18 Walls Of Separation From Bliss

Readers may start wondering whether I am blogging on numerology.  Far from it...! I know nothing of numerology and cannot comment on it at all. But the number 18 is a fascinating number. Please join me in the adventure to discover significance of 18.

Let's start with one of the greatest epics of all times, the Mahabharatha. There are 18 Parvas or main chapters. The Mahabharatha as readers are aware is a battle between two sets of cousins. Let us see how many army units were in the battle. The Kaurava army had 11 battalions or units and the Pandavas had 7 battalions or units. It adds up to a total of 18 battalions. Let us step into the Mahabharatha and look at its most precious gem, the Bhagwad Gita. How many chapters does it have? It has 18 chapters. 

What is  so significant about the number 18 from a spiritual perspective? It signifies the gates to be crossed before an entity(Jiva) can realize its true identity(Brahman). Let us try and understand this better. I have covered earlier that our essential nature is of happiness or bliss or Brahman. However, due to massive ignorance, I have arrogated to myself the state of smallness or a dissatisfied individual. Why is it difficult for me, the individual to realize that I am Brahman? It is because I have created a series of barriers between myself and Brahman. Let us try to enumerate these barriers.

1. Set of 5 senses

We are drawn to the world of objects through our 5 senses, which all know and I dont need to elaborate. However let me briefly tell the impact of sense organs.A fish gets caught due to the sense of taste. A deer stands still to the beat of a drum and is caught. So, we as humans are drawn to the world with all the sense organs. Imagine the impact!

2. Set of 5 action organs

It is not enough if we have sense organs. We need a method to do action to acquire and enjoy the sense objects. Hence we have the 5 action organs : Hands, Legs, Mouth, Reproductive organ and the Waste eliminating organ. 

3. Set of 5 internal organs

What is it that really creates ability to see, hear, touch, talk, walk etc? It is not the action organs or the sense organs by themselves. Most people would be aware of the above 2 sets. But this set of internal organs may require more elaboration.

a. The ability to intake: This is the essential force that enables us to intake anything, be it food, air, ideas, talk, signals from sense objects etc.

b. The ability to expel or throw out: This is the essential force that enables us to exhale, eliminate waste products, deliver life creating ability, deliver a new born child etc.

c. The ability to digest : This is the essential force that gives us the ability to digest the food we take.

d. The ability to assimilate/circulate: This is the essential force that allows the body to assimilate or circulate nutrition oxygen etc to every part of the body.

e. The ability to express/stand/grow : It’s the force behind all growth, our ability to stand erect, speech, effort, enthusiasm and will. This is the essential force that enables us to express our thoughts, feelings etc into a form that can be understood by others.

4. Set of 3 subtle organs

a. Mind: Just because we have the sense organs or action organs means nothing in terms of perception. The signals from the sense organs reach the mind where they are processed into information/perception. Without the mind, the signals from the sense organs are just electrical signals with nothing to process and hence no perception.

b. Memory : As we know, one of the things that binds us is memory. We remember a happy event in a particular place and like or are bound to it. We have memories of a unpleasant situation and hence we are bound to disliking it.

c. Ego: Our final barrier is the ego. Ego is that sense of identity, separateness etc. This is what creates a sense of duality and separation form the Supreme. The separation creates a void which we try to fill with sense objects acquired through the interaction of the above 3 sets of 5 organs each.

So, once we add up all the barriers we have a total of 18.  So, we as limited individuals have covered ourselves with a solid fortress of 18 walls. What have we separated ourselves from? We are separated from our true nature. The true nature is absolute and permanent bliss. Once we understand the nature of the various barriers and dismantle them one by one, we will be united with our true nature and after that it is only bliss.


As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.


1. My Humble Understanding  Of Spirituality


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

2. Attain Infinite Bliss

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

3. The Spirit Of Spirituality

The Spirit Of Spirituality

 






 

The Strategy of the Negative Forces

aparyaaptam tadasmaakam balam bheeshmaabhirikshitam |

paryaaptam tvidameteshaam balam bheemaabhirikshitam ||

Our forces (negative) protected by Bhishma (pseudo self) are unlimited (but may be insufficient); whereas their army (positive forces), defended by Bhima (Life force control), is limited (but quite adequate).

ayanesu ca sarvesu yatha-bhagam avasthitah

bhismam evabhiraksantu bhavantah sarva eva hi

All of you, properly stationed in your places in the divisions of the army, do protect Bhishma  (Ego  or pseudo self) 

Commentary

To recap our discussion so far, the Mahabharatha war is about to begin and the forces of good(Pandavas) and the forces of bad(Kauravas) are ready for battle. Within the realm of our own mind, in our daily existence, positive forces and negative forces are always battling and the chief driver of the negative forces is Desire. Though the positive forces seem limited, they are powerful. Now here, Duryodhana is asking his army and especially Drona, a superb archer to protect Bhishma. 

Let us look at this request of Duryodhana to protect and support Bhishma from two angles. One is from the normal historical and strategic perspective. Bhishma was always known across India as a great warrior and a very righteous person. When the great war was announced, various kings across the country had a difficult choice to make on which side to support. Most of them knew that Pandavas were right and had to be supported. But still seeing Bhishma, the righteous warrior amongst and leading the Kauravas, many of them decided to align with the Kauravas trusting that Bhishma was doing the right thing. Duryodhana knew that if Bhishma fell, many of these kings that had aligned with him would desert him. Hence there was a strategic reason in asking his commanders to ensure that Bhishma was supported and protected.

 Let us now turn to our internal battle where the strategy of the negative forces is to invoke past habits to protect ego. To understand the strategy of the negative forces, we have to understand the concept of the ego.  Now, what is this ego? Ego is not what we normally associate the word with. It is not used like the way we say, “He is an egoistic person”. Spiritually speaking, ego refers to that “individualness” or “existence” or “identity”. 

When does this world of objects become available to us? In deep sleep, we have no idea that this world exists, because I as an individual do not know I exist. This may take some time to understand. Do I know I exist in deep sleep? I only know that I existed, when I wake up. Only then I know that I existed in deep sleep. Taking it a step ahead, if I die when I am in deep sleep, what happens? Will I not know that I exist? Readers will immediately know that though the body does not exist, I continue to exist.

The first thought of my existence or individuality is what is called “ego” spiritually. In deep sleep, there was absolutely nothing. I as an entity did not exist because there was no thought or at least there was no awareness of thought. The first thought that any of us have after a deep sleep is” I am” or “I exist” and then all other thoughts flow from there. The “I” in deep sleep who was peaceful am now the troubled husband, father, boss whatever, because all other thoughts now arise from the “I am” thought. So, it is the ego which associated with the body, mind, intellect which is the cause of all the vicissitudes of our life.

Most often for us, we associate the ego with the body. We look at the mirror, try to look good, feel bad if someone calls us ugly or panic if we see a pimple of rash, all because we identify our self-worth with the body. Any time anything happens to the body, we are distressed. We say, we feel hot, cold, pain etc because we identified with the body and because the body is feeling something, we say we are feeling it.

We also associate the ego with our mind. The mind is an emoting entity. We see our beloved and say, I am happy, without realizing that it is the mind that is happy and I am associating myself with the vagaries of the mind. Similarly, if there is sadness in the mind, we associate ourselves with that feeling and say, we are sad.

Another typical association is of intellect to the ego. The intellect is the conceptualizing entity. Just because I am born a Brahmin, I conceptualize and associate the ego with the intellect and say I am a Brahmin. I also associate the ego with concepts like education and say I am a graduate or with a profession and say, I am an engineer.

Why is ego harmful? What am I really? In reality I am nothing but the pure Existence or Life Principle or Brahman or Atman or Soul. However its evil twin, the Ego has imprisoned my Soul.  The poor Soul, which really is the owner or king of my mind and intellect, is now banished and in its place, my mind and intellect are governed by the Ego. Whereas the Soul was all bliss and non-dual, the Ego has arrogated to itself a separate identity and sees itself as different from others and the world. Once there is differentiation and duality principle has come in, the Ego experiences all the vicissitudes of this changing illusory world. It experiences happiness and sadness, calm and disturbance, birth and death etc. 

In the context of the Mahabharatha, Bhishma represents "ego". As we saw above, if ego(Bhishma) is destroyed, then there are no desires(Duryodhana) at all. This implies that desires are defeated if ego dies through intellectual and righteous effort (Pandavas). That is the reason that desires to continue their sovereignty over us and win the battle , command the past habits to protect the ego.

In the context of the Mahabharatha  Drona represents past habits, which can be good or bad. But more often than not, bound as we are by our past actions and intense ignorance of Reality, our Drona becomes bad habits. How often has it not been that we promise to give up a desire and say finally that we failed because we are habituated. So whenever the intellect helps us make a resolution to give up desires, desires take the support of past habits to defeat the intellect's resolve.

Duryodhana represents Desire. In each of us it is the desire that propels us into doing various activities, good or bad which bind us into karma's laws. Hence the strategy of the negative forces is to ensure that the main proponent of desire is always protected. This is nothing but the Ego. When Duryodhana asks his army to protect Bhishma, symbolically it means that Desire is asking for the Ego to be protected.This desire for worldly things, when it sees the goodness and righteousness of an intense sadhak, becomes afraid and the first thing it does is go to seek support of past habits. 

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.


1. My Humble Understanding  Of Spirituality


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

2. Attain Infinite Bliss

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

3. The Spirit Of Spirituality

The Spirit Of Spirituality

Becoming Spiritual

When most of us dispassionately look at our own lives, even at the best of times, we feel a certain lurking unhappiness, anxiety, fear or some combination of negative fears in varying degrees. Why is it that we can never be fully happy? Is there a way to remain happy in our normal day to day life? An answer that immediately comes up is to be on the spiritual path as that is the only one guaranteed to help attain infinite bliss. But when we think of being spiritual, we assume a monk or a nun and assume that we have to shut ourselves up from the world to become spiritual. We then sigh and say, we are still too young for it and do not get on the path. However, due to this, we have lost out an opportunity to be happy as early as possible in our lives.So, is there any way, where we could be in this world and yet be spiritual? Don't be shocked!. The answer is a definite yes!

The fundamental objective of the spiritual practice is to reduce/eliminate the ego. Ego is that quality, as it were, which makes us arrogate the doership and consequent results of any action. It is that which makes us who are truly happy to associate with the body/mind/intellect and get a false sense of self-identity which causes the myriad problems of ownership, jealousy, anger to name a few. So, let us see some simple day to day practices which can help reduce the ego and put us on the spiritual path, thereby bringing us closer to the ideal of happiness, in the true sense.

When we wake up in the morning, most of us wake up either cursing the alarm or reach for our cell phones to check the messages or something similar. Have we ever reflected on the fact that we are still alive whereas several have died as we slept? What is it that kept us alive and made us see another new day? Can we not start our day with a simple grateful acknowledgement to some super power, which kept us alive? We do not need to believe in God as a super power. We do not need to give up our insistence on scientific principles. We can just tell a simple thanks to whatever or whoever it is that has given us an opportunity to see another day. When we do this, what are we implicitly doing? We are realizing that there is another power much beyond us and to that extent, our ego or our self arrogated self-importance is lessened. We are starting the day with an attitude of gratitude.

We get up and let us say, we start our daily exercise. We want to keep the body fit, surely. Why do we want to keep the body fit? It is a strange question. Why do we need to keep our cars well maintained? This is to ensure that it is fully available for our journey. Why do we undertake a journey? To fulfill some objective, obviously! Now, the body is like a vehicle which is being used for a purpose. The sole purpose of human life, as stated earlier, is to realize the true happiness or enlightenment and become the infinite. However, the body/mind/intellect complex is a must as a vehicle to help the individual "entity" or Jiva to do the necessary journey and arrive at the destination. So, when we exercise the body or do mental exercises, it helps to remind ourselves, that these exercises are for the purpose of the ultimate destination.

The same reasoning will work for those who want to spend time grooming themselves and want to look beautiful or handsome as the case maybe. There is nothing wrong in that at all. When we buy a new BMW, we spend hours keeping it clean. When we are given the responsibility of taking care of a friend's luxury car, as an act of responsibility, we spend more time taking care of his car than our's. We feel a sense of agency, a sense of responsibility towards someone who has trusted us. In the same way, this body has been given to us and we as its agents, have a responsibility to maintain it and keep it looking good. So, every time we apply that additional scent, cream or whatever to make ourselves look better, let su remember that we as agents of the super power that gave us this body, are obliged to do it. To the extent that we can see the body/mind/intellect as vehicles only and not associate with them directly, we have reduced the ego to that extent.


We get into the morning commute and soon we notice that we are clogged and the traffic is not moving. We curse everyone wondering what so many people are doing at the same time. Why should i not be the only person on the road and get a smooth ride? Since this will never happen, the more we think of the clogged roads, the more unhappiness. Instead, can we for a moment, sit back and ask ourselves, what gives us the right to the road? There could be a sick person waiting to be taken to the hospital. There could be a mother driving to the airport to get her child. If we can reduce our own self worth and realize that there could be others who have a more pressing reason to be on the road, it probably will give a sense of calmness. If we observe what really is happening, we have reduced our own self worth, reduced our own ego and hence the calmness.


We get into our office. We start off with the usual greetings. We are getting overburdened or so we think. We just want to finish and get away. We look at a task and worry about consequences of the act, what fruits will it get? We worry whether, by doing a particular task, someone else will benefit. We look for chances where we can benefit from a company. But how often have we thought selflessly about doing a task because it is the right thing to do. If i am a software developer in a hospital, rather than worrying whether by writing the correct program, whether I will get a bonus, can I for a moment realize that by doing the right program, a patient's life may be saved? We are not changing anything. Only our attitude to work is changing. I will challenge anyone in an office environment. Think of how your work is benefiting someone other than yourself. Then work will not become meaningless and tiring at all. again, what is happening here? We are submerging our individual expectations from a job and offering our action towards a cause bigger than  ourselves. We are in effect reducing our ego!


Thus it can be seen that my making small changes in the way we deal with our day to day life, we can practice the art of reducing our ego and in the process be on the path towards a higher happiness.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.


1. My Humble Understanding  Of Spirituality


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

2. Attain Infinite Bliss

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

3. The Spirit Of Spirituality

The Spirit Of Spirituality