So I called my folks back home in Bombay late Thursday night. Spoke about a thousand things. They happened to tell me that Friday was "Maun Ekadashi", which apparently is a very sacred day for us Jains.
As the name suggests, many Jains maintain complete silence and fast on this auspicious day. Also per the math, any penance, ritual or good deed performed on this day will fetch 150 times better results.
So, here's the deal. Being silent the entire day wasn't an appealing idea. I had several calls and meetings to attend on Friday. So, I had a nice lame excuse out of it. However, fasting was definitely on the cards. While I do consider myself to be a religious person, I haven't quite fasted (ever?) outside Paryushan which is the holiest time of the year for us Jains.
A Jain fast (Upvaas) is quite a rigorous task compared to so many other religions. To perform a correct Upvaas on Day X, you have to renounce food from sunset of Day X-1 to Sunrise of Day X+1. Boiled water is allowed from Sunrise to Sunset of Day X.
Hmm ... I thought to myself .... Wassup with this fasting thing ..? Think!! Why do I think I should take it up. Here are a few points that I could come up with:
a) Control over Body: This is not too hard to achieve i.e. I do not find it too very difficult to sustain around 36 hours without food and very little water. However, it is indeed a very good exercise to check if you can control your body or if your body is controlling you. Also not a bad idea from scientific perspective - It gives the body a much needed respite from the daily grind it is subjected to. (I personally think that the control over speech i.e. remaining silent thing would be a lot more difficult than staying hungry. I have never given it a shot - I really hope to give that a try sometime pretty soon. Was speaking to DKS a few days back and he told me he has managed to stay mum for several days on one of his spiritual trips - Had some nice anecdotes related to that - Quite Funny)
b) Control over Mind: This is the hard part. I consider this to be my single biggest weakness. I do not have control over my mind, my thoughts. I get the bizarrest of thoughts like this. My mind is like a vagabond with chronic digression. So, for me, this fasting exercise is a challenge up atop where I have to control of my CPU instead of the opposite. A fast is not complete by mere renunciation of food and drink - it should not feature even in thought - That would constitute a complete renunciation. I know people tend to think about things they should not (don't wan't to) be thinking. (What when a loved one is no longer with you? Doesn't your mind keep thinking about him/her inspite of all efforts?). I ain't no different. And, am still not UP there. I could not achieve this goal. There were at least 2 or 3 instances during the day when I thought about food (Food that Jains are not supposed to eat - e.g. The Pav Bhaji from Shiv Sagar - Wonder when I'll get over it!!). But there's no harm trying. This perhaps is just a very very small begining towards a long journey in pursuit of a beautiful goal.
c) Karmic Concepts: Every second of our being on planet earth, our actions attract +ve (less in quantity) and -ve (greater quantity) karmic particles to our soul. These actions are all encompassing not limited to physical activities but also relate to thoughts and speech and all of that. So, a day in fasting would at least reduce my accumulation of the -ve karmic particles to the soul. (That fasting is also a means to actually kill these particles according to Jain philosophy is an altogether different topic). So, this one's more akin to the concept of "A penny Saved is a penny Gained".
Bottomline/Disclaimer:
On a lighter note: Another thought that crossed my mind and something that I was tempted to do while writing this piece relates to "Karmic Concepts" - I really felt like spelling it as Karmic Koncepts .... Silly Me ...!! Can't quite figure out the root cause of this one though!! :-)
As the name suggests, many Jains maintain complete silence and fast on this auspicious day. Also per the math, any penance, ritual or good deed performed on this day will fetch 150 times better results.
So, here's the deal. Being silent the entire day wasn't an appealing idea. I had several calls and meetings to attend on Friday. So, I had a nice lame excuse out of it. However, fasting was definitely on the cards. While I do consider myself to be a religious person, I haven't quite fasted (ever?) outside Paryushan which is the holiest time of the year for us Jains.
A Jain fast (Upvaas) is quite a rigorous task compared to so many other religions. To perform a correct Upvaas on Day X, you have to renounce food from sunset of Day X-1 to Sunrise of Day X+1. Boiled water is allowed from Sunrise to Sunset of Day X.
Hmm ... I thought to myself .... Wassup with this fasting thing ..? Think!! Why do I think I should take it up. Here are a few points that I could come up with:
a) Control over Body: This is not too hard to achieve i.e. I do not find it too very difficult to sustain around 36 hours without food and very little water. However, it is indeed a very good exercise to check if you can control your body or if your body is controlling you. Also not a bad idea from scientific perspective - It gives the body a much needed respite from the daily grind it is subjected to. (I personally think that the control over speech i.e. remaining silent thing would be a lot more difficult than staying hungry. I have never given it a shot - I really hope to give that a try sometime pretty soon. Was speaking to DKS a few days back and he told me he has managed to stay mum for several days on one of his spiritual trips - Had some nice anecdotes related to that - Quite Funny)
b) Control over Mind: This is the hard part. I consider this to be my single biggest weakness. I do not have control over my mind, my thoughts. I get the bizarrest of thoughts like this. My mind is like a vagabond with chronic digression. So, for me, this fasting exercise is a challenge up atop where I have to control of my CPU instead of the opposite. A fast is not complete by mere renunciation of food and drink - it should not feature even in thought - That would constitute a complete renunciation. I know people tend to think about things they should not (don't wan't to) be thinking. (What when a loved one is no longer with you? Doesn't your mind keep thinking about him/her inspite of all efforts?). I ain't no different. And, am still not UP there. I could not achieve this goal. There were at least 2 or 3 instances during the day when I thought about food (Food that Jains are not supposed to eat - e.g. The Pav Bhaji from Shiv Sagar - Wonder when I'll get over it!!). But there's no harm trying. This perhaps is just a very very small begining towards a long journey in pursuit of a beautiful goal.
c) Karmic Concepts: Every second of our being on planet earth, our actions attract +ve (less in quantity) and -ve (greater quantity) karmic particles to our soul. These actions are all encompassing not limited to physical activities but also relate to thoughts and speech and all of that. So, a day in fasting would at least reduce my accumulation of the -ve karmic particles to the soul. (That fasting is also a means to actually kill these particles according to Jain philosophy is an altogether different topic). So, this one's more akin to the concept of "A penny Saved is a penny Gained".
Bottomline/Disclaimer:
- I candidly admit that I wasn't a 100% successful in achieving bullet (b) above
- All of the above are simply my interpretations and beliefs from Jain Philosophy that I try to implement on myself (And my knowledge on the subject is very very limited and prone to errors - Am open to corrections)
- I didn't quite read too much into the 150X mathematical bit (Though I hope that's the case ;))
- I at least feel good that I try to walk my talk
On a lighter note: Another thought that crossed my mind and something that I was tempted to do while writing this piece relates to "Karmic Concepts" - I really felt like spelling it as Karmic Koncepts .... Silly Me ...!! Can't quite figure out the root cause of this one though!! :-)
3 comments:
Whoa...what a blog! kept me thinking over lots of things for a long time...THOROUGHLY enjoy reading ur blogs bro...:)) I am sure your blogs, one day, is going to inspire me to write one myself!
Keep up with it!
It was an eye opener for sure...Knew all this stuff at the back of my mind, but good that it came on surface. Your blog inspires me enough to take up fasting myself. As always, Ur deep inner thoughts are reflected in all ur blogs, I quite enjoy them.
@Bindu, Deepti:
Same reply to both of you.
Thanks as always.
On a different note:
I would wait for that day to dawn (For Bindu to Write and Deepti to Fast - The latter is liklier than the former)
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