My Amritapuri Experience: Part 22

[Guest guest]

Continued from Part 21...

 

After that tragi-comic excursion into my unexpressed (to X3)

thoughts, we return to the main story. We observed how, half a

decade of construction notwithstanding, the man's delicate

defenses were swept away by the deluge of desire. He drew up a plan

to have a romp, a sexcapade outside the ashram. I found his choice

of Kurukshetra (specifically, the theater of war in the epic

Mahabharata and, in broader terms, the allegorical battlefield where

we all fight our inner demons) a tad intriguing. I could not

conclude whether it was a surviving shred of principle (a reluctance

to commit the ultimate sacrilege on hallowed ground) or mere

pragmatism (the ashram, after all, is no nightclub) that drove his

choice of locale.

 

The decision made, he waited for his chance. It was soon time for

Amma and Her group to set off on another tour. X3 planned to take

advantage of the lighter workload* at the ashram in Amma's

absence to push his plot forward. (*That was then. These days, there

may be no lean season anymore with the exponential growth in ashram

activity, including tsunami relief and other projects.) He was a

little squeamish about revealing the finer details of his scheme.

Not that I pried. His reticence was probably a good thing; it may

have spared me a fight with another fit of laughter. Nevertheless, I

guessed that a night on the town with a strumpet or something on

those curvaceous lines was what he had in mind.

 

His unfolding tale made me ponder the link between desire and

action. Desire, truly is the precursor to action. Action ingrained

becomes habit. Habit hardens into drive. Drives accumulated over

lifetimes turn into vasanas. What a tangled ball of string!

A quotation from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5 seems apposite:

You are what your deep, driving desire is.

As your desire is, so is your will.

As your will is, so is your deed.

As your deed is, so is your destiny.

Here was our hero – a man with an idea. There was, of course, a

twist to the tale. Unlike Archimedes, who discovered the physical

principle of buoyancy, our protagonist was poised, paradoxically, to

illustrate the law of spiritual submergence.

 

What force can stop an idea whose time has come? An Act of God? We

shall see...

 

On the day before Amma's scheduled departure, She met with all

the permanent residents of the ashram on an individual basis. This

was the cherished moment of the year for most residents, their

personal darshans with Amma being normally limited to a maximum of

one or two per year. Our man with a mission was also looking forward

to the encounter, but for a different reason. He wanted to see the

beloved Avatar off double quick, presumably in order to launch his

own incarnation, in the red light quarter of some neighboring town.

I should stress that his planned departure from the ashram mores,

was less a case of disrespect or rebellion, and more a matter of

temporary insanity. The blinding effect of untrammeled desire must

have given rise to a kind of tunnel vision, focusing on the plan at

hand to the exclusion of everything else.

 

Not that he loved our Lalitambika* less, but that he loved his

ladies** more!

[Notes: (1) *Appellation for the Divine Mother (2) **Of the night]

 

Amma was receiving Her children one by one. When his turn arrived,

X3 strode nonchalantly forward, little imagining that this was to be

an audience like no other. Instead of the gentle banter that had

been the staple of his previous meetings, he was battered by the

biggest shock of his life. Amma gripped his skinny arm above the

elbow and shook him like a leaf. X3 enacted it for my benefit, by

trying to shake me the same way, but he only ended up shaking

himself. I am quite scrawny as well, but next to the slightly built

X3, I loom like Muhammad Ali, which may explain why the shaking

recoiled.

 

Amma impaled him with a piercing glare and said, in Malayalam:

Eda e ashramam makkalude choreyum verpum kondu indakide anu

Ethine nashpikyan sammadikilya

Nende manas neyandrikyan pattilyengil ivude vittu pogam

Translation:

This ashram was built with the blood and sweat of my children

I will not allow you to destroy it

If you cannot control your mind, you may leave

 

It was like being struck by lightning. A billion volt bolt burning

your brain. I imagined it must have felt like that. Even listening

to his story second hand, I felt a current move up my spine.

Needless to mention, our friend was stunned witless. As he walked

out of the darshan room, he realized that he had just been operated

on by a cosmic neurosurgeon. There was nothing to say. More

important, there was no longer anything to do. His carefully fleshed

out plan was reduced to a heap of ash on the pyre that Kali* lit.

But, wonder of wonders, he actually felt good about it! (*Another

name for the Divine Mother)

 

As a sadhak (spiritual aspirant) struggling to gain control over a

clutch of unruly vasanas, I have generally believed that it is

necessary to undergo the pain of renunciation in order to win the

big prize of nirvana. In the light of this story, I had the insight

that it is not the giving up but the constant grasping that hurts.

Of course, it was only a momentary flash of wisdom that would not

last. For the most part, the sensory express chugs smugly along, but

once in a while it takes a curve too quickly and gets thrown off the

rails. At such moments, the heaven of the senses is revealed to be

hell.

 

Here then was the story I had longed to hear. X3 had provided me

with direct testimony of Amma's omniscience. Given the

clandestine nature of his enterprise, he had not breathed a word of

it to anyone. There was no way for anyone to know what he was up to,

without tapping into his thoughts. If true, his story rocked for

sure. When the early euphoria from listening to his remarkable

account subsided, I felt the need for a philosophical excavation. In

subsequent episodes, if appetite exists, I may examine the meaning I

have mined in the years since then.

 

To be continued in Part 23...

 

Previous episodes blogged at:

http://www.sulekha.com/weblogs/listingsbyblog.asp?pg=1&blogid=750

 

Om Amriteshwaryai Namah

 

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