The essence of detachment lies in just being

Why your ‘drunken monkeys’ need taming

Enjoy the power of now!

We were at a house concert recently. Rajasthani folk singers from Barmer, who are called Manganiyars, were performing. It was a privilege to listen to them live, at such close quarters. A lady sat next to me. She kept requesting the singers to sing a song of Reshma’s (a Pakistani folk singer who was born near Bikaner, Rajasthan), particularly, the number Lambi Judaai from the film Hero (Subash Ghai, 1983, Laxmikant Pyarelal). The Manganiyars politely declined to sing the song requested by the lady saying they don’t sing film songs. But the lady kept extolling Reshma’s virtues – she started to discuss Reshma’s voice, the music of Hero and the haunting impact the Lambi Judaai song left on the listener. All this, even as the Manganiyars went on to perform more native songs from their community. The lady’s banter was very distracting for me. So I moved away from her and immersed myself in the Manganiyars’ performance. A few songs later, I tried to check on the lady. She was still singing paeans in Reshma’s praise. She was simply not present in the Manganiyars’ concert! 

I found a very important spiritual takeaway from the lady’s behavior. She is, to me, but a metaphor. She reminds us that we are all often never present in our nows. Our human mind thrives only in the past or in the future. Which is why it drags us back to the past – which is dead, which is over – or pulls us into imagining a future – that is still unborn, yet to arrive. But Life is always happening in the present moment, in the now. So, when we obey the mind, we are missing living in the moment. We are missing the beauty and magic of Life. This is what was happening to the lady – she was missing the scintillating, live performance of the Manganiyars, she was clinging on to Reshma and to Lambi Judaai – not that they are bad memories, but in the present moment, they were clearly irrelevant!

In Buddhism, the mind is referred to as the Monkey Mind. This is to emphasize the point that there is a constant churn of thoughts, most of them unsettling in nature, that is happening in the undisciplined mind. With a mind that is steeped in anger, grief, guilt, fear, anxiety, worry and such wasteful, debilitating thoughts, where is the opportunity to live in the moment? One Buddhist scripture quotes the Buddha even describing the mind thus: “The human mind is like a drunken monkey that has been stung by a bee.” This is so apt. So powerful a metaphor that I can totally relate to.

The mind is powerless in the present. So, when you are trying to relax, for instance, watching TV or a sunset, the mind will remind you of a sunset that you watched with your girlfriend. And your thoughts will go to a time in the past that is so painful because your girlfriend and you had a messy break-up. Or it will drag you into the future, to a worry about some unpaid bills and the lack of cash to meet them – which includes not being able to pay for your DTH TV connection coming due next week! When your mind wanders, it will stop being in the present. So will you. Which is why all of us are leading incomplete lives – lost in mourning about the past or worrying incessantly about the future. This is why we suffer.

I have, over time and consistent practice, learnt to tame the drunken monkeys in my mind. To expect thoughts – the drunken monkeys – not to arise in your mind is futile. As long as you are alive your mind will be churning out thoughts. Intelligent living is the ability to tame the drunken monkeys and make them powerless by staying in the present. This then is the state of no-mind. We must try to be in this state for as long as possible each day. That’s the only way to not be held hostage by the past or be fearful of the future. That is the only way to live in the now!

Stop searching for methods, start living with gratitude

The problem with searching for what isn’t there is that it takes you away from what is there!

We recently bumped into a couple who had attended one of my Talks a few months ago. The gentleman said he was very moved by our story and inspired by our ‘courage’. He suggested that we attend an Isha Yoga Program led by a prominent member of Jaggi Vasudev’s team. He felt we need to ‘put into practice a method that can attract abundance and inner peace into our Life’. Both Vaani and I politely declined his suggestion. He was a bit taken aback by our response. Noticing his discomfort, I told him that we had nothing against Jaggi Vasudev personally but we are saying no because we don’t believe that there are any methods to live Life.

The Isha philosophy has somehow never appealed to me personally. Nor has any other. In the past, people, out of sheer compassion and love for us, perhaps even concern, have recommended various approaches to us to help us ‘solve our problems’. Someone said that we must follow Buddhism, another said we must try or Pranic Healing or Reiki, my former secretary said we must embrace Christianity, a friend suggested we meet a Pir Baba at a mosque on Pycrofts Road (Chennai) who would look at eggs and tell us how to get rid of the ‘evil spirit that had gripped us’. So, the suggestions have been plenty. But we have consistently declined embracing any method, any practice.

Not that we haven’t tried anything ever. We did pujas, pariharams, went on pilgrimages to various shrines, across religions, wore rings on all fingers, fasted on specific days each week and followed several, several, methods and practices. But none worked for us – forget solutions, we didn’t even feel the peace we were desperately seeking! What I am going to say now applies to Vaani and me. There is no suggestion that anyone must agree with us or that it will work for others. After years of trying various approaches, we have realized that Life cannot be methodized. This understanding alone has worked for us. So we love it. And religion, practiced in a God-fearing, ritualistic, mindless, divisive manner, as it is done today, doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t work for us.

They say religion is for those who want to go to heaven. And spirituality is for those who have been to hell. Vaani and I have been to hell, are in hell, and are loving it here. Because if a problem-ridden Life is hell, then, no one is ever going to be living a problem-free Life. So, in a sense, we are all in hell already. Instead of loving what is, and learning to deal with it or work on changing it, we clearly don’t want to merely pine for – and suffer for – an aspirational state.

Spirituality is an inner awakening. It is understanding the divine, the godliness in you. And realizing that everything about your Life, including this lifetime is impermanent, except your divinity, or as every scripture points out, except your true Self. As Osho says, there is no God, just godliness. Or as German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche (1844~1900) asked so thought provokingly: “Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s blunders?” So, spirituality inspires us to live our temporary, soon-to-expire, human lives, intelligently, beautifully, happily. On the spiritual path there is no religion, there are no methods, no mantras, no practices. There is just an awakening; an empowering awareness that there is no logic to Life, just magic, everywhere, in every moment, in everyone!

I am reminded of Baal Shem Tov (1698~1760), the mystical Rabbi, who implored his followers to drop all rituals, all methods and all practices and simply trust Life. He used to say: “Trust Life, trust God, and whatsoever has been given to you, enjoy it! Enjoy it with such deep gratitude that every small thing matters and becomes holy, becomes sacred, becomes God.”

If you think about Life deeply you don’t have any other way to look at Life than with gratitude. This whole Life is a gift. The experiences that you have been through and are going through are unique gifts – that teach you and awaken you – too. When you realize this you will wonder why did you ever complain about Life, why did you have to struggle with and suffer in Life, instead of celebrating it!

Because you think you have to ‘solve this problem of Life’, it has come to mean a set of things that you don’t have or keep aspiring or searching for. Which is why you are looking for methods, which is why an external resource, a God, or religion, or ritual, is seen as a possible panacea. But are you at peace with your Life, are you happy, despite being religious, despite practices and rituals? To be sure, this search is futile because there is nothing, no one, to be found; there is nothing to be solved. You miss this simple truth about Life because while you are running amuck chasing what isn’t there, you never feel grateful for what is there, for what you have!

Life is happening in every moment. If you are not present in each moment you will miss the most spectacular show in, and of, your “entire lifetime”! You may define some moments of your Life as good and great and several others as plain drudgery. That’s perhaps because you don’t see the blessing in each moment. If you pause to look, every leaf looks beautiful in the sunlight, and differently beautiful in the darkness of the night, every cloud has a silver lining and everything around you, in you, is a miracle! What method do you need to see all this? What practice can help you see what is evident? How much more abundance do you need than what is and that which you don’t already recognize? When you do awaken to Life’s magic and beauty, you will stop searching for methods and start living with gratitude!

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The ROI – and ROI – on Prayer

True devotion is when you offer yourself to Life – in total surrender, willing to be led.

What is the best way to profit from prayer? I was recently asked this question. I have often thought about this too. Since we all talk of Return On Investment (ROI) on almost everything else that we invest ourselves, materially, in, why not talk of the ROI on prayer?

To be sure, I have tried several forms of prayer in my Life. Over time I concluded that chanting or performing a religious ritual was not something that gave me an immersive experience. Not to impugn those that find value in praying that way. It just didn’t work for me. Instead I found great value in conversations, that too in English, with a Higher Energy. So, when I would find some ‘me time’, I would pray to the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, the stars, Nature…and to any vision I held in my mind’s eye of this vast inscrutable cosmos. I know and believe that this Universe is powered by a Higher Energy that is far more intelligent and compassionate than all of us. So I always found myself at peace when I appealed to that Higher Energy.

Initially, as instilled in me by my father, as a way of praying at our native Bhagavathi shrine in Athipotta, in the Palakkad district of Kerala, I would simply say, “Show me the right way.” My father always used to say: “Don’t ask for anything material…just ask to be shown the right way.” As I evolved in understanding and awareness of the Higher Energy as not being something in a form, in a place, and instead learned that this Energy is a presence in each of us, around us, I simply added, “Show me the right way…you lead…I will follow.” So, I don’t necessarily go to a place of worship anymore to pray. I don’t follow rituals. And I believe religion, as it is preached and practiced today, interferes with simple, peaceful, intelligent living. I have learnt to pray to the Higher Energy I feel in me, around me, from wherever I am at a given moment.

Over the last several years when we have not known what to do in several contexts and situations, I have found this state of let go, this way of letting Life take over, incredibly peaceful. I have found that every time I surrendered to Life, I have been taken care of, provided for and hoisted up even as I have been stripped of everything material and may actually have been plunging into a dark abyss.

That’s really how, from my own personal experience, I have understood that prayer is not about a language. Nor is it about a ritual. Or about a religion. So it doesn’t matter if you recite Vishnu Sahasranamam or say namaaz five times daily or show up at a Sunday Mass or on the banks of the Ganges or at a Gurdwara. It is not about writing down Sri Rama Jayam or Sairam a million times alone. It is not about angapradakshinams (whole body, rolling-on-the-ground, perambulations of a place of worship) and observing fasts alone. It is not also about landing up to meditate for weeks at a Buddhist monastery up in the hills. Yes, you may do all of these, but if you are not immersed in your actions, if you are not emptying yourself, if you are not having an attitude of total surrender, of letting go, you will not feel peaceful within.

Devotion is what you feel when you are thirsting to learn, are humble enough to surrender, are willing to let go and are allowing yourself to be led. And, to me, true devotion is to be devoted to Life – who is the biggest teacher of them all – and therefore to living fully! I say so because I have found that Life always gives the test first and the lesson later. So every moment of this lifetime is a learning experience. When you are devoted to Life, to the experience of living fully, from moment to moment, you will find that all questions cease, and inner peace prevails. This is when you are soaked in abundance because you are in a total let go, and are nothing but grateful (which is why they say that ‘Thank You’ is the best prayer ever!) for whatever is! This is the most profitable, if you like, prayerful state ever! And the ROI, which is actually a Return On Immersion too, on this state – well, that’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?

‘Karma’ or no ‘karma’, simply take Life as it comes!

Your being good or having integrity does not necessarily mean you will not have to face Life’s upheavals.

I am often asked if karma has a role to play in our lives. Honestly I don’t know if karma works the way people believe it does. Karma is best understood as the law of action – of what goes around coming around. But I am not sure if the law works the way Hinduism and Buddhism profess it works – that it is “the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences”. Since no one I know, who has died, has ever come back to tell their tale, I prefer only taking this lifetime into view. From what I have seen, experienced and learnt, yes, what goes around often – may not always – comes  around. So, if this is karma, then it works. But if you ask me if we carry over credit and debit balances from previous births, and into future births, or states of existence, well, I have no first- hand experience. Nor do I know anyone who has one!

Then how does one explain “goodness” in Life being met with or “rewarded” with pain or tragedy? Or simply, why do “good” people have to go through Life’s trials and tribulations?

My answer to both these questions is that there’s nothing called “good” or “bad”. Who says anyone, or anything, is good or bad? It is a human point of view – this good or bad argument. It is society that sticks the label on an event or a person. Or it is a person who does it to himself or herself. If things go your way, you call the going good. If they don’t you say things are bad. But look at Life from Life’s from point view. There’s a design and the design is playing out. All the problem is arising only because we humans don’t have access to Life’s design – to the Master Plan. So, we analyze and theorize and come up with karmaand such related arguments. None of this, in the larger scheme and design of your Life, or mine, really matters. Consider it objectively. Of what use is it knowing if you are paying for actions of a previous birth or existence? Or what use is it to be forewarned that you may pay for your actions in a future existence? Seriously, such awareness and information is purposeless. What matters is, are you present in the now, in this lifetime of yours, are you living in the moment, fully?

Mohammed Thahir with his parents Picture Courtesy: The Hindu/Internet/M.Vedhan

Here’s an interesting case in point. This morning I saw a story in The Hindu of a 33-year-old man, Mohammed Thahir, who had given up his seat to an elderly couple in an unreserved compartment on a train two years ago; within minutes of his “good deed” he was pushed out of the overcrowded coach and the train ran over his legs. The doctors had to amputate both his legs. For the last two years, the man and his parents have been running from pillar to post to file an FIR and claim a compensation from the Indian Railways. To no avail. Leave alone the apathetic system we all have to fight from time to time, even if you ask a simple question – did a genuine good Samaritan gesture by Thahir deserve such a heartless treatment at Life’s hands? – there is, and can be, no rational, logical answer. The two events, in Life’s scheme of things, are unrelated: Thahir’s show of respect to an elderly couple; and Thahir being involved in a freak accident. If you leave the two instances unconnected, there will be no problem. But how can you suppress the human urge to analyze, to theorize, to bring in God, to bring in karma? Simply, isn’t it only because we connect the dots and try to over-analyze that we complicate our lives, right?. So, who’s to blame for all the confusion – us humans or Life?

I think whether there is karma or there isn’t karma, you must take Life as it comes. Let your response to what happens to you not depend on how you believe Life’s treating you. Do your bit. Face your bit. And just keep moving on.

Become the Buddha that you are born to be

Would you kill anyone? Then why would you kill an animal or bird for you to quench your hunger when there are several other options available?

The case for vegetarianism is neither a choice nor is it religious. It is an absolute necessity on the spiritual path. Just as a space vehicle needs to abandon its payloads at different stages of its journey to reach its destination orbit, so do we need to abandon our ways and methods as we grow up – not just grow old – and learn to live intelligently.

This is not about God and it is not about sinning, it is about winning in Life. The real victory in Life is about conquering ourselves. Go inward. Go find your Self within you. When you understand that there is no difference between you who abets the killing of innocent species, in a way, by being willing to consume them, and those that aid and abet the perpetrators of terror in the world, you will want to reconsider your meal preferences. Being vegetarian is not even a belief. Don’t believe anything. Just feel it. Feel the crudeness in wanting to eat something that has been killed to feed you.

What did Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts do? What happened on 26/11 in Mumbai? And in London, Greece, Indonesia and keeps happening weekly in Pakistan? Some ‘misguided’ few killed innocent living beings to feed their egos, to satiate their dogmatic beliefs that killing is religious retribution. You call them stupid. Then what are you? Feel the cruelty churn within you. Arise. Awake.

I too ate non-vegetarian food until about 11 years ago. And then one day I simply gave it all up. My trigger was my then 9-year-old daughter asking me: “Papa, why do you eat an animal?” I have since discovered that what you did so far need not burden you with guilt. What you will do now is important. When you fly international sectors, especially out of India, you often encounter a meal option called ‘Jain’. Now Jainism is an old religion. All their 24 teachers, who they call ‘thirthankaras’, were warriors and meat eaters. They killed for food. But when they became aware, through their awakening, they converted their primal energy to a deep love for all forms of creation. They even threw out God and prayer. Just as Buddhism did. As Osho, the Master, has said, “When you threw out God and prayer, what’s left of religion? I want you to understand it: the moment God and prayer are discarded, the only thing that is left is to go in. Buddha also was from the warrior caste, son of a King, trained to kill. He was not a vegetarian. But when meditation started blossoming in him, just as a by-product the vegetarian idea came into his being: you cannot kill animals for eating, you cannot destroy life. While every kind of delicious food is available, what is the need to kill living beings?” So, Jainism and Buddhism are not a religion in that sense. They are a means to an awakening. For thousands of years now, Jains and Buddhists are vegetarians. Not because they are a sect or a cult. But because they are aware.

Become aware. Know what you are doing. Go inward. Seek the cause of all creation within__within you. It is the same breath that powers your children and keeps them alive that chicken and lamb and cows and pigs and shrimp and fish__all need to stay alive. Would you want someone to take your childrens’ Life-giving source away? Then why would you want to take away the same source from other creations of Life? Drop anchor, find your Self, become the Buddha that you are born to be!

Genuine teachers are fellow voyagers – they teach you how to face Life!

When you don’t know what to do, when you feel the most vulnerable, do what gives you inner peace – as long as it won’t hold you hostage in the long run.  

When you go through crisis in Life, or when you start searching for meaning in Life, often times people or practices or movements or communities will come your way. They may have always been there – but it is only through being in a crisis that you may notice them! Just being with such people will give you immense inner peace in the face of all the chaos and turmoil around you. In fact all the anxiety and suffering within you will subside in their presence. And you will want to explore that path, the one that’s helping you anchor within, more. But people around you will warn you that such influences are ‘evil’; they will say that you have lost it or that you will be cheated or that you are headed in the wrong direction. Employ a simple rule of thumb: if you are finding greater inner peace in doing what you are doing, simply do it! I am not championing escapism – through drinking alcohol or doing drugs. I am suggesting exercising a mature, aware choice that helps you gain inner peace.

It is normally through a crisis, or from a sense of listlessness, that the search for the meaning of, and for meaning in, Life begins. This search may lead you to places of worship, to the scriptures, to spiritual Gurus, to a deep study of religion, to practices such as transcendental meditation or yoga, to communities like ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) or to self-help groups that use the scriptures or psychology-based methods and practices for healing and anchoring within. Normally, you end up trying several of these and then choose the one that works for you. And it is not necessary that your choice, your path, may the one chosen for someone else in your same situation. For instance, I know some who became a Buddhist when she wanted to get over her mid-Life career crisis and then decided she needed “no religion” to live her Life. Someone else, a Hindu, in the same situation, found great value in the teachings of Jesus Christ and embraced Christianity. Another person we know, who has a special child, is a devout follower of Swami Sathya Sai Baba. While someone else follows the teachings of Jaggi Vasudev. Each of us has a unique way of making sense of Life. And each person encounters and chooses as catalyst that someone or religion or practice that supports his or her journey the best. Yes the world is full of people who take people for a ride and try to capitalize on their vulnerability. But not all Gurus are crooks and no religion is flawed – just the way religion is practised today is questionable!

But I believe I am blessed. Because I have met only the most wonderful people in Life. Their experiences and their wisdom have contributed to my evolution in no small measure. I have understood that all the scriptures, all the religions, all the teachers and all the Gurus champion the same lesson – Live in the moment and live Life to the fullest! They may speak different languages, they may show different approaches, but the message is the same. So, there really is no problem if you use religion or if you follow a Guru to arrive at that awakening, to learn to live Life without worry and simply be!

The problem arises when you expect others to solve your problems! This is where you get waylaid. This is where the charlatans thrive and operate. This is how your vulnerability is leveraged. No one can solve another’s problems. Every problem, every crisis, every grief, every event of pain and loss has to be faced and gone through in Life. Genuine teachers are fellow voyagers – just like you and me. They have no magical powers. They will not tell you that they can solve your problems. They will only teach you how to deal with a problem. They will help you evolve and mature into a stronger person. In their company, from their teachings, through their grace, you will learn the value of letting go, the power of acceptance and the meaning of just being.

Whoever you choose to guide you, lead you, follow them or embrace such a practice only if it helps you anchor within, with inner peace. Because only when you are peaceful within that you can deal with the chaos and crisis outside!

Know your true Self. Know your God. Be free!

When you know your true Self, you will know God and you will be free!

This morning’s papers run a story saying the famous music composer Ilayaraja’s son, Yuvan Shankar Raja, has embraced Islam. It would have been good had the story merely reported a happening, an event – even though, strictly, that is avoidable! But one paper goes on to speculate if Yuvan’s father had an issue with his choice. And that, I believe, was totally uncalled for. What choices people make with regard to their Life, especially in the context of their religious leanings, is, really nobody’s business!

The story, however, got me thinking on a different plane. There’s often this confusion between religion and spirituality. Most people use these words interchangeably.

Conceptually, they may well be right. But in reality and practice the two take different approaches – albeit to the same end!

Spirituality is the flowering of internal awareness. It is deeply personal, intense and liberates the seeker. You set out on the spiritual journey – seeking God, seeking answers to many existential questions, seeking to know why pain and suffering have to be endured – but you really end up finding yourself, your true Self.

Religion attempts to deliver all of this, but fails miserably. Not because religion is bad or ineffective. In fact, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Judaism, Jainism – you name them, each of them is so beautiful. They are profound and empowering. But the champions of religion, the high priests, are devious and divisive. Promising salvation and deliverance unto an external God, they divide humanity and drive people to becoming mindlessly ritualistic. Which is why people have an issue with other peoples’ religious choices. Think about it: people don’t have an issue with what shirt you are wearing, but why do they get alarmed with the mere mention of your religious preference? All the fanaticism about finding God and trying to establish one religion as superior to another is the cause for all disharmony in the world. Religion doesn’t make your Life any better – it binds you and holds you hostage, making you “fear” God! In fact, the way it is championed and practised today, religion makes bad spaghetti out of a very good concept. The truth is, you – and I – were not born with a religious affiliation. You were born human. You have the same amount of blood – 5.5 liters, just the same as anyone else. And that blood is red in color – for everyone, irrespective of what religion they follow!

It is said that religion is for those who want to go to heaven – and spirituality is for those who have been to hell! There’s a great meaning in that seemingly light-hearted truth. Again it’s a matter of personal choice. If you want to understand Life and experience bliss, if you want freedom from suffering and you want lasting inner peace, then understand your true Self. If you want balms for your pain, if you want just a reassurance that “you will be taken care of”, if you want to “feel good” and bask in the presence of godmen and godwomen – follow the rituals that your religion’s leaders prescribe. Neither path is wrong. Neither approach is right. Ultimately, what works for you is always the best!

I simply love Swami Ramkrishna Paramahamsa’s (1836~1886) words in this context: “Even if you have faith in the 330 million Gods that you worship, and no faith in yourself, there’s no salvation for you!” This really sums it all up. Your search for meaning, be it through a pilgrimage to the world’s holiest sites, or through a simple, inward journey, will ultimately bring you to yourself! Your true Self. In knowing and understanding that Self, you encounter your God. And you will be free!

Nothing can prevent you from realizing your True Self except you

This morning’s Times of India reports that the Akal Takht, the highest temporal Sikh body, bans Sikhs from keeping the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book and the “living, active Guru” of the Sikhs, in homes that also have bar counters in them. I don’t quite see merit in such a sanction.

Sikhism, as I have known and understood, is one of the world’s youngest religions, founded only around the 15^th Century. It is not a religion that draws upon one line or school of thought. It is inspired by Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism and several others. It is also the only religion that is not built on the teachings of a single Guru, but is based on the teachings of 10 Masters, with the Guru Granth Sahib, being the final and ever-living Guru. To me, it is not even a religion – it is a beautiful confluence of various streams of wisdom. Which is why Sikhism, and the Guru Granth Sahib, are very contemporary and very relevant even today. Nanak, the founding Guru of the Sikhs, said that ultimately what __ or the only thing that __ matters is The Truth. And The Truth, he said, was unspeakable. Which is why he, and his successors, sang it. Which is why the Guru Granth Sahib is in verse, containing 1430 angs (limbs or literary sections), actually hymns, complied and composed between 1469 and 1708.

Perhaps, by virtue of their religion being so young, or maybe their upbringing is based on practical and liberal tenets, I have found Sikhs to be very fun-loving, friendly and caring. They live Life to the fullest. They are never self-obsessed and choose always to get involved, and to serve whenever they get an opportunity. They are also the only set of people on the planet who can laugh at themselves. The innumerable Sardarji jokes that we come across is strong evidence of this. No other community will be so tolerant if they were to be the butt of so much global ribbing and ridicule. So, when a stricture is passed on such a wonderful people, it does shock and surprise.

I have another personal reason and learning to share. Understanding and realizing The Truth that Nanak sang about, and that which every spiritual path will take you to, does not require abstinence. In fact, intelligent living does not demand anything from you. It only wants you to be. To live in the moment and experience the Now. This will happen, only after a person’s quest for inner peace, through pursuing material matters of the world, draws no result. Only when seeking outside is futile, does man consider seeking within. That’s when, as Nanak taught, and Sikhism preaches, the individual sees the panj chor (Five Thieves) of ego, anger, greed, attachment and lust, as distracting from being on The Path. So, in essence, each one of us has to find our ways to get on to The Path – through experience, through stumbling, through falling and through learning. No religious diktat exists nor can any direct anyone to The Path, unless, she or he really wants to be on it. Whatever dos and don’ts abound around us, are the handiwork of the mandarins that want to control, using the name of religion, and causing fear of retribution by an external God, to coerce the masses into submission.

Simply, nothing outside can distract you or prevent you from realizing your True Self – and the Godliness in you – except you! As Nanak himself has sung it so beautifully: “As fragrance abides in the flower, as reflection is within the mirror, so does the Lord abide within you. Why search for Him without?”

Attain Buddhahood – by witnessing Life

Treat everything that’s happening in Life as not happening “to” you, but around you, and you will always be at peace! This is the witness state – Buddhahood, if you like. This way you will be in a perpetual state of equanimity within you, despite whatever turmoil that is going on in your external world. Just like the way it is at the eye of a storm. The storm is raging with all fury, all around, but at its eye, in the center, there is no turmoil. Through your witness-state you too can attain this level of inner peace.

Consider this: someone insults you. And you get drawn into that drama. This leads to an ego-play. He says something. You retaliate. He hits back. And you attack again. This goes on. And on. But what if you had let that insult pass? What if, like a lotus flower, you had not let the water (the insult) stick to you? What if you had continued to live in the muck (the dirty pond in which the lotus blooms, metaphorically, the turmoil-ridden world) but chosen to rise above it, untouched, unblemished?

This is true of, and possible, in every situation. Be it a conflict or a temptation or just a Life event__like a lay-off or a death or a break-up__happening to you! This does not mean that Life is to be resisted. But  means, in fact, that it has to be experienced dispassionately. Without getting embroiled or entangled in it.

Here’s a story from Buddhism. A bunch of drunk people picked up a prostitute and stripped her naked. They wanted to rape her. But they were so drunk they fell asleep – tired and exhausted by the high alcohol content in their blood. The woman escaped from their clutches by the time they woke up. Shocked at their loss, the men began to search for her. There was only one way out of the place they were in and on that way they found the venerable Buddha meditating. They did not know who this man was, but decided to ask him about the naked woman because from where the Buddha was sitting, there’s no way anyone could have gone past without him seeing her.

“Did you see a naked woman pass by sometime ago,” asked one of the men roughly.

“You are late. You should have come 10 years ago,” replied the Buddha, smiling, calmly.

The men looked at each other. Totally shocked. Is this man mad, they wondered? One of them even asked the Buddha to explain his “weird” reply.

The Buddha explained patiently: “Well, 10 years ago, I would have been distracted by someone walking in front of me. But now I have learned not to get involved. I surely saw someone go past here. But whether it was a man or a woman, whether naked or clothed, I did not notice, because I was looking for nothing.”

Buddhahood is not something sacred or the exclusive prevail of those who get to sit under a Bodhi tree. Buddhahood awaits you and me too. If only we can learn, through continuous practice, the art of choosing to simply witness Life, without getting embroiled in it, of learning to distinguish that events happen “around” us and not “to” us!