Thursday, February 19, 2015

Shivratri 2015 in the Bangalore Ashram with Gurudev

February 12th, I had my last seva meeting with two of our second year MBA students and headed off to the airport.  We were working on a really cool project to enable villages to get clean and pure drinking water from the humidity in the air.  I had met with VC (Vice Chancellor) Sir, Dr. KC Mishra, and he blessed the project, but I was still a little anxious and stressed about getting the project done as I was leaving for the Bangalore Ashram on the 12th, and the project submission was due on the 15th.  I decided to take a deep breath in and just let it go.  I surrendered the project to the divine and decided to focus on catching my flight!  I went to class and headed off for the airport at Noon.  I was happy to hop in the rickshaw with my backpack and be on my way.

As we arrived at the airport, I found my stress and tension still lingering in my back and shoulders.  I found a great massage spa at the airport and decided to indulge in a 20 minute back and shoulder massage...I found myself head down with a Masseuse crawling and walking on top of my legs and back.  I felt like heaven!  Her knees, elbows, and hands were a welcome to knots in my back and neck.  After 20 minutes or so, I faintly heard my flight boarding announcement and hopped up and rushed to the gate.  I was set, nicely seated and blissed out looking forward to seeing my beloved in just a few hours.

I arrived at the Bangalore Airport and was dissapointed to hear that my driver, Anil Ji, would not be able to make it for another hour and a half.  This was simply too much of a delay before I would get to see my beloved.   I ran into a few Sri Sri University students and we decided to all share a cab.  I ended up riding with two others.  Little did I know this would be my first ego trip...when I say ego, I mean "ease-goes."  When Gurudev mentions Ego, he says that Ego is whatever causes the feeling of separateness from you and anyone else.  He also says that ego is when your "ease-goes" meaning you lose your sense of a calm and meditative state of mind.  I asked them if we could go straight to the ashram and they said yes.  So we hopped in and we were off.  After we got into the city, one of the folks in the car said that she wanted to drop off some stuff and see her sister.  She kindly asked me and I started to grumble on the inside.  I was quickly loosing my cool and equanimity as I realized that we were going through the city, which takes almost twice as long as taking the toll roads outside the city.  So now, I had realized, an hour into our journey, we going out of our way to meet someone I don't know and have to wait while the folks in the car spent time with their friends / family.  We arrived in the city and she said, we'll be back in 10 minutes...almost 20 minutes later she came back with an orange juice for me and we headed off to the Ashram.  I was relieved to hear that Gurudev was in Delhi, so I wasn't as disappointed at arriving 3 1/2 hours later.  I wonder how I could have sincerely felt more equanimity or Vairagya (dispassion) on that trip.  By the time we reached the ashram, I simply handed over a 500 Rs. note, grabbed my backpack, and took off.  I wasn't really interested in any further small talk / time pass with them.  I later felt a little bad, but realized that I still have a long way to go on this beautiful path.  Wouldn't it be beautiful to simply accept people and situations as they are and be present for the present moment is inevitable.

By 8:30pm or 9pm or so, I checked into my heavenly abode, Yagnashala B.  I remember my roommate from Canada last summer.  He gave me a ride from the Canadian Ashram to the Montreal airport with two other senior teachers from the US.  I couldn't believe he broke his silence to speak with me.  I am very strict about my silence as I feel like it takes time to truly get quiet.  He was five days into his 10 day silence course.  We talked briefly and agreed to basic roommate logistics.

The next morning, I headed to Vishalakshi Mantap for morning sadhana and Long Kriya.  The morning sadhana was awesome.  The group was energetic and the sadhana (meditation) was deep.  I really enjoy the international group.  The English speaking group broke out to Maitri Hall later that morning.  From what I remember, we had separate break-out groups for Chinese, Russian, Mongolian, and French speakers.  I was happy that we had so many people there.

We started the first day of the course with basic course point reviews and some fun processes.  We did some yoga and meditations too.  We ended with knowledge videos that night.  At around 7pm, I locked eyes with Gurudev.  He came to a mind blowing Satsang.  His presence was paradise.  I went deep into meditation and felt tears of gratitude and joy.  At Satsang, we sang several Bhajans and I could feel the trance of the huge crowd.  I felt like I was literally in Heaven.  At that moment, with my beloved so close, I could think of nothing more I wanted.  I was fully contended...I had reached my destination.  I knew Santosha (contentment).  That night we all went into silence and off I went to bed.

The second day of the silence course was great.  Many meditations and I started to go deeper and deeper within myself.  I felt a great sense of contentment and ended up in a very happy place seeing my beloved again that evening.  That night I ended up getting disciplined by our senior teacher...our senior teacher decided that we would all watch an hour long Ishavasya Upanishad video each night.  Well, I had just attended the Ishavasya Upanishad discourse the previous month and prepared notes for others.  So 15 minutes into the talk, I decided I was done.  I was so tired as I usually go to bed at 8:30pm or 9pm at the latest and wake up at 3am.  I started walking out of the hall and then it happened...she stopped me and asked where I was going.  I wrote in my iPhone that I was tired and had just attended the talks last month and was heading to my room.  She looked at the note and then told me to sit down and not walk back to my chair.  I was being disciplined like a 9 year old.  I didn't take well to what had happened and so my mental trip began.  I went from being so happy to sinking deeper into frustration, ego, and low prana.  My trip of negativity lasted almost a day.  I simply told myself to treat the senior teacher with honor and respect, faith and grace.  So I rationalized that I needed to simply be present and let it go...as I always say, "take a deep breath and let it go."  This was a chance to truly live the knowledge.  So I did...I let go after a day and chalked up the experience to cultural differences.   In my heart I told myself, that my teacher's a hollow and empty instrument of my beloved Gurudev and I would simply surrender any uneasiness to my own ego.

By the third day, I was back to my normal self and started going deeper and deeper into the hollow-and-empty meditations.  I found myself losing a sense of "my" self.  I found myself experiencing a letting go of "I, me, and my."  The meditations felt deep and powerful and I started becoming quieter and quieter in my head.  I thought of the Yoga Patanjali Sutra, "Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha."   I teach this in Sri Sri Yoga, but here was my chance to live it.  There's so much more I would like to share, but feel like these divine experiences are best left as sacred secrets.  Gurudev says that secrets often grow in our minds.  So we share what's shameful and regretful and keep the beautiful and sacred secrets, so that the beauty and sacredness grows within.

On the second to last day, the international course participants from the US and Canada had a chance to meet with Gurudev in his private meeting room.  I had only been to this hall once before.  I was so happy that only about 15 of us would be meeting Gurudev.  To be honest, I found myself grumbling at the negative thoughts and emotions that were coming up that day.  I felt like without my Sandhyavandana practice, I was a little raw.  I now realize how amazing the Sandhyavandana practice is and much equanimity and peace of mind my full sadhana provides.  We had a fun time outside his meeting room with Indira, the Ashram elephant.  Gurudev fed Indira graciously and Indira even attempted to enter the meeting room pushing open Gurudev's meeting room door with his trunk.  Poor guy doesn't realize how big he is!

The US and Canadians entered the meeting room.  As I was grumbling from the inside, I felt that Gurudev would not speak to me.  So I quietly sat down waiting for him to come to me!  I thought we would not meet speak and I would simply give him my classmates' letters.  I had written a few questions that I wanted to speak to him about, but decided that I would not speak to him when I wasn't completely centered and happy.  Then it happened.  I couldn't believe it.  He walked up to me and said, "How are you?"  I said, "Great" with a deeper tone in my voice.  He then asked me, "How's the university?"  I said "Great" again feeling a bit happier as his smile was penetrating me.  I know that Gurudev knows exactly what's going on in my head.  I was grumbling and telling myself that I was done and needed a break.  And there he was, pulling me back in with his infinite divine love.  I can rarely understand Gurudev, but I remember him once saying, "I know your mind better than you."  I was once in Canada with him back in 2011, and he locked eyes with me for so long that I felt the entire Satsang looking at me wondering what he was looking at.  He smiled with so much love and grace that I knew my purpose in life was nothing but to serve him.  I know I will be close to him in the years to come.  He lovingly says, if you want to be close to be, do my work (seva).  I now realize that all I want to do is simply live and breathe his work, doing selfless service to society, improving the world, and uplifting people less fortunate.  Gurudev's mission is to create a stress-free and violence-free world.

As we left that the meeting room, I still didn't feel 100%.  I was so grateful for the opportunity to speak with Gurudev, but still was frustrated by the lack of Sama (control of mind) and Dama (control of senses) that I was experiencing.  I would love to share more, but feel like Silence Courses are simply something everyone has to experience for themselves.  The wisdom and knowledge gained is beyond words.  I walked back to my room and got the sense that I needed to attend Satsang to feel better, to feel my centeredness, groundedness, and joy.  I ended up singing and shedding tears of love and joy during Satsang with Gurudev.  I could feel a transformation and sense of joy and love.  I realized that Gurudev would not let me feel down and he simply pulled me up to a place of happiness and joy within just an hour.  The next morning, when I woke up, I knew I had received his blessings.  I was so happy to wake up at 4:30am, get ready, and head off for the last day of our course.  The last day of the course was great.  I was elated to find out that I was going to meet Gurudev in the National Teachers meeting.  I got my stuff together and headed over to the Vishalakshi Mantap (VM building).  We had a room of what felt like 500 teachers or so all elated to have the opportunity to meet Gurudev.  Gurudev came and we ended up in total silence for some time.  Gurudev says that in silence, a Master communicates from soul-to-soul.  I could feel tears of love and gratitude rolling down my face as he was divinely intimate with us in total silence.  After some time, he said, "hmmm" as he lovingly looked around the room.  We all were back into silence for some time, and then we meditated with him.  Towards the end of our time with Gurudev, we all talked about the 35th anniversary celebration that would be happening in New Delhi in 2016.  The dates will be February 12th - 14th.  I am hoping we'll have over 3 million people there.  I can't wait!  I am hoping we'll have our entire Sri Sri University attend.  He said the Indian railways are going to help with arranging low cost half price train tickets to get to Delhi.  I hope everyone I know attends.

Once we came out of silence, I busily ran around getting gifts for my classmates and the Veda boys and staff.  I also took formal Sankalpas for the evening Pooja and morning Homa.  The day had arrived.  We were going to celebrate Shivratri with over 150,000 people in attendance.  The outdoor Guru Paduka was packed!  Here's a pic:

I was seated in the Sankalpa section which quickly got jam packed!  I loved the singing and performances.  The sattva was soo high.  People were singing and dancing and everyone seemed so happy.  They had dancers and even a yoga performance.  I realized that the Sri Sri University BA and MA yoga students would have to perform during Navratri in the Fall.  We could really showcase our Yoga program and gets folks excited about going deeper on the path.

One informal tradition of Shivratri is staying up all night and fasting.  We skipped dinner that evening as the program started at 5:30pm and ended after midnight.  We did a midnight guided meditation with Gurudev.  The sattva was so high.  The meditations were out of this world.  In fact, Gurudev, says that during Shivratri, the Shiva Tattva comes / is very close to Earth.  All I can speak of is the experience of amazing meditations all night.

A little after midnight, one of our BA Yoga students walked up to me distressed and said, "I haven't met Gurudev.  I just want one minute to talk to him."  I thought, don't we all?  That would be a little difficult with over 150,000 people there.  That equates to 2,500 hours or over 100 straight days of Gurudev speaking with and meeting people.  So I told him to do seva with me all night and stay up as the tradition holds.  He agreed and we ended with about 4 or 5 of us together picking up trash throughout the fields and campus.  As 2am approached, we decided to take a hike up to Gurudev's original Kutir (home) called Shakti Kutir.  The guards would not let us anywhere near where we wanted to go, so we decided to walk around in other directions.  We finally ended up at the original campus registration building and walked over to where the original Ashtavakra Gita was filmed.  As security was close by and had quickly spotted us lurking around at 3am, I quickly told our group of folks that I would lead us through a guided meditation.  So we all closed our eyes and I did a Pancha Kosha meditation.  Right as we ended the meditation, we decided to walk up to Shakti Kutir, but were quickly stopped.  I don't know how we did it, but we somehow managed to get the guards to let us walk up to Shakti Kutir.  We all did a guided meditation in Gurudev's voice and ended up going so deep.  The prana was soo high.  I think the fact that we were at the front door of Gurudev's original Shakti Kutir, combined with it being Shivratri was so powerful.  I simply felt like I was high.  The energy was amazing.  Right as we ended, security quickly asked us to leave and we headed out.  At around 3:30am, I split from the group and headed back home to freshen up for the 5am Pooja.  This time, I found a comfortable chair to meditate in and took a seat in our Sankalpa section for the morning Homa.  Gurudev arrived in time for morning Rudram.  Rudram is sacred Sanskrit chanting of praises to the Shiva Tattva energy.  Rudram started by 6am and we ended at 7:15am.  I was a little tired by then, so I was just happy knowing that Gurudev was there and that I could rest in meditation.

At 7:15am, I quickly ran back to my room, got my bags packed and got ready for my taxi at 8am.  I had a great time with Gurudev over Shivratri.  I look back at this time like I was in Vrindavan with Krishna.  I feel grateful for my time with Gurudev and wasn't all too happy to be leaving, but then remembered what Gurudev says.  He says, it's separation that makes togetherness so wonderful.  So I am left with a full cup of divine love and look forward to the intense longing to be with my Beloved Master, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, lovingly called Gurudev or Guruji, again.

With so much love.  As Gurudev says, "love is not an emotion, it is your very existence."

Love & Jai Guru Dev,

An Aspiring Yogi

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