Om Namo Narayanaya

So what if faith in god has disappeared? In seeking faith or fearing its absence we are already under the spell of vested self interest - why else do we "seek" faith? Of course it is sought to serve as a  lifeboat, to help us wade through tough, stormy and uncertain waters.

But who can deny the divine and innocent friendship of Gopal who would turn up suddenly along the boring and tiresome path through the woods, to school. He would come, just to give me company. As his beautifully lazy cows accompanied us, chewing all the time. After Gopal appeared and after he left there wasn't an uncomfortable  craving ever, just a positive assurance that all was well with the world and being alive was beautiful. Friendship made it so.

But Gopal was a gift, and so too is suffering. The universe wants me to have it.

And have we not seen that our judgement, thoughts, feelings and sensations around suffering too constantly evolves. Nothing is constant.

Of course what we are striving for is clarity. Like I read, freedom is being able to see our confusion with all clarity. It is natural to not understand our confusion and yet be perturbed by it. And perhaps it is to the credit of our foolishness and impatience that we fail to take assurance and experience freedom from the idea that millions of brilliant minds have already walked this planet and are walking it now, whose intelligence were as sharp as a shining sword and their courage that of a selfless lion; and we think we have stumbled upon an unsurmountable mental confusion;

We can also remember with gratitude and amazement that the part of our mind that helps us transact in the world has helped us in our affairs. So thank you oh unknown power.


 

Games the good mind plays...

The mind may say  it is unclear of everything...then how can it be certain there is a reason for anxiety.

It is the heart that judges that needs to be seen...a thousand thoughts may appear and disappear in our mind...we may be passionate of and may even peruse some with interest..some may be aligned with and some unaligned  with our values...we think some because  we believe we should not (OCD)...

We must remember the fact that all thoughts are made of the same matter and in that sense not different...it is our judgement of the thoughts that causes us pain...

in fact our interest in our mental process seems to increase when/if we think there is a cause for concern...but the judgement that there is a cause for concern is not based on any facts or reason...its just like the classic example of judging the rope to be snake. This judgement and the following negative emotions stops us from being able to clearly look at the problem...

...and god blesses me with good sleep occasionally ...perhaps the nutmeg milk just before going to bed is helping me...is this space of sleep from which I arise as if from bliss not a touch with god.

Mental Process Analysis of Anxiety

Thoughts (what if thoughts) followed by judgement (as not okay) followed by sensation/feeling;
This is the route the disturbance takes to form;
The supposed reasons have changed but the sequence is the same;
Perhaps the mind will take several iterations of this sequence with different reasons before finally being convinced that there is simply no truth in the imagination that "something is wrong"

Ramanas Gift

Yesterday I stumbled upon this quote by Ramana- "The true answer to the question 'who am I' does not come in thoughts. All thoughts disappear, even the thinker himself disappears".

Exactly what I wanted to hear. And of late I have been thinking of how in time, either as words such as this that I stumble over or as events, life has helped me. Of course I've had to do my difficult part. But life/god has been a kind friend - always turning up to do his part"

For example during the extreme difficult early days of pain and uncertainty I was concerned even about my survival for Sangeeths marriage. But following my hearts direction, I endured and that went on beautifully. Following that was Arjuns illness - it was a hope against hope kind of situation; we waited and endured and thankfully what a happy-handsome gift was given - Arjun was cured of his difficult disease. And so much more...

We have to do our part and move on. We witness that god/life does his part.

Priority Virtues

We have to practice patience, alertness and suspension of judgement...Our mind distorts our interpretation of events in the phase of exaggerated self concern.
Even when facing an unclear, restless mind and significant uncertainty we  can rest in the assurance that we are at least clear that that we are facing significant doubt and uncertainty. We can further acknowledge this. When that's done we can focus on "just being"...and to truly 'Be" also means, to be patient.
It must be our lack of patience coupled with our exaggerated self concern that causes us frustration.  The habit of judging external people, ideas and events may cause us to "Judge" our internal events (thoughts, sensations and feelings) such as "this may never leave me" etc without even understanding it. But if we are to pause and investigate our experience we remember that even in the phase of high doubt, uncertainty and pain there were times of promise, that we could laugh, enjoy a TV program etc. And even in the phase of the deep fears there clear hope was found - rare though their memories are.

Patience and Intelligence

Mathieu had shared a profound insight  which interpret to mean that there is no long journey, big task or difficulty which cannot be divided into tiny bits so we can tackle one bit at a time. In a similar way, when it sees  a confusion, our mind has a tendency to jump to conclusions of dread and horror. The picture it paints of gloom and doom is not based on rational judgement. It judges that something is wrong and panics at the slightest doubt, leaving a cloud of ambiguity which it seems to guard with a wall of fear. So why not trust and depend on the power of patience (have I not recently read somewhere that patience is god) and intelligence to first understand the confusion.

 

The eye of intelligence...

Yesterday was a bit difficult; but I was blessed with blissful sleep; thank you god.

Coming back to seeing the mind through the eyes of intelligence...I'm reminded of Ashish Mr.Joses' teenage son, who one day was standing cautiously as though ready to flee at the slightest hint of danger. This happened once when I was called to fix some issue related to cooking gas at their home.
His error was easy to recognize ...he had some knowledge of the potential danger when dealing with LPG (he probably heard some stories that are in his memory); however that there are risks doesn't mean one has to be on stressfully  high alert/tension levels whenever one is around a cylinder. But apparently this was what was happening in his case. And I see the same thing happening in with me but with ideas rather than a cylinder.

The discomfort of panic  has the following sources:

• Heightened Self Concern: This is probably the starting point. It results in a propensity to be on hyper alert - constantly going back ad fourth and checking the idea/thought/sensation etc.. probably because of wanting to be really sure that nothing is indeed wrong. It triggers thoughts such as:  "Am I sure there is nothing indeed wrong? Something was wrong, let me check again...etc
• Judgement- The moment  something/anything is spotted, the mind goes, "see I told you so, something is dreadfully wrong". Judgement forces us to take decisions at the drop of a hat without clear consideration or understanding.
• Impatience: If we are truly interested in gaining the right understanding of something, we cannot by-pass the skill of patience and unbiased observation. Impatience causes frustration - like a child throwing a tantrum.
• Bias: The mind tends to  make a mountain out of its fears and negative thoughts while often forgetting that even during days of confusion/fear/uncertainty there  were many occasions when the mind was able to see the very same confusions without being perturbed and with a happy positive heart.

My heart sees clearly that the story woven by a panicking mind  seems more visible merely on account of its density and darkness rather than on account of the quality of facts or rationality.