Birthday Reflections:Part 1

Birthday Reflections:

Part 1:

Recently I wrote and shared a tribute to my mother. Having just celebrated a birthday I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge two more entities that are mothers for me. In fact, each of us has a biological mother, a spiritual mother and a motherland. 

Let me share how I view the contributions of my spiritual mother and my homeland. 

My spiritual mother has no name or form. Yet she is more real and influential for me than my other two mothers. 

I have heard her over and over and over again and learned to recognize her mysterious voice by now. 

The loudest this voice resounds is in the words of saints, poets and wise people. But her voice is not limited to these sources. 

She speaks softly through trust strangers put in each other. 

Through quick minded actions that save someone’s life. 

Through years of scholarly research and academic dedication that takes an entire lifetime before one valuable discovery comes to light and generations can benefit from it. 

She speaks without words through the sincerity of leaders who stay awake through nights and forsake personal rest to make a big vision for their people become a reality. A sincerity that can never prove itself to those who remain blind to behind the scenes workings. She reveals her voice through the energy with which these leaders continue their work, even when the full scope of their efforts is not visible to the people they are serving, and draws harsh criticism and an unrelenting battle to pull them down. 

She speaks in the voices of young people who dream of a better future and can’t see these dreams being taken seriously. 

She speaks through men and women who spend entire lives in extreme poverty and hardship. Yet refuse to beg on the street. They earn their bread through honest work. They do not get on the street to fight with people who insult them at every opportunity. Not because they don’t have self respect. But because they have mouths to feed. 

She speaks through doctors who have no interest to takes sides of two warring factions and who don’t think twice about their own safety on the battlefield. Only the humans wounded in the battle matter to them. Whether civilians or soldiers, the leaders who started and continued the war are not concerned about their wounded lot. The spiritual mother speaks for this forgotten lot through the doctors who go to heal. 

One can learn from parents and teachers if you can hear them. You don’t need to see them to hear them. 

Amha nahi naam roop

Amhi aakash swaroop

Jasa nila nila dhoop

The spiritual mother’s voice is different. We have to really develop our hearing abilities beyond the average level to listen to her voice. 

It is a task before us to decipher her language and lessons because the voice is not coming from a single place. It is coming from every source. Even trees, disease causing bacteria, water, soil, climate, planets, sun, moon, stars, are relaying her message. But efforts towards hearing her voice in humans would be a good start. A good start is by tuning in to see if her voice can be heard in someone opposed to me. Someone who makes me really angry and frustrated. 

It may appear like I’m teaching someone my own gyaan. No, no. Please trust me. Everything I know I learnt from one of my mothers, either the biological mother, motherland or spiritual mother. Most of it from the latter. I was neither born wise nor became wise enough to teach anyone. My only strength is that I hear and see what many don’t. I hear and see differently than many around me.

One of the many things I heard and heard loudly was Muktabai telling the great Dnyaneshwar Mauli:

ब्रम्ह जैसे तैशा परी

आम्हा वेढिले भूतिं चारी

Just like consciousness/divinity is omniscient and omnipresent, we are surrounded by it in the form of the people around us. 

वाद घालावा कवणाला 

अवघा द्वैताचा हो घाला

There is no “other” around us for us to fight against or argue with. It is just the mischief of duality that makes us separate ourselves from others.

एक आपण साधू झाले

येर कोण वाया गेले

We became good role models and wise. Then we started considering others as lesser than us?

ब्रीद बांधिले चरणी

नये दावितां करणी

We have committed ourselves to the service of a bigger cause. Our actions must not be contrary to that of a servant. We cannot do what mind tells us to do and disregard what is in the true interest of everyone we are here to serve. 

The spiritual mother had to say this out aloud to the wisest of all saints, Dnyaaneshwar, through the mouth of a little sister. And he did not insult her when she spoke. He knew she was right and he was wrong. An elderly Brahmin in the town had mocked him and his feelings were hurt that day, so he was angry and protesting against the insult. 

थोडे दुखावले मन 

पुढे उदंड साहणे 

One little insult gives your sensitive mind so much hurt and humiliation. There is so much more in store. So much life will be throwing at you. Don’t be silly to get ruffled by trivial things. 

जीभ दातांनी चाविली 

कोणी बत्तीशी तोडीली?

Only a stupid person would show retaliation against one’s teeth when the tongue is bitten! One who knows that the damage from such senseless retaliation will be directed upon one’s own self will not react like this.

She spoke earnestly and Dnyaneshwar listened. And because Dnyaneshwar listened, we got literary treasures from him that are valued by thousands even after eight centuries. 

The spiritual mother talked not just through Muktabai’s words but through Dnyaneshwar’s example. From his listening and changing his stand. She spoke through the scene of both parties forgetting the hierarchy of senior and junior and all along, the junior never being disrespectful of the senior. 

लडिवाळ मुक्ताबाई

जीव मुदल ठायीचे ठायी

I am not qualified to say all this to you. You already have the wisdom in yourself. I’m just saying in case you got temporarily forgetful. I’m just your little sister.

The spiritual mother took a humble approach even when scolding.

कोणी कोणास शिकवावे

सार साधुनिया घ्यावे

Who is qualified to teach another? 

We just, each of us, need to take the gist of what really matters.

Progress matters, eradicating poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease matters, civility matters, national unity, security and stability matters, religious harmony matters, justice and lawfulness matters. Working for these causes matters. But working with anger and resentment and in ways that contradict the purpose of the voice of the dissent is just plain wrong. 

These teachings keep coming from the saints over and over again. 

अनुभवावीण मान हालवू नको रे

आपुल्या मते उगीच चिखल कालवू नको रे

Goan Saint Sohiroba said this so eloquently. It remains relevant for any generation any where on the planet. Always speak or act from one’s experience. Dont learn to nod before you completely understand what anyone is saying. Dont start giving opinions without the backing of experience. You will mislead people and confuse them while you are yourself confused about the path you are leading them on. 

I have learned a thing or two about religions that are different from mine. Not by reading their books or attending their places of worship. I have learned it from the people I have been with. The way they live their lives, way they treat me, way they behave with me tells me what I need to know about their religion. Why they behave differently from many others that read their same books or go to the same places of worship as them? Why I get a different message from the books I read and the religious leaders I follow than my brethren who read the same books and worship the same Gods? Answers to both questions may be same. I listen to a different voice coming from the books. And you know what’s mysterious, although our books are different and our places of worship are different, my friends understand my language and I understand theirs. Perhaps because the voice we hear and learn from is one and the same? 

In my tribute to my mother that I had shared a month or so back, I told how she was referred by all in the entire town as Bai. The families of my Muslim, Bohra, Christian, Sikh, Zoroastrian friends from school days, all enquire about her even today with much love and respect. How is Bai doing? Is she keeping well? She delivered their babies and treated them when they were ill. She didn’t care what religion they came from or what they cooked in their homes. When I was invited to their homes on Ramzan Id or Christmas, my mother never prevented me from going. All she worried was “ please don’t eat pork or beef there”. And I didn’t. I enjoyed their biryani and I enjoyed their cakes and fish and even sipped some wine, which my parents had not prohibited me to try. I and they may not be the perfect Brahmins in doing these things. But the moms of my non Hindu or non Brahmin friends treated me with real love and kindness and still do. My spiritual mother spoke to me through them and their families. Our relationships were more important to her than me being a perfect Brahmin.

My spiritual mother never told me to give up being stubborn. She quietly taught me how to be stubborn for the right things. She never taught me to tolerate disrespect and hate. Instead she taught me how to insist on respect and resist hatred without making place for these unnecessary things in my heart. My heart held my mother and all people minus their impurities. Their impurities belong to them individually. I have my own impurities to clean up. I have my own space to arrange things in an orderly way and with a decorum of my choice.

I didn’t have to go out of my way to display love and affection for anyone. Not even for my spiritual mother. All I needed was to listen and see and feel with the faculties she had given me. And love was there to be experienced, coming from all sides. 

एके मोठेपण केले

एके अभिमाने गेले

She spoke through Muktabai to me in various ways. Your destruction lies in trying to think and prove you are better than anyone. You are not. You cannot ever be. That would be delusional. The moment you subscribe to looking bigger and better than anyone that will be the beginning of your end. 

My spiritual mother spoke through Chokha Mela, the Mahar. 

ऊस डोंगा परी रस नोहे डोंगा

चोखा डोंगा परी भाव नोहे डोंगा

Sugarcane may look unsightly and seem difficult to chew on but it holds sweet juice inside. 

Don’t read a book by the cover. Don’t throw a baby out with the bathwater.

Nothing is holier than thou. Nothing is unholier than thou. There are impurities and precious things in everything and everyone. We need the ability to see both. In ourselves first before we use this ability on someone else. 

My spiritual mother also spoke through the voice of Chokha’s wife, Soyrabai, the Mahari. 

मी तू पण गेले वाया

पाहता पंढरीच्या राया

All talk about me and others went flying out of the window when I saw the divine God of Pandharpur. 

नाही भेदाचे हे काम

पळोनी गेले क्रोध काम

There was no place for division, differences and discrimination. 

Nor room for any anger or greed.

अवघा रंग एक झाला……

All the colors merged together (when I saw him in his real form). 

That’s my spiritual mother. Not Pandurang. Not Dnyaneshwar. Not Muktabai. Not Chokha Mela. But the one who speaks through them and through my good friends.

 My hearing is not perfect. She never told me it could be perfect. All she said was I must keep trying.

अवघी साधन हातवटी 

मोले मिळत नाही हाटी 

The means and skills needed to live life wisely cannot be bought in the market. They have to be earned by effort. 

I heard her in Madgulkar’s words written purportedly for Gora Kumbhar:

देहधारी जो जो त्यासी

विहीत नित्य कर्म 

सदाचार नीतीहूनी

आगळा न घर्म 

देह प्रपंचाचा दास 

सुखे करो काम

Every single person in the human body has an assigned daily duty to attend. There is no religion superior to good behavior and ethical conduct. The physical body is a servant of duty. May it perform this duty well and peacefully.

Her voice was unmistakable where she was showing me that the contemporaries of Brahmins Nivrittinath and Dnyaaneshwar like Namdev the tailor, Gora the potter, Savata the gardener, Narhari the goldsmith, Sena the barber or Chokha Mela the outcast who cleaned gutters did not fight amongst themselves for each other’s jobs but rather for the dignity of their jobs, for rights to devote themselves to the service of God and humanity, to come together and have a single voice to correct what was wrong in the society which was rigid interpretation of religion, mistreatment of humans, perversion of social justice.

What my motherland taught me is not much different than what I have thus far described as what I learned from my spiritual mother. 

It is important to acknowledge some of the specific things that I received from the motherland.

My motherland gave me a physical identity. I value it because that’s how she raised me. My motherland gave me the love for textiles. She gave me the wealth of friends who speak diverse languages, cook diverse cuisines at home and attend to different kinds of work, have wonderful skills unique to each. She introduced me to Bharat Natyam, Hindustani classical vocal singing, and playing the harmonium. If I did not spend more time on these gifts it is solely my fault. She introduced me to the divine music of MS Subbulakshmi, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar and his illustrious sisters, and the new generation of musicians like Kaushiki Chakraborty, Shankar Mahadevan, and Mahesh Kale. Motherland gave me opportunity to receive the highest quality of medical education without making my parents bankrupt. They did not need to interfere with the system to get me there. If you want to get there, you need to work harder than others. That was a simple rule they followed. It was a generational rule they were taught. My motherland did not confuse the circumstances about when to send police out to intervene on behalf of students and minors. There was a distinction made between students breaking barricades and entering government buildings vs situations where parents used force to discipline their children. In my days neither the students, their parents nor government or law enforcement had an argument over this arrangement.

To understand what the Spiritual mother is trying to tell me from recent and distant history, the mind has to first understand what is perversion of truth? Only if and when the perversion as a listener in me gets cured, her voice can be heard clearly. 

I am trying. Trying really hard to hear. 

Rather than insisting on being heard.

Because I know her voice matters. 

Wisdom is her true nature. 

My nature? I’m still finding out. 

I don’t matter anyways. Finding out my nature matters only to me. 

I am not special. That’s what my mothers taught me. Because there were siblings these mothers had to take into account when putting things on the table or sending to school.  So I grew up knowing I am not special. 

Like for anyone else, when I am lying lifeless, it’s not the individual name that will be chanted. Ram naam satya hai or something similar is what will be chanted at that time. 

Whether anyone cares to understand who is that Ram, or who really is their God, with or without a specific name or form, is anyone’s guess. 

What gender is that God? 

What language he/she speaks? What food he/she prescribes? 

What dress code he/she endorses? What theories he/she believes in or does not believe in? 

What is the color of his/her skin? 

Or color of his/ her eyes or hair? 

What is his/her ancestry?

What is his/her nationality?

What is his/her age?

What generation does he/she belong to?

What is his/her college degree?

Anyone’s guess.