Daily Offerings from Alokda

Equanimity is not a dispensable element but the very foundation of yoga. It is the bedrock on which all later genuine yogic development stands. First of all it liberates us from the touches of outer nature, the shock of the senses, the waves of anger and desire and grief that besiege all of us. Thus by its liberating influence it prepares a suitable and strong ground for the awakening of spiritual experiences. But its role does not end here but extends itself far even when we begin to climb the inner peaks and receive touches from the subtler domains. In the absence of equanimity the sadhaka is often carried away by the experience rather than containing it as one more useful link in his spiritual progress. He often exaggerates it or sometimes doubts it rather than studied and observing it with a calm and equal vision without prejudices or hasty jumping to conclusions. For there is always the vital in us hiding in a little corner that is enamoured of experiences for their own sake and often, most often unconsciously adds colour and flavour to what transpires within and thereby not only distorts and falsifies what was coming but also looses its true utility. Thus equanimity has a double utility, one practical in facing the painful trials and tribulations as well as the blinding and misleading pleasures of outer life. It helps us to keep our head on the shoulders in the face of contrary appearances and the crest and troughs of life. But also in our inner life it helps create a suitable field for the descent of truth and to maintain our balance in the wake of the new experiences whose origin and meaning we do not know to begin with.

In other words equanimity has two sides to it. First the passive side that receives the touches and gifts and shocks of life without an undue reaction, or better still with an enlightened and calm passivity to the Will of God for the moment in the universe. But it has a dynamic side too. It consists in the right evaluation of men and events and forces and circumstances without undue exaggerations and aberrations that arise by the interference of our personal emotions and reactions in any judgement.

Equanimity is not indifference, nor is it a courageous stoic affront. Even a philosophical outlook and vairagya do not strictly qualify for being termed as equanimity though all these can lead us towards them. But most of all one should not make the mistake of confusing an inert and unenlightened passivity born of weakness and ignorance with equanimity. Equanimity is a great power and immensely extends our mastery over life. It is born from the Knowledge of the soul, from recognizing the truth that a deep wisdom works in this world with its inscrutable ways. As we begin to grow in the knowledge of Its ways and appreciate the relative utility and place of each and every circumstance of life and see how it is leading us to the grand goal, so do we begin to grow into an enlightened equanimity that is full of wisdom and therefore also full of force. For the force of equanimity comes from a growing stillness and Peace, from the Impersonality that lets the Divine do His Will freely in us and through us as well as in the world making us His conscious and plastic instruments. Finally true equanimity caries in itself a sense of joy and surrender rather than being a labouring and painful achievement. Knowledge, Impersonality, Universality through the growing vision of God and His Working, and its resultant Peace and Joy and detachment from all that is not yet recognized as the Divine are the edifice on which equanimity rests.

Finally equanimity is not something sudden and instantaneous. Just as most true spiritual experiences this too grows as we grow in our soulfulness and Godward aspiration and sincere surrender. It gradually extends itself to other and vaster fields than that of our limited present limited zone that we now call ourselves. And as it grows it prepares and helps grow other diviner elements in us. Then we find how beautifully God’s Grace has been leading us despite ourselves, we begin to see with open eyes God’s play and His method in the world. We recognize the utility of each stumble and failure and the marvelous Grace that works even when all seems darkest. And our hearts are filled with an ever increasing gratitude and love for Him who is the very core and essence of our and the world’s existence.

One of the big challenges of modern times is to find the right balance between Discipline and Freedom. A generation or two earlier the limits of freedom and the needed discipline were defined externally by the social and cultural milieu in which one lived. But since the late nineteen sixties the old matrix of socio-religious and cultural formulas have been more or less broken down the world over. The breakdown had of course started much earlier as the social-cultural and religious forces had slowly become hardened and rigid, narrow and stifling to man’s innate urge for freedom. An inner revolt was already simmering below the surface which found expression as the two great wars in the previous century rocked humanity and the scientific-industrial revolution focused increasingly on individualism. Now the surviving relics of this past stick either in rigid fortresses full of darkness with cobwebs of unenlightened thoughts surrounding them or else remain a lip-service to decorate a crumbling building, a hypocrisy and a façade. The younger generation is bound to reject both and they are doing it everywhere.

But the urgent question is what next? The old bases have been demolished and the new is yet to be established. This is a perfect moment for confusion, aimlessness and meaninglessness to step in and fill the old gap. That is where the danger lies. We cannot bring back the old and we cannot witness with unmoved eyes as the angels may do, the demolition of the cherished ramparts. Here we believe that parents and teachers, or in one word educators have big role to play.  However in our enthusiasm to cure the malady we should be careful not to make the disease worse. That is what we end up doing when we try to enforce old belief systems and patterns of life by force. Gone are the days when children would dutifully obey the parents simply because ‘they are elders’ and ‘supposedly wiser’. Blind authority by age or relationship is gone. That has been done away with by the Age of Reason itself. For everything, the children need reason, reason to follow a rule, reason to study, reason to do this and not do that. Mere authority of a religious book or holy scripture no more works. And where it works it is even worse. For then it is read with a blind eye and not with an enlightened heart. The first thing therefore for parents and teachers is to respect the spirit of the Age which demands a thorough enquiry and not blind belief. It is an exacting process since most of us are not equipped or trained to exercise our logical and analytical faculties beyond the sphere of our work. We need to catch up with these inner faculties that we have lost largely through disuse, simply because we took things for granted or accepted them without questioning. Blind belief is to be replaced with an enlightened understanding and enforced discipline with a rational control over our impulses.

But there is more to it. Given a choice children more readily opt for freedom. They see the two, freedom and discipline as being opposed to each other. But in reality the two are complimentary if we understand rightly what freedom is and what discipline is? Freedom is not doing what we want to do? It is the ability to master and control ourselves so much so that we can be free of al external influences and be our own master. Right now we are slaves, slaves to every passing fancy and impulses of the moment, slaves of every suggestion that strikes our brain, even slaves to all that we read without giving a thought and applying ourselves. Discipline, on the other hand gives us true freedom, the mastery over ourselves and our environment. But that is not how we understand it at the moment. Discipline gives us knowledge and power which set us free. Discipline also gives us joy, a subtler and greater and enduring joy which is other than the momentary thrill of a passing pleasure.

However, Discipline, as we generally understand is something external, a forced control over ourselves, a deliberate act whereby we obey someone else because that is what we are told to do or that is what is demanded or expected of us. This is of course one facet of discipline but it does not carry us very far. Such externally driven discipline breaks down at the first opportunity. Our everyday life is full of examples of people who were very well-behaved so to say outwardly, but were discovered to be giving expression to dark impulses in private life. Such a ‘well-behaved’ exterior may be satisfying to our superficial idea of goodness but it does not carry us very far in life. Discipline, like everything else has to be a conscious choice, made in freedom, a choice of our enlightened parts imposed upon our lower instincts and impulses. The parents and teachers have failed if they have not been able to uncover and ignite this enlightened part that is hidden in everyone of us. While in the beginning the educators are the substitute of these higher parts of humanity (a tough role to play) but their role is to awaken the inner teacher that is there in every child. It is the difference between someone else showing you the light always and igniting the light within you. The former can only be a temporary substitute for the latter. And there is nothing better to do this than the silent example and the occult influence of the educators upon the child. A teacher who has mastery over oneself spontaneously helps the students to gain mastery over themselves without as much as speaking a word. A teacher or a parent, who loses control over himself, lets off easily in an outburst of anger or fit of agitation is a poor example and unknowing to himself and even with best of intentions, he infects the child with the virus of anger and revolt, agitation and restlessness. The dictum physician heal thyself applies here too as teachers and parents control thyself first!

Discipline in its truest essence is the art and science of channelizing one’s energies and efforts in a desired direction. It is an internal process and applies as much while playing football as during our studies. In fact one of best and simplest of ways for disciplining a child is to engage him in some regular and methodical physical education. He will enjoy it and through this activity he will learn the art of mastering himself. Similarly simple exercises of concentration taught in an interesting and engaging manner, possibly coupled with some simple rewards can go a long way in training the mind to channelize the energies. Simple games such as Mikado and Carrom can be very helpful. Vigorous exercises and workouts also help by throwing away accumulated energies of anger and such impulses in a healthy sublimated manner. They create an alternate and healthy means for expression and thereby diminish revolt and anger, sex and violence. To sum it up we may well say that discipline is best practiced through outdoor games rather than within the confines of a restricting classroom or through big and boring lectures.

There is also the big role of stories that shape our young and impressionable minds, especially at a younger age. A careful selection of stories, a proper story time in class and at home would be helpful provided we make a careful selection. The stories should be interestingly given and engaging, not those overtly moral ones that do not engage the child’s attention. The moral of the story should run as an undercurrent, something covert and not too explicit. As the child grows up and outgrows the fantasy world the stories should also be more realistic or better still real life events should be made a subject for open, free and frank discussion. We have a tendency to keep certain subjects as taboo and out-of-scope for discussion. But the dharma of this Age demands that we discuss everything under the sun but logically, coherently and dispassionately as an enlightened observer and not a passionate evangelist preaching one particular way of life or trying to convince and convert the student by all kinds of jumbled up and incoherent thoughts. Children see through it very soon and even if they nod a ‘yes’ at the moment simply to avoid ‘wasting’ more of their time, in their heart there is a ‘no’. In real life however, it is only what the heart has accepted and the mind has understood that brings an authentic change.

Matri devo bhava, pitra devo bhava, acarya devo bhava, be unto your mother as unto god, be unto your father as unto god, be unto your teacher as unto god. This was the word prevalent in the Indian ethos till at least a few decades back. Thus interpreted, it was a sound practical advise since if we wish to learn and receive anything worthwhile from our parents and teachers, we must treat them as we would a god. That is to say, we must look upon them as a channel and messenger of God who is made visible and nearer to us through the persona of the significant figures in our life. This was the old ideal, an ideal meant to preserve the collective wisdom of the race by transmitting it passively to the younger generation. The student, the child was supposed to receive this ‘collective wisdom’ without questioning and with reverence towards the teacher. This was meant to ensure a sound pedigree, a well-rounded life harmonious in all aspects, a life relatively free from error and extremes. Whether it succeeded in achieving its goal or not is difficult to say. But if one has to go by the records, then it did possibly create a small nucleus of a cultured humanity, an elite class, sound in habits and noble in temperament. This highly cultured and enlightened group became then a beacon light for the race, so much so that the king himself listened to them and obeyed their command. Thus was preserved a great ancient culture transmitted through passive memory and isolation of a section of humanity dedicated to this higher learning. It went as far as it could, till all came back with a great reversal and a setback.

The setback came for two possible reasons. First, the isolation of a group made them progressively ineffective in dealing with the mundane side of life that unfortunately always forms the bulk. Secondly, and more importantly, the taste of power and respect led to a certain arrogance and sort of inner complacency that sets in men when they inherit success or find fortune lying at their doorsteps. These were men of knowledge no doubt but even the highest knowledge remains theoretical unless it is able to apply itself in every possible sphere of life and action. When the hour of application came, then the contact with the rich and many-sided expression of the life impulse proved too difficult to be handed by a knowledge that one arrived at by a process of passive learning and an exclusive concentration. Finally, and most importantly, the system failed because of an inherent defect. The very same thing that helped the system preserve the collective wisdom became the cause of its slow but inevitable decline. It is the method of passive learning based on reverence and obedience to the external authority of the parent and the teacher in whom one was supposed to see God! Such a method, leads over a time to a stagnation, a blocking of the fresh springs of creativity. It leads to a gradual sinking of the life-force due either to a lack of challenge as the external authority is taken for granted, or else because one keeps applying the old solutions to new problems that Nature keeps presenting before us so as to tease us out of inertia and somnolence. Over a period of time, the old solutions, even the authentic experience fades in its spirit and becomes a convention, a formal ritual, a church or a creed. The last nail on the coffin comes when the empty throne of a receding truth is usurped by the powers of falsehood and its ignorant ministers. The ācarya and the parent, once revered and worshiped, obeyed and followed blindly, become a tyrant themselves. Their eyes are no more on some high inner Truth but on the material gains they can derive from their pupil and the child. They think low, feel low and live for lesser aims and yet, — and that’s the irony of it all, — expect the children to follow the old dictum, no more as a happy expression of an inner feeling but as an externally imposed dictate.

Therefore has the Time-Spirit broken the old sāstra, for indeed, the old rule had become a misrule. But out of its scattered pieces a new truth must be discovered, or rather the old truth seen in a New Light. This rejuvenating mantra is contained in the old formula itself. Only we have read it the other way. Matri devo bhava, Pitra devo bhava, ācarya devo bhava, is a call to the parents and teachers much more than to the students for without the one the other is an incomplete and a half truth that easily turns into falsehood. The call goes forth, ‘O! ye mother, be as a God, O! ye father, be as a God, O! ye teacher, be as a God!’ In other words, the parents and the teachers alike must know that they are mere trustees of God and their true worth lies in how far they can be a good instrument and a channel for God’s work. Now that is not an easy task, for it means literally being on the summit of one’s consciousness. It means to be full of a fundamental humility that knows how little do we really know and is therefore always keen to progress and arrive at fresh vistas and vision of knowledge. It means to have a subtle and plastic consciousness that knows how to adapt the means to the end and is not rigidly stuck in a fixed groove of a particular method. It means also a deep inner freedom and vastness that can see all things calmly and discern rightly by seeing hidden aspects and powers that move us and the relation of each to the whole. It means a total vision and not one cabined in narrow and fixed frames of customary ideas and thoughts. It means to have all the love of the Divine as mother and all the wisdom and patience of the Divine as father.

Nature is breaking these fixed frames. Through our children and our circumstances she is throwing challenges at us or rather calling us to grow up. Today’s children live in a larger inner space and invite us to join them in the sublimest of all adventures, — the adventure and the joy of a constant self-finding and self-exceeding. That is what is required now for parents and teachers as well as for the students, for the vistas of an unending progress have been opened for man and the roads to an infinite journey laid down and made ready for his tread. Those alone will help most in this process who see this godlike possibility in the child and in the man; and not only in thought and idea and feeling but in life and in action, not only in speech and words but as a living example reveal what it means to be as a God, — matri devo bhava, pitra devo bhava, ācarya devo bhava.

Dr Alok Pandey