The Essence Of Karate Is Energy And Action

Zen master Taisen Deshimaru said, “Only two things matter, energy and action.” The practice of zazen, seated meditation, can free you from your limitations and help you realise your original nature. It energises you, by helping to regulate the nervous system, increasing your vital capacity and the efficiency of oxygen exchange. However, if you were to withdraw from the frenetic chaos of life to one of monastic life is this not delusion also? It would be, if there were no action.

Zazen creates energy. It connects you to your inner energy. Karate trains you in applying that energy to action. Action and movement is part of life but in karate, you experience them with the energy of Zen.

When you leave the dojo and go back into the marketplace of life, you take your practice and give it to others. Karate means “empty hand”. An empty hand clings to nothing. It does not hold on to preconceptions, prejudice, or the status quo. An empty hand can be of service to others. As you move about in your daily life, you are practising moving Zen, total involvement and absorption in the present moment.

When you watch a karate master do a kata, you are riveted by the beauty and power of the movements. They do not have to be explained but seem to come from within. If this experience were possible only in the dojo, then karate would be of limited value. However, it is possible for students to have the same experience in their everyday lives, as a teacher giving a lecture; a stockbroker working in the chaos of the trading floor; a nurse in the charged atmosphere of a hospital. Karate Zen helps you to get in touch with your “original self” and to take that “big self” and put it to work to alleviate the suffering of others.

A true karate-ka takes the physical skills; discipline and power of concentration developed at the dojo and applies them to work, family and social life. In this way, karate is integrated into the fabric of our lives; it is not something separate. The way of karate is the way of everyday life.

Karate is an efficient form of physical conditioning that can be practised by any one. It develops aerobic fitness by raising the heart rate into the training zone and keeping it there for significant intervals. Strength is developed progressively through exercises using the body’s own weight. Emphasis is also placed on developing and maintaining flexibility through progressive stretching of major muscle groups. In the Seido system, every student is asked to give 100 per cent to training, recognising the individual’s own capacities and limitations. Training is done only under the supervision of certified black belt instructors.

Karate is an efficient form of self-defence. Students learn basic kicks, punches and blocks that develop self-confidence. Beyond that they learn techniques that are applied in specific situations. Seido students are also taught to develop an inner awareness for avoiding potentially threatening situations.

Finally, the study of karate develops discipline and concentration, skills that are useful for people in all walks of life. Students usually notice subtle changes in the way they do their work or in the way they study. In time and with practice, these benefits flow almost automatically, without conscious effort.

The Secret Quality Of Sacred Mantras

Mantras are sound vibrations that permeate every cell of your being; they let the mind dissolve. Mantras are impulses or rhythms of consciousness. They create spiritual vibrations.

Mantra is that which saves you from repetitiveness. A repetitive thought is a worry. Mantras help to free you from worries. Often we wonder why we chant some sounds without understanding their meanings. Can something that we do not understand, help us?

The meaning of every mantra is infinity. It is a sound vibration beyond the cognition of the mind. When the mind is unable to do this, it simply dissolves and moves into a meditative space.

A mantra is like a seed. Every seed has the potential to become a tree. Similarly, these sound vibrations contain all the possibilities of creation. Some mantras are in seed form, called the bija mantras. Others are fully expressed, that is the fruit of the mantra is also expressed, like the Gayatri mantra.

Mantras are a secret. That which is kept a secret alerts the subconscious mind. Mantras work at the level of consciousness. When we want a seed to sprout, it needs to be sown into the soil, hidden, a secret. If it is simply thrown around, birds may eat them up. We can read and learn about mantras and their uses from books and the internet but that will only satisfy the intellect and not translate into experience.

When we chant the mantras, or listen to them, we get purity of mind and word. This prepares us for meditation. As a result of the sound vibrations, different patterns of the mind rearrange themselves to become tranquil. Agitation is reduced, helping us to turn inward. For instance, when we laugh, our happiness increases. When we cry, the heaviness of sorrow is released. Just as sounds of laughter and crying help, mantras act similarly. Repetition of mantras creates a psychological or mental response that is deep, beyond the realm of words or expression. It can only be experienced. Speech falls short as it cannot go beyond expression into the experiential level.

When the mind is calm and centred, it can turn inward. Only a mind turned inward can experience the vastness and beauty of Divine Consciousness. When our focus is outward on the objects of the senses, our mind is scattered; it races after one craving or other. Physical senses seek to know all about the external universe. Meditation is the tool for inner exploration. ‘Antarmukhi Sada Sukhi’ – one whose mind is turned inward is ever in bliss. Mantras are tools that allow the mind to dissolve and repose in the Self.

Why should we repose in the Self? How is this going to help us in our day-to-day life? When a river is calm, it reflects. When the mind is calm, there is greater clarity of expression. Our sense of observation, perception and expression improves. As a result, we are able to communicate effectively and clearly.

Most of our problems and misunderstandings arise because of a lack of effective communication. When our mind is free from agitation, the way we interact and communicate is much more pleasant and effective. Our efforts are not hindered by communication gaps. This leads to a lot of positivity in outlook.

Good Times, Bad Times: What’s The Difference?

It is human nature to get disenchanted with the world when we see around us much violence, crime and degradation of values. It makes us worry over what is in store for future generations. However, the present time is as good or bad as any other time and the state of the world and society could not be some thing other than what it is now.

Our predecessors have poured out their anguish at the declining moral and ethical standards then prevalent. Seers and social reformers have tried, since ages, to combat negative forces and reform society. Was human society ever better than it is now? Socrates was poisoned. Christ was crucified. Caesar was betrayed. Deceit, treachery and court intrigues fill the pages of history.

Unalloyed happiness is impossible because the world cannot exist except as an amalgam of the good and bad. Negativity cannot survive by itself. It needs the support of some good alongside to survive. The Kauravas thrived because of Bhishma, Dronacharya and Karna. Once these eminent men departed, the Kauravas had to go. Such was the case with Prahlad and his father Hiranyakashipu. The demon king tried to eliminate his pious son who, indeed, was his lifesupporting system and the king paid the price for it.

On the flip side, pure good also cannot survive all by itself. Pure good would sublimate and merge with the Supreme Force without trace. We might ask: How did saintly souls like Christ, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, Tukaram, Guru Nanak and others lead a pure life? How can we associate them with any form of negativity? The reason for their living through the appointed time is twofold. First, their own past karma kept them grounded here. Second, although they did not commit any sin, the sins got stuck to them. It is people like us who prostrated before them, sought their blessings and deposited our sins at their feet. Is it not said that Jesus bore the cross for the sake of the sinners?

Strangely, Kaliyug is the favourite whipping boy. The Supreme incarnated nine times in all and His tenth incarnation is expected in present Kaliyug, to root out suffering and reestablish Dharma. In the three earlier yugs comprising, Satyug, Dwapara and Treta Yug He had to descend nine times. It could mean there was greater evil then than in this age when He is slated to appear only once.

Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “Whenever adharma surpasses the limit He will incarnate on earth.” That He has not done so yet implies that the evil, which we fret about, has not transcended limits.

Krishna’s statement could allude to the evil within each of us and when it transcends the limit He will incarnate within us to purge, cleanse and establish dharma within us. Did He not make a highway robber into Maharshi Valmiki, did He not transform the miser into Purandara Das and did not Kartikeya transform the fleshhungry youngster into a poetsaint Arunagirinathar?

The collective goodness of mankind seeks a medium to express itself and manifests as godliness in few individuals whom we worship as saints and prophets. Likewise the collective evil within all of us seeks to find an expression and manifests in a few individuals whom we call as demons. There is enough goodness outside of us and we need only to focus our attention on the canvas instead of the picture.

Look To Arunachala For A Divine Experience

While Mount Kailash is regarded as the divine abode of Shiva, the Arunachala Hill at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, is regarded as Shiva Himself. That is why it impels more than 15 lakh pilgrims to walk barefoot on the 14-km path around it every full moon night.

The Shiva Purana says that Shiva manifested here as a Tejoling or subtle column of the blazing light of knowledge. In the Satya Yuga, the first epoch of Creation, Arunachala was brilliant gold. In the Treta Yuga, Arunachala took on the mellow hue of Panchaloha. In the Dwapara Yuga, it had the lustre of burnished copper. In Kali Yuga, Arunachala appears like a rocky hill with bristles and thorns, but its incredible power remains undiminished. Hence Giri Pradikshina or circumambulation of the Hill is considered auspicious.

The Shiva Purana describes Shiva as the source of power because He contains the energy of the whole cosmos, and yet remains unmoving and stable, with no trace of negative energy. Shiva is static, potential energy and Shakti is dynamic, creative energy. The cosmic dance of Shiva and Shakti creates, sustains and dissolves the Universe. However, while Divinity in the formless state, nirakaar, can be experienced by enlightened seekers, many find this intriguing. So, Arunachala, the subtle column of light being still and as eternal knowledge, froze into a static form in order to become more palpable.

The Bharani Deepam or lamp is lit on its summit every year during the Kartik month, when the Bharani star is ascendant. The blaze, a manifestation of His knowledge, burns brightly on the austere, majestic Hill. It is said that those who obtain a darshan of the Bharani Deepam will receive Shiva’s grace in the form of total awareness of the Self. He blesses each seeker saying – “Let karma and thoughts of this being be dissolved and let the radiance of soul be unveiled.” The flame represents our own atma jyoti, the effulgence of soul.

How does Arunachala unveil the light of your soul? Normally the mind conceals the soul with thoughts and traps you in time and space. The constantly chattering mind prevents you from experiencing the sound of silence and bliss of soul. Arunachala splits the mind, segregates thoughts and burns them in the fire of knowledge. So, when you enter the vibrant aura of Arunachala which pulsates with serenity and tranquillity, thoughts disappear, revealing the effulgence of soul. “Aruna” means dawning of light and “achala” means unmoving or still.

Each one of us experiences a pull towards Divinity sometime in life. The pull becomes a propulsion, a constant motion that generates a divine vibration which makes us aware of our Soul. This is the call of Arunachala. The Shiva Purana says we can go to Arunachala only when we get this call. Sages assure us that when we circumambulate the Hill with complete surrender, Arunachala dissolves the ego by burning our thoughts one by one, as thoughts form a base for ego. The process liberates us from the cycle of birth and death. The glowing beacon of Jnana or knowledge activates our souls and liberates us from the shackles of time and space forever by making us aware of the limitations of body and senses.

Experience The Fullness Of The Universe

Upanishad means to sit close. You can sit close to someone on the physical plane but there may remain a huge distance in the mind. The Upanishads talk about mental proximity.

In the Isha Upanishad, Isha represents the “I” or energy and “sha” is the completeness: the full, silent, vast, divine. The invocation begins with an exclamation of fullness, or “That is full”. What is that fullness which is being invoked? It is the state of meditation, a state of being that is neither the state of dreaming, sleeping nor waking. After the experience, the master tells the student: “That is fullness.” The invocation ends thus: “Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.” No happiness or knowledge can happen without peace. The first step to peace is to realise that everything is complete.

The world that we see, of the senses, is but a small part of totality. Completion is like the zero, full and complete. Completeness settles the mind so you can reflect and this turning of the mind inward is spirituality

Isha the divine permeates the whole universe and is addressed as energy, not as a person. Everything is permeated in that one consciousness. Wake up and see that the whole universe is infinite and that your inner space is as complete as this universe. See that the universe is permeating your spirit; nothing is dead. Honour your body and enjoy this world by renouncing it. Just step back. Clinging to it brings you misery. Renunciation is protection for your soul. Pleasant and unpleasant events, though they may appear different, are both made of the same divinity. Unpleasant events make you stronger, while pleasant events expand you. Renunciation is being in the present moment totally. Realise that the universe is permeated with love and abundance and that your needs will always be taken care of.

Cultivate the strength to renounce in misery and be willing to do service when happy. Aspire to live for 100 years doing your work. Life here is to get over your karmas, which you can do only in this body; and the knowledge you get, impart to others. Do your action 100 per cent, but don’t be feverish about it. Whatever you have not given or loved, you will come back to do it. Keep doing your work and keep renouncing. We cannot really know the entire universe and its magnanimity because of our limited ability to perceive. The brain works on a frequency channel; our sense organs have limited capacity but the universe, like the divine, is limitless. In this limited time we call life we keep on doing our work.

Those who do not realise or attend to the self in life live in darkness and when they leave the world they will be in darkness also. When you leave the body in meditation, you achieve a higher plane.

How do you know if you have realised the Self? The atma is motionless; it is the substratum of the universe and everything is in it. It is space that is faster than the speed of light, faster than the mind; you can never comprehend the Self through the senses. The seer, the one who sees, who feels, understands, is the Self. This cannot be comprehended through the senses, yet every action in the universe is run through consciousness. A seed sprouts because there is consciousness in the seed. The entire universe is filled with this prana or life and you are the container of this, not the content.

A less ‘masculine’ justice?

Women are intrinsically compassionate. It is often believed that they have a capacity to forgive acts of violence more easily than men, even if the act has taken a terrible personal toll.

But it now seems that it is not always possible, even for women, to abandon their longing for retributive justice. Three days before the first anniversary of the Mumbai terror attack, Kavita Karkare and Smita Salaskar, wives of slain Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar respectively, met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at her residence. After the meeting, the two widows told the media that Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving captured terrorist, should be hanged.

It was difficult to overlook the paradox of that meeting. Here were three widows — wives of the two policemen and Sonia Gandhi herself — and each had been a victim of unbridled violence fuelled by revenge. Each had suffered tragically. Karkare and Salaskar said the conversation was personal and that they reiterated to Gandhi that “families of the victims and those of the martyrs wanted Kasab hanged”.

Few will forget how Sonia Gandhi, after losing her husband in a coldblooded terrorist assassination, granted clemency to Nalini, the assassin. She had Nalini’s death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Like Kasab, Nalini was also the sole surviving conspirator of the five-member squad responsible for Rajiv Gandhi’s murder. Compassion for Nalini’s five-year-old daughter had clearly taken precedence over Sonia's personal longing for retributive justice.

Priyanka Gandhi was in her teens when her father was blown up. Seventeen years on, treading in her mother’s footsteps, she went to meet Nalini in the prison to “come to terms with the violence haunting the entire family”. Later, she said: “I don’t believe in anger, hatred and violence. And I refuse to allow it to overpower my life.”

Perhaps it is different right now for Karkare and Salaskar. Perhaps images of the violence that took away their loved ones remain vivid and the wounds it inflicted on their lives still bleed. One year, after all, is barely enough time to recover from such irremediable loss. The desire for “an eye for an eye” appears to be stoked by raw grief.

In today’s increasingly brutalized world, we come across many striking examples of women turning inwards to come to terms with personal tragedy, letting go of their desire for vengeance. Forgiveness, while liberating, is also a way of making the transgressor own up to his/her terrible actions. It also does not mean absolving oneself from remembering.

Gladys Staines forgave Dara Singh, the man who torched to death her missionary husband Graham Staines and their two young sons while they were asleep. Was it her religious faith or her gender that made her so brave? “It (forgiveness) opens up the channel of healing in our lives. Instead of bitterness, we have love and healing and peace. It also releases the person to be forgiven,” Staines had said.

At 10, twins Eva and Miriam Mozes were taken to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where Dr Josef Mengele used them for medical experiments. The sisters providentially survived Auschwitz and the infamous doctor. Separated from their mother at the camp, the twins were sometimes injected with doses of poison, virus or bacteria. Miriam never really recovered from the torture and died in 1993. Eva survived and later forgave her torturer.

In a film Forgiving Dr Mengele, Eva said, “What the victims do does not change what happened. And the best thing about the remedy of forgiveness is that there are no side-effects. And everybody can afford it.”

However, there are many women who have chosen violent redressal methods to avenge injustice done to them. Nalini was just one of the many, ready to play with people's lives for what she believed was the ‘greater good’. The politics of violence and retaliation spawns more ‘soldiers’ to the cause and many of them happen to be women.

But these so-called ‘warriors’ seeking to right historic and systemic wrongs by spilling blood help instead to keep intact the very structures of violence they loathe.

Meanwhile, law-makers and victims alike resolve to meet violence with more violence. The destruction of the twin towers in New York on 9/11 by terrorists and the inhuman treatment meted out to the law-breakers by the state at Gunatanamo Bay are part of the same philosophy of merciless punishment, shutting the door on any alternative discourse which is perceived to be “less masculine”.

Nelson Mandela was brave enough to risk wearing the scoffedat ‘emasculating’ tag. His Truth and Reconciliation Commission, no matter its problems, spoke the language of healing in post-apartheid South Africa. Victims of horrifying acts of discrimination faced their aggressors at the hearings, sometimes breaking down as they spoke.

But the act of forgiveness is undoubtedly fractured by complexities. In no society can there be a unilateral, uniform response to brutality. Coping differently with trauma is just one part of the human psyche. In that sense, there can be no ‘total’ forgiveness or ‘total’ revenge.

Co-existing with the concept of the unforgivable, forgiveness derives its strength from the fact that ‘absolute’ forgiveness is almost impossible in individual human terms. But it is not dissociated from delivering justice.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission got the torturers and murderers to admit their crimes but the process of national cathartic healing could be completed only when forgiveness was lodged in the South African psyche. The act of reconciliation still remains heartbreakingly brave.

Overcome Ego, Be Happy

Who doesn’t wish for happiness? Can money buy happiness? Do great achievements bring true happiness? Riches, success and achievements may bring name, fame and pride, but they do not always bring happiness. If lack of money and success creates sorrow and suffering, their possession does not give happiness either. The question then is how can you be peaceful and happy, irrespective of whether you are a success or failure in life?

Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: ‘‘There is neither intellect nor bhavna (feeling for God) for the ayukta or the one who is not united, and to one devoid of bhavna, there is no peace. To the one without peace, how can there be happiness?” Krishna says, clearly that unless a person is tuned into God he cannot have peace and without peace, he cannot be happy. Krishna also says that an un-united person does not have intellect.

So if you want happiness, unite with God. For this, you don’t have to abandon the pursuit of riches, success and achievements. God is self-knowledge and wisdom of sameness towards all beings because all are God. An egocentric person remains alienated from wisdom that is God. If you are free from ego, you look at all beings as God and so are united to the wisdom that is God. You will be free of sorrow and will attain peace and happiness.

Krishna says that we do not have right to the fruits of action and, therefore, we should perform actions, leaving the fruits to God. How can you avoid worrying about the fruit while performing actions? When a person regards the fruits of action (success or failure) as ‘mine’ and performs focused on the object, he is automatically worrying about the fruit. Moreover, in doing so, he fails to abide the law of God, which says that one does not have right to the fruits.

What you have to really do is to steady your intellect with the thought that the fruits of actions are of God. And when the fruit accrue in the form of success or failure, joy or sorrow, you have to mentally renounce the fruit to God. Since you do not contemplate the objects, you will not be attached to them. You will break the chain that starts with attachment and gives rise to desire, anger, delusion, confusion of memory, loss of intellect and death. Your intellect will become steady.

Krishna calls the wisdom of steadying your intellect by renouncing the fruits of action to God as Buddhiyog or discipline of intellect. In this state you can be freed from constant births in different bodies. If you don’t, you are bound by actions. You lose your intellect due to attachment, desire and anger and perish, only to take another birth in a new body.

To steady our intellect we have to bring change in our thoughts. We have to remain engaged in usual actions and enjoyments as earlier but with a steady intellect fixed on the thought that all fruits of action are of God. This will free us from desire and ego, and gain eternal peace and happiness.

The same wisdom that will give peace and happiness to us will also give us Selfrealisation and make us immortal. It will lead our world to a new age where we will live in peace, happiness and oneness, realising that we are in union with God.