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? 

Pink Chaddi Campaign

A Review. 


I heard of the pink chaddi campaign a couple of days back and got an invitation on facebook to join the 'Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward women' which I rejected. I am happy to say that I am not pubgoing, I am not loose and I am not forward and I do not see the need to label myself any of the above to fight bully pseudo-moral tactics. I find the motive and the methods of this campaign completely disgusting and disrespectful to the spirit of  women. Where is the quality of fight and satyagraha? That such a cheap, disgraceful, petty act by a nobody in a corner of the world can cause a proportionately much much larger cheap, disgraceful and petty reaction by a large section of the urban-educated and internet surfing and online social networking woman population of the world just shows the quality of thought and response of us women. Wake up guys. We are making Muthalik! - Satish in a blog post, http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/dpsatish/237/53146/how-media-made-muthalik.html.   We are validating local goons and lending them voice and media space, http://indian-reflections.blogspot.com/2009/02/media-hurry-to-insert-taliban-into.html by our thoughtless reaction. In our hurry to react, we women have cheapened ourselves thoroughly and reduced it all to a media hungama and joke. 

We have reduced the problems and issues of "women in this country having enough curbs in their lives" to the selfish, individual, urban educated woman's problem and conflict of consuming alcohol, going to the pub and living the free life as a man can and would. Grow up! I live in an area of chennai which has mixed income groups, and do you know that women as much as men there get regularly drunk and then go about their work the next day. These are women who face back breaking work the entire day starting 3 -4 a.m., possible physical abuse from husbands and children alike, possibly have only tea for breakfast and lunch unless one of the houses where they work show them charity, slog on till 11 or so in the night and face grinding poverty themselves so that their children get educated and lead more comfortable lives. What does our bloody pink chaddi campaign mean to them? Excuse the horrible pun - I am furious and laughing at the same time. We are clueless about how the majority of women in this country are fighting their own satyagraha every day of their lives, notwithstanding all the development, all the NGOs, all the self help groups and the income generating schemes and all the media hype that they may have encountered. We are clueless about the real issues that are facing women in this country, whether it is the plight of single old women increasingly left homeless and family less in both urban and rural scenarios, or it is the pathetic situation of tens of thousands of widows in Vidharba because of the farmer suicides, or it is the sexual abuse of girl children or the issue of how India is the destination of foreigners who cannot bear children and so need proxy mothers who sell their wombs so to speak, and go away for 10 months lieing to the their families in order to bear the child in unmentionable conditions... or, oh! The issues are numerous if we want to respond, fight, take action. Or, if we wanted to discuss something more glamourous, we could even discuss the movie 'Fashion' and its sensitive and real portrayal of the conditions of women in the Fashion world. Instead, what do we do? We react, and decide to get down and dirtier than the 'enemy' and flaunt our soiled underwear to the world. (Exact words: "Look in your closet or buy them cheap"). Are we so curbed after all, having social networks to support us, having families to back us up when we decide to utter war cries, having access to technology, television and whatnot, indeed, having the luxury of choice of going to the pub or not?

I went into the Facebook group and looked at some of the discussions... and if anything I got even more furious. The selfishness, ignorance of issues and mediocrity of the conversation threads have to be read to be believed. Most of them do not stick to the issue at hand, leave alone raising it to have better understanding and give strong responses as the women community to pseudo moral elements in the country. 

What is our identity as women? What do we think are our strengths and weaknesses? What is our idea of feminism? What is our role as women in our own lives, in the lives of our near and dear ones and in society? Do not we as women have the freedom and strength to respond with dignity and imagination to bullying? And what methods do we use to do the same? These are all important questions to be answered at this time. There are so many issues and each has to be fought at different levels - individual, family, peer group, as the women of a community / society, as the better half of a nation and so on. There is no meaning in ballooning a small, petty local situation and make it a global issue and particularly in this manner. Should I blame the media? or Should I blame the internet technology? or should I blame us, the Foolish, Selfish, Individualistic, Educated, Internet surfing women of the world who have no sense of discrimination or no understanding of the tools of satyagraha, and have no understanding of our own power and freedom as women? 

We have not done anything to further our cause as women through such a 'campaign'. Campaign is not the word for it, it is an utterly ignominious, irresponsible and indiscriminate reaction on the part of one section of women (and supporting men) that is not at all representative of the women of this country and shows a completely disgusting and inaccurate picture to the world. 

I have the blessing of coming across many women who are true fighters, personally and at work all the time. Some of them have gone through intense personal struggles, ignoring the petty quarrels to win the wars, and come out trumps. These are the real women, real heroes and real feminists in my opinion. One such is here - http://www.samanvaya.com/main/fl-3rd-2005.html