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| Bhajan Brahmachari |
(from "Living with My Himalayan Master: Sri Sri Bhajan Brahmachari")
Mother, do you want to say something?" The question came from Thakur with utmost humility. From the moment this old lady walked into the room, Thakur was looking at her and then back at me, as if he was hinting for me to be deeply observant and open to important lessons for my spiritual growth.
The training is to be a good disciple. That is a huge challenge. Discipleship is a discipline requiring our best efforts to be awake and available for the Guru's light and to how it dispels the darkness of our conditioned mind. Here was my Master, living the teachings of how one should serve with feelings of pure love and devotion to our one and only Lord.The path of sadhana unfolds with each and every small effort to identify where the fangs of ego lie, where self-interest lies, and where any motivation that is not in sync with selfless service to Guru lies. Thakur was drawing my attention to the things that were happening at the moment. He was teaching me how you serve one who is a pure devotee of the divine. To him, the pure devotee and God are inseparable. Pure devotion indicates there has been a long sadhana of conscious self-consecration to the Beloved. Sadhana has transformed the ego into the higher energy of divine love. The heart of such a devotee is no longer the home of all the clutter seen in most people. The heart of a pure devotee is clutter-free. It is a space of self-offering and surrender, filled with the music of divine union. Such devotees are dearest to God. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna makes it clear that those who give their heart and soul to Him, who are in a constant state of remembrance, are closest to His heart too.
Thakur's face was beaming. Wanting me to realize who she was, he said to me, "Listen to her with deep attention. She will tell many of her stories. At a very advanced age, the doors to the enlightened world of supreme knowledge have opened for her. She had realized many things. She has received so much from the higher world of light. She is filled within. Age, of course, was a bit of an obstacle, but she is full of the light of the inner world."
Sannyasini Ma (we will call her Sannyasini Ma) sat down a little away from Thakur. She took time to settle in after the physical exertion of coming up the stairs and from her inner excitement at seeing the one who to her was the physical embodiment of the Lord of her heart.
After a while, she started sharing her experience and encounters with Lord Krishna that had brought her here. "I was sitting in contemplation of my Beloved Lord Krishna, lost in the ecstasy of His all-attractive form when suddenly Lord spoke out. 'Do you know who Bhajan is? He is Bhajan Mohan Banshidhari.' He said it again and again." Her face lit up with remembrance of the Lord coming to her to reveal the secret of this great saint, who had been so close to her home, and yet whom she never had met. It is an indication of Thakur's state of attainment at the time to have Lord Krishna speak to his devotee about Thakur as inseparable from Himself. Bhajan Mohan Banshidhari is similar to the name of Krishna when He is called Banshidhari, the one holding the flute in His hand, playing the cosmic song to attract His devotees to become playmates in His eternal lila. Mohan is also the name of Lord Krishna, one who mesmerizes the mind and draws the devotee to Him. Calling our Master Bhajan Mohan Banshidhari, Lord Krishna signifies that Bhajan is the very embodiment of divine love, Lord Krishna Himself.
Thakur was listening to Sannyasini Ma with deep interest. When he heard these words, an impish smile, like that of a child who had been caught, flickered across his face. "Who said these words, do you think?" Thakur asked her. She did not reply at once, but meditated for a while and answered, "It must be my indwelling Atman!" (Atman being the inner Divine Self or Soul.) Thakur looked very pleased with her answer.
Sannyasini Ma then tugged at one corner of her white saree where she had hidden some money and tried to offer it to Thakur as pranami (the customary offering made when visiting a saint). Thakur's voice changed when he said, "Ma, are you not a beggar? How can a beggar give a money offering?" Thakur realized that she had nothing of her own anymore. Being completely surrendered to Lord Krishna, her state was like a beggar who lives on what she receives as alms. She lives on what the Lord provides.
Sannyasini Ma continued insisting that he take the money as her respectful offering. She had come to have the darshan (glimpse) of a living saint and in keeping with the revered custom in the tradition of Hindu dharma, the law governing individual conduct, whenever one goes to have the darshan of a living saint or a deity in a temple, one does not go empty-handed. Householders particularly are taught by the elders to always give money, flowers, or fruit. You offer whatever you have as pranami, an offering to the Guru or to God. The belief is that if you go to meet a saint empty-handed, you come back empty-handed. The underlying philosophy of the tradition is that when you give something, especially that to which you are most attached, you create an empty space within, which the Guru or God then fills.
This tradition is rooted in the fact that the entire universe runs on the law of reciprocation. If you are not ready to give, how can you receive? Those who are truly blessed have learned to give, to share. Sharing and giving broadens our heart. It is an expanded state of consciousness that leads to the true emancipation of the spirit.
When Thakur saw Sannyasini Ma years later, he said to her, "You are a sannyasini," though she had not been formally inducted into the order of sannyas at the time. Hearing this from the mouth of a sage, she was a bit surprised and did not understand exactly what he meant. But Thakur saw the inner subtle body of the worn-out, older body of this pure devotee. He could see her aura had nothing to do with the physical body, its age, or its form. Her aura was glowing. Thakur knew that deep within her heart was purged of all worldly desires and cravings which bind a soul to the world of fleeting changes. With the clear vision of his third eye, Thakur saw she had reached a very high state through the path of devotion and love, one usually attained through the most difficult yogic practices, even for yogis. Sannyasini Ma had achieved the inner state of sannyas, having given up all attachments to the phenomenal world. She was totally attached to the divine in all its infinite manifestations. Nothing can create any bondage in that state of freedom from all karmic illusions. This lady was beyond yer eighties and was physically fragile. Her true statue was her spiritual flowering, which Thakur could see. She looked at Thakur, puzzled, and Thakur reaffirmed, "Ma, I am saying you are a sannyasini."
Just a month later, Ma was sitting in her daily meditation when her mind drifted to the words of Thakur about sannyas. She immediately started meditating upon her own Guru and prayed, "Gurudev, it is you who once promised me that you will give me sannyas, Do I not deserve it?"
They say that faith moves mountains. Intellectual knowledge has its place in our lives, but it is faith, pure faith, based on determination and trust, that creates miracles that no amount of dry, undigested knowledge can bring about. That is what happened when Sannyasini Ma was praying with all her heart, earnestness, and yearning for the promise of her Gurudev to come to fruition.
Meditating at her home altar, she suddenly opened her eyes. As she sat there awestruck, her Guru's picture came to life and the great sage emerged from it. He offered her the ochre clothes of a sannyasi and initiated her into the most advanced yogic state of sannyas. No fire ritual or any of the other rituals formally connected with sannyas were performed. The subtle body of the Guru had materialized as the living fire of wisdom and divinity, fulfilling her wish and his promise. As soon as he gave the cloth and initiated her, he dematerialized and disappeared into the picture again.
Thakur could see the rarified heart of this devotee was totally offered to Krishna. There was no desire of earthly nature left in her. That is the true state of sannyas: a state of natural renunciation of all worldly attractions and repulsions. His word came true. It was one Master foreshadowing her Guru's coming to fulfill his promise to her after she had reacher that state of natural renunciation, pure love, and devotion, a state of true egolessness.
Whenever I asked Thakur about the sannyasins that I had seen who were clad in saffron and had a lot of scriptural knowledge, but who did not have a deep feeling in their heart given to the Lord, his answer was always, "Sannyas is a state. It has nothing to do with colored clothes or scriptural knowledge. You cannot take sannyas. It has to come; it has to happen. When it happens, you are beyond all dualistic perception of intelligence and are one with the all-enveloping Consciousness."
Thakur drove that point home again and again. One day when I was sitting at his feet, a devotee asked, "Why do you still wear the white clothes of the brahmacharin (celibate monk)? Did you not take sannyas?" Thakur's face lit up with a divine smile when he answered, "This body says, 'in one who has attained inner sannyas, where is the need for the formal outer sannys?'" At times, Thakur would not use the word "I" and instead would say "this body." As always, Thakur was making it clear that sannyas is not something to be taken, it is something to BE.
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