This is not exactly cheerful, but it is important.
Yesterday, I was reading (finishing it actually) the book, "Messages From The Masters," by Dr. Brian Weiss. In it there was an anecdote.
One day, a student of Buddha was meditating when he suddenly could not feel the ground where he was sitting cross-legged. He opened his eyes and saw that his body was floating a few feet from the ground. He got excited, brought himself down, and then ran to Gautama saying, "Master, master! I have learned levitation." Buddha opened his eyes, smiled, and said, "That is very nice, but why did you let it interrupt your meditation?"
In a previous conversation with a fellow meditator, a colleague from my office, Mr. Pandey, he told me that even after you start on the inner path, the outer will not let you go, easily. To illustrate this, he gave me an example from the Gita. Krishna told Arjuna, "Think of yourself as a chariot driven by five horses that are your five sense organs and essentially define your physical existence. These horses are not disciplined. Each one has its own will and wants to go its own way. If this lack of discipline is total, the chariot itself can be wrecked beyond hope (for its current iteration as a chariot)." And there are a few other horses as well. There is ego and desire and a few more subconscious horses. So every human being has like close to ten or dozen horses, all trying to take the chariot where they want. (There are similar examples in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism - in alphabetical order - saying the same thing). (sorry, about double parenthesis -- This is why addiction is a problem. Whatever you do, in my case EtOH, those horses temporarily align and move in one single direction, and, oh, the joy of it. What clarity can one perceive when the horses are properly aligned. Every problem dissolves and the whole universe says, "All RIGHT, let's party.").
Of course, I did not believe him then, but I do now.
The task of meditation and yoga is to discipline these horses dragging the chariot in different directions as per their whim, unite them in thought and deed, and then travel.
But they are very powerful. They have no sense of discretion. They just see something at a distance and start galloping towards it, regardless of consequence.
Even my guru says that though you have started on the spiritual path, do not assume the material will simply let you go. It will try to suck you back, not like a magnet, but like a black hole. It will tear you apart in its eagerness to make you follow it instead of it following you. However, it will behave like a magnet. A black hole can be cruel. The difference of the gravitational pull across the length of an object being pulled into a black hole can cause the object to be reduced to elementary particles. A magnet is more seductive. It is like life a piece of paper, your true self are iron filings on one side, and your desires as a magnet on the other side. They will not even touch you, but they will change your orientation in undisciplined ways.
And there is no escape. You cannot dissipate your life for forty-plus years, sit down for two months and expect your own tendencies to say, "Oh alright, we give up." They will not. They will scream and shout as if you were murdering yourself and your compassion (not really compassion, but) for yourself will make you give in.
I wish there was another way where I did not have to fight my own self, but I suppose that is the lesson to be learned and I am having difficulty learning it.
The ironical thing is, I know. I know exactly what is happening, but I cannot do anything about it. Either the new thought process is not, well, I do not wish to say powerful, but let us say, it does not have sufficient immediate payload. It is all there and it is vital, but there are no immediate benefits.
I probably sound like a stark-mad raving schizophrenic with multiple minds, but that is how it is.
But I suppose that is how karma works. In a certain sense, it is there and we cannot escape it. It is like a store of energy and we are given a physical plane to dissipate it. It is tricky, if you try to dissipate it, it will fight back.
Not entirely sure, but the changes in me in the past two months must have bred a certain arrogance that I could leave this monster behind and, so to speak, "move on." And that is all the monster needed. It's got me in its grip and I do not know when I will be able to break this grip again. I thought the grip was all there was and I was enjoying it. Then, suddenly, there is more than the grip. I was exultant, said goodbye to the grip, and it got me again.
Life used to be simple. Then it got even simpler. Then it got so simple, one could weep at its simplicity and the needless complications that we have created on this world.
And then it got all complicated again. Back to square one, except with the knowledge that square one is transient. Nothing that happens on square one matters unless it can move on to the infinite. But this one square, square one, the only place we know, it is not a place. It is the core of a black hole. it will want you back.
That is the whole trick. To escape it. And there are no shortcuts.
I thought learning had been achieved and only practice was left, but there is still too much. The irony is that when you truly realize the only thing you realize is how ignorant you were, but the realization of that... there are no words for it yet, at least in my vocabulary.
Everything was going fine, but this self played itself false. Perhaps there is not enough maturity (we mature like wine, the older the better :)), perhaps there is something else that is missing.
I can escape the black hole or my karma, but it is all up to me. However, I am in the grip right now and a bit constricted, so it is not easy to figure out how to put this.
My only solace is a hymn in Sanskrit that is my constant companion written by an enlightened being who only said, "what I am NOT." Unfortunately, my guru says no one in a family situation should ever listen to it because if you have spiritual tendencies you will leave the whole material world behind and become an ascetic. But we have duties, and even our own desire for enlightenment, if it interferes with our normal life, is wrong.
I am devoid of aversion, attachment, greed, delusion, pride, or jealousy.
I am beyond the four major goals of life: righteousness, wealth, pleasure, or liberation.
I am of the form of aliveness, eternal bliss, and auspiciousness.
Yesterday, I was reading (finishing it actually) the book, "Messages From The Masters," by Dr. Brian Weiss. In it there was an anecdote.
One day, a student of Buddha was meditating when he suddenly could not feel the ground where he was sitting cross-legged. He opened his eyes and saw that his body was floating a few feet from the ground. He got excited, brought himself down, and then ran to Gautama saying, "Master, master! I have learned levitation." Buddha opened his eyes, smiled, and said, "That is very nice, but why did you let it interrupt your meditation?"
In a previous conversation with a fellow meditator, a colleague from my office, Mr. Pandey, he told me that even after you start on the inner path, the outer will not let you go, easily. To illustrate this, he gave me an example from the Gita. Krishna told Arjuna, "Think of yourself as a chariot driven by five horses that are your five sense organs and essentially define your physical existence. These horses are not disciplined. Each one has its own will and wants to go its own way. If this lack of discipline is total, the chariot itself can be wrecked beyond hope (for its current iteration as a chariot)." And there are a few other horses as well. There is ego and desire and a few more subconscious horses. So every human being has like close to ten or dozen horses, all trying to take the chariot where they want. (There are similar examples in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism - in alphabetical order - saying the same thing). (sorry, about double parenthesis -- This is why addiction is a problem. Whatever you do, in my case EtOH, those horses temporarily align and move in one single direction, and, oh, the joy of it. What clarity can one perceive when the horses are properly aligned. Every problem dissolves and the whole universe says, "All RIGHT, let's party.").
Of course, I did not believe him then, but I do now.
The task of meditation and yoga is to discipline these horses dragging the chariot in different directions as per their whim, unite them in thought and deed, and then travel.
But they are very powerful. They have no sense of discretion. They just see something at a distance and start galloping towards it, regardless of consequence.
Even my guru says that though you have started on the spiritual path, do not assume the material will simply let you go. It will try to suck you back, not like a magnet, but like a black hole. It will tear you apart in its eagerness to make you follow it instead of it following you. However, it will behave like a magnet. A black hole can be cruel. The difference of the gravitational pull across the length of an object being pulled into a black hole can cause the object to be reduced to elementary particles. A magnet is more seductive. It is like life a piece of paper, your true self are iron filings on one side, and your desires as a magnet on the other side. They will not even touch you, but they will change your orientation in undisciplined ways.
And there is no escape. You cannot dissipate your life for forty-plus years, sit down for two months and expect your own tendencies to say, "Oh alright, we give up." They will not. They will scream and shout as if you were murdering yourself and your compassion (not really compassion, but) for yourself will make you give in.
I wish there was another way where I did not have to fight my own self, but I suppose that is the lesson to be learned and I am having difficulty learning it.
The ironical thing is, I know. I know exactly what is happening, but I cannot do anything about it. Either the new thought process is not, well, I do not wish to say powerful, but let us say, it does not have sufficient immediate payload. It is all there and it is vital, but there are no immediate benefits.
I probably sound like a stark-mad raving schizophrenic with multiple minds, but that is how it is.
But I suppose that is how karma works. In a certain sense, it is there and we cannot escape it. It is like a store of energy and we are given a physical plane to dissipate it. It is tricky, if you try to dissipate it, it will fight back.
Not entirely sure, but the changes in me in the past two months must have bred a certain arrogance that I could leave this monster behind and, so to speak, "move on." And that is all the monster needed. It's got me in its grip and I do not know when I will be able to break this grip again. I thought the grip was all there was and I was enjoying it. Then, suddenly, there is more than the grip. I was exultant, said goodbye to the grip, and it got me again.
Life used to be simple. Then it got even simpler. Then it got so simple, one could weep at its simplicity and the needless complications that we have created on this world.
And then it got all complicated again. Back to square one, except with the knowledge that square one is transient. Nothing that happens on square one matters unless it can move on to the infinite. But this one square, square one, the only place we know, it is not a place. It is the core of a black hole. it will want you back.
That is the whole trick. To escape it. And there are no shortcuts.
I thought learning had been achieved and only practice was left, but there is still too much. The irony is that when you truly realize the only thing you realize is how ignorant you were, but the realization of that... there are no words for it yet, at least in my vocabulary.
Everything was going fine, but this self played itself false. Perhaps there is not enough maturity (we mature like wine, the older the better :)), perhaps there is something else that is missing.
I can escape the black hole or my karma, but it is all up to me. However, I am in the grip right now and a bit constricted, so it is not easy to figure out how to put this.
My only solace is a hymn in Sanskrit that is my constant companion written by an enlightened being who only said, "what I am NOT." Unfortunately, my guru says no one in a family situation should ever listen to it because if you have spiritual tendencies you will leave the whole material world behind and become an ascetic. But we have duties, and even our own desire for enlightenment, if it interferes with our normal life, is wrong.
I am devoid of aversion, attachment, greed, delusion, pride, or jealousy.
I am beyond the four major goals of life: righteousness, wealth, pleasure, or liberation.
I am of the form of aliveness, eternal bliss, and auspiciousness.
I am beyond virtues, sins, joy, or sorrow.
I am beyond mantras, pilgrimage, vedas, or yagyas.
I am beyond that which is judgement, what is judged, or the one judging.
I am beyond that which is judgement, what is judged, or the one judging.
I am of the form of aliveness, eternal bliss, auspiciousness.
I wonder when I will reach there. I am impatient. And perhaps that is why I am still here.
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