The Recollections of N. Balaram Reddy Part 3

[Guest guest]

THE MAHARSHI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March / April 1995Vol. 5 – No. 2

 

 

 

Produced & Edited byDennis HartelDr. Anil K. Sharma

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recollections of N. Balaram Reddy

 

Early Life

 

 

 

I cannot say anything about my previous births, but in this birth I have been spiritually inclined since my childhood. You could say it is because of the legacy passed down to me from my father and my own inherited tendencies.

My father was a serious sadhaka. He practiced austerities in his youth, studied the scriptures and even observed mouna (silence) for one year.

He also went on a pilgrimage to the holy places in North India, visiting ashrams and sacred shrines in the Himalayas. After this pilgrimage he decided to take up the life of a grihastha (a householder).

But in spite of marrying, having a secular occupation and raising a family, my father always cherished spiritual ideals.

A life centered on God as the ideal was the essential element of our daily life in my father's house.

I was born on October 30, 1908. From my birth, my father was eager that I should imbibe spiritual values, and he was very concerned that secular studies might smother my spiritual inclinations.

In my teens, I was inspired by the life and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. I regularly read his monthly magazine, Young India, and molded my life accordingly.

Gandhi introduced the "Salt Satyagraha" in 1930, and this caused a great stir throughout the country. I was then a post-graduate student at the Hindu University in Benares. Later, during the summer break when I was at my home in Andhra Pradesh, the police arrested the president of our Nellore District Congress Committee. The committee met and decided to ask me to take over the position of president. I accepted and, when this fact was published in the newspapers, the police wasted no time in arresting me. For four months I remained incarcerated.

At that time I had an idealistic view of politics, Mahatma Gandhi's goals, and the volunteers who worked to achieve them.

I was under the impression that all those selfless workers arrested in the freedom struggle were naturally endowed with saintly characteristics, much like their leader, Gandhiji. In prison I had a disappointing awakening to the real nature of many of these jailed nationalists.

I soon became disenchanted with the ideal of political activity for attaining freedom, especially when I arrived at the understanding that spiritual freedom, or Self-realization, was the highest goal of life and political freedom would not actually change us spiritually.

When I was studying in the Benares University, the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna also exerted considerable influence on my spiritual ideals.

By the time I was in the middle of an M. A. degree in Benares, I began to seriously question the use of all these degrees in the light of an ever-deepening desire to follow wholeheartedly a spiritual path.

I concluded that the purpose of life was not to attain material goals, but rather to realize God and experience the truth of a universal, underlying Reality.

When this conviction became firm, I decided to leave the university and dedicate my life to the spiritual ideal.

In all the scriptures, I read that a guru was necessary to guide one on the spiritual path. I thought that I should also find a guru to lead me to liberation. In search of one, I first travelled to North India, visiting all the celebrated saints and yogis. I would spend some days or weeks at their ashramas and then move on to the next one.

Throughout this trip I was unable to find any teacher that captivated my heart and mind to the extent that I could honestly surrender myself as a disciple.

I remember being asked by the disciples of the leader of Radhasaomi Movement to take initiation from their guru. I had been residing at their Centre for three days. I expressed my disinclination, stating that I didn't believe the time had come for me to choose a guru. When this information was passed onto the head of the ashrama, he entirely agreed with me, saying that it had taken him twenty years to choose his guru.

 

To be continued