THE MEDITATION HOAX

 

 

Don't all of us – even if only occasionally – succumb to emotions like irritation, jealousy, sadness, and anxiety?

There are nary many of us who wouldn’t like the power to change the way things are in our life – in the world around us! We labour under the belief that it is the people in our life, the objects we own, and our interactions with them that cause negative emotions that make us unhappy. We all seek happiness. We do not earn money merely to buy the barest necessities of life.  Money, to us, is something that can buy us comforts and luxuries that can bring us 'happiness' – either now or in the future. In short, most of us conceive of 'happiness' as a dividend of external factors – possessions, relationships, and wealth – extant in our lives.

This is paradoxical because most people will agree that all the negative emotions that make us unhappy emanate from the mind. While a great deal of attention and energy is devoted to physical beauty, material wealth, and building and maintaining relationships, the mind receives the least grooming and attention.

 

Meditation exists in myriad flavours – each with its technique but all with a common underlying concept. All seek to bring the mind to a single-pointed focus – to stabilise the unstable mind. Such a stable, controlled mind can then be caused to generate controlled thought processes. The individual who was a victim of her/his moods now emerges as their controller.

 

Easier said than done!

Indeed anyone who begins to meditate quickly realises that it is difficult to keep the mind focussed on anything – a form, a name, an object, a sound, the breath – the mind seems to slip away unnoticed, repeatedly, and frustratingly! Sitting down with the eyes closed for even 30 minutes turns out to be far more difficult than it would appear to be to someone who has never tried it. Keeping the mind focussed for even a brief period turns out to be well nigh impossible!

      Daniel Goleman in his book The Varieties Of The Meditative Experience (1977) examines twelve different types of meditative practices – including Sufism and Jewish Kabbalah. There are many more. The spectrum ranges from pop meditations involving visualization or meditation music to intense and serious practices like Vipassana and Kundalini Yoga which need years of sustained effort. Visualisation meditation, meditation music, and other techniques that are available on online platforms like YouTube and Spotify have undeniable benefits. They can reduce stress levels. They bestow a certain sense of peace and calm. They do not demand a great investment of time nor a high level of commitment and can be practised almost anywhere and at any time. And yet, these rarely make any deep impact on one's mind. The calmness and positivity felt barely outlast the period of the meditation practice. The mind stays uncured of its deeper malaises.

 

It is intuitive for human beings to expect great rewards at the end of great efforts. The few who do attempt to get into intense meditation practices - especially those of South-East Asian origins like Vishuddimagga, Kundalini Yoga, or Vipassana - sometimes do so in expectation of states of transcendental bliss, rapture, ethereal experiences, or special powers. A persistent meditator may indeed experience any or all of these as the practice progresses. Yet, it would be a serious mistake to consider these extraordinary experiences as the goal of meditation. It is these experiences that make up the meditation hoax.  They amplify the craving for pleasurable experiences leading to discontentment

 

The state of the meditator who loses himself in the enjoyment of the extraordinary experiences has been symbolically expressed in the mythological story of Sage Vishwamitra who gives up his penance distracted by the charms of the celestial nymph Menaka. The perception of these experiences as 'good' is something that the meditator needs to overcome if he has to arrive at the goal of developing lasting equanimity that gives peace.

Meditation is a hoax if one expects it to bring anything extraordinary. If anything, it should make one content with being ordinary and should rid one of the craving to be extraordinary!

Gulbar

 That evening, Gulbar Choudhary stood firmly in my way in the foyer of the unit officers’ mess. The expression on his face carried an expression of apology tinged with mild amusement. Yet there was no malice.

As the senior steward of the officers’ mess, Gulbar was the oldest member of the officers' mess staff. Gulbar, Hailing from Bihar, he had mastered Nepali, the language that was the very essence of the Gorkha regiments.  He possessed an unrivalled knowledge of the history of each piece of silver that adorned the anteroom and was an authority on the enigmatic realm of 'mess etiquettes’. Three young officers resided in the single officers’ quarters -  an annexe to the officers’ mess - at that time, of which I, the juniormost held the rank of second lieutenant.

 

“Maaf garnuhos sahab" he gently chided, his voice dripping with Nepali finesse, "tara hazurle afsar meys ko lagi uchit dress lagaunu bhayeko chhaina”. My proficiency in the Nepali language deserved no more than a ‘beginner’ rating at the time. Nonetheless, but I picked up the operative words ‘afsar meys’(officers’ mess), ‘uchit’(correct), ‘dreys' (dress), and ‘chhaina’ (not).  My attire - a t-shirt, shorts, and slippers hardly befitted officers' mess etiquette. Entering the mess dressed like that would have been a sacrilegous act, second, only to appearing on parade unshaven! Had any one of the senior officers been present, I would have never dared to such a venture. As it happened on that day, both of them were away, leading me to believe that I held dominion over the mess for the day. I hadn’t reckoned with Gulbar Choudhary. Little had I realised that he would swiftly shatter my illusion. There he stood politely admonishing me for my dress (or undress). The portraits of past commanding officers of the unit that lined the foyer seemed to scowl down at me disapprovingly. Shame washed over me for I had committed the grave offense of violating the sanctity of the premises of the First Battalion of The Ninth Gorkha Rifles Officers' mess with my scruffy attire.

Gulbar was a master of the art of humble confidence. Many officers had come and gone and had been served by Gulbar's capable hands over the two and an half decades that he had been in the mess. I later discovered that  I need not have been unduly contrite over my misdemeanor. I was not the first officer that Gulbar had thus ‘groomed’ in mess etiquettes. Nor was I the last to be checked by him. My redemption came about when Gulbar once dared to counter the commanding officer (a virtual demi-god in an army unit). I shall now narrate this singular episode.

         It so happened once that, a dinner party was hosted by the Brigade Commander. I do not recall the exact occasion, but for some reason, the party was held at our unit officers' mess rather than at the Brigade HQ officers' mess. As the Commander and our unit commanding officer(CO) stood together chatting, Gulbar appeared with their respective drinks in crystal glasses on a silver tray. He offered the tray to the commanding officer first. The Commander was the senior officer of the two and the protocol normally would have been for him to be offered a drink first. The CO furtively gestured with his eyes to indicate as much to  Gulbar. After the Brigade Commander and the other guests had departed, Gulbar was summoned by the furious CO. The CO - who preferred Hindi to the regimental language Nepali - went all guns blazing as soon as Gulbar was in range, “Gulbar tum meri Naukri kharab kar doge kya?” (Gulbar, are you bent upon ruining my career?)” Gulbar standing to savdhan but nonetheless calm and confident, the trademark twinkle never leaving his eyes spoke, “Aapki Naukri kaun kharab kar sakta hain sahab? Aap toh CO sahab ho” (who can ruin your career sir? You are the CO). The officers watched with bated breath. Gulbar had surely gone too far this time. Yet curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of the CO’s fury. To his questioning glare Gulbar went on to expound “Sahab party brigade commander sahab le dinu bha thiyo. Hazur party ma guest hunhunthio. Guest lai pahila drink dinu parchha” (Sir, the brigade commander was hosting the party and you were his guest). Gulbar’s logic was right on the button and the CO burst out laughing. That was the quintessential Gulbar - polite, smiling, and yet outspoken.

         For all his candour, Gulbar had a soft heart. There was the occasion of my dining-in party when I had newly joined the battalion as a young wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant fresh from the Indian Military Academy. I must explain for those uninitiated in military customs that 'dining-in' is a formal welcome accorded to a newly posted officer to the officers' mess. Just as I had got dressed and was ready to leave my room, a knock sounded on my door. I found Gulbar there with a little covered bowl and the hint of a smile in his eyes. “Yo  khanuhos sahab” (Please eat this sir). In the bowl was a small blob of butter. I must have looked puzzled – as I indeed was. Was this some kind of unit tradition that I wasn’t told about? Gulbar said that the butter would slow down the effects of alcohol – which of course, did nothing to explain anything as far as I was concerned. I was a teetotaller. Running behind time and not wanting to be late, I did as he said. I gulped down the butter - more to get him out of my way than anything else. I wasn’t quite prepared for what awaited me when I arrived at the officers’ mess.

A huge silver cup with a concoction in it. This cup was over a century old and had been presented to the unit by an erstwhile British monarch in the pre-independence era.   The cup contained, I was told, a cocktail of nine alcoholic beverages – the 'nine' being significant for the Ninth Gorkha Rifles. Tradition had it that a newly-commissioned officer needed to ‘prove his mettle’ by ingesting this liquid without separating the cup from his lips. The blob of butter now made sense. Gulbar had tried to fortify me from being ‘hit’ by this halahala. Of course, it only slowed down the rate at which I got drunk that night – as I eventually did before throwing up and passing out.

Gulbar was retiring from the Army. I, like the rest of the officers in the unit, had really grown fond of him.. We invited him to cocktails at the officers’ mess. This was not as per protocol but what the heck! We wanted to do something special for him. We received him, and after he was seated, served him drinks and snacks ourselves. On that day, he was a guest in the officers’ mess where he had served for years. His eyes were moist – as our hearts were heavy.

 

The officers' mess would miss its mascot!