Being more spiritual makes me happy everyday. It gives me a level of control over my mind that I did not earlier have. And, it gives me a more satisfied life.
Recommended pre-read: In an earlier article, I have talked about what it means to be spiritual. The present article also builds upon some of the ideas discussed in earlier articles of this article. These articles are hyperlinked when they are mentioned.
Happiness: The natural state of being
As I progress spiritually, it becomes clear to me that the true, natural state for me to be is “spiritual”. And, not being spiritual is an anomaly. In other words, an overwhelming majority of people in this world are living an unnatural life. Let me explain. It is not natural for a person to place conditions for non-necessities, that must be met before he allows himself to be happy. It is not natural for a person to obsess over non-necessities he desires such that the desire wreaks his happiness. It is not natural for a person to be consumed by anger. It is not natural for a person to allow greed or jealously to control his actions. It is not natural for a person to pander to his ego at the expense of others’ well-being. In summary, it is not natural for bad actors of the mind[i] (desire, anger, ego, greed, jealousy etc.) to keep people in a state of anxiety, restlessness, sadness, lethargy, misery, or poor mental health.
The natural state of being of a person is to have a clean mind that is unblemished by bad actors. These bad actors are afflictions[ii] that we all start life with. So, it is normal to have them but it is not natural. This is an important distinction. We are all challenged by the same bad actors of the mind — so it is normal to struggle with them. This is a bit like being exposed to a virus. Getting an infection as a result would be normal; but living permanently with the infection is not natural (not how nature intended the body to be). The same is true, from a spiritual perspective, for these bad actors. In a spiritual state,[iii] I begin to see that having these afflictions in the mind is an unnatural state that I can overcome through spiritual effort— a bit like a treatment overcoming a virus. And I now experience stretches of time free from these bad actors. These stretches of freedom become longer and the power of these bad actors diminishes as I advance spiritually. This is why many people are drawn to activities like meditation that quieten the mind.[iv] Logically speaking, such activities do not make sense. Why would someone want to sit idle? But people feel an affinity towards a meditational state that makes them experience inner peace — temporarily devoid of bad mental-actors. Without these afflictions, the mind automatically becomes peaceful and happy. This is also the reason why ideas such as mindfulness have become popular.[v] After persistent practice, getting the mind into a meditative state becomes easy and the mind can then be wilfully cleared of bad actors.[vi]
Control over the mind
To be a slave is to not have control over one’s life. If I were a slave, my day would depend upon the mood and generosity of my master. If the master were happy, he may throw some respite my way. If he were not, I would probably suffer. It is also possible that the master was, by nature, capricious and would make my life unpredictable. I would then just be a bundle of nerves. Or, he may have been kind. But how many of us would be willing to be slaves in the faint hope of having a kind master? Not many. But we often do something similar and don’t give it a second thought: we subject ourselves to the tyranny of our volatile desires.[vii] We keep trying to do things that we believe will satisfy these desires and often find that our effort has not been very effective. We still go through life looking towards this master (desire) and find that it is very hard to please. It’s as though, he keeps asking, “What have you done to make me happy today?”. The things we did in his service in the past keep fading fast from the memory of this tyrant. In his service, I would keep pushing myself throughout the day, doing things that I hope would make this master happy. And then I would start all over again the next day. As a result, I would toil throughout in the vain hope of permanently fulfilling an entity that (by its nature) will always remain dissatisfied.
In his excellent book, Yogananda has talked about how Duryodhan, a character of the story of Mahabharat personifies desire. His cohort includes other bad actors (ego, anger, bad habits and unhelpful thought patters, motivated reasoning, greed, jealously, etc.). These dominate the king (Duryodhan’s father, a blind person who cannot get past his love of his son) in a manner similar to how bad actors dominate the working of a mind that is unable to see past its affinity for indulging them. The leading player amongst the bad actors is desire. This is the one that should be the primary target of spiritual endeavours.[viii]
A mind that is afflicted by desire needs to reduce its grip to experience spiritual happiness. A reduced influence of desire on my mind would automatically mean a stronger level of control over my mind. What would that feel like? In such a life, I would be happy regardless of what desire was springing up in my mind. My actions would not be guided by this desire. This may be a scary thought. What could be the guiding star for directing actions if not desire? Even altruistic work springs from a desire to see some results. The problem is not so much the presence of desire in the mind; it is actions being driven by desire. These actions start a chain-reaction in the mind that ties our happiness to results outside our control. As the grip of desire loosens over my mind, I have seen more actions being done because they should be done rather than because I desire something. This is a very blissful state of being. I am at peace regardless of the results. And, I am neither ignoring what I should do, nor holding my happiness hostage to any result. This is classic “living in the moment”. From time to time, the desire would cry out for attention and demand that I act in response to it. I would just use spiritual skills like TAME to transcend its calls.[ix] This same process can be used to cast away other negative emotions like anger, regret, jealously, greed, etc. The application of this technique stills my mind into a state of peace. There would be times when I would feel like a rock against which waves of change crash and recede without making any difference. My consciousness would remain firmly established between my eyebrows — as recommended by Gita[x] and as explained in the TAME meditation technique.
Life satisfaction: A worthy peak to scale
My restless mind has consistently prevented me from feeling satisfied and at peace. When my mind was more agitated (in the past), it would keep me away from being at peace. The thoughts it fostered were usually not very happy —“this was not done as well as it should have”, “you are not doing as great as you should”, “you need to be doing more”…. and so on. Transcending these thoughts is similar to exercising of control over the mind I have described in the section above. The key difference here is what’s at stake. In the earlier section, the immediate happiness or peace of mind at any given moment was at stake. But the same dynamic can be extrapolated to satisfaction with one’s life. Transcend the mind’s wailings and the natural outcome is less noise within the mind. And that means a more satisfied life.[xi] With a mind that is not constantly tugging at me, there is a genuine peace that spreads across my being. As as time passes, practicing the TAME technique makes this peace a lot more resilient.
Endnote
This spiritual line of thinking is not a recommendation for fatalism or shirking away from what I believe I should be doing in any situation. It is a means to separate my happiness from the direct and indirect outcomes of my efforts. It is natural result of a realisation that outcomes are shaped by so many things outside of my control that it’s a fool’s game to hold my happiness hostage to them. This is very much in line with one of the key points that the ancient Indian book, Bhagwad Gita makes in its verse 2.47: “One is entitled to act but not to the results of actions.”[xii] This thinking in the back of one’s mind is helpful while practicing spiritual techniques like TAME. Constant endeavour is important. Results will not come at the time of our choosing and any delay should only help build spiritual patience. One could argue that this is a contradiction of the earlier argument of being scientific in our approach towards spiritualism. If one keeps waiting for an indefinite time for results to flow, then that is arguably not very different from blind faith. The key point here is that in a spiritual experiment, some measure of benefits should flow early and progress is visible (even though it may be slow). These results are valuable in their own right and, often, enough to encourage perseverance. In a blind-faith approach, the promise of benefits provide no such tangible results as proof. Indeed, often such blind-faith teaching promises benefits only after death.
Footnotes
[i] For more on bad actors of the mind, see this article.
[ii] In “Yogasutra”, the original book of Yoga, Patanjali describes these bad actors of the mind as “doshas” which roughly translates as “faults”. Here is an earlier article on Yoga and its objectives. More articles on Yoga can be found here.
[iii] Thorough the meditation technique of TAME.
[iv] Quietening the mind is one way to subdue the bad actors of the mind. Patanjali has mentioned in the beginning of this book that the aim is stopping all waves of disturbances in the mind. For more, see this article.
[v] Here is an earlier article that lays out my view on mindfulness.
[vi] Clearing the mind of these bad actors through conscious meditative effort is one thing. Getting rid of them permanently is another and takes much longer and a lot more effort.
[vii] I have explained elsewhere in my articles that this is desire springs up in the moment. Desire is what a person wants at any given time. It could be attention, power, dominance, money, or something as innocuous as a piece of bread. What a person wants right now can change fast. What I wanted a few minutes back may matter little to me at this present moment. It’s as though desire has a personality. Desire can shape-shift fast from one moment to another. It is volatile, capricious, and completely unconstrained by social norms or moral principles. It knows no logic. It is like a stubborn brat who might especially fixate on that which is denied. It is cussed and can remain adamant for years or suddenly focus on something else. It may mellow with time or it may grow more intense. But it never gets satisfied. Each time it gets its wish, it wants something else.
[viii] Such endeavours would not seek to suppress desires. They would aim to transcend them. In such a transcendental state, desires arise like waves in the mind but are channeled out with the exhaled breath (instead of creating a mental disturbance stirring a person to act to fulfil them). One way this is possible is though the TAMEmeditation technique.
[ix] Channel the desire with the outgoing breath using TAME meditation. The mind remains at peace and untouched by the desire.
[x] See verses 6.11 to 6.15. The firm base to sit upon can be established using a good yoga mat.
[xi] This is not a the same as being complacent about the things one should do. Neither is this an argument for shoddy work. This is saying that a commitment to excellence at work need not be at odds with mental peace.
[xii] This thinking is very different from what a person would typically be used to. It may even strike some as unhinged. But this verse is simply explaining the design of our existence in a new way. In a world wherein none of us is assured to even be alive from one moment to next, what level of control does one really exercise? Just because we have seen patterns between some actions and results does not mean that this connection is guaranteed in the future. So many people get dejected in their lives because they do not see the results that believe they should have got. So, practically speaking people are often not seeing the results they would like to in important areas of their lives. The verse 2.47 just tries to reset expectations to make us more realistic. To be able to align one’s expectations accordingly would be a big step towards spirituality, and thus happiness, better control over the mind, and a more satisfied life. For this reason, some spiritual commentary advises people to reduce their existence to zero — which means reduce self-importance, ego, expectations from others and from life to nil. The outcome is not a bland, dull, or listless existence. The outcome is a mind that finds peace, even in situations that others may find disturbing. It is also a mind that would be happy with whatever modest outcome it gets.
