Letting go of the past

Our lives are weighed down with past memories and expectations from the future. How can we let go of all that clutter and live life spontaneously? We feel burdened not because of our present but because of the past hanging around our neck like a heavy stone.

Osho gives some useful tips for separating psychological memories from the factual ones. It is good to remember that mere facts never burden us. The memory of our name or phone number is not a burden but a psychological memory of an insult or even a felicitation can become a hang up.

Interestingly, many of us tend to forget facts but we tend to remember and dwell upon psychological memories.

Osho points out, "Memory has technical uses. You have to know how to drive, you have to know where your home is, and you have to recognise your wife and your children. But those are not psychological hang-ups. Factual memory is useful. It enhances life, facilitates it. But if you come home and you look at your wife and think of all your past experiences with her then that is a psychological hang-up. If she was angry with you in the recent past, then that memory can cloud your eyes. If she was nasty or sad, then it too can colour your perception. Psychological impressions change your way of looking and perceiving her as she is standing in front of you at this moment. You are no longer looking at her but at someone who doesn't exist. You are looking at a ghost, not at your wife. And she may also be looking at you in the same way. Drop the past each moment. Just as you clean your house, clean your inner house of the past. All psychological memories have to be dropped. Just keep factual things and your mind will be very clean and clear."

Soon you will find that there is a new light in your life - the light of here-now, the Present.

The three Devis and creative energy

Durga is one version of the all-pervading Shakti, the powerful manifestation of the Supreme Energy. The eternity of this supreme manifestation of divine female power is considered to be pervading infinite space and time. The everlasting and all-pervading Shakti also presides over the processes of creation, conservation and annihilation. Concepts of creation, preservation and annihilation are crucial as "many-body" operators in physics. Almost all physical systems are many-body systems. The smallest many-body entity is a physical system with only two constituents. Atoms, atomic nuclei, molecules, solids, liquids, gases and the universe constitute important physical many-body systems. We, too, live in many-body systems that include family, our society and the world. However, these are not studied as physical systems, although some enthusiastic students of the subject do show some interest in them. Maha Shakti or Supreme Energy is manifested chiefly in three forms: Maha Saraswati, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Kali. The three devis represent three important facets of life: Creation, conservation and annihilation. Learning and wisdom play a far more important role than details of one's birth. Maha Saraswati stands for creation. The creative person who pursues knowledge and wisdom continues to live with the grace of Maha Lakshmi, who is responsible for the sustenance of life. Maha Lakshmi bestows her grace and bounty. Finally, Maha Kali, responsible for annihilation, completes the cycle. Physical energy has several forms. There are transformations among the different forms of energy. In the process, however, the indestructibility of the energy, and consequently matter, is not affected. The stability and functionality of different forms of energy and matter depend on the distribution of these in the atom, which is the source of all forms of energy and matter, the complete knowledge of which still remains elusive. This is also true with regard to the Universe. In spite of several propositions and expositions about the universe and its finiteness or infiniteness, the subject is still mysterious. This fact emphasises the boundless or infinite limits of knowledge. We are not bound by finite dimensions. We live free, and we are surrounded by infinite space, time and knowledge. It's all there, we only need to reflect on the metaphysics of it. Science is normally handled within only space time dimensions. With knowledge included, it becomes philosophy or metaphysics. Research in science is increasingly also revealing to us the infinite nature of knowledge: the more we know, the more there is to know and so on. What we might refer to as super-space is spanned by space, time and knowledge, all having both real and imaginary components; the imaginary components are the reciprocal or momentum space, frequency and ignorance respectively. That we are in this situation is not our doing. In this context, the concept of a Supreme Power is important. Philosophy and science have a common characteristic. Both are born of doubt and also evolve with creation of more doubts. Understanding the correlation between the seemingly contrasting aspects of science and philosophy is important in enabling further exploration of the mysteries and nature of space, time and knowledge.

G S TRIPATHI

Religion, rationality & development

The 'Ram sethu' controversy was highly avoidable. An issue, which should have been a simple one of a conflict between environment and economic development somehow got converted into one of religion versus development. Even more alarming, the central issue became one of the existence of a Hindu god! The government must be faulted for allowing such a strange turn of events especially as the last issue is still with the courts and (rightly so) unlikely to be resolved in my lifetime at least. Though the government did the right damage control, it is useful to consider some of the questions which were thrown up. Are religious beliefs rational? Is the "scientific" Sethusamudram project crucial for development? What happens if the two are in conflict? Let us look at these in turn. There is now a wealth of material on how to "objectivise" religion (The Probability of God - Stephen Unwin, Crown Forum, NY, 2003). The main theme seems to be the old one of science versus religion. Thus, can science explain all events? In particular, can science explain many of the "knife edge" observations on real life experiences? For example, why is water the only liquid whose density does not fall continuously as temperature increases? (If it did all sea life would cease to exist). There are many other "knife edge" problems. The answer seems to be not that science cannot explain such phenomena but that at this point we "do not know". Herein lies the clue to why faith in religion transcends all social, economic and geographical barriers. Economics defines "individual rationality" as the attempt to reach the highest level of satisfaction given existing knowledge. So, for an individual for whom life is coming crashing down around him (for example, due to poverty or a terminal illness) belief in something he cannot explain (and which will somehow get him through the crisis) may be an extremely "rational" calculus. In fact, given the imperfect world we live in, this "blind faith" may be crucial to social order. This is really the sense in which John Lennon sings the line paraphrased at the beginning of this article. As he implied, an individual may not have all the trappings of a religion and yet have faith in the unknown. Mr Karunanidhi's attempt to trivialise the "existence of Ram" debate was obviously an attempt to cater to the "Periyar lobby". But it raises the issue of what happens when faith and development conflict. But can we seriously "rationalise" something which is a matter of individual faith? Consider the two crucial events in the Christian calendar: Christmas and Easter. The first celebrates the birth of Christ: a perfectly rational scientific event. Yet the Christian faith itself is based on the second of the two events which symbolises the "resurrection" of Christ. We all know that India is a country with an excessive number of holidays. Can one then rationally argue that while Christmas is an understandable holiday, "good Friday" should be dropped since it derives its importance from the resurrection of Easter Sunday? This is a valid question when posed as a scientific query (how can the dead come to life?) but a foolish one when applied to the touchstone of faith in a religion. The reader can come up with any number of such arguments which can be advanced (a la Mr Karunanidhi) in the context of other religions and faiths. Yet, the celebration which a holiday symbolises is based on acceptance of the faith rather than the scientific validity of an associated event. And faith, as one has argued, is perfectly rational. How crucial is the Sethusamudram project? The main argument seems to be the time saving for ships which will no longer have to go around Sri Lanka in moving from the east coast to the west. While the ecological problems are still not clearly defined, the economic gains of the canal are not likely to be high. A look at maritime statistics indicates that shipping costs are now such a small part of the final price of most products that tariff barriers between countries (and within countries) are a greater deterrence to trade. The one month time saving is thus not likely to translate into substantial price advantages. The bottom line? If economic development is the objective then it is wisest to pose trade offs that we are familiar with: is the canal cost-effective and what are the environmental concerns? Yet, politicians seem to pitch the issue as one of 'scientific' rationality versus faith. This is a dangerous trend as faith is non-negotiable and the only casualty would be much needed development. Let us stay off what we only imperfectly comprehend. ( The author is professor, Centre for International Trade and Development, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University )

Why should nature be more natural?

Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century American transcendentalist famously embarked on a two-year course in simple living when he moved to a small self-built cabin in a forest. Thoreau regarded this sojourn as a noble experiment with a threefold purpose. First, he was escaping the de-humanising effects of the Industrial Revolution by returning to an earlier, agrarian lifestyle. Second, he had more leisure and recreational time. Third, and most important, he was putting into practice the transcendentalist belief that one can best transcend normality and experience the Ideal, or the Divine, through nature. It's hardly surprising therefore that Thoreau quickly became an icon for everybody who wanted "to get in touch" or "commune with nature." But what is it about nature that makes it more "natural" than, say, a city? If by nature we mean the material world along with the forces and processes that produce and control all its phenomenon - the laws of nature as it were - then surely a city also qualifies since it doesn't fall outside any of these laws. If by nature we mean just the world of living things, then too cities qualify. No, it's actually a third definition of nature - namely, a primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilisation - that people like to apply when they mean nature to be somehow qualitatively "better" than a city. Unfortunately, this definition comes into being only because civilisation has come into being. Otherwise, there's absolutely nothing primitive about it. Or, if there is, then every cave dwelling ancestor of ours would have to be transcending normality and experiencing the Ideal, or the Divine, all the time. So would those diminishing pockets of humanity which have largely remained cut off from civilisation and even today live in Stone Age conditions. Humans make cities like corals make reefs. For their purpose, neither is more - or less - elegant or functional than the other. The amazingly intricate arbour the bower bird makes to attract a mate is not greater or smaller in creative architecture than the extraordinary complex circuitry built inside a microprocessor. Therefore, why should any Ideal or Divine choose to be rapped with, only in the ambience of one set of artefacts and not the other? Especially if it created both in the first place? Or is it simply we who wield the knife of discrimination and do the choosing on absolutely arbitrary grounds? How humanising is that?

For a healthy mind & body

According to ayurveda and yoga, both mind and the body are made up of five elements, the Panchabhutas of earth (prithvi), water (jal), fire (agni or tej), air (vayu) and ether or space (akash). While the body is made up of the heavier elements of earth and water (the kapha type), it functions through the lighter elements of fire (pitta or fire type) and air (vata or vital energy type). The pitta, fire or heat of the body controls all digestive processes and the vata, air or vital energy lends its spark to the nervous system. The mind, one of subtlest parts of our being is composed of air and ether, the lightest elements. In substance our minds resemble ether formless and all pervading and in motion, it resembles air-penetrating, constantly in flux. Just as the right type of food and right amount of food is necessary for a healthy digestive system, the right type of thoughts and the right amount of thoughts are essential for a healthy mind. Therefore, the simple formula for a healthy mind is allowing only positive thoughts to come, having just enough thoughts in the mind, and finally, being without any thoughts for at least some time, that is, meditating. Meditation is not only extremely conducive to mental well being and peace; it is also the first step towards self transformation and spirituality. Posture: Sit erect in a comfortable position preferably on the floor. The important factor is keeping the spine absolutely straight. Environment: Sit in a well ventilated place that is quiet and receives natural light. Set up a meditating room with soothing music and aroma in order to infuse the atmosphere with spiritual energy. Time: Meditate at the same time daily, twice a day for best results. Beginners are recommended to meditate for about half an hour daily. Attitude & Technique: Be a receptive observer while meditating. Try to observe the mind, the breath or the immediate physical environment without thinking anything in particular, watching the mind slowly empty itself out.

Mercy, forgiveness, freedom from fire

Ramadan is a month whose beginning is Mercy, whose middle is Forgiveness and whose end is freedom from fire, according to Hadith of the Prophet. Ponder on the inherent logical sequence... We cannot be exempt from fire without first being forgiven. And to be forgiven, we must be graced by Allah's mercy. The theme of the first 10 days is mercy of Allah. Can we expect to receive mercy if we only deprive our bodies of food and drink? Of course not. Because Ramadan is meant for spiritual development through fasting. Physiologically, by fasting, the body eliminates toxins efficiently and the mind becomes clear for "power thinking" so that one may ponder on the meaning of the Qur'an, Hadith and the necessity of Zhikr. One must also do some selfanalysis to monitor and correct one's behaviour if necessary. With meditation the mind becomes quiet and so should our tongues. Allah is looking for a sincere commitment from us... Ramadan does not end at every iftar. It ends only on sighting the hilal of Shawwal. So hard spiritual work must carry on for the whole of the month. One must plead for mercy and sincerely try to receive it because without it, we are stuck at stage one and our prospects of "freedom from fire" will be bleak. Therefore, stage one is for sincere confession to Allah that we are weak and sinful and that we desperately need His mercy. We have only about 10 days to qualify to stage two. The next 10 days of Ramadan are about forgiveness. We must now beg for Allah's forgiveness because we have broken so many of His rules and covenants and disobeyed His commands during the year, knowingly and unknowingly. We must say istighfaar day and night and ask in every sajda for forgiveness. We must be afraid that if Allah does not forgive, we will surely be losers. Here again, Allah will be assessing the degree of sincerity in our repentance. He looks not for lip service but for soul service. We must also be forgiving to other people's mistakes and tempers. The last 10 days of Ramadan are about freedom from fire. Instead of just focusing on Laylat Al-Qadar - the night of power - one should intensify supplications for the remaining period of Ramadan. If possible and affordable then do go for Umrah... it will be probably the most spiritually fulfilling experience you will have, aside from Hajj. And Umrah in Ramadan is equivalent to having done a Hajj with our Rasool. At the completion of the last fast, be optimistically hopeful that you will be alive to give similar pious worship during the forthcoming Ramadans. And if you remain guided in your life then you'll be admitted to Paradise, insha'Allah, by the Ryan gate of Paradise! The month after Ramadan is Shawwal. Those who fast just six days of this month get the reward of fasting the whole year. So if one has missed fasting for 12 years of his life, just six days of Shawwal fasting gives one an opportunity to make up for our past deficiency of fasting days. "Your good deeds are accepted during Ramadan. So are your invocations. You must invoke your Lord in right earnest with hearts that are free from sin and evil. That Allah may bless you, observe fast and recite the Holy Qur'an". "Anyone who may cultivate good manners in this month will walk over the bridge in qiyamat though his feet may be shaking".