Swamiji
It's hard to recollect all the steps that brought me here to Kerala today. I was supposed to arrive two days ago to see my dear brother Advait before he left, but fate would have it that the most famous actor in the state of Karnataka passed away as I was on my way to the bus station in Bangalore and the whole city rioted because they thought the city should be closed on such an occasion. I was spared the violence only because I left a half hour later than I intended and the bus I was on wasn't allowed in the city, otherwise I would have been in the middle of it all. You all know that I defend devotion because it's so misunderstood, but this is definitely an instance of misplaced faith- five people were killed, I saw a bus burned to a crisp, an overturned car that was likewise burned, tires on fire in the middle of the road. This actor's face was everywhere with garlands around it, but it was obviously a false pretense out of fear of being looted otherwise. Needless to say, no bus was leaving Bangalore that day. Or the next day, but with some persistance and a hefty tip to scared rickshaw drivers to take me into the heart of the city (it happens that the train station, which was still running, was also the center stage for the riot), I managed to catch a train and arrive in Thrivanduram on the 14th (unfortunately my friend leaves tomorrow! :( ). By now you would think that the city closing because an actor died would be part of the craziness one comes to expect here, alas I must admit to being quite upset.
But let me see... Amma came into town and I had daily darshan with Her for about a week where She would lecture in Telegu with a couple of special messages to us Westerners, there would be a puja, and then She would give us prasad. It was very intense
as She was burning out my complexes in the way that only She can, but I'm just grateful in the end. She did a Cow puja for us to witness, it was so lovely! The cow was adorned with fine clothes, smeared with ceremonial pastes and garlanded with flowers. I remember being ridiculed by my former vegan housemates when I tried to tell them that a cow in India was made to feel as G*d and so Her milk was Her prasad to us. Seeing it first hand, She was just so lovely! You cannot tell me that that cow didn't know that She was the awe and focus of adoration of everyone there, She was Mother and She knew it! Amma later told us horror stories of how cow's are treated and butchered and She looked at me when She said the world needs to learn why this is wrong. The thought occurred to me to set up a cow puja on the DC mall and parade the garlanded Goddess around the city, we'll see when I get back.. I did ask Ma for a teacher who would help me with my questions and She looked at me to aquiesce that She heard.
Staying at my friend's farm, one of the farmhands told me, somehow through the thick language barrier, that he was going to see his Guru the next day. I asked if I could come too, eager as always to
meet holy persons, and he was delighted to take me along with his son!
Our pilgrimage started off by taking us to see the Mahabhishekam (ritualistic bathing) of Bahubali, one of Jainism's most prominent figures. Something about this saint that stood for a year and conquered his tyrant brother, I heard pieces of the story, but there's a 56 foot tall statue of him which every 12 years is worshipped in the most grand way you can imagine, and I was lucky enough to be there for it. You can see the image, dozens of gallons of milk were poured over this statue at the cry of something like "Jai Gomateshwara Bahubali ki!" everyone would scream "JAI!" and then the pouring would rain down on everyone dancing at the statue's feet. Jain aescetics don't wear any clothes too, so there were a bunch of naked old wise men clustered together enjoying the festival. After countless times of milk, they poured sugar over the statue, then turmeric paste coloring the whole thing yellow, and then tamarind juice making him brown, and then kum kum juice, coloring him red. The people dancing at the bottom were covered head to toe in colors and the music was so delightful, the fervor was absolutely intoxicating. I mean we think we in the West know how to party, but we aint got nothing on the Jains!!
We visited the temples and I got to sit with a Jain saint and talk with her for about an hour while people prostrated to her and she blessed them with her peacock feather fan which Jain's use to brush away insects and preserve their life. It was funny, on the bus ride there, I didn't know where we were going, but I found myself wondering about the yoga dictum of not eating eggs, "why not?" I asked Ma. This saint, first thing she says to me is that I should stop eating eggs. I didn't get an answer to my 'why' but the coincidence is hard to dismiss, so I'm going to experiment with it and see what I get.
We then took a bus to see his guru, Sri Balagangadhara Swami of Adi Chunchanagiri Math, the "uncrowned king of Karnataka" I was to find out-- meaning that this Swami is so important to the public that state officials don't do anything without asking him first. The ashram was beautiful and immense, reminded me
of what Lhasa must be like, situated high up on a hill where only swamis lived. The whole place is saturated with Shiva energy. I followed everyone up the hill, and first thing am ushered in to meet Swamiji! I prostrate to his feet and he proceeds to ask me where I'm from and why I'm here etc. He tells his assistant to find us a room and that I'm welcome to stay as long as I like. This was supposed to be a day trip for me, but I figure "why not" and allow myself to be led to a room. There I'm greeted by a man named Rishi Swami, a sadhu (renunciate) for over 10 years who claims no guru, but is very well educated and speaks eloquent English. He says that the head Swamiji was gracious enough to give him a room to stay in for free with meals, and his only obligation is once in a while to talk to guests in Hindi or English because not many others there speak English very well. I'm very very lucky, Ma answered my prayer for a teacher because Rishi Swami is a wise man. Hearing his history about how he studied physics and then philosophy and then became a renunciate, it was like I was meeting an older reflection of myself! He was so forthcoming with information too, I mean that first night we stayed up until 3am talking! The next two days I stayed there too (well, so much for the day trip :) ), it was almost non-stop story sharing, elucidation, everything I wanted to know and more. I mean when Ma answers a prayer She goes all out! An interesting thing happened too, Rishi Swami insists that I eat with the other Swami's in their special dining chamber and I'm only seen in his company, so people start calling me swamiji as well and prostrating to me. What an experience where everyone was Swamiji, myself included, and living in a Swami palace. The real Swamiji though, was a true saint. The energy there was so LIGHT, I mean everyone seemed like a child and goofed around with each other, and it comes from this light Fatherly person who's the head of it all. He came from a poor village family and became such a renown person of wisdom that funds started flowing his way and so he built a medical college, a free hospital, sanskrit and vedic studies institute, an institute of higher learning, and the students regularly come and perform storytelling with dance and live music for evening satsang (spiritual gatherings) in Swamiji's presence. It was.. such a blessing. Such a blessing!
I learned from Rishi Swami what India only thirty years ago was like too. Western influence has happened recent and fast, but before people weren't concerned with money. In fact, with the ancient original caste system (before it became a twisted bastardization of wisdom), the merchants, who were second to last in the hierarchy, were the only ones who could become rich, and because it wasn't respected, greed wasn't ultimately profitable! The highest caste was Brahmins, poor renunciates whose only job was to seek God and thus had a wise and objective relationship with the world. The next was the warriors, who were politicians and earned a meager government salary, then came the merchants and then the working class. It's interesting to note that even corporations work this way for maximal efficiency-- the think-tank, the executive directors, the public representatives, and the work force. But the goal in classical India was an illumined society, not corporate profits. A natural communal lifestyle existed, if you finished your work early it was expected you would help your neighbor finish his. The women would do a daily cooking ritual called panch yajna (five offerings). After putting on the proper attire, ceremonially cleansing the kitchen etc. the woman would make five chapatthis-- one for the dogs and one for the birds on the roof which the children would have fun distributing, one for God on the altar, one for a sadhu (in this way renunciates were not only supported but even sought out!), and one was saved for atithi or the guest. In Sanskrit, "atithi" means "one who's date is uncertain", so people would actually pray for a guest to come and eat their offerings because it was considered a bad omen for it to go bad. Isn't that beautiful!? He told me how when he was a kid they would hear at random times some bells jingling at the door and they would run because they only had about 10 seconds to give the sadhu at the door an offering or else they would miss their chance! He told me that when an offering was made to a Brahman it was called Daksha, and if it was received, which wouldn't always happen because Brahmins by decree are to be poor, than they would give a Dana, another small gift, as a token of appreciation for receiving the Daksha! So something like, "here Swami, please take this five hundred rupees as a token of my gratitude that you've taken my five thousand rupee offering"! I couldn't help but think of how much wealth equals status in the West, how simple it would be to fix all of the world's problems if this weren't so-- I mean it's not as if there's not enough! The universe doesn't know the word poverty, the universe works on abundance, only humans know poverty and that's principally because the gulf between the ultra rich, where money is no longer a means to survival but a means to control the world, and the poor. The richest 360 people in the world have about the same amount of money as the poorest 2.4 billion, and the gulf only gets wider. When is the world going to formally recognize the political power that comes with financial power and PUT IT IN CHECK?? I'm sorry, this is a passionate tangent of mine, it's just sad that our formal government structures are pawns in a larger economic oligarchy and the poor suffer as a result and nobody admits this is the case! One of these days, soon I think too, the people are going to become sick of being in debt, of buying into this poverty consciousness, and simply either stop using money or re-invent the economy and set things right. If we follow the wisdom of the ancient vedas, which says in an ideal caste system the highest caste is a group of spiritual renunciates who have nothing to do with the world (hence are the most objective), then it makes sense that the world's saints, like Ammachi Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, and the like would be the best world leaders for this highest class. Look what happens when money flows their way-- free hospitals are built, free universities, free meals and clothes for hundreds of thousands. And Bill Gates is lauded as a humanitarian for giving away not even 1% of his vast wealth. The charity of the ultra-rich is a joke, but every dollar we spend votes them into more power because they have the power to make it so.
Sorry about that. DC toxins still working their way out of me...
Love you
But let me see... Amma came into town and I had daily darshan with Her for about a week where She would lecture in Telegu with a couple of special messages to us Westerners, there would be a puja, and then She would give us prasad. It was very intense
as She was burning out my complexes in the way that only She can, but I'm just grateful in the end. She did a Cow puja for us to witness, it was so lovely! The cow was adorned with fine clothes, smeared with ceremonial pastes and garlanded with flowers. I remember being ridiculed by my former vegan housemates when I tried to tell them that a cow in India was made to feel as G*d and so Her milk was Her prasad to us. Seeing it first hand, She was just so lovely! You cannot tell me that that cow didn't know that She was the awe and focus of adoration of everyone there, She was Mother and She knew it! Amma later told us horror stories of how cow's are treated and butchered and She looked at me when She said the world needs to learn why this is wrong. The thought occurred to me to set up a cow puja on the DC mall and parade the garlanded Goddess around the city, we'll see when I get back.. I did ask Ma for a teacher who would help me with my questions and She looked at me to aquiesce that She heard.Staying at my friend's farm, one of the farmhands told me, somehow through the thick language barrier, that he was going to see his Guru the next day. I asked if I could come too, eager as always to
meet holy persons, and he was delighted to take me along with his son!Our pilgrimage started off by taking us to see the Mahabhishekam (ritualistic bathing) of Bahubali, one of Jainism's most prominent figures. Something about this saint that stood for a year and conquered his tyrant brother, I heard pieces of the story, but there's a 56 foot tall statue of him which every 12 years is worshipped in the most grand way you can imagine, and I was lucky enough to be there for it. You can see the image, dozens of gallons of milk were poured over this statue at the cry of something like "Jai Gomateshwara Bahubali ki!" everyone would scream "JAI!" and then the pouring would rain down on everyone dancing at the statue's feet. Jain aescetics don't wear any clothes too, so there were a bunch of naked old wise men clustered together enjoying the festival. After countless times of milk, they poured sugar over the statue, then turmeric paste coloring the whole thing yellow, and then tamarind juice making him brown, and then kum kum juice, coloring him red. The people dancing at the bottom were covered head to toe in colors and the music was so delightful, the fervor was absolutely intoxicating. I mean we think we in the West know how to party, but we aint got nothing on the Jains!!
We visited the temples and I got to sit with a Jain saint and talk with her for about an hour while people prostrated to her and she blessed them with her peacock feather fan which Jain's use to brush away insects and preserve their life. It was funny, on the bus ride there, I didn't know where we were going, but I found myself wondering about the yoga dictum of not eating eggs, "why not?" I asked Ma. This saint, first thing she says to me is that I should stop eating eggs. I didn't get an answer to my 'why' but the coincidence is hard to dismiss, so I'm going to experiment with it and see what I get.
We then took a bus to see his guru, Sri Balagangadhara Swami of Adi Chunchanagiri Math, the "uncrowned king of Karnataka" I was to find out-- meaning that this Swami is so important to the public that state officials don't do anything without asking him first. The ashram was beautiful and immense, reminded me
of what Lhasa must be like, situated high up on a hill where only swamis lived. The whole place is saturated with Shiva energy. I followed everyone up the hill, and first thing am ushered in to meet Swamiji! I prostrate to his feet and he proceeds to ask me where I'm from and why I'm here etc. He tells his assistant to find us a room and that I'm welcome to stay as long as I like. This was supposed to be a day trip for me, but I figure "why not" and allow myself to be led to a room. There I'm greeted by a man named Rishi Swami, a sadhu (renunciate) for over 10 years who claims no guru, but is very well educated and speaks eloquent English. He says that the head Swamiji was gracious enough to give him a room to stay in for free with meals, and his only obligation is once in a while to talk to guests in Hindi or English because not many others there speak English very well. I'm very very lucky, Ma answered my prayer for a teacher because Rishi Swami is a wise man. Hearing his history about how he studied physics and then philosophy and then became a renunciate, it was like I was meeting an older reflection of myself! He was so forthcoming with information too, I mean that first night we stayed up until 3am talking! The next two days I stayed there too (well, so much for the day trip :) ), it was almost non-stop story sharing, elucidation, everything I wanted to know and more. I mean when Ma answers a prayer She goes all out! An interesting thing happened too, Rishi Swami insists that I eat with the other Swami's in their special dining chamber and I'm only seen in his company, so people start calling me swamiji as well and prostrating to me. What an experience where everyone was Swamiji, myself included, and living in a Swami palace. The real Swamiji though, was a true saint. The energy there was so LIGHT, I mean everyone seemed like a child and goofed around with each other, and it comes from this light Fatherly person who's the head of it all. He came from a poor village family and became such a renown person of wisdom that funds started flowing his way and so he built a medical college, a free hospital, sanskrit and vedic studies institute, an institute of higher learning, and the students regularly come and perform storytelling with dance and live music for evening satsang (spiritual gatherings) in Swamiji's presence. It was.. such a blessing. Such a blessing!I learned from Rishi Swami what India only thirty years ago was like too. Western influence has happened recent and fast, but before people weren't concerned with money. In fact, with the ancient original caste system (before it became a twisted bastardization of wisdom), the merchants, who were second to last in the hierarchy, were the only ones who could become rich, and because it wasn't respected, greed wasn't ultimately profitable! The highest caste was Brahmins, poor renunciates whose only job was to seek God and thus had a wise and objective relationship with the world. The next was the warriors, who were politicians and earned a meager government salary, then came the merchants and then the working class. It's interesting to note that even corporations work this way for maximal efficiency-- the think-tank, the executive directors, the public representatives, and the work force. But the goal in classical India was an illumined society, not corporate profits. A natural communal lifestyle existed, if you finished your work early it was expected you would help your neighbor finish his. The women would do a daily cooking ritual called panch yajna (five offerings). After putting on the proper attire, ceremonially cleansing the kitchen etc. the woman would make five chapatthis-- one for the dogs and one for the birds on the roof which the children would have fun distributing, one for God on the altar, one for a sadhu (in this way renunciates were not only supported but even sought out!), and one was saved for atithi or the guest. In Sanskrit, "atithi" means "one who's date is uncertain", so people would actually pray for a guest to come and eat their offerings because it was considered a bad omen for it to go bad. Isn't that beautiful!? He told me how when he was a kid they would hear at random times some bells jingling at the door and they would run because they only had about 10 seconds to give the sadhu at the door an offering or else they would miss their chance! He told me that when an offering was made to a Brahman it was called Daksha, and if it was received, which wouldn't always happen because Brahmins by decree are to be poor, than they would give a Dana, another small gift, as a token of appreciation for receiving the Daksha! So something like, "here Swami, please take this five hundred rupees as a token of my gratitude that you've taken my five thousand rupee offering"! I couldn't help but think of how much wealth equals status in the West, how simple it would be to fix all of the world's problems if this weren't so-- I mean it's not as if there's not enough! The universe doesn't know the word poverty, the universe works on abundance, only humans know poverty and that's principally because the gulf between the ultra rich, where money is no longer a means to survival but a means to control the world, and the poor. The richest 360 people in the world have about the same amount of money as the poorest 2.4 billion, and the gulf only gets wider. When is the world going to formally recognize the political power that comes with financial power and PUT IT IN CHECK?? I'm sorry, this is a passionate tangent of mine, it's just sad that our formal government structures are pawns in a larger economic oligarchy and the poor suffer as a result and nobody admits this is the case! One of these days, soon I think too, the people are going to become sick of being in debt, of buying into this poverty consciousness, and simply either stop using money or re-invent the economy and set things right. If we follow the wisdom of the ancient vedas, which says in an ideal caste system the highest caste is a group of spiritual renunciates who have nothing to do with the world (hence are the most objective), then it makes sense that the world's saints, like Ammachi Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, and the like would be the best world leaders for this highest class. Look what happens when money flows their way-- free hospitals are built, free universities, free meals and clothes for hundreds of thousands. And Bill Gates is lauded as a humanitarian for giving away not even 1% of his vast wealth. The charity of the ultra-rich is a joke, but every dollar we spend votes them into more power because they have the power to make it so.
Sorry about that. DC toxins still working their way out of me...
Love you
posted by para ji | 1:47 PM
1 Comments:
Hi, Para
It sounds like you are living your dream. Congratulations!
Love,
Matt
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