When we sit in Vipassana, we experience different sensations in different parts of the body. Itching, vibration, heat, heaviness, pain, and so on. We sit for long hours in Vipassana, and that's why I normally feel pain in my legs and back. Sometimes the neck becomes stiff. Initially, we react a lot, and one hour of sitting becomes painful. In fact, we change our posture many times during a one-hour sitting. Then comes the real test. We have Adhistana for 1 hour when we don't have to change posture. We realise how painful that posture looks. The more we feel pain, the more we feel the urge to change our posture. But the instructions have to be strictly followed. We just have to observe the sensations rather than react to them. That seems quite difficult at first, and one hour feels like a lifetime. In fact, we give up after some time and make a slight movement to feel that little comfort.
However, there comes a stage when we decide that we will not react to the pain. We concentrate on the breath, and as we do, we can observe the pain without reacting to it. In fact, at some stage, we feel pleasurable sensations in all parts of our bodies in the form of pleasant vibrations, and many other different types of sensations. Now the next problem occurs. We feel like experiencing more and more of the pleasurable sensations. That desire brings us back to the world of painful sensations again, and we become sad.
Vipassana is all about observation with equanimity. However, we were all born and brought up in very different ways. We try to maximise pleasure and minimise the pain. That's the purpose of life for almost all of us. Since childhood, we develop a strong taste for foods and like to eat them again and again. We develop a sense of comfort, and that's why we feel comfortable in our home, in our room, and in our bed. We feel comfortable with our friends and family members. We feel comfortable when our actions are validated and approved by the people around us. We become uncomfortable when people criticise us. We like to feel safe and among people who do not want to damage us. That's why office politics is so psychologically draining. That's why we do not like uncertainty. The news of the Iran War will make us uncomfortable. Attending a cremation will make us sad.
Is Vipassana contradictory to our way of living? There are broadly two ways of living. First, maximise pleasures and minimise the pain. The way most of us have been living all through our lives. Second, living with equanimity. When we live with equanimity, we do not live for pleasure or for avoiding the pain. Rather, we have an altogether different locus. Our life is driven by love, compassion, and exploration. We do not want to be restricted by the ego; rather, we want to expand. When we want to expand constantly, we can't be fixated on the same old sensations.
I was looking at the festival of Holi today. Some people were dancing to Holi songs and playing Holi with colours. At the same time, I was also watching the news about the attacks by the USA and Israel on Iran. People want to maximise the pleasure while playing Holi by playing songs at a high volume and throwing colours at others. There are two mythological stories for the festival of Holi. One is the story of Hiranyakashyap, Prahlad, and Holika. Hiranyakashyap is a demon, and his son Prahlad is a pious devotee of Vishnu. Hiranyakashyap wants his son to recognise him as God, but Prahlad refuses. Hiranyakashyap asks his sister Holika to hold Prahlad in her lap and sit on fire because Holika has the boon of not being affected by fire. Prahlad remains equanimous and remembers Lord Vishnu. Holika dies, and Prahlad is saved. Symbolically, Holi is celebrated to remember Prahlad. The festival is all about equanimity and complete faith in God. It is all about shifting the locus of life from the ego to the divine.
The other story is the Holi played by Krishna with all his friends. Krishna had so many friends and loved them equally. In fact, "Ras", which is a very famous part of the "leela" of Krishna, is all about the merger of individual souls with the divine. When the soul is completely merged in the divine, our life is guided by the divine, not by the desire for more pleasure and the aversion to pain. Both stories seek to convey the significance of the merger with the divine and living with equanimity. That's the second way of living. Living with equanimity and love. That's what Vipassana also teaches us. It makes us practice love, compassion, and equanimity in the 10-day camp. Generally, that's difficult to start alongwith our daily routine because we are so busy reacting to things. We feel threatened throughout the day, which makes us stressed and exhausted by the end of the day. That's why, in the 10-day camp, when we do not have mobile phones and do not talk to anyone, we do not feel threatened. We learn to stay away from the modes of pleasure. We learn to observe our body sensations with equanimity and, in the process, discover love, compassion, and a drive for exploration within us. I am 100% sure that we may try to change the world order in any way, but we will not grow as humanity until our locus shifts from the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain to an inner connection with love, compassion, and the drive for exploration. That's the message of Holi.
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