finding the Sun behind the clouds.......

Waking up to a gloomy, wet weather this morning, led me to search in my heart for the Sun within... I know this sounds very esoteric, but the fact is that rainy days have a way with my head! They play havoc with my otherwise sprightly mood and like Nisha would vouch for, I am absoltely moronic ! Hence I started the day with changing the status message on my Facebook wall to say that I was indeed moronic!!!

What if I were to tell my mind that this state of being morose is a mere delusion? That I can rise above it to find the purity of thought that lies embedded somewhere beneath it all. Isn't it said that, because delusions have no firm foundation in reality, they can be overcome by wisdom or insight? Which translated into simple English would probably mean that beneath the clouds of delusion that may be disturbing now, an essential purity of thought exists! This basic purity is unaffected by obscuring delusions that has a way of disturbing the peace of mind.

May I quote a poetic analogy from the Mahayana Buddhist text - "The Peerless Continuum" ...

Under the floor of some poor man's house lies a treasure,
But because he dos not know of its existence
He does not think he's rich.

Similarly, inside one's mind lies truth itself
Firm and unfading,
Yet, because beings see it not, they experience
A constant stream of misery.

If nothing else, I hope simply dwelling on these lines will life the delusion of gloom.

Let the wisdom of the Buddha be with you

where do you go when you die ............ ?

The moment I broach the topic of soul and intuition, some people baulk at it? Okay, so they fancy themselves as being pragmatic and person-of-the-sciences, where seemingly everything can be explained by chemical reactions or by the logic of "being". But then, why deny the fact that I too have had a scientific academic life-pursuit, I too pooh-poohed the idea of soul, after life, intuition etc. until it all happened to me and I was left with no other escape but to go along ....

One of my strongest beliefs thus far, has been of soul-trasnmigration which I should say was tweaked when I was given the book Many Lives Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss, by Nupur nearly a decade ago. At that time, I had read it merely as any other book that came heavily recommended. But over the years, I have come to accept it as one of the turning points in my life. The book was even more credible simply because it was written by a well-known psychiatrist, who admitted being sceptical enough for starters to hold on to the manuscipt for 7years before he decided to publish it, for the fear of being scoffed at by his fraternity. But, what started off as apprehension, went on to become, world-wide success because it seemed to reach right into the hearts of millions of people who seemed have similar questions and the theory he propounded seemed to say a lot about what happens when we die or that our past lives have a way of shaping our present! So much "karma" and "rebirth" being merely Hindu beliefs!!!

So what is it about the continuance of souls that I find so intriguing? It may seem morbid to some, when I insist that Death never scared me, it still does not because of the deep-seated belief that the soul moves on to another life-form and we always move in groups of souls through our various lives. Which means, the people I am with today, I have had them in my earlier lives too and will continue to do so in later lives too. I have taught my little son this to believe this too, so that he too may grow without the fear of loss.

So what happens to us when we die? Death may separate our soul from the physical body as we know it now, but it is merely the beginning of a new and probably more interesting journey in self-analysis and a chance to undo the wrongs. It opens the door to a higher form of life. Individual souls build various bodies in different lives to gain experiences and change the path of their actions. This is transmigration of souls.......

Thus if we are to believe that the soul continues ..... then Death does not end a life, it is merely the cessation of the present individual. Life and soul flows on till it reaches the higher planes of the Masters and merges with the eternal. Yes, the organic body is done away with, buried, cremated or fed to the birds as in some cultures.... that is in the belief that in passing the organic body must return to the elements...so the soul may move onto a new organism, yet again...............

stay with that thought..... or read further into it..... it is an amazing belief, pure and transcendent.... because it tells us to believe in this life, do the right by all and then let the soul decide whether it has grown or not...!

for a life of understanding the soul.........

Where does the search for knowledge end? Does it ever???

What started off as a quest to learn about Vipassana, has driven me up the WALL!! I now realise, how little I knew about Buddhism, inspite of being at the books on Buddhism for a few years now. The interesting thing about this quest is that, what started as a challenge to beat Andy .... has sparked off a hunger for more. I seem to want to all there is to it. Wouldn't my Baba be thrilled to note that he had been right all along when he'd insisted I'd do well in research! I had scoffed it off then, but now when I have no real reason to delve into things, I seem to want to know more. Most people would say that is the way life is meant to pan out...... always go against the grain!

So Vipassana has lead to the schools of Buddhism and then the reasoning behind the postures of the Buddha, that's how scattered the search has gone!

Well, tomorrow is another day! I hope I can make some sense of where I am headed with all this and what is it that I really want to learn. As of now, sore eyes and all, I seem to want it all!!!

I've never been very regular in diary-entries. Any thing that required daily inputs was always boring and continues to be so. Its only when there is something interesting that might be worthy of an entry. As usual, a long chat with Andy got me thinking of restarting my search into the Buddhist traditions......... It's almost as if, only when I'm challenged do I shake out of my self-induced stupor!

So started the journey into understanding more about Vipasana. All I knew thus far was that their meditation camps were 10 days of complete detachment - from the family, from any means of communication including speech! While we were in Gurgaon, one heard of these camps often enough to be curious about, but the daunting task of keeping mum for 10 days ensured the interest levels remained there....

But the discussion on Vipasana yesterday, tweaked my interest on it again. What did they actually set out to help one achieve with so much quietude and meditation. Most people I knew who'd tried it couldn't get through the entire 10 days! It wouldn't be easy I'm sure, unless they knew why they needed to do this, or even the theology behind it all! Most thought that the forced solitude helped them think, reflect on themselves.......... but that is not all in the theory of Vipasana. Hailing from the Theravada form of Buddhism, it is the journey of reflection. I have yet to read as much as would like to beforeI decide to speak about it on this post. So I leave you with this thought by Milarepa ( an ancient Buddhist teacher -

"Not being attached to the pool of tranquility.
May I generate the flower of insight"

Until the next time....

And then Andy asked...what do you know about Buddha?

I cannot claim to know much except for the fact maybe that I choose to follow what I am comfortable with. I cannot follow any ritualistic path to spirituality, but what is right by me is what I like to stay on. So does that mean, I only do what I wish? That maybe one way to look at it. But on the other hand if I say, I do not know anything about God, but that I believe in an Universal Energy that guides all our lives that could be the best possible explanation I can come up with.

The only way I could answer Andy, was - Tibetans have their own variant, they basically follow what is known as Tantric Buddhism. They have adapted heavily from Tantric Hinduism and till date follow a lot of those rituals as part of their religious beliefs. What is followed in Japan (in very small pockets of the country, because they have now moved more to Shintoism) is still much purer a form, where he is not treated as God-like, his followers choose to follow him at will and they are flexible enough to allow for different aspects of Buddhist practices to emerge. Which is where Reiki is derived from, Mikao Usui was a Buddhist professor of science, who never set out to begin a revolution in terms of beliefs or norms, he simply used the script he knew( katakana) and devised apparently effective symbols to use while healing. These symbols were based on what he expected to deal with during his healing, as in emotions, distance, strength of healing powers and the master symbol which only a veteran practitioner was allowed. So what does this mean, that Buddhism has allowed a person to take from its realm aspects that may be used for healing. Even in Reiki, we believe that we are not the healers, The Universal Energy is! We are mere channels for that energy to flow through when we invoke it. It may be our hands that heal, but they too are only a medium for the energy to pass through. That is the lesson we as Reiki practitioners pass on to our students. So, where is it varying from the original form of Buddhism.

Why do I quote my discussion with Andy, is because he makes me think aloud and onto the written form, my thoughts and practical approach to spirituality. Were it not for his badgering, I'm not sure I'd get about to discussing about these core beliefs of mine. So maybe my journey on writing about Reiki has begun at last..........

one day at a time........

Some days are quite crazy ... hardly any sleep thanks to the month old pup at home and then the urge to put in as much into the waking hours as I possibly can. Whoever said, life is relaxed at home was surely kidding.

I was determined to put in some time to figure this blog-thing out today. So a bit of dogged "sit at it and figure it out" and got a grip on it ! Thank God! Wouldn't want my 11yr old son to think I was "uncool".

Tomorrow, it the little mite allows me, I would love to get started on the large 6'x4.5' canvas I ordered. There's this beautiful image I have in mind of Buddhist inscriptions and a healing hand for it!

Today's my day of rest!