Way back in the fifties of the last century, the entire world of an average Indian school going child pulsated between two words, which they used to be subjected to depending on their academic performance. One word ‘bright’ occasionally expressed in Hindi as ‘Honhaar’ spelled ecstasy, whereas the other word ‘dull’ happily replaced as ‘Naalayak’ by Hindi loving self appointed critics spelled doom. In addition to the academic curriculum another demon called ‘General Knowledge’ used to bring them nightmares. This demon moved in pretty extended circles touching the names of Nobel Prize winners, highest mountain peak, longest railway route and so on. Many such children, who aspired to be called bright, licked several books on general knowledge but the predicament remained more or less the same. If you were lucky enough to get right questions you were branded as bright or else otherwise. But that was almost all. Academic performance in vague terms of marks obtained and a few certificates, often fabricated, in the fields of sports activities, debates and NCC attendance etc. erected an entire personality.

That was the world within for an average person with average opportunities. But the world without, aided by the inputs from the advanced western countries, was expanding fast. As a result a situation arrived wherein the percentage of marks or the extra curricular activities were just not enough for an aspirant of a coveted job. He had to undergo Intelligence Quotient tests and to the dismay of many, those who enjoyed a brand of ‘Honhaar’ found them to be average on IQ levels whereas many a ‘Naalayak’ got thrills with the realization that they stood pretty high on their IQ levels. Another race began and every aspirant started licking books on IQ.

This predicament is not only limited to the school going children in reality, but is applicable to every one of us no matter what our age, status, profession or educational qualification is. All of us are branded ‘Honhaar’ or ‘Naalayak’ depending upon our achievements in this material world. In case of students there is at least one common datum line of ‘marks obtained in an examination’ to judge their performance, irrespective of the blatant limitations it carries with it. Once we are out into the field from the comfortable embrace of the educational institution and our parents we enter into a limitless mad world of competition where there are no datum lines, no rules and no directions. We fix a goal in front of us, accept it as an absolute achievement and chase it all our life. We either reach there or we don’t and then get ourselves branded with this or that. At the fag end of our life when we open the Pandora’s box we are amazed to notice that we managed to collect on an average, equal number of both brands. But the story does not end there. At that stage we take all our achievements for granted and feel sorry for what we could not achieve. There is no fault with failures or achievements, which once upon a time we thought could be our only goals and later on found worthless in comparison to our failures. Fault really lies in the process of selecting our priorities, which fault again gets tossed back at us, to our lack of respect and confidence in our own ancient heritage.

When we are confused due to the lack of knowledge and confidence, we look at others for guidance. In Ghalib’s words; NksM+k u j’d us ds rsjs ?kj dk uke yw¡] gj ,d ls iwNrk gw¡ ds tkÅ¡ fd/kj dks eSaA Because we Indians lack respect for our own heritage, we look towards west for guidance. By the time Indian aspirants were trained to shine their IQ they received another terminology called EQ the Emotional Quotient. Hoards of motivators trained in the west landed on Indian soil to motivate us and to improve our EQ not withstanding that our own compelling needs are enough to motivate us. While practically every HR department is now busy improving the EQ of their personnel in western style another terminology has sprung above the horizon from west of course. SPQ, the Spiritual Quotient is the in thing today, which is yet to assume a wild fire proportion in India. The forces have already landed in the form of Meditation and Healing techniques from west, from east and almost all other parts of the world. Coal is being carried to New Castle but instead of the carriers the blame squarely goes to New Castle for not being aware of all the heat energy hidden under its own crust. The spiritual packages being brought to India are the outcome of superficial skimming on the surface of the unfathomable ocean of our scriptural database and eventually packing the extract into an attractive looking foreign brand name. Most of us are falling prey to the addiction of such hamburgers of spiritual knowledge.

Since time immemorial our ancient scriptures are talking about intellectual, emotional and spiritual quotients of human beings. No one can today fix the date of origin of Gayatri Mantra or Maha Mrityunjay Mantra because almost every ancient epic and literature describes the glory of these mantras. Millions of Indians daily recite these mantras with religious fervor, unfortunately most of them without understanding even a single word of them. The Gayatri Mantra begins with ‘Bhoorbhuvasvah’, which is a conjunction of three words Bhoo, Bhuvah and Suvah. Bhoo means the earth representing the physical and material aspects of human life. Bhuvah means the sky representing intellectual and emotional aspects and Suvah means the Swarga or heaven representing the spiritual aspect. The Sun through his illumination knows everything in the world except darkness. Thus equating knowledge with illumination and ignorance with darkness we pray the Lord Sun in Gayatri Mantra to inspire us through his illumination to uplift ourselves on all the three levels of our existence the intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

In Maha Mrityunjay Mantra one single word Tryambak (The threesome) encompasses various spheres of our life and its activities like the three Guna (the attributes) Sattva, Raja and Tama, the three Deha (bodies) Sthoola, Sookshma and Kaaran, the three Kala (time), the three Shakti (energy) Gyanshakti, Ichchhashakti and Kriyashakti and the three Awastha (states of awareness) Jagriti, Swapna and Sushupti including the three Loka (worlds) as explained in the Gayatri Mantra earlier.

Coming back to the context of the modern world we need to improve upon our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual quotients by disciplining ourselves on all these levels. The spirit reigning supreme, spirituality balances emotions, emotions balance mind and mind balances the physical body. Such disciplines are taught with the help of psychology, which again gives rise to another misconception in Indian minds apparently trusting that Freud and Jung are the fathers of psychology and India has little contribution to this subject. The study of psyche begins with the understanding of three states of awareness, which have been listed by Freud as the ‘the outer conscious’, ‘the inner conscious’ and the ‘unconscious’. ‘Mandukya Upanishad’, one of the oldest Upanishads describes four states of awareness as ‘Bahishpragnya, Antahpragnya, Praagnya and Amatra’. The first three states Bahishpragnya as the knower of the outer world, Antahpragnya as the knower of the inner world and Pragnya as not knowing either the outer or the inner world, literally translate themselves as the outer conscious, the inner conscious and the unconscious. The fourth state Amatra is yet to be accepted as a state of awareness by the modern psychology but the phenomenal explanation of ‘the quantum field’ by the modern physicists perfectly meets the description of Amatra in Mandukya Upanishad. Moreover, the Yogasutras of Patanjali, the origin of which dates back to 1200 B.C. or more, not only covers all aspects handled by the modern psychology but it also fully covers the aspects hitherto unknown to parapsychology. Owing to this reason Patanjali’s Yogasutras are often referred to as Bharatiya Manas Shastra, which many people do not know.

Considering the above facts, a very small organization named ‘Antahpragnya’ came into existence in1995 with an objective to Educate and Heal people at their physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual levels and lead them onto a path where happiness becomes an attitude and success a habit. The target audience comprises of people from all walks of life including executives, businessmen, industrialists, professionals, students and housewives. As everyone wants to be happy and successful and is groping in the dark to find the right path, Antahpragnya aims to promote their inner consciousness and help them achieve their fullest personal, mental and spiritual development.

Many individual and organizational problems of a day arise out of faulty thinking and failure to understand how to bring out one’s potential to optimum use. Stress, anxiety, unhappiness and dissatisfaction, which are common occurrences in almost everyone’s life, are at the root of such faulty thinking. However, stress is not caused by people or situations, but by one’s own response to them. One must learn to choose his response and control his mind in order to regain control of his life and other situations. This can be dealt with effectively by accessing the internal energies, thereby reaching higher awareness levels. The objective of Antahpragnya is therefore to rejuvenate their participants by conducting such motivational and reorientation programs, which will bring them a relief from stress, anxiety and unhappiness. This will automatically help generate more satisfaction and happiness, thereby unleashing their true potential hitherto lying dormant. This rejuvenation does not only enrich an individual life but also reflects in his attitude towards his job and the organization he works with as well as his family and the Society in general. The programs go to the root of present day individual as well as corporate problems and show how each of these can be dealt with successfully by simply accessing the internal energies in the right way. Shatshastras (the six sciences), Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, various Upanishads and other scriptures provide the ample database for these programs.

So, what Antahpragnya intends to do for a CATathon Runner?

This reminds me that the days of preliminary preparations are over as the mighty CATathon begins Here and Now. So take a deep breath, flex your gray cells and brace yourself. You must have tested the efficacy of ‘Ekagra Tantra’, which appeared in the May 2002 issue. Antahpragnya is here to provide you with many such tools and techniques to help you glide smoothly over the razor’s edge during this CATathon. Starting July 2002 onwards till December the following value based articles will be published in this column, which will gradually prepare and guide you into a perfectly positive frame of mind essential for the final onslaught.