Guru Pooja

Isha Foundation has been conducting a Guru Pooja Training program in Pune this weekend. It is being conducted on the premises of the University of Pune. I have been attending the program as a volunteer and it has been an extremely rewarding experience.

I went through Guru Pooja Training in November 2011 at the Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore. That had been an overwhelming experience at that time. Of course, this time I already knew beforehand about the kind of madness I was going to descend into. But that has not made the experience any less overwhelming.

In my last post, I talked about how Linga Bhairavi is "my greatest embarrassment" - I would never be able to explain Her to the "logical" crowd that I associate with. Well, Guru Pooja is another one of those embarrassing things. Not everyone reading this might know what Guru Pooja is, so I should probably say something about that. However, I simply do not have the courage to explain it in my own words. So here is a link.

Even without going into the details of what Guru Pooja is, I can certainly talk about what I experienced today. As a volunteer, apart from doing the few odd things that required to be done, I spent all day with the participants, doing what they did. I have been drowned in the Guru Pooja chant all day. That probably sounds like the kind of activity that might numb the brain. It is possible that it might numb the brain if you are not really aware of what you are doing. But when done with awareness, it certainly can do some truly marvelous things to you.

Today, as I went on with the chant, I realized something in a very deep way. What I realized is not some kind of an elusive truth - it is really just a bit of common sense that would not surprise anyone at all. And yet, just because you know something does not mean that it has penetrated the depths of your being. Sometimes, the simplest of truths come back to you in very deep ways. That is what happened to me, and what I realized was this - when you chant something like that, you have to chant with your entire being. That may not sound like much, but that is because we don't know what it is to do something with our entire being. When you chant something like that with your entire being, when your entire system comes alive with a strange new intelligence and bends its will on a single utterance... and when what you are uttering is something like this chant, some truly amazing things can happen.

Now I could spend a lot of time talking about those "amazing things that can happen", but what truly overwhelmed me was those few moments when I was chanting with all (or almost all?) my being. What a rare and exhilarating feeling to be in one place, doing one thing. There is truly nothing like it when all the pieces of your being are facing in one direction. Perhaps it takes something like this chant to make it happen. What a blessing it would be to go through life like this!

What miserable people we are! For a moment, let us forget about all the spiritual/philosophical nonsense that we have burdened ourselves with over the centuries. How about just the simple idea that whatever we do, we will do with all our being? We will not drop any of our desires. If we want something, we will desire it with all our being - body, mind and soul (whatever that might be). If you want something, your mind should desire it with all its force. Your body should reach out for it with all its strength. But as it happens, when we desire something, even our mind is not entirely with us. It is already thinking about how we may not get what we want. So we long for it. What a pathetic way to be! To long for something is truly a sin. Either you go ahead and reach for it with the whole of your being or you don't. If your entire being were involved in the act of reaching for something, you would simply not have the time or energy to spend on longing.
 
How many of us can be like this? Whatever way of being one chooses for oneself, that choice must be absolute. It is the only way to be. Perhaps there are people like this. I have certainly seen some people who come close to being like this. I would like to be like this. It is good to get a taste of that possibility once in a while.

I am sure that does not sound like a very profound truth, but as I said, what matters is how deeply one realizes it.

Post-Samyama

Post-Samyama... anyone who is associated with Isha would need no explanation for this term. But for those who do not know, Samyama is an intense eight day yoga program conducted by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev at the Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore. It has been over 3 months since I attended this program and I would like to write about how life has changed since then. The term post-Samyama is quite apt since, as anyone who has been through the program would know, life does change quite dramatically within those eight days.

Of course, it is not possible to speak about what is actually done during the program - partly because it is forbidden to speak about it, but mostly because what happens there is far beyond my understanding anyway. But I think it would be quite appropriate to speak about some general impressions.

As I said, most of the things that happened there are far beyond my understanding. I certainly ran into some difficulties during the program. Physically, I had prepared myself as well as I could have. But then I caught a cold which lead to a fever. And yet, despite my illness and a million other limitations, fortunately what happened there was so huge that I could not escape it. Perhaps if I had prepared myself better, perhaps if I had been psychologically more stable, I could have gotten much more out of it. But there is no point in thinking about that. What matters is that, even with all my limitations, he managed to drag me, kicking and screaming, through a transformation of some sort.

Impressions of Samyama -
Over a thousand people meditating in silence. A man with a white beard and fiery eyes walks among them. Even in that silence, his presence bears down on everyone with the ferocity of the wildest of storms. Sometimes, nothing seems to happen. And sometimes the air crackles and another dimension of life pours in out of nowhere. It is as if he is everywhere at once, there is no escaping him. He is ruthless and almost impatient about our limitations, and yet his compassion shines through his willingness to carry on. A thousand souls, whether they know it or not, whether they believe it or not, are carried to the doorstep of a completely new possibility of life. And after this superhuman effort, he just goes on...

I cannot say much more about the program apart from these vague impressions, but much can be said about how my life changed afterwards. During the program, participants are initiated into the meditational practice called Samyama. I don't know how much I missed during the program, but this practice is the greatest gift I have ever received from anyone. And he gave it to me even though I was so obviously unworthy. It makes no sense to thank him for this. Thanking someone, expressing gratitude is, in a way, a form of repayment. That would make no sense here. It is far better to walk through life being in his debt.

Those who are close to me would know that I went through some very trying experiences immediately after the program. Everything in my life was changing and still is changing with such rapidity that under normal circumstances I would have fallen apart. Through all this, the practice of samyama meditation has served as a lifeline. I will not say that I have not suffered at all. But through all the suffering there has been an undercurrent of silence, and at times even laughter! When I say that there has been an undercurrent of silence, words cannot really convey what that means. It has not been the silence of an empty room. It has been the deeply nourishing silence of life at ease - the kind of silence that carries fire in its belly.

I have begun to experience life with heightened sensitivity. For instance, I recently read the book "Krishna - the Man and his Philosophy" by Osho. It is certainly an extraordinary book. But an extraordinary book can be read in very ordinary ways and then it amounts to nothing. I do know that the very way I read this book was a consequence of Samyama. And as a result, it came vibrantly alive for me. The words poured into me like liquid laughter and Krishna seemed to come alive in a very deep sense. Krishna has always been a character that I have been fond of. Yes, Hindus worship him as a God, but there is no denying the fact that no matter how we pretend to "believe in him", he is just a character in a story for us. And he is a character that we think we know very well. And yet, after I read this book, it was as if I was drowning in something completely new. Of course, that is the greatness of Osho, but I would have never been this receptive to it if it had not been for Samyama. Perhaps this is how people felt when they participated in "Leela" - the program on Krishna that Sadhguru had conducted some years ago in the Isha Yoga Center. 

So intense was that experience that I automatically took to writing. Now, like many other people, I have been guilty of writing atrocious poetry(?) as a child. And I mean, really bad poetry - the sort that later makes you wonder what your parents were doing when you were up to something like this. But that was long ago and I have been sufficiently embarrassed with myself to not want to try anything that rash. But what happened here was truly amazing - the poetry, if I may call it that, poured out of me in one swift motion. Experiences come to us in many ways, but I never really experienced anything in the form of a picture or a song. And yet, that happened to me. One night I was drowned in a powerful image (and no, I don't mean that I saw visions or anything stupid like that) which I turned into a short story called "Radha's pots". Some days later, a song poured out of me, one that I titled as "Radha's song". I am not sure how this would rate as poetry, but for once, I was not embarrassed! Perhaps that is because I don't really see myself as having written any of it.

And who knows what else...