Monday, October 30, 2006

Upanishad: The Role of the Guru


Many Yogis in the West often pose the perennial question, "Do I need a Guru?" while in India, almost every child remembers being asked at least once, "If you find yourself before both God and Guru who to bow down to first?"

The answer they give is always the same. To the Guru, of course, because s/he is the one who brought you to God.

But how does the Guru bring one to God?

It's actually not a very pleasant method, which is why the Western Yogis are perhaps wise to question whether they need to deal with a Guru at all.

First, he lures you in with sweetness. He makes you feel like you are the most special seeker who ever lived. You are invited to witness many private moments that reveal wonderful things you never imagined existed spiritually. You cannot believe your fortune and spend much of your time basking in what you describe to your skeptical friends as "grace."

Next thing you've decided is that you don't ever want to be away from your Guru. You put all your belongings in storage, get on a plane, head to India in the hot season, and start wearing white. Nothing seems as important or worthwhile as what you are about to commit your life to.

As you arrive at the ashram gates, you hand over your passport, your money, and your plane ticket to the front office. You are shown your bunk in a room full of people with diarrhea. Your first act of service is to bring these people fresh sheets. Clean water. Plain rice. And strange, earthy Ayurvedic medicines your Guru's father (who you fear may be a bit of a quack, but you don't want to question. He's the Guru's father, after all!) gives you to distribute to all the sick Westerners. Your bunkmates hate you because they taste so bad and they groan in pain every time they see you.

Next you find yourself doing manual labor in the worst heat you've ever imagined. And the Guru decides to cancel breakfast indefinitely. "Just one glass of milk and a banana is enough!" you hear him declare. In one day, you spot a viper, a baby cobra, and three scorpions -- and then you remember, "I paid to be here."

And what's worse is that the Guru doesn't seem to think you're all that special anymore. He starts telling you things to do without any explanation or instruction like "Katy will feed all the people tomorrow -- and the next day, and the next day." (Of course he surely meant some other Katy! Because this Katy had never even buttered bread -- forget about cooking for 450 people who'd be visiting the ashram for a week.)

But of course he did mean this Katy.

You spend the entire night awake fretting about the impending disaster that you will be held responsible for. Yet the next day, an intelligence not your own takes over and you find things happening you never thought you could do before. Suddenly mountains of rice, perfect vegetables, golden dahl, and even lovely milk desserts emerge from your own hands.

Now when the Guru asks you to do ridiculous things like complex masonry projects and digging wells and greeting diplomats, you have faith in your untapped potential. You start to feel "puffed up" and proud of yourself.

But it doesn't last long because you realize that whenever you do something, the Guru or the other devotees criticize you. Soon you realize that even though it looks like you're doing everything right, you are being attacked for doing everything wrong. You start to feel angry that you aren't appreciated.

And it continues like this for a long, long time. The only thing that sustains you are your memories of being special and the hope that you may be restored to your special status soon -- and the moments you spend in deep meditation that get deeper and deeper as the months drag on.

A beautiful feeling of sweet detachment begins to grow inside. You find that you don't really care what anyone -- including the Guru -- has to say about the kind of job you are doing. You don't mind the food. You don't mind the cold bucket baths at 4 am. If someone is snoring, you hear it as a mantra repeating in your brain. You look upon everything with a tranquil and equal mind. You feel like you could live at this ashram, in this unbearable heat, forever.

Just when you decide that you are never going back to the West again, the Guru delivers the final blow of his method -- either move, be moved, or if necessary be re-moved. Either you decide on your own to leave. (This takes a great deal of courage because you aren't sure you could ever feel so peaceful "out in the world." And the other devotees criticize you mercilessly for "leaving the Master." Obviously you don't have any real faith and you were just a big mood-maker fake like they always believed.)

Or he asks you to leave. (Since he knows you won't believe him if he asks nicely, usually he doesn't ask -- he commands.)

Or a scandal erupts around you that you get blamed for and you're thrown out in disgrace. (Someone spreads a rumor that you were seen drinking shots of whisky with the villagers...or some such stuff.)

In that moment, you realize that there is only one thing left to turn to -- God.

Monday, October 23, 2006

The Forms of Sanskrit Technology: Upanishad 3


More and more the art of listening is lost to us in the modern age. Everywhere, it seems, we are assaulted by noise and overwhelmed by information begging for our attention. Silence is the rarest of all commodities in the world today.

Without silence, it is impossible to listen properly. Because of all the noise, our brains run on automatic, sifting through all the cacophony and selectively hearing what we most want to hear. And usually, what we want to hear is negative. Gossip. Bad news about someone or someplace. Or bad things other people think about us.

Have you noticed that someone can tell you "I love you" 1000 times, but if they ever in a moment of anger say, "I hate you" you'll never forget that?

In order to hear the sweet truth, it requires more silence. All of the Upanishads were composed by sages who spent many, many years living in forests and basking in silent being. When you become more silent, your hearing becomes more and more refined. You no longer hear the surface-level words, but can perceive the feeling behind them. With more silence, your brain seeks to cling to the truth instead of negative words. It shuts everything out that isn't true, that doesn't spread waves of peace and happiness, and that doesn't elevate you to the highest.

Only with real listening can you perceive the truth. This is why the Vedas are called "that which is heard" or "shruti." The ancient rishis or "seers" in their deep state of silence heard the subtle rhythms and melodies of nature from within their own selves. When they sang those same songs, they noticed a profound upwelling of peace and happiness arising in their surroundings.

Later, forest-dwelling sages contemplated these same sounds in their silent, meditative state. When they had fully listened, they expressed their understandings of truth as the Upanishads. This is why another word for Upanishad is "Vedanta" or the "End of the Veda" or the "Culmination of True Listening."

Once knowledge has been truly heard, then one must integrate that into ordinary life. That's why the Guru tells the disciple to return to the world once he's fully listened to everything that is essential to know to live a fully spiritual life.

And so, after so many years listening intently to my Guru, I could hear his words "Katy, go!" not as an insult or a rejection, but a blessing.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

The Forms of Sanskrit Technology: Upanisad 2


Like all the other forms of Sanskrit, Upanisad is not a text. Even though we can read translations in English or other languages in books that sit on our shelf, the Upanisads are not merely some wise words spoken in the past.

Rather, the Upanisads -- especially in the original Sanskrit -- are alive. When heard correctly, the Upanisads have the power to transform us by awakening the presence of higher consciousness in us.

"Upanisad" consists of three parts -- "sad" (which means "to sit") + upa ("very near," "close to the up-welling force") + ni ("intimately close," "in the 'windless' state as in nir-vana).

Conventionally, it translates to mean "the teachings given to devotees who sit close."

When I first met my Guru, I felt different when I sat close to his physical body. I listened intently to everything he said, and then thought over his words for a long time afterward. Mostly, I felt the tangible affect the silence between his words had on me. Sitting close to him felt like sipping on a long straw. I lost myself drinking in...

But then the crowds started to appear and I moved further and further to the back. The silence was no longer up close, but further behind.

Eventually, I stopped going to see him altogether. Just before I left for good, he told me directly -- "Katy, go!"

On one level, I felt deeply shattered. Go where? But on another level, I knew I could only go one place -- to myself. After so many years, I finally could just sit still in myself. I didn't look to another person who I felt had "it" -- that something spiritually special that I lacked. I stopped chasing external forms.

Upanisad means those words spoken by the teacher that make you sit close to yourself -- without any thoughts moving, like a sage sitting next to a flowing river.

The teacher's words are very direct and can be startling. "You are That," is an example of what is called a "great utterance" (mahavakya) in the Upanisads. But the effect that it has on the nervous system, depends on the readiness of the student. Otherwise, they are just flat words. You have to be prepared to fall off the cliff into yourself.

For me, "Katy, go!" was a catalyst for a revolution in my meditation practice that all the years of sitting physically close had not given me. "Go" is such a powerful mahavakya. It implies that you must arrive -- the true goal of the Sanskrit technology of Upanisad.

Friday, October 20, 2006

The Forms of Sanskrit Technology: Upanisad


Several years ago I had a very lucid dream. It happened on the full moon night of Guru Purnima, when the Teacher of Truth has the most profound influence on our spiritual growth.

I dreamt my Guruji came to me and very clearly told me to read Taittiriya Upanisad, verse number 7. I was still a graduate student and a formal devotee, but I hadn't yet read this particular scripture. Yet the glow of my Guru's face and his crystal clear voice made a strong impression on me, who usually forgets her dreams but couldn't even to this day shake that one from her mind.

As soon as I woke, I took my volume of collected Upanisads from the shelf and located the Taittiriya. Verse 7 proved to be one of the most pivotal moments of my spiritual life. It reads:

"To the Lay Student:

Let your conduct be marked by right action (including study and teaching of the scriptures),
Be truthful in word, action, and thought conditioned by your discipline of meditation, your poise, and self-control,
Perform everyday duties of life with a cheerful heart and unattached mind,
Speak the truth.
Do your work.
Do not neglect study of the scriptures.
Don't cut yourself off from life.
Remain on the path of the good.
Revere what is great and devote yourself to that.
Let your Mother be a god to you.
Let your Father be a god to you.
Let your Guest also be a god to you.
Whatever you give to others, give with love and reverence.
Give gifts in abundance, with joy, humility and compassion.
And if at any time, you experience doubt about what is best for you to do -- follow the example set by great souls.
In this way you should condut yourself. This is my blessing, this is the teaching, and this is the lessons of all scriptures."

It is said in the Taittiriya Upanisad that the Guru gives this advice to a disciple after 12 years. At the time of my dream, I'd been devoted to my teacher for 12 years. Though we live in modern times, my relationship with him was very traditional. I cleaned the floors, washed the clothes, prepared the food, fed people, and cleaned up the kitchen afterward. (One time my Guru made me weed the entire ashram grounds under unbearably hot South Indian sun -- but I think in that particularly unpleasant case, he was trying to burn up my habitual laziness. He succeeded.)

Whenever all the other devotees were sitting close to the master, he always interrupted himself to send me off to do something. He'd pass out sweets and deliberately not give one to me. And while he'd praise and compliment all the others sitting near him, he'd sternly look at me and ask plaintively, "Katy -- what have you done today for seva?" No matter what I would say, he would simply sniff disinterestedly and look away. Eventually instead of trying to come up with glowing reports of all the mundane activities I'd performed throughout the day, I just sat still and watched my reactions.

So because I'd been longing so much for profound and mind-altering teachings (and rarely got them this directly), this dream was very sweet, and ran down my throat like green coconut water -- like the kind you get off the street in India which reminds you that yes, you can go on.

I also knew that this dream was a portent revealing that my 12 years was up. (In the Vedic tradition, 12 years is the allotted time one spends serving one's Guru, after which time, the disciple is expected to enter householder life.) And then, as the Taittiriya Upanisad instructs, I knew I now had to go out and live a "normal life" and that scared me a bit. I was worried that being away from the teacher might keep me from gaining the knowledge I thirsted for. The answer the Upanisad gave to this concern was that now was the time to become totally identified with Pure Consciousness, while doing very mundane things.

This gift from my teacher taught me the real technology of Upanisad. I'll discuss this in my next post...

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Forms of Sanskrit Technology: Gita


As I've mentioned in a previous blog entry, Sanskrit is not a language. It is a sonic technology used to establish a Yogi in profound meditation.

There are many forms that this technology or Yoga can take in Sanskrit. There are the Vedic mantras. Upanisads. Sutras. Puranas. Stotrams. Sahasranamas. Kirtans. Bhajans. And each one serves a specific function in terms of conditioning the mind/body for higher states of consciousness.

The Gita form is used when someone is encountering grief or confusion, as in the Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna is faced with the prospect of either killing his beloved relatives in a battle for power or being killed himself. Arjuna had just asked his charioteer, Krishna, to drive him to the center of the battlefield so that he could see his opponents more clearly. When he saw his maternal uncles, cousins, and best friends, Arjuna broke down and cried. How could he possibly commit such an evil act?

As Arjuna laments to Krishna, he longs for the days when he lived in a peaceful forest and meditated all day. He is sure no kingdom, money, or power is worth the cost of shedding the blood of those he loves most in the world.

Krishna's response? Get up and fight.

Of course when you read Krishna's words in English translation (especially a translation by a scholar who insists on a literal rendition), they sound like military commands. "Get up! This behavior is not suitable for a warrior!"

Yet the famous dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna in which Krishna dispels all of his best friend's fear, doubt, and ignorance is called "Bhagavad Gita" -- "The Lord's Song." Not the Lord's command or order. But his song. And if you've ever read the Srimad Bhagavatam (the life story of Sri Krishna), you know that he is best known for his sweet musical ability.

In a moment darkened by grief, Krishna sings a song of truth to soothe the turmoil in Arjuna's heart. This is especially indicated not only by the Sanskrit meter that the Gita is composed in, but the poetic beauty of the words Krishna choose to console his friend with.

For example, the first word Krishna sings is "Partha," which is a nickname Arjuna's mother gave him. Immediately, a wave of love washes over Arjuna's heart.

It is often the case that whenever we find ourselves in a state of confusion and fear, the only thing that can bring comfort is an expression of motherly love. A sage I met once used to call it the "mother is at home" feeling. When a baby cries, a mother instinctively sings a song to calm it down.

When you are calm, you can better perceive the truth of any situation.

As I write today, one of my dear friends is facing a major surgery. A few days ago a tumor was discovered lodged in her brain. Yet what may be for some a moment to panic and succumb to fear, years of meditation has taught me to hear the song of truth inside myself. "Whatever the outcome," Krishna assures Arjuna, "you are the immortal Self."

Still, your prayers are welcome!

Friday, October 13, 2006

You Are What You Worship


It's been a while since I last updated my blog. Things have been whirlwind-esque here in the American Himalayas. First, I launched my new self-study course, "Sanskrit for Yogis," at the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park. I spent seven solid days on my feet talking with Yogis about why Sanskrit is such a vital part of Yoga's tradition and practice -- and how you don't have to spend years and years (like I did) struggling with Sanskrit's incredibly complex grammar.

Just the arrangement of the sounds works to open the energetic inner core when each is pronounced perfectly.

I also had fun meeting all the luminaries of the Yoga world who were really supportive of "Sanskrit for Yogis." Thanks especially to Gary Kraftsow (www.viniyoga.com), Robert Svoboda (www.drrobertsvoboda.com), Shiva Rea (www.shivarea.com), Judith Lasater (www.JudithLasater.com)...and many more whom I'll mention on my website soon.

Finally, the week of the YJ Conference was also the 9 Nights of the Divine Mother (see previous post). Every morning I woke up super early to chant the most beautiful Sanskrit verses in honor of Devi -- Sri Suktam, Khadgamala Stotra Ratnam, and Lalita Sahasranama. Then as a great boon, our friend Manoj (Unique Arts International) asked us to take a Laksmi murti he had.

Of course I took one look at her and knew I couldn't let her go back in Manoj's truck. It was the 9th day of Navaratri and it felt so auspicious to have her come into our home on that day.

As I was installing her with a bath of rose water and panchamrtam (milk, yoghurt, ghee, honey, and sugar), plus a formal puja it occured to me that external worship of anything just establishes more of who you already are. I thought about all the qualities of Laksmi -- the wealth of wisdom, light, abundance, and happiness -- and realized that her presence in my home just reminded me of what I have.

Here's a few photos of Laksmi's first day in our home.