Purushottam Blog: Day 4

Yesterday evening I drank tea. The last time I drank tea was on Day 1, which resulted in a disruption of my sleep schedule. I did not think of it then, but this time it was quite clear that the tea was keeping me awake. After I posted my blog, I went to my room to chant and finished my last set of rounds, spending the whole time meditating on one verse from the Bhāgavatam, taken from Bhajana Rahasya.

  śyāmaṁ hiraṇya-paridhiṁ vana-mālya-barha-  dhātu-pravāla-naṭa-veṣam anuvratāṁse  vinyasta-hastam itareṇa dhunānam abjaṁ  karṇotpalālaka-kapola-mukhābja-hāsam

The dark Krishna was dressed like a dancer prepared to go on stage—He wore a golden garment, a peacock feather, colored clays from the forest, sprigs of flower buds, and a garland of forest flowers and leaves. He rested one hand on a friend’s shoulder and with the other He twirled a lotus. Lilies graced His ears, strands of hair hung down over His cheeks, and His lotus-like face was smiling. (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.23.22)

Comment (Vishwanath): A vana-mālā is a garland made with forest flowers and leaves that reaches down to the feet. The Brahmin women interpreted Krishna’s actions as flirtation. When the saw Him touch His friend, He seemed to be saying, “I could touch you like this,” and His twirling the lotus flower seemed to say, “I hold the lotus of your hearts in My hand and can play with it as I like.” At the same time, the twirling of the lotus revealed that His own heart was being affected by their love.  

It was eleven, but no sign of sleep, so I sat in padmāsana and did my prāṇāyāma and mantra meditation routine. This has really been my main practice for the past few years. I don’t use a mala for this, and combine my mantra chanting with different physical postures and breathing techniques. So that went on until 1.30. Even then I could not really sleep, so I just lay down in śavāsana and tried to follow the yoga-nidrā techniques taught to me by Swami Veda Bharati.

Actually, Swami Veda was not opposed to tea or coffee the way that Prabhupada or Sadh Guru are. He said that taking a stimulant before meditation is actually a positive thing and helps one to concentrate. He used to drink a cup of coffee at his evening meal around 8.30 and then stay up all night until 4, writing and meditating, as well as having meetings with ashram leaders. He took the Gītā verse literally,

yā niśā sarva-bhūtanānāṁ tasyāṁ jāgarti saṁyamī
yasyāṁ jāgrati bhūtāni sā niśā paśyato muneḥ

"What is night for all beings, is the time of awakening for the self-controlled. When all beings are awake, that is night for the sage with vision." (Gita 2.69)

In those days I went to the meditation hall at 4 o'clock and would often cross paths Mei Wan, Maharaj's secretary who stayed with him through the night, returning to her cottage. I won’t deny that my evening meditation was strong, and since I was ready for it, I did not lament that sleep would be a problem the next day. Insomnia is frustrating when you really want to sleep but can’t. After reading about Manohar Das Baba, I am thinking about this reducing sleep business.

I have never really been very good at reducing eating or sleeping. I gave up on it a long time and figured why not just follow the natural path? For the most part, that has been okay, but it is just normal, there is no ambition or self-surpassing involved. Sadh Guru opposes coffee, tea and other stimulants because they disrupt the nervous system. What goes up must come down and so they disturb the equilibrium, which is the desired state for a yogi. Where there are artificial ups, there are corresponding downs.

I am feeling a bit fuzzy now. It is nearly five in the afternoon. I ate only little at lunch, so I find that my eating is much reduced as well. I am a bit surprised that with only three hours of sleep last night I did not take a three hour nap after lunch. But that being said, I am not particularly sharp right now. So I am going to chant and will go directly to bed after the evening class.

But once again, I am not satisfied with the progress today on my main task of Prīti Sandarbha. I did work on the Bhāgavatāmr̥ta and the manual, where I found that a whole day's work had suddenly disappeared, for which I have no explanation. And it was supposed to be backed up on the cloud. Oh well.

nātyaśnatas tu yogo’sti na caikāntam anaśnataḥ | 

na cātisvapna-śīlasya jāgrato naiva cārjuna || 

yuktāhāra-vihārasya yukta-ceṣṭasya karmasu | 

yukta-svapnāvabodhasya yogo bhavati duḥkha-hā || 

Yoga is not accomplished by one who eats to much or who eats much too little. Nor for one who sleeps too much or too little, Arjuna. Yoga destroys all miseries for one who eats and sports a proper amount, who gives the appropriate amount of effort in work and who sleeps and remains awake for the appropriate amount of time.

Anyway, I am still encouraged. I am actually amazed that I am still awake and functioning, even though I may be a little fuzzy. Who knows I still may be able to optimize my bodily functioning, even at this stage of my life, and actually become a yogi.

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Purushottam Blog, Day 3

Yesterday’s post was a lot shorter than I wanted to make it. In actual fact, the whole time I am chanting japa I am also observing my body and mind and taking mental notes of what is worth saying or not saying. On Facebook, Premanidhi Dasji, a Godbrother of Satyanarayana Dasaji, reprimanded me for stating publicly my vow as contrary to good Vaishnava behavior, and that is no doubt true. My heart is contaminated by the desire for pratiṣṭhā, there is no point in denying it. I will be completing 50 years in the Vaishnava path on October the first, barely ten days away, and I have very little pratiṣṭhā to show for it. That does not make me too sad, as I accept that I am not of the level of achievement that warrants what Siddhanta Saraswati calls “vaiṣṇavī pratiṣṭhā.” So be it. 

 For many months now I have been contemplating a blog post about publicly speaking of my personal life. I had almost completely stopped saying anything, because indeed my life is not one of any great spiritual achievements. In one sense, when I did speak of my spiritual life, it was to show my struggles for the benefit of others.

I was just looking in the Prīti Sandarbha (15) where Jiva Goswami brings up the story of Kardama’s leaving his body (3.24.41-47). According to him, this happened in three stages, Brahman (43), Paramātmā (45) and Bhagavān (47). Vishwanath explains the verses quite differently. No matter, that is not the point here. In verse 44, the word sva-dṛk appears, which Sridhar says means “seeing himself” (svam eva paśyan). Sri Jiva has “seeing himself as non-different from Brahman” (sva-svarūpābhedena brahmaiva paśyan), but Vishwanath says, “one who sees how much devotion he has in himself, how much there was and how much there will be” (svasminn eva bhaktiḥ kiyaty abhūd bhavati bhaviṣyatīti dṛg dṛṣṭir yasya saḥ). In other words, honest self-examination of one’s progress as a sādhaka.

Should one make such things public? I answered Premanidhi Dasji, who pointed out that when Babaji holds a retreat, he asks his disciples to make a vow for the seven or however many days, but not to tell anyone else what it is. This of course echoes the famous instruction of Narottam Das—

 āpana bhajana kathā, nā kahiba yathā tathā, ihāte hoiba sābadhāna |
nā kariho keho roṣa, nā loiho keho doṣa, praṇamahu bhaktera caraṇa ||119||

"Do not talk about your bhajana to anyone and everyone. Be attentive in this matter. May no one be angry about this or consider it a fault. I bow down to the feet of all devotees." 

Also one should look at the second-to-last anuccheda of Bhakti Sandarbha (339), but there it is specifically mentioned, “If by the mercy bestowed by one’s guru or Bhagavān, one has realized some confidential truth regarding the practice or the goal of devotion, and which has become one’s very existence, it should not be disclosed to anybody.” (अत्र च श्रीगुरोः श्रीभगवतो वा प्रसादलब्धं साधनसाध्यगतं स्वीयसर्वस्वभूतं यत् किमपि रहस्यं, तत्तु न कस्मैचित् प्रकाशनीयम्).

Here it is said, “some confidential truth,” which I understand to mean some special vision or intimate personal revelation, not the externals of bhajan. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudeva also says that it is only the most stupid who have visions of the Deity and go around proclaiming them. A true siddha is a lot more serious than that!

Nevertheless, I have always felt that others can learn from another’s difficulties and even from fall-downs, especially if one is honest about the experience. After all, there is no success like failure, as Bob Dylan said. No greater learning experience.

Even the other day, when I was reading in the introduction to Manohar Das Babaji’s life where the publisher, his disciple Pandit Krishnadas Babaji, says, “In a spiritual aspirant’s lif where by the force of his practice he attains a state where he can no longer be called an ordinary man. His other-worldly glories become a source of inspiration to ordinary people in their religious life, so the word siddha actually means one who has achieved success or accomplishment in the life of sādhanā. Therefore it is enough to observe the actions of one who achieved such a state. But people are of the nature of desiring to hear more than just the outcome of the spiritual practice, they want to know the whole personality of the siddha, inside and out. They want to know by what force of character, what were the particulars of his practice, and what he was like after achieving spiritual success, etc., and they do not feel satisfied until they know it all. This is because it is rare in the real world to see ideals matched by an individual’s personal example.”

This does not mean I think I have achieved any particular greatness. Indeed, any account of my personal life is in the natural character of devotion itself – as Vishwanath himself points out – that in self examination a devotee naturally sees his failings rather than his glorious achievements, and if there are any achievements, they are the result of Guru and Krishna’s grace and not due to any special quality of his own.

Nowadays, it is considered a great quality and indeed a necessity to be expert at self-promotion. Perhaps I suffer from such a defect due to the nature of the age in which I was born and live, but I assure you that this is hardly my intent. I admit that my public self examination, limited though it is in its honesty due to various factors (which no doubt one day will be spoken of), is a consequence of the modern sensibility, the desire to understand the psychology of humankind, and in particular the psychology of one who follows a spiritual path, in particular again, of this spiritual path. Who can judge its meaningfulness or lack thereof from what it reveals?

Of course, it is tiresome for a pure devotee, who has no interest in anything but pure devotion, to hear of struggles and failures, but hopefully there will be more to this series than that. Anyway, my trivial attempt at a small vrata is like nothing compared to giants of the past like Manohar Das Baba, so I don't think that the problem of pratiṣṭhā is really a problem. I do this to give myself strength, and if anyone else finds inspiration from my experience, so much the better.

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So just to resume the day, briefly. Babaji has started giving his classes again after a break during which he was unwell, and will be speaking daily in the evening at eight o’clock. I am writing this just before the class, which I will attend regularly. The subject on Sundays is the Rasa-Panchadhyaya, and starting on Monday, Rāga-vartma-candrikā. It is only correct that I attend.

We are all following along and several auditors are following along in the GGM document, so corrections are being made, which truly warms my heart. Babaji is following only Vishwanath’s commentary. Vishwanath’s influence on the sampradaya in some way eclipses that of Jiva Goswami, and that is something that we can talk about another time. 

Because my sleep was disrupted the last couple of days, I awoke at about quarter to four and got quickly into my asana and chanted half my daily requirement by 6.30. Then I did my joints and glands exercises and a few sūrya namaskāras, and cleaned up. After my exercises I had to bath again I was so sweaty my kaupin looked like it had been placed in a bucket of water. I got back into padmāsana for the third cycle, but my knees resisted.

Sitting properly is hard work in itself, believe it or not, and I am taking a lot of care of my back and knees so that I can see this month through. I wanted to write more about āsana yesterday, which is why I quoted from the sixth chapter of the Gītā and perhaps I will still get back to that on another day.

At some point in my life I realized that I had no anurāga and that, rightly or wrongly, I needed to cultivate a few technical skills in meditation in order to achieve a fuller capacity for bhakti-sādhanā, and that is what I am putting into effect today.

I have added Bhajana-rahasya to my daily routine as mentioned in Day I, and I will continue to do so in the spiritual of “taking up from where I began.” I have already memorized more than half of the Sanskrit verses in the book and will try to memorize the rest and use these verses as a regular companion to my meditation, especially including the aṣṭa-kāla verses, with which each chapter concludes.

Unfortunately I did not even open the Prīti Sandarbha today, but instead ended up reading through the life of Siddha Chaitanya Das Babaji, one of the heroes Gadadhar Pran Dasji follows. I liked it a lot. His was quite different from Manohar Das’s practice, though there are naturally features that are shared between the two, as both are Vaishnavas devoted to the Holy Name and the culture of humility.

Just one thing that is worth mentioning here, Chaitanya Das would say, “A person who is not following the path of rāga is always beset by doubts about what to do and what not to do, what to hear and what not to hear, whom to associate with and whom not. On the rāga path, that is not a problem because one follows one’s heart and one’s taste.”

 This is very true. Unfortunately, most people are bound by some false idea of a single “correct way” and cannot understand the character of those whose way is different. Chaitanya Das’s influence on Nabadwip and the devotional culture there was very great, but as the author Haridas Goswami notes on a couple of occasions, “No longer that Rama, no longer that golden kingdom.”

He says that in Chaitanya Das’s time, a man wearing woman’s clothing as a kind of transgender was not viewed in abhorrence as it is today, nor was there such an animus against nāgarī bhajana as there is today. Chaitanya Das dressed as a woman and even used to bathe at the women's ghat, but the women apparently accepted him and he spoke with them all, treating them as if they were all expansions of Vishnupriya Devi, whom he considered to be the manifestation of Radha.

Chaitanya Das left his body in 1877 and Haridas Goswami was writing probably in the 1950’s, but if Gadadhar Pran’s testimony is to be believed, due to the influence of the Vrindavan and Radha Kund babajis, it is slowly being completely annihilated everywhere. Anyway, I found that tears were coming to my eyes reading Haridas Goswami’s account, especially the last days of Siddha Baba’s life and I hope that open-minded devotees will take inspiration from his life story also. .

Jai Sri Radhe. See you tomorrow.

Purushottam 2020: Day 2

So at 9 pm yesterday I put everything away and read the last chapter of Bhajana-rahasya before chanting my last set of 16 rounds. Bhajana-rahasya is really the book that set me off on the rāgānugā path, and even though I don’t really qualify as a rāgānugā bhakta -- indeed, after reading about Manohar Das Baba, I feel like I really have been taking things far too lightly, it has been so long since I did nāma-bhajana, I thought it would be a good idea to take up where I began so to speak. 

The japa was quite enjoyable and “Krishna conscious” with a lot less struggle to control the mind, which is really the way rāgānugā bhajan should be. Somewhere along the line I decided that I needed to cultivate the disciplines of yoga, about which the Bhāgavatam does not always seem too enthusiastic. But when I began reading the Bhagavad-gītā so many years ago, I can still remember being inspired by the sixth chapter, which emphasizes the sādhaka's effort.

yato niścarati manaś cañcalam asthiram | 

tatas tato niyamyaitad ātmany eva vaśaṁ nayet ||

From wherever the restless and flickering mind is deflected

control it and bring it back under the control of the self. (6.26)

And this also led to my desire to learn to sit still and quieten the mind through this effort. It's in the Gītā, Sit in a sacred place, sit straight, keeping the body, head and neck straight, motionless and steady.

samaṁ kāya-śiro-grīvaṁ dhārayann acalaṁ sthiraḥ | 

 saṁprekṣya nāsikāgraṁ svaṁ diśaś cānavalokayan ||(6.13)

It is a heroic posture. The yogi is a hero. 

Anyway, after going to bed, I got up at 2.45 spontaneously and after neti and bathing, I was in siddhāsana by 3 and finished my first set by 4.15. Changed legs and finished second set by 5.30. Took a break for stretches, suryanamaskara and so on. When in śavāsana I went into yoga-nidrā and woke up at 6.30. Then I sat in full padmāsana for the third set, but this was a bit more difficult and less conscious. It was light by then and I should have had my Bhajana-rahasya at the ready to help direct my mind. But I didn’t. Tomorrow.

I started pushing myself back into the Prīti-sandarbha work, and I can see why I needed to take a break. It is not always easy to find the appropriate way to translate Sanskrit, especially this kind of philosophical language, but hopefully it will start to happen. Much easier to edit Grantha Mandir files or the Sanskrit manual. I am hopefully going to resume the readings before too long, so I fully intend to keep that promise. Harinama is number one on the list, however.

After lunch was especially difficult, my mind got fogged up even though I did not think I overate, compared to what I used to, so instead of working I went back to chanting japa. This time, pacing back and forth. Other stuff happened also, so I was not altogether satisfied with my day, but I am enjoying the chanting and feel enlivened.

In actual fact I have tons of energy. Radhe Radhe.

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Reading Chaitanya Das's biography by Haridas Goswami. He was paying obeisances brāhmaṇādi kukkura caṇḍāla anta kari daṇḍabat karibeka bahu mānya kari || ei se baiṣṇaba dharma sabāre praṇati sei dharmadhbajī yāra ithe nāhi rati || “From the brahmans to even the dogs and outcastes, one should prostrate oneself before everyone with great respect. This is the duty of the Vaishnavas, to bow down to all. One without love for this is a hypocrite.” kṛṣṇa-bhakti-sudhā-pānā-deha-daihika-vismṛteḥ | teṣāṁ bhautika-dehe'pi sac-cid-ānanda-rūpatā ||61||

Purushottam Month Blog, Day 1

Yesterday I was reading a little book that was lying around, Amar Gurudeb, about Siddha Manohar Das Babaji of Govinda Kund. Manohar Das lived from 1847 to 1947, but spent the last fifty years of his life at Govinda Kund by Govardhan. There is of course a lot to say, but most of it I will just pass over for the time being. Nitai Das has apparently translated this into English, so I would recommend it to everyone. 

Manohar Das was a renounced sadhu of extreme accomplishment. He gave up eating and sleeping to an extreme degree reducing both almost to nothing. He chanted seven lakhs of Harinam every day, an almost impossible achievement. Needless to say, he chanted almost all day and night. Tinkori Baba, his vesh disciple, also followed his example in renunciation and commitment to the Name and chanted far beyond what most mortals are capable of.

My own Gurudeva is said to have chanted a similar number of Holy Names. I have seen that when I chant a lot and to do it mentally rather than vocally, time goes by much faster and one does more in less time without losing quality. This phenomenon has been observed in different people’s practice also, and I remember Swami Veda Bharati even demonstrating (as much as it can be demonstrated), saying that he had learned the method from Swami Rama.

For the past many years I have been chanting the bare minimum of sixteen rounds, which Is 25,000 names or a quarter of a lakh, but this is actually a pitiful number for one who has received as much grace in my life. This only takes me about 75-90 minutes. But I have admittedly been painfully weak in my practice over the years. Spending time on the computer means getting distracted all too easily, especially by YouTube and all the hypnotizing glitter of the infinite aspects of the worldly life that are so easily available on it, and which can be experienced passively.

Reading about Manohar Das refreshed dormant memories in me from the days when I was younger and more spiritually ambitious. My friend Gadadhar Pran Das also spends a lot of time chanting. He tells me that he chants three lakhs every day, but he does so in about six hours. Gadadhar is very focused on vratas. He divides his months into two halves, the white half and the dark half, and follows a different schedule in each. The Shukla-paksha is generally the period in which he chants more, the Krishna paksha when he writes more. He even wrote me recently and said, "You should go and stay in Birnagar and follow Prabhu's example and chant at least three lakhs every day." 

Since I gave up my renounced life, I have not been particularly assiduous about bhajan, not even after coming to Vrindavan. I have been keeping busy in other ways, mostly with the Grantha Mandir and editing Babaji’s Sandarbhas. The commitment to the Holy Name, which is the principal feature of the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya, has been somewhat lax. I think I took Hariram Vyas’s statement that if one simply takes shelter of Kumari Radha, one can relax, lie down and stretch one’s legs. In other words, living in Vrindavan is enough, even without any effort one reaps great benefit just from the dust itself.

Though it is true, it is recognizably a copout to me. At this stage in my life, getting serious primarily means serious about chanting. After all, Radharani’s mercy means bhajan. In one nice passage in the life of Manohar Das Baba, the author Nabadwip Das writes:

All the disciples gathered in front of the deities. We put an asan for Gurudeva and sat down after him. The others looked at me to be their mouthpiece and so I said what was in their minds. “Gurudeva, the bhaktas are saying that they are doing bhajan, but without the mercy of the Guru, nothing can come of it. So they beg you to please be merciful to them.” When he heard this Maharajji said, “Mercy is already there. Be persistent in your bhajan. There is no point to asking for mercy while not doing any bhajan. The effort made to get mercy is what bhajan is. When God’s energy in the form of kripa descends on the jiva, his life of bhajan begins. And through bhajan one gets direct experience of that mercy. Absorption of the mind in Bhagavan is called bhajan, and through such absorption one experiences His mercy.

After that, on the insistence of the disciples who refused to be brushed off with this answer, he gave an elaborate discourse on kripa, of which unfortunately Nabadwip Das only gives the barest outline. But Manohar Das’s answer did strike a chord with me. Here I am in Vrindavan, so much kripa, and where is my bhajan? It really is time to get serious.

At the same time, I became aware that Purushottam month was about to begin. [It begins today on the 18^th]. Purushottam month is inserted as an extra month every three years to make up the shortfall that comes when one follows the lunar calendar rather than the solar. That comes to about ten days every year, so every three years, a full month of days accumulates that has to be caught up with. If not, one arrives at the situation that comes with the Muslim calendar where the months have no relation to the seasons of the year and can come at any time, winter or summer. Purushottam month has no feasts or festivals. If a sadhu leaves his body in Purushottam month, which may be inserted at different places in the year, his tithi is celebrated in the month prior.

Brahmins call this month “impure” (mala-māsa), but for the Vaishnavas it is considered to be a particularly holy month and often special month-long events like unbroken kīrtana or pāṭha, etc., are organized during this time. It falls in the chaturmasya period and immediately precedes Karttik, so it is certainly a good time to engage in a special vrata of some kind.

As I intimated above, I have never really been particularly good with vratas. I start with fury, but usually wimp out fairly rapidly and so have pretty much stopped trying. I have numerous Vaishnava friends and acquaintances who are quite diligent in this respect, Gadadhar Pran Dasji being just one of them. But I think that the time has come for me to take a bit of a vow, so I impetuously wrote on Facebook yesterday that I would observe the three following vows:

1. (1)   I would chant one lakh each day. That does not seem like much, but I intend to sit in one asan for the five or six hours it takes and get back into the habit. Sixteen rounds really is the bare minimum. You barely get started controlling the mind with that measly number, to be honest. So it is time to get serious about this principal anga of Gaudiya Vaishnava bhajan.
2. I am getting back into doing the regular readings from Prīti Sandarbha. I got lax again the last few weeks and have been spending more time on my Sanskrit primer and editing Grantha Mandir texts, mainly Laghu-bhāgavatāmr̥ta and Br̥had-bhāgavatāmr̥ta. I made good progress, but since I stopped the videos, things quickly slowed down to a halt. So my scholarly and intellectual efforts are going back to this important work.
3. The only negative vow I am making is to get off the internet as much as possible. I will do any writing off line and then simply copy and paste it to my blogs and then take a quick look at personal correspondence, but no more of the news and entertainment that has been such a major distraction for me of late.

Last night I had a pretty bad night. I could not sleep. It is hot and muggy. I kept taking showers and sitting under the fan to cool off. I had a headache and ended up sitting in my asan with a wet gamcha wrapped around me from one o’clock to 2:30, then finally fell asleep. But I got up again at 4.30, strangely and unexpectedly refreshed. I did another three hours of japa. 

One thing about Nabadwip Das Baba’s memoir. It is clear just how austere life was in Govardhan at that time. There were frequent epidemics and famines. He describes how disturbing the mosquitoes were. I don’t know what happened to the mosquitoes. There used to be more in Vrindavan than there are now. This Covid business is small potatoes compared to the stuff that used to happen, like in Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s description of the decimation of Ula Birnagar in 1858, or the plague in Kolkata in 1891. These were regular occurrences, which the people of today seem to have forgotten. In this scientific age, we think that human beings can control everything and if something bad happens, human agency must be the cause. Manohar Das followed the golden rule of surrender, śaraṇāpatti. God is the doer and our business is to do bhajan and let him take care of the rest.

I spent a little bit of time on the above-mentioned projects and am now starting back to work on Prīti Sandarbha, though I don’t think I will manage a video today. Nevertheless, I feel encouraged about the next month. This is the way to make the most of Vraja vāsa/


Jai Radhe.

 

Bangalore Yoga Ratna Awards

I wrote about Vachananand Swami about nine years ago on my rather inactive Jagat Jindagi blog. He is stationed in Bangalore, where he has been doing rather well in teaching yoga in the Baba Ramdev style. He has a popular television show on yoga in Kannada and puts on public yoga performances and camps.

Swamiji had been asking me to come to Bangalore to visit for some time and this year he asked me to come for the Yoga Ratna award ceremonies that he has been organizing for a couple of years on International Yoga Day, June 21. I was to receive a "Yoga Sammana" award.

Shwaas Guru (Vachanananda Swami) with me at SRSG in 2015.

I was very impressed by Swami Vachananand's aplomb and natural talent in public, his way of dealing respectfully and warmly with all his guests, his savoir-faire in organizing and managing this large event, and many other good qualities I observed in him. In my short acceptance speech, I stated my appreciation for him. I said he may call me "guruji" because I once taught him English, but he is a Swami and I am merely a Dasa.

Later I wrote the following:

You are a natural, Shwaasa Guru, you have no doubts about your mission. You are confident and enthusiastic, and I noticed you also have a quality I saw in Swami Veda Bharati: you like people, you care about people. You talk with children. People sense that and it attracts them to you.  

What is good is that you are still young and have so much energy. So in the years to come, I am sure that you will have a tremendous impact on teaching yoga to the world.  

I also like the way you have respect for your gurus. I like that you seek out seniors in the yoga and Hindu world and ask for their blessings. You are teaching correctly by doing so. You don't place yourself as a competitor to them or a critic, but as a junior member of a great team that is teaching yoga to the world.  

I also very much liked your statement: "Everyone knows that yoga came to Kannada from the Himalayas and the north, but our saint Basavanna contributed one practice at least that I am also teaching, and that is tratak of the Shiva linga." This is very good because in the future it means that you will teach more and more the spiritual side of your tradition, which I know is very deeply embedded in your personality and is probably where you derive most of your energy. What else can I say, except may the blessings of all your Guruvarga be upon you. Jai Radhe!

After I finished, he whispered to me, "You made my day." I thought that was very sweet of him. I certainly do hope for the best for him, I only worry that for a young, charismatic sannyasi, the pitfalls are many. If he can avoid them, he will do great things.

A theme that came up repeatedly was the "non-religious" nature of yoga. Shri M, for instance, made a point of saying that even an atheist can be a yogi. My response to this was that yoga makes everything better -- it makes eating, sleeping, work and study better -- so it is about improving life. It is true that one can be an atheist and practice yoga, but the ultimate improvement in life is to know God. So the thing that yoga improves most of all is one's religious endeavor.

I am also thankful to Swami Vachan for reviving my hatha practice. I was a little embarrassed when he said he wanted to do a video of me doing asanas. I told him that I was really a bhakti-yogi, so not to emphasize the hatha too much. But he came with his crew and supervised the shooting of the video, even coming several times to fix my cloth.

Usually I do my asanas only dressed in a kaupin, so I don't have the usual yoga-pants wardrobe. When I came to Bangalore, I asked for something to wear for the video and they gave me orange shorts and a teashirt with the ashram logo, which did not fill me with enthusiasm. But Swamiij pulled out a white cloth from his drawer and showed me how he transforms his sannyas dhoti into a suitable cloth for doing asanas. Rather looks like a big diaper. It kept coming undone, though, while I was doing the poses, so Swamiji kept coming up to me after almost every asana to help put it right.

Since I hadn't been doing my hatha practice regularly I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do much. What happened, though, is that I was very sick for the 36 hours before this film was taken. I had a sudden attack of amoebic dysentery and so I had been fasting, involuntarily. The end result was that I lost a bit of the weight I had been putting on and this also made more supple than I had been in quite a while.

Me with Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy and Tao Porchon Lynch.

In the hotel I met Pilot Baba and his disciple, Keiko Akawa, who were both given Yoga Ratna awards. I shared my room with Swami Ishwar Ananda, who came with them from Haridwar. The principal guest at the program was Anna Hazare, who at 80 still practices yoga every day.

The real star of the show, however, was undoubtedly Tao Porchon-Lynch, who at 98 is still a real dynamo. She has incomparable energy and awareness for one of her age. She is a living testimonial to the benefits of a lifelong practice of yoga asanas and meditation. As the central attraction at the Yoga Day festivities over several days, she was constantly sitting for newspaper and television interviews, demonstrating asanas like sarvangasan, matsyasan and so on for the spectators, and she even did a ballroom dance number! And the bright smile never left her face for a moment. And she always wears high-heels!

She was accompanied by Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, her student and a very interesting person in her own right. Among other things, she has a PhD from Harvard and spent years working in the private sector. She was the first person to open a yoga studio in Harlem. She now has her "life coach" business, but at present spends most of her time traveling with and helping take care of Tao, with whom she co-wrote the memoirs, Dancing Light.

Swami Veda follows Grandfather Bhishma

I just received a call from Adhikari in Rishikesh that yoga master 108 Sri Mahamandaleshwar Swami Veda Bharati Maharaj has left his body. I hereby offer my condolences to all his disciples and followers, many of whom have become good friends over the years. Swamiji was a good friend and guide to me. I first became associated with him in 2007 when I joined the SRSG Gurukula as a teacher of Sanskrit. It is unfortunate that I never knew him earlier in life. Those who did knew him as a tireless teacher of meditation and Indian yogic culture. He was, in fact, an extraordinarily learned person, not only in traditional branches of knowledge, but in Western scholarship as well. He was a magnet for scholars of Sanskrit and Hindu shastra, especially those who came from the West, and I got to meet many of them at SRSG -- David Frawley, Bettina Boehner, Chris Chapple, Mark Singleton, to just mention a few off the top of my head. When he was still in fairly good form, Swamiji would have very lively meals in the evening, usually with special guests, mostly very interesting ones. Swamiji would lead the way with much boisterous story telling. Over the years I met his son and daughter, grandchildren, as well as hundreds of his disciple children. It was a good and interesting company. Swamiji's evening meals were called the "Rishikesh Nightclub" and they always finished with Swamiji reciting, like a maha-mantra, the various choices of beverage with which the meal could be concluded, including cinnamon from Malaysia and cocoa from Trinidad. At first I was primarily a Sanskrit teacher, but Swamiji approved of my meagre Sanskrit skills and so asked me to work on a number of projects, including several old translations that had been sitting around and just needed finalizing. Sanat-sujatiya and the Gita in the Vasishtha Ramayana were two of them. Swamiji also confided me with the Yoga-tarangini work. He also sent me a couple of times to represent him at conferences at the Ramkrishna Mission in Kolkata and Punjab University. But the biggest project was redoing the first volume of Yoga Sutra, in the hope that the copyright to it could be wrested from the Himalayan Institute. The new volume was published privately, and it looks pretty good. Swamiji naturally wanted the other volumes of YS to be at the same standard, which may now never happen. Nevertheless, I finished going through the third volume just before leaving Rishikesh a couple of weeks ago and so I am quite confident that this volume will be up to the standard. Swamiji had already started going through Volume II to revise that. And there are notes and so on for Volume IV. I tried to persuade Swamiji to concentrate on the sutras of the fourth volume and to leave aside the multitude of appendices he wanted to add to other volumes. Swamiji really wanted to present the Yoga Sutras authoritatively, encompassing the entire Sanskrit commentatorial tradition and highlighting practices or interpretations as given in the oral tradition, as he had received it from Swami Rama and others in his many years of contact with the world of yoga. Swamiji also has, he has let it be known, a volume of reminiscences of his relationship with Swami Rama, which he wanted to be published posthumously. One of the reasons that he wanted it published posthumously is because there are many incidences in these memoirs that have a miraculous flavor to them, and moreover would seem to show his guru's special favour on him. But this was characteristic of Swami Veda. Although he was proud of his career, of the special circumstances of his early life and the role he played in the Caribbean with the Hindu diaspora there, and the winding road he took that led him to create Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama and the Gurukula project in Rishikesh. Although these projects will need to be carefully cared for, may Swamiji's desire to create an atmosphere where serious minded yogis -- particular those from the West -- can study and practice without distraction or disturbance and make real progress towards the higher reaches of yoga, namely Samadhi -- be fulfilled. Swamiji made a point of not allowing his pictures to be hung in any official location on the ashram grounds, though some individuals naturally kept his photo on the walls of their room. But Swamiji had a horror of the lavish worship and cultish mentality that so many gurus promote. He wanted his disciples to understand the proper relationship of disciple to guru, but he refused to use such gross techniques to manipulate their minds. There are, of course, certain superficial advantages to the cult mentality, and had he so wished he could easily have employed those techniques, but he refused on principle. Though I have written a few things about my experiences with Swami Veda on this blog and elsewhere, in the last few months that I spent at SRSG Swamiji called me to his room a couple of times. With John and Souresh present he made me promise to finish the Yoga Sutra project (and a lot of others that would require too much commitment from me). Then on another occasion -- just when the Yoga Tarangini came out -- he again exacted the same promise from me. Where the Yoga Sutra is concerned I think that if I am to continue with the project even now, that we could follow the same technique that Swamiji used and then make use of recorded lectures and notes to supplement them to come up with something that would be close to his standard and his teaching intentions. It would, of course, require the contributions of all of Swamiji's longtime associates and disciples, who were most likely to have received the grace of knowing his lesser known secrets. Swamiji was proud of his connection to Swami Rama and the "oral tradition" of Himalayan yoga. This is where I would no doubt be less helpful. I hope that all these projects will be maintained and carried out in the way that he envisioned and that his disciples will be empowered to carry his mantle and continue to lead the way and spread his legacy and that of the Himalayan tradition. Many years ago, Swamiji wrote books about death and preparing for death, Meditation and the Art of Dying. He also cited the example of Grandfather Bhishma from the Mahabharata and his iccha-mrityu. Many times he expressed admiration for that model of departing from the world willingly. This last year Swamiji told me several times that the astrologers had told him that the mahamaraka yoga of inevitable death was hanging over him, but that he simply "refused to die." Each time he said this, he said it with absolute determination. He would especially go into silence and meditation, using nari shodhana and other techniques to stay the call of Death, all so that he could see his projects through. Just before I left SRSG in mid-June, Swamiji again said to me that he hoped that he would be able to finish everything, then say goodbye and enter kaivalya forever. I cannot believe that even though he left quietly in the auspicious brahma muhurta he did not do so in keeping with his ambitions of a glorious and voluntary death. At any rate, it is not for a person's death that we remember them, but for their life and the good they do for others. Swamiji's contributions to deepening humanity's understanding of yoga and meditation and their benefits will long be remembered. And I would not like to minimize the work that he did for international peace and finding ways of harmonizing different religious traditions through meditation. His sterling relations with the Keralan Christians and Sufi sheikhs are just one sample of the work he did in this regard. And again, to all those who have been with him for more than forty years -- Swami Ritavan, Stoma Parker, Swami Radha, Joanne Sullivan and a host of others, including Maryon Masse, Silvia Barata, Caroline Hume, Caroline and Stephan Hodges, etc., as well as those like Suren, Mei Wan, Tejas and the rest of the residents of SRSG who have been with Swamiji and served him for so long -- I offer my heartfelt condolences. May he live in immortality. By the way, his absolute last instructions to me were to floss…

Adalat Shekh’s familiar spirit

This was originally written several years ago, but it is nowhere on any of my current blogs, so I am reposting it after a long time.

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I lived in the Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir between 1975 and 1979, where I was in charge of the Gurukula school. During the time I was there, the ashram was undergoing constant growth, as it is even today, and there seemed to be construction underway at nearly all times. There was a constant influx of new personnel, many of them East Bengali refugees, whose motives in coming to the ashram seemed to be as much practical as spiritual. At the time of my story, there had been a rash of petty thievery -- clocks, watches, cash and other such items were going missing from the quarters of the Western devotees, causing much irritation to them and the temple management. When a fairly expensive brass gong went missing from the temple room, however, they lost patience and decided to take extraordinary measures to solve the problem.

About two kilometers north of the ashram is Mayapur village, in fact Miapore, a poor settlement of Muslims that destiny placed in the middle of the largest development of Hindu shrines in Bengal in the 20th century. This village had long furnished the manpower for the construction of Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir, and though this relationship went through many ups and downs over the years, the Muslims generally prospered as a result of the plentiful jobs the temple provided.

The countermaster of Mayapur village was a trusted and well-liked elderly Muslim with a white beard named Adalat Shekh, who also acted as a night guard. Besides being adept with the lathi, or fighting staff, Adalat Shekh had another talent that I had not known about before then, but apparently the temple managers did. Tapomoy Das, a dark and passionate young brahmachari who was in charge of the ashram's day-to-day management, decided to make use of that talent to solve the intractable petty-theft problem.

Adalat Shekh was an ojha. Ojhas are village magicians who use their skills for things like tracking lost objects or animals, curing snakebite, or answering other pressing questions for troubled villagers. Adalat Shekh apparently had mastery over a familiar spirit that helped him to accomplish these tasks. His fame was quite widespread, and many was the lost or stolen cow or buffalo he had found and brought back to its rightful owner.

At the time of my story, the north boundary guesthouse, a 200 meter long building three stories high, was under construction. A single story building followed the western boundary of the property; it was probably about 350 meters long, broken up by two gates, the magnificent main one to the north and a smaller one for deliveries near the southern end. This southwestern corner of the property was the site of the kitchen and dining pavillion, a functional hangar-like building with metal gates and asbestos roof.

From 7.30 to 8.30 each morning, the students of the gurukula were assigned various tasks around the ashram—generally cleaning, sweeping the roads, washing the temple floors or hallways, and so on. On this particular day, however, Tapomoy had taken a pair of boys to the square of pavement surrounded by the kitchen, the dining pavilion and the north wall, from which the road to the main gate began. Adalat was waiting there, as were a few curious members of the ashram staff, mostly other boys.

Adalat had a clay pot partially filled with Ganges water, the indispensible material for all Hindu ritual, which somehow had found its way into the Muslim community. The clay pot had been duly daubed with vermillion and oil, swastikas and other symbols painted on it, including a stick figure that represented the spirit whose presence was being summoned. Adalat place two segments of split bamboo, about three meters long, on either side of the pot and then began muttering spells and blowing into the pot. Finally, he stood up and instructed the two boys Tapomoy had selected for the task to take hold of the two flexible pieces of bamboo, so that each of them was standing at their extremities, holding one piece in either hand.

After consulting with Tapomoy, Adalat then began to speak to the pot in a commanding voice: “Go and find the brass gong!” He used the diminutive form of the imperative, as is fitting in Bengali for a master to use when speaking to a menial servant. But nothing happened. The two boys looked at each other and laughed. Everyone else looked puzzled and Adalat looked annoyed. He turned to Tapomoy and complained that the boys were incapable of carrying out the function they had been given. Tapomoy shrugged and himself replaced one of them and signaled to me to take the other end of the bamboo sticks, which I did.

Adalat then repeated the mantras and the blowing into the pot, and then again commanded his familiar spirit to find the brass gong. As soon as he had finished giving the order, Tapomoy and I felt a sudden surge in the bamboo sticks, as if someone had taken hold of them in the middle and was tugging on them, pulling us very definitely to the west. Tapomoy and I looked at each other with wide-open eyes, astonished grins on both our faces. The sticks pulled us along with confidence, taking us to the limits of the kitchen where they made a very crisp movement to the right, leading us again to the limits of the building and turning right again, leading us to the construction foreman’s hut, which stood behind the dining pavillion. Without any hesitation, they led us directly to the foreman’s doorway and leaned against it, practically knocking on the padlocked door as if trying to get in. The foreman was not at home.

Tapomoy and Adalat consulted with each other. Tapomoy said, “The gong may be inside, but the foreman isn’t. So let’s have the spirit take us to the foreman.” Adalat gave the order and the sticks did an about face; where they had been bent toward the foreman’s door, they immediately turned upward and then spun in the opposite direction, and began pulling us that way.

There was a chain link fence about eight feet high in this corner of the property, but it was only partially complete. There was a footpath leading from the head mistry’s residence as far as the last fencepost; it then turned around and led on the other side of the fence through a rice field to the main road, which continued east towards the ferry pier where one would cross the river to get to Nabadwip town. The sticks led us along this path, very emphatically turning the 180 degrees at the last fencepost and leading us at almost a running pace toward the river. Evidently the foreman had gone into town.

Adalat immediately called to his spirit to halt. It was here I learned the rather amusing piece of information that he could not carry out his paranormal activities in public areas because he did not have a license! Apparently such activities could only be conducted on private property. On consulting with Tapomoy, they decided that the brass gong could not be retrieved at that particular moment, and the spirit was asked to lead us to one of the other missing items, a clock; this time, in fact, Tapomoy decided to ask for the thief before the lost good.

In a movement that was becoming familiar, the two sticks swooshed in the opposite direction and led us back the way we had come, past the kitchen and back onto the road that followed the north wall. Our strange little group had by now grown to a fairly large size, with many curious children and devotees struggling to keep up with the sticks which were stretched out in an arc in front of Tapomoy and myself, pulling us steadily to a destination that only Adalat's familiar spirit knew.

Rushing along, it led us past the main gate and further along the north wall, to a series of rooms where many of the Bengali inmates were quartered. At this time, most of the temple devotees had finished their early morning duties or temple activities and were returning to their quarters to clean up or change before going to the dining pavillion for breakfast.

The sticks led us directly to a woman, whose name I have regrettably forgotten, but whose reputation for sticky fingers was well known. With amazing dexterity, the two sticks cornered the woman in front of her room, and while she stared at Tapomoy and myself with wide-eyed and open-mouthed astonishment, straddled her head and nestled on either side of her neck, pinning her against the wall. Evidently, the spirit had spoken: this was the culprit who had taken the clock.

Time was running out for the spirit’s work, but Tapomoy decided we had enough to try to find one more item, a watch, if I remember correctly. Again, the sticks did their about face and led us into the crossroads in front of the main gate, where the road south led to the main temple, while the road east led to the kitchen. A small throng of about fifteen men and women was in the road coming from the temple and the sticks led us right into their midst. They all scattered, forming a rough circle as everyone stood around to observe what was going on. The sticks immediately turned toward a smaller cluster of three or four individuals, which again broke up. The sticks made the adjustment, chose its target and again made the arrest by tightly pressing against either side of their prisoner's neck.

With that, Adalat Shekh and his spirit’s work was done. Tapomoy and I needed to say little to each other. It was obvious that neither of us had manipulated the sticks. The movements had been too sudden and sharp, the tugging so sure and confident that it could only have been coming from outside either of us. There was not the remotest possibility that either of us had been manipulating the bamboo; every single movement had been a total surprise to both of us.

I don’t believe that any of the stolen items were ever recovered, but somehow neither Tapomoy nor I ever doubted for a moment that the thieves were those Adalat Shekh’s familiar spirit had fingered.