by me, 5th June 2014
========================
It is often said that a
week is a long time in politics, and truly yes, it is. As demonstrated by historic
mandate India gave to one party, one leader in particular, this is truer than
before. The scale of analysis, introspection and obsession with critical scrutiny
these election results received are unparalleled in recent Indian history. Only
comparisons, if they fit, can be Mandal-Kamandal debate in 1990s and lately the
anti-corruption movement and gender sensitive legislations in last two years. The
week after 16th May seems to have not only shocked the intellectual
foundations of the media, academia and intelligentsia but also have uprooted
the deep contradictions within so called ‘Secular-Progressive-Liberal’
establishments across the country. Some are trying to stick to age old
political ideologies of sycophancy, some to ‘hippocratic’ salesmanship of
secularism and some to ‘lip-service’ of inclusive diversity of a country which
never allows the dictum of dogma, division and duplicity.
My week followed by
election results gave me few insights about the issues which not only unshackled
my imagination but also gave me a window of opportunity for making sense of the
things in coming times. On a summer full of heat waves, I happen to travel to
sea-faced temple of meditation in Mumbai. Temple, not in a religious sense, but
surely in a spiritual-meditative sense. This is a grateful tribute returned by
Satynarayan Goenka to his Gurus from Myanmar for gifting India the art and
knowledge of Vipassana. His guru was Saya Gyi U Ba Khin, who
recently for decades pursued the knowledge of Vipassana and distributed the
same to thousands of followers through international Vipassana Meditation Centres
established in Myanmar. Saya Gyi predicted that next revival of Dhamma will be
from India and one Indian will be responsible for carrying out massive
explorations and journey for spreading this knowledge to poor and ignorant
without any greed, without religious bias and without any materialistic motive.
This person was Satyanarayan Goenka. In the darkness of history, this art and
science of life-meditation was lost in the corridors of ignorance. So, I was
fortunate to embark on this short journey. So short in distance, but so long in
meaning, investigation and acquiring the wisdom that I still don’t consider
myself worthy for the reward of that journey, let alone the claim that I
understood the whole import of that philosophy.
I
reached Global Vipassana Pagoda in search of questions and not for answers.
Questions, which can destroy me, questions that can recreate me. Questions that
can shake my foundations, questions that can construct vision of my life.
Questions that can heal my vitiated mind, questions which can sharpen my
intellect and argument. Questions which can awaken me from my slumber—which in
its extreme insensitivity have insulted many virtues and in effect---bypassed
many struggles, many voices, many movements throughout the life I lived or
claimed to live upon to. Many times we search for answers where our questions
are wrongly placed, inspired by narrow vision and shaped by parochial dreams. So,
I was in search of questions which should propel my life forward through which
I can travel and struggle, fight and die while finding answers to them. Why,
how, when all the biggest challenges destroy me and appeal me with its cruel
charm that hello, show your pain and stand up again; so that I can say
with pride, “Yes, I am ready to take on my Conqueror” and let me feel the pain,
poverty and pity in myself while watching through the eyes of aggressor. While
I concentrate and focus my gaze to the undisturbed pose of the hegemonic time
in front of me, I say to it: “you may be infinite, but I am finitely minuscule,
deep down to my existence and mind well; my impatience, my greed, my insensitivity,
my utter contempt for public service are also finite---will be destroyed by
presence of infinite failures, agony of shameful defeats and all pervasive fall
of my character time and again. So, come on you infinite, I finite, is ready to
face you. So, come on!!!”
I
have been to Vipassana dhyan once in my early university days. While I did not
formally enrolled again in due course of last few years; I continue to meditate
on my own what I consider the one of the greatest gifts I have received in my
mortal life. But I never viewed it from the point of view of “Liberating Force”
for ignorant, poor and marginalized. As I reached the place, beyond sea of
Gorai, near Assel World; people started coming in slowly but steadily.
Initially, there were clear herds were going to entertainment park near Pagoda.
As sun started climbing, the number of groups and people started ascending. I
underestimated the magnetic potential of the place. It had more people on
weekdays than normally what one tourist place attracts on weekends, bookshop
owner told me during my visit.
The
way people have received it is astounding. Even though, it is not a typical
religious place and does not support the traditional rituals of religion; this
place has emerged as one of the few places in India which can advocate social-political
reform, quest of knowledge-scientific attitude, virtues of social commitment
and community service, dedication to questioning attitude and readiness to
bulldoze the burden of faith and its claim that surrender to god, together all
potentially can give us the calm, peace and solutions. Instead, this
Pagoda—epitome of self criticism and tower of service towards self-society through
wisdom, compassion and inclusiveness—has
emerged as a symbol of not only peace amongst different religions, in its
essential goal of “establishing supremacy of humanism”; but also has projected
the vision of “Equanimity”. This
equanimity, as epitomized in the preaching of Gautam Buddha in the form of
Dhamma. Buddha never claimed to have founded the religion. Even some kind of consolidation
of culture being lived by people, who follow Buddhism, is being formalized over
the years; it was never visualized by Buddha as a ritualistic religion which
can satisfy our cravings for compensating piousness with rewards, both material
and spiritual.
Vipassana,
was essence of Buddhism; historically. During the course of time, when Buddhism
lost the path and also the wisdom of the meditation, it started dwindling. Art
of Viapassana was scientific way of aligning our life with rational principles
of nature and thus immerse ourselves in consistent self-reflection about the
changes in ourselves and around us. These changes—sometimes pleasant and many
times unpleasant—always disturb our composure---makes us happy in pleasant
times and sad in sorrow times. Vipassana through meditation with an equanmious mind
glorifies the vulnerability of life but also illuminates the massive potential
of Sthitpradnya; uncollapsable silent-steady-solid attentive power of mind
in any situation---and thus escorts us through the corridors of
mind-body-brain triangle. From there, it leaves our hand thus we are on our own
to explore, investigate and rediscover our lost control, our disappeared conscience,
our languishing-perishing-corroding selfishness and we thus slowly arrive at
the gates of comradeship, friendship, entrepreneurship of values.
This
entrepreneurship does not talk of wealth creation but discusses long lasting
virtues, values and assets. The relations we make with people all our lives
have unique potential to solve the problems around us. But we alienate many and
get obsessed with remaining. The emotions, rather than being strengths become self
inflicting swords and further our self-character becomes obstacle rather than
engine of dissent. Our personality becomes symbol of greed instead of energetic
commitment to welfare. Our life gets reflected as a stagnant supporter of slavery
to power rather than transformer of lives suffering from poverty of arguments,
hunger of food and vacuum of knowledge.
So,
this Dhamma which is eternally simple in its purely natural form has been
essential representation of Buddhist way of life i.e. Buddhism. This Pagoda is not only a memorial of
what Myanmaar did to preserve this heritage and knowledge of Vipassna but also putting
Life of Buddha in right perspective in today’s times of intolerance, greed and technologically
pervert times when we refuse to talk to each other and rather satisfied in gadgets
while being insular from pain in front of us. This is a memorial to people who
stood for human rights, who fought for equality and who lived and died for freedom
from slavery, from ignorance and from caste system, from class system, from political
system of prejudice-bias. This is a symbol of perseverance of people who stay calm
in the events of crisis, in the agony of oppression and during the times of
deprivation. This is homage to Bikshus and Bikshunees who stood for justice and
progress during the times of conservative onslaught of religion. This is a
structure which is a salute to the exploration of people who wanted to
understand what exists inside life, what happens during life and why is it so. This
is not about life beyond death; heaven and hell. This is about understanding why
we create multiple worlds for same people, divergent dreams for fellow
compatriots and divisive ideology for harmonious life---existing for all,
nurturing all and shaping us all—together, in tough times, in simple times.
While
going through the biography of Buddha, while listening to the story of how this
Pagoda was created and while watching what different aspects of Vipassana
Buddha preached, it was clear that this is a way forward in life---not to pray,
but to act and spread the message of self-discovery, service and sacrifice
through exploration, introspection and debate.
That’s
the feeling I got when I traveled a small journey but completed a longer
process of reaching myself through Pagoda, Vipassana and Buddha.
====================================================================
rahul mane, (09654093359, creativityindian@gmail.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
