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.

Appreciating Hindu agrarian festivals

When I was a kid, gradually entering the world of science through high school lessons in physics, chemistry and biology, I was very skeptical of almost all traditional practices that was common in our household. I sure enjoyed the numerous Hindu festivals and the delicacies that my mom prepared on these days, but I still saw them more as superstitious traditions than something with any scientific basis. For example, I thought it was superstitious of my parents and relatives to do pujas (Hindu prayer rituals) in honor of the sun, moon, the earth, tulsi (basil) plant, cow or even the cobra. After all, I had learnt through my science lessons that the sun, moon and earth were merely astronomical bodies, not really gods like they were denoted in some Hindu puranas (Hindu mythological stories). Similarly, tulsi was just a plant, cow a mammal, and cobra a scary reptile. So it had to be superstitious to worship them.

Offerings my mom made for the sun

However, now as an adult, I am gradually starting to understand and appreciate the scientific basis of many Hindu festivals. A week ago was Makar Sankranti, a Hindu harvest festival celebrated throughout India that marks the northward movement of the sun (Uttarayana), something that also has deep spiritual significance. But there has been a lot written about Makar Sankranti, so I will focus today on a relatively lesser known festival, because it is unique only to the state of Odisha. The festival is that I am talking about is very similar to Makar Sankranti in tradition and is called Samba Dashami, which this year fell on the 19th of January. As usual, my mom cooked several Odia delicacies, although the number of dishes were a litter fewer than usual because I insisted that she didn't strain too much when she was not keeping in good health. My mom (and I) then took a plate filled with these dishes and fresh fruits into the driveway of our home where there was direct sunlight, and we offered these food items to the sun (god). Just in case, you are not familiar with Indian traditions, no, the food was not wasted; once the offering has been made, we consume the food as prasad (food that has been blessed by a deity).

Legend has it that Samba, one of the sons of Lord Krishna, was afflicted by leprosy, and he was cured of his disease by Surya, the Sun God, after 12 years of penance. So on Samba Dashami, the mothers pray Surya for their children's health. So what is the scientific significance of all this, you may ask. Well, I don't know whether or not sun can cure leprosy, but there is a lot of evidence for sunlight being good for our health, helping in the prevention of certain diseases, and even beneficial for patients of some diseases. For example, studies have found that vitamin D that is produced by the body on exposure to sunlight can fight breast, colon and prostate cancers. Studies have also shown that sun can help lower risk of multiple sclerosis, help with increasing bone density, be beneficial to patients with Alzheimer's and depression, help in healing of many skin diseases, including psoriasis. Forget these specific health benefits, sun is basis for all life on this planet earth. That way we owe our entire existence to sun. Without sunlight, there would be no plants, no crops, no animals, and consequently no us. So we have a lot to be grateful about with sun. The Samba Dashami festival is then essentially a way to express gratitude to sun. Through our food offerings, in the Indian culture we humbly express our thanks to all those entities to whom we owe our existence.

And yes, even the cobra plays a big role in our existence. Without snakes—even deadly ones like the cobra—most of our crops would be lost to rodents. That I think is the reason why we have a festival in India which even honors cobras, not because we are afraid of cobras and seek protection from them, but because our ancestors didn't want us to kill all the snakes in fear of them. The extinction of snakes would be disastrous for us.

... to be continued.

Learning from Disasters

There were dead bodies all over the place. I had never seen so many dead bodies in my life. It all seemed like a scene from a disaster movie, but unfortunately it was real. The people lying dead were not actors, but real people like you and me, who must have been too busy worrying about the rigmarole of life just a couple of days before. Human life seemed so worthless and futile. I am talking about the super cyclone that hit coastal Orissa on 29th October, 1999. The epicenter of the cyclone was Paradip - the town where I grew up, and where my parents lived then. I was in Sambalpur (a town in Western Orissa that is about 400 kms away from Paradip) then, but rushed home anxious about my family's safety. Along with me were few of my colleagues who also had their families in coastal Orissa. With parts of roads washed away or blocked with uprooted trees, it took us forever to reach our homes, but we all made it. We all were very lucky. Our families had just survived a super cyclone that took over 10,000 human lives (as per official reports). The winds in this super cyclone had reached 300kms/hr (or over 185 miles per hour).
I was reminded of the 1999 "Paradip super cyclone" when I saw the images of cyclone hit Myanmar today. According to the Associated Press report, up to 100,000 people may have died in this recent cyclone. The winds were much slower in Myanmar, according to news reports reaching up to 180kms/hr or 110 miles per hour. Yet the death toll is ten times higher than that of the Paradip super cyclone. The greater devastation is because of the higher storm surge that occurred in Myanmar. Storm surge is a phenomenon associated with the cyclonic storm in which the sea level rises by several feet and sea water enters into coastal areas causing widespread devastation. Storm surge was less in Paradip because of the sea being very deep near Paradip. If the water was shallow in Paradip, as it is in many coastal regions, then the devastation would have been many times more extensive.
The problem with natural disasters is that they are easier to reconcile with emotionally. You may ask: "Why should that be a problem? Is it not a good thing when we are better at getting over our losses?" I agree, it is better for our psychological wellbeing to be able to rationalize and reconcile, but when we accept these disasters as "natural" we also lose complete control over their future recurrence. Even scientifically speaking, these cyclones and super cyclones are not completely natural; they are at least partly man made. Yes, we made these cyclones and super cyclones, and it's we who have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The way we have been emitting green house gases, and the way we are continuing on deforestation, these so called "natural disasters" are bound to happen, only more frequently. Over the past decade, the number of cyclones and hurricanes have increased dramatically around the world. Global temperatures are rising, and its effects are very pronounced in at least some regions of the world. Back home in Orissa, I remember being able to play for hours in the sun during the middle of the day in summer. Now, it is impossible to do that even in the winter months - the heat is just too much. More than a score people have already died this year of heat strokes in Orissa, even before the advent of summer. I don't expect the deaths to increase substantially in the summer, because people take more precautions and avoid being outdoors when the environment gets extremely hot, but it translates into substantially lower income for poor people such as rickshaw pullers, coolies, and laborers. Moreover, the low pressure zones created because of the extreme heat, only generates more cyclones, causing further devastation.
When a storm or cyclone hits a place, we usually assess the damage in terms of loss of life, and destruction of property. What reports miss out the most is the loss of vegetation. Millions of trees get uprooted in severe storms, which may give the timber contractors a field day, but these lost trees only further the chances of such cyclones happening again.
Few weeks or months down the line, people will forget about the cyclone of Myanmar. Even the survivors will get on with their lives, which is a good thing, but the lost trees never get replanted. The color green is fast disappearing from our earth, first due to deforestation, and next due to the man-made "natural" disasters. If we are to save the earth - our home, we have to plant trees in wide scale. Cutting emissions is great, but not enough. We will be fighting a losing battle, unless we work on replacing the green house gases with the solid green of trees.

Running after Budhia

In my today’s blog entry, I really wanted to focus on the idea which I had not discussed last week. However, I think I’ll postpone that for a little later because of the time pressure I’m currently in. Abstract ideas anyway are difficult to articulate and I don’t have the time right now to luxuriate on elaborating recondite matters. So I’m redirecting my focus on something more concrete, i.e., running or to be more precise long distance running. In a way I'm being selfish focusing my attention on running, because tomorrow I have 15 miles to run, towards my training for the upcoming Indianapolis marathon. Thinking about running makes running more salient to me. It makes me mentally better prepared to deal with the challenge of running alone over long distances. For some reason, it was pretty painful running just 3 miles yesterday. So I am not sure if I’ll be able to complete my targeted 15 miles tomorrow, but I’m optimistic. I’m optimistic because I have succeeded in meeting many tough targets before. In addition, I just read an article on the New York Times which gave me a real boost of confidence. It is about how different body sizes have specific advantages in different kinds of sports. For instance, people with small and lean body sizes have advantages over bigger people in long distance running. I’m a small man at 5ft 8in and 135 lbs (approximately 62kgs), so no wonder I was happy.

We have all seen elite marathon runners who are very skinny. We have probably thought that the long distance running made them so skinny. However, laws of physics suggest that it is the skinny body of these runners that gave them an edge over taller and bigger runners, because it is easier to carry a light load (body weight) over long distances. It may seem like taller people will have an advantage in long distance running because of their long strides; however, long legs also translate into heavier legs which nullify the advantage coming out of long strides. Similarly, elite sprinters, swimmers, and rowers are big and muscular, because their big body gives them extra advantage in these sports. While running involves carrying ones’ body weight around, for a sprinter the big muscles, despite their heavy weight, give a huge advantage, i.e., power. Big and strong muscles also provide advantage in swimming and rowing. That’s because the buoyancy of the water makes body weight almost a non-issue. That is the reason even long distance swimmers are typically tall and big. I encourage my readers to look up the original article on New York Times to know more details about how weight affects performance in different sports.

From the above discussion one realizes that body shapes and sizes are important factors which need to be taken into consideration while choosing a sport. Of course, body size is not everything. Personal interest, motivation, right training and a host of other factors come into play. Many people run or swim just for pleasure. I'm not a professional runner either. I too run for pleasure, and the fact that it challenges me. There are enormous physiological and psychological benefits of doing a sport, and that's enough for an amateur. It is not enough to just enjoy your sport to be a professional sportsman, however, it is almost always true that professionals love the sports they are involved in. Probably that is the reason we have few exceptions in the history of sports that don’t fit the rule of physics in sports: big people who have won marathons and smaller ones who have won in swimming or rowing competitions. However, it still does not negate the importance of body’s shape and size in competitive sports. The few extra minutes or seconds of advantage a professional athlete may get out of his body size matters a lot. It determines who gets the gold and who does not.

Let me now shift my attention to Budhia Singh, the five year old boy from my home state (Orissa) in India, who has already run marathons and ultra-marathons. It is really amazing how this little kid finished a 65 kilometers run from Puri to Bhubaneswar in about 6 and half hours in the hot and humid climate of coastal Orissa. Budhia was recently admitted into a government sports hostel in Orissa. In a recent television interview Budhia said his aim is to win gold medals in Olympics’ marathon. While I appreciate the boy’s goal, I wonder if his goal is not influenced by the hopes of millions of people, and the adulation he got. Childhood prodigies often fizzle out by the time they reach their adulthood. They fail to achieve any of the big things they were hoped to achieve. There are many reasons for this and there is a whole set of scientific literature on the subject matter. I don’t intend to elaborate on this scientific literature now. The only point I want to make is that we don't know how big or small Budhia will be when he grows older. So we can never be sure of his winning Olympic gold medal in marathon, because he may just grow up to be a big man which might nullify the extra advantages he has in terms of innate endurance. I realize some people may criticize my argument. They will cite how Russians and Chinese got a competitive edge over others in sports by starting systematic training of their kids at a very early age. I don’t deny the advantages of such early training. My point is only that one should not lock a child into a particular sport through parental or societal pressure, because it may turn out that he/she is much better in another sport as he grows up. Hence, while I’m very happy about Budhia getting good coaching, I’m worried that he may through societal pressure get locked into long distance running even when he starts showing better prospects for other sporting events. I hope Budhia’s coaches are giving him an all round training and not completely restricting him to long distance running.

Coming back to my running, I know I’ll finish my 15 miles of run tomorrow because I am made for it: small body with big determination. The laws of physics and psychology are both on my side.

PS: I did complete my target today, in fact exceeded it by running 17.3 miles (27.8 kms). This is my longest run till date.