Mind Full to Mindful

by Om Swami

  Distraught, she went to the police station and reported the matter.

  ‘Give us a description of your bag, Madame,’ the policeman said, ‘and some indication of its contents.’

  ‘It is an old black handbag. The zip is broken, and I have these food coupons in the inner pocket, and that’s all I have of any value in it,’ she said. ‘I need those coupons to be able to feed myself. I don’t know how I am going to eat next week because I buy my groceries with the coupons.’

  ‘Was there anything else in the bag?’

  ‘Just my ID, with my address.’

  ‘Nothing valuable in your bag then … like jewelry?’

  ‘The coupons!’ she cried. ‘I need them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t set my hopes too high, to be honest with you,’ the cop said, ‘but if anyone returns it, we’ll let you know.’

  There was no update from the police station and two days passed in distress. On the evening of the third day, just when she had lost all hope, she heard a knock on her door. She opened the door and there was no one there. Only her handbag sat waiting at her feet. Next to that was another bag, one full of groceries.

  Once inside, she opened her handbag and there was a little note in it that said, ‘I beg your pardon, Madame, I went through the contents. I did so because I wanted to see to whom it belonged so I could return it, but when I opened the bag, I saw that it only contained food coupons. I would have returned it two days earlier but I was waiting for my weekly pay today.’

  Underneath the note was some money and chocolates.

  Could anyone other than an enlightened being have done something like this? I doubt it. We all have it in us – compassion – and most of us show it whenever we are able to. The key difference between an ordinary person who shows compassion every now and then versus an enlightened being is that the latter is more mindful of every opportunity and uses these chances to make a difference to someone’s life. Random acts of kindness fill our hearts with love, they make us warm inside.

  A heart without compassion is a flower without fragrance. Compassion, however, should not be confused with charity. The act is not about giving. I take a broader view of this divine emotion. If someone speaks badly to us and we don’t reply the same way but with politely, that is also compassion. In my thirty-eight years, I have never felt the need to speak to anyone rudely. When met with harsh words, I have gone silent on many occasions but I always thought if I shouted back at them then what was the difference between the other person and I? After all, the test of mindfulness or serenity is in adversity. When you don’t speak harshly, when you don’t hurt the other person, you will naturally find peace, after a while.

  In the beginning, you would be hurt because your ego would have goaded you, telling you, ‘Hey, I should have said that, or I could have taught him a lesson, or I should have put him in his place.’ But if you just stand your ground and don’t change your behaviour based on the other person’s, you become independent. That is the path to nirvana because you have liberated yourself from the behaviour of another person as well as your own impulses. If we are forever bombarding others on account of how they are treating us, we will be caught in an eternal cycle of emotional hurt.

  Today one person is treating you badly, tomorrow someone else will mistreat you and the day after somebody else again will create problems for you. This is how the world works. People will judge you; people will tell you things that are hurtful. But throughout this, how do you want to be?

  If you truly care about excelling on the spiritual path, a complete sense of bliss or quietude in your whole being, or a sense of self-realization – none of that can happen without practising these core virtues. When we hurt others or say hurtful things to them, their depressing energy bounces back; the hurt invariably returns to us.

  When you need peace or you are trying to sleep or meditate, those conversations will play in your head and you would feel disturbed yourself. Have you ever seen a person who shouts at somebody and is very happy after doing that? He or she may be relieved because they have released that energy, but they are not happy. People who get angry and shout nearly always feel bad about it later.

  Compassion is your first line of defence against any negative emotion. By being compassionate, I am not suggesting that you become a doormat and let everybody walk over you. You can be firm, you can push back, but not by using hurtful words – not in kind. Be careful with the words you choose.

  Often, when I talk about compassion, people think of the big conflicts in their lives and their most difficult relationships. Certainly, you need to show compassion there, but I am talking also about showing compassion on a more mundane level. In your ordinary life, how do you speak with people whom you don’t know or are not as fortunate as you? Your driver, a waiter, your domestic help or anybody who is helping you or your peers or your subordinates, directly or indirectly: how do you address them? Everyone has a right to respect, and sometimes compassion is simply giving people their due respect, regardless of where they are in their lives financially, socially, intellectually, morally or spiritually.

  How do you talk to people when you address them? Do they feel respected? If I want a glass of water, I could say, ‘May I please have a glass of water?’ or I could say, ‘Give me water!’ Whatever you want to say can be said politely, and gently. You can make a request – not everything has to be an instruction. Politeness of speech is the first expression of compassion. The more compassionate you are, the easier it is to adopt and practice the second divine virtue in your lives.

  Humility

  Without humility, even a little success, name, fame, some siddhi (spiritual attainment) or some acquisition of power can get to our head very quickly.

  Humility must not be confused with politeness. Being polite does not mean we are humble. Many people show false humility, which you can see through very easily.

  Sometimes, I meet people who are ministers or hold very senior positions in the government, who arrive in cars surrounded by heavy security and gun men. They come to me and say, ‘We are just servants, Swami, just servants of the public.’ But clearly, nothing about their demeanour shows that at all; they don’t feel it internally. They enjoy the immense power their position gives them.

  Your humility has to be real – and let me assure you from my own experience that this is even more relevant for people in robes. People will offer you so much love and devotion. It is easy to let all that go to your head. I frequently go into solitude where I’m completely by myself and it gives me time to reflect on the nature of things as well as stay real.

  If you are humble, the person in front of you will undergo a subtle transformation. I have seen it happen on numerous occasions. But if you start to follow the other person’s energy or you react to the way he is talking to you or treating you, then there is no difference between you and him, anyway. You will feel equally disturbed with him as he with you.

  These virtues are a matter of personal decisions. Do I want to practice my core virtues, or do I want to be like the other person? Should a saint become a scorpion in the company of a scorpion or should a scorpion experience transformation? Maybe a scorpion will remain a scorpion, and a saint will remain a saint. Perhaps that’s for the better.

  ‘The Saint and the Scorpion’ is a story I quoted on my blog many years ago. A saint was trying to save a scorpion that was drowning in the river. The scorpion stung him once, twice, and even a third time, but the saint still saved him.

  A man watching this asked him, ‘Why did you try to save the scorpion? It stung you repeatedly. You could have just let it drown and die.’

  ‘This lowly creature is a scorpion,’ the saint replied.‘Its nature is to sting. He hasn’t changed his nature in the company of a saint, then am I, a saint, to change mine in his company?’

  You have to decide how you want to lead your life because people will always judge you.

  There was once a monk, a very carefree person. He would watch the
latest movies, drank plenty of coffee, ate eggless cakes, and he did not care much for what people thought of him. He was invited to somebody’s home, and the host was talking to him as they walked there together. On the way, the monk saw a little puddle of water and rather than going around it, he jumped across it. He was having fun.

  The host was most unimpressed.

  He thought, ‘A few minutes ago I was sure this is a great monk, full of God’s grace, and when we reached my home, I would have given him a handsome sum of money and a nice meal. But after seeing him jump that puddle, I’m having second thoughts. What kind of monk does this? I thought he was enlightened, buthere he is jumping around like a monkey. He is behaving like an ordinary person; it is clear he is not enlightened. I am not going to give him any money – I’ll just feed him.’

  A little farther along, they came across another puddle – it was an Indian road. This time, however, the monk did not jump. He just very gracefully walked around it. The host couldn’t help but ask the monk, ‘Why didn’t you jump across this too?’

  ‘Well, sir, had I jumped this one, I would have left your home with an empty stomach: you would have denied me the meal as well.’

  Humility is not a display of diplomacy. It is a sense of being where the person next to you has as much right to life and dignity as anyone else. We all deserve each other’s respect no matter what the circumstances. If you ask me, humbleness is just another name for being truthful.

  Eventually, the truth will make its way. That’s what I call real humility – you stay true to the way you are, and if people think you are no good, it’s okay, because those are not the people you need in your life. They will not stick by you. They are not whose lives you can make a difference to. If people honour you, respect you, love you and want you based on a framework they have set up in their mind, they are unlikely to be true companions on your path.

  Those who love you never need an explanation and those who don’t are not going to believe one, anyway. Those who really understand you, would just understand. They are the people who matter to you and those who don’t, no explanation you offer will be enough for them. Eventually, if you stick to the truth, it will do its job. That is the key, and that is what I call humility.

  Discipline

  In the eightfold practices, Buddha talks about having the right concentration and right mindfulness – both of which are not possible without a degree of self-discipline.

  At any point of time in our lives, there’ll be plenty that we don’t want to do. It could be because those things might be boring, difficult, etc. The truth is that the more self-discipline we have to work on boring and mundane things, the more time we’ll have to work on free and fun things.

  na dvey akuśala karma kuśale nānuajjate

  tyāgī sattva-samāvio medhāvī chinna-saśaya

  Krishna says that a true yogi, a noble monk (sannyasi) is the one who can work with a sense of detachment on both things he or she wants to do versus what he or she has to do.21

  It sounds paradoxical, but the more disciplined your life, the greater is your freedom. Indeed, discipline is freedom.

  Eat that frog first. (Please leave the visual to snakes and other reptiles.) It’s a famous saying. If you don’t gobble it down, it will sit there croaking all day. When you have a list of things to do, tackle the most obnoxious, difficult thing in the morning, and get it over with. Do your exercises or yoga in the morning and be done with it, for example.

  The rest of the day will go on beautifully if you get your most difficult task out of the way early itself. You will feel more confident and productive. Otherwise, the whole day, it’ll keep playing at the back of your head that you still have to finish that task. My personal observation is that when we postpone an essential task, it adds to our fatigue and saps our willpower.

  This sometimes happens when I write my bi-weekly blog post. I will say to myself on Friday night, ‘I’ll write it in the morning.’ When the morning comes I’m meeting people, then the afternoon comes and goes and I still haven’t written anything. At night, I tell myself, ‘Okay, I have to write a post now’, but I sit in front of a blank screen and I don’t know what to write. I say, ‘I know people are waiting for it, so I’d better write something.’I close my eyes and go through my mind’s database to see what I can write on and do so in a manner that would do justice to the reader’s time by making it a bit interesting. To write, review, upload, select the theme image of my post, re-review, schedule and review one last time, it takes me roughly eight hours. I could be resting, sleeping, or reading but I know I must write as per my promise on my blog.22

  On days when I can write it in the morning, I am so happy and relaxed throughout the day, because a major task is complete. So do the most difficult thing, the thing you want to avoid the most, finish it first in the morning.

  I find it quite effective to do all the difficult things first. Even while eating a meal, if I don’t like some items that are a part of it, I’ll eat those first. That way, I finish my meal with a nice thing that I like to eat. That’s my personal philosophy: just deal with the difficult things – don’t postpone it. And if you keep postponing the decisions in your life, saying, ‘I’ll do it later,’chances are it will blow up in your face one day. At any rate, just do what you’ve got to so you are free to focus on other things.

  Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a simple-hearted and loving saint. He was very childlike, and fond of good food, particularly semolina pudding. His wife once said to him, ‘So many people look up to you, yet you act like a child. You’re always asking, “What food you have made today? I want to eat something nice.” It seems so ordinary. Don’t do such things. Why can’t you be more graceful and act more mature in front of your devotees?’

  This is how most gurus (any many other religious figures) fool people: they pretend to be who they are not, to the public and their disciples. They would either be completely serious or keep smiling to show that life is always blissful for them, that they have risen above the challenges of the world. It is anything but true. In their own time, they can be found behaving like any other person. Gobbling down gulab jamuns, yelling at people or many other things I would rather not write here. Ramakrishna, however, was a genuine saint and so he acted normally, without putting on some impenetrable mask like most gurus. He cared not how people perceived him and remained true to himself and those who followed him.

  He had an impeccable routine of meditating on Divine Mother and performing his daily religious duties.

  Somebody confronted him once, ‘Why do you still meditate? You already had a vision of Divine Mother but still you go to the temple for prayers and perform those rituals. Why?’

  ‘Have you seen that vessel?’ Ramakrishna asked, pointing to a pot made from brass. ‘It doesn’t matter how shiny it is, if you leave it aside, it will collect stains, so you have to cleanse it every now and then. I go before Mother for the same reason. It cleanses me.’23

  No matter how average or extraordinary our minds may be, if we have the discipline and the will to persist, any realistic goal is attainable then.

  The more disciplined you are now, the more freedom you will have in the future. Remember this always. When you are learning a musical instrument, for example, the harder and more mindfully you practise in the beginning, the greater freedom you will have later to play whatever you want. And when you stick to a discipline, it allows you to feel like you have more control over your own life. If you can control your day, you can also control your life.And control of the day starts with control of the hour, control of the minute and control of the second. At least, that’s my personal view. Let me take you to the fourth and final virtue, which, when practiced, elevates you from humanity to divinity in practically no time.

  Forgiveness

  Most of us lead burdened lives because of the baggage we carry. And the only way to drop that emotional baggage is by forgiving yourself and others.

  Forgiveness, above everythi
ng else, heals us. The offender probably cares least about whether you have forgiven them. We don’t necessarily forgive to do justice or help the other person (though, it will help everyone in our orbit), because the other person has already done the harm, and may continue to do so. We forgive so that we feel light, free and happy – so we can fly.

  This reminds me of a little story. A rich, well-dressed man came to a village along with his assistant and gathered all the residents.

  ‘We need a big block of land,’ the assistant spoke on behalf of his master, ‘and we need to build a huge warehouse. We’ll pay the best price.’

  Upon further enquiry by the villagers, the man and his assistant informed them that they needed the warehouse to store a lot of monkeys and that they would pay fifty rupees for every monkey to anyone who brought them.

  Excited at this easy opportunity, the villagers began catching monkeys for them. For a share in profit, another villager let them use his warehouse until the next harvest. Soon the village ran out of monkeys. The rich man said he needed more and offered to pay 100 rupees per monkey now. The villagers went to the nearby villages and got more. They took up a huge barn from a farmer who wanted to be part of this exciting venture.

  The villagers’ thirst for the money increased substantially.

  ‘We need more!’ the rich man announced. ‘I will now pay 200 rupees per monkey!’

  The villagers ventured out to the woods and trapped as many as they could. They were told that they needed even more and that they would be paid 1000 rupees per monkey. This was more money than they could have ever imagined.

  Just then the rich man had to go to a nearby town on other urgent work and to bring more cash to buy the monkeys. He left the assistant behind in charge. The villagers told the assistant that they had already exhausted all the jungles and surrounding villages and that they just didn’t know where to source more monkeys.