Guru's Immortal Moments

 

Having for some years been engaged in writing a memoir of half a century of discipleship of Guru Nitya, and still feeling that project to be mid-stream, retrospection highlights an overwhelming abundance of blessings worth sharing. Out of that abundance, this is a simple glimpse, an opportunity to focus on one thread of the tapestry, a thread of guidance and inspiration that has touched many lives and has been, for me, both a sturdy lifeline and a gossamer path to follow.

 

In one sense, Guru was “delivering” this lesson every day, throughout his life, by his example, but I happened to record a clear articulation of it in my travel journal, Wonder Journey with a Wandering Guru, in 1979. We were on a long train journey in Australia, when Guru asked for paper and pen. On the notepad I handed him, he wrote:

 

1. ldealization

2. Demolition

3. Mobilization

4. Actualization

5. Stabilization

6. Realization

 

Then he wrote beside them: “Six Steps to Realization.” As we talked he explained further:

“ln order to actualize an ideal, to bring something into being, some things have to be demolished and cleared away. To mobilize you need a lucidity of vision to know how to proceed, which direction to go. Actualization is the process of bringing it into being brick by brick. The difference between actualization and realization is the difference between a house and a home. Once you have built up the structure you need to come to be at home in it.”

 

Then Guru said: “This is an example of how we can immortalize every moment. My philosophy is to immortalize each moment or to deposit it.” While I took some time to write and reflect, he “deposited” a few minutes in sleep, before continuing his lesson on the six steps.

 

We may tend to think of immortal as referring to something grand or distant or mystical, but Guru was instead drawing attention to our capacity to make every moment meaningful by attuning ourselves to the presence and actualization of our dearest values, such as love, wisdom, compassion, honesty, beauty, wonder, freedom, harmony, happiness, creativity, clarity, peace, steadfastness. He manifested this in countless ways, such as turning a long train ride into a wisdom-teaching opportunity. He did something similar on another shared journey, under less comfortable circumstances, which I also recorded in my journal (we were traveling from Mumbai to the Netherlands in January 1981):

 

At 11:30 pm the sign for our flight number went up and we stood in line to check in our luggage. At that time we were informed that the plane would leave only at 6 am. At the thought of so many more hours in the heat and noise, on uncomfortable chairs, I was starting to succumb to a wave of self-pity and annoyance. But then I observed how Guru was reacting. First, he disappeared for a short while. He returned with a stack of pre-stamped blank postcards. He then spread out his thick wool shawl on the floor, sat down on it, leaned against the wall, and began to write cards to many dear ones, adding small poems and drawings. This was an example of how a Guru can teach profound lessons through his silent actions, which eloquently communicated that the misery I was experiencing was a choice, and that I could make a different choice. Not only was he not indulging in self-pity, he was using the situation as an opportunity for sharing his love and creativity with many.

 

But such examples didn’t just show up while we were traveling. Rather, they were woven into the fabric of daily life. Everywhere we lived together (whether in India, Australia, the US, Europe, or the UK), but most particularly at his “home” gurukula in Fernhill (Tamilnadu, India), his days were full of “immortalized moments,” punctuated by “deposits” of sleep and contemplative merging into all.

 

With rare exceptions, he worked all day, every day: writing/dictating books in two languages; writing letters, poems, newspaper and magazine articles, also in two languages; preparing talks, classes, symposia, and cultural celebrations; teaching and counseling individuals, couples, families, businesses, organizations; cooking; farming; engaging in community uplift; overseeing maintenance and construction projects… But the atmosphere was free-flowing, peaceful, at times even playful or celebratory, always pervaded by a sense of timelessness.

 

Like a bee moving from flower to flower, he would move from one activity, one focus, to another, so that his energy stayed fresh and kept flowing instead of becoming stagnated by trying to force a result. He treated each change like a break or vacation from the preceding project, which would in time be welcomed back in the same way. And yet, book after book, article after article, were being generated and countless human beings benefited by his compassionate guidance.

 

We usually worked in the same room, the computer on which I typed and edited his English books, articles and letters was just a few steps away from his desk. I, too, found the work absorbing and heart-filling. But I also had the habit of getting caught up in reaching a particular goal such as completing a chapter or the like, pushing on even when I was tired and losing focus. One day he looked over at me and kindly but firmly said: “Nancy, you are getting too horizontalized.” I knew just what he meant: I was captured (one could say “flattened”) by trying to reach a goal, no longer in touch with the values that inspired. Intrinsic to immortalizing a moment is remembering the value content and context of any given action, which is naturally a process of widening the sense of self.

 

That day, with smiling relief, I turned off the computer and let my attention become more bee-like, knowing that when I returned to the project I would be fresher and more capable of immortalizing rather than suffering through the moments as I worked. And I have carried that watchword with me, checking to see if I was becoming “too horizontalized” as I worked, wherever I was.

 

Of course, for me as for most of us, there have been many moments of life when the constraints around a task to be accomplished were tighter: while being employed to do a job requiring coordination with others or having committed to projects with deadlines. Times when “turning off the computer” was not a ready option. Still, Guru’s words were there with me to guide choices as simple as taking a moment to stretch, to clear the head with a walk, and especially to let go of the whirlpooling thoughts that can shrink the sense of identity to an “I” who does and who suffers.

 

This human tendency toward becoming too horizontalized is counteracted by our capacity to be “verticalized.” A favorite analogy shared with us by the gurus is that of waves and water: the waves move horizontally across the surface, appearing and disappearing, while the vertical depth continues. Guru describes it like this in That Alone, his incomparable translation and commentary of Narayana Guru’s Atmopadesa Satakam:

 

Each wave symbolizes a certain movement of consciousness as “I...I...I....” “I am listening to you,”––that’s one ‘I’, one aham. “I appreciate what you say,”––that’s another aham. “I don’t like it.” Another aham. “Oh, I like it very much.” Another aham. “It depresses me.” Aham. ““It hurts me.” Aham.  The ‘I’ and ‘me’ which come one after another are as endless as waves on the ocean, while at the same time each formation of the ‘I’ perishes in the very next moment, just as waves expend themselves on the shore.

 

But there is another way of seeing the ocean:

 

There is water at the surface, in the middle and at the bottom. It has no special feature of its own, but when we look at its depth it gains a great deal of meaning. . . . The wave cannot do anything to reach the depths of the ocean without losing itself. When you lose yourself it doesn’t matter; you become the ocean, because you are in it and you are of it. The same particles which constitute a wave are now finding their individual descent to the very depths of the ocean. The ocean subsumes the wave. When you are not separated from the ocean, you are the whole.

 

He compassionately points out one way we become separated:

 

Your minds are so conditioned by contracts! Life is taught to us to be like a contract: you give something and then you get something; you produce something and then you are given some time off; you sow and then you reap. But in higher nature you don’t get what you sow––you are reaping what was sown by someone else and you are sowing for someone else to reap. The key is there is no difference between that someone and you if you have a verticalized vision.

 

Developing and manifesting a verticalized vision can take many forms and can be understood in a variety of ways, which Guru creatively demonstrated at significant junctures and moment by moment. He read, had read to him, and wrote commentaries on wisdom texts from around the world; he read and celebrated the insights and inspirations of poetry, drama, art, and music; he stayed current with the latest theories and discoveries of science; in these and many other ways he actively explored and highlighted the countless treasures of human insight and creativity. His delight and enthusiasm in such sharing was contagious, with the power of reviving lagging spirits and igniting fresh interests in his students and readers.

 

And, at any given moment, and most especially at the beginning or end of the twice-daily classes in the gurukulas, he would simply close his eyes, and enter into a contemplative silence so profound that all present were naturally, effortlessly drawn into the vast serenity of our shared vertical depth. His gentle merging into absorption demonstrated that this was possible for us all.

 

His guidance toward verticalizing took many other forms as well. For example, when he taught a class, whether at a private home or a gurukula, or even at a college where professors and instructors were usually paid, he did not accept compensation. When he was invited to give a talk or asked to write an article, or when he devoted many hours to writing a commentary on a major work, he did so freely, joyfully. And whenever I had the chance to work on his projects with him, it felt like a gift: to me!

 

In the years since, when I have undertaken similar projects or received requests for articles, talks, or wisdom-teaching, his example has naturally guided my responses to be free of contractual “static.” Whether founding a gurukula, publishing a magazine and books, teaching classes, giving a talk, writing an article, editorial, or paper: the inherent values of sharing wisdom and love have called to me, evoking a spontaneous “yes” again and again. More blessings than I could have imagined have unfolded from every consent. Every such opportunity manifested the higher nature that he often referred to as “the way of the Tao”: “you don’t get what you sow––you are reaping what was sown by someone else and you are sowing for someone else to reap. The key is there is no difference between that someone and you if you have a verticalized vision.”

 

His words quoted above are from his commentary on verse 75, itself a beautiful expression and revelation of the secret of immortalizing every moment:

 

Nature is water, the body is foam, the Self is the depth;

“I am, I am”—thus, a restless repetition like a series of waves;

every inner blossom of knowledge attained is a pearl;

indeed, whatever each finds delight in is the nectar of immortal bliss.

 

Joyful moment by joyful moment, Guru demonstrated and encouraged us to see that— both when we outwardly manifest our dearest values, and when we turn inward—we nurture our oneness with all. This is the precious honey of immortality in our own depth, which we can bring to the surface to share with all around. Intrinsic to that sowing and reaping is the gratitude that fills my heart with each reflection on Guru’s life and loving wisdom, blessing moment after moment with immortal bliss.

 

AUM​