"You are not enlightened as long as people think you are different from them" - Taoism

UG and Kamal, Photo Courtesy: Trisha

Was there anything different or special about UG? Did he look or behave like an Enlightened Man? How was he in his day to day dealings with friends and associates?

Let me narrate this particular episode in Bombay.

That morning Kamal, our pilot friend and I set out with UG in Kamal's car. It was UG's 'constitutional' - a ride instead of a walk in the crowded metropolis.

We drove around for quite a while, visited a few places and finally turned back towards the apartment. The ride was uneventful! 

As we reached the entrance of the building where UG was put up, restless Kamal suddenly announced his new plan, “Buddy! We shall drop UG right here! UG will go back to the flat and we both will drive back for a ' dabri choy' (Tea brewed in a brass utensil on the roadside tea shop.)"

What could I say?

Kamal is a sweet guy and is at home whether it is coffee at a 7-star hotel or a tea at one of the road-side stalls. UG enjoyed his company. He would invite Kamal to his portals all over the world. Kamal visited UG in every metro across the globe from US to Australia – a record of sorts!

Coming back to the story, Kamal explained to UG that both of us would be driving out again for a cup of tea and that UG could proceed to the flat and wait for our return. This essentially meant that I hand over the key (I played the door-boy of the flat) to UG who would climb back all the stairs to his flat (it was on the fourth floor and there was no lift!) and stay there alone!

The ‘Bhakta’ (devotee) in me rebelled at the idea! What if there were visitors? Or if UG wanted something?

Before I could react, UG turned to me, "Sir give me the key! You go with Kamal and give him company! I will be there in the flat, don't bother about me!” I could not protest, I reluctantly handed over the key and submitted to his wishes. 

Kamal didn't stop there!

He enjoyed a certain intimacy with UG. He now pleaded, "UG, if you don't mind, can you please take this bag with you? I shall collect it from you afterwards!" Without even waiting for a reply, he handed his handbag to UG! UG wasted no time, picked up the bag 'matter-of-factly' and walked away from the car!

I still recall the last scene - UG pulling the backpack over his shoulders like a school boy and disappearing into the building!

For a moment I wondered whether this could have inconvenienced UG in anyway but I checked myself from telling Kamal how I felt about the whole thing! In front of me I could see two friends transacting spontaneously and naturally, devoid of any hangups whatsoever!

I can’t describe UG's affection for Kamal. Kamal was on 'command training’, incidentally, for a new plane while UG was on his death bed in Vellacrosia!

In those days, both of us were spending a lot of time together, exchanging notes on the technicalities of the new plane. Kamal couldn’t really focus on his studies, he was constantly reminiscing about UG. Every now and then he would call up Mahesh Bhatt to check on UG’s condition.

UG had even mentioned to Mahesh that Kamal would have surely made it to Vellacrosia but for the training! Kamal stayed on half heartedly to complete his training.

Soon after UG’s demise, I remember receiving Kamal at our home. He had tonsured his head.  Tonsuring is a practice prevalent in Hindu families on the demise of one’s parents!  Kamal like a filial son had shaved his head for the sake of his father-figure!

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Sage and the Housewife:

Mrs. Suguna Chandrasekhar Babu, ‘the housewife’ who served UG, ‘the sage’ for decades, recollects how UG used to accompany her & Praveen Babi , the famous Bollywood star, on various errands –buying vegetables, going to shops, visiting cinemas and public places.

While Parveen tried successfully to hide her identity and shun publicity, UG would tag along, like a commoner, jostling among the masses and blending into crowds. Suguna recollects with awe and wonder how UG had been part of their daily life  and how he merged into the common mass of people in the city. 

Dr. Narayana Moorty recollected another incident while he was UG’s guest in Switzerland along with wife Wendy and their toddler son. The couple were given a room on the upper floor. Later that evening, Dr. Moorty was really surprised and moved to see UG climbing up the staircase, carrying heavy mattresses and pillows for all of them, all the way up to the first floor!

UG remained accessible and grounded in his day to day life!

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One is reminded of a parable from the Tao land of China.

Once there lived a great sage in the high mountains of ancient China!

As a boy, he heard the ‘call’ to be with Tao! He left his home, never to look back. He went into the mountains near his village and found a great Tao Master on a high peak in the mountain. The master took care of the boy, nurtured him and guided him on the Way.

The boy survived on roots and fruits, led a life of solitude, practicing great austerity and contemplation and gradually matured into a sagely figure.

The Taoist sage had absolutely no need for society! He had turned his back on it once and for all! He spent a life of great harmony and peace. The wild animals, reptiles and birds of the mountain saw him as one of their kind, they played with him, and enjoyed his company.

And then it happened!

One fine day, he felt a sudden tug at his heart, a strong desire to revisit his native village at the foothills of the mountain. He suddenly yearned to see how his village and her people had fared in all those years since he had left his home.

He started his descent from the mountain. It took a long time before he reached the outskirts of the village.

To his surprise, he discovered that there was a lot of noise and fan-fare, a great gathering of people, a carnival was going on in the village. Make-shift tents and colourful pavilions were erected. People were enjoying festivities, the village market was busy and noisy with people buying and selling goods. Many wayside inns had opened up to feed visitors from nearby towns and villages.

Savouring the sights and sounds, the sage walked along slowly into the heart of the village. As he neared the village centre, suddenly people started rushing towards him from all sides, in great numbers. They left behind their stalls, shops and inns to get a glimpse of the sage from the mountain!

The entire village started gathering around him in utter amazement, they were awe-struck by the appearance of the Great One among them. People had heard about the boy who had turned into a sage in the distant mountain and were now overjoyed to lay their eyes on him!

Some people brought their baskets of fruit and emptied them at his feet imploring him to accept the humble gift. Others offered precious goods, yet others kowtowed to him, begging him to partake of food from their inns and stalls. The crowds surged and surrounded him on all sides and would not let him move an inch.

The sage froze in his tracks – he was stunned, overwhelmed by the simple, humble and innocent crowds all around him. After a pause, he quickly turned around and started retracing his steps back towards his hut on the distant mountain. The crowds didn’t want him to leave! They too followed him. He gathered pace, he was quick, many could not keep pace with him but others kept walking behind him!

He began to run, many could not catch up and were left behind. But there were some who were determined and they followed him all the way into the mountain. Now there were rocks everywhere, some very steep and difficult to climb but the sage knew every inch of his terrain. He effortlessly hopped, jumped and scaled the boulders in a jiffy. People couldn’t catch up any more, he managed to shrug off all of them, all save one!

This stubborn follower pursued him relentlessly! At long last, in a final bid, the follower plunged towards the sage and caught hold of his feet.

The sage chided him, "You fool! Why are you following me?”

Follower, "Master, please help me! Only you can help me to find enlightenment!"

Sage, "Fool! What makes you think I can help you? I myself am not

Enlightened!"

Follower, in disbelief and shock: "But Master! Look at the glow on your face!

You can't possibly hide it! The crowds, all those people in the village, they can’t be mistaken too! You are certainly an Enlightened Man!"

Sage:  “Yes I understand what you say, but my teacher cautioned me:

 ‘You are not really enlightened as long as people think you are different from them!’  Enlightenment, my friend, means no sense of distinction! You think that I am different from you, it goes to show that I am still not enlightened! Thanks to all of you, you made me realize that I have still a long way to go in my spiritual journey!”

That said, he doubled up his speed and silently disappeared among the steep

rocks and thickly wooded cliffs, never to be seen again!

******

“You are nothing but FEAR” – UG.

A veteran pilot and an experienced crew trainer recently recounted a traumatic experience on one of his flights. 

Sometime ago, while in cruise, someone on board raised a bomb scare! The mid-air crisis hit him hard, he explained the whole trauma that he underwent, how he fought his nerves to stay calm and in control as he finally managed to divert and safely land the plane. 

It is extraordinary how fear can wreak havoc even on a professional, experienced and trained mind.

The pilot recounted another bizarre  episode! This time he overheard the news of hospitalisation of a dear friend on the cockpit radio while he was at the controls. He had a strange premonition of his friend's death and the news left him completely shattered. His hunch proved right as he learnt soon after landing.

During the unusual landing, the Captain recalled how his co-pilot and another crew-member in the cockpit went almost hysterical, shouting over the top, asking him to stop the plane, as the plane catapulted on the runway at a terrifying clip. They were afraid that they would hit the end of the runway soon and would all perish!

The hurtling speed of a landing airplane can easily exceed 250 km an hour and this requires both ‘reverse throttles’ (a technique of applying reverse thrust on engines) and ‘pedal braking’ on wheels to stop the plane!

As the pilot in command (PIC) that day, the 'loss' of his friend had so completely shattered his nerves, he felt a total numbness in both his legs - the famous FREEZE response of the nervous system! Unable to lift his feet off the floor to apply brakes using pedals, he managed to finally stop the plane by pulling the ‘reverse-throttle levers' only using his hand!

The plane pulled to a stop just a few feet short of the runway-end!

It is a well-known and well-studied phenomenon that fears and distressing thoughts can paralyse and incapacitate people!

The built-in biological mechanisms and hard-wired neural circuitry in handling fear could respond in any one of three ways –‘FREEZE, FIGHT or FLIGHT!’

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Generally speaking, there are two kinds of fears. UG spoke of both forms of fear during many of his talks and made a few remarkable observations.

Once UG described his experience in Jnanashram near Bannerghatta National Park in Bangalore. He was invited to stay at the huge estate next to the jungle by his friend, Shivarama Sharma, popularly known as Brahmachari. UG, the guest, was offered a bed in the main hall while Brahmachari himself preferred to sleep in the veranda.

Early hours of next morning, UG was awakened by rude knocks on the door facing the backyard accompanied by loud hissing noises. He got out of the bed and opened the door to be greeted by a king cobra that had coiled up right in front of the door! Typical of UG, he says, “The cobra invited me for a walk sir!”, and thus began his famous walks with the king cobra every morning during his stay at the ashram!

For UG, the biological freak, fear ‘was thrown off’ his system during his calamity or ‘death process’ in 1967! His oft repeated advice to all was that the cobras, left to themselves, are actually peaceful creatures and they do not harm people. But when they sense odour, born of fear, they detect trouble instantly and will be the first ones to take action!

And UG observed that thought just deserts you when you are in real, physical danger! He explained: “When you are in real danger, there is no thinking, thought is not there! Thought just elopes!”

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Biological fears are born of real threats in nature and hence are handled by neural mechanisms or neural pathways hardwired in the brain and body. These built-in safety devices have evolved over millions of years.

The famous neuroscientist Joseph E. LeDoux and his colleagues at New York University conducted the research about the neural circuitry involved in fear processing. See the pic below.

The Fear Response Circuit

LeDoux concluded that ‘amygdala’, the almond-shaped structure in the brain, is the centre that processes both the ‘fear’ and ‘conditioned fear’. It then generates the FREEZE, FIGHT OR FLIGHT response by stimulating autonomic responses such as increased heart rate and blood pressure and involuntary muscle control.

Having studied fear circuits in the brain for 30 long years, in his remarkable and humble submission about the 'amygdala' research, LeDoux adds:

“The idea that the amygdala is the home of fear in the brain is just that—an idea.  It is not a scientific finding but instead a conclusion based on an interpretation of a finding.”

 (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/i-got-mind-tell-you/201508/the-amygdala-is-not-the-brains-fear-center)

According to LeDoux, once the snake is seen by the eye and the signal is decoded by the visual thalamus, the signal takes two distinct routes to reach the amygdala, the 'fear processor' that initiates the response.

The first route is a short one, direct pathway that takes only 12 milliseconds to reach and alert the amygdala (Box 1 in pic). Please note that the signal in the direct pathway is 'noisy', not clear or distinct! The figure depicts the shape as ‘somewhat’ like a snake, it is blurred, vague and not ‘crisp’! Nevertheless the amygdala responds instantly by kicking up the heart rate and blood pressure for the well-known FLIGHT response!

This is what the neuroscientists call the Direct Pathway or Low-Road!

Here the processing of fear is unconscious, there is no conscious thinking involved as UG pointed out and people simply take to heels! 

“People have fear they don’t understand or can’t control because it is processed by the low road,” LeDoux says.

Now about the second route.

The very same threat signal from the thalamus now continues its onward journey through to the visual cortex, the thinking mechanism, before finally reaching the amygdala giving rise to some delay.

At the visual cortex, the ‘threat’ is ‘processed’, ‘recognized’ and ‘analysed’, all part of the conscious ‘thinking’ process. Here the ‘signal’ is filtered out from the ‘noise’, as it were and the threat is clearly identified. That is, the cortex recognises the threat as cobra and a crisp and clear picture of the threat is then relayed over to the amygdala. 

This is the longer route, also  called the Indirect Pathway or High-Road (Box 2 in pic). 

This results in a 'thoughtful response' but only after the instantaneous FREEZE, FLIGHT or FLIGHT response due to the first signal!

This conscious but ‘exact processing’ of threat in the visual cortex where 'memory mapping' takes place delays the alert signal and hence it takes a longer time, about 30 to 40 milliseconds, to finally reach the amygdala well behind the first alert.

Nature has worked hard over millions of years and brilliantly put in place all the safety mechanisms and devices needed for our survival in the natural environment. It is truly an extraordinary piece of bio-engineering!

Survival is fully automatic!

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Moving away from the threats in the real jungle now to threats in the human jungle!

Whereas biological fears are associated with real threats in the natural environment, the psychological fears are associated with ‘perceived’ threats or imaginary threats in the social environment! 

By the way, social environment is only a few thousands of years old compared to the human evolution that dates back to a few million years.

Social environment is a superimposition on our natural environment, an ‘imposed reality’ – ‘the only reality is the one that is imposed on us by society’ explained UG!

As humans, we have no choice but to inherit the superimposed social environment right at the time of birth. The conditioning required for the entity to survive in the human jungle perhaps occurs partly through genetics and partly through socio-cultural influences. This happens through the agency of parents, teachers and friends over the formative years.

Being social entities, humans suffer far more than animals from fears that are imaginary, psychological, fears born of thought or thinking!

Insurance is a great testimony to our fears! Fear runs this billion-dollar industry! Pivoted on fear & uncertainty, the insurance companies make phenomenal amounts of money selling fear to people –the fear of losing health, of losing property, fear of theft, of death and so on!

Many of our fears are ‘actually and factually’  unfounded, baseless but nevertheless impact, paralyse our minds and bodies!

Pointing to our psychological predicament and fear-infested minds, UG elucidated, “You are nothing but FEAR”

Thinking and fear go hand in hand. Thought is infested with fear. Fear takes its birth in thinking.

All thinking is either about the past or the future. It is the fear about the past losses, failures, guilt that might surface or recur again or about the unknown fears regarding the future. By the way, UG emphasised that there is no such thing as the future – future is only the continuity of the past, a mere projection!

Our day to day lives are filled with anxiety, uncertainty and fear. We live in a complex, complicated, distorted, corrupt social environment. There is a tremendous demand to be prepared and be ready to handle umpteen social, psychological threats of each and every kind out there in the human jungle.

The fear of survival in this complex, treacherous world propagates thought and thinking, promotes constant chattering. We relentlessly contemplate defenses and strategies of each and every kind against the perceived threats from every nook and corner.

Let us hear what UG says about our human tragedy:

The demand to be prepared for all future actions and all situations is the cause of our problems. Every situation is so different; and our attempt to be prepared for all those situations is the one that is responsible for our not being able to deal with situations as they arise.

·         From the book, “Thought Is Your Enemy”

UG in his extraordinary observation highlights the real source of our problem, and spotlights the real issue!

Our constant thinking, continuous struggle to be always ready and ever prepared for the future is the crux of the problem. This continuous and constant preparation breeds needless, relentless thinking. This is placing a huge demand on our biological resources and is consuming phenomenal amounts of life energy.

The more we want to achieve, the more we seek, more is the need or demand for us to be prepared against competition, the anticipated threats and situations. This is the crux of many psychological problems. It guzzles up all our energy thus zapping us and leaving us helpless and weak.

By being simple (focusing more on needs than wants) and being ordinary (not trying to become someone else) we open up huge reservoirs of life energy! 

With tons of energy at our disposal, UG reiterates that we could handle any life problem or situation, even as it arises!

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