The real growth, the only goal...

I've often wondered what drives people to action. The driving force that makes people to perform a gamut of actions in the world ; from the grossest to the most profound. There are many explainations for this from psychology to sociology. The most famous one known to even a rookie in manangement studies is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Although Maslow's theory tried to explain, it fell short to explain comprehensively. Then i turned my gaze to our very own system of yoga, not to be disappointed by the explaination provided.

This article in Huffington post from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev prompted me to write this post. Yoga considers everything as energy. It's only the manipulation that we can do about it. Even fundamental physics says the same thing. So, fundamentally it's all the same energy manifesting in a zillion different forms. If that is the case, a human being is no different from the law as after all he's a microcasm in the macrocasm called universe. 

Someone who is born and brought up in India would have at least heard of the words 'Kundalini' and 'chakra' if not known anything about them in detail. Kundalini is a very vast concept in itself. To put it succinctly, it is an enormous dormant energy waiting to get awakened. Once it gets awakened, it can do phenomenal things. But if it is mishandled, it can cause a lot of physical and psychological damage. That's why it's aptly compared to a sleeping serpent.

As the above mentioned article clearly describes, chakras are the energy centers in which the energy channels called 'nadis' meet. Though they are in the form of triangle, because they symbolize growth and movement they are called chakras (wheels). When the dormant energy Kundalini begins to arise in the human system,it rises through these chakras. As the energy gets concentrated on a particular chakra, the dominant quality of the person changes accordingly. Even though there are 114 chakras in the human system, the dominant ones are 7 in number.

The seven chakras are : Mooladhara, Swadhisthana, Manipuraka, Anahata, Vishuddhi, Agna, Sahasrar. Depending on their physical locations, we can call them as higher and lower chakras but it no way denotes anything as inferior or superior in their quality. Mooladhara is the very first chakra and is located at the base of the spine. If the enegies are dominant in this chakra, food and sleep will be predominant qualities of life. Swadhisthana is the second chakra & is located just above the genital organs. If the energies become dominant here, the person will be incessant pleasure seeker and pleasure can be seeked in many different ways.

The next chakra is Manipuraka which is located just below the navel. When the energies move here, it pushes the person towards action. And action can be of so many types. When the energy moves towards the next chakra, Anahata which is located in the heart area, it makes the person very creative. The next chakra is Vishuddhi which is located in the throat region. If energies move towards this chakra, the person becomes extremely powerful in many ways. Political power and the likes appear to be pygmies in front of this kind of power.

If the energies move towards Agna, which is located between the eyebrows the person becomes intellectually enlightened. A new kind of peace and semblance dawns upon him. The next chakra, Sahasrar which is at the crown of the head is often described as thousand petalled lotus. The word Sahasrar also implies that its magnitude and significance is very vast; in fact, unlimited. When the energies reach Sahasrar, the person becomes extremely ecstatic.

Any spiritual seeker has to embark this journey from Mooladhara to Sahasrar in his ultimate quest towards self-knowledge. There can be a million ways to reach it. The seeker can choose any way which is appropriate to his nature and temperament. Once the seeker completes his journey, he would have known everything in this universe that is worth knowing.

My Books Review: March '12

Sankara-Digvijaya – This traditional biography of Adi Shankaracharya is written by the saint Madhava-Vidyaranya. The original is in Sanskrit and is translated into English by Swami Tapasyananda of R.K.Mutt. In a rather lengthy introduction to the biography, the author has faithfully put forth the problem in elucidating the life of Shankaracharya owing to different versions of biography, problem in ascertaining correct dates of events, accuracy of some facts believed and so on. 

Shankaracharya is believed to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva & many people that come in the life of Shankaracharya are mythological beings incarnated as humans in order to establish Dharma which faced threat from perverse doctrines of the day. The author maintains thus stated position throughout the book. 

Shankaracharya’s birth, his embracing of sannyasa, his meeting with his guru Govindapada, the incident with the untouchable, his commentaries on various Vedic texts, arguments with Mandana, Bhatta Bhaskara and a few more, his triumph over many scholars across the country, establishments of various mutts across the countries, the incident of parakaaya-pravesha, the coming of some disciples, accession to Sharada-peetha are lucidly presented.

The series of argument between Shankaracharya and Mandana(follower of Vedic ritualism), Shankaracharya and Bhatta Bhaskara (exponent of Bhedabheda doctrine) stand out among all the arguments. It’s a great exposition of intellect, reasoning and vast scholarship of both the parties. It’s a sure feast for the lovers of philosophy.

In the whole book, different schools of philosophy like Samkhya, Nyaya(school of Gautama), Vaisheshika, Purvamimamsa(School of Jaimini), Charvaaka, Jaina, Bauddha(realism and Nihilism) , school of Kanada are briefly discussed.

If we take out the mythological cloud surrounding Shankaracharya and see him as a human being, we can’t help but to respect his colossal intellect that at a very young age had done some near impossible tasks. He’s unarguably one of the greatest philosophers, scholars ever to walk on the face of Earth. The book in its concluding remarks, quintessentially describes him “The life of Shankara makes a strong impression of contraries. He is a philosopher and a poet, a savant and a saint, a mystic and a religious reformer. Such diverse gifts did he possess that different images present themselves, if we try to recall his personality…There have been few minds more universal than his ”!

Yogi :The most intelligent guy!!

All human pursuits are directed towards one thing and only one thing: happiness. The terms used to explain it might vary but the essential meaning remains the same. Some may term it as happiness, some as joy, some as bliss and some as ecstasy and so on. Ecstasy is just a more heightened state of happiness.

Some might say “not everyone is seeing their own happiness but they are working for others selflessly”. There are no selfless acts at all. All acts are selfish. If you take the self as the central point, for some the circumference might circle around themselves and their family, for some their community and for some, their nation. So the difference between one person and the other person lies in the circumference around the self. But essentially it is springing from or directed towards the self.

People have tried different ways of achieving happiness and the innovation for more methods continues. People have tried drugs; people have tried sex, yearned for success, power; all in the same pursuit. They have achieved it too. Thus achieved success is ephemeral. Else, people should have stopped looking for happiness. They are deprived of it therefore the search is always on. We search for the things which we don’t have.

All are capable of happiness but the problem is in the sustainability of it. People indulge in sex and feel great for some time and after sometime they are back to square one. People in search of happiness indulge in drugs and feel great for sometime (some drugs expands the consciousness) but again when they fall back, they return with a terrible feeling.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev of Isha Foundation articulates it beautifully through a story:

A pheasant and a bull were together in a meadow. The pheasant was on the bull’s back picking ticks as the bull grazed. The pheasant looked at the towering tree in front of him, sighed and said nostalgically,

“When I was young and strong, I could fly to the top of the tree.”

The bull nonchalantly said “You can still do it, just eat my dung for a week. “

The pheasant shrugged and said “what non-sense”.

The bull persisted and said “just try it, the whole humanity is on it”.

The pheasant reluctantly ate some. The very next day, much to his glee, he could fly to the first branch. A week later, as promised he was on the top of the tree. He crowed in delight, a farmer seated on the verandah of his house, saw this fat pheasant crowing, got his gun and shot him to the ground for a meal.

The moral of the story is, “sometimes even bullshit can take you to the top but it never lets you stay there.”!!

Adding to the ephemeral nature of these things, they are not good for the human system too. Indulging in alcohol or drugs can give pleasures for some time, but in a long run they are detrimental to the system (body and mind both). Now contrast this with the attitude of Yogi. A yogi is also in pursuit of happiness but more of a permanent one, the one that he can behold for a long term. The system of yoga that the yogi applies doesn’t hamper mind or body but instead enhances them.

If you look at some yogis, they will be disinterested in the things that interests most of us. There’s nothing wrong with that. They have graduated to finer states of things. As kids we treasured toys but now we never bother for them. They are nothing for us now because we have found they no more hold our interests. In the same way once someone graduates to finer things the base things appear meaningless.

The path of yoga that the yogi follows bypasses many unwanted steps for achieving permanent state of bliss. So it saves enormous amounts of time and effort. When each one of us is traveling in an Ambassador car, the yogi has learnt to use the F1 car. He’s put himself on a fast track. When the stated goal is same for all, when somebody is achieving swiftly than others without damaging others or himself, he should be a very efficient and intelligent person. These things make me to call the yogi the most intelligent person.

My Books Review: November '11

1) Notes from the underground – This is the work of Russian writer, philosopher Fyodor Dostoevsky. This is like a confession and rationalization made by the person about the past. When a person examines one’s life and if he is honest enough in examination he would find many feelings, deeds considered to be amoral been done. But it requires courage to accept those. Most of the times, we don’t deceive others but we deceive ourselves. This is an evaluation of the past and rationalization of some mistakes. The book is divided into two parts: the first part of the book is completely a monologue; the second part of the book is about his interactions with the society. This novel explores various emotions of humans like love, greed, jealousy, wrath, self-hate etc. It is said that Dostoevsky’s character in this novel is one of the greatest anti-heroes ever to be created and this work is perhaps the earliest work about existentialism. 

2) Quite honestly – This is a short novel written by the British author John Mortimer. It is a story of young girl Lucy Purefoy who has the desire of dong something good to the society. She joins the department which tries to reform and relocate the criminals out of the prison and bring them back to normal life. During such assignments, she befriends a criminal named Terry and after sometime she falls in love with the criminal. When asked why he was involved in crimes, Terry replies that he wanted to have the thrill of burglary rather than the money involved. To share the feeling with her love Terry, She plans to steal a very expensive painting along with two more. But while doing so she gets caught and lands up in prison. What happens next forms the later part of the story. 

This is an ordinary novel with ordinary tale, a few twists here & there and an unexpected ending.