Life a learning process

Avinder Ghura, Hindustan Times

Have you ever seen the wonderment with which a child observes a butterfly, a bird, a rock or a flower? Everything is a new and exciting experience for him. They are eternally fascinated and delightfully spontaneous. They  do not analyse and work everything out. They are just busy “being”.

Teaching has given me the opportunity to be re-acquainted with the magic of childhood. There is so much to learn from children. I admire them for various reasons. For one, they know how to laugh. They don’t need much to laugh at. Sometimes they don’t need anything at all! Then, they are very accepting. A child is not concerned by your religion or your politics. He accepts you regardless of whether you are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, rich or poor, black or white.

They accept people or circumstances until we teach them not to. We adults are the ones who complain  about everything; the  weather, relatives, colleagues, bosses, politicians—and just about anything. Then there are times when I’m stunned and envious of their honesty. “You are getting grey hair ma’am. Now you are old!!” Or, “You had  promised  us a free period but you didn’t give it, you are a liar.” I don’t remember when was the last time I could be so brutally honest!

As a teacher, I observe senior children working in teams, giving suggestions, coming to a consensus even if it means giving up their original idea. They share everything, their English notes, lab coats, sorrows, joys and lives with so much ease that I feel elated and disconcerted all at once.

There are times when they question our hypocrisy. The other day a senior student stunned me: “Ma’am, since our resources are limited, why can’t we share them with others?  Why can’t our school premises be used in the evening for classes for the less fortunate children?” I, a so-called ‘advocate’ of conserving and judiciously using our resources, had never thought of it. I did not have the magnanimity to say “yes, why not?”

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Relevance of intuition

Bhartendu Sood, Hindustan Times

During his brief stay in India in the ‘70s, Steve Jobs had said that Indians worked more on intuition as compared to those in the West. I don’t know whether that was a compliment or a barb. 

While attempting to analyse the underpinnings of intuition in the Indian context, another  important aspect is 'faith' as intuition and faith are directly linked.

We need to understand that faith and blind faith are two different aspects. Faith is born out of reasoning and it rests on the pillars of logic whereas blind faith defies reasoning.

Intuition has a direct link with faith. If faith is not blind, intuition can drive us to actions that most of the times will be rewarded with positive outcome. But if it is born out of blind faith, then such intuition will bring unfavorable results. There is nothing wrong in working on intuition but it should spring from sound faith backed up by reasoning and study.

Two great Indian sages who gave new direction to established religions of their respective times are the Buddha and Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati. Both warned their disciples not to accept anything blindly, even if it was said by them.

In the words of the Buddha, “Don’t accept my words, simply because they are my words. Accept but only after duly examining them with reason. Believe in yourself only then you can be a torchbearer to yourself.”- Attadipa Viharatha Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati, who was always guided by the supremacy of reason, in his magnum opus ‘Light of Truth’, says, “Vedic scriptures never ask to take anything on trust but to examine everything, and then to come to any conclusion. When we practice tapas, we are called upon to practice our reason and reflection and judge them by our capacity to conform to laws of reason and thought.”

Steve Jobs' assessment about Indians appears to be right but what is required is that we in India  ift out the truth by reasoning. Only then our actions on intuition will get us good results.

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Laugh and be happy

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Hindustan Times

If you ever happen to meet God, do you know what you would tell him? "Oh, I have met you inside."  God will dance with  you when the day dawns in laughter and love. True prayer is laughing in the morning. Don't just be laughing outside but from deep inside. Laughter comes from the centre of our being, from the core of our heart. True laughter is true prayer.

When you  laugh,  the whole world laughs with you. It echoes and resounds and that is really the worth of life. When things go all right, everybody can laugh; but when everything falls apart, and then if you can laugh, that is evolution and growth. So, there is nothing in life that is more worthy than your laughter. Never lose it  for  anything,  whatsoever. Events come and go. Some are a little pleasant, some are unpleasant; but there is some area deep in you that is left untouched. Hold on to that.

And anytime we don't feel up to that innocence, what do we do? You can attend to several layers of your own existence. First, the body--- see if you have had good rest, proper food and some exercise. Then attend to the breath. Every mood of the mind has a definite rhythm in the breath. By attending to the rhythm in the breath, the mind and body can be elevated.

Observe the sensation and feeling in the body. Observing thoughts as thoughts, emotions as emotions, opens us to our true self, the godliness within us. The very observation changes it.  When you do this, all that is negative falls away. And the nature of positive emotions is to grow. If you observe when you are angry, the anger will fall away. And if you observe if there is love, love grows.

That is the best and only way. Observe that thoughts come and they pass. We need  to  be  able  to  see  things  as  they  are,  objectively or totally subjectively. That essence in life, when it blooms from within, allows true laughter in life. - www.artofliving.org

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Happiness strings

MN Kundu, Hindustan Times

Unblemished happiness arises from wishing for others’ happiness, while unending suffering arises from wishing exclusively for our own happiness. Shantideva warned, “If you do not switch your concern from your own happiness to relieving others’ pain, you will not achieve Buddhahood and there will be no pleasure in your own cyclic existence.” Maitri bhavana or cultivating a mind of unconditional love and benevolence for all sentient beings, therefore, constitute an indispensable spiritual practice in Buddhism which culminates in identification of oneself with all beings.

While mindful meditation develops observing awareness, maître bhavana cultivates empathetic awareness. Empathy is the ability to share others’ emotions, thoughts or feelings by imaginatively stepping into their world. In doing so, we realise their concerns, fears, hopes, passions as our own, which changes our behaviour towards them. This uplifts our negative emotions transforming them into positive with loving care, concern, benevolence and well-wishing.

Maitri bhavana has three dimensions. When we are aware of others’ happiness, we experience mudita (empathetic joy without jealousy). Awareness of suffering of others is transformed into karuna (compassion with a sense of empathy, not pity). Awareness of empathetic joy and suffering of others make us probe deeper into their root cause lying in past  actions or karma, which  develops upekkha or equanimity, calm, loving, non-judgemental awareness of the flow of phenomena.

Maitri bhavana needs to be generated regularly in meditation and then practised daily. Sit down with deep relaxation. Focus on breathing. Concentrate in heart centre and cultivate maître feelings for yourself, friend, difficult person with whom you have conflict, and to all sentient beings. Send emotional vibration of love, appreciation, forgiveness, apology and good wishes through imagination or creative visualisation.

It makes us harmonious with the world transcending hatred and intolerance. It makes us magnetic and radiant with love, benevolence, serenity, warmth and calmness. It is a panacea for all the major world problems today.

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Welcome all changes

VN Chhibber, Hindustan Times

Welcome the New Year as all beginnings are good and auspicious. Change the calendar with gladness for a spiritual leader’s prophecy is that the year will  be  better: “In  2012, there will be higher awakenings; shifts in consciousness and new beginnings at all levels.”

Mark Twain had said: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the  bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your  sails. Explore, dream, discover.” He wanted us to be adventurous. And GK Chesterton felt: “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a New Year. It is that we should have a new soul.”

What Oren Arnold said about X’mas holds good for New Year too: “To your enemy, forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to a customer,  service;  to  all charity; to every child, a good example; to yourself, respect.”  Self-esteem ensures well-being. You have been gifted with a human frame  that  is His marvel of outer and inner engineering – strong exterior with tenderness within.

I  attended a spiritual workshop recently. The participants owe their ‘metamorphosis’ to it. What we learnt is that we have to repose full faith in  whom  we  believe. We  may  exercise  patience  for our prayers to be answered. Tolerance has high premium.

Travel  light to go through life’s journey – with no heavy burden on lean shoulders.  Take quick decisions, master emotions, discriminate between the real and the fake. Speak soft and sweet that is music to the ears.

In a relationship,  contact with another through a firm handshake or warm embrace. Gift-giving  is sign of intimacy of self with fellow beings. Forget,  forgive and renew contacts. Along with physical obligations, we fulfill our spiritual duties also by making sure that we are as much in contact with Him as we are with family and friends.

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Divine intercession

Thomas Mathew

No sane person will doubt that all great works, including the Vedas, are God-inspired writing. Poets, the so-called unacknowledged legislators of the world, invoke the blessings of the muse after drawing the requisite inspiration. Nothing happens without a cause, as ‘the cause and effect’ theory enunciates.

There can’t be any creation sans a creator. Hence our gratitude to the creator, the source of infinite wisdom and knowledge, ought to be expressed through benign words and meritorious deeds.

Our indebtedness to our creator necessitates acts of kindness and love by helping the poorest of the poor and the genuinely needy, visiting patients and similar acts of benevolence and kindness.

Truth to be told — that is one of the reasons behind the believers’ prayer to “make me an instrument of God’s peace.” But that is different from temporal peace. It’s John Keats who put it aptly: “Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty.”

Doctors claim that they treat and God cures. Experience bears proof that God is the dependable friend whose invisible hands work through good angels many a time in the form of humble human beings. Lord Buddha got enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. Moses got the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19&20).

John Milton justified the ways of God to man in his epic verse, The Paradise Lost. It is not only the chosen few who get enlightenment; even the persecutor can get it. According to The Holy Bible, when Saul was going from Jerusalem to Damascus to persecute Christians, “suddenly a light from heaven flashed”. “He fell and heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He asked: Who are you, Lord?”

The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts…9: 3-6). And Saul, was filled with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts…13: 9).

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Vision of life

Sadhguru

Despite  all the conveniences and facilities we have because of science and technology,  humanity  still  remains  in absolute confusion and mess. Most people  in the world live their lives without even understanding what it is that  they really want for themselves. Or even if they know what they want, they  neither have the will nor the vision to create this. Most of the time they  settle  for anything that they feel is easy or for whatever is within their reach.

If  one  has  a  vision  of  what  one wishes to do, it is not beyond one’s capacity to create it. It may happen in this lifetime, it may take a couple of  lifetimes  but what we want will definitely come. For that person whose vision  of life is clear and he just seeks it every moment of his life, the highest things will come and fall at his feet.

What  you  know  as  the  highest,  you  just seek that. It does not matter whether  it  is  going to happen or not going to happen, simply living with the  vision  itself  is  a  very elevating, liberating, and joyous process. Whether  it is going to happen tomorrow or after a hundred years is not the point.  You  are not concerned about the result in the end. It is just that you  have  a  vision and you give your life towards it.  This is one of the easiest  ways to attain the highest also. The whole Gita is just about this — to simply give yourself to what you want, not caring whether it is going to happen or not going to happen. It is a spiritual process by itself.

Vision  is  an important way of transcending limitations within and outside ourselves.  If what you want is very clear to you and if you are set on it, what  seems  to  be  impossible today, tomorrow it becomes a normal part of your life. So, have a vision, and right now.

-www.ishafoundation.org

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Shortcut to salvation

PP Wangchuk, Hindustan Times

Do you want to get freedom from the cycle of life the fast track way? Perhaps, you would say yes.  Like you, reportedly five lakh people gathered at the Mecca of Buddhists, Bodh Gaya, in Bihar last fortnight to attend the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra. There were thousands of them from China, the US, Europe and several other countries.

American actor Richard Gere, who once called himself the Amitabh Bachchan of the US, too was there. Always there whenever and wherever the Dalai Lama has a function, Gere calls the Buddhist spiritual leader a great “wish fulfiller” because he fills you with satisfaction, contentment and happiness.  In his words, “the Dalai Lama is a Guru who understands and has internalised the words of the Buddha.”

What is Kalachakra? It is the way to the cycles of our breath and the practice of controlling the most subtle energies within one’s body, thus paving the way for the path to enlightenment.  What actually happens is that the Guru trains his disciples’ psycho-physical continuum with his initiation, and the disciples have to meditate on the path that consists of the generation and completion process. The result is that the disciple/yogi actualises his ultimate aim – having the Buddha body—that is the divine image of emptiness.

Kala in Sanskrit means time and chakra is wheel. It means time cycle. That shows the concept is based on the importance of time and cycles of life. Time is everything in one’s life and cycle or wheel represents beginningless and endless of life.

Perhaps one gets a better understanding of Kalachakra from this prayer  of the sixth Panchen Lama, in his ‘Prayer of the Kalachakra Path’: “May I be inspired to accomplish the meditations of the supreme Yoga of the profound tantric path of Kalachakra/ the king of tantric traditions/ and thus purify and dissolve all the physical materiality/ giving rise to the dance of the empty body/ in union with the great unchanging bliss/ that in turn induces the highest enlightenment/ the state of primordial Buddha Kalachakra.

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The winner takes risks

Divya Kapoor , Hindustan Times

I have always been a person ruled by my mind and driven by my fears. Before taking any decision, I used to be scared but would soon realise that I am living for myself and people who bother about me and not for any third person. Then why think about society and why don’t we take decisions instead of thinking about the consequences?

During moments of fear, I remind myself, “Fear is a conditioned response, a life-draining habit that can easily consume your creativity and spirit if you are not careful. When fear rears its ugly head, beat it down quickly. The best way to do that is to do the thing you fear, fast!” We are so much overpowered by fear that we start being slaves of an unknown and nonexistent ‘master’.

We are scared and we don’t take risks as we have the fear of failing.

And then, one day, I decided that I will be a risk taker; at least taking risk will assure me of my existence rather than dying slowly, in fear.

Fear is for losers and cowards, risks are for the brave. It’s better to be a soldier and die with your will, than to be a mouse and die with someone else’s pill.

I take risk with everything now whether it’s decision of going to a different place for studies or it’s just a personal decision. But whatever decision I take is a well-thought and determined one.

Risk takers are game changers; they turn the table on their side and rule the world. Imagine, if Bhagat Singh had been horrified of death, would he have made a mark in the national struggle? If the first person who climbed the Mount Everest, Edmund Hillary, had fears of heights or fear of losing, could he have made it?

People who don’t fear are indeed the people who live life freely and fully; they are the ones who have freedom from their thoughts and theories. They have just one theory—life is larger than fear.

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Be one with nature

Vineet Mani, Hindustan Times

The car was moving at a normal pace but the person sitting inside the car seemed restless. The car was passing by a narrow road running in the midst of snowy hills. The sun was shining bright, a pleasant breeze was blowing making tall trees swing. The chirping of birds and sounds of different animals was adding to the beauty of the milieu. The beautiful scenery was just perfect and may be imagined as beautiful lines of a Nature-loving poet or the casual paintings of a carefree artist. But the person sitting inside the car had no concern to appreciate the beauty spread all around.

Occasionally, he looked sideways but paid no heed to Nature’s gift. He appeared to be interested only in reaching his destination. He preferred to be in his own world, totally ignoring nature’s beauty.

Life is a topsy-turvy curve and everyone faces challenges. As a child grows, the struggle and its intensity grows. The dominance of materialism has forced a majority of us to make undesirable compromises, many a times unwillingly.

We have lost the ways to spend our lives naturally. We are not willing and prepared to lead our childhood carefree moments of life any more. Is this a cumbersome exercise? Many of us who yearn to go back to such days might murmur yes as an answer to this question.

But the people who are growing closer to nature and self will raise a stiff objection. Ask them and they will say, just open your eyes, look around, set aside the day-to-day tension and troubles for a while and learn to relax.

You will be able to observe that the world around is as simple and beautiful as it always was. It depends on your being a little more receptive to the good things of life and nature’s bounties. It is our ignorance that keeps us blinded to the things we can enjoy and be one with nature.

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Mantra of good life

PP Wangchuk , Hindustan Times

‘Allah, Liberty and Love’ can be a good title for a film or a book. And yes, this is the title of the latest book by Irshad Manji. It is all about the vital elements of life like God, liberty and love and how one can use or misuse them for one’s personal gains. The holy Quran, like any other religious book, is a great treatise on the philosophy of life, teaching one the art of living a pious, useful, purposeful and helpful life. It is no good your being good unless you use your goodness to help others who are less fortunate and less aware of the responsibilities and the principles of life. At one stage, the Quran says, your being a believer in Him is of no good if you shun away the nonbeliever. It is your duty and responsibility to get the nonbeliever “back home” and show him/her the right path to become a true son of God so that he too, later on, does what you did.

Much of the ills that the world is afflicted with are because of the inability of the people to change with the times. The Quran advocates the change of mind and heart in a manner that they can adjust with the fast-changing world. It calls for change within before one goes for change without.

Don’t we have the saying that God helps those who help themselves? Manji too says something similar by quoting the Quran that Allah does not change the condition of the people until they change what is inside them.

Manji wants that the Muslim community should not be left behind in fostering peace and progress in the world. It must come out of its cocooned existence. The clergy particularly has a great role in making the community a dynamic of change. The Quran lays great importance on the need to understand its basic principles so that the world becomes free of any kind of strife; and peace and progress are on everybody’s mind.

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The hermit’s lesson

JK Verma , Hindustan Times

It was an early sunny morning in the holy city of Kashi. In the eastern border of the city, there lived a hermit with his disciples in a huge ashram. The ashram looked beautiful and serene with flowers blooming and sweet fragrance coming from all sides. Birds of all kinds and hues were making pleasant noise. 

The disciples in the ashram were busy preparing for the hermit’s visit to a nearby town. The natives were informed that the hermit will make an important announcement. The people were very excited. As the  hermit arrived on the dais, he said, “sons and daughters of the soil, I have been informed that an opportunity has arisen that a sacred soul from amongst you is invited to see heaven and the special thing about it is that the person so chosen may visit  heaven with his full earthly body”. 

“I, therefore, request all of you who are desirous to avail of this rarest of rare opportunity to gather here again on the next full moon night. And remember the one who will scrutinise and try to find a suitable person amongst you would have a divine vision.  You will come to know about this at a later stage.”

So, on the full moon night, all the people came up with great excitement. The hermit talked to each one of them. They told him about their lives and how they have been true devotees. One person said he has been going on pilgrimage every year, whatever the obstacles. Another said he offered pure milk on Shivaling every Monday.

After the marathon exercise of meeting hundreds of people, he asserted, “I have listened to all of you and have come to know everything about you but my eyes were searching something else. I could know nothing about what you have done for others in your life time. God has not created each one of us with the same abilities.  It is because of this that we should think of others also as they too are a part of this universe.”

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