Karma Sutra

A Lama without a Monastic Order My close ones call me Lami – abbreviated from the second half of my first name – Neelam. After my hair-loss due to chemotherapy, people would often comment that I looked like a Lama. The alliteration was irresistible and so I became Lama Lami – a self-initiated Lama without a monastic order or robes. My unofficial initiation into lama-hood is also owed to an experience of Satori which the cancer episode left me with. Much has been said and written about living in denial of mortality but really, there is something to be said for living in the face of it. Present moment awareness is a practice I had been labouring at for a long time. But the mind, with its tendency to constantly wander away to memories of the past or anticipation of the future, is hard to hold on to. I started using the constant thought of mortality as a peg to tether my mind to stay ‘here and now’. That helped me deal mindfully with a cancer that has since relapsed four times in as many years. I learnt that I undergo stress, anxiety or a sense of calamity only when I either connect with a past experience or anticipate a future event. For instance, I might feel anxious when I recall what my mother went through when she was battling cancer. Or, I might worry about having to go through painful chemotherapy all over again, every time I relapse. In each case, I am either in the past (memory of mother’s suffering) or in the future (anticipating pain). I then ‘suffer’ vicariously, even though there is no pain or discomfort in the body at that moment. This is the kind of suffering that practicing the power of now has helped me overcome. Whenever the mind veers towards fear of what might befall me, I bring myself back to the present moment, knowing that I can deal with whatever comes up, only when it comes up. What helps me when I am in the moment of actual physical pain is the profound realization of the Buddhist saying: ‘pain is inevitable but suffering is an option’. I consciously limit the experience of pain to a sensation in the body and not add mental suffering to it by feeling unfortunate, resisting the pain or wishing it away. Surrendering to the reality of the moment is my mantra for the end of suffering. In the preceding years I had been ‘on the path’ for quite some time and the carrot that had kept me going was the lure of a halo! During the early years, I actually wore an imaginary one round my head. As someone with spiritual inclinations and a few insights, I had a holier-than-thou chip on my shoulder. But as the practice of present moment awareness deepened my insights, the chip fell off and the halo evaporated. I realized – with some disappointment, I will admit, that there is no halo at the end of the spiritual rainbow; that the rainbow is its own reward. I recall a moment of epiphany long before my engagement with spirituality. I was on the rooftop of a high-rise – shooting the cityscape for a corporate film. During an idle moment, I was observing the crisscrossing streets below and the toy-like vehicles purposefully navigating the roads. One stretch of the street was choked with traffic and from that height I could clearly see that the cars headed for it could easily by-pass the jam by making a right, then left on a parallel road and then left again to meet the same road up ahead; and actually get there faster, than by taking the straight road. But the drivers on the ground couldn’t see that and they all continued on their pre-determined path, getting caught in the traffic jam ahead. I was struck by the thought of how an over-arching view can clarify the course. The sweeping perspective at my command gave me a clear view of the future course of that traffic and the alternative courses. Spirituality gives us that over-arching vantage where we can see ground-reality in a larger totality and see that there is not just one pre-determined course – there are always choices. It helps us transcend the constrained reality of our limited experience and tune in to a higher intelligence. Life can then be navigated with far more clarity without running into roadblocks. For the longest time, I berated myself for my need to wrap my head around existential and spiritual concepts rather than experiencing spirituality. Gradually, I dropped my resistance to my need to understand – because understanding, I realized, is my portal to realization. When one is on the path of seeking, all roads lead to realization of spiritual lessons. Everything assumes a koan-like quality – a chance remark here, an anecdote there can lead to an epiphany. Through Karma Sutra, I share motley stories, insights and revelations about life as we see it and as we don’t. The stories included here carry the essence of spiritual teachings. Culled from various wisdom traditions, some may be familiar, yet may make a point you had earlier missed. A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. It has a tremendous recall value because the mind retains visuals better than thoughts. A story is worth a thousand pictures because it evokes mental pictures as we read, that get retained in our memory like a comic book or a storyboard. Stories are a useful tool on the spiritual path because when we begin to walk the talk and start practicing what we learn, we tend to waver. We regress to our old, habitual way of living life – and that is when we need a timely reminder. A story has a way of coming to mind at just such a time, to set us back on track. To share from personal experience, I heard the one titled ‘Enough’ around the time I needed to hear it most. My husband, barely into his forties, had suddenly died of cardiac arrest without any warning or previous history. Apart from coping with the tragedy, the mantle of bread-winner to a family of four – me, my two children and my mother-in-law – sat very heavy on my shoulders. Although I was running a successful advertising business at that time, anxiety attacks would grip me in the middle of the night leaving me in a hell of panic. I would try to work through those anxiety attacks with every tool in my New Age kit – deep breathing, mind control, affirmations – but none of these would hold up to the intensity of the attack. And then invariably, this story, which is about abundance being a state of mind rather than a state of finances, would pop up in my head – and give me so much solace that I would go back to sleep. I hope this book makes a good travel companion on your journey.