Midnight -- A Story Offering for Janmashtami

Midnight – An Offering for Janmashtami

Mukam karoti vachalam
pangum langhayate girim
yat krupa tam aham vande
param ananda Madhavam

(My obeisance to the highest ananda, Madhava, the ocean of mercy,
who can make a dumb person speak and a lame person climb a mountain)

Narayana stirred.  He could feel blue all around him, the milky blue of the ocean with unfathomable depths beneath him—the Ksheera Sagara—the pale blue glow of the sky that stretched above him in all directions, unblemished by cloud or constellation.  In this realm, he was the only star, shining with the splendor of a million suns.  His lower back flexed, and he felt the shifting coils of Ananta Shesha, the serpentine bed on which he reclined, whose thousand hoods provided him shade and shelter, stretching to accommodate him.  At his feet, he sensed Lakshmi’s expectant smile, the slowing of the whisk of her fan over his body, as she waited for him to open his eyes.  In the unending vastness of blue, she was a flashing flame of red, the point of all auspiciousness and beauty in his world.

            

In these few moments, in this half breath of his, countless worlds in the material universe had arisen and expired.  As he lay in yoga nidra, this form of divine “sleep”, without any conscious intent, simply by the power of his being, he created, sustained and annihilated planets, galaxies, entire universes without number.  He was at his most powerful as he rested, in a slumber that was not sleep, working His will through all worlds, without any action, without any effort, without any thought, without any intention.  This is why he was named Narayana—he whose resting place is on the water.  When he took action, when he moved, when he spoke, he operated at a level several orders of magnitude lower in power.

But he had stirred for a reason.  The time was approaching.  He could feel a momentum gathering, the coalescence of various causes and conditions, the weaving together of so many strands of karma, all leading to His descending to Earth, once again, and living for a time in the world of the mortals. 

Paritraanaaya saadhoonaam vinaashaaya cha dushkritaam;
Dharma samsthaapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yuge yuge

(For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of Dharma, I manifest myself in age after age.) (Bhagavad Gita, 4:8).

***

All across the land, there was terror.  The land was being taken over by asuric (demonic) forces.  Asuras (demons) were usurping kingdoms, hunting down and killing those who dared to defy them.  There was darkness all around—the light of yajna, the sacrificial fire ceremony, was snuffed out all across Bharata.  The bright flames only invited the wrath of the asuras and their defilement of the sacred alters.  This caused even greater distress among the people, bereft of the blessings and succor of their worship.

           
Instead of the mellifluous chanting of the Vedas, the air was rent by the piercing cries of terrified men, women and children.  The crops withered and died.  The flowers shriveled and dried up.  The ocean churned wildly—tsunamis and mass floods battered the shores of Bharata.  Always, there was hail and rain.  But it was not just water and ice that fell from the skies—the precipitation carried muddy, rotten substances that smelled of feces and blood and death.

      
The Earth groaned and whimpered with suffering, suffocating under the weight of burdens too heavy for her to bear.  It was too much destruction, too much death, too much violence, too much darkness.  The balance had gone awry—the balance between the asuras and the devas, between sattva and tamas, between light and darkness.  The Earth reshaped itself and took the form of Bhu Devi (Goddess of the Earth; the Earth in Goddess form).  Once Bhu Devi had been young and nubile but now she looked like a wizened, weak crone.  Her limbs were so ravaged and weak that she could not support herself or stand, so racked was she by tremors.  She cursed herself for having waited too long to seek help from the celestial realms.  It was long past time to approach Vishnu for help.

Bhu Devi looked down at her bodily appearance and decided she could not present herself to Vishnu, the Lord of Vaikuntha, in this sorry form.  She changed form again and again, but each time, she looked old, weak and sick.  There was no masking it.  She closed her eyes and thought of all those who stood upon her and wept and suffered and died; she had become soaked with their tears and blood.  She surveyed herself and saw the humans starving, the vegetation rotting and dying, animals wounded and whimpering—and she paused upon a lone calf whose mother had died.  The little calf was mewling with such sorrow and pain that it was almost unbearable for Bhu Devi.

      
So identified was she with the plight of that poor calf that she spontaneously assumed the form of a cow.  It was in this form that she approached Brahma with her appeal for help.  Vishnu was her ultimate refuge, but there was a protocol.  She recounted for Brahma the destruction and endless sorrow being heaped upon the sentient beings on earth and his eyes softened in empathy.  Brahma knew it was only Vishnu who could save them.  He gathered together all of the devas to make the voyage to Ksheera Sagara and seek Vishnu’s help.  At her beseeching gaze, Brahma brought along Bhu Devi, too.

***

There were no footsteps to hear, but Narayana knew the devas were approaching even before the clouds on which they traveled landed lightly on top of the milky ocean.  He felt the shifting of energies that told him he was no longer alone with Lakshmi and Ananta.  It was time to leave the reverie of his limitless consciousness.  He stifled a sigh and allowed himself to regain bodily consciousness.

The host of devas approached him at last, Bhu Devi front and center, and they began chanting sonorously that most beautiful Vedic hymn in his praise: the Purusha Suktam.

The Purusha (the Supreme Being)
has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. 
He is spread all over the universe
and stands beyond it in the ten directions of space.

All this is the Purusha only; all that has been and all that will be.
…

This Purusha is much greater, than all his greatness in all that we see.
All beings make up only one-quarter of Him.
Three-quarters of Him which are immortal are in Heaven.

Above this world is three quarters of Purusha,
but the quarter which is in this world
appears again and again.

…

From that Purusha was born, the ever-shining universe,
And from that was born the Purusha called Brahma,
And he spread himself everywhere,
And created the earth and then, the bodies of all beings.

…

From his mind was born the moon,
From his eyes was born the sun,
From his mouth came forth Indra and Agni,
and from his breath was born the wind.

From his navel came the antariksha (the middle region);
From his head was born the heavens;
From his feet was born the earth;
From his ears was born the directions;
and thus was made all the worlds, just by his holy wish.

I know that great Purusha who is famous,
who shines like the Sun,
who is beyond darkness,
who created all forms,
who named all of them,
and who rules over them.[1]

Narayana was grateful for the chanting of the devas, not that he relished the flattery, but the vibrations of the Vedic chanting were a helpful bridge from the depth of his yoga nidra to the field of action and interaction with others.  It brought him back to the world without undue disturbance.  They continued their chanting, their voices in beautiful harmony, as sweet as honey, starting softly so as not to startle him and then slowly building into a crescendo, becoming loud and powerful and thunderous so that the entire cosmos began vibrating in rhythm with the chanting.  Celestial conches and kettle drums sounded; fragrant flowers began falling on his body.  A small smile played over his lips as he allowed himself to be lulled by his favorite Vedic hymns.

His eyes remained closed, but he allowed himself to feel the presence of the devas before him.  He took inventory of those who stood arrayed before him.  Mahadeva had come, with Parvati and their sons, Ganapati and Karthik.  There was Indra, first among the devas, and Brahma, of course.  There was Vayu and Varuna and Saraswati.  He felt Bhu Devi’s presence albeit in a different form.  And thousands and thousands of others, along with each of their vahanas—Nandi, the bull, for Mahadeva, Airavata, the celestial elephant for Indra, Saraswati’s swan, Karthik’s peacock, Ganapati’s mouse. 

Narayana focused on Bhu Devi and in an instant knew all that she was going to tell him.  He saw for himself the fires burning on Earth, the chaos and upheaval, the wholesale destruction of dharmic practices and the oppression of his devotees.  Earth.  It was still a special place for him and the devas.  Once, it had been their abode.  They had lived and cavorted among the glaciers and icy peaks of the Himalayas and had roamed across the vast Gangetic plains of Bharata.  Once, a very, very long time ago. 

***

Narayana recognized immediately that the chief asura to be defeated was Kamsa, who had seized the throneof Mathura.  While the devas continued eulogizing him with hymns, he transported himself to Mathura to investigate further.  It took less than a moment.  He passed through Mathura invisibly.  He felt the tugging of old vows, old boons, old karmic debts that started weaving themselves into the form of his next avatara (incarnation).  It was simple enough.  He would be born as a prince in the same line of royalty from which Kamsa and the usurped king hailed.  Even so, he felt the pull of different kingdoms around him, sensed that he was needed not just for this kingdom, not just to defeat these asuras, but to intervene in purely human affairs, to rearrange the kingdoms and political structures of Bharata.  He felt the pull of the battlefield.  This time, like the last time, when he had been Rama, he would wage war, a fierce war that would surpass all wars that had passed before, but this time, he would not be a fighter—he would have to teach others how to fight, how to lead, how to play the game of war.  This time, again, he would be here not just for a battle, for the defeat of one or two demons, but to pass an entire lifetime among the mortals. 

He was about to go back to Ksheera Sagara, the Milky Ocean, but something kept him on Earth.  He felt sadness at how far this planet had fallen, how deeply the humans suffered, how low and animalistic they had become.  Was there nothing left of the beautiful Earth he had once known, had once roamed across, taken pleasure in?
 
On a whim, he began to wander the lands surrounding Mathura.  He soon found himself in the countryside dotted with a few small villages, surrounded by several forests.  It was nighttime, but the full moon was so strong and powerful that everything was alit in a silvery glow.  As was the case elsewhere, the vegetation was in sad shape—the branches on the trees drooped, the flowers were wilted, the fields barren.  Wherever his feet touched the ground, life returned.  The grass grew soft and green, flowers blossomed, branches suddenly became laden with leaves.  There was a lovely, wide river wending its winding way nearby.  The very waves of the water seemed to pull themselves towards him, to come as close to him as possible.

There was a sweet fragrance here, a hint of the peace and tranquility he remembered from his earlier travels on Earth.  He slowed and bent to pick some blades of grass, sniffing them delicately.  He saw a deer, a young doe, standing at a distance and he stilled to avoid startling her.  The doe stared at him with widened eyes, attracted towards him yet frightened, too.  She took one small step towards him and then suddenly darted away in shyness.  He sensed the presence of thousands of cows, deer, birds and squirrels scattered in the countryside around him.  He felt a rush of tenderness for them, thinking of Bhu Devi and how she had approached him in the pathetic form of an emaciated cow.


The sound of a baby crying some distance away filtered through to his consciousness.  He did not know why, but suddenly he was drawn there.  He appeared in the baby’s room and approached the bassinet softly.  It was a baby girl, only a few months old, but already she had a full head of thick black hair that curled sweetly into her soft, dimpled cheeks.  As soon as he stood before her, her crying stopped.  She was golden.  He had seen gold before—his consort, Lakshmi, was golden, too, but that was the shiny gold of celestial gems and costly jewels, the glittering gold that was the wealth of all the worlds.  This gold was the gold of butter, of cream, a streak of lightning at midnight.  He watched her contentedly and thought only one thing:  Sweet.  So sweet.


He saw that she was blind.  Something about that caught at his heart.  If he were to come down to this earth, he could not bear the thought that she would not have the eyes to see him.  He gently placed his right hand over her eyes briefly.  He removed his hand, and she had sight.  She gazed at him with her baby eyes, as wide and shy, as round as the doe eyes that had gazed upon him earlier.    


He heard approaching footsteps, her mother rushing to check on her, and he moved away.  She started crying again as soon as he left and he stayed close to her house to offer her comfort, so that she would feel his presence nearby.  He turned towards the river and the most beautiful sight awaited him.  Millions of cows and deer had amassed along the banks of that gorgeous river, and they stood there silently, simply gazing at him with adoration.  They were so still that they looked like statues.  The moon shone even more brightly, permeating the scene with a bright white light.  The fragrance of hundreds of varieties of flowers wafted on the breeze that stirred through the newly verdant trees of the surrounding forests.  The waves of the river crashed against her banks, leaping higher and higher, as if trying to touch him, capture him, keep him here.

He closed his eyes for a moment.  Something about this place, something about the gentleness of the cows and the deer, the beauty of the flowers and the trees, the melody hummed by the waves of the river, the laughter of young boys from a distance, the tinkling anklets of young women as they churned butter and did their daily chores, the sweet visage of the baby girl inside the house, moved him deeply, and he was rarely moved.  He felt their longing for him, and immediately he felt the same longing for them.  This was something he had not accounted for, something that took him by surprise, unexpected yet delightful in its way. 


In Mathura, it had become clear to him what was to be done for Dharma.  Here, he felt the pull of Leela—the dance of the Divine, the cosmic play, leela for the sake of leela with no utilitarian purpose, no objective or end other than itself, the leela of sristhi (creation), the pure ananda of existence.  In this place, he felt, the most beautiful of leelas would unfold.  If he were to come to Earth, it would be impossible for him to not live here for at least some time.

***

In a flash, he was back in Ksheera Sagara just as the devas finished chanting their hymns.  He opened his eyes and began instructing them.  They would appear along with him in different manifestations, each playing a unique role.  Even as he spoke, he was elsewhere.  With every languorous blink of his eye, the patterns and shape of his next incarnation were revealed to him.  Boons and promises made so long ago came to fruition within the pattern, extinguishing old karmic debts and creating new ones.  Devaki and Vasudeva, after so many thousands of years of penance and asceticism, would finally realize their wish of having him as their son—but for only a fleeting time.  So many who had previously been cursed, who were suffering now, would be freed at his touch.  So many lives he would have to destroy to pave the way for the new yuga, for a new world, a new order.  So many to whom he would have to bring sorrow, so many to whom he was bound to bring ananda.


With every blink of his eye, the scenes of his life to come flashed before him.  He, as a young baby, sucking his toe while falling asleep, a tiny peacock feather nestled among the black curls of his hair.  He, scampering around with other little boys, causing mischief, being caught and lovingly scolded by his mother, Yashoda.  He, playing a flute, leading the cows to pasture under the morning sun.  He, walking arm in arm, with his elder brother, Balarama, who was none other than Ananta incarnate.


In a blink, he saw his bride, Lakshmi manifested in human form, the epitome of auspiciousness, radiant with all of the virtues that were the province of Sri Devi, his only equal in beauty and resplendence.  Rukmini, the name whispered across his skin.


In another blink, he saw the baby girl who had enchanted him come of age.  She stood like a streak of lightning against midnight; her face was ever that of a young girl, her eyes round and innocent, full of love and longing, her dimpled cheeks no less sweet all these years later.  A deep blue sari was wound about her body, a blue so dark that it matched the color of his skin.  She was bedecked in flowers of an infinite variety.  Bees drawn hungrily to her beauty hovered around the garlands draped around her neck.  Radha, the name beat within his heart.


In a blink, he saw dozens of cows pressed lovingly up against his legs as he gently led them home.


In another blink, he saw millions of men marching to battle, stampedes of elephants and masses of chariots moving in intricate war formations and then breaking them in the chaos of war, howling in pain and bloodlust, fighting and dying by the millions, in a war he masterminded, catalyzed and brought to fruition.


In a blink, he saw himself stealing butter, playing pranks, tending cows with his dearest friends, other young cowherd boys.


In another blink, he saw himself with a band of five misfit brothers, princes with no kingdom to call home, friendless and without allies in the world.  He was their protector.


He saw himself lifting a mountain with his pinky finger, under which an entire village took shelter and refuge.


He saw himself running away from Mathura to establish a new kingdom on the far western coast of Bharata when he could not hope to defeat the armies of Jarasandha.


He saw himself standing with Radha in a sylvan glade under a full moon night in autumn, his fingers tenderly tracing her cheeks.  Loops of gopis were dancing around them in concentric circles, each paired with an identical yet different form of him, in an exquisite formation, in something so beautiful that even the devas came to watch—the raasa-leela.


He saw himself standing on the battlefield with Arjuna; Arjuna who was the most valiant archer in the world—not like last time, when as Rama, he had been the strongest warrior of all.  Arjuna kneeled before him, despondent and in despair.  He could felt the strength and depth of his bond with Arjuna—they were Nara and Narayana.  He saw himself talking to Arjuna, words falling unknowingly from his lips, words he did not even know he was uttering, words that wove themselves into a litany of verses, a garland of glittering spiritual gems, that would become the most divine, the most celebrated, the most revered song in all the world, his song—the Bhagavad Gita.


He saw himself playing the flute, a melody so haunting and enchanting that it charmed all living beings, casting a spell over everyone and everything.  It maddened all the denizens of Vraja, sent them running towards him, abandoning all duties, abandoning all dharmas, to come to him, the source of all beauty, all attraction, all sweetness in all the worlds.


He would be a prince and a cowherd.  He would live in forests, in farms, in the palaces of the greatest kingdoms in all the world.  He would be warrior and lover, friend and protector, diplomat and political mastermind.  His life would be Dharma inextricably interwoven with Leela.  This time, he would manifest with all powers, all opulences, all auspicious qualities.  This time, he would play every role there was to play, with consummate skill.  He would have to bring war and destruction, but he would also bring joy and love.  He had missed Earth, and now he was coming back for a time to a home he had once loved and would love again.  This time, no one would shy away from him or be held at arm’s length—he would belong to everyone and everything, include in his embrace all who wanted to be with him.  This time, he would say no to nobody.


Narayana watched as the devas left.  He knew he was to appear on Earth in every age, that each time his form would vary according to the needs of the time and the place.  This would not be his last avatara.  But he felt already that there was something special this time, that this would be perhaps his only sampoorna (complete) avatara.  This time, he was breaking the mold.


He closed his eyes and was again in that sylvan glade he had left such a short time ago.  He felt Radha somewhere nearby and all the young girls of Vraja who would soon blossom into gopis.  Despite the destructive forces of the asuras, despite the millennia that had passed since he and the devas had once lived here, despite the depths to which humans had sunk into during the intervening years, he felt a great beauty, quietude and contentment while standing there.  Here again Dharma would flourish.  Here again would the devas walk.  Here again would the divine manifest itself.  Here would leelas so beautiful and sacred reveal themselves.  He felt the universe slowly adjust itself to accommodate him as the new incarnation of Vishnu on Earth.


He stood there as a young boy of sixteen, on the banks of the Yamuna, surrounded by the cows of Vraja.  Soft flower petals rustled under his feet.  The blue of his skin deepened to blue-black, the color of thunderclouds.  His jewel-encrusted crown was replaced by a simple peacock feather, tucked into his thick raven tresses.  His ears were adorned with jeweled, shark-shaped earrings.  He stood in tribhanga form, gracefully bent at the neck, waist and knees.  He gazed upon the world with liquid, lotus-shaped eyes.  A small tender, mischievous smile played at the corners of his lips, driving mad all those who were graced by the splendor of that smile.  On his broad blue chest rested the shining Kaustabha jewel and the mark of Srivatsa.  His toenails shone like rubies.  From his flute emanated transcendental raagas (sacred, classical musical arrangements), intoxicating the entire cosmos, making the devas themselves drunk with bliss.

As he stood there in that form, flute held to his lips, slowly, the names by which he would be known, remembered and worshipped thereafter manifested themselves in the world:

Govinda.

(He who gives pleasure to the senses; He who is kind to the cows and is their protector; He who is the master of all of the lands and brings pleasure to all the lands.)

Damodara.

(The Lord who allows himself to be bound out of love; One who is knowable only through a purified mind by means of self-control; the One in whose bosom rests the entire universe.)

Madhava.

(The bestower and source of all sweetness.  The shelter, support and maintainer of Lakshmi.  The owner of the six supreme opulences (wealth, beauty, renunciation, knowledge, fame and strength).) 

And finally:  Krishna.

(The All-Attractive One.  The Dark One.)  He whose lustrous beauty is as black as monsoon clouds about to burst into rain, as dark as the midnight into which he was born, the midnight on the eighth night of the waning moon in the month of Bhadrapada, when Sri Krishna, the sampoorna avatara, came into the world and changed it forevermore.
 

Shri Krishna Govinda Hare Murare
Hey Natha Narayana Vasudeva
Jihve Pibasvamritam etad eva
Govinda, Damodara, Madhaveti!

(Sri Krishna! Govinda! Hari! Murari!
O Lord, Narayana! Vasudeva!
O tongue, please drink only this nectar—
Govinda, Damodara, Madhava!)
(Govinda Damodara Stotram, verse 70)

---

[1] Translation largely based on the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ayvRqxVi4E

On Guru Purnima -- The Guru-Shishya Sambandha (Relationship between Guru & Shishya)

On the Guru-Shishya Sambandha (Relationship between Guru & Shishya)

      William James once wrote a famous book on the ‘varieties of religious experience.’  Similarly, there are many varieties of the ‘guru experience.’   Nowadays there are gurus who are like celebrities, who spearhead mass movements, control large and powerful institutions, have avid followers ostensibly numbering in the millions.  There are also largely inaccessible gurus, who retreat from the world in remote caves and snowy peaks, who teach and transmit only when they are sought out or are otherwise inspired.  There are those who do not hold themselves out as gurus or as spiritual savants at all, who are like plainclothes gurus, with none of the outer accouterments of a swami or a sadhu but who are no less enlightened or spiritually powerful. 

          My guru is of this last variety.  I met him over ten years ago.  He did not present himself to me as a guru.  We were working on a project related to Hindu activism together.  Within the span of a few conversations, I knew he would have a deep impact on my life and that he would indeed change my life forever.  Soon after, I felt he was my guru.  He does not call himself my guru or anyone’s guru—he is loath to use that term in describing himself.  He does not want that kind of position or authority, either in society or in anyone’s individual life.  But he lets me (sometimes) call him my guru.  From that point, over ten years ago, we began corresponding, conversing, meeting regularly and have sustained this interaction over the years.

                

          It is difficult for me to characterize my relationship with my guru.  He has never initiated me into a mantra.  (He never got a mantra from his guru either, who was amongst 20^th century India’s most respected Mathadipatis as one who has attained the highest realization).  He has never prescribed me a specific ritualistic practice or regimen—although he has taken great pains to introduce me to others who, with his approval and at his request, have provided me these instructions and initiations.  We do not spend much time talking about abstract philosophy (mostly because I am not very interested in abstract philosophy).  Nor does he narrate to me devotional stories from the Puranas or the like (mostly because he is not interested in such things).  He does not urge me to go to temples or on pilgrimages or to do various pujas.  (In fact, I try dragging him to temples and on pilgrimages with limited success.  He acknowledges his gratitude for having done these pilgrimages and having these darshanas, which otherwise he would never have done.  Disciples have as much to teach gurus as the other way around, he has always said, a refrain that he picked up from a beloved old Swami, who as a young man of 77, taught him Vedanta and so much else about the life spiritual.)  

          We talk of “shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings,” as my guru would say.   With my guru, a seemingly casual conversation about seemingly trivial things is often in fact a discourse of great spiritual import.  And this is how I have learned that there is no real distinction between what is “spiritual” and what is “mundane.”  My guru will watch a sitcom (even something trashy like Two and a Half Men, for which I have severely reprimanded him on occasion) and get more epiphanies out of it than I would from reading the Bhagavad Gita a dozen times.  This is a concrete manifestation of his seeing the divine in everything and understanding that Vasudeva sarvam iti (loosely, Vasudeva (or Iswara) is Everything). 

          A large part of my guru’s advice to me has centered on ensuring that I do my best when it comes to my career.  This used to puzzle me, because I did not see how important my career was to my sadhana (spiritual practice).  Now I better understand that he does not want me to use spirituality as escapism, as a crutch, to avoid the “real world”, and that to be successful in sadhana, I also have to be successful in navigating the world of business and the politics of the workplace.  Since I was born and raised in the US, he has repeatedly told me, “Go to Vietnam and get the Congressional Medal of Honor, then say ‘war is hell’.  Otherwise, you will have no credibility.”  His refrain always is that neither spiritual life nor secular life can be compartmentalized into pieces that are sadhana / non-sadhana or spiritual / non-spiritual.

          Whether or not we are talking about sadhana or matters spiritual, my guru is always teaching and transmitting.  The extent to which I can catch and absorb these teachings and transmissions is based on my adhikara and receptiveness.  The sun is always shining; it is up to the plant to turn towards the sun and have that capacity to catch and hold the rays.  I often miss a lot.  I know that, but the purpose of sadhana is to increase my capacity to receive and absorb and to keep improving.  It is only because of my guru’s blessings that I am able to do my sadhana, to take small steps along the path of spiritual growth.  It is through his grace that I have received the mantras, from diverse spiritual savants, that are the foundation of my practice, the instructions on puja and worship that form my daily routine of worship.  It is through his good wishes that I am able to build on this slowly over time.

          Sometimes, when I say this, people will think that I am dependent on my guru, that I am putting my life and wellbeing solely in his hands.  But it is not like that.  If my guru were not there, someone else or something else would have been there to play the same role.  Gurus appear out of the void when the student is ready, my guru has always maintained.  For me, the source of everything is Sri Krishna / Iswara.  It is my karma that manifests as the causes and conditions in my life, and it is Sri Krishna / Iswara’s grace that provides me what I need when I need it.  As Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita 9.22, “ananyas cintayanto mam / ye janah paryupasate / tesham nityabhiyuktanam yoga-kshemam vahamyaham” (But those who always worship Me with exclusive devotion, meditating on My transcendental form—to them I carry what they lack, and I preserve what they have.)

          I look upon my guru as a gift that Sri Krishna has bestowed upon me.  But that does not in any way detract from the profound gratitude, reverence, and great love I feel for my guru.  I at once feel a great love for my guru that is personal to him, that is attributable to his being who he is, but also an understanding that whatever I receive from him, whatever I see in him, whatever my relationship is with him, is very much a manifestation of my own karmas and vrttis.  I am ultimately responsible for my own karma and the fruits thereof (the good and the bad).  I will always owe him a great karmic debt that I can never hope to repay; I will always have deep gratitude for his presence in my life; however, I am not beholden to him in the sense of there being any strings attached or “dependent” on him as an individual, as the word is conventionally understood.  That I do not owe any debt or obligation, express or implied, is something that he has taken great pains to emphasize from the beginning of our interaction.

          I received mantra initiation from two Vaisnava acharyas.  One is the world-renowned Bhagwat Bhaskara Sri Krishna Chandra Shastri-ji, commonly referred to as Thakurji, who was introduced and recommended to me by my guru, who has a very warm relationship with Thakurji.  Thakurji gave me a beautiful way in which to think about the guru-shishya relationship.  He said, ‘the guru is the one who puts your hand in Iswara’s hand’.  Therefore, the object of worship, the goal to be attained, is always only Iswara, but there is a deep gratitude and reverence for the guru as the one who brings you to Him / Her. 

          My guru, who is extremely clinical and unemotional in attitude, told me once that, several years after his guru had passed away, he visited his Samadhi-adhisthana / final resting place.  While he was meditating there, a few tears spontaneously rolled down his face.  His friend / fellow traveler / guru bhai, someone of exceptional spiritual attainment, happened to be there.  My guru asked him why he was moved to tears since their guru, for him, represented an ideal to be attained; he had no sentimental or emotional connection with him, though he revered him.  His friend, also a Vedantin of exceptional attainment, smiled and told my guru that even a message needs a vessel / conveyer and the message can never be completely independent of the conveyor or separated from the vessel in which it is delivered.  In this way, my love for Sri Krishna is inextricably bound up with my love for my guru; for, without one, I could never have found the other.

          In the ten years that I have known my guru, several times he almost left me or I almost left him.  These were times when my ego or emotional negativity reared up and I was awash in tamas.  Shortly after I had met him, I had gone on a pilgrimage to Puri, and when I was at the great Sri Jagannath temple there, I prayed to Sri Jagannath to give me the strength and clarity so that I could always follow my guru, so that he would never let go of my hand.  I believe it is that sankalpa (resolution, vow), that heartfelt prayer, that steadied the boat so many times when I was on the verge of falling, that kept my relationship with my guru intact.

          But I know that I cannot take for granted my relationship with my guru.  There was a time when I was adamant that he would have to be my guru for life, that if he were not, it would mean I was somehow a total failure.  Now I have grown up a little bit and know that people come into one’s life for a reason, a season or a lifetime, and you never quite know until the end which it is.  My guru has no selfish interest in me, there is nothing he wants from me for himself—the day he feels he is no longer of any utility to me, I know he would walk away from me.  He has told me this numberless times.  That is his nature.  Or, the day that I think I have understood (when I have not) is the day he would walk away.  Or, the day something other than sadhana becomes more important to me is the day he would walk away.  Any day I tell him to leave, he would leave immediately.  It is not that he is capricious or that he would not be there for me or that he would no longer wish me well or care about me; it is his nature as an avadhuta—‘come if you can, stay if you will, leave if you must’.  This is the oft repeated refrain of my guru, which he got from the Old Swami who was one of his principal upagurus, for whom he has such immense love and respect.

          I remember once I was with some friends and one of my guru’s friends was visiting.  My friends asked him if they could ever meet his guru.  He laughed and said that he did not even know if he would ever meet his guru again, so how could he promise anything to them.  He was not perturbed by this.  Rather, he was grateful for whatever time he had gotten with his guru and resigned to whatever ‘causes and conditions’ would bring them together to meet again or keep them apart.  This is an attitude borne of spiritual maturity, in which one does not try to hold on to one’s guru, like the proverbial bird which you let fly out of your hand, and if it is meant to be, the bird will come back to you if and when the time is right.

          That attitude of gratitude and surrender is one to which I aspire, yet am still a long ways away from.  I do not know whether my guru will be in my life a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now.  Yet, even if I never see him again, nothing could ever lessen my gratitude or reverence for him and I know that whatever I have achieved in my time with him will always stay with me, that his good wishes and blessings will always be with me, that in one way or another, his kavacha (protective shield) will always guard me.  He has never asked anything of me; there have never been any strings attached in what he has taught and shared with me; he has never made me beholden to him or dependent on him.  He has taken great pains to make sure I can stand on my own—not only that, but he has taken great pains to make sure I keep my individual personality, that my psyche does not become unduly influenced by his, and that I am always my own person and true to myself.  My spiritual path or way is significantly different from his, and he has always been careful to keep me on my path.

          There is a tendency to glorify, idolize, make into a god one’s guru.  My guru has always warned me against that.  One of my favorite passages about the role of a guru is one that my guru likes to quote, from a book that he urged me to read.  It is a wonderful book (a must-read book for any spiritual aspirant) called “The Way of the White Clouds,” a spiritual travelogue and memoir by Lama Angarika Govinda (a German) about his initiation into Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism:

On the day on which he (Domo Geshe Rimpoche) formally accepted me as his Chela, he said:

'If you wish me to be your Guru, do not look upon my person as Guru, because every human personality has its shortcomings, and so long as we are engaged in observing the imperfections of others we deprive ourselves of the opportunities of learning from them.  Remember every being carries within itself the spark of Buddhahood (bodhicitta), as long as we concentrate on other people's faults we deprive ourselves of the light that in various degrees shines out from our fellow-beings.

'When searching for a teacher, we surely should search for one who is worthy of our trust, but once we have found him, we should accept whatever he has to teach us as a gift of the Buddhas, and we should look upon the Guru not as one who speaks with his own voice but as mouthpiece of the Buddha, to whom alone all honour is due. Therefore if you bow down before the Guru, it is not the mortal personality of the teacher that you worship, but the Buddha, who is the eternal Guru who reveals his teaching through the mouth of your human teacher who forms a living link in the chain of initiated teachers and pupils who have transmitted the Dharma in an unbroken line from the times of Sakyamuni.  Those who transmit to us the teachings of the Buddha are the vessels of the Dharma, and as far as they master the Dharma and have realised the Dharma within themselves, they are the embodiment of the Dharma.’[1]

When I was a child and a teenager, I kept reading in our Hindu scriptures and in texts by spiritual masters how necessary a guru is for spiritual enlightenment.  This made a deep impact on me.  I remember telling my parents, “I need to find a guru.”  I fretted about how, as a young girl in America, I would ever find a guru or be worthy of a guru, since I had no real spiritual qualifications, only spiritual aspirations.  I envisioned making a Himalayan odyssey to remote mountains and glaciers to track down a guru.  I was naïve then, but something in my plaintive pleas that I needed a guru, must have had enough power, enough persuasion, to move Iswara to bring my guru to me without me having to look for him.  This was how I realized that you can never go hunting for a guru; the guru comes to you when you are ready in the form that is appropriate for you.  I believed, simplistically, as a child that a guru is necessary simply because the books told me so.  I had faith in those texts, and I think that faith is what helped bring my guru to me.

If I were asked today, is a guru necessary, my answer would be somewhat different.  I realize now that there are no categorical answers or rules in Dharma, that there are cases of spontaneous enlightenment or cases where having the wrong guru at the wrong time (if such a guru can be called a guru) could do more harm than good.  I also think that there has been an unfortunate growth in the trend of having “trophy gurus,” that as spirituality grows more fashionable, people pick up gurus like accessories to gain more currency and status in the spiritual world.  Having a guru is not a metric of spiritual success.  When and how a guru comes varies depending on the person’s spiritual path and psyche.  Sometimes a guru comes at the end of a long road of spiritual ripening, to give the final blessing, before the journey has ended.  In my case, on the other hand, I needed a guru much earlier to steer me on the right course.  It was my blessing that such a guru came to me when I needed him.

With all those caveats, I would still say that, in general, a guru is necessary at least for some part of the spiritual path for most people.  What a guru gives you cannot be found in any book, in any ritual, in any temple, no matter how sacred or powerful.  A guru understands you better than you understand yourself.  He or she knows what you need when you need it, often before you know it.  He or she knows when you need to do more sadhana and when you need to cut back, when the quantum of japa / bhajan / puja is to be modified, when the type of sadhana itself is to be altered.  You can read and memorize all the texts in the world, but it does not have the power of a single moment when a guru addresses to you a particular shloka that is necessary for you at that moment.  That carries the portent and energy that the guru intends for you and not just the surface meaning embedded in the words themselves.  It can be analogized as the difference between knowing general health guidelines from a medical text and having a personal doctor, between exercising and having a personal trainer, but those are incomplete analogies because there is something more, something that is unique to the guru relationship, and that is the principle of transmission.  A guru is not a mere teacher or a coach; a guru gives something of himself or herself to a shishya, his or her energy, karma, the merits of his or her practice and so on, and this has a transformative impact on the shishya.    

Adi Sankara Bhagavadpada says in Sarva Vedanta Siddhanta Sara Samgraha that on the spiritual path one may have many spiritual counselors.  All of them are to be respected and considered one’s mentors.  But the true guru is the one who opens one’s eyes to Wisdom.  He alone is the jnana guru or the real guru.  In Zen: Dawn in the West (which is another must-read book for any spiritual aspirant), Roshi Philip Kapleau, a renowned Zen master in America responds to a questioner who has asked how to be sure than an enlightened roshi is the right teacher for him or her:  “A roshi may be deeply enlightened, with many followers, and yet be the wrong teacher for you.  Why?  Because he fails to arouse in you feelings of confidence and devotion so that you can willingly bow down before him and, childlike, receive his teaching.  You must be able to say with conviction, “He is the teacher for me—the one I’ve been searching for!”  And yet it is also true that the moment you spontaneously cry out, “Oh help me!  I need help!” you open yourself to the teacher right for you.”

When it comes to spiritual transmission, many people often think of Shaktipath (the transfer of Shakti (spiritual energy) from guru to shishya).  But that is just one of many kinds of transmission.  A guru transmits to a receptive student not just energy, but his or her samskaras (deep-seated tendencies, inclinations), vrttis (waves of thoughts / feelings), ethos, and worldview.  If I am in a spiritually uplifted mood, and I speak, my words in essence would be those of my guru, which are the words of his guru, and his guru’s guru and so forth.  The bottle may change over time and across cultures, but the wine is always the same.  This has always been the threnody of spiritual practice of all the forest religions out of India.

It is this tradition of transmission that connects not just the shishya to the guru but that forms a lineage, a parampara of gurus and shishyas extending over centuries and millennia, in fact for all time, that connects me to my guru’s gurus all the way back to Adi Sankara and beyond to Adi Shiva / Iswara.  There are thousands of sampradayas in our Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Faith); they are kept alive through the paramparas (lineages) and the unbroken chain of transmission from gurus to shishyas.  This living tradition, this heritage of initiation and transmission, is perhaps more vital to the continuity and survival of Sanatana Dharma than even its most canonical texts, because it is in the guru that these texts come alive and have power. 

What I fear is that as the world becomes more modernized, more Westernized, more governed by mass communication, we are under threat of losing the one-on-one guru-shishya tradition that is relatively alien to the West but that has been the cornerstone of Eastern spiritual traditions.  There is nowadays, especially in the West, an aversion to the idea of having a guru.  Part of it is the primacy of individualism in the West, the abhorrence of the idea of surrendering to or placing oneself at the feet of another human being, an ethos that values the sense of being independent and self-sufficient.  Part of it is a fear and distrust of relegating too much authority in any human being, particularly religious figures, given the widespread abuse by priests in the Catholic church in particular.  This cannot easily be glossed over, and it may be the case that as Hinduism develops and grows in the West, the guru tradition will have less prominence and importance than it has traditionally had in the East.  If that is the case, I do feel something will be irrevocably lost, something intrinsic and core to our Dharma.  I cannot imagine what my spiritual life would be without my guru, and I cannot imagine what our Dharma would be without the system of initiation and transmission that is crystallized in the guru-shishya parampara.

And so, on this Guru Purnima, I want to honor and offer my prostrations to, not just my own guru, but to all gurus—a guru is not a person but a relationship in which one gives of oneself to another to remove their darkness (the literal meaning of “guru”), in which the shishya surrenders himself or herself to the guru—in the hope and prayer that the guru-shishya tradition is preserved and revitalized in the years, decades and centuries to come.  There may be an infinite variety of guru-shishya relationships, but there is a common principle, ethos and dynamic that underlies them all.  This is what has tied together our Dharma for so long. 

And so today, I offer my prostrations to my guru, to my guru’s gurus, to Adi Sankara, who is the adi guru of my parampara, and to Veda Vyasa, who classified the Vedas, who is the first guru for all Hindus, in whose special honor Guru Purnima is observed.

GURUR BRAHMA, GURUR VISHNU,

GURUR DEVO MAHESHWARAH

GURUR SAAKSHAAT PARA-BRAHMA,

TASMAI SHRI GURUVE NAMAH!

---

[1] Lama Anagarika Govinda, The Way of the White Clouds, Pages 68-69.

Bali: Day 1

My first day in Bali is coming to a close.  I think that Bali is the most peaceful place that I've ever been.  There is a sweet fragrance that constantly permeates the air--jasmine, sometimes with a whiff of sandalwood incense interspersed.  The ocean here is magnificent.  It produces huge waves that remind me of Puri.  The murmur and roar of the current is soothing music to the soul. 

There is something about the air here that is spiritually charged.  While I was having breakfast, one of the managers in the hotel told me that a visiting yoga practitioner from abroad had once noted that the spirit is very good here, that it is highly conducive to yoga. 

I spent a delightful morning in a lounge chair overlooking the ocean, intermittently reading my book on Bali and going into reverie at the seascape.  I felt all my worries, stresses and thoughts instantly evaporate. 

In the afternoon, at teatime, the hotel hosted a family demonstrating how to make traditional Balinese religious offerings.  It was a couple with a young boy.  Their faces were so spiritually refined and noble.  It was touching to see how they honor these traditions and are painstakingly passing them on to their child.  This is how the flame of Balinese Hinduism will be kept burning.  I hope and pray that such traditions are preserved and transmitted for generations to come.

I am looking forward to starting my explorations of Bali in earnest tomorrow.  I would like to learn as much as I can about the culture and religious traditions of Bali as I can while being respectful and non-intrusive.  

I just witnessed one of the most gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen.  I have always been drawn to the ocean, notwithstanding that I am not a fan of swimming.  I just like being on the ocean or near it.  It is the sense of infinitude that attracts me, the incessant rhythm of the waves, the patterns of the tide, the awesome power of it, the world of life beneath its waves. 

Lovely Family Providing Demonstration of How to Make Traditional Balinese Religious Offerings

 

Sunset

Journal & Fruit Punch at Sunset -- Best Way to End the Day! 

Breakfast