What is the Seed you have sown today?

 We have two choices in every action and thought to sow- either a seed of love or one of hatred. When a mother complains to her children about the irresponsibility of their father, she sows a small seed of doubt which when the child’s desires are unfulfilled becomes dislike and when the father (who may have been right) reprimands the child, the seed of doubt and dislike becomes hate.

We expect our neighbors to be nice to us, but when they are not, when they don’t invite us for a function in their home, even though we had always helped them in the past, their action sows a seed of hatred in us. We could water that seed or let it go, forgive and also forget but that is up to us.

A teacher sows hatred for a fellow student when one child is praised inordinately compared to the other. A principal sows hatred by being partial to her favorite teacher by giving some extra rope to one and by dealing with strictness with others.

A mother-in-law sows hatred between daughters-in-law when she gives more gifts to one or loves one’s children more than the others.

An employer sows seeds of hatred in a worker when he underpays and over-works.

In all these cases, seeds of love could also easily have been planted. The mother could have extolled the virtues of the father to their children, the neighbor could have invited them to the function, the teacher could be impartial and fair to all children, sensitive to not hurting a weak child, and the principal could be impartial as well, the mother in law could love all her daughters-in-law with equal kindness, the employer could be fair to his worker and so on.

Each time we walk the path of righteousness we sow a seed of love. Seeds of hate are such that they poison the life of the very person who sows them, leaving them with bitter fruits and unrestful minds.

 

Special Needs and as the Buddha would see it..

 2600 years ago around 480 to 400 BC lived a man who found a way out of misery in life and he went about teaching that way. Gautama, the Buddha, started a new religion, though that was never his aim. And now, over the years, Buddhism to the common man represents, meditation, chanting, the Dalai Lama, and monks or nuns in robes with wise preachings. People seek and find a sense of peace through the various practices of Buddhism. But are they all the way out of Misery/sorrow..is that what the Buddha really wanted us to do?

No! says Stephen Batchelor, a proponent of 'Secular Buddhism', an erstwhile monk, who de-robed after a decade-plus as a Gelukpa monk, went on to marry a fellow nun, and has done extensive research on what the Buddha really taught. Just as Christianity of our churches, popes and the Vatican has little to do with what Jesus the Nazarene actually said...the same is true for Buddhism. 

Stephen says, the core teaching of the Buddha is to embrace the sorrow, look at the reactions the sorrow gives, end the reactions, and charter an action plan to tackle the sorrow or life in general. This is the 'Four Noble Truths', something we have all read about, which Stephen says, would be more accurate to describe as the Four tasks. Nirvana as per the Buddha is the sense of peace these four tasks when accomplished gives, is not a constant state, but a result of this effort, in dealing with our reactions to life and its problems. Nirvana is not some state of heightened consciousness, as per the Buddha's original teachings.

Stephen says 'the four noble truths' may not have been the Buddha's expression at all, that Buddha meant four 'tasks' that need to be undertaken constantly which will then become what one can call -' a practice'. This minor change in words actually subverts the original instructions extensively. To work on Embracing (E) , Letting go (L), Seeing it go (S), Acting(A), ELSA is what Stephen says was the Buddha's core teaching. Action refers to the Eight-fold path. 

Let's look at special needs from this viewpoint.

What is 'Special Needs'. Essentially it refers to the very special needs that an individual has, which usually needs the help of people or society at large, to be met. Today we have umpteen resources to get help for the persons with special needs. This help may be free or paid for, as long as the person benefits, life goes on.

Generally, a person with special needs requires support all his life, in some form or another. Underlying this support is a sense of compassion and care for another sentient being. 

So the first task- is to Embrace this occurrence in your life. You as a parent, have to take life-long care of your child. This is a hard reality. It's what life has served you. Ask yourself, do you embrace this deal? Do you accept this new mode of life? You can't live only for yourself, you have to live for another too.

The second task is dealing with your reactions and Letting them go. The reactions usually are anger, sadness, helplessness, desperation, hopelessness. Recognizing thoughts like that, and not getting caught in a mental loop, of repetitive negative emotions and thought, requires mindful awareness of such thoughts creeping in.

The third task is to end the reactionary thoughts, See them go. How do we do that? We do that by making an opposite resolve in our mind, give ourselves hope against hopelessness, joy against sadness, the power to change against helplessness, calm acceptance of the situation as against anger.

The fourth task- Action- what do we do now, access all avenues that will alleviate the suffering, help in all the previous three tasks, get professional help, get family support, get neighbors to support, schools workplaces, In other words, the positive steps we take to truly help the person with special needs.

To conclude like all problems, the expert dissecting awareness, and action of parenting a special child, that the Buddha suggests as a tool to overcome pain is the best way to handle the situation. Thus handled, a parent can daily experience the bliss of Nirvana and an end to his or her suffering. 

Isn't it a beautiful method? 

Freedom and Special Needs.

Does having special needs means you are no longer free? Does being dependant on somebody mean you are now their slave? The reason these thoughts come to me is because in a recent meeting a mother of a 15 plus years old autistic boy said that her son's daily life was carefully monitored, as left to himself, he would either do nothing or something inappropriate. This was in a discussion where the 'what after us?' question was being discussed. Obviously the mother felt, probably like many parents of autistic children that keeping their wards engaged in meaningful activity was an absolute must.
The mother in questioned was asked if she had ever given a choice to her son, on what he wanted to do and she said, him being non-verbal and non expressive, such a situation was not practical. Yes, again, left unmonitored, he would resort to meaningless activities, she said.

This is not an unusual condition among special families. Very few families actually even think that their special kids might have a choice in the matter of what should be in their lives, which school, class, therapy, sports, hobbies or social occasions they want to be part of. Almost all think, the child is not smart enough to make a choice. Yet all the parents ever want is for their children to show a glimmer of intelligence and motivation. Isn't intelligence and freedom deeply connected? Can intelligence flourish without choice?

When we ask our neurotypicals to work towards various competitive exams, we know that the ultimate motivation has to come from within the child, to focus, work diligently over many months, if a positive outcome is to be the effect. Then why don't we give the same rope to special children? Really listening and accepting their choices is fundamental to their being motivated to do any work, to improving themselves. A special child is not a computer to be programmed. He comes with his likes and dislikes, abilities and disabilities, desires and needs. We have to slowly learn and adjust ourselves to all of them if we want the child to be a rounded adult.

We want desperately for the special needs adult to be independent, but rob every moment of freedom and 'channelize'  the child in some activity or another. Is it a big surprise that the adult can never know what he wants to do, because he was never given a chance to express and fructify what he really for himself ever. Striking a balance between freedom and rational restrictions is a must in good parenting. We cannot be 'pleaser' parent, and some boundaries have to be drawn. But then, freedom to choose harmless things, freedom to err in choices, freedom to pick and move on to make better choices, aren't all this what all of life is really about? Shouldn't we start training our special needs children to actually exercise this freedom and express themselves strongly, without an apology.

Morphic Fields, Morphic Resonance, Special needs and human Evolution- How I integrate these ideas.

Morphic Fields, a scientific phenomenon brought to the forefront by famous evolutionary biologist Rupert Sheldrake, refers to a ‘form’ making ‘plan’ that exists in the electro magnetic atmosphere surrounding anything that is growing. From the formation of a tree from a single seed, or a human baby from an embryo, Sheldrake suggests there exists a morphic field in which the prototype ‘plan’ of the new being already exists which helps in forming it.
In an experiment in which the egg of a newt was tied half way and thus destroyed, it was seen that the newt still fully developed in the other half, even though that half probably did not have all the genetic information to fully form the newt. Sheldrake suggests, take for example the cells in the human embryo, that form hands, are the same as those that form the legs too, but then how is it that there is so much difference in shape and appearance between hand and legs? What causes this difference to arise? Sheldrake says that the human embryo is not forming on the basis of genes alone- in fact the gene theory is now debunked since man has the same number of genes as a worm, rather it’s the morphic field surrounding the embryo that actually helps in forming it.

But what are these fields? Can they be detected? Sheldrake suggests that these fields are like magnetic fields around magnets, a phenomenon easily depicted by iron fillings. But there are no ‘iron fillings’ yet discovered that can prove morphic fields. This matter can only be inferred from what is happening around us.

Today a very large number of children born, seem to have many missing links and seem to need a lot of assistance in their development and support, even in their adult life. Views for this preponderance varies from that these are mistakes of nature to that these are higher souls, taking birth to pull the hapless parent to a higher vibration. That is, the views vary from rank materialism to spirituality. But what is really the truth?

Statistics reveal that the rate of autism is now 1 in every 55 children. It seems odd that nature would make so many mistakes. Or that so many children would come as ‘bad karma’ for their parents.

Is it possible that these special needs children, not just who are autistic, but all those other syndromes, dyslexics and other learning impaired children be by products nature’s experiments to develop a more evolved form of humanity?
We parents of special children notice certain commonalities that exist in our children pan special needs, like their having unconditional love, a self sufficient state of inner calm, non-ambitiousness, non-competitiveness, living in the now, authentic living, love for the arts, love for nature, tolerance for others etc. Yet its also true that these children are learning impaired. But time and again some mothers who worked diligently for years with these children have been able to teach and improve this aspect. Today there are enough occupation therapists, special educators and doctors working on improving these children’s attention spans, skills and knowledge. Yet only a marginal few can claim to have made a special child fully independent. Most will remain dependant on their families for survival, till the end.
So how can one say Nature’s experiments are successful? How can a dependant form of a humanity be good?
That is true, but special needs children are just the evolving humanity. With each generation, mothers and professionals working on various techniques with consistency and diligence are creating morphic fields which make learning easier for future special children. We see this in the new babies that are born today who seem hardwired to know how to use their parents’ smart phones. Only morphic fields can explain this new skill in babies. Morphic resonance suggest that if something has occurred once, its easier for it to occur again. For example at one point it was a great human feat to conquer the Everest. Today there appears to be a queue to reach the same exalted peak! Yes better equipments are one reason, but improvement in human skills for this task is also one reason, which may be due to morphic resonance.
Today world over, almost every problem has a support group rallying around it, be it cancer or acid survivors or domestic abuse victims. The internet is the age of communities. It’s the age where learning and sharing has become a cake walk. At one point, knowledge was a premium, but today its only a click away. People are sharing solutions to their difficulties like never before. Morphic resonance is changing humanity at an unprecedented rate.

In the next few hundred years, its may not be that a ‘cure’ for autism will be detected, but what may happen is that the new autistic child will not be so learning impaired, will have all those great qualities discussed earlier, like non competitiveness etc, along with abilities which make him or her completely self-reliant and independent. What am suggesting is that nature seems to working on developing the ‘qualities’ in human beings, not just in developing the human intelligence. Because its these qualities that provide a sustainable life for the planet. For the time being, in nature’s experiments, the children appear to have enhanced inner qualities but poor in survival needs of learning and adapting to the environment.
This is where the very important role of the special mother comes in.
Today’s hardworking conscientious special mother, is through the patterns that she creates in the morphic fields making the lives of all future special moms easier. Future special children will learn faster, adapt quicker, the sensorial sensitivities may reduce. It may seem horrifying to some that an entire race may become ‘autistic’ but that is because we define autism in its deficiencies, if the deficiencies are removed and the great qualities still exist, that race would probably be the first truly spiritually peaceful race on earth! But we are many tens of thousands of years away from that.
So even if the child does not develop at satisfactory pace, may never be fully independent, special moms have a unique role in evolution according to me and every effort towards improvement is meaningful and useful.

Reading material- A New Science of Life' - By Rupert Sheldrake.

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A Walk in the Theosophical Society

A Walk in the TS- This walk is a guided one, with a particular route taken from Besant avenue gate, through the public areas of the TS, in a circuitous manner so walkers are fascinated with the wealth of unusual trees, flowers, cacti, birds, insects, ponds, building and history of the TS that they get to witness in the span of an hour. 

Introduction a the Besant Avenue gate.

The TS was started in New York in 1875 by Helena p. Blavatsky and HS Olcott. TS was started at a time when western materialism was rising and the west was totally oblivious to the Hindu and Buddhist doctrines on karma and reincarnation. HPB and  HSO In 1879  travelled to India, widely in search of a headquarters for the TS and only in 1882, they reached Chennai and bought the Huddlestone gardens- a 27 acres property, on which they established the home of the TS. The TS today has 1200 centres in 50 countries. Annie Besant was the second TS president in 1907 and within four years acquired more property to make it 250 plus acres. There are 100 buildings in the campus. Its campus glorifies reverence for life in all forms.

At the Bharat Samaj Puja or Hindu Temple

There are six small places of worship on the campus representing the six major religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism,  Zoroastrianism, Muslim and Christian religions. The Hindu or Bharat Samaj Puja temple was designed by Jiddu Krishnamurti and inaugurated in 1925. It has no idol but a lamp to worship and is called the temple of light. It has twelve pillars with bas-relief. They signify the 12 zodiac signs. One of them shows the eternal youth teaching his pupils among who are sages, under a banyan tree, by the power of his silence. A special chant has been created for worship in this temple which at the end of the ceremony is supposed to create an aura of healing and compassion to spread far and wide. These special prayers in groups are offered during the international convention that takes place in January.

Walking on towards Bhojanshala

Further down we cross the mahogany trees of the founder’s avenue. This path is lined by mahogany trees on both sides, planted with soil bought from the TS centres of various countries. Bhojanshala lies at the end of this road. The Founders avenue ends or starts with a small trilithon. Trilithons are parts of temple, here there are 5 procured from the Chandragiri temples in N.Arcot. by the founder HS Olcott.

Next, we see the rockery with the diff types of cacti. 

The tall columnar cacti blossom from July to Aug. one can also see and hear the 10,000 plus fruit bats that hang from the banyan tree beyond. Fruit bats are not blind, called flying foxes, feed on the red fig fruits of the banyan tree, and are nocturnal here and are harmless. They are not migratory. 

More than a hundred different bird species have been noticed here.

Now we pass the various trees and coconut groves to reach the path that leads to the Buddhist temple.

 This temple has a small shrine and 1000 years old buddha shrine. The window represents the swastika- which represents the four noble truths and the dharma chakra is represented by the 8 spoked wheel, the eightfold path. The bodhi tree that faces it is from a sapling of the original bodhi tree under which Buddha got enlightened. Yellow alamander flowering trees line the path near the Buddhist temple. The bell room facing the temple had to be removed after an attempted theft.

To Olcott’s memorial

Further, we walk to the ‘Radha Burnier’ path parallel to the Adyar river with mangrove vegetation.

Further, we walk back and cut across to the Anjaneyar temple, which was constructed when the cooks of the bhojanshala requested Annie Besant to construct a small temple for them, and walk along by the riverside bungalow, with a brief description of CW Leadbeater, who has written many books and is well known for his book on 'Chakras' world over.  The octagonal room was constructed for him.

Headquarters building

 We reach the path that leads out to the next trilithon near the headquarters building. On the left of the path, the trees of rose of Venezuela (red bunched flowers) and pink oleander trees line. Inside the hq building we see the bas-relief sculptures of the various religions of the man, along with the society’s motto, and its three objects. The doors of the museum and archives were gifted by the prince Harisinghji of Benares with the bas-relief of the incarnations of Vishnu.

The Rose of Venezuela near the Headquarters hall and opposite the adyar theatre.

Medha Gautam, a molecular biologist who died too young at 60, has a garden named after her.

We walk now passing the memorial of Subramaniam Iyer, was appointed as a judge in 1891 and also was the first Indian chief justice of the Madras high court. He was from Madurai and helped Annie Besant in the home rule movement, from 1907 to 1911 was the vice president of the TS.

Following this is the memorial to the contributions of unknown theosophists.  We examine the cannon ball or naga lingam tree here.

We pass other exotic trees to the fourth trilithon and turn back via the Adyar theatre thru the admin block, noticing a huge temple tree or frangipani facing it walking now quickly back toward the banyan tree.  

Other flowering trees to look out for are the Portia flowers with yellow and orange blossoms,(with soft petals) and the Indian laburnum. Insects to watch for are the red cotton strainers and the seven

 spotted black cockroaches.

Before the banyan tree we take a detour to see the Blavatsky bungalow in which Tagore stayed briefly in 1934, and examine the banyan tree, The fifth trilithon is in front of the great banyan tree whose main trunk fell in a cyclone 1989. Annie Besant and JK have lectured under this tree, which was the spot for meetings before, until it became too big. The area of the banyan tree covered is 60,000 sqft, and is approx. 450 years old.

We pass a very large tamarind tree and more caesalpinia trees on the right.

The Zoroastrian temple lies to the right with Assyrian motifs. The winged farohar or fravashi represents the higher self. Kneeling in front in obeisance are horses, by the steps. This temple worships fire. On the left further, is the Sikh temple, followed by the liberal catholic church.

We finally end with the Adyar library started in 1886 by Olcott which houses 160,000 to 200,000 books and 20,000 palm leaf manuscripts. Originally the library was at the headquarters hall, but shifted to the new premises in the 1976. The old library is now a museum. It has a 800 years old book with Buddhist inscriptions.

Outside the library, there are a few bushes of the birds of paradise and further down near the car park the red and yellow caesalpinia trees.

Making sense of Dhruv

When we were first diagonosed with Fragile x Syndrome, a genetic form of autism, apart from the terrible feeling that we now had a 'special needs' child with a life long disability on our hands, the first pressure on us was 'early intervention'. We were made to believe that the sooner we try to turn things around, the better. Thus we went down the spiral of therapies, teaching aids, classes and medication. By seven, Dhruv began to speak and by ten, he was toilet trained. But his behavior became more and more violent. No amount of discipline, rewards or punishment or discipline worked. If he was well behaved in school, his behavior at home was out of control. When we changed a school for this, the opposite happened, he was running berserk in school but was calm at home. And sending him to any school was a daily morning challenge for us.
Finally at age 14, he called it quits to schooling, then began a year of home tutors, who too were sent packing after a few months, with his his need to control them, by acting up, being uncooperative and finally with him telling us to stop them.
In the last three years we have encouraged Dhruv to express himself in colours and paints. We found him growing in self confidence, we found his melt downs almost neglible, we found we could negotiate him to do things around the house, to take care of his hygeine, and manage cycling trips to nearby stores, handle money, handle people with politeness and consideration. We found a sea change in him, once we stopped trying to change him, once we stopped demanding or imposing or charting his course. We didnt understand why this was so, though we were just relieved and glad that at least we now lived in relative harmony and peace.
Recently i came across a diagonosis called Pathological Demand Avoidance or PDA and this has helped me understand Dhruv better, perhaps finally. PDA is defined as an anxiety driven need to be in control and avoid other people's demands and expectations. The children exhibit manipulative behaviors, a need to constantly control their environment and people, they avoid all external pressures on them and when any of this is apposed, have melt downs. The cure for this is to reduce anxiety by building trust, to minimise pressures, to set up a loving and encouraging atmosphere at home and school.
I had been aware of ODD - Oppositional Defiant Disorder, I knew about anxiety, but had never connected the two. Our very simple demands of going to school, simple demands around his hygeine, our need to train him in small skills were all causing severe anxiety in the poor boy. An anxiety he had no tools to deal with and this caused his innumerable outbursts. We, under the pressure of parenting dos and don't s, society and our own sense of worry, had really caused so much fear and anxiety in him, but these three years of easing that pressure, brought about everything that we had always hoped for.
Even now, being part of a large support group of special parents, i feel occasionally pressurised when i am asked 'what is Dhruv doing?' or 'where is Dhruv?'  or why is he not part of the various classes that go on in the center that we started, i always have to come up with one answer - 'Dhruv is fine he in a happy place, and we are satisfied with his progress', but the niggling worries would get spiked in me.
A formal diagonosis of PDA is something i cant expect from the draconian special educators and therapists that i have met, the disorder itself being defined only in 2008, but if i sense that this explains Dhruv to me, I don't really care for what others say.
Overall i think, i have finally made sense of Dhruv!

The Autism Bubble

Entering the Autism Bubble

The word autism comes from Auto- in greek meaning self.. self ism. In fact this is quite opposite to what autism really is - because there is no ‘self’ in it-there is no personality in it- no one building skills, abilities, the SELF. Instead one sees a child who is totally living in a bubble unable to deal with others or build something of himself. The only way to have a relationship with the child is to enter his bubble. Not to prick that bubble, not to make him come out of the bubble- just enter it.

But what does that even mean?

When you enter the bubble, you see what he is for the first time.

You watch how he thinks, understand why he acts the way he does. When you do something to help him, you do it as team work, as a facilitator.

This bubble welcomes all compassionate non-violent people. It gives space to all, it is cooperative living.

There is no anger in this bubble only joy.  There are no comparisons, no anxiety, no jealousies. There is no getting somewhere in it either. Its living without time. There are only moments in this world.

Its a world of peace and harmony of love and companionship. 

You are a parent/ sibling/friend/ relative.

Can you enter this bubble? 

Watch what happens when you try to pull this child out of his bubble- push him to compete, push him to establish a ‘self’ to be ‘better’.. he is full of fear- he is in a world he doesn’t know or understand.  He doesn’t understand sarcasm, contempt, shrewdness.He has no tools, no weapons to deal with the world.

Throughout the last half century since autism was discovered, method after method has been invented to break the autism bubble. For what?

‘It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. ‘Jiddu Krishnamurti

Yet, it is all we are doing.

Its time we heal ourselves to enter and live in the autism bubble.