Rules for Myself

The above poem is a summation of the main rules that I strive to live my life by. I formulated an initial draft of these rules earlier this year and started living by them. And they truly helped me live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. Over the months, with greater insights into myself (in particular) and human psychology (in general), I refined my draft, added a couple more rules, and composed a pithy poem for my rules so that I could easily recall and repeat them to myself.

You might ask, "Why do you want to live your life by a bunch of rules? Isn't that restrictive?" Those are absolutely valid questions. I have certainly been asked those questions before, and occasionally more as a critical commentary to my way of life than a genuine inquiry. Nevertheless, the answer to those questions is pretty straightforward:

First, rules are not automatically restrictive. Rules can surely feel restrictive when they are imposed by an outsider. However, when we choose our own rules, they can actually be liberating, because they help us get focused in life. Rules help us identify what are truly important to us. They help us not get distracted by the trivial.

Second, it's incorrect to think that you don't live by rules. We all have rules. It's just that people are rarely aware of those rules. Most of our rules lie under our conscious awareness in form of implicit beliefs. However, they still continue to influence our actions. The problem with living our life by a set of rules that we aren't even aware of is that we then do not get the opportunity to scrutinize them. While some of our subconscious rules may be working in our favor, many do not. In fact, most of our life's troubles could be traced back to those outdated rules that we ignorantly held on to. It is therefore critical that we periodically introspect and identify the rules that we have been living by. Once identified, we need to scrutinize them with the thoroughness of a skilled scientist, retain what work, and modify or discard what do not. Over a period of time, through this continual process of refinement, we should be able to formulate a set of thumb rules that help us better our lives."

It is beyond the scope of this post to elaborate on the rationale behind each of my rules. However, if any of them appeal to you, do consider incorporating them into your life. You might be surprised at how much they can help you transform your life.

Mastering Grace: Lessons from Our Ancestors

Mastering Grace

To come with grace, to grow with grace

To smile with grace, to cry with grace

To sit with grace, to wait with grace

To walk with grace, to run with grace

To speak with grace, to sing with grace

To play with grace, to work with grace

To consume with grace, to dispose with grace

To luxuriate with grace, to suffer with grace

To fight with grace, to unite with grace

To give with grace, to receive with grace

To love with grace, to forgive with grace

To laugh with grace, to grieve with grace

To win with grace, to lose with grace

To fall with grace, to rebound with grace

To pray with grace, to surrender with grace

To live with grace, to leave with grace...

For the art of living is nothing but to embrace

Both life's beauty and its inherent unfairness

And to allow ourselves to coalesce

With the boundless Nothingness.

Note: The art of living is to master the art of dying... gracefully. For those familiar with the Hindu tradition will know that we are currently observing Pitrupaksh, the fortnight during which we pay homage to our ancestors. The above poem is my ode to the departed ancestors.

3 Happiness Lessons from the Rath Yatra

Today was Ratha Yatra, a Hindu festival originating from my state of Odisha that celebrates the journey that the main deities of Puri Jagannath temple—Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Sudarshana—undertake every year. Also known as the Car Festival or the Chariot Festival, the festival is now observed across all major cities of the world.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Ratha Yatra of Lord Jagannath, you must have used or at least heard of the English word 'juggernaut' which refers to any huge, powerful and overwhelming force. This term came about when the British witnessed the Ratha Yatra for the first time in the 18th century and were completely awed by the size and grandness of the chariots being pulled by what often seems like an ocean of people.

There are many beautiful mythological and historical stories associated with Puri's Ratha Yatra, but I won't touch upon them in this article. Instead, I would like to highlight three psycho-spiritual lessons we can all take from this festival. As I have been researching and reflecting on different evidence-based approaches for wellbeing, I am amazed at how much wisdom lies behind many Hindu festivals and how we can literally transform our lives if we celebrate these festivals a little more mindfully.

1) Develop of a strong and healthy body: You may be wondering, “What does the Ratha Yatra have to do with a strong body?” No, I am not referring to the physical strength you would need to pull the ropes of the ratha, although that would certainly be very helpful. The importance of a strong and healthy body can be understood if we read the Katha Upanishad, which describes ratha (Sanskrit for a chariot) to be symbolic of the physical body. So the ratha yatra that we celebrate every year is essentially symbolic of our life's journey (yatra is a Sanskrit word for journey). We all want our life's journey to be a happy one. Does the ratha yatra give us any hints about how we can achieve this objective? Yes, have a strong and healthy body. According to yogic literature, the biggest impediment to happiness is a sick body. So it is very important to develop a strong and healthy body, the exact same way that so much of attention is paid every year to building strong rathas (chariots). Diseased and weak rathas (and bodies) cannot withstand the stress of the ratha yatra (life's journey).

2) Do not identify with the body: While a strong and healthy body helps us live a happy life, it is also important to remember that we are not our body. Again, according to Katha Upanishad, our true self is the Atma (pure consciousness) and the body is just the ratha (or the vehicle) that the Atma uses to complete the journey of life. This aspect is sometimes described through the quote, "We are not physical beings having spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having physical experiences." The ephemeral nature of our bodies is beautifully represented in the cyclical nature of the ratha yatra: each year new rathas carry the deities from the Jagannath Temple to the Gundicha Temple and back, after which the rathas are discarded. Our life's journey is similarly cyclical, where we take up a physical body in one life, then discard it at the time of death, before moving on to another body for another cycle of life. Now the philosophical implications of this cyclical nature of life is enormous that is beyond the scope of this blog post, but from a very practical point of view, it means that most of our suffering is caused because we identify too strongly with our body. It is no wonder then that the most powerful meditation techniques (in terms of their efficacy on mental wellbeing) are all geared towards creating a distance between our self and our body. If you do not know how to meditate, it is worth your time to learn it, since it has been consistently shown across numerous research studies to have a positive impact on your wellbeing. 

3) Overcome distractions: There has been a lot that has been published about how our mental distractions impair our ability to be happy and successful in our lives. This insight is also beautifully illustrated through the festival of ratha yatra. Traditionally chariots got their power from horses. In Katha Upanishad, these horses symbolize our indriyas (or sense organs) through which we relate to the external world. The sense organs are the physiological basis through which we experience pleasure and pain. Correspondingly our sense organs become the driving force of our life. We live to keep them satisfied and free from pain. We get immediately distracted by anything that excites our senses. However, the problem with this approach of living (called hedonistic approach) is that we become literal slaves to our sense organs. Our lives become not very different from the life of an addict who compulsively craves and consumes substances but is still miserable. Also, how can you do a successful journey when you are distracted in all possible directions? The key is for the charioteer (symbolic of buddhi, or discriminatory intelligence) to take control of the reins (symbolic of our mind) and not let the horses (or in case of the Ratha Yatra, the devotees) pull in all possible directions. It is only then that the passenger (Atma) can reach his destination. In practical terms, the key to happiness then is not in repressing our desires, as is recommended in some religions. Desires after all are the life force that help us move forward with our life. But it means that we stay mindful and in control of our desires so that we do not get easily distracted by the countless meaningless attractions and move forward in the direction dictated by your buddhi. In neurological terms, this would be called training the pre-frontal cortex to take control over the lymbic system, again something that is achieved through meditation and mindfulness living.

A Seeker's Discovery

There was a time
Love was the aim of mine.
To give
And to receive
That emotion
Which is fun,
Soothing and ecstatic,
And make us all tick.

But then as you know
Came the ego.
A small little word
But a huge hazard.
For relationships
It is a literal apocalypse.
So love got destroyed
And I went into a void.

I was mad,
I was sad.
I wanted to be bad
But I failed at that.
So what do you do?
I just withdrew
Into a cocoon
Rather than impugn.

Why was life so unfair?
I asked in despair.
But then I thought
Why be distraught
Over a shortchange
When I could change
My life my way,
If not others' screenplay?

So with determination
I began to brighten
My inner self
By emptying the bookshelf.
With steely resolve
I began to evolve
Through hardcore action
And silent meditation.

I practiced, not to impress,
But to find happiness
That was independent
Of any external event.
So when somebody was mean
I still stayed serene.
Essentially, in solitude
I found my fortitude.

No, I didn't become a loner.
I was just a seeker.
I sought with intensity,
But not a loving company.
Because when you realize
You were after a compromise,
You see, "You got shortchanged
But not b'cos of a deranged."

You realize that You deceived
Yourself by what you believed.
I don't say, "Romantic love is
Some kind of disease,
But it only gives you a glimpse
Of that feeling of bliss,
Before it degrades,
And then ennui pervades."

So I don't reminisce.
Instead, I seek my bliss
Just within me
And not in external beauty.
And what I have found
Is this truth profound
That I am the bliss
Finding which was my wish.

Who is a Yogi and Who is a Dhongi?

First of all, my apologies to all those friends who have expressed that they have been waiting to read about the second half of my European backpacking trip that I completed last month. Since my return I have been preoccupied with a handful of "Important & Urgent" matters, and so haven't been able to write that post, but I promise to do it soon, may be even later this week.

Today's post is a quick response to a meme I noticed on different social network websites in connection with the International Yoga Day celebrations. As you all know, the first International Day of Yoga was celebrated all around the world yesterday. Thanks to the initiative of the Indian prime minister Mr. Narendra Modi, in December last year, the United Nations General Assembly had approved June 21 to be celebrated as International Day of Yoga every year. The celebrations were a huge success both in India and abroad. However, as is inevitable, the celebrations, especially in India, also generated some criticisms (for example, this was all a PR stunt for Modi, etc.). This post is not a critique or evaluation of those criticisms. My post is just in response to the meme below circulated by Modi-haters which reads as follows in English: "He can't even sit in padmasana (the Lotus pose)... Modi is no yogi; He is a dhongi (a cheat)."

Congress party's meme on Narendra Modi following the International Day of Yoga celebrations in New Delhi

When I saw this meme, I immediately did a Google search on "Modi and Padmasana," because it seemed a little odd to me that Modi can't do a padmasana. First, padmasana or the lotus pose might be a difficult pose for many Westerners but it usually isn't for most Indians who have the habit of sitting cross-legged on floor from childhood. Also, it seemed odd that Mr. Modi couldn't do a lotus pose, given that he had spent years as a pracharak for the RSS; yoga along with many fitness exercises are commonly practiced at all the shakhas (or branches) of RSS.

Not surprisingly, the Google search yielded many pictures of PM Modi sitting in perfect padmasana. When I shared one of these pictures with the friend who had posted the meme, I immediately got a skeptical response that the picture must have been photo-shopped. Now, I love healthy skepticism, but this seemed more like a prejudiced response to me, because the response was immediate. In other words, no time had been spent to verify facts. Also, I couldn't see any noticeable signs of photo-shopping. Lastly, at least one of those pictures (the second one below) came from a reputable source, specifically The Sunday Times, so I had no reason to suspect the authenticity of the pictures.

Narendra Modi in padmasana

Anyway, the point of this article is not to prove that PM Modi is a great yogi. First of all, I'm not a Modi bhakt (devotee), so I don't have any motivation to do prove anything on behalf of Mr. Modi; nor does he need me. Sure, I'm a fan of his on certain issues, but I'm also as big a critic of him. Second, and more importantly, I don't know Mr. Modi personally. So I have no basis of knowing whether he is a "true" or "fake" yogi, but nor do the people who keep sharing memes about Mr. Modi being a "fake" yogi.

The point of this article is to educate people about who could be considered a true yogi. As those familiar with Sanskrit know, the word yoga means being in union with the supreme spirit or cosmic energy. Today, most of modern yoga may have been restricted to poses and physical exercises, but yoga as a discipline goes much beyond manipulating the body.

Patanjali in his famous Yoga Sutras described eight limbs of yoga:

1. Yama: These are the five things that yogi must abstain from:
1. Ahimsa: Abstain from all forms of violence (including verbal)
2. Satya: Abstain from falsehood
3. Asteya: Abstain from stealing
4. Brahmacharya: Abstain from sexual misconduct 
5. Aparigraha: Abstain from greed
2. Niyama: These are the five observances
1. Śauca: Purity in thoughts, speech and action
2. Santosha: Being content with oneself and one's circumstances
3. Tapas: Persistent austerity
4. Svādhyāya: Engaging in self-reflection
5. Ishvara-Pranidhana: Contemplation on the nature of True Self
3. Asana: Literally means "a seat" or to be able to sit continuously for long periods of time. Later (in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika), asanas also came to mean the yoga poses that we practice today. But the point to remember is that they are still meant to help the body be still for long periods of time, something that is essential for samadhi.
4. Pranayama: Breathing exercises (literally means having control over one's breath and life force)
5. Pratyahara: Withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects or not being a slave to external attractions.
6. Dharana: Concentration
7. Dhyana: Meditation
8. Samadhi: Merging or uniting one's consciousness with the higher Self.

Among these eight limbs, the last one, i.e., samadhi is the most difficult to attain, and ultimately the goal of yoga. So, a true yogi is one who has mastered the art of going into and coming out of samadhi. In this sense, perhaps 99.999999% of the practitioners of yoga (and that includes me) are not really true yogis. Forget samadhi, most of us can't even keep our body (asana) and mind (dharana) still on our will for a few minutes.

Does that mean that we all are fake yogis then? No, I won't say that. We all may call ourselves yogis, but only in the sense of being learners or students of yoga. And as students, we are yogis only to the extent of commitment we have made to the whole eight-fold path of yoga, that which involves disciplining not just the body but also the breath, mind, sense organs, and subtle energies so that they are all in better alignment with the supreme spirit and/or cosmic energy.

In other words, there are essentially two ways to view the word yogi: 1) a person who has mastered the process of going into samadhi (yogic union with the higher Self), and 2) a person who has committed himself/herself fully to all the eight-limbs of yoga (and not just the yoga poses). Most of us practitioners of yoga have never reached samadhi, so we can't truly call ourselves yogis. Most of us have also not made a 100% commitment to all the eight limbs of yoga, so we can't even call ourselves as good students of yoga.

You may ask, "OK, so what are you saying about Modi? Is he a true or fake yogi?" My answer to these questions is that you are asking the wrong questions. Whether Mr. Modi is a true yogi or not is his business, not ours. Our business is to focus on ourselves. We should engage in repeated self-reflection (svadhyaya) and evaluate how much we have really committed to the process of becoming a yogi. That's all there is. Sincerely try to be a good yogi, but don't waste your time trying to prove to others that you are one. As a corollary, if you are trying to prove to others how true/good a yogi you are, then you are most likely not.

Equalizing the Head

Many people have the perception that I don't easily get stressed out. People have even "labeled" me as a Type B personality (as opposed to the anxiously ambitious, Type A personality). There is certainly a lot of truth in people's perception of me. I truly don't get anxious about things very easily, and generally maintain a cool head in situations that many people would consider highly stressful.

That said, it would be grossly incorrect to say that I never get stressed out. Sure, I do not worry about things much, but I do have a tendency to beat myself down when I don't seem to meet the imaginary standards that I set for myself in my head. This self-berating usually happens at a mental level. So to the outside world, I seem to have it all together. Of course, how can they see the mental battles I'm fighting inside my head, especially when I don't have much trouble keeping a cool head while dealing with the external challenges of life?

People reading this post might feel like I'm giving myself, what some of my friends call, a "back hand complement." After all, is it not enviable if one can keep one's cool during stressful situations? However, I disagree. As so eloquently expressed by Rumi, "The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself." The Buddha also says the same thing in The Dhammapada, "One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand men on the battlefield." And so do all the enlightened people I have read.

So it doesn't matter much how well I deal with the external challenges in my life. What really matters is how well I deal with my own internal demons. I believe I have been getting better at reigning these demons since I started practicing meditation seriously about a year ago. However, I still have long way to go, and that's completely fine with me. As the character of Denzel Washington says in The Equalizer, it's all about "progress, not perfection."

Meditative Running

An e-mail

A friend emailed me last night asking the question, "How did you learn about meditative running, and where would you point me if I wanted to know more?" After responding to her email this morning, I realized  that may be I should share my response on meditative running on Udyama as well. Hopefully, it will inspire others to try "meditative running" as well.

My response

Laura, my meditative running is kind of self-taught, because I didn't have any teacher or guru who taught me the techniques of meditative running. Meditative running is nothing but meditating during running. Over the last couple of years, I have taken up the practice of meditation very seriously, and it has helped me tremendously. I initially started with sitting meditation, the more traditional way to meditate. Soon I realized that running will be a great time to meditate as well. So, that's what I tried. The effect was almost instantaneous. My running became much more pleasurable and blissful experience than before. As you know, it's not that running was a chore for me before; I always enjoyed running, but meditation during running made the enjoyable experience much more profound. In fact, I realized that it was easier for me to get into a meditative state while running than while practicing in the sitting position. As regards how to practice meditation, it will be difficult explain that in a few sentences, but I'll try.

Meditation, according to me, is basically the process of eliminating mental noise from our minds. It can be done through many ways, but one of the simplest ways is to do it through the process of mindfulness. You may start by directing your attention on your breath. Keeping your attention steadfast on your breath will be a very difficult task; thousands of distracting thoughts will populate your mind. When this happens, don't feel frustrated. Instead, try to be aware of the entrance of a distracting thought, acknowledge it, gently let it go, and bring back your attention to your breath. Repeat this process again and again. Over time you will be able to keep your mind free from distracting thoughts (or noise) for longer duration. I practice this exact same thing (or some variation of it) while running as well, and that's what makes it meditative running. I'll be happy to guide you through the process of meditative running, if you want to learn more about it. You can also use the excellent resources available in Bloomington to learn the techniques of meditation, and then apply it to all walks of life, including running. The best place to learn meditation in Bloomington, I think, is the  Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. They don't teach running meditation there, but you can definitely learn Walking Meditation there and apply it to your running. :-)

Concluding words

I hadn't posted anything on running here for over a year. So it feels really good to write about running again. Although I did engage in a lot of running last year, and had some major personal achievements (Finishing first  in my age-group in the competitive IU-Mini Marathon last year; Doing a 50K in the steep hills of Kentucky--my first ultra-marathon; Running a trail half-marathon completely barefoot). I didn't share these achievements here on my blog because I didn't want to feel like I was boasting. But now I can say with confidence that these accomplishments were made possible only because of my meditative running. I ran the IU-Mini this year as well; I was slower by 3 minutes compared to last year, and did not win any prizes. But that does not mean that it was any less an achievement for me. Only we know how many barriers and personal physical limits we have overcome, when we cross that finish line.

Blisters from running the Knobstone Trail Half-Marathon barefoot.

Blisters from the same Knobstone Half-Marathon.
Although, I had trained well on barefoot before the race, I wasn't prepared for the several miles of gravel-based trails on the course. It was really my meditation that helped me run through the pain.

From the recent IU-Mini Marathon 2012

From the recent IU-Mini Marathon 2012

Pussy cat.. where had you been?

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where had you been?

I had been inside my heart, to look within.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there?

I dived into its depths and emerged more aware.

Om Namah Shivaya

Today is Maha Shivaratri, the Hindu festival devoted to the worship and reverence of Lord Shiva. People believe that worshiping Shiva on Maha Shivaratri pleases Him the most. Consequently, millions of devout Hindus perform fasts and elaborate rituals to please Lord Shiva today. I fasted today as well. I chanted the Maha Mrutyunjaya Mantra in the morning, and will do so again before going to bed. In fact, I have been regularly chanting the Maha Mrutyunjaya Mantra for quite a while now. Sometimes I do it using the Hrudrayksha Mala; most of the time, without the use of mala, especially while I am running or engaged in some other activity such as walking to school, cleaning the house, etc.

To some people it may seem strange that I worship Lord Shiva. Some orthodox Hindus may expect me to be chanting mantras of Rama and Krishna more than that of Shiva, primarily because I was born into a family where our Ishtha Devata is Lord Jagannath. Although my parents focused their devotion on Lord Jagannath, they also worshiped other Gods and Goddesses with strong fervor. So, my worship of Lord Shiva may not that surprising that way. However, what may be surprising is the fact that I am worshiping Shiva while being a scientist. Well, I grew up a staunch atheist, vehemently questioning the existence of God. May be that was just part of growing up, part of the common tendency in adolescents where they rebel against anything and everything traditional. My rebelling against religion was sometimes so strong that I brought tears into the eyes of my mother, although I had good followers among my two young sisters.

As the years passed by, I gradually started realizing the wisdom and scientific basis behind a lot of our practices and rituals. I stopped seeing religion as anti-science. Instead, I started seeing grounds where both complement and supplement each other. Over the last couple of years, I have become much more spiritual, primarily following a couple of personally profound spiritual experiences. Now I don't see spirituality and science as opposite ends of a continuum. Instead, I realize that the dichotomous thinking of science being all rational and religion being all superstitious is a highly prejudiced and parochial form of thinking. There are several practices in Hindu and Buddhist religions (the two religions about which I am most familiar) that have strong scientific foundation. Not just that, the ancient insights from these religions are being a major source of knowledge for the advancement of modern science.

Coming back to worshiping Lord Shiva, I do so because I admire his personality. According to me, He is probably the most humble of Hindu Gods. He places his consort, Parvati, higher than Himself. Although having the status of God, he meditates and practices yoga regularly. In fact, the science of yoga is considered to have originated from Him. He epitomizes the harmony of the masculine and feminine energies. He is compassionate, courageous, creative, decisive, disciplined, and strong--attributes that I would like to be manifested in myself. There is quite a substantial body of research in Psychology that shows that admiration of a person helps in the inculcation of the qualities embodied in the person. In my experience, admiration and identification with Gods and Goddesses can be an extremely powerful process. According to Carl Jung, Gods and Goddesses represent archetypes with high concentration of psychological and spiritual energy. Through practice, if we succeed in tapping into these high sources of energy, our lives can get completely transformed, not necessarily in a materialistic sense, but in terms of the embodiment of God-like qualities that are so difficult to inculcate from a living person.

How to experience true love?

The previous parts of this article are here: Preface, Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3.

In the last couple of posts, I talked about the idea that love is essentially being there. I also used this Buddhist definition of love as the basis to differentiate true love from the unreal varieties. It may be tempting to use this criterion to judge other people's love, but when we do that, we will most likely end up losing our peace. In cases of romantic love, we may feel bitter and resentful that our efforts to be there for our partner was not reciprocated. Thus, it is imperative that we stay non-judgmental about other people's love. But how can you stay non-judgmental in a situation where your partner failed to be present for you during the times of your need?

The point is that when we become judgmental, we fail to be there ourselves. We become so caught up in the whirlpool of our maddening thoughts and emotions that we fail to be fully present in the moment ourselves. We all know people who have lost their presents by ruminating over the past. I confess to have lost a lot of valuable moments of my life this way. The biggest tragedy of such rumination is that it prevents us from experiencing true love again.

There is a quote that has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that I absolutely love: Be the change you want to see in the world. If we want to experience true love, we have to practice true love ourselves. You may ask, "But I was always present for my beloved. Why am I suffering so much, whereas my neighbor seems to be enjoying true love despite being a jerk?" The fact of life is that there are several forces that influence our experiences. Some are directly influenced by us: our intentions, efforts, actions, etc. Some are influenced by  factors that are not directly within our immediate control: prarabdha karma (as per Hindu and Buddhist philosophy) or random events (according to some scientific views). So, bad things can and will continue to happen to good people. Just because you are good, does not mean that you will be automatically immune to bad things happening to you. Even Gods and Goddesses faced a lot of hardships and unfair deals, but they are worshiped as Gods primarily because they succeeded in not letting their equanimity to be disturbed by the events of their life. In other words, our subjective experience of good and bad events is always influenced by us alone. Those who are wise and highly evolved spiritually, succeed in maintaining their loving kindness towards others. They do this by continuously practicing mindfulness and love. And it is their practice that helps them be there fully. In summary, I think the best that we can do to experience true love is to practice being there ourselves.

To be continued ...

Being There

The previous parts of this article are here: Preface, Part 1, & Part 2.

One of the best cartoons I have seen is a New Yorker cartoon by Alex Gregory. In this cartoon, a man is  shown as thinking about golf while at work, thinking about sex while golfing, and thinking about work while having sex. In other words, the man is never fully present in any of the situations. The cartoon may seem to be depicting a case of fickle-mindedness. However, at a slightly deeper level, it is also making a statement about love, or more precisely what is not love. How can we say that the man loves his work, if he is day dreaming about golf while at work? How can we say that he loves golf, if he is engulfed in sexual fantasies while playing his game? And how can we say that the man is really making love, if while having sex he is preoccupied about his work?

Once I showed the above-mentioned cartoon to a group of fellow doctoral students in a research seminar, and everyone in the room had a good laugh. Why? Because at some level or other they all related to the man's predicament. As so accurately depicted in the cartoon, almost of all us are never fully present in the moment. The Buddhist practice of mindful meditation is a method that is very helpful in enhancing our capacity to live fully in the present. Over the last decade, there has also been a lot of scientific research on mindfulness. However, this post is not about mindfulness per se. It is about love. The reason I brought up mindfulness into the conversation is that mindfulness and true love both have the same ideal, i.e., to be there. I think the only difference between the two phenomena is the level of analysis. While mindfulness is a very broad concept, authentic love is very specific. Love focuses on being fully present for your beloved.

A couple of days ago, on this blog, I talked about the relationship between my parents. It must have been pretty obvious to you that I admire their relationship very much. But the admiration is not because they are perfect human beings or a perfect couple. Far from it! They both have a whole host of weaknesses and flaws. For example, they fought a lot with each other (only verbal arguments). But despite these failings, they always strove to be present for each other. They made conscious choices in that regard. For example, my dad always chose to come home straight from work so that he could be by my mother's side to provide her some respite who had been taking care of my intellectually disabled brother for the whole day all on her own. Similarly, my mom, was always concerned about my dad. Even now, when she has the opportunity to stay with her kids for longer periods of time, she always remains concerned about how my dad would be managing on his own, and so, returns home quickly to be able to take care of him. I don't want to glorify my parents. That's not my point. My point is that when two individuals are physically and psychologically present for each other, to take care of each other, to support each other in their difficulties,  and to share joys with each other, that is love.

Being there for each other is not an easy task. It will obviously involve many personal sacrifices. For example, one person may have to give up a coveted job and seek employment in a new location just to be able to be there for one's loved one. It may involve sacrificing different pleasurable activities and personal time on a regular basis. The point is that only few people will be ready to be present for you when personal sacrifices are involved. Only those who do, are the ones who truly love you. The rest is all fickle love, if not  necessarily fake love.

To be continued ...

So, what really is love?

You can find the Part 1 of this article here.

So, what is love, really? In my last couple of posts, I argued that words and symbols of love shouldn't be equated with real love. I emphasized that love is what you do, not what you say. But then, gifting a material object, whatever it may be, is a form of doing. Same with expressing love through words. After all, saying is doing as well. So, why am I saying that these actions aren't exactly love? Am I trying to suggest that some actions qualify as love and not others? Am I saying something like cooking or doing laundry for someone is love, but gifting a teddy bear isn't? No! That would be too judgmental a statement. But before I talk about what is authentic love, let me first of all confess that I am no expert on love. In some ways, I am probably just the opposite of an expert, because I haven't exactly fared well in the area of love, at least based on societal standards. However, my failures have definitely prodded me to meditate on the matter, and now, I think I have a little better sense of what is true love than I had before.

I believe it is very important that we have a good understanding of what is real love, because without it we won't know what to strive for within ourselves in our relationships. Also, we will likely get carried away by popular, fantastic notions of love. Worse, we may experience a lot of suffering when we confuse fake love for authentic love. In essence, our practice and experience of true love is contingent upon our understanding of the same.

My current understanding is that real love is primarily about being there. Before I elaborate further on this understanding, let me first acknowledge that this idea is not mine. About three or four years ago, I had read a book by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, on love. Thich, if you don't know, is a highly respected monk, and had also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Martin Luther King Jr. In any case, according to Thich, "To love..., is above all to be there." He wrote, "If you are not there, how can you love?" If I translate Thich's words into scientific lingo, being present is a necessary condition of love. If it isn't there, then there is no true love; whatever we see then may have the appearance of love, but it isn't really love.

When I first read this Buddhist idea of love being defined in terms of being, I liked the idea. However, I didn't realize the full truth behind it until I started meditating on love a few days ago. Thich's words weren't there in my conscious memory. But when I meditated I got the same insight as Thich's. You may say, I remembered the words of Thich's. Whatever it is, insight or recollection, I realized the profundity of being there for the first time.

To be continued ...

Ready to Die

Dreams, be they the type you get in sleep or the waking kind, are an important part of our life. I had always been little bit of a day dreamer, but from a little over a year ago, I also started paying attention to the dreams in my sleep. What impelled me to attend to my dreams was a spiritual dream that had a profound impact on me. I might have had spiritual dreams before but it was for the first time I had dreamt something that coincided perfectly with some independent events in waking life that I had no prior knowledge of. This dream made me question my complete reliance on rational thought. Following this experience, I read up a few books that talked about dreams. Gradually, I was also motivated to keep a journal of my dreams. Actually, I had done this before as well during my undergrad years, but was never regular about it. Later, I had a few more high-impact dreams, following which I got into a habit of writing down my dreams immediately after I woke up from bed. After noting down my dreams, I also try to interpret them and discover the wisdom that may exist in them. Of course, I fail to make sense of a lot of my dreams. Even for the ones that I seem to have made some sense of, I have later realized that they didn’t mean what I had initially thought they meant. Dream interpretation is difficult, but now I do take the time to appreciate the wisdom in my sub-conscious mind.

Yesterday, influenced by a dream, I came up with a bucket list. It’s a list of all the crazy things I want to do before I die. Well, the word “crazy” is of course relative, but my list primarily includes activities that (at least) I can’t do by merely wishing for it or just showing up somewhere. To achieve most of the things on my list, I will have to work hard, sometimes extremely hard for a prolonged period of time.

I won’t go over my list here now, but I will surely share some of the things on my list as I start realizing them. I am not sharing my list now, because sharing the list can actually reduce the likelihood of me fulfilling my dreams. This is suggested by some recent psychological and neuropsychological research: When we share our valued goals publicly, our brain feels rewarded by this sharing the very same way it enjoys the achievement itself. Consequently, this reduces the motivation needed to work on the achievement of those goals. That said I did share my list with a just couple of people. If my bucket list gets completed derailed because of this, then so be it. I don't care about the derailment because I have strangely become a very content man. This is a very new development. I use to ruminate, complain, and worry a lot in my mind, but now my mind feels very calm.

The change must have been happening below the surface slowly, but it's manifestation has definitely been pretty sudden. No, nothing great has suddenly happened in my life that has brought me to this state. In fact, just a couple of hours ago, I learnt that something that I was wishing for is not going to work out, but fortunately, that didn’t affect my feeling of contentment with life. The feeling is almost like being on drugs, though frankly I don't know if this is a correct comparison because I have never had any drugs in my life. Somehow I feel so completely satisfied with life that it almost feels like I am ready to die. I’m not sure what exactly caused this transition in me. Nor do I know how long this state is going to last, but right now I am reveling in this deep sense of gratitude and contentment that has engulfed me. Oh, what a wonderful state it is to be in, where there are wishes, goals, and even a drive, but no yearning and no lamentations! O' Time, whatever you bring with you, I welcome you!

How meditation may change your face

A couple of days ago there was an article on the New York Times titled, "How meditation may change your brain." The article cited some of the recent research studies that have found strong evidence on the benefits of meditation. The primary focus of the article was a study where people who never meditated before were taught meditation, and asked to practice the learnt meditation technique for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks; at the end of these eight weeks, researchers found substantial changes in their gray-matter of the brain that is associated with memory, empathy, and stress management.

The above report didn't surprise me, because I have been reading research studies on meditation for quite a while. More importantly, I have been practicing meditation myself, and have been personally experiencing benefits that I can attribute only to my meditation. Take the pictures below, for example:

Before Pictures

After Pictures

The first three pictures show my facial expression while running long distance races (as captured by professional photographers of the races) before I started practicing meditation. The last three pictures are from races after I started the habit of meditating during my runs. When I saw these after-pictures for the first time, I was myself surprised by the stark contrast in my facial expressions. Although I was in physical pain in both the Before and After races (because of running-related injuries), somehow meditation had helped me be in a state of peace after I started meditating during runs. Another major difference, which could not get captured in the pictures, was my attitude towards these races. Earlier, I used to be extremely competitive, and always wanted to finish my races with the best possible time, but once I started meditating during my runs, finishing didn't matter so much. What mattered most was enjoying every step of my run to the fullest extent possible. Of course, I am still a novice in meditation, so I was not completely successful in eradicating the goal of a "fast-finish" completely out of mind. However, I believe, the effect was significant enough to enable me to enjoy most of the marathon's distance without worrying too much about my performance. Paradoxically, the biggest surprise of embracing meditation during my runs was that my performance improved dramatically. Yes, my finish-times, actually improved several notches once I started meditating during my races. The maximum improvement was in a road-marathon, where I improved my previous best time by close to an hour. Although part of this improvement could be attributed to my greater experience in running long distance races, I believe it doesn't explain all the improvement, primarily because my amount of practice runs for these races weren't significantly higher than my previous races. So, I believe, the most important factor for improvement must have been my shift from a competitive/performance mindset to the mindset of just experiencing every moment of a run wholeheartedly. Probably, performance mindset consumes a lot of our mental energy, which leaves less available for use on the task at hand.

Although my improved performance may seem to be the most dramatic result here, it was completely besides the point. I will definitely not recommend anyone to take up meditation with purpose of increasing performance, because the purpose of meditation is to free ourselves up from our obsession on performance. It is not to use meditation as a tool to further enhance our performance. If our performance does increase after meditation, I believe, we should consider it just a bonus. The primary benefit of meditation, as I see it, is being able to live in peace. I have a long way to go when it comes to living every moment of my life in peace. However, I am very happy that I have embarked on the journey. From this perspective, I am very grateful to the personal crisis in my life that started it all. Intellectually, I knew quite a lot about meditation and its benefits, but they were not enough to motivate me to start practicing meditation myself. Meditation, despite its researched benefits, seemed like a waste of time for an active person like me. It was not until I found myself muddled up on emotional crossroads that I undertook a spiritual journey that involved meditation. This makes me think, "Although we all hate suffering and try our best to avoid it, sometimes the best gift we can ever receive in life is suffering, because in it lie the seeds of human growth, development and enlightenment."

Om shantih, shantih, shantih!!!