4. Massaging the Mind

The day I publish a blog posting, I don't know whether I will have stuff to write another. Pretty soon a day comes along when I am eager to type something new. Today happens to be such a day.

This morning I was having a back massage, thanks to my project managers who have budgeted for two free 15-minute massages every month for each team member, when this thought occurred to me. When is the massage most effective and relaxing? Isn't it when you don't resist to the forces applied by the massagist? If the massagist pushes the shoulder, you simply go with the force. So too when s/he pulls the shoulder backwards.

This takes me to this beautiful Zen koan:
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A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into the river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers watched and feared for his life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive. "I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived."
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If we lived our lives in a similar manner, accepting whatever comes along while we work on our goals, wouldn't it be much better and less stressful?

The second effective practice during a massage is to be conscious of the forces and the pressures applied by massagist. That helps the blood flow to the body part where the pressure is being applied.

Even the basic Shavaasan pose in Yoga where-in the participant is asked to lie down flat on the back requires us to go on visualizing every relaxed organ of the body one by one from the toe to the top (crown of the head). To make the most out of this aasana (pose), the participant shouldn't be sleeping. Remarkably, one of the benefits of the aasana is "it is very efficacious in restoring to sound sleep. Practitioners of this aasana complete the quota of sleep in lesser time. And that makes us more calm, alert and energetic." (ref: http://www.yogsansthan.org/asanpage/shavasan.htm)

In the mental realm, I would correlate it with being conscious of the mind's thoughts. To control the mind, we first need to know about the mind's workings. When it reacts. When thoughts come, and when they go. As we get more conscious of it, we soon realize that we can control our minds, and more importantly, that we are not the mind, but something beyond! Beginners' meditation techniques ask us to do the same -- become a witness and not a participant, nor a restrainer, to the thoughts coming and going in the mind.

Let me end this posting with two more Zen koans:
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One day, Jizo received one of Hofuku's disciples and asked him, "How does your teacher instruct you?"

"My teacher instructs me to shut my eyes and see no evil thing; to cover my ears and hear no evil sound; to stop my mind-activities and form no wrong ideas," the monk replied.

"I do not ask you to shut your eyes," Jizo said, "but you do not see a thing. I do not ask you to cover your ears, but you do not hear a sound. I do not ask you to cease your mind-activities, but you do not form any idea at all."
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A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is dreadful! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!"

"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. "My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!'

"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.
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3. Am I ever lost?

The other day, I was on orkut (an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends) going through a friend's friend list when I came across a long lost mate from my school days! In my excitement, I sent him a message, "Now you shud thank me... I found you first on orkut!!" What he replied back was totally unexpected but very much pleasing: "Hey I was never lost............so you didn't find me...I always existed here.....he he." Even though he said that in a humorous way, what he said had a deeper meaning to it.

How much is the distance from me to myself? Is it possible for me to get lost? Isn't it always true that I always am? Always present!? Here, Now! How can I be lost?


Following passages have been taken from Swami Rama Tirtha's lecture on "The Real Self" (Book: In Woods of God-Realization)

In a German folk-lore we hear about a man who lost his shadow. That is a very strange thing. A man lost his shadow and that man had to suffer for it. All his friends deserted him, all prosperity left him, and he was in a very sorry plight for it. What will you think of a man who instead of losing his shadow loses the substance? There may be hope for a man who loses only the shadow, but what hope can there be for a man who loses the substance, the body?

Such is the case of the majority of people in this world. Most men have lost not their shadow but their substance, the reality. Wonder of wonders! The body is simply the shadow, and the real Self, the real Atman, is the reality. Everybody will tell us about his shadow, everybody will tell us anything and everything about his body, but how few are there who will tell us anything and everything about their real Self, the real Soul, the real Atman. What are you? What is the use of gaining the whole world and losing your own soul? People are trying to gain the whole world but they miss the Soul, they miss the Atman. Lost, lost, lost. What is lost? The horse or the rider? The horseman is lost. The body is like the horse, and the Atman, the true Self, the Soul is like the rider. The rider is lost, the horse is there. Everybody will tell us anything and everything about the horse, but we want to know something about the rider, the horseman, the owner of the horse.

2. Even without my cognition, I am!

What I understand by enlightenment... (typing as thoughts come and go)
- To know myself...

What I mean by myself?
- myself... separate from name/body, which was given to me by my parents...
... separate from my mind which is ever changing...
... separate from everything which I call mine, even the idea that it's 'my self'...
... the stable backround where all these events occur

Now the question arises.. how to know That?
- if i am not the mind, will my mind be able to know myself?
... since i am the source for the mind, analogous to this question would be...
... can a painting know the painter?
... can a cartoon character know the cartoonist? can a fictional character know the author?
... can a dream object know the dreamer?

If I analyze the last question on the dreamer and the dream object...
... am I a dream object in someone else' dream?
... But I know for sure that I exist... even when I am in deep sleep...
... actually, thats the only thing I am certain of in this ever-changing world and mind space...
... Hence I can't question my existence and equate it to a dream object...

Lets say I am the Absolute as the enlightened souls say...
... Then why am I not aware of it?
... They say, to know That I need to let go of whatever I have accumulated so far... including my notion about myself...

Why is it that I am not at ease with the feeling of losing my identity...
...What am I afraid of?... Is it the feeling that They may be wrong... or the feeling that what if I don't succeed, will I be accepted by the so-called unreal world? or will I lose both the worlds...

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Reminds me of a story from my Vedanta class: There was a lunatic in a village who thought he was a cat. With this impression, he was afraid of the dogs and hence confined himself to his house. The other members of his household got worried and showed him to a psychiatrist. With the psychiatrist's treatment, his condition got better, and he soon got back to his senses. However, he still wasn't leaving his house. He now reasoned that he now knows he is not a cat, but do the dogs know that?
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1. Menu for the Mind

• Can there be a mind-shattering thought? Can there be a mirror-shattering image?
• Can one be enlightened in a dream?

• You in my dreams is not you, but my projection. Then, am I a projection in some Higher Being's dream? If so, can that Higher Being be a projection in some Higher-Higher Being's dream? Ad Infinitum!?

• Can God exist in my absence? How would I know for sure?

• The Infinite (God) can't be understood by the Finite (Mind). Can it?
• Someone is praying to the Almighty and smoking (or drinking alcohol) at the same time. Our cultured mind would find it unacceptable if the person is smoking during his/her prayer, where as it would find it to be accepable if the same person is praying to the Lord while having a smoke. This means that our mind happens to work on a Context Sensitive Grammar. As per Theory of Computers, a Context Free Grammar is more encompassing than a Context Sensitive one. Which makes me conclude that such a Context Sensitive mind is incapable of understanding/knowing the Infinite in totality!

• Amitabh Bachchan acts in a movie the role of an Amitabh Bachchan fan who wants to meet Amitabh Bachchan!

• A Role can't exist without an Actor, but an Actor can exist without a Role.

• A deep sea water fish doesn't understand what is meant by water. Nor does it understand what is meant by lack of water.
• A new born hasn't identified itself to be separate from others and hence lives in the present and the whole world looks out for it. This is also the reason why we don't remember our initial days on this planet!

• To know the mind using the mind is like Archimedes trying to move the Earth using a big lever while standing on the same Earth!

• To quiten the mind, we need a paradox which can reveal the unreality of the mind. A Zen koan, or Japa on a mantra helps in doing just that...