Out of 100 hundred sadhus interviewed by me in the past 20 years

[Guest guest]

3. Dr. Ravi Kapur on the Life of Sadhus in India

Rajiv Malik

 

DELHI, INDIA, December 5, 2003: Dr. Ravi Kapur, a psychiatrist, trained

in India and UK, is currently the JRD Tata Visiting Professor at the

National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. He has been the

Deputy Director of the same institute and before that the Professor and

Head, Department of Psychiatry at the prestigious National Institute of

Mental Health & Neurosciences. He is Fellow of the Royal College of

Psychiatrists, the Indian National Academy of Sciences and the Indian

National Academy of Medical Sciences. Dr. Ravi Kapur delivered a public

lecture entitled- "The making of a Sadhu: An enquiry into higher states

of mental health," jointly organized by National Institute of Science,

Technology and Development Studies and India International Centre under

the series-DIMENSIONS of SCIENCE, on the evening of December 1, 2003.

The conference hall was packed with intellectuals, researchers,

psychologists, psychiatrists, media persons, former bureaucrats and

diplomats,

 

Dr. Kapur said that some of the sadhus wanted to be on their own and

did not want to be disturbed by the people. Someone close to one such

sadhu said that he was not mentally disturbed but did not want to

interact with the world. This person also gave the instance of Saint

Totapuri, the guru of Ramakrishna Paramhans, who used to throw dirt in

the face of the people as he did not want them to come to him.

 

In his twenty years of research, Dr. Kapur has interviewed sadhus of

all categories. On the one hand he has interviewed sadhus who are globe

trotters and on the other hand he has interacted with the down to earth

ones and the ones undergoing penance on the roads and in the caves of

Rishikesh, Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri areas of Uttaranchal

Region. Out of around 100 sadhus interviewed by him, he spent with them

two to four hours to a few days and also a few weeks, on a case to case

basis.

 

Commenting on his relationship and experiences with the various sadhus,

Dr. Kapur said, "I would like to share with you that almost all the

sadhus were extremely co-operative and were very generous in extending

hospitality to me. Not even one of them asked me for money, though I

myself offered dakshina to many of them."

 

Giving some interesting details of the sadhus interviewed by him, he

said, "Out of the 100 hundred sadhus interviewed by me in the past

twenty years, it would be around 40 of them that I had a detailed

interaction. Out of these 40, 12 had become sadhus due to some

problems faced by them in their social and married lives. As becoming a

sadhu solves their problems of food and shelter, this life had an

appeal for many people. But these 12 people still carried the baggage

of their past lives with them and kept cribbing and complaining about

their past. The rest of the 28 sadhus I interviewed had no reason to

escape their home and material world. They had opted for becoming a

sadhu out of free will and had been attracted to the life as a sadhu

since their childhood days. They were absolutely normal people and

showed no signs of any psychological problems or illness. Many of these

had abandoned their successful careers and social lives, they were

happy people and had a good social network to support them as normal

human beings. When asked, they said that they had chosen to live as a

sadhu because it was in their prarabdha karma (destiny as a result of

actions in a past life) and there was no way to scientifically deal

with this phenomenon. However most of these 28 people had a religious

bent of mind since their childhood."

 

Said Dr. Kapur, "Many of the sadhus I met survived on a meagre diet of

cereals and fruits. They were mostly not bothered as to wherefrom their

next meal is going to come. When I asked this question to one of them,

he told me- 'I challenge God not to give me food.' "

 

According to Dr. Kapur total availability to the needy and sick,

cheerful temperament and high level of energy were some of the

qualities which were common to most of the sadhus he had met. They

pursued their goal -- moksha with boundless energy.

 

Dr. Kapur said that in India the young people are told since childhood

that they should not waste their semen or tejas which is very precious.

"When I asked the sadhus, how they fulfill their desire for sex, most

of them told me that when they are immersed in meditation and bhakti,

the joy and ecstasy they experience gives them much more satisfaction

than they would get from any sexual indulgence. In fact sex was nothing

as compared to the ecstasy they experienced when they were in communion

with the God. To describe this feeling of ecstasy, they said that they

felt a flow of energy rushing from the back of their spine to the top

of their head."

 

Talking about a sadhu who lived at a height of 15,000 feet without

wearing much clothes, Dr. Kapur said – "When I asked him how he coped

with the loneliness at such a height, his answer was, "I have ladoos

[sweets] in both my hands. When someone comes here, I feed him and feel

absolutely blissful. And when there is nobody here for six months, I am

in total communion with God and am again completely blissful. So both

my hands are full of ladoos."

 

"Almost all the sadhus I met, I asked if they possessed any special

powers. One of the sadhus to who I addressed this question responded by

saying- 'Yes I have special powers. I can make very good rasam (a spicy

soup),' " said Dr. Kapur.

 

During this two hour meeting, people listened to Dr. Kapur's lecture

with rapt attention. An interesting question answer session also

followed after the lecture was delivered.