From ‘India File’ by Trevor Fishlock

….First published 1983

A foreign correspondent in India experiences an authentic adventure – stimulating, absorbing, daunting, sometimes moving and shocking. Here is one of the world’s great dramas; an ancient, vast and crowded land committed to the most formidably challenging exercise in mass democracy. It is a spectacle in which hope, pride, paradox and uncertainty mingle and struggle; it is conducted on the whole, and to India’s credit, in the open. It has been fascinating to be a close witness. I cannot recall that the sun has ever set on a dull day.

If you wish to know something about India you must empty your mind of all preconceived notions. Why be imprisoned by the limited vision of the prejudiced? Don’t try to compare. India is different and, exasperating as it may seem, would like to remain so ……. This is the secret of India, the acceptance of life in all its fullness, the good and the evil.

-          Indira Gandhi

Indians embrace the universe and their fated imperishable souls move to its mysterious awesome rhythms, out of one life and into the next, sins and atonements inked in heavenly ledgers.

The astrologers are therefore at hand, like discreet, wise and reassuring valets, with star charts rather than freshly pressed trousers. …. They comfort parents whose sulking sons have left home by predicting the ‘when returning of gone person’

Indians are a tactile people, living thigh by thigh, jostling, holding hands and embracing, close to each others breath and borborygmi, the bubble of each others pots. They have learned to cram, to take a deep communal breath to admit just one more, to fill every crevice, to hang by their nails, to sit on one buttock, to stretch the seams of their streets, houses and vehicles.

If you drive through India, or observe it from a train, you will see few parts of it unpeopled. You may stop the car in a seemingly empty space, to drink some water and sleeve the brow, only to find that people emerge, as if from the soil, to watch with curiosity.

Satyajit Ray, the film maker, recalls that he once began shooting a film in a quiet country location fifty miles from Calcutta. After three days, however, a large and curious crowd arrived by rail from Calcutta and climbed trees to watch the filming. The shooting plan had to be changed, and six spectators were hurt when the branch on which they perched suddenly snapped.

The democracy is lively, in spite of having had its air supply interrupted for two years from mid-1975. Socialism  can hardly be said to have been practiced with any determination, and the secular state is profoundly religious ….. India has been from ancient times a geographical billiard pocket, a destination and a place of settlement rather than a staging post

As a people they take themselves seriously and their sense of humour remains as yet an undeveloped region. They are, however, enthusiastic analysts of their society, bitter and persistent critics of their politics, institutions and each other, as disputatious as starlings.

It is simply that India occupies several centuries at once….. In 1981 bullock carts were used to transport Mig 21 fighters to the Republic Day parade in Delhi.

Air travel is in the 1980s, cars are in the 1950s and the telephone is in the 1930s.

The new Indian is more likely than not to be a Hindu, one of the 582 million and 83 per cent majority. He might also be one of the substantial Muslim minority of 77 million; or one of 14 million Sikhs, so busy and distinctive that there seems to be more of them than that; 18 million Christians, who will cook both beef and bacon; 3.5 million Jains who would not hurt a fly; or 5 million tolerant Buddhists, a mere splinter of the great faith in the land of its birth. He stands a one in twelve chance of being born into one of the aboriginal tribes which inhabit forests and remote regions, and which are gradually being drawn into the mainstream; and a one in ten chance of being a Brahmin, the upper crust of society; and a one in seven chance of being born into the community of those Hindus whose place is, strictly speaking, outside the caste structure and who are graded as untouchables.

Whatever he chooses, an Indian with even a little eduation will hope to occupy a ‘position’. India is a commnity of hierarchies, rigidly stratified, and a position is of great importance.

At Bombay airport you present your boarding pass to a young woman at a table and she stamps it. This serves no purpose. There are two other women alongside her doing nothing. It is the same throughout the subcontinent: the bureaucratic warrens are overrun by clerks with little or nothing else to do. Americans tell me it is all the fault of the British. But if the British gave it the Indians embraced it.

After marriage there is sex.

In India it is usually in this order.

There is a saying in the Chambal that if a man has three sons one will become a farmer, one will go into the army and the third into banditry.

We spend more time in the pursuit of religion than any other people in the world.

-          Khushwant Singh

Hinduism is both a religious and a social system ….It is a sponge, admitting far more than it prohibits, and sets little store by dogma. The existence of an omnipotent force is recognized, but this god-alone is by no means the central exclusive focus in a religion which admits millions of gods and allows immense freedom of worship. The spiritual and superstitious can be blended, permitting limited notions of heresy. You can shout at your god if he or she displeases you, and withhold your offerings as long as your sulk lasts.

Mrs Gandhi asked newspaper editors not to call her an empress.

-          Newspaper report, 1982

He will not kill cows, but he can watch thousands of imprisoned human beings wither before his eyes.

-          K. F. Rustamji

The gap between private cleanliness and public squalor is one of the notable paradoxes of India.

There are no better critics of Indian callousness than Indians themselves. They have a very sharp critical faculty and they are certainly more scathing about their national shortcomings than any foreigner could be.

Films …. A happy, or at least a positive, ending is mandatory. India is a country where people aim to survive and they want their films to give them ideas of survival. They do not want unresolved dilemmas, to be sent out into the night puzzling.

There was that strong smell of urban India, a compound of vegetables, drain water, perspiration, fish, bidis, petrol, damp pavements, sacking, dungcakes, urine and rot.

…Calcutta …It was Kipling’s ‘city of dreadful night … the packed and pestilential town.’ The young Winston Churchill wrote to his mother that he was pleased he had seen it because he would not have to see it again. A hundred years ago a visitor, reflecting on its marshy location and stinking stews, wrote: ‘Its situation is so bad by nature that there is little that man could do to make it worse, but that little has been faithfully and assiduously done.’

From ‘Encountering Bliss. My Journey through India with Anandamayi Ma’ by Melita Maschmann

……she herself talked about the time when she lived on a few measured rice-grains. “It appeared like a miracle. But I could also only do it because it is just not impossible. The body does not really need everything we usually eat. As it is, it excretes the most after it has retained the essence.” As a consequence of sadhana, the body can adjust itself in such a way that it can live from what it absorbs from the air and other components of its surroundings, apart from its own reserves.

Something that corresponds to the concept of community does not exist in traditional Hinduism. Everyone has his individual relationship with his Guru, and he goes on his path. One hardly finds temples which are meeting places of the community.

“You must utilize our free will to find the Highest. All efforts you make to approach him are an expression of this free will. Your destiny (determined by your karma) can also be changed by God’s Grace. A change is possible, if you firmly believe in it. Of course, there are laws in God’s creation, and yet nothing is impossible for him.”

“If you want to do pranama to a deity or a living saint or a Mahatma, then first take the darsana of his whole person. Begin from the feet and look upwards to the head, while slowly breathing in. Imagine that you are taking into yourself – along with your breath – the spiritual power of the one to whom you want to bow. Then let your look slide down slowly to the feet, while you breathe out. At the same time, offer yourself to God with all your being-good and bad. Empty yourself completely before him without any reservation whatsoever. When your forehead touches the feet of a god or a saint, his spiritual power enters you. When his hand touches your head, he transfers a part of this power.”

Ma was standing in the sun…. Suddenly our eyes met. Her look had an expression of all-encompassing love. It rested for a long period upon me. I felt that I was bound by it, but I felt at the same time, that it penetrated equally lovingly the trees behind me, the village, the clouds, the thief, who was coming up the way with his stolen she-goat. It was strange, but I did not feel that I was robbed of the love which benefited the trees, village and the thief. On the contrary, I felt, I was love more. In Ma’s love, mine also reached out to the horizon.

One who is finely tuned picks up the vibrations of the man in whose room he has been staying, of the bed, on which he has been lying, of his clothes, and tree whose shade protects him from the sun. Everyone registers these vibrations unconsciously with varying intensity. The emanation from holy places is based on the echo of vibrations which the holy man has left behind and on those of all devout souls which come after. ……. Ma repeatedly recommends satsanga.

One who lives in a desert or a Himalayan cave gets rid of the disturbing vibrations of his fellow beings, anyway of the crude disturbances of proximity. According to a Hindu view, there is a spiritual risk caused by these vibrations. Vibrations of a man can also be in his look or his clothes. A sadhu, therefore, never wears clothes which are worn by others, except when they are presented to him by an enlightened person …. The most intense influence of vibrations is through physical contact.

Corresponding to one’s own capacity, one should try to reserve one day for strict self-discipline. If not once every week, then once every fortnight, or at least, once in a month. Everything what we do – eating, drinking, talking, moving, visiting people - , simply everything with which we are busy, must be carefully controlled on this day. One can gradually succeed in one’s endeavor for self-control by it. Finally one will live in harmony with the rules, without an effort, even for two or three months in a year.

If you feel that energy (sakti) is growing in you, if new light shines to you from within, it will gain more intensity, the more you keep yourself protected in highest peace and silence within you. Even if it gets the slightest opening, there is always a danger that it would escape. Be vigilant.

From ‘The Peaceful Stillness of the Silent Mind. Buddhism, Mind and Meditation’ by Lama Yeshe

Q. Could you explain again how we find answers from within ourselves.

Lama. Let your obsessed sense perception rest for a while and allow your silent mind to surface. Then ask your question. You will find that the answer to your question will appear spontaneously from within the peaceful stillness of your silent mind.

From ‘With the Kamasutra under my arm. An indian journey’ by Patricia Scot Bernard

…..the sitar players were performing.

Indian nights are special. The perfume of the gardens is heady, the night sky resembles velvet, the stars are so big and hang so low that they resemble unearthly fruit, and the music is haunting and hypnotic…..

As Jaipur was 174 kilometres away I had calculated that the trip would take three hours. It took the entire day.

His colourful conversation covered AIDS, war, God and homosexuality. He asked me what I thought of all four. I have noticed that Indian men don’t care much for small-talk. They want to get into the deep and meaningful instantly, and they have not fear about speaking what they call the truth.

…….Indians are the most sweetly mannered of people….

India was like a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman in a yellow sari, with bare feet, bone bracelets, and three water-pots balanced on her head.

From ‘The Quiet Mind. A Journey through space and mind’ by John E Coleman

Light, wholesome, balanced meals are easier to digest and better assimilated and keep the body, and therefore the mind, from becoming sluggish. It takes hard physical labour to burn up the elements contained in beef, pork, pastries and sweets.

“Pleasure and pain are really one and when this is clearly seen one drops the process of duality and lives in peaceful freedom” …… Krishnamurti

Dr. Suzuki explained that the aim of Zen was enlightenment or satori, an immediate, unreflected insight into reality without rationalization or intellectualization, the relation of oneself to the Universe.

“This new experience is the innocent pre-intellectual, immediate grasp of a child but on a different level,” he said. “The level of the full development of man’s reason, individuality and objectivity. While the child’s experience of oneness comes before the experience of duality, in enlightenment it lies after it.”

In the East, he said, before an artist paints a tree he “becomes” that tree.

“The object of Zen is to reach satori or enlightenment,” he said. “And this is done principally through the koan exercise and zazen. The koan is used instrumentally for opening the mind to its own secrets. The koan is neither a riddle nor a witty remark, but it sounds nonsensical upon hearing or reading. It has as its objective to arouse doubt and pushes the mind to its farthest limit.”

“It is a puzzle which cannot be solved by logical thinking; one must go beyond thinking into intuition. The more you think the more puzzled the mind becomes. Then the mind discovers it inadequacy in its attempt to solve an insoluble problem; the futility of effort is realized and the mind becomes quiet.”………

The Zen student is warned not to try to gain the eaning of the koan from the wording, or to permit his imagination to sek the answer or to try to find a solution through logical analysis. He is rather expected to use the koan as an instrument ….If other thoughts interfere they are not to be struggled with; one simply returns to the koan. The aim is to keep the koan before the mind regardless of what one is doing …..When all appears hopeless and a period of supreme frustration is experienced one may be approaching the moment of realization. Only when reason ceases does sudden intuitive enlightenment occur.”

Buddhists usually attain enlightenment by long and disciplined meditation, fixing their eyes on one position and practicing rhythmic breathing. This process usually takes years of devoted application before proficiency is attained. They may seem to be asleep, but in fact they are balanced delicately between relaxed serenity and instant alertness.

In a little book by Krishnamurti called Think on These Things, the subject of awareness is discussed:

Do you know what is happening in the world? What is happening in the world is a projection of what is happening inside each one of us, what we are, the world is. Most of us are in turmoil, we are acquisitive, possessive, we are jealous and condemn people; and that is exactly what is happening in the world, only more dramatically, ruthlessly …. And it is only when you spend some time every day earnestly thinking about these matters that there is a possibility of bringing about a total revolution and creating a new world. ….”

…..St. Denis, who said, “The most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not knowing.”

An Indian master named Thayumanavar wrote the following poem:

You may control a mad elephant

You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger,

Ride the lion and play with the cobra.

By alchemy you may earn your livelihood;

You may wander through the universe incognito;

Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful;

You may walk on water and live in fire;

But control of the mind is better and more difficult.

….the Sufi poet Rumi says:

Once you have been delivered from this cage,

Your home will be the rose garden.

Once you have broken the shell,

Dying will be like the pearl.

Krishnamurti…..

Tomorrow is the invention of thought as time, and if there is no tomorrow psychologically, what happens in life today? Then there is a tremendous revolution, isn’t there? Then your whole action undergoes a radical change, doesn’t it? Then you are completely whole now, not projecting from the past, through the present, into the future. That means to life, dying every day. Do it, and you will find out what it means to live completely today.

Isn’t that what love is? You don’t say, “I will love tomorrow,” do you? You love or you don’t love. Love has no time, only sorrow has time …. So one has to find out for oneself what time is, and find out if there is a “no tomorrow.” That is to live, then there is a life which is eternal, because eternity has no time.