The Sacred Drops

By Ajmal Sabhan M.D. and Venki Venkat PhD

The Sacred Drops attempts to address a few of the following questions that arise in the human mind in the realm of spirituality: Where is the mind? Where is it located in the spatial-temporal field of existence? How does it operate and cope with suffering? Why should we seek to understand it?
While mankind is able to analyze physical suffering through the prism of available medical research, mental suffering is more complex and not as well understood. Over the course of human history, saints, prophets, and philosophers have pondered and opined on the subject of mental suffering. Ancient scriptures dating back thousands of years have dealt with this matter in metaphysical terms, thereby providing a psychological support system to cope with the problem of mental suffering. Despite these available tools, the human mind struggles, suffers, and pursues all possible avenues in search of happiness.
Our desire for personal reflection and improvement led us to undertake the exercise of writing this book. In this anthology, we seek to facilitate an easier understanding of spiritual matters, through the use of anecdotes, pictures, and poetry. It is our sincere hope that this book will, at a minimum, provide you a deeper understanding and food for thought in the area of spirituality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481776622

Ajmal Sabhan M.D.

Venki Venkat has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He works as a Senior Scientist in a private firm and supports the NASA Langley Research Center. He is married with two children and lives in Yorktown, Virginia, with his wife Girija. Ajmal Sobhan received his M.D. in Bangladesh, and his surgical training in New York City. He practiced general and vascular surgery in the Tidewater Area of Virginia. He is presently retired. He is married with two children and lives in Newport News, Virginia, with his wife Piary.

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© 2013 by Venki Venkat, Ph.D. & Ajmal Sobhan, M.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/25/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-7661-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-7662-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912557

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Drop 1 Is This the Apple That Adam Ate?

Drop 2 Mind: Life Force Expansion through the Senses

Drop 3 The Bondage Cycle

Drop 4 The Truths of the World

Drop 5 So Many Paths to the Same Destination

Drop 6 The Spiritual Journey Is a Lonely Journey

Drop 7 Change Is the Secret of the Universe

Drop 8 Perception

Drop 9 Just Do It

Drop 10 Listening

Drop 11 Death and Dying

Drop 12 The Boundary

Drop 13 The Root

Drop 14 Love and Attachment

Drop 15 Time—the Great Illusion

Drop 16 Death Meditation

Drop 17 What We Thinks of Others

Drop 18 Spiritual Path Is Held in the Tension between Faith and Doubt

Drop 19 Staying in the Moment

Drop 20 Anger

Drop 21 De-Conditioning

Drop 22 Prayer and Meditation

Drop 23 The Outer and the Inner Circle

Drop 24 Waking Up, Being Aware

Drop 25 Discernment

Drop 26 Boxed In

Glossary

Turn Your Gaze

Equanimity

Wisdom

Of Death and Dying

Catch the Mmoment

The Inner Realm

Deconstruction

The Art of Living

Afterword

One has the power either to

plant the seeds of happiness

or despair.

During our entire life journey, in every moment, we generate several requirements that we must fulfill so that we can be peaceful and happy. When we fulfill those requirements, we set forth new requirements and begin our chase to fulfill them. In essence, we are always chasing happiness, worrying about the outcome, and in the process we are never happy. Fulfilling requirements to be happy is not happiness. It is suffering. Being happy is happiness. Let us begin our journey.

droplet.jpg

The Sacred Drops

dedicated to

our families, for their patience and forbearance:

Girija

Piary

Sanjay & Anila

Samiha

Aneesh & Rohini

Siham & Jonathon

Roshan

droplet.jpg

Acknowledgments

We have been extremely fortunate to have a number of people who have stood by us in this journey of creation. It is unlikely that the book would have been published without the generous assistance of Girija Venkat and Ravi Shenoy. Girija is a member of the faculty at a private university in Hampton, Virginia. Ravi is a senior scientist at a private firm supporting NASA/Langley in research and development.

AuthorHouse, our publisher, has been quite patient with us as we made progress on our journey. For this, we are grateful. We are indebted to our illustrators, Ms. Archana Hande and Ms. Nasima Khan, who have done a remarkable job in expressing our thoughts into illustrations. Ms. Hande is an artist by profession and resides in Mumbai, India and Ms. Khan is an architect and an artist who divides her time between Dhaka, Bangladesh and Maryland.

Introduction

Writing a book regarding the human mind and how it deals with suffering can be fraught with risks and complications. This is essentially because human life is never a smooth process. The risk inherent in this endeavor is that it gives the false impression that there is a quick and easy solution. We have penned this book primarily to address frequently asked questions, such as:

• Where is the mind?

• Where is it located in the spatial-temporal field of existence?

• How does it operate and cope with suffering?

• Why should we seek to understand it?

There are no definitive answers. In various ages, saints, prophets, and philosophers have pondered and eloquently spoken on this subject. Some ancient scriptures dating back thousand years have dealt with this matter in metaphysical terms, thereby providing a psychological support system to cope with the problem of suffering. Despite these available tools, the human mind struggles, suffers, and pursues all the possible avenues in search of happiness.

Suffering can be either physical or mental, but one complements the other. We want to get rid of suffering but don’t quite know how to do it. We understand physical suffering, it’s causes, and methods of treatment using presently available advanced medical sciences, but mental suffering is complex. Through the process of self-realization, we persevere to transcend to a higher level and dissipate our suffering.

It is difficult to stay focused on an individual’s aspiration of attaining a true connection with something larger without being caught up in the rituals of religious belief systems. Spirituality connotes a search for the sacred—the mental aspect of life, rather than the sensual or the material. Altruism, kindness, and thinking of others before oneself are all part of that spiritual journey one is capable of taking, with or without the backdrop of religion.

It is obvious, however, that we become mentally stressed when things that we like don’t happen and when things we don’t like do happen. Our mind continuously struggles to sustain or increase happiness and avoid or decrease pain. The intensity of the struggle is proportional to the strength of our attachment to the results. When a desired result happens, we feel happy; otherwise, we feel pain. Both feelings don’t sustain forever, but they drive us on an emotional roller coaster. This emotional wave disturbs our mental equilibrium and peace, and when our mental equilibrium is disturbed, we are stressed.

In the case of mental suffering, what comes to the forefront are the mental impurities, such as ego, greed, jealousy, lust, etc. For example, ego hurts; greed consumes; jealousy burns, but all of them start within us, and we become the first victims. They arise in our hearts and disturb our peace. We continuously attempt to derive happiness by showcasing our power, wealth, and knowledge to the external world throughout our life. In the process, we become judgmental about others and sensitive to world opinions about us. We are ignorant of our mental ailments, and our ego covers them, leading to deception. This habit of our mind to wander outward in search for happiness, to find ways to avoid pain, and to try to control and manipulate things and events external to us is what constitutes suffering.

All our life, in each and every moment, we generate a set of requirements to be fulfilled, so that we can be at peace and be happy. When we fulfill those requirements, we set forth another set of new requirements and begin our chase to fulfill them. In essence, we are always chasing happiness and never come to terms with what constitutes real happiness.

A peaceful, calm, and balanced mind is the truest definition of equanimity. Emotions create layers of unhappiness or happiness of various intensities. Unhappy emotion is suffering; also, the innate desire and associated efforts to sustain happiness forever is also suffering. Thus, our life is entirely usurped by the spectrum of emotions on both sides of the neutral or equanimity state. Whenever our journey deviates from the neutral state, emotional waves are generated, and peace is disturbed. Suffering occurs. Our journey throughout our life is analogous to a sailing ship on the ocean. The ocean waves that the ship encounters are similar to our emotional waves, with peaks and troughs. In both cases, stress results. The ship undergoes mechanical stress, and the mind undergoes mental stress. Most of the time, we are unaware of this subtle mental stress associated with all emotions. It appears to be a paradox