MIND Over MATTER

This is a long story spanning two decades, so I will strip to it to its bare bones.
An engineer by profession, I am (or was) a man proud of his scientific temper. To me all rituals, fasts, prayers, pilgrimages, meditations, chants, etc. were that much of mumbo jumbo. Therefore, it was on a lark, that I decided to get initiated into Transcendental Meditation (TM) in 1974. Scientific temper also demands, that even we should look at the most absurd propositions, with an open mind and be prepared for the unexpected. Three days into my initiation, I realized that something was happening to me and that there was a feeling of being submerged in a sea of serenity. Next week, I persuaded my wife to also to get initiated. Big mouth that I am, the word spread around pretty fast and before even I could realize, the children of our neighborhood and all the employees of our office, from senior managers to drivers and peons were meditating. When the word spread to our headquarters in Bombay, I got a call from a dear friend of the family and my colleague, Pamela. She pulled my legs - 'Suman, how can a rational being and a 'scientific' guy like you fall into this meditation stuff!' She herself was a tough minded rationalist and had till now shared my skepticism about religious and spiritual matters.

Years passed and we crossed our paths, both as colleagues and family friends. One day, Pamela rang up very excitedly and wanted to thank me, for some how sowing the seed of meditation at the back of her mind, while all the time remaining a doubter. To make it short, she had at one stage been declared a terminal case of cancer. When modern medicine gave up, a friend suggested 'why not try meditation, when nothing else works!' As no TM center was locatable in the vicinity, she joined a course in Vipassana meditation. This she 'religiously' pursued, with the same determination, that she pursued everything else in life. All of us in the family are her unabashed admirers. Her zest for life and the ability to make others laugh, at the manner in which life doles out problems to her, is truly amazing. There is no trace of self-pity. When she got engaged to her love of many years, it was discovered that he had cancer, at that early age. In spite of his protestations, she went ahead with their marriage and decided to have two children in quick succession, as' his living memory'! Whether we call it spontaneous regression or 'one of those things' - she herself attributes her return to normal and very active life, thanks to Vipassana. This was at least 25 years ago. Since then she has been leading a whirlwind of a life. Of course, our company and our colleagues left no stone unturned, to be by her side in all her moments of trials and tribulations.

At the peak of her career, she suddenly resigned, leaving all of us stunned. She was a daughter of the Himalayas. She wanted to return to her mountains and open a school for the kids in a very remote village in Almora District- all at her own cost. This place was a 16 hours bus ride from New Delhi to Almora and another 2 hours rickety ride to the village. In the fastness of the area, everyone had to go fetch water for oneself, so did she! She provided the books and all the study material at her cost to the kids. Never taking no for an answer, she also managed to get a telephone line drawn to this remotest of places. This way, she manages to be in regular touch with her daughters and grandchildren in Ahmedabad and New York. Also visits them once a year.

In between she has managed to produce a book, 'Listen to the Mountains - a Himalayan journal' a hardback published by Penguin. Ruskin Bond, himself a great teller of Himalayan lore, has this to say about this book, 'A Himalayan village comes to life in these vignettes ... Pamela Chatterjee's love of the mountains, its wildlife and flora, comes through in these pages, fragrant with pine needles and morning dew.'

Exposure to such events around me and reliably well documented cases elsewhere, have made me a firm believer in the power of faith, religion, meditation, any belief system, a great sense of humor, a zest for living or a great purpose in life - as long as it does not impinge with peace and harmony of those around us! It's MIND over MATTER!

In Part 2, let's have a look at the strange and very reassuring case of Dr. Norman Cousins', well documented by him in his book - 'Anatomy of an Illness' and what Susan Sontag has to say in her book - 'Illness as Metaphor'.