Sahib ne bhang pilayi

I said earlier that this year felt like it had been running wild? Well, one of the exciting things we did was to go to a workshop on Kabir. A five-day residential workshop on one of the most hard-hitting raconteurs of the spiritual journey. Readers of this blog will know how much I love this man, and love to quote him: for many years now his utterances have served as clinchers to my primary quandaries as a seeker.

In 2009 – what a year that was! – I happened to go to a Kabir Festival in Delhi. I speak of what happened to me here, and a little more about the festival and its personalities here. 

It seemed extraordinarily important even as I went through the weekend, but what it was doing to me, how it was preparing me and to what end... this became apparent only a few days later. The immersive festival experience happened on 4, 5 and 6 September 2009. Around the same time, my mother was feeling poorly and went through a few medical tests. On 11 Sept, the results came and we learnt that we were going to lose her in a matter of weeks.

Now, this – that my mother might die – had always been one of my worst and very active fears... the stuff of nightmares. As much as I was sure that I would not be able to bear her loss, I had fretted about it for decades. And now it was coming true.

It was my Guru’s compassion, his grace, his love... to prepare me for a blow I had dreaded all my life. Buffered by Kabir, I took the news better than I could ever expect to. The next few months, I was able to live intensely, love intensely and let go gracefully, even joyfully.

Now seven years later, here was a chance to go to a workshop conducted by the inspirational Prahlad Tipaniya himself. It was meant. A chance to express my gratitude – and close a loop.

And another chance to bow low, very low to my Guru.

Dogged

Khasam apne da darr na chad'de
Paven sau sau maaran jutte tenthi utte
Uth Bulleya oy, chal yaar mana le
Nai te baazi le gaye kutte tenthi utte

They leave not the master's door
even when they've been hurled shoes at...
Come, Bulleya! Cajole and win the beloved
Or the dogs will have won this round

Rasika balama...

sajani
rajani
piya
barkha
megha

Sometimes, I want to leave this century and run away.
But it rains here also. Here also, the wet comes down in downpour that envelops the world in a haze of grey. Here also, there is mist. There are walls, and moss, and love in the hearts of people.

Here too, the strings of the swarmandal chime, a thin layer over the roar of pattering water. Here also there is beauty. Here too are songsters capable of holding out notes of long magic.

There is romance but the problem is I have to sift nuggets of it from the mundane, and the determinedly practical era of today. There are other centuries that would suit me.

Running Wild

prairie grass
a mustang runs
with the wind
~William Cullen Jr.

That's how I've been feeling this year - like a wild thing let loose, rippling across the surface of life with the wind spurring me on. Speed, such speed. Exhilaration too. And galloping in any direction of the wind's choosing.

I wanted to say a little of the many many things I did - the travel, the singing, the genuflecting, the flying... but really, who cares! I might still, but what matter what I did, when it's all about what is. And then, about what isn't.