I have been working a bit more intensely on the Yoga Sutra, as Swamiji will be leaving Rishikesh in a few days. He wants to have the finished, formatted edition ready by mid-May so it can be handed to Mr. Jain at Motilal. Yesterday, I worked in the library in order to have access to the original texts Swamiji has used, and afterwards had supper with him, Swami Radha and his secretaries, Swami Chetan Bharati and Medha.
On offer was a heaped up bowl of freshly churned makkhan, which looked to Ma Radha like a pile of vanilla ice cream. One taste and I was thinking, "This is worth stealing!" Though I did not air this thought, the conversation did turn to Krishna and his butter stealing ways.
Swamiji took great pleasure in reciting a bit of Surdas's maiyā maiṁ nahiṁ mākhana khāyau, ("Mommy, I didn't eat the butter!") and telling of other instances of Krishna's naughtiness.
That led to the legends of Surdas,the blind bard of Braj, with a little detour into Slumdog Millionaire, where one of the poor boys with a good singing voice is deliberately blinded in order to improve his begging value. His song is perhaps Surdas's most famous: āṁkhiyāṁ tava darasane kī pyāsī ("My eyes thirst for a vision of you").
Swamiji told the story about how Krishna would always come to listen to Surdas sing without his knowledge. Then one day, being blind, Surdas fell into a well. He was calling out for someone to save him when a little boy called from above, "Grab my stick and I will pull you up."
Surdas could understand that if a little boy with a little stick could pull him out of such a deep well, then it must be none other than Krishna. So once he had climbed out with his help, he immediately grabbed the boy and said, "Now I've got you, Kanaia, you won't get away from me now!"
But once again Krishna escaped. Then Swamiji quoted the Braj Bhasha verse, "You may be able to get away from me, that is no great feat. If you can leave my heart, I will consider it a miracle!"
I had heard this story a different way. There is a Sanskrit verse attributed to Bilvamangal in the second century of Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, and I was fishing around in my memory for it. I could only come up with the first line, but Swamiji knew the whole thing:
Of course, this was all conducted with some hilarity. Swamiji spent a year in the Arya Samaj center in Mathura in the early 40's, during which time he had occasion to hear many a kathā vācaka reciting Bhāgavata, and so he started to explain to Ma Radha how these things are conducted.
"It is all about rasa, you see. You have to understand rasa," he said. "Like Surdas sings, nisi dina barakhata naina hamāre, 'Rains are pouring from my eyes, day and night' when the gopis are separated from Krishna. Because in union there is less variety. There are so many ways to be separated!
"And one thing," he said, "is that people enjoy crying. Later, when I was in Guyana in the 1950's, I was often called on to give Rāmāyaṇa recitals. Because I was Arya Samaj, we only did Valmiki Rāmāyaṇa, no Tulasi Das...
"Once I gave the same recital a few days apart. Exactly the same. But the first time, people cried and they came up to me and said how wonderful it was. A few days later, something was missing. Afterwards, the people came up to me and said, 'It was very good of course, but you know, we didn't cry.'"
Swamiji started reminiscing more about Guyana and Surinam, about how even after several generations they had still kept so much of their Bhojpuri culture, one of the features of which was these recitals of Rāmāyaṇa and Bhāgavata. Being an import from India, he was in great demand and had regular invitations to speak.
Swamiji went silent for a few minutes. Then he started again, "In those days, Guyana was not just underdeveloped. It was undeveloped, period. Most of the people lived on the coast, and there are many big rivers that could only be crossed by ferry. The roads... you think the roads were bad in India...
"I had made my ashram in a village some distance from Georgetown in order to provide a school for the children of the local Indian expatriates, mostly from Bihar, Bhojpuri speaking. This was in 1958. For a great part of the year, much of the countryside would be flooded, making communications even more difficult. The ashram was far enough from the beaten path that there was no mail delivery, and I would have to drive some distance to pick it up. Usually I only went once a week, sometimes less often.
"One time I had been invited to another village to give Rāmāyaṇa, so though it was a bit of a detour, I decided to go to the post office as I had not picked up my mail for more than two weeks. When I got there, I found a telegram that had been sitting in the office for at least ten days. I opened it, and saw the news that my father had died.
"You know," Swamiji said, "in my line of work, you are there to hear the problems of others. But there is not always someone you can share your feelings with. Nor was the telephone system in those days anywhere near adequate. So I could not call home all the way to Ludhiana.
"So I just went on to the other village where elaborate arrangements had been made for Rāmāyaṇa kathā. I took my shower and went and sat on the Vyāsāsana. In those days, I had the habit of just opening a book randomly when I had to lecture. And that is what I did..."
Swamiji had been speaking somewhat introspectively. Now he looked at us and said, "And what do you think? The Rāmāyaṇa opened on the very page where Bharata comes to the forest to announce the death of Dasharatha to his exiled brother! (Ayodhyākāṇḍa, chapters 96ff). And then describes Rama's grief and then his instructions and consolation to Bharata.
"I had been feeling that I had no one to talk to, and then it felt so much that Lord Rama had come personally to talk to me and comfort me in that difficult moment."
I said, "I'll bet you made the people cry that day!" Swamiji just laughed.
Good story for Hanuman's appearance day.
 |
| From Jagat Jindagi |
On offer was a heaped up bowl of freshly churned makkhan, which looked to Ma Radha like a pile of vanilla ice cream. One taste and I was thinking, "This is worth stealing!" Though I did not air this thought, the conversation did turn to Krishna and his butter stealing ways.
Swamiji took great pleasure in reciting a bit of Surdas's maiyā maiṁ nahiṁ mākhana khāyau, ("Mommy, I didn't eat the butter!") and telling of other instances of Krishna's naughtiness.
That led to the legends of Surdas,the blind bard of Braj, with a little detour into Slumdog Millionaire, where one of the poor boys with a good singing voice is deliberately blinded in order to improve his begging value. His song is perhaps Surdas's most famous: āṁkhiyāṁ tava darasane kī pyāsī ("My eyes thirst for a vision of you").
Swamiji told the story about how Krishna would always come to listen to Surdas sing without his knowledge. Then one day, being blind, Surdas fell into a well. He was calling out for someone to save him when a little boy called from above, "Grab my stick and I will pull you up."
Surdas could understand that if a little boy with a little stick could pull him out of such a deep well, then it must be none other than Krishna. So once he had climbed out with his help, he immediately grabbed the boy and said, "Now I've got you, Kanaia, you won't get away from me now!"
But once again Krishna escaped. Then Swamiji quoted the Braj Bhasha verse, "You may be able to get away from me, that is no great feat. If you can leave my heart, I will consider it a miracle!"
I had heard this story a different way. There is a Sanskrit verse attributed to Bilvamangal in the second century of Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, and I was fishing around in my memory for it. I could only come up with the first line, but Swamiji knew the whole thing:
hastam ākṣipya yāto’si
balāt kṛṣṇa kim adbhutam |
hṛdayād api niryāsi
pauruṣaṁ gaṇayāmi te ||95||
You may thrust aside my hand by force, O Krishna, what is so wonderful about that? If you can escape my heart, then I will consider that an accomplishment of some merit."
 |
| Ma Radha Bharati Swami |
"It is all about rasa, you see. You have to understand rasa," he said. "Like Surdas sings, nisi dina barakhata naina hamāre, 'Rains are pouring from my eyes, day and night' when the gopis are separated from Krishna. Because in union there is less variety. There are so many ways to be separated!
"And one thing," he said, "is that people enjoy crying. Later, when I was in Guyana in the 1950's, I was often called on to give Rāmāyaṇa recitals. Because I was Arya Samaj, we only did Valmiki Rāmāyaṇa, no Tulasi Das...
"Once I gave the same recital a few days apart. Exactly the same. But the first time, people cried and they came up to me and said how wonderful it was. A few days later, something was missing. Afterwards, the people came up to me and said, 'It was very good of course, but you know, we didn't cry.'"
Swamiji started reminiscing more about Guyana and Surinam, about how even after several generations they had still kept so much of their Bhojpuri culture, one of the features of which was these recitals of Rāmāyaṇa and Bhāgavata. Being an import from India, he was in great demand and had regular invitations to speak.
Swamiji went silent for a few minutes. Then he started again, "In those days, Guyana was not just underdeveloped. It was undeveloped, period. Most of the people lived on the coast, and there are many big rivers that could only be crossed by ferry. The roads... you think the roads were bad in India...
"I had made my ashram in a village some distance from Georgetown in order to provide a school for the children of the local Indian expatriates, mostly from Bihar, Bhojpuri speaking. This was in 1958. For a great part of the year, much of the countryside would be flooded, making communications even more difficult. The ashram was far enough from the beaten path that there was no mail delivery, and I would have to drive some distance to pick it up. Usually I only went once a week, sometimes less often.
"One time I had been invited to another village to give Rāmāyaṇa, so though it was a bit of a detour, I decided to go to the post office as I had not picked up my mail for more than two weeks. When I got there, I found a telegram that had been sitting in the office for at least ten days. I opened it, and saw the news that my father had died.
"You know," Swamiji said, "in my line of work, you are there to hear the problems of others. But there is not always someone you can share your feelings with. Nor was the telephone system in those days anywhere near adequate. So I could not call home all the way to Ludhiana.
"So I just went on to the other village where elaborate arrangements had been made for Rāmāyaṇa kathā. I took my shower and went and sat on the Vyāsāsana. In those days, I had the habit of just opening a book randomly when I had to lecture. And that is what I did..."
Swamiji had been speaking somewhat introspectively. Now he looked at us and said, "And what do you think? The Rāmāyaṇa opened on the very page where Bharata comes to the forest to announce the death of Dasharatha to his exiled brother! (Ayodhyākāṇḍa, chapters 96ff). And then describes Rama's grief and then his instructions and consolation to Bharata.
"I had been feeling that I had no one to talk to, and then it felt so much that Lord Rama had come personally to talk to me and comfort me in that difficult moment."
I said, "I'll bet you made the people cry that day!" Swamiji just laughed.
Good story for Hanuman's appearance day.
