Purpose

Saturday Sept 28^th:  This is my last day at Dhyanidham for this visit, and truth be told it has not always been an easy visit.  Instead of my usual blissful dream on my first night here, this time I had a nightmare.  In those first days and again these last days, during the days of rain and even when the sun was bright, I’ve had what my understanding of ayurveda calls a vata imbalance.  For me this means my body has felt jumpy and anxious, my mind impossible to tether.  

This morning in temple I asked myself why I had come.  I did have a practice in mind and established myself in it for 10 days.  It was not a long practice and left many hours available.  During the hours when the electricity was on, I worked on the illustrated ashram guide I am preparing, as well as on this record.  But the feelings of uneasiness never quite left me.

I had come with plans to receive or at least order furniture that would make the apartment more comfortable and homey.  I had plans to pay for that furniture even though I did not know how to carry nor exchange that amount of funds.  I had plans to do shopping that would ready the apartment for December of 2014, when Ma plans a big event and I expect to have other disciples staying with me. 

India, of course, had its own plans.

The difficulties of exchanging money took precedence over shopping.  The rains took precedence over both.  The furniture maker, an Indian disciple who is a master carpenter, took my order, but here on my last day he had still not returned to take the pile of cash that had been so hard to acquire.

I questioned the strength of my practice, my dedication, my ability to achieve the goal.  I showed up to all the morning and evening temple events, even when the rain was fierce and the early mornings dark without electricity.  But was it enough just to show up?  So many things I had planned to accomplish here had proved impossible to achieve.  I had come a very long way and didn't even have an ironing board or pictures hung to show for it.

The week before I left home, I had contacted some friends who had shared with me that their nephew was diagnosed with a recurrence of a serious illness.  Almost as an afterthought I asked them, would they like to order a puja to be done for him at the temple while I am there?  I could bring back the prasad.  They looked into the offerings and decided to order 125,000 repetitions of the Mrytunjaya mantra with bij.  At the time, we didn’t know this is a 25-day practice and would not conclude until after I returned to the States.  Nevertheless, when I arrived at the ashram arrangements were made for a brahmin to perform the japa and I was able to participate in the sankalpa.  Yesterday, I was told that the brahmin would be at the ashram today and that at lunchtime I would receive a sacred thread and flowers to take back to the family, though the japa repetition will continue for more days.

I came to lunch and saw an unfamiliar brahmin eating at another table.  We nodded to one another.  I was served my lunch, said the meal prayers, and began to eat.

When I was about half done with my meal, the temple priest arrived.  He came to my table and placed next to me two plastic bags, each containing a thread, a flower, and prasad.  Animatedly, he seemed to say that he had been waiting for me at the temple.  I apologized.  He explained which packet was for the child and which for the family, then went to get his own lunch.

I sat with my hands in my lap, looking down at my plate of food.  I was somewhat distressed at yet another instance where my inability to communicate had caused someone inconvenience.  But other feelings came up through that distress.  The two packets of prasad sat to my left, but I could not look at them.  Waves and waves of energy poured over me from them as I kept my eyes on my food.  I felt the same way I had felt when I first saw Mount Kailash—it was too powerful, too huge, too overwhelming for more than a passing glance out of the corner of my eye. 

I looked at my plate and began to weep.  The dining area was crowded with dozens of local children and adults, and in the midst of their stares I could not stop crying.  I looked at my food and cried and tried to fathom the energy pouring at me from the prasad.  And finally, it swept over me as an absolute certainty—those two plastic bags were the purpose of my trip.

Many years ago, before I met Ma, I took a simple stick from Virginia to California and placed it at the center of a medicine circle.  The moment I did so, I felt the universe rush through me.  Everything I had ever done, everyone I had ever been, every step I had taken in my existence had led inexorably, inevitably, to that one moment.

Now at Dhyanidham, staring at my lunch plate, I experienced that same sense of absolute purpose.  Everything about this trip--the months of planning, the days of travel, the hours of anxiety and self doubt--had been about that last-minute, almost offhand japa request, leading with absolute certainty to the two pulsing packets of prasad sitting to my left.

Two of the village children came next to me, put their palms together and said Sita Ram.  I cried for happiness at their well being.  I cried for sadness over my friends’ nephew and other children who suffer.  The priest came back to my table.  Smiling broadly, he delivered a homily of a few English words, saying All is God; this person, this creature, this plant, everything is a creation of God, and so I should be happy.  The elderly disciple to my right held my hands in hers and wiped pretend tears from her face, telling me not to cry.  There was no way I could explain to them that I was crying because, finally and clearly, my purpose for this trip had been fulfilled.

Car-ma

I am ordering furniture to be made for my apartment, and so I must go to Bharuch to the banks.  Day 3 of rain, the trip is cancelled because the road through Nikora is too flooded to pass; perhaps tomorrow will be better.  But tomorrow becomes day 4 of rain, and the roads can only be worse.  I would give up the trip to Bharuch, but word comes that a bigger car and other routes should be considered.  And so on day 4 we set out on roads more back than the back road through Nikora.  Everywhere, the landscape is flooded; fields and groves look like lakes.  In the Gujarati conversation between the driver and Hirenbhai, every 5^th word is panne, water.  In some places the water rushes across the road from one field to the next; in other places, water fills potholes as large as ditches.  We dodge cattle, goats, children, men on scooters, women carrying sugarcane on their heads, all taking advantage of the narrow pavement.  Finally the backer road intersects with the main highway, six lanes divided.  The direction we need to take is at a standstill, packed three lanes wide with transport trucks headed toward Surat and Mumbai.  Without hesitation, our driver cuts across those three lanes, the divide, and the three opposing lanes, and heads down the shoulder into the oncoming traffic.  He is not alone.  At one point, I see a road sign that says, “Please do not drive on the wrong side,” though the “please” may be something added by my mind.

On the way back, we leave the highway and immediately encounter a rush of water flooding the edge of the roadside town.  The driver stops.  Women are washing clothes in the rapids, and he engages them in a conversation that I imagine includes the questions, Has anyone tried to drive through here?  Has anyone made it?  But the women seem not to know.  The driver rolls up his pants legs and gets out of the car to check the depth and strength of the current.  Apparently reassured, he gets back in the car and drives us through.  When we get back to the ashram, I pay him twice his asking price for the trip.

Considering what everyone went through to get me to Bharuch, there must be a lot of karma tied up around this furniture, the money, or just me.  But I feel like a passenger through the outworking of this karma; so many others do so much, and I seem to reap the benefits.  I pray that God and Guruji will reward all these people.

wracked nerves, or, how I became a temple bell ringer

During aarti at morning and evening, a disciple goes over to the temple bell, steps inside the frame, and rings the bell in time to the chant.  People motioned several invitations for me to take a turn, but musically I am good at one thing at a time and preferred chanting out of tune to possibly ringing out of rhythm.  Then, for some reason I can't remember, I took a turn.  It was harder than it looked, but I focused my concentration on the priest and followed his rhythm, and then it was fun to ring it really fast during the last, speeded-up verse. 

Later that day I saw the priest outside the temple, and with a big smile he told me in his best English that my bell ringing had made him very happy because he had been able to relax and follow the rhythm rather than try to lead it.  Since then I've taken several turns, but I still find it a nerve-wracking experience.  Just before my third bell-ringing stint, he came over and showed me he wanted me to ring harder, but if I try to look at the bell or at my hand I'm in trouble.  Suddenly the bell starts swinging wildly, I miss a beat, the striker hits sideways and the sound falls flat...who knew there were so many variables to bell ringing!  A visiting Indian disciple took a turn the other night and wasn't able to get the bell to behave, and in the middle of the aarti he left the bell frame and went back to his asan.  This is definitely not a job for the faint hearted.  And my right eardrum may never be the same.  Still, I keep taking my turn and enjoying that final verse when I can let all my concentration expand into joy.

Mother Narmada

The Narmada River bestows her blessings on those who view her.  During the recent four days of rain, I am told the water level of the Narmada was higher than even during rainy season.  I took a couple short videos during the storm.  It is hard to capture the strength of the Mother, but I believe nonetheless she will bestow her blessings.
Mother Narmada 09-24-13 1
Mother Narmada 09-24-13 2

For comparison, here are photos from January 2012 (the brown area on the far side of the river is under water in the videos):

and from September 24, 2013:

the equation

rain x 4 = (-electricity)(-internet)
The region is terribly flooded.  Today we traveled the backer back roads (more back than the road to Nikora) to Bharuch.  Fields and groves are lakes.  Streets in Bharuch are rivers.  I sat merely as a passenger as people brought me through obstacle upon obstacle.  The trek felt similar to the one we undertook toward Kailash through the Tibetan plain, only this time there were people, water, and oxygen. 

more weather, more laundry

It's been raining for the past 24 hours, at first gently and steadily, then around 2:00 this afternoon I began to get an idea of what monsoon season might be like.  Here was my first photo, taken when I thought it was pouring:

and then about an hour later:

I skipped going to chai at 3:30, but the rain let up enough for me to walk comfortably to the temple for the evening, and here is the river walk I found in front of the bungalows:

Just as the Ramayan reading began at the temple, the real rain started.  We had 360-degree views of sheets of rain driven by the wind to 45-degree angles.  Again a letup as we made our way to and from dinner, but now it is pouring again.  The frogs and newts are loving it; here's a little guy from my anusthan room:

My anusthan room may be wet in the morning; rain seeps in through the skylight above the hall door.  Nothing will get damaged, but the carpet and blanket I sit on may be soaked.  Which leads me to wonder if my laundry will dry before I have to pack things away next weekend.

Yes, I've talked about weather and laundry again.  Just the sort of scintillating topics I'm sure you were hoping to find here.  I promise I'll write about other aspects of India soon!

Beginning in the middle

As the time stamp says, it's a Saturday in September of 2013.  I am in India at Dhyanidham, the ashram led by Shri Anandi Ma and dedicated to her guru, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandasji.  After two weeks of heat and humidity, today's weather prepares us for tomorrow, the first day of fall, by being overcast and comfortably cool. I open the front and back doors of my flat and let the breeze clear the indoor air.

I did not expect to start this record with a weather report, but neither did I expect to start it more than a year after the idea first presented itself.  I was in Dhyanidham in January of 2012 and received Ma and Bapuji's blessing for the project at that time.  I began taking photos and making notes, and once I got home, I found this site, but I never found a way to put the pieces together that felt right.  Returning on this trip with all the files, I have spent many happy hours combining photos and text, creating a semblance of organization and updating many sections with new information.

But the result began to feel less like a conversation and more like an instruction manual.  For example, with great enthusiasm I created 6 illustrated pages including 11 points on how to use the apartment's washing machine.  Useful to people coming to Dhyanidham, perhaps, but not the stuff of legend.

And then this week, a miracle.  I received internet access in my flat here at the ashram.

Half happy and half horrified, I had trouble sleeping that night, unsure how my experience of peace in this place would endure the lure of the internet.  But after a couple hours of surfing, I came to realize that the internet is not really a very interesting place.  Dhyanidham, on the other hand, is endlessly fascinating to me.  And then another idea struck:  I've got this internet access, so why not use it to share all the little things about Dhyanidham that don't belong in an instruction manual?

So I dusted off this site and now have two projects to work on:  a guide for how to live here, and a conversation about life here.  Let's see if I can figure out how to show and tell.

Shri Ramachandra Bhagavana Ki Jai!  Sadaguru Deva Ki Jai!  Ambe Mata Ki Jai!  Narmade Mata Ki Jai!  OM Namo Parvati Pataye Hara Hara Mahadeva Hara!