You will also run into those not so ordinary personalities who seem ordinary otherwise, of how they beat odds in their lives and tell you how to move on in life and live after all.

There is also a promise to offer you aspects of “heritage” so that we know as to how we differ from other communities across the world in terms of customs and traditions and what we can learn from them and unlearn from our own.

There’s an attempt to see life in all its dimensions and bringing back the concept of the ancient complete man, that dynamic organic being who never stops at just being a person of only Humanities or only Sciences; of healing the modern man who has gone so much further in his own field of super specialization that he has forgotten the way back to the organic whole. Modern man recurrently brings to my mind the image of a tree which is all dried up with just one branch, one bough loaded with flowers and fruit. Don’t we want the whole tree blossoming and bearing fruit?

By giving you the best of these aspects there is an attempt to present to you a magazine that not only stimulates your mind but also touches your heart and soul.

If you would like to contribute or have some comments or feedback, please write to us at editor@healingmatrix.ca

With best wishes,
Manjit Handa, The Editor

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People come to Rishikesh in search for the elusive goal of enlightenment and I was no exception. Having been on different paths for a couple of years I was still naïve and impressionable wandering around in the dark in search of light I had heard would lead to a permanent state of bliss and transcendence.

It was a break time between a yoga class and satsang and I was sitting on a stone wall looking out at the beauty of the mountains in the distance and the colourful ashrams across the Ganges. A man sat beside me on the ledge. I was not expecting anything from our conversation and was even feeling a little bothered by someone sitting so close as I was interested in preserving my personal egoic space. After some small talk, the man informed me that he used to hold satsangs there but then moved on to something else. He said that he was teaching Raja yoga and I asked him what ‘raja’ meant hoping for a very brief answer.

Instead he seemed to well up with passionate interest and motioning at our view and beyond stated, “there must be some Mind that contains all of this.” It wasn’t so much of what he said but the transmission of what was in the words that impacted me. As he spoke, I felt my consciousness open up and embrace my surroundings, leaving my old, unattractive, contracted ego-state behind. Bliss welled up in my face and I think he noticed. It was a mutual recognition of a higher Truth generally transmitted by a guru to a student in satsang. I was ecstatic and full of energy. I felt awake in a way that was beyond mental alertness and encapsulated a mysterious depth that goes largely unnoticed by the masses.

My perception of everything changed. I experienced an indescribable unity that just seemed to be present. It didn’t seem within or without but just present. It was a radical shift in consciousness in which my experience of self was totally different. I felt as if my consciousness contained the trees, the mountains and the sky. Looking into another human being’s eyes was like a lucid reflection of this higher consciousness and I was sure that the Mind that the man spoke about, was real.

This experience must have lasted about seven days because when I returned to the cement-like surroundings of Toronto the experience was still there for another five days or so. I was a little disappointed to experience this state dissipate. I don’t lament this experience anymore because a part of it remains with me and I’ve learned not to be attached to passing states. I now believe that these experiences are important as glimpses into what is possible if we remain true to the path. The experience in Rishikesh has motivated me to become much more dedicated to the transformation of consciousness on this planet in these most dangerous times.

Brian Robinson has graduated from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. His keen interest in spirituality has taken him to the jungles of Peru among Native shamans and also to the Northern Himalayas in India. He currently lives in Toronto continuing search for his heart’s desire.

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He who, meditating with pure mind, becomes
absorbed in the Atman—
Inexpressible in words is the bliss of his heart.

—Upanishads

The Lord is great. His place is high.
And higher even is his name.
Nanak says: One only knows his greatness
When raised to His heights,
By falling under the glance
Of His all-compassionate grace.

—Guru Nanak

A fire-worshiping Magian was asked why he did not become a Muslim.
He answered:
“If you mean that I should be as good a man as Bayazid, I lack the courage. If however, you mean that I should be as bad a man as you, I would detest it.”

—Quoted in ‘The Way of the Sufi’ (Idries Shah)

-Compiled by Parmjit Singh

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Humans, however, live a paradoxical life; we set out to be happy and end up being unhappy. Our pursuits are locked in existential schizophrenia as there is always a division between the ‘seeker’ and the ‘sought’. Frederick Franck echoes this sentiment, “We do a lot of looking: we look through lenses, telescopes, television tubes… Our looking is perfected every day—but we see less and less” (pg 3). We might seem to know a lot but this knowledge remains very superficial.

The knowledge where both the seeker and the sought or the object and the subject disappears is the highest, the transcendent. Frederick Frank’s “The Zen of Seeing” is a visual summary of these glimpses. Vision has worked as a meditation in this book where the eyes have tried to peer into the actual non-intellectual ‘seeing’ of the scene or object. In this book, Frank has used the impulses of the hand as strings of the self to sketch out that mystery of drawing. He does not teach but shows, like the finger pointing to the moon or the lake reflecting the flying birds.

It does what it should—it becomes a witness to the act of drawing and objects and scenes sketch themselves through him. He does not teach because Zen can not be taught. As Lao Tzu said, “He who knows, speaks not”, Frank hardly says anything about the mechanics of drawing because, “nearly all hints on this how-to are fraudulent, teach one at best to imitate other people’s drawings, to 'manufacture' pictures…” (pg. 21).

Zen of seeing is seeing beyond the seen (scene) and experiencing directly the object that is being seen. It is as Gurdjieff says, “when nothing remains between you and the object you are seeking to know” that is when you can see beyond the scene—that is when you become the ‘seen’, like a lake reflecting existence itself. At that moment, you become pure emptiness, the quantum void—a silence through which the bubbling multitude of pure emptiness expresses itself.

Drawing and painting is not a ‘learned’ art—it is the expression of that quantum void, the pure emptiness which bubbles into being only when the emphasis on the mechanics of art gives way to the silence of witnessing the world in “both its Oneness and its Manyness”. (pg.111).

If you let that silence speak through you, you become an artist. Frederick Franck shows that admirably.

The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as meditation
Drawn and Handwritten by
Frederick Franck
1973
Vintage Books (Random House)
Pages 129, Can $ 27.50

Reviewed by Parmjit Singh, ZEN OF LIVING

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Mythological history offers various accounts about the significance of this festival. It is celebrated differently in North than South across India: Punjabis celebrate it for different reasons than Gujaratis; Hindus enact it differently than Sikhs. But, somehow, the running theme behind these celebrations is the same: festive enjoyment coupled with various rituals.

Myths have it that Hindus lighted the whole city of Ayodhya in order to welcome back Lord Rama after his 14 years of exile. Sikhs celebrate this occasion to mark the release of their sixth Guru from the imprisonment of the Muslim ruler Jahengir. Though the reasons for all these communal celebrations seems variant from one another, yet one thing is common; it is a festive declaration of freedom to mark a disassociation from the unwelcome past be it Lord Rama returning from exile or the sixth Sikh Guru being released from prison.

But is that all to Diwali? May be not. It may also be symbolic of something very deep.

Most of the time, religious ceremonies are a symbol of something very deep where the ceremony is a simple narration of a profound act. However, we humans, always make religion out of simple practices of the past. We forget the reason behind the existence of such ceremony and become content with its mechanics. Lord Rama returning home after 14 years of exile can also be indicative of relinquishing worldliness and going on a willful recluse into your heart to know your inner self. Killing of eternal evil-incarnate, the Ravana, may also be a symbolism for killing our inner demons of greed, violence and all other states that benight our being.

Rama’s exile can be taken as a willful departure from the worldliness into the jungles of his own soul where after meditating for 14 years, Rama was able to kill the Ravana of his own self. It is not the Ravana that exists outside that threaten our existence today, it is the monster within us—the darkness of our inner soul in the form of a perpetual violence spanning our hearts and minds or greed or even our tendency to invent noble ideology to mask our ulterior motives.

The originators of Diwali may have held it as an annual wake-up call for all the celebrants. But it remains only a wake-up call—we never wake up. We never take the courage to delve deep into our heart and understand the darkness within our self in the form of greed, loathing, violence that lies beyond the sophistry and deception of our grand posturing and celebrations. As we light the row of lamps on our homes and terraces, there is also a need to illuminate the flame of our inner self so that our spiritual darkness can be dispelled. As human beings, we have not become better even after the celebration of countless Diwalis. The ‘row of lamps’ have not touched our inner dark; they have lighted only the periphery of our existence.

The real import of Diwali may not lie in lighting rows of lamps only; it may be an occasion for deep introspection. Lamp should act a reminder that nothing lasts for ever. Dogen, the legendry Zen Master, understood the meaning of life and became enlightened just looking at the wisps of smoke rising from an extinguished candle. Suddenly, he understood that life is like that—like a candle or lamp, it disappears into the wisp of smoke cloud. That, everything is impermanent.

Like a lamp which fails to light its own base, we also usually do not devote much time looking into our own darkness. Perhaps that is the chilling metaphor reminding us of the need to turn inward than being obsessed with outside. Ordinarily, we are more interested in reaching out to external objects like power, money and prayers to the Gods and Goddesses. Diwali may be reminder to the contrary. It is not about exploding crackers, but about exploding our ignorance. It is not about only lighting our homes and terraces, but about lighting our inner self with self-knowledge and understanding.

Each year we light lamps to enshrine our home, when would we light the ultimate lamp—our inner core?

The day we do that, that would be the real Diwali—the first one!

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Her childhood is nothing but a long journey of sexual abuse and violence. If Tim was “alcoholic”, Jack was abusive too. Before the age of three, P’s family had lived in a “shack” in the woods, two miles from other houses. P was always “scared” as a child. By the age of four, P’s father had been taken away and her mother left her and one of her siblings, her brother, at a friend’s place whose name was Maria and herself moved on to another part of Nova Scotia with the other kids. Maria (name changed) was a 22 yr old woman who lived with her husband Jimmy.

This was a house where physical abuse was routine stuff. Maria herself was abusive and when P came back from school, Maria would be hiding behind the door, wearing scary, Halloween-like outfits, to scare her. Or else she told her stories of “headless” men. While Jimmy (name changed) was away at work, Maria had a lot of men coming in. These were the men who sexually abused P. When Jimmy came home, he pretended that he was trying to protect her from Maria whereas actually he too took her away and abused her.

As a child P recalls seeing a lot of people having sex in Maria’s house. She vividly remembers a girl named Stacey (name changed) who visited there, about 12 or 13 yrs old, was being abused too. Various times P tried to contact her mother by writing letters but nothing happened. Later P came to know that Maria always stole her letters. From somewhere P came to know that her mother was in Toronto so she wanted to contact her. This was the time her school teacher, Margaret Faulkner came to her rescue. She promised to mail the letter for her and within three weeks of mailing this letter, P’s mother did turn up and took her along.

By that time P had also started having “epileptic seizures”. In Toronto, P’s mother lived with another man and was running a boarding house consisting twenty one men. There, there were no cases of “rape” there but there still was a lot of “sexually inappropriate” stuff happening with me. But for P this was still “a lot better” than where she had come from. She also made few friends around that place and in school and felt quite “normal”. But in school she never developed any “confidence”, thought she was “stupid” and remained “afraid”. She had joined her Mom when she was around 13 but left her by the age of 16 because of tensions ensuing between her Mom and the man she lived with.

At 17, she met a married man with whom she moved to Barrie. At 18, she had her first child with him. Her mother was no support to P during that time and told her that she would “find out” what it was like, to have a baby when P had wanted to know from her. A year later P had her next child from the same man but since she did not have enough means to support, the children were given away for adoption. Few years later she had another child who too met the same fate, adoption. P regrets not having been able to take care of these children and feels happy that these kids are all back in her life now and call her “Mom”. The eldest, a daughter, died of cancer, two years back.

When P was 25 yrs old, her mother passed away. It is surprising that P never talked about all the abuse she went through to anyone because she thought it was “normal” to be abused. In 1968, P met a man named Harry, who was “good” to her. They got married and had lived together for sometime when a certain experience led her to a psychiatrist. The doctor thought it was because of the death of her mother. For therapy, he used “primal scream therapy”, put a chair in front of her and told that her mother was sitting in it and she had to say “goodbye” to her. P screamed at the thought.

“Valium” was prescribed for her to get her through it and she remembers that for the first time she felt “whole” but fears now that it was only a “hook” for her. Now for long time to come she could not have come off the drugs. In fact more and various psychiatric drugs were prescribed. At one point, she was (mis)diagnosed a “paranoid schizophrenic” and “psychotic”. She also attempted suicide three times, ended up in bubble room psychiatric wards and would normalize for a while. She felt normal for a while and would soon “fall apart”. Her marriage with Harry broke up when she was 31 because he could no more “deal” with her.

Doctors told him she would never be alright and was “closed” to normal functioning human being. She too had come to terms with the idea that something was inherently wrong with her. From age 25 to 35 she remained on drugs. Thereafter she stopped visiting doctors, stopped taking prescription drugs but did not physically feel alright. However, she started to work now and life stabilized for a while.

The major breakthrough came at the age 41 while she was watching a documentary on the TV done by a woman called, “To a Safer Place”. This woman had suffered child abuse too. As the documentary ended, P went to the bathroom and had a vision of “two men in black suits taking her to a field”. That was a ”liberating and devastating” moment for her. She suddenly knew what was wrong with her. For three long weeks she cried, on and off. But that acted as a catharsis. It sent her on a new, fresh path. She knew she could heal herself.

She contacted the Sexual Assault Center in Toronto, took therapy, joined groups of survivors and so on. It helped no doubt, but it was a woman called Susan Wattman, whom P considers a catalyst for a vital change in her life. P had gone to a workshop series called “Beyond Survival”. Fortunately she got an appointment with her which took P three months but it was worth a try. Susan changed P’s perspective towards life, gave it an all-new definition. P fondly recalls Susan’s “complete acceptance of the essence of who she was”. P found a decent job now, a better one after these meetings with Susan…

Her message for all the women who at any point in their life have suffered abuse:

“Don’t ever give up, don’t ever count yourself out, do whatever you have to and take as long as it takes to find someone to work with you who will honor your humanity and that can be the beginning point of true healing of human spirit, not just the damage done, but the spirit of who you are can be healed by being in the company of people that honor every part of you…”

Her way of finding remedies:

“Use the medical profession but be sure to find alternatives. Reach out to find people to support you. Find the strength to reach out. Talk to people on the phone. Start with “crisis centers”. See strong women who are in control of their life.

For the society at large her message:

“There is something wrong with the education at home. Mothers can play a good role teaching boys an adequate amount of sensitivity and respect towards women”.

A one liner that inspired P:

“Learn to love yourself”

She is Peggyanne Mansfield. Works as a Woman’s Resource Coordinator at The Women’s Center, 75 MacNab Street, Hamilton, Ontario. Not just another woman, but a Hero (Heroine?). A force to reckon with.

Note: Some names in this article are changed.

As narrated to Parmjit Singh

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The past decade has witnessed the growth of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a group intervention developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn which employs mindfulness meditation techniques in the treatment of various medical and psychological problems. The aim of MBSR is to provide individuals with techniques to foster the quality of mindfulness (awareness) in everyday life to promote health and wholeness.

What exactly is mindfulness?

Mindfulness has been defined simply as the awareness that emerges through paying attention in a particular way, which is on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment. Mindfulness has its roots in Buddhist traditions and is seen as a vehicle for cultivating insight into the true nature of the mind and world. A mindful awareness is based on an attitude of acceptance of the present moment. Rather than judging one’s experiences as good or bad, healthy or sick, worthy or unworthy, mindfulness accepts all personal experiences as just “what is” in that moment

Scientific research is beginning to emerge suggesting MBSR and similar interventions to be effective in treating a variety of problems, both physical and emotional. MBSR was first demonstrated by Kabat-Zinn as an effective intervention for individuals suffering from chronic pain. Using mindfulness, patients were able to observe the ebb and flow of their intense pain without passing such judgments as “I can’t take this pain” or “It will never end”. While attending to their pain, patients began to notice how the pain was constantly changing in subtle ways that were previously unnoticed. Periods of “less pain” were observed in between periods of more intense pain, and gradually the spaces between pain sensations widened.

More recently, MBSR is being studied as a treatment for various emotional problems. Research has suggested that MBSR is effective in improving the lives of individuals who suffer from spontaneous panic attacks and high levels of daily anxiety. A variant of MBSR has been developed which uses mindfulness techniques together with elements of cognitive therapy to help formerly depressed persons prevent a relapse of depression, which is quite common. Mindfulness has also been found to be beneficial in the treatment of eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder―two conditions difficult to treat effectively.

One possible reason why mindfulness promotes mental health is that it trains the mind to observe one’s inner experience calmly, clearly, and without responding to it. The meditation techniques are used to develop a different perspective of thoughts and feelings, such that they are recognized as mental events rather than as aspects of the self or as necessarily accurate reflections. Through practicing mindfulness, individuals come to the important realization that “thoughts are not facts”, a statement which is so often “known” intellectually, but not “experienced” emotionally. Mindfulness provides a healthy way to deal with unpleasant thoughts, which is to observe them non-judgmentally rather than getting caught up with them and becoming a prisoner of mind.

Mindfulness is believed to work through changing the relationship one has towards their negative thoughts. This is a shift from current psychological treatments, which often works by aiding individuals in changing their belief in the content of their negative thoughts.

An important caveat is that the majority of research on mindfulness interventions is in the form of uncontrolled research trials. This is a relatively weak form of scientific investigation since it cannot be proven that the benefits are due to mindfulness per se; it may be that some other factor besides mindfulness is causing the observed changes. On the positive side, these studies have sparked considerable interest among researchers who are studying the use of mindfulness practices as a viable treatment for a wide variety of medical and psychological problems. Patients are, for the most part, enthusiastic about the possibility for a treatment that is self-healing and putting their health back into their own hands.

For more information on the use of mindfulness in healing, consult:

Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Heal Thyself: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine, Saki Santorelli
The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh

For a review of the scientific research on mindfulness-based interventions, check:

Baer, R.. A.. (2003). Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: a conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10, 125-143.

Chris Watson is a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He has an interest in mindfulness-based approaches to healing, and is studying the role of mindfulness meditation in the treatment of individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Picture courtesy Jane Hsieh

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I wonder if you’re with me
That if you’ll always hold my hand,
And I wonder if they’re with me
Watching me from distant lands.
And I wonder if they can see me
As I share and care and give
For it’s with the memories of their death
I shout,” I want to live “!
And yet the legacies of their love
That they have left me through the years
Have helped me love somebody else
Filled my days with warmth and cheers,
And if they have helped me laugh once more
Thinking of your smiling eyes,
If they bring me comfort
Find me peace when someone dies,
And if they have helped me strengthen my conviction
Helped me realize life goes on;
Then their death is just a fiction
For they’re not really gone.
For through memories and laughter,
Through the words, “I understand“,
Their spirits live forever,
In the heart of every man.

Sumiti Jain is a student of Master of Sciences at the Faculty of the Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

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