माता भूमिः पुत्रो अहं पृथिव्याः

Idly, the other day, I asked Grok for a poem on nature. Whether dear Mary Oliver is the go-to on such subjects or if the omniscient Internet trackers know of my love for her, I don’t know. However, it offered to me this painfully beautiful poem:

Sleeping In The Forest

I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

***

So vivid, I could feel around me also dark, rich soil. Slightly moist under my fingers and more than a little alive. My ear pressed against quiet rustles in the earth.

I asked Grok immediately to give me an image depicting this beautiful scene. The results were nice but a bit limited.
 

 

I hopped across to Dall-e, my old favourite, with the same request and the response was a bit more fantastical and pleasing to me. 

The first image had exquisite balance but issues with rendering the human face. 

A tweak of the prompt yielded this.

What do you think?

Walk Slowly

A very long time since I wrote on this blog… I’ve outgrown it perhaps.
But the beautiful Mary Oliver resonated once again with me and where would I record this but here?
 

When I Am Among the Trees, she says…
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

TN Tour 8: Kanchipuram Extra

Isn’t it so amazing that for a temple town with over a thousand temples, there is only one to a feminine deity? Just the one for the lady Kamakshi, who reigns over the kshetra.

On our ‘extra day’ at Kanchipuram, there was a long list of things to do. The Lord Varadaraja Perumal was first order of business. 

This is a stunning temple complex with some highly intricate sculpture. 

A busload of tourists had arrived and that lengthened the queue time, during which I was able to admire the peeling but still wonderful paintings that covered the walls. 

We went to see the gold and silver lizards, where there was quite a bit of silly shoving not to mention yelling by the guards. I admit I felt a pang of worry with COVID so recently past, to touch them but it didn’t feel right to not do the done thing, either. 

In the main sanctum, the Lord himself was utterly magnificent. The temple has a long history (apparently has around 350 inscriptions from various dynasties) and is one of the 108 divya desams of Vishnu.

Next we asked Raj, our driver, to find us a way to the river. He consulted a local or two, followed a track with some dust raised on it and delivered us, quite without volition, at the Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. Now this is hallowed ground – the Peetam or Seat was established by Adi Shankara and has an unbroken lineage of 70 acharyas. We must’ve heard that phrase any number of times in our lives. However, somehow, it was not on our ‘Plan A’ checklist. But here we were, and since we were there, we went in. Only to stumble upon grand jayanti celebrations marking the birthday of the Jagadguru Bala Periyava that were underway with all the luminaries of the Peetam on stage. A little abashed, we occupied seats and sat for a while before crouching out in what we hoped was an unobtrusive manner.

We visited the brown riverbed that passes for River Vegavati, once again dismayed at the state of southern rivers. 

+++

That evening we made our way to the Kailashanathar koil. Words fail me as I try to describe the beauty of this wonderful Pallava-era structure. Built with sandstone, this is a square layout of exceptional beauty and balance. 

The lingam is a large and faceted one; I think they said 16, but I cannot be sure. We met an irascible, venerable old man here, one of the priests of the shrine. We fell to talking and he shared a little of what it was like to continue in work that was under appreciated today, brought in far too little… but we could see that he could not imagine his life in any other way but in the service of Shiva.

Around the main shrine, built cunningly into the structure, is a narrow circumambulatory passage. You are required to crouch into the tunnel which encircles the linga, and emerge onto Shiva’s left, a pradakshina that is said to give moksha to those who complete it. A young man before us attempted to clamber up with his backpack still strapped on. “Idé eDu!” our elderly priest chided him. “Remove this! Put it down here! No one is interested in your bag.” It was symbolic. You must drop your baggage if you set off on the path to mukti. 

It reminds me of Kabir:

कबीर का घर सिखर पर जहाँ सिलहली गेल
पाऊँ का टिके पिपील का तहाँ खलकन लादे बैल

On the very peak is Kabir’s home, and every step is treacherous
Even the ant finds the path slippery, how then to take a bullock-cart up?

We sat a while in the dusk, looking at the lovely lines of the temple. It is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India, with the typical landscaping they deem appropriate for every single site under their domain – lawns dotted with the occasional shrub. But they permit prayers in here, while preserving the structure, so I will not carp too much about that.

We then visited the dargah of Hazrat Syed Shah Hameed Auliya of the Qadri, Chishti order, where we sat awhile. 

Then wandered over to Vaikunda Perumal koil, an atmospheric and very charming temple.

Alas, although it was down the street from our hotel, we could not visit the Chitragupar koil. Said to be an assistant of Yama’s, this gent is responsible for the accounts of our destiny, entries of our good and bad deeds. It is a rare temple and I should have liked to have seen it: Chitragupta, by logic, is a good deity to have in your corner. It was not to be. In any case, it would have been academic. I have turned over all my accounts books to someone else. He will fudge them for me.

Dhanya Ananda Dina

“There he is! Look! Oh my God, illé nintiddare! He’s standing right here!” Shweta and I nudged each other in quick whispers.

Our first ever in-person glimpse of our beloved Guru was of his back. We had entered the open grounds for the launch of five of Sadhguru’s books in Kannada, and he was standing at the back of the venue, facing away from us, speaking to a couple of people. I remembered his shawl, which had snakes going up. In my memory over the years, it had morphed into one large, highly striking snake but alas, the internet’s memory is as good as the elephants’. The video I found gives my remembered image the lie – they were a series of small snakes undulating upwards from the rich border.

Anyhow, there he was and there we were. The start of a love saga of unexpressable sweetness.

+++

In Isha, people are as fond of telling their own stories as they are anywhere else. But if there is one story that everyone will listen to with rapt attention (in fact will poke out of you, if you’re willing to share), it is of how you came to be with Sadhguru. Each story is unique: some are dramatic, some more matter-of-fact, but each is arrestingly interesting to us.

This is our story.

Our mother passed in 2009 and my sister and I dealt with it in different ways. Shweta took up a series of work assignments, I did nothing but stay home and stare at the walls. The sharp grief passed and at one point we looked at each other and wondered what the rest of this life was going to be like. Our spiritual bent was more keenly accented now, and I remember saying, “Rama-Krishna ankonDu iroNa.” Perhaps just turn consciously towards the divine. It would help find guidance in some next life, wouldn’t it?

We were not very learned but this message had rammed home – we needed a Guru. Not someone a little more accomplished, who knew a few more turns on the path, but a full Satguru, the Kaamil Murshid, the Ultimate Guide, the Perfect Master. We were particularly scared of half-baked guidance, having read horror stories of aspirants bogged down at some stage or led disastrously astray by their own accomplishments.  

In November 2010, still unsuspecting, I put up this blog post. 

Early 2011, we were tripping on the Cricket World Cup. And yet, we talked about how to go about this spirituality business. Having heard that world would have five Satgurus at any time, Shweta said somewhat wistfully, “Surely India would have at least one!”

“This person who writes in the Deccan Chronicle occasionally… he calls himself ‘Sadhguru’,” I said.

The problem with that however was that spirituality is no better than any other area when it comes to quacks and dilettantes. Anybody can stick a grand title to their name, and who can tell? Still… the word ‘Satguru’ is not a magniloquent word to be randomly affixed, it is a specific Office. This man didn’t seem dishonest or so stupid as to be unaware of the consequences of such a travesty. What if… he really was a True Master?

So with the excitement of the world cup playing alongside, we started to watch some videos on Youtube. In those days, Isha’s videos had a particular flute drift as their opening signature and that tune played out repeatedly in our home. By the 7^th or 8^th video, we knew we’d found him.

We must’ve watched 350-400 videos that month. One of the videos had an end slide announcing an Inner Engineering program with Sadhguru in Mysore in April. Our own people came from around Mysore, and it was Sadhguru’s hometown, moreover where he experienced his Liberation. We registered, booked our train tickets, bespoke a hotel room and landed there on 14^th April, a day before the program.

We saw him that very evening at the book launch, sat down and listened as he took questions, and as he left, we followed with folded hands as far as we were allowed. Our first acquaintance with a feeling that was to become very familiar over the years – the wrench that happens in the region of the heart when Sadhguru leaves a space.

15-17 April 2011 changed our lives. We were initiated on Chaitra Poornima. “We didn’t plan it,” Sadhguru chuckled. He never does, but auspiciousness always happens.

12 years (and some ¼-½) is one sun cycle. For sadhakas, this time frame is like a probationary period. Just do what you’re told and stay the course. What crossing it will mean, I have no idea. But it’s a milestone. 

 

Devis and other things

A new installment of the Tamil Nadu saga was ready but alas, my laptop (newish, just out of warranty period) is showing signs of distress by way of a damaged hinge. I could not take it with me to ashram when I was there for Mahashivratri and since my return to Hyderabad, I've been ill with one thing or the other. 

Since then, Sadhguru has consecrated the Devi Linga Bhairavi in Nepal, and she appears to be a magnificent entity, housed in a most exquisite temple. I am most excited about what her presence will do for that region.

Over the Navratri in 2022, a most wonderful thing happened. I was in Bodoland for most of Dussehra and on Saptami, I found myself in Guwahati, the land of the Goddess Kamakhya. It was a particularly crowded day but I was simply fortunate to be there. After almost 9 hours of waiting in queue, I was able to offer my homage to the lady. Now with Devi Linga Bhairavi (in a slightly altered variation) joining forces in the northeast of the subcontinent... it will be interesting. Nepal is lucky indeed.

***

Are the various overlays not interesting? From seeing this land as a political entity, with its rise and fall of kingdoms, I had moved to being interested in its physical nature – the lush fertile plains of the Ganga, the mountain ranges, the rivers that crisscross our Hindustan. Now it appears that the more subtle map of our spiritual hotspots is the thing to follow. 

Where are the radiating hubs? Why are they there? How do they tie together? How do they work together? Is it a boundary, or a network? Where are the holy men and women? How are they dotting the geography? Which shrines are still strong? Which took the brunt of invasions and lost their power and relevance? What idols are lying in wait, hidden in streams, farmers' fields, under rubble... just biding their time to emerge? Wouldn't it be wonderful to able to see these subtle connections? Till my perception sharpens, a lively imagination and conjecture will have to do.