Ranjit Rao - Meditation & Martini

MEDITATION & MARTINI

The Subtle Cocktail of Balance

The Subtle Cocktail of Balance

Dr Ranjit Rao

MICHELLE ANDERSON PUBLISHING

First published in Australia 2015
by Michelle Anderson Publishing Pty Ltd
P O Box 6032 Chapel Street North
South Yarra 3141 Melbourne, Australia
www.michelleandersonpublishing.com
tel: 61 3 9826 9028

Cover photograph of author and design by Robin Goodrich,
Goodrich Design, Melbourne
Copyright : Dr Ranjit Rao 2015
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed by Toppan Security Printing Pte. Ltd. Singapore

National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication entry

Dewey Number: 158.12

This book is dedicated to my family, who have put up with all my idiosyncrasies: my dear wife Kanchana, my children Arjun and Samika, my parents Jana and Vimala, and my in-laws Kaarthi and Kala.

T his book is for those of you who want it all. Its for those who wish to enjoy everything the world has to offer materially, while simultaneously experiencing a full, healthy life of vitality that is spiritually vibrant.

If you wish to live the life of a monk or an ascetic, there are plenty of other manuals that you can turn to. Every path has its place and all of them are valid. This book is for the individual who is fully living in the hustle and bustle of worldly life. If you have a busy job, a hectic family life with a partner and children, and if you enjoy all the pleasures that life has to offer, such as food, alcohol, coffee, sex and friendships, and if you also wish to achieve the balance and inner peace of the Buddha, this book will offer you some insights.

Often the material and the spiritual seem poles apart. But are they really so different? Is it possible to be spiritually connected while in the midst of a cutthroat business deal, a life-saving surgery, or partying with friends? The answer is yes, and the way to do it is by experiencing your inner nature and establishing it as your ground-zero default state.

In the title of this book, meditation represents the spiritual, while martini represents the material, but dont take the title literally. Im not trying to promote alcohol. As a surgeon, to do so would belittle the massive harm that alcohol causes in our society. Theres no way that anyone can actually meditate while under the influence of alcohol. Meditation is about clarity, while the ultimate effect of alcohol is distortion.

The purpose of this book is to highlight that life can be lived with a certain balance and poise that provides a place for every experience. The only thing that must be given up is judgment.

Being a doctor and a surgeon has given me a unique view of life and the individuals within this rich tapestry. So many personalities, temperaments, situations, and circumstances, all reacting differently to the illnesses and challenges that life throws at them. While one person may be calm and philosophical about a new cancer diagnosis, another may be brought to their knees with paralysing fear. Every day, I am staggered by the courage and resilience that people display when threatened with a life-threatening problem.

This book is a series of reflections on aspects of life that I have observed on my own personal journey, wearing a myriad of different hats: surgeon, doctor, yoga and meditation practitioner, spiritual seeker, student of Ayurveda, obsessive golfer, marathon runner, wine lover, husband, father, friend, and, most importantly, observer of the world around me.

I hope that some of these reflections will resonate with you on your own personal journey and help you make the choices that are in keeping with your own highest good.

I pray that all beings are showered with love and kindness, are free from suffering, make intelligent choices, and live their lives euphorically.

L ife does not come with an instruction manual. We are born into this world and grow up exposed to a host of different external influences. From this we come to a certain set of conclusions about life and what it means.

Life wasnt meant to be easy.

Nothing good comes without hard work.

Money doesnt grow on trees.

These are some of the well-known clichs that we have all heard while growing up. Generally the same paradigms get passed on from generation to generation, and the message can practically be etched into our DNA. Along the way we try to make sense of our lives and the world around us.

Many choices are available to help us rationalise our existence and dictate the way we live. Often we choose a pre-recorded paradigm that has been handed down to us rather than creating a tune of our own. The whole spectrum of possibilities exists in our minds, from the expansive and sometimes unrealistic anything is possible to the fatalistic life is like this and we have no control. What is important is that we arrive at a space where we are conscious choice-makers.

The entire New Age movement is based on the false premise that anything is possible. This is a ridiculous notion. If youre born a male, is it really possible to become a female? Only with surgery! But even then the genetics are still the same. If you jump off a building, is it really possible that you will fly? Not unless you have undiscovered superpowers. I rest my case.

Positive thinking will only get you so far. Like everything, it has its place, but it needs to be grounded in reality. Im not suggesting that you shouldnt stretch your imagination as far as it will go, but the reality is that we are all born with a set of cards and our task is learning how to play our best game.

As a surgeon, I have observed many different programs within individual psyches. Optimism, pseudo-positivity, anxiety, fear, rigidity and depression are all distortions that may contribute to an illness, or cloud an individuals reaction to an illness. A classic example in my field of urology is prostate cancer. The media and various awareness groups have done much good work in raising the profile of this potentially deadly disease, but we do know that most forms of prostate cancer never kill and the disease simply requires careful monitoring. Some patients with an anxious disposition, however, who are faced with a diagnosis of low-risk prostate cancer are unable to accept non-treatment, and they sometimes end up on the treatment line suffering the consequences of incontinence, impotence and other problems.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are men with high-risk life-threatening prostate cancer who shun conventional treatment and try to cure their disease with meditation and herbs. While the exceptional miraculous cure may exist and be beyond the realms of standard measurement and validation, the vast majority of these patients miss the window of opportunity that treatment offers and end up succumbing to their disease.

Mental distortions can often make it difficult for people to make the decisions they