From the Memoir of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru (Guruvani)
A large crowd of souls, who had lived and died, wandering as devotees completing the first or second stages, is seen reflected in the form of souls yearning to attain the celestial Deva stage as they have completed the stage of two-and-a-half. After crossing the fifth stage, when one enters stages of five-and-a-half, six and seven, the mystical experiences of astral planes would end. When these planes are transcended, one would have crossed the heavenly star clusters. It is said of such people that out of lakhs of people, who have had such mystical perception, only one or two become true seers.
In the fundamental nature of the life of great souls - belonging not only to the Hindu, but also the Islamic, Christian, Jain and all other noble guru lineages - one can invariably see the luminous procession of their dharmic and karmic imprints, aglow with great sacrifices. History stands proof that their contemporaries never understood or respected these great souls. (However), in those lives marked by great sacrifices, in life-times earned by virtuous births that were wholly spent for the sake of humanity, the role played by certain householders who had neither intelligence nor education remains as a stirring memory for the entire world. These humble, virtuous souls observed their dharma, earmarked to householders, as offerings in the model of the benevolent pronouncement of Krishna to Arjuna, ‘Take Refuge in Me Alone’.
In the life of my Guru* also, he had only a few ignorant disciples including me as his sole earning in life. Several people have shared the sacrifices of my Guru. But the hardships undertaken by one or two householders will never get erased from the memory tracks. Only a few householders can perform their dharmic duty truthfully and with total dedication when it comes to playing whatever role they have in the life of a sage, in line with the dharma of a householder. The people who helped me during my spiritual wanderings were possessors of such dharmic qualities as would remind one of the dharma observed by Kuchela.
‘Muthappan’ and his wife were a perfect model for the truthful essence of life. They lived in a street at Petta paying a monthly house rent of Rs. six. Their only means of livelihood was a bullock cart. Both husband and wife were disciples of Guru. They also treated the other disciples of Guru with utmost devotion and respect. Their devotion and reverence had become an epitome of total love that never deviated from the observance of dharma. This couple possessed hearts brimming with sacrifice when it came to fulfilling the wants of Guru and his disciples. Whatever these may be, they were eager to know their needs and fulfill them wholeheartedly. They had four children too.
I remember even today certain things Guru used to do with them. Even while the hunger of those six stomachs existed, the dharmic strictures Guru imposed on them can never be expunged from life’s memories. To play a role in the lives of great sages worthy of the definition of that epithet in the world, it was confined to these two souls. They were wealth in the form of disciples in the life of Guru. When I think about them, the memory salutes (them), filling the mind with overwhelming love and warmth. I think it is essential that the entire humanity should know about them.
Those days, whenever I went to meet Guru, on all those occasions they brought for Guru whatever he wanted to eat. They would also unfailingly and in a just manner feed those accompanying him. They were most elevated karmis (performers) in the principle of ‘sankalpam karma manasa’ (resolve in action and thought) and souls in the forefront of (performing) dharma. Three of Muthappan’s children were studying in school while the fourth was an infant. This bullock carter fulfilled the necessities of Guru and his disciples along with those of his own children. They slept on the floor on jute bags in their makeshift shack which had only sackcloth in the name of a roof. Only memories of great warriors of heroic action could thrill us like this. Those children, though ignorant, possessed an unreserved mind to give. One cannot forget the truth they had shown through their lives.
One day, Guru called them out from a group of disciples praying with closed eyes and said in Tamil mixed with Malayalam. “I want to go to the samadhi of Guru this evening. I don’t have the fare”. Muthappan readily got up and agreed to do the needful. He went and sold the bullock cart and brought the money. From the next day, he purchased the supplies from the traders in Chalai and Pettah and distributed them by head load. We can see him then as the most faithful servant of his master and his most beloved. Those days there were no problems of labour, owner-worker clashes or sabotage. Whatever the owner gave willingly, the worker received with pleasure. It was such a time.
Let me state what I felt about the situation. I felt that Guru had no kindness in his heart. The day that he said there was no money to go to Guru’s Samadhi, he had with him stuffed in his pocket and the four corners of his waist belt a sum of Rs. 674, when counted. Those days this amount was sufficient for two persons to go to the samadhi at Thanjavur and return. With so much money in his hand, he told them that he had no money. Pained by this word, the poor man went and sold his bullock cart and arranged the money for him. What else, but cruelty, could I think of this act. Whenever Muthappan was a little late in coming, Guru would arrive at his house along with the disciples anytime after sunset. They would eat whatever was available in the house – tapioca, black tea or porridge - and lie down on the jute bags and sleep.
In the morning Muthappan could be seen hurriedly going to the shops for buying breakfast for Guru and the disciples. On seeing him thus struggling pitiably, I used to wipe my tears unobserved by Guru. A man who had no name or fame worth mentioning, who had not earned the respect of society, for that man and his disciples, why should a householder, whose life was bare, undertake so much sacrifice, I used to think.
One day Guru told me, ‘Now you may go only after having experience’. Then he called and took money from Muthappan and went to Thakkala, taking me along. He sat under a mango tree in the lawns of the Thakkala Munsif court and called for Sri Parameswaran Pillai who was working as a Process Surveyor in the Munsif court. He came running from a nearby shop. Guru asked Parameshwaran Pillai to call all his disciples there - Meeran Pillai and eight others - who all belonged to different castes and religions. As per Guru’s instructions, all these people were brought there before 9 p.m. He praised me in front of these people and said, “All of you should come and sleep the night here from tomorrow’.
It was midnight on the third day from then that I unburdened my ignorance before Guru. It was nothing else, but about Guru’s behaviour of extracting money from Parameshwaran Pillai and Muthappan, causing them much agony.
Suddenly he shouted, ‘Hey!’ He was visibly upset and said, “There is no need to see whether these people are rich or poor. I am making them slog so that they may earn some virtue. Most of these householders come to fulfil their selfish desires and not because they have any aspect of sacrifice. Why did you think that they were like you? You have the experience of running and supervising an institution, undergoing pain and sacrifices in life. They have no such experience. Out of many people, only one or two may have the mind to do something benevolent. Parameshwaran Pillai, before coming to me, had ruined himself by selling his property worth Rs.2.5 lakh and squandering the money on drinking. Though Muthappan was not a drunkard, he had some other drawbacks. Only if they undergo some pain like this, the blemishes in their life will get erased and some blessedness would come, at least in the life of their children. Before coming to me, the life of these people was very bad. Virtuous people should have undergone all this (pain).
Swami gave no importance to rebirth, however he accepted that rebirth was a truth. That night he said, “Only after passing through many births, as per the ways of Hindus or Muslims, a visionary stage could be reached by a householder. Therefore, washing away the dirt of these people is what I do. If you do not understand, you will be realizing it soon.” After speaking thus, he fell silent.
The following day at 3 a.m., some invisible power struck me. Suddenly, I felt myself shrink like a small ball. Every pore was getting torn. My body came apart like a custard seed. That moment Guru strongly hit me and asked, “Were you afraid?” “Not internally, but my body is sapped off all strength,” I said. “Alright, take it easy. But there is hope,” Guru said.
Subsequently, he asked Parameshwaran Pillai to take leave. (At that time), I had memory and awareness but did not know how to act. (For instance), I did not realise that I should move aside on seeing a vehicle coming on the road. I could not understand why Parameshwaran Pillai was asked to take leave. Three of us would wander about. Swami would tell us one or the other story, halting here and there. Sometimes, it would take one-and-a-half hour to cover a mile-long distance. On reaching some temple on the way, he would ask me, “Hey, look there. What do you see?” He would repeat the question to Parameshwaran Pillai too.
On the eleventh day, we were taken to the samadhi of Peerukannu Sahib. At the entrance itself, my legs began to shake. In the ten or fifteen minutes that we sat there, lakhs of evil spirits and gods (devas) were seen arrayed up. A large number of ‘jinns’ also were seen. On seeing all this, I called out to the Swami. Pepper, salt, fruit, jaggery etc. were being brought there as offerings. During our visit itself, eight bunches of banana were brought. From these, we got eight bananas each, which we ate.
Strangely, on our return, Swami was quaking with laughter. He talked about spiritual visions and their aspects till midnight. He said, “This is a work for removing the misery of society. When you get the vision of Chattambi Swami and Narayana Guru, it should be informed to me. You should inform me when you see the pithrus (ancestral souls) and deities ranging from Vellala Chetty to Idiyas (communities). I have something to explain to you.” At that time also, he was praising me, but the others did not like this.
On the 21st day, Swami told us a story about the samadhi on top of Kattuva Sahib hill. He asked Meeran Pillai, who was from Thakkala, whether he knew about the significance of Peerukannu Sahib. He replied in the negative. Peerukannu Sahib was a person who accompanied Kattuva Sahib, a Hindu sanyasi. Both of them lived on that hill. One day Kattuva Sahib attained samadhi. The road was at least two miles away from there. There was no other route. It was difficult to carry the body, as it was heavy. Peerukannu Sahib picked up big stones and piled them up on the body. It took three days to complete the job. It was to protect the body from jackals. What is seen in Peerukannu Sahib is this blessedness.
Eleven days after this, one night, Swami began to praise me again. Some disciples, who were piqued by this, refused to go further with him. A trip was planned to Kattuvasahib hill taking along some provisions of fruit and water. Swami, five others and I climbed up the hill. On reaching the top, we sat under a banyan tree. Parameshwaran Pillai got up and said that the apparitions of countless evil spirits, gods and sanyasis were passing by. But, I could not see anything. I saw only a smoky light filling the entire place. All in the group announced that they had seen some things at several places. However, I did not have any visions.
After this, Swami made hurry for the return journey. Although everyone was tired, all of us began to walk fast. I had been going about without a bath or wash for several days. My sole possessions were the dirty shirt and dhoti that I wore and an umbrella. Swami took away my shirt, dhoti and umbrella. He dug out a cloth from his shoulder bag that looked like the stole of a cabaret dancer and asked me to put it on. I wore it. He then hit me and shouted, ‘Run, you!’ Though wary about my destination, I ran, and looked back only after running for a furlong.
The expenses of all the people on that day were borne by Parameshwaran Pillai. His total salary was Rs. 45 per month. The cost of the purchases in the provision store would have been at least Rs.700. His wife lived at home with only one sari to protect her honour. Thus this Parameshwaran Pillai and Muthappan were the benefactors of Swami. The two families showed such surrender and a disciple’s call of duty, even while living the simple lives of householders. In that manner they upheld the greatness of the Guru-disciple relationship! How did they perform it! In front of the grace shown by these two families, which had neither education nor wealth or anything of significance, I submit this with a prayerful heart.
Muthappan, after the samadhi of Swami, bought land and built a house. The children were married off and all of them now lead comfortable lives. One of them is in the police while another owns a truck and is the leader of head load workers.
When compared with the magnitude of the sacrifices undertaken by my Guru, I did not even know what sacrifice was during my spiritual wanderings. Let me narrate here certain aspects of my Guru’s struggles. He did not in the least forsake the duties as per Islamic custom. Every day, he taught in four Arabic schools by turn. At the age of 27, death had suddenly whisked away his wife and children. For a good devout, it was an opportunity to immerse into a life of renunciation.
Guru had understood from books about the places from which the state of samadhi could be roused. He had thought about a suitable place too for this purpose. Besides, there was the samadhi of a guru at Thanjavur which he had resolved to adhere. Apart from this samadhi, he had mentioned to me about three or four masjids, one of which was Nagoor Masjid in Valapattanam. Which of these places should one accept as the Guide?
There is the Channakara Thodu (a canal) which flows south to Ambalathura and further west to Poonthura. There is a bridge before reaching Poonthura. In the vicinity of this bridge, there is a place interspersed with forests, bushes and barren spaces. This place is known as Samadhikara. If one travels about two miles down the road south of Beemapally going through Samadhikara, Poonthura comes. This is a road in a coastal area with only a few fishermen living on both sides.
To the west of Pettah is Chakkai. To the south of Chakkai lies this barren land. One can hear the prayer calls from Beema Masjid and Vallakadavu sitting here. Guru normally sat at this place. Hardly anyone travelled by this path. People were afraid to walk down south by the banks of this canal. Women never travelled this way. There were reasons (for this). It was a place for dumping the bodies of the people who died in violence and clashes which were common those days in every nook and corner of the town (Trivandrum). This place was also the home of a certain breed of dogs known as ‘Chenkottai Pattikal’. They had extraordinary long tails. The mere sight of these dogs was enough to frighten a person out of his wits. If this dog finds a person alone, it will lunge and place its raised forelegs on the victim’s body and start biting wherever it pleases. That man will collapse dead there itself with extreme terror. Once dead, the dog will drag away the body. It was in this bushy area that Guru performed penance (tapas).
He would observe penance for 41 days without any food. Even for defecation, he would sit in the bush itself. He would not get up from there but would only change positions. After a week, there would be no urine or feces to empty and so no need to move. When 41 days are spent thus without food and water, the body would be desiccated like dried ginger. As there would be hardly any blood, the body would start swelling. Just like the reflection seen on the glistening surface of a brass pot or bowl, reflection of the people walking at a distance could be seen on this body. After another 41 days, the body would again get shrivelled up and appear like a wizened round substance. With this type of penance, he discovered what type of samadhi states could be roused. Within a period of six years, he undertook three such penances and experienced samadhi and discovered different aspects of mystical visions. This was the method Guru adopted for actualizing spiritual realization.
Subsequent to this, he got a book which was the size of a matchbox. This book was a record of the type of places where one could awaken the samadhi. He had shown me that book. The book also described the spiritual states which could be actualized in the samadhi places (tombs) like Nagoor Masjid, another mosque and samadhi at Thanjavur, Beema Masjid etc. It was also seen that there was certain uniqueness to these places. The route north west of Kanyakumari by the sea coast or otherwise lies in the equatorial zone. The Gandhi Memorial is established (there) based on this. Once in a year, through the mirror on top of the memorial, the sun’s rays will pass on to the samadhi. (The equator passes through some parts of Singapore also).
To the north, the equatorial zone covers places like Valapattanam and Nagoor. The luminescence of the equator, which divides the globe into the south and north hemispheres, is felt at some places up to a width of 300 miles. It is in these places of equatorial influence that samadhis and mosques are founded. The scientists had built the Gandhi Memorial keeping this in mind. These places are considered to have a unique spiritual brilliance. After crossing the Arabian deserts, going further north-west, this luminosity will gradually diminish. The avadhootas (spiritual wanderers) travel (there) realizing this enhanced spiritual luminosity in these places. The places where the sun’s rays fall more would be warmer. Avadhootas and their samadhis are situated mostly at such places. Guru had explained this subject to me reading from the aforesaid book.
When we stayed on the seashore, he would wake me up at 2 a.m. and tell me that an auspicious hour was approaching (brahma muhurtam, the auspicious period from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.) Then he would loosen and spread the wigwam (a shack) meant for keeping fishermen’s nets. Next, he would heap up sands to protect the flame of a big candle, by the light of which he read from that book in Urdu and explain the meaning. We slept in that shack itself.
It had been mentioned in that book that the excessive crowding of avadhootas near samadhis was owing to the beneficial effects of the sun’s rays. Among his disciples, Guru taught this knowledge only to me. He did not show this book to the others but only said that there was such knowledge in books. In comparison with the extreme pains undergone by Guru, it is needless to mention that in my whole life until then, I had not even known what was struggle.
Avadhootas, after wandering a lot, die sometimes without reaching the goal. There are many such people who lacked the self virtue to reach the goal. Some would reach up to a small aspect in samadhi. Some others may reach a quarter-way on the path. There are some who fulfil this through two or three life times. In the life time of a person, samadhi could be experienced only three times at the most. The time length for awakening the samadhi is eighteen-and-a-half years. Even if a soul is born virtuous, at least seven-and-a-half years would be required (for this).
‘Pratyakshavaham Dharmam’ – this saying in the Gita discloses that through a variety of mystical (visionary) aspects, samadhi could be experienced. Whatever it is, only a person who has roused a samadhi state at least three times in this manner could fulfil the mission in this direction. My Guru explained to me these matters while the other disciples were not near. He taught me after midnight between 12.30 p.m. and 6 a.m. There are some hidden aspects in the nature of secrets in the process of awakening the samadhi. However, those things cannot be explained here. What I am trying to explain here as sweet reminiscences from the memory lane is the truth of a life which bloomed in gracious munificence and in the depth and expanse of love. It is with the desire that if at least some people, to their measure of virtue, realise this, be there that much good.
Normally what happens is that when the avadhootas reach a thousandth part of the sun’s brilliance at the equator, they face death somewhere down the path. Few out of the billions of such souls reach the second, third, fourth or fifth stages (in spiritual realization). There are a few samadhi places of such souls. From the 3rd stage onwards, there will be less trouble (for the spiritual aspirant) from the people.
A large crowd of souls, who had lived and died, wandering as devotees completing the first or second stages, is seen reflected in the form of souls yearning to attain the celestial Deva stage as they have completed the stage of two-and-a-half. After crossing the fifth stage, when one enters the stages of five-and-a-half, six and seven, the mystical experiences of astral planes would end. When these planes are transcended, one would have crossed the heavenly star clusters. It is said of such people that out of lakhs of people, who have had such mystical perception, only one or two become true seers.
The souls, dead and stagnant after attaining the second stage, are those who have died displaying wonderful feats or those who were made to display miracles after being tricked by visions (by inimical spirits in spiritual planes) when it is found that the person is an avadhoota progressing in the path of vision. Such souls having become insensitive to honour and dishonour present themselves as the storehouse of great and wonderful teachings. It is about such yogis, who perform miraculous feats, Kumaranasan said thus:
‘Like the winds, like toddling infants,
Like maniacs, like a stark illiterate,
Transcending delusion, discrimination and the miraculous,
The Yogi Strides on’
(Free translation from Malayalam)
The majority of the populace knows about only such persons. These people live for 700 or 800 years through ‘kalpaseva’ (a medico-mystical method used by siddhars). They wander about thus performing miracles and get trapped in some spiritual chasms. Those who do not have the knowledge of ‘kalpaseva’ take to the life of a renunciate performing miracles in the aforesaid manner and go about as if they were beyond all rules.
If we travel in the direction of South Travancore from Kanyakumari we could meet people who narrate several wondrous tales, relating to such yogis, shrouded in mystery and miracles. An example is the miraculous depiction of a person known as Komba Swami. It is said about him that he took samadhi at seven places. They mention that finally he took samadhi at Thengapattanam and after that nobody saw him.
Another person who has been depicted in this way was a woman called Mayi Amma, who wandered like an avadhoota. When Sri Narayana Guru slept under the chariot of Sucheendram temple, it was seen that the organs of this woman were caught in flames. With this narration, she became a historic figure. There is also a story that Sri Narayana Guru gave her a mango. There exists a similar lady in Kanyakumari who goes about naked and lives in many ways. I have heard people calling her too by the name Mayi Amma. A rich man had even built a memorial (mandap) for this Mayi Amma to the north of the road going west from Kanyakumari.
There are innumerable such stories to my knowledge about Kattil Swami, Vatti Swami, Chatti Swami, Mannenna Swami, Kesavan Sanyasi, Ayya Swami, Sambrani Swami, Samadhi Thopp, Manakkad Samadhi, Kalladi Masthan and Kaniyapuram Thangal in Thiruvananthapuram region.
There are several popular myths about certain other elevated souls who have undergone ‘kalpaseva’ and also about Pakanar of Parachi Petta Panthikuralam, Naranathu Bhranthan and Thiruvalluvar. Apart from them, Subramanian, his spiritual mentor Bhogar and Hidumban et al are protagonists belonging to this miraculous tradition. There are so many people throughout Tamil Nadu who narrate such wondrous stories. There are the Subramanya devotees who take out big processions displaying wondrous performances such as piercing themselves with different types of tridents, walking on nail sandals, pirouetting with various types of ‘kavadi’ (decorated temple carriages) like Agni Kavadi, Pal Kavadi, Matsya Kavadi, Garuda Kavadi etc. People consider all these as significant performances.
Narayana Guru and Chattambi Swamikal had performed miracles, though for a short period. There are also some ascetics, who following the examples of the great gurus, have performed certain miracles. Thrissur Pampu Swami, Shubhanandan and Swayam Prakashini are people belonging to this group. Prior to the present lady known as Vallikkavilamma, there was another woman who in a state of trance did divination. Some swamis who had lived with her for two or three years could be seen wonderstruck by their own narration of the several stories about her.
The history of Ochira also is no different from this. A group of masseurs known as Ochira Vaidyas built a mutt there with a statue of Kabir Swami. It could be seen from the Ochira ground (Patanilam). It seems that the mutt is now hidden because of the (surrounding) buildings. Like this, people with some degree of mystical perceptions have been hooked by the wondrous feats narrated by pundits. The history of such people, who have spent their life desiring to master miraculous performances and mystical visions, are available throughout India. Due to the aforesaid spiritual perception, one can see billions of souls who have got stuck spiritually without reaching the goal. What had been pointed out earlier is this fact mentioned by some. There is no dearth of Vedantic scholars who, giving importance to magical tricks, siddhi (miraculous acts) and the methods of pranayama (Hathayoga), eulogize such persons as seers in their writings.
Ishavasya Upanishad mentions the allegory of a sealed golden vessel from which luminous rays are reflected. The Mandukya Upanishad also mentions a similar simile of a large lighted torch, which when rapidly whirled around in the night and seen from a distance, gives the feeling of a big fireball. We have scribes and scholars who get greatly amazed by the talk of such miraculous occurrences. It is through such writers and scholars that the Devadasi tradition, which existed till recently, got cemented by the tapestry of mythical stories authored by them, leading to the giving away of girls into debauchment under a Deva. There are such places even today, known as ‘Koothambalam’, where libidinous singing, dancing and story recitals take place. One such place is Koothuparambu in Thalassery.
I mentioned these matters for the realization of all those with a spiritual inkling. Persons who take to the spiritual path aspiring for self-realization go astray by the visions of such fallen souls. Therefore, I seek forgiveness from the souls, thirsting for self-realization, for the delay in conveying the reminiscences from this memory trail. I utilize this occasion to remind you of the blunders that might happen while you proceed to honour the blessedness of the duty of gratitude to God.
This erroneous position has come up to (the level of) the myth of Padmapadar, who came to save Sankaracharya, the one extolled as the universal Guru, from a murderous sorcerer wanting to behead him. I wish blessedness to you in the name of God, reminding the truthful servants of God once again not to be like ordinary persons, who wriggle in some make-believe pit, and not to become baffled by losing the sense of direction with the illusory sighting of water owing to a mirage and also not to get misled entering into erroneous ways mentioned above in this memoir.
*Sufi saint Khureshia Fakir popularly known as Pattani Swami, who lived near the Beema Masjid south of Thiruvananthapuram, guided Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru in the initial stages of His spiritual quest.
A View of Santhigiri Ashram
Lotus Parnasala and Sahakarana Mandiram , Santhigiri Ashram, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
My Experience of the Unimaginable Glory of Guru
Mukundan P.R.
I was a picture of despair, confusion and instability before I met Guru. I feel endless gratitude to Guru, for He has given me an inner calm and filled my heart with rare spiritual satisfaction. Born to a Havildar Major in the Indian Army as the third son out of seven children, my childhood was scarred with domestic tension arising out of poverty, sickness and parental fights. A good setting for God realization! At the age of 17-18, I wandered alone in the lonely hills and temple yards in my village in Thrissur district of Kerala. There was a long forgotten rock cave only a few yards away from my house in Mullassery, near the big Parambanthally Siva temple. I sat there in the evenings on the black level rock that gave a feeling of bygone ages, staring at the western sky, watching the colours and curious pictures that the setting sun used to draw on the horizon. What I specially cherished in my deepest heart were the full moon nights with their soft and milky rays inspiring a celestial joy and the star studded sky which had an unusual depth and calm.
My first spiritual experience occurred during one such twilight sitting under the lively divine celebration that was the sky above, with stars shining like bright diamonds and the moon wafting rays of celestial joy. It was a momentary experience and realization. A flash of the divine that struck me so suddenly and deeply, that I became overwhelmed by its spurting joy. I became a little imbalanced after this experience. Now, some 34 years later, I would say that it was like a meteor hitting on my consciousness screen. If my memory is correct, it happened in the year 1973, the year of the spiritual completion of Guru. It is not that I had known about Santhigiri Ashram or Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru when it happened. In fact I heard about Guru and Santhigiri Ashram for the first time only in the year 1994 from Sahadevan, an office colleague in Bangalore. The experience in 1973, which I got sitting on the rocky ground gazing at the sky, was perhaps an inner inkling of the Brahman, the Supreme. It had nothing to do with any clairvision, clairvoyance or the like. It was an inner feeling of sudden enlightenment about the truth of God before which the significance of all worldly pursuits and struggles paled.
I was on a swing of joy after this experience and did not consider anything greater than it. However, it also marked the beginning of a long period of tribulation in my life. My heart thirsted for that ‘experience’ again. I walked as if in a dream to get reconnected to that experience. My soul wandered and it took me off to the 'ghats' and temples of Varanasi from my life in Mumbai. I was drifting alone aimlessly. I watched the flow of the Ganges umpteen times. The river seemed to flow down from a cave in another world, spitting dead bodies in its long course. I watched the pyres on the 'ghats', the fiery flames devouring hundreds of human bodies incessantly. The spirit world is strongly licking the human mind in Varanasi. Once I watched dawn break over the Ganges. I could virtually see celestial beings descend on its banks from the heavens. It was a hazy picture and might have been a hallucination. Whatever it may be, yet my hunger, my thirst, never was satiated, for, the big ‘experience’ never returned and I felt disturbed and a misfit in the world in which I lived. Then I faltered, rather it would be correct to say that I was caught up by my 'karma'. The karma of a life lived carelessly. It was through Guru that I later realized about the 'karmic baggage' and the role played by inseparable ancestral bonds. This knot of karmic dirt in fact is the cause of my birth in this fashion. I had erred thus in several births, I suppose, distancing myself from that Light – Guru. I had disgracefully fallen from the protection and guidance of Guru due to bad karmic and spiritual practices.
Without having a chance to know the truth, I suffered. Somewhere in a lonely and murky alley of life, I was wed to a woman, whom I had never known or met before. A child was born to us. After nearly 10 years of life in Varanasi, in a sudden twist of fate divine, I came back to my parents’ house, now with two extra mouths to feed. By the time, I felt like a man with a millstone around my neck. I then moved to Bangalore and settled down in a most boring vocation. But my prayers never stopped. The meditations, the silent thoughts and questions ever remained agile in the mind. My soul and heart silently sobbed for the experience of the divine light.
It was in the year 1994, in Bangalore, that I first met a disciple of Navajyothisree Karunkara Guru. His name is Sahadevan. I was working in a steel plant and Sahadevan happened to be my colleague. The opportunity to begin a spiritual conversation with him came once after he came back from a vacation in Kerala. I asked him casually about his holidays. To my pleasant surprise, he said that he visited his Guru in Santhigiri Ashram. I was curious and happy to hear about a Guru and an Ashram after all my days in Varanasi. I could not imagine then that this conversation was going to lead me to that LIGHT for which my heart thirsted always and that I was going to be reconnected to the ‘SOURCE’, the intuition of which I had experienced in my adolescence. But that comes later. I became very close to Sahadevan. While in office, we had plenty of opportunities to meet and talk, though he was in a different section. Once I noted that Sahadevan did not partake of ‘prasadham’ – the offerings made to gods worshipped by Hindus and people of other faiths too. I thought he was a bit foolish and lacked depth in spirituality. I was then a Vedantin and followed a pantheist view of religion. A Vedantin believes that only Brahman exists. But it is a matter of great contradiction how a Vedantin becomes an idolator, a worshipper of deities. I did not even think about this contradiction in those days. The deities for me were different aspects and attributes of the one Supreme Brahman and I believed there was nothing wrong in it. The great exponent of Vedanta Sri Sankaracharya composed hymns in praise of deities.
I had been initiated into mantra chanting by a monk-turned Sanskrit scholar in Varanasi, who had been initiated into sanyasa by a direct disciple of Swami Vivekananda in Sri Ramakrishna Mission. Apart from the mantra he gave me, I started experimenting with other mantras too like Lakshmi Gayatri, Surya Gayatri etc. I felt some pleasure chanting those mantras – nothing more, nothing less, by way of any spiritual experiences.
One day I asked Sahadevan whether his Guru had any mantra. To my pleasant surprise he said yes and gave me an Ashram monthly containing two lines of the mantra of Guru. I began chanting this along with my regular mantras and meditation. On the third day, during my evening prayers, I saw an apparition. It was a broad smiling face. I tried to process this face in my memory but could not come up with anything conclusively. It connected me to a world of masters in some unknown zone and era. While I sat there thus, a few more faces appeared before me. It was a kind of visionary experience, the first ever in my life. With a mind roused with curiosity, I asked Sahadevan for a description of his Guru for I thought the experience I had had something to do with his Guru. Sahadevan just smiled. He said that I should go to the Ashram and see Guru for myself.
It was somewhere in the middle of 1994, within three months of my visionary experience, that I reached Santhigiri Ashram. It was an evening well before sunset. I saw Guru in his thatched hut, which had a small hall attached to it for visitors to have 'darsan' of Guru. Guru, clad in pure white, with a broad smiling face, sat there emitting a tremendous radiance of love, devotion and a feeling of oneness. His form went into the depth of my mind. The experience in Bangalore reconnected me to this form, now a live figure. I announced my experience to some in the Ashram on coming out after meeting Guru.
After my first visit to the Ashram, I felt that I was put back on the spiritual track. With roused enthusiasm, I quickly prepared for another trip to the Ashram. This time Shri R.C. Saraf, a colleague who belonged to Kolkata, (now in London working for the Mittals) also joined me. Both of us reached the ashram travelling by bus from Bangalore. We waited for an audience with Guru. In the meantime, I helped Saraf to prepare a list of questions in Malayalam which he wanted to ask Guru. No philosophical questions, but domestic ones. I had no questions at that time in my mind. My soul only wanted to 'experience'.
Soon someone came and announced that Guru was waiting for us. A current went through me. We went to the small building (kettidam) where Guru was seated on a small wooden couch. There was with Guru a young bright sanyasini in orange clothes. Her face and eyes were bright with spiritual aura. This was Janani Amritha Jnana Thapaswini, the Revered Shishyapoojitha now. We bowed and touched our foreheads on the floor in front of Guru. I felt like an insect before that Divine Presence. I do not know what Saraf had felt. Doubtlessly there was more dirt in me.
Guru looked at me and asked, ‘What for have you come?’
My heart probably stopped for a moment. I could not speak immediately. I struggled to answer.
''I have taken passport and am trying to go abroad. Can I go?''
I felt very silly. No big questions about spirituality or philosophy fit for discussion with a sage.
Like a foolish person curious only to know the future, I asked that embodiment of Supreme Consciousness this inane question. However, this apparently foolish question was to have a deep ramification in my life afterwards. It was a question which fixed that I be with Guru than in a different place. It was my moment of initiation. The answer which Guru immediately gave was, ''If you go, you will neither be here nor there.'' I listened. How intimate were the words of Guru.
I sat there, ironically, like a numb mountain of questions. Guru further said that my life was influenced by the tradition of Devi worship in our family as well as by the good and bad karma of the ancestors and of my own self. I listened but could not decipher the depth of His words then. Now on reflection, I know that His answer had meant that, ''O disciple! You be with me. Why do you want to waste another life? Work out your salvation here and now.''
Prostrations O’ Guru! I could not realize your nectarine kindness. But like an obedient child I had listened to your words then. I feel greatly blessed by that. O Saviour of my life, O Supreme Guru! My turn was over and now Guru turned to Saraf. I do not remember what all things he asked Guru, though I was the one who translated his queries. While I sat there in the holy presence of Guru, I could feel a divine fragrance wafting in the room. My heart throbbed and soon a strong spiritual vibration hit my soul. A blissful current possessed my heart transporting me to a transcendental state of consciousness and tranquility.
I sat there wondering, ''Guru, who are you? I cannot understand anything. You are indeed a great Rishi.'' I did not know then that Guru could be God. So my infant spiritual mind pictured Him as a great Rishi exuding Brahmic bliss and joy. The meeting ended and we came out from that unforgettable Divine Presence, Guru.
Once out of that Presence, ignorance returned to me in the form of a doubt. How can a human be God? My idea of God was something formless; it was an internal thought, a consciousness of something unimaginable. I had not known that my concept of God would be proved wrong in the next few years I spent with Guru.
After stepping away from Guru’s presence, I stood a few yards away from the building where Guru sat. My mind was torn and the dark cloud of doubt suffocated me. It was a moment of torment. Then suddenly my eyes fell on a Light above the building where Guru sat. A White Light was getting formed above the building. It became very vivid to my eyes and looked like a big hemisphere, like an umbrella. As I concentrated on the Light, I wondered where it was emanating from. In a flash, the form of Guru appeared in a state of yogic sleep. The White Light was emerging from the Guru's navel; a thin thread like a lotus stem at the beginning and then spreading above like a vast umbrella of light. The sand under my feet began to loosen. I was losing balance as the vision gripped my being. I wanted now to wriggle my mind out of this strange experience. I slowly walked away from the place where I stood and a few moments later, the vision ceased, leaving me with an inward silence. I did not know then that I was entering a different dimension in spirituality. How can that grace be explained?
Though I experienced spiritual visions and the divinity of Guru many times over, sometimes I would try to think rationally. Once when my mind was thus clouded, I approached Guru and said, ''Guru, my mind gets disturbed sometimes by doubts''. Guru looked at me and then replied. ''You only should think over it.'' And I thought. I thought hard about my experiences with Guru and the visions that clearly showed the supremacy of Guru, in whom all living beings and the universe merged. Now I wanted to experience the Godliness of Guru in its truest measure. If Guru indeed were God, I should have that experience. My desire grew stronger and stronger. But how could I express my desire to Guru!
Guru was once giving darsan to devotees in the ashram. Occasionally he smeared vibhuti on the forehead of devotees. I too eagerly waited for my chance for the touch of vibhuti by Guru. When my turn came, He touched my forehead with vibhuti. I felt the softness of Guru’s finger. I came out and stood awhile. Suddenly I felt the whole world whirling. The planets, the stars, and the sky, everything was in a whirl. For the first time, I experienced everything merging together in a different dimension of experience. I was unable to stand this. I cried out to Guru in prayer that I should be brought back to my normal state. Within moments, the experience stopped, but I was in a dazed state and was unable to speak. An inner sense of bliss and quiet continued till I returned to Bangalore. I thought how foolish I was to hope for the experience of God. Even a fraction of that experience, I was unable to endure. How can human beings ever experience God with their body-mind mechanism? What they can hope to experience is only a minutest ray of the Unimaginable Light of God. Anyway, after this, I abandoned my desire to experience God anymore, at least for the time being. I only wanted to surrender to Him and His Unimaginable Glory.
I was a picture of despair, confusion and instability before I met Guru. I feel endless gratitude to Guru, for He has given me an inner calm and filled my heart with rare spiritual satisfaction. Born to a Havildar Major in the Indian Army as the third son out of seven children, my childhood was scarred with domestic tension arising out of poverty, sickness and parental fights. A good setting for God realization! At the age of 17-18, I wandered alone in the lonely hills and temple yards in my village in Thrissur district of Kerala. There was a long forgotten rock cave only a few yards away from my house in Mullassery, near the big Parambanthally Siva temple. I sat there in the evenings on the black level rock that gave a feeling of bygone ages, staring at the western sky, watching the colours and curious pictures that the setting sun used to draw on the horizon. What I specially cherished in my deepest heart were the full moon nights with their soft and milky rays inspiring a celestial joy and the star studded sky which had an unusual depth and calm.
My first spiritual experience occurred during one such twilight sitting under the lively divine celebration that was the sky above, with stars shining like bright diamonds and the moon wafting rays of celestial joy. It was a momentary experience and realization. A flash of the divine that struck me so suddenly and deeply, that I became overwhelmed by its spurting joy. I became a little imbalanced after this experience. Now, some 34 years later, I would say that it was like a meteor hitting on my consciousness screen. If my memory is correct, it happened in the year 1973, the year of the spiritual completion of Guru. It is not that I had known about Santhigiri Ashram or Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru when it happened. In fact I heard about Guru and Santhigiri Ashram for the first time only in the year 1994 from Sahadevan, an office colleague in Bangalore. The experience in 1973, which I got sitting on the rocky ground gazing at the sky, was perhaps an inner inkling of the Brahman, the Supreme. It had nothing to do with any clairvision, clairvoyance or the like. It was an inner feeling of sudden enlightenment about the truth of God before which the significance of all worldly pursuits and struggles paled.
I was on a swing of joy after this experience and did not consider anything greater than it. However, it also marked the beginning of a long period of tribulation in my life. My heart thirsted for that ‘experience’ again. I walked as if in a dream to get reconnected to that experience. My soul wandered and it took me off to the 'ghats' and temples of Varanasi from my life in Mumbai. I was drifting alone aimlessly. I watched the flow of the Ganges umpteen times. The river seemed to flow down from a cave in another world, spitting dead bodies in its long course. I watched the pyres on the 'ghats', the fiery flames devouring hundreds of human bodies incessantly. The spirit world is strongly licking the human mind in Varanasi. Once I watched dawn break over the Ganges. I could virtually see celestial beings descend on its banks from the heavens. It was a hazy picture and might have been a hallucination. Whatever it may be, yet my hunger, my thirst, never was satiated, for, the big ‘experience’ never returned and I felt disturbed and a misfit in the world in which I lived. Then I faltered, rather it would be correct to say that I was caught up by my 'karma'. The karma of a life lived carelessly. It was through Guru that I later realized about the 'karmic baggage' and the role played by inseparable ancestral bonds. This knot of karmic dirt in fact is the cause of my birth in this fashion. I had erred thus in several births, I suppose, distancing myself from that Light – Guru. I had disgracefully fallen from the protection and guidance of Guru due to bad karmic and spiritual practices.
Without having a chance to know the truth, I suffered. Somewhere in a lonely and murky alley of life, I was wed to a woman, whom I had never known or met before. A child was born to us. After nearly 10 years of life in Varanasi, in a sudden twist of fate divine, I came back to my parents’ house, now with two extra mouths to feed. By the time, I felt like a man with a millstone around my neck. I then moved to Bangalore and settled down in a most boring vocation. But my prayers never stopped. The meditations, the silent thoughts and questions ever remained agile in the mind. My soul and heart silently sobbed for the experience of the divine light.
It was in the year 1994, in Bangalore, that I first met a disciple of Navajyothisree Karunkara Guru. His name is Sahadevan. I was working in a steel plant and Sahadevan happened to be my colleague. The opportunity to begin a spiritual conversation with him came once after he came back from a vacation in Kerala. I asked him casually about his holidays. To my pleasant surprise, he said that he visited his Guru in Santhigiri Ashram. I was curious and happy to hear about a Guru and an Ashram after all my days in Varanasi. I could not imagine then that this conversation was going to lead me to that LIGHT for which my heart thirsted always and that I was going to be reconnected to the ‘SOURCE’, the intuition of which I had experienced in my adolescence. But that comes later. I became very close to Sahadevan. While in office, we had plenty of opportunities to meet and talk, though he was in a different section. Once I noted that Sahadevan did not partake of ‘prasadham’ – the offerings made to gods worshipped by Hindus and people of other faiths too. I thought he was a bit foolish and lacked depth in spirituality. I was then a Vedantin and followed a pantheist view of religion. A Vedantin believes that only Brahman exists. But it is a matter of great contradiction how a Vedantin becomes an idolator, a worshipper of deities. I did not even think about this contradiction in those days. The deities for me were different aspects and attributes of the one Supreme Brahman and I believed there was nothing wrong in it. The great exponent of Vedanta Sri Sankaracharya composed hymns in praise of deities.
I had been initiated into mantra chanting by a monk-turned Sanskrit scholar in Varanasi, who had been initiated into sanyasa by a direct disciple of Swami Vivekananda in Sri Ramakrishna Mission. Apart from the mantra he gave me, I started experimenting with other mantras too like Lakshmi Gayatri, Surya Gayatri etc. I felt some pleasure chanting those mantras – nothing more, nothing less, by way of any spiritual experiences.
One day I asked Sahadevan whether his Guru had any mantra. To my pleasant surprise he said yes and gave me an Ashram monthly containing two lines of the mantra of Guru. I began chanting this along with my regular mantras and meditation. On the third day, during my evening prayers, I saw an apparition. It was a broad smiling face. I tried to process this face in my memory but could not come up with anything conclusively. It connected me to a world of masters in some unknown zone and era. While I sat there thus, a few more faces appeared before me. It was a kind of visionary experience, the first ever in my life. With a mind roused with curiosity, I asked Sahadevan for a description of his Guru for I thought the experience I had had something to do with his Guru. Sahadevan just smiled. He said that I should go to the Ashram and see Guru for myself.
It was somewhere in the middle of 1994, within three months of my visionary experience, that I reached Santhigiri Ashram. It was an evening well before sunset. I saw Guru in his thatched hut, which had a small hall attached to it for visitors to have 'darsan' of Guru. Guru, clad in pure white, with a broad smiling face, sat there emitting a tremendous radiance of love, devotion and a feeling of oneness. His form went into the depth of my mind. The experience in Bangalore reconnected me to this form, now a live figure. I announced my experience to some in the Ashram on coming out after meeting Guru.
After my first visit to the Ashram, I felt that I was put back on the spiritual track. With roused enthusiasm, I quickly prepared for another trip to the Ashram. This time Shri R.C. Saraf, a colleague who belonged to Kolkata, (now in London working for the Mittals) also joined me. Both of us reached the ashram travelling by bus from Bangalore. We waited for an audience with Guru. In the meantime, I helped Saraf to prepare a list of questions in Malayalam which he wanted to ask Guru. No philosophical questions, but domestic ones. I had no questions at that time in my mind. My soul only wanted to 'experience'.
Soon someone came and announced that Guru was waiting for us. A current went through me. We went to the small building (kettidam) where Guru was seated on a small wooden couch. There was with Guru a young bright sanyasini in orange clothes. Her face and eyes were bright with spiritual aura. This was Janani Amritha Jnana Thapaswini, the Revered Shishyapoojitha now. We bowed and touched our foreheads on the floor in front of Guru. I felt like an insect before that Divine Presence. I do not know what Saraf had felt. Doubtlessly there was more dirt in me.
Guru looked at me and asked, ‘What for have you come?’
My heart probably stopped for a moment. I could not speak immediately. I struggled to answer.
''I have taken passport and am trying to go abroad. Can I go?''
I felt very silly. No big questions about spirituality or philosophy fit for discussion with a sage.
Like a foolish person curious only to know the future, I asked that embodiment of Supreme Consciousness this inane question. However, this apparently foolish question was to have a deep ramification in my life afterwards. It was a question which fixed that I be with Guru than in a different place. It was my moment of initiation. The answer which Guru immediately gave was, ''If you go, you will neither be here nor there.'' I listened. How intimate were the words of Guru.
I sat there, ironically, like a numb mountain of questions. Guru further said that my life was influenced by the tradition of Devi worship in our family as well as by the good and bad karma of the ancestors and of my own self. I listened but could not decipher the depth of His words then. Now on reflection, I know that His answer had meant that, ''O disciple! You be with me. Why do you want to waste another life? Work out your salvation here and now.''
Prostrations O’ Guru! I could not realize your nectarine kindness. But like an obedient child I had listened to your words then. I feel greatly blessed by that. O Saviour of my life, O Supreme Guru! My turn was over and now Guru turned to Saraf. I do not remember what all things he asked Guru, though I was the one who translated his queries. While I sat there in the holy presence of Guru, I could feel a divine fragrance wafting in the room. My heart throbbed and soon a strong spiritual vibration hit my soul. A blissful current possessed my heart transporting me to a transcendental state of consciousness and tranquility.
I sat there wondering, ''Guru, who are you? I cannot understand anything. You are indeed a great Rishi.'' I did not know then that Guru could be God. So my infant spiritual mind pictured Him as a great Rishi exuding Brahmic bliss and joy. The meeting ended and we came out from that unforgettable Divine Presence, Guru.
Once out of that Presence, ignorance returned to me in the form of a doubt. How can a human be God? My idea of God was something formless; it was an internal thought, a consciousness of something unimaginable. I had not known that my concept of God would be proved wrong in the next few years I spent with Guru.
After stepping away from Guru’s presence, I stood a few yards away from the building where Guru sat. My mind was torn and the dark cloud of doubt suffocated me. It was a moment of torment. Then suddenly my eyes fell on a Light above the building where Guru sat. A White Light was getting formed above the building. It became very vivid to my eyes and looked like a big hemisphere, like an umbrella. As I concentrated on the Light, I wondered where it was emanating from. In a flash, the form of Guru appeared in a state of yogic sleep. The White Light was emerging from the Guru's navel; a thin thread like a lotus stem at the beginning and then spreading above like a vast umbrella of light. The sand under my feet began to loosen. I was losing balance as the vision gripped my being. I wanted now to wriggle my mind out of this strange experience. I slowly walked away from the place where I stood and a few moments later, the vision ceased, leaving me with an inward silence. I did not know then that I was entering a different dimension in spirituality. How can that grace be explained?
Though I experienced spiritual visions and the divinity of Guru many times over, sometimes I would try to think rationally. Once when my mind was thus clouded, I approached Guru and said, ''Guru, my mind gets disturbed sometimes by doubts''. Guru looked at me and then replied. ''You only should think over it.'' And I thought. I thought hard about my experiences with Guru and the visions that clearly showed the supremacy of Guru, in whom all living beings and the universe merged. Now I wanted to experience the Godliness of Guru in its truest measure. If Guru indeed were God, I should have that experience. My desire grew stronger and stronger. But how could I express my desire to Guru!
Guru was once giving darsan to devotees in the ashram. Occasionally he smeared vibhuti on the forehead of devotees. I too eagerly waited for my chance for the touch of vibhuti by Guru. When my turn came, He touched my forehead with vibhuti. I felt the softness of Guru’s finger. I came out and stood awhile. Suddenly I felt the whole world whirling. The planets, the stars, and the sky, everything was in a whirl. For the first time, I experienced everything merging together in a different dimension of experience. I was unable to stand this. I cried out to Guru in prayer that I should be brought back to my normal state. Within moments, the experience stopped, but I was in a dazed state and was unable to speak. An inner sense of bliss and quiet continued till I returned to Bangalore. I thought how foolish I was to hope for the experience of God. Even a fraction of that experience, I was unable to endure. How can human beings ever experience God with their body-mind mechanism? What they can hope to experience is only a minutest ray of the Unimaginable Light of God. Anyway, after this, I abandoned my desire to experience God anymore, at least for the time being. I only wanted to surrender to Him and His Unimaginable Glory.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Spiritual Path of Santhigiri Ashram
By Mukundan P.R.
Gurucharanam Saranam
The phenomenon of Spiritual experiences in Santhigiri Ashram is and will be its strong foundation, on which the faith of thousands of people is built. For over four decades and even after the physical departure of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, the founder Guru, this phenomena is in tact and continue to be experienced by the devotees, new and old. Guru is at the centre of this experience. Guru is experienced in various ways by the devotees and disciples. Guru as the Omniscient, Omnipotent force; Guru as the Light and Guide; Guru as Truth and God; Guru as the Protector and Enlightener; Guru as the Savior of the family and the ancestral souls; Guru as the liberator of even gods and goddesses worshipped by one. This is the spiritual experience of Santhigiri Ashram. These experiences explicitly declare to us the omniscience and omnipotent nature of Guru and as a fatherly figure.
Spiritual experiences are fruit, born from the soul-tree. According to the differing qualities of the soul-tree, we reap the fruit. Life experience, therefore, is related to the quality of one’s soul. Spirituality is the science that seeks to understand the inner essence of the soul and its qualitative status in order to improve, nourish and fulfill its existential purpose. It requires the medium called Guru, who knows this subjective science of the soul. Santhigiri Guru Parampara is blessed with such a Guru of soul vision and soul intercession.
Guru helps a soul to evolve from a state of inaction and agitation to a point of bliss and spiritual realization. The secret behind the Guru-Disciple relationship is this soul processing. Guru makes the disciples aware of his or her negative traits, not only in their soul, but in their family and ancestry, and instructs them ways and means to overcome those shortcomings. Obviously, the grace of Guru is the only means. The all knowing Guru knows the soul of a disciple and also the way to liberate him from these hurdles. Santhigiri Ashram is a place where this soul science is in practice.
India has a long history of mystics, who through their life of concentration receive occult visions and experiences and also the power to perform miracles. At this scientific age also, there are such men and women in India and elsewhere in the world. Spiritual visions are experiences and intuitions otherwise not known through sensory perceptions. They are clairvoyance seen through the inner mind or the mystical eye. Spiritual visions encompass everything in its scope, subtle and gross. It includes past, present or future incidents related to people and the universe and visions of ghosts, ancestral souls, deities, angels, saints and sages, different types of light, sound, smell, sight, etc. These are all part of the mystic tradition and experience.
However, spiritual visions and experiences are not the only yardstick for spiritual realization. Spiritual visions and experiences vary in its source. They occur in waking, dream and deep sleep states of consciousness. It may occur through the medium of ghosts, ancestral spirits, yogis and saints. Certain ancestral spirits appear in the form of gods and goddesses which these ancestors worshiped while living.
There are the spiritual experiences of several saints in the recent history like that of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Swami Vivekananda, Yogananda Paramahamsa, Anand Mayi, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Hazrat Inayat Khan and others. Those experiences belonged to individualized phenomena belonging to established traditions such as Yoga, Tantra, Mantra, Sufism, Mysticism etc. It involved the experiences of altered states of consciousness, mystical trance, possessions and performances involving yogis, gods and goddesses. For example, saints like Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Paramahamsa Yogananda had the vision of goddess Kali and experienced spiritual trance. Sri Ramana Maharshi had an altered state of consciousness in which he experienced the disembodied nature of his soul. These sages followed a rigorous spiritual life involving years of spiritual practice.
Against this, the spiritual experiences of Santhigiri Ashram are entirely a phenomenon different from the established traditions. The persons had not undergone any rigorous spiritual practices following any established traditions. Their experiences were spontaneous and belonged to a different category altogether. Their experience took them to a new discovery in spirituality. It established a radically different path from the traditional ones. Through their spiritual visions and experiences, they were being guided to the understanding of Guru Concept and to the awareness of certain pitfalls in the practice of spirituality. Therefore, the spiritual experiences of Santhigiri Ashram are in the nature of a spiritual revelation and renaissance.
As per the Indian cosmic time calculation, Kaliyuga began more than 5200 years ago. Saints and sages in the past have predicted about a Supreme Soul, a spiritual authority incarnating during this age. In the Koran there is a mention about a ‘Mahadi Imam’ – a Supreme Guru. The ‘Gospel of Buddha’ by Paul Carus says that Buddha had foreseen the birth of a great soul. Once Ananda, the disciple of Sri Buddha, asked Buddha who will guide them (Buddha’s disciples) once he left his mortal body. Then Buddha said that another Buddha would arise in the world in due course of time and he would teach the same truth that he taught. When asked how they would recognize him, the Buddha said that he would be known as ‘Mettayya’. The meaning of the Pali word Mettayya is one who is Merciful (Karunakara).
Jesus Christ also made such a prediction. On the last day of Jesus’s sojourn on the earth, he tells his disciples that he has to go, but the ‘Father’ would send another ‘Comforter’ who would be with them for ever and who will speak of the truths that he had taught and ‘who would show you the things to come’; i.e. teach through spiritual visions (St. John, Ch 14-16). Guru’s life fulfils this prophecy as well.
The spiritual vision of Aurobindo and the Mother in Aurobindo Ashram on 24th November, 1926 would suggest the descending of the Supreme Soul accompanied by Sri Krishna. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru was born on 1st September, 1927, after 280 days of this experience, the normal period of gestation. Guru as a child had the vision of Light and a face in his heart till the age of nine. The figure was of Sri Krishna. During the spiritual completion of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, it was Sri Krishna, who elevated Guru from a certain spiritual plane after the Trimurty.
There can be many more such prophesies, heard and unheard. However, they are all interpreted in different ways, buried in theological jargon and cannot be and necessarily be taken as to prove or disprove anything related to the birth and ideology of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru. The ideology of Guru stands on its rock bottom of truth, experienced by thousands of his disciples. The mention of the predictions is made here only to point out the fact that the birth of a supreme spiritual authority was awaited in many cultures and religious traditions throughout the world and such expectations of a divine intervention are all the more relevant in the present time. Several devotees had the vision of Guru even before they actually met Guru.
India had a dharmic structure based on the teachings of the Rishis. In the ancient times, the rulers administered the country according to the wisdom and guidance of the Rishis. But with the appearance of Brahmanical Hinduism in the social scene of India, instead of the all knowing Seers and Rishis, the Brahmin priests took over and became the authorities on dharma. They perpetuated a highly unequal and oppressive social system with the help of the rulers. The misery and fall of India had begun then; its chariot of dharma began to run on lamed wheels. If the backwardness, the sickness and the inglorious social problems of India have to be rectified, India should heed the words of a ‘jnani’ – an all knowing seer, who could re-establish India’s dharmic structure as per the spiritual experience of the Rishis – the Sanatana Dharma, which is distinctly different from the divisive Brahmanical Hinduism, wrongly projected today as Sanatana Dharma.
A restructuring of the society based on the teachings of the Rishis is required to uplift India to its pristine glory. It is exactly with this mission Navajyoti Sri Karunkara Guru was born at Chandiroor, in Alappuzha district of Kerala. Guru lived 72 years (1926-1999) building the new social edifice of India and also of the world in the time to come. Guru has built up a foundation for this future society, silently, through a group of ordinary ignorant people. He taught them the high ideals of the Rishis through their practical experiences in life. He taught them how to think and act and live according to the lofty ideals of Sanatana Dharma. The spiritual experiences of Santhigiri Ashram highlight this noble work of Navajyoti Sri Karunkara Guru that how Guru saved a society of ignorant people from their spiritual, karmic and social weaknesses and how he taught them to live in unity, without any distancing barriers of caste, creed and religion and follow a spiritual path that enrich their souls, not degenerate and devolve them into a state of brutes.
There is a very little thought about aspect in the spiritual practice of Hindus, i.e. the consequences arising out of the worship of low spirits, deities, serpents etc. In the Bhagavat Gita, Sri Krishna cautions Arjuna about the consequences arising out of deviated worship. Krishna said that those who worship Devi-Devas (deities), ghosts, goblins etc. or ancestor souls, their souls after death go unto those spirits and not unto the Light of God. What happens in such cases is that the souls get stagnated in very low spiritual planes unable to get elevation, which becomes the root cause of trouble by way of family curses, diseases and misfortunes.
The problem of Hindus today is that they mistake the worship of God as devotion to deities, serpents and spirits as followed by their ancestors. These ignorant and inferior practices were thrust upon the lower castes by the Vedic priests in order to decimate their virtue and progress in society. Due to these inferior forms of worship, the families of the lower castes always remained in the dark cell of ignorance, physical and mental debilities.
Guru had a fundamental concept on health. Guru pointed out that the diseases could be categorized into three: (1) Common disease (2) The disease which results because of wrong spiritual practices (3) The disease relating to ‘Jeeva’- the soul. The classification of diseases based on spiritual factors is something unique. Diseases related to Jeeva are due to ‘Aradhana Dosham’ or distorted spiritual worship. Worshipping anything believing it as God is not good. That is not the proper way to God. Let us remember the advice of Sree Krishna to Arjuna (Bhagavat Gita) that if we worship the ‘devi-devas’ (celestials), we attain devi-devas; if we worship ‘bhootas’ (spirits & goblins) we reach the same; if we worship the ‘pitrus’(ancestral souls) the soul is lead to ‘pitrus’ and not to the Supreme God. Majority of Hindus follow the path of such deviated worship and believe that performance of miracles is the sign of divinity. They achieve their goals through such deviated worship. At certain stages in life the grace in their life vanishes and they become sick and miserable. The success in life depends on the inherent virtue in the soul. Those who lack virtue should cultivate virtue, which is possible only through the guidance of an all knowing Guru.
Another aspect which is less thought about is the truth of ancestral or familial curses and its bitter consequence in the life of a family. Power and status of a person do not help when such problems strike, which can be termed as parental curses. In scientific terminology, it is known as genetic problems. Mentally retarded children, physical and mental debilities, untimely deaths, suicides, sudden fall of fortune and luck – these are all genetically encoded messages that run contrary to one’s expectations in the course of one’s life. Only a Seer, the all knowing Guru can decipher the genetic imprints in the soul and in a family lineage and suggest remedies. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru through such a graceful spiritual intercession resurrected thousands of ill-fated families.
Is there any relationship between the concept of God, way of worship and the ups and downs in life? Several studies had been done to analyze the cause and effect of social and cultural disintegration of this country which once enjoyed unparalleled supremacy in the areas of knowledge, education and wealth. Scholars and social reformers assign caste and age-old family traditions as the reason behind the decay of socio-economic and political system and progress. They do not probe into the other dimensions of this phenomenon. But Guru through his own experience revealed that it was the pattern of faith and the way of worship contrary to the age which played an important role in the disintegration of families and social order. Guru not only stated this untold truth but also fulfilled the Will of Brahman by restoring Yuga Dharma. Nobody ever knew that the decay and disintegration of families have been caused by wrong worship and faith inappropriate to the Dharma of the Age. Families thus degenerated are aplenty in our society.
Home is the centre of one’s life and the great divine institution invented by God to groom humans into perfect beings from the state of brutes. It is from the institution of Home one learns to live for the sake of one another and learn virtuous qualities such as love, sacrifice, respect, discipline and sense of duty. In that way, there is no greater university than one’s home. Those who have not learnt well from their homes, become empty speakers. They won’t be able to practice in their own house what they preach outside. Nevertheless, home is the cause of greatest worry and trouble to majority of people today. The concern of all parents today is about the fate of their children in a highly contaminated world, physically and morally. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru said that if the nation is to improve first the home should improve and to improve one’s home, the mother in the house should have gained knowledge about the dharma in life. Therefore, family is the basic pillar of the society and an institution where three important incidents take place - birth, marriage and death.
Sri Chidambaran, former Dy. Director of Education, Kerala published a booklet on the ideology of Navajyotisree Karunakara Guru. He mentioned that an ardent follower of Santhigiri’s Guru Margam, who prays and acts with full dedication and surrender, after facing a lot of obstacles, is sure to get protection from miseries, relief from diseases and also guidance and help in all activities by the grace and blessings of the Guru and this self experience is the secret of the firm faith, deep devotion and self discipline found in the followers of Santhigiri. ‘I do experience it myself in all my activities and feel the bliss of the grace and blessing of Guru. I have also the bitter experience of failure and loss due to non-compliance with the guidance and caution from Guru’. Sri Chidambaran wrote.
Brahman empowers and entrusts an Eternal Guru to purify the spirits of our ancestors, devi-devas and the other spiritual powers we and our ancestors worshipped, making them eligible for rebirth leading to liberation. Navajyothi Sree Karunakara Guru is the first Eternal Guru who got permission from Brahman to perform such purification. Guru, who has reached the zenith of divine wisdom, sees the virtues and sins of a person and his family for generations through his divine transcendental knowledge and purifies the manes and the spiritual powers we and our ancestors worshipped as per the direction of Brahman, without performing any rite or ritual.
These spiritual powers are brought to the divine light of Guru by a disciple having the power of darsan and purified by the spiritual brilliance of Guru. They are then placed at appropriate planes, after liberating those worthy of liberation, if any, and annihilating those deserving annihilation or destruction. The purified souls kept apart will be given birth through the union of well-matched couples having harmony in Jiva (not star) selected by Guru. The children so born will grow as a new pure lineage blessed with punya, fortune and ability for action free from the thoughts of hatred, malice, caste, creed and religion.
Guru informs us that in seven generations this pure lineage will spread throughout the world bringing peace, happiness and harmony. It is to be noted that Guru Pooja is done not for gaining any immediate material benefit for a person or his family, but for the rebirth, growth and spiritual uplift of our ancestors and the spiritual powers we have worshipped. Guru will remove the obstacles from the path of our karma and show the right path. It is our duty to do karma and gain virtue (punya) and fortune. The uniqueness of this Guru Margam is that activities performed strictly following the directions of Guru’s help to gain virtue and fortune, by blending materialism and spirituality, fulfilling the duties of family life.
Gurucharanam Saranam
The phenomenon of Spiritual experiences in Santhigiri Ashram is and will be its strong foundation, on which the faith of thousands of people is built. For over four decades and even after the physical departure of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, the founder Guru, this phenomena is in tact and continue to be experienced by the devotees, new and old. Guru is at the centre of this experience. Guru is experienced in various ways by the devotees and disciples. Guru as the Omniscient, Omnipotent force; Guru as the Light and Guide; Guru as Truth and God; Guru as the Protector and Enlightener; Guru as the Savior of the family and the ancestral souls; Guru as the liberator of even gods and goddesses worshipped by one. This is the spiritual experience of Santhigiri Ashram. These experiences explicitly declare to us the omniscience and omnipotent nature of Guru and as a fatherly figure.
Spiritual experiences are fruit, born from the soul-tree. According to the differing qualities of the soul-tree, we reap the fruit. Life experience, therefore, is related to the quality of one’s soul. Spirituality is the science that seeks to understand the inner essence of the soul and its qualitative status in order to improve, nourish and fulfill its existential purpose. It requires the medium called Guru, who knows this subjective science of the soul. Santhigiri Guru Parampara is blessed with such a Guru of soul vision and soul intercession.
Guru helps a soul to evolve from a state of inaction and agitation to a point of bliss and spiritual realization. The secret behind the Guru-Disciple relationship is this soul processing. Guru makes the disciples aware of his or her negative traits, not only in their soul, but in their family and ancestry, and instructs them ways and means to overcome those shortcomings. Obviously, the grace of Guru is the only means. The all knowing Guru knows the soul of a disciple and also the way to liberate him from these hurdles. Santhigiri Ashram is a place where this soul science is in practice.
India has a long history of mystics, who through their life of concentration receive occult visions and experiences and also the power to perform miracles. At this scientific age also, there are such men and women in India and elsewhere in the world. Spiritual visions are experiences and intuitions otherwise not known through sensory perceptions. They are clairvoyance seen through the inner mind or the mystical eye. Spiritual visions encompass everything in its scope, subtle and gross. It includes past, present or future incidents related to people and the universe and visions of ghosts, ancestral souls, deities, angels, saints and sages, different types of light, sound, smell, sight, etc. These are all part of the mystic tradition and experience.
However, spiritual visions and experiences are not the only yardstick for spiritual realization. Spiritual visions and experiences vary in its source. They occur in waking, dream and deep sleep states of consciousness. It may occur through the medium of ghosts, ancestral spirits, yogis and saints. Certain ancestral spirits appear in the form of gods and goddesses which these ancestors worshiped while living.
There are the spiritual experiences of several saints in the recent history like that of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Swami Vivekananda, Yogananda Paramahamsa, Anand Mayi, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Hazrat Inayat Khan and others. Those experiences belonged to individualized phenomena belonging to established traditions such as Yoga, Tantra, Mantra, Sufism, Mysticism etc. It involved the experiences of altered states of consciousness, mystical trance, possessions and performances involving yogis, gods and goddesses. For example, saints like Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Paramahamsa Yogananda had the vision of goddess Kali and experienced spiritual trance. Sri Ramana Maharshi had an altered state of consciousness in which he experienced the disembodied nature of his soul. These sages followed a rigorous spiritual life involving years of spiritual practice.
Against this, the spiritual experiences of Santhigiri Ashram are entirely a phenomenon different from the established traditions. The persons had not undergone any rigorous spiritual practices following any established traditions. Their experiences were spontaneous and belonged to a different category altogether. Their experience took them to a new discovery in spirituality. It established a radically different path from the traditional ones. Through their spiritual visions and experiences, they were being guided to the understanding of Guru Concept and to the awareness of certain pitfalls in the practice of spirituality. Therefore, the spiritual experiences of Santhigiri Ashram are in the nature of a spiritual revelation and renaissance.
As per the Indian cosmic time calculation, Kaliyuga began more than 5200 years ago. Saints and sages in the past have predicted about a Supreme Soul, a spiritual authority incarnating during this age. In the Koran there is a mention about a ‘Mahadi Imam’ – a Supreme Guru. The ‘Gospel of Buddha’ by Paul Carus says that Buddha had foreseen the birth of a great soul. Once Ananda, the disciple of Sri Buddha, asked Buddha who will guide them (Buddha’s disciples) once he left his mortal body. Then Buddha said that another Buddha would arise in the world in due course of time and he would teach the same truth that he taught. When asked how they would recognize him, the Buddha said that he would be known as ‘Mettayya’. The meaning of the Pali word Mettayya is one who is Merciful (Karunakara).
Jesus Christ also made such a prediction. On the last day of Jesus’s sojourn on the earth, he tells his disciples that he has to go, but the ‘Father’ would send another ‘Comforter’ who would be with them for ever and who will speak of the truths that he had taught and ‘who would show you the things to come’; i.e. teach through spiritual visions (St. John, Ch 14-16). Guru’s life fulfils this prophecy as well.
The spiritual vision of Aurobindo and the Mother in Aurobindo Ashram on 24th November, 1926 would suggest the descending of the Supreme Soul accompanied by Sri Krishna. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru was born on 1st September, 1927, after 280 days of this experience, the normal period of gestation. Guru as a child had the vision of Light and a face in his heart till the age of nine. The figure was of Sri Krishna. During the spiritual completion of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, it was Sri Krishna, who elevated Guru from a certain spiritual plane after the Trimurty.
There can be many more such prophesies, heard and unheard. However, they are all interpreted in different ways, buried in theological jargon and cannot be and necessarily be taken as to prove or disprove anything related to the birth and ideology of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru. The ideology of Guru stands on its rock bottom of truth, experienced by thousands of his disciples. The mention of the predictions is made here only to point out the fact that the birth of a supreme spiritual authority was awaited in many cultures and religious traditions throughout the world and such expectations of a divine intervention are all the more relevant in the present time. Several devotees had the vision of Guru even before they actually met Guru.
India had a dharmic structure based on the teachings of the Rishis. In the ancient times, the rulers administered the country according to the wisdom and guidance of the Rishis. But with the appearance of Brahmanical Hinduism in the social scene of India, instead of the all knowing Seers and Rishis, the Brahmin priests took over and became the authorities on dharma. They perpetuated a highly unequal and oppressive social system with the help of the rulers. The misery and fall of India had begun then; its chariot of dharma began to run on lamed wheels. If the backwardness, the sickness and the inglorious social problems of India have to be rectified, India should heed the words of a ‘jnani’ – an all knowing seer, who could re-establish India’s dharmic structure as per the spiritual experience of the Rishis – the Sanatana Dharma, which is distinctly different from the divisive Brahmanical Hinduism, wrongly projected today as Sanatana Dharma.
A restructuring of the society based on the teachings of the Rishis is required to uplift India to its pristine glory. It is exactly with this mission Navajyoti Sri Karunkara Guru was born at Chandiroor, in Alappuzha district of Kerala. Guru lived 72 years (1926-1999) building the new social edifice of India and also of the world in the time to come. Guru has built up a foundation for this future society, silently, through a group of ordinary ignorant people. He taught them the high ideals of the Rishis through their practical experiences in life. He taught them how to think and act and live according to the lofty ideals of Sanatana Dharma. The spiritual experiences of Santhigiri Ashram highlight this noble work of Navajyoti Sri Karunkara Guru that how Guru saved a society of ignorant people from their spiritual, karmic and social weaknesses and how he taught them to live in unity, without any distancing barriers of caste, creed and religion and follow a spiritual path that enrich their souls, not degenerate and devolve them into a state of brutes.
There is a very little thought about aspect in the spiritual practice of Hindus, i.e. the consequences arising out of the worship of low spirits, deities, serpents etc. In the Bhagavat Gita, Sri Krishna cautions Arjuna about the consequences arising out of deviated worship. Krishna said that those who worship Devi-Devas (deities), ghosts, goblins etc. or ancestor souls, their souls after death go unto those spirits and not unto the Light of God. What happens in such cases is that the souls get stagnated in very low spiritual planes unable to get elevation, which becomes the root cause of trouble by way of family curses, diseases and misfortunes.
The problem of Hindus today is that they mistake the worship of God as devotion to deities, serpents and spirits as followed by their ancestors. These ignorant and inferior practices were thrust upon the lower castes by the Vedic priests in order to decimate their virtue and progress in society. Due to these inferior forms of worship, the families of the lower castes always remained in the dark cell of ignorance, physical and mental debilities.
Guru had a fundamental concept on health. Guru pointed out that the diseases could be categorized into three: (1) Common disease (2) The disease which results because of wrong spiritual practices (3) The disease relating to ‘Jeeva’- the soul. The classification of diseases based on spiritual factors is something unique. Diseases related to Jeeva are due to ‘Aradhana Dosham’ or distorted spiritual worship. Worshipping anything believing it as God is not good. That is not the proper way to God. Let us remember the advice of Sree Krishna to Arjuna (Bhagavat Gita) that if we worship the ‘devi-devas’ (celestials), we attain devi-devas; if we worship ‘bhootas’ (spirits & goblins) we reach the same; if we worship the ‘pitrus’(ancestral souls) the soul is lead to ‘pitrus’ and not to the Supreme God. Majority of Hindus follow the path of such deviated worship and believe that performance of miracles is the sign of divinity. They achieve their goals through such deviated worship. At certain stages in life the grace in their life vanishes and they become sick and miserable. The success in life depends on the inherent virtue in the soul. Those who lack virtue should cultivate virtue, which is possible only through the guidance of an all knowing Guru.
Another aspect which is less thought about is the truth of ancestral or familial curses and its bitter consequence in the life of a family. Power and status of a person do not help when such problems strike, which can be termed as parental curses. In scientific terminology, it is known as genetic problems. Mentally retarded children, physical and mental debilities, untimely deaths, suicides, sudden fall of fortune and luck – these are all genetically encoded messages that run contrary to one’s expectations in the course of one’s life. Only a Seer, the all knowing Guru can decipher the genetic imprints in the soul and in a family lineage and suggest remedies. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru through such a graceful spiritual intercession resurrected thousands of ill-fated families.
Is there any relationship between the concept of God, way of worship and the ups and downs in life? Several studies had been done to analyze the cause and effect of social and cultural disintegration of this country which once enjoyed unparalleled supremacy in the areas of knowledge, education and wealth. Scholars and social reformers assign caste and age-old family traditions as the reason behind the decay of socio-economic and political system and progress. They do not probe into the other dimensions of this phenomenon. But Guru through his own experience revealed that it was the pattern of faith and the way of worship contrary to the age which played an important role in the disintegration of families and social order. Guru not only stated this untold truth but also fulfilled the Will of Brahman by restoring Yuga Dharma. Nobody ever knew that the decay and disintegration of families have been caused by wrong worship and faith inappropriate to the Dharma of the Age. Families thus degenerated are aplenty in our society.
Home is the centre of one’s life and the great divine institution invented by God to groom humans into perfect beings from the state of brutes. It is from the institution of Home one learns to live for the sake of one another and learn virtuous qualities such as love, sacrifice, respect, discipline and sense of duty. In that way, there is no greater university than one’s home. Those who have not learnt well from their homes, become empty speakers. They won’t be able to practice in their own house what they preach outside. Nevertheless, home is the cause of greatest worry and trouble to majority of people today. The concern of all parents today is about the fate of their children in a highly contaminated world, physically and morally. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru said that if the nation is to improve first the home should improve and to improve one’s home, the mother in the house should have gained knowledge about the dharma in life. Therefore, family is the basic pillar of the society and an institution where three important incidents take place - birth, marriage and death.
Sri Chidambaran, former Dy. Director of Education, Kerala published a booklet on the ideology of Navajyotisree Karunakara Guru. He mentioned that an ardent follower of Santhigiri’s Guru Margam, who prays and acts with full dedication and surrender, after facing a lot of obstacles, is sure to get protection from miseries, relief from diseases and also guidance and help in all activities by the grace and blessings of the Guru and this self experience is the secret of the firm faith, deep devotion and self discipline found in the followers of Santhigiri. ‘I do experience it myself in all my activities and feel the bliss of the grace and blessing of Guru. I have also the bitter experience of failure and loss due to non-compliance with the guidance and caution from Guru’. Sri Chidambaran wrote.
Brahman empowers and entrusts an Eternal Guru to purify the spirits of our ancestors, devi-devas and the other spiritual powers we and our ancestors worshipped, making them eligible for rebirth leading to liberation. Navajyothi Sree Karunakara Guru is the first Eternal Guru who got permission from Brahman to perform such purification. Guru, who has reached the zenith of divine wisdom, sees the virtues and sins of a person and his family for generations through his divine transcendental knowledge and purifies the manes and the spiritual powers we and our ancestors worshipped as per the direction of Brahman, without performing any rite or ritual.
These spiritual powers are brought to the divine light of Guru by a disciple having the power of darsan and purified by the spiritual brilliance of Guru. They are then placed at appropriate planes, after liberating those worthy of liberation, if any, and annihilating those deserving annihilation or destruction. The purified souls kept apart will be given birth through the union of well-matched couples having harmony in Jiva (not star) selected by Guru. The children so born will grow as a new pure lineage blessed with punya, fortune and ability for action free from the thoughts of hatred, malice, caste, creed and religion.
Guru informs us that in seven generations this pure lineage will spread throughout the world bringing peace, happiness and harmony. It is to be noted that Guru Pooja is done not for gaining any immediate material benefit for a person or his family, but for the rebirth, growth and spiritual uplift of our ancestors and the spiritual powers we have worshipped. Guru will remove the obstacles from the path of our karma and show the right path. It is our duty to do karma and gain virtue (punya) and fortune. The uniqueness of this Guru Margam is that activities performed strictly following the directions of Guru’s help to gain virtue and fortune, by blending materialism and spirituality, fulfilling the duties of family life.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
A Mystical Trail to My Guru
Nikhil, Santhigiri Ashram
There was a time when I viewed spirituality derisively. The years of my adolescence and youth! My native place is Manjapra near Kaladi in Ernakulam district. Those days I took asylum mostly in the reading room of the Grama Kshemam Library. There were thousands of books: I had read almost all of them by the time I turned 25. I did not know English, so I tried to get translated works from other languages. I also read the maximum number of contemporary publications. On looking back, I now realize that I was searching for myself in books, and through my writings. I searched for myself everywhere and opened out to one and all. I quarreled too and fumed, wept and laughed; felt happy and light hearted. I wandered day and night like one intoxicated.
Several people nurtured me with food, clothes and shelter. What not was given thus? There were many who filled me with love. A few, countable by fingers, hurt me too. Nonetheless, I did not feel for anybody. I felt a sort of detachment. A general feeling of disenchantment and despondency prevailed with a sense of helplessness capping it all. Even today, this sense of helplessness follows me. There is always an uncertainty as everything happens unbidden. Experiences march by as though in a reverie. Today, to a small extent, I can fathom their meaning. I also realise that more than what has been known, there is yet much to know. The depth of my helplessness deepens when I tread the path in between nescience and wisdom. The question is oft’ repeated: how did I become like this?
At that time, spirituality did not occupy any place in my life. I loved people, especially those who were in distress, sickly or helpless. The empathy I felt for such people might be because I felt one among them. Pathos inspired me to work for the liberation of the whole mankind. How could the human society be liberated from suffering?
The words of Bertolt Brecht influenced me a lot. “O, hungry man! Take up a book in your hand. That is a weapon.” These words made me wade through books. Books filled my dreams. I saw in my dreams books and word clusters. I wanted to write. And I wrote. A bevy of friends, who were like my own brothers, gave me inspiration. They helped me with paper and pen. I wrote for them dramas, big and small. They performed these in theaters and got numerous laurels. Nevertheless, all this did not make me happy. In fact it made me restless. What I needed was peace, I felt. When I began my journey to find peace, I encountered a flood of disquiet. I even suspected that I would be deluged and lost.
Simultaneously, I was welling up with another type of experience. That was the awareness about my self. It sprang from my experiences of reveries. What all were those reveries? Mist, rain, daylight, mountains, streams, the ocean, the sky, clouds, the stars and planets, fire, serpents, many hues of light, downpour of fire, rustic faces, figures of ascetics, elephants and so on. My days and nights were haunted by the rising and falling tides of such reveries. It would be rather correct to say that the dreams owned me and I became their possession. I had the awareness that something was happening in the backyard of my consciousness; but I did not know what it was.
I was a cause of concern for my family. I did not study; I did not go to work. I brought ten-fold loss when entrusted with business. What for should I study, I wondered. For me education was not required, neither were wealth, vocation, assets, house, comforts, name, fame and recognition. I did not know what was required either. Futile wanderings! It hurt the people in my family. Though they were poor, they loved me. I could say that they took a lot of hardships in enduring me. When I ate the food affectionately served by them, my eyes got tearful.
I could not give them the love they deserved, not even a good word. What I gave them was pain, instead. A few people asked me why I did not love the family, my own blood. My mind whispered that they were not mine. Nevertheless, I never expressed this thought in front of others. But occasionally, I expressed my anguish in front of my father. Poor man, I was much distanced from him emotionally. My mother, I do not remember seeing as she had already died before I was able to toddle.
A few of my friends would ask, “Why don’t you refer to your house as “my home’’? “I have no house of my own,” I answered them. For me, the house where I lived belonged to my relatives (father’s younger and elder brothers) or the houses of several other people who gave me shelter. My uncles and their families fed me and nurtured me. Their love towards me had a tinge of adoration. When I was five years old, my father had remarried and begun to stay separately. The people in that house too loved me.
From the very childhood, I had a desire to forsake everything and go somewhere. Whenever I felt a small displeasure, I used to leave the house. I would come back after wandering a while somewhere. Nonetheless, nobody in the family questioned me then. However, my grandmother would mutter with a shade of sorrow, “why are you like this, dear son?” Even to that maternal love, my response would be a dour retort. At the same time, I felt guilty and thought, “Why am I like this?” I used to ponder over the existential question: “who am I or what am I.”
As time went by, the feeling that it would not be proper to continue like this, got stronger. During this period, a friend of mine, who was a painter, mentioned about some visions he was experiencing in dream. (I came to know that he died recently). With the thoughts of Sigmund Freud, Jung and others in my mind, I ridiculed them all as fantasies. Nevertheless, I began to think and listen to his experiences. I felt that there was some truth in them. One day, during this period, I visited a famous Devi temple along with some of my friends. The experiences I got there, direct and intuitional, gave me peace and as much disquiet. I did not know whether I could call it as bhakti – love of god, because bhakti was always alien to me. My bhakti was love. Even today it is so.
With that experience the bud of spiritual contemplation began flowering in me. One evening, I lit a lamp in a corner of my house and began to pray. I ignored the stunned look in the eyes of my family members. They murmured among themselves as to what had come over me. However, it did not continue for long and I returned to my old ways of meaningless wanderings. After some time, there was a change. I again began to spend time mostly in prayers and spiritual contemplation. I began to get experiences. I shall briefly narrate only one such experience here, which left a deep impact on me.
Those days I resided in a room in the upper floor of a bungalow. There were other tenants in the adjacent room and downstairs. One day, they had all gone to work at the break of dawn. As I was alone, I stepped down to the ground floor and locked the main door. Keeping the key in its pre-arranged place, I entered the house through the back door. I fastened the latch and went upstairs. Sitting down in my room, I began to pray. With eyes shut, arms stretched out and palms cupped, I prayed. It was a prayer in supplication. The prayer, which started around 6 a.m., continued uninterrupted. When it was 9 a.m., suddenly, like the sprinkling of holy water, some water trickled down in my cupped palms.
I opened my eyes and looked in turn at my hands, on the roof and sideways. It was a hot summer day. The terrace was dry. I went out to look around. There was nobody. The house was a solitary one in the middle of four or five acres of land. Hardly anyone stepped inside. Then whence the appearance of water! I came back to the room, and taking a chair, sat down to think. Rational thoughts clogged the mind and it refused to yield to illogical conclusions. When days passed, I realized that it was the tender fondling of God. Several experiences followed. When their depth and expanse increased, my isolation became complete. The old group of friends had withered away. Nonetheless, a few people gave me food and also some money.
Those days, it was a boy named Ramesh who gave me food almost daily. His house was somewhere near Perumbavoor. He drilled rock with jack and hammer for a living. He lived in the room adjacent to mine. He would bring me dinner parceled from some hotel. He got piqued when I discouraged him. “Why do you feed me every day?” I repeated this question to him. His answer was, “My mind urges me to give you food. And I feel happy doing that”.
He took me along to many temples. I was not particularly inclined to do so, but for his satisfaction, I used to accompany him. What I liked was to sit down with closed eyes or lie down somewhere. When I sat or lay down thus, I saw several pictures passing through my mind’s eye. These visions made me exceedingly happy. I desired to see them repeatedly. It was later when I came to the abode of Guru that I understood these experiences as ‘darshanam’ – mystical visions. In between those visions, I got some words too from the atmosphere. I had an inner light to discern what was right and wrong in this. Looking back, I realize that I was being led to receive the grace of God. I had also been experiencing a few aspects of mystical experience, some trivial, some important.
As per one such ethereal vision and revelatory words, I undertook a trip to an ashram in the northern direction, accompanied by a friend. On seeing the swami there, I asked him piously, “Swami, What am I destined to do?” He questioned me back why I asked so. I told him about the experiences I got. He then said, “You are receiving these experiences without the help of others. Spend some more time praying deeply. Then there would be deeper experiences and a situation would arise when you would be unable to go further without the help of a Guru. At that time you come to me.” Later, the need never arose to go to him.
As the frequency and impact of the visions increased, so did the exasperation and bitterness born out of disownment, loneliness, helplessness and uncertainty. Those who had been intimate and helpful earlier now turned hostile. It deeply hurt me. Also the untimely death of a close friend at that time was a great blow. This friend had deeply loved me and prayed for me.
One day, I had an early dawn experience at 3 a.m. It occurred in the same bungalow where I stayed. I was reclining on the floor on my left side. Suddenly, I became aware of a wind which was blowing from the bottom of my spinal chord (mooladharam). The wind swirled and filled the whole room with great speed and strength like a hurricane. The room along with me was lifted up. When I tried to shift my body, somebody pressed me down. When I was thus being lifted, two serpents from the bottom of my feet, sneaked past quickly to either side. Up and up I went, beyond the clouds and skies and reached a luminous sphere. There was seen sitting cross legged on a rocky plateau, an ascetic of unmatched brilliance and perfection. Immediately below him sat seven or nine crossed legged ascetics. At the bottom of the hillock was a serene lake. In the lake were several small and big elephants and ascetics blissfully swimming and bathing. I was also bathing there in that joyous group. The baby elephants were playing mischief on me. The ascetic who sat on the hillock was seen talking something. But it was not fully audible. However, it could be discerned that he was talking about things from the beginning of creation. The mind welled up with unexplainable joy. After some time passed, the way it all went up, so it came down with me. I lay there motionless. At that time I was experiencing a tremendous energy circuit in my body. When I opened the eyes, the time was 3.20 a.m.
The next morning, I was sitting idle in my room. A young acquaintance, who was the friend of a friend of mine, walked in. We talked about several matters relating to life and society. At about noon, he took me to his house on a bicycle. I stepped inside the house along with him after the customary face, leg and hand wash. It was a small house but clean. He took me straight into their pooja room. His brother knew astrology and performed rites and rituals for others. The moment I entered the prayer room, a cat sitting nearby jumped across and the idol fell. I felt very odd at this. The face of my acquaintance also showed signs of uneasiness. I told him to take it easy and keep the idol back on its place. After this he led me to the dining room and served food. After lunch, a bed was arranged for me for a siesta. I spent four or five days with him thus. One day his astrologer brother took stock of my stars and said, “Brother, you are destined to be a sanyasi. It is seen as unavoidable.” I laughed at once when he said this. He also laughed. The question hidden in my laughter was how I should become one.
My difficulties increased by the day and one day I decided that unless I got the answers to some of my questions, I would not eat. “Who am I? What is my life? What for I am living? What should I do? Where should I go? Whom shall I meet? For seven days I took only water and a little quantity of boiled beans. On the seventh day morning at about 9 a.m., there was a word: “It will be revealed to you.” That was the word. I understood that this word was different from the earlier ones. I ate food. Days passed by. The house owner informed me that he desired to demolish the building and sell the property. Where would I go, I wearied myself with this thought. “There was no place for me to go. There was no house of my own to take shelter, wailed my soul. I had already left my house and the family sometime before.
One night I went to sleep with such searing thoughts. That night I experienced a vision. I was taken in front of a huge bungalow and was ushered in. “This is your house,” somebody spoke. Before I could survey the inner chambers, the vision broke. “Would I be able to own such a house?’ I had not desired for one such.” Therefore, I decided that it was not mine. It was a false vision, I thought. However, I came to know from Guru (through the revered Guru Apparent, Shishyapoojitha Janani) that it was not so and it related to a previous birth. Just two days before vacating the rented room, I got news that one of my close relatives had died. Therefore, I was compelled to go there. After fixedly looking at my people awhile, I left the place quickly along with the friend who had accompanied me.
When I left my native place, I had no clear idea as to where I should go. I had some vague information about (Navajyothisree Karunakara) Guru through whatever little was written and heard about him. I decided that as a last resort, I should visit Guru. On my way to see him, I stayed for two days at another ashram. Once earlier I had stayed there and received certain mystical experiences. When I reached there, it was past noon. A yagna was taking place and presently the offerings of the yagna were being distributed to the assembly. Somebody said that the person who came in just now also had an entitlement to the yagna. I was therefore asked to recite the mantra that they chanted for me, which I did. They also gave me some prasadham.
On the second day of my stay there, at about 6 a.m., there was an experience of vision and an instruction. It was a vision with naked eyes. What I saw was the ashram of Guru and the prayers here. The word was an instruction to proceed to the ashram. But I understood these things only after reaching here. Till then, I did not have an idea which place was signified in the vision. When I met Guru face to face, he asked me what I had seen. I told him a few things that immediately came to my mind. Along with that I began expressing my woes. Guru cut short my dialogue and said succinctly, “Poor thing! May you leave all that! What you have experienced are some big aspects. You may stay here. About what you ought to do here, you will get to know yourself.” When I thus began to stay at the ashram, an instruction was received that I should go to work in the dairy. I worked there for sometime. Subsequently, I came to the Publication Division. It was after this that a word was received to be by the side of Guru and do the work I perform presently. This revelatory instruction was received in the manner of ‘Prathyakshavaham Dharmam’ (the self apparent dharma). However, I did not get an opportunity to inform this to Guru. Nevertheless it happened on its own. It is a testimony to the truthfulness of ‘Word is Truth, Truth is Guru, Guru is God’. Like this there are several experiences in my life.
When I began to be by the side of Guru, I did not suffer any unfamiliarity, anxiety, fear or doubt whatsoever. It was just like continuing with a work already begun. I only knew that I was obeying Guru. I keenly listened to Guru’s conversations. All subjects under the heavens found a reciprocal reference in Guru’s talks. It surprised me greatly and opened before me a new world of knowledge. Each word of Guru made me realize that it was the truth. It was part of my character that I believed something only if it convinced my conscience.
After Guru’s merger with the Adisankalpam - the primordial plane of consciousness - I was overcome with a gnawing sense of emptiness. The doors of life, which had opened to me, would they get shut? “Now who will own me like Guru did? Who is able to do that here?” I was in a quagmire. One afternoon, the revered Shishyapoojitha Janani, the Guru Apparent, said to me in the hall of Guru. “You are living for this. Then why are you not taking it up?” Saying this, she immediately went out of the hall. My eyes were flooded with tears and I knelt down. That moment, a word of Guru came to my mind. ‘Dear Son, this disownment…….’ The sentence which Guru did not complete then was presently finished by the revered Shishyapoojitha Janani. That moment was my realization that the revered Janani is the continuation of Guru, nay, Guru Himself. More experiences occurred which confirmed that realization. In fact, I knew Guru through the revered Janani. It was the revered Janani who made me realize the truth of Guru. By the same manner, it was Guru who made me realize the truth of Shishyapoojitha Janani. It is experience! Each moment that I am with the revered Janani, I get convinced of the truth of Guru. But my Karmagati (karmic proclivity) holds me back from doing many a good thing. There are still limitations in me. I pray that all these shortcomings be wiped out and I be able to fulfil this in the right manner. I submit my words, thoughts and myself at the feet of Guru and conclude this presently.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Teerthayatra of Sishyapoojita Janani
Gurucharanam Saranam
The Teertha of Sishyapoojita Janani Amrita Jnana Tapaswini to North-West
Mukundan P.R.
The Teertha Yatra of Her Holiness Sishyapoojita Amrita Jnana Tapaswini, the Guru Apparent of Santhigiri Ashram was a unique event, which can no less be compared with the great journeys undertaken by sages in the past like Sri Buddha, Mahavir, Adi Sankaracharya or Guru Nanak. These sages through their spiritual odysseys were erecting the edifice of spiritual and cultural transformation. The journey of Sishya Poojita was such a journey for the spiritual and cultural renaissance of India as envisioned by Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, the founder of Santhigiri Ashram. The teachings of Guru have inspired millions of people in and outside India as it add a fundamentally new perspective to the deep rooted spiritual and social maladies faced by our society today.
Sishyapoojita Janani was accompanied by 56 regular Teertha Yatris throughout the journey. The Yatra commenced on Thursday 5 November, 2009 from the Santhigiri Ashram Headquarters at Pothencode Thiruvananthapuram and concluded at Mumbai on 30th November, It involved more than 5000 KMs road journey through north-western India covering major cities and towns viz. New Delhi, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Waga Border, Rishikesh, Hardwar, Dehradun, Mussouri, Jaipur, Udaipur, Mount Abu, Devgarh, Meerut, Agra, Nad Dwara, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Daman, Vapi, Panvel, Karjat (New Mumbai) and finally Mumbai. Here I will not go into the details of the journey as a travelogue on her Teertha Yatra is about to be published soon as a book. I shall mention only the ideological significance of the Teertha Yatra, from my point of view. Certainly there are many things which I do not know. Whatever little she has mentioned about the Yatra, it has been mentioned in the travelogue along with the wonderful experiences of the Yatra itself.
The Significance of the Teerthayatra
If we look at the present times, we find that there is no dearth of spiritual teachings and ideologies. Volumes of sacred literature are available today, taught by both ancient and modern masters, prophets and Gurus. But when it comes to the realization or practice, we get to a blank. The spiritual aspirants as well as the laity get stuck at a certain level of experience unable to achieve the fullest and the ultimate. This is not the case of a particular religion but is an all-pervasive problem. The spiritual roof of mankind is blackened universally by the suffocating smokes of hatred, greed and suspicion. The lack of love we experience among ourselves is indicative of the distance we have created between ourselves and God. The old and new ideologies, religious and otherwise, have failed to take us forward on the path of peace and enlightenment. The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita Janani was to generate love of God among the people.
Generally people seek immediate solutions to problems. They are unable to go in depth into the cause-effect relationship of problems. The faithful think that the Supreme Power who supposedly created this vast universe could perform any miracles. Let God perform a supreme miracle so that all living beings in the world live happily forever with love and respect. The great Gurus and Prophets wished it so and we too repeat their prayers. But such a miracle does not happen. What is the reason? God always said that the problem lies in you and the remedy also lies within you. Be conscious and alert to the laws of life - to Dharma. This seems to be the restraint of God and silent exhortation to humanity. Know the Dharma, the Will of God. The lifetime effort and mission of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru has been this – to impart Dharma to the suffering humanity.
A large number of spiritual aspirants today are trying to hide in the pigeon holes of their own ‘Self’. They are taught in sophisticated terms and terminology that the ‘Self’ (Atma) is the Supreme God. This could be a wrong and misleading supposition. The ancient method of yoga was developed in a different age which is being promoted in different fashions today. Its effectiveness in calming the body and mind is indisputable. However, for salvation and soul evolution, there are impediments arising out of physical, spiritual, ancestral and karmic bonds with which every soul is affected. The tranquility of the Self cannot be gained without gaining freedom from the karmic bonds and spiritual entanglements accumulated in one’s soul. One can gain this inner freedom only through selfless service at the feet of the Supreme Guru. The path of Santhigiri Ashram is to overcome the spiritual and karmic difficulties through service at the feet of the Guru.
It is said that the nature of our Self is consciousness. But it is wrong to equate it with the Supreme Light. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru said; ‘We are not the Supreme, but only part of it’. To equate ourselves with God was the first spiritual mistake or the ‘original sin’ of mankind. One of the four great enunciations of the Vedas itself is that ‘I am God’ (Aham Brahmasmi). A curse has befallen on the world due to this error. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru conveyed to humanity when and how this spiritual error occurred and with what consequence. This is a new knowledge in the spiritual history of mankind. This was revealed from the Supreme Light to Santhigiri Guru Parampara.
The above said spiritual error occurred in the 3rd Chaturyuga of the present Manvantara and thereafter, due to Godly curse, the sages could not experience spiritual light. In the 7th Chaturyuga, the Supreme authorized Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara - three spiritual evolutes to impart spiritual knowledge to mankind. It was thus the Trimurty worship originated in the world. In the subsequent period, the first error was repeated in the Trimurty tradition also, because, contrary to the Will of the Supreme, the Trimurty were equated with the Supreme God. Again corruption took place in the dharma and karma of mankind. After the 3rd Chaturyuga, now it is the 28th Chaturyuga, which means we have lived with this spiritual fall for several ages.
The pollution in dharma affected mankind in various ways. In the passage of time, a priestly class came into existence. They developed complex rituals imposing discriminatory laws on the less privileged with the help of the rulers and fabricating mythical stories. The people were segregated on the basis of castes and true spiritual knowledge was denied to them. The birth of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru was to initiate a correction in the dharma and karma of this ancient land. The Guru’s liberating ideology should reach at all door steps for the transformation of India. The Teertha Yatra was to touch the heart of India and its people.
The Sudras, the majority in the society, were encouraged to worship low and evil spirits and follow sinful customs and practices. The status of women was degraded. Women, irrespective of their caste tags, were bracketed under Sudra and denied of spiritual knowledge and enlightenment. The children and the family go astray if the women were ignorant of dharma, karmic and spiritual laws. The Indian society was thus degenerated into depths of despondency, superstition and ignorance. Dharma and Karma when practiced wrong for a long time cause wrong Karma Gati among the people, i.e. wrong karmic tendencies in the soul. The result of wrong Karma Gati would be perpetual misery and downward spiral of the soul and the family. When the families thus become victims of wrong Karma Gati, not only the family, but the society suffers, the nation suffers and ultimately the whole world. So fundamentally what is to be rectified and reoriented is the old perceptive on dharma, which we blindly follow not knowing what merits and demerits it would emboss on our soul and family. The Teertha Yatra was to carry this message to the Indian masses.
Due to wrong worship, ignorance about dharma and karma, the majority of Indians became physically and mentally raw and brutish without any positive inclinations in life. They became Sudra in the real sense. They stood divided even when the cultural and spiritual motifs of the society were being destroyed by foreign invaders. India was crushed. India became a slave country for centuries. Even at such times, the priestly and ruling class, excepting certain valiant men and women, sided with the foreign invaders for their selfish ends. Always, the ordinary people suffered. India suffered. The route of the Teertha Yatra showcased the symbols of this past suffering of India.
The people are used as tools and misguided in the name of religion and politics. How can India escape from this suffering? The spiritual renaissance initiated by Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru addresses this question. Guru said that Kaliyuga is the age of enlightenment for all, especially the Sudra. India is destined to lead the world again, Guru predicted. The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita Janani, the Guru apparent of Santhigiri Ashram is the commencement of this spiritual renaissance of India.
According to Sanatana Dharma, propounded by the great Rishis, each time segment (yuga) in the creation undergoes cyclic evolution, in order that all living beings merge with the Supreme after fulfilling their full growth and potential. Therefore, the soul undergoes birth and death several times, to fulfill the dharma and virtues associated with each birth. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru said that this cosmic plan is known as Yuga Dharma and each Yuga has its specific dharma. Contrary to this, in the present Kaliyuga, the dharma of the past Yugas – the Treta Yuga and Dwapara Yuga is followed, which is the worship of Devi-Devas (celestial beings and angels) and their propitiation through Yaga, Yagna and other originated in the world. In the subsequent period, the first error was repeated in the Trimurty tradition also, because, contrary to the Will of the Supreme, the Trimurty were equated with the Supreme God. Again corruption took place in the dharma and karma of mankind. After the 3rd Chaturyuga, now it is the 28th Chaturyuga, which means we have lived with this spiritual fall for several ages.
It was Sri Krishna, who, in the beginning of Kaliyuga, hinted about the dharma of Kaliyuga. He exhorted Arjuna to abandon the dharmic precepts that were being followed and surrender to Him (Krishna) as his spiritual guide, the Guru or Master. Krishna, the Guru imparted spiritual vision and experience to Arjuna. Krishna categorically stated that it was not through the learning of the Vedas spiritual realization is gained, but through surrender and devotion to the Guru, the embodiment of supreme enlightenment. Remember that Krishna was the spiritual authority of Dwapara Yuga, born in a Yuga Sandhi (confluence of two ages). He was born in Dwapara Yuga just before the commencement of Kali Yuga. His duty, accordingly, was to assess the past and delineate the dharma of Kaliyuga.
The Vedic tradition, however, refused to accept Krishna’s spiritual authority and in the subsequent period created myths that Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu, a God in the Trimurty tradition. Krishna was thus brought under the Vedic ritualism. The same mistake was repeated in the case of Buddha, who came subsequent to Sri Krishna. It was wrong to do so, because Krishna was a highly elevated soul, a Supreme Guru incarnate, who had transcended the spiritual planes of Trimurty and demigods. The visit of Sishyapoojita Janani and her entourage to Mathura and Vrindavan was to honor that great soul, the manifestation of supreme spiritual enlightenment.
Another revelation of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru of paramount importance is about the difference between the spiritual status of Devi-devas and a Guru who has transcended the spiritual planes of devi-devas. Guru revealed that there are ten spiritual planes which a soul has to transcend before it could experience the Light of Brahman. The Trimurty and Devi Devas occupy a position up to and below the sixth plane. But the formless truth of the Soul is experienced only after the sixth plane. Sri Krishna was a soul who had transcended the eighth spiritual plane by birth itself. In the Kaliyuga, God is to be worshipped through the medium of the Supreme Guru who comes as the authority of the age.
How do we recognize that Supreme Guru? The Supreme Guru would have transcended the planes of Demigods and Trimurty, i.e. he should have at least transcended the seventh plane in spirituality. He would be a Trikala Jnani and should be able to look into what had happened in the past Yugas and act according to the will of Brahman to initiate corrections in Dharma, as required of the age. That Guru and His lineage will receive revealed words from the Supreme Light to guide humanity forward and his words will be the Vedas for the whole humanity.
Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru is that Supreme Guru, who transcending all spiritual planes, became the authority of the age, whose disciples get revealed words from the Supreme Light of Brahman. The dharma of Kali Yuga is to surrender at the feet of that Supreme Guru, in love and devotion, to attain spiritual enlightenment as well as worldly progress. This is the exalted vision of Santhigiri Ashram. Guru cuts away the wrong Karma Gati of the soul, of the family and the ancestors, which helps the birth of good progeny in the family with physical and mental prowess and also with spiritual vision and enlightenment. Guru removes all barriers of caste, religion, class and creed binding human beings in the love of God. Guru is the reflection, the veil of the impersonal or the formless Supreme Being, the Light of the universe. God is to be realized through the medium of Guru. This is the concept of Santhigiri Ashram. This path, Gurumargam, will join human hearts, liberating them from religious and cultural confinements and narrowness. The Teertha Yatra of Santhigiri Ashram went weaving new threads of spiritual enlightenment in the social fabric of India.
After Guru merged with Adi Sankalpam (merging with the Light of Brahman) on 6th May, 1999, Sishyapoojita Janani Amrita Jnana Tapaswini carries the Light and mission of Guru. Sishyapoojita was born at Kallar in Idukki district, Kerala. She became entitled to the position of the first Sishyapoojita, i.e. the venerated among the disciples in the Guru Parampara through her dedicated life of renunciation from the age of seven, when she met Guru for the first time.
Sishyapoojita receives revelations and transcendent visions from the Light of Brahman, through the medium of Guru and imparts this knowledge for the guidance of humanity. She carries out spiritual intercessions on behalf of the Guru parampara. Sishya Poojita undertook the Teertha Yatra as per the Will of the Supreme through the spiritually and historically important places in North-Western India carrying the message of Guru and performing unique spiritual intercessions inspiring hundreds of people from all walks of life including heads of spiritual, religious, political, social and educational institutions.
The soul of India is ailing. The Rishis and sages are not in peace due to the wrong course of dharma. So too are the ancestral souls who suffer unable to get elevated birth, due to polluted dharma and family institutions. We can understand from the long history of India that her heart has been rent several times by the bloody march of greed, violence and ignorance by depredators, religious crusaders and cruel invaders, both internal and external. The soil of India is soaked with the blood of thousands of innocent souls. Such places appear wearing the dark blanket of wrong Karma Gati. Only by the grace of the Supreme Guru, those places and the souls inhabiting in the subtle could be liberated from the misery and a new vista of light brought through the spiritual intercession (sankalpam) of Sishyapoojita, the Guru Apparent. While burning the old Karma Gati, she paves the way for a new Karma Gati to germinate in those places. Children carrying the light and mission of Guru will take birth wherever Sishyapoojita Janani went during her Teertha Yatra. This is how a Supreme Guru brings transformation to the soul of a society.
The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita was a journey cleansing India of the age old dharmic aberrations. The dawn of change and spiritual rise of India is not far. One well known neurologist, who was accompanying Sishyapoojita in the Teertha Yatra asked her how she performs this spiritual intercession. Sishyapoojita’s explanation was that on reaching a place, she could see in vision the characteristic of that place and the souls connected with it. When these souls come under her observation, she does the sankalpam for their deliverance, or for a suitable birth subsequently so that they could work out the remaining karma. The spiritual visions of several other initiates travelling with Sishyapoojita corroborated with such revelations.
The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita Amrita Jnana Tapaswini was a multifaceted exercise in building goodwill, peace and harmony among different sections of people apart from its deep rooted spiritual connotation. It was not only a spiritual journey, but an educative one spreading the light of knowledge and interaction among the different people and institutions of India in spiritually and historically important places. She visited dozens of important institutions and imparted spiritual bliss and wisdom to more than 3000 people during her journey of 25 days. The Teertha Yatra of Sishya Poojita Janani will ever be remembered in the spiritual history of India. It would take India to the zenith of spiritual glory.
The Teertha of Sishyapoojita Janani Amrita Jnana Tapaswini to North-West
Mukundan P.R.
The Teertha Yatra of Her Holiness Sishyapoojita Amrita Jnana Tapaswini, the Guru Apparent of Santhigiri Ashram was a unique event, which can no less be compared with the great journeys undertaken by sages in the past like Sri Buddha, Mahavir, Adi Sankaracharya or Guru Nanak. These sages through their spiritual odysseys were erecting the edifice of spiritual and cultural transformation. The journey of Sishya Poojita was such a journey for the spiritual and cultural renaissance of India as envisioned by Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, the founder of Santhigiri Ashram. The teachings of Guru have inspired millions of people in and outside India as it add a fundamentally new perspective to the deep rooted spiritual and social maladies faced by our society today.
Sishyapoojita Janani was accompanied by 56 regular Teertha Yatris throughout the journey. The Yatra commenced on Thursday 5 November, 2009 from the Santhigiri Ashram Headquarters at Pothencode Thiruvananthapuram and concluded at Mumbai on 30th November, It involved more than 5000 KMs road journey through north-western India covering major cities and towns viz. New Delhi, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Waga Border, Rishikesh, Hardwar, Dehradun, Mussouri, Jaipur, Udaipur, Mount Abu, Devgarh, Meerut, Agra, Nad Dwara, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Daman, Vapi, Panvel, Karjat (New Mumbai) and finally Mumbai. Here I will not go into the details of the journey as a travelogue on her Teertha Yatra is about to be published soon as a book. I shall mention only the ideological significance of the Teertha Yatra, from my point of view. Certainly there are many things which I do not know. Whatever little she has mentioned about the Yatra, it has been mentioned in the travelogue along with the wonderful experiences of the Yatra itself.
The Significance of the Teerthayatra
If we look at the present times, we find that there is no dearth of spiritual teachings and ideologies. Volumes of sacred literature are available today, taught by both ancient and modern masters, prophets and Gurus. But when it comes to the realization or practice, we get to a blank. The spiritual aspirants as well as the laity get stuck at a certain level of experience unable to achieve the fullest and the ultimate. This is not the case of a particular religion but is an all-pervasive problem. The spiritual roof of mankind is blackened universally by the suffocating smokes of hatred, greed and suspicion. The lack of love we experience among ourselves is indicative of the distance we have created between ourselves and God. The old and new ideologies, religious and otherwise, have failed to take us forward on the path of peace and enlightenment. The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita Janani was to generate love of God among the people.
Generally people seek immediate solutions to problems. They are unable to go in depth into the cause-effect relationship of problems. The faithful think that the Supreme Power who supposedly created this vast universe could perform any miracles. Let God perform a supreme miracle so that all living beings in the world live happily forever with love and respect. The great Gurus and Prophets wished it so and we too repeat their prayers. But such a miracle does not happen. What is the reason? God always said that the problem lies in you and the remedy also lies within you. Be conscious and alert to the laws of life - to Dharma. This seems to be the restraint of God and silent exhortation to humanity. Know the Dharma, the Will of God. The lifetime effort and mission of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru has been this – to impart Dharma to the suffering humanity.
A large number of spiritual aspirants today are trying to hide in the pigeon holes of their own ‘Self’. They are taught in sophisticated terms and terminology that the ‘Self’ (Atma) is the Supreme God. This could be a wrong and misleading supposition. The ancient method of yoga was developed in a different age which is being promoted in different fashions today. Its effectiveness in calming the body and mind is indisputable. However, for salvation and soul evolution, there are impediments arising out of physical, spiritual, ancestral and karmic bonds with which every soul is affected. The tranquility of the Self cannot be gained without gaining freedom from the karmic bonds and spiritual entanglements accumulated in one’s soul. One can gain this inner freedom only through selfless service at the feet of the Supreme Guru. The path of Santhigiri Ashram is to overcome the spiritual and karmic difficulties through service at the feet of the Guru.
It is said that the nature of our Self is consciousness. But it is wrong to equate it with the Supreme Light. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru said; ‘We are not the Supreme, but only part of it’. To equate ourselves with God was the first spiritual mistake or the ‘original sin’ of mankind. One of the four great enunciations of the Vedas itself is that ‘I am God’ (Aham Brahmasmi). A curse has befallen on the world due to this error. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru conveyed to humanity when and how this spiritual error occurred and with what consequence. This is a new knowledge in the spiritual history of mankind. This was revealed from the Supreme Light to Santhigiri Guru Parampara.
The above said spiritual error occurred in the 3rd Chaturyuga of the present Manvantara and thereafter, due to Godly curse, the sages could not experience spiritual light. In the 7th Chaturyuga, the Supreme authorized Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara - three spiritual evolutes to impart spiritual knowledge to mankind. It was thus the Trimurty worship originated in the world. In the subsequent period, the first error was repeated in the Trimurty tradition also, because, contrary to the Will of the Supreme, the Trimurty were equated with the Supreme God. Again corruption took place in the dharma and karma of mankind. After the 3rd Chaturyuga, now it is the 28th Chaturyuga, which means we have lived with this spiritual fall for several ages.
The pollution in dharma affected mankind in various ways. In the passage of time, a priestly class came into existence. They developed complex rituals imposing discriminatory laws on the less privileged with the help of the rulers and fabricating mythical stories. The people were segregated on the basis of castes and true spiritual knowledge was denied to them. The birth of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru was to initiate a correction in the dharma and karma of this ancient land. The Guru’s liberating ideology should reach at all door steps for the transformation of India. The Teertha Yatra was to touch the heart of India and its people.
The Sudras, the majority in the society, were encouraged to worship low and evil spirits and follow sinful customs and practices. The status of women was degraded. Women, irrespective of their caste tags, were bracketed under Sudra and denied of spiritual knowledge and enlightenment. The children and the family go astray if the women were ignorant of dharma, karmic and spiritual laws. The Indian society was thus degenerated into depths of despondency, superstition and ignorance. Dharma and Karma when practiced wrong for a long time cause wrong Karma Gati among the people, i.e. wrong karmic tendencies in the soul. The result of wrong Karma Gati would be perpetual misery and downward spiral of the soul and the family. When the families thus become victims of wrong Karma Gati, not only the family, but the society suffers, the nation suffers and ultimately the whole world. So fundamentally what is to be rectified and reoriented is the old perceptive on dharma, which we blindly follow not knowing what merits and demerits it would emboss on our soul and family. The Teertha Yatra was to carry this message to the Indian masses.
Due to wrong worship, ignorance about dharma and karma, the majority of Indians became physically and mentally raw and brutish without any positive inclinations in life. They became Sudra in the real sense. They stood divided even when the cultural and spiritual motifs of the society were being destroyed by foreign invaders. India was crushed. India became a slave country for centuries. Even at such times, the priestly and ruling class, excepting certain valiant men and women, sided with the foreign invaders for their selfish ends. Always, the ordinary people suffered. India suffered. The route of the Teertha Yatra showcased the symbols of this past suffering of India.
The people are used as tools and misguided in the name of religion and politics. How can India escape from this suffering? The spiritual renaissance initiated by Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru addresses this question. Guru said that Kaliyuga is the age of enlightenment for all, especially the Sudra. India is destined to lead the world again, Guru predicted. The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita Janani, the Guru apparent of Santhigiri Ashram is the commencement of this spiritual renaissance of India.
According to Sanatana Dharma, propounded by the great Rishis, each time segment (yuga) in the creation undergoes cyclic evolution, in order that all living beings merge with the Supreme after fulfilling their full growth and potential. Therefore, the soul undergoes birth and death several times, to fulfill the dharma and virtues associated with each birth. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru said that this cosmic plan is known as Yuga Dharma and each Yuga has its specific dharma. Contrary to this, in the present Kaliyuga, the dharma of the past Yugas – the Treta Yuga and Dwapara Yuga is followed, which is the worship of Devi-Devas (celestial beings and angels) and their propitiation through Yaga, Yagna and other originated in the world. In the subsequent period, the first error was repeated in the Trimurty tradition also, because, contrary to the Will of the Supreme, the Trimurty were equated with the Supreme God. Again corruption took place in the dharma and karma of mankind. After the 3rd Chaturyuga, now it is the 28th Chaturyuga, which means we have lived with this spiritual fall for several ages.
It was Sri Krishna, who, in the beginning of Kaliyuga, hinted about the dharma of Kaliyuga. He exhorted Arjuna to abandon the dharmic precepts that were being followed and surrender to Him (Krishna) as his spiritual guide, the Guru or Master. Krishna, the Guru imparted spiritual vision and experience to Arjuna. Krishna categorically stated that it was not through the learning of the Vedas spiritual realization is gained, but through surrender and devotion to the Guru, the embodiment of supreme enlightenment. Remember that Krishna was the spiritual authority of Dwapara Yuga, born in a Yuga Sandhi (confluence of two ages). He was born in Dwapara Yuga just before the commencement of Kali Yuga. His duty, accordingly, was to assess the past and delineate the dharma of Kaliyuga.
The Vedic tradition, however, refused to accept Krishna’s spiritual authority and in the subsequent period created myths that Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu, a God in the Trimurty tradition. Krishna was thus brought under the Vedic ritualism. The same mistake was repeated in the case of Buddha, who came subsequent to Sri Krishna. It was wrong to do so, because Krishna was a highly elevated soul, a Supreme Guru incarnate, who had transcended the spiritual planes of Trimurty and demigods. The visit of Sishyapoojita Janani and her entourage to Mathura and Vrindavan was to honor that great soul, the manifestation of supreme spiritual enlightenment.
Another revelation of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru of paramount importance is about the difference between the spiritual status of Devi-devas and a Guru who has transcended the spiritual planes of devi-devas. Guru revealed that there are ten spiritual planes which a soul has to transcend before it could experience the Light of Brahman. The Trimurty and Devi Devas occupy a position up to and below the sixth plane. But the formless truth of the Soul is experienced only after the sixth plane. Sri Krishna was a soul who had transcended the eighth spiritual plane by birth itself. In the Kaliyuga, God is to be worshipped through the medium of the Supreme Guru who comes as the authority of the age.
How do we recognize that Supreme Guru? The Supreme Guru would have transcended the planes of Demigods and Trimurty, i.e. he should have at least transcended the seventh plane in spirituality. He would be a Trikala Jnani and should be able to look into what had happened in the past Yugas and act according to the will of Brahman to initiate corrections in Dharma, as required of the age. That Guru and His lineage will receive revealed words from the Supreme Light to guide humanity forward and his words will be the Vedas for the whole humanity.
Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru is that Supreme Guru, who transcending all spiritual planes, became the authority of the age, whose disciples get revealed words from the Supreme Light of Brahman. The dharma of Kali Yuga is to surrender at the feet of that Supreme Guru, in love and devotion, to attain spiritual enlightenment as well as worldly progress. This is the exalted vision of Santhigiri Ashram. Guru cuts away the wrong Karma Gati of the soul, of the family and the ancestors, which helps the birth of good progeny in the family with physical and mental prowess and also with spiritual vision and enlightenment. Guru removes all barriers of caste, religion, class and creed binding human beings in the love of God. Guru is the reflection, the veil of the impersonal or the formless Supreme Being, the Light of the universe. God is to be realized through the medium of Guru. This is the concept of Santhigiri Ashram. This path, Gurumargam, will join human hearts, liberating them from religious and cultural confinements and narrowness. The Teertha Yatra of Santhigiri Ashram went weaving new threads of spiritual enlightenment in the social fabric of India.
After Guru merged with Adi Sankalpam (merging with the Light of Brahman) on 6th May, 1999, Sishyapoojita Janani Amrita Jnana Tapaswini carries the Light and mission of Guru. Sishyapoojita was born at Kallar in Idukki district, Kerala. She became entitled to the position of the first Sishyapoojita, i.e. the venerated among the disciples in the Guru Parampara through her dedicated life of renunciation from the age of seven, when she met Guru for the first time.
Sishyapoojita receives revelations and transcendent visions from the Light of Brahman, through the medium of Guru and imparts this knowledge for the guidance of humanity. She carries out spiritual intercessions on behalf of the Guru parampara. Sishya Poojita undertook the Teertha Yatra as per the Will of the Supreme through the spiritually and historically important places in North-Western India carrying the message of Guru and performing unique spiritual intercessions inspiring hundreds of people from all walks of life including heads of spiritual, religious, political, social and educational institutions.
The soul of India is ailing. The Rishis and sages are not in peace due to the wrong course of dharma. So too are the ancestral souls who suffer unable to get elevated birth, due to polluted dharma and family institutions. We can understand from the long history of India that her heart has been rent several times by the bloody march of greed, violence and ignorance by depredators, religious crusaders and cruel invaders, both internal and external. The soil of India is soaked with the blood of thousands of innocent souls. Such places appear wearing the dark blanket of wrong Karma Gati. Only by the grace of the Supreme Guru, those places and the souls inhabiting in the subtle could be liberated from the misery and a new vista of light brought through the spiritual intercession (sankalpam) of Sishyapoojita, the Guru Apparent. While burning the old Karma Gati, she paves the way for a new Karma Gati to germinate in those places. Children carrying the light and mission of Guru will take birth wherever Sishyapoojita Janani went during her Teertha Yatra. This is how a Supreme Guru brings transformation to the soul of a society.
The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita was a journey cleansing India of the age old dharmic aberrations. The dawn of change and spiritual rise of India is not far. One well known neurologist, who was accompanying Sishyapoojita in the Teertha Yatra asked her how she performs this spiritual intercession. Sishyapoojita’s explanation was that on reaching a place, she could see in vision the characteristic of that place and the souls connected with it. When these souls come under her observation, she does the sankalpam for their deliverance, or for a suitable birth subsequently so that they could work out the remaining karma. The spiritual visions of several other initiates travelling with Sishyapoojita corroborated with such revelations.
The Teertha Yatra of Sishyapoojita Amrita Jnana Tapaswini was a multifaceted exercise in building goodwill, peace and harmony among different sections of people apart from its deep rooted spiritual connotation. It was not only a spiritual journey, but an educative one spreading the light of knowledge and interaction among the different people and institutions of India in spiritually and historically important places. She visited dozens of important institutions and imparted spiritual bliss and wisdom to more than 3000 people during her journey of 25 days. The Teertha Yatra of Sishya Poojita Janani will ever be remembered in the spiritual history of India. It would take India to the zenith of spiritual glory.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Speech Delivered by Sri ONV Kurup at Santhigiri Ashram
Become Virtuous by Following Guru’s Words
O.N.V. Kurup
This wide auditorium and this enlightened assembly in Santhigiri Ashram are not new to me. I had come here many times earlier. I won’t fail to repeat a thought that I used to mention on those occasions. You reverently utter a hymn before stepping into this good place. You touch this earth on to your forehead. I say this because of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru. I don’t need to explain to the disciples of Guru that how Guru, due to a divine restlessness and inspired by a insuppressible desire to seek some elusive truth came from Cherthala Taluk, north of old Travancore and settled down south in this Ashram ambiance. When Guru took abode here, he had three things in his mind. First is serving of food, second curing the sick and the third spiritual awakening. Based on these three principles, the ashram is established here. Human society requires these three always, everywhere. But many institutions that are in existence today to fulfill this aim have limited themselves to small circles.
There are big healthcare centers here. There are multi-specialty hospitals where any types of disease could be diagnosed and treated. But the common man stands outside its reach. A few years back, when I was standing in the company of a Bengali poet friend in front of the now partially gutted Mumbai’s Taj Hotel, due to the recent attack by terrorists, we saw few chickens hedged in under nylon net behind the hotel lawn. They are clucking, pecking, hackling and cruising across engaged in petty fights and recreation. They are unaware of the fate that awaits them. They do not know what will happen to them tomorrow. While standing thus watching them, my Bengali poet friend said. “Chick, you are fortunate! Tomorrow uniformed men will present you in silver tray on the roof top of this hotel. Then we will stand here down this street”. When I heard this I said. ‘I have two lines to add to it’. “When you go high up, you will be in the form of food that fills the appetite of somebody; but poor we are though, we will stand down as ourselves”. There lies the difference. What would you choose? Do you require that you are carried in silver platter by beautifully uniformed men to appease the hunger of someone or do you want to stand as yourselves, although poor and troubled? We will choose the second.
It is a question of freedom, the freedom of the soul. It is this freedom we have to first protect. We should not hypothecate this freedom to anyone. It is because of this, world famous poet Sri Ravindranath Tagore appended one song in Gitanjali among mystic verses about freedom, giving it a beautiful definition. ‘Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high’…writing few things thus he prays; ‘Unto that heaven of freedom, O’ My Lord, let my country awake and arise.’ Outwardly it’s a prayer but in its depth it defines the meaning of freedom for us. Freedom is a state wherein mind is fearless and our head is held high. While we introspect ourselves whether we have achieved that state even after six decades of freedom, we could realize that ‘we have miles to go and miles to go’, those lines of Robert Frost, Nehru had written in his last days. We have so many miles to go. Here arises a question Quo Vadis, 'where are you going?'. When this question, having reached a cul-de-sac without an answer, we implore the infinity of a way. Then a Guru should be there to disclose it. It is that Guru who becomes the benevolence in the form of food in front of the hungry, medicine and healing at the time of sickness. We should try to seek God thus.
That is what Guru said. God may be worshiped with a symbolic form for the convenience of the devotee. Some people can worship only through such symbols. Most people are unable to conceive an abstract concept. Make the abstract a concrete symbol. Once an Englishman asked Chattambi Swami why the Hindus worship idols, why a portrait is worshiped as God, why the necessity of an image etc. The Englishman did not have the inner wisdom even if an explanation was given. Therefore, Chattambi Swami remained silent. There was a framed portrait of the Englishman’s family. He was a little child and stood with his father and mother in the portrait. Chattambi Swami picked up the portrait and dropped it down. Then the Englishman asked. ‘Hey! What are you doing? This is my father and mother’. Then the swami said, “O’ I didn’t know it was your father and mother. But isn’t it just a piece of paper, just a portrait? If a portrait can remind you of your father and mother, an ordinary man can similarly remember God through a portrait. Thus it was in a practical way the doubt of the Englishman was clarified. There is no use talking to them Vedanta. They would not understand the hymns and prayers in Sanskrit, Latin or Arabic. When the glass-framed portrait was dropped down, the Englishman felt that his father and mother were being insulted. That means the portrait is symbolic. Similarly when a lotus is seen with an Aumkar inside, we are reminded that it represents something. We get the revelation that the primal sound of creation took place in the symbolic thousand petaled-lotus. Bible gives the same revelation – that the hungry man at your door begging food is god; the one begging for clothes is god, but whom you do not recognize. When you are asked to recognize that the hungry man at your doorstep is god or the man standing naked in front of you without clothes is god that gives you the ultimate meaning of Annadanam (serving of free food) and Atmabodhanam (spiritual mentoring).
In the hospitals I mentioned, multi-speciality healthcare facilities are available only to a small segment. The healthcare Guru envisioned was for everyone. Wherever man is affected with disease, medicine should be available to all sick people. There is a vision behind this. I had mentioned it in the Siddha College here on a previous occasion. I have to repeat it again. What is an idealistic life? There are three types of nature. This also is an ancient Indian concept. First there is plant life beginning from shrubs, creepers and grass to the giant sylvan tree. Guru cultivated a herbal garden which resembles a thick forest. It is the beautiful home of herbs and flora. The second nature is of animals which includes birds and other animals. Third is the human world. We are with many temperaments as it is in human nature. A plant or a creeper angles toward light. Man also does the same. There can be men who love darkness, like some plants that grow under the shade of trees. So an idealistic life is the most appropriate harmony or concordance of vegetable, animal and human natures. This was the vision of Guru, as I have understood it.
It is because of this a herb stands there silently speaking to us, “use me, press and extract out my essence and give to the sick man”. It may be njavara or a tulasi or some other herbs Guru finds out in his eagerness to cure. When a person is tested less Hemoglobin, the Tazhutama is found which silently agrees to be the concoction for providing relief to that person. There is somebody with swelling in his liver or suffering from yellow fever. There is the poor Keezharnelli in the house yard which beseech you to make it a medicine and give to the suffering man. This is what the plant life gives us. There are villains also among them. There is a tree known us cheru maram. If you stand with your back on this, the whole body will itch. If you get itched like this, there stands another tree beckoning you to embrace it to give you relief from itching. The Allopath would say that when you embrace that tree what occurs is a phenomenon called antihistamines. It is true. It is antihistamines what is given as a cure for allergy. Thus when the biological world opens its bosom to us, a new science is born in the area of health care. It is based on this science of India the college is established here. Siddha medicine depends more on animal nature while Ayurveda draws more from plant life. Guru has discovered both of this and established colleges for it.
There is a question that by doing only Annadanam and Aturasevanam would you be a human? No. With only this, one cannot become human. In the camps of terrorists also food is served. Plenty of food is given. When they become sick they have their own hospitals for treatment. But in the matter of humanism they stand four neighborhoods away. It is because they have no self knowledge. Why a terrorist does not have this? He is trying to change the world as per his own perspective, but he does not have self- knowledge. One may have some dreams, desires or expectation based on some concepts that my country should be in this way or that. But he is a fascist who is deluded into thinking that what he thinks is the sole and indivisible truth.
Swastika is a symbol that had gone from India. Hitler committed heinous genocide imprinting swastika on his hand. He sacrificed human beings in gas chambers. The values for which India stood were not even in the neighborhood of his conscience, because he was a fascist. What ultimately is self consciousness? When I sit in meditation with closed eyes, I do not know any others except myself. My subtle nerve awakens. When I sit like this people may think that I know myself, but this is not true self knowledge. What we say as Atman is the whole universe. I find my self when the sorrow of Palestine, the sorrow of Sri Lanka and of the children and mothers who were driven out as refuges, the sorrow of innocent people being burnt by terrorists and the sorrow of all people enter my mind as my own sorrow. My self knowledge becomes actualized only when I realize the sorrow of the world and find a solution to it.
It is driven by sorrow of the self, a man who was born in Kapilavasthu long ago, forsook his beautiful wife and newborn baby looking at them for a last time. It was the place where Buddha spent his time (vihar) came to be known as Bihar today. He received enlightenment sitting under a sylvan tree there. That self illumination came from a Guru two thousand five hundred years ago while searching for a solution to the distress of the world. It is in the same Guru lineage, after five centuries, another man was born in the land beside the Sea of Galilee. He satiated the hunger of poor people with five loafs of bred and a fish. He transformed water into wine when there was no wine at a marriage. This is not magic. A European poet explained it thus beautifully. When the creator looked upon this water, seeing the face of the creator, water blushed. When little children see people their cheeks become blushed, isn’t it? Like wise, when water saw in it the reflected face of its creator, it became absolutely excited. That is how it became wine. There is a flame of subtle truth in this metaphor.
It was after five centuries of Buddha another Guru was born – Christ. The symbol of that culture today is the cross in which he was crucified. I have not put it on my chest or pinned it on my shirt. But it should be there in my soul. Thrust on a cross, every nerve torn by unbearable pain, a man was suffering great pain for the sake of whole humanity. Death was creeping in every atom of his body, inch by inch, as torture. The Christ who thus died through torture and endurance has not died in me. He lives in you and in me though crucified umpteen times. That is what is known us self illumination. There is a song of African people sung by Paul Robson. “Our Christ is a black, black, black old man”. Christ is a Jew. Jews are white like milk. For a Negro, the Christ who dwells in his heart, the Christ who struggled on the cross for his liberation from sorrow, could only be a black Christ. He envisioned a Christ who is Negro. Then he exclaims and jumps in joy. “Yesterday that Christ was crucified by somebody but he woke up this morning, he woke up this morning”. That Christ was one among them for the Negro. A Christ with iron nail- wounds in his hands. Almost like their Mandela. It was in Africa, Gandhiji had first commenced the training for the struggle for freedom, much before he became the symbol of freedom in India. His initiation in the liberation struggle in Africa was by his two front teeth. That happens because of self awareness.
What we could see in politics are only the parties and party manifestos and their pitched battle. It is all normal in politics. I am not detesting or deriding them, however. Beyond all this, remaining in whatever party they are, they should become knowledgeable about the Self. That self knowledge is nothing else but the realization that God stands in front of my gate hungry and naked. It has been said that “concern for the other person is the starting point of civilization”. When do I become civilized? I don’t become civilized if I wear beautiful shirt and dhoti and spray perfume. Becoming civilized is not like companies such as Raymond declare “feel great with Raymond”, displaying the image of some well dressed people.
What makes me civilized is the concern, attention and anxiety that I have for the other person in the world outside of me. So it is not by dress or perfume. Now there are beauty shops. Men also go there and get their hair styled. He does not become civilized by this also. Here the other person is a multitude - the hungry for food and the sick without a means for treatment. Do you not read in newspapers about uncared people who have nobody to take them home from the cancer ward or from Ward No. 9 of the General Hospital? Several aged people, sleeping naked on the floor. Then there are children employed in America who send 100 dollars for the cremation expenses of their parents. These people are not civilized.
It is for this illness treatment is required. The Aturasevanam meant by Guru is that. What is mentioned here is not just for recording it down. But the disciples of Guru should understand its inner and in-depth meaning and should impart it to others. When you go to tell this, somebody may oppose. Long back, when the disciples went to convey the teachings of Buddha, they were driven out by some twice borns, the Brahmanas, wearing sacred thread. The disciples then went back to Buddha and said; “when we were talking about your ideology sitting down in the lawn of that temple, they drove us out and beat us. What should we do?” Then Buddha said. “You can sit down wherever there is earth. You can talk to all men who are there as men. But you should speak in the language that they understand’. Therefore, know that Christ, Gandhi and Vivekananda are all from this great Guru linage of Buddha, who instructed to talk to all men that are men, sitting down wherever there is earth, but speak only the language they understand. India is like a great pyramid. If you want to see that great pyramid fully, you should illuminate it. A lamp would be lit at every corner. When all the lamps are lit you could see the structure in its full view. There are many such lamps that had lit up the great spire called India beyond the horizon of this world. The Gurus are those lamps.
We should propagate the concept of Guru in a language that would be understood. What does it mean by understandable language? Now nobody understands if it is said in Malayalam. There are some people who teach lot of treachery and stratagem. I will tell you an example. We go home and ask our mother; “Mother, I am hungry. Is there something to eat?” When you ask thus, “Son, there is nothing here’ or ‘I will prepare something for you fast’, or ‘you sit down, there is some rice left which I will give you’. These are all straight forward answers. It is said as truthful musings of truth. That is truthful language. On the contrary, suppose a mother speaks the language of some literary critique or political speech: “Hunger is a global phenomenon. How this global phenomenon has affected us, it will be analyzed and an expert opinion sought. Necessary arrangements would be made after examining the issue’. This is what is said as teaching language falsehood.
You should understand that Gurus do not teach falsehood to language. Political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Lenin and Washington did not teach language any falsehood. That is why Buddha said you should speak to all men that are men and at all lands whatever is land, but in the language they understand. Sri Narayana Guru was a great Sanskrit scholar. One may read his work Daiva Dasakam. It is in a language mixed with old Tamil and Malayalam. You know when he said ‘aaraayukil’, the meaning is ‘if you enquire’. You should speak in a language that could be understood. If it is asked whether there is God, I would say that I do not know. Once, a saint by the name St. Augustine gave a reply like this; “If you ask me whether there is (God) I do not know. If you do not ask, I know”. So how do we answer if it is asked whether there is God or not. If you ask me thus, I do not know. I cannot prove the existence of God going into a laboratory, pouring something in the test tube. All people are like this.
When the sorrow of all people becomes the sorrow in ones mind, when that sorrow becomes his own, it is that person who is civilized. When I visited Rajghat last time, I saw in the Gandhi Museum the blood stained cloths of Mahatma Gandhi which he wore when he was shot dead. He was running a newspaper by the name Young India. This was an answer given by him to the questions of some young men. ‘Your mind falls into an unreasonable pensive mood. You ask me that we should do in such occasion. This is what we call as one type of existential sorrow. When you are caught with such type of intellectual sadness, you remember the face of the most pathetic and saddest man you have seen on the street you traveled that day. You introspect yourself whether you have done anything for him. Your sorrow will disappear.
People talk about some loneliness–depression related sickness. If we want to remove this sickness, we must remember the face of the most depressed and saddest person we have seen on the roadside. In Tamil they say ‘sabhai arinthu pesh’. You speak after realizing who is the people you are talking to and where do they stand. Then in relation to India, the time for a renaissance is late. It is a matter of pride that we still have democracy. There are two countries like two ears of India, to its east and west, which gained freedom along with India. One is Bangladesh and the other is Pakistan. These two are not secular. There all citizens are not alike. The important citizens are only people belonging to a particular religion, the rest are secondary citizens. Taslima Nazreen wrote that the life of a woman is shameful in such a Bangladesh. And today she is hunted down by many without having a place to reside. She said that she should be shameful for being born as a women living in Bangladesh. During the time of Indira Gandhi, we shed much blood to free this Bangladesh. But when Mukthi Bahini had won, they turned against India. We should remember that while there is no democracy in these two countries, it is both the greatness of India and its entire people that democracy still exists in India.
We should feel proud of India in this respect. If it is asked why it is so, it is because there were great souls in the bosom of India whom I mentioned earlier such as Buddha, Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Vivekananda and also some great people who respected work utmost. What for Vivekananda swam over to that rock? It was not for exhibiting his health. Swimming across to that rock and sitting there, he saw stretched in front the great land that is India. It is said that a great multitude was seen as expanding from a point. Try to figure out mentally how seen from Kanyakumari India diverges rising from a point.
It is thus internally visualizing India he said, ‘Awake, Arise and Stop Not until the Goal is achieved’. We should protect the light given by such a Guru linage. There is no relevance here for the discussion whether it is idealism or materialism. On the contrary, perhaps one factor both the materialists and the atheists could agree upon is the inner unity in the heart of this people. Thus you are ever conscious to assimilate and work for the concept of Guru through Annadanam, Aturasevanam and Atmabodhanam in its true depth and meaning and become a glorious people. You are duty bound to do this. I conclude my weak sounding words reminding you of this duty.
(Speech delivered by ONV Kurup, famous Malayalam poet and writer, at Santhigiri Ashram, 'Thiruvananthapuram, translated from the original Malayalam by Mukundan P.R.)
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