BE A VOID AND LET GOD IN

I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was naked and you clothed me; I was homeless and you took me in.

Matthew 25:35 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and theologian, used to go early in his life, to pray in a church.


Soren Kierkegaard
After some time he was struck by the incongruity of hijacking all the allotted time, leaving no time for God to say His piece. He, thereafter, stopped praying but felt all the same queasy on discovering that deep down he was still talking. Ergo, he entered into a pact with himself to become all ears so he would catch God's voice and listen to it. One day a great silence descended upon him and thenceforth he gave up going to church, for good. Asked to comment, he replied: To be that Self which truly I am I need no midwife.

It will do us immense good if we take a leaf out of Kierkegaard's book and try to understand the syllogism involved. The major premise obliges us to correct an aberration in us in order to make us eager listeners instead of compulsive speakers, at least when the stakes are so high. Doing away with the houses of worship is a minor premise. So the conclusion one draws is that God is always available on tap everywhere, if only, we become silent and listen to Him.

The onus is on us, the promise, enticing; and the process, apparently quite simple. What then is the stumbling block ? Mind, I would say. If we scrutinize our mind at any given time, we will be surprised to note that we are either ruminating or fantasying. That is to say, we either happen to be in the past or in the future, but never-- I repeat never-- are we to be found present in the present. While munching at a pretzel, or watching a bud crack open, or riding a hobbyhorse, well, we are missing from the scene. We happen to be on one of the far ends, the past or the future, but never in the middle, in the present, while it is the present that holds the key to nirvan. So long as we remain committed to the past, and captivated by the future, our present will remain burdened with doubt and pain.

Why do we fall for future promises ( the past was also future at one time ) ? Because we love chasing rainbows. A jerk is all that is needed to haul us out of the dream state into the present. To stay put in the present, nothing is to be done, just a look is needed-- a look without any expectation, without any distinction, without any evaluation, without a whisper of manipulation. We have simply to witness the dynamics of the scene. Yes distance yourself from that which you are watching.

One day the unbelievable happens: thinking stops, mind and ego drop off, a silence engulfs us, and pure consciousness, in the form of bliss bubbles up. As we accept life in its totality, we cross into the realm of a thought-free awareness. The most important mission of our lives being manumission, it entails that we live, love, and die in this illuminated state. Without this enlightening awareness, the present becomes miserable; love painful; death ugly. Let us therefore strive to be present in the present because the present is a priceless present to us from God.The past is buried in history, the future lies frozen in mystery; it is only the present which is emancipatory.

The Japanese, as heirs to the Zen culture, have a word for this state of being in the present--muga (literally, present moment awareness). Muga is a correlative of mu (nothingness), as it is from the timeless and the spaceless nothingness that the world of space and time has come into being. Muga can be attained by way of mu only, the reason why we rise above space and time while trying to stay in the present. Whenever we are consciously into something, we cross over to the state of mu and something of the beyond starts working through us. Wu, a Chinese emperor and disciple of Bodhidharma, underlined the importance of mu by building a temple at Shaolin, which is completely empty.

Dear readers, I intend to give you a rehash of a beautiful story Two Old Men by that inimitable story teller Count Leo Tolstoy. I feel it will take you where I wish you to be, in an easier and interesting way. Efim and Elisha are the two old men of the story, fine specimen of simple peasants from the Russian countryside. Both had large families, sons and grandsons living together with them. Efim had even married off a grandson.Both were hardworking and peaceable, and had a clean record to look back to. Efim was well off, hale and erect, with a long beard. Elisha was neither rich nor poor, rather short of stature with a black curly beard, and a bald pate.

They had once vowed to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, together. Efim had been postponing it on one pretext or the other for a long time. First it was his grandson's marriage, then it was his youngest son's return from the army. Now he said he was busy building a new hut. Efim was very much a man of the world, like any one of us. He was busy all the time crossing his t's and dotting his i's.

Elisha, on the other hand, was a man of cheerful disposition and was more concerned about matters of the soul. There is nothing more precious than the soul, he intoned in a bid to persuade Efim, to fulfil the vow. When Efim came up with a new excuse of having empty pockets, Elisha gave the lie to his fabrication. Said he: you have ten times as much as I, and yet you talk about money. About himself he was sure that though he had nothing at the time, he would have enough by then(the time they start).

After a lot of deliberations, Efim finally gave in. They decided to start on the journey, a week later. Efim had money ready at hand. Elisha scraped it up selling some of his hives. His wife and daughter in law also contributed to the kitty. On the appointed day, they were seen off at the edge of the village, by their respective families. It was to be a long and arduous journey, on foot upto Odessa, a substantial distance that will take them months to cover, then by ship to Jeffa, and again on foot for forty miles to Jerusalem. Efim's heart lay back in his household cares. He was overwary of his son, should he squander his hard earned wealth, in his absence. At one point he almost wanted to turn back.

Elisha journeyed on in a rejoicing mood. He had assured his wife: You are the master and will know how to do what's best for yourselves. Presently, his only care was how to please his comrade, how to avoid saying a rude word to anyone, how to get to his destination and home again in peace and love. Walking along the road, Elisha would either whisper a prayer to himself or go over in his mind the lives of the saints as he was able to remember. His only other diversion was taking a pinch of snuff, now and then. In the first leg of their journey they covered 500 miles in five weeks. They then entered Little Russia, which nowadays goes by the name of Ukraine. Their homemade shoes were worn out by then and they had to replace them by new ones.

While they travelled through Great Russia, they had been buying their own food, but in Little Russia, people vied with each other in asking them to their huts where they were fed gratis. They even stuffed their bags with bread and cakes, for them to eat on the road. However, shortly afterwards they reached a district where the harvest had failed and people were driven to abject misery. While making their way through a village, Elisha who was not as good a walker as Efim, wanted to stop for a drink of water, but Efim would not. So he said to Efim: You go on, but I'll just run to the little hut there. I will catch you up in a moment.

While Efim followed the high road, Elisha turned towards the hut. As he entered the enclosure of the hut, he saw an emaciated young man lying on the ground, outside the door of the hut. He asked him for a drink of water but got no response from him. Elisha then knocked at the door of the hut with the ring that served as the door handle. After sometime, which appeared quite  long to him, all that he heard was a groan. Dear me, some misfortune must have happened to the people ? I had better have a look, he said to himself and turned the ring. The door was not locked. He entered the hut.

He was met with a blast of foul air. An old woman sat on a bench with her head laid on the table, while a gaunt little boy pulled at her sleeve. On the floor lay a semi-deliriant woman tossing her legs. The foul smell came from her, as there was no one who could help her. The old woman lifted her head and said, What do you want man ? We have nothing. Elisha told her that he had come there for a drink of water. There is no one--no one--we have nothing to fetch it in. Go your way, he heard her saying. Is there no one among you, then, well enough to attend to that woman ? demanded Elisha. No, we have no one. My son is dying outside, and we are dying in here, said the old woman. The little boy whined: bread, granny, bread.

By then, the old woman's son had managed to stagger into the hut and unable to hold himself, slumped in a heap by the door. Illness has seized us, and famine, said the man. Pointing towards the little boy, he said: He is dying of hunger...and began to sob. Elisha pulled the knapsack off his back and put it on the bench. He untied the strings and took out a loaf of bread. He then cut off a slice and gave it to the boy. By then his sister who had crept behind the stove on seeing a stranger, also came out. Elisha gave one to her. When he gave one to the old woman, she said their mouths were parched. If only some water could be brought.

Elisha immediately went out and brought a pail full of water, after gaining information about the well and the pail. The young man and his wife, were too sick to eat bread. Elisha, therefore, went to the grocer's shop and bought some millet, salt, flour, and oil. He found an axe, chopped some wood, and made a fire. Then he boiled some soup and gave the starving people their first meal in weeks ! Yes, when they had pledged their 3 acres, and were in debt of money, flour, and bread, they begged, scraped food, and finally started eating grass, which is what gave the man and his wife sickness, Elisha was to learn later on. 

The man and his mother ate some and the rest was licked clean by the children, who curled up and fell asleep in each other's arms, soonafter. Elisha gave up the thought of catching up with Efim. Instead he thought of replacing cooking utensils, clothes, and rations. He would wait for the family to pick up strength, so they could look after themselves, he mused. Children were the first to recover, then the old woman and her son also improved, but the wife gained consciousness only on the third day and then she asked for food. The fourth day happened to be St. Peter's day. Elisha thought of breaking bread with the family. So he brought milk, and flour, and helped the old woman bake for the feast. On the feast day, Elisha went to church, and then broke the fast with the family. The young wife got up and moved about, and the young man shaved and put on a clean shirt, washed by his mother, and went to beg for mercy from the rich man. He wanted permission to use his meadow and farmland till after the harvest, but the rich man didn't relent. He wanted money.

Elisha had thought of moving out after the feast. But now he became thoughtful. If he left them halfway, the family would slide back to the state, he had found them in, without the cornfield. So he told himself: Tomorrow I will redeem their cornfield, and will buy them a horse, and flour to last till the harvest, and a cow for the little ones; or else while I go to seek the Lord beyond the sea I may lose Him in myself. This is what he did and then turned back to his home, as there was not enough money left for him to continue on the journey. The present is only an interface between the past and the future. So there is no elbow room for vagrant thoughts to enter into. To be present in the present is to become silent and descend into the very depths of our being. Osho encapsulates the whole purport beautifully :

Be silent and know
You've nowhere to go.

Om Shantih

Ajit Sambodhi

COUNT YOUR BREATHS

Recently I received an e-mail from my youngest daughter. She is the most vivacious of my four daughters, which in a way, is good for me. Whenever I intend to slouch under the pretense of advancing age, she gives me a shake, in her own way. This time it is in the form of an e-mail. She writes: I have been thinking these days that if we let the things the way they are, instead of fighting for our rights / the way we want things done / our personal views etc., is this wrong?...It will be easier to just sit back and let things happen. I had sent her a muted response, though in my heart I knew it needed elucidation because it is a question that touches upon everybody's life.

Walter Bradford Cannon, an American physiologist  had defined fight/flight/freeze as the reflexes of an animal in times of threat. All these are kneejerk responses acquired out of the compulsion of living insecurely all the time, with predators. They hold good for us also, because a part of us is still animalistic. Though we live securely in our homes, without any threat from predators, there exists a lurking fear in our subconscious, perhaps as a remnant of the past, when we too lived without the walls of safety around us. As part of a species that is still evolving, it is indispensable for us to understand the mechanism behind the reflexes of fight/flight and freeze , so that we may  upgrade our choices.

Fight/flight/freeze are all parts of a strategic reflex. I am tempted to call fight/flight, a kind of reactive reflex or re-action, in short. In a similar vein one can experience the state of freeze, which may be called  retro-active reflex or retro-action, in plain English. My daughter is at a loss to understand whether she should fight back or sit back, if she finds herself in a spot. That is to say whether she should re-act or retro-act, in a quixotic or prickly situation. It is in no way less than a Hamletian dilemma. In this article I intend to put forth some popular approaches which aim at finding a resolution of this most common conflict, that overwhelms most of us, most of the time.

Edward de Bono, the Maltese physician, author, and inventor, introduced the concept of lateral thinking in 1967. He summarized his concept in the maxim: you cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper. This is another way of saying that you have to change your antiquated concepts and perceptions, by getting rid of your conditioned responses. As the epithet lateral suggests, you have got to sidetrack the banal, as if it didn't exist, to usher in the fresh and the creative. So according to de Bono, instead of falling back into the timeworn ruts of re-action, and retro-action, one must charter an innovative way to resolve the crisis. 

In total contrast to this approach, the Hegelian Dialectics aims at bringing the two opposite poles together, and strike a balance between them. Hegel calls the proposition, thesis, and its antipode, antithesis. Resolution comes in the form of a synthesis of the two. There is no question of either/or. You are not supposed to choose one against the other. The resolution must come out of keeping the elements of both sides in mind. You cannot drop either of the two. Ergo, it is obvious that for the resolution to come about between re-action and retro-action, what we need to seek is the common ground between the two. So we sideline the prefixes re- and retro- and vote for action. It will be a kind of pure action, devoid of any devolving ligatures.

We don't have to re-act, nor do we have to retro-act. All that we have to do is act. That will constitute our action. Here it will be obligatory to know what we understand by action, or more strictly, by pure action. Imagine a pair of scales having re-action in one pan and retro-action in the other. When the beam shows no deflection, it means, it is centered at the fulcrum. The fulcrum is the point of rest. It appears to be actionless, but still it is performing the actionless action of balancing re-action against retro-action. It is tilted neither towards re-action, nor towards retro-action. It is established in itself. This is pure action, that is, action without re-action or retro-action. Pure action is action on itself; rather, action by itself.

When we are close to our true self, pure action happens. When we are close to our ego self, re-action or retro-action happens. Being close to one's true self is called being awake, or being in meditation. To be in meditation mode does not necessarily mean to sit alone and close one's eyes for a particular length of time. We can be in a meditative state any time and all the time. With a little awareness it can become our natural state, just as the strategic state has become natural to us. We don't have to do any stratagem to stay in the strategic mode. We just work that way. So also we don't have to do meditation  to remain in a meditative state. Let me tell you how.

Scientists say that there are large voids in the multiverse. Every moment new universes are born out of those voids, as the old ones vanish into them. So also there are voids inside each one of us. To slip into one of those voids gives us the taste of meditation. Indira Gandhi, one of the most powerful woman of her time, who was loved and loathed, feared and adored, like that other powerful woman, HPB, reminisces about these voids in her memoirs, Remembered Moments. She writes: I have always felt that within you, within a person, you have such voids, and you can retire into them without disrupting yourself. You may be doing anything. You may be having a conversation or you may be in a crowd. But if you want to retire into yourself, you can retire and you can do almost anything you like...that is why you can't get tired because you are automatically relaxing yourself. 

Perhaps without being aware, she has given a fine elucidation of the meditative state. As such we don't have to fight back or sit back. We have  simply to roll back to our original space. Call this space your heart, your God, your void, or your inner sanctum sanctorum. When we are in that space, there is no conflict within us. We are at peace with ourselves. As a result of it, pure thoughts issue forth which translate into pure actions. Some people call these thoughts intuitive thoughts and such actions, God- induced actions. However it is a very tricky situation, because ego is so wily, you may take ego-self to be your true self. Ego masquerades under different guises and so there is always the danger of mistaking ego-propelled thoughts to be God-induced thoughts.

It has been, therefore, a frontline endeavor of seekers to find out certain ways which ensure an unassailable capability to generate pure thoughts. In Vijnan Bhairav, which is an ancient treatise dating back to 4000 years or more, we find a compilation of 112 practices that are supposed to ensure success in an otherwise iffy domain. These practices are meant to suit all types of practioners such as avadhoots, aghoris, tantriks, householders, kapaliks, and myriad others. Again people of different temperaments would gyrate to different types of practices. However regular guys have all been found to opt for the science of breath. It is commonly practiced even now because it gained immense credibility, having been championed by no less a personage than Gautam, the  Buddha.

Buddha called it anapanasati. Buddhists who do it nowadays, follow a very rigorous regimen which may balk most of us. Shorn of all frills, I call it conscious breathing. Just be aware of your breath. Watch it constantly. If you find it difficult, start counting your breaths. Counting sheep, you have fallen asleep countless times. Counting breaths, you will waken up like you have never woken up before. Before you have counted 100, something will stir up inside. Just don't get distracted. Continue counting. You will notice some changes taking place inside. If you continue with the practice for sometime, you may not like to abandon it, after all. Why? Well, because you may have passed into a meditative state, for good!

Thich Nhat Hanh, perhaps on his first visit to the US, was greeted with unseemly rudeness. He simply took a deep breath, smiled, and said: I have come to seek your goodwill. I am sure the Dalai Lama would have done it with a sky-high laugh. What the Vietnamese monk does with his deep breath, the Tibetan Guru does it with his laughter. The idea is to collect oneself and become centered. When we are centered, it means we are in the meditative state. And when one is in the meditative state, only the right kind of thoughts will generate. Consequently only the rightful actions will take place. So there is no need to fight back or flee back or sit back. We should roll back to our center, instead.

I would now like to recapitulate the story of Elias as told by Leo Tolstoy. The story is as much of Elias as that of his wife Sham-Shemagi. Elias was a Bashkir who had inherited a modest fortune from his father. However the couple's managerial skills, and industry made theirs the richest household of the region. They had every thing in abundance and people envied their lot.  Both worked hard and hired extra hands to tend to their flocks and herds. Women workers were hired to milk their cows and mares and make kumiss, butter, and cheese.  They were honest and modest and were known for hospitality, far and wide. Whoever visited them was served  kumiss, or a drink, or sherbet, and a hearty meal. People of position sought their aquaintance.

They had two sons and a daughter. One son got killed in a brawl early on. The other son took a self-willed woman for wife, and ceased to listen to them. So Elias gave him a house and some cattle and parted ways with him. They married off their daughter, who also died early on. Now only the two of them lived together. As they advanced in age, events started taking a turn for the worse. Once an epidemic took a toll of their cattle. Then successive bad harvests reduced them almost to a state of penury. As if this was not enough, neighbouring Kirghiz stole away their herd of best horses. By the time Elias was seventy, he was selling off his furs, carpets, saddles, and tents. Now he and his wife had nothing on them except the clothes they wore.

Their neighbour, Muhammad Shah, was a good man, neither rich nor poor. He was well aware of the generous nature of the couple and the cruel turn of events. So with a view to helping the couple, he offered them jobs in his household. Elias would work in his melon fields in summer, and tend to his cattle in winter. Sham-Shemagi, would milk the mares and make kumiss. In return, Shah would feed them and clothe them. He exhorted them not to work beyond their strength. Also he asked them to be free to ask for anything they needed and he, Shah, would get it for them. It was fair game and the couple started working for their neighbour who was their master now.

Once Shah's relatives came to visit him from a far off district. After meals they were drinking kumiss with their host when Elias passed by the open door. Shah asked them if they had heard of Elias, to which they said 'yes', as his name was known far and wide. Shah told them that the old man, just gone by, was Elias. He then narrated the whole story how Elias and his old wife Sham-Shemagi were working, at present, as his servitors. The guests clacked tongues in disbelief. How the wheel of fortune goes on moving, touching zenith and nadir in its course, they murmured. When the guests asked Shah if the old man grieved over his loss, he replied: Who can tell? He lives quietly and peacefully, and works well.

One of the guests wanted to talk to the couple. So Shah summoned Elias and his wife over a cup of kumiss. After the initial greetings, the guest broached the subject. He questioned Elias if he felt sad over his lot. To which Elias said he had better ask Sham-Shemagi, his wife. She is a woman, and what is in her heart, is on her tongue, thus spoke Elias. The man turned to Sham-Shemagi who sat behind a curtain with her mistress. Well Granny, tell me how your former happiness compares with your present misfortune, he posed his question. She answered from behind the curtain: My old man and I lived for fifty years seeking happiness and not finding it; and it is only now these last two years, since we had nothing left and have lived as labourers, that we have found real happiness and we wish nothing better than our present lot.

The guests and the host were astonished and so must be you, my dear readers. But the woman is speaking from her heart and the heart never lies. It is a case of total reversal of fortune, but the couple does not resent it. They are neither bitter, nor diffident. They are not playing the blame game, either. What the deep breath did to Thich Nhat Hanh, and laughter does to the Dalai Lama, penury did to the Bashkir couple. We are accustomed to living at the periphery. All re-actions and retro-actions happen at the periphery. As long they were rich, they were obliged to live at the periphery. They hardly had time for each other. She continues: When we were rich,...we had no time to talk to one another, or to think of our souls, or to pray to God.

Their loss sent them to the center. Now, when my husband and I wake up in the morning we always have a loving word for one another, and we live peacefully having nothing to quarrel about...We work as much as our strength allows, and do it with a will, that our master may not lose, but profit by us., continued Sham-Shemagi. They are neither fighting back their lot, nor sitting back resignedly. They are just doing their new job with the same spirit with which they had done their old work. Now they are happy. They have catalyzed misfortune into good fortune. If you like you can bypass the misfortune part. Just by counting your breaths, you can be rich and happy at the same time. So don't you fight and don't you sit back. Just count your breaths and embark upon a new path.
Wish you Godspeed.

Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi    

THE BODY IS THE MEDIUM

When I first read Marshall McLuhan's popular one liner of the sixties: the medium is the message, I felt like he had been clued in about  a sutra in Kalidas' Kumarsambhavam, written about 1600 years before. The sutra is: shareer madhyam khalu dharm sadhnam. It translates: the body is the medium to observe all dharma. In this play, Parvati is shown doing intense tapas of self-abnegation to win over the heart of Shiv. She becomes very weak as a result of the self-restraint that she is observing. Shiv approaches her in the guise of a young lad. With the view to reminding her, he asks her if she has made the necessary preparations for any contingency that may arise, in the wake of these austerities.

He drops hints to let her know that the body should be taken care of first because it is only with the help of the body that one can fulfil one's dharma, or obligations. As a first step, one must ascertain that the body is strong enough to survive the rigors of self-denial. If the body fails, the very purpose of embarking on such an arduous journey gets defeated, he advises her.  Whether one is on an inner journey or outer, that is to say, whether one is pursuing spiritual attainments or worldly achievements, the body remains indispensable. Neither salvation nor indulgence is possible without the body. The body is the medium and the medium is the message.

Just by casting a glance at somebody, one can easily tell whether one is a renunciant or householder, young or old, healthy or decrepit, upbeat or downcast. Even a look at the face of a Buddha figurine gives the experience of an inner freedom from all fears and desires, such is the significance of the body. Our body is the medium of performing various functions and our body sends out messages, sometimes clear and sometimes subtle, of what it is doing. Therefore it becomes imperative to enter into a close friendship with one's body and forge a loving bond with it. It must always be borne in mind that the body is a unique gift, and also the first of its kind, from God.

Know also that DNA, the body's software, is far more advanced than any software created so far. The functions of a single molecule of DNA far exceed the functions of a supercomputer. Is this good turn of God not sufficient enough to elicit from us a word of gratitude to Him ? Can you name anyone else who would bestow such grace on us, without any obvious or secret deal ? Should we expect a bonus of  gifts from God, if we choose to be indifferent, negligent, or abusive to our body ? One can do miracles with the help of this body. Just try to recall to your mind the images of Raman Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekanand, Bhagwan Nityanand, Nisargdatta Maharaj, Baba Muktanand, Neem Karoli Baba, Meher Baba. 

What an illustrious galaxy of illuminated souls, they constitute! All of them were big names in the field of soul consciousness. They were all god-intoxicated souls, living examples to show that one can become godlike in this very body. Yet all of them suffered from various ailments, for short or long periods. Swami Vivekanand* tops the list with thirty one ailments in a short life of thirty nine years, most prominent among them being diabetes, asthma, Bright's disease, dyspepsia, and gallstones. To begin with he had a robust, disease free, statuesque body. Don't you think he could have easily doubled his much needed stay on planet earth, had his body received just a little more care ?

While Nisargdatta Maharaj, Raman Maharshi, and Sri Ramakrishna contended with the menace of cancer, Neem Karoli Baba and Baba Muktanand jousted with diabetes. Baba Muktanand, later on, developed cardiac problems which became the cause of his death. Neem Karoli Baba passed away after he slipped into diabetic coma. Bhagwan Nityanand died of chronic rheumatism and Meher Baba lived with peptic ulcers all his life. Why ? Because their bodies had not been properly looked after, in keeping with their necessary requirements. On the other hand, a small group of sages, such as Rishi Dayanand, Paramhansa Yoganand, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Swami Laxmanjoo, Swami Ramtirth, and Swami Sivanand could pay better attention to  their bodies, because of a slightly altered backdrop. 

The upshot was that they were spared a totally unwarranted intrusion of diseases. Death came to Rishi Dayanand Saraswati, not from disease or old age, but at the hands of an offended nautch girl, who with the complicity of the cook, gave him milk poisoned with powdered glass, to drink. Swami Ramatirth met with his death while taking a bath in the river rapids. Swami Sivananda passed away in dhyan mudra in his own cottage. Paramahansa Yogananda chose to depart before so many eyewitnesses. As he concluded his after dinner speech given in honor of the visiting Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Binaya Ranjan Sen and his wife, he lifted his eyes to the kutasth center and his body slumped to the floor.

In our body, kutasth center is the crown chakra or sahasrar. Sri Aurobindo had a fall and broke his thigh bone, which took its toll of his health. Sri Laxmanjoo had an uneventful, and peaceful exit. One must be very clear in one's mind that it is not at all obligatory to become sick. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that one can't lead one's life without ever being sick. On the contrary, even if one embarks on one's life's journey on a sticky wicket, one can have a good innings, through meticulous effort. BKS Iyengar, who is a living legend, and adored as bhisma pitamah, redoubtable grandfather of yoga, was a weak and sickly child upto the age of sixteen. He had been prey to many serious illnesses, such as typhoid, tuberculosis, anemia, malaria.

His brother in law, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, a polyhistor and yoga guru of the Royal House of Mysore, took him rather reluctantly under his tutelage! Baba Ramdev, the modern day yoga megastar, claims on his website that he was struck by paralysis at the age of two. He had knock knees and also problems with his stomach. It was not an auspicious start for a toddler, but now at 41, not only has he rid himself of his maladies, he hopes to make every willing individual, healthy. It is not a wild dream. Anybody intent on being disease free can be so. Now whatever I have given here is anecdotal, I agree. But the field is so rarefied, that it is hard to produce statistics.

Swami Ramatirth coined the term shishnodar to denote a phenomenon which he underlined, was responsible for the break down of the human system of values as a whole. This included the moral, physical, and intellectual aspects. Though it is not a literal translation, I call it FFS or the Freud and Food Syndrome. While it is true that FFS plays a very prominent role in bringing down the level of human values, I feel that FFS itself depends upon the quality of our thoughts. And our thoughts, in a large measure, depend upon our inner state of harmony. FFS becomes conspicuous only when there is a lack of inner harmony in us. People who depend too much on food and Freud would do well to look inside themselves for the inner imbalance in them.  

Let us stop here to understand the etymology of the word disease. The term disease has a very fascinating origin. Whoever thought it out must have been a very thoughtful individual. Now this word comes straight from the Old English word desaise (des+aise). In modern day spelling des becomes dis and aise morphs into ease. So disease refers to the condition of being deprived of ease. It is not a factuality but the absence of a factuality. The factuality in this case is ease. Now ease issues from inner harmony. Disease therefore, points a finger towards inner disharmony. Now see that if there is one word that can sum up the inner state of a sage, it is harmony.

So if our sages have suffered from diseases, it is not from any inner disharmony nor because of the FF syndrome. The reason is they were not householders. In Upanishadic times we had sages who ran their households as well. The body needs as much attention as the soul. A householder is in an ideal position to work for both, body consciousness and soul consciousness. Swami Vivekanand would remain without food for three days, and on the fourth day he would be suddenly invited to a lavish meal. Baba Muktanand had been without food for a week, and then was offered poorees to break his forced fast!

It happened this way with Meher Baba, with Sri Ramakrishna, with Nisargdatta Maharaj, with Neem Karoli Baba, either out of ignorance, or indifference, or compulsion, but it did happen.
Those sages who led a comparatively settled and regular life, remained disease free through out their lives. Charak talks of vyayamashakti, or the power of exercise as a vital element of staying disease free. In an episode Charak is shown in a garden with his disciple Agnivesh, while a herd of gazelles run past them, and the herdsman wobbles along with the help of his pikestaff. To Agnivesh's query why the man was infirm, while all around the animals were bouncing cheerfully, Charak says that the human beings are very intelligent. They know how to think and they think very hard to sideline physical labor somehow. It is lack of vyayamshakti that makes them diseased.

Recent research shows that children have more of friendly fat called brown fat. It keeps them warm, beefs up their immune system, and guzzles their calories. See how vigorously they kick and paddle even as helpless infants! But those adults who manage to keep exercise at bay, store white fat. While brown fat has a lot of mitochondria, which is what is called the body's chemical factory, white fat works just like a storehouse for saturated fats. However the redeeming factor is that one can convert white fat into brown fat, any time one makes up one's mind to become friends with one's body. You thought it right. Yes, just by doing exercise! And you don't have to sweat yourself in a gym or on a race track. Our yogins had done the forethinking for us.

The most likely area where the white fat gets deposited is the cavity of the abdomen. All the organs that fit into that cavity are called the viscera. The visceral fat shows itself up on the waistline also. The visceral fat is the doorway that flashes a welcome sign to most of the illnesses. Our yogins have given us three very remarkable yogic exercises to convert the harmful white visceral fat into beneficial brown visceral fat. They are 1. Nauli 2. Agnisaar 3. Kapalbhati. Choose any of them according to your liking and mental disposition. You may, if you like, combine any two of them. Or if you are too much forthcoming, you may do all the three at a time, with the watchword caution.

To begin with, one is advised to do them under an expert's guidance. I know of two cases where hyperenthusiasm on the part of the practioners proved counter productive. In one case the practioner developed hernia, and had to undergo an operation. In the second case, enteritis or the inflammation of intestines ensued and the enthusiast had to give it up altogether. Done properly, these yogic exercises have an edge over physical exercises. At the end of physical exercises, one feels tired and longs for rest. Not so with yogic exercises. After a full session of yogic exercises one feels fully charged to undertake any challenging work.

Sri Aurobindo had made it amply clear to his preceptor, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, that his interest in learning yoga was not with a view to withdrawing himself from worldly affairs. It was rather to secure strength for working energetically towards things vitally important for him, his fellowmen, and his countrymen. His integral yoga is a perfect blend of his passive brahma and his active shakti. He was able to build up inside himself a solid mass of psychic energy while his body worked out its day to day obligations like anybody else. His main tools were pranayam, mindfulness, and walking. Like Buddha, Sri Aurobindo walked for exercise and mindfulness.

He had created *a channel a foot wide and two inches deep in the soft floor of his rooms by his regular walking, according to Peter Heehs, his biographer. Sri Aurobindo was a householder, to begin with. It was tragic that his wife, Mrinalini, died at a young age, of influenza. He considered his household a laboratory where he experimented on transforming it from mental to supramental level. With his household as the epicenter, he developed a yogic community of supramental level around him. He hoped that a time would come when this community would work as a template for the rest of the world to charter a supramental course for itself.

Multibillion dollar worth cosmetic industries are vying with each other to give shape to the exteriors of the seven billon strong population of our planet. With what success, only the users and the promoters of the products can testify. Our yogins thought otherwise. They didn't bother themselves about the exterior as such. They were happy and contented with the barest of accouterments. However they were keen about keeping the interior in a shipshape manner. They knew that energy spreads out from the epicenter, that evolution always happens inside out, not outside in. They respected the body like we respect a temple, and did all they could to keep it clean and healthy.

There were no temples in Vedic times. Where was the need to have them, when the bodies served the same purpose? They gave their bodies clean thoughts, pure food, and yogic exercises to keep them fit for living and for god-realization. For clean thoughts, mantra repetition, and hymn singing were used. Food was essentially organic, and eaten frugally. Remember what Napoleon advised: However little one may eat, one always overeats. I would like to modify it a bit--eat little but eat nutritional; add exercise to stay functional. As for exercise, yogic asanas, mudras, and pranayam were routine. It is exercise that releases irisin, the wonder hormone that changes white fat into brown fat.

The domestic life included all the motions of a sanyasin's life. Where then was the need to have separate streams of householders and ascetics? It was only when hypocrisy took roots that the need arose to bifurcate one broad stream of life into two narrow sreams, that of householders and sanyasins. As of now hypocrisy is not dead. In fact it is thriving, and so are the divisions and the sub-divisions. There are myriad types of pujaris and their countless types of temples and tabernacles, and their ensuing inconsequential feuds. Temples are built and broken, every now and then. If only they turn their outward gaze towards their own bodies, I am sure God will feel obliged.

*Vivekanand's 31 ailments: From The Monk As Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekanand by Sankar; Penguin Books, Pages 175-176

*a channel a foot wide and two inches deep: From Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography by Peter Heehs; Oxford University Press, Page 78.     

 Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi

       

MAHA SHIV RATRI

In the pantheon of Hindoo festivities two nights stand apart. One is Moh Ratri and the other is Maha Ratri. Moh Ratri translates as the night of illusion, in English. It happened when Krishna was born in a prison house and was transported to a place of safety at a distance of 5 miles, across the river Jamuna, in the dead hours of the night. The veil of illusion was so complete that no body had an inkling of what had transpired. Moh Ratri is nowadays celebrated as Krishna Janmashtmi. Maha Ratri, which in English means the great night, refers to the night of Shiv's wedding to Shiva. Since Shiva is reified shakti; in a way, it is a night when Shiv is infused with the shakti of Shiva. Therefore, after being united with Shiva, Shiv is worshipped as Maha Shiv. Without Shiva, the same Shiv is reduced to a shav (corpse). Maha Ratri is celebrated as Maha Shiv Ratri.

Broadly speaking there are two types of laity: literalists who go by the book and metaphorists who don't like to see a tree without a Dryad inhabiting it. Literalists are generally seen to gravitate towards ritualism, ultimately. A symbolic act gets somewhere morphed into a rite, and then rituals take it upon themselves to uphold it. There is nothing unusual in the use of symbols though. Symbols are unavoidable. Even words are nothing more than symbols. But words can't deliver a present, they have ability only to represent it. If I type the word apple here, it only represents an apple. It is not going to make a present of an apple to me. So the problem arises when a literalist forgets that a symbol is not an end in itself. It is just a signpost. But make no mistake, it is a live signpost. It should be allowed to breathe.

Only then it can conceptualize what is otherwise abstract or incomprehensible. One must remember that meaning is always larger than the symbol. The asterisk (*) here may be used to represent a star which is humongously bigger than this symbol.  Symbols are, hence, signals; live signals, not substitutes. They are like the finger pointing towards the moon, not the moon itself. And therein come the metaphorists. In matters spiritual, we can name them Bodhisattvas, at large. Baba Muktananda once told the story of a Shiv Yogi. He was denied entry into a Shiv temple for he came from the so-called low caste. Undaunted, he went to the beach, made a lingam of sand, put a bunch of flowers over it and sat before it in meditation.

It was revealed to him that it was not imperative for him to worship the outward lingam as the real lingam was an integral part of him, in the form of the spinal column which sustains the spinal cord inside it. The abstract version of the spinal cord is referred to by the yogis as the sushumna nadi. Perhaps because he was at an advanced stage of sadhna, he did not need any outer symbol to meditate upon. It should, however, not be construed from this that it was for the first time that such a revelation had come to somebody. Revelations have been happening always, at all sorts of periods, but of course, not to all sorts of people. Therefore, to pass on the knowledge to others, it becomes imperative to make use of a coded language. The symbol works like modern day time capsules that are buried deep in the earth for the benefit of posterity.

Just like it is with parables, symbols are meant to remind people in a hands-on way of something that is different from the promise of its surface. This helps people in breaking their conditioned responses, enabling them to puzzle over them and figure out for themselves what they really mean. After all, gold pay streaks are not seen on the surface; they are found deep in the veins of the earth. Etymologically speaking, lingam is a Sanskrit word which means a sign. It also means the mool prakriti, Root Nature, or the Cosmic Power. You must have seen that the most sought after article for the worship of lingam is a bel leaf. Why? Well, because it is trifoliolate. Every leaf is made up of three leaflets. They represent the triune power of Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh. In a way the leaf symbolizes the Cosmic Power.

The phallic appellation applied to the lingam is a recent development, borrowed from Freud and nurtured by his adherents. If what they say has any substance in it, how are they going to explain the presence of the ophidian? How did it get coiled up round the lingam? What is the serpent doing there with no garden of Eden in sight? Anyone having a nodding aquaintance with yoga can easily vouch for the kundalini lying coiled at the base of the sushumna, like a serpent. Meditating on the lingam means meditating on the sushumna, to awaken the Cosmic Power of kundalini, which lies asleep in the root chakra or muladhar. When the kundalini is aroused, it sends its emissaries, the light photons, to the brain, sometimes in a stream like flow, sometimes like a streak of lightening, sometimes leapfrogging and sometimes crawling like ants. They turn the brain into a powerhouse of light.


In yogic parlance, this process is named the ascent of kundalini to meet her spouse, Lord Shiv. Mool Prakriti, or, the Cosmic Power ascends up the sushumna to seek union with Purusha, that is, the Absolute. It is said that she had been lying asleep at the base of the sushumna because of the veils of illusion wrapped around her. As she stirs up, she tears through these veils, called the chakras, gets purer and purer succeedingly, and finally merges into the ocean of pure light in the sahasrar, at the seventh chakra. This is how Shiv weds Shiva, his shakti. According to the adage shubham iti shivam, that is, whatever is benevolent is Shiv, benevolence gets wedded to shakti, that is, strength. This underlines the fact that to be effectively benevolent, one has to be strong as well.

The union takes place because sushumna serves as a bridge between Shiv and Shiva, his shakti. Sushumna is a Sanskrit word which means beautiful. As a column of light she really looks gorgeous. Yogis have sung paens in her honor. Many hymns have been written in her praise. She is so bewitching, many sadhaks won't like to lose their identity by immersing themselves in the ocean of satchidananda. They spurn even moksha, saying they don't need it. The Shiv Yogi I talked about before, was such a sadhak. He became so much enamoured of meditating on sushumna, that the seven-node baton that he always carried with him as his trademark, began to reverberate with the sound of om namah shivaya, his mantra of choice. His disciples meditated on his baton which had become a symbol of sushumna nadi for them.

By now it must have become apparent why Hindoos solemnize their marriages walking around the flame of fire seven times. For them, the flame is a replica of the sushumna nadi and the seven circles denote the seven chakras that kundalini traverses before she finally consummates her search. In the temples of Shiv you must have noticed that people circumambulate the lingam seven times so that their wishes are answered. My point in writing this article is to explain the story behind the story of rituals. There is nothing wrong in observing rituals if they are done with proper understanding. Because then they won't remain mechanical, I mean lifeless like a machine; they will become vibrant, that is, full of life. Therefore, the need is to get transformed on the inside. Then there will be no need to do cosmetic surgery from the outside. Once one gets strong from the inside, outer events tune themselves to the inner rhythm.

Here, I would like to introduce you to the story of Maharshi Dadhich. It is a story from Hindoo mythology. You know in mythology, fact and fiction combine to create a fantasy. If in the process, the meaning is not lost, the story is said to be a success. It is such a story. Once upon a time, a battle raged between the gods and the demons. The demons had an upper hand, so the gods rushed to Brahma for help. Brahma advised them to go to sage Dadhich and beg him to part with his merudand, that is, the backbone. Dadhich, though himself a fakir, never disappointed anybody, as an almsgiver. He willingly donated his merudand to the gods, who made a formidable weapon, called vajra, out of it. With the help of vajra, which means hard and strong, the gods defeated the demons. As you can see the story is a spiritual allegory. Let me now explain it:

Gods and demons are symbolic of the forces of Good and Evil. The battleground is inside everybody, where the battle is always raging between these two opposing forces. We are always trying to do our best but sometimes we do end up making a mess, of course to our chagrin. Man is, by nature, a very noble creature and fortunate too. How ? You see only man has the wherewithal to meditate. Without meditation it is never possible to achieve superconsciousness. Even a highly developed intellect cannot break the barriers of consciousness to achieve superconsciosness. Consciousness is defined by body-mind and is therefore problem oriented. Each solution will come up with fresh problems. Superconsciousness is another name for soul consciousness. It is solution oriented.

Since, without meditation it is not possible to break away from body consciousness, man remains prone to making mistakes. From the Maharshi's example it is amply clear that it is the merudand that comes to our help in our times of crises. You see the axis of the earth on which it moves, is also called merudand. The earth's very support is the merudand, and so is it our body's and our life's support too. Literally speaking, merudand means gold-staff. Pace Einstein's energy equation, on the spiritual plane, sushumna is an avtar of merudand. Sushumna is of the color of gold. With the blessings of our sushumna, we can pull ourselves out of the quagmire we have managed to push ourselves into. Since sushumna and spine are interchangeable, we can safely say that the inner strength corresponds to developing a stronger spine. That is why we have such phrases as a spineless man for a namby-pamby guy and a spined man for the redoubtable one. A spined man is like vajra, that is hard and strong. By hard, however, is meant a state of determination, in which one is capable of taking hard decisions.


Obviously, all this boils down to making the sushumna strong. You see our energy level dips every time we open our eyes or mouth, move our fingers or imagination, love one or hate another. Besides these activities, there is a huge leakage of energy from the background gossip going on incessantly, that doesn't stop even in sleep. We average about fifty thousand thoughts in twenty four hours, which is increasing everyday because of the shortening of the attention span, induced by fast computers and cell phones. And look, the only source of energy intake is the food we eat! Unfortunately, it can provide us with only the physical component of energy, whereas we need emotional, intellectual, and spiritual energies as well. Obviously we run ourselves on a depleted supply of benevolent energies.

This recurring deficit of benevolent energies makes us bite the bullet of negative energies. We succumb to all sorts of negativities in our behaviour. What do you think, the newspapers are splashed with every morning? News of benevolent energies? You will have to search with a powerful magnifying glass for one. Recently a University of Massachusetts researcher Robert Feldman published his study on reflexive lying in the Journal of Basic And Applied Psychology. He found out that in a short span of 10 minutes his subjects told an average of 2.96 false things. Civilizations flourish on the backbone of integrity. Decadence starts when commercialism takes over, because commerce is preoccupied with profit and loss, not morality and ethics.

An overview of the global behavioral graph is enough to show that perversion of thought has become the norm of the day. Why do we have to resort to lying, let us ask ourselves. Is it not to show ourselves in a better light in public life, than what we know in private, we are in? Aren't we pressing the wrong button to show us in the right image? If we are convinced of our veracity, where is the need to look different. And if we think we are not upto the mark, let us work on ourselves, instead of indulging in petty tricks and gimmicks to look what we know so well we are not. If we sincerely wish to arrest and reverse the trend, we need to cherish our sushumna. When we meditate on sushumna, all energies realign themselves and start flowing into it. The upshot is that sushumna grows stronger by the day.


With the emergence of a strong sushumna, we can make up the deficit in energy budget. Yes, a strong sushumna facilitates the bonding of Shiv with his shakti. Benevolence gets fortified with strength. Since the leakage of energy is stopped to a large extent, we build surplus energy reserves of benevolence. We become strong from the inside. Now we don't need to run from pillar to post in fruitless pursuits. According to Sri Ramakrishna, kanchan and kamini, that is, lucre and lassie, are the two foot soldiers of maya, well-known for tempting people to commit all sorts of stupidities. A fully lit sushumna with humdinger reserves of benevolent energy is a surefire deterrent to these brazen pillagers. So dear readers, it will do us a lot of good if we celebrate Maha Shiv Ratri each night of the day, on each day of our life. However, we can do special puja on the 14th night of krishna paksha in the month of Phalgun, so that symbolism lives on.

Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi

S NOVYM GODOM !! HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

The present article has been written on the eve of the New Year to assuage, on both sides of the fence, ruffled feelings which had been stoked by an unfortunate lawsuit (now quashed) in a Tomsk court, between the Russian Orthodox Church and Iskcon.
Ajit Sambodhi.
_____________________


Tomsk is likened to the Athens of yore, for its philosophy, its culture, and above all for its love of learning. If Athens was known as the cradle of Western civilization, Tomsk is lauded as home to the Siberian civilization. As Athens is venerable, being one of the world's oldest cities, so is Tomsk, being one of the oldest cities of Siberia. Like Plato's Academy and Socrates' Lyceum in Athens, Tomsk is proud of its State University and Polytechnic University. Situated on the Tom river, this idyllic town is nowadays in the news, but for wrong reasons. Whoever thought that Bhagavad Gita which has been giving succor to whoever needed it, over the past 3000 years would find itself a subject of ire and contention, to be debated in a court of law, of all places, in the peace loving town of Tomsk? It is beyond comprehension, simply baffling.

Mr. Alexander Kadakin, the Russian Ambassador to India, is also at a loss to make head or tail of it. Says he: It is strange that such events are unfolding in the beautiful university city in Siberia, as Tomsk which is famous for its secularism and religious tolerance...Well, it seems that even the lovely city of Tomsk has its own neighbourhood madmen. It is sad indeed. Happily, it was not a trans-Russian event. It was just like a storm in a teacup--a spillover of the uneasy ties between Iskcon and the Russian Orthodox Church. That is the problem with Orthodox Religion. Allow me to use OR for it, henceforth. OR rests on a set of beliefs and practices agreed upon by its adherents. It has a certain code of conduct to be observed by one and all. Religion, on the other hand, is a private affair between an individual and his God.

Religion comes from the Latin re-ligare which means to bind again. In religion an individual binds again with the One he has unwittingly become separated from. One discovers to one's astonishment that the One is but his own self. When one gets united with one's own self, one becomes religious. One becomes a witness to an unfettered play of one's own divinity. One day Kierkegaard, who was once a regular churchgoer, suddenly stopped going to church. When asked about his abrupt decision, he said he had come to realize that he did not need a midwife for such an intimate relationship. ORs work, at their best, as religious fronts; at their worst, as arbiters of culture and power politics. The most that they give is an outline of their homegrown cosmology, and certain dogmas and rituals, to uphold it.

In OR, religiosity is often sacrificed at the altar of an esoteric regimen. ORs are mostly born after the Master who embodies the freshness of religiosity in him passes away. No OR was born while the Master was alive. When the chasm between Religion and OR grows wildly wide, a Bertrand Russell rises up to explain Why I Am Not A Christian, a David Dvorkin testifies Why I Am Not A Jew, an Ibn Warraq underlines Why I Am Not A Muslim, and a Kancha Ilaiah laments Why I Am Not A Hindu. It is a very sad state indeed. Count Leo Tolstoy, Russia's tallest novelist, had perhaps the toughest time braving this gap. He took up the gauntlet against the obduracy of the Church and proclaimed what Jesus Christ had taught eighteen hundred years ago that The Kingdom Of God Is Within, (not in a church).

After doing his two major works, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1876), Tolstoy experienced a spiritual awakening. He did not write any fiction for seven years after that. Instead, he focused his sights on his inner life. He began to admire and live the simple rustic life of Russian peasants. He discovered that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner self perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbour and God rather than looking outward to the Church or State for guidance and meaning. Instead of paying lipservice to God in a church on sundays, he thought it fit to look into his heart and weave love for fellow beings in his daily dealings. True to his conviction, he founded thirteen schools for the children of his serfs.

He became disenchanted with worldly pursuits and started living the life of a recluse. He renounced his inherited assets as well as his earned wealth, disclaiming the copywrights of his works. This strained his relations with his wife. In the end he even left Yasnaya Polyana, his estate, and breathed his last on a railway station. In India his asceticism would not have raised a single eyebrow. He was doing what Buddha, Mahavira, Bhartrihari, Atisha, Mira, Bodhidharma--the number may get out of hand--had done before him. It is a done thing in India but in Russia it was labelled anarchism and radicalism. One writes as much for others as for oneself, to put to test one's own convictions. Tolstoy wrote: Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ touched anything like what Churchmen understand by the Church.

He repudiated the Church and its dogmatism, at every step. For his supposedly heretical stance, the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him. But the world as a whole embraced him! In 2001, after 100 years of excommunication, when his great-great-grandson, Vladimir Tolstoy, made an application to the Church to lift the excommunication, the Orthodox Church did not relent and his request was turned down with the plea that Leo Tolstoy's was a tragic personality. Again at the time of his hundreth death anniversary on November 20, 2010 Sergei Stepashin, a former Prime Minister of Russia wrote an open letter to the Church to explain its position on Leo Tolstoy. He was informed by a letter that the excommunication could not be overturned because of Tolstoy's tragic spiritual aberrations.

The intelligentsia is helpless. What can be more tragic? His friend Nicholas Roerich, a mystic, painter, writer, philosopher was a free pilgrim of the soul and so was his contemporary rebel against orthodoxy, whether in science or religion, HPB*, the founder of Theosophy. I am sure had they not moved out of Russia in time, they would have met the same fate. What I am saying about the Russian Orthodox Church does not in any way exonerate Iskcon. Far from it Iskcon has more than its share of skeletons in its cupboard. Kirtananda Swami scandal, Turley child abuse cases, Akshya Patra controversy, Sarnagati Village temple scam, Succession intrigues are some of the evergreen cases that still pop up in newspapers. When the next skeleton tumbles out of its cupboard, is anybody's guess. So Iskcon's track record as an Organized Sect appears no less questionable than that of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The present controversy is not as much about Gita as about who scores over whom in a turf war that has been going on for a long time between two deft players over the Russian checkerboard. Gita is being used only as a scoreboard. Gita is very well respected in Russia. Russians know that Gita had been given a place of honor in the households of Leo Tolstoy and Nicholas Roerich. Gita was held in great respect by HPB also and she had been presented an ancient copy of the Gita in a mother-of-pearl and gold binding by an Indian prince. I think it is time I explain what exactly is the meaning of Bhagavad Gita and what it stands for. Well, the word Bhagavad in it means like light, that is, of the nature of light. And Gita means a song. So Bhagavad Gita means a song in the likeness of light. Just as light shows us the way, so does Gita.

Gita has been accused of being an extremist text while the truth is that it rests on the bedrock of the middle path. Couplet 17 of Chapter 6 beseeches: Be temperate in eating, recreation, work, sleep and waking, to lead a painless life. Can there be a more sobering text than this? Where is extremism in it? Gita seeks moderation in all walks of life, all the time. A Russian newspaper Gazeta.ru questioned how a work of antiquity has suddenly morphed into an extremist text. Another newspaper Vechernyi Tomsk titled its report: Trial Of Indian Book Brings Shame To Tomsk. A human rights ombudsman, Nelly Krechetova, aired her resentment on radio Echo Of Moscow thus: This book is considered sacred by more than a billion people the world over, and in Russia itself the book has been in circulation for 20 years. The trial is absurd, she added.

Again it has been blamed for sowing discord amidst people. On the contrary, Gita admonishes people to be very careful about their thoughts, lest they should harm themselves by wayward thinking. See what couplet 25 of Chapter 9 forewarns: Know gods to become godlike, manes for to be manes, ghosts to become ghostly, and divinity for to be divine. Three thousand years ago, Gita propounded what Quantum physics has come to realize now. Says Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, a Quantum physicist: It (Quantum physics) says that you can't have a Universe without mind entering into it, and that the mind is actually shaping the very thing that is being perceived. Gita gives the high sign that one can not think bad about others without first imperiling oneself.

So the allegations just won't wash. In this respect I would like to make a mention of the wonderful work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese entrepreneur. His researches have demonstrated the power of thought on water! With the help of photographs, he has shown how water forms beautiful crystals if you say good words to it and makes ugly crystals if you say something disrespectful to it! Now human body is 80% water. It is the single most important constituent, under our skin. It knows all our secret thoughts and motives. We can be disregardful of our thoughts only at the peril of degrading the quality of our life. Health foods are quite popular and so are exercises, but they fall short in warding off diseases. Why? Because we don't take into account the quality of our thoughts. Diseases are largely psychosomatic.


I will wrap up this piece with the summary of a beautiful story of Leo Tolstoy. The story has been woven round a legend that was prevalent in the Volga district. He wrote this story to underscore the point that one doesn't need OR (Orthodox or/and Organized Religion) to connect to one's God. All one needs is simplicity of heart to generate a truthful thought. In his story Three Hermits, a bishop is seen overseeing a fisherman talking to a knot of people on the deck and pointing his finger towards a scarcely visible island while they are sailing in a ship from Archangel to the Solovetsk Monastery. As the bishop's curiosity gets the better of him, he walks over to the group of people to enquire what they were talking about. The fisherman reruns, for his sake, the story of Three Hermits, who live on the yonder island, for the salvation of their souls.

He tells the bishop that once he was out fishing on the sea. Night fell and he was stranded on that island. In the morning, as he wandered about aimlessly on the island, he came upon an adobe hut. A man stood out front. Presently two more came out. Without speaking, they fed me, dried my things, and helped me mend my boat. On being asked how they looked like, the fisherman replied: They were all old but one looked ancient. His face shone like an angel's. He was the smallest of the lot and had a slightly bent back. His beard had a greenish tinge and he wore a priest's cassock. The second one was taller and strong. Before I had time to assist him, he had turned over my boat as if it were a toy. He is kind and wears a broad beard, tinged yellow. The tallest of the lot had a beard running to his knees and had an old mat wrapped around his waist.

The bishop became keen to see the hermits and though the captain dissuaded him from seeing those foolish old fellows, who understand nothing, and never speak a word anymore than the fish in the sea, he wanted to go there. The course of the ship was changed. After sailing over a distance the ship was anchored as it couldn't go any further and a boat was lowered to take the bishop to the island. Reaching the shore he met with the three old bearded hermits. As told by the fisherman, one had only an old mat wrapped around his waist, the second was in a tattered peasant coat while the third wore a priest's cassock. On seeing the bishop, the old men bowed to him and the bishop gave them his benediction. He then asked them what they did to save their souls and those of their fellow men, on that island.

The hermits looked at each other, smiling, and were silent. Then he asked them what they did to serve God there. When two of the hermits glanced at the very ancient one, he replied: We don't know how to serve God. We only serve and support ourselves, servant of God. All right, said the bishop, just tell me how you pray to God. To this the hermit replied: We pray in this way: Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us. The bishop smiled. He told them that that was not the proper way to pray to God. He said that he was pleased with them and he would teach them the way in which God in the Holy Scriptures has commanded all men to pray to Him. He asked them to listen to him carefully and repeat after him the Lord's prayer: Our Father Which Art In Heaven.

The hermits listened to him and followed him assiduously, word by word. They faltered and blundered a hundred times but the bishop didn't lose heart and labored ceaselessly with them till they were able to say the whole of the Lord's prayer by themselves. It was now getting dark and the moon had risen over the water. The bishop pulled himself up from his makeshift pulpit and after kissing the hermits goodbye, prepared to return. He got into the boat and returned to the ship which lifted the anchor and set sail again. The pilgrims lay down to sleep and all was quiet on the deck, but the bishop had no wish to sleep. So he sat in the stern all by himself and looked towards the island, meanwhile thanking God for making him an instrument to teach such godly men.

While the bishop sat there pondering over the events of the day, and gazing into the distance, moonlight flickering and touching the waves on the crests, he suddenly saw a blob of light rising from the direction of the island. It grew bigger as it sped on the water towards the ship. He leaned over to one side to share his wonderment with the helmsman. But by then the capsule of light holding the three hermits had overtaken the ship. The helmsman became terrified and the commotion drew all the pilgrims to the stern. Even before the ship could stop, the hermits chorused in one voice: Servant of God, we have forgotten the prayer that you taught us. Please teach us again. The bishop leaned over the starboard and said: Your own prayer is good enough. Please pray for me also. And bowed to them. The hermits made an about turn and were gone.

EPILOGUE:
The hermits were unlettered and untouched by worldly ways. They didn't know that there was a way to serve their fellowmen. They served each other--and sometimes a stranded person like the fisherman of the story-- the way they took their breath, uninterruptedly and without speaking. Well, this is called being in the present. Attending to whatever crops up before you, without involving the past or the future. Do you think they had a past? Or do you think they could invent a future, pawning their soul? They didn't know that one had to go to a Church to learn to pray. Or that there was a special way to connect to God. They even didn't know if they were themselves connected to God! This is called being religious. And this is Religion in its pristine form. When you are joined to the One without even knowing that you are joined. Because there is no second. Only you are!

HPB*: For a lowdown on her, please go to The Tipping Point, April 1, 2011.

S Novim Godam! Happy New Year!

Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi

THE FROLIC OF FREQUENCIES

In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were working for the Bell Laboratories on a project for detecting faint radio waves. They were experimenting with a very sensitive horn antenna. After they had eliminated all imaginable interference that could affect their receiver, they were intrigued to notice a steady, low, mysterious noise that persisted day and night. It extended beyond the galaxy and came from all over the space. After a lot of scientific deliberations, it was found that the duo had stumbled upon the background microwave radiation that permeated the whole universe. This radiation was interpreted as a signature of the Big Bang. They received the Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery in 1978. Now what is this background noise ? Well, noise is defined as a set of multiple frequencies that have no simple rhythmical relationship between them. Kashmir Shaivism has something to say on frequencies.
The mainstay of Kashmir Shaivism is the principle of spanda. Spanda is the name of an impulse of cosmic consciousness that manifests itself as vibration. It is the causa prima, the first cause of creation. It is also the causa sui, of creation. If I explain it less literally, it means, it is born of itself. And therefore it has no antecedents. There is a popular Shaivite saying: sa sphuratta mahasatta. "This vibrating consciousness is the supreme reality". It follows naturally, that the vibrational frequency of spanda is the Universal Frequency that mothers and encompasses all the other frequencies, including the background noise of Penzias and Wilson. It is the dance of these frequencies that gives rise to this world of variegated colors and untold possibilities. Hindoos call this dance the Dance of Shiva. Verily, Shiva is no other than the Universal Consciousness. And His steps, gestures and poses depict the interplay of various cosmic frequencies.

Fritjof Capra, the high-energy physicist who shot into fame with the publication of his book The Tao Of Physics, describes his first encounter with the dance of cosmic frequencies in a fascinating way. Says he: "Five years ago, I had a beautiful experience which led me on a road that has led to the writing of this book. I was sitting by the ocean one late summer afternoon, watching the waves rolling in and feeling the rhythm of my breathing, when I suddenly became aware of my whole environment as being engaged in a gigantic cosmic dance... I 'saw' cascades of energy coming down from outer space, in which particles were created and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I 'saw' the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in the cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and I 'heard' its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva, the Lord of Dancers worshipped by the Hindus".

Fritjof Capra must have earned a lot of merit to melt Shiva's heart who then unlocked his locks of hair to reveal his cosmic play that goes on uninterruptedly behind the phenomenal subterfuge addressed as matter. All matter is engaged in an endless hidden play of energy frequencies behind a static facade. Mountains or molecules, atoms or phantoms, protons or electrons, time or space --every thing known or unknown is vibrating and therefore has a natural frequency of its own. This natural frequency is often called the fundamental frequency. When the fundamental frequency obtains an optimum amplitude because of resonance, it is called the resonant frequency. Resonant frequency may have a range of related frequencies called the harmonics. These harmonics are the overtones that serve as stepping stones to bring about harmony in one's life. Love blossoms when these harmonics bloom into full blown resonance.

According to its attributes the Universal Frequency, spanda, is variously described as abhasan, reflection; sphuran, throb; kampan, shudder; unmilan, unfoldment; nishyand, flux; unmesh, expansion; sphote, explosion. When we are in the abhasan or the reflective mode, the resonance or dissonance with certain frequencies causes enchantment or disenchantment in us. The frequencies that we resonate with, attract us. Non resonant frequencies repel us. For example it is not uncommon to spot a couple of faces squirming or yawning in the midst of a classical concert. Clearly they are not in harmony with the harmonics of the sound bytes being played there. May be the soundtracks of Why This Kolaveri Di from the muzak is all that they need to perk up ! It is the transference of sound energy, all the same, that takes place in both the cases but it is the frequency of the vibrations that makes the difference !
Recently I heard Sister Shivani, a rising star on the spirituality circuit, cite an example of a couple having nightmares of a particular type regularly for sometime. Then one day the nightmares stopped as suddenly as they had come. It came as the most revealing surprise to the couple to know that their nightmares matched exactly with the nightmarish thoughts of their kitchen help who cooked food for them ! The day the cook came out of her depression, the couple's nightmares stopped ! Obviously, the couple must have picked out the lowered resonant frequencies of the cook, filtering out other frequencies from her. It must have happened by way of the food they ate, food that had been cooked by one having negative energy. Lower frequencies-- and foods have a lower frequency vis a vis human beings-- work like a sponge for negative energy because negative energy lowers the threshold of human frequency.

In 1992, Bruce Tainio of Tainio Technology in Cheney, Washington built a machine named BT3 with which he determined the Hertzian frequencies of human beings and their various organs, different foods, herbs, and diseased cells. He found out that a healthy human body had a frequency range of 62-78 MHz, while fresh foods had a range of 20-27 MHz. As expected, all canned/processed/microwaved foods had a frequency of 0 Hz. Chaotic, depressive, negative, and extravagant thoughts were found to bring the human frequency down drastically, so that a symbiotic relationship was established between people with unstable minds and their hearty fares. Obviously, such people gorge themselves which further lowers their frequencies, which in turn turns them on for further binging. Long term indulgence of this kind is likely to compromise the immune system.

To have a lowered immune system is like giving an invitation to the host of illnesses. It was found that diseases like cold and flu start between the range of 57-60 MHz, cancer around 42 MHz and finally death between 20-25 MHz. In contrast, people who are spiritually developed have a frequency range of 92-360 MHz. Foods fall way behind them and don't seem to tempt them. Pavhari Baba, as the name clearly indicates lived only on air, that is, he ate no food. When Swami Vivekanand visited Baba in Kashi, he became so fascinated by him that he deliberated for 21 days if he should swap Sri Ramakrishna for him ! Yogananda Paramhansa mentions one yogini Giri Bala who gave up food after being scolded by her mother-in-law over her gluttony. He also mentions another saint, Therese Neumann from Bavaria, who left taking food at the age of 25 and lived only on God's Light !

If the resonant mode is a sphote or explosion, we may experience an explosion, a literal one, or an implosion if it is a meditational experience. Many opera singers are known to have shattered wine glasses with their high decibel notes. If they are dead-on pitchwise, and tested the fundamental frequency of the glass beforehand, they can put 100 decibels of volume to their vocal frequency and cause an explosion. A report in the Scientific American of August 23, 2007 reads: "Champagne flutes shatter, monocles crack, and the chandelier explodes as the power of her voice wreaks havoc on the concert hall". When the crescendo of the opera singer's voice reaches the resonant frequency of the glasses, there is a nishyand, a flux of energy by way of her high pitched frequency which overbears the resonant amplitude and explodes, turning glasses into smithereens.

Dr. Royal Raymond Rife, a scientist, inventor, and innovator used spanda of sphote, that is, vibrations of explosion, for humanitarian purposes in the late 20's and the early 30's of the bygone century. Firstly he designed and made microscopes, spectroscopes, frequency instruments, micromanipulators, stop-motion photomicrograph instruments, and many other optical tools. The microscope that he created was named Universal Microscope as it had a very high magnification and could view living micro-organisms. For keeping the organisms alive he stained them with resonant light frequencies, that is, he tuned the light frequency to that of the micro-organism which made the organism luminiscent. The usual practice was to stain them with chemicals that killed the organisms. But he wanted the organisms alive so that he could make use of their resonant frequencies.

He developed a frequency instrument for measuring frequencies of various micro organisms. He named resonant frequency Mortal Oscillatory Rate or MOR for short. He would then create a corresponding frequency with his quartz prizms and send it to the area affected by the organism. If the induced vibrations were powerful enough and long enough, they would cause the organism to explode. The clear advantage of this process was that the correct frequency would affect only the diseased cells and tissues leaving the healthy areas untouched. He treated hundreds of tubercular and cancer patients successfully with this technique. You may wonder whatever happened to the technique because we never hear about it. Well, all his invented machines and every bit of his technique was confiscated and destroyed. But that is a different story. However if you want to know about it, you may go to the book Royal R. Rife : Humanitarian Betrayed And Persecuted written by Gerald F. Foye.

I made a mention above that implosion happens in meditation. It is the end result of a long process which begins with unmilan or the unfolding of the psychic energy, popularly called the kundalini. Kundalini is said to lie coiled up at the basal chakra. In meditation when the meditator raises his frequency to correspond with that of the basal chakra, the chakra begins to vibrate and emit red light. This is called the opening of the chakra. Blockages are removed and cleansing starts. Regular practice frees one from the sleeping, eating and defacating syndrome. When the chakra is cleansed, the energy moves on to the sacral chakra and activates it. An orange light begins to flicker which frees one from the Freudian obsessions. One then moves on to the solar plexus. When this starts resonating, a yellow light appears which wipes away ego and its cohorts--anger, pride, jealousy, greed, attachment, lust.

For some this stage marks the end of their spiritual journey, though all that they have done by now amounts only to offloading their past cumbersome baggage. Of course this also is a formidable job, I mean this cleansing of the house, but they have not gained anything besides feeling light. If one persists and raises one's frequency enough to induce resonance in the heart chakra, one is overwhelmed by an onrush of compassion in him. A steady green glow welcomes him. He is on the peak. He can see the debris he had been through and left behind, the carcasses of the phantoms that had relentlessly beleaguered him. The journey onwards is of frolic, and of dance which intensifies and becomes refined at the throat chakra. The light here is of intense blue color. Meditation on this chakra, or speaking scientifically, resonating with this chakra, intensely for a long period rids one from the pangs of hunger, for ever !

As one approaches the ajna chakra, in the middle of the eye brows, one begins to hear the otherworldy naad. Yes, naad is the music of the higher regions, of the rarefied frequencies, not the noise of Penzias' and Wilson's microwave frequencies. This is the music that had enchanted Mira, Surdas, Kabir, ... and ... Fritjof Capra ! Unknowingly, Fritjof had synchronized with the frequencies of ajna chakra and as he says "I 'heard' its sound", he heard the divine naad. From here it is a touch and go. Literally speaking ajna means permission. If you are permitted, you go forward ... only to be lost... of course in the worldly sense. In my blog of September 30, 2010 on Dipawali: The Festival Of Lights, I have narrated the experience of Pt. Gopi Krishna when he reached sahasrar unprepared, or say, without permission. It left him with problems that trailed him all his life. But if one goes well prepared one may, if one is lucky, experience an implosion of light, which means one is resonating with spanda, the Universal Frequency. After that, bits of the imploded light permeate one's whole body and one experiences oneness with the Universal Light. Enlightened ? Well, what else does Universal Light do ?

Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi