Vedantic Wednesday: The Three Influencers

Many people play a role in shaping our personality.  The process of shaping us starts from the time we are born and continues almost till the last day of our lives.  Each one’s influence on us and the resultant change varies based on many factors. Mentors, Coaches, heroes etc have their own levels of impact.  But there are three people whose influence is fairly permanent. Their influence shape our basic personality . Each of these three people give us an aspect that makes us who we are.

The first one is our Mother. A mother’s relation to her child is special. This relationship instills purity in us. The importance of purity of thought, action and deed cannot be explained enough especially in today’s world. When we see the atrocities being meted out by one on another, this aspect of purity becomes important. And purity of thought and action is what every child experiences and infers through the love of their mother.

The second person is our Father.  While the mother, creates the child and instills in him/her purity of thought, it is the father’s responsibility to instill discipline in the child. Discipline means self restraint or self control. When temptations and attractions arise in the world, the child learns this by instruction from his father and reinforces it by watching the father practice it.

The third is our teacher.  Ask anyone in the later part of their years, they are bound to tell you the name of atleast one (if not more) teacher who has had a hand in their current success. While in the olden days, the term teacher referred to a single person providing and enabling the child’s learning across various aspects that are required for life, in today’s circumstances it is often a combination of teachers. Even among the many teachers, the teacher who you remember – longest in your life is the one who taught you or instructed you on life and living. This was beyond the subject that they taught. Instructions for life are always best given by and taken from a teacher.

Whose responsibility is it to ensure the child picks up purity, discipline and instructions so as to live a responsible life? Can we blame the mother for a grown up man who misbehaves? Should we blame the father for the irrational  indulgence , addiction? Can we blame the teachers for the un-perfected and selfish social actions of the grown-ups? Or is it the child we blame for not having picked up any of this when it had to?

In today’s fast changing, distraction prone and achievement focused world, if the above three (purity of thought, self-restraint and way of right living) are NOT inculcated in the early years, we could start seeing self destructive behaviors become more rampant , eventually leading to our own extinction. Blame who you want today for what has already been created.  But we need to find a way to ensure these are inculcated early if we want to have a meaningful future.

“Mata – Pita – Guru – Daivam”  a often quoted phrase! I realised there is a reason for this order. It is only with what the mother, father and the teacher collectively give a child, can it realize and live life the right way. And it is on the foundation of this learning can the child on growing up  begin to understand his innate divinity. And it is only with the learning from these three can he even hope to realise SELF – or Daivam!

At some point in time we all would be playing atleast one of these roles in someone’s life. Let us understand our responsibility and do whatever is required to play it to perfection!

Vedantic Wednesday: Reflection and Anger

Last week I shared with you how becoming aware of your anger can be one method of anger handling.

The second method is one of reflection. This involves regularly spending time re-looking at various situations where you did not manage to maintain your poise. These should be done regularly in specified frequency till you gain control over yourself and your reactions. If you can reflect over your occurrences and reason, most often you will figure that what seemed like a really big problem was in fact too petty! In fact sincere reflection over past occurrences of anger episodes and trying to decode the reason for your anger can be quite embarrassing  You will be pretty much ashamed at yourself for the silly reasons over which you lost your cool.  But you must not stop here. You must make the understanding permanent, by adding a bit more understanding to yourself. At least the next time the same triggers come by, you start recognizing them and with recognition comes slowing down of reactionary response.

These two methods (awareness and reflection) are not permanent solutions to the problem. They are just a starting step in maintaining poise. They are starting steps to not allowing the triggers to upset your balance. They are attempts to make you more aware of your potential to lose your cool.  They are ways to allow your intellect to kick into action before your mind responds. The result of all this is you catching yourself early in the process of getting angry and thereby, reducing the harmful impact of its occurrence.

But how does one actually stop getting angry? Vedanta says, it is through the understanding of your desires. Anger is only an outcome of a disruption in the flow of your expectations, which are born out of your desires.  A very deep and typical Vedantic thought that seems complex on the face of it, but one that is really simple on deep reflection.

It is really difficult to internalize and practice. But it is definitely worth the attempt for us and our ecosystem!

Vedantic Wednesday: Angry but why?

People losing their cool is not uncommon these days. In fact what starts as a technique to get things done soon becomes a habit for many of us. People get angry over petty things. Little things are enough to spoil an entire day if not more. Why does this happen? Why do people get angry? What is the repercussion of getting angry?

If you read any piece of literature on Indian Philosophy you are bound to find that the root cause of all anger is the possibility of unfulfilled desires. If anything comes in the way of what we expect, the almost immediate outcome is agitation and anger. Most often the anger is diverted on the person / thing that comes in the way of your achievement or path. While the anger is justified what happens as a result of this expression of anger is  inflicting physical or mental hurt to an object/ person. This then serves as a trigger for one more person to react. This person (if he is not matured enough to understand that it is just a trigger!) then carries a seed of this effect and waits for the next opportunity to pass on this emotion – anger at another object / person.

This is very easy to understand. Just think back over the last few days if you have come across any person, spouse, parents, siblings, colleagues, bosses, clients, vendors, etc who at your slightest provocation or over a really petty issue, lost his/her temper and ended up speaking number of things he/she would have never intended to say? Almost always we come across situations like these and there may have been times where we have been that angry person!

Why get angry? Why spoil the mood of ourselves and others? All because things did not go according to our plan – according to our expectations! So apart from hurting all around us – which some of us realize the moment the anger leaves us, who is getting hurt the most? Us! Anger is said to hurt the immunity system of our body. One does not require scientific proof for this. Just look at yourself when you get angry next – you allow your blood pressure to rise, your heart beat rises, you sweat, your tremble, you expend energy unnecessarily, you lose your cool and do you think all these symptoms are taking place without any changes in your body?

So the next time something irritates you and you are getting angry, try to stop yourself and ask if all of the above physiological and psychological changes to the body and mind is needed at all? There are two fundamental ways to overcome anger and this I will share in the next Wednesday blog! Till then just think about the last 3 instances you got angry and lost your cool, and try to find the underlying reason for your anger! You will be in for some surprises!

Vedantic Wednesday: In the journey back home, earlier the better!

Almost every teacher of Vedanta, without exception, keeps harping on the importance of kick-starting your learning into spirituality at the earliest. Though this is told to us even at times in hard hitting ways, rarely do we make a beginning. Almost every attempt to make a beginning faces great resistance from various forces including:

•  Pressing priorities of life that takes precedence
•  The question of what will we get if we learn?
• The thought that people learn this only after retirement
• Friends think I am taking to it because I’m a loser in life

And so on…

None of these are reasons in the real sense, they are excuses! But I would say they are not even excuses. Why? Because, you make excuses to delay doing what you want to as you have other more important desires to fulfill. But in this case, do you even want to? Very often most people hardly understand what spirituality is for. Most people resort to religion as a last resort when all known options have been exhausted. So if we don’t understand the value of something, why will we even want it?

So when I asked one of these master’s why he keeps lecturing over and over again knowing fully well, most (if not all) come to his classes more as a stress buster than for real learning – his answer was: we are not sure which of the thoughts will trigger a thought process, on whom and when! So having acquired the knowledge and experienced the freedom that comes from putting it to practice, his job is to simply keep sharing. He has no expectations on how many will come, how many will learn, how many will seek more, etc. All he knows is that he has been ordained to share, and he will.

So, why is this emphasis on starting early? Because the more we interact with the world, the more desires and memories we accumulate. The more we accumulate the more there is to throw away. It is like a mirror which is accumulating dirt. The more dirt, the longer it takes to clean it. Hence the urgent call by all masters to understand what’s happening. So the effort to be taken is to listen to these teachers and sit back and reflect on the truth in what they are saying.  When we realize it, we must start taking steps to slow down, stop and change course.

It will be tough but it has to be done sometime. So why not now? The more the initiative, the most nature aids in catalyzing your process. So go ahead and think if you want to delay further the start of the journey back home.

Vedantic Wednesday: Growing and Ageing

There is a fundamental difference between ageing and growing. And it is important that we realise this not only for our spiritual well-being but also for our worldly living.

Ageing in any living and non-living thing is an outcome of passing of time.  Unlike matter that is insentient, living things undergo a lot more changes because of ageing.  Ageing is something that you do not have control on (despite the claims made by various businesses around anti-ageing)

However Growing is a choice that you have. You can choose the pace and the direction of your growth. You can choose the manifestation of growth.  It is this that distinguishes a human being from all other living beings. This ability to make a conscious call on the nature of his own growth. Something that a lion, a lizard or the mango tree cannot! However many of us do not spend our time in making and working on this decision.

Due to which the ageing and the growth process become out of synch.  You age without growing. This means while your instrument of physical body ages, the mind and intellect remains way behind in development. This leads to a lot of issues at individual and social level.

Sometimes we age and grow. But as this growth is not conscious, there is a lag between our physical growth and our mental and intellectual capabilities. We do not learn as we ought to from having been in existence for a certain amount of time. Our experiences pass our lives either affecting it terribly or without causing any positive impact. We become mere puppets in the hands of time. And very often feel purposeless towards the later part of ageing.

Both these situation leads us to become unhappy, angry, frustrated and helpless. We complain of becoming old.

Those who plan their growth consciously, work with a different agenda. They approach life with a constant urge to learn from it. Every input that comes as an experience is analysed and used to mature the mind and the intellect. This maturity is ploughed in to make the subsequent experience with the world that much better.  This constant nourishment of experience and maturity on each other is what defines healthy growing. This is when we age gracefully.

And this requires first an awareness that growth is a conscious choice, second a deep desire to grow and third the commiserative effort to grow.

Are we prepared?

Vedantic Wednesday: Life is an Art!

Have you ever seen a poet at work? A photographer? A musician? A painter? A sculptor? You will see a true representative of the above group – getting excited at the most mundane of things! They have a unique way of perceiving the routine happenings of the day and break into a rapturous practice of their skill.

A poet often claims he derives inspiration from nature. And nature does not change in the macro-manner every day. Once you see a flower bloom – you can scientifically say you have seen all flowers bloom.

But every time a flower blooms – a poet is inspired to compose a poem, a photographer is inspired to click a snap, a musician breaks into a rapture, a painter plays with his colours and so on… A childlike enthusiasm grabs them at every encounter.

What they see is the invisible divine hand that is shaping the act to perfection. If you search for that hand behind the work in every aspect of your day, you cannot help being surprised at the precision with which the orchestra of life is being played. You cannot fail to be enthralled by the scenes that unfold in front of you – for you.

Sounds far-fetched?

Many of us may have undertaken journey by air multiple times. We have gotten into the flight, settled into the smaller than required seats, and taken a book or paper with a passive acceptance of a routine journey.  This happens because we claim to have understood the act of taking a plane between destinations. Hence there is nothing new in this for us. But have we actually understood it all?

Do we know how the flight weighing tonnes is able to take off the ground? Do we know how with no signs in the sky we are navigated with precision between our destinations? Do we know how our aircraft pierces through the cloud cover? Do they break and reorganize? How the colourless water vapour give white color to the clouds? Why are they all not together but are hanging out in groups? Do we know how it would feel to touch the passing clouds?

A single flight holds so many questions. For few of these, science can give us the answer. But few of these will remain a puzzle – pure and unadulterated by worldly knowledge. When you allow this to come to your mind – you cannot help be touched by the splendour and beauty of what you are experiencing.  You cannot remain without being inspired. You cannot remain without feeling the thrill. And when you get inspired, when you feel the thrill  – your life becomes an art.

When you realize that what you don’t know will always be greater than what you will ever get to understand, you begin to live life as an adventure, stumbling upon amazing and endless discoveries. Every time the sun rises it brings to you a tickler – reminding you of the unseen hand at work. Every time you hear a bird sing, see a child play, feel the cool breeze – you stop to admire, appreciate and acknowledge the power beyond human comprehension.  You escape then the ‘Rot of Routine’ and embrace the ‘Thrill of first’

What do you think?

Vedantic Wednesday: SELF as Sakshi

We understand that SELF enlivens the inert body.  So in presence of SELF the body functions. Does work.  Does action. But what happens to SELF when we are sleeping? Does it sleep? This sounds as a pretty dumb question. But I did not have answer, rather I did not even have the thought of the question.

The impact of presence of  SELF on our body is – consciousness or awareness. From this consciousness or awareness results the actions of the body. The atman or self acts as a detached witness or observer all through the three states of consciousness that the body opts for – state of waking, state of dream and state of sleep. In the waking state our consciousness makes us aware of the external world, in the dream state, it makes us aware of the projected dream world and in the deep sleep state we become oblivious of both. In all three states it is the consciousness which makes us aware, thereby revealing itself as eternal knowledge.

All through these three states our SELF remains detached.  And this is why when every aspect of our understanding is recognized through thoughts – SELF is recognised through the SELF itself. A note on this earlier can be found in an earlier blog

Vedantic Wednesday: The Happy SELF

The nature of SELF is bliss or Ananda. This we can understand when we look at each of our activities in the world. We always work towards one need – the need to be happy. Consider a student, a mother, an industrialist or a social worker – they throw themselves at something in the world because they derive happiness from doing this.  Some of us seek happiness in activities that benefit us as individuals. Some of us seek the same happiness by doing service. If we can stop judging the ‘quality’ of happiness – we see that the only motivator behind all our actions is to seek happiness.

It is so true even with self destructive habits. When one becomes depressed and resorts to drinking, other abusive habits or when one even takes extreme step of suicide; these are motivated from moving away from situations that are NOT making one happy. Whatever be our state in the world – be it young, old, aged, diseased, etc, we all want to be happy. For some it is in health, for some in fame, for some in relationship, for some in other’s smile.

All our actions then seem to be aligned to the base nature of our SELF – happiness.  Then why are we feeling unhappy despite success? Why do we feel pressurised doing what supposedly gives happiness? Why do we feel incomplete?

It is because of our ignorance. We are ignorant of the fact that however we are today in the worldly context, as SELF we are at this point in time – complete, absolute and in state of Ananda. Forgetting this, in our ignorance instead of connecting with the happiness within us – we search for it outside.  In external objects.

Our ignorance makes us a victim of sensory enjoyments. As we try to appease each one of the sensory demands we realize our need to feel happy is not fulfilled. Over time the futility of this external search sets in. It weighs us down. It is only when we leave the external search for happiness and turn it inwards that we find eternal happiness or bliss. But for many of us it takes more than a lifetime to come to terms with this. We do not turn our search inwards. Till our last minute we attempt to grab the happiness that we feel is present in external objects, while from the very start we have it within us as  the absolute SELF.

It is easier written than believed. It is easier written than experienced. We cannot accept that a beggar on the road is as complete as the richest man when we look at the SELF that propels them. Our conditioning poses a lot of questions on the veracity of this claim.  It is difficult to understand the nature of the absolute when we operate in the realm of a relative world.

And this truth cannot be understood by any other means than individual anubhava or experience. Study of scriptures and contemplation on the lines of the principles within them will help us in directing our thinking inwards, will give us courage to break free of what we believe today is the truth!

 

Vedantic Wednesday: The Sunny SELF

Last week many people got back to me on the blog http://rajshankar.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/vedantic-wednesday-the-sun-and-the-soul/ identifying well with the analogy of the sun and the SELF.  As I was going through some texts this week – i stumbled upon another comparison between SELF and Sun. Not wanting to dismiss this stumble as coincidence, I felt I should share it with all of you.

All of us – whether we are on the spiritual journey or not, are always seeking happiness. Vast majority amongst us seek it in the external objects, few seek it internally and the rest are attempting to see inside while clinging on to the outside world. So what will make us see the SELF? What is it that will make us realise our true nature? Is it knowledge? Is it deep study? Is it meditation?

Nature of SELF by itself is knowledge. SELF is complete and indestructible. It knows what it knows and what it does not know. Using any medium to seek SELF is like trying to search for the Sun using a torch light.  You do not need anything other than the light of the sun to see it.  Similarly SELF  does not require any other instruments.  It is self-luminous. This is because the nature of SELF itself is knowledge. This capacity of SELF to reveal itself to us through a very personal and individual experience (bliss) without seeking the aid of any other piece of knowledge is called ‘SELF effulgence’.  This principal of absolute knowledge is call ‘Cit’

All other worldly and spiritual knowledge and texts can only take us to the extent that we are able to understand what is NOT this absolute. The last leap of discovery happens fueled by the SELF itself.  It is to reach this last but one point – we have to take the help of available knowledge.  And then when we are prepared, the SELF will reveal itself in all its pristine glory, illuminated by its own power and light!

Vedantic Wednesday: The Sun and The Soul

In a satsang last week –  a question was asked. And as the question came from the realm of the world – it seemed very practical, till the time the speaker gave the answer. The question was: ‘You say our Soul enlivens the body. Without Soul body cannot act. So all the acts of the body should be logically attributed to the soul. So soul should be responsible for the acts of the body – and in that manner get impacted. But you say at all times our Atman/Soul/SELF is complete and unblemished’

Not only was the person asking the question clear on his doubts, the way his doubts was phrased made us all start our own branches of questioning on these lines. Many of us felt we had the speaker foxed with a tough question.  Some had a small smile as they were mulling at the possible discomfort this question has created for the expert. And as always the master was also smiling. The answer that was given is what I am sharing below:

‘The body is made of inert elements. By itself our body is like any other mineral or matter. The closeness to the Atman is what enables the body to acquire sentiency and dynamism. However we cannot hold Atman responsible for the activities of the body. Also, though it is said that the Atman bestows consciousness and life, it cannot be treated as an activity of the Self.

This can be understood by a simple analogy.  By the virtue of being close to the sun, earth receives warmth.  The warmth and light trigger a lot of action on earth.  Sun bestows life on earth by its presence.  But can we say this is Sun’s duty? Can we hold the Sun for subsequent actions that happen on earth? Similarly the Atman enlivens the inert conditionings by its very presence. But it is external to all that happens in, of and through the body’

This conversation gave me some points to think around understanding better the difference and distinction between the transient body and timeless soul.

However it also taught me a far more valuable lesson – one that I am sure will help me in my further studies. As logical sceptics, we may have many queries. Our ego could lead us to believe that the query itself is an intellectual first of its kind. But let us not forget that sceptics and intellectuals have been around since the birth of Vedas. The deep wisdom born out of clear understanding was able to answer them then – answers us now and are sure to continue answering any questions that we pose in the future. While asking questions is key to learning – it gets completed only if we are willing to listen and contemplate on the answers. This is true for any study that we undertake – be it on science or be it Vedanta!