On life's chosen paths: Contd.

And now, let us look at the article itself.

The article is great in recognizing the trend of a lot of young people flocking to gurus. And it is my own experience that I find lot of my friends flocking to Art of Living, run by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

After all, this is considered a good thing: It raises awareness about spirituality, and the fact that some simple practices can greatly affect the way body functions; making it lively and in general giving a lot of good spirits. So at the end of the day, it is like alcohol: You want to get benefitted in one way or other; with a different quality of living. Is this indeed a reality? What would be the overall purpose behind a young person taking to these esoteric practices? Is it just a fascination (like they would get fascinated by Pop stars)? Can that fascination be turned into a real enquiry within? Gurus, if they are indeed gurus, would have ultimate purpose as pointing everyone towards ultimate reality. Is it just a sincere effort that they use all means to win hearts of youngsters? Or is there a grand design in this universe that slowly and slowly the awareness rises, and the world moves towards 'satya yug' i.e. real heaven on earth? And perhaps large organizations and advertisements are indeed required to make this happen!

Like Shankaracharya, perhaps this is nature's way of working; the gurus are just vehicles for an activity that eventually influences a large number of people. There is a peculiar problem for those who understand non-duality: Everything around us is part of single reality - like one big huge machine. The words such as "control", "responsibility" don't have meaning. Everything functions like clockwork. And organizations are required to make this all work; they drive the activity in centralized manner. So that justifies spiritual organizations. In that case, the real enlightened side of person is less important, and the glamorous side - having that shine on the face ("Tejas") and being able to win hearts like pop-stars becomes more important. And the gurus can be seen to be doing just that.

Perhaps J Krishnamurti was an exception: In spite of having a big organization, he left all that. In some sense, that created another model to help people like me! My mindset was more intellectual, and naturally believing more in logic than practices and beliefs. He was a right "guru" for me. And he led to a different style of being a Guru. After I learnt a lot (through books) from him, I came across UG Krishnamurthi (whose anti-JK tirade is well known!). I am in ave of him. He is like a pop-star for me. His life had very unique flow of extra-ordinary events. And yet he says it is all natural. He directs us to non-dual reality as matter of fact. He doesn't care of depend on anybody (unlike most gurus who need their share of students).

UG made sure that my dependence on JK was removed (and replaced by dependence on UG). But UG is too good to allow anyone to depend on him. He literally repels people - and you end of asking how come you are even talking to him. In my last encounter, I was actually left with the feeling of that really being left in lurch i.e. I even asked myself why should I even bother to meet him. I think David Quinn, who wrote A Critique of UG Krishnamurti has put it nicely. But then, I have some personal experiences - extraordinary, and can only be attributed to UG. And other people (Chandrashekhar, Mahesh Bhatt) have indeed put their own experiences. So David Quinn might have missed such interface with him. And in any case, an enlightened man has absolutely no goal that directs him to behave in some specific way. So I believe that David Quinn misses the whole point when he sees UG in some standard way.

So in any case, I now realize that I can't take anything from UG or whoever. And I don't even take my experiences seriously. So what is the way out?

Interestingly, in recent years, I have been meeting many people with THAT knowledge, and happily being with themselves, and helping in small communities. No glamour, no special influences etc. Just plain simple dialogues leading to different aspects of reality. The common thing that always remains is the non-duality aspect of reality. I don't feel I am disciple. At the same time, I have a great Wow feeling; the same feeling that one gets when one looks at some great manifestation of nature such as a mountain or sea or range of colours in sky. And whatever understanding is supposed to happen, will happen in its due course. Unlike earlier, I can see the line of "Things just happen, and you just happen to think that you were responsible" - of Nisargadatta's Disciple (and of course a Guru himself) - Ramesh Balsekar. In fact, UG, latest Matrix-II, my experiences with Nadi, and so on; all say the same thing: "The nature is simply unfolding its manifestation. Your thinking or feeling of control has absolutely no bearing on the same."

My wife asked me if even Thinking (and all the suffering because of thinking) is also predecided. I couldn't earlier decide this. But now I feel that thinking and mind doesn't really exist: They are a trace of a fast moving attention which just shows itself as real. At any time, there is only attention: Either on external world, or internal world (which has reality just like external world; but is not perceived through five senses.). And attention simply moves in logical space formed by the experienced world.

But then, as masters put it, even if you understand everything, you will eventually just live this life - exactly like the children and these youngsters! The Week's article indeed has a very nice quote:

A young monk went complaining to the Zen master: the regimen is harsh, joints cramp during meditation, the body aches, the mind drifts..."My son, don't worry, that will change," the master comforted the youth.

Later, he came back. "Thank you very much, master. Now I know the meaning of bliss. I know what I am, what is life's meaning. I feel eternal pleasure."

"My son, don't worry, that will change."

On the life's chosen paths

The Week, a magazine in India published a set of articles titled Mind Over matter. And I was excited that my school classmate Shashidhar Hebbar has been interviewed. I lost touch some 8-10 years back, and I found (through google searches!) that he is with a well known Ashram. Shashidhar influenced me right from the school days. When I was frantically trying to clear NDA (defense) interviews during 11th/12th standards (due to general insecurity feeling), it was he who told me that I am not supposed to join armed forces. Later during my graduate days, he was the one who handed me a copy of Richard Bach's Illusions. In short, while I was interested in matters spiritual, he gave directions to that.
He did Masters from IISc (that too in comp. sc.), and yet, he, so effortlessly, turned his back from Industry and academics, and went into teaching non-formal education to kids. And now he is teacher of different kind!

While I also had lot of interest in spirituality, I went into the academics for Ph.D., and later into industry. Partly because I believed in Jnana Yoga (i.e. understanding through knowledge rather than practices or beliefs), and partly because I was insecure. In any case, I could never really become a true academician (I didn't complete my Ph.D.). And I am not sure if I am a true industry person as well! Though I am in industry, I am not attached to making money or even 'taking responsibility' in its true sense. While this could be because of lack of excellence, in my belief it is because of the world view I hold; that of non-duality. I do excel in analysis of problems, designing good systems - both software and business process systems. These activities can be performed with focussed efforts for short time, while the continuous focus remains on something close to your heart: On spirituality and science. In fact, no day passes without some or the other discussion or readings related to spirituality. With deeper understanding, even 'waiting for enlightenment' also falls off as concept. So I am left with "don't fight with what exists; don't worry about what happens" state of mind. In some sense, it seems like it doesn't matter whether you are in Ashram or in a office. In fact, the ashram tends to be much more political than office place - because in office place the interactions are limited to very specific objectives central to the industry, and no one will bother about your real interests etc. At the same time, the organizations can definitely gain from wisdom: I can clearly see many optimizations and good practices that can be put into organizations. Spiritual Management, as I call it. But I can't be instrumental in actually seeing them happen; I could only contribute to them.