In the name of spirituality

 Our journey into spirituality started in 1980 when we attended a week’s program by a Swamiji from Chinmaya mission in the evenings in Manipal. It was an amazing experience and we followed it up with joining and completing their one year correspondence course which benefitted us tremendously.

We were initiated into Simplified Kundalini meditation the next year and that brought about unbelievable shifts. Then many years went by in ‘Grihasthashram’ duties, but at the background there were always spiritual practices going on.

Getting serious about spiritual practices

Now for about a decade we are into ‘Vanaprastha ashram’, slowly slipping into ‘Sanyasashram’. We have more free time now, so spend a lot of time visiting sacred places and incorporating spiritual practices into our lives. We get many pointers from these places and we come back enriched.

This year beginning started off with a ten days silent retreat, which was deeply transformative.

Joining with high hopes

When we joined the Soul Coach Training program (SCTP) on March 22^nd 2019 for ten days, we were expecting similar experiences, but it was utter disappointment. Usually every Guru we have met, had something of ‘his/her own’ wisdom nuances, but here it was only bookish knowledge, that too many of them misrepresented and misinterpreted.

This was the program schedule for the training and we saw that there were time slots to relax.

We reached the venue on 21^st and got ready by 4.50 am on 22^nd for the ‘yoga and guided meditation’ at 5 am. To our horror, none of the organizers were in sight and the participants were roaming around like lost souls. And there were no yoga and meditation sessions that day.

Utter indiscipline

During the first lecture it was highlighted that discipline is very important for spiritual progress and one should ‘respect time’. But once they started lecturing, there was no stopping, with too much repetition of very basic unimportant details. . No clocks were present in the whole premise. Our 11.30 tea time used to be at 12o’clock (as late as 12. 45 on one day) or still later and the 1.30 lunch time at 2.30 pm. So we had to just finish the lunch and go for the lecture, whereas from the time table we had thought that those who are used to afternoon nap would get time as the earmarked time for lunch was 1.30 to 3 pm.

6.20pm to 7 pm was supposed to be rest time, which we hardly got, as the lecture will spill over. Then the guided meditation that should be over by 10 pm can go up to 11 or 11.15 pm. Yet, we had to be at the meditation hall by 5 am the next morning and wait for the masters who would arrive by 5.15 or 5.30 am.

‘Go beyond the silence’ in an atmosphere of cacophony

The meditation times used to be unbearable because there will be continuous guidance with words with a LOUD background music, which was sometimes shahnai tune. 

Once the meditation started with the guidance of words and just when I was going deeper, this loud shahnai tune burst forth and I was literally jerked out.

Every few minutes, for something or other everybody was asked to clap their hands loudly. Many members from the internal circle would share their experiences in great detail and then all would clap.

Sattwik food

There were no fruits, no salads, even vegetable preparations were more of gravy and less of vegetable pieces. They would tell during lectures that good nourishment for the physical body is important, with fresh fruits and vegetables, but also tell stories that on spiritual path, one shouldn’t bother about food.

4 toilets and 4 bathrooms for 50 people

There were 4 toilets (total 5 but one was locked up due to some plumbing problem) and 4 bathrooms for the ladies. The food didn’t make bowel movements easy and one didn’t get enough time for the toilet.

Importance of Shramadan

7 to 9 am was the time for Shramadan. They extolled the virtues of cleaning the toilets because ‘cleaning the shit of others would clean all your inner shit.’ I was not averse to cleaning toilets and took up the task of brooming and mopping two ladies' dormitories and cleaning the toilets with another girl.

                                                        Cramped dormitory with bunk beds
We were so efficient in our work that we could finish fast and get the bathroom for taking a good bath. Otherwise from the moment you enter for bath, there are people waiting outside and they will keep on knocking for you to come out.

All the participants were called ‘masters’ and ‘enlightened beings’ and it was shocking for me to see how the enlightened ladies were behaving. There would be dried shit on the toilet bowl, which they could have easily washed off immediately with the health faucet. They would tear off a long piece of toilet tissue, use just the center portion and throw it on the floor or into the toilet bowl, in spite of the repeated instructions to throw them into the waste basket kept inside the toilet.

Then I would find sanitary napkins inside the small bowl in the bathroom (to keep tooth brush and paste). It was much beyond my imagination. On the 7^th day, there was demand for toilet cleaning shramadan, so I was in the kitchen wiping the dinner plates dry. When I came back to the dormitory, to my horror, I saw see three male participants cleaning the toilets. Imagine men emptying the toilet baskets with used sanitary napkins! Our masters were teaching that ‘All are One!’ The men took too much time to finish the work, so we had to start bathing while they were still cleaning the bathrooms.

A group of 70 participants removed all the stones (to make the land cultivable, they had to remove the stones) in two days, which couldn’t be completed in five years. 20 truckloads of stones were cleared.

                                                               Cleaning the Goshala

Psychokinesis

We were told that we will bend spoons through psychokinesis during second semester. A genuine doubt came to my mind why these enlightened masters cannot remove stones from the land through psychokinesis. 

HUGGING spirituality

It was very amusing to see people hugging all the time. During many exercises that our masters guided us, we were asked to hug. We told the other five in our group that we are not comfortable hugging and would just do ‘Namaste”. One girl understood, who told, ‘For whatever reasons you choose to do that, we respect that.’ But I could see the shock and slight anger on another girl’s face. And the hugs were not just casual hugs. The front portions of the bodies are totally in contact, both hands tightly holding the other’s body and they would stand like that for at least a minute.

Next day in the class the master told, ‘Some people think hugging should not be done. But when you are high in spirituality, you will embrace every one.’ I was glad that I was not ‘high in spirituality’. One day our master told that the person who was doing the organizing job was carrying out such an efficient work that everyone should  (total 133 participants) hug him before going off for shramadan.

In the whole campus there were no idols (this is supposed to be ‘Navya Takshashila'), no lighting of lamps, or even candles, and chanting of mantras.

Numbing your brains

Lack of sleep and nutritious food, along with continuous exposure to loud sound would numb the participants' brains and make them highly suggestible. Continuously interesting information was being fed. Like it was a Divine land, we were fortunate to be associated with them. Galactic stations are established around the area and the information that was being emanated would be transmitted across the galaxies.

Lord Hanuman considers the main Guru his ‘buddy’ and puts hand on his shoulder. Narada maharshi appears in physical form in front of him. Krishna and other celestial bodies roam around in the campus. So we should take part in building up this huge campus. One of the organizers was walking around, collecting the golden ear rings, bangles, written out checks and other things in her outstretched pallu of sari! She told anything can be donated. This was supposed to be a free training. There were different groups, each with a leader. The leaders told the group members that apart from the things that were donated, each one should contribute Rs. 1000/- each.

Ready made masters

Many of the masters taking classes had just finished the course (20 days course and they are ‘masters’) and they would copy information from different books and read it out from the screen. This was 12^th SCTP program and it was surprising to see they could not make professional power point presentations. The letters were too small, the contrast was horrible and since we couldn’t see, they had to just read them out.

There were no feedback forms for us to fill.

When questions were asked, they were fumbling to respond. One person would just go and sit on his chair with clasped hands, looking down. Then he would come up with some flimsy response.

Lesson for me?

I believe that every incident in life has a hidden lesson in it. The day our master told, ‘Whatever you think of me is none of my business,’  there lit a thousand watt bulb in my brain. It was so liberating! Throughout my life I have been a gentle and obedient person, but this brought out a different aspect in me for the remaining period of the stay.

Secondly, the master told, ‘You should be courageous and speak out when you see injustice.’ And that is why I am writing this.

If looks could kill.....Nazar

My youngest brother was born when I was nine years of age. Since my mother was a working woman, looking after the new born, bathing and dressing him up used to be my responsibility. He was a sweet child. Whenever somebody came home, admire his cuteness and leave, there used to be distinct difference in his behaviour. He would be cranky, cry for no reason, disturbed during sleep and sometimes feverish. And when I lift him, he would be so much heavier than usual. Same thing used to happen when we would visit somebody’s house or go for a function and come back home.  

‘Nazar’ or ‘Evil eye’ has a remedy.

My mother, on seeing the child’s changed behaviour, said it was due to ‘Nazar’ or ‘Drishti’ and she had a remedy. She would take three unbroken long red chillies, some sea salt, mustard seeds, and some onion peels in a piece of paper, wrap it up and take it in her right palm. She would touch this on the baby’s head on the left side, left shoulder, elbow, palm, left knee, toes, continuing onto right toes, knee, palm, elbow, shoulder and right side of the head. This she would do three times, then make three circles around his head and put the paper with its contents onto fire outside the house in our compound. For making the fire we used coconut husks and dried leaves.

The moment it burnt off, the baby would feel light and I would be relieved because I had to carry him. So as a child, I had experienced its effect.

Principle behind the Nazar

If we know the concept of auras, it is easy to understand what is Evil eye. Aura is the electromagnetic field around our physical body. When we look at objects or people with positive aura, it energises us and we feel happy. A negative aura can sap our energy and make us sad and unhappy. It is possible to draw energy from positive objects/people and lose energy to negative aura objects/people. An evil eye, on the other hand, can cause us to lose our aura, feel drained and disempowered.

When someone looks very pretty in a party, or is giving an outstanding performance, how many in the party or audience will be looking at that person with longing eyes, or with envy? Any of us can possess an evil eye transiently. This follows envy, or even adoration, of something beautiful, like a child. Sometimes even a mother’s gaze can drain the child of positive aura. It is to protect from this that a black dot is put prominently on the child’s face.

Across the world

Through the ages, people have always feared the evil eye. When children fall sick for no apparent reason, when things suddenly start to go wrong or when hindrances come your way repeatedly, people say, the evil eye has struck. 

Belief in the evil eye is strongest in West Asia, Latin America, East and West Africa, Central America, South Asia, Central Asia, and Europe, especially the Mediterranean region; it has also spread to areas, including northern Europe, particularly in the Celtic regions.

Authentic practices of warding off the evil eye are also commonly practiced by Muslims: rather than directly expressing appreciation of, for example, a child's beauty, it is customary to say Masha'Allah, that is, "God has willed it", or invoking God's blessings upon the object or person that is being admired.

A number of beliefs about the evil eye are also found in folk religion, typically revolving around the use of amulets or talismans as a means of protection. In the Aegean Region and other areas where light-colored eyes are relatively rare, people with green eyes, and especially blue eyes, are thought to bestow the curse, intentionally or unintentionally.

Assyrians are also strong believers in the evil eye. They will usually wear a blue/turquoise bead necklace to be protected from the evil eye.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook explained that the evil eye is "an example of how one soul may affect another through unseen connections between them. We are all influenced by our environment.... The evil eye is the venomous impact from malignant feelings of jealousy and envy of those around us."

In Mexico and Central America, infants are considered at special risk for the evil eye and are often given an amulet bracelet as protection, typically with an eye-like spot painted on the amulet.

Burning chillies

It is interesting that if we just burn a small chilli, we won’t be able to stand nearby as we start sneezing and coughing from the pungent fumes. But when three big chillies are burned to remove nazar, there will be absolutely no offensive smell, no sneezing and coughing.

When one is living in an apartment and can’t light a fire outside, we can line a kadai with aluminium foil, burn some shredded paper inside that and put the things to be burned in that. It is important to see that the chillies burn completely. When it cools down, the whole thing can be wrapped up in the foil and discarded.

A simpler method

If you don’t want to take so much trouble, just take one teaspoon of sea salt in your hand, take it clockwise around the head thrice, lightly spit on it thrice and discard it by flushing immediately in the sink. Salt attracts negative energy and breaks it down. So it is important to dispose the contaminated salt immediately.

Keep yourself protected

A simple way to keep yourself protected from evil eye is to always wear vibhooti in the third eye region.

Talismans that protect from Evil eye

Whereas the evil eye is a curse believed to be cast by a malevolent glare that can cause misfortune or injury, usually given to a person when they are unaware, talismans created to protect against the evil eye are also frequently called "evil eyes".

Attempts to ward off the curse of the evil eye have resulted in a number of talismans in many cultures. As a class, they are called "apotropaic" (Greek for "prophylactic" / or "protective", literally: "turns away") talismans, meaning that they turn away or turn back harm.

A blue or green eye can also be found on some forms of the Hamsa hand, an apotropaic hand-shaped talisman against the evil eye found in West Asia.

In Turkey, a typical Nazar (amulet) is made of handmade glass featuring concentric circles or teardrop shapes in dark blue, white, light blue and black, occasionally with a yellow/gold edge.

Assets and liabilities in life

We had attended a Swamiji’s (from Chinmaya mission) lectures in Manipal way back in 1981. The point that stuck in my mind was the difference between ‘Preya marg’ and ‘Shreya marg.’ Preya marg is doing things in life that gives immediate pleasure, but leads to agony later. For example smoking, over indulgence in sweets etc., Cigarette smoking gives real pleasure to many and in several instances it can lead to life threatening diseases like cancer. Eating too much sugary stuff can cause obesity, diabetes and heart problems.

On the other hand Shreya marg is doing things that don’t give immediate pleasure, but they do bring joy in the long run. Like exercising daily for keeping the body in shape and healthy. It may be raining and you feel like sleeping in the warm bed than to get up and go for jogging, but jogging is what you do if you are on Shreya marg.

Running blind in the rat race

The Universe provides nourishment and necessities for every being. But we humans think that we have to struggle hard to achieve things. I want to make it clear that I am not advocating inaction. As long as we are alive, we need to act, but if we do it in a balanced and nonattached way, we can enjoy every moment of life.

Neglecting one’s body and sleep, not giving time and attention to family, with the common argument “I am doing this to make our life secure, to give you better future’ (which are lame excuses anyway) will back fire in the long run.

When one looks around, everybody is in the rat race. It needs real spiritual foundation to step aside and lead a balanced life. Let us take a look at the assets one creates and how they transform into liabilities over time.

HUGE house, your ‘Status symbol’

There is a trend to make huge houses, with inbuilt home theatre and gym. After about two years of living in that house, it is seen that they hardly get time to watch movies in the home theatre and oversleeping is so enjoyable that the home gym is mostly unused. When it becomes difficult to get domestic help, the huge house turns into a liability as it is difficult to clean.

With the craze to send children abroad, we get to see large number of houses where only the parents (who are senior citizens) are living. They just lock up the rooms except their own bed room and kitchen. Prolonged closed spaces attract negative energies and the parents suffer from problems which the allopathy approach can’t diagnose.

There is the current fashion of false ceiling and intense lighting in the house. False ceiling creates dead spaces in the house, not a good thing for the inhabitants’ wellbeing. The lighting in the house is very strong, there is no balance of Yin and Yang. I feel uncomfortable in some of our friends’ houses as I am sensitive to the energy level around me. They stay in such a bright atmosphere till sleeping time, which is detrimental as after sunset presence of melatonin is supposed to induce sleep and bright lighting doesn’t facilitate melatonin synthesis. Then they take sleeping pills to drift into a drowsy slumber!

I have seen bath tubs in some houses accumulating dirt and becoming storage place for things like brooms. For the sake of status the bath tub was installed in the house but over time it is not used for baths and keeping it clean becomes a tough job.

So you can see how a huge house is turning from an asset into a liability.

Enormous bank accounts

 We all should have savings to meet emergency situations and for old age. But the trend to amass money beyond limit will bring liabilities. As one ages and memory starts fading, it is difficult to remember where all the money has been stacked! When the owner of such unlimited money develops parkinsonism, his signature is distorted and the bank refuses to accept and honour the cheque.

I know of families where the husbands didn’t have any time for family, working around the clock to swell bank accounts. The compromised health leads to their sudden death, and the wives have no knowledge about the different accounts. So the families are now economically suffering.

Accumulating vehicles

Vehicles used to be for transportation and convenience but now it is more a status symbol. If the neighbor is owning two cars like you, you should definitely buy the third one for the one up-manship, right? As one ages, keeping multiple vehicles in running condition and attending to their servicing schedules become a liability!

Unlimited wardrobe

The amount of clothes people amass today is appalling. It is always designer clothes for functions and a huge amount is spent on that. The current trend of using too much cloth for a dress is a burden to the mother Earth. Since the photos of functions are uploaded on facebook, there is no question of using the same dress again for another function. Once I asked a friend (I genuinely wanted to know the answer) what she does with all the designer clothes, because these  dresses, unlike what I do with my saris and simple dresses, can’t be handed down to the maids. She told with a painful expression, “That is the problem Beena, they are just dumped in cardboard boxes and kept in the house. That is when I noticed the cardboard boxes in several corners of the house. You need to know that her house is a huge one.

Is it worth?

One needs to really consider if it is worth sacrificing today’s joys to perceived ‘security of tomorrow’. What you lose in terms of health and relationships in the rat race can’t be retrieved with all the money that you have accumulated.