He looks calm yet at the same time feisty – as if he’s ready for anything – and has a great sense of humour. He’s not a man who stands on formality either. “Call me Jimmy,” he said as soon as I was introduced to him. 

We talked for a few moments before he began a presentation on Inner Mind Development. That sense of humour was evident the minute he began. “People ask me if I am a psychic,” he laughed. “I say, no, I’m a psycho.” When they ask if he is a mystic, he replies jokingly that he is a “mistake.”

Indeed he is a man who is hard to slot. His books cover topics ranging from Philippine faith healing to karma and reincarnation to intuition and, of course, inner mind development.

He believes the mind has limitless potential, but most of us limit ourselves through our own negative thinking. “Change the mindset – and all things change,” he said. We typically use only 10 per cent of brain capacity, he said. If we understand the brain better, we can use it more powerfully. 

It is clear that he’s a man driven by curiosity about things that aren’t easily explained. He follows a reasoned, scientific approach in his inquiries – and he likes to personally test all assertions about unexplained phenomena. To satisfy his curiosity, he has tried walking on fire and being hacked by a sword! He survived both and now believes he has found the explanation: anything is possible in an altered state of consciousness.

“Everything begins with the mind,” Jimmy said. The frequency of our brain waves can alter our physical reality. “If you slow down the brain waves – without falling asleep – you can do things you cannot normally do.” 

Participants in seminars at the Inner Mind Development Institute learn about right brain and left brain activities; and about alpha, beta, theta, and delta brainwaves. In the basic seminar they learn to effectively use both sides of the brain.

In the more advanced seminars, they learn how to consciously move between different states of consciousness.

 Normally, we are in the beta state, open to our five physical senses. Through meditation, we enter the alpha state, where we are not limited by time and space. If we can slow down the brainwaves even more, we enter the theta stage, where we can control pain, bleeding, burning etc. This is the state in which people undergo bloodless surgery or walk on fire. The deepest state of all is the delta stage, in which we are normally either asleep or unconscious. However, if we can stay awake in this state, we can levitate, or bend objects through mind power, according to Jimmy.

For more information, visit:
http://www.jaimelicauco.com/index.php

The meeting lasted perhaps 20 minutes — I can’t be sure because I lost track of time as soon as I met His Holiness. I can’t remember very much of what he said, or what I said either for that matter.

Nevertheless, it was a turning point in my life and in my spiritual growth.

At the time, he was teaching monks in all-day sessions and had agreed to meet us during the lunch break. I wondered with a twinge of guilt if I were keeping the Dalai Lama from his lunch. I figured he knew better than me if he could spare the time, but I was certainly grateful for his kindness and generosity of spirit.

My cousin and I were waiting for him when he came back from the morning session. As we greeted him, he put his arms around us and propelled us into the hall where we were to chat. I was struck by his high level of energy and his rather infectious good humour.

Everything I had read and imagined about him was true. He looks at you and you feel yourself becoming calm and peaceful. He exudes compassion. When he talks to you, all of his attention is focused on you.

What I hadn’t quite expected was the strength mixed with gentleness and the compassion that went hand-in-hand with the cheerful smile and the deep laugh. I cried a little as I spoke to him of my troubles. He held my hands and comforted me not with platitudes but with spiritual truths. I was strangely at peace – even when I cried.

There was an indescribable quality to the meeting. When I came out of the meeting I felt as if I were walking a few inches above the ground. For several months after that, every time I struggled with a difficult spiritual issue, I would have a conversation with the Dalai Lama – in my head. And, always, it pointed me in the direction I needed to go.

Although I have only met him once more after that occasion, I have accepted him as one of my gurus in my heart.

In the two meetings, he talked a bit about dharma (in its connotation of a commitment to spiritual growth) and about the spiritual principle of non-attachment. He talked not in a didactic way at all, but casually as if he were just chatting with a friend. He is, of course, a living example of these spiritual principles.
A link to the official website of the Dalai Lama:http://www.dalailama.com/

Editor’s Note: The photo above shows His Holiness The Dalai Lama with Pamposh Dhar

My mother is loving and kind, yet strong and independent. Tell her a sad story and her heart melts within seconds, but cross her and she will never back down! Her passion, I think, is feeding people.

When I was growing up, she was always there for me, being a full-time mother, wife and homemaker. My earliest childhood memory is of falling off a tonga – a horse-drawn carriage – with my mother. This happened in Kashmir when I was about 2 years old. It is the only memory of being a two year old child. I guess I remember it because it was scary or at least a huge shock to the system. How well do I recall being held in my mother’s lap with her arms tightly wrapped around me while slipping off the tonga. What is most significant to me perhaps is the memory of feeling safe and protected during the ordeal.

From later years, I remember my mother, a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi, telling me to turn the other cheek whenever my male cousins hit me. Fortunately for me, my father had a more practical approach to life. He taught me to fight back by not inflicting too much damage on the other person – just enough to discourage them from picking on me.

Though I rejected that particular lesson, I imbibed other aspects of my mother’s Gandhian views. She taught me to speak the truth without fear or reservation. So much so that my father claims that I am not just truthful but often “brutally frank.” Well, I am trying to temper the “brutality” without losing the frankness.

I learnt from Mum and dad to treat all people with respect and courtesy regardless of race, religion, gender or age.

I remember an elderly gentleman moving into our home in Delhi for the entire winter one year. Mum introduced him to me as her “godfather.” He lived in Norway with her older sister’s family, but found the winter there to be too harsh. So he had come to spend the season with us. I loved this man, who told me a story from the Mahabharatha every night. Before he left, he had told me the entire tale, with all its twists and turns, and its myriad sub-plots. What a wonderful experience.

It was only much later I learnt that he had been my grandfather’s housekeeper. He had moved to my aunt’s household when she got married to help her run her new home, first in India, then Indonesia, and finally Norway.

Another year, Mum’s elderly aunt came down to escape the cold winter in Kashmir. She too, told me stories, half in Hindi and half in Kashmiri, which I didn’t know too well. Both my parents respected her deeply as the oldest member of the family taught me to do the same.

Our home was an open house to any relative, friend, or friend of a friend who was passing through Delhi. Female guests simply moved into the room I shared with my older sister. Male visitors slept on a thakhat in the living room. People who dropped in to say hello were invariably persuaded to stay on for the next meal.

I didn’t find any of this odd. I thought this was how all families operated and I enjoyed all the comings and goings. The house was open to all my friends too, of course.

Mum has always been a wonderful hostess. Equally, she is a gracious guest. Except for the closest of friends, she would not go to anyone’s home “empty-handed,” as she put it. She kept a stash of gifts to be dipped into as and when required. If she didn’t have an appropriate gift to present, she would take flowers or fruit. Never under any circumstances would she go without a gift on her first visit to someone’s home.

She was also careful to never allow her host to feel uncomfortable on our account. When I was in my teens, we had close family friends who lived nearby. Since the relationship was so informal, we would often drop in on each other at short notice. One time, when we had gone over, the lady of the house apologized because she had cooked only a simple vegetarian meal that day.

My Mum, with her most innocent look, asked, “What day of the week is it?” When our hostess told her, Mum still maintaining her innocent look replied, “Oh we never eat meat on Tuesdays.” (or Thursdays, or whatever day it happened to be). This happened at least 3 times before our friend finally caught on!

In our own home, my Mum resolutely refused to teach me to cook or do household chores. I was possibly the only Indian girl of my age back then who couldn’t make tea. Girls were generally groomed to be good wives and daughters-in-law in India’s joint family system. My Mum assumed, like others, that I would eventually marry and “settle down.” But, in the meantime, she wanted me to have fun. She insisted that I should enjoy myself because there was no rush to get involved in cooking and housework!

Both my parents considered education to be of great value, both in itself (as knowledge) and in its ability to make one financially independent. Mum wanted her daughters to be well educated and to work before marriage, if not afterwards. I remember her talking about this even when I was really young, perhaps 10 or 12 years old. She felt it was important for a woman to know she was capable of looking after herself even if she was not going to work after marriage. That way, “if anything went wrong,” she would know she could be financially independent.

As things turned out, I worked, got married, continued to work, and never really “settled down,” while happily moving around Asia with my husband.

My mother, now 83, continues to be a loving presence in my life. She doesn’t cook in her own home any more, but when she visits my husband and me, she makes a special effort to make us a favourite dish once in a while. It is hard for her to stand for long, so we put a chair for her in the kitchen. Our cook/housekeeper helps her by cleaning and chopping the ingredients but Mum directs the process. (Sometimes my parents cook together, but that deserves a post of its own).

Even though she lives in India and I am in the Philippines, we often spend quality time chatting on the phone. She never fails to ask me to give her love to my husband – “and even more to you,” she invariably adds. Then she chuckles and adds: “But don’t tell him I said that.”
Happy Mother’s Day Mum!

To find out how other Ticklers and readers responded to these questions click here. If you would like to take this interview as well, mail us your answers at interview@tickledbylife.com. (we will publish only the best responses)

What is God?

Pamposh: God not captured in a few words (or even in a lot of words). God is beyond definition.

God or the Big Bang? (or both)?

Pamposh: Both. Who created the Big Bang?

God or Darwin (or both)?

Pamposh: Again, both. Whose idea is evolution?

God or Darfur? (How can Darfur happen if there is God?)

Pamposh: How? By human folly.

Who is God’s God?

Pamposh: Hmm. If God means whatever we take it to mean, God is, in a sense, our creation. There we – you and I – must be God’s God.

Will the real God please stand up? (Why do we have so many religions?)

Pamposh: Remember the story of the elephant and the four blind men who described him variously by the parts each one felt? God is in the eye of the beholder – each one pictures God according to their own understanding and imagination.

Is this just a big lab and are we just guinea pigs and God just a researcher?

Pamposh: I’d say it’s a school and we’re students.

Does unexplained phenomena = God?

Pamposh: Unexplained surely has more to do with our own lack of understanding than with God. I’d say no, not God. I’d say unexplained phenomena really equal un-understood phenomena.

All spiritual and religious traditions, as well as the best secular value systems, teach us that life is precious. These traditions do not distinguish between individual human beings, assigning more or less value depending on race, monetary worth or any other criteria.

Yet, so often as a counsellor, I have met people who value their own lives less than those of others. I had a young client who literally couldn’t bear to hurt a bug – her mother told me of how she saved a beetle from being accidentally squashed and how they weren’t allowed to kill ants in their home. Yet this same girl often cut herself, mostly on her arms, with a blade.

I am not suggesting, of course, that low self-worth is an unexplainable phenomenon. During counselling, we uncovered certain incidents in my client’s childhood that had a very direct bearing on her lack of self-worth. Even so, is not surprising that she was so mindful of a beetle’s life and cared so little for her own well-being?

Another woman, a devoted and fiercely protective mother of two, tried to kill herself when she discovered her husband was cheating on her. Why would she put his fidelity (or lack of it) above her own life? Fortunately, she survived the attempt, got counselling and has not looked back since. Her love for her children has helped her to move on – and, I hope, also a newly-discovered love of herself.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. This assumes that we already love ourselves. That part – loving oneself – does not need an explanation. Or so one would think.

The Bhagavad Gita, which encapsulates India’s Vedic wisdom, teaches us that our innermost core, and our Highest Self, is atma, or soul, which is an aspect of God. In the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, when you fold your hands and bow to another, you are saluting that innermost Self: the Buddha within, the atma, the spark of divine fire at their centre. In return, they fold their hands in deference to the divinity within you.

All our lives are precious. In the overall scheme of things, your life is no more – and no less – precious than any other.

But to you, it should be more precious because it is a personal gift to you, for which you alone are responsible.

Whatever our beliefs regarding creation, we all know we did not create ourselves. This life, therefore, has been given to us – as a gift. Do you treat this gift of life with the love, respect, and responsibility, it deserves? Do you appreciate, do you treasure, the most precious gift that you can possibly receive on this Earth?