goldenboy

I wanted to explore Real relationships, Real living, Real community.

And, over a period of time I have come to believe that no matter how hard it may seem, don’t give up.

It is quite true that you cannot just give up what you truly perceive just because the community wants you to give up that viewpoint. This is what I call being pushed to the wall.

And you ought to make a decision.

To keep your mind. It is essential.

Or else either of the following will happen:

1. You will compromise. You will lose your identity and surrender to group dynamics and invisible power struggles
2. You will go mad (trying to win them over to your point of view. Believe me, most of the time, they just can’t see)
3. You decide to stay with what you feel, and don’t talk about it anymore with the group. Yet you observe all the cuckoos around, courting with each other with sweet nothings, not risking any real plunge, feel what the group does to you, to see where your heart finally leads you.

Since one would not want to give up one’s own rational judgement (or gut feeling) and at the same time would not want to end up in a mental asylum, the third point is a good option.

A win-win for both the group and yourself

Because, if the group is not meant for you, then you will eventually grow out of the group and not be a part of the group anymore. Till your heart pines for the group, to be in, don’t just cut yourself from the group… there is much learning to do.

And if your point is true, your presence in the group itself is allowing an alternate point of view to exist thus making space for others who may feel the same at a later period.

For others in the group, I believe that you cannot just chuck a person out of a “community” if he does not adhere to your viewpoint or the group viewpoint. Remember that Pariahs become prophets! The group that does away with people who have alternate viewpoints grows into a cult. And a cult is always made of narrow-minded people on a self-deluding trip to doom.

At an individual level, when you see that the group does not agree with your viewpoint, you can keep the viewpoint to yourself. Soon you will learn to get on with people who totally disagree with you and keep your cool. Even watching- people go on a trip of self-deluding trip of community-building, when all they want to do is feel important, escape, have some good time, and not take the plunge into the risk that real community building is- is in itself quite an interesting observation. You can idealize the individuals you will not want to turn out to be like.

My observation has been that most of the people who seek out to explore honest community building like to balance their eggs in two baskets. As has been taught in society. Nobody wants to take the risk. So the group turns out to be another mirror of the Society itself, something that the group never wanted to be.

This happens because of the risk that Intimacy entails. Nobody understands the dynamics of Intimacy.

I believe intimacy involves a certain amount of stripping of the masks we go around with. You cannot court another person in the group wearing your mask. It will only make you uncomfortable and aimless in the long term to drop out, or give a feeling of discomfort to the other person. There is a possibility that some individuals in my group feel that discomfort yet are themselves too indecisive about the risk of taking that first step into true intimacy.

I believe I have a strong intuition for such masks! And I grew really tired of masks; especially the sweet-nothings and “coffee table talk” of people in the group. I would have loved it if they had cared to advance beyond that to the next level.

Fear of intimacy happens because people in our society are quite uncomfortable with intimacy. Because with intimacy, there is always a risk that you will end up showing more of you than the other person can handle. Yet till we take that risk, no true intimacy between two people is possible, let alone true community building which starts with true-intimacy.

There are times that we feel afraid of people stripping their mask, because we wonder if he will get emotionally dependent on us. This is because in outside life every time a person stripped his mask, it was to blackmail us into an emotional trap.

 If a person in the group feels inhibited to express himself wholly, then there is a lot to be done to make the space more congenial to honest self-expression. Where else can a person express if not in the space, when the society has cut off all avenues of honest self-expression and honest community built on honesty, devoid of fear?

Yet even as one strips, there is always a risk that the group will react negatively especially in the initial stages when it is not strong enough to handle such blatant deviation from the norms of the society outside.

And if this happens to you, as has happened with me, you just wait. Don’t voice it anymore, hold it and see what time has to say… 
 

But please don’t give up. Don’t give up your exploration please.

As Madhavikutty Pathangal says in her poem…

Once you reach that shore,

That unlit shore

Please do not return (paradoxically, the unlit shore here is the realm of madness for the poetess Madhavikutty. She was one person who set out on the same journey, all alone. She is now converted to Islam!)

Yet I believe there is still hope, for an honest communication, self-expression, freedom to be, true community building, true belonging and acceptance… I say so, because I have tasted ‘a few moments here and there of the sweetness of a true community’ even in all the chaos that I perceive the group is in at present.

Slowly as life begins to settle down, I become aware of the discontent that gnaws at my heart.

I don’t know what it is about. First I thought it was freedom, then love, then God, then Truth…

Yet I have not been able to give it a name…

It fills my sleep with nightmares.

It sucks energy out of me.

It disturbs my life.

Harsh words & violent blows
Hidden secrets nobody knows
Eyes are open, hands are fisted
Deep inside I’m warped & twisted
So many tricks & so many lies
Too many whens & too many whys
Nobody’s special, nobody’s gifted
I’m just me, warped & twisted
Sleeping awake & choking on a dream
Listening loudly to a silent scream
Call my mind, the number’s unlisted
Lost in someone so warped & twisted
On my knees, alive but dead
Look at the invisible blood I’ve bled
I’m not gone, my mind has drifted
Don’t expect much, I’m warped & twisted
Burnt out, wasted, empty, & hollow
Today’s just yesterday’s tomorrow
The sun died out, the ashes sifted
I’m still here, warped & twisted

There is some discontent in a corner of my heart, hidden; had been ignored for too long now…
 
yet now that the dust have settled down, and I can see through the rubble… I feel it gnawing at my heart…
 
And I don’t want to speak about this to anyone else but you… Others don’t hear me, they are too noisy inside…
 
But then, I feel over the years , asking you to listen… when I have myself not been able to convey much… You are bored now…
 
And I don’t know where to turn to, whom to ask to be heard…
 
I feel lost…
 
What is it that I want…? What is it that I miss so much…? Why this discontent with life…?
 
How long will it gnaw at my heart….
 
There won’t be anything much of me left soon…

The Abyss, the Dark, the Lonesome Night… will eat away my soul…
 
I will be dead..
 
What does it mean to die…?  Not physically, but when the discontent has eaten me up fully, as I surrender to its apetite…
 
What will remain of me? Will it be Heaven or Hell?
 
I Don’t Know. And I am Scared!

In an email to my mentor/ therapist Uma, I had expressed my disillusion,

“At Bihar School of Yoga, at The Yoga Institute, I am bewildered seeing how
far and deep our people are deluded and entrenched in the Big Machinery of
programming called Society!

Samkhya Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy, Jaina Philosophy, Yoga
Philosophy… the point I wonder about is: They are philosophies, right? So
why are we so hell-bent on living out other people’s philosophies? Where is
that common-sensical thing called “First-hand Experience”?

As I have written in my recent article at GoldenBoy,

 ”I… see countless people live in constant fear. Why! religions and
spiritual-orders even spread lies about Her, dreading Her, killing their
sexual instinct (Her creative aspect), hating their body (Her ‘creation’
aspect), and turning away from relationships/ love and Nature (Her many Forms through which she mingles with us in everyday life). ”

And as I explore more into Yoga, by way of practice, for I believe in experiencing, I yearn for Wisdom too or Knowledge, a map that could be used as a guide for my sadhana or spiritual practice.

When asked in the Final Examination paper, which Niyama (- i.e. Do’s, the second step of Eightfold path of Pathanjali Classical Yoga) I found the most easiest to follow, I wrote:

Swadhyay (Self-Study) is the Niyama which is most easy for me to follow: Reason: Swadhyaya means cultivation o awareness of one’s own body, mind, behaviour, circumstances, action/reaction. It is also – the study of scriptures.

The aim of Swadyay has to be freedom from Ignorance (Avidya) which Patanjali points to as one of the reasons for the rend between Individual Consciousness and Universal Consciousness.

Over the past 5 years, I have been blessed with a Teacher who has been helping a group of people in cultivating ‘Awareness’ i.e. Pratyaksha Bhavana. It is what the scriptures call as the strengthening of the Mahant within.

Also even though Patanjali dismisses all ‘Pramanaas’ (literally meaning proofs or Scriptures) as obstructions in knowing the Reality, reading of commentaries on scriptures written by different authors/ experts/ advanced practitioners, can lead one to reach a clarity based on one’s own intuitive instinct. However, even this conclusion, conclusions based on logical reasoning, firm ideologies of right and wrong etc. is considered as an obstruction for the true seeker in the path of Truth.

Swadhyay, for me, then is a Sadhana (spiritual effort) and I believe that aligning it with Ishwar Pranidhan, God/Goddess helps/will help me in reaching the goal which Patanjali intends the readers of Yogasutras to attain through practice and insight i.e. Samadhi, if not in this life time, maybe in some other lifetime.

Another comment on the most difficult Yama (Observances) that one needs to follow (the first path of Yoga… I wrote:

It is difficult for me to follow Brahmacharya, as it is defined by popular religions and societies of today.

Reason: It is more a matter of clarity vs. confusion regarding the meaning of the term itself, when put into practice.

Brahmacharya, is a Sanskrit term meaning ‘the follower of Brahma’ i.e. the ‘seeker of Truth’.

In today’s world, or since the Puranas were written, the term has been seriously connected to sexual celibacy.

It is common sense that the first person who made this connection must have wondered – ‘what is it that is the most primal urge in man after food and water that can cause his attention or concentration to be led astray? Surely, the sexual urge may have been the first thing to hit his mind.

However, it is wrong to attach Brahmacharya as a virtue that leads to the accumulation of Virya ( the male sexual fluid), and in turn lead to spiritual progress. One reason is because the ancient scriptures attribute the quality of virya turned in the upward direction for spiritual progress even in women, e.g. the daughter of Himalaya Parvati.

Brahmacharya, in my opinion, is not the suppression of one’s sexual desire. If Nature is tried to be suppressed, one will turn into a maniac.

Research and scientific studies show that such suppression of one’s natural sexual urge makes a man more violent.

Hence, for me Brahmacharya is not sexual celibacy. It is difficult to follow a construct of society that is so false in interpretation, against Nature, and is based on fear and discrimination of women as a human-being.

Brahmacharya, at best can be control of one’s senses, so far as to align with the Yogic Principle of Tapas i.e. fortitude.

Balance may be the word, not suppression of one’s sexual urge. Total celibacy is a misconstrued term for Brahmacharya and difficult to follow.

-x-x-x-

In contrast to Indian philosophies like the Samkhya, Nyaya, Vedanta, Buddhist etc. which believe in controlling the senses or treating the world as an Illusion (maya), Abhinava Gupta’s (an ancient Indian Scholar, genius in the fields of philosophy, aesthetics, poetics, dramaturgy, Tantra and mysticism…) commentary on Bhagavad Gita in alignment to Kashmiri Shaivism that believes in the world being real and the senses to be enjoyed along with deep meditation (sadhana)… comes as a cool breeze.

I have found a rare publication that is a translation by Boris Marjanovic.

I have read Abhinava Gupta translated and he has written in such simple and friendly way, that it leaves me surprised if I am reading an ancient scholar or a modern-day scholar elucidating the verses of Bhagavad gita in such simple down-to-earth terms.

Abhinava Gupta claims to introduce to his readers the esoteric meaning of the Bhagavad Gita which the Vedantins and followers of Samkhya philosophies have not been able to understand.

And this, with explanation on yoga practices that will allow one to progress on one’s path…

The book is a gem.