hermit's chronicles

This was a question haunting a small boy. His parents were at wit's end, as they could not explain it in a simple language the boy could comprehend. Once the family went for a darshan to Shri Ramana Maharshi. The boy put forward his question to Ramana Maharshi. Shri Ramana laughed to himself. Then with smiling face, he asked his devotee to serve the boy a dosa from the kitchen. So, on a plain leaf, a dosa was served. Shri Ramana looked at the boy and said, "Now I will say 'Hmm.' Then only you should start eating. Then again I will say 'Hmm.' After that no piece of dosa should be left on your plate." The boy agreed. He was so excited. Others were watching expectantly. Now the boy was eagerly waiting for the signal by looking at Shri Ramana's face. When he gave the signal "Hmm" the boy started eating. Now his attention was on Shri Ramana. He wanted to finish the dosa before the second signal. The boy was eating the dosa in a hurry, tearing big ...

 Somehow, right from day one, I had very few questions for my Guruji, Ramesh Balsekar. This is not to imply that I was wise or knew everything; it simply means that I was in love and for some reason questions did not arise. However I did have some interactions with him that left a deep imprint on my memory. The first one happened the day I met him. I had been blown over by his book 'Consciousness Speaks'. And then by an interesting chain of circumstances I was led to meet him at his Gamadia Road home in Mumbai. (I have narrated the entire sequence of events in How I Met Ramesh published by Zen Publications. This is a compilation of accounts by a large number of spiritual seekers who mysteriously landed up at Rameshji's doors). Those days the satsangs were yet to begin and you met him one-on-one. So we three – my spiritual mentor Guru Dayalji, his dear friend solicitor Mahendra Patel, and yours truly – trooped into the small room and sat at his feet. Once we had settled...

  Wherever she looks She finds reason to smile In farce, beauty, peace, celebration Sheer joy bursts forth from trivia She’s inexplicably happy. The black cat meditates Unblinking, with remarkable poise The Gulmohar blooms Setting the drab street on fire She’s inexplicably happy. The frowning child in the pram The chatty mother Prattling on in English Early introduction to education She’s inexplicably happy. Giant tetrapods lie Spread-eagled on the shrinking shore Crabs crawling in crevices Empty beer bottles the new flotsam She’s inexplicably happy. A crowded lift Three giggling teens Keds, kneelength tees, mobiles Torn jeans, breathless gossip She’s inexplicably happy. The doubting mind asks Is this temp? Will this last? Her eyes sparkling She smiles and shrugs, Who cares?! This moment, here and now I’m inexplicably happy.

At a Hindustani musical concert, the tanpura comes in first and exits last. The musician/vocalist begins after the tanpura and performs using the steady drone of the tanpura as the reference point. After a duration s/he exits but the tanpura carries on. The tanpura denotes the ananta , the one without a beginning and end. The drone of the tanpura is called a shruti , a steady repetitive note. The musician stays constantly aware of the shruti running in the background to structure his or her performance. In our lives too there is a constant shruti running in the background: “I want, I want…” I want to acquire something that will make me complete or I want to get rid of something and become complete. The desire to acquire something is called pravritti ; the desire to shed off something is called nivritti . You say to yourself, “I have a lovely family, a wonderful home, a steady career. If only I can get a large SUV my life will be complete.” Well, that is pravritti operating. Now you ...

Santosham was a word used often by Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. In fact just before he dropped his body Bhagavan looked to his assistant and uttered just one word, “Santosham” . Santosham translates to Happiness. The meaning could be extended to include Contentment or to Feeling Complete. Many years ago, as a child, I heard Swami Chinmayananda say something that stuck in my head. It was at his very first public talk in Mumbai, at the Indian Gymkhana in Matunga. He said, “Unhappiness is Desires divided by Desires Fulfilled.” Basically he meant that, unless you understood the game, the gap would never be filled. By implication it meant that the gap would ensure there was no santosham . It automatically follows that with true santosham there are no expectations about the future, no clinging desires in the present and no complaints about the past. In other words, total acceptance of What Is. And that according to most Masters is the surest sign of total understanding. A sign of ‘purnata’ (...

Mom decided we ought to pay a visit to the temple town Nathdwara during our Christmas holidays. Dad made a fuss about the expense but Mom was firm: we hadn’t gone to pay our respects to the family deity, Shreenathji, for quite a while and we couldn’t put this off forever. Finally dad gave in and sent somebody from the factory to queue up at the railway station to buy the tickets for the family – which meant my parents and we three boys, the youngest of them being me and I was nine at that time.

 Cut to Nathdwara.

 The Nathdwara temple has eight darshans – which means, the temple gates are opened eight times a day to allow devotees to have a glimpse of the deity. The deity is adorned differently for each darshan hence each darshan is unique. 

 Now, if you are devout, and in love with the deity, even with its form, you would like to have as many darshans as you can. So I announced to my mother, “Tomorrow I will have all eight darshans of Shreenathji.”

 “Hush!” said my mother...