“Contemplate a sky without clouds” – Vijnana Bhairav Tantra May 20, 2009

“Contemplate cloudless sky”

Seems like a tantric koan. Koan is a technique used in Zen buddhism, especially the Rinzai school of thought. It’s purpose is to break the boundaries of conditionings in which our mind is trapped and help the seeker transcend to that point beyond logic or reason…but which simply “is”.

How can we imagine a cloudless sky? Ever seen the sky with no clouds? Try hard imagining one, and you will realise how rigid our mind is. It simply cannot accept such a concept. Whenever you try thinking of a sky with no clouds, it tries to verifies it with the image of sky we have in our minds since birth, and suddenly realises this can’t be and starts introducing different types of clouds in it and starts showing you pictures of various forms of clouds and so on from memory. The harder you try, the more difficult it gets to persevere. But if you succeed, you realise the futilities of these limits you have uselessly put on your being. When all your thoughts and imagination power is exhausted, your mind gets tired and stops momentarily! This is that moment!! Don’t waste it, seize it NOW!

As for how you do it, it is an individual journey, we must learn as we go.

“Meditate on the empty space within a jar” – Vijnana Bhairav Tantra May 20, 2009

“Meditate on the empty space within a jar”

Empty space within a jar is apparently a very commonly used idea within the entire non-dualistic school of thought. An analogy used by the yogis to try and help us visualise that “brahmana” involves one such space in a jar idea. Roughly it goes like this…

Imagine your body and your five physical senses to be a transparent jar of glass, kept in a room which is totally empty. Know that room to be the cosmos. Now, before the jar was there, there was emptiness in the room, what is inside the jar is also emptiness. Does the jar confine that emptiness to its wall then? Same emptiness that exists outside of it, exists inside, the same all-pervading emptiness. Now fill this jar with water…this water is your mind. Slight movement of the jar causes the water inside to create ripples…ever so fickle mind as it is. Now just because water filled that jar, has it taken the space of that emptiness? When still, we won’t see water, but only emptiness. When poured out, there is still emptiness inside. If the jar breaks, we realise emptiness inside and outside was alwas the same, the jar just made us feel like there are two forms of it.

Our quest is simply to realise, that this emptiness which pervades everything is brahman, the eternal and immutable essense of all there is. This emptiness it talks about also has references in Zen and perhaps it is the essense of buddhism. I think it’s called “Wu” or emptiness. They say in zen, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form”…know the form as one without a form, and you attain that formless form.

Please not that this is an analogy, and analogies cannot be perfect. It is simply to point us in the right direction, now where we go with this is really upto us.

Trying a new method…when nothing makes sense May 20, 2009

All seekers come to a point where nothing makes sense, no matter what you say or tell them to do. It’s like, I’ve been there and done it dude, nothing works. Seems like I have been going through that phase recently. So I thought I’ll share what helped me with those who are interested.

Reading absurd advaita texts causes some major brain freezing and can damage quite badly. I recently came across the ancient Indian scriptures which are called ‘Tantra’. I am sure many must have heard about them…and hold on, Tantra is not about what you are thinking…that’s just a part of it. It’s got a lot more than just that.

So I will be taking interesting “excerpts” (I just love this word!) and post them here with a brief commentary on it, not a commentary as such but my understanding of it. I welcome corrections and constructive criticism. Afterall there is still a long way ahead…every little help counts!

Revelations May 11, 2009

People say nothing changes overnight, but I don’t agree. Even a moment enough to change your life; and you don’t even need any big thing to bring about this change. Anything works…a lightning, a thunderstorm, breeze kissing your face on a sunny day even; a drop of rain, or a smile of an innocent soul even; melodies of birds or tunes of the angels’ harps even. Changes occur every moment, we just don’t understand them. Everything you do, everything you think, everything you plan changes the world. Each of these things have their own importance, their own place in the hierarchy of existence! But imagine thinking about this without language. Can you think without language? There would have been no reality without language, but isn’t it also true that there would have been no language without reality? But what comes first? Time it seems to stretch for eternity and all these things occur in it. What exactly is eternity? Can we really see it in a grain of sand, as Blake thought? What is time? Does time run faster than thoughts or do the thoughts determine its passage? What if a hundred years are to be contained in a minute, and a hundred such minutes in a second; a hundred such seconds again in a moment and this single moment lasts only so long as it takes for you to wink your eyes?!

All your lives and all your deaths, all your acts and all your deeds come and go in this one moment but it lasts for an eternity! You live for this one moment, yet we say there is no such moment to live in; and when it comes to an end, you realise that it were your deeds which determined the length of this moment. Some make it last for a second, others stretch it for an eternity; while the others live as if they would never die, and then die as if they never lived!! As it comes to an end, you start realiseing the truths. Some awake at the right time, while others never drop their slumber. Whatever they do, one thing is for sure, the truth starts unfolding only when your time comes, not a moment before. You understand that you tried to run with time, but when reality was that there was no time to run with! You live as a slave of your ego, bragging about your achievements, showing off your deeds and acts, but when the truth was that there was nothing to be achieved and no you to achieve anything.

We exist as a thought, and yet there is no mind to think us; we are bound by its imagination, but we are itself the one who imagines and the one who is bound in illusion…it’s too absurd to be real, but at the same time it is too complex to be real. You never lived your life, you start realising…all you did was living with it!! You unleashed your vengeance on your enemies, but did you ever realise that you yourself are your friend and you yourself are your foe?! Hot or cold, water never changes, all that changes is the way your hand feels it, you start realising. You imposed senseless restrictions on yourself for no reasons, but you were never bound by anything; freedom was always yours, you simply failed to recognise it! You never realised the one ultimate truth…that there is nothing without you, and you are nothing without anything else! All you ever sought was always within you, you just had to search it! Everyone’s turn comes when your destiny reaps, soul’s dreams start manifesting and your heart shows you the way. All you are supposed to do is to follow it!

Who Am I? May 11, 2009

Am I the mortal bond of men,

or am I a the freedom of birds?

Am I the path of lonely hearts,

or am I the sound of worlds?

Am I the water of gushing streams,

or am I the melody of reeds?

Am I the light of hopless darks,

or am I the begger on streets?

Am I the fragrance of daffodils,

or am I a pearl of dews?

Am I the smile of an innocent child,

or am I the truth all knew?

Am I the edge of the sword of truth,

or am I the valour of knights?

Am I the charm of the ‘maggi’ devine,

or am I the koans of ‘wu’?

Am I the suffering of ignorants,

or am I the wisdom of wise?

Am I the one who really exists,

or am I spirit of light?

Am I ‘duende’ of all that is,

or am I the shower of rain?

Am I the one to see the end,

or am I the one to be slain?

I am neither this, nor am I that

So who am I?

May 11, 2009

Life is that which you never knew it is; and when it starts unfolding, you realize that even you are not what you thought you were. Slowly and steadily as one comprehends the mysteries of this universe and begins to realize the truths of life, one begins to be isolated from the homogeneous monotony of the mundane realism. Whether this isolation is good or bad is yet another question but what is worth noting here is the immense potential which this isolation equips that individual with; the potential to become life itself in a way. Everyone realizes the truth when their time comes, when their destinies mature, but it is this very truth that corrupts!

When you see the joy as joy, the suffering as suffering, the pain as pain, the self as self, the illusion as illusion, the ignorance as ignorance and the escape therefrom as escape, you cease to be what you always believed you were. The reality as perceived by the ignorance bounded creatures of darkness becomes a mighty enemy of your selfless self, glorified by the eternal luminescence of that imperceptible and indescribable reality of all that there ever was, is and will ever be. A fantasy although this may seem to be, it is the reality of our lives; a fantastic reality!

The Middle Way May 11, 2009

Looking at our lives..at the majority of us at least, its so funny not to miss the little fears and frustrations, anguishes and pains, our own little concepts of this life we live, our joys, pleasures, sorrows, inhibitions…all of these things. A little thing is made a big issue. We tend to complicate things a lot, and often blow them out of proportions. When in pain, we seek sympathy than support; when in joy, we forget everyone and become very selfish. Yes, we do say we are simply humans and these things are but instinctual to us. But is that really so? I mean, lets ponder over this bit a little more. Do we actually try changing ourselves for the better unless circumstances force us to? Do we accept our incapacities and incapabilities instead of hiding them? Why do we always tend to hide behind this mask of what we are not whenver forced by a situation to fall and accept defeat?

Life should be a pursuit of perfection, not of happiness; because perfect happiness comes only with perfect knowledge, the knowledge of self, of reality, of life…and perfect knowledge comes only when we manage to perfect ourself. Only when we become successful in taming the wild and drunken monkey of our mind do we ever encounter pure happiness. One should be able to distinguish between happiness and pleasures. That which lasts only for a short period of time is pleasure…its like the drops of water in an ocean which evaporate to fall from the heavens as rain only to vanish again but still giving joy to the innocent life for a while. Happiness, however, is eternal, like that vast ocean…ever so fathomless, ever so mysterious, ever so pure!Most of our lives are spent hankering and craving for happiness.

Even a little joy of a moment makes us feel we are happy when we are no more than pleased! We tend to believe that the road to happiness is contention of soul and that in order to be happy, we need to look beyond our very self. Staring happiness in its eyes though, we realize that this is wrong. Happiness arises only when we are at peace with ourself and to be at peace in such a way, we first need to confront our darker side. Shying away from this other half only makes things worse. Letting go of our inhibitions and accepting what we really and truly are, we become the divine force which sustains life. Becoming this force, we find peace and knowledge. With this comes the virtue of happiness. We first need to conquer our frail and timid half which on exposing itself looks very scary at first sight, but later we realize that it is just what we think it is and not what it really is! The only way to attain eternal bliss and happiness is thus, to first become at peace with ourself.

‘The Middle Way’ teaches us how to attain this equilibrium. Excess of anything is wrong. Just as joy is followed by sorrow and sorrow by joy, we need to work our way through this minefield of opposites to reach the end, which we then understand is just the beginning. Instead of obstructing the flow of life, we should learn to flow with it. Life is not just a haphazard arrangement of incidents, it is an intricately designed facade which has a very deep and implicit meaning, only waiting to be unveiled.