It is now about 3 days since I wrote the aphorisms. And when I read them again my initial desire of attempting a commentary has disappeared. The reason seems simple; the brevity of these imparts a certain import, which I think will be diluted if I elaborated further. Moreover the language is simple enough for all of us to understand.
Having said this however I thought there is a need to know the context in which these came about. But this would require a bit of dwelling into the past which would give it all a proper perspective. Please do bear with me.
My 3 brothers and I were part of a very religious family brought up on a strict regimen of daily prayers without the mandatory culture of traditionalists namely say a Thursday bhajan, or a Saturday visit to a temple or a fast on Tuesdays etc. In other words there was this underlying theme of avoiding ostentatious display of religious fervor, as “faith” to our belief was an internal matter. The only exception to the rule was our daily presence in our Guru’s camp in Delhi when he visited Delhi for the first time, which practice also over a period of time, came down substantially.
In my experience there was nothing to suggest that our path was in any way inferior to that of the traditional crowd. Nor was there a shaking of faith, to consider the option of a change in pattern and follow this crowd, even amidst overwhelming instances of perceived absence of His Grace.
However surprise visited me in the form of a close friend of the family, -a devout member of the traditional gang—who remarked profoundly (!!) that almost all of us in our family as per our horoscopes seem to be deprived of “Guru’s Grace”. Though this could not stir me into becoming a convert, skeptical as I was at this remarkable insight, sub-consciously perhaps the seed of doubt planted itself in the mind, bringing in its wake a strong desire to know more about the subject of astrology, particularly with regard to its spiritual contours, rather than the aspect of mundane predictions based on planetary configurations. This also prompted me to dwell more deeply inward to find answers to a lot of troubling queries.
The night of the origin of the ‘sutras” was again one of those disturbing ones when sleep just refused to come to my aid. A series of repeated disappointments in the preceding few days was the cause for unease. This led to an internal debate; On one hand there was this clear understanding that since fate or more precisely “prarabda” is playing its part which even the most evolved had to contend with, there really was no need to lose sleep ( pun intended). On the other, the absence of any comfort factor in the form of a perceptible hint that there really is no lack of “Grace” especially when viewed in the context of many apparently undeserving people getting all the favors, constantly countered the pripakkuam level of the former. It was at this stage that there was this sudden impulse to get up and pen down the sutras. All this happened say within a maximum of about ten minutes. When I re-read what I had written, I felt something close to understanding and within a few minutes later I slept.
I am sure all will agree that with this strange and unique experience, my reluctance to expand on the sutras is quite justified. However the next day when I was mulling these over, I recalled the story of how “Sudama” a great Krishna Bhakth, gets redemption from his abject poverty with Lords grace.
The story is narrated with a huge amount of romanticizing like how Sudama- the pauper- prompted by his wife, very reluctantly goes visiting his childhood friend, the Lord Himself, with just a few morsels of rice flakes as he could afford nothing else. And how even as the Lord partakes one grain of this -offered embarrassingly by Sudama-, his wife elsewhere, receives the kings messenger and who takes her to a palace, and with the second grain she is showered with money etcetera. All of this is heard with ruptures of ecstasy by the devout, and the story itself holds a very special place amongst ones which have “bhakthi” as the theme..
Strangely I feel that my sutras can be better understood with this story as an example. A more profound and less romanticized narration of the story goes like this; Sudama is a highly evolved person, and he is tremendously embarrassed to go seeking material help from his friend Krishna whom he recognizes as that Universal soul.
The all-knowing Lord has already known about Sudama’s wife prompting his friend, and his reluctant journey to meet him. The moment Sudama leaves, all his wife’s wishes are fulfilled. The reluctance of the palace guard to let Sudama in, the Lord’s pretense to know only from the palace guards about his friend’s arrival, his partaking of rice morsels are more in the nature of romanticizing the narration.
To get back to my sutras and their relevance to this story; my take is this. It was just Sudamas prarabda that he was very poor, and so was his wife. Sudama’s paripakkuam (ripening knowledge) was so complete, that his prarabdam never bothered him, nor did it come in his path to achieve the ultimate desire of a union with Him. He just needed a darshan of the Lord for his deliverance. His wife however was disturbed with her material inadequacy. By her association with Sudama, and by Lord’s grace, her Prarabda is just transformed.
This lady if she is amidst us today, will probably be one of the most traditional devotee of the Lord; she will be in ecstasies talking of the Lord or a Guru, will be very honorably met by the latter when she goes visiting, which will be often – a common cold, a small business problem- you name it she will be there with the Guru/Lord. She will also probably hold regular satsanghs/bhajans etc,. Her prarabdam is good you see?
What about Sudama? He will struggle to enter any premises of Gurus/Lords, the guards or the horde of assistants will just not allow him easy passage. I have not heard anyone mentioning about Sudama’s obsession to run to Krishna at the drop of a anga vastra; today also he will be thinking of Him 24X7 without any ostentatious rituals, nor feel the need to rush to Him at a hint of a trouble. Sudama’s prarabda is hardly relevant to him. His aim is to get paripakkuam, and merge with Him in liberation. His wife’s prarabda however is probably to get into another kind of prarabda. Strangely this “samaadhaanam” soothes my nerves/ego/ and gives me a bit of comfort besides aiding in getting my aphorisms elaborated without in any way diluting their import.
Hope no one grudges me this over due comfort however small……….
Love
Vichu
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