Musings on a Homecoming

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Dear "bhAgavatOttamA-s",

 

Here are a few more musings/notings on my "homecoming":

 

++ It was with a great deal of excitement I met, after a period of more

than 5 years, with my "mAnaseega-AchAryan",SrimAn U.Ve. Sri Mukkur

Lakshminarasimhachariar at his residence in Venkatesan Street, T.Nagar,

Chennai. I prostrated before him. He bade me sit down and proceeded with

his usual kindly "kuchala-prashnam-s".

 

++ I notice how advanced in years he himself has become. His mien is

still that of a majestic strutting lion... being the inveterate

"nrsimha-upAsaka" that he is ... but his is now essentially the majesty

of grey eminence ...the eminence too of one who has performed more than

a 100 "nrsimha-maha-yagnyA-s".

 

++ I notice the Swamy's hair has withered, a few of his teeth are

missing, there is a mellowness of light in his warm but glinting eyes

and I can hear a new gravity in the ring of his voice....

 

++ The conversation invariably veers onto the kind of life I had been

leading these many years in far-off Muslim lands. More than a month ago

there had been a carnage in Coimbatore which had its roots in communal

tensions in the state of Tamilnadu. I gather the incident disturbs and

rankles in ordinary people's minds in many silent and inexplicable ways.

 

++ "Contary to popular misconception," I told Mukkur Swamy, "in Muslim

lands it is not as if everyone you meet on the street is bigoted

against Hinduism! There are many wise and pious souls amongst the

Muslims of Arabia too. Some of the mullahs I chanced to encounter did

consider the ancient religions of India as paganistic but I know in the

secrecy of their hearts they respect our faith too as true revelation of

the Almighty."

 

++ I do not know if my remarks surprise or offend him. He listens but

does not comment.

 

++ In the 5 years I lived and worked in Bahrain and elsewhere in the

Middle-East (I found myself narrating), I had absolute religious

space and freedom. And more importantly, I had all the TIME in the

world to truly exercise that sweet freedom.... something, ironically, I

can hardly afford in the hurly-burly rat-race of life in India!!!

 

++ Again he does not comment. Deep down within myself I was asking

myself awkwardly if it was not the central purpose of our lives to find

the TIME and the SPACE to FREE ourselves from ourselves....!

 

++ Is there any rite of "cleansing" I should go through, I ask Mukkur

Swamy, for having lived amidst the "turushkA-s" and "mllecchas" for so

many years abroad? Should I go through some ritual bath or something

before I attempt anything like a pilgrimage to Tirupati or to Atthigiri?

 

++ THe Swamy smiles.... I have perhaps at last asked him something

pertinent to which he would deign to respond ?

 

++ "Do not worry about cleansing rites, Sudarshan," he says,"If you have

lived amongst those you have held are wise men... wherever they are and

of whatever persuasion .... if you have been fortunate enough to live

amongst "knowing souls" ('gnyAni-vargatthai sEndavargal'--- I got a

feeling here the Swamy was clearly referring to the verse in the Gita

where the Lord admits His soul is but constituted by the dear "gnyAni-s"

of the world) ..if you have been fortunate enough to live amongst

"knowing souls" there's little you could have wasted or sullied in your

life..... Still cleanse if you must, then what better way is there than

to do a few score more of the "gAyatri-japa" ?!! If you have been

reciting 10 a day, step it up to 28; if you have been meditating on 28 a

day step it all up to 100 a day now!! The blessed "gAyatri", Our Holy

Mother, She shall surely cleanse you of all that needs to be cleansed!!

Why bother evermore ?"

 

++ I walk away that evening from Mukkur Swamy's house wondering at the

grand catholicity and universality of his view.... that one ought to

always consider oneself lucky anywhere in the world ...as long as one

resides where the Lord's soul we know resides : amongst the "gnyAni-s"!!

 

++ I walk away from Swamy's home that evening re-living too some of the

old lessons that I'd learnt about the "gayatri" many years ago when I'd

myself undergone "upanayanam".

 

More on that in later postings.

 

adiyEn,

sudarshan