Stop Living the Lives of Others!

When you watch someone crying, you also feel like crying. Even if you don't know why that person cries, the very sight of someone crying makes you feel the same way. Even if you see someone crying in a movie or a TV serial, you feel like crying. Why? A feeling is contagious. What if you see someone laughing? You feel laughing too. What if you see someone getting angry? You feel angry too. You happen to watch a sexy scene in a movie, and you feel sexy too. In short, all feelings are contagious. You see someone, and his/her feeling gets transferred to you. It is so simple as that. Every single day you see a lot of people in real life as well as through visual media. The moment you see each of them, your mind shares his/her feelings. Thus each and every day, your mind shares and carries the feelings of a lot of people in varying degrees.

This is how the human mind works, and we can't stop the mind from doing this. Actually there is no need to stop the mind from doing this. This is an amazing ability of the human mind. But the problem lies elsewhere. Along with the feelings of all the people you see, your mind also has your own feelings. Are you able to distinguish between your own feelings from the feelings of others? A lot of people are not able to do so. They often mistake the feelings of others as their own feelings.

Feelings are very important because your words and deeds are firmly based on your feelings. Your life is based on how you feel. If you can't differentiate your own feelings from those of others, you mistake their feelings to be your own, and your life will be based on their feelings. Instead of living your life based on your own feelings, you will live the life of others based on their feelings.

This is true not only about your feelings, but also about your mood, attitudes, and thoughts. All these are contagious. The people you see in your everyday life transfer their mood, attitudes and thoughts to you. If you cannot distinguish your own mood, attitudes and thoughts from those of others, you will be terribly confused, and you will have no control over your life. You will be living the life of others based on their thoughts and feelings and attitudes.   

So how do we solve this problem? We need to consciously learn to gain some control over our mind so that we can differentiate our own feelings, thoughts, attitudes and mood from those of others. This is the one basic skill that all people need to learn in order to live their life. The importance of learning this skill has been recognized in almost all the human civilizations. It occurs in almost all traditional cultures and communities though it is known in different names such as meditation, yoga, and prayer.

Traditional Christianity suggests prayer every three hours, that is seven times a day. Islam suggests prayer five times a day. Hinduism suggests prayer at least two times-- morning and evening. These religions have realized the importance of keeping the mind in control so that we can have our own thoughts and feelings, and our own life.

I am not suggesting that we need to blindly follow our traditional religions. All I am suggesting here is that we need to learn to keep our mind in control so that we may live our own life rather than the lives of others.

Read an article here on how to gain control over our mind.
 

A Guide to Yoga from a Christian Priest

Meditation, A Technique to Keep you Happy and Healthy, published by CSS Books, Tiruvalla in Kerala, India, is the sixth book from Rev. Dr. Daniel Thomas, a former professor of Religious Studies at Vanier College in Montreal, Canada, and a priest of the Indian Orthodox Church. From the kind of books that came from this author, one can see that he is someone with a universal outlook. The first one, published as early as 1964, was on Sree Narayana Guru, a Hindu saint who lived in Kerala in the last century. The next ones are: The Concept of soul, The Fundamentals of Indian Culture, Towards a Peaceful Society, and Meaningful and Fruitful Life. All these books are addressed to an audience beyond his own community. This sixth book, on meditation, has flowered out of his life-long study of Indian Philosophy as a student and as a professor and out of his own active practice of meditation.

Dr. Thomas started meditation from his college days in UC College in Alwaye in Kerala. A college-mate, a Brahmin, was his guru. Together they practiced meditation every morning in the bank of the River Periyar. Later he had the golden opportunity to meditate with Sadhu Mathai, the founder of the Christhava Ashramam in Manganam, in Kerala for a year. As a research student in CISRS in Bangalore, he had the opportunity to stay with Swami Chinmayananda in Mumbai for three weeks. He had also the opportunity to stay with Swami Nitya Chaitanya Yati at Varkalai, Kerala for a week. Later as a professor in Mount Allison University, and in Vanier College, he taught courses on Eastern Meditation. After his retirement in 2005, when he became the vicar of a parish in North Virginia, he organized a mediation class at his residence, and it met weekly for an hour. This book on Meditation has evolved from the notes he prepared in those days.

The book starts with a definition of meditation. After briefly touching on the life of the ancient civilization which gave birth to meditation, he elaborates upon the merits of this practice. In the next chapter he presents what he calls a preliminary knowledge of the nature of human mind, which is helpful for a practitioner of meditation. In the next few chapters he elaborates upon the question of how to practice meditation. After devoting a whole chapter examining the practice of meditation in the Christian religious tradition, he concludes the book with a fifty-page long commentary of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Defining Mediation, Rev. Thomas claims that medi-tation refers to the midst or the center within us. Meditation, he says, is a journey to one’s own inner soul to discover its essential divine nature. By regular practice, we attain single-mindedness. It also leads to an awareness of unity with all that exists. Meditation is a mind-training technique used in almost all the religious traditions. The fathers of Eastern Christian church used meditation as a means for theosis, which is divinization or continuous growth toward God. The western Christian tradition also used meditation as an experiential access to God. Modern western medical system promotes meditation as a means to relieve stress and depression.

At the beginning of the last century, an ancient civilization was unearthed in the Indus valley in North India. The importance given to a healthy life-style was clearly seen in the excavation. From among the artifacts unearthed were seals that depicted yogis seated in padmasana, the lotus position of yoga. With the focus on the inner soul, and with the practice of yoga, they had a life of quality.

Patanjali probably lived in India almost at the same time Jesus lived in Palestine. In his Yoga Sūtras he codified the royal or best (rāja) yoga practices, presenting these as an eight-limbed system (ashtānga). Based on the Sāmkhya school of philosophy, the focus is on the mind. Patanjali divided his Yoga Sutras into 4 chapters (pada), and each chapter has about 50 verses (sutras).

1. Samadhi Pada. Samadhi is the blissful state in which the yogi is absorbed into the One. The author describes yoga and then the nature and the means to attain samādhi. Yoga is defined as the restraint of mental modifications: "Yogaś citta-vritti-nirodhaḥ" All wandering thoughts cease, and the mind is focused on a single thought (ekāgratā).
2. Sadhana Pada. Sadhana is practice or discipline. Here the author outlines two forms of Yoga: Kriya Yoga (Action Yoga) and Ashtanga Yoga (Eightfold or Eightlimbed Yoga).   Kriya yoga, sometimes called Karma Yoga, is also expounded in the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna is encouraged by Krishna to act without attachment to the results or fruit of action and activity. It is the yoga of selfless action and service. Ashtanga Yoga describes the eight limbs that together constitute Raja Yoga. The eight "limbs" or steps are: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
3. Vibhuti Pada. Vibhuti is power or manifestation. Supra-normal powers (siddhi) are acquired by the practice of yoga. The temptation of these powers should be avoided and the attention should be fixed only on liberation.
4. Kaivalya Pada. Kaivalya stands for emancipation, liberation, and used interchangeably with moksha (liberation), which is the goal of Yoga. The nature of liberation and the reality of the transcendental self is described here.

Coming from a professor of religious studies and an active practitioner of yoga, this book is an excellent introduction to Yoga. The willingness of Dr. Thomas to learn the spiritual practice of Hinduism should be emulated. If all religious leaders have such willingness to learn from others, our world will become a better place to live.