A post from the early days

[Guest guest]

Here is a post that came when the list was just starting in January

1999. It has stayed with me.

 

Namaste and love to all

Harsha

**************************************

 

Hello all,

 

A brief intro. My name is mic, tho most of my friends here call me

mohan. Advaita has found its way as my heart from the summer of 91,

when while wandering India, by chance I encountered Sri Poonjaji, a

disciple Bhagavan Ramana Mahrishi. I stayed with him and the small

gathering there for two months, a time of great joy, intensity,

revelation and incomprehensible silence.

 

I mostly recall the great stillness. The presence of this man. In

this dirty town of swirling duststorms and buildings swimming in the

heat before me. At night candles cast a golden hue upon the markets,

dancing in the buzz of bicycle song and branches of lush red lychees

being sold on the dusty streets. The silence. The torrential flow of

humanity, pulsing through the hot polluted streets, watermelon stalls,

the astonishing passion of seekers at his house, like the sweetness of

sugarcane juice. And the end of seeking itself in the embrace of the

always so.

 

Like many there I had walked other roads in my search. I had come to

India on a Buddhist yatra, with plans to finish the journey in a Thai

monastry. Yet relaxing into this resplendent heart of being, the

seeking and the struggle fell, the seeker and the story melt away as

monsoon rains drench me in joy.

 

And I finally see the True heart of advaita, as my own. Leaving India,

with the blessing of the mountain, I felt almost drunk on the ringing

clarity of these words from the Tripura Rahasya; " Know yourself as

Pure Consciousness, the unaffected witness of the phenomenal world. "

 

Integrating this with a world that demands commitment and

authenticity, I meet with surrender and an open heart. Some days I

struggle, some days I sing. The devotion I feel to shakti I know is

but a reflection within consciousness of this love. The silence. And

it is in this love I am earthed in freedom, and can play out my role

in the theater of this world in peace.

 

warm regards,

mohan