Praayaschittaartham, parihaaraha

“Abey... Mundee neechey kar”...

I was not quite familiar with this 'mundee' ... when that 'elder' next to me thundered thus, clenching his teeth, to keep the decibels low, but the 'thrust' of voice quite hitting me through his 'severe' glare!

Then he placed his palm on the back of my head, and forced me to crouch at the bench... and added, “aisey!”.... Now, I got it! Mundee is nothing but my 'quixotic' brain, and its casing, the skull!

I looked sideways, (which constitutes to be a 'sly-look' for others... usually I turn my whole head, to keep the dual-eyed-focus straight... Single-eye vision did not seem to afford the 'depth' of the object viewed!)...

Now I got the 'why' of my mundee, being grounded to the bench!... He had to look over at the answer sheet of the 'elder' next to me, on the 'other side' (I was 'flanked by elders' on both sides, left and right ...).

That was the “seating pattern” devised by our school, to prevent 'copying' in our 'weekly tests' which was then-the-name, for today's mid-term examinations at school... I was just in 6th... the junior most in the high-school section, and therefore was quite 'new' to the 'traditions' established by elders! I never created further problems to any of my elders! (Anyway, I wasn't in that rat-race for marks/ranks... at home, I had got my instructions clear “fail in a class means, education-stop” .. My dad and his uncles had failed quite a number of times, in each class, and I was 'expected' to be a slight improvement over it,... nothing more! That gave me the freedom to 'crouch' as and when required by the elders... all I was racing-against was just 'pass-marks' plus, an insurance of little more... nothing more-than-that.. 'non-crouched' time-space was more than enough to get-thro'..)...

It was only the 'maths' egjaam which tempted me beyond my self-restraint.. and I conveniently mis-interpreted the word 'choice' to suit my craze... 5 out of ten 'sums' was the warning... I found even the time ample for 10 out of ten, because, somehow, that maths-sums sounded quite 'eejee' to me!...(anything, to sound 'easy' had to translate into a job done 'quickly'—those were the parameters taught to us at school, then! And at home, I was 'wondering' why that 'stone-picking' from ration-rice--- chaawal se kankar chunn-na--- did not sound the opposite of 'easy' when it require a labor-intensive and time intensive task! Too many family members, and finances were less, so cleaning that 'ration-rice' needed help from kids in the family... for elder males, it was a 'below-dignity' job, belonging only to women folk!... No 'sin' involved in punishing kids, who were not yet adults! 'Ration rice', to me was easily identifiable, when 'lot' of pebbles/stones, white ones, were 'found' in a rice!).... And when the maths teacher (a wizard from M.A.--maths-teachership), chided me... I stuck to the prescribed choices ('correction' was needlessly stretched, with my answer-paper... and therefore the warning!).

A little later, it dawned that I too, was a 'party' to the unethical conspiracy of these elders... but I could do nothing 'about it'... Figuratively and literally, my head was at stake!

That led me to take a look at 'sin' aspect a little closely... Three 'big' doubts 'came', into my tiny mind... 1) Atonement... 2) rectification, and then 3)forgiving ...

I kept the search on... for the equivalent of that 'forgive' in desi languages... While many 'adaptations' were force-matched to suit the convenience of unhindered 'flow' of conversations, it(the available substitutes... like kshama, etc.. 'maaf' seemed better!) really failed to convince me!

The prime-doubt was... did the ancients 'realise' that any 'error' was 'entirely' related to the doer, and the recipient of any hurt/injury/etc of any wrong-doing had no subjective-oriented act towards oneself, to be even looked into, save... any remedial measure?... The ancient theory of punishments too seemed to subscribe to this 'theory'! Maybe, it was due to a deep grasp about 'mind-related-residues', that the residue acruing to any erroneous act of the other, would be a sheer stupidity, if it creates a 'residue' in the recipient! The whole of scriptures was addressed to 'individuals' and did not warrant any 'receptivity' of residues from any act of the other... Residues are a result of one's own reactions, not pertaining to any source-of-outside-situation! That makes any forgivance by the other, for our actions, to be 'redundant'!!! The symbolisms, indicated through varied texts, seemed to make a very strong suggestion to this concept (or-else, ...or otherwise, .... I got it all 'wrong'! So, readers are to 'exercise their own prudence' while even 'trying' to subscribe to this theory!)

And then, the first two, atonement, and rectification did have its equivalent... 'Praayaschit' and 'parihaar'.. but even the colloquial equivalents in native languages somehow managed to allow a free use of these two, quite inter-changeably!

Parihaar was often used in astrology, when the dosh (error) was attributed to some far off planet, afflicting the native's birth chart... So, parihaar was not always a response to any sin, by me or even others... it is merely 're-aligning' of something that is not 'quite-in-conformity' with natural order of things... in tune with nature's design... or even the cosmic laws (as per perception of an individual!).. Setting things in order!

Praayaschit.. was 'noticeable' only when it accompanied a 'rectification-process' to what ever possible extent!

My quixotic mind, now tries to look at it as....

All parihaars need not be 'praayaschit-oriented' or praaschit-triggered...

Where as a Praayaschit need not always impose any parihaar (in some cases, the scope is extinguished even!)

I have a dictionary with malayalam script, which translates sanskrit words into malayalam language for giving 'some idea of its meaning' (The compiler obviously knew the 'worth' of sanskrit language, and was conscious of limitations while giving a translation of it, and calling it a dictionary!)...

This is what I found... so a quote, interpreted with my limitations:

Parihaar: 1)Tyaag (sacrifice)... 2)render something free of its defect... 3)revere/respect (aadar karna)

Praayaschit: “The prescribed actions, in accordance with the principles enshrined in the science of 'Dharma' to exterminate a 'sin'...

unquote;

Now, parihaar looks far more 'innocent' than the praayaschit, in spiritual terms!

Dharma is usually interpreted as 'religion' while .. the ancients who coined this term might have looked at it as 'righteousness' (the meaning implied in that urdu sher--- “khudi ko kar buland itna”

the rest of it ... 'ke har tehreer ke pehle khudaa khud pooche .. bataa teri razaa kya hai”... what ever we do do become 'buland' is righteousness... no actions prescribed... actions being situation-dependent!)

Sin, is perhaps, what ever does not fit to be a righteous act... act of thought, word or physical-action...

Since it is the residue of the actions, that we accumulate often... the freedom lies in exterminating the residue... and till then, this residue is in 'conformity' to the concepts of what can-constitute-to-be ... also... the equivalent of a 'sin' (here, in spiritual terms, the 'social norms' of what a sin is , is not a quite 'exhaustive' list.. the society-prescribed list is 'worldly'... loukik.. and is basically 'intended' for a smooth social order... it does not 'encroach' into spiritual-sense-of-sin... simply because, this whole 'business' of spirituality was considered to be 'purely a matter of personal choice'... And “perhaps” it is... 'therefore'... that a seeker is puzzled, when the 'progress' on a spiritual path is attributed to 'strange-looking' and 'new-new' lists.. of 'defects'/hurdles... and confusing us calling 'even-that' and 'this' as “a-sin”... Arey? Yeh sab bhi galat maana jaata hai kya?... Baap-re-baap... kathin-pari-sthitee hai yahaan tou!... Na jaane hum aam aadmi ka kab bedaa paar hoga!

'Debugging' seems to suit that 'parihaar' in the e-world.. and if debugging is too difficult to be an 'original', copy-paste of somebody's codes!.. if copy paste is not readily available, re-route the very loop, clandestinely ... to appear as if that function was dealt with (data availability takes time, to find the ineffectiveness of debugging.. by then, we are on a different project.. or.. hopefully, a group-leader/project-leader/'Manager'/etc!)... As yet, computer world deals with 'sins', in only one way.. 'benching'!... But we have that android-mobile etc (what ever it is!)...

psn (29th March, 2014)

Being Unavailable!

It works often!

Place the mobile on a 'silent' mode, switch it off.. etc..

'Chor-Police' ! A game that I had learnt from seniors at school... The phase was about 5 years, and lasted only till we reached 9th class, where the turn of teens drew its attention, for many of my friends, into more of 'dress' consciousness (suddenly they became too particular about narrow bottom, then 'bell-bottom' pants, the collar style was usually decided either by the ruling movie-star or that high-scoring test-cricketer... till then the ferociousness of our games took a toll on the shirt and knicker and its life too!)... For a while I felt 'left out' when this dress consciousness failed to impress me, but it did afford the attention being drawn a little deeper within (an incidental gift due to the situation... when all others looked into palm-held tiny mirrors, I learned to sit and stare into a blank empty space ahead of me, simply because, it provided the scope to 'look on and on'!)..

The concept of 'being unavailable' was getting crystallized during this immediate after-phase!... But the 'how'.... of the concept of 'being-unavailable' crept in, was perhaps.... due to the help of the game at school.

That game of 'chor-police' was a bit sacred one! There was no 'chori' (theft involved)!.. And we never gave a thought to it... when we did not 'steal' anything, why is the other kid who is chased, called a thief?... But then, why at all should he try and become 'unavailable' during the count of 1 to 50?... The thrill of the game never gave enough time to think of such logical questions! One fellow places his palms on both eyes, keeps his forehead touching a corner of a wall, and chants aloud his UKG arithmetic 'portion' of quarterly-exam... (the 'chanting' of the numerals, from 1 to 50).. Those kids...whose tongues can churn out the numbers faster will be required to chant up to 75 .. the other kids hide.. The first one to be discovered becomes the 'chanting priest' of the next round! (The worst part of it was, the kid who manages to hide at a good place, has to bear the brunt of loneliness, isolation, etc for a longer time, with the anxiety too, that the Second-bell after interval may not be audible.. The place of hiding is kept a secret, and periodical peeping out might add the vulnerability of being spotted by the next 'police-kid'... But that was the thrill...!!!)...

The need to find 'newer places to hide'... to become 'unavailable'... led me to take a look at our school's earliest water tank which provided drinking water!..

The water tank stood on a platform of about 2.5 to 3 feet, so as to enable tiny size taps all around its base, for kids to use it for drinking the water... the spill-water flows along a narrow canal 6 inches wide below this tap, all around the tank... The tank was located at the end of an open-corridor. Along the open corridor, soon after this tank (lengthwise), was the Chapel, then the 'office-room' which had a window that remains 'open' only for certain hours, more for 'fee'-flow than for the air-flow, inwards for ventilation!.. The next was the Principal's office (out of bounds for kids, except when summoned!)..

The corridor had a roof with a drop on the open side to shield from slant rain-shower... This 'drop' wall narrowed the space between the water tank's upper portion to just about 9 inches for a height of 3 feet! Where as, the other side of the lengthwise portion of the tank grew along the wall with a gap of 1 feet, so that kids can squeeze in that space, stand in front of the tap, and sip from the drool of that tiny tap (kids desisted from that 'side-length' of taps, just because their 'bottom' gets a pat from the wall, when they suddenly couch to reach the tap!).. The height of the water tank was kept almost touching the roof, short of height by just 6 or 8 inches!...

The 'search' for a new hiding place tempted me to climb on to that canal-railing, and reach for the roof of that tank, and pry into it, to 'see' if I can somehow squeeze in, to hide somewhere along the elbow of that tank's top portion where the drop began.... I was surprised when I managed to take a look at the water in the tank from its top... the head had to be twisted sideways, to reach inside the tank, to take a look, but the wall of the tank was a bit thicker than the length of my neck, and hence could not 'straighten' my head after that side-twist to push the head in! A compromise was the 'sly' look side-ways (the way we try when copying from the answer-sheet of the next kid during an examination/test-process!)... The dim lighting took a while to clear the visibility ... And the 'visuals' left me stupefied! I was looking at an 'ocean bed' like scene with lot of greenery at the base, (and was at once reminded of the 'explanation' of the puzzle, when I found tiny bits of green substances which occasionally landed on to our tiny palm while cupping the palm upturned, beneath the tiny tap to sip the water!)... There was nothing more to 'gain' from the visuals, and I struggled my way back, to the firm ground! (It was much later that I could 'guess' the reasons for this poor-design of this tank, which made any-cleaning almost impossible after it was erected... it also explained why this water caused a sore-throat occasionally when my throat was ..... 1) pre-ruptured due to shouting hard during our lunch-interval-game, and 2)also dust-coated by the playground mud, hanging in air... all over the place, suspended to a height of 5 feet for that 45 minute duration of interval..

Otherwise, this water never mattered (in terms of lack of cleaning the tank periodically... this was true for almost all of us kids.. that carrying of a 'water bottle' was unheard of during 1956 to 1970 at least!)... From my memory as an adult, the only explanation I found was that the body as a kid was good enough to expel almost all of the substances that got-in... like that water of school-tank's .. or.. 'that' which was not needed as a 'food' by the body!

At work place, the skill of becoming 'unavailable' had to turn a little more subtle... And here, I was only interested to learn it by observation, and never felt persuaded to 'practice it' (the whole idea of the terms of contract of employment was to be 'available' during the whole of working-hours, and any 'idea' of being unavailable meant a proportionately 'unearned wages'!... That was something not so compatible with my-frame-of-mind, ever!)...

At home, this un-availability takes dubious variations, mostly because we are 'relatively-related to the close-relatives of ours)...

With spiritual pursuit, the physical 'availability' turned to be inversely proportional to spirit's availability, for evolvement into spirituality! (Even to discover this, it took a pretty long time, for many of us, and therefore the 'sinking' in of the tools and techniques was groping for a slot through which to sink in, it also kept its search on at just the surface levels, leaving even the surface-benefits, popularly known as the 'incidental-health-benefits' to a chance-happening,... when the subtlety of 'resistance-within' itself was an inconspicuous hurdle!)....

Mind. It alone seems to decide the level and extent of our 'availability' within and out of physical realms! (When the being within.... gains a 'decisive ability', and decides to 'avail' the mind, its availability becomes a little flexible, with 'flexi-timings' ... the latest catch-word of techies of today!)

Availingly yours,

psn ( 26th March, 2014)

Wishing Wants!

“If you don't study well, you will not get a 'good' job when you grow up!.. You will struggle like that rickshaw-puller on the road, and yet the income will leave you and your family hungry”...!!!

That is what the school-teacher used to tell us ... trying to inspire us, to work 'hard'...!

(Even right then, I had 'quixotic' doubts cropping up .. like, 'who then would pull the rickshaws, do the menial jobs, for others at 'good-jobs' to enjoy life 'smoothly'?.. but a very wrong place and time to ask... the cane was 'well within easy reach' of that teacher .. plus... irreversible consequences of 'reporting' to higher-authorities.. of such un-healthy traits... parents would never forgive!.. Principal find it good 'bijness', when replacement-kids would fetch fresh 'donations'!!!!)

Hardly the age to become 'hard' at 'hard-work'! The whole life was about going easy at it! But, that frequent warning coming from 'well-meaning-elders' kept nagging us the whole time! And then a few confusing dictums (not just proverbs!)... “play while you play, work while you work.... the only way to be healthy, wealthy and gay!” (at that age, 'gay' had only one meaning, for us... only now it seems to confuse us! But the consolation is, it was used just to rhyme with 'play'.. no-hard-'feelings'...!!!).

“What will you be, when you grow up?”... kids used to ask each other (though at that age, it simply meant a choice between maths and biology, at the time of 'entering' the 9th class..! And I used to say, “I want to be 'normal'... just normal”.. Most of my classmates used to gape at this reply, but some of them not knowing the value even of their own words, used to say “But for that you need not do anything at all? You are already that! You do seem 'normal'”.. I used to leave it there! If only those kids (now as old as me), would remember.... quite a few of them might be struggling to be 'kid like normal' that they already were,.... then!

So, it was all about what we 'want'.. and then 'wish' for it!

I looked at the wish-list of a few giants in history....

A small spelling mistake, and 'nir-devatwam' became 'nidre-wa-twam' (Kumbhakarna, who had wished for years to eliminate their natural enemy, the Devas, erred while presenting the wish, and the 'grants-commission' hurried to say, 'So be it'... and he became a good 'sleeper-cell' for terrorism-activities!).

Somebody could not even chant properly 'Rama-Rama'... he was advised, to try “Mara-mara” and the phonetic-sequence got transformed into the right version 'Rama-Rama' over a period of time... !!! So, it was not 'exactly' about actions, but the intent behind it... And, there was indeed some design, a clandestine one, that took care of the co-hesiveness of the individual wishes, to remain aligned with the 'cosmic-wish' and effected necessary corrections, when the imbalance was likely to undergo an intolerable-tilt!

It was time to take a look at what yet-another-science tells about the effectiveness of our own 'choices-of-wishes'!.. And some of the wishes 'take-shape' only during the next time, meaning, the whole structure undergoes a change at its very 'base-form' to actualise the wish!

Yes, astrology, with all its unreliability, inevitability, doubts, confusions, and above all, the proverbial-unpredictability!

Wish for lot of power around you--- and we get re-located near a thermal-power station, or still worse, near those huge massive transformers, as a humble watchman with a 12-hour-duty (for 'want' of a reliever often, but ... nature ordained that 'may your wish be granted')... Now, any neurological problem is 'Brother, you asked for it!!'

Wish for lots of cash in our hands, and we end up as a Bank-cashier! Keep counting till you retire, and before leaving, liquidate the debts with terminal benefits!

But, now...

did we 'exactly' wish for 'Mobile-phones'?...

Somebody ... say an alien watching us from the sky above, may feel tempted to conclude... that

no matter what level of poverty/wants/hurdles of life... mobile connectivity, tele-density was high on the wish list of these humans!... Shops at vintage points quietly 'make-way' for mobile-shops.. and people wouldn't even remember 'what was there earlier?'.. At trains and buses, the brief intervals when they are not 'talking' with the mobile, they are plugging wires into their ears, listening to it, all the time! Obviously, talk time and stand-by time of these gadgets enter our wish lists!... (Some where deep within, the 'being' is silently and patiently waiting for the 'listen-time' and stand-up time of our alertness and awareness!... But, this 'being' simply does not know how to market its 'wish-want' list to us... All it can do is simply wait!... Till our own wishes are granted, grants feel fulfilled, fulfillment yields contentment, and contentment seals further-wishes!...)

By the way, the bulk of us now seem to be 'wishing' for that cherished 'good-governance'.... A wish almost thrust upon us...... as a 'shifting-pain' from ....corruption-governance to good governance.....! Are we really ready for good governance, the torture due to it--- entailing adherence to all kinds of strict rules like honest tax-payment, no favoritism, no jumping-of-queues,... etc.?....or, ... is it that a good governance is a consequence, an obvious one out of what we are and not a thing to be wished, or a want to be granted!

Wishfully yours,

psn (17th March, 2014)

Mind and Schizophrenia

We are familiar with mind related ailments..

An expert of that field wrote a three-part-blog, and I tried to comment in one of them, with a spiritual-oriented-thrust...

May be it is of interest to you!

http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/wellness/schizophrenia-causes-and-symptoms-part-1

http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/wellness/schizophrenia-part-two

http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/wellness/schizophrenia-concluding-part

My comment:

All the three articles make an interesting and informative reading...

While providing amazing clues to even a non-affected person, it does not try to 'impose' any information on the reader, and that is a wonderful aspect of the articles!

...

I find a certain depth of 'patience' in the author! (Usually, patience is misconstrued in a great hurry, and often misconstrued to be merely the waiting period of the mind to boil out--into thoughts, words or actions--and dismissed as 'nothing more than that'.. which is perhaps not so true! It is the inner-stability too, and perhaps a little more than that... and that is what I find in the choice of words of the author while responding so gracefully to the comments!)...

...

Now, I am a non-expert, unqualified, and therefore incompetent person to comment on a professional-article by a qualified person. And.... above that, my unconventional and unorthodox style of approach, perhaps, might make it all the more illegitimate (in the ethical sense), to try to make any 'comment'...! So I shall try my best to make it sound like a mere humble response only!

...

I had my share of experience with volunteering for those aspirants who sought to deepen their own spiritual pursuits...

Some of them, came for merely a little more of 'peace of mind'.. such people found instant and amazing results from the spiritual-oriented programs, where I too offered the 'volunteering'...

Some of them found a yet better reason to stay on to the practices, if it would offer something more... such people found their 'patience' wearing off, and most of them dropped off over a period of time, but very slowly and very gently, ... and gracefully attributing the dropping off, to their own lack of tenacity-of-purpose!

Very few decided to stay on! They had that inner urge, to goad them a little further! And not without 'any' rewards... Also, not without 'side-effects' too (mind game!)...

...

The spiritual practices makes an impression about some kind of 'deeper' understanding of our inner design, which is purely experiential... The 'explanation' of what is 'actually happening' within is quite elusive, for want of that audio-visual help we get usually, when we attempt to understand the external objects and the experiments we try with them...

And now my guess work. It is, for me,... only a guess work, because, the understanding of it is without the technical details of the inner design.. but otherwise, the experience seems to be quite firm (so far, this far.. at least :) ....).

The brain, along with its nerves, neurological design, etc is powered by a certain kind of energy, the life energy, in its various forms, various patterns of storage-systems etc.. And the very same energy, when it manifests in a subtle form, gathering the past impressions, and also retains its own unique 'creativity' (unique to humans, human-form, human-design) becomes what we try to call it as a 'mind'... Without that self-awareness, 'the' mind, which we attribute to a human being, a normal human-form, is not present in other life form to that extent, and therefore we do not expect a similar 'processing' functionality out of their 'awareness/alertness'... Interestingly, the level of this awareness (not self-awareness), in other life forms is also in distinct varieties.. Apes and monkeys come amazingly close to our kind of mind! (that is where the researches attempt to juxtapose the findings, and then to arrive at an argument concerning similarity!)..

Now, since I am a non-expert, let me use a very crude and simplistic but 'only-an-indicative' example to tell what I look at it as.....

We have seen varieties of blinking lights connected as series, to give us that decorative lighting effect flashing different designs, patterns, when they flash on-and-off, alternatively... If the power is correctly connected, and the flow of energy is to the very right-kind-of volume and velocity, the design produces the visuals of the exact kind sought of from it... What if one of the bulbs mal-functions? What if the power-flow gets reduced between two 'resistance' modes?... Possibilities are numerous, in the distorted visuals that we get to see! The energy that powers the mind to do its own functions depends on physically-manifested intermediaries of the human body, the entire network of nerves, neurological responses, the perception and processing at the brain-level, and then the 'data-delivery' to the mind! When it comes to the mind-level, the entire power-management itself becomes heavily complex-ed! Its own creative power (this is the mystic part which eludes even the medical sciences), functions and mal-functions according to the power-management ability... And this is where the 'study' branches out from physiology and gains a certain unique kind of 'independence' while studying the mind itself (the name is psychology, .... psychiatry, perhaps the application or applied-functionality of this study...) The bulk of relief sought to be given to person whose design-of-mind malfunctions (here 'malfunctions' is a term to be looked at as more-of-convenience, rather than its 'appropriateness' .. if we seek to be judicious in our study and claims... we often encounter cases where deeper perceptions are also-misconstrued as 'malfunction' due to undue-haste! )...

Now, let me try and make it a little more complicated, not too much :)

Going back to that example of series of lights and bulbs,.....what if the wire itself, the bulbs itself, improve their capability to sustain and also enhance their ability to 'display'/manifest the transformed light-form of that power?... The gauge(thickness)and quality of wire decides the volume of power it can transfer... we have superiority of copper over steel/aluminium wires, and also other mediums for super-conductors... We have certain freak-bulbs which illuminate a little above average due to some filament becoming better-functional than the contemplated-design... It is here that our ancient science of 'mind' seeks to explore deeper.. it seeks to improve the network of physical nervous system, the 'clean' physiology, the enhanced functionality of human frame, the peak-performance levels of brain endeavoring to further deepen its receptivity plus processing capability.. in two ways... improving the power-receptivity-capability, and sharpening the processing-capability... and second, to create that 'space' the potential, to become receptive, to enhance that receptivity of subtle forms of energy (not within its range of perception in its natural/inherited form of design 'by-birth'... in some cases, the 'mind' manages to manipulate even the potential 'during-birth' itself, that is where we find the child-prodigies!)... The purpose all this, to ultimately merge with the universal source of power, the creator itself!...

As a by-product, we have the 'findings' from deeper experiences to be useful to afford a little relief, a little cure even (that is where the study through sensory level perceptions finds its limitations to afford calling it 'a cure'...!), to a few of our own fellow-beings... where it is found that the 'situation allows it so'!

...

I guess, it is already rendered quite long, for an eager and curious person to take a look at it, and then to 'assess' if it makes any sense!.. But, I thoroughly enjoyed this response, even when I attempted to verbalise it! For me, it feels to be already a thoroughly rewarding experience... And now, I patiently shall wait for any 'bonuses' in the form of brickbats even!

..

Thanks and regards,

psn