My Amritapuri Experience: Part 17

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Continued from Part 16...

 

X1 spoke to me of Amma with profound reverence. His veneration of

Her, while unostentatious, was clearly very deep. When he spoke of

Amma, his eyes would look into the distance and he would take a deep

breath. At the risk of a little exaggeration, it may be said that I

almost sensed the exhalation of incense from his nostrils; his homage

to Amma was that vivid. He seemed to have virtually integrated Amma

into his breathing. This was 'pranayama' (yogic breath control) in

practice, as far as I was concerned.

 

We made some small talk. He told me about his conditions of life as a

brahmachari in the ashram. Life was obviously very, very hard. I

asked if the food available to the inmates was the same as that

available to the general public. I learnt that the Spartan fare that

I had condescended to eat, in the spirit of 'slumming' while at the

ashram, had been his staple for the last nine years. I was impressed

by the austerity that implied. Clearly, the tyranny of taste had been

overthrown in this territory. I told him about my own feeble (by

comparison) attempts to introduce some austerity into my eating

habits by turning vegetarian.

 

He responded to that by telling me that I should take care of my

health and not neglect it. He described how he had been laid low by a

recurring series of alimentary ailments, and how over the years he

moved from a state of excess body weight to a state of near

emaciation. His concern for me seemed to extend beyond mere

politeness. He spoke to me like a brother. I don't know whether his

compassionate attitude was a generalized phenomenon or whether it was

the result of some adventitious affection for me. Either way, I was

touched by his solicitude.

 

His impressive spiritual credentials were trickling into my

consciousness. I had a dim perception of some of his qualities -

compassion, humility, focus, intensity and above all, Bhakti. Much

later, on reflection, I would wonder at the miracle that Amma had

wrought in this instance, transforming a man of the world into a man

of God. Nevertheless, at that early stage, the realization was not

fully embedded in my awareness and I repaid the kindness of this

spiritual brother with a coarse and insensitive question. I asked

him: "You have been in this spiritual business for so many years now,

you must be on Swami track, no?"

 

The moment the words slid out of my mouth, I realized that I had just

been an incredible LOUT. Shame seeped out of all the pores in my body

and fell to the ground in torrents but brother X1 did not seem to

notice. The crassness of my query could not have been lost on him but

there was a deeper irony behind it that he could not have grasped

without some intimate knowledge of my situation. Here I was, a loser

par excellence (to coin an oxymoron), a pot calling the kettle black.

Actually, it was worse than that. I was a sooty pot all right but X1

was no kettle, more like a shining diamond in his context. I was

guilty of applying a worldly model of success and advancement, a

model that I have never mastered, to the spiritual arena. In my

professional life, I had raised stagnation to the status of high art,

having passed 10 years without securing a single promotion.

 

In his response, X1 magnanimously bypassed my insensitivity. Or

perhaps, he was so far removed from the worldly paradigm that my slip

did not even register on his thinking. I found X1's reply to be

illuminating on several levels.

 

To be continued in Part 18...

Previous episodes blogged at

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

 

Om Amriteshwaryai Namah