Breakingpoint

Breaking-point

This is something that I had been longing to share about for a long time. But, even to talk about it, to me, seemed difficult! Somehow, recently, I happened to ‘blurt it out’ in a way that far exceeded my own guesses.
Yet, I have been very hesitant to write it down, this time for a totally different reason. I am reminded of many precious words fading out in many ways, just because it was written down, to be read at one’s ‘convenience’. My own experience reaffirms the ancient traditional practice of ‘through the word of mouth’ method of communicating one’s experiences, effectively and enriched with the much needed emotion contents! The urge to collect the thoughts and place them together, got the better of me, perhaps!

The word
I seek reference to this word ‘breaking-point’ by attributing a little non-conventional use of its sense and meaning. So I do not mean to refer to it as –
a) that point at which a convict, a suspect or a prisoner ‘confesses’ something under torture,
b) that point when someone feels being ‘driven to the wall’ and then succumbs or tries to retaliate despite one’s all the short-comings, weaknesses, etc (like in the case of a blackmail).
b) and so on …..

This is about something that happens to us out of our own mind-set which prevents us from pursuing that which is needed of us to be done. This ‘breaking-point’ is something that I am unable to precisely define or that it is a bit subtle. Nevertheless, I could use an example to give an idea or some ‘feel’ of it. We sometimes undergo a kind of mind-fatigue that we call as ‘boredom’. Once this boredom creeps in, it straightaway erodes many of our capabilities, tolerance & sustenance levels! Students preparing for an examination in a subject which fails to evoke their interest know too well! When we attend some long lectures, our alertness fails, and we try to fight that sleep inducement! Even in the case of children, the lullaby puts them to sleep very soon, at a wrong time, to suit the ‘busy’ mother, and while the mother innocently feels proud of her ‘melody’ capability, it could be the repetitive gibberish that induced the child to retract into a slumber!

A helpful link:
I happened to mention about how ‘priority’ evades, being steadfast in our life. I can weave an extension to it here. We find our New Year resolutions, de-addiction-resolves and the likes becoming short-lived. Goals remain just the ‘goals’ because it lacks the dynamism of ‘priority’. The ‘priority’ itself slides down right under our nose! So if a person feels interested to look at ‘breaking-point’ the way I seek to express, a reference to what I wrote about ‘Priority’ could help.
http://selfseekers.blogspot.com/2008/12/priority.html

The ‘breaking-point’
I do have to concede here that I can only attempt to describe it. And that too, using illustrative situations, which again are merely indicative.

Brief illustrations:

1. There are some songs, we like to hear again and again, any time. There are ‘ever-green’ movies, stories, etc. But can we read, listen or view these repetitively and non-stop, on and on? If we try it, we find some kind of saturation point like being ‘over-fed’ after a few non-stop repetitions. We have to allow that mind’s appetite for it to form by itself again, if we are to be able to really enjoy it, though we know that we love it!
2. Students attempting to revise lessons on the eve of their exams find it even surprising that such exercise leaves them nearly ‘blank’ as at the beginning. Well, perhaps ‘re’-vision is really about something that we already had some ‘vision’ earlier! But some subjects simply refuse to cooperate with some students.
3. A rare occurrence though, we find some brilliant students become mentally ill as a result of intensely studying some subject. We are surprised or baffled by such instances and try to become a bit cautious ourselves.
4. A sudden & intense shock, pain & sorrow due to a very untimely death of a close person causes mental dis-orientation to some people. Lucky ones, as we find in movie stories, regain normalcy at a similarly shocking situation!
5. People pursuing excellence in arts like music, dance etc or in fields of sports like cricket, shooting, chess, caroms, etc, find some kind of stagnation in their attainment of higher levels of performance. Some kind of mental fatigue seems to obstruct their abilities to focus better!
6. and so on ….

Mind encounters some kind of fatigue while doing things a bit repetitively. In some situations the very first attempt makes us weary. We know of job-fatigues. If something compels us to tolerate this mind fatigue beyond our capacity, it leads to a ‘torture-point’. This distance towards torture-point grows in magnitude progressively.
The time allowed for reaching this torture point inversely affects the mental calm and its retrieval too. The repetition of such journeys affects the mental health proportionately. All this is individual dependent. Once this torture point is reached, most people retract (or retrace their steps) very quickly. Here an example might illustrate. There have been spiritual practitioners (in ancient days), who try to undertake some rigorous practices. To become better equipped for their travel beyond that torture point, they also practice some kinds of ‘self-torture’ like sleeping on nail-beds, sleeping with corpses, tasting excreta and such other acts, just to be able to ‘cross over’ the distance beyond that ‘torture-point’ till they touch that breaking-point! This example is merely an extreme case where certain spiritual practices require uncommon levels of tolerance. Since the present generation has taken a ‘fancy’ for “Yoga” and spirituality, we can also easily see a very large number of ‘drop-outs’ happening in a very short span of time!
For each person, and for each type of activity, this journey towards the torture point and beyond, up to breaking point, differs entirely. While there are no measuring tools, no tangible milestones or standard techniques to traverse successfully, the ‘awareness’ of such a phenomenon does help in handling the real-life situations, handling priorities, etc, more dexterously and thus ‘realizing’ most of our cherished goals.
There are many examples of persons who have been quite fortunate to crossover the breaking point.
Such people find ‘effortlessness’ in such activity of theirs.
Help from others, support from others does matter in our journey to cross over that breaking point. In a spiritual journey, such help is accorded the highest respect and begets or invokes the deepest of gratitude.
Emotional training is of very great significance and does matter a lot in our journey towards that breaking point.
It so happens that the experience of the nature of journey differs from person to person, and also for each type of activity. So, familiarity with a tougher journey (coupled with sustained awareness), makes the lighter ones easier. And obviously, the toughest one, the spiritual path, is also the most hazardous one. The rewards are proportionate. Fortunately, the occurrence of this hazard (in the case of spiritual path) is rare mostly because, very few venture even up to half way towards that torture point itself!
Divine grace helps us to simply glide across, right through over that point, after which life itself is effortless!

Psn(8-12-2008)