anything & everything

The name is not quite what it seems to mean. It is not a place that offers mukti but a place on the banks of the Ganga where people go to live and wait to die so that they can obtain mukti. We Hindus believe that Lord Siva whispers the Taraka mantra of Ram in the ears of those who die in Kashi, thus sending them on their way to Moksha.

Which Hindu will not be tempted by this easy road to Moksha? None of us can claim to have done the difficult sadhana of meditation or achieved the unattainable goal of detachment which alone will relieve our soul from future births. So we look for easier ways. Dying in Kashi and a few other towns in India like Kanchi or Thiruvaiyaru I think is one of the easiest ways. Therefore pious Hindus have made a beeline to Kashi , perhaps being unaware of these other towns, in the hope of dying there. Bengalis, being closer geographically, and more easily abandoned by their families for economic and superstitious reasons, have found themselves ferried to Kashi in their old age and left to die in one of the numerous dharamshalas. Those from the South find it much more difficult even to make the one mandatory pilgrimage to Kashi in their lifetime and hence few of them move there but those taking darshan of Vishvanath secretly harbor a hope that they might die there, if they are of an age to think about dying at all.

We all remember Pattamma from our extended family who moved to Kashi when she was middle-aged and began to live in the Kanchi Shankar Math. She had been widowed at an early age with no children and had briefly taken care of my father as a motherless boy of ten or so when his father had left him with Pattamma in the town of Kumbakonam. My grandfather would send bags of rice to see them through the year and Pattamma would fill the water drums in a local school as a service, filling and carrying brass kudams with water from the Cauvery, while my father would cook a pot of rice at home,  as instructed by her. He was at the time studying in a local school. She was an aunt by marriage I think and he lived with her for two years . It was not because she was abandoned or poor that she moved to Kashi, though poor she certainly was, but because there was something in her that drove her to live there and await her death. She was requested by family members to come back but she always refused. After a few years she was recognized as a permanent inmate of the Math and was even given her own room. Her daily routine consisted of waking up early in the morning and going down to the Ganga for her morning bath before visiting the temple and probably doing chores around the Math. Perhaps there were bhajans in the Math and elsewhere. We visited her whenever we went to Kashi and so did my father and all other relatives. She remembered everyone and bustled about cheerfully as  she asked after this one or that. I was amazed that she knew my name but I was not mature enough or knowing enough in those days to ask her the questions that I now wish I had. She died in her eighties in the Math where she must have lived for forty years or more and was no doubt cremated in the Harishchandra Ghat. The Math was in the Hanuman Ghat.

The title refers to a movie about a place that provides rooms for people to do what Pattamma did in a Math – live and die – but only for fifteen days. Either they died and checked out or they just checked out. But, taking into account that people do not die at will, Mishraji the owner, allows them to stay on by changing their names.

I am reminded of someone’s grandmother who was convinced that her time had come and travelled from Chennai to Kashi and rented a house to die in. However she was wrong and six months later she returned to Chennai, to die peacefully in her own home. Rich and surrounded by family as she was, I have no doubt she would have envied Pattamma had she known her.

Most of our journey was through Kerala this time. It was hot, we drank water by the litre, but Kerala was lush with greenery. We left the heat behind and drank with our eyes the greenness of the landscape and the almost geometric regularity of the tea gardens that climbed the slopes of the hills with their dark and shiny leaves. The clouds floated in as evening fell and covered the mountains all night long until the sun rose in the morning and we mistook them for lingering fog.

I was woken up at dawn by the chirping of birds and not another sound could I hear. As I stood in the balcony of our room looking at the cloud-covered mountains in the distance and breathed in the freshness of  the early morning breeze, I wondered how it would feel to actually live in this place. Perhaps we could live here if there was nothing very important to be done, if we could give up most of the things in our life and be content with what was available and not what we wanted to have. Once it had been my fantasy to live on a tea estate but that, I could see, would have been a life of great luxury, to be enjoyed only by the lucky few. But who knows, that life might have palled too. For now it would suffice that I was here, looking at the cloud-covered mountains, across a vast valley of tea gardens and trees with beautiful purple flowers, surrounded by the forests kept carefully in check. Later I would hear that the wild elephants in the forests were not very mindful of the boundaries and held court at night keeping the fearful humans away.

To be present in the moment – that is a lesson yet to be learnt by many people nowadays, but that is the lesson nature teaches when we encounter her all too rarely. Perhaps at this age I know that it is necessary to live our lives instead of reading about other people’s lives. So I did not pack books or iPad, nor my Kindle (which would displease S. no doubt) but where else would I see a tea bush or a herd of elephants in the wild, or a nearly extinct deer, or the beautiful purple flowers whose name I never did find out? I am sure those younger than me would hold me in contempt for abandoning my electronic toys but we are quits, because I rather pity them for being unable to live in the moment and appreciate what is set out in front of them if only they had eyes for it.

Journeys they say, end in lovers’ meetings, but journeys these days end before the immigration official in a nerve-wracking interview before we are allowed to enter a country. We have got so used to this that even after returning to India, standing before the immigration official causes a few flutters before we realize we are home, and  suddenly confidence courses through our veins and we stand a little more jauntily where we had stood as supplicants.

So we went on a trip – a shorter one this time – and before we knew it, we were back in India. Our absence had been noticed and was commented upon. Naw, not mine. I am the invisible partner, R. being more high-profile. Nobody even noticed I had been away.

S. says I have become quite the world traveler. Maybe so, because I seemed to be quite blasé about the journey itself. I no longer worry about how to manage the luggage or about the airport routine nor do I get excited about traveling halfway across the earth. Foreign faces do not make me nervous and I can walk into any place without feeling intimidated. I only worry about giving satisfactory answers to the immigration official.

It was cold, colder than I had expected but we did not let it deter us from taking the long walks that can be almost impossible to accomplish in our own backyard, so to speak. Have you ever tried walking down LBS Road? Which goes to show that the Nariman Point residents and the suburban Mumbaikars were not created equal. Over there, halfway across the world, we donned our jackets and shoes, stuck our caps on our heads, and set off on 6 km walks in a different direction, each day, wherever our moods led us. One day it was towards the lakeside, another day it was to the more hallowed academic settings of the university. No matter how far we walked, we were never tired or bored, but were energised rather, by the cold wind and the nearly empty roads, strangers in foreign climes.

Being with S. for an extended period was the reason for our visit and, like all Indian mothers, I enjoyed cooking all the favorite dishes of my youngest child, though putting together the ingredients was not easy! It required some amount of “jugaad” but where there is willpower, a way can always be found. During our stay, I made more kesari, kheer and potato curry than I normally make. In short, a lot of cooking took place in that pristine kitchen. S. must have been amazed at the utility bill that month!

We ate more Mexican food and even Thai food and burgers than we have ever eaten. We saw more movies and shows both at home and in the theatre, incuding plays, which were a new experience for us. S. kept checking to be sure that neither of us was nodding off, guilty as we were occasionally. But the cold and the unfamiliar accents and mumbled dialogues were very soporific, in our defence. One play kept us deeply engrossed while another, a Shakespearian drama, was rather too avante garde for our humble tastes and I cannot pretend I liked it. Standup comedy was more to my plebian tastes though R. was shocked by the extreme vulgarity in some of them. Well, anything goes, nowadays, and it would be politically incorrect to disapprove of something enjoyed by so many.

Whoosh, and we were back home. It is back to the mall and to Hindi cinema, but when we are tucking into our chole bhature at the Food Court, it is hard not to think of S. – he would like it.

I spent the last hour writing my blog post and pouf! when I clicked to publish it, vanished it had. No more in the mood to write am I.

Going am I. Don’t call me back. Wallow I shall in the self-pity of having lost my post in cyberspace.

First let me acknowledge that this is what I have garnered from Velukudi’s lecture on how a life must be lived. He has given us the benefit of his study of the Vedas to answer the question many of us have about how to live life, having been told about how not to live (hopefully) by our parents and various teachers in our childhood. At this point many people will turn away with a snort of derision – “Bah, we will decide how to live” or “It is for us to learn it our own way”. But sometimes it is better to be carried a little way down the road by others who have learnt through experience rather than having to chart our own way from the beginning. We might get a little further with the benefit of other people’s experience. The value of having a teacher – Guru, right?

Having said that, this is still a list of what to steer clear of, but by doing so, we will realize what we should set as our principles that will guide us. Each is described first, how it is fed, and how it must be eradicated.

1. Kamam (Desire) – Icchha or Sankalp which means wanting to possess or acquire what seems desirable. Acquisition only feeds the desire for more and the mind is never satiated. Witness the story of Yayati. The only way to give up desire is to examine what we want and be strong enough to discard it.
2. Krodham  (Anger) – This arises due to coveting what others have, and when our desire is thwarted, it gives rise to anger. Krodha also makes us find fault with others and we are unhappy that they are happy. The remedy is kshama (which does not actually translate into patience) but forbearance, forgiveness and patience even with those who harm us.
3. Lobham (Covetousness) – Coveting is desiring what others have, whether it is wealth or happiness or possessions. This arises from Ajnana because we do not realize that everything belongs to God and we can only enjoy what has been given to us. We compete with everyone to acquire more and more without realizing that everything is transient. Once we realize that we will learn to be non-acquisitive.
4. Moham (Being deceived) – We are deceived by illusion and unable to distinguish between the Truth and what is not. It is Ajnana or the mistaking of the body or Deha for the Atma and following Adharma instead of Dharma that fuels Moham. It can be countered only through Satsanga or associating with saints which will ensure that we become aware of Truth. Doing Kainkaryam or service for the benefit of others or of God is also another way of release from Moham.
5. Madham (Pride in one’s education, caste, wealth and beauty) – This grows due to fame or becoming known for one’s accomplishments. If used for the good of the people, there is admiration from others, but pride leads to misuse of the four attributes even as fame is acquired. Real knowledge of the four attributes should always lead to jnana for one who possesses any of them, when he realizes that he has certain duties to fulfill or a certain Dharma which is his responsibility to follow.
6. Matsaryam (Jealousy) – Being unhappy with other people’s happiness or well-being is nothing but jealousy. This is caused by a lack of belief in Truth and failing to realize that the world is rooted in Truth. Good people believe in Truth and their happiness is not affected by jealousy. By deceiving others and wanting others to be unhappy we deceive ourselves and make ourselves unhappy. Steering clear of friendship with the wicked and serving the Guru helps us to get rid of Matsaryam.
7. Parasuda – Harming others due to Lobha and Krodha. The cure for this is compassion and non-violence.
8. Nidhitsa (Disbelief in Vedas) – A belief in Vedas is essential to attain eventual Oneness with the Paramatma. Only a person who has attained Self-Realization can afford to discard everything else. For the rest of us, Vedas are an essential step on our path that we cannot leap over. A denial of the Vedas is the affectation of people who move in atheistic and misguiding groups and give more importance to the Deha over Atma. The Vedas lead one towards Tattva Gnana  which is the ultimate goal.
9. Shokam (Sorrow) – Sorrow is a fear of something bad happening, an expectation of having to face loss or separation from what one is attached to. It is also a desire for pity and a wallowing in self-pity. Detachment is the only way out. Being attached inevitably leads to a fear of loss and a satisfaction in sorrow in some people. Sorrow does not help in any way. It only leads to stagnation. Be unattached and keep moving on. In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says “Sarva dharmaan parityajya maam ekam sharanam vraja. Aham tvam sarva papebhyo mokshayishyami, maa shuchaha” Ma shuchaha means “Do not sorrow”. We cannot cling to the impermanent.
10. Asuya (Envy) – This is akin to jealousy but more subtle in that is a feeling of unhappiness that others are happy even though we have what we have earned or deserve to have. It is envy of the achievements of others and being discontented with what we have even if they are more deserving than us. A discriminating intellect or Viveka gnana will help us to overcome this. Turning our thoughts to the greatness of God will deflect Asuya.
11. Ninda (Slander) – Talking ill of others, being disrespectful or causing hurt to them by our talk is termed Ninda. Associating with inferior people encourages this trait to grow. It creates enmity and makes our own thinking inferior. Doing good to others and seeing and talking only about the good in people and also Satsanga destroys this habit.
12. Dosha Dharisanam – Somewhat akin to Ninda but this refers to the habit of judging and finding fault with others and sometimes even taking it upon ourselves to punish them for what we perceive as faults. We do not have that right. Only three  Beings – Yama, Mahalakshmi and SriHari – have the right to see the faults in anyone. We must not judge others if we are to attain Moksha.
13. Miserliness – rises from Mamakaaram or possessiveness. We believe that our wealth grows by hoarding but wealth is not ours to own. It is ours to use wisely for the good of all. Do Dhaanam (charity), follow Dharmam (virtuousness).

Dharma is what has been prescribed to us in this life as our duty/duties at different stages in our life and we must perform them with responsibility and love to our complete satisfaction. We must question ourselves whether we have done our duty at every step. If we have, we can be truly happy. If not, we look to transient sensory pleasures and deceive ourselves that we are making ourselves happy and we try to convince ourselves that we do not have to make anyone but ourselves happy.

Truth is the realization that this life is impermanent and that we are here to learn the lessons of love, duty and happiness, and the most important lesson is that we cannot be happy when we make others unhappy. Happiness does not exist in isolation, nor does love. The more you create or give, the more they grow.

These are the thirteen principles we must follow in daily life if we are to progress spiritually. Upasana (daily pooja), rituals of religion and a disciplined life may be looked down upon by many people, but they are essential for training ourselves for the tests that we must face in life inevitably. Adi Sankara and indeed all saints have said that they are the steps that lead to Oneness.

Instead of looking at the moment and living in it, it makes more sense that we look at life in entirety and see how much we have learnt and how far we have travelled every day, every month or year. No one remains the same age forever, why should our thinking remain at the same level in every stage of life? We cannot pretend to be young forever. We may fool ourselves but others are hardly likely to be fooled. Some day we may realize that it would have been better to have grown up and faced life squarely instead of having remained a Peter Pan and skipped through it. We owe it, if not to ourselves, to the other people in our life, to grow up and own up our responsibilities and fulfill them to our satisfaction.

 

What should be one’s ideal way of life? We can eat, sleep, go to work, enjoy transient pleasures and try to chart out each day as we go along. But what if it is not satisfying or there is too much of a sameness to each day that is mentally fatiguing? Trying to find new pleasures each day becomes a daunting task and eventually life falls into a rut and most people start searching for something they do not know where to look for. This generally happens in the mid-forties for my generation but it may happen later for the present generation who tend to cling to the illusion of youth for much longer. “Life begins at forty” or even later! No, it does not, your feeling young does not slow down physical aging now, anymore than it did fifty years ago. Many people might be fitter or eat more sensibly, but the years are relentless and unkind and the body only knows its physical age and runs out of resources at the same pace as ever.

Anyway, that was just an aside. My thought was that it is better to have a rough blueprint for life and divide it up into stages and realize when each stage is past and adapt myself to it.

So. I am an unashamedly religious person and a practising Hindu. I am not an atheist, I am not an agnostic, and I am not a fence-sitter who will draw inspiration from all religions. What I have learnt of Hinduism has convinced me that this is my way and at this age, I cannot afford to waste my time wandering down side-roads.

Many years ago I thought that my children would  have all settled down happily by the time I reached the age of sixty. That was a cutoff age for me I imagined when I could stop worrying about each one of them and start living a life of detachment and concentrate on some kind of spiritual development and start living a life of peace and happiness. I may have been naive because I did not know what happiness was. I knew I was imagining a sort of movie ending when everybody is happy and there are no problems in anyone’s life and everybody gets what they want. There are people to whom this happens but I am not one of them.

Now I am past that cutoff age I had set for myself and I realize that I have to still follow my plan now that my children are adults and are living their own lives, because I am not going to stay at this age forever. Of course I cannot reach any spiritual goal in this lifetime unless I get some kind of epiphany but that is all right. As a Hindu I believe of course in reincarnation. So my learning will continue in other lives. At least I will have taken a few steps further down the road.

I realize I will be actually elaborating on the title in my next post. Perhaps I should just rename this as A Hindu’s Thoughts. Or, I Shall Keep To My Plan.

 

 

 

Roots are what give us our uniqueness. If we deny them or refuse to acknowledge them we tend to fill up the emptiness with something that we are not comfortable with in our hearts. Nobody can start on a life journey from a negative place. What we leave behind is what shaped us into what we are today. We can make changes and adjustments or even take a leap into the new but we cannot erase what we are leaving behind. Someone who is comfortable with the past and is willing to look ahead is one who is easy in his skin, as they say. But one who holds his past in denial or contempt has an emptiness that is difficult to ignore as time goes by. The brave new future is only a mirage for one who is not whole.

 

I think the quality of niceness is vastly underrated now. People want to be seen as being empowered, strong, assertive even aggressive, independent, self-reliant, pushing through their own agenda, any or all of those, and want to be admired by the rest of us who, in their eyes are weak and unable to stand up for their rights. But all these are euphemisms for self-centeredness and a defense of the indefensible.

Does being strong and assertive stop a person from being polite or courteous? A truly mature individual knows how to lead their own lives without trampling upon others. The true test of a gentleman as they say is to see whether he treats his servants the same way that he treats his peers. Someone who knows how to be polite to his boss or his friends should be capable of treating spouse and family with the same courtesy. In fact they deserve more courtesy because they are there for the long haul and have to put up with a lot more bad behavior from one.

Some of the problem lies in the fact that adolescence, in the present times, continues into the late twenties according to social scientists. Where we, the baby boomers were told to take care of ourselves and our new families by the age of twenty-five, today that figure – so they say – represents a mere child who is thus licensed to throw tantrums with the (real) adults standing around trying to shush the immature one with toys and apologies that need to be made not by them really. Anything to buy peace. At what age are they old enough then to be answerable for their actions?

It is very easy to complain of other people’s sense of entitlement and impossible to see one’s own. In my list, intelligence, smartness, money and success all rate far below a generous heart and compassion.

No one has to be nice to anyone of course. But what do they have to lose? Building up goodwill is much more difficult than throwing it away. Apropos of nothing, the most horrifying and despairing part of the book Gone With The Wind – which I read as a teenager – was when Rhett Butler walks away from Scarlett O’Hara with his famous last words, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” to her question “Where shall I go?”.

Looking back at one’s own life it is amazing that we grew up to be perfectly nice people with no help or guidance. I am thankful for everything I have got  and I suspect I don’t deserve much of the good that came my way. I will never apologize for my life anymore. I know I can be proud of myself even if I never had a career or a wonderful education and never earned any money. I am only a nice person who thinks of making other people happy. Maybe that is too little, but not in my eyes.

Give me a sweet-tempered goodhearted person any day. I couldn’t care less about their IQ.

There are people who think the world owes them and there are those who think they have to pay their dues along the way. To my mind, the first kind might feel triumphant about getting their own way but sooner or later they might find themselves being ignored since they have never thought about anybody except themselves all their lives. After all courtesy is the lubricant needed to ease our way in the world if we do not want to alienate people.

I always thought gratitude or at least, a feeling of thankfulness, is what we need to keep us grounded. But I wondered if perhaps appreciation might be the word I was looking for – appreciating what we have been blessed with deservedly or undeservedly and showing our appreciation by our actions. In school we were taught to count our blessings and to appreciate the fact that we complain about having no shoes when there are those who have no legs. Even psychologists offer the same advice. It is all the more necessary to count our blessings because quite often we come by them gratis and not because we did something good sometime, contrary to what the song says.

But at the risk of being ridiculed as an old woman, which I am, living in the past, which I am not, I will say this. No longer are our young people grateful for anything nor are they appreciative of the good things that come their way. They think it is their right to be given importance but somehow it escapes their understanding that they need to give the same respect and importance to others.

As John Donne wrote, “No Man Is An Island”. Sooner or later, someone who makes a habit of not thinking of anyone but themselves, will find they are as good as an island adrift in the sea. In Tamil there is a saying, “Oorodu Othu vaazh” which means that one should live in harmony with others. Going on one’s own way does not mean taking the road less travelled, it means leaving everybody else behind. One day when you turn back to see , you will find yourself all alone.

That will not be so pleasant. I dearly wish they would teach the Golden Rule in kindergartens “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. That was Jesus but five centuries before Confucius had taught “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself”.

I have thought about it hard and long and have decided that I have nothing to apologize for, in my life. I may not have anything to be proud of, a career, a great education, money or success in my personal life, but I have something that matters far more to me – my children, who have all grown up into wonderful human beings – which makes me truly happy. They are smart, intelligent, well-educated, and successful in their careers, but that is not what I am talking about. Anybody can be all that and more.

What I am really proud of is the fact that they are generous in spirit, compassionate and loving towards all. I am also proud of the fact that I have done nothing to make them that way but that it comes to them naturally. It always has, since their childhood.

Looking back at our own lives, it is surprising that we grew to be perfectly nice people without being terribly successful, amidst difficult times. But I think that is enough for me. I would rather be a nice person (ergo, a “loser”) than a “winner”.