God - an investigation - part 4 - the mystical poise

One of the puzzling ideas in religion is the process of Enlightenment. In every conceivable religious form, there has always been this deep veneration of Men and Women who have supposedly attained the heights of spiritual progress - the merging of oneself with God. They are considered to be the perfect specimens of Human kind; able to liberate themselves from the gross manifestations of matter into the elusive, misty and subtle echelons of Godhead. They have been given vested with unmitigated authenticity and authority to chart the path that mankind must travel to attain what they themselves have seen, experienced as the ultimate possible bliss in this Human existence. Their knowledge is said to be not of this world, but descends into them from a spirit that is far removed from the mundane trivialities that govern it. They are in short, christened as the apostles of Religion and torchbearers of the mission that Man has to fulfill in the scheme of things….

Ironically though, even a cursory study of these mystics, reveal that none of them, who really had something worthwhile to say, have ever claimed anything special about themselves. They have been pretty ordinary people doing ordinary things. To many of them, the very concept of God was an anathema. The single refrain of their message has been that there is nothing to attain other than what one already “is”. From the Mountains of Sinai to the Sermon on the Mount; from the dialectic heat of Shankara to the calm equilibrium of the Buddha; from the passionate eroticism of Rumi to the esoteric revelations of the kabbalah; from the steady wisdom of a Confucius to the gross irreverence of Zen masters; from the becalming presence of Ramana to the uneducated brilliance of Nisargadatta – all of them are unanimous in that there is nothing other than one’s own subjectivity that needs to held on to. Spinoza called it the “Conatus”, or the inner equilibrium or well-being of a person. Neuroscience calls it “Homeostasis”; or the ability of an organism to return to a state of inner stability. Bliss or happiness or peace is not an external acquisition to be made, but more of an internal anchoring that brings Man back to his “essence”. All of us have had those moments when we were overwhelmed by an avalanche of peace and beatitude. Sometimes, even in times of intense pain, there is this glimmer of well beingness; we touch something deep within us that is quite unnamable and under its influence nothing else seems to matter except the present moment..

Anything that pulls us away from our center of balance is not conducive to our well-being. The Human body is the perfect example for such an adjustment. Each living cell is a testimony to the infinitesimal changes and triggers that pulsate through the ecosystem of the organism to restore its wholesomeness. Neuroscientists are baffled by the sheer complexity of this intelligence that acts just about at the right time and in right measure to correct a physical imbalance, and preserve the body from disintegrating. Even so emotions are also merely symptomatic of our need to reach an inner equanimity. They act as a catharsis, a vent to bring the self to a state of equipoise. Antonio Damasio, in his masterly work “Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow and the feeling brain”, writes with an eye of a scientist on the role of emotions in evolution and its therapeutic value in helping one touch a wellness within oneself -  a heightened sense of awareness or consciousness..

Indian Mystics have a wonderful word to live a life of such inner balance. They call it “Viveka”. It is commonly understood as an attitude that distinguishes right from wrong, or good from evil. The root meaning of this Sanskrit word, however, is intelligent discrimination of events that affects the wellbeing of one self, and the ability to not focus on things that pulls one away from our sense of wholesomeness... Now, this “centering” that I have been talking about is not to be misconstrued as solid entity within us that lurks and moves within the body. It is more of a manner of speaking than anything else. Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching expresses this quite beautifully when he says:

“Thirty spokes,

  Meet in the hub,

  Where the wheel isn’t

  Is where it’s useful.

 Hollowed out,

Clay makes a pot.

Where the pot’s not

Is where it’s useful.

Cut doors and windows

To make a room.

Where the room isn’t

There’s room for you.

So the profit in the what is

Is in the use of what isn’t.’’

Human beings then, have been bestowed this capacity of being aware of this center, and act out of it. Consciousness has flowered into self-referential act in us. And all mystics, point to that self-referencing “I” which runs through the totality of our experiences, the epicenter of our inner harmony; as the bhagavad gita poetically puts it: sutre mani-gana iva – like a cluster of gems strung on a thread…

More later….

God bless...