Vedanta Rocks -3 > Random thoughts and musings

Part 3 of 46

Vedanta tells you to take charge of your mind. Shut out those zillion self-destructive pin pricks. Close down the factories of needless emotion that pollute your inner space.

Where is this endless torrent of thought coming from? Learn to be free from it. Some brave person saw the Source of thought and touched the Absolute. Kena Upanishad 1-1-2

Every single second of our lives, tiny thoughts are flowing fast down the caverns of our minds in an unending torrent. Most of them flow so fast that we can’t even identify them. Try holding one and it will vaporise like ghostly mist.

Where do they come from? Propelled from deep inside, thoughts bubble up and pop on the surface all the time. If you silence your mind even a little bit, you will be able to see it happening like it happens in a glass of soda. Pop, fizzle, pop…non stop. It’s a wonderful, helpless feeling because the bubbles will pop whether you want it or not. These thoughts are coming from some other part of you over which you have no control. You are just a witness watching it happen.

The torrent can easily turn into an unending torment. Open and read the morning paper — usually it’s enough to feel stabs, twinges, rush of fluids. Events of yesterday have still not receded. Whatever was unfulfilled will return and shove its tiny needle down your spine. Every minute something happens. The mind registers a slight, an inadequacy, a tiny threat and responds by a minuscule injection of an unnecessary destructive neurochemical.

This is the stuff that makes you grow old before your time. This is what they call silent stress. Eventually, however brave and strong you are, it will leave its burn marks on you.

At the root of all this is your passive self. You consider thoughts as ‘inevitable’. You let them in the way villagers let a raiding army in, unable to do anything else but run, hide and watch.

You make no moves to shut them out. Who’s in charge here? Not you, for sure. Vedanta tells you to take charge of your mind. Shut out those zillion self destructive pin pricks. Close down the factories of needless emotion that pollute your inner space.

This isn’t an act of a saint. It’s the act of a smart person. When we let go of a burning desire for wealth, for instance, it doesn’t mean we will stop making money. It usually means we will earn more of it, because we have a cooler head that isn’t going to worry over how much we made or lost today. Life begins when the torment ends. And with it comes fresh creative ideas.

So how do you let go? There isn’t any magic pill. Vedanta reveals hundreds of techniques… find one that’s right for you and work at it. In the weeks ahead we shall explore a few. Remember, the ultimate slavery is not to a system or a tyrant, but to our own minds.

“Some brave person saw the source of thought…” You could be that person.

Vedanta Rocks. Use its power to break free !

( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad - 25th Jan 2009 )

Vedanta Rocks -2 > That all feeling heart

Normally ‘you’ means your mind. The heart is just a thumping organ. When you stay with the stillness, ‘you’ will become your heart. You will become heart-centered. This is a singular heart and a special ‘you’ altogether.

The sage said, “It roams the skies yet rests in your heart… find your stillness to feel it.” “What is stillness?” asked the king. “Just the heart, your majesty… when you find complete stillness, you will know the heart as the source of all things.” Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Ch. 4.1.7

Sit comfortably, alone in an undisturbed place. Be silent and unmoving. If unsettling thoughts come, let them. Become like a rock. Absolutely motionless. The only outer movement you’ll feel now is the undulation of your ribs as you gently breathe. Remain like this. In a few moments you will discern the inner movement. You will feel the quietly thumping heart.

Stay with this feeling. The thumping heart is a wonderfully sweet sensation. The lub-dub has a magic to it. Vedanta says your heart has another function and purpose beyond pumping blood and churning emotions. It can plunge you into the field and reveal the ‘source of all things’.

Enter your inner physical world. The world you have largely ignored all these years. Here your heart is the engine of your body and emotional being. No sensation however small escapes its attention.

As you keep still and listen, you will silently understand how you might have abused it all these years. Every day of your life you experienced over 90,000 thoughts, big and small. Each thought was powered by a tiny emotional bullet triggered by your heart, and aimed at itself. You would have felt pricks of sorrow, anguish, anger, or stab wounds of jealousy, rage, hatred, or healing waves of laughter, compassion or love.

On the command of your half-aware mind, the heart created emotions and willingly inflicted them upon itself. Depending on the thoughts that hit your mind now, you realize you could be holding deep scars within.

If you realize your heart is scarred, you will need to heal before you can rise any higher. Five minutes of stillness will do a world of good. It will also gently stay your hand from stabbing yourself further. Take life easy and live longer. The Bible says, ‘Gladness of heart... gives length of days’. Ask any cardiologist. He will certify it.

If you have been joyful and compassionate all along - as you allow the stillness to take over completely, you will discern a shift of your center. Normally ‘you’ means your mind. The heart is just a thumping organ. When you stay with the stillness, ‘you’ will become your heart. You will become heart-centered. This is a singular heart and a special ‘you’ altogether.

This may sound incredible. But that’s exactly what happens to us at rare moments in our lives. When we behold intense joy or sorrow, whenever we ride the wave of any pure emotion, we crash from head to heart. It is a momentary and uncontrolled sensation way beyond words.

Instead of crashing uncontrollably, Vedanta guides you to slip effortlessly into that pool of deep feeling. As you learn the art of stillness, you will in time realize that the pool has an endless depth and range. It’s infinite, really, and so are you.

Vedanta rocks to the magical lub-dub. Swing with it in the stillness of your being.

( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad - 18th Jan 2009 )

Vedanta Rocks -1 > A Journey That Leads You to Happiness

( Part 1 of 46 )


Vedanta is an adventure into the unknown frontier of your inner self. If you did feel the connection — way beyond words or explanations — till everyday life with its grime again smears you recognizably.

The people who wrote the verses of Vedanta over 3,000 years ago weren’t religious in the sense we currently understand. They were not conjuring dry theories of God and the universe. They were doing something far more beautiful. They were powering up their minds by the engines of intuitive truth. They were soaring. They were rocking. They were touching eternity.

Would you care to soar like they did? It isn’t that easy. It’s not so difficult either.

That which is woven into space, earth, the universe, into your mind and life know that alone as your soul. Silence your mind. Focus. Discern the bridge and cross over. It goes all the way to the deepest part of you… to your real self, which was never born, will never die. Mundaka Upanishad (Ch 2-2-5)

Walk into any open place where you can see a bit of sky. Even a window is good enough. Out there is the endless universe. Look at it.

Try and feel the connection. If you can’t, try and summon enough innocence to open your childlike mind. Your system is hard wired not to feel anything even remotely mind blowing. It is programmed mostly for worrying and tension. You figured that out. Flow with your breathing. Billions of atoms are leaving and entering your body from the universe each second. Isn’t that something? Can you trigger a connection on that? Maybe.

Cosmic rays are conversing with atoms in your body continuously. These messengers travelled 14 billion years non-stop just to reach you. Can you open the mind’s eye to subtle ideas? Yes, you can. You suddenly feel the universe humming like a giant Internet that is connected everywhere — on a bandwidth so vast it defies imagination. ‘That which is woven into space into your mind and life…’. You seem to be heading there… If you are really focused, you will suddenly unexpectedly arrive.

Click. One timeless instant and you are connected. Something awesome instantly happens… you are actually downloading a fragment of the infinite into your tiny self. You need to focus on it. Remember what those ancient guys said. ‘Silence your mind’. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

You begin to ‘cross the bridge’. You have touched the field, the deepest part of yourself ‘that was never born, will never die’. You have touched eternity.

In case, you didn’t feel any connection — take heart. You walked up to the window. You saw the vast universe. You powered the engines of your mind, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t sufficient to soar. Or, just as you would have taken off something disturbed you, a thought, a worry, a distraction. In a split second you landed back at the window even before you started.

> to be continued next Sunday...through 46 weeks :-)

( Source : Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad - 18th Jan, 2009 )

( Vedanta Rocks - The background story )

Vedanta Rocks - The background story

Vedanta Rocks – An old defunct newspaper column springs back to life

The background story :

Two years back I stumbled on a weekly column in the Sunday edition of Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad. It was a column called "Vedanta Rocks" by the movie maker Mani Shankar. The very first column itself was quite indicative of what was to follow and it only got better and better. Sunday mornings once again became a celebration that set the course for the next week's adventure/ pilgrimage within.

What struck me the most right from the very first column I read of ‘ Vedanta Rocks ‘ was the unconventional nature in dealing with ancient wisdom without losing sight of the current predicaments, yet with a touch of playfulness and iconoclasm as well. I just love it !

The joy of discovering it soon became an unstoppable urge to share it across and the first step towards it was to compile the entire series in an organized manner and convert it into a single printable PDF file and was mailed to few friends.

The initial set of mailing list soon grew. There was such an overwhelming response from many in the initial list and some went on to send aggregates of email ids to be added to the weekly mailing list...it was quite a humbling experience when some sent their parents' email ids too. Each weekly mail in turn had to carry the text of the previous emails to give the new recipients some background information and the text also got elongated in the process. I presume that many would just like to go directly to the "Vedanta Rocks" content than the mail text.

But still, for all the recent pilgrims in the Vedanta Rocks fraternity here is the background story of how it all started.

so, Here is the story behind “Vedanta Rocks” …

The first mailing list had a small set of people and now it has grown. I could never even imagine that this compilation of newspaper column called “Vedanta Rocks” would appeal to so many. In fact I compiled the first mailing list with much self doubt wondering if this act of seeing one's name included in a mass mailing list would irk many. But I was wrong I guess ( at least so far) … many wrote back sending a list of e-mail ids of their friends and parents as well. That was encouraging enough to give a real try at expanding the mailing list.

Recollecting some telephonic conversations, digging up old emails ...chat fragments from the inbox of remembrance spanning a period of nearly 12 years was quite a pilgrimage in itself that often moved me to the verge of tears. A phase when so many strangers became acquaintances, and then friends... some stayed in touch..Others got estranged ( am sure only from the chronological perspective of communication) … but the finest essence of every interaction never got erased off. I remember them all, cherish each interaction with a deep sense of gratitude and benediction. I have benefited immensely from all and this act of reaching out thus is a modest expression of thankfulness, to bridge and bring together a bunch of pilgrims who could be of solace and guide posts to each other, personally it is another way of saying 'you all mean a lot to me'.

There were moments when a bunch of names would gush forth … mostly during the early waking hours...and that's also how the mailing list grew. I just felt it to be soul calls/ cries from so long and far way... but connected entities in the collective unconscious.

This is a collection of articles i compiled from The Deccan Chronicle – an English daily based in Hyderabad....it used to come as a column every sunday under the title "Vedanta Rocks" . I have never found such a lucid and powerful revivification of Vedanta than these sweet little articles. Here's a bouquet of it all , it will reappear in this space every week. The column abruptly disappeared from Deccan Chronicle… and now I do feel the inner urge to get it across to as many as possible . These precious writings of the film maker Mani Iyer must not be lost for ever, it surely deserves to be resurrected from the pile of stashed away old newspaper heaps ! I have heard people giving big talks on Vedanta... to the point of utter self deception. This collection of articles could achieve what showy-scholarly-¬shallow-slavish-snobbish sermons fail to - to stir us deep within and set us on our course – to recover and rediscover that facet of ours which is lost in the quagmire of survival instincts.

I never quite thought that I will be able to get across this collection of writings in this form. Few days back my machine crashed in a terrible way, I lost huge pile of personal data as well including a half finished ( half page :-) ) CV of mine as well. That loss was bearable any way. But when I realized that I lost this collection of articles that I had just begun to compile got wiped out , I slipped into gloom...it took me quite some time to recover. The arduous task of searching back issues of the newspaper on the web arranging it the way I did before ( with one image for each article) weighed heavy on me... I just could not even think of it, even the very idea of googling it all appeared nauseating enough. [ 10th April 2009 - begin ]

But then getting to read these articles was one of the best things that happened to me after I left Amrita University and moved to Hyderabad. Confining that joy to myself soon turned out to be unbearable. I had the conviction that there will be many out there who will find this collection luminous enough to see deeper meaning in their lives. So I set upon to do it all over again , often retyping it all from the newspaper clips. I am just reminded of this beautiful quote from Paulo Coelho's book 'Manual of warrior of Light' > “When the warrior is forced to perform the same task over and over again, he turns his work into prayer “. So that set me on course. It was also an attempt to relive my VIDYA days at Amrita – finding information, work on organizing it and make it http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifavailable to all in the campus was real fun and I miss it all . Thanks to my computer crash down – I got to re experience it at least in a minor way and thanks to you all for being there.

Few days ago I got to watch an incredible movie called “My Dinner with Andre” - and that helped me find another strand in the pattern that connects... more so when work becomes monotonous with uncertain outcomes. Here's the protagonist Andre speaking to his friend , something which I consider to be a soulful way of working :
“... Oh, well here's a view of life! I mean, he talks about the belief of the Hasidic Jews that there are spirits chained in everything. There are spirits chained in you, there are spirits chained in me. Well! There are spirits chained in this table! And that prayer is the action of liberating these enchained embryo-like spirits, and that every action of ours in life, whether it's doing business or making love, or having dinner together, whatever, that every action of ours should be a prayer, a sacrament in the world.”. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I love the word sacrament... does it not go well with Khalil Gibran's saying “ Your work is your love made visible”. ( From The Prophet )

...any way it is good if chained spirits could be freed by our work. Sounds a bit too esoteric though. But stretch it a bit further...it surely helps us release our spirits from the soul cages of all that we slavishly remain enslaved to... hey, that reminds me of another dialogue from that movie - originally what Ingrid Bergman had said, "I could always live in my art, but never in my life."


So, here's a bunch of it... one column every Sunday.

I just added one image for each article and there is a reason for why that image is chosen – thanks to the insights from Carl Jung's book “ Man and His Symbols”. I just made an amateur attempt to apply what I understood. Please let me know if you have suggestions on the images and send me images that you think will be more appropriate. With a little more time I think I could have done a better job...but I couldn't wait further,just wanted this to reach you all ….and more than everything wanted to let the rest of the world know again that there is this incredible person called Mani Shankar – a movie maker-philosopher who is the author of this column called “Vedanta Rocks” – some one whom I consider to be one of the finest exponents and revivifiers of Vedanta. [ 10th April 2009 - end ]


- hawk of a pilgrim kind -
With that introduction here comes the first column: