Musing Monkey and Mediating Monk

 

A musing monkey and a meditating monk are simply two of the aspects of ‘being’ among the infinite ways of ‘being’ in mother existence. I celebrate life and its varied colors. I enjoy the musing monkey tricks of my own self (which I take as the mind, an all-pervading entity coursing through my psychosomatic system). I feel the joy of its stabler version as well—the meditating self.

To me mother existence is like a rose plant—lovely fragrant flowers, leaves, thorns, hard stem, roots, earth. Will the flower exist without the thorns? There is a unity of being. One aspect supports the other. A musing and mirthing monkey is somewhere and somehow is the cause (as well as effect) of a meditating monk and vice-versa. The main thing is the celebration of life. I enjoy the spectacle of musing and jumping monkeys. Watching their antics is a funny game. I deeply respect meditating monks—stable, peaceful people, carried by a cosmic frequency to bloom as flowers in their lovingly isolated (but subtly united) selves. But at a deeper level, these flowers are also the gist of the pain of many thorns. A thing of beauty is joy forever and for all. So let’s pay our respects to the meditating monks. But let us also take time to enjoy (and be) musing monkeys also. Because in the endless fabric of interconnected existence, musing monkeys and meditating monks are two faces of the same coin.

Basically, I feel like a bee musing over varied flowers (even thorns) taking sips of the nectar that I need both for physical necessity as well as the need born of the aesthetic hunger. It feels good to be able to appreciate something in everything. It gets you a kind of fluidity and flow in life. Somehow, I don’t feel like getting cast in a strict mould of a particular ideology, belief system, religion or sect. In my opinion, being cast in a particular belief system sets up a rigidity around one’s existence. But it’s obviously one’s sovereign choice and rightly so. We should never judge and compare. Every ounce of this existence is unique and that’s what makes it marvelous and miraculous, yet so simple and innocent. There should be absolutely no problem if you feel comfortable in a solitudional space, which you work out for yourself with single-minded focus, iron-clad determination and steely willpower.

I really appreciate and bow down to those who show marvelous perseverance in setting up an oasis in their life while walking through a harsh desert. It’s like striving for the full flowering of the self. It’s as good for the others as it’s for the self. Isn’t a flower meaningful and helpful to so many lives—to the artist, to the bees, to a child? Isn’t an oasis a source of joy and life to many weary travelers who take rest in it after struggling the sandstorms in the desert?

So let’s celebrate this life, this marvelous interplay of forms, shapes, emotions and thoughts born of the same sea of energy, the ripples in the same sea. Let’s enjoy this innocent skirmish between two ripples—a mediating monk and a musing monkey. There are no lessons to be drawn from this innocent interaction, no philosophy to be churned out, no morals to be spun out. Because these are mere opinions of two seekers on their own paths. Two waves crashing into each other playfully before moving on to take many other forms in the lap of Father Sea. 

Tibetan Buddhism is one of the most pristinely preserved belief systems. There was a time when every Tibetan family had a full monk or nun devoted to keep the lineage going. Tibet had more monks than soldiers. Imagine the spiritual depth of this vast land during those times. Then tragedy struck. Atheist China put a big challenge for the Tibetans to preserve their unique culture and religion. Scattered over different countries in tiny communities, Tibetans still hold onto their faith with devotional perseverance.

I know a few lovely Tibetan Buddhist sadhaks, one of them a deeply, spiritually imbued woman sadhak. She is a good friend. She was out of radar for the last three years and I was worried about her. But the other day it came as a relief to know that she was fine. She was in a remote cave in a totally uninhabited part of Ladakh. Faith makes you quite daring on the path and pushed by the same force she carried her basic provisions on six pack horses and trekked for one full day to reach a remote cave. She meditated here for three years in complete isolation.

I am amazed at the spiritual passion of the Tibetan Buddhists to maintain their legacy. It’s a vast domain of esoteric, mystical practices. I myself don’t believe in extreme austerity on the path of religion and feel comfortable with Buddha’s middle path, but I respect such honest seeking by someone on the path of realizing the true Self.

She is back to her east Asian country at the moment and sends me a mesmerizing collection of pictures. The pictures from her spiritual hideout somewhere in Zanskar, Ladakh are unbelievably grand, almost mythically exciting.

It was a little cave-cum-room away from a remote hamlet in Zanskar, beyond the glutinous knick-knacks of crowded worldliness; in unmoored, unfettered, uncontrolled, untouched, unmoved, untrammeled barren hills; among stones and a few wild streams. Using her woman’s skills to mold her surroundings in the colors of her aesthetic sense, she covered the tiny hovel with colorful Buddhist murals, cloth paintings and carpets covering the entire walls. And there trying to come out of the zigzag course of follies, she—surrounded by the colorful syrupy souvenirs of faith—sits down to meditate to realize the straight, simple path to wisdom.  

Emptiness here is clearly defined by miles of barren brown canvas, pristine blue of the sky, pure white of the clouds, a rippling stream in the gorge down the slope and howling mountain gales. Here she would look into the distances, witnessing the nature’s avatar as a serrated knife on the one end and a wisp of wool on the other. As she sat exploring the miles of emptiness in her heart, the cutting mountain wind went harping on the sturdiest stones and the clouds melted in the pristine blue.

In winter she would sit down under the falling snow on the frozen banks of the once gurgling stream. The rushing blue liquid in a thin line between the frozen banks. Her maroon great cape cradling her physical body while the soul kissed the snows on the slopes around.

Mother nature slowly filled its few colors on the almost empty canvas. Brown fire on sunlit slopes. Blue snows on the shadowed slopes. Massive boulders beaten and shaped by the wind stood like ferocious demonic sentries protecting her isolated haunt. The sentinels of this isolation singing with the mountain winds. A leafless bush standing like a torn banner of summers; but still holding up the hopes for a revival. The subdued murmur of the thin stream between frozen banks carrying the prayers alive to burst forth with the songs of summer some day.

Her neighbor would be a tiny sparrow peeping with curiosity from the makeshift window sill, wonderstruck at the tiny cocoon of colors inside.

She would muse over a rainbow above the chocolate brown hills against dark grey clouds, its arc vanishing into the clouds suspended like hanging waterfalls of wool. Then the summer would have sparse grass and wild little flowers. She would hold a flower and muse over the irresistible force that life is, always fighting to come out of snows and stones; the iron will of a little seed to stay under the snows and burst forth with joy as the summer sun melted the snow sheets.

She would peek into the sky where the little fluffs of clouds floated in a mauve sea of tranquility. And all this would again transform into iciness, all cloaked in thick snows, just a few very steep snowless slopes visible. A perfect sun beating on a blinding blizzard of white. The sky flawlessly dark blue, not a speck of cloud. With the warmth of her faith cloaked in her maroon woolen cape she would sit to meditate on the snow. A drop of pious blood of life on the white icy face of death.

A few fluffy sparrows would sit meditatively with eyes closed on the little grain bowl. The snowy desolation making it feel remoter; the deep blue of the sky condensing the mystery even further, but drawing it still nearer to the soul. The strings of prayer flags hanging languidly with their sagged but discernible multiple colors: an effort of putting meaningful colors among the binary of white and blue prevailing around.

A flock of dozens of pigeons busy in searching among the partially visible dead grass on the frozen slope below her window, picking the grains of life, to fly, to play. Like an excited girl, catching to some innocent strand of harmless fun that she had in childhood, to see their fluttering flight in a flock, to play like a girl, to feel the excitement of the flight of the pigeons, she would move the creaking window. A lovely little prank with the birds in that snowy wilderness. And they would lift with a flutter and swoop down the valley.

Her only neighbors the birds playing on the snow-beaten dry grass, chirping to keep warm, grabbing some grass seed, some wisp of food for preserving life in this cold desert. Sometimes she saw flocks of gorals, the muscled, nimble essence of what the barren stones have to offer in the form of the beaten grass.

Then one day right in the middle of meditation two policeman arrived bearing a letter signed by the Senior Superintendent of Police-cum-FRO, district Kargil, copied to the SHO police station Zanskar. It accused her of illegally overstaying at Shadey village (for this was the nearest village) in Zanskar after the expiry of e-visa which had been extended by one year after the expiry of the initial one. The extension visa had expired six months ago. In her innocence she had even forgotten that boundaries existed in this divided world. She thought they would just forget her. So she hadn’t applied for further extension. The notice directed her to leave the country within ten days.

The policemen said, ‘Please leave India because your visa expired long ago.’ They were gentle people, didn’t scare her, so she served them tea and thought maybe she could mollify them. She replied, ‘I’m not going because I’m just meditating here and playing with animals. I am not meeting anyone, not doing anything bad against India.’ They laughed at her elementary schoolgirl’s pure innocence. How she wished there were no borders!

With a heavy heart she had to say a goodbye to the lovely pink colors of a dawn peeping over the dark brown hills as the day arrived. 

I had been sending her one-liner messages to know any update about her on Facebook and WhatsApp for the last three years. No response. The messages stood undelivered. Then she surfaced.

‘Hello, it’s me. I just finished a three year retreat in the mountains, everything is fine! Don’t worry! I will keep in touch with you,’ she assures me about her safety.

‘I’m glad mother existence gave you these golden hours of silence and seclusion. Let your path be showered with sunshine of awareness,’ I’m relieved that this nice woman, who reads my books and whom I met at Majnu Ka Tila Tibetan colony in Delhi over Tibetan tea and tsampa bread, is safe and well on her path to self realization.

‘I wanted to do a retreat for three years but now my visa is expired, so I have come back to Hanoi. So many wonderful experiences. I will tell you later. Now I am taking another five months of meditation and practicing speaking again. I have not spoken for almost three years now. Sometimes I will. Will send messages to you,’ she wrote.  

She seemed to be gingerly tottering back to the worldly clatter after that near perfect peace in the Himalayas. We had a deep exchange of messages over the coming week, I as a curious seeker and she as someone who is already at a very stable frequency.

‘You were in India all this time?! Vow… I was in Ladakh for two weeks this summer. Had I known I would have come to meet you,’ I’m excited like a child.

‘It would have been very difficult for you to access my hideout. I had to use six horses to carry my things and walk for a day to reach my hideout,’ she is very excited about this feat of isolating herself in an alien environment.

‘Are you into secret tantrik mystical Tibetan Buddhist practices?’ I ask because I feel that maybe she is into something very esoteric in nature.

‘I can’t tell you all. But I’m back home. The Indian police moved me, asking me to leave India immediately because my visa expired six months ago,’ I can feel traces of sadness in her messages. Why do the borders exist for such sincere mediators, I wonder.

‘Kindly share the wonderful experiences when you have time. I can try writing on these,’ I request.  

‘It is difficult to talk about my experiences during my days of retreat in the Himalayas. My mind was completely empty and there was only a gentle joy in enjoying everything around me. If you want to write something about it you must send me a list of your questions, because I do not know where to start and cannot describe to you my nameless joy. My meditation hours were always consecutive but did not put pressure on me. I did not use language but communicated by communion with the environment and the animals. Silence for me did not become heavy but a sweet absorption of stillness. I communed with the sound of the wind, of the river and the birds, the howling of wolves when the snow came. Each and every sound went straight to my heart and was very gentle. I can talk about my feelings all day long but for you to write it down you have to give me your list of questions, because I cannot tell you my experience in solid bullet points. I can only tell you that peace in emptiness always takes over me,’ her soul feels satiated with joy. I can feel this in each of her words.

I take closer looks at the pictures sent by her. It’s simply incredible. Even in virtual two dimensions they speak countless volumes about some mammoth dimension redolent with unbound peace and joy. 

‘This is paradise… a spiritual charging port for the willing person who is aware of this openness… beautiful… thanks a ton for sharing… I enjoyed watching these… So is it like charging the self, like we charge the batteries? But the batteries get discharged, so we get them plugged again for charging? So does your self also crave for charging after spending time in the city and hence you seek solitude again? It’s a lovely craving if it’s so…but how is it fundamentally different from other common cravings of the common people like me? Craving seems to be craving, even though it seems a holy one, but isn’t it still a need?

‘Do you expect to reach a stage where you feel the same serenity and peace which you feel in Zanskar in Hanoi itself? I mean an awareness when one is at peace even in outside chaos… like a steady lamp even among winds,’ my logical mind is full of questions.

‘Any mystical experience? I mean that would give some logical validation to the skeptics? Did you have any experience with entities and disembodied beings?’ my questions are endless.

The vacuum that she created in solitude is now spontaneously getting filled with explanatory words. This is very surprising because she has been very reserved during our interactions and hardly speaks during meetings, just silently listens to you. But now she has many words. 

‘Yes, I agree with you that true peace is when you are as comfortable in the middle of the market as you are in the mountains. Your emotions and awareness are not affected or get changed. But you also know that this is really difficult if you have not experienced true peace, and to achieve this you need to change your familiar living environment to clearly see how your mind and body work and how you recognize the entanglements from your mind. Being addicted to something cannot achieve true bliss. Sometimes you have to separate yourself from your familiar environment and experience different things.

‘I am not saying that living in the mountains will give you enlightenment or a super wisdom but I am saying that your experience with different living environments is important because only then you can separate yourself and observe how your mind works.

‘For me living alone in the mountains is not a challenge but a gift, I do not need to make any effort and when I return to the city I will have objective experiences when observing life in the city.

‘I want to experience contrasting ways of living so that I can observe how my mind works. That is my purpose when I withdraw from society and live fully with nature. Then I return to society and test myself.’

She is very clear about this lovely urge to merge with solitude on her solitary trail.

‘I can experience the mystical even when I live in the cities. It happens to me all the time, but living in the Himalayan environment and practicing silence there, it is always magical. I easily communicate with invisible beings and dakinis or angels. I can communicate with them mentally or I can see their manifestations through their transparent bodies. I can hear their music and smell their mystical scents. In short, I communicate with them as sentient beings with bodies. When I sing prayer songs in the mountains, sometimes they join me and sometimes I dance with them on the snow.

‘To others it may seem miraculous but to me it is normal communication. When you open your heart and immerse yourself in bliss you can easily feel the joy or suffering of all beings in other realms.

‘When you live in the mountains this is a great place for you to penetrate and communicate without words. This communication is completely different from verbal communication. You can easily understand every animal, every invisible being who wants to communicate with you and you can talk to them by opening your mind and heart to them. They will easily understand you.’

She expresses it beautifully. Yes, one’s experience is beyond words because words are fragments and are limited to our interpretation. But when we tell others, we are bound by words to convey what one has felt. But I have a questioning mind and I’m seeking answers on the plane where I have perceived things myself. She is talking of a different plane but she is graceful enough to try to make a bridge so that she can convey a portion of what she experienced there.

I’m trying to interpret her experience in my dimension, ‘You are right about the significance of exposing the self to different environments. It definitely enlarges the perspectives, gives additional dimensions of awareness and perception. So you mean basically it’s about exploring the mind, its ways, its patterns and impulsive structure. But can’t the mind mind its own business? The entire body is mind, each cell has memory and function and millions of spontaneous actions keep going without our conscious effort. So why should we mind the mind so much? Every thought, emotion, pattern, feeling, fluctuation is inherently part of the over-all cosmic pool of cosmic intelligence. So why should we just filter out a particular state to be better than the others, when mother existence is willing and ready to have the so-called worldly elements in its leela? You mean we mind the mind to that extent that we go beyond the patterns of impulsive thoughts and random changes in our feelings?

‘A very strong mind can manifest its beliefs. They say at the quantum level, there is no abstract reality without the observer. And the observed and the observer are interlinked. Tibetan Buddhism has concepts of dakinis and with conscious effort you manifest that reality. Maybe in that very pristine environment some Muslim or some tribal shaman from Africa or a Hindu devotee will manifest their deities and entities mentioned in their faith. Have you ever seen anything which is absolutely not related in shape or feeling to the dakinis mentioned in Tibetan Buddhism? Do they have strong likes and dislikes?

‘In India there is this story of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Totapuri. It tells to what extent Ramakrishna had taken his faith. He had taken it to the extent of seeing mother Kali alive in the idol at the temple where he stayed. He worshipped mother Kali, a prominent Hindu deity. And he was stuck up with that beautiful mind construct, the image of Ma Kali. He needed to be convinced to stop manifesting this reality at the quantum level—the observed is always related to the observer. Swami Totapuri could feel that Ramakrishna is stuck up in the holy chains of his mind construct (attachment to the deity) and needs to be set free. Using the same mental construct, he guided Ramakrishna to behead that image. Mother wanted him to grow beyond Her image. To become mature, to grow into a highly spiritual man, a true son of the divine mother. Dense perception, dense concept, dense focus create a too solid image. It also somehow restricts one’s flow. In infinity there is no final limit. All remains to be known even despite knowing all.’

I have my counter logic inspired by what the quantum physicists say about the ultimate nature of reality.   

Logic is insatiable. No point was ever proved by the sword of logic. Ever. Because each and every logic has a counter logic. But sweet is the addiction to logic, the bane of modern man, so I’m still on my logical fusillade, ‘Those who know that they don’t know and can’t know all despite being seen to know very much, will say there is nothing miraculous. What we take as miraculous is a simple cause and effect in its own dimension, just that we don’t understand and feel it. In its own field, the apparent miracle stands like a normal existence of a flower in my domain of existence. So I very much believe in your lived reality. It’s a cosmic soup, infinitely layered with potential for self-manifestation of its self through various means, for example through a gentle, highly aware peaceful being. And that includes you as well. So I don’t have any doubt about it. Yes, I might have a vague feel of it myself—the words of the wordless, the language of silence. Everything manifests in the womb of nothingness. This is what I felt in Ladakh myself.

‘In moderate climate you have luxuriant manifestation of life forms. But there is emptiness and sheer sense of nothingness in harsh Ladakh climate. No tree, just stones, open skies, distances redolent with the possibility for the emptiness to unfold miles after miles. As you move towards Ladakh, you are moving from dense manmade manifestations in the cities to naturally produced forests in middle Himalayas to the lofty barrenness in high Himalayas… from collective pool of struggling frequencies, we are moving to more harmonized layers of energies. No wonder, we feel relaxed in open forests. Here, mother earth is responding to favorable weather elements, trees, meadows, grass. It’s more evolved type of manifestation than the cluttered cities, but it’s still manifestation… under the burden of being so… in trees you have the game of life, natural noise, romantic and poetic… but still there is some heaviness, simply because there is a struggle for survival in this manifestation.

‘In Ladakh, on the other hand, it is almost empty. It feels like we are moving from the manifest to the unmanifest in that pure, lucid stony high-altitude desert. One feels even more relaxed and peaceful… it’s beyond the game of manifestation… just open iciness… the open forces of nature, unbridled, untouched by competing frequencies… a still picture… the frozen moments of just being so… so near to the unmanifest on the roof of the world. There have been so many sadhus and sadhaks who could feel the joy of just being so.’

She knows the value of silence. A logical talk about what can only be conveyed through a wordless smile can only be met with silence—a nice, courteous full stop. She doesn’t reply.

I acknowledge it, ‘Your “silence” is the best answer to a “chatterbox” like me. Words can never give answers. Mere pointers they are. But yes, by being relaxed and at peace one adds to the beauty around. A peaceful mind is like a honey drop in this bitter world. Lighted be your path to peace and joy!’

Now she knows that laughter is the best answer in this situation, ‘Haa haa.’ I visualize her laughing; her lovely, narrow eyes closing with childish mirth. ‘Don’t worry, I’m just a little busy and I’ll reply to everything for a talkative person like you.’

A spiritual person can easily laugh off such minor irritants like talkative persons. I’m amused that silence here was work, ‘If you have the time to waste then most welcome because the more I speak and write, the more I know how irrelevant and illusionary all this is.’

I find typing too limited to carry on with such a profound discussion, so I propose why not we talk on the issue.

‘I really have difficulty listening and speaking after three years in silence and solitude, so please write to me what you want to say,’ she is comfortable with typing.

‘It has been a long time since I spoke and heard human voices. Yup, everything written and spoken is a product of the mind and being a product of the mind it is an illusionary thing.

‘When I write down my feelings to send to you and then I read them again, I still feel like I haven’t said anything, what I want to convey to you is still far away.

‘You asked me “but can’t the mind mind its own business? The entire body is mind, each cell has memory and function and millions of spontaneous actions keep going without our conscious effort.” Yes, the mind is not capable of doing that, because the nature of the mind is always fluctuating and uncertain. It cannot take care of the peace of each of us, but it is only an expert in creating fake problems and dragging us into them, so recognizing and observing the mind is extremely important for each practitioner.

‘The mind cannot be spontaneous, only emotions from our heart or from our body can be spontaneous.

‘The mind operates from our conditioning of knowledge and it habitually dominates all our perceptions and gives us the illusion that we perceive from our own spontaneity.

‘The intelligent universe is not present in the mind but in the cells that make up our body.

‘Buddhism has the concept that the mind is the greatest obstacle that every practitioner must face and recognize his mind and not identify himself with the mind. If we are not controlled by the mind, no practice will be needed and religion is unnecessary. As you know, in primitive societies when people were innocent and lived naturally with themselves and there were no laws to control people, religion was unnecessary.

‘It is very important that practitioners today are always interested in methods to recognize and control the mind because we have lost our innocence and we have overvalued knowledge over real life experience.

‘The masters have spoken a truth: outside of the mind there is no Buddha, god or devil. Our mind creates heaven and creates hell.

‘So if you are a Buddhist then the visualizations like dakinis will correspond to your Buddhist perception and if you are a Hindu then your mind will always have images or symbols of Krishna, Mahakali. There is no fixed or standard religious or demonic image, all images will appear corresponding to your mind.

‘There are so many religions in the world today because we have so many different types of minds.

‘You asked “have you ever seen anything which is absolutely not related in shape or feeling to dakinis mentioned in Tibetan Buddhism? Do they have strong likes and dislikes?”

‘This is impossible because you can only see them through your mind, if any form is outside your trained mind you cannot see it. So when I tell you that I communicate with invisible entities like dakinis, they all come from my Buddhist mind.

‘Now I’ve said it, any questions you have I will continue to answer until eternity.’

Words are the limited waves that temporarily surface on the ultimate sea of realization of the truth. She is very confident of creating more waves to make me feel the uselessness of wordy waves in getting profound answers. 

‘You have problem in talking and listening. I have mine of typing because I am typing on my laptop most of the time and feel saturated with typing. All of us have our comfort zones. But yes that’s how one feels when ego melts and one feels like a small medium for the expression of a few things,’ a person with theoretical knowledge of the experiential matters is a very irritating rival in a spiritual discussion. 

Since she has given me a free hand in wordy discussion by saying that she is willing to talk till eternity to answer my questions I carry on with my queries.

‘What exactly is the mind? The concept of mind itself is our creation and what we have created can’t be an entity in abstract from our biological operation. Mind is a very vague concept, a wonderful creation of our brain operation. To me mind is the entire body. And what matters is a balanced body functioning. This in turn will create a balanced output at the operational level and for convenience we can say it is to have a balanced mind,’ I ask the question and give my answer for the same.

She answers, ‘In my experience there is never a balanced mind, we can only have a balance between mind and body. Mind can never be the whole body. Mind is a big illusion of ours, it does not really exist, it is a creation of the karma accumulated from our body. Mind exists because body exists, when you lose this body the mind also disappears. Our whole world is created by mind, that is why the masters say that the world is Maya.’

The subject of mind has always been very significant for me, so my counter comes readily.

‘Whatever you have written about mind arises from an assumption of mind as an abstract entity, something having a separate dimension from the body. It isn’t. The concept of mind is merely a total summary for the way our biological systems operate in entirety. This extreme focus on mind is the root cause of all the problems. Why give it that much importance to erect an entire system of theology, religion and meditation practices? Why not accept one’s reality at the natural level without the concept of mind? An existence in totality, like the rest of the species.

‘First we create an entire mountain of the complexity of mind, give it a name, assign it a problematic domain and then we set out to cut it down. It’s very easy to live at ease, in totality, in the moment without giving too much attention to this concept of mind. I don’t look at myself as a mind struggling with the rest of me. It’s just me, pure me—my flesh, my energy, my thoughts, my feelings. I don’t segregate and first visualize a mammoth entity like mind that’s putting hurdles in my evolution or enlightenment. I see myself as something very normal, an animal like a cat or dog, weak in my areas and strong in some zones. Simple. And the more balanced is the body operation, one need not get haunted by the ghost of mind.

‘Sorry I don’t agree. There is no separate zone between mind and body. I accept them as one. Then one need not fight for balance.

‘You say “mind exists because body exists.” Yes this is what I mean. Mind is a human-devised concept to indicate the operational output of our biological systems.’

My kind and loving mediator friend now realizes the futility of words and also that one cannot answer till eternity to curious, argumentative people like me. I feel she is irritated a bit and feel sorry for triggering this unorthodox reaction in her.    

‘The difficulty is that you have never had an experience outside of your mind and you are talking to me from your mind, this will be very difficult for me to explain to you clearly,’ she is coming near to accepting the futility of taking about mind, the ways to dismantle it using the mind itself.

But the whirlpools of conceptual mind have taken me in. I’m rather fighting my own battle with the concept of mind, ‘Why create a false enemy first and then create a huge system of religion to defeat the enemy. To me there is no adversary mind to tame it and balance it with body. To me it’s merely a thought, a thought about mind, a mere output of my biological existence.

‘I have had my own experiences of the so-called mystical  things but I don’t overvalue these and leave them as something that’s not yet comprehensible to me at this stage. I think you too are merely talking from mind because you are just centered around the concept of mind’

She seems to mind the talk of no-mind through the concept of mind, ‘Yes, you said “is no adversary mind to tame it and balance it with body... to me it’s merely a thought.” So what are all your questions for? What are all those books you’ve written for?’

She has a point here. I try to revalidate my position, ‘Mind is a beautiful thought but still just creation of our operational system at the levels of body and energies. It’s very easy to say to someone that you have never experienced anything beyond mind but I can say the same to someone that you haven’t experienced God, so you won’t understand.’

‘Yes. This is the destination where we use our minds to talk to each other, when we use our minds to talk or argue we can only go to this destination,’ she seems resigned to the futility of discussion about the mind.

Nonetheless I clarify my point, ‘I’m not asking you questions to understand mind. I just asked about your experiences as a fellow seeker. It’s you who said you will talk through questions and answers format. I just wanted to ask about your experiences like I would ask another friend who went to Thailand and I would say how was it. Just that. I didn’t mean to experience more about the mind or God through questions. It was your interpretation. I am just about experiences. And all the books that I have written aren’t meant to seek some meaning of the ultimate truth. They are written as a form of wonder, curiosity, acceptance of this game of life, in its entirety… just an expression… without any purpose… simple. It feels good to be in wonderment and trying to express my small view about this endless game.

‘I flow with life. I am not erecting check dams of mind to tame it and divert the flow to take myself to divinity. I accept the present, the way it’s… in totality. And when I feel totality, there is no mind, no body… just being so. That’s why I don’t find them contradictory in nature to be battled out for balancing them. We have to fight to balance them because we ourselves have conceptually set them as adversarial entities. To me they are one and I don’t find myself wedged between body and mind. I just feel the way it’s, something that’s just me beyond body and mind bifurcation.’

A smilie from her side.

I fill in the blanks, ‘Joyful be your battle with mind. Let’s meet over coffee sometime in India. I will try to speak less. Do you read these days? Or just meditate?’

‘I took a break from reading and just meditated and watched birds and flowers. I think I will read again in six months,’ she says.

‘Vow that’s lovely! You have a very interesting way of managing your life. If I may ask, when was the last time you had an erotic dream? And what could have caused it? Extra energy born of food, or surroundings, or memories, or plain old habits of the mind?’ the stream of my questions hasn’t yet dried out, especially about this unsolved puzzle about sex and spirituality.

She is very honest and open about it, ‘This happens on my monthly periods. It doesn’t happen usually. It’s not regular but if it happens it’s usually on those days. And I think it happens because the old habits have not been fully purified and because a women’s body and mind are strongly influenced by the lunar cycles. This is a big obstacle for the women on the path of practice, but if you have full observation at the times when it happens, you can turn this obstacle into an opportunity to come out of it completely.’

I know a woman is best placed to talk about it but I take it still in flow with the previous discussion, ‘So we can accept it as a natural thing influenced by uncontrollable elements like lunar cycles which have a cause and effect on our biological systems, right?

She agrees, ‘Accept with observation and understanding. Accept with observation and awareness and grasp the cycles of its occurrence.’

But my doubts won’t stop barging in, ‘Why should it then be taken as an obstacle? Something so natural. Isn’t it like taking gravity as an obstacle because it is a hindrance in our urge to fly? Because we are evolved to walk? And if we nurture a pious end to fly, then even gravity is a hindrance! Should we then get into hard core tantrik mystical practices to levitate? Why can’t be just staying natural be pious? Why is it taken as an obstacle? Something so natural as walking under the force of gravity. I mean why can’t we be at ease and restful with what we are? Why try to be something different?’

‘It is only an obstacle if we do not observe and grasp it, but if we observe and understand it, it will be the door for us to transcend the physical. Your question is answered. Yes if you can be at peace with it, there will be no need for any question or any practice. If you can accept your whole body and mind as it is then you have come to ultimate enlightenment. Otherwise you have to search,’ she seems at a very stable frequency.

But mine is a speedy stream of questions and curiosities, ‘Why do we consider the physical urge to be a bondage? So as to transcend it. Why can’t we just accept the way we are? Just like a tree does. Is it the human destiny to try to be something else from what he is? Humans try to be scientists, artists, sports people, wealthy businessmen, politicians, stars. And just in the same flow, some of us try to be pious and holy and transcend the physical dimension. Isn’t it the same striving? To be something else.

‘I’m asking from your perspective, out of curiosity, because I hardly feel the requirement to know and be something else than what I am. It’s like just a child’s play to me. All this reading, writing, questioning are just in sync with what I already am; not something aimed at changing myself fundamentally.’

She takes a nice, cute, innocent jibe, ‘Yes, so you have attained the state of supreme enlightenment and I have not, so I have to search.’

I firmly deny this, ‘No. I don’t have the concept-bound mind regarding attaining supreme enlightenment. I just am. And while I search, seek, read, write, ask questions or give answers, all this is just like a child plays; for the sheer fun of it; not to become something extraordinary or supernatural. Ask a child why does he play? He doesn’t play to become something else; he just plays.

‘O my Tibetan friend, take me just as an argumentative Indian and meditate in peace. Joyful be your day!’

Then she used the best language befitting argumentative Indians. The language of silence. I believe she went into another long silent retreat. I just added to the noise around.  

Human mind--the instrument of violence

 

Violence was a necessary evil in the survival game for our ancestors, the cave dwellers. To survive as one of the lesser animals (in physical terms) in the forests, the humankind used their mind and intelligence as a weapon to overcome the challenges of survival. And over thousands of years got primed to use their intelligence as basically a weapon in the game of violence necessitated by the urge to live, survive and thrive. To overcome the threats posed by the forest animals, the humankind’s organized violence served as a platform for survival. But then it became our habit.

Violence has gone very deep in our cells. We have become a very violent species. As a result, our mind primarily comes as a weapon to us—to control, to manipulate, to exploit, to disempower others. The human species will burn in its own violence if this fundamental instinct to use mind as a weapon of violence is not changed. To beat the survival challenges as a weak forest-dwelling animal among more powerful beasts, violence was a ‘regrettable necessity’. But to further rise from what we have now become, we will have to stop using mind as a weapon of violence. It cannot help us rise further. It’ll only make us a powerful animal that will eat itself when there is nothing left to beat and eat on the earth.

The entire structure of using the mind as a means of violence (manifesting as a paranoid self-interest that pervades at individual and collective hierarchies based on identities ranging from individual, family, clan, caste, religion, nation and region) needs to be overhauled to further rise as a species. After chucking out all the enemies in the rest of the species, we are now creating virtual enemies on the basis of ever-unfolding self-interests, which in turn make us scared of losing out to the enemy out there on the other side of the identity that we have created for ourselves. For one species tamed in the forests, we have hatched 100 conceptualized species in our minds to give it more fodder to continue its violence.

Mind is a wonderful instrument. It can be primed for different nonviolent values like love, trust, care, kindness, consideration and cooperation. But the irony is that those who occupy the throne, and are in a position to start giving an institutionalized twist in that direction, are primarily structured to use mind as a weapon for manipulation and misguided control—the various types of violence in its myriad forms of the urge to be in control at any cost. It would be like expecting a serpent to cut down its own poison fangs.

The use of mind as an instrument of violence has too deep roots to be dug out. It seems an impossibility. Aren’t we devising more and more means and reasons to unleash more, renewed violence against each other on the basis of nationality, caste, class, creed, religion, ethnicity? We are a haunted species—haunted with hunted by the fear of the enemy. The animals as the threats to our existence are gone. Now we are using our mind to manufacture more and more enemies. We are seeking enemies within the house in the form of soured family relations and domestic clashes. We are aiming sniper rifles against rivals, competitors and enemies in the neighborhood, offices, business sphere, even in the fields of art and culture. We are baying for the enemy’s blood across the border, over the religious fence, beyond caste lines, beyond ethnicities.

It’s plain raw fear blasting in a nuclear fission reaction. On and on. Acquiring atrophied mental shapes from the real physical threats of animals in the forests. The phantoms of the mind that haunt us always keep us insecure about our interests. We are tensed. We see danger everywhere. Everyone seems seeking to eat our share of the pie. But in seeking enemies everywhere, we have turned our own enemies.  

The cyclical livewire

 

Infinity is possible in a cyclical way. The seasons change in a sequence. All the natural processes follow a cyclic path. Countless little cycles going on and on as part of the ultimate cosmic cycle. A human body is also a cyclical process involving millions of tiny cycles at the cellular level.

From birth to death, we are on the course of a cycle. But there is a linear force at every point on the curve of our life’s cycle. The linearity of the intention to live, to survive, to retain this shape, to achieve something, to create something, to give some meaning to life, to realize dreams. This central linearity is the directive principle for all the smaller cycles to flow along a central path in the larger circle. In its absence the system breaks, giving free space to as many probabilities to take hold as it is possible. The closely defined system loses its shape and melts to a bigger shapelessness. For example, leave a new car unused in your yard for many years. The core linearity of its purpose—a vehicle for transport—is broken. All the little operational cycles that toe the line of the bigger machinery’s cycle fall apart; the binding linearity ceases to operate, and random cycles open up, taking recourse to further little cycles in the absence of a central linear push.

The clearly defined linear push is the force that pushes point a to move to point b on the cyclical path. The linear push is what gives a thing, person, animal, bird or process a specific identity and purpose. If not claimed and bound by this central linearity, the different components of a system, thing or body are claimed by various small processes. Most of these are random and there is no coherence among them. That is disintegration from the point of view of the original shape of that thing, process or body. So an unused car will lose its identity over the years. It will be pushed into shapelessness by the random forces operating out-of-bound from any linear push. In fact, the only doing force here seems to be the undoing force. So to keep evolving we have to always keep in mind the central linear idea—the one pushing all the cycles in themselves and along the curvature of the largest cycle of our overall existence—alive, kicking, fresh and invigorated.  

The unknowable

 

To look for the ultimate truth, or reality, or absolute knowledge, the body would need immense amount of energy because the normal levels of energy would be just sufficient to sustain the normal, collective perception that conditions our mind to settle for the base-level actualization of the infinite potential.

It’s mankind’s destiny to go for truth, now or later, in this journey or the ones to come. It’s a natural evolutionary flow, it cannot be avoided. In an unawakened state this energy will go randomly, in dissipative ways, creating sweet-sour mischief, this worldliness. But it’s merely a matter of time—the time spanning various lifetimes—before it stabilizes, develops patterns of self-discipline to touch a peak in that very individual consciousness. It enables the carrier body to look for what lies beyond the simple perception-based reality. And the still remaining stumbling blocks in the body, mind and emotions have to fall along; otherwise one learns the lessons in a tough way.

This heightened energy finds different expressions like bhakti (devotion), gyan (knowledge), karma (action), art and still much more about which we don’t have a clue as of now.

The evolution in consciousness will never hit a dead end. It’s a cosmic soup of infinite potential. What you think, feel, imagine or act sets a new point of reality. And it goes on at every point of existence.

The faith-based expression of heightened energies is a very sublime form of expression. This dimension unfolds in the corridors of bhaav. This channel is very near the soul. It’s warmly loving and draws warmth from the soul itself, the high point of joyous realization in the individual consciousness. It’s so easy to jump into the river of ‘relatively higher bliss’ from this point because it’s very near to the source of profound bliss. But before that one’s faith has to shine bright in its purity and there will be tests through situations and circumstances, just like there will be in other paths.

In its karma expression, this energetic blizzard will sire a karma yogi in the carrier body. The carrier body will express its energetic storms in setting up disciplined, righteous energetic patterns (dharma) in the society around, like Rama and Krishna did.

In its gyan expression, the individual consciousness in its carrier body will try to know more and more, observe keenly, understand, and draw logical conclusions in an effort to make a meaning of this mystery and chaos. It’s an effort to cut the mind with its own tools, using the basic faculties of the mind to undo its own framework. To allow the mind to run as much as possible in its pursuit of knowledge, so that finally it stands helplessly, falls and sees a better expression across the cobwebs of its constructs.

There is another dimension of the expression of this energetic storm, a replica of the massive stars bursting somewhere in the cosmos. It’s kundalini awakening. It’s the most tangible of all the expressions. It’s a raw, naked force. It stands in front of you, holding you in its grip with a direct maneuver. It doesn’t take any diplomatic cover. It stares in your face. It shakes you. It’s nearest to the gross body in its expression. It’s so near to the base level of ego identification that you clearly feel its storm in the body as it breaks the obstructions in its path. I would say it’s a mixture of all the three above-mentioned expressions. You are jolted off your safe zone at all levels of your existence. To make a meaning of all these psychic reshaping, the reformulation of the nervous system, the remodeling of the perception channels—which is usually tough with many instances of things going very wrong—the carrier body takes help of bhakti, gyan and karma (randomly, in various orders) as per the shifting surges of this psychic force in the system.

Whichever way it happens in an individual carrier body, I don’t think there is a final arriving. It’s an infinite potential. The so-called ‘final arriving’ is itself a self-set benchmark by an evolved consciousness who rose high, perceived far more than the normal people and agreed to drop anchor at a point in the infinite cosmic sea. It’s just like space travel. You keep travelling and never reach any edge and then accept a conceptually defined reality: Ok, let’s agree to set up this point as the boundary of the space.

At every point, in every individual consciousness and its carrier body, there is the seed of infinite expansion and potential and maybe that draws these energetic storms. And however far one goes with howsoever heightened energy, the mystery always remains the same. It all remains to be known after coming to know everything. There is always more to be realized after realizing everything that is to be realized. A bit puzzling though, right? But we have to accept it logically, as long as we believe in the concept of infinity.

The spiritual passion of Tibetan Buddhists

 Tibetan Buddhism is one of the most pristinely preserved belief systems. There was a time when every Tibetan family had a full monk or nun devoted to keep the lineage going. Tibet had more monks than soldiers. Imagine the spiritual depth of this vast land during those times. Then tragedy struck. Atheist China puts a big challenge for the Tibetans to preserve their unique culture and religion. Scattered over different countries in tiny communities, Tibetans still hold onto their faith with devotional perseverance. 

I know a few lovely Tibetan Buddhist sadhaks, one of them a deeply spiritually imbued woman sadhak. A good friend.  She was out of radar for three years and I was worried about her...today it came as a relief to know that she was ok...she was in a remote cave in a totally uninhabited part of Ladhak...she carried all her basic provisions on 6 pack horses and trekked for one full day to reach this cave...and meditated here for three years, in complete isolation...I am amazed at the spiritual passion of Tibetan Buddhists to maintain their legacy 😮 it's a vast domain of asoteric, mystical practices. I myself don't believe in extreme austerity on the path of religion and believe in Buddha's middle path, but I respect such honest seeking from someone on the path of realising the true Self. This is the view from her spiritual hideout somewhere in Zanskar, Ladhak.

A sage in making

 Kaka Maharaj...a saint in making...on the path for the last five decades...his hut outside the village on the bank of a canal..

Enlightenment is just a step away: Awareness

The early mornings in the beginning of winters have a mild chill. So here I’m draped in a chador, the best way the farmers and their ilk feel warm. Give them the best of a thermal clothing, which would keep one warm even in Antarctica, but the farmers would feel unequipped against cold in the absence of chador or blanket load over them. It only shows the level of habits in shaping our realities.

So here I’m draped in a light chador picking up fresh clothes to wear after a bath. The set of clothes slung over my arm, I’m looking for the missing towel. The towel has gone missing. It gives me concern as I go searching over the place. Then the concern turns to irritation for the inconvenience caused due to the missing towel. Then arrives self-justification. I’m sure that I always place my things at their proper place. So the reason for the missing towel must be someone else, not me. My family members can hear my irritated exclamations over the missing towel as I wander around looking for it. It’s not to be found anywhere. I’m sure that I cannot be so careless as to put it at a place where it cannot be found. There is a prompt conclusion that someone else has misplaced it—the very same old habit of putting the blame outside of one’s own self. ‘I always place it here, someone has misplaced it for sure!’ they hear my summarized mumbling over the episode.

Then it’s found. All of them are staring at me as it’s found. It’ there on my shoulder, hidden by the fold of chador draped around me. That was the first item I had picked up but then the chador corner must have slipped over and while adjusting it the towel got hidden. So here I stand with my lost towel found now. The towel that was always with me. But for whom I had already gone searching out, looked for the missing cause outside and already made judgments about the others as the cause.

It’s deeply humbling to be caught so wrong-footed, to be found so unaware. It only shows the level of unawareness we carry with ourselves on a daily basis. Then we go for a frantic search over the missing towel, the towel that was never lost. We go out on a search outside and naturally look for the reasons for its misplacement in other people.

Well, the towel is always there. But it’s hidden in the deep folds of the chador of unawareness. The chador of ignorance spun by a conditioned and customized self; made of the threads of limiting beliefs, fears and insecurities. Unawareness is draped around us like a chador’s folds and hides the towel of our real self. And thinking that the towel has gone missing, i.e., our real essential self, we go on a frantic search. We believe it to be outside. And when we don’t find it, obviously we blame others.

Like the missing towel we have lost touch with our real self. The hiding blanket of unawareness draped around us gives us a false sense of security against cold and vicissitudes of life. The towel of our real self is hidden among its folds. And we going on a futile search, feeling restless, wading our way through the network of family, friends, relatives, acquaintances. Assuming them or the larger world outside to be the cause of the missing towel. And we won’t feel the real rest till we find the missing towel. It but is nowhere to be found. How will it be found outside? It has been with us all along this time. But we have moved far and wide. We judge and blame others for the missing towel. We try different occupations, careers, faiths, belief systems and relationships to find the missing towel but fail.

The experience was deeply humbling. It showed me how our unawareness is the cause of all the unhappiness. From the missing towel to the estrangement with our true essential self, it’s the same germ of unawareness that begets us unhappiness and suffering. We just need to watch, understand and be aware of all that goes within and around us. Then maybe suddenly we find the towel slung right there on our own shoulder, while we had futilely covered miles after miles searching for it.

Reading the book of life

 

Aha the book of life! Every day a new chapter. Each incident, happening or phenomenon a fresh sentence with profound meanings.

The new sun rising on a misty morning arriving with the message that there is always light after dark to help us see and realize the illusions and unwarranted fears that we imposed on us in the dark.

The setting sun saying ‘a smiling bye’ with a message that one has to accept and willingly dive into oblivion after a dazzling day, after touching the peak of brilliance, after a full-hearted bear hug with life, after completing an innings in career or a relationship. That a ripe fruit has to drop, that even very dear people will go out of life, that smiles will be followed by tears as well. Acceptand recognize that we have to welcome this play of existence in totality and that includes smiles-tears, win-loss, falling in love, partings, birth-death. Everything.

The shifting shades and reshaping clouds in the sky brimming with the message of change and impermanence, of new forms overtaking the old ones, of a smooth transition, of the old changing into the new without any drama, without any hassles.

Mother earth holding this portion of existence on her maternal palm with unconditional love and the undying spirit of just giving all that Her children need. The message of giving! How much more satisfying it seems in comparison to taking! That we evolve by a great margin just by giving a smile. And ‘taking’ also is highly undervalued. If we ‘take’ with a smile and gratitude, doesn’t it create a ‘giver’ who became joyful for the act? Mother existence prefers a graceful and full of gratitude ‘taker’ than a cranky ‘giver’. Give with a smile of kindness and empathy; take with a smile of gratitude. To mother existence these are simply two facets of the same coin.

The chirping of birds conveying the spirit of keeping songs alive on one’s lips even while engaged in the day-to-day commitments and routine practicalities of life. Their free flights spreading the fragrance of freedom, the urge to fly on one’s own path.

The trees with the message of growth irrespective of the changing environment and the divine instinct of giving fresh air, shade to the weary traveller, inspiration to artists, nests to the birds, fruits for the hungry. A new shoot sprouting from the cut on their bark:the message that we too can get fresh colors and shoots to our personality at the points of cuts, wounds and adversities.

The flowers with the message that smiles carry the touch of divinity, that fragrant petals and nectar fuel the colorful sorties of many butterflies, that we too touch many lives positively with our gentle manners, smiles and sweetness of temperament. That our rainbowed touch can make many people joyful like nectar-satiated butterflies. We smile, say soft words, treat them gently and they soar high and become joyful.

Beautiful relationships with the message that our travel-weary heart, mind and body need a soft touch, a cool brace, a healing bonhomie; that friends, family, relatives, partners, lovers are all there to help us cross a milestone on our eternal journey and then melt and get reshaped like clouds in the sky. But we carry the invisible imprint of their persona on our individual selves. It’s firmer than a line on stone. People might have tears on account of you, once the pathways have parted, but ensure that the tears are accompanied by a smile as well so that the dry tears don’t singe someone’s soul.

A river in the hills, furiously cutting big boulders, passing the message that we have to raise a blizzard of karma to later enjoy a peaceful flow in the planes and still later merge into the bigger serenity of the sea. That we have to cut karmic stones to come out of the stones, walk joyfully on the plane of relationships, kindness, care, share and finally sleep in the lap of mother sea.

The silence in a forest loaded with the message that this is what all the words and languages point to, the language of silence, the mother of all sermons and preaching.

The exotic chaos and cluttering noise in a city heavily pregnant with the message that all of us are destined to wade through inner conflicts, puzzles, trauma and tension like the common people beautifully engaged in the sweet-sour poignancy of the cities.

Falling in love loaded with joy, pleasure, care and share. It tells how important these feelings are for our wellbeing. Just recall the feeling of bliss while freshly in love! Isn’t that wonderful?

Falling out of love, tears, pain and suffering passing the message that we always could have been better lovers. In any case, it’s always for the best in future. We just become better lovers after partings.

Everything around us is full of messages. The book of life! Observe it, feel it, understand it. It opens the experiential dimension in life. With experiential knowing, the phantoms of intellect and mind take a backseat. They always bow down to the confident sovereign, the soul, the observer now fully aware of its kingdom, its colors, shapes, hues, everything.

The beauty of carefully reading the book of life is that we learn to touch our own self, our own body, mind, thoughts and emotions with more empathy and self-love. We fall in love with the life overall. We simply come out of the definition of life within this particular body and feel related to the life overall. Then we touch many lives very-very positively. We become healers without trying to do it intentionally. It’s just a natural state of being in that dimension. Happy reading the book of life!

Lightness of being

 

Who doesn’t appreciate the genius of Leo Tolstoy? Through his beautiful writing the sagely author continues to inspire millions even a century after his death. Undoubtedly he was a great human being. But his wife had a diametrically opposite view of him. To her he was the same normal, almost oppressive, husband. Does it mean that all of us are essentially the very same poor humans after we enter the privacy of our room, shed the clothes and behavioral bearing?

We don't just cover ourselves with clothes. We wear multiple layers of thoughts, attitude, behavior, calculating mind, scheming intellect and maneuvering to maintain an image. This is a subtle clothing. Hardly visible like the clothes we wear. But this is the primary steel armor that we carry with us. Maybe it’s necessary to wear it to survive in the struggle as a human. We have our jobs, duties, responsibilities to fulfill. There we need this subtle steel armor. But we get habituated to keep it on us, always, day and night, even within our walls. Its weight crushes relationships. No wonder we feel tired even while lying on the bed. Its weight crushing the soft petals of relationships. It challenges our own essential faith.

The armor is still sitting on our chest as we enter the domain of our intimate people where we are supposed to be open, free and light. So why not go for complete disarming at least within the privacy of our rooms, in our little intimate group, with our closest dear ones? Join them as a very light being, almost naked like a baby with all your vulnerabilities, flaws, fears, insecurities, anxieties. To feel very light, to be disarmed of the heavy battle shield, to almost float in your secure, personal bubble. Drift like a cloud with your vulnerabilities within the security of your cozy bubble. Lay bare your soul. Lift the iron chains from it. And just be. Becoming something is a necessity I know. But put it on as you come out. However, stay light, open, honest, frank and see-through among the people you trust.

Share your pain. Speak out your miseries. Shower your ecstasy. Offer your smile. Show your tears. Present your kindness. Drizzle your pure emotions. Then one can feel the soothing solitude within the safe bubble. Make your little capsule of solitude and peace among all this meaningless crowd and intimidating chaos. It can be done anywhere with faith, love, care and share among the chosen few. And float lightly in it, like a balloon drifting to the ceiling fan’s wind within a safe room.

If we make it with the ‘Lightness of Being’, it’s possible. Do it with vulnerable gentility, disarming smile, openness and baby-type nakedness after shedding the steel armor of ‘becoming something’ that we need to wear once we come out of our cozy bubble. Then go out with your behavioral clothing and perform the essential tasks and come back, put off everything and enjoy the ‘Lightness of Being’. This is the little workshop in the art of the ‘Lightness of Being’.

The enlightened sages are the ones to whom the entire existence becomes such a cozy bubble. The entire humanity becomes merely an intimate, warm bubble. They float freely without the need to become something. They shed the steel armor forever and turn baby soft. No wonder they float so restfully. That is a high degree in the university of the ‘Lightness of Being’. We the common people are in the schooling stage of the same subject. We have to pass the higher and senior secondary school exams in the art of the ‘Lightness of Being’. It’s a low grade examination. It doesn’t require research scholarship. It’s a tiny assignment—to enjoy the ‘Lightness of Being’ within a carefully nurtured little bubble. But believe me it carries the taste of the cosmic bubble.

Trainee fighter pilots learn and practice in simulated indoor environment and then fly freely in the open skies. If we learn the art and craft of the ‘Lightness of Being’ in our tiny intimate bubble, maybe one day we will be floating free among the vast expanses of this existence.

The lightness of life

 

There is a marvelous lightness in ‘being’ alive. The extra dimension of sentient life in matter (we may call it soul for simple reference) makes the matter very light. The same matter without this energy, or call it soul, feels weightier.

The birds are very light. Hold a living bird in your hand and you would marvel at its weightlessness. How can such a feathery thing accomplish such airy dances and sing-song chirpings!

A babbler entered the fenced yard. It seemed a suitable plan on the bird’s side to seek safety because it couldn’t fly. Maybe it was a sick babbler. It sat there on the ground sad, silent with a drooping beak. It would hop for a few paces and then rest. It sat near a water puddle and took a few beakfuls of water. I tried to feed it with a dropper but it won’t eat anything. When I held it in my hand it felt so light, just a winged representative of the air around.

It came in the morning and died in the afternoon. I found it in its eternal sleep in the flowerbed. As I picked it up for giving it a dignified burial I could feel weight this time. So there is a mystical type of lightness in being alive. Maybe the soul has a floating quality to make the matter feel less weighty while it’s in the body. The soul gone and the same mass feels heavier.

Maybe the soul is always acting in reverse to the forces of gravity, always looking upwards for expansion, always trying to expand and go up, trying to evolve into a higher dimension. Just like the lifebelts keeping the body afloat on water. Maybe that’s why it feels like to be in a cage, I mean that vague sense of being trapped, that niggling sense of something missing. Like air trapped in a balloon, floating the body around. And once the tendency to float, the inclination to expand, the urge to evolve—represented by a particular soul—is gone for a free float (before getting trapped again) the mass that remains behind feels weightier. Like a balloon would weigh more after getting deflated and the air gone out.

It’s marvelous that just one breath keeps us alive and afloat, keeps us in the category of the lightness of being. Maybe the soul is just a breath. But look at its divine component of ‘the lightness of being’! We can easily lift a living being. Lifting a corpse is far weightier proposition. The floater is gone and the stickler is left behind. Just one breath gone and we have a piece of relatively heavier matter. One breath in and we have a far-far lighter being.

So we have this iota of infinite freedom and expansion trapped in this body. It’s always trying to float freely, like the air in a balloon taking it in different directions. But that is the irony with existence. To manifest, the component of absolute freedom has to be trapped in the confines of limited ‘matter’.

But why do the free-floats, the individual souls, again get trapped in the body? A spiritualist once told me that all the surrounding air around us is full of free-floats helplessly, even jealously, looking at we the embodied ones. They look like jealous children at the embodied ones. Probably we love and hate the prison in almost equal measure. A kind of addiction to being something. And to be something you need a body. Body is acquired, then what. The one that acquires the body, the cosmic representative of ultimate freedom (the soul), has the fundamental inclination and urge to be free. It breeds a type of endless love-hate relationship.

What is ultimate liberation or freedom? Maybe it’s the state of a free-float when it no longer feels jealous of the embodied entities. When a sage quits the body in complete freedom, without fear, without any attachment, without any desire or expectations, he goes for a cosmic expansion, so large that it can no longer be trapped in a confined body. Because a fragmented individual disembodied entity cannot beat the greed of getting trapped again unless it becomes a part of everything that’s there. The wholeness cannot be lured to be confined to limited ‘somethingness’. 

Maybe this is what they mean by getting ultimate liberation by feeling all and everything within you. By acquiring this unqualified and unconditional trait, all that is trapped and non-trapped feels within you. Like free air feeling the trapped air in a balloon as a part of itself. So it won’t feel inclined to be trapped in a balloon to feel its existence.

So this body itself is the gateway to break the final barrier. It’s the portal to enter that unqualified state of absolute freedom. That is why they say that being born as a human is a blessing because we arrive qualified to pass the final test. Best of luck for the examinations of life!