The incurable secular monkey!

I confess that I am secular. Some of my friends who swear by Hindutva gave me the honorific ‘secular monkey’ just as I christened them ‘Saffron monkeys’. I don’t know which happened first. It all had the character of the chides and liberties without which no friendship is complete but the underlying principles are serious indeed. Now, I must explain what I mean by being secular. When I say I am secular, I certainly do not mean that I am denying the existence of a higher purpose or a perfect cosmic harmony which though hidden from the usual plane of human awareness is the only goal which can sate all desires. I also do not deny that cultural fossils of mystic insights, which come to us as organized religions have different hues in keeping with the space-time contingencies that guide their origin and subsequent progress. I am not against religious expression per se though I myself don’t find any solace in organized religion except possibly an aesthetic joy in certain symbolic rituals or the architectural beauty of ancient temples or medieval mosques. I enjoy the Shiv Tandav Stotram just as I relish the muezzin’s call for namaz at the Jama Masjid in Delhi. But these pleasures are aesthetic and do not mean I agree with all that the Koran has to say or with the dubious ills of caste system and prohibition of widow-remarriage in Brahminic ideology. Still, what I mean by being secular is that whenever I interact with a human being, I interact with him as one man with another and not as someone who belongs to any particular religion having an interface with the follower of the same or a different religion. This is as much a statement of identity as it is of a principle. The truth is that I do not derive the moorings of my identity from any religious current and not even from a fusion of all religions. Because all religions are fossils while I seek the living waters of mystic rapture, which anyways demand individual and personal encounter with the truth rather than any organized practice. While saying this, I must also clarify that by secularism I do not mean ‘minority appeasement’ but the complete absence of any label such as a ‘majority’ or a ‘minority’. My guiding axiom states that spiritual insight is inversely proportional to faith in any organized religion or historically transmitted belief structure. Better be a rational skeptic than a narrow-minded believer. As for the mystic, he has nothing to do with any belief for his only guiding light is direct first hand experience.

REALITY IS NEVER EMPTY

Notions such as 'Shunyata' (Void) or 'Fanaa' (annihilation) are purely imaginary nd delusion-inducing. To say that 'nothingness' exists or is a valid experience to be had consciously is a proposition too absurd and nonsensical to merit any reasoned refutation. How can consciousness emerge out of nothingness? And as far as all those who speak of the Ultimate as 'Shunya' or 'fanaa' are concerned, they are surely not speaking from a void or a nothingness bereft of consciousness. If they claim to speak from a nothingness, it is a ludicrous claim. If they claim to have returned from a 'nothingness' to speak, it's even more ridiculous. How can that into which a conscious entity can merge and from which it can emerge ever be 'nothingness'? Consciousness can only merge into a still deeper awareness. Dissolution pertains to a merger of the individuated consciousness into infinite awareness and never any non-being. All talk of void or shunyata is specious and imaginary and to be completely refuted by every genuine seeker, in whichever scripture it may happen to appear. All who speak of 'nothingness' speak from a plane of confounding speculation and constrained imagination. And all speculation and imagination happens in consciousness.Thus the very idea of 'nothingness' is rooted in consciousness. And that's what it is. A delusional idea!
To say that the densest point of Big Bang or the minutest zygote or seed is empty or 'nothingness' is again absurd. To say that the pure awareness which transcends the vibrations is void is also absurd for no emergence from or merger into a void is ever possible.
To quote from the Spanda Karika (Stanzas on Vibration), a beautiful flowering of Kashmir Shaiv mysticism,

12. Nothingness can never be an object of contemplation because consciousness is absent there.( It is a mistake that one has perceived nothingness) because when reflection (subsequently) intervenes, one is certain that "IT WAS".

13. Therefore consider that to be an artificial state similar to deep sleep. That principle( awareness) is forever perceived and not remembered in this way( as a memory of 'nothingness').

Again,

23-24. Once the Yogi enters That State which he takes as His support and firmly resolves that 'I will surely do whatever He says,' both the sun and the moon set, following the ascending way, inot the channel of Sushumna, once the sphere of the universe is abandoned.

25. Then in that Great Sky( of Awareness), when the sun and the moon dissolve away. THE DULL MINDED YOGI IS CAST DOWN INTO A STATE LIKE THAT OF DEEP SLEEP. THE AWAKENED HOWEVER REMAINS LUCID.

The last verse clarifies everything. Nothingness is the casting down of the dull yogi into deep slumber and not any valid experience. The adept does not swoon but goes deeper and still deeper into ever vibrant awareness. Thus Awareness is Real while nothingness is a stupor which appears in awareness due to dullness of the seeker.

To inhere in Awareness is sadhana and all talk of 'nothingness' is a delusion and an obstruction.

Thanatos

The human body is made up of worms and is consumed by worms. This vivid image is used by a rather pessimistic thinker to accentuate the gloomy end of the vessel that carries us through the ocean of life. That there is a certain force within us which is dark and powerful in its darkness and can often engulf is made apparent by the irrational urge to destroy life expressed in terrorist violence, riots or a child breaking his toy in rage. We all know we have to die, and rehearse the final inertness of our bodies through our nightly deaths in sleep. Yet our nightly death indeed gives us many lives through dreams- those myths we enact in the cloak of the night.

A Western Minority in an Eastern Majority

( This is my friend Ty Canning's paper which he submitted as part of the course requirements at the Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, where he was a visiting student from the University of California in 2008.For the most part, I have presented it without editing for grammar or spelling to convey the original flavor. It is thought-provoking and presents an interesting though rather unfair take on India.)

Canning, Ty

November 24, 2008

Personality & Self

Delhi University


What will it feel like to be a Western minority among India’s Eastern majority? This question immediately arose in my head when I applied to the University of California Study Abroad Program to attend Delhi University. The experience of being a minority in India or anywhere is one that many people of European descent have not had the opportunity to have; which is why my newly acquired status as a minority, and a Westerner in India has been such a curious and unique experience.

Membership to the "in-group", which happens automatically when a person is part of the majority, is something often taken for granted. As a minority one involuntarily becomes an “other,” an outsider, and the isolating effects of this can be stressful on the human psyche. Along with the psychological implications, certain socially established privileges given to the "in-group" also tend to be taken for granted when a person is part of that majority. Only when one is placed in the position of being an “other” can they truly appreciate the plethora of unspoken and unacknowledged social privileges that they absentmindedly enjoyed before their status change.

I took those privileges for granted in my many years living in the United States. In America, there is a popular song lyric that says, “you don’t know what you've got 'til it's gone” that is far too applicable to the human psyche. I have had the privilege and curse to experience the true accuracy of this statement first hand in my travels in India.

Many of my common daily experiences, both external and internal, were revoked from my sociological status when I entered India. The privacy of anonymity, respect for my personal space, being offered equal prices for equal goods and services, being left alone, and many other subtle and not-so-subtle privileges that had previously gone un-noticed in my life, were no longer there.

I have also experienced internal struggles stemming from the simple fact that I have immersed myself in a different culture: how to feel about poverty, death, spirituality, my health; how to feel at all. These are just a few things in the long list of experiences that I have struggled with. Many of these aspects of the human experience were simply not visible in my life in the United States; all things easily taken as "givens" and not acknowledged as the enormous sociological and psychological privileges of being part of a cultural majority.

Privacy is the first thing that I noticed slip away from me when I came to India. This privacy is the kind that comes with the ability to be anonymous in a crowd. If you are like every one else you can blend in and not have others focus on you, which permits you a certain amount of anonymity and therefore privacy. I have come under the watchful eyes of everyone around me through my status as a minority; my ability to blend in is no longer available to me and I therefore fall under the inspection of those of the majority. This detailed scrutiny, which generally begins with my appearance and then automatically shifts to my actions, has definitely been the most overt side effect of my minority status.


The first thing I noticed, in fact, as a westerner in India, is the unrelenting stares. As if I were a creature not from this earth, my appearance is scrutinized down to the finest detail. There is no respite from this focus; walking down the street, sitting on the bus, the metro, a restaurant, each place I am analyzed with curious eyes. This constant focus on my appearance has made me rather self-conscious; I have found myself analyzing my own “look” and finding it unacceptable here; the blond hair, the blue eyes, the western dress, all now things that I wish I could change for the time being in order to fit in and have my anonymity back.

This focus has also begun to influence my actions. This can be seen through an account of a train journey I took from Delhi to Bodgaya. It was a Tuesday afternoon at two o’clock when I boarded a train at the New Delhi station heading for Bodgaya. I sat in my seat, answered a few questions from my fellow passengers, namely where I was from and what I was doing in India, then settled in to reading a book that I had brought with me.

The train started moving and a while later I noticed out of the corners of my eyes that every other pair of eyes in the open compartment was on me. I shifted in my seat a bit uncomfortably and continued reading, thinking that perhaps they had just looked over at that moment and that they were no longer looking at me. Entertaining that thought I eventually managed to tune back into my book for about twenty minutes until again I glanced out of the corners of my eyes to find that everyone was still looking at me. At this point I could no longer concentrate on my book so I put it away.

I soon noticed that every slight movement or thing that I did fell under the attentive eye of these people of the majority. I tried to eat some food that I had brought from home but found it so uncomfortable to be watched so closely while I was eating that I began to get nervous and dropped some in my lap. I tried to write in my journal, but found that the person next to me was reading what I was writing as I was pouring my inner thoughts forth onto the page, so that stopped rapidly as well. Every time I moved to do anything more than scratch my nose, whoever’s attention that had wandered from me over the course of the train ride was instantly focused back. I eventually crawled into my birth hoping that I could gain some bit of privacy being above everyone; but their eyes had followed me and were now watching me attempt to sleep. I turned my back to the compartment, hunkered as close as I could manage to the wall and eventually drifted off to a world where no one could watch me.

This account of my travels illustrates how the analysis of my actions influence them in the moment. The scientific principle that simply the act of observing a phenomenon changes it, is one that is sociologically applicable in this situation. Unobserved and anonymous, my night on that train would have undoubtedly been more restful and pleasant, but my status as a minority drew the attention of those of the majority and forced me to act differently.

On the train I began to think that I was strange and that my actions were out of place, so I adjusted them to fit in, but every action that I tried was met with the same response and I eventually attempted something of non-action to gain some sort of imagined approval. Non-action was still not an appropriate way out and so I eventually retreated into my subconscious mind through sleep. These adjustments of my activities have continued for such an extended period of time that it has caused me to question myself, caused me to question my actions as to weather they are my own or a product of some psychological phenomenon of the majority’s will being imposed upon my own psyche.


Personal space is something that I have long since taken as an automatic and subconscious gift to other members of the human species. A good explanation of personal space is offered in a paper by the Department of Psychology at Princeton University, they describe it as follows: ‘Many researchers noted that humans have an invisible bubble of protective space surrounding the body, generally larger around the head, extending farthest in the direction of sight. When that personal space is violated, the person steps away to reinstate the margin of safety. Personal space, therefore, is the flight zone [space in which the flight or fight response is provoked] of a human with respect to other humans. The size of the personal space varies depending on context. A person who is placed in a potentially threatening context will have an expanded personal space; a person in friendly company will have a reduced personal space. In this view, personal space is fundamentally a protective space, a margin of safety.’

It is well known that Western societies, which tend to be more individualistic, subconsciously allot a greater amount of personal space per person than the more collectivist societies of the East. For this reason I have come to feel that my personal space has been lost to me here in India. A fine example of this lies in yet another train journey, this time between Old Goa and Mumbai. Admittedly the confines of a train require a certain adjustment of personal space, but in this particular journey my personal space was not only violated, but crushed to non-existence.

It was around five o’clock in the evening that three friends and I boarded a 20-hour train from Old Goa, in the unreserved section, heading for Mumbai. We had been on the waiting list for 3-tiered non-A/C seats but had not had the good fortune to get even one seat. When we entered the unreserved section of the train we found it pleasantly empty. We claimed one of the wooden benches and settled in. There was just room enough so that one of us could curl up into a small ball while the other two sat side by side (it was in this manner that we planned to sleep in shifts during the course of the night).

As nighttime fell, more and more people began to get on the train. People filled the luggage racks and we were eventually asked to move over by a small elderly woman. We politely obliged giving up any chance of sleep on the over night train. More people arrived and began sitting on the floor. Soon thereafter we were asked yet again to move over to accommodate this man’s wife; the only way we could do this was to sacrifice the few centimeters of personal space that we had managed to secure despite the growing numbers on the train. My friends and I stole a quick glance at one another conveying that we weren’t comfortable giving up the small amount of personal space we had left, so we told the man as politely as possible to find another seat. This was met with a verbal argument escalating to a physical dispute. While repeatedly telling the man that I wasn’t going to move I got shoved, shaken, and slapped multiple times before he realized that I, in fact, was not going to move. He and his wife were forced to find a seat on the floor.

I had never been assaulted like that before in my life. I realized later on though that, although the man’s actions were wrong and there is never any excuse to resort to physical violence, we were both coming from a place of pure misunderstanding. Our rather frightening interaction was simply the result of cultural differences in the concept of personal space. To him our refusal to move over was simply unreasonable and irrational; we had the physical space to fit one more person, and he was unable grasp why we wouldn’t move over. To us it seemed obvious that there is a certain amount of space that is necessary to be psychologically comfortable and we couldn’t grasp how other people could sit in such close proximity to one another without feeling that discomfort. We managed to keep our space for that train journey and ended up sleeping away our time in Mumbai.


Less blatant at first, but no less prevalent, are my interactions with anyone wishing to sell me something. They see that I am from the West and assume that I am not only wealthy but foolish also, and thus charge me an obscenely inflated rate. In the end I usually get the same price as a local simply because I have been here for so long and know what things are actually worth, but merely the initial perception and categorization as "other" puts me off enough that I rarely shop.

The most common and therefore the most infuriating of these interactions is with auto rickshaw drivers from my house to the metro. The distance is exactly three kilometers and should therefore be twenty rupees. But autos assume that I am lost, being so far away from any tourist attraction, and they therefore begin the bargaining process at ridiculous fares, the highest of which was one hundred and fifty rupees!

To alleviate the negative psychological effects I feel from getting over charged for things, I always bargain and often simply wait until I attain the correct fare. This can take as long as a half hour and involves much frustration before I can be on my way from my home; again my status as "other" affects my actions because sometimes I don’t leave my house for the day simply to avoid having to go through this unpleasant ordeal.

What makes these interactions particularly objectionable is that they occur near where I live and therefore where I feel the most like I belong, so to be treated as "other" so consistently near my own home feels like a personal offence.

I thought that since I would be living in Delhi for so long I would begin to fit in and would therefore be treated as a local and left alone. This expectation was never delivered and I have continued to deal with being an outsider even in my own community.

An example of this is the all too regular amounts of verbal and physical harassment I endure while walking anywhere. Particular culprits tend to be school age children who are trying to show off for their friends. The first thing I usually hear is the word “englesie” (meaning “white person”) followed by some sort of Hindi cuss word then an eruption of laughter. This is generally followed up by the word “hello” being called out an uncomfortable number of times until I am out of earshot. Conspicuity makes "other" into the targets of ridicule and harassment, and a scapegoat for majority's anger or frustration.


I have had to deal with many personal struggles while here in India, the hardest of which were internal struggles of morals and feelings. One such struggle was how to respond to the overwhelming amount of poverty I witness daily. It would be impossible to give personal aid so many people, so how does one cope with the feelings of helplessness surrounding this issue?

My first response was the response most people have when placed in a psychologically painful and unavoidable situation, apathy or non-feeling. ‘I can’t care for all of these people, so I wont care for a single one,’ is the alternative my emotional body jumped upon as the solution to what would have been an emotional breakdown.

This response pervaded for the first four months of my time in India until one night in Bihar, the poorest state in India. I was in Bodgaya, a town inhabited almost exclusively by Buddhists and beggars. Many of the beggars were children between the ages of four and fourteen, which put a particular strain on the emotional wall I had constructed to keep myself apathetic. I sat down to eat at a restaurant located on the main stretch of road where many of the begging children spend their days and nights. I noticed a boy who was probably 12 years old watching me eat. I sat and ate my dinner while this hungry boy looked on. When I got up to leave he asked me for money and I ignored him as I had so many others.

Later that night I lay awake in awe and disgust of how cold and hard I had become. My psychological response that had been created initially to protect me from the overwhelming experience of seeing real poverty for the first time had become out dated and was now bordering on becoming inhuman. I swore from that night on to help as many people as I could in however small a way I could manage. The following morning I purchased some packages of channa and peanuts and went back to where the boy had been the night before, I found him begging there and when he came up to ask me for money I handed him a package and went on my way.

I realized that this small contribution was what I could afford as a traveling student and that was enough. It was out of fear that I was not offering some sort of contribution; fear of being taken advantage of, fear of being mobbed, fear of opening the flood gates that have been holding me together these last months in one of the harshest environments I’ve ever experienced. But none of my fears came into fruition and instead I felt as if I’ve salvaged a bit of my humanity in my newly rediscovered conviction to give aid to those I can.


Of the many things that are hidden from Westerners by their own government and social structure is death. Regardless of whether it is animal death, such as in a slaughterhouse, or human death, such as in an old folks home, death stays behind closed doors in most Western societies. So you can imagine my surprise to come to a culture that believes and makes visible that death is simply part of life.

The visibility of death, while present everywhere, was particularly visible to me in Varanasi. Known by many to be the cultural capitol of India, it is in Varanasi that the holy Manikarnika Ghat resides. Referred to by tourists as the “burning ghat” it is the holiest place for a Hindu to be cremated. It follows that it is a place where, on average, two hundred bodies are burned every day. Having only witnessed a deceased person once in my life I was a quite nervous when I saw the flames and smoke rising high into the air from the Manikarnika Ghat.

My fears were unnecessary and I ended up having quite the opposite reaction I was expecting to have. I thought I was going to be revolted, I even went on an empty stomach, but instead of revolt I felt a certain curiosity. Having been protected from death my whole life it was fascinating to watch the process take place. I looked on for two of the four hours it took for the funeral to be completed... The body was dipped in the Holy Ganges where the ashes and bones of previous cremations floated thick and black. Then it was dried and placed on the funeral pier, which was ceremonially lit by a sacred fire that has been burning continuously for 14,000 years. The smoke rose thick at first as the body began to catch. It smelled of campfire and the occasional waft of sandalwood.

After a few minutes the cloth that was draped over the body was burned away and the scene became very graphic; the head, lower legs, and hands were visible on the outskirts of the flames. After a while one of the workers made the fire collapse, using a long bamboo stick, and rotated the body. After an hour or so the body was no longer quite so defined and after three hours the flames were extinguished with water from the Ganges and the remaining bones thrown into the river. The whole process was carried out with business like efficiency, illustrating just how integrated death and life seem to be in the Eastern culture.

Animal death is also kept away from the general public in most Western cultures. Perhaps it is this reason that the West consumes far more meat and has far fewer vegetarians than most of the Eastern countries put together. In Varanasi I got the opportunity to see this animal death up close.

I was walking down the street and I came upon a chicken shop. From afar all I noticed at first was that there was a general gleaming red about the open shop front. I got a bit closer and realized that the red was blood and they were in the process of slaughtering and cleaning a large crate of chickens. Again I was curious and watched for a few minutes as the whole process was carried out swiftly and efficiently. I am interested to see if I am able to have witnessed these animal deaths and continue to eat meat when I get home; I don’t think I can.

After seeing these things I have a better understanding of what it means to die, it is no longer as foreign and frightening as I had once thought it to be. I don’t believe that it is desensitization, as many would argue, but rather an understanding and a personal acceptance that people and animals die and it is simply a fact of life. I believe that keeping it behind closed doors had made it seem taboo in Western cultures and thus people have uninformed ideas about it. We fear what we don’t know and before India I did not know death.


The most prevailing thing I have noticed about Indian culture is the presence of religion in people’s daily lives. There are multiple temples in every neighborhood; miniature temples appear on the sides of roads, in people’s homes, in people’s cars, on bikes and in shops, restaurants, office buildings, grocery stores. At sunrise and sunset the air rings with chants, songs and prayer (This sound is currently resonating in my very own ears from outside). How do they do it? In a nation where thousands of people starve each day or die for lack of clean water, how is spirituality so prevalent?

There is a psychological phenomenon described and studied by Abraham Maslow called the “Hierarchy of Needs.” In this hierarchy there are certain basic needs that have to be met before one can pursue other endeavors. His hierarchy starts with physiological needs such as food, water, sleep, good health, etc… it then moves on to safety, then cultural belonging, then self-esteem, and finally at the very top, after all other things have been taken care of, according to Maslow only then can we pursue what he calls self-actualization or spirituality. Yet India, perhaps out of a necessity of its own, seems to be an exception to this phenomenon.

I have tried to fuel my own spiritual flame while here in India with very little success. I find that too much distracts me here; be it cars honking outside, bacteria and viruses ravaging my insides, mosquitoes buzzing in my ears, or pollution choking my lungs, it is impossible for me to find peace in the only place in Delhi where I feel truly safe, my room. I have tried to find some sort of spiritual respite in holy places as well, from the Maha Bodi Buddhist temple in Bodgaya, to the quiet riversides of Rishikesh, everywhere I go to shut my eyes and look inward I am questioned by those of the Majority.

I have had a bit of a “Pavlov’s Dog” experience in that every time I try to look inward in any sort of public place, and now even in private spaces, an anxiety builds in me. This anxiety comes from being consistently interrupted from a meditative state by curious people asking me where I am from and what I am doing here. Sometimes even when I have ignored such people they will go as far as touch my shoulder to satisfy their burning curiosity! Similar to Pavlov’s Dog hearing a bell and receiving food, I have gone into a peaceful state and been roused by direct contact consistently enough that my attempt to meditate directly leads to anxiety, making the actual interruption unnecessary. My spirituality has thus become under the influence of the majority, yet again, making me question whether my spirituality inherently belongs to me or if strangers too can influence that search for self just as they have my actions.


The Western, and especially the American, conception of health is admittedly very skewed. In a culture where dieting and self-deprivation are a part of every day life, you find yourself getting caught up in it all. When I was home I was running ten kilometers a day and eating mostly raw fruits and vegetables; this did, in fact, make me feel really great, really energized. So when I came to India imagine my distress when I personally found the air unfit to run in and the people in charge of my program told me that if it wasn’t cooked I shouldn’t eat it. This was a big change for me and it has taken me a while to adjust, at first I didn’t understand how anyone could adjust.

If there is one thing that has influenced my health here in India it is the air pollution. I have developed a chronic cough that has left me feeling out of breath and unhealthy. The cause seems to be that the majority of people are simply uninformed about the effect that their actions have on the air quality in Delhi and, for that matter, all of South East Asia. I have seen more piles of burning trash, and more cars with excessive amounts of emissions, in Delhi than anywhere else in the world. These practices are happening all over South East Asia and as a result there is a brown cloud forming over India and parts of China that is leaving the air unfit to breathe.

I was wondering if the people of Delhi find it hard to breath as I was coughing profusely on one particularly polluted day. My answer was given to me on my way to the metro. I was sitting on the back of a cycle rickshaw coughing up black stuff as the cycle driver puffed along just fine in the thick Delhi air. Some people to my left waiting at a bus stop smoked happily as an auto rickshaw drove by at top speed leaving a cloud of black smog to diffuse into the already grey air. Across the street to my right, what looked like street children danced merrily around a pile of burning trash, the fumes rising to meet their laughter.

I was having a moment of incomprehensibility about how they were not coughing, as I was, when I realized the nature of the human being, eloquently described in a passage of Viktor E Frankl’s book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning.’ “I would like to mention a few similar surprises on how much we could endure: we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, in spite of that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. We had to wear the same shirts for half a year, until they had lost all appearance of being shirts. For days we were unable to wash, even partially, because of frozen water-pipes, and yet the sores and abrasions on hands which were dirty from work in the soil did not suppurate. Or for instance, a light sleeper, who used to be disturbed by the slightest noise in the next room, now found himself lying pressed against a comrade who snored loudly a few inches from his ear and yet slept quite soundly through the noise… Yes, a man can get used to anything.” (Frankl; 1946)

That being said, I have adjusted to life in India. I have adjusted to cold showers, all manners of deep fried street food, lack of exercise, the unavailability of silence, and even, to a certain degree, the grey air that I grudgingly breathe into my lungs. Given a year or two I am certain that I wouldn’t even notice the burning trash on the corner, or the black fumes coming out of the back of a rickshaw; and I certainly wouldn’t notice that the air that I had been breathing for years was anything different than what air is supposed to be like. And so, as my health declines, I feel normal; my body and my psyche has adjusted to the changes that have occurred in my life and I, as a member of the resilient human species, regardless of my present minority or majority status, accept my condition and continue on.


I was told before coming to India that I should prepare myself to face the most emotionally trying and psychologically draining experience I would ever have. People warned me about the poverty, they warned me about the tourist scams, they warned me about the over priced goods, the pollution, the staring, etc… As a result my expectations for coming here were very grim, and I adjusted my psyche accordingly. I prepared myself to face all those experiences, and more, through subconsciously closing down my emotions behind a protective psychological barrier, thus numbing my feelings to a mere whisper of what they would have been otherwise. This strategy has served me well and I have found myself in a place of resigned acceptance of all that I see and all that happens to me here. But after that incident with the hungry boy in Bihar, this strategy stopped being okay with me. Here I was the minority attempting to make a small impact on what the majority takes for granted.

I have been trying ever since to dismantle my barriers, to really feel what it is like to be here. But my subconscious is too strong; I couldn’t break free of that barrier, and so, after a few weeks of being hard on myself, I have once again accepted it. I have changed my actions significantly so that I am mentally okay with how I am acting here in India, but I have kept my emotional barriers. I will now give food to the beggars on the streets of Delhi, but I can’t sympathize with them; I will now talk to the people who talk to me on the street, but I will not let them influence my decisions; I have softened in my actions, but have remained steady in my psyche.

There is a wonderful quote from Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ that states, “But if in your fear you would seek only [life’s] peace and [life’s] pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of [life’s] threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.” (Gibran; 1923) I have essentially covered my “nakedness,” my vulnerability, and moved into a space where I am able to cope with the ups and downs of my minority experience on a more level field. I don’t feel that this is a good thing, I also don’t feel that it is a bad thing, it is just a coping mechanism that I, coming from such an entirely different culture, have to work with.


The experience of being a minority has been very influential on me. I feel that when I return to the United States I will be a much more culturally sensitive and racially tolerant person. Coming to India in general has been the most worthwhile psychological journey I have ever taken. The challenges that I have faced as a Westerner coming into an Eastern society have been great, but because of those challenges I am a more aware, open-minded, and well-rounded human being. The adjustments that I have made coming here will stay with me for the rest of my life as psychological tools that I may call upon when needed. Just as our immune systems remember foreign substances, my mind will be able to launch a much more efficient coping mechanism to all the various experiences I have had should they come up again in my life. Also, from this time spent as a cultural minority, I have learned how to be more effective in my personal experience as a "majority of ONE".









Bibliography


Frankl, E. Victor. Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Washington Square Press, 1984.


Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet. New York: Random House, Inc, 1969.


Graziano, S.A. Michael, & Cooke, F. Dylan. “Parieto-frontal interactions, personal space, and defensive behavior.” Neuropsychologia Nov. 2005: Department of Psychology, Green Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. .


“Maslow’s Hierarchy.” Changing Minds.org. 2002-2008.

An empty mind is God's workshop

Escapism! Laziness! Unproductivity! Such are the terms that the most crucial element for all psychic growth is derided with. All the great men who shaped the collective destiny of mankind were men of leisure. No office going clerk could have become a Socrates nor would have a king perpetually preparing his armies to sate his gargantuan land-hunger become the Buddha. The higher subtleties of the human experience cannot be accessed except through freedom from the trammels of drudgery and repititive labor. What is meditation but an effort to bring the mind in a state of voluntary leisure - an open receptivity without clinging to any psychological labor. What made man free from mere animal existence was his erect position and the resultant leisure that the hands got form the labor of walking. The mind busy with material concerns is incapable of attaining insight.
Yet it is a mad rush which is the all-pervading feature of the sick world of today. Mad commercialization and a frontal attack on ecology is threatening to throw humanity in a crisis. Even economically, what the world needs is leisure. If all people were to do only one-third of the work they do at present, three times the present workforce would be required and everybody would be readily employed. Per capita productivity must be lowered to increase employment. This is possible only when human interest rather than monetary or pseudo-economic models decide policy and its implementation.

Three Monks

Shankar : Brethren, this debate which I am having with you exists only as an appearance in the sphere of individuated consciousness. The consciousness which pervades the phenomenal universes is one unified essence. The first dream is of my being Shankar and the projection of that dream is your being Ramanuj and Madhav in the primary dream of the imaginary being conveniently named ‘Shankar’. The consciousness within which the unitary essence appears as three distinct individuals having a heated discussion on the fundamental nature of being is holistic.

Madhav : You are engaged in a cunning play with words! How can the object ever be perceived unless it has an existence, distinct from the perceiver? I see food and eat it to sate my hunger. If I, the food and the process of eating are one and the same, I should be just as happy without having to eat the food. That , however, would lead to hunger and ultimately starvation. If you consider reality to be unified, whu don’t you eat burning coals instead of cooked rice?

Shankar : Brother, give me burning coals and I would eat them for they are That. And I am That!

Madhav : You may have some special yogic power to digest what is inedible for the common populace. Yet, that doesn’t apply to the multitude. Besides such a trick can hardly be ground for inferring the unity of the perceiver and the perceived. If you are what I too am, why don’t you express vedantic aphorisms through my mouth
? I challenge you to do that. It is my distinct personality which allows me to have a differential grasp on the perceived world.

Shankar : I would say you are that part of my being, which is still ignorant of its fundamental nature!

Madhav : How impertinent!

Ramanuj : Venerable Shankar, how do you account for the deep devotion which the soul naturally feels for a perfect personal God. Can such a pure emotion arise for an imaginary being? A Supreme being of perfect divinity would be necessary for inspiring such love.

Shankar : The love is the natural desire of the ‘individuated’ to merge into its true unified essence. No external being can ever inspire my love. A lover loves his beloved for he sees his own essence in her, he loves her for differential expression of his own intimate essence.

ICE

That which existence blesses with being has a raw potency which no glassy ideology can ever weaken. . For logic is the shadow of reality. Logic is created as a figurative interpretation for the possible which has the existent as its most manifest evidence.
Population is rising. AIDS is spreading. Bigotry and grossly vulgarized ‘religious’ nonsense is being openly propagated. That pollution is happening is the license for its propagation. That which happens finds its own logic Frost saw the world ending either in the fire of heedless passion or the ice of indifference. While ecologists are crouching under the fear of global warming, it’s the ice of cowardly apathy which causes the rising temperature. We, the ‘educated’ people, the ‘intelligentsia’, are happy in our abstract ivory towers while environment is being defiled, terrorism bred and gross inequalities celebrated by the naked display of filthy lucre. To see the obviously harmful and remain a moot spectator is to garnish the evil recipe. What makes a health-conscious individual to bear passive smoking in a crowded bus or a University student to be silent while dry leaves and trash are burnt in the campus, openly polluting the very air he breathes?
To cut through the momentum of evil which gains its potency through an ever-widening vertex of spread requires the most determined and steadfast effort which should have as its origin a power which has roots much deeper than the conviction of its truth. Evil is an integral part of every philosophy which has its origin in the fecund mud of this earth. Virtue needs the conception of evil for its functional definition. When the idea of bad doesn’t exist, the dream of the good too vanishes. Yet the human inside us strives for the absolute splendor of pure bliss. When such purity is deemed ‘uncontaminated’, the idea that pollution exists and is so potent AS TO BE THE KEY IN DEFINING THE ABSOLUTE ( THROUGH ITS ABSENCE) is not far to seek.

Reality is Imagined

In the night, when you go off to sleep and start dreaming, it can also be said that you wake up from the waking dream to the dreaming wakefulness! My take on mysticism suffers from an ‘Indian/Hindu’ bias because being an Indian and having found the maximum intellectual and emotional satisfaction from Vedanta and Upanishadic thought, I use that idiom in talking about mysticism. However mysticism transcends all frames of reference which belong to the limited sphere of the human experience. Mysticism sees ‘infinite bliss of pure being’ as the eternal essence of all existence. The great infinite is ever-new bliss, purest existence and the highest truth. It is beyond the individuated Godhead. God emerges out of the great infinite. However the idea of an individuated God is by no means necessary as we can see from Buddhism and Jainism. All that is needed for the universe to come forth is for the blessed infinity to ‘appear’ in the progressively materialized causal ( or ideational), subtle ( or energy) and gross ( or material) spheres of being. These spheres are mere appearences. They just ‘appear’ to exist while it is always the blessed infinity which ‘really’ exists ( The whole universe is only an illusion but a very persistent one- Einstein).The ‘infinite bliss of pure being’ is not consumed or used up in any manner due to such appearances but stays intact in its true essence.While the infinite bliss causes all creation, it is by no means affected by it. There is no analogy for mystic truths. However to convey a rough idea, think about the myriad clouds that appear in the sky without affecting it. Clouds are formed, play in the sky and ultimately vanish. The sky holds them all but is never affected in essence due to their presence or absence. I again want to reiterate that all analogies do a rather poor job of explaining mysticism. They are used only to aid understanding but only true experience can take you one step closer to the blessed truth.
Now, this blessed infinity is absolutely free from all attributes or qualities. Its free beyond freedom, beautiful beyond beauty and blessed beyond bliss. It is greater that greatness itself and more powerful than the very essence of power. It is completely ineffable yet all words describe it alone. You cannot know it, you must BE it. And you are already IT but for your mistaken delusion of individuality.The immense hypnotism which makes you believe I am so and so, born at this or that date, of this species, gender and age, with this human body, keeps you in the dream of individuality. Reality is as imagined as imagination is real. To an average human being, the talk of infinite bliss beyond creation would seem like a fable or a dream. However, it is he who is the fable and the dream while infinite bliss the only reality.What the infinite bliss is can never be described or even known except by merging into it once and forever, never to return back. Whoever comes back would not be the one who merged. The one who enters samadhi is not the one who comes out of samadhi and in the samadhi no individuated being is present; for samadhi is the purity of being beyond any individuation. This ‘infinite bliss of pure being’, free from all attributes and individuation, which seems so far away and looks like a fable is in truth, your , mine and this laptop’s own intimate essence, while all that you and I feel we are, say a 24 years old psycholgy student with a passion for chess, is in truth a fable and a mere dream. You may accuse me of turning the commonsense idea of reality upside down, but as I said earlier, ‘Reality is as imagined as imagination is real.’ Common sense would have you believe that the sun revolves around the earth ( that’s how it ‘appears’ and that’s what many primitives believed and the Bible says), that there is nothing similar to atoms or electrons( they are not evident to senses)and that the flying of an airplane made of metal is impossible( that’s what many eminent scientists believed before the Wright brothers turned their wisdom upside down). Even specific sense , such as that possessed by experimental scientists suffers from the limitation that it operates within the six sense fields ( the five primary senses and the mind which is treated as a sense in Indian thought).
Meditation is experiential rather than experimental. Its an experience beyond the sense-fields rather than an experiment within them. All science is within the purview of the intellect while meditation begins after the intellect has been transcended. From the great infinite bliss of pure being, an emanation appears in the form of a cosmic music or great vibration of harmony. This is the great ‘AUM’ sphere. Causal, subtle and gross universes emerge from it, appear to be for a few billion apparent years and are finally dissolved in the primeval ‘AUM field of consciousness’ which itself merges into ‘ Infinite Bliss of Pure Being’ beyond all creation , vibration and emanation. This great AUM consciousness is the cause of light and sound spheres which grossify as the material universe in which individuated frequencies which are relatively less gross appear as sentient beings ( like human beings) while the frequencies which are relatively more gross appear as matter dubbed ‘non-living’ ( say rocks, soil etc.). It must be noted that in essence, matter is consciousness itself. The modern string theory and some features of sub-atomic quantum physics have some interesting things to say about the similarities between the most advanced science and mysticism ( read for instance, ‘ The Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra, an eminent physicist , who also had a beautiful mystic experience; also the talks between J. Krishnamurti, a mystic and David Bohm, the physicist, which are available in book-form and also online and on youtube).
Lets expound this theory in detail.
1.) ‘ Infinite bliss of pure being’ is the great supreme purity of blessed consciousness which is the highest happiness and is beyond all appearances, attributes and individuation of any kind. It’s the true essense of everything that appears to have an individuated existence, from the entire universe to the sun to me and you and the chair on which you are sitting. ‘ The Infinite Bliss of Pure Being’ corresponds with ‘PARAMATMAN’ or the infinite bliss beyond the apparent individuated essence.
2.) The first and primary emanation which appears from the ‘INFINITE BLISS OF PURE BEING’ is the great AUM consciousness from which the great effulgence of pure consciousness appears. This is the effulgence which is experienced by yogis as the brightness of a million suns shining as one. Bliss and the greatest happiness which fills the innermost recesses of being is the primary attribute of this effulgence. The great cosmic symphony described as AUM or the word ( gospel of john/bible), logos( Greek mystics), Udgitha etc. is the ‘AUDIBLE LIFE STREAM’ which emanates from AUM along with the effulgence. This audible life stream too has bliss or the greatest happiness as its primary attribute.The AUM consciousness corresponds with the ATMAN or the apparent individuated essence.
3.) As the AUM consciousness with its sphere of effulgence and audible vibration involutes or descends a bit, the CAUSAL SPHERE ( Karana ) comes into manifestation which too has bliss , though now somewhat individuated as its primary attribute.This corresponds with the sheath or covering of ‘BLISS’( Anandamayi kosha).
4.) With further involution of the AUM consciousness, the SUBTLE SPHERE OF ENERGY( appears from the causal realm.Consciousness takes the gross form of energy. This corresponds with the sheaths of pure INTELLIGENCE( Buddhimayi kosha) and pure EMOTION( manomayi kosha).
5.) The involution of the sphere of energy into the GROSS SPHERE OF MATTER( jara) occurrs when energy is transformed into matter. Consciousness appears as apparently lifeless in the form of rocks, earth, fire, physical light, electricity etc..( Its extremely important to remember that the effulgence of AUM experienced in meditation is the light of consciousness with extreme bliss and pure consciousness as its attribute and hence is very different from the physical light, say of sun. Besides the effulgence of AUM doesn’t cast any shadow which physical light does.)
6.) As involution occurrs, the three spheres intercat with one-another and exist in tandem with one of them having prominence in its sphere of power rather than as isolated realms. Thus within the earth experience, the gross frequencies appear as the earth, soil, rocks etc. while the subtle frequencies appear as sentient beings ( birds, fishes, human etc.) and the more subtle frequencies appear as human beings.
Within human beings, there are marked differences as to whether the causal, subtle or gross sphere of consciousness is the most active. Besides there are differences between the spheres which are dominant in different states of consciousness. Thus, the gross sphere is prominent in ordinary wakeful existence of humans when information is received through sense-channels . The subtle sphere is active during dreams when consciousness becomes a bit free from sense fields( but not from impressions from sense-fields; dreams draw heavily from the experiences of wakeful existence; usually even in dream, the dreamer retains his ‘age’, ‘gender’ and ‘looks’; ability to dream as beings of a different and higher species is a sign of spirituality maturity) and creates its own ‘reality’ through dreams. The deepest dreamless sleep corresponds to the vacuum between subtle and causal realms. To wake up in the deepest dreamless sleep when the consciousness is free from gross and subtle spheres is the beginning of mysticism proper. Even an ordinary human being retains the impression of well-being and freshness after a night’s good sleep.

Sannyasa

Does formal renunciation pave the way for self-realization? Kabir was married and so was Nanak. Mysticism is an internal process that grows as mind expands into its primal essence. External renunciation with craving intact merely makes for hypocrisy. Yet to be able to devote one's entire waking hours to meditation without any worldly concerns would indeed be a major benefit if the renunciate is earnest. The few sannyasis I have met had a palpable aura of silent majesty about them. Yet they weren't entirely free from ego and other ills of the world. I personaly prefer mysticism rather than any external ritual or intellectual study. The true renunciate is free from desire while outwardly engaged in activity. However to write all this is mere intellectual conceit for me as I lack adequate experience.

Insanity

Sanity has no accepted definition. Views on what constitutes normal behaviour vary across space and time. A Tantrik who meditates on a corpse in a funeral ground may be regarded as a seeker by some and a deviant by others. People who claim to have the ability to leave the gross body at will and enter astral realms can't be easily catalogued into neat behavioural categories. One easy way to avoid confusion is to avoid all mention of what lies beyond the usually accepted norms in social interactions.However at times what lies beyond becomes manifest in the mundane sphere when the seeker is the least prepared.
An ardent devotee of Krishna has His blessed vision. What is it? Divine grace? Hallucination? Both? What parameters decide the label? Modern psychology is too narrow to encompass the infinite miracles inherent in human consciousness. Dwarfed deductions of pygmies cannot limit the majesty of giants. As Ramakrishna said, " Those who sell brinjals would do well not to judge the price of diamonds."