It’s Guru Pournima today, the day we honour our gurus. In a pre-pandemic world, there would have been a 90-120 minutes programme that would include a talk or two as well as the release of the quarterly magazine and other books. The large hall would fill up quickly with both local and international students and one of the teachers would urge us to shift further in and towards the front to accommodate everyone. These occasions would see old students from out of town as well, a time for communal gratitude. That degree of bodily proximity though is a scary thought in today’s scenario. This year, the hall will remain empty while a talk by Prashant Iyengar will be beamed out via the internet.
I’m not familiar with Hindu rituals and traditions and hence have no understanding of what is done and the little that I have gathered is from seeing, listening and reading about it. I do find meaning in symbolism though, it is useful as an aid to staying with a thought, cooking it and letting it release its essence. There is a story in the Bhagwata Purana where King Yadu is told about the 24 gurus: earth, air, sky, water, fire, moon, sun, pigeon, python, sea, moth, honeybee, elephant and honey thief, deer, fish, the prostitute Pingala, the kurara bird, the child, young girl, arrow maker, serpent, spider and wasp. In classic Purana style, each of these is used to convey a moral and an exhortation for the seeker. Traditionally, one was supposed to memorize everything before the guru would begin to explain. In a sense, memorization would be preparing the field. I’ve found that as a method or technique, repetition can be a good teacher. It starts to reveal nuances much before one actually commences study. Perhaps it is the energy of sound that seeps in as a kind of intuitive sensing.
Guruji touched millions of lives, directly and indirectly through his life, his books and his teachers. I never had the privilege of studying from him but the teachers who teach me did and I receive his wisdom through their devotion to him. He lived a householder’s life while remaining a detached yogi, in itself unusual. He experienced the struggles of living in the world of familial responsibilities and ill health, discrimination and poverty. He knew human frailties first hand and through it continued with his sadhana and blazed a path for those coming after him. He lived through all the stages of life without shunning anything.
Personally, I feel Guru is a grace bestowed, one has to be deserving. I struggle with the concept of bhakti. There was a time when it happened but I lost it somewhere during a most difficult time and that overflowing hasn’t come back. There is a slow return to the practices that had built up over time and I hope that eventually I will be graced with that same sense of surety. Yesterday, the page opened to the chapter 9 in the Gita and my first instinct was to change it but decided to stay with the thought instead. I like to think of these random instances as being a way of life to nudge us towards what I most need to learn.
If you are unable to fix your mind upon Me, then by the ‘YOGA of constant practice,’ seek to reach Me, O Dhananjaya.
(BG – 12.9)
It has echoes in the Yoga Sutra, 1.14 and the use of Dhananjaya to address Arjuna is also significant in the implied fruits of such a constant practice. Like the divine charioteer was to Arjuna, Guruji is to his students, past, present and future.
We are because he was.
anonymous sadhaka 