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Devotee: “How long is the practice to continue?”

Sri Ramana Maharshi replied: “Till success is achieved and until yoga - liberation becomes permanent. Success begets success.

If one distraction is conquered the next is conquered and so on, until all are finally conquered.

The process is like reducing an enemy’s fort by slaying its manpower - one by one, as each issues out.” (Talks #28)     

It may seem unusual to be writing about chemistry in respect to Advaita

Vedanta where the emphasis is on the doctrine that you are not the physical

body. Yet chemistry plays an important role in the development of one’s

spiritual practice.

It was during the traumatic experiences in ICU that I observed how the various

painkillers and other medicines affected the way I thought and reacted to

circumstances. Not that I was adventurous quite the contrary, I was immobilised

on my back for months but that gave me the advantage of observing without

distraction the chemicals which coursed through the veins and how the brain

and the thoughts it produced made me see the ward and the nurses and doctors

in a certain light. I was paralysed with few stoic, standard responses to

questions and situations. It wasn’t me the social animal with unique

characteristics but a mind and body reduced to the bare requirements for

survival. All I could do was observe without opinions. If someone told me the

world would end tomorrow, I would duly take it in but not be perturbed. It was

just another thought. How could this be so?

Vedanta teaches that we are composed of five koshas or envelopes. The

outermost layer or body is identified as the envelope of food (annamaya kosha).

The Sanskrit word ana means ‘to eat’. We eat earth, water, fire, air and what is

called akasha or ether, the indispensable space element that permeates the

material world. When we say ‘eating’ the earth by that we mean those earthly

elements derived from say, the vegetables we eat.

In addition to these recognisable elements, we also ‘eat’ subtle sensations

received by our ears, nose, skin, tongue and eyes which affect our health and

general well-being. It is through these subtle foods we derive ideas about reality

as we know it while inhabiting a physical body. It is our brain which interprets

the external sensations, using the chemistry created by eating these subtle

impressions and visible food. This chemistry stimulates our consciousness to

act. According to our nurturing, the environment, and our unique genes or

propensities, we create ideas in our brains of what the external world

supposedly appears to be. If we eat greasy, heavy food that is hard to digest for

the liver and kidneys, this will certainly determine to some extent the way we

view the world and ourselves. Consuming nourishing, fresh food is important to

sharpen the discriminatory capability of our minds.

When we enter the spiritual path, we carry with us a load of disagreeable stuff.

Undigested experiences, resentments, self-pity, rigid values that have little

relevance to our predicament, second-hand opinions, and inherited dynamics, all

play their part in blinding us to what is in front of us. Life is forever showing us

the next step if we would be but still. Not what ‘happens’ tomorrow but right

now. It is a question of one step at a time.

Our physical bodies are composed of chemical elements. Aside from the normal

modifications due to age-related factors, when we diligently engage in spiritual

practices, our physical body undergoes a chemical alteration and becomes much

more subtle in its reception of sensations and concepts. We become more

intuitive and in accord with events happening right now. There is a better sense

of balance. A harmonious feeling becomes more frequent and lasts longer and

longer. We all have noticed people who seem unusually young and fresh

whatever their physical age and this is due to their wholesome approach to life’s

challenges.

In Hindu philosophy there are three fundamental qualities (gunas), which

indicate the state of our mental, emotional, and physical condition. Purity and

serenity (sattva); activity and passion (rajas); and lethargy and dullness (tamas).

We endeavour to transform all our laziness qualities first into active qualities

and then, into clean or unpolluted qualities. Depending on the strength of our

commitment we can quickly overcome the many dark, unresolved, explosive

segments of our being, which are like sea mines that lurk just below the surface.

These enigmatic mental and emotional tumours that influence our normal

consciousness cause inexplicable pain and suffering, until we acknowledge,

investigate and neutralise them.

But often it is a gradual conversion as much for our sanity as anything else for

each major transformation is in its way, cataclysmic. Nothing is for free. For

each step forward there is a price to pay and a giving up of the previously held

habits, which weigh us down. Before we can fill our glass so to speak with fresh

water, the old stale water must be ejected.

The more refined our thought process, the more sensitive the fabric of the body.

Consider Sri Ramana and the distance he kept from people partly as a Tamil

cultural predisposition but also as a buffer to protect his physical body from

discordant or dirty, tactile auras invading the delicate space he inhabited. The

only people who were allowed to touch him were the designated attendants who

rubbed lineament on his arthritic knees, and they got special dispensation to

touch him as normally the touch of a sadhguru will burn like fire.

We all know of circumstances when we encounter someone whose presence

either physical, emotional or mental is contaminated. We wish to keep our

distance and rightly so because we do not wish to be infected. If it cannot be

helped, afterwards, we may wish to take a bath or purge ourselves of the

lingering negative force field by prayer or some other act of self-purification.

Women more than men know this adverse involvement all too well.

On the other hand, we are attracted to those with strong positive energy hoping

that some of it will rub off on us. The body can be compared to a radar antenna,

which alerts us constantly to the energy fields which surround us. Our job, if

you will, is to keep our bodies, emotions and minds clean. Like a shower or bath

each day, we regularly wash clean our emotions and thoughts of anything

contaminated with negativity with prayer, good thoughts and emotions. We

always have a choice which way to turn. Do we feed the negative aspect or do

we feed the positive aspect?

This reminds us of the American Indian fable which is relatively well known. A

wise elder who tells a young impressionable person seeking wisdom about the

perennial inner struggle everyone experiences. He speaks of two wolves in all

of us. One wolf exemplifies the negative qualities such as resentment,

antagonism, jealousy, greed while the other wolf epitomizes positive qualities of

joy, light, peace and kindness. 

The saying highlights that while both wolves are always present, the one who is

fed the most, that is, the one that receives the most attention and nurturing, will

become stronger and be the decisive factor in one's life. Which do we normally

choose? It is with these small, every day but sometimes crucial decisions that

our life unfolds and in turn affects our wish to be happy.