Spiritual journey - Can we avoid the pain?
The thoughts those are being expressed on this page lingered on in my mind for a very very long time. But those were in bits and pieces. I always wanted to express them, but couldn’t get the flow right all the while. But then there are triggers that connects the pieces and the whole idea starts taking shape, a shape that can be understood by the conditioned mind. That’s what exactly happened recently.
The trigger to the thought was the following article - The Danger in Fake Positivity and Spiritual Bypassing. This prompted me to read the contents of the page further. That took me to the part where the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön was quoted as
“Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear… are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They’re like messengers that tell us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck.”Very interesting. And that’s exactly what I also thought for a very long time. That I’ve to go through all the experiences to reach the point of understanding me better, with clarity of what my purpose was, of course further to the purpose of just being in the moment. But this time I felt a little sceptic about the whole process. Not that I am anywhere even close to the great teachers with wisdom, but the understanding of being a unique individual with a unique personality and journey, gave me the liberty to let my thought process flow further and let my mind put forward the words together. And so I started typing those words as it appeared in my thought.
The catch point from Pema Chödrön ‘s quote was “exactly where we’re stuck”. I believe that that point, that state of being stuck is when we have a choice. But before I proceed further, let me try to explain my views on mental health and methods used to channelise it for a better lifestyle. A precursor to the present thoughts were documented at Watching my thoughts. It’s basically about thoughts and it’s consequences. Interestingly, all our feelings and emotions originate from thoughts. Isn’t it? And when we go a little further and understand the form thoughts take, we realise that those never had a form, a shape or existence in the way we could perceive as real. It was all imaginations, and structures that can’t exists in physical space.
Coming back to the views on mental health, it’s getting clearer to me that our mental health is the result of our conditioning. Conditioning that’s inculcated by the family that brought us up, by the school that educated us, and finally by the society that formed the social world for us. So if I can see an individual, its clear to me that the individual is nothing in real, but in physical world, he/she is a collection of the conditioning that shaped them since their birth. What is it that separates a person with good mental health from another who has a disturbed mental health? That’s the mental personality. I am not sure to what degree genes works here as I don’t have much knowledge or have done much research on it but based on my observations, by all probability it seems that our personality is majorly shaped by our thoughts which are in turn be shaped by our conditioning. So where does the methods used reach the generalised understanding of mental well-being state come in picture? I feel it’s the choice that we make from the point “exactly where we’re stuck”.
Let’s take a example of a man. Humans are social animals, and being one it want to be with others. That’s the basic conditioning. He grows up in a family where he sees his parents together, many times loving and caring each other and sometimes fighting with each other. But all through his growing up phase, he subconsciously picks up many beliefs and habits from his parents who are his first social behaviour teachers. A lot of his fundamental beliefs are shaped from them. Then he moves into a more free, less attached medium – school. And this is where he comes in contact with other set of emotions which can be extremely varied. Those may be less effective but still leaves it’s mark in his personality. The next phase is a more free’er environment like college or work place, where the ratio of bonding to freedom is really negligible. His personality has taken a concrete form by this time. And he enjoys the same as long as he is single.
Now let’s say he has a crush on a female colleague and starts getting his emotions and feelings for the other person. This is usually the time when his conditioning works on him, is in action. His basic conditioning is that of togetherness that he learned from his parents. So he starts “dreaming” his life based on the parameters of companionship. And dreams are not real, so that’s the first state of “thoughts”, which exists only at the mind level, in HIS mind. Let’s assume that he gets into the relationship with the other person. That’s when the conflicts begins to happen. The conditioning of freedom can work either ways, either he gets into the conflict of being with that person - bonding like marriage or commitment based on his childhood conditioning or be free as single that he enjoyed when he grew up. This could be from either of the partners, or for both. And that’s when emotions and feelings like love, insecurity, jealousy, envy, anger etc creeps into the mind of the individuals, sometimes conflicting with each other.
What are the physical entities and what are the mind based ones? The individuals are the physical parts. Love, expectations, lust, sense of freedom, insecurity, jealousy and anger are the mind based entities. There might be no problem with the physical entities, but there could be many interpersonal problems with the different minds of the two individuals in play at the same time. There could be massive problem with relationships when the individuals cannot differentiate between the entities in the mind and the body. Many times the mind completely controls the body to the extent that the individual cannot differentiate between the two and gets carried away in the confusion and thus create troubles for each other. End result? The relationship undergoes massive negative consequences resulting in negative karma, which means even when the two individuals are free, they are still bonded by negative karma which some day this should be settled, sometimes with more pain.
Coming back the main subject of this discussion – continuing with the text on spiritual growth by undergoing all the painful experiences. Based on the previous example, I ask myself – why? Is that the only way to grow spiritually? Or are there some other ways to settle down but still grow spiritually? In my deepest feelings pool, I feel yes. And the reason for that – treatment methods.
Treatment methods
The modern day society/medicine/science has this interesting form of addressing mental health through understanding psychological aspects of it. That’s more like addressing physical entities or forms that we can see or address. Its more like allopathic medicine that addresses the symptom. Lets take the example of the individual who has this messed up relationship which leads to depression. Even though this individual was physically healthy, the whole incident left a negative influence on him leaving him in a bad state. And what was the root cause? His thoughts. And counseling helps him manage his thoughts, make them more positive, and slowly take him out of his negative world, which he himself created in the first place. Another solution is administering heavy dosage of mind numbing drugs that eases his brain activities, sometimes giving him the window of time to slow down his thoughts and regain balance. Self medications would include drinking alcohol or smoking weed or other drugs to get away from the problem, or from thoughts that’s disturbing him. And the worst consequence of all these - addiction, yes, addiction of thoughts and addiction to the treatment. With all these consequences, some of which might be lethal, one asks if all these are worth to experience or go through? This is purely suffering and addiction to suffering. And the root cause of all these suffering? - THOUGHTS
Buddha shared the secret
What’s the alternative? Oh yeah baby, this is the best realisation of my life, and I get excited every time I think about it. Let me quote some of the wonderful statements some wise men including Buddha said.
- With our thought, we make the world
- All that we are is the result of our thoughts
- The mind is everything, What you think you become
- Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.
- Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind.
And am sure there are many more...
Depression, feeling low etc etc are the symptoms of a situation that has been building up over a period of time. And our experiences are a consequences of that. What if we can check our thoughts and thus take the control over our destiny, our experiences? What if we can “choose” our thoughts? What if we can “think” a better world for ourselves? And finally and most importantly – What if we can stop building further karma by being “thoughtless” or a state of “zero thoughts”? That state of mind is what the greatest of the great sages tried to achieve all through their lifetime and even then not all succeeded. But I am sure everyone can do their bit for themselves and achieve a balanced mental health. How - AWARENESS
AWARENESS – The watchman
This is where the state of mind comes under constant watch. It’s like keeping a check on whatever is happening inside the mind. Mind is basically a playground for little children(thoughts). Its fun to watch children play in the playground, but a check must always be kept on their safety, including the safety of the playground. Unmonitored or uncontrolled play leads to chaos most of the time and that’s what can destroy the mental health. Raising awareness leads to understanding of the mind which in turn helps in understanding the self. And slowly one realise the powers of one’s own thoughts.
Note - when we check on our thoughts, we avoid pain, but that comes at a cost and that cost is pleasure. How to raise awareness? Very simple solution – Meditation.
Meditation – A not so simple solution
Its a practice. A practice to uncondition ourselves. We have been conditioned, told to be, made to do, and asked to behave since our childhood and also we did some stupidity on our own due to our foolishness or rebellion. Everything comes back to us when we are caught off guard at many times of our life or at times when we least expect it. All these conditioning has led us to repeatedly think and think and think all the while, to the extent that now we are totally addicted to the act of thinking. A moment without thinking can sometimes scare us and may even give us a feeling of being dead. But experiencing that state can take us to a state of pure bliss. Why do you like it when you get intoxicated? Because there may not be any thoughts then, or you could choose good thoughts. And that’s the same state, but without any external agents. All using the resources available within ourselves. By all means, it looks to be like this is a better solution as compared to administering external agents like drugs, meditation or counseling. But humans have the habit of taking the easy route and so many will still take the easy solution of external agents even when they know that they’ll get dependent on it, or addicted to it. That’s where the choice comes in, again, based on thoughts. But then many call it destiny. Or is it really? Interesting subject to write more on, but that’s for some other time.
