Alprax and Fludac: A Heady Cocktail
The human mind is perpetually screaming from within and without. It seldom pauses to watch the rainbow in the sky, the wafting clouds or a brood of hens crossing the road. We fail to notice a cow regurgitating, a cat meowing, or a kite soaring across the sky.
Do we observe the antics of the animals in a zoo, the deer in their park or a sanctuary with mindfulness? Or do we exhibit our narcissistic tendencies by taking selfies with the estimable gizmos at our disposal. Instead of admiring and appreciating the pranks of the playful lion cubs in the zoo, our mind meanders to some event which occurred in the past or to prospective plans. The mind swings like a pendulum between the past and the future and is seldom in the present.
During an overseas trip a family of four gathered at the dinner table to carouse and partake of a gourmet meal. They hardly ate mindfully, gobbling down as if it was the last supper. The parents in unison berated the children for their purported clumsiness at the table and ungainly behaviour.
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Years ago, the head of the family was working in a prominent company which marketed tobacco and other associated products. He got hooked on to cigarettes, which took a severe toll on his health. He developed hypertension. The restless and distressed mind became prone to anxiety attacks. Doctors treating the youngster were compelled to administer Alprax and Fludac. It was a disturbing task for his wife to arrange for the daily dosage of anti-depressants.
Upon recovery, the impatient and fidgety mind once again began smoking and drinking, till they became quotidian habits. This was deleterious for himself, his wife and family. However, he could get by, thanks to the prayers of his wife, the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and practising the rhythmic breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya as taught in the Art of Living.
The couple would find solace listening to the haunting tunes of Simon and Garfunkel, especially the soulful number ‘Sound of Silence’:
Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because the vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
But the mind of the head of the family could achieve only partial normalcy; peace and relaxation were once again ensnared by the Scylla and Charybdis of avarice and desires and got sucked into the cesspool of antipathetic thoughts. Mara always lurks in the corner to unleash his arsenal of demonic thoughts whenever humans attempt to establish equanimity, equipoise
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and equilibrium in their life. This is the chitta or nature of the mind: It keeps on wavering constantly.
Once, two Buddhist tutees in a monastery looked at a flag fluttering in the gush of winds. The senior surmised the flag was moving from north to south, while the junior felt it fluttered from the west to east. They squabbled incessantly, unable to arrive at any plausible conclusion. Soon the Zen Master arrived at the scene of disputation, and concluded that neither the wind nor the flag moves: it is the mind that moves. And this quintessential truth could be appreciated only by a robust and mettlesome mind.
Having read this Zen story in a magazine, sudden realisation dawned upon the head of the family; in a flash he realised that though he had embarked upon a spiritual path he still possessed an impatient and restless mind as he did not surrender his EGO to the DIVINE in totality. In his pursuit of false aggrandisement, he had become a victim of false glass ceilings, which had no aperture to the ultimate truth.
That afternoon a Buddhist monk spoke at the hotel and expatiated on the eternal truths as revealed to the world by the Enlightened One:
1. Observe the body (Kayaana Paschana)
2. Observe the sensations (Vedananu Paschana)
3. Observe the flow of mind (Chittanu Paschana)
4. Observe your true nature (Dhammanu Paschana)
The propertied couple attended the discourse and realised that though they had taken steps to assuage the mind, these were only baby steps. The human mind continued to be the source of noise, with no silence. While they heard the mellifluous rendition by Simon and Garfunkel, they never truly appreciated the import of the lyrics.
Upon returning home, the wife headed for a course in
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Pranic Healing to delve deeper into her inner self and the husband repeated the Art of Living course, following it up with a ten-day silence course to harness the true reservoir of prana in their lives.
They are happy today and sport a smile. Both had their
reasons: the husband eschewed dependency on Alprax and Fludac completely and the wife was happy for him. The impatient and restless mind was now assuaged and they could discover peace and silence, which connected them with the cosmic energy.
4
Anger and Arrogance
Our mythology (particularly the Ramayana and the Mahabharata) is brimming with several well-stocked illustrations in respect of characters plagued with hubris, hurtling them down to their nemesis.
In a state of rage and conceit, determined to wreak vengeance on Rama and Lakshmana, Ravana usurps Sita and ends up paying a colossal price, losing his life and kingdom. Similarly, a covetous Duryodhana, spurred by the evil designs of Shakuni, egged by Dushasana and abetted by Karna are all subsumed by the Pandavas in the battle of Kurukshetra.
An angry and arrogant mind gets blurred and smudges the vision of an individual. Consequently, he behaves in a groundless manner, which has calamitous and baleful consequences for the person and those in his companionship.
“Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have,” writes Joyce Meyer.
Is it possible to associate with such individuals who are prone to filibustering and arrogance? The answer is an emphatic NO,
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since there is no dialogue, only a monologue or a harangue by the self-conceited person. This drains our energy levels, a situation we would like to circumvent to save ourselves and our minds.
Why do human beings become angry and arrogant? Why do we lose our sanity? The mind, for a variety of reasons, becomes strained and unwired. This leads to acts which result in self-aggression and consequently self-destruction.
The human mind assumes unnatural patterns and behaves in a volatile manner. A volcano of anger and arrogance erupts. Such individuals are veritable prisoners of their own image, which is conceited and egotist.
Such individuals are characterized by ‘reacting’ and cannot pause to respond to any situation in a tranquil manner. In a state of anger and arrogance, their cognitive behaviour gets superimposed by an irrational thought process.
“I’m in trouble because I’m normal and slightly arrogant. A lot of people don’t like themselves and I happen to be totally in love with myself,” says Mike Tyson. He further adds that he “wishes to conquer people and their souls.”
Mike Tyson, who earned epithets like Iron Mike, the Baddest Man on the Planet and Kid Dynamite outside the ring, was convicted for rape and consuming marijuana and suffered from a bipolar disorder. The family was disowned by father Kirkpatrick, and Mike, nursing various grievances, dropped out from school. There was a burning inferno inside one of the most ferocious boxers the world has seen.
He has had several brushes with the law. Tyson strongly felt that he was stigmatised by American society, and that US society has not been constructed on the principles of justice, but on rape, grime, slavery and injustice.
He married thrice,besides various dalliances and philandering.
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He was convicted for rape. He underwent reformation and was proselytized and sought refuge in ‘Allah’. He converted the raw energy of anger and arrogance in the boxing ring where he was extremely successful. His life is replete with various roller coaster sequences of events, full of extremes; but he became the ‘Lord of the Ring’.
The mythological figures mentioned earlier, who were victims of anger and arrogance, bore bruised egos resulting from bruised feelings and emotions, alongside a deep sense of hurt and resentment. Ravana lusted after Sita and felt slighted that his sister Surpanakha was cold-shouldered and disfigured by Lakshmana. All his life Karna bore the cross of being called a Shudra, his many talents and abilities notwithstanding. Duryodhana remained perpetually infantile, given to juvenile behaviour. Besides, he was under the delusion that the powers that be of Hastinapur would have never agreed to his accession after his father Dhritirashtra abdicated the throne.
The feeling of hurt, playing a victim, jealousy and injury, gets metamorphosed in such personalities into deep seated vexation and anger, leading to false bravado and arrogance.
The anger and arrogance gets vitiated into negative thoughts, leading to self-destruction under the strain of self-delusion.
However strange it may appear, there is a flip side at the end of the spectrum, where individuals have deployed emotions of anger and arrogance to become achievers.
“Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy,” wrote Aristotle. Who doesn’t miss the swagger of Vivian Richards, the ferocity of the pace of Dennis Keith Lillee and Jeff Thomson? Several politicians, industrialists, writers, artistes, kings and
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monarchs could channelize this energy of anger and arrogance to become highly victorious and triumphant.
“To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible, you have to be stubborn, you have to be arrogant, and you have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost,” says Chris Evert.
Therefore, arrogance is a double-edged sword. Often it subsumes the personalities to self-destruction as they lack the power of self-discrimination and self-examination, thus becoming victims of guilt and persecution complex.
A Chris Evert could see the light at the end of the tunnel and channelized her ‘arrogant’ energy. Can everyone do likewise?
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