Month: October 2007

Who Are You Really

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We are discussing tapas. But what do tapas do? They purify and strengthen our system. But tapas can also make a person egoistic because they think it is something great that they are doing. That is why immediately after tapas, Patanjali Maharishi asks us to indulge in swadhya or self-study.

 

There is a story about two neighbours who did a lot of meditation. God came to one of them and asked, “What is that you want?” The first neighbour asked God if he was going to give something to his neighbour too. God said, “Of course! You both started tapas on the same day. You started one hour earlier. I came to you first. What is that you want?” So, the first neighbour said, “Can’t you somehow avoid going to the other man?” God said “No. It will become unjust. So, I have to go and see him.” The first neighbour said, “Okay, whatever you give to the other person, give me twice as much.” God went to the other man and asked him, “What is it that you want?” The second neighbour said, “Wait a minute. Are you coming from my neighbour’s house?” God said “Yes.” So the second neighbour asked him, “What did you give him?” God was silent. The second neighbour said, “Now come on, tell me what did he ask?” God hesitated for a minute and said, “Well, he asked to be given twice as much as whatever you ask.” The second neighbour said, “Okay, so, that is what he wanted? Then blind me in one eye and cut off my ear. I will teach him a lesson. He is always competing with me. Now let him suffer twice as much as I do!” This sort of tapas without self-study leads to ego.

 

Look into the motive behind your actions. Often you get things you do not really want only because other people have it or because what others might say or think about it. Many a time, you are not clear about what you want because you have not looked into yourself. You are swayed away by fleeting desires. Your desire is not even your desire.

 

Self-study means observing yourself. You have purified the body, but are you the body? You have lightened your mind, but are you the mind? Are you the thoughts? Are you your emotions? Who are you? This is self-study.

 

The first step is to see the Lord as separate from you. Instead of offering candles, incense, and flowers to God, offer every part of your body, offer every moment of your life, every breath, every thought, good or bad.

 

It is your drawbacks which pull you down and make you feel bad about yourself. If you start feeling bad about yourself you become unconnected to the divine. There is nothing to make you connected to the divine. It is up to you to feel close to the divine.

 

You start feeling that you are the only one and you are the closest to the divine. Then you will see that it will start happening, you will start blossoming. The seed you sow is what will grow. If you sow the seed of “I am hopeless, I am no good. I am hopeless, I am no good”, then that ‘’no good’’ seed will begin to grow!

 

Often, useless weeds grow without any cultivation. You do not have to make any effort. They just grow, but a useful plant needs some attention. All the unnecessary doubts or thoughts which are there need not be sown. They just come up by themselves. By swadhya or self-study, you can weed them out and keep only those which are essential.

 

Tapaha swadhyaya Eshwara pranidhana kriya yogaha is kriya yoga or yoga of action. Even while doing an activity, see that you are not doing it. Be a silent witness. There is a depth in you, a silent corner in you, a silence in you and that is the truth. The whole space is silent. In that silence, there is activity.

Medicine – A noble Career no more…

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Some said being a medical doctor or a nurse is noblest profession of all? Many a times it is even rated as something above being a Teacher (the very souls who help them become a Doctor in the first place). In a country like ours where Doctors are considered as those who were created because God couldn’t be everywhere it is but natural that they are almost place right up there amongst the Gods. Was in chennai last week to help out a family friend who had to undergo a treatment for heart related ailment. He had to undergo a pacemaker implant and the experience was nothing short of being horrifying. Considering that it was one of the reputed and expensive hospital of Chennai, the cleanliness in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) was things that we can expect in a toilet of a rural bus station of India. Visitors could barge in and out at will. The hospital wastes of patients were left near their beds for extended period of time (maybe Visitors coming in and out could have reduced the risk of infection by being carriers from ICU to the outside world). Accepting that it was not a charitable institution, their commercial approach was too appalling especially since the service even remotely did not match up to the charges. The doctors felt challenged when a few questions were asked and the response was very hostile. In the interest of the patient we had no choice but to tolerate the nonsense dished out by the specialist.

The worst part was yet to come. when he called up the son to the consulting room and advising that you should not be seeking second opinion and learn to trust. And the patient was heartlessly informed that the surgery would be performed in the afternoon with not even a cursory mention to the attendants. Just after the patient was wheeled into the pre-op section, the consultant surgeon calls the son and places his demands. Pay the consultant’s fees in Cash at the end of surgery (no advance information that this could be required) and to top it all, they set loose the supplier of Pacemaker on this hapless person who demanded payment in Cash/Cheque right away. The timing of these events, when patient is in pre-op area awaiting the scalpel, drove down whatever little esteem we had of this doctor. So much for this being Noblest of profession. At considerable risk to the patient, I had to intervene and put my foot down saying that this sort of behaviour was not acceptable. Since everything is being routed by the insurance and since there was absolutely no advance information this cannot be done.

Their handling of a patient from some remote village from Andhra was even worse. Not knowing the local langauge or not too educated, they were being taken for a jolly ride. The explanations were too kiddish and unbecoming of a professional. Just shooing them away when they are curious to know the state of their loved one, extracting every penny they have, this was EXTORTION more perfect than the Dawood Ibrahim types. Oh yes!!! unlike the folks who are being discussed, I rather choose not to name the hospital and the doctors involved. But I have marked a copy of this blog to those noble dedicated souls. The joke that day was, we should turn down the temperature so low that these fellows have their hands in their own pockets instead of ours. Or the other favourite – due to lack of a good microscope in my schooling days, We only read about Parasite but never got around to see one- Parasites that feeds on human blood. Here I was witnessing and accepting it as truth, with my naked eye.

Incredible India! It happens only in India is not just a cliche any more. For me seeing is believing and hence I beleive it now. If it can happen to educated people like me, god save the common men of the country.

When will the medical profession in India come of age? Till then, Patients can wait with infinite patience while they line their pockets and fill their coffers. Anyone game, the best investment happens to be Hospital Industry (don’t worry, we dont need too much of investment for this)

Majority or Minority

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Travelling back to my erstwhile Karmabhoomi, Chennai was a great experience – it was a mixture of experiences. 5th Anniversary celebrations of a local Information Centre of Art of Living that would remain etched in my minds for a long long time, meeting a whole lot of friends, a giant leap on my career front were the highs. The lows had to follow to prove the universal law “Opposite Values Co-Exist” true and what a low these were.

Check this Editorial of “The Hindu” on 03rd October 2007

http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/03/stories/2007100353901000.htm

The All-knowing moral guardian in the Editor sits in Judgement while he says that Judges sometimes speak too much while this was exactly what was being done by this Editorial. While it is nobody’s case that Supreme Court Judge may or may not have over-reacted, even the parchment called “The Hindu” also speaks even more many a times. And speak worse .

Sample the examples, 2 instances are cited to buttress their hackneyed argument and not surprisingly both were related to BJP and clearly anti-majority. No one in this country calls and gets away with Bandhs and hartals more than communists in Kerala and this does not seem to find any attention to this Secularist Editor. While the people of Kerala have accepted bandhs/hartal as normal as their ablutions, quoting a single instance, read this

“For example, in recent years the Bharatiya Janata Party and the saffron brigade have called for, conducted, and got away with several attempted bandhs. A case in point is the August 27, 2007 Hyderabad bandh protesting against the terror strike at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat. And what about other forms of protest actions? Will the Supreme Court rule on what kind of constitutional animal is a ‘rail roko,’ of the kind the BJP State unit staged in Hyderabad in September 2007 against the Sethusamudram project? Does it fall under the definition of a general strike or a hartal or a bandh? Is it constitutional? As political leaders have observed, the logical consequence of the Supreme Court’s unevenly implemented ban on bandhs will be a ban on all protest actions and the right to strike. If that happens, the highest court in the land will itself be responsible for the trampling on fundamental rights that its 1998 judgment warns against.”

So much for the unbiased reporting from the secularists of this great nation. Even worse, to prop up their mindless opinion, the whole lot of “Letters to the Editors” were filled with letters agains the Supreme Court Judgement, supposedly written by readers. Their funders apparently wanted to convey some message through this SECULAR MEDIA HOUSE. The anti-majority tirade resembles the Newhouses of China – only difference being that they are enslaved by the Party and in case of this great Newspaper by their Foreign Funders (I am sure it needs no mention as to which organization funds their operations and writes their editorials). Way to Go!!! At this rate, I am sure The Hindu will need to hire staff to write “Letters to the Editors” since readers are bound to move away from them in the absence of objectivity. Knowing the media industry from within, I know a thing or two about what I just wrote here. The only insitition that this citizenry of this great nation can safely bet on are the Courts and taking potshots should not be tolerated. Oh yes!!! Mr. Ram My faith in God more specifically Lord Ram has gone infinitely high – despite creeps of your kind (remember when you went into hiding apprehending arrest, so much for your bravery) this great Nation survived and would survive – I cant find a logical explanation apart from assuming some supernatural stuff is at play here. Do you need any more proof than this?

“The Hindu” is anything but Hindu. Jai Hind!!!

The picture is the one taken during a vacation that we took to Kerala (Holiday is a norm in this place, thanks to the hartals and bandhs)