WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. This is a journal blog, an explore-blog, a bit of this and that blog. Sharing where the mood takes me. Perhaps it will take you too.

Menoculayshunal; Life Lessons

In another place, another time, the situation that arose around the departure of Rekha may well have played out differently in my emotions. However, this took place during the most intense learning period of my life. All the academia before it was singularly different. Colleges and universities cocoon one. Despite appearances, the cocoon of an ashram actually results in a whole-life experience. I came to clearly see how general academia does, in fact, shield one from reality somewhat. How it is that some become ensconced in ivory towers. How it is that some take such deep refuge in 'intellect' as to lose touch with the wholeness, the roundness of full human experience.

The Vedanta course students, every one of us, had university backgrounds; minimum BAs/BScs, through Masters and PhDs (of those, we had one astrophysicist, two mathematicians and a philosopher). Several of us were from medical careers, several more from teaching and community working. There were nurses, scientists and IT geeks. We were all granted entry because of our intellectual ability. 

Not that alone, however. For those few (particularly of the elders among us) who wished to expound on intellectual grounds, and intellectual grounds alone, there were subtle (and occasionally less so) prods from the acharya to broaden the view... to understand that intellectualisation of experiential situations is hazardous and counterproductive. Certainly, there is a human tendency to want to know the what, where, when, how and why of things. We seek to justify and, in some - even many- cases, eradicate the emotional state that arises within us. We can be prone to using our intellectualism as a defence and, indeed, as an attack mechanism. If talking on any particular subject, we can posit ever-more convoluted arguments and 'hair-splitting' to the stage where the original point is completely lost. We seek knowledge for knowledge's sake and can lose contact with the purpose of knowledge in the first place... a tool with which to live a better life.

Another critical difference between regular university and submersive learning, such as on an ashram, is how everyday life is lived. In uni, our lives are kept, for the most part, separate from the academic part. There is study, and there is eat, sleep, play. On the ashram, the eat, sleep and play are an integrative part of the study - and the study directly informs how each of those other parts is exercised.

So, life happens, but at uni, we deal with it the way we have always dealt with it, and that can be informed by all sorts of things but most likely will arise from family practices, existing experiences and societal influences. There is definitely a societal influence on the ashram, but that influence is driven by the philosophy everyone there has surrendered pre-existing habits to adopt. It is also true that the influence is that of Indian society generally. My learning curve in that regard also grew exponentially as a result of Rekha's presence and departure. There were cogs at work of which I had no cognition! There was an aftermath sense of having been 'managed.' I hold no umbrage for that. In some respects, despite the emotional cost at the time, I am grateful that things were taken out of my hands. 

The regret I have is that, despite treading very carefully, I fell into the very trap I was attempting to prevent my co-student, Krishna-bhai, from tumbling into. I let compassion fall into passion, capital 'ell' Love became attached, little love. The result was a distraction for myself and others on the ashram. Even more, it was interfering with the natural order of things. Pariah dogs know their place. Radha's life was not necessarily improved by my taking her daughter's future in an unexpected direction, and Rekha's life ... well, who knows? It's life in the raw which, in our intensely urbanised condition now, most of us are several notches removed from and thus always tend to want to 'correct.' I was wrong. I was not in a position to keep Rekha and make the move meaningful. The result was pain for me, her and her mother. I had learned that what might, to some, look charitable, as a rescue, can in fact be damaging and interfering. 

The pain I was feeling was the ego. It had taken a blow. The rescuer had turned into the perpetrator. The intellectual progress in Vedanta is determined by how much we overcome our ego selves. Also by how much we overcome the river of thoughts that is generally referred to as the mind. Both of these are reined in by the buddhi - the intellect as the monitor. The governor is the chitta - the connection which knows our physical selves are temporary, that there is a universal part to our existence and our purpose in life is to reconnect with that. I had a lot of work to do on myself to quell the aching ego, the rushing mind centred on a little white, four-legged, wriggly critter. 

The mark was pretty indelible, though. It is not an insignificant part of why, on graduating, I refused the opportunity to take the robes for full-time induction in the Chinmaya family. However, that alone would not have prevented me. Other things arose...


12 comments:

  1. How long did it take to resolve the Rekha-Radha-Yam incident satisfactorily to yourself?

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    1. Hari OM
      ...that it has taken me ten years to tell the tale and that, too, still with struggle, might be a clue to the answer... There is guilt on behalf of the dogs for having stepped where I ought not, and there is the spiritual guilt of having known full well and still taken that route... The lesson was learned and resolved, (intellect), but the heart (ego) still throbs. Yxx

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  2. that sure was a special experience... that's interesting what you wrote about the cocoon-thing... that's true!!!

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  3. If one is there to learn, no lesson can be made out of having already achieved the required understanding of the relationship of all things ahead of attending on the studies. You should not have punished, nor still be punishing, yourself for having engaged in that lesson. xxx Mr T

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    1. Hari OM
      A considered response - though interesting you see me as self-punishing. That part was over quickly... what was difficult to do at the time was to curb that ego (swallow the pride) and that is a continuing lesson. No; but the 'processing' was delayed not just because I had to refocus on my study and practice of Vedanta, but that when I returned to the world, life took curves at a speed that required serious attention and it has only really been in the last year that I have had the kind of time necessary to come to grips with the whole ashram experience and begin to put it into context for what remains of my years... Yxx

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  4. I can see how bad came from good, at first I did not.. I do know that dogs can dive so deep into a heart that even though you know you should not you will.. and I agree that it did harm the dogs by loving them but I also know your heart does things you don't want it to do. Yours did just that. even though this was long ago, my heart hurts with/for the dogs and you... I think people who love dogs and cats are special people.

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  5. YAM your beautiful way with words gives me the feeling of being there.
    Hugs Cecilia

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  6. I would say that there are many other environments, in addition to life in an ashram, where it becomes clear that intellectual ability alone is insufficient and a much broader set of qualities are needed for one to succed as a fully rounded person. When I returned to postgraduate studies after over two decades working in the 'real world', the deficiencies of a set up where everyone thought they were always right because they'd always been top of the class and done well in exams soon became all too clear!
    I'm curious to know if you also had students at the ashram with an arts or humanities background?
    Your post also has me pondering on all the theories I've read in recent years about how wolves became domesticated - an interesting and still somewhat contested ares of research!
    Cheers, Gail.

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    1. Hari OM
      Thanks for dropping by to comment, Gail, and I hope Torridon is helping 'cocoon' some of the emptiness I know you must be feeling at the moment.

      Oh yes, there are other environments for the whole life experience - but I am talking specifically about the educational milieu. And as you clearly experienced, the western model does tend to that competition of egos - essentially the total opposite of what is expected in gurukula. I do believe I mentioned Philosophy and BAs in the post; the teachers were Geography, History and Drama as well as Maths. There were no less than three who were English Lit grads. We really were quite the mixture! Yxx

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  7. It becomes so easy to 'beat on ourselves' about past failures in our learning processes. Even in some of the teachings of Jesus, marriage is seen as a distraction from living a life for God. namaste, janice xx

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  8. Our egos can really stand in our way!

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