67. Gradualness - The Bane of Spiritual Seekers

This is a very common thing that I have seen happen with spiritual teachers, and have also faced it personally. When a spiritual teacher tries to bring about a sense of urgency in the students, the students come up with all kinds of theories (and stories of other people who are supposed to have realized) to argue that it is a 'gradual' thing, and should not be sudden. But what is your idea of being gradual? Never allow any sense of urgency? Always push back whenever someone speaks of it? That is just ridiculous.

Always trying to dwell in the sense of urgency and desperation is the gradual thing to do. Gradualness is not something that you argue for. Your argument should always be for having a sense of urgency. Because, the more you talk of 'gradual', the more you will sleep off. It is just a justification to remain placid. It is an escape, an escape that you try to authorize by using all great names and philosophies. And what is that foolish argument anyway? Should no one ever talk of sense of urgency to us? Then how will it come about even gradually?

If one sees that they do not have the sense of urgency, and do not justify it in anyway, the sense of urgency will come about. But the moment we justify, we snub that possibility also - "Oh I do not have the sense of urgency. But it is ok. It is a gradual thing [sleep off]"

If we just wanted to sleep off in gradualness, and do not want anyone talking about urgency, why did we approach a teacher at all? To find company to sleep with?

Whenever we retort to a teacher that things should be gradual, we have insulted the teacher's time and energy. The teacher is not merely sharing with us some information; he is spilling his energy to bring about a sense of urgency in us. I have seen some teachers trying to fire up the listeners for an hour, and in the end someone very casually says "But it is gradual"! That itself diffuses to some extent the intensity that had built up in the gathering.

The spiritual 'path' is not one of distance or time, it is one of intensity of being. One may muster it in a moment, or not even in a lifetime. One may muster it right here, or not even by going to the Himalayas. And arguing for gradualness is a sure shot way to diffuse intensity.

Therefore following a 'path' is not an endorsement for being gradual. No matter what path one is following, this should ever be kept in mind:

P.S.: Sometimes some teachers talk of things that bring about a sense of impossibility rather than a sense of urgency. It is important to distinguish the two.

66. My Childhood Angst

On the occasion of Guru Purnima, I would like to share something personal, but relevant.

Since early childhood, a deep sense of grief would engulf me every now and then, the trigger for which would be people having fun (e.g. playing games or chitchatting) or enjoying themselves in some kind of gathering (e.g. marriage functions). I would experience untold sorrow and cry profusely, as if some great tragedy has struck. For e.g. I remember as a 5 year old boy, standing in a corner with wet cheeks looking at all the elder children of our neighbourhood happily immersed in playing cricket. The same sense of hopelessness recurred several times, especially while attending family functions. The child could not articulate the reason in words (even mentally), it was just some unknown pain, but as the brain developed it got articulated. For e.g. I vividly remember going through this when I was in 12th, and was attending a marriage function.

Here I am crying for something else.
Probably saying "Let us go home"
I don't have a photo where I am crying
in actual angst. :-)

I could not digest how we can settle for such titbits of life and not seek any further. How can we be content with such things, as if that is the whole of the world and there is nothing more to life? When wounds are festering within, when suffering is inevitable sooner or later, how can we satisfy ourselves with some decorative paintjob and pretense? I am saying 'we' because apart from those episodes of grief (which occurred once in a few months), rest of the times I was also just the same — engrossed in some silly thing. Thus, desperation and frustration would accumulate over time, and erupt periodically in such episodes, stimulated by some trigger or sometimes without any trigger. I was crying for everyone, myself included. For I did not know what to do either. I only knew this cannot be it, but did not know what more it should be. It was like getting pressed into a corner, a dead end; it was suffocation.

After getting crushed in this "I do not know what to do" for several years, it has now become evident that this is what one should fundamentally do — to hold on to "I do not know" no matter what happens, and do not compromise for anything — mystical experiences, God talking to you, elegant insights, great theories from others, whatever. This is the most fundamental aspect. Everything else that we do in the name of spirituality is auxiliary. If one has not come to painfully realize the limit of psychology, if one does not realize he is in a prison, there is no getting out. There will be just more and more illusions, even in the name of spirituality. One will compromise with and settle for something or the other within the ambit of the mind, including the illusion of spirituality, and call it soul, heart, Atman, God and whatever. Without a sense of urgency, spirituality turns into the same-old social drama, into one more layer of cosmetics, another titbit to find contentment in. It is the pain of ignorance alone that will conjure enough intensity without any direction to blast off from the atmosphere of the mind. Without intensity there is anyway no going anywhere, and setting a direction means remaining within the psychology.

It is very popularly said that Guru is that which dispels darkness. But there is something worse than darkness — illusion of light (just as pretense of humility is worse than boastfulness, and so on). If I am under the spell of the mind, imagining that there is already light, where is the question of dispelling darkness at all? I will be quite content within the limits of the psychology, imagining all kinds of great things. A Guru is possible only after one begins to intensely realize the daunting darkness. 'Ru' (dispelling) is possible only after one stops denying that he is in utter 'Gu' (darkness).

Happy Guru Purnima!

63. I will not come Alive, for I will Die!

When a situation makes you laugh your head off, or cry your heart out, or burn in rage, or sink in fear you will try to walk out of the situation saying "I cannot take this anymore". And if you do not or cannot avoid the situation, you will either faint, or lose mental balance, or perhaps even die. The system will break in some way.

When life intensity, whatever its form, crosses a certain limit, you can no more bear it, even if it is in a desirable form (as in joy and laughter). That means presently, you cannot experience life beyond a certain level of intensity; if you try to go beyond it, if you get too overwhelmed, things get dangerous.

When more aliveness, even through pleasant means, is thus perceived as danger or death, what will the human mind unconsciously do? It will make sure that you will live in low voltage, in the safe zone content with tidbits ("choti choti khushiyaan"). Although we claim to want to 'live life fully', all our attempts will be to somehow manage to live without becoming too alive; to live avoiding life. Until one is truly conscious of this irony, it continues no matter which area of life one is in, including Yoga. Life within will temporarily and apparently settle.

But when you become conscious of this limitation upon you, factually and not just as an idea, can you still accept this and settle for it? Does not your innate nature say "I want more" as it has been doing all along with everything? When they said 'seek God', 'seek Enlightenment' etc. what was it they were referring to? Some esoteric entity other than life? Could it be this very thing we are avoiding all the time — to be blazingly Alive, but still be Stable?; to be blissfully intense just by ourselves without any external stimulus?; to be an explosion within, and still not break physically or mentally? Could it be that when deluged by aliveness, we die not physically, but absolutely, and thus really live life totally?

Robert Ingersoll (an American agnostic): "We have an orange here, and we want to squeeze all the juice out of it" [indicating that a worldly man lives life fully, and there is no need of any spiritual pursuit]

Swami Vivekananda: "I have some fruit, and I too want to squeeze out the juice. Our difference lies in the choice of the fruit. You want an orange, and I prefer a mango [indicating that no pulp is wasted]... Your study is the manifestation of life, mine is the life itself"