As a kid and later the thrill of this day visiting once a year was a thing to look forward to and cherish later. As any other I too had my joys and fun of this day until it all was questioned and was asked to look deep into my heart. It all happened on the 10th December 1978. the incident was like this.....
It was one of the chill mornings of the about-to set-in winter of the year 1978. I was attending Vedanta classes in Sandeepany Sadhanalaya, Mumbai of Swami Chinmayananda. Sivaramji, the personal attendant to Swamiji used to take the morning coffee for Swamiji at around 04:30 to his kutiya. We knew this was the best time of the day when we can catch Gurudev at best of his moods and with less crowd. Which also gives us longer time on a one to one basis.
As usual there were only four of us apart from Swamiji and Sivaramji. I was eager on that day as it was my birthday and wanted Gurudev's blessing as the first thing in the morning. So we were squatting on the floor of his personal office, waiting for Swamiji to come from his chamber and occupy his chair with his beaming smile and penetrating eyes.
As expected Swamiji came and occupied his chair. As he settled himself on the chair. I got up and went up to him, bent on my knees and whispered to Gurudev that I need his blessing as it is my birthday. With his normal raucous laughter, a paradoxical and rhetoric in intention, he asked me " Whose? and then quoted अजो नित्य शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणः.........(Ajo nitya swashwatoyam puranah.....meaning The Unborn, The Eternal, The Everlasting, The Ancient...) I was dumb founded and was shaken by his action. I might have been in that frozen moment for sometime and not realizing what is it all about, while I was looking at his face, he with his smile repeated the same and lifting my chin gave his penetrating look which pierced through me to the bottom of my heart.
I was speechless and bowed to him. At that time he tapped on my head and said "THINK.....THINK.....THINK" ..... and he smiled again.
I sat in his presence for may be an hour or so while he was listing to others and giving advise on their personal questions. I, sitting there was not able to listen any of that was happening, but his words were ringing in my ears, nay, my heart and the whole body was reverberating of those words..
Throughout that day I was moving around trying to get the message of Gurudev and its implication or its relevance to my request for his blessing.
We had regular classes and lecture by Gurudev in the study hall. All through the day I felt as if, when ever I was in his presence, he was looking into me to find out if I had got the message. I was genuine in expressing my haplessness also in my presentation of the caricature I depicted throughout that day. What does the message of Gurudev in the morning mean?? It kept haunting me.
In the evening the temple hall after the aarati we usually have bhajans for sometime and followed by lecture by a Swamiji whoever takes classes or by Gurudev when he is in the hall. This evening was one of those blessed one when Gurudev gifted us with his presence. The bhajans are also truncated by all so that we get more time to listen to Gurudev.
I was sitting on the left side of where Gurudev was sitting and just close enough so that I don't have to crane my neck with pain while looking at Gurudev. To me it felt that my face disclosed its helplessness and Gurudev, when he started his lecture appeared as if he was answering me on one to one even though there were ocean of devotees and students sitting in front of him.
He started saying,.... " When a child is born, we all celebrate his coming to this world......." I knew he was answering my troubled mind. I cannot reproduce the words of the master here for me he was hand-holding and taking me to a world I have no idea about. But those words which mattered me then and what it matters me still are being narrated in my own language here.
What followed the next half an hour was a demystifying experience which transformed me and my way of looking at life in total. Through the reasoning and logic Gurudev held my hand, as if, and took me across the false values and beliefs that made me imagine what I was, to what he wanted me to THINK and realize by his statements of that morning. From the unreal entity he showed my Trueness, from the darkness of ignorance together he flew with me to the abode Light of all Lights and established me in Immortality. How can I then ever even imagine that I have a day to celebrate? I have never ever....
The mundane values of waking are not valid in our dream nor in deep sleep. Since we are so conditioned by family, society etc we cannot think beyond those values. They have no reality other than in our waking world of senses. Just the dream is as valid as a waking state while in dream, our waking state also is absolutely not different from another plane of persistent experiences. No gravity pulls the dreamer when he wants to fly nor the fire of dream burns the one who is in waking. Mind undergoes pangs and inflicts in dream and waking, but we ridicule dream while awake. In the deep sleep he shuts down the entire worlds of experiences and jokes at us by throwing it back to us when we get up. Unable to control these states we fly from one to another as helpless creatures and is unaware as to what will bring an end to our miseries of either waking or dream. To us, like a child to whom the trees move backwards while in a train, life moves through time and we celebrate events. We think time is in motion as we are thrown between the three planes of experiences. The repetition of the cycle of experiences make us feel existence of time. In reality there is no time. Nor the space. If it was a reality it should have held to its values in all realms of experiences of ours. They vary from the waking to dream to deep sleep. Which one can we take it for true? None. A Truth is that One which can never have changes.
The only one I can relate to this value of Truth is my "being" of me. The me has been remaining as me from time immemorial. Me as the body has undergone change and it is no more the same body which can claim to celebrate its birthday. No part of my body is the same today from the six decades it has been experiencing the three states unabated. The mind, intellect etc has accumulated and thrown-out various values and memories. The Earth, the Sun, the Moon none of them are the same. But the Me who witnesses all these changes remain Changeless and because of it I know the changes. I am The Changeless. If I am Changeless, I cannot be having birth or death(अजः- Ajah). The Changeless, hence The Eternal( नित्यः - Nitya). The Changeless hence Ever-Existent( शाश्वतः - Swashwatah). The Changeless without a beginning hence The Ancient ( पुराणः - Puranah)........
What followed the next half an hour was a demystifying experience which transformed me and my way of looking at life in total. Through the reasoning and logic Gurudev held my hand, as if, and took me across the false values and beliefs that made me imagine what I was, to what he wanted me to THINK and realize by his statements of that morning. From the unreal entity he showed my Trueness, from the darkness of ignorance together he flew with me to the abode Light of all Lights and established me in Immortality. How can I then ever even imagine that I have a day to celebrate? I have never ever....
The mundane values of waking are not valid in our dream nor in deep sleep. Since we are so conditioned by family, society etc we cannot think beyond those values. They have no reality other than in our waking world of senses. Just the dream is as valid as a waking state while in dream, our waking state also is absolutely not different from another plane of persistent experiences. No gravity pulls the dreamer when he wants to fly nor the fire of dream burns the one who is in waking. Mind undergoes pangs and inflicts in dream and waking, but we ridicule dream while awake. In the deep sleep he shuts down the entire worlds of experiences and jokes at us by throwing it back to us when we get up. Unable to control these states we fly from one to another as helpless creatures and is unaware as to what will bring an end to our miseries of either waking or dream. To us, like a child to whom the trees move backwards while in a train, life moves through time and we celebrate events. We think time is in motion as we are thrown between the three planes of experiences. The repetition of the cycle of experiences make us feel existence of time. In reality there is no time. Nor the space. If it was a reality it should have held to its values in all realms of experiences of ours. They vary from the waking to dream to deep sleep. Which one can we take it for true? None. A Truth is that One which can never have changes.
The only one I can relate to this value of Truth is my "being" of me. The me has been remaining as me from time immemorial. Me as the body has undergone change and it is no more the same body which can claim to celebrate its birthday. No part of my body is the same today from the six decades it has been experiencing the three states unabated. The mind, intellect etc has accumulated and thrown-out various values and memories. The Earth, the Sun, the Moon none of them are the same. But the Me who witnesses all these changes remain Changeless and because of it I know the changes. I am The Changeless. If I am Changeless, I cannot be having birth or death(अजः- Ajah). The Changeless, hence The Eternal( नित्यः - Nitya). The Changeless hence Ever-Existent( शाश्वतः - Swashwatah). The Changeless without a beginning hence The Ancient ( पुराणः - Puranah)........
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