Today morning I had a philosophical discussion with a friend of mine. I started when she told me that in the last two days, she had to spend time alone. She found it very difficult to handle the loneliness.
I ended up discussing my idea of Yoga.
“The word Yoga means Union” I told her, “It unites the various elements that form a person. There are 25 key elements which are divided into 15 Murtya and 10 Amurtya elements. Yoga unifies all the 25 elements into a single entity that we call as ‘Individual’ or ‘Person’. The three key broad aspects
that Yoga unifies are the body, the mind and the universal power. The 10 intangible elements define the mind and the universal power. These are in the descending order, ‘Paramatma’, ‘Dhyana’, ‘Dharana’, ‘Aham’, ‘Buddhi’, ‘Tama’, ‘Sattwa’, ‘Raja’, ‘Prakruti’ and ‘Purusha’.All the problem in life starts when we do not understand the Union, the Yoga. The widely observable dissonance is between the body and the self, as in ‘I’ am different from ‘My’ body. We use possessive words like ‘My’ to refer to something that is outside of us that we possess. For example, this is ‘MY” mobile phone.
This is what we do when we use the possessive word to describe part of your body. We say ‘My head aches’, ‘My hand hurts’ etc. The moment we say ‘My hand hurts’, we are creating a differentiation between ‘Me’ and ‘My hand’. The first round of Yoga fails here.
Note that we are born with a Yoga view. Children never say ‘My hand hurts’, they always say ‘I have pain’, for example ‘I have toothache’. So the first step towards achieving calm is to avoid using ‘MY’ word.
What is the problem with ‘My’ word you may ask? The moment we differentiate between body and mind, we are walking with two competing elements. We blame the body elements as in ‘My calf muscles always hurt’, we criticize our body ‘My face is full of pimples’. We are in fight with our constant companion, our body.
Instead of solving the problem by bringing in sync between body and mind, we seek external help and support from friends, partners, family, professionals etc. Paradoxically, this support only complicates the issue. Now you have two more elements to consider, the helper’s body and mind.
I am not even considering the Universe commonly represented by God. If we consider that as well, two people can bring six competing elements into the table. If you extent it to the 25 elements, for two physical persons, there are 48 additional. Invisible participants in the room to resolve the original conflict between your body and your mind.
How do we handle this?
It is very important to start with self. To attain ‘Yoga’ between ‘I’ and ‘My’, between mind and body. Realize that you and your body are one package. You become aware of your body by doing various targeted Asanas. You integrate your mind and body by using Pranayama. Once you attain this Yoga, you will become comfortable with yourself.. You will become your own friend. You will become less self critical, less of an egotist and will gradually become a giver.
Remember, all of us are born alone, lives alone and leaves alone. It is very important that we become our friend. It is very important to do that middle part, the ‘live alone’ part well. That is where Yoga can help.
I completed my explanation.
“What is meditation?” she wanted to know.
“In simple terms, meditation is doing anything that makes us happy. Every time we do something with passion and focus, we are meditating. If you are singing in the bathroom, without any care in the world, you are meditating. When you are passionately cooking, you are meditating. That phrase ‘without any care in the world’ itself can be used as a synonym for meditation. Doing anything with mindfulness is meditating.”
“So why do we need these meditation techniques?” she asked.
“Unfortunately the drudgery of real life does not give us opportunity to regularly do things that we are passionate about. So we need to ‘artificially’ create time to bring the mind to a state of ‘mindfulness’. We also need techniques that will give our mind the required focus and remove the distractions. We are blocking a time of the day for calming and relaxing our minds and achieving happiness. That is the test of a successful meditation. We become happy”
“There are five things that mind does if it is left unattended. These are ‘Pramana’ - Seeking proof or validation. In moderation this will lead to skepticism and if left uncontrolled, it will lead to cynicism. The second is ‘Vipanyaya’ - coming to the wrong conclusion, the third is ‘Smriti’ - remembering past experiences, still stuck in the past, fourth is ‘Vikalpa’ - Living in Fantasy, living in the future and fifth stage is ‘Nidra’ - the time of unconscious activity, which is reflected in the form of dreams. Each of these stages cause unhappiness. Meditation simply help the mind not to indulge in any of these activities. By eliminating activities that cause unhappiness, we become happy.”
It is a virtuous cycle. Meditation leads to happiness, which leads us to smile which leads us to more happiness. Since this is a circle, you can enter any point and get the benefit of the cycle. For example, you can just smile that leads you to become happy.
The best way to meditate is to find things that you are passionate about and do that more often.” I said
“How do you find your passion?” she asked the million dollar question
“You can find your passion by observing yourself speaking about various things. When you start talking of passionate stuff, your voice levels will increase, your eyes will light up, your hands will start moving to explain and elaborate the concepts, you will not be conscious about the present moment. You will be in the zone. If you find such areas, latch on to them and spend more time working on them.
If you do not find that, keep searching. You will find it one day” I completed my lecture.
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