New School Year in Gurukula

We have been pretty busy lately. The new school year is finally underway here. Unfortunately, the Gurukula is not quite as organized as most schools, though things are looking somewhat optimistic here at the beginning of the semester. We have taken on six new students, two from Holland, two from Uttar Khand, one from Manipur and one from Karnatak. Several of the deadwood students have been trimmed away.

But the faculty staff problem is still acute. We are expecting a retired ESL teacher from Cornwall to come in two weeks time, but until then I am going to be taking both English and Sanskrit classes. This really works out to more than two classes, because there are different subgroups in both. It is a bit like the old one-room schoolhouses that they had out on the frontier, with everyone from the small kids to the high school students in one room. That makes organization difficult. Luckily we have Chandramaniji to teach advanced Sanskrit, so that rounds out one aspect of the syllabus nicely.

Last night I also gave a lecture on "the philosophy of Hatha Yoga." There was a good audience, since there is a group doing teacher's training from Holland, U.S. and China. There was also a sizable group from the western U.S.A., brought here by Sherri Baptiste Freeman and India Supera. When there are many international students like that, the ashram is pretty lively. There must have been at least 75 people in the meditation hall this morning.

Swami Veda came back a few days ago. He was very tired, so I did not go to see him, but he invited me upstairs for dinner the day before yesterday, and I invited myself up yesterday after the Philosophy of Hatha Yoga lecture, which is based on one of his books. He was looking much better. He's doing pretty well for a man of 75, with all his traveling around the world and lecturing.

I am still giving other classes as well at Madhuban and Vrindavan Ashram. And besides that I am trying to work on this Bhagavat-sandarbha project. The big time loser is reading Internet sites related to the current American presidential election. It is something of an indulgence. It seems that there are always anarthas around to be trimmed.

Swami Vachanananda

Swami Vachanananda returned from Karnataka a day or two ago and yesterday appeared in my English class for the first time in more than a month. Swami Veda is back in India and will be here in Rishikesh sometime this week, so gradually everyone is returning to the ashram, including new teaching staff, new students, etc.

Vachanananda was full of stories, so rather than have a regular English class, I made it a mock press conference and had the students pose as reporters and ask him questions. Since they won't actually write anything (I gave them another assignment), I am summarizing a little, plus giving some background.

Swami Vachanandanaji is only 25 but has been a sannyasi in the Lingayat or Virashaiva tradition that is mainly based in the Karnataka region.

Before he was born, his parents had three girls. They went to see a Lingayat guru who told them they would have a son, but that he would be a sadhu and would renounce home life. When the mother was pregnant, the guru gave "garbha-diksha" to the infant and told the mother that throughout the pregnancy she was to chant this mantra. He also gave a ishtalinga, which is the sect's symbol and worn by everyone. When the child was born, she was to repeat the mantra to the child before giving him her breastmilk. Then a few days later, the guru came and performed the Lingadharana ceremony. But he stipulated that the child was to belong to the guru.

This was a very serious commitment, especially in that family, since Vachananda's grandparents had made a similar deal with this guru's guru, and had reneged on it. Actually the deal had been made by the father without telling his wife, and when she had twins she could not bear to part with them. The two boys were extremely talented, brilliant, musical, etc. But not long after this refusal, they both died. The parents were devastated, but they did not lose faith in their spiritual master and dedicated themselves to serving in his ashram for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, Vachananda was educated in various Lingayat schools and ashrams and finally given sannyasa after he finished college. He is a charismatic fellow and though his English is still imperfect, he has a vast knowledge of the literature of his own tradition and is a very good speaker in Kannada.

This summer he was invited by some sponsors to lead a series of yoga camps in Karnataka. Over a six week period he lectured to thousands of people and gave yoga and meditation classes to about 600 people, mostly college students. As a matter of fact, his success was noticed by various Lingayat leaders, and according to V., at least three of them have asked him to succeed them in their ashrams or missions.

Anyway, all that was to introduce you to the man. The event that was particularly notable over the summer, however, was his intervention in a Christian-Hindu riot in the Mangalore area. This is an unfortunate thing that has been going on in India this summer, with Orissa being the beginning, but the anxiety of Hindus about Christian conversions growing and spreading.

When a militant Hindu sannyasi in Orissa was killed, things flared up in the Mangalore area as well. The Christians in Mangalore have been successful in evangelizing the poorer outcaste and tribal people of southern Karnataka, to the point that they represent a considerable percentage of the population. The state government is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party, and they seem to have decided that it is in their interest to have such turmoil going on under their watch. Whatever the case, they have been either unwilling or unable to put a stop to it, much to their shame.

Vachananda was introduced to some of the perpetrators of the violence, militant youths from the Bajrang Dal or RSS, and managed to persuade the that their approach was misguided. He said, "Look, the Hindu gurus and sadhus sit in their ashrams and try to attract wealthy patrons. None of them are interested in doing outreach programs to help the poor and uneducated. The Christians are doing that kind of work. So how can you blame them if these people turn to Christianity. They can see who is helping them and who is not. So if you really want to do something, then you should try to compete on this level."

These youth were convinced and organized a meeting with the Hindu sadhus of the area, which was reported in the media. Christian leaders heard of the initiative and came to see Vachanananda to thank him for his efforts. This led to a meeting between Hindu and Christian leaders and a truce of some kind being agreed upon. This in turn led to a lull in the violence in that area, but it appears that things have flared up again since he returned here.



Anyway, I was glad to hear that he had the good sense to attempt to make peace rather than follow this unfortunate and extremely shortsighted path of narrowmindedness and violence that so many Hindus -- indeed, fundamentalists of all stripes -- seem to be taking these days. It looks like Vachanananda Swami has a good future ahead of him, and I hope that he continues to make peacemaking and setting Hindus straight on their priorities a part of his agenda wherever he goes.

See Shashi Tharoor's comments on Huffington Post

....

Another short anecdote from Gangesh Chaitanya. He was in Vrindavan for a while and stayed at the Kunja Bihari ashram on the Parikrama Marg near Purana Kalidaha. Amongst the various kinds of seva he did there, one thing was to go and collect cow urine at the Iskcon Goshalla. This would then be used for various kinds of purification rituals in the ashram, sprinkling here and there, etc.

Since the object was purity, the person collecting the urine had to be ritually pure himself. So Gangesh would bathe before he went, etc. His being a young brahmachari was part of his qualification for the job. He was told, however, that if he had a nocturnal emission, he had to tell the people in the ashram and that would disqualify him from going on that day. Someone else would be sent and this replacement would have to bring back not only cow urine, but a steaming fresh cow patty as well.

Gangesh would then be made to sit down near the well and the cowdung would be placed on his head and flattened. Then someone from the ashram would pour buckets of water over his head in such a way that his entire body was covered with the dung. After the purification bath, he was again eligible to go and collect the cow urine.

Other Student Stories

The other night Gangesh Chaitanya came to "consult" with me. He told me more of his personal story.

In 2007, his travels brought him to Benares for Shiva Ratri. He arrived with no money, etc., but the first thing he did was go to the famous Vishwanath temple for darshan. Even though there was a line several kilometers long of people waiting to get in, he stood patiently for four hours before getting a brief moment before the Lingam. He said his prayers and made his obeisance in a very emotional state of mind.

He said to Shiva Vishwanath, "Tomorrow is Shiva Ratri, but it does not look like it will be easy to get darshan of you. But anyway I have seen you today, if you are merciful, then tomorrow I will be able to see you again."

After offering obeisances a second time, he went down to the Ganges and sat on the ghat, fully intending to spend the night there, as it was about 10.30. But sitting nearby was a sannyasi, so he decided to ask him if there was anywhere, any ashram, where he could go to render some service. The sannyasi was very welcoming and took him to a room somewhere nearby, where, on entering, there was a meeting of about 15 sannyasis in progress.

These monks immediately welcomed him and started a heated discussion, which led to the leader of the group, Madhava Giri, to say, "You must take sannyas right now." Someone produced a piece of saffron cloth and tore it to make a bahirvas and kaupin. Someone else took Gangesh to a barbershop and had his head shaved. Then he was taken to the Ganga and bathed, and then by midnight, he was a sannyasi, Sri Parvat Giri.

[A rather odd name, by the way. Parvat is also one of the 10 sannyas titles, as is Giri. Furthermore, both words mean "mountain." Anyway...]

Gangesh went to sleep with a deep, sound sleep like he had never known. So he tells. But at 3.00 some of his new companions stirred him from his slumber and said, "Come on, Baba, it is Shiva Ratri. It is time to bathe."

The entire group of fifteen went down to the Ganga where they joined a throng of other vairagis of various types who were bathing fully naked in the holy river. Gangesh was also stripped down, but he says that as everyone was equally naked, he felt no embarrassment. After bathing, they all covered themselves with ashes (vibhuti).

Then one sannyasi said, "Nagas over here, Mahapurushas over there." Gangesh did not know what he was talking about, but all the sannyasis divided into two groups. Someone ushered him into the Mahapurush group. The other batch remained entirely naked, while his group put on lengutis (kaupins) and the saffron cloth. Then they formed two lines and started walking towards the Vishwanath temple.

Gangesh tells that someone pushed him to the very front of the line and so, there he was, on his way to the Vishwanath temple just as it opened on Shiva Ratri, the holiest day of the year in Varanasi, at the very head of a procession of naked sadhus, to be the very first to have darshan of the Lingam.

So, whereas on the previous day it had been doubtful that he would even manage to get into the temple on account of the crowds of pilgrims, it ended up that he was the very first to enter!

Afterwards, though, things took a bit of a different turn. These were Nagas, and they are a bit fanatical in some of their practices. One of the things these sadhus do is whack their penises to deaden the nerves and make them permanently flaccid, inoperative and insensitive. When he realized that they were going to initiate him in this practice in the near future, Gangesh though, "This is not for me!"

Unfortunately, the group must have realized that their customs were not everyone's cup of tea, for they suddenly became very watchful. Gangesh was "put under surveillance." Two or three of the others followed him wherever he went.

Finally he made his escape. Again penniless (He says that during the time in Benares, he attended several feasts where many sannyasis were fed and given dakshina of 500 rupees, but he turned everything over to his Naga guru.), he boarded the first train that pulled into the Kashi station after being told that as a sannyasi, he had the right to free travel anywhere in India.

He ended up in Indore in Maharashtra, where he found an ashram there and was serving the cows. In this ashram he met another sannyasi, Padmapada Dandi Swami, who took one look at him, laughed and said, "You're not supposed to be a sannyasi!"

So he told him to become a brahmachari student and gave him the name Gangesh. He also told him that this would be his last birth in the material world.



Another of my students is another effulgent brahmachari with perfect teeth. This may be purely coincidental, but all our South-Indians seem to have this characteristic. Vachanananda Swami is another. One day in English class I was asking each of the students what their special talent was, and he said, "My smile." He was probably right... Of course, he has other talents. But this story is a short one about Ratheesh (Ratisha). It was told to me by Greg, an American who is also living in the Gurukula.

Apparently Ratheesh is a bit of a clairvoyant. When he was still very young, he would say things to people, quite spontaneously, that would come true. Word of this first spread in the family, and then through the village. Some business-minded relative or villager saw financial possibilities, and started charging money for him to exercise his gifts, rather successfully it would seem.

This went on for some time until Ratheesh went to the ashram of his guru. When his guru found out what he was doing, he immediately told him to put a stop to it. He said, "Whatever spiritual gifts you possess, whatever pious attainments you have from a previous life, are meant for you to perfect your spiritual life. You are going to ruin everything by using it for profit like this."

So Ratheesh left home and went to live in the ashram. I don't know how he got from there to here, but this is where his spiritual quest has taken him.

Greg told me that the two of them went to see a famous astrologer here in Rishikesh. The two of them were sitting together at the consultation and Greg went first.

Greg says, "You know, it was pretty positive and all that, but when he started talking about Ratheesh, the astrologer began to gush. 'You have the same chart as Adi Shankara!' he said. And on and on he went about the great spiritual attainments and future he was to have.

"To really put things in perspective, when it came time to pay, I gave my money. But when Ratheesh was pulling his wallet out, the astrologer categorically refused. 'It was an honor to do your chart...'"

I don't suppose that will happen to many of us in this lifetime.

A Korean Group comes to SRSG

The ashram where I am staying received an interesting visit from a group of about 25 Korean students from the department of Yoga Studies and Meditation, Wonkwang Digital University. They were accompanied by department head, Jongsoon Seo, Ph.D., Prof. Kamalakar Mishra, now retired professor at the Benares Hindu University, and by Raghavendra Adiga, their yoga asana teacher.

Kwak Seung Hyun (Hamsa), another teacher at Wonkwang, is a disciple of Swami Veda and a frequent resident here. He is currently writing his Ph.D. thesis on “The Evolution of Pranayama in Yogic and Tantric Texts” at Gurukul Kangri University in Haridwar.

Prof. Jongsoon Seo is a student of Kamalakar Mishra and spent ten years in Benares, where she completed her doctorate on “The Theory of Sakti in Kashmir Saivism.” She speaks fluent Hindi, much to the delight of the Hindi-speaking residents of SRSG. Under her leadership, the Wonkwang Digital University yoga and meditation department now has an amazing 400 students.

Such trips to India are a part of the university department's regular agenda. Since it is an on-line university, the students get little opportunity to interact personally with the teachers and other students. (It is interesting how such things as yoga and meditation can be taught on-line. I will have to ask.) This group had just spent a two week retreat at the Kalyana Baba ashram in Almora, and were passing through here on the way back to have a certificate bestowal ceremony, etc., since those things are coming through the Association of Himalayan Yoga and Meditation Societies International (AHYMSIN), which is here.

Kamalakar Mishra, teacher of Kashmiri Shaivism at BHU, who calls himself an Indo-Korean professor due to his relationship with the Korean university, where he has been in residence, is a well-known scholar of the Kashmiri Saiva tradition, with numerous publications to his name, such as The Significance of The Tantric Tradition, Varanasi (1981) and Kashmir Saivism: The Central Philosophy of Tantrism. I don't know whether Kashmiri Shaivism is having a renaissance thanks to Muktananda Swami, but there is certainly quite a bit of interest in it these days, specially around here.

Prof. Mishra recounted some of his experiences with Swami Rama, whom he met for the first time 35 years ago in Rishikesh at the Sadhana Mandir. He spoke with vigor and ease, despite his 75 years. I present some of the things he said, for information purposes only.

He began his talk by saying that faith or sraddha is the essential ingredient in sadhana, and that such faith is only possible because there are highly evolved saints in the world who exemplify and personify the teachings and experiences of the Divine. “Swami Rama,” he said, “Was one such person.”

The chance to associate more extensively with Swami Rama came in 1985 when he was invited to Honesdale to the Himalayan Insitute to speak on Kashmiri Shaivism. Prof. Mishra said of Swami Rama that he possessed the two outstanding qualities that are found in all spiritual teachers: egolessness and love, or maitri bhavana. In fact, these qualities are related to one another.

Ego or selfishness, is like an obstruction. The Divine wants to flow through us all, but the ego blocks it. When one is beset by ego, then he things the individual me is the only me, and not that he is present in all others. The more the ego melts, the more the love naturally and spontaneously flows thrugh our hearts. With that, the sadhaka feels that all creatures are his own. This is what you call love, maitri-bhavana.

And the other way around, the more one practices maitri-bhavana, the more the ego melts away. For us, since it does not come naturally, we have to practice. When it is realized, then it flows naturally and spontaneously. This love is the very nature of the universe, and one who has come to this sense of identity with the divine, he gives this love freely; it is not given to a chosen few, but extended to all.

In this Prof. Mishra saw the qualities of Sahaja samadhi, in which there are no activities of consciousness. In Sahaja samadhi, one is seated in the Self, doing nothing, at the same time all activities overflow naturally from the seat of the Self. To use the term “relaxation,” a favoured term in the modern context, it is “totally relaxed activity.” One is resting in the sense of doing nothing. In this state, all activity is joyful. It is lila, sportive activity. Life becomes a play. Dr. Mishra said, “I saw Swami Rama in this kind of playful, joyful, spontaneous activity. All was joyful, lila.”

The evening then went on with the distribution of certificates and the singing of songs in Korean and Hindi, and concluded with the chanting of the evening prayers in Sanskrit.

Intrepid reporter Jagat taking notes. Photos by Choun Sun Hee

Radhika Priya

As I may have mentioned already, one of the features of staying in an ashram, really any ashram I guess, is that many interesting people tend to pass through. Even though this is now the slow season, as it is too hot for comfortable travel, it is still true. Another interesting feature here has been, I may add, meeting devotees who have somehow washed up on the shore of yoga and meditation, for whatever reason that may be.


Radhika Priya, in this picture with me and Vachanananda Swamiji, has been here for several weeks now, conducting her painting meditation workshops, about which I will say something below. She is from Budapest, Hungary, but escaped Communism in 1980, when she saw that any spiritual aspirations she might have would only be stifled in the "dialectically materialistic" world of Communist Hungary. Since she knew French, she went to Paris where she encountered Iskcon devotees on the day of her arrival and soon became a devotee herself.

Although she was already an artist, she was naturally coopted into book distribution and served in that respect until 1987. Her Iskcon name was Rasa-graha Dasi. When Bhagavan's star supernova'd, she left Iskcon and came to India and spent some time in Nabadwip with Sridhar Maharaj, where she received the Radhika Priya name. Her son Tibor also got initiated as Tirtheshwar Das. Somewhere in there she also did some work with Yogeshwar for his Iskcon children's publishing concern, Bala Books.

After this, Radhika went to pursue her artistic interests in Udaipur, which is the current center of Indian sacred or mystic art. She lived there for 10 years, taking initiation in the Vallabha sampradaya as a devotee of the nearby Nathdwar temple, where she studied traditional techniques as practiced there. Her art is in permanent exhibition in West Zone Cultural Center in Udaipur and some of her paintings are with the Indira Gandhi National Art Center collection in Delhi and the Maharaj of Kankroli in Baroda.

She has published several books of her art, of which possibly the most important is the Madhurashtakam, a meditation on each word of Vallabhacharya's famous poem. She also did a series of paintings on the Ramayana, based on the seven chapters of Tulsi Das's Ram Charit Manas, which has been published in Hungary.

A recent book of Hungarian folk legends has been illuminated by her paintings, and it is really this newer work, which is a mixture of Indian and European sentiments into a more nuanced and yet still fairy-like other-worldly quality, that I like best. Unfortunately, the book cover shown here gives only a bare hint of what is inside.

Over the past several years, Radhika has been having a great deal of success holding workshops in a kind of "Vedic Art," in which people come and color and decorate pre-prepared yantra designs of the seven chakras. This is accompanied by lessons on the Sanskrit alphabet, particularly the matrikas, which are generally used in tantrika meditation. This appears to be quite a popular activity--the students are encouraged to repeat the particular bija mantra associated with the chakra as they paint the yantra with the appropriate colors. It is called "guided meditative creativity." A check on the Internet shows that this has become a relatively popular yoga-related activity around Europe and America with several people conducting workshops of this type. She will giving workshops in Firenze (Italy), Lausanne (Switzerland), Paris (France) and Glastonbury (U.K.), over the coming months. [If anyone is interested, contact her at this address.]

Radhika's website is currently down, but I give the URL anyway and maybe it will be up soon and many of these paintings will be visible there. We are thinking of collaborating on some projects in the future, as I have a number of translations that are looking for illustrations. So, the Lord willing, this will move ahead in the coming year.

She is good friends with Baijnath Aryan, curator of the Museum of Folk and Tribal Art in Gurgaon whom I met through her. She also visited Thailand, Singapore and Bali to learn other aspects of Asian art.

Ma Chetana Jyoti

While I was posting the rest of Nikunja-rahasya-stava, a concert was going on in the meditation hall in honor of Swami Ma Chetan Jyoti. She passed away last Sunday in her ashram here in Rishikesh. She had been suffering from cancer for some time.


I believe I may have mentioned her name before. She was a great kirtan afficionado and had dedicated her latter life to serving Indian classical music. In particular, she was a lover of dhrupada music and regularly attended the annual Dhrupada festival at Jai Singh Ghera. Her ashram is called Sri Krishna Kripa Ashram and its outside wall is decorated with a huge picture of Krishna and Arjuna.

I told Shrivatsa Goswami about her passing on and he wrote me: "Grateful for informing about the passage Ma CJ. Hope it was peaceful and she is the service of the Divine Couple. I do remember her from Dhrupada melas. My prayers are with her."

Well, kirtan is Radha Krishna. The concert tonight was full of Mira Bhai--ankhiyan shyam milan ke pyaasi. You cannot get away from it, because the truth is, that without Radha and Shyamasundar, there just is no madhura rasa. And madhura rasa is the taste for which we have been hankering since time immemorial. On Christmas, Ma Chetana Jyoti did some kirtan here, chanting Hare Krishna despite being already very ill. So I certainly thank her for having brought, more than once, a ray of Radha Krishna into this ashram.

So I echo Shrivatsa's words and I chanted the Nikunja-rahasya-stava during the intermission in her honor.

Jai Sri Radhe!

Swami Veda Leaves for the Summer

Swamiji left this morning. His departure coincided with the usual meditation time. There was no organized rousting of the ashram members to come and see him off. The contrast between the celebratory greetings of Srila Prabhupada we used to experience was stark.

The first time I saw Srila Prabhupada was in 1972 at the Detroit airport, and it was at that moment that I became directly aware of transcendence in the world of matter. The effulgent brilliance of the Detroit airport in the midst of the tear-soaked kirtan when Prabhupada appeared in our midst--and every time after that--is deeply imprinted on my memory. Iskcon knew the importance of greeting and saying goodbye to the Guru.

My relationship with Swamiji is not the same as that, of course. It has morphed into something rather sweet and affectionate, and he even said to me as he left, while holding my hand, that as I would be the only staff member here for much of the summer, would I please take care of his Gurukula students.

For beginners I found myself quite angry that so many of my own students were absent, even though most were in the meditation hall. I was fulminating, "Don't they know that their meditation depends on Guru kripa? That the blessings they get from the guru on a special occasion like this one is worth thousands of hours of meditation?"

That is the samskara you get from a bhakti tradition. The people who were present were mostly Westerners, who have a spontaneous feeling of affection for Swamiji. One Korean woman, a longtime disciple, was crying in a way that reminded me of the feelings that manifest at such times when Prabhupada would come or leave. No doubt everyone there was motivated by love for him. But what is intolerable, really, is that so many do not recognize the maryada of such moments. At the very least, you do it because it is common courtesy!

Anyway, you can bet I will give these fellows a piece of my mind during Sanskrit class today. I think I will make them write 50 times--

आयान्तमग्रतो गच्छेद् गच्छन्तं तमनुव्रजेत् ।
शिष्यस्तदनुकम्पेच्छुः प्रीत्या मर्यादया तु वा ॥

Whether one does it out love or out of good manners, the disciple who desires the guru's merciful glance should greet him when he arrives and say goodbye to him when he leaves.

That's a loose translation of an embellished verse (see HBV 1.97).