A Hole in the Sky

December 10th, 2005
Another day had dawned. Winter had arrived in most parts of the northern hemisphere. The tilt of the earth and its relentless motion around the sun had brought about another seasonal change in the terrestrial order of things. The back page of the Hindu carried a disturbing news item - a massive hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctica, the largest ever measured in recent times! More ultra-violet (UV) radiation is hitting the earth's surface now than ever before. This invisible part of the light's spectrum can cause skin cancer. In the adjacent column of the newsprint, there is boundless excitement about a popular beauty contest and speculations about who is going to be the next Miss Universe. After reading the two juxtaposed news items, one is left wondering why if beauty is skin deep, has nature created this horror called skin cancer? Does nature have something against human beauty queens? Why do humans struggle to maintain their good looks? To attract a potential mate perhaps? But these are questions for another wintry day. Coming back to the hole in the ozone layer, which not too long ago was a ozone whole, one can't help but sympathise with the innocent inhabitants of Antarctica. What have they done to deserve this? The case is closed, the culprit responsible for this undesirable change in the far reaches of the earth's atmosphere is an irresponsible terrestrial creature called man, the sole creator of destructive machines on this planet. The old cooler in the kitchen for some years now, has been sending a frisson up the earth scientist's spine, for all the wrong reasons.Here is an example of how an intense desire for profit-making in business can blind us to the consequences of our own entrepeneurial adventures. Humans generally don't think about consequences. How else do you explain the presence of chloroflourocarbon compounds in mass produced refrigerators that have found a home in every single man-made dwelling in our so-called developed world? These compounds disintegrate in the atmosphere when exposed to the sun's radiation, releasing chlorine atoms that then proceed to breakdown the ozone molecules present in the air. The ozone layer absorbs the UV radiation which is harmful to life on our planet. It is mother earth's protective blanket for its children - children who dont seem to care much for their mother. And they dont seem to care much for their brethren either. Down under, the Australians are beating up the Arabs. Is too much UV getting into their heads? Could it be that unknown to science, UV causes another kind of 'cancer' that grows deep beneath the skin, in the minds of men leading to mindless violence? The ozone hole problem is only a symptom of a far deeper problem having its roots in the very psyche of man. The question of anger and violence has never been addressed outside the realm of thought. We seek solutions through psychiatry, political compromises, UN resolutions etc but all that is in vain! So we have to ask ourselves this question, are we interested in peace on earth? Not just for humans -that would be too limited, but for the entire planet with its extraordinary spread of flora & fauna. Have you seen a blade of grass that grows through a crack in the concrete? Given your full attention to it? Or the dead leaf that is blown around in the wind? Vulnerability has no bounds. We create walls of concrete for our own security because we have not understood what it means to be vulnerable, like that blade of grass that cares not if there is a tomorrow. Therein lies the tragedy of man.

On Absolute Bliss

Somebody asked me what Krishnamurti meant by "beyond the known" or "absolute bliss". I replied by saying I really dont know. K is using words here only as suggestions. They cannot possibly lead one to the ineffable. They are not pointers for a man of desire who is seeking "God" or "absolute bliss". If desire is not understood, then these words or suggestions only serve to keep one in the trap of the known. It may be more relevant to ask why we have given so much importance to beliefs, concepts, knowledge, superstitions, God, etc? Why are we interested in what is "beyond the known" and "absolute bliss"? I am not trying to avoid the question he has asked. We seek bliss, God etc because our own lives are empty, lonely, devoid of meaning. So we try to find meaning through an idea, a projection. It is therefore much more important to understand why the mind moves in the groove of thought and intellect. Is it because we seek something beyond the mundane? Something which is far removed from our daily conflicts? Are we seeking peace & lasting happiness? Are we trying to capture those moments when as children we lived life in gay abandon? No worries. Only moments of laughter & feelings of great joy....Unfortunately as we grow up into adults we lose all that. Life becomes increasingly mechanical as we get caught in some repetitive activity. Dullness creeps in. Boredom and despair follow. Or the society does'nt give you what you are seeking-namely money, power, recognition etc. We then become neurotic. Or....we are crushed under the weight of authority. We either suffer a crushing defeat in the game of control & dominance or we succeed in gaining control over others if we are among the Stalins, Hitlers and Alexanders. This is the sad story of human existence. Not being able to end suffering we seek the help of God or some religion like Islam, Christianity, Hinduism etc. In their holy religious books they tell you to surrender to God. When one is suffering it is not very difficult to submit to the "will of God". Because, in that surrendering, thought finds a momentary avenue of release. One can let out steam and not be pressured for a while. Then the old game begins again...we start seeking pleasure through religious entertainment - bhajans, diwali, x-mas etc. After some years, old age sets in & it is time to say good bye. The same old loneliness and sorrow of death comes back. One dies grieving, not being able to give up one's attachments to the bank balance, wife or husband, the car, the favourite religious book etc etc. The objects of attachment can be many and we hold on to them for dear life! All through this drama of life, man never questions why he is living in pain, pleasure, fear, desire & sorrow. This is his consciousness. He lives in it by choice. He gets what he seeks. He does not get what he does not seek. In the negation of all ideas, concepts, beliefs projected by thought, there is also the ending of all that thought has bred in life - anger, jealousy,hatred, fear, desire and sorrow. When thought no longer breeds these common elements of our psychological make-up, when it has undertood its own place in the universal order of things, only then it is possible to be without time, without sowing the seeds of future moments of consciousness. All egotistic activities keep the wheel of time moving. The self finds continuity through these activities. Look at all those stories of greed, dishonesty and subterfuge that appear in the newspapers these days. All that is the story of the self, the 'me', the ego. In that story, there is nothing new. In that story, the last word is death.

Mid-day Contemplations

Dec 6th, 2005- Our neighbours paid us a visit this afternoon. They seemed to be looking for something. On all fours, theywent here and there, searching probably for a quick afternoon snack - a delicious bug or a juicy beetle perhaps. The mongoose couple spent a few minutes in the kitchen garden. Not finding what they wanted, they went away as silently as they had come. No tearing down, no diggingup, no fussing about. Such is the natural order of things. There is a delicate balance in nature. The web of life is not only awe inspiring in its biological complexity but also extraordinarily simple in its appearance as beauty. Man does not understand it. The schemer that he is, he is more interested in finding ways to exploit nature for his own selfish gains. Vast tracts of forest have disappeared inIndia and elsewhere. Along with it, the majestic creatures of the jungle have also gone. Rivers have been polluted beyond repair. Now they are being dammed for electricity and irrigation. Everywhere there are footprints of man's insensitivity and apathy towards nature. Hills are being systematically taken down for the minerals they contain. This is what is happening in Kudremukh. The environmentalists there have been fighting all this for many years. It is a tug-of-war between the Governments, the higher courts and the common man. Man struggles but animals dont. A famous quote of Krishnaji's comes to mind - "Animals are unconsciously perfect, but humans are consciously imperfect". This is a profound statement on the tragedy of man for as long as he has been struggling on this earth; for the past 10 or 15 thousand years perhaps. He is at the edge of a precipice. There is nobody to help him but himself. Not realising this simple fact, he has invented God, the Christ, the saviour. He has built temples, churches, mosques as symbols of his imperfection. Animals dont need any of these symbols. They live in harmony. They live and let live. The delicate ecological balance is only now being slowly understood by ecologists & scientists. They now know why it is important for a tiger to exist and why it is equally important for a humming bird to flutter around freely from flower to flower. But all this is knowledge that is arrogantly ignored by the politician, the businessman and the technocrat. Unless man has that deep abiding contact with nature which is compassion in its deepest sense, he will destroy everything around him and himself in the process. Knowledge cannot solve his problem. On the one hand he has invented atomic weapons of mass destruction, while on the other, he has created worldwide organisations for promoting peace so that he can go on plundering the earth without being disturbed too much. He can tolerate a little bit of collateral damage but not more. On the one hand he sings in praise of God, on the other he is ready to kill a fellow human being for God. Man is a mass of contradiction. This contradiction has its roots in the division between the 'me' and 'the other'. This is the basic polarization on which man erects his edifice of ideas, beliefs, concepts, superstitions and non-facts. Within this structure, which he has built in his psyche, he tries to arrange things in an orderly fashion only to be frustrated time and again by the hurricane winds of his own fears, desires, insecurities and violence. This drama of arranging and re-arranging has gone on for many, many centuries now. Going by what the newspapers dish out everyday, it doesn't seem like the drama will end soon. So is'nt it sane and rational to put aside all that completely? To step away from the mess is the intelligent thing to do, not rearranging or contributing to the mess. There is no way to do this other than to give total attention to one's thoughts, emotions and reactions. In letting go of one's attachments, one's acquired tendencies, habitual patterns, idiosyncrasies, there is born a space in which attention can flower. Then it is possible to step out of this stream of chaos and confusion and live a life that is orderly, intelligent and compassionate.

Home Alone

Nov 30th, 2005- This morning, the skies were clear. No rain. No wind. The temperature had dipped the previous night. The morning dew was still there on the turf when the sun rose over the eastern sky- first orange, then turning a bright yellow, before exploding into a blinding white ball of light. It was exactly half past seven. There was not a sound from the nearby village, not even the sound of a barking dog. Looking out of the window on the west side of the house, one could see the rocky hillock bathed in sunlight. Couple of months of heavy rain had brought life to it in the form of wild grass, wild blossoms, weeds & other kinds of vegetation. There are one or two big rocks on that hillock. One of them has a hollow at its base where a family of mongoose have made their home. It is not easy to see them because of the dense undergrowth. A branch of an old dead tree next to the rock offers the perfect perch for a couple of big kites that often visit the area. They make a strange sound that only they can understand. Is this what Cacofonix sounded like before he was bound up & gagged before the many banquets that Gauls held in celebration of their victories over the barbaric Romans? I dont know. If Asterix were alive today, I would ask him. At thirty-one minutes past seven, a stillness descends on the place that can only be termed as indescribable. Not a leaf moved, not a sound was heard. The body was very still except for a discernible movement of the breathing aparatus. Not a single worry crossed the mind. There was only light of various shades & colour and wide open eyes. The tree at the top of the hillock was bathed in a golden yellow. Through its branches & leaves, the blue of the sky was clearly visible. Even the solitary bird on the fence refused to move. It was as if the whole universe had come to a stop. Then came the big bang - the familiar sound of cloth hitting rock. The pond on the east side of the house is full to the brim. The village women begin their day's laundry work in this old fashioned way, with nothing else but their bare hands and a flat rock to beat the cotton on. Man has never been still for as long he has lived on this earth. He has moved from one place to another in search of food, in search of shelter, in search of God. In the process he has plundered and murdered himself over and over again. The very nature of man's thought breeds fear, anger, desire and sorrow. In that moment of morning stillness, there was not a shadow of any of those ugly feelings and emotions. This is perhaps why man in this modern age needs quietitude. Not an enforced quietness that some mistakenly take to be meditation. If in the very seeking of peace and quiet there is subjugation of the mind, then that is not stillness. That is not silence. There can be stillness and silence only when one learns the art of seeing, listening and moving (yes), without translating or filtering what one sees or hears and without having those deep-rooted fixations or attachments in life. Then, having learnt that subtlest of arts, one can begin to be still, not only in the body but also in the mind. Such a mind is like a still pond that reflects everything clearly without distortion. The waves of thought orginate from the many pebbles of stored experiences in our memory. To live with memories, however pleasant or painful, is like trying to sail through life on a rocking boat firmly anchored to the dark muddy basin of time. It is late in the morning.The typing on the lettered keys have become slow and laborious. The CPU needs desperately to be shut down. The mechanical brain will go on however. It derives meaning from its endless activities. The meaningless demands of society give it no rest. But who has created society? It is you and me. Together we are sustaining something that we ourselves have created. See how pointless existence is if all there is to life is an endless transition from pain to pleasure and then back to pain. This is the life that we are conscious of. Most of us dont know of any other way of living. There is so much anger, frsutration and resentment all around. We read about it in the newspapers and see it on TV everyday. Very little is known of life beyond the scribblings of a few 'mad' scientists. Even they get tired after a while, allowing the dull priest to throw his pebble into the pool of consciousness every now and then. The computer must now shut down for the day and await another moment of revival. Till then it shall rest in the currentless moment, a mute witness to the drama of life and death on this marvellous earth......

Homeward Bound

Nov 25th, 2005- The drive from Trans Indus (an eco-friendly residential complex) to the Valley School (a Krishnamurti school near Bangalore, India) takes only 15 minutes. It is a drive that takes you through the countryside, small villages, open fields and past a few man made structures. This morning it has been cloudy mostly with the sun peeping in occassionally through narrow breaks in the dark clouds. The passing rain had brought down the temperature and there is an unusual chill in the air. One felt a bit unprotected without a jacket as the cool air came in through the open vents of the car. The drive is uncomfortable on the potholed country road that meanders through plantation land and open fields. The reduced speed of the car is a blessing in disguise. When one slows down, accidently or purposely, there is a possibility of observing more closely and carefully, the numerous 'insignificant' events unfolding just beyond the windshield - events that are quickly memorised and forgotten. Who wants to remember a dead buffalo on the roadside? It is too disgusting a sight to hold in memory for too long. We have other more important things to attend to today. "Give us better roads, we want to get there quickly!" is the hot slogan. The slow drive coupled with a certain degree of alertness, reveals to the eager observer, the beauty of the surrounding countryside. The landscape could very easily be an impressionist painter's delight- the natural undulations covered with greenery, the smooth but rock hard hills in a distance, a flock of birds in the sky, cows grazing busily on a grassy patch of land, little ponds reflecting the gray cloudy sky above and a dog sitting dangerously close to the muddy rain-damaged road, oblivious of the approaching danger in the form of metal-on-wheels. Life and death seem to be walking together, hand in hand like old friends. A little pup comes sprinting down the road. I brake and look around for that 'stupid' bitch. Why cant she tell her pups to be more careful? This busy lorry-driven road is hardly a place for juniors to discover life, I tell myself. Further on, one is greeted by a sight that is well-known to serious researchers of life aka biologists. A small white stork perched on top of a cow feeding on vegetation. The bird is looking for fleas that torment the bovine feeding machine. It pecks away happily, benefiting itself as well as the large grazer in theprocess. It is these kinds of symbiotic relationships that make up the web of life. As I take the left turn on Kanakpura road, I am instantly greeted by the honking of a paranoid motorist atleast a hundred yards away. He quickly fades away from my rear view car mirror. Thank god for fast cars! As I approach the school turning, I notice a huge pile of garbage dumped along the roadside by ignorant truckers employed by the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike. Thinking that I have seen the last of this man-made horror, I happily step on the gas pedal only to be greeted by another ghastly sight of garbage piled on the side of the road. Somebody had tried to burn it but the weather gods did'nt let him. There was half-burnt matter scattered all over the place, made of stuff discarded by our so-called civilized city dwellers living not too far away from this otherwise beautiful countryside. A few more turns of the wheel brings me to the dead buffalo. Did it die eating toxic city waste? Who cares? I have to quickly get to the Krishnamurti (hereafter refered to only as 'K') Study Centre at the far end of the Valley school campus. The Friday morning meeting usually brings together a group of individuals interested in finding out about K's message to the sorrowing world. He is no more (having succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 1986) but there are still many who like to read his books or watch a video of talks that he gave way back in the hippie era. Those were really the happening days. Drugs, rock & roll and an insatiable hunger for spiritual knowledge. The America of the 50s, 60s & 70s saw the coming in waves of such exotica as Maharishi MaheshYogi, Ustad Ravi Shankar and his peculiar Indian musical instrument called sitar (to which many including the Beatles were attracted), the inimitable Acharya Rajneesh with his funny discourses on the path to enlightenment, and the great guru of hatha-yoga, Shri B.K.S.Iyengar.The chinese invasion of Tibet, brought the Tibetans with their buddhist culture out of the himalayan closet. It was also the time when some back-bencher in a physics class at Caltech shouted, "Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman". The world laughed at the 'jokes' of the physicists, the rocket scientists, the politicians (incl J.F.K & Kruschev)....laughing all the way to the moon! As I was taking my first toddler steps, somewhere unbeknownst to me, mankind had already taken a giant Bruce Lee-ish leap. I wonder who was stronger, Lee or Armstrong? Also on the silver-screen, Mehmood's Padosan was a rib-tickling laugh-a-thon. Ofcourse Vietnam was no laughing matter. Flower power was a calculated Gandhianish reaction to war. Peace lovers cried. The world heaved a sigh of relief when the guns finally went silent in that chaotic war torn part of Asia. The Dalai Lama smiled. And so did that little Romanian gymnast, Nadia Commanecci. It was all a heady cocktail-mix of neo-spiritualism, controlled pragmatism, desire for perfection and a reckless unleashing of technological prowess. Thirty years later the world has'nt changed much. Somebody at the Study Centre meeting said, be choicelessly aware of all this; just be attentive to the movement of the psyche. This is the subtle art of meditation as K had often said. Choicelessness is not a mantra. It is real meditation. There is no naming, no choosing, no desire for possession, no wanting to be something, no desire to be with God or the desire to take shelter in some religious ideology. All these are the conscious movements of the self that keep man ensnared in the fishing-net of his own creation. The mind is the trap and also the door to freedom. The meeting ends with these wise words. It is 9am and the group heads off to the dining hall for a well deserved breakfast consisting of steamy hot idlis and chutney. The discussion now changes tracks and heads off into more familiar territories such as cricket and banarasi paan. If only Saurav had read Krishnamurti, he would still be doing the ODI circuit. You wonder how? Cricket is all about awareness & attention, the lack of which allows the ball to find its way past the willow and on to the stumps. We know Bruce Lee also read K and brought some of his philosophy into Kung Fu. After ensuring that there was enough coffee in the belly, moi and the study center in-charge walk over to the office to discuss more important practical matters. She tells me that we must create a good Krishnamurti poster for the colleges and universities of Karnataka. We must take the message of K to the younger generation. I am thinking aloud, "Will the youngsters give time to all this? Are'nt they more interested in bolly-wood style romances and methods of making a quick buck in this fast paced consumerist world?". As if reading my mind, she pounces on me like an experienced cat, "Money, romance and family life is all ok but if they hear the message of K, they may get inspired enough to begin an inward journey of enquiry and self-realization". We conclude that they need both - an outer social stability coupled with an inner movement of the mind that wants to understand Truth. After all this is what comes from our great Indian spiritual heritage, no?. This is what the Buddha had attempted to do centuries ago and what the ancient Upanishadic texts also point to. The Buddha had said, "Be a light to yourself". K is saying the same thing. Find out for yourself without the distorting screen of tradition and take a walk through life unburdened by the past. With that peculiar K-ish state of mind, I slowly walk back to my car which earlier in the day had been my vehicle of observation. It is time to go home now and ponder on the meaning of existence on this wonderful life giving planet of ours.