Guru Om!
This year's Guru Pūrṇimā (July 29 in India, July 28 in PDT and points west) offers me yet again the opportunity to remember and appreciate those who have given me guidance. As always, I bow first to Śrī Vimalananda, and to his (and our) guru Jaṭāla Sādhu Śrī Rāma Viśvambharadās Ji, and to their guru, our Senior Guru Mahārāj, and to their guru, whom Vimalananda referred to simply as "my Mahāpuruṣa."
In a future newsletter I will introduce three unique characters who, though born in the West, made their way to South Asia and became respected preceptors there. Today, though, I will introduce five of the other noteworthy individuals who have counseled me in this lifetime, the first of whom is Shri Krishan Lal Mantri, our Jyotiṣa guru, known to almost everyone simply as Mantriji. The most brilliant astrologer I have ever met, Mantriji was also an expert at interpreting the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. The gist of his teaching was simple, and is encapsulated in this quote from him:
“The most important thing in this life is to let go. All good health, all good things, freedom, love, eternal life, all come to those who are able to let go. It is only attachment, mental, physical, emotional attachment, that imprisons us. Nothing else. We are our own wardens.”
I have already written a bit about Mantriji in the introduction to the book A Ṛṣi Among Us, an introduction which begins with these two sentences:
Today, Guru Pūrṇimā 2016, I reflect back on how blessed I have been throughout my life to have had good advisers and good advice, for all of which I am humbly grateful. Rarely though has that guidance proved as useful as that received, directly and indirectly, from Sri Krishan Lal Mantri.
In future I will write more, but for today, those words continue, precisely one decade later, to encapsulate my appreciation for him. Praṇām sāheb!
Next, I acknowledge Mā Jaya, who founded Kashi Ashram in Sebastian, Florida, in 1976, and departed from this world in 2012. Ram Dass knew her as Joya, and his experience of her was very different from mine. You can read about his experience here.
Over the nearly two decades I knew Mā I would visit her periodically, and she would help me out with astral challenges that very few other people could have understood, much less addressed. Her assistance was particularly valuable when it came to dealing with my friend Rob, who after committing suicide kept trying to attract my attention by afflicting people close to me. Thank you for your help, Ma; Kālī Mā kī jai!
Though I met Bear Heart but thrice in this lifetime, his spiritual strength and his profound humility made a strong impression on me. I met him in the early 2000s in central New Mexico through Don Beaucage, an Ojibwe who was pouring sweat lodges, several of which that I attended in the area. Bear Heart was a Muskogee Creek healer who never took credit for whatever good results might come from his work, which he attributed all to Spirit. Several of his sayings have stuck with me, including this one, which I also heard — in different words — from Vimalananda:
Our traditional teaching was, never point a finger of scorn at your fellow man. When you do that, there's three fingers pointing back at you. You might be three times worse than the one you're pointing at, so be careful.
Here is an interview with Bear Heart, and a link to his autobiography.
Miigwech!
At least I could meet Bear Heart three times. I only met Swami Chidananda once, but it was at a critical moment in my life, in late June 1998, two or three days after my young friend Peter had been carried away by the River Bhāgīrathī just north of Uttarkashi. At a moment when I was finding it difficult to manage both the shock of the drowning and the dread of the imminent arrival of Peter's father from the US, Svāmījī graciously convened a prayer meeting. I can remember not a word he said; what I recall, vividly, even today, is the attitude of calm compassion that radiated from him as he said it — a perspective and an awareness that anchored me in the reality of the situation and showed me how to live through the following week in the best way possible. He expected no thanks; it was just what he did. He was a real inspiration.
Dhanyavādaḥ!
I have saved the first for last. Krishnapuri Narayana Baba was a Tulu Brahmin domiciled in Sanjiva Reddy Nagar, Hyderabad, whom I met in January 1974 in the home of Dr. Suraj and Mrs. Leela Punshi, in the Bakhtavar building, just opposite the Colaba Post Office, in one of the most prestigious and expensive areas of Bombay. Narayana Baba avowed that he had met Shirdi Sai Baba when he was but a tyke, and that Shirdi Sai had guided him ever since. He had the ability — which was popular back then — to make ash fall from the palm of his hand. He did so when bare-chested (so there could be "nothing up his sleeve"), and this knack had drawn a number of devotees to him, including the industrialist Mr. Fazal Fazalbhoy, who introduced me to Pandit Shiv Sharma, who got me into the Āyurveda college in Pune. So it was Baba Garu that I must thank for my Āyurvedic education (note: garu is the Telugu suffix that demonstrates respect, equivalent to Hindi jī).
At age twenty I found his ash-producing ability impressive, at least until a year and a half later when I encountered Vimalananda for the first time and got to know more about such things. I continued to meet Baba Garu thereafter on occasion, once introducing Vimalananda to him, until that day in the late 1980s or early 1990s when our ṛṇānubandhana suddenly concluded. While visiting the Punshis he unexpectedly expired one day, and as I had arrived in Bombay the day before, it devolved upon me to cremate him. Either of his two sons should have, by rights, performed this task instead of me, but they were in Hyderabad and I was in Bombay, and it was up to me to do the job.
While watching his body burn at Bombay's Banganga Smashan I was just wondering if his skull would pop open or whether it would need some help to split when it suddenly exploded, spraying me with hot blood. Hūṃ Phaṭ! That stain set, and now every time I wear that shirt, I remember that day, and that fire, and that Baba, and salute him for making it possible for me to stay in India long enough to meet my real mentor, the Aghori Vimalananda. Without Baba Garu, there might well have been no Vimalananda, whom I literally cannot thank enough, for everything. Guru Om Tat Sat! Jai Guru!
