Towards a Wholesome Life

We have often heard it said that the world is wide. As we all know, its metaphorical meaning is that there are plenty of opportunities for people to explore and bring about good living. Those to whom that adage makes sense apply themselves with confidence and, sooner or later, allow a spirited career to blossom in their lives.   However, there are many who make sincere efforts and are still in doldrums, not to speak of those who don’t even make those efforts.  So, people who reflect on these issues come up with an enquiring mind. Some questions like the following arise:

 1.      Is there a fundamental cause in the way human beings live that brings

          mediocrity and shallowness to life?

 2.     Can one apply oneself to that cause and hence change the process so that

          it not only adds vibrancy to one’s life, but also becomes a catalyst for others           

          to lead a wholesome life?  That wave of deep feeling and respect for others

          can spread and engulf the whole world.

            An investigative approach based on questions like the ones above usually helps us bring about an in-depth, well-ordered and useful life.  A problem is that such investigations may turn out to be merely intellectual and verbal in nature – the ‘introspective’ type.  They make barely a scratch on the surface and do not touch the core of our being.  Thus, they fail to produce any fundamental change.  That being so, is there any other approach?  There seems to be a totally different one that can give us a helping hand in sweeping away the cloud.  It can be termed the non-verbal contact with life. This may sound unclear to some people at the beginning.  An attempt is made in the following paragraphs to clarify some points regarding this esoteric theme.

            Our thought process during the waking hours is primarily through words and symbols.  This habit alienates us from being in direct contact with what we are experiencing.  An issue that acts as a retarding force on this unhealthy process is the simple self-awareness. Those interested in understanding the total process of life, body and mind, beyond the accepted clichés and verbal knowledge, see the need and value of the non-verbal contact with them.  This perception takes such people potentially to an unconventional region of awareness.  They discover a contact with their Deeper Being and limitless goodness in that non-verbal state.  Usually, conventional human beings make that kind of non-verbal contact only under crisis situations – situations of intense fear or shock.  However, those who understand the potentiality of self-awareness move frequently during the waking hours into that word-free state of mind.  This state is not one that thrills the ego; in fact, the ego sees it as a threat.  Thus, religious sentimentalism and the associated ego-boosting states of mind have nothing to do with this movement towards the Inner Being.       

            

The inwardly moving direct-awareness is a matter of going beyond the thought created ‘I’ that thrives on the verbal approach to life.  Once we appreciate the non-verbal state of awareness, the inward journey sustains itself and our outlook on life takes a radical shift towards recognizing the sacredness of all manifestations.  Simultaneously, we also see how the externalized state of mind causes us to move away from Divinity. In other words, there is a feeling of impoverishment of the soul.  When the mind is externalized, even though it may practice a religion, it remains absorbed in its own self-centered activities. That is why there are the exclusivist attitudes and conflicts in the name of religion. 

            If you thus become deeply aware of your own mind’s insistence on the verbal approach to life and the resulting externalization, then the mind becomes extraordinarily quiet without any effort. It is this freedom from any strain due to effort that helps us sense the beauty of the non-verbal contact with life.                                

            Now, as you were reading the above lines, a silence would have come into you imperceptibly because of your inquisitiveness and the interest with which you were reading the lines.  A deep passivity characterizes this mental state.  It has the capacity to cure everything.  It is good to sense the potency and sacredness of this passivity and leave it alone.  Like an honored guest, it will then visit us at its own time.   It helps us move closer and closer to the non-verbal contact with life.  DOs and DON’Ts have no roll to play in this inner transformation.     

             Here we may digress a little by mentioning a cartoon by the humorist RK Laxman.  The scene is one of a mountainous region with successively rising peaks and valleys.  An American, presumably one attracted by the Indian spirituality, wearing a hat and carrying a mountaineering kit, keeps climbing. At some altitude, he finds an ascetic with white hair and beard sitting in meditation.  Next to the ascetic is the inevitable brass vessel with water as also the wooden hand-stand that signifies an Indian hermit.  The American sits next to him in all humility and asks him something.  The hermit responds: “How to find peace?  How can I tell you?  I myself am an American.”! 

      The point is that, taking the inward journey does not mean that the person becomes an ascetic in the conventional sense of the word.  It means an inward asceticism that does not in any way dilute a healthy practical life.  On the contrary, it helps one apply oneself spiritedly to all aspects of life.  That is how joviality and mirthfulness too find a place in it.  Such comprehensive attention brings about care for oneself and others and leads to wholesome living.                  

Unloading the Debris from the Mind

We carry a lot of unnecessary mental load because of the habitual running of thoughts which keeps us heavily externalized.  Just understanding how this process traps us is enough to start unloading.  An affectionate bystander attitude is all that is needed.

As one goes ahead with this process of unloading, it takes him or her along an interesting journey into oneself.  Generally people are not interested in this because they are hooked on to chasing something that gives them the feeling of getting somewhere, being somebody etc.  The true joy of life is lost when the present is sacrificed for the sake of the future.  This mental habit keeps people under its thumb like a juggernaut.  Seeing what a poison it is, some people move into what may be called the Natural Meditation.  This meditation is not based on any technique but on the understanding of the tyranny of thought.  It is just like learning how to swim.  The first steps in swimming, which is essentially a matter understanding the buoyant forces of water reflexively, are learned through a quiet contact with water.   We cannot say, ‘I am afraid of drowning; let me learn swimming and then enter water’. The same way, Natural Meditation too is learned through a direct dip into self-awareness - awareness of how self-interest keeps one’s habitual mental movements running and, in the process, creating the burden that we carry unnecessarily.   Once we sense this, the movement of freedom begins, releasing oneself from the burden.  This helps us glide into our inner region where we understand the true joy of living.  The beauty of it is that it does not lead to any kind of ascetic life, a life in which one is supposed to deny ordinary pleasures of life.  In fact, one becomes cheerful and mirthful to the point of loving everything one does.  There is a strange combination of seriousness in fulfilling one’s responsibilities and a laid-back attitude that helps one drop off the idiotic load that millions of human beings carry so unnecessarily.

More on Natural Meditation is covered in the website http://spirituality.yolasite.com  You can also communicate with me via the email gopal.tc@gmail.com

Peacefulness vis-a-vis Happiness

One of the important items that a majority of people do not seem to pay attention to is  the place peacefulness has in our lives vis-à-vis the place of happiness.  Peacefulness results from understanding, caring and maturing while happiness is usually tagged on to ego-satisfaction.  The problem with ego-satisfaction is that it always leads to chasing something that is missing and is rarely linked to ‘count your blessings’ type disposition in life.  Thus, unhappiness results, leading to defeatist attitudes and self-incrimination – in short, to a ‘peaceless’ state of mind.    

In contrast, discovering how peacefulness comes along is an avenue available for all; it is not dependent on circumstances, success etc.  We do not train our children to look in that direction.  On the other hand, we train them to conform to the neurosis of the society and to fall into success-worship and the associated rat-race.  Working for success is not a wrong thing but success-worship is a different matter.  If we can help our children lead a peaceful life, success will come of its own accord and then it will be wholesome; will not lead to megalomania.  But that is possible only if we ourselves understand the value of peacefulness as against the conventional approach of chasing ego-satisfaction.  When we care for peacefulness, the joy of applying ourselves to various demands of life becomes more important than overemphasizing the reliance on results and the associated satisfaction.  That joy is linked to the love with which we handle things and the self-awareness involved in it.  It engenders empathy as a concomitant factor and so there would be no “stepping on others’ toes”, as it would happens while chasing ego-satisfaction.  That leaves others to be peaceful too!     

In the interest of helping our children grow into peaceful human beings, it is imperative that we guide them from childhood to differentiate between caring for peacefulness and chasing happiness that is tied to results.  Though this is easier said than done, every inch of movement in that direction is a boon to the child as well as to the society.  That way it is possible to bring about a caring humanity and a wonderful world of peace and harmony in which success too will have its rightful place.                   

 

Synergism of Mental Energies – A Movement towards Holistic Living

When the energy elements are in helter-skelter form, they lack the synergistic effect. It is a pity because so much more can be achieved with synergism; sad that our noisy mental state, lacking polarization, fritters away the much needed energy.

Let us consider an iron piece before and after magnetization.  In the non-magnet, the internal elements (which are tiny magnets) are thrown helter-skelter with regard to their north-south polarity.  The result is that opposite poles are randomly arranged and so they cancel each other and the net magnetic effect is zero.  During magnetization, those elements are aligned by the magnetizing force such that their directions are polarized.  Here the small internal magnetized elements are aligned and at the ends of the bar there is concentration of the same polarity.  That is how the bar becomes a magnet with pronounced opposite poles at the ends.

   The analogy here is that our mental elements are also, in general, aligned in a haphazard manner.  When polarized, they function in a synergistic way and make the mind respond with some orderliness.  Waste of mental energy is avoided.  With deep interest in self-awareness, polarization takes place in our minds and, to that extent, we feel peaceful. Increased mental orderliness ushers in confidence.  Such unhealthy habits as smoking, drinking etc do not bother those in whom there is polarization.  Addictions cannot enslave such a mind. One keeps clear of the negative things without any effort. 

    The un-polarized mind hits physical health too. Correspondingly, when the mind is polarized, bodily illness becomes rare.  This is one area where effects are seen fairly early in one’s application.    

    Mental polarization is followed by convergence of the energies towards the Inner Being.  This situation augments the mental silence.  The state of mind becomes conducive to discovering what lies beyond the apparent. Vibrancy resulting from the convergence adds a spiritual quality to our daily lives. 

Website: http://spirituality.yolasite.com

   

The Inadequacy of the Verbal Approach to Living

People who are no longer stumped by the apparent issues of life understand the shortcomings of the verbal contact with life.  To them, there is a whole new universe that opens up.  The vast majority of human beings, though, are unaware of this truth and they allow themselves to be controlled by the verbal associations with the experiences in life.  The following paragraph taken from the Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra says something in that direction:

“The Eastern mystics, too, are well aware of the fact that all verbal descriptions of reality are inaccurate and incomplete.  The direct experience of reality transcends the realms of thought and language, and, since all mysticism is based on such a direct experience, everything said about it can only be partly true.  In physics, the approximate nature of all statements is quantified and progress is made by improving the approximations in many successive steps.  How then do the Eastern traditions deal with the problem of verbal communication?”

Capra answers this question in a detailed way in his book. We can also chip in here.   One answer can be based on the region of intuition whose power is far greater than the merely logical mind that relies on the verbal approach.  The pointer here is that those who understand the limitations of all belief systems move on to the inner awareness where the non-verbal contact with life rules the roost. That region is free of religious and other conditioning.  People who wish to lead a vibrant life sooner or later move into that zone.       

Some Avenues for Reflection towards ’Know Thyself’

Some Avenues for Reflection towards ’Know Thyself’

Modern Science & Mysticism – Understanding their convergence augments inner peace

Modern Science & Mysticism – Understanding their convergence augments inner peace