Everyday Joys and a spiritual life.

The biggest surprising insight of the week was the sudden flash that made it so clear that being spiritual in no way takes away the possibility of living a joyful life or a life of fun or even of commitment to one's goals and responsibilities. There was even the smirk within that questioned this possibility of  anything else being nursed in the name of spirituality in the first place.

One of the mistaken perceptions of a spiritual life is that of austere renunciation and dourness, a life removed from allowance of a feeling of joy and mirth in everyday life.The joy of a smile exchanged, a hand shake, simple things like this that are neither permissive nor restrictive are not at all out of bounds for a spiritual person. The innocent, pleasant, clean, uncorrupted joy of simple everyday transactions and the commonplace hope that has come to see the light of the day through one's efforts and Grace- these are certainly within the definition of a lived spiritual life.

This is what I wrote in my e-diary:
Being spiritual does NOT devolve you from being committed to your everyday duties and responsibilities. Behaving as if everything will take care of itself, on its own, without any effort from your side, just because you are spiritual is a costly delusion (and something that is not spiritual in the first place- because spirituality teaches us to look at things as they really are). You still have to do your job and you have to do it well, for that too is spiritual.

Included in this duty is the one toward servicing the upkeep of your own self: making sure you are healthy in body, mind and emotions. That is the full compass of spirituality. Spirituality does not ask you to be a pauper on purpose when you are not one to start with; it asks you to see what you really are and then act in the wisest way and in a way that is for the highest common good. The same is true for depressive spells that are passed by almost unawares and even helplessly in the name of spirituality or spiritual practices being done in the background.

A truly spiritual person is healthy, is happy within, and if not, he actually works to make it better with means available to him, and yet is in touch with reality. He does not welcome unwholesome states of mind or body but when in the throes of such a state, he faces it with as much equanimity as possible and makes amends. He does not deliberately sabotage his own career or profession just because he is committed to some spiritual practice or teaching. Anyone doing this or asking you to do this is not practicing or teaching spirituality. Beware. 

The First Cremation of Childhood.

The Colony that we stayed in was the residential facility for the employees of the company my father worked in. If there was ever a place better than Heaven on Earth, at least in that decade or so of my childhood that we lived there, it was there in that colony.  We, the children of those days, were indeed blessed with the best of all that the rest of Indian parents would have wanted for their children.

At various times, we had neighbours from different nationalities- the Japanese, Italians, Spanish, Swiss, the Americans and the British. Those that had brought along their children, they studied with us in our school. Once the various plants of the company were commissioned, these other nationals went away and we had a new neighbour,  a family that had – not at all surprising at that time- known ours for perhaps five generations in the past.

The patriarch of this family, a retired  teacher and a dignified old man in his late eighties was a sight to behold: short statured but ramrod straight posture, bushy white moustache, circle rimmed glasses, black Gandhi Cap, a walking stick in hand, wearing starched white dhoti under a white kurta on top and balck leather mojaris. He was quite amiable and I warmed upto him over the next few weeks. He told me he was personally familiar with my grandfather’s father since he and my great grandfather were neighbours back in our home town! For some reason I was awe struck by this man and fancied a liking for him. The sight of him stirred deep feelings of shared intergenerational bonds.

After a few months, the old gentleman fell ill and died. I must have been about ten years of age then and I recollect being very sad on hearing of this. My father took leave of absence to assist in the preparations for the funeral.  And then out of the blue he asked me to accompany the funeral procession to the crematorium located outside the colony in an inaccessible and forlorn location. My mother protested against this decision, but father insisted. While I do not recollect the exact words of the exchange that my parents had about it, I remembering overhearing something to the effect that it would help in my training.

“Goddammit” was not a part of my vocabulary then but the sense of it certainly was. What kind of training was he talking about?

In any case I did accompany the funeral procession. I asked my father a lot of questions and some of them were answered, like why the logs were being arranged on the pyre as if in a geometric design.  And then a severe concern came upon me: what if the grandpa’s body still had some life left hidden in him somewhere- wouldn’t he feel the burning pain of the fire of the funeral? Was it sure he had really died- for he looked so fresh- as if he was just sleeping quietly.

After a while of questioning I – being the only pre-teen in a crowd of men of my father’s age-fell silent and passed the remaining time at the crematorium lost in thoughts. As I look back now I wonder what thoughts I must have thought at that tender age. On the way back home there were even more questions and fewer answers. I passed the next couple of days in a demure mood.

While questions about death lingered on in my mind for quite a few days the most persistent of all was the question, what, if any, was the training that my father referred to, in attending a funeral? It was not the question per se that was disturbing but the concept of death as an aid to training that continued to ruffle me.

In a twist of serendipity, over the next few days, our history teacher took up a chapter on Siddhartha Gautam. In our text book was mentioned the young  Siddhartha’s first exposure to the fact of suffering in life-sickness and then old age leading to death.  I distinctly recollect the feeling I had as I read that chapter- it felt that seeing a death was a familiar experience but I could not decide what to make of it, except that it had made me very sad for some time.

Only much later did I realize that on that day at the crematorium, I had had my first emphatic experience of what the Buddha called the first of the Four Noble Truths.

Suffice it to say, the training continues!

The Biscuit- Should I Eat It?

That day, at last the main competitive exams for children in the 12th standard was over and all of us could then breathe easy.

From that night to right till about an hour or so into the mid morning the next day, I was under the sway of a powerful mental-emotional spell which urged me to be competitive, brash, uncaring of anything other than personal ambitions. On the whole, it was a fist-clenching, forging-ahead attitude full of grit and devil-may-care slant of mind, while mentally nurturing the rekindling of the goals perceived as hibernating.

The triggering events were two: the first has already been mentioned above, whereby I felt- not quite appropriately, for no one had stopped me- as if I was now free to pursue my own ends; the second was the movie we saw that night; it was based on a book written by one of India's famous whiz kids. The fact that this man's book could be made into a successful big banner movie, conflagrated my desires for some substantially more worldly success. A thousand of my pet projects came tumbling out of my mind's recesses, clamoring for fruition.

At just that moment the thought of the Ashta Sila  came to mind; one of those eight precepts enjoins oneself to abstain from watching entertainment shows. The reason for undertaking the precept became apparent as I went over my mental frame of that day. So powerfully disturbing was the effect of the movie that the meditation session of the morning -after had hardly a moment of Mindfulness in it. Not only these entertainment shows leave your mind distracted, sometimes agitated as well, as in my case, but, and importantly, it takes away scarce time that could be used in Practice.

As if to shame myself further, I had already committed to one more 'sufi music' concert the following evening....prayers for myself and my well being!

The spell of a towering ambition for worldly success has the potential of clouding one's sense of discernment to the same degree as a period of rage; only the spell of ambition lasts longer and is hard to be aware of, where as, at least to some infinitesimal degree, one is aware that one is angry when one is so. This is an insight I was not aware of so clearly right till then.

The question that reared its head then was how to conduct one's life in a balanced manner? I mean how much of ambition to stoke and how much to douse? Perhaps the answer lies in doing the best under the situation, doing it with the intention of highest good for all concerned, all the while being crystal clear about the motives deep within- aligning these with the highest good, and then to let the results take care of themselves. No, it doesn't end there- one has to learn to accept  the result, as it is, and then move on. To do this again and again with every presenting opportunity to exert one's ability, and to do it while being aware as it is being done, if that can be done, would be a big success in itself!

On top of this disturbing frame of mind that day, there was also the news of a dear friend having undergone a coronary angioplasty over the previous weekend. These events in one's circle of friends also influences oneself; this time the effect was a sobering one. In a funny sense, such news can act as a measure of helping one's cholesterol- I let the very enticing biscuit fall back in its container on hearing of the news. This time, however, I knew that I was dropping the biscuit as I was doing it!