,/ After that the dark!/ And may there be no sadness of farewell/ When I embark".


I am now over 90 years old and am aware that the hour of my tryst with destiny is drawing near. I have given a lot of thought to it. Being a rationalist, I do not accept irrational, unproven theories of life-death-rebirth in different forms as an unending process till our beings mingle with God and we attain nirvana. I do not accept the belief that while the body perishes, the soul survives. I do not know what the soul looks like; neither I, nor anyone has seen it. Nor do I accept the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic belief in the Day of Judgment — heaven and hell. I go along with the poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib: "We know what the reality of paradise is;/ but it is not too bad an idea to beguile the mind".

I accept the finality of death; we do not know what happens to us after we die... I once asked the Dalai Lama, "Your Holiness, I cannot accept your belief in reincarnation. There is no scientific evidence to support it." The Dalai Lama narrated stories of children who remembered things about their previous existence: names of parents and places where they were born... I interrupted him. "Your Holiness, these are infantile fantasies of children brought up in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist or Sikh families where they hear elders talking of previous life and next life. Can you give me an example of a Muslim child recalling his earlier existence?" The Dalai Lama roared with laughter and replied: "You have a point, but if I did not believe in reincarnation, I would be out of business!"


I have never subscribed to the belief that nothing bad should be said about the dead. If people were evil in their lifetimes, death does not convert them into saints. Such falsehoods may be condoned when inscribed on tombstones but not in obituaries which should be without bias, and truthful. I have written lots of obituaries about people I admired and loved; I have also written about people I detested and loathed. I did my best to be as even-handed as I could about all of them ... Very few people have dates with death apart from those who take their own lives or are convicted by courts to hang. The old and the ailing may sense the day drawing near but never know exactly what day or time it will be... We must always bear in mind that death is inevitable.


Memento mori — remember you must die. Without brooding over it be prepared for it. The poet Asadullah Khan Ghalib put it beautifully: "Age travels at a galloping pace/ Who knows where it will stop?/ We do not have the reins in our hands/ We do not have our feet in the stirrups".

(Extracted from the author's 'Death At My Doorstep'.)

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