Awareness(Self Observation) : The crux of life

We saw the movie 'Bhulbhulaiya'. Its a very nice movie; a different concept, integrated with comedy and a very scientific view over myths. Although, the sound effects through the movie were quite horrifying and created a different mood.

The best part I liked in the movie was the case study presented by the character, psychiatrist, 'Dr. Aditya Shrivastava'. Initially, everyone thought the 'haveli' was haunted by ghosts. Later, this was proved wrong by this intelligent psychiatrist in a very logical and impressive way. And this case took my attention. It may be fiction but surely seems to be quite logical with the name given to the disease 'Dissociative Identity Disorder'. Whatever the reason was in the movie for that particular patient to host the disease, and what I have learned in the 11-day Vipassna shibir at Igatpuri in Maharashtra, India, made me once again think on the universal rule of controlling your own mind. Our guru 'Sri Goenka' always says "Anything for which only our mind gets convinced is only buddhi vilas" whereas anything we experience on our own is actual learning and going ahead on the journey of 'Truth and Dharma'.

Having stayed in India for almost 25 yrs in Madhya Pradesh, I have been hearing a lot about tona-totkas/tantras and tantriks and black magic,etc. Such things as black magic are practised quite actively in and around Ujjain and other parts of India.
And people have been believing in them because of all the incidents that have taken place in the past.

Stopping such nonsense and games with nature is not in our hands but we can definitely do what is there in our hands.
The movie has definitely strengthened my views and will to meditate in order to take the control of my mind and soul into my conscious brain.

Now I really believe that whatever incidents that have been taking place under the name of black magic were only because victims didn't have control over their minds. They were not aware of what was happening to them, how they were behaving.

As guruji says our body is made up of 'Panchabhuta' : 'Jal, Prithvi, Vayu, Agni, Akasha'. These five 'bhutas' are present in the smallest part of our body, the cell. And thus, these five bhutas are responsible not only for our health but also for our behaviour. A very good experiment conveying this would be eating different types of food. And then observing our bodies. My own experience, whenever I start my day with very spicy and hot breakfast, chances are that I would be angry throught the day or, rather, slowly as the digestion begins, my anger will also start shooting up.And I may feel acidic as well.

Although, the above mentioned hard problem can be controlled only with good eating habbits, the soft problem can be tackled with a good self-observation habit. Not to forget, controlling the hard problems, in a way, help us tackle the soft issues. But finally its on our will to maximise the use of our conscious brain and observing our behaviour patterns (jal-cool, relaxed, patient, crying, etc., vayu- scared, etc., agni-anger, revenge,etc., space-void, confused, tensedetc.,prithvi-ego,etc.)

I had a very nice experience, just to illustrate, day before yesterday. My daughter, 16 months toddler, is too young to understand my grievances. Still, I really get very very upset or angry for her knowledge and experience hunger most of the times. That day, after all day's tiring chores, I was trying to make her sleep in the night. She was almost asleep when she suddenly got excited looking into my eyes. She very cutely repeated 2-3 times 'Aai', the name by which she calls me. But they didn't sound so cute at that instant, because she reached that state of 'almost asleep' after 20 minutes of hard work. And there it reached back to square one.I got very very angry. But suddenly, don't know how come, something urged my mind to rethink the reason I was getting angry for.And I realised that she just wanted to be cuddled and pampered before the good night's sleep. It was just the starting of the urge to revise all self observation lessons that i learned at the Vipassana shibir.

And to add to it, I saw the movie the next day. And it definitely has motivated me to start practising vipassana once again, out of all the odds of being a mother and a housewife. Now that the new year is arriving soon, this is going to be one of my new year resolutions and I am starting the practise from tonight itself, before going to sleep, to come out of the the long disturbing sleep I have been into; that really had been shaking my line of a balanced and controlled mind.