Muzings by Muz

Q: Let me tell you my story. I had a really bad dyslexia problem which was so bad that I couldn’t even write my name. My mind was so garbled. I had a friend who was the absent- minded professor type. He started going to a Siddha Yoga group. Anyway, I could see the change in him. His word usage, memory and intellect just seem to get better. So I too started to chant. I chanted Govinda Jia Jia Go Pala Jia Jia. This chant burned the part of my brain that I had all of the problems in. I saw the blue light. Now my mind is super clear—-my memory, recall and retention is great. But the other part of the brain, like where you function in the present, like walking down a street, is still in the clouds. Its like the thinking part of the brain is clear but the real time part of the brain is still in the clouds. Can you help me?

    Is there a chant that I can do to open that part of the brain? Thanks.

A: Well, your condition is not too bad. I always tell people I have my feet firmly planted on the ground and my head firmly planted in the clouds!

    So, it seems that your left brain is fully operative, while the right brain hemisphere is dulled. To a degree this is normal, as the right hemisphere operates fully in the dream state at night and is only partially functioning in the daytime.

    However, having said that I suggest utilising the Mantric Alphabet to revitalise all areas of the brain and body. That is, intoning the Sanskrit phonemes of the Alphabet in a nasalised fashion.

   (If you are not familiar with this practice, you can find it on my Sound of Silence CD).

   When my Guru, Dr. Ramamurti Mishra (who was also a brain surgeon) was involved in a car crash, suffering a blood-clot in the brain, he lost the power of speech as well as becoming paralysed down one side of the body. Knowing best what to do, he mentally chanted the Mantric Alphabet constantly, so that the neural connections were able to re-establish themselves between both hemispheres of the brain. And finally he was able to walk and speak again (to a degree) which shows the power of these sound-units.

  I would also recommend chanting Gayatri Mantra (which is on the same CD) for clarity, and to supplement this with a course of natural vitamins, including selenium and magnesium.

Q. I am following a Yogic path, but find myself plagued by my Christian upbringing. I am constantly troubled between what are supposed to be ‘good thoughts’ and what are deemed ‘bad thoughts’ and struggle to find some balance between them.

A. All struggle stems from ego involvement. Stop struggling and look at what is. You will get nowhere with the game of juggling “good” thoughts and “bad” thoughts.  Concentrate on the nature of thought itself.

   From whence does it arise? Seek its origin, not its pathetic ramblings. Has the endless thought-stream (mental diarrhoea) any actual validity, except what you decide to give it? Thoughts are the flotsam of our conditioning on the mind-stream. Do you really need to scoop up any particular bit of detritus and chew on it? Whenever you latch on to a thought, that gives it strength and magnification through the lens of past ideas and conditioned concepts.

  Mind is Maya (the nature of illusion). Thoughts are a mirage mist covering over the Reality.

  You have become fixated on ideas. And ideas are the stumbling block to living spontaneously. As long as you are trying to act according to some fanciful idea you have in your head, about how you ‘should’ be, or how you ‘ought’ to behave, then you will always be in turmoil. Your idea conditions the way you imagine you ‘ought’ to act or react. 

   Because the imagined idea is NOT what is, right here and now.

   It is the carrot on the end of the stick in hanging front of the donkey.

   The donkey will never reach the carrot no matter how it strains. Nor will you reach your projection of a way you ought to behave. You will remain a donkey struggling to reach your idea: always struggling to reconcile it with your situation in the world. There will be no end to it.

  Then what to do? The whole point is not to try and reconcile your action to your ingrained belief or idea, but to find out why you decided to fixate on this particular idea or conditioning in the first place. Why have you bought into it? Why have you taken it on board?

   What is your real reason behind accepting it?  Look at that. And you might discover the reason for letting go of it.

   Consider: if there was no such idea, there would be no conflict. It is, after all, only an idea.

  Practice looking at life from your heart and not from pre-conditioned judgements.

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