Diffusion

DIFFUSION

By Harvinder Kaur

Behind closed eyes
In the tender passion of a dream,
I behold
The breathing beauty of stone bodies
fleshing the temple walls;
Gods
wearing bodies of painted stone,
worshipped by men.
...Men?
Or Gods in flesh
with forgotten memories?
For, who can tell
the difference between
God and man and stone?
Carve the iconoclast's face in a rock,
And the passing years
make him a God.
And who knows
If the prisoner's stripes are not holier
than the sages saffron?

Spiritual Adolescense

SPIRITUAL ADOLESCENCE

By Harvinder Kaur

Midnight air
Resonates with silent prophesies.
Siddhartha rises
Something moves within him
...his future.
The beautiful Yasodhara
sleeps beside him
In love's soft embrace.
The moonlight on her lashes
tries to enter her dreams.
He is enchanted...
And yet
He wonders why he feels an ache
When he looks at the stars,
What strange voices beckon him
And, where to?
No one is there to tell him
that,
The Buddha is dawning
within him.

Tantra

Tantra or tantric is a esoteric tradition rooted in the religions of india. It is a body of beliefs and practices that works from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead, and seeks to channel that energy within in creative ways.

Modern Tantra may be divided into practices based on Hinduism and Buddhism (vajrayana). In all cases, there is the emphasis on the union of Shiva (masculine) with Shakti (feminine) energy, the masculine signifying the stable, static force while the feminine signifies the kinetic, dynamic force.

Power Of The Mind

Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta in Calcutta in 1863, became a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahasma in his youth. On a three-year visit to the United States and Europe, he made a profound impression with his doctrine of combining spiritual consciousness and social responsibility. Especially significant were his talks at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. During his travels, he brought Vedanta to the West, and adopted the name Vivekananda, or 'bliss discernment'. In India, he influenced many political leaders of the emerging nation. He founded the Ramakrishna Mission and wrote several books on Yoga and vedanta . He died in 1902, at the age of 39.

Excerpts from his talk delivered at Los Angeles on January 8, 1900:

All over the world there has been the belief in the supernatural throughout the ages. All of us have heard of extraordinary happenings, and many of us have had some personal experience of them. I would rather introduce the subject by telling you certain facts, which have come within my own experience. I once heard of a man who, if anyone went to him with questions in his mind, would answer them immediately; and I was also informed that he foretold events. I was curious, and went to see him with a few friends. We each had something in our minds to ask, and, to avoid mistakes, we wrote down our questions and put them in our pockets. As soon as the man saw one of us, he repeated our question and gave answers to them. Them he wrote something on paper, which he folded up, asked me to sign on the back, and said, "Don't look at it; put it in your pocket, and keep it there till I ask for it again." And so on to each one of us. He next told us about some events that would happen to us in the future.

Then he said, "Now, think of a word or sentence, from any language you like." I thought of a long sentence from Sanskrit, a language of which he was entirely ignorant. "Now take out the paper from your pocket," he said. The Sanskrit sentence was written there! He had written it an hour before with the remark, "In confirmation of what I have written, this man will think of this sentence." It was correct. Another of us who had been given a similar paper, which he had signed and placed in his pocket, was also asked to think of a sentence. He thought of a sentence in Arabic, which it was still less possible for the man to know; it was some passage from the Koran. And my friend found this written down on the paper.

Another of us was a physician. He thought of a sentence from a German medical book. It was written on his paper. Several days later I went to this man again, thinking possibly I had been deluded somehow before. I took other friends, and on this occasion also he came out wonderfully triumphant. Another time I was in the city of Hyderabad in India, and I was told of a Brahmin there, who could produce numbers of things from where, nobody knew. This man was in business there; he was a respectable gentleman. And I asked him to show me his tricks. It so happened that this man had a fever; and in India there is a general belief that if a holy man puts his hand on a sick man he would be well.

This Brahmin came to me and said, "Sir, put your hand on my head, so that my fever may be cured." I said, "Very good; but you show me your tricks." He promised. I put my hand on his head as desired; and later, he came to fulfill his promise. He had only a strip of cloth about his loins, we took off everything else from him. I had a blanket, which I gave him to wrap round himself, because it was cold, and made him sit in a corner. Twenty-five pairs of eyes were looking at him. And he said, "Now, look, write down anything you want." We all wrote down names of fruits that never grew in that country, bunches of grapes, oranges and so on. And we gave him those bits of paper. And there came from under his blanket, bushels of grapes, oranges, and so forth, so much that if all that fruit was weighed, it would have been twice as heavy as the man. He asked us to eat the fruit. Some of us objected, thinking it was hypnotism; but the man began eating himself—so we all ate. It was all right. He ended by producing a mass of roses. Each flower was perfect, with dewdrops on the petals, not one crushed, not one injured. And masses of them! When I asked the man for an explanation, he said, "It is all sleight of hand."

Whatever it was, it seemed to be impossible that it could be sleight of hand merely. From whence could he have got such large quantities of things? Well, I saw many things like that. Going about India you find hundreds of similar things in different places. These are in every country. Even in this country you will find some such wonderful things. In very remote times in India, thousands of years ago, these facts used to happen even more than they do today. It seems to me that when a country becomes very thickly populated, psychical power deteriorates.

Given a vast country thinly inhabited, there will, perhaps, be more of psychical power there. These facts the Hindus, being analytically minded, took up and investigated. And they came to certain remarkable conclusions; that is, they made a science of it. They found out that all these, though extraordinary, are also natural; there is nothing supernatural. They are under laws just the same as any other physical phenomenon. It is not a freak of nature that a man is born with such powers. They can be systematically studied, practiced and acquired. This science they call the science of Raja-Yoga.

There are thousands of people who cultivate the study of this science, and for the whole nation it has become a part of daily worship. The conclusion they have reached is that all these extraordinary powers are in the mind of man. This mind is a part of the universal mind. Each mind is connected with every other mind. And each mind, wherever it is located, is in actual communication with the whole world.

GROWTH OF MAN
Now, I shall tell you a theory, which I will not argue now, but simply place before you the conclusion. Each man in his childhood runs through the stages through which his race has come up; only the race took thousands of years to do it, while the child takes a few years. The child is first the old savage man—and he crushes a butterfly under his feet. The child is at first like the primitive ancestors of his race. As he grows, he passes through different stages until he reaches the development of his race. Only he does it swiftly and quickly.

Now, take the whole of humanity as a race, or take the whole of the animal creation, man and the lower animals, as one whole. There is an end towards which the whole is moving. Let us call it perfection. Some men and women are born who anticipate the whole progress of mankind. Instead of waiting and being reborn over and over again for ages until the whole human race has attained to that perfection, they, as it were, rush through them in a few short years of their life. And we know that we can hasten these processes, if we be true to ourselves.

If a number of men, without any culture, be left to live upon an island, and are given barely enough food, clothing, and shelter, they will gradually go on and on, evolving higher and higher stages of civilization. We know also that this growth can be hastened by additional means. We help the growth of trees, do we not? Left to nature they would have grown, only they would have taken a longer time; we help them to grow in a shorter time than they would otherwise have taken. We are doing all the time the same thing, hastening the growth of things by artificial means. Why cannot we hasten the growth of man?

We can do that as a race. Why are teachers sent to other countries? Because by these means we can hasten the growth of races. Now, can we not hasten the growth of individuals? We can. Can we put a limit to the hastening? We cannot say how much a man can grow in one life. You have no reason to say that this much a man can do and no more. Circumstances can hasten him wonderfully. Can there be any limit then, till you come to perfection? So, what comes of it?—That a perfect man, that is to say, the type that is to come of this race, perhaps millions of years hence, that man can come today.

And this is what the Yogis say, that all great incarnations and prophets are such men; that they reached perfection in this one life. We have had such men at all periods of the world's history and at all times. Even this hastening of the growth must be under laws. Suppose we can investigate these laws and understand their secrets and apply them to our own needs; it follows that we grow. We hasten our growth, we hasten our development, and we become perfect, even in this life.

This is the higher part of our life, and the science of the study of mind and its powers has this perfection as its real end. The utility of this science is to bring out the perfect man, and not let him wait and wait for ages, just a plaything in the hands of the physical world, like a log of driftwood carried from wave to wave and tossing about in the ocean. This science wants you to be strong, to take the work in your own hand, instead of leaving it in the hands of nature, and get beyond this little life. It's a great idea.

STUDY OF THE MIND
There is no end to the power a man can obtain. This is the peculiarity of the Indian mind, that when anything interests it, it gets absorbed in it and other things are neglected. You know how many sciences had their origin in India. Mathematics began there. You are even today counting 1,2,3 etc. to zero, after Sanskrit figures, and you all know that algebra also originated in India, and that gravitation was known to the Indians thousands of years before Newton was born.

You see the peculiarity. At a certain period of Indian history, this one subject of man and his mind absorbed all their interest. And it was so enticing, because it seemed the easiest way to achieve their ends. Now, the Indian mind became so thoroughly persuaded that the mind could do anything and everything according to law, that its powers became the great object of study. Charms, magic and other powers, and all that were nothing extraordinary, but a regularly taught science, just as the physical sciences they had taught before that. Such a conviction in these things came upon the race that physical sciences nearly died out. It was the one thing that came before them. Different sects of yogis began to make all sorts of experiments. Some made experiments with light, trying to find out how lights of different colors produced changes in the body. They wore a certain colored cloth, lived under a certain color, and ate certain colored foods. All sorts of experiments were made in this way. Others made experiments in sound by stopping and unstopping their ears. Yet others experimented in the sense of smell, and so on.

A SCIENCE LIKE NO OTHER
If this is true, it is temptation enough for the mind to exert its highest. But as with every other science it is very difficult to make any great achievement, so also with this, nay much more. Yet most people think that these powers can be easily gained. How many are the years you take to make a fortune? Think of that! First, how many years do you take to learn electrical science or engineering? And then you have to work all the rest of your life.

Again, most of the other sciences deal with things that do not move, that are fixed. You can analyze the chair, the chair does not fly from you. But this science deals with the mind, which moves all the time; the moment you want to study it, it slips. Now the mind is in one mood, the next moment, perhaps, it is different, changing, changing all the time. In the midst of all this change it has to be studied, understood, grasped, and controlled. How much more difficult, then, is this science! It requires rigorous training.

People ask me why I do not give them practical lessons. Why, it is no joke. I stand upon this platform talking to you and you go home and find no benefit; nor do I. Then you say, "It is all bosh." It is because you wanted to make a bosh of if. I know very little of this science, but the little that I gained I worked for thirty years of my life, and for six years I have been telling people the little that I know. It took me thirty years to learn it; thirty years of hard struggle. Sometimes I worked at it twenty hours during the twenty-four; sometimes I slept only one hour in the night; sometimes I worked whole nights; sometimes I lived in places where there was hardly a sound, hardly a breath; sometimes I had to live in caves. Think of that. And yet I know little or nothing; I have barely touched the hem of the garment of this science. But I can understand that it is true and vast and wonderful.

Now, if there is any one amongst you who really wants to study this science, he will have to start with that sort of determination, the same as, nay even more than, that which he puts into any business of life.

And what an amount of attention does business require, and what a rigorous taskmaster it is! Even if the father, the mother, the wife, or the child dies, business cannot stop! Even if the heart is breaking, we still have to go to our place of business, when every hour of work is a pang. That is business, and we think that it is just, that it is right.

This science calls for more application than any business can ever require. Many men can succeed in business; very few in this. Because so much depends upon the particular constitution of the person studying it. As in business all may not make a fortune, but everyone can make something, so in the study of this science each one can get a glimpse, which will convince him of its truth and of the fact that there have been men who realized it fully.

This is the outline of the science. It stands upon its own feet and in its own light, and challenges comparison with any other science. There have been charlatans, there have been magicians, there have been cheats, and more here than in any other field. Why? For the same reason, that the more profitable the business, the greater the number of charlatans and cheats. But that is no reason why the business should not be good. And one thing more; it may be good intellectual gymnastics to listen to all the arguments and an intellectual satisfaction to hear of wonderful things. But, if any one of you really wants to learn something beyond that, merely attending lectures will not do. That cannot be taught in lectures, for it is life; and life can only convey life.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INDIAN

Swami Vivekananda, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and founder of the Ramakrishna Mission, was a firm believer of karma yoga. During the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, he was one of the first Indian philosophers/sages to take India's spiritual heritage to a worldwide audience.

Excerpted from Swami Vivekananda's legendary address to the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893

Swami VivekanandaThree religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric—Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their survival their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations, but like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous; and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith.

From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu religion.

Where is the common center to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these contradictions rest? And this is the question I shall attempt to answer.

The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.

The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in god. In that case god is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So god would die, which is absurd. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation.

If I may be allowed to use a simile, creation and creator are two lines, without beginning and without end, running parallel to each other. God is the ever-active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time and again destroyed. This is what the Brahmin boy repeats every day: "The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and moons of previous cycles."

Here I stand and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive my existence, "I," "I," "I," what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of material substances? The Vedas declare "No." I am a spirit living in a body. The body will die, but I shall not die. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination, which means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created, it must die. Some are born happy, while others are born miserable. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful god create one happy and another unhappy, why is he so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a future one. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful god?

In the second place, the idea of a creator god does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions.

We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by his past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body, which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit has got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a newborn soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives.

There is another suggestion. Taking all these for granted, how is it that I do not remember anything of my past life? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue, in fact no words of my mother tongue are now present in my consciousness, but let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up and you would be conscious even of your past life.

So then the Hindu believes that he is spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce—him the fire cannot burn—him the water cannot melt—him the air cannot dry. The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose center is located in the body, and that death means the change of this center from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence, it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or the other it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter.

How can the perfect soul be deluded into the belief that it is imperfect? We have been told that the Hindus shirk the question and say that no such question can be there. Some thinkers want to answer it by positing one or more quasi-perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. How can the perfect become the quasi-perfect; how can the pure, the absolute, change even a microscopic particle of its nature? But the Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistry. His answer is: "I do not know. I do not know how the perfect being, the soul, came to think of itself as imperfect, as joined to and conditioned by matter."

Well, then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of center from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy of good and bad actions? Is there no hope? Is there no escape?—was the cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair. It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! Even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One, who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again."

Swami Vivekananda"Children of immortal bliss"—what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name—heirs of immortal bliss—yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the children of god, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth-sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter."

Thus it is that the Vedas proclaim not a dreadful combination of unforgiving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One, "By whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth."

And what is his nature? He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All merciful. "Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art he that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Veda. And how to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshiped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life."

This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and taught by Krishna, whom the Hindus believe to have been god incarnate on earth.

He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world—his heart to god and his hands to work.

It is good to love god for hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love god for love's sake, and the prayer goes: "Lord, I do not want wealth, nor children, nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth, but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward-love unselfishly for love's sake." One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor of India, was driven from his kingdom by his enemies and had to take shelter with his queen, in a forest in the Himalayas, and there one day the queen asked him how it was that he, the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much misery. Yudhishthira answered: "Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are: I love them. They do not give me anything, but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful, therefore I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved; my nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I do not pray for anything. Let him place me wherever he likes. I must love him for love's sake. I cannot trade in love."

The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is therefore mukti-freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery.
And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of god, and this mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of his mercy. How does that mercy act? He reveals him self to the pure heart; the pure and the stainless see god, yea even in this life. Then and then only all crookedness of the heart is made straight; then all doubt ceases. He is no more the freak of a terrible law of causation. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there are existence beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is an all-merciful universal Soul, he will go to him direct. He must see him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about god, is—"I have seen the soul; I have seen god."

Thus the whole object of their system is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach god and see god, and this reaching god, seeing god, becoming perfect even as the father in heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus.

And what becomes of a man when he attains perfection? He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure, namely god, and enjoys the bliss with god.

If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to enjoy the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness increasing with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the aim, the ultimate of happiness being reached when it would become a universal consciousness.

Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am one with life, then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself, then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself; and this is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter, and advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul.
This brethren, is a short sketch of the religious ideas of the Hindus. The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite, like the god it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature.

Offer such a religion and all the nations will follow you. Ashoka's council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar's, though more to the purpose, was only a parlor meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all the quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion.

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it traveled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world, and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo, a thousandfold more effulgent than it ever was before.

Hail, Columbia, motherland of liberty! It has been given to thee, who never dipped her hand in her neighbor's blood, who never found out that the shortest way of becoming rich was by robbing one's neighbors, it has been given to thee to march at the vanguard of civilization with the flag of harmony.

By Swami Vivekananda.

SIKHS: SWORDS OF THE DIVINE

Sikhism, one of the world's youngest religions, completes 300 years of its existence with characteristic vigorous devotion

On the face of it, Anandpur Sahib, a sleepy town located in the northern Indian state of Punjab, seems far from being a historical site of repute. But it is this place that saw the birth of one of the world's most vibrant religious orders, whose followers characteristically tie their long hair in a turban, sport flowing beards, pray at the gurudwara (literally, at the feet of the guru) wear a steel bangle on the right wrist, and occasionally, carry a small dagger, called a kirpan. These are the Sikhs, members of the warrior-devotee fraternity of theKhalsas (the pure), which was created at Anandpur Sahib way back in AD1699 by the martial Sikh guru Gobind Singhto fight against all kinds of injustice. But the story of theSikhs starts much before the creation of this fraternity. It evolved under nine successive gurus for about 200 years till its culmination in the Khalsa brotherhood. The story begins with the gentle, but convention-defying poetry of the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak.

NANAK
Nanak was a prophet who consistently trod the path of reason—often in the most unconventional of ways. At the age of 11, he would refuse to wear the janeou (a sacred thread that is ritually worn by people of a higher caste in India, such as the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas) by singing:
"Woven from the cotton of compassion and the yarn of contentment
With the knot of continence and the strength of truth
O Pandit, have you such a janeou for the soul?"

Despite showing an amazing depth of realization early in life, Nanak had his crucial mystical experience much later, at age 30, when he was married and the father of two sons. One morning after his routine bath in a village pond, the guru simply disappeared into the waters. His first statement after reappearing three days later was: "There is no Hindu, there is no Mussalman." Soon after, he voiced the Sikh mool mantra (basic tenet):
Ik Omkar—There is but One God
Sat Nam, Karta Purukh—The True One, All-Pervasive Creator
Nirbhau, Nirvair—Without fear or rancor
Akal Murat—Eternal is His Manifestation
Ajooni Saibhang—Free from birth and rebirth; Self-created
Gur Prasad—Realized only by His Grace.

Etymologically, the word Sikh means a learner. With time, it came to define people who attached themselves to Nanak's teachings during his extensive travels. His philosophy was simple: Naam Japo (chant the name of God), Kirat Karo (earn your living by working honestly),Vand ke Chhako (share your wealth with the needy). There was no ritual, no restrictions on diet, no idol worship, no celibacy, no self-denial—just enjoy life to its full and thank God for giving you the opportunity to live. Himself a householder, Nanak propagated a faith that gave the householder pride of place. Nanak preached that God is the creator, but not part, of the universe. The transcendence of God is made immanent in this world through Naam (God's Will or Word). The highest ideal for a Sikh, therefore, is to be yoked to Naam and create a society of God-centered people.

EVOLUTION OF A FAITH
In order to organize a society that would uplift the outcaste and fight injustice, Nanakinstitutionalized a lineage of gurus. Till the fifth guru, Arjan Dev, the successors of Nanakconcentrated mostly on setting up new towns, formalizing path-breaking social institutions like the langar (a common kitchen for all castes) and living the life of devotion and work.

Throughout this period, India witnessed the rise of the Mughal Empire. Looking back on those formative years of one of the world's youngest faiths, it seems as if the Sikh movement and the Mughal rule were destined to criss-cross each other. Wherever they intersected, there was a collision of beliefs. A large part of Arjan Dev's leadership coincided with the largely secular rule of Akbar, and hence flourished unhampered. The highlights of his Sikh evolution under Arjan Dev were the creation of the world-famous Golden Temple in Punjab, India, and the compilation of the Sikhs' holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib.

But this peace was not to last long. Akbar's son and successor Jahangir summoned Arjan Dev to his court and had him executed. Before leaving for certain death, the guru elected his son Hargobind as his successor, and his last message was: arm yourself and prepare for the struggle ahead. Although tension between Sikhs and the Mughals kept on rising, it was during the ninth Sikh guru Teg Bahadur's time that it hit a flashpoint of sorts, when Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's generals began forcible conversions of Hindus in the northern Indian state of Kashmir.

Shocked, Teg Bahadur had it conveyed to Aurangzeb that if he could succeed in converting the guru, all the Hindus in Kashmir will accept Islam. In reply, Aurangzeb arrested the guru and beheaded him. The Khalsa brotherhood came into being about a decade after the intiation of Teg Bahadur's son Gobind Rai, later known as Gobind Singh, as the tenth Sikhguru. Gobind Singh conceived the Khalsa after a strong mystical experience at the Naina Devi hills adjoining Anandpur Sahib, where he had established himself. Returning to Anandpur, the guru sent invitations to all Sikhs for a special assembly on April 13, 1699.

The Khalsa On the scheduled day, Gobind Singh appeared before the congregation, brandishing a naked sword, and sought the head of a Sikh as sacrifice. A Sikh belonging to the kshatriyaor warrior caste stepped forward. Gobind Singh led him to a tent pitched nearby, and reappeared a while later, his sword dripping with blood. Again, the guru sought the head of a Sikh. This time, a peasant Sikh came forward. Gobind Singh repeated the procedure thrice with a printer, a fisherman, and a barber.

A while later, the guru emerged from the tent with the five Sikhs—alive and clad in saffron robes, turbans, and a sword hung at the waist. He announced that these five, the Panj Piarey (five beloved), represented the culmination of Nanak's teachings, and would form the core of the Khalsa faith—a selfless, casteless, martial fraternity that shall stand for equality and purity. Gobind Singh then proceeded to administer amrit (literally, nectar), a mixture of sweets and water, to the five, and added the suffix Singh (lion) to their names. Women were also initiated and they were given the suffix Kaur. The five k's of the brotherhood—kesh (hair), kada (iron bangle), kirpan (dagger), kangha (comb), kachcha (knee-length drawers)—were introduced. The Khalsa were enjoined to worship only one God, protect the weak, resist oppression, and consider all humans equal.

What followed was a series of battles with Aurangzeb's forces, resulting in the martyrdom of the guru's sons, his mother, and countless Sikhs. Gobind Singh himself suffered a mortal wound. Before his death, he ended the lineage of living gurus by declaring the holyGranth Sahib as the eternal guru of the Sikhs. Thus did Sikhism reach its final form—a finely sculpted sword whose razor-sharp blade opposes sin and whose firm hilt embraces humanity.

By Saurabh Bhattacharya.

Sikhism

Sikhism is one of the world's most vibrant religious orders, whose followers characteristically tie their long hair in a turban, sport flowing beards, pray at the gurudwara(literally, at the feet of the guru) wear a steel bangle on the right wrist, and occasionally, carry a small dagger, called a kirpan—and, most importantly, believe in the age-old adage of 'work is worship'.

Wisdom of the Body

A psychotherapist and a choreographer help people reconnect with their body and use its innate wisdom for wholeness and growth.

Ordinarily, I would have no problems introducing myself to people. But when asked to move around with a bunch of ribbons in the company of 22 strangers, I found the exercise inhibiting.

I am at the My Body My Wisdom workshop held at the serene Jyoti Bhavan convent at Karmalaram, on Sarjahpur Road, just on the outskirts of Bangalore. And truly far from the madding crowd. Choreographer Tri-pura Kashyap and psychotherapist Santha Kumar are conducting the workshop. The aim is a novel combination of attempting to use the mind and the body through dance and discussion.

Activities and analysis here are all geared towards making us aware that LIFE is the most precious gift we have been given and that the body is home to this gift. Says Santha, "All of our life's experiences occur in the body and hence we must nurture it and pay attention to its signals rather than take it for granted.

Christianity

Her Indian roots help Suma Varughese realize that the ultimate step towards integration lies in VEDANTA - the philosophy that we are all part of the Divine, the Brahman, the Creator

Although a Christian, I have always been baffled by my religion's central belief that Jesus Christ died to redeem mankind of its sins. Besides much of Christianity that challenged one's reason, I thought this too was part of its general mystification. As a seeker, I was far too aware of the limitations created by conditioning (sin in NEW AGE speak) and the hard work needed to eliminate them, to take seriously the claim that anyone's DEATH would absolve me of the task. Each had to work at his own salvation. I could see that the loving willingness with which Christ accepted his crucifixion must have eliminated a tremendous amount of negativity from the earth, for who could have remained unchanged by such greatness, courage and love? But to imagine that his death gave every Christian thereafter free pardon for all their acts, stretches the point too far, moving from the reasonable to the theological phantasm.

Yet, every Christian has found this the most potent of tenets. Christ's sacrifice has been the cause of millions of conversions and even transformations. Alas, the vivifying power behind this concept escaped me. Of late, however, I have been reading that classic, The Varieties of Religious Experiences by William James. And I see the mystery anew. According to James, whose book traces the spiritual experiences of a number of mystics and lovers of God, the knowledge that Christ died for our sins frees the Christian to surrender to him.

James points out that most of us are hindered from experiencing altered states of CONSCIOUSNESS . The mind doesn't let go of the social construct, holding on to the consciousness of being, resisting absolute union. As SPIRITUAL MASTERS have said, the seeking must stop at the penultimate stage for liberation to unfold. The miracle happens only when we give up and let go. James recounts the experiences of numerous seekers who drop the whole enterprise to suddenly find themselves in the ecstasy of union. The belief that you are already saved through Christ's sacrifice helps in this surrender. This means there is really nothing for you to do! You start from the premise of already assured salvation so that no matter how severe your conditioning or how hard your journey, you never, in Christian terminology, fear hell and damnation. Your destination has already been reached.

All seekers are acquainted with the uncertainty of the path we tread, and how hard is the struggle to retain balance. Often, we fear remaining rooted to the spot, a hideous amalgam of God and beast, man and mouse. The belief that we are already what we are trying to be is a deeply consoling one, for it gives us the confidence to keep going. This is why most seekers only become committed when they have had a foretaste of a state of liberation. Having once known such joy and ecstasy, they have concrete proof of the existence and attainment of such states.

This concept of being saved by Christ's death is akin to Vedanta's assurance that we are and have always been part of the divine, and only ignorance veils that knowledge. It also adds a vitalizing essence to the being, so that, as the layers of our personality unfold, we are progressing towards goodness, and not, as Freud thought, into the bubbling cauldron of the dark unconscious. True, we must pass through that domain, for no crevice of ourselves must remain unpurified, but the journey ends in untrammeled goodness and not in destruction. What an almighty relief!
I now have much more respect and clarity with the concept of being redeemed by Christ's death. I can vibrate with its profundity. I still prefer the Vedantic way, for it is universal. But why deny non-Christians the privilege of being saved by Christ. Furthermore, no matter how comforting the thought of being saved by someone's death may be, I would find it infinitely more comforting to know that my liberation is assured by the very virtue of being human. As a lover of freedom, this matters.

Toward Peace - Leadership in Future

Securing and maintaining control over some territory for hunting food is the top existential priority of higher animals.

Sometimes they die for it because they must die without it. There are a variety of interesting and amusing ways and means adopted by the different species to demarcate their area of operation.

Our ancestors, too, while living in caves, drove their adult progeny out. Slowly and painfully, and may be accidentally, they must have discovered the strength in number. And first tentative steps forming a society were taken. It is not very surprising, then, that the most primitive societies adopted the animal political system. The ability to fight best was the criterion for selecting its leader. He had to be strong, cunning and ruthless. When it came to dealing with other societies, it was again the jungle law. Murder, plunder and rape were heroic acts.

Though agriculture began to civilize the members within the society, a new territorial strife cropped up among the member families of the society as also among the members of a family. Laws for property (including wives and children), its transfer and inheritance were formulated. These agricultural societies only refined the animal political system of settling the issues with force and violence especially with people of other races and tribes.

When the diabolical tool of spiritual subjugation made its entry is an academic point, it is still with us at the close of the twentieth century, with the same deadly effect. Kill or break the spirit and you get the ideal obedient automaton. Human society, then, encountered its first freak - the megalomaniac who craved for more and more territory without any existential needs.

With industrialization and onset of democracies, the criterion for leadership changed. It was the first true departure from jungle law as mental prowess (acting, oratory, scheming etc.) now took place of brute force. Complete subjugation gave way to exploitation only. At last we were close to ants' political organization minus their efficiency and harmony.

In this dark political scenario of the present times, there is a silver lining, too. So far we have been fighting for land, water, minerals and other resources. The air was taken for granted and the Ozone layer shielding us from the ultra - violet rays of the Sun was unknown. The nations are for the first time beginning to realize that on the environmental and ecological issues they must sink together if can not swim together. This is the truth our present industrial civilization has discovered the hard way on the brink of extinction. Selecting our leaders by mental quality alone is inadequate to meet this challenge. We must devise more effective methods for choosing our true leaders. Some objective mind detector for the safety of the earth and survival of this high-tech civilization is indispensable now. Besides honesty and sincerity, these leaders must be loyal to the mother earth as a whole; not only to a part or parcel.

One wonders what these brave new leaders will lead us to. A global cooperative capitalism is as good a guess as any.

Buddshim

Ven. Thich Nhat Nanh is widely recognized as the originator of the global movement that has now come to be known as 'engaged Buddhism'. A Vietnamese Zen monk, he championed a peace movement in Vietnam during the war in the 1960s and '70s and since then has worked to engage spiritual wisdom in problems of politics, and everyday living.

How do you see the role of Buddshim in stopping war and building peace?
I think Buddshim helps stop the war within us first. It helps stop the conflicts within, so that we can really build better relationships with other people, our family, and our community. Without doing that, we cannot help much in stopping the conflicts in society and in the world. PEACE begins with myself, and I think that is very Buddhist in essence. Many Christians and Jews believe the same thing. That principle, that vision is universal, not only Buddhist, but Christian, Jewish, and also humanist, non-religious.

When you are at war with yourself, you can start the war with other people around you, and it's very difficult to help build PEACE in society. That is why the beginning is always to go back and look at and settle the conflicts and war within yourself. You don't need to become a Buddha in order to start building PEACE in society, but as you begin to make PEACE Inside, you already do something to help the PEACE around you.

Can you tell us about your meetings during those days, with people like Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Thomas Merton and (peace activist) Alfred Hassler?
I met Dr Martin Luther King in Chicago, US, for the first time in June 1966 while I was making a tour of North America. After just half an hour of talking together, we held a press conference. And it was very easy to communicate.

I met him the second time at Geneva during a conference on PEACE called Pacem in Terris. He invited me up to his apartment for breakfast, and we discussed the situation in Vietnam, in America, in the world. Then I was able to tell him that in Vietnam many of us consider him to be a bodhisattva working for human rights and peace. He was very pleased. It was only a few months before he was assassinated, so I'm pleased I could tell him that.

Thomas Merton I met in the Trappist monastery in Kentucky. We had a good time together exchanging many things, including our experiences of living in monasteries! At that time I was not sure that I could go home to Vietnam. Because I had spoken out, it was dangerous to go home. He wrote something supporting me, and he asked his friends to do whatever they could do to support me in this difficult moment.

Thomas Merton was the first Christian monk to study the practice of BUDDHISM very deeply.
Yes, he had studied ZEN Buddhism. I gave him a book of mine written in French, Le Buddhisme d'Aujourd'hui. He wrote a review of it.

I spent two days with him, and he took me to visit the childhood home of Lincoln. After I left, he gave a talk to his monks and said, "Just looking at how he closes the door, you know that he's a true monk." (Laughs.) That's funny, because in Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh's residence in France) a Catholic lady from Germany once came for three weeks of practice. Before she left us, she said, "I came because I read something from Thomas Merton about Thich Nhat Hanh's closing the door. I was curious. I wanted to come just to see how you close the door. I stayed three weeks for the practice, and I am very glad that I have come. I also have learned how to close the door!"

Recently, I met an American man who was reading Thomas Merton's books. He was very surprised that Merton wrote, "Nhat Hanh is more my brother than most of my Catholic monks". He asked me if Merton became a Buddhist.

He did not have to become a Buddhist, because he had Buddha-nature within himself. A good Christian always manifests the Buddha-nature, and a good Buddhist always manifests the LOVE and COMPASSION of Jesus.

Alfred Hassler? I worked with him in Vietnam. He was the executive secretary of FOR (Fellowship of Reconciliation), and he tried his best to help us. He organized a speaking tour for me, and I went to Australia and many countries in Europe with him. After that, FOR organized a world tour for me. I went to the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. And when I learned that I was barred from going back to Vietnam, I went to France and took asylum there.

In 1966, a journalist in Washington, DC, told me that the government of Vietnam had informed Great Britain, Japan, and the United States that they had invalidated my passport, and that it should not be honored by them. So when I visited Washington, DC, I risked deportation. I asked Sister Cao Ngoc Phuong to come to Washington to accompany me back to France. We were afraid that at the Paris airport, I would be caught, so we asked a number of personalities in Paris to come greet us at the airport and protect us.

Finding common Humanity

Loving your enemies is not an instant achievement or a remote ideal. It is an ongoing process with varying degrees of perfection. And it's hard work, requiring patience and tenacity.

A year ago, I found myself doing a radio interview conducted by a righteous and overly certain fundamentalist preacher. As is often the case, I didn't know beforehand who would be asking the questions. He began assuming that I was in the same political and ideological camp he was preaching. Quickly, of course, he discovered that I was the enemy. I determined immediately that I would do everything possible not to let the conversation get polarized. It was a telephone interview, and I sat there on the edge of my seat for an hour, sweating from the effort not to be polarized. At the end, he surprised me by saying, "I don't agree with anything you have said, but I can't deny that you're a thoughtful and spiritual person. Please come on my program again."

People sometimes say that in conversation with your adversaries you should find common ground. I don't entirely agree with that advice. I try instead to find our common humanity. Ideas will follow, after a basic human connection has been made. I admit that often you have to walk a tightrope between allowing another his point of view and being faithful to your own ideas and values. But the effort can be worthwhile.

It helps me to remember that a number of years ago I held some positions that today I would completely disown. People change. I am also aware that some of my values today are not set in stone. I reconsider them in the light of reading, exposure to other people, and events in the world. This awareness helps me understand that my supposed adversaries, too, are not always as rigid and unchangeable as they appear.

A year ago, my family bought a new house in a beautiful wooded area. We had a modest garden surrounded by tall evergreen trees. We wanted the house mainly for the privacy and quiet it offered. Last month, new neighbors moved in behind us and within two days had clear-cut all their trees up to an inch of our property. We lost our privacy and beauty.

My wife and I were both angry, but she decided to go visit them and find out what was happening. She welcomed them into the neighborhood and asked if they would help us plant a row of trees in the barren area. They refused. Later, we planned on having all our neighbors to our house for a summer gathering, and we made it point to invite the ones who had destroyed our peace.

It doesn't seem reasonable, but this inversion of the expected, this move away from instinctive emotion, is what Jesus taught consistently and what Mahatma Gandhi advocated. Violence breeds violence. Argument breeds argument. Someone has to invert the situation and go against the pattern. In every case, that person is always you. If you have the idea in your head that there is another way, then you have to act on it.

The paradoxes of religion and the spiritual traditions are not just intellectual surprises; they are a challenge for you to move in a direction that may be far different from the one you know and love. They ask you to have it in mind to consider the opposite of what may seem common sense, or the opposite to what has identified you for years. The flipping over of your vision, metanoia, may be the most difficult thing in life.

In world politics it is clear that following the same old patterns of trying to defeat your enemy achieves nothing. The string of wars is unbroken, and a new enemy always seems to appear from nowhere. But imagine what would happen if you actually practiced the principle of loving your enemy. Maybe the inversion of expectations alone would open some space for change and resolution.

Loving your enemy doesn't mean liking him or agreeing with him. It means that you have a sense of humanity as a family and that you can live in tension without making and sustaining enemies. You come to expect differences among people and give up the futile and infertile expectation that eventually your vision will win out. You appreciate diversity of opinion and foster it at the same time you are fostering community.

The paradoxes in life also hint at the shadow side of your ideas and values. Every choice you make creates an underworld of rejected values. If you reject secular humanism because you want a religious world view, you may lose your appreciation of the precious ordinary life in front of you, and you may see an enemy in secular humanists. If you are a secularist, you may start treating science and entertainment as religions, and you will see religious people as your enemy. Maybe you need to be both at the same time - secular and religious - and give up the pleasure of an enemy.

Having enemies helps you solve your life situation with relative ease. You don't have to deal directly with life's complexity and its shades of grey. You can feel virtuous at the expense of someone else. It is a far greater achievement to live a moral and holy life without enemies, amid complexity, and deep in your own evolving ideas.

Walk with your enemy, feeling fully your differences and similarities. Try to be in the liminal space, the tense in-between threshold, beyond enemies and compatriots, and you will find a new vitality. You may be surprised what it feels like to be released from the burden of an unnecessarily divided world.

Walk with your Enemy

The biblical exhortation to love your enemy doesn't mean liking him or agreeing with him. It means that you have a sense of humanity as a family and that you can live without making and sustaining enemies.

An old ZEN story tells of a monk about to die. "Do monks die standing?" he asked his students. "Yes," they said. "And how about upside down?" "Never heard of that," they said. So he stood on his head and died. The funeral was difficult, with him on his head. His sister was present and was annoyed that once again he was making a nuisance of himself. So she touched him with her finger and he fell over, ready for burial.

It's the business of religion to turn things upside down. Indeed, the proper language of religion is paradox. Many people think of spirituality as a higher level of the world they know, but the traditions teach that as a person matures, he has to learn about the opposite side of everything he has come to understand. Jesus suggests that the poor are the really rich ones. And according to current Biblical scholars, the story of the Good Samaritan is not just about seeing your neighbor in someone from another culture or race. It shows that the most unlikely and despised people, not we spiritual types, may be the very ones practicing spiritual ideals like compassion. In religion, the whole world is upside down.

Strength in Yielding
The Tao Te Ching of Taoism is one of the most paradoxical sacred texts I know. "Yield and overcome; bend and be straight," it says. This lesson is not only philosophical and moral; it is deeply emotional. Perhaps you know the experience of having been hurt by a friend. You may pout and distance yourself - a form of passive aggression. You may want to keep the friendship, but the strength of your feelings keeps you frozen and hard. But eventually you may reach a point where you can let down your defenses, relax, and give up the struggle. Your friendship is saved, and your Life goes on more smoothly.

It takes emotional maturity and strength to yield. Still, the world around you, not generally mature in its relationships, tells you that you can't give in. You shouldn't be a wimp. You must take responsibility for your own Life and person and not be taken advantage of.

The idea that there is strength in yielding is not popular in practice. The world will not approve but instead will give you good reasons for holding your ground. I've even heard of psychotherapists getting caught in the illusion that fighting for your ego will solve your problems.

A few years ago, when assertiveness training was popular, and people were exploring ways to be independent and self-reliant, I was reading the Tao Te Ching almost daily. I would invite my audiences to workshops on how to be dependent, and they would laugh. They could only laugh because it seemed absurd to value dependence, yielding. Psychology tends to be on the side of a strong ego, the spiritual traditions on the side of the spirit and soul, which follow different rules.

All of this is background to loving our enemies. This teaching has been mouthed for centuries and rarely practiced. Why? Because it is so difficult. It is a challenge to the whole person to revisit old memories, to reconsider old patterns of behavior, and to deal with strong but subtle passions and emotions. It requires nothing less than a major, profound shift in the core self from which we live. The Gospels call it 'metanoia', a central transmutation in the way we imagine life to be. A person who has attained this moral and psychological level is a kind of mutant, someone freed from the unconsidered assumptions of his society. He is standing on his head.

Peace

The world is increasingly getting aggressive. Despite millennia of religion, civilization and culture, peace among people and nations remains elusive. But for the future of humanity,peace deserves a chance.

Yoga

Yoga is a way of life. It is predominantly concerned with maintaining a state of equanimity at all costs. All yoga schools of thought emphasize the importance of the mind remaining calm, because as the saying goes, only when the water is still can you see through it. Yoga Darshan or Yoga Philosophy also happens to be a valid discipline of Indian metaphysics (Brahma Vidya). It is the result of human wisdom and insight on physiology, psychology, ethics and spirituality collected together and practiced over thousands of years for the well being of humanity.

The basic idea of yoga is to unite the atma or individual soul with the paramatma or the Universal Soul. According to Yoga philosophy, by cleansing one's mind and controlling one's thought processes one can return to that primeval state, when the individual self was nothing but a part of the Divine Self. This is the sense encapsulated in the term samadhi. The aim of the yogi is to be able to perceive the world in its true light and to accept that truth in its entirety.

In Sanskrit, the term 'yoga' stands for 'union'. A yogi's ultimate aim is to be able to attain this 'union' with the Eternal Self with the help of certain mental and physical exercises. It is often said that Hiranyagarbha (The Cosmic Womb) Himself had originally advocated the traditional system of yoga, from which all other yoga schools have evolved. But for all extant knowledge of yoga and its practices, such as yogasanas and pranayama, the entire credit goes to Maharishi Patanjali.

Patanjali systematized the various yogic practices and traditions of his times by encapsulating them in the form of aphorisms in his Yoga Sutra. In this momentous work, he describes the aim of yoga as knowledge of the self and outlines the eight steps or methods of achieving it.

Yoga Benefits

The most important benefit of yoga is physical and mental therapy. The aging process, which is largely an artificial condition, caused mainly by autointoxication or self-poisoning, can be slowed down by practicing yoga. By keeping the body clean, flexible and well lubricated, we can significantly reduce the catabolic process of cell deterioration. To get the maximum benefits of yoga one has to combine the practices of yogasanas, pranayama and mediation.

Regular practice of asanas, pranayama and meditation can help such diverse ailments such as diabetes, blood pressure, digestive disorders, arthritis, arteriosclerosis, chronic fatigue, asthma, varicose veins and heart conditions. Laboratory tests have proved the yogi's increased abilities of consciously controlling autonomic or involuntary functions, such as temperature, heartbeat and blood pressure. Research into the effects of yogic practices on HIV is currently underway with promising results.

According to medical scientists, yoga therapy is successful because of the balance created in the nervous and endocrine systems which directly influences all the other systems and organs of the body. Yoga acts both as a curative and preventive therapy. The very essence of yoga lies in attaining mental peace, improved concentration powers, a relaxed state of living and harmony in relationships.

Through the practice of yoga, we become aware of the interconnectedness between our emotional, mental and physical levels. Gradually this awareness leads to an understanding of the more subtle areas of existence. The ultimate goal of yoga is to make it possible for you to be able to fuse together the gross material (annamaya), physical (pranamaya), mental (manomaya), intellectual (vijnanamaya) and spiritual (anandamaya) levels within your being.


Physiological Benefits

Physicians and scientists are discovering brand new health benefits of yoga everyday. Studies show it can relieve the symptoms of several common and potentially life-threatening illnesses such as arthritis, arteriosclerosis, chronic fatigue, diabetes, AIDS, asthma and obesity.

Asthma
Studies conducted at yoga institutions in India have reported impressive success in improving asthma. It has also been proved that asthma attacks can usually be prevented by yoga methods without resorting to drugs.

Physicians have found that the addition of improved concentration abilities and yogic meditation together with the practice of simple postures and pranayama makes treatment more effective. Yoga practice also results in greater reduction in anxiety scores than drug therapy. Doctors believe that yoga practice helps patients by enabling them to gain access to their own internal experience and increased self-awareness.

Problems
Patients who practice yoga have a better chance of gaining the ability to control their breathing problems. With the help of yogic breathing exercises, it is possible to control an attack of severe shortness of breath without having to seek medical help. Various studies have confirmed the beneficial effects of yoga for patients with respiratory problems.

High Blood Pressure
The relaxation and exercise components of yoga have a major role to play in the treatment and prevention of high blood pressure (hypertension). A combination of biofeedback and yogic breathing and relaxation techniques has been found to lower blood pressure and reduce the need for high blood pressure medication in people suffering from it.

PAIN Management
Yoga is believed to reduce pain by helping the brain's pain center regulate the gate-controlling mechanism located in the spinal cord and the secretion of natural painkillers in the body. Breathing exercises used in yoga can also reduce pain. Because muscles tend to relax when you exhale, lengthening the time of exhalation can help produce relaxation and reduce tension. Awareness of breathing helps to achieve calmer, slower respiration and aid in relaxation and pain management.

Yoga's inclusion of relaxation techniques and meditation can also help reduce pain. Part of the effectiveness of yoga in reducing pain is due to its focus on self-awareness. This self-awareness can have a protective effect and allow for early preventive action.

Back Pain
Back pain is the most common reason to seek medical attention. Yoga has consistently been used to cure and prevent back pain by enhancing strength and flexibility. Both acute and long-term stress can lead to muscle tension and exacerbate back problems.

Arthritis
Yoga's gentle exercises designed to provide relief to needed joints had been Yoga's slow-motion movements and gentle pressures reach deep into troubled joints. In addition, the easy stretches in conjunction with deep breathing exercises relieve the tension that binds up the muscles and further tightens the joints. Yoga is exercise and relaxation rolled into one - the perfect anti-arthritis formula.

Weight Reduction
Regular yoga practice can help in weight management. Firstly, some of the asanas stimulate sluggish glands to increase their hormonal secretions. The thyroid gland, especially, has a big effect on our weight because it affects body metabolism. There are several asanas, such as the shoulder stand and the fish posture, which are specific for the thyroid gland. Fat metabolism is also increased, so fat is converted to muscle and energy. This means that, as well as losing fat, you will have better muscle tone and a higher vitality level.

Yogic practices that reduce anxiety tend to reduce anxious eating. In addition, yoga deep breathing increases the oxygen intake to the body cells, including the fat cells. This causes increased oxidation or burning up of fat cells. Yogic exercises induce more continuous and deeper breathing which gradually burns, sometimes forcefully, many of the calories already ingested.

Psychological Benefits

Regular yoga practice creates mental clarity and calmness, increases body awareness, relieves chronic stress patterns, relaxes the mind, centers attention and sharpens concentration.

Self-Awareness
Yoga strives to increase self-awareness on both a physical and psychological level. Patients who study yoga learn to induce relaxation and then to use the technique whenever pain appears. Practicing yoga can provide chronic pain sufferers with useful tools to actively cope with their pain and help counter feelings of helplessness and Depression.

Mental Performance
A common technique used in yoga is breathing through one nostril at a time. Electroencephalogram (EEG) studies of the electrical impulses of the brain have shown that breathing through one nostril results in increased activity on the opposite side of the brain. Some experts suggest that the regular practice of breathing through one nostril may help improve communication between the right and left side of the brain. Studies have also shown that this increased brain activity is associated with better performance and doctors even suggest that yoga can enhance cognitive performance.

Mood Change And Vitality
Mental health and physical energy are difficult to quantify, but virtually everyone who participates in yoga over a period of time reports a positive effect on outlook and energy level. Yogic stretching and breathing exercises have been seen to result in an invigorating effect on both mental and physical energy and improved mood.

Spiritual Benefits

When you achieve the yogic spirit, you can begin knowing yourself at peace. The value of discovering one's self and of enjoying one's self as is, begins a journey into being rather than doing. Life can then be lived practicing "yoga off the mat".

Pride
Pride, and especially anxiety about pride, is something which Hatha yoga seeks to diminish or eliminate. To one who has been dejected because he cannot do his work properly when he becomes tired, irritable, or haggard, any degree of refreshment may be accompanied by additional degrees of self-respect. Furthermore, one who has benefited from yoga may be moved to help his friends who are obviously in need, he may instruct others and be rewarded with appreciation due a to teacher.

But if one succeeds in achieving skill which provides health and self-confidence, one may justly raise his self-esteem simply by observing himself living the improved results as an achieved fact.

Knowledge
Yogic theory and practice lead to increased self-knowledge. This knowledge is not merely that of the practical kind relating to techniques, but especially of a spiritual sort pertaining to grasping something about the nature of the self at rest.

Knowing the self at rest, at peace, as a being rather than merely as an agent or doer, is a genuine kind of knowledge which usually gets lost in the rush of activities and push of desires. The value of discovering one's self and of enjoying one's self as it is, rather than as it is going to be, is indeed a value as well as a kind of knowledge.

Paradox Of Peace

Peace, value, worldIn a society based on the supply and demand principle, goodness, love and kindness are social products like any commodity, the excess of which might reduce their value

In a world full of chaos and hatred, it is tempting to ask if the quest for peace is morbid and suicidal, the sole preserve of philosophers, evangelists and other such cranks. Is the idea of peace a mistake? Can it ever be practiced as a value? Could man, who has become a tool of his own tools, still hope to find inner harmony in the jungle of skirmishes that our world has become?

These are some of the questions which were discussed at a three-day Peace Conference organized by the World Buddhist Cultural Foundation at Kyoto, Japan in November last.

Dr. karan singh leader of the Indian delegation, said in his keynote address that those attending the conference represented two thirds of humanity: Buddha was born in India, therefore, every Indian to some extent is a Buddhist. The president of the World Buddhist Cultural Foundation Dr. B.K. Modi, requested the people of Japan and India to work together for amity, peace and universal brotherhood. What stimulated my own inquiry where the papers read by Dr. Uchida Jagatguru Shankaracharya and Prof Yukio Yamada.

Clearly, there are five dimensions of peace: individual peace through meditation peace in the family between man and woman child and parent peace in society, between various communities; peace in the nation and peace on the planet and among nations.

We begin with the sad assumption that peace is a rare phenomenon; that the challenge of peace is more demanding than that of war; that man in the process of civilizing himself has reached a stage where all the niceties of life are judged from the viewpoint of utility. How did things come to such a pass?

If we review the history of though we find that the philosophers of the golden age of Pericles were mainly interested in the laws of nature and their possible relation to the human mind. Among them, Socrates exhortation to "know thyself" was the last attempt of a free mind to gauge its own depth and to attain inner harmony.

In India, Gautama Buddha—the first metaphysical rebel—renounced the world in protest against suffering and pain. A host of poets, philosophers and kings followed, who seriously thought and worked for the cause of peace. In the western hemisphere, the history of though took a new turn through the introduction of reason by Plato who insisted that all of God's creation, including man was created for the best.

Things, however, changed during the middle ages. Thomas Hobbes said that man was basically asocial and hedonistic interested in pursuing his own ends. William Harvey went a step further and declared the human body to be a machine. Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, even doubted the existence of his own body. By the end of the 19th century the circle was completed when Nietzsche pronounced that God was dead. Meanwhile, the challenge of peace remained.

In his book, The Dynamics of Culture, Prof Pitirim Sorokin writes that in the past 800 years, most of the world's countries had involved in warfare 50 percent of the time. Fighting, according to him, seems so natural to the human temperament that no amount of Education can cure this universal malady.

History vindicates him. About 700,000 years ago, man's brain doubled in size; he left his hunting gathering days behind him, tilled the land and started living in villages and towns. Religion and culture came, and yet aggression survives in us till today. If peace had been a characteristic of the educated mind, the so-called cultured races of our time would not have produced men like Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.

"Happiness," said Freud, "is no cultural value." In a letter to Einstein he wrote: "Conflict of interests among mankind is in the main usually decided by the use of force. This is true of the whole animal kingdom from which mankind should not be excluded." Freud's analysis seems apt, in the sense that people normally believe in bellum ominum contra omens (every body is against everybody). Since the basis of survival is struggle, it is not stranger that people fight for existence. But what is strange is that even after attaining the maximum possible security, people still cannot live peacefully.

Dynamic psychology deals with this problem from the individual's point of view. Competition, diffidence and personal glory are what make men aggressive or violent, apart from the innate destructive tendency in man. Social factors include power politics, morality and the tremendous technological progress the world has made in this century.

Due to man's extended hearing and vision, the world has shrunk. The geographic isolation of countries is no longer a guarantee against war. Men, though they refuse to be treated as objects, are made to believe by politicians that war is indispensable. According to Prof Griffith, author of The Coming Crisis of Western Society, the art of politicos is to persuade people that they make decisions while ensuring that they do not.

Technology enhances this illusion further. Mass media has rendered every human situation so absurd and abstract that a civilian can never sense the real horror of war. Reading the news from Bosnia next to an advertisement, or watching the Gulf war reports sandwiched between TV commercials, it is hard to believe that the people being killed are made of flesh and bone. People's senses have been dulled by the surfeit of violence, crime and bombings on screen. Technology has sanitized war.

The question of whether an action is intrinsically right is increasingly superseded by the effort to appraise its consequences. Having known this, French sociologist Emile Durkheim opposed the idea of technological progress unless morality grows too. In a society based on the supply and demand principle, goodness, love and kindness are social products like any other commodity, the excess of which might reduce their value. Similarly, the production of arms in an industrialized society cannot be stopped, particularly because it supports a complex system of economy and international trade.

Military expenditure gives a sense of pride to a nation and its people. Cutting down on military personnel would give a further push to rising unemployment. Them in order to maintain the soldiers motivation levels, the state needs to create a fear psychosis or resorts to jingoism. Psychologically it creates a market for perverse morality that cannot be replaced by a dull slogan for peace. War glorifies both, the civilian as well as the infantrymen.

Power politics damages the cause of peace, within a nation or among nations. White lies are glorified in the name of diplomacy. In our times most of the decisions, especially crucial ones, are taken by a group of people. Groupthink is a stultifying dull and tedious job. During World War II the idea of attacking Moscow did not generate from Hitler's mind alone. In the case of Bangladesh, it is yet to be known how many people advised Yahya Khan to suppress the rebelling masses at gunpoint.

The paradox of groupthink is that the individual seldom suffers from a sense of guilt. In spite of the risks and massive killings involved, members of the group feel that they are moving in the right direction. Even John Kennedy could not avoid the mishap when the CIA strategy for the Bay of Pigs was being discussed. The war in Vietnam is another example of group stupidity.

Ideals are either forgotten or put on the backburner, for the private use of the individual. Only functionalism dominates the scene.

Einstein in his reply to Freud had pinned his hope on some international league or legal body that would prevent the tragedy of war in future. But we know how ineffective the United Nations has become.

Now, since faith has been replaced by reason, religion by politics, conscience by military strategy, personal courage by mechanical adventure, God by party boss and the individual by group-stupidity, we had better focus our fight against these usurpers.

Postive Thinking

It is a known fact that life is what you think it should be. So, for a positive life and thought improvement, it is imperative that you start thinking in a positive manner. And this is easier done than said.

POSITIVE THINKING not a new concept, but in recent decades it has been increasingly gaining currency among the global populace. There is almost a consensus on the value of consciously cultivating positive thinking for individual Health,Happiness, and Success

A friend is undergoing surgery as I write this, but she chose not to let any of us know about it. When the news inadvertently reached a mutual friend who called her to commiserate, she was not enthusiastic. She agreed to disclose it only on the condition that we do not call her. She wanted some peace and quiet, she said. This might seem an attempt to bury her head in the sand. But I know my friend's quiet courage and self-awareness too much to suspect this to be the motive. I figure that she wants to spare herself the concern, anxiety and false bonhomie all of us are bound to express. No matter how well meaning, such gestures are invariably fuelled by fear and dread, emotions that she could well do without.
It made me think of the negativity we load our lives with and how counter-productive it is. Take the US-Taliban confrontation. Whether we feel anger at the Americans or at Osama bin Laden, or sorrow at the meaningless deaths, first of the Americans and now of the helpless Afghans, we flood the situation with negativity. What is needed instead is a dispassionate acceptance of the situation and a single-minded intention to resolve it. The single-mindedness is the key. So one-pointed should our attention be that negativity simply has no place in the scheme of things.

This state of positivity without an opposite is potent. Free of negating doubts or fears, one's attention focuses unwaveringly on the subject of our intention, knowing fully well that what we intend will happen. In my friend's case, for instance, where I would once be consumed by fear and call out to God in my helplessness, this state of positivity would indicate a steadfast intention for her healing. It may be accompanied by a prayer, but importantly, no longer in helplessness but with the calm self-possession of love. God shifts into the role of a helper and beloved friend rather than the omnipotent power He was earlier.

Surely this is the ground of all creation? The Upanishads reiterate that the Realized One can manifest anything he desires, simply by intending it. They also assert that this power of instant manifestation can only arise in one who has learnt to control his senses, overcome desire, fear and anger.

What is it like, this state of positivity? What kind of life would we lead when immersed in it? I think it is a state of concentrated energy, for we will be freed of all the negative thoughts that steal away our energy and dissipate our focus. It will be a quiet and still state of mind, with no conflict, for the latter is the direct result of negative thoughts. It would be a peaceful and happy state of mind, regardless of circumstances. Most of all, it would be a highly effective state of the mind, for it would zero in on what needs to be done and do it. It would also be a tremendous force for good.

No matter how hopeless or terrible the situation, the positive spirit will prevail, seeing the opportunities inherent in the situation and providing a beacon of hope for others around it. Serenely oblivious to the negative, it does not occur to him/her to falter or doubt, forging ahead regardless, confident in the ultimate good of things.

The corollary is that the positive individual is also a black hole for the negativity around him. In his presence, the negativity dissolves and dissipates, never to appear again.

How is it that negativity simply cannot touch such an individual? One could say that his energy is at a higher frequency than that of negativity, thereby shielding him from its influence. At the level of deconditioning, s/he would have bored through all that came between him and his blissful inner core. In other words, she would have transcended desire and freed herself of fear and anger.
What is the relationship such an individual has between her intention and surrender to God's will? What if God does not want the peaceful resolution of the Afghan situation? I can only hazard a guess. The positivist operates from the stand that man proposes, God disposes. We never stop thinking positive, but we leave the outcome strictly in the hand of God, retaining with ourselves only the ability to see the positive in any outcome.

Individual Values

Alternative EducationIndividual values are our private principles, the result of individual personality and individual experiences. Parents, teachers and one's peer group shape individual values. Personal values determine the differing reactions of people to similar events. A crisis may dim one person's enthusiasm and land him in depression, while another may be propelled into greater action.

Individual values are reflected in individual goals, vows, relationships, commitments and personal preferences. These are often colored by memories of the past and therefore there are differences in the meaning attributed to a common experience. To one person children denote happiness and strength, to another they may denote bondage. Individual values are malleable, often contained in a time and memory warp. They can transform themselves into universal values when you practise awareness and living in the moment.

After clarifying our values, we must determine which of the three are most meaningful for us after considering the relative priority of each category, so that we may be able to confront these and understand our own psychological and social conditioning.

Beyond our ego and identity that dictates what we know, think, feel and how we act lies the universal identity. Dissonance between ego and identity can create anxiety and alienation but acting upon universal values will not, for here it is authentic action emanating from an authentic Self. Universal values are at the top of the list. The others have their place but it is through universal values that we experience a sense of oneness with the human race.

Universal values must be our foundation if we are to enjoy a rich, profound and fulfilling life. Our personal and cultural biases limit and distort our perception of the universal wonder that is life. Even as the hands of a clock are powered from the center that remains ever still, so the universal values remain ever at the center of human life, no matter where the hands of time are pointing—past, present or future.

Cultural Values

Alternative EducationCultural values are the social values of the day. They are specific to time and place and can be used just as much as misused. These values are concerned with right and wrong, good and bad, customs and behavior. They are meant to maintain social order.

Cultural values are speculative and there is nothing wrong with speculating. But it becomes wrong when speculation becomes 'truth', when opinion becomes 'fact' and when prejudice becomes the 'cause'. When cultural values are elevated to the status of universal values, there is the risk of intolerance, oppression, demagoguery, brutality and aggression. A cultural value may serve a function in a particular situation and circumstance, but in no way can it be seen as the only or the best way of doing things. A spoon can serve the function of lifting food but so can a fork, a knife, a spatula or bare fingers. A cultural value similarly has limited relevance and the fact that it serves a particular function in a given society does not imply that it is the only or best way of doing so.

When seen in this light, cultural values have the advantage of becoming a source of insight into a time and society. Creative development of ideas often emerges out of an interaction of different cultural values and an understanding and respect for differences. Much of what we find exciting and interesting has in fact come from a meeting of cultures. The Renaissance came about from a meeting of the ancient Greek and medieval European cultures. Jazz is African-European music and the American Transcendentalists studied the Indian Vedas and Upanishads. The East heavily influenced writers such as Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maugham and Carl Jung. Gandhi drew inspiration from Tolstoy, and Martin Luther King Jr. was in turn, deeply affected by Gandhi.

If all one knows is one's own culture, there is narcissism. The study of other cultures gives us a wider frame of reference. And the study of other cultures is through its sacred (poetic, mythic, religious) traditions and not only through studying history.

Cultural values are reflected in language, ethics, social hierarchy, aesthetics, education, law, economics, philosophy and social institutions of every kind.

Universal Values

Alternative Education Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgement, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it—Goethe

Universal values reveal the essence of the human condition. These arise out of the fundamental questions-Who am I? What is my essence? Who am I when I remove myself from my social and cultural environment? Is there anything in me that cannot be explained by heredity, environment and society?

It is universal values that indicate the essence of the human condition. It is through universal values that we link ourselves with humanity and the cosmos, it is through these that all barriers of time, place and ethnicity are eliminated.

These values are not manifest. They must be experienced, as one experiences a sunrise, the beauty of a flower, as one experiences joy, pleasure, bliss, awe, serenity. These values cannot be contained by words. That the Upanishads and the Bible have remained relevant today as they were centuries ago, tells us that at the core, there are some constants in human condition, that time has not changed. That we are still moved by the wonder of the Taj Mahal, the music of Mozart, the life of Hamlet, the perennial philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita speaks volumes about the mystery and timelessness of universal values.
Universal values can be experienced as life, joy, brotherhood, love, compassion, service, bliss, truth and eternity.

Values

Each one of us must identify the values we want to live by. We need to take the time to know ourselves and penetrate layers of conditioning to arrive at our true selves

Value education is education in values and education towards the inculcation of values. Implicit in this definition is the conviction that value education is a universal phenomenon intrinsic to all learning and education, whether at home or in an institution. It is not. Neither teaches us to be critical thinkers or to regard ourselves as proactive beings in relation to ourselves, our community and humanity at large. Unwittingly and through habit we accept most things handed out to us by the media, the government and the polity. Unfortunately when there is so much talk about individual capabilities and potentialities, there is so little confidence on the part of the individual about his own power to make a difference. Our educational system is of little help. We are not trained to be proactive thinkers because we are told so little of the life values that are the basis for creative thinking.

What really is education? It is not literacy, nor information. Education is a systematic attempt towards human learning. All learning is subjective and self-related. Educational activity starts with the individual—Who am I? Where am I going? Where have I come from? It is only with an understanding of the Self that we can begin to understand our relationships with others and the environment.

Knowledge should not be made remote from individual reality and irrelevant to the individual. Knowledge can never be 'learned'. Knowledge is the fruit of experience and experience is the sensation of the individual. Individual experience is an internal happening and is the function of awareness. And one of the processes of knowing ourselves, of raising our awareness, is to be able to identify and clarify our values. Education in values is essential in helping each one of us directly encounter the values that we hold, understand them completely, so that we may order our relationships to the environment that lies outside us. Once we are clear about values we shall be better able to sift and control information of the natural world, make wise choices and be creative in our mental processes.


'Know thyself' is what each of us needs to do, yet modern life moves at such a pace that we seldom take the time to examine ourselves. We become strangers to our own selves. We follow the dictates of others blindly. Why should any debate be left to a few 'experts'? Why is not critical thinking an integral part of everyday life? It must be so if we are to create a sane society.

For this to happen we must be equipped to examine our values. These are our internal guideposts. Much of the great literature of the world—from Bhagavad Gita to Socrates to Hamlet—has dwelled on value choices and moral dilemmas that are bound to occur when your values are clearly defined. Values do conflict. Making value choices is not easy, but it is this very thing we must confront and make part of our lives if we are to be truly creative human beings. Moral dilemmas are only possible for those who have strongly held principles and it is through these moral dilemmas that new and revolutionary thought processes emerge and character develops.

Value conflicts are the strongest test of character. Yet, today, moral dilemmas are considered a waste of time, a domain for 'losers'. Ultimately we declare all value assertions unscientific and relative, hence dispensable. We do not realize that value conflict is healthy, necessary and by eliminating it we are also erasing all conviction. Confucius once said: "If a man carefully cultivates values in his conduct, he may still err a little but he won't be far from the standard of truth."

It is time to clarify these values that we speak of. It is up to each one of us to determine the society we will create by deciding upon the values we will emphasize today.
But first, let us be clear about the categories of values. These are three-universal, cultural or ethnic and individual or personal values.