Baits in our lives

Two days back I went over to the home of a man who I had newly found out to have books I was looking for. Specifically books authored by Prof R. D Ranade as I had known him. When I was shopping at the book store in Paithan I had enquired for these books. The young man at the store had impressive knowledge about Saint literature and authors on these subjects. He didn’t have Ranade’s books but he knew who Ranade was. He also knew someone who knew where to find Ranade’s books. We exchanged our numbers and within a couple of days I had a message with details of the place where the books were available. The address was within 2 kms from my Pune home. I called the listed number and a gentleman by the name Avinash Dharwadkar answered the phone. It was a bad connection but he told me he had the book I was looking for and many more and told me to come see them but call before coming so someone would be home. I followed his instructions and went the next day. A man who seemed to be in his 30s or early 40s answered the door. That was Chinmay. He had me take a seat and went in to fetch his father. They both showed me the books in a cupboard in the drawing room. I had come particularly looking for Prof Ranade’s book “ Mysticism in India- the Poet Saints of Maharashtra.” I was carrying this book from my home in Bakersfield on my way to India hoping to continue reading during my stay. In the chaos of checking in at the airport the book was left in the cart and couldn’t be found after contacting the airport lost and found department. Mr Dharwadkar had the same book with a slightly different title: Indian Mysticism: Mysticism in Maharashtra. I picked that plus many more books from the same author as well as a couple written by other scholars about Prof Ranade’s life. 

Mr Avinash Dharwadkar was probably in his 60s. He asked me about what I do. He seemed to have guessed I am a physician. He told me in the last few weeks he had developed some cerebellar problems affecting his balance. I asked him about his association with Prof Ranade. Prof Ranade passed away in 1957, a few months before Mr Avinash was born. The discipleship was in the family for two generations before that. His maternal grandfather and mother were followers of Prof Ranade. They knew him as Gurudev Ranade. Sitting in the drawing room right adjacent to the books cupboard was a shrine with photos of 3 people. On the top was the picture of Prof Ranade’s guru Sadguru Bhausaheb Maharaj Umdikar. Under that, to the left was the image of Amburao Maharaj, and to the right, one of Gurudev Ranade, both disciples of Bhausaheb Maharaj. The latter himself was the disciple of Nimbargi Maharaj. Few other photos of these saintly men were sitting on another table across the room. After an initial misunderstanding Mr. Avinash gave me permission to take photos of these portraits. Initially he thought I was asking to take the portraits home. Anyways, when I asked again he realized I was just taking his permission to use my phone camera for the portraits.

He was curious to know how I had become involved with Gurudev Ranade. To think about it, it is quite an interesting story even for me. In the days when I had newly moved to Bakersfield ( 1997) I was in a mode of acquiring all sorts of literature in spirituality and religion. In that period one book I came across on Amazon was Ranade’s book on the Poet Saints of Maharashtra. It was published in New York, first edition in the 1930s. I was a very uninitiated student of the subject back then. Yet I read the entire book from front to back. The contents weren’t easy to grasp but they certainly had a grip on me. The author’s grasp on the subject, his scope of study and power of interpretation was extraordinary and hard to go unnoticed. I remember in those days another physician in town Dr Manohara had seen me with the book and borrowed it from me, then returned after reading it. He was just as impressed and very likely in a better position than me to understand it. The book sat on my shelf for years. I revered it ever since that first read and always had it in mind to read it again, just like I keep reading the Bhagwad Gita over and over. Years passed, easily over two decades, before I picked it up to read again. It must have been early 2025 when I started reading it, even carried it to Europe in the summer. I would carry it to Tehachapi when I worked there and stayed overnight. I wasn’t done even by November when it was time to go to India. Amita had commented “ you are still on the same book?”. Yes, because it wasn’t a story book to finish reading in one sitting. It is not an easy read at all. I would read barely a page or two at most in any given day, pause several times and contemplate on what I had read. Sometimes a paragraph would launch me off onto another tangent before coming back to continue reading. This was a book that had the power to penetrate deep into the psyche. To make you think beyond the unthinkable. To explore beyond the ordinary. To make you open and look into your soul. And then foolishly I had lost the book at the airport! It was much too precious to let go. I had to find a replacement and continue reading! The contents of it were my only connection to Gurudev Ranade. I hadn’t heard about him from anyone, not known anyone who knew him. Not before this day when I was meeting Mr Dharwadkar, who had dedicated his life to the Gurudev Ranade Samadhi Trust. Knowing about Gurudev Ranade was purely accidental, every step of the way.

In Mr Dharwadkar’s words, each person’s prarabdha brings us in contact with something. My prarabdha has put me in touch with Gurudev Ranade’s scholarly work. From brief browsing through some other books I picked from Mr Dharwadkar’s home, it is beginning to sink deeper as to how profound was Gurudev Ranade’s intellectual wealth and scholarly aptitude . His stature, if one has to compare, needs to be compared with someone of the caliber of Sant Dnyaaneshwar. 

In my humble years of study if I was to list the authors who I found to be of significance in shaping my thought and meaningfully changing my life it would be Shri Krishna/ Ved Vyasa through the Bhagwad Gita, Sant Dnyaaneshwar through the Dnyaaneshwari, Sant Muktabai through Taatiche Abhang, Ranganath Maharaj Parbhanikar through his keertans, pravachans and other writings, and Gurudev Ranade through his reflections and interpretations of saint literature and comparative studies of western philosophy with Indian mysticism. Two other people who I have come to pay attention to are Mr. Joseph Campbell and Mr. Eckhart Tolle. I do not find the viewpoints of these individuals to contradict each other. They are each original in their own way and have allowed me plenty of space to think for myself and have my independent experiences. Each one has prompted me to delve deeper and deeper into thought and gain new insights. 

Today I reflected on that simple question from Mr Dharwadkar about how did I come to know or get interested in Gurudev Ranade? It appears as if it was a bait from the universe. I latched onto it. 

How did I catch the bug of reading the Bhagwad Gita?

In a moment of total despair and darkness, that was another bait. I got hooked on to it. 

All three gunas are active in me just as much as they are in any other person. Each guna puts forth and makes you bite on its own bait. Sarees are the biggest bait waved at me by Rajoguna. Another one is anything to do with the kitchen. Gadgets, cookware, spices, grains etc..Wanting to do some charity work in India, or wanting to do some writing is a bait thrown jointly by rajoguna and sattva guna. Some days just being idle and unproductive is the bait coming from tamoguna. Indulging in non-vegetarian food is another bait from Tamoguna. I bite on all of the above at various times. 

I call these baits because looking back I realize how in those early years I was unsuspecting of what I was drawn to. And not quite watchful about how each attraction laid down a pattern of behaviors that eventually turned into habits. And now it has become a task to undo some habits systematically while the baits still hang around.

Reading about the teachings of the authors I mentioned above was a bait from Sattva guna. That’s probably the only bait I would be willing to bite on again if I was not as blindfolded/ ignorant as in the past. It has brought me internally to a juncture where I’m able to differentiate and recognize the different baits for what they represent, understand each one’s value, their consequences,both short term and long term, and make more informed choices.

I thought about all the people in my family I passionately suggest to start reading the Bhagwad Gita or any spiritual text of their choice to get acquainted with the concept of the spirit. And I thought about the resistance I see from their end. Probably the universe is waving the bait at them through me. Just like one day it had waved the same bait at me.These folks are not willing to bite on it like I did. Perhaps it is a tug-of-war between their prarabdha and the generosity of the universe. They are not willing to risk believing or giving attention to some concept that science can’t explain, mainstream society doesn’t value or endorse, modern fashion doesn’t find appealing and the pace of their own lives doesn’t find worth affording time for. 

Robert Frost’s famous lines come to mind here:

“Two roads diverged in a wood. And I -

I took the one less traveled by.

 And that has made all the difference.”

All three gunas continue to wave the baits at every single person who is alive today. They just don’t know these are baits. How would they know then which bait to bite on? The baits do not come with authentic labels. One can only hope and pray that the maximum people would dodge all baits other than those flashed by sattva guna, because those other baits are unforgiving, ruthless. And once that bait of sattva hooks them, they would not want to return back into the ocean they were swimming in before being lifted up. The lesser baits can only drown you in the ocean. Only the bait that leads to the search for your pure identity will save you.