Thursday, October 11, 2012

Life's Like This Too



Today's post is more of a personal journal entry than anything else. I had to share it because, well, life is like this. A blessing, and a perfect moment.
The night was pure torture. I simply wanted to sink into the oblivion of sleep and kept doing so. But the mosquitoes insisted on dragging me out of my heaven. Not just me, but my daughter as well. My 19-months old daughter is a trooper but even she can take only so far. So there we were scratching and slapping and tossing and turning, well into the night. The both of us. And I was also trying to insist that she go to sleep by patting and singing to her. I felt sure that she thought I was a nutcase.

I had had one of those melancholy conversations just before going to bed wherein one feels sorry for oneself and all that is happening to her. I had managed to put myself in a true blue funk. Life was an angry-sad sigh. Lying awake helped the funk along. Despite the mosquitoes.

This morning I got up drearily from my half sleep, and by sheer force of habit and a dogged will that I not lose my discipline yet again, pushed myself out of bed to do my asana and pranayama practice. My daughter had settled into an uneasy sleep and I check on her from time to time. One hour, the breath worked its magic, and I was ready to face the day.

Then one of my best friends brings me coffee right where I am and we sit down to a good old chat. A pleasant early morning breeze, two woodpeckers knocking away at a coconut tree, and a cruising lone crow give us company as we chat about books and work and indulge in some light gossip. 

By and by, my daughter's morning voice calls me, "amma-a" and I get my morning hug and cuddle. She is content to look at the world from my arms for the moment. I am content to have her there. And there is the sweet promise of the morrow bringing her father back into town with it. "Appa vanthu", as my daughter said today in anticipation of being with him.

Despite all that we make of it, life persists in being a blessing. All it needs is this perfect moment.

Monday, August 27, 2012

From Leo Babauta - How to Become Open to Life

I really liked the following article and hence sharing it here:

How to Become Open to Life

Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.’ ~Taisen Deshimaru
Post written by Leo Babauta.
In many ways, I close myself off to life in all its fullness. I close myself off to others, as a form of self defense.
It happens to all of us. When you left yourself open in the early part of your life, you likely would get hurt from time to time. That pain taught us to close ourselves off in different ways: don’t let others in, use humor to keep some distance, hurt others before they hurt you, back away from anything new, and so on.
I close myself off, and miss the world. I miss out on life when I do that.
And so I’m learning to become more open. It’s a slow process, but in many small ways I’ve learned a lot, and am much more open now than I’ve ever been.
What does it mean to be open? It means that I accept more of life without judgment, and am happier no matter what comes. It means I judge others less, criticize less, accept others more, and learn more about their wonderful particularity.
It means more than ever before I am fully experiencing life.
I’ll share a little about becoming open to life, and to others, in hopes that you’ll find it useful.
1. Judge less, accept more. It seems natural to judge others, but in doing so we close ourselves the truth about these people. The same is true when we judge all the things around us — we close ourselves to finding out more. If judgment is automatic, we should get off autopilot and be more conscious. When we notice ourselves judging, instead, pause, seek to understand, and then to accept. And then to love, and to ease suffering. We should let go of our expectations of everyone around us, and of the world around us, and accept people as they are, and see them as they really are. Does accepting mean we never change things? No, it means we don’t get upset, irritated, frustrated when things aren’t as we’d like them to be, but instead seek to ease suffering.
2. Let go of goals. Many of you know I’ve been experimenting with having no goals, but not everyone understands why. One of the biggest reasons is that when we set a goal, we limit the range of possibilities, because we are setting a fixed destination (the goal). For example, if you say, “I want to run a marathon in six months”, then you will focus your actions on the things it takes to get to that destination (marathon training). But what if someone asks you to go surfing when you’re supposed to do marathon training? Or a new race opens up that you didn’t realize would be there when you set your marathon goal — and it’s even better? If you remain fixated on your goal, then you’ll close yourself off to the surfing, or the new race. This is only one example — it becomes much more subtle (and less clear) when the goals are work goals, because the possibilities are so much broader and wide-ranging. I’m not saying you should never set goals (though that’s a possibility), but you should develop the flexibility to let them go depending on the changing circumstances of each day, each moment.
3. Recognize defense mechanisms. The defense mechanisms we build up over the years in response to painful experiences are many and varied. More importantly, we don’t realize they’re there most of the time, so they are automatic and thus powerful and hard to beat. So learn to recognize them. When you find yourself not doing certain things, ask why. Maybe it’s because you’ve had a bad experience in the past. When you find yourself hurting people, ask why. When you find yourself shutting people or experiences out, ask why.
4. Be like the sky. Suzuki Roshi had a great metaphor … the sky has substance (gases, dust, water), but it is open to accepting everything. This “empty sky” allows other things, like plants, to grow into it. Our mind should be like the sky — accept things as they are, not discriminating. By saying, “this is beautiful, this is not beautiful”, we reject some things. Instead, we can be empty. We can treat everything like it’s part of our big family. We can treat anything as if they were our hands and feet.
5. Watch your fears. Fears are the basis for our automatic defense mechanisms, and similarly, they have power when we don’t know they’re working, when they lurk in the backs of our minds in the dark. Fears close us off to others, to the world, to experiences. Watch your fears, by learning to be quiet, by listening to yourself talk in that quiet. Pay attention to the fears, shine a light on them, and they begin to lose their power. Then you’ll be freed to be open to new things, to anything.
6. Let go of control. We constantly strive for control — of others, of ourselves, of the world around us. Goals, planning, measuring our work, expectations and more — we try to control things in so many ways. Of course, we know that control is an illusion. It’s also a way of shutting out most of the world: if we can control the world, and the future, we are fixing the course of events … and shutting out other possible courses. What happens if we let go of that control? The possibilities open up.
7. Open hands. Walk about in the world with open hands. It’s a simple practice. Your hands are open, and they are empty, ready to receive the world and all that comes, as it is. Your hands aren’t closed,
‘Walking along the edge of a sword,
Running along an ice ridge,
No steps, no ladders,
Jumping from the cliff with open hands.’
~Zen verse

Friday, August 24, 2012

Satsangam

Satsang is usually the word used when people gather to hear a talk by a Swami / Swamin (what do we call a woman swami, besides 'mother'?), or a regular meeting of people reading / discussing religious / spiritual texts and matters. The word 'satsangam' means 'associating / union with good / truth' (sat + sangam). 

- There are some people with whom each moment spent or thought about is a satsangam. 
- One could feel, think and act in ways such that, as much as possible, it is satsangam for others to be with one. 
- This means that one needs to practice, practice and practice some more! 
- Sage Patanjali spoke about how such a practice should be in his Yoga Sutra (स तु दीर्घकाल नैरन्तर्य सत्कारादरासेवितो द्रुढभूमि: ।  - Practice, (which is the constant and repeated effort to remain with the object of focus) sustained for a long uninterrupted duration with the right mental focus and with conviction and devotion carried out in a proper manner becomes firmly established. (Verse 1.14)
- When such a constant and unyielding practice towards an ideal of satsangam is carried out, then it could be called satyagraha(!) which means 'holding onto truth'

The above were some of the thoughts that have taken some space since yesterday because we had a sudden satsang, and what a satsang it was. Swami Tyagananda is someone who is near to the truth of matters and even a short duration spent in terms of physical time space with him becomes timeless. I still remember an earlier satsang several years back when something he had said just stuck to me, and I had written about it in the introduction to this blog

He spoke a few powerful words yesterday, despite being jet-lagged and tired. They just have to be recorded somewhere and so here they are: 

1) Since he met my 10-month old daughter, the conversation naturally turned to children and growing up. So he shared this anecdote: A child is asked how old he was and he said that he was 5 years old. He was then asked how old his parents were, and he said "5!" much to the questioner's chagrin. Well, "they weren't parents before I was born, so they are 5-year old parents". As much as the child is new, the parents are new too!! This was such a new way of looking at the world from a child's perspective. 

2) He spoke of a book called Zen mind, the beginner's mind while talking about what it is to look at everything freshly, like a child. How many of us can look at that road, or the car on it, and look at it as if we are looking at it for the first time? How many of us can look at the same thing every time for the first time? Imagine, for that child, that car is altogether a new thing, she is looking at it freshly. Can we do that? 

3) Looking deeply into things led him to pointing at the table and asking, "what is this?" So we look at him dumbly, perplexed, and thinking, "Table, but of course! What about it?" Then, "isnt table a name and a form given to God? Isnt anything in the world a name and a form to identify it? What if we remove the name and form, dont we get God? This is knowledge blinding us. When we first see the table, God stands before us, however after that nanosecond, our knowledge puts the name and form on it and blinds us." This was a double whammy. 

So, what if we were to imagine all our categories as names and forms, and lump them all into one category called God, or Eternal bliss, or Light, or Self or Highest Source or whatever it is that one wants to call it. And teach students based on this category. What would we get? 



Monday, March 5, 2012

Two Heroes - One Legacy



Two leaders;
two giants of knowledge, work and compassion - both my heroes and having such uncanny parallels in their lives and message. And what a legacy of work and ideas they have built for us, independently and yet to my mind very much together.

India has had the very great blessing of experiencing these two personalities within the last 150 years.  They were contemporaries in a sense – there was just a gap of six years between them.  One was a political leader, and the other a monk. Both were intense patriots, but manifested their patriotism in their lives and work very differently.  What is striking is that amongst all the obvious differences, are the similarities, not just in their life experiences and some of their core qualities, but also in the fundamental truths that they saw and spoke about, and many a time even in expression.

Swami Vivekananda, born 1863, acquired a modern education, almost studied law, went abroad to spread the message of India, came back to serve his Motherland a public figure.

Mahatma Gandhi, born 1869, acquired a modern education, studied law in England, practiced abroad, struggled for an Indian movement in a foreign land and came back to serve his Motherland a public figure.

There are many points of difference in the way each one's education was acquired and the process of each one's making.  But the purpose of this piece is not to dwell on these as much as to look at what each one of them having made men of themselves, saw as truth and spoke.

Their patriotism was not ordinary. It was a different quality of patriotism that understood the faults and weaknesses of the land, but looked beyond, to the strength.  Indeed, 'strength' – a growing from within was something both emphasised constantly. Both Swamiji and Gandhiji did a Bharath Parikrama before the beginning of their major work in India. The parikrama gave each of them the knowledge and authority to say that his land is of immense Ideal and strength.  Neither failed to connect the people and their practice, to their own reading and understanding of the scriptures and shastras.  Another meeting point was their thorough reading of their own traditional scriptures.  We know from their lives how well-read each of them was in their own tradition.  What’s more, both of them acquired knowledge not just of their own tradition, but also of other cultures and civilisations.  Both of them mastered the intricacies of alien cultures as well and won many admirers, friends, followers from other countries and cultures as much as from their own land. 

However, neither was merely a man of books alone.  They thrived and learnt from life, living and people.  Each came into direct contact with his land, her strengths, weaknesses, diversity, oneness during his tour on foot across India's length and breadth. 

It is a fascinating combination of opposing forces that they worked with, or perhaps – worked on that "thin edge of a sword"[1] where the extremes met on a middle path and were balanced.  Each never stopped dwelling and speaking at length, of and about Ideals.  They thought, meditated, lived and breathed idealism; which is what made Swamiji say that he preaches the message of the Upanishads, "strength, a growing from within"; and made Gandhiji declare in almost the same words that the ultimate goal for each man is to reach the strength within himself – 'swaraj' or self-mastery as he called it.  Nothing is higher than this potential.  Neither was ready to lower this ideal to every day circumstances, but each was also intensely practical and looked at the smallest details in routine daily life worked to bring quality into each moment and action. 

This way, their own lives served as examples for their followers though differently.  On this point they differ that Gandhiji as a political figure sought to be completely transparent and hence explained in great detail every word and action of his; he wrote his autobiography, 'The story of my experiments with Truth'.  On the other hand the position of a monk who has renounced everything personal in the world, holds the highest regard and devotion in the Indian psyche – so Swamiji following the traditional path and emphasised the ideas that he preached rather than his own life, words, and actions.  His life as a lesson comes down to us only from his direct followers who were blessed enough to have heard of it from the original source.  He himself only talked and wrote of ideas, Indian tradition and her path.  Here, we see one of the very core values of India that both saw and declared the place of religion in Indian life and movement. 

The very essence of Swamiji's teaching is Religion, i.e. moving Godward.  He said that each country had a goal and that of India is religion, i.e. renunciation.  Gandhiji constantly maintained in the very same vein that each civilisation had a purpose and Indian civilisation was not excess, but a giving up of wants, and that without religion, or the central thought of God, any life/work stream of India would be valueless, unethical, moral-less, lifeless.  Both advocated religious education should start at a very young age towards the overall development of the individual. 

The development of the individual is a significant meeting point for these two Teachers.  Both talk of the individual and how all growth start from within him.  Neither stops there.  Swamiji said, how if each individual tries to manifest the strength (divinity) within him, we will have a society and nation full of noble struggle and achievement.  Gandhiji takes off on the same note, and brought forth his concept of the oceanic circles, i.e. how the strength of each individual radiates outward to become the strength of the village – and so on to the strength of the nation.  This is no different from Swamiji's, 'Expansion is Life'.

Even with respect to an individual's conviction and commitment to one ideal, they both paid allegiance to "Truth", and both saw their work as their Truth.   Swamiji had an "uncompromising regard for Truth" even from his childhood and intensely sought to discover the ultimate truth all truths, with which you would know the self, the world and all creation.  He also simultaneously spoke of how the greatest philosophical truths can be found in the practical spirituality of ordinary people and ordinary things. 

We find Gandhiji declaring his life to be a "story of his experiments with truth" – and always struggling for an intangible, unseeable abstract truth.  And he continues to say till the end that he "worships the God that is Truth or Truth which is God through the service of his millions", and that he "recognises no God except the God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb millions"  It awakens the same chords of response, as when one reads Swamiji's "would you worship the shiva in the images and temples alone? Worship and serve the shiva in his poorest and weakest children." This unshakeable devotion to Truth makes both of them be seen as rebels in their younger days.  Both challenged blind conventions, and persistently resisted the status quo if it was for nothing but the mere virtue of being status quo for years or centuries, in their own ways.  This challenge to conventional, dogmatic beliefs continues all their lives for both of them. 

It was not of their lot to acknowledge defeat, but to throw down the gauntlet every time.  Each rose with a challenge every time he encountered blind, empty ritual, conventional thought without meaning and fanaticism.  And yet, we find that both were the friendliest of people.  Both were brilliant conversationalists with quick ready wit and humour, and overflowed with compassion.  (Both of them also had sharp sarcasm ready at hand to use if needed).  It is said of each of them that he had a Mother's heart, the tenderest of hearts.  But for their own purposes, both kept it away from public view and under a veil of intellect.

Digging deeper into the friendliness and compassion, we find each one's ability to synthesise and harmonise contradictory thoughts and belief systems and function from common denominators.  Both, Swami Vivekananda and Gandhiji could bring together people with extreme viewpoints and beliefs to work together based on common ideals.   

This synthesis of ideas and a deeper insight into the nature of things that they shared, also extended to their ideas on the East and West, their respective values, strengths and weaknesses.  They differed on the point of expression in that, one was a political leader and saw in the West a system of force and civilisation, a tangible enemy to the well-being of his countrymen, and the other, a monk who deliberately kept away from politics and began at the points of strengths of every entity, be it individual or nation.  Brilliant is how each could relate profound philosophical concepts to everyday routine activity and bring them closer to practical life, and their very same idea of the Means and Ends of action - wherein both maintain that one is the same as the other, there is no separation. 

In the sphere of ideas, a very significant relevant meeting of these two great men is their vision of India and her work in the world.  Both saw India as the harmonising force of the world, as the teacher of religion (a godward movement) and Ahimsa (love) to the world.  Not a theoretical or bookish religion that would dry up social life and activity, but a strong, vibrant, active religion, or spirituality, the essence of which would reverberate in every sphere and activity of this land.  Herein, lies our lesson and how well we are able to stand on the towering strength of our own legacy, be prepared to take it on, learn from it, strengthen it, add to it and act on it.    


[1] In the words of Mahatma Gandhi

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Meeting Bombay Jayashree and Nataraja on Thiruvathirai Morning

Romance and motherliness. Do they seem irreconcilable concepts? Not to the author of this piece.

Romance is that space and journey in a nuanced dimension, where each moment is a koan, and every action is a search for truth. Motherliness is that state of being where every koan is realised and there is only truth, nothing else. There is no 'I' in either.

She is Music's consort as well as it's mother. Listening to Bombay Jayashree is an experience of devotion and divinity. Especially in a "Prabhata Sangeetam" environment (similar to chamber music, but particularly in the morning - dawn). A Shringeri Mutt devotee-family organises Prabhata Sangeetam in their house every December season, and BJ transported her listeners to a realm of Bhakthi and I-lessness, this morning. All the musicians (BJ, the violinist and percussionist/mridangam) as well as the accompanying girls on the tamburas performed in muted tones, perfectly resonating with the time and ambience. We were about 40 - 50 people sitting in the hall (drawing room) of the house, lighted only by about 60 - 65 குத்து விளக்குs (oil lamps - oil fired floor lamps) made of brass, in the presence of Venkateswara, Shiva, Sharada and Krishna.. The unwavering flames found an answering stillness from within. Her voice and singing has that unnameable quality that turns the attention inward - the yoga sutra prescribes the path in painstaking stages to reach 'pratyahara' - a withdrawal of the senses from the external world to move on to dhyana and samadhi thereon. Here, we were all immersed in one sense (of hearing), but even that was only an instrument for something deeper. It was only when the electric light was switched on that I felt my painful knee and that the mosquitoes were making a meal out of me!

She sang songs on Sharada and Shiva (today is Thiruvathirai, a day special to Lord Nataraja - Rudra). Her planned last rendering was Sarvam Brahmamayam ('everything is Brahmam'), but on a request followed it with a தாலாட்டு (lullaby) for the Bala Tripurasundari invoked in her image there ('bala' in sanskrit means child, 9-year old child goddess). If ever surrender to the lord (wherein there are two) and the sense of oneness of creation (where there is only One) felt but one and the same, it was during those moments.

The blessing of those moments continued into the morning. Lord Shiva, whose special day it is today (one of the legends has it that Sage Patanjali and Vyagrapada prayed to Lord Nataraja and he danced the Tandava-cosmic dance for them on this day) decided that I should visit him. I met my mother while returning from the concert, and since she was going to the Appar Swamy Koil (temple), suggested that I accompany her. Though not much of a temple-goer, I went along with her. In the temple, she jogged my memory about today's speciality and told me a couple of stories including the one above - my satsanga for the day! (As children we have listened to several stories from Hindu mythology and culture including those of every festival in the year). She also got me mouth watering prasad from the temple, then gave me களி that she'd made and sent me on my way.

A morning of worship, food for the stomach and food for the soul. I am complete.