Margazhi is a Tamil month. Its considered auspicious and temples will be busy throughout the month. We used to wake up to devotional songs from the speakers, piercing our ears, from a temple near our home at around 5 30 am. My cousins and I, would get up, brush our teeth and rush to the temple to get "sakkara pongal", a never to be missed, delicious food given as prasatham. My great grand parents typically started their day with prayers and would draw three lines with ash on our foreheads too, murmuring some blessings. Apart from that, I don't remember being religious or devotional when I was young. I grew up mostly agnostic of God. But my mother's illness made me feel helpless and so I prayed, wishing He would save her miraculously as often told by religions. Unfortunately, the miracle didn't happen and I lost the last bit of faith in God.
The incident shook my reality and kind of threw me off from everything I believed. Not just in God and religion but others like rituals, festivals, culture, marriage, morality and values. After a period of grieving, I realized life doesn't have any intrinsic meaning and I might die anytime. Hence, I turned into a hedonist and an atheist, a staunch one at it. The only thing I believed was "Happiness and compassion". I did everything that I have only wished doing so far. Indeed it was refreshing, life felt exciting and I was happy. But it didn't last long. I was soon bored. Then started bouts of depression and anxiety, on and off. I had to distract constantly with one thing or the other, to keep life going. But it wasn't easy. At some point, there was nothing that would bring me happiness nor joy. I started questioning the purpose of my life and everything felt pointless. I was desperate but nothing changed for years. I felt something was missing in my life and content was a rare rare feeling,, even though I had every comfort. But I looked around me and I can say no one was happy with what they were doing, how they life was or their relationship was. There was suffering everywhere and only made me think why endure this. We dont stop there, we bring lives into the world, only to see them go through the same. But most of my friends carried on saying its how their fate is. Ahh. I wished I believed in fate or in God or had faith in something like astrology, u know just to feel a little secured.
Google and reddit told me I was going through an existential crisis and so I thought spirituality might offer some insight. The religion I was born into always spoke about supernatural powers and it felt like bed time stories for adults and even other religions were not very different. To be honest, I have felt religions didn't do any good for the humanity, in fact it only made it worse by encouraging fanatics and fascists'. To be honest, I dismissed anything to do with religion or rituals. In the core of my heart, I know I cant walk that path back.
So the next stop was philosophies. Most of them agreed life was miserable and meaningless and we cant do much about it. Accepting this somehow brought some relief to me. I turned into a Nihilist which I believe I was since long before I know the term. If this is how its going to be, then I thought I should learn to deal with it. I read about how mind works and took classes on human psychology. It got better, Forming habits and making routines helped a lot. I thought "Of course, life is pointless but lets at least try to be healthy and make it painless".
If I have to be honest, my days still varied from "what's the point" to "hmmm, not bad". But never contented and happy. So my search still continued. Meditation was slapped onto our face by every self help page and books. Meditation is still sold as a way to motivate, achieve our goals and stay focused, which I was not very keen. But still meditated as it was advocated as an anti depressant. In between all this, I got in touch with my old friends who were into meditation and Buddhism, who helped me see the real deal of meditation. This was a important turning point.
I started reading about Buddhism. To my surprise, it was the closest religion to rationality one can ever find. There is no supernatural stories nor stories to terrorize you into following it nor to keep in check.
Western science is advanced, I agree but it is mostly anatomical. It doesn't have much to say about why we feel the way we feel or why some are "too good to be true" kinds while some are crazy enough to shoot at strangers. Science is way behind when it comes to psychology. While in east, there was not much anatomical studies (We have Siddha and Ayurveda. Unfortunately it didn't live up to the modern science due to constraints) but the focus on mind and spirituality had really flourished.
Buddhism speaks about the nature of world (Dhamma) that all life is suffering and it is caused by desire and ignorance and it can be ended by following a certain path. He has detailed the problem of life, and what causes it and there is a solution to it and he has charted a pathway for it. He has spoken about envy, desire, loneliness, boredom, loss, attachment as the major cause of suffering. I was awed. 2500 years ago, he has spoken about how mind works in such detail, that science is still struggling to figure out.
I also found, the real purpose of meditation is not just to be more focused or less depressed, although we could still reap these benefits. Meditation is not just avoiding thoughts. Meditation is focusing on an object without getting distracted but not just that, though we start there. Its about being present in the moment but not just that. Its about being present in the moment and skillfully investigating the nature of our mind. Meditation is a tool to see a different perspective of reality, that every moment, every thing is constantly undergoing change. We all know this as a matter of fact, but to see it and experience it, we need to meditate and calm our mind to notice. Not just an hour or two. Not by starving or becoming a monk but by being mindful all the time, every waking moment. By understanding impermanence, we can respond rather than react to situations. I believe this could solve a lot of problems.
I am still an amateur in meditation and spirituality but I do relate to a lot of things said in Bhuddism and I kind of feel this is the path for me. May be its just the other side looks green now and not sure what it will hold for me when I arrive. I do wonder if that is real and green, then is our reality which we are living right now, a dream? But one can only find out by walking the path. Honestly hoping the other side turns out to be green.
