Bhagavad Gita: Overcoming Fear with Abhaya

FACE THE BRUTES

• "Abhaya," a Sanskrit term, signifies "fearlessness" and Bhagavan Krishna identifies it as a key divine attribute in the Bhagavad Gita.
• Fearlessness is essential for both spiritual seekers and laypeople, as fear stems from ignorance.
• Fearlessness empowers individuals to bravely confront challenges.
• According to Swami Vivekananda, fearlessness is a powerful concept from the Upanishads that combats ignorance.
• "Abhaya Mudra" symbolizes fearlessness, protection, peace, and benevolence in Sanatana Dharma Philosophy.
• Lakshmi Devi, Durga Devi, and Parvati Devi are depicted holding "Abhaya Mudra," symbolizing protection from fear.

The Fear Factor

• Fear arises from excessive worry about future events, creating an imaginary state based on uncertain outcomes.
• Realized sages are completely fearless.
• Being rooted in the present eliminates fear
• Fear is rooted in feelings of insecurity (physical, financial, and emotional)
• Fear of failure leads to emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms like rapid heart rate, chest tightness, and digestive issues
• It can generate feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, causing low self-esteem, academic failures, regret, sadness, disappointment, and shame.
• However, overcoming fears makes individuals stronger and wiser.

Who is Fearless?

• Those who live with fear find life burdensome, but accepting responsibility makes them fearless.
• Jyoti Kumari, a 16-year-old girl, won the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2021 for cycling 1200 km with her injured father during Covid-19 lockdown.
• Latha Unni sacrificed herself to save 5 students when their school van fell into a pond in Kerala.
• Both Jyoti Kumari and Latha Unni displayed fearlessness by taking risks and prioritizing others' safety.

Kuyili - The Veerthalapathy or Veeramangai

• Kuyili was a fearless woman freedom fighter who sacrificed her life.
• In 1772 CE, Sivaganga was ruled by King Muthu Vaduga Nathar who was killed by the Nawab with assistance from the East India Company
• Queen Velunachiyar, Vaduganathar's wife, hid in Virupachi and built a new army
• The Queen met Kuyili who became the Chief Commander of the Women’s Army.
• Kuyili devised a plan to defeat the British entering the Sivaganga fort with companions on Vijayadashami.
• Kuyili and her companions poured ghee on her body and set herself ablaze, destroying the British arsenal.
• The British army surrendered to Velu Nachiyar, who ruled Sivaganga for fifteen years.

Fearlessness is the Courage to Stick to Truth & Righteousness

• Sri Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita that those free from attachment, fear, and anger, absorbed in and purified by knowledge of Him, attain His state.
• Karna's fear of losing friendship with Duryodhana led him to support unrighteous acts in the Mahabharata
• Karna supported Duryodhana in plotting to burn down the Pandavas, mistreating Draupadi, and killing Abhimanyu
• Despite being a fearless soldier, Karna lacked the fearlessness to uphold righteousness.
• Individuals should be loyal to friends but correct them if they are on an unrighteous path, even if it means ending the friendship.
• Vibhishana abandoned his brother Ravana in the Ramayana because Ravana was on the wrong side of the war.

Face the Brutes

• Swami Vivekananda advises facing difficulties boldly, as hardships subside when one ceases to flee from them
• Difficulties should never be avoided, but rather fear, troubles, and ignorance should be fought before they lead to failure.
• Chanakya Neeti states that one should be apprehensive of the cause of fear until it is close, and then fight it undaunted.
• "Bhavana Bhayanashini" which means “determined feeling destroys fear”.
• Courage alone is insufficient for success, it must be accompanied by knowledge and resources.
• Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says “Abhayam vai Brahma” (4.25), fearlessness is Brahma
• Fear originates from the sense of duality i.e., “I and Object of fear” (1.4.2). Which means fearlessness is the ultimate state of realization.
• Overcoming fear leads to numerous accomplishments and faith in oneself helps to overcome emotional problems.
• The message from Upanishads is to have faith in ourselves and the divinity within us so difficulties can be overcome
• To be fearless, think stronger until the goal is reached, practice Yoga and Meditation
• Chanakya said that when fear approaches, attack and destroy it, so overcoming fearlessness can be achieved with strength and willpower.

WEAVING A NEW FUTURE USING ANCIENT THREADS

• Fritjof Capra is well-known for his book Tao of Physics, which explores parallels between science and mysticism.
• Capra highlights Leonardo Da Vinci’s pervasive systems view embedded in almost all of his scientific works
• Da Vinci focused on organic views of buildings and their ‘metabolism’ in city planning.
• His concept of city planning, was not taken up by mainstream Europe until four centuries later.

Geddes - An Heir to Leonardo?

• Sister Niveditha acknowledges Prof. Patrick Geddes in her book ‘The Web of Indian Life.’
• Geddes (1854-1932) was a Scottish polymath, biologist, town planner, geographer, and humanist.
• He met Swami Vivekananda and J C Bose at a Paris exhibition, later becoming Bose's biographer.
• Geddes toured Indian temple-cities, particularly South Indian ones, fascinated by their planning.

Systems view of Indian Temple Towns

• Geddes marveled at Madurai's temple-centric design
• Paripāṭal describes Madurai with an organic view where:
  • The city resembles the lotus that blooms out of the navel of Vishnu
  • The streets resemble the arrangement of petals in the lotus
  • The people of the city form the very pollen
• Geddes realized the city's design was not mere poetic hyperbole, but a system connecting the city and its people to the material universe and pure consciousness.
• Geddes worked in India and Palestine between 1914 and 1925
• The colonial government was not enthusiastic to implement Geddes' ideas or acknowledge the wisdom of Indic city planning.
• Narrow lanes opening was more wise shade-bearing trees and leave building sites large enough to enclose courtyards and gardens.

Tel Aviv and Kanchi

• Geddes was impressed by Kanchipuram's drainage system and sewage management for local gardens.
• His sketch of Kanchipuram is considered one of the best illustrations of the importance of the metaphysical city center.
• Geddes learned that Kanchi was composed of small communities, almost fractal cities in themselves, each centered around a temple which in turn provided a sacred geography.
• He used the insight he gained from Kanchipuram into his designing of Tel Aviv which replaced the houses of the spirit with secular gardens.
• Geddes also visited Srirangam, deciphering the archetypal philosophical basis of the temple constructions and paddy fields.

Sacred Festivals for Secular Town Planning

• Geddes was for preserving the science of Indic architecture and an All-India Sthapatya Vedic conference materialized in 1918 for this reason.
• Geddes wanted to integrate his vision of reviving and updating traditional Indian architecture and town planning with modernity.
• Geddes saw spiritual and cultural events in India linked to town planning and administration, particularly the car festival (Ratha Yatra)
• Geddes was pointing out he “cannot but defend this ceremonial of car as a civic institution, and a festival essentially beneficent.”
• Geddes saw it as a way to keep broad streets free of encroachment and maintain them and carrying public opinion against encroachments
• At Indore, he used the Deepavali victory procession of Ram to fight filth and pollution.

A Lineage

• Radhakamal Mukherjee, a pioneer of human ecology, continued Geddes' tradition
• Geddes was influence not only by town planning, but by Bose in plant communication when working on town development for Indore.

Democratising the Sacred Space

• Geddes was aware of the civilizational intelligence embedded in traditional town planning but was also for democratizing the spaces in harmony with ancient design.
• Geddes envisioned the temple towers becoming the seats of learning of ancient languages and physical and social sciences.
• Development of cities in harmony with their original historic plans would halt “the worst of all India’s modern plagues - that of slumdom.”

Conclusion

• India has the additional impetus of generating from the past.
• As India moves towards building futuristic cities it is important to remember the works of Patrick Geddes on ancient Indian town planning and their relevance to today’s human socio-cultural ecology.
• According to Dr. Ravindra Singh Bisht, “Dholavira was the first such excellent example of town planning with mathematical precision, both arithmetic, and geometry”.

THE MUCH NECESSARY COGNITIVE SHIFT – PART 1

• Every moment, humans are bombarded with stimuli such as visual, auditory, tactile, etc.

Making Sense of the World

• Humans have the ability to absorb everything that is happening around them
• Attention is selective
• The answer lies in the triad of sensation-perception-cognition.
• Sensation is the detection of external stimuli through sensory organs.
• Perception is a meaning-making process of processing, organizing, and interpreting sensory data.
• Perception happens in two ways - bottom-up and top-down.
• In bottom-up processing, our brain is purely dependent on the sensory data it receives and systematically processes the characteristics of the stimuli.
• The latter, top-down processing is experience-guided which means we react and respond to situations based on what we have learnt and encountered in the past.
• Gestalt principles of perception show how our brain is wired to perceive shapes and patterns from incomplete stimuli.
• For any given figure, when our attention is moved to the foreground or background, the perception of that image itself is altered.
• Meaning-making are influenced by the cultural context within which one is situated.
• One study highlights how two groups, perceived something in different ways based on their own cultural experiences.

The Ways We Think

• Cognition can be understood as a complex process involving various aspects such as perception, reasoning, decision-making, memory, problem-solving and other higher order mental processes.
• Language particularly forms a crucial part of cognition.
• The way we cognize the world, approach problems, make decisions, etc. is profoundly impacted by what we learn and what has been handed down to us by generations before us.
• Knowledge is an amalgamation of continuously evolving experiences and ideas of conceptual structures.
• The conceptual architecture of each knowledge system is shaped by the quest of the context it develops in.
• If we try to decouple knowledge from the cultural context it rises in, we consciously or unconsciously tamper with deeper, layered meaning that it has carried since generations.
• Cognitive processes do not operate in, they are attached to emotions and actions.
• Culturally, we are taught certain patterns to adapt and even excel, certain life experiences may cause us to enter into maladaptive ways of thinking and functioning.
• Indian culture has adaptive mechanisms to re-cognize the world and re-view our interactions with ourselves and others.
• The idea of vrata, means to take breaks from areas where energy is being leaked and spend time in conscious reflection to refocus cognitive resources.

Cognitive Shift

• Today there is are distinct worldviews and a the collective and the individual are on the verge of a breakdown.
• Leading public policy makers call this a multi-crisis where the individual is facing an endemic of loneliness and emptiness.
• A Cognitive shift is needed and the scenarios are the following:
  • Discomfort experienced between the current cognitive framework and substantial amounts of challenging evidence.
  • Highlight limitations and biases in present ways of thinking with alternative ideas and cultural contexts
  • Lived experiences that disrupt existing frameworks, generate an existential cognitive dissonance and prompt people to evaluate sustainable alternatives.
  • Constructive debates, social dialogues and reflective discussions.
• Newer, sustainable ways of relating to ourselves and the world that have authentically developed as an integral part of the Indian civilization should be examined.