Precious Memories

Precious Memories:

In recent days mind often goes back in time to fondly caress some precious moments that seemed so ordinary at the time. They appear in a whole different light now. The insights seem like missing pieces of the puzzle that puts life together to complete the picture. 

I think of my father. I think of my uncle and aunt in Vile Parle. I remember some of the teachers who taught me more than the subject they were assigned to teach. 

Particularly vivid memories appear from my interactions with my uncle and aunt. My uncle was referred by all as Annaअण्णा. His wife, although my kaku by relation, I referred to her as mami (मामी), because there were other kids from the extended family who used to stay with them and she was mami to them. 

Here I am going to specify a couple of memories going back to Anna and Mami from those days and their relevance as I see today.

One day after a weekend visit home in Khopoli,my mom sent a saree for mami and a shirt for Anna. It was a simple gesture of gratitude towards them for their guardian care towards me. When I handed these things to them Anna was visibly upset. Mami looked hesitant to accept the saree. I almost got a feeling that my mom and I had committed a big offense. Anna flatly refused to accept the gifts. He said “ I know why she is sending these gifts. We cannot accept them. There is no occasion for gifts. When you get married we will accept even better gifts.”

I wondered at the time, why is he making such a big fuss over a simple gift which was not a bribe or anything to be taken as an offense? It did not come with any strings. Frankly I did not understand him at the time. Was it pride? Self respect? Self righteousness?

Today I see clearly the answer to that why. Their philosophy was to help their community in whatever they had a capacity for. Housing and mentoring students who came to the city from rural areas was one such thing they would willingly undertake. There are innumerable memories in my mind that bring tears to my eyes just thinking of their innate kindness. In fact my eyes are moist as I write this. Mami would cook and Anna took pleasure to feed. At the time one other niece of theirs, also named Madhavi, would live with them. Anna would mix in rice dal ghee raita and milk with his hands to make his own concoction and give it to both of us. Mami would be horrified with what he was doing with her individually cooked items and making a bhel out of it such that one couldn’t appreciate the independent taste of each item. Her food was one of the best I’ve had the good fortune to taste. But Anna did what he wanted to. And though Mami could never fully understand for obvious reasons, the rice he mixed in and fed us tasted just divine. Both of us Madhavis loved it. And he would enjoy seeing us enjoy it. Mami would stand by shaking her head in disbelief at this partying trio. That rice had one additional ingredient besides what Mami had added when cooking. It was Anna’s love in addition to her love. म्रुदु सबाह्य नवनीत तैसे सज्जनाचे चित्त ! I understand now why Anna and Mami feel so special. Their hearts were soft like butter. 

When I think about what Dnyaaneshwar referred to as Ishwar nishthanchi mandiyali, I know that Anna and Mami fit perfectly into that special category. That pure love in them was nothing but divine manifestation at its best. 

So why did Anna refuse to accept the gifts my mother had sent? Because he sensed that she was saying thank you for what they were doing for me. There was a sentiment of service in what they were doing. And where there is service, a reward for service is actually an insult ! Anna knew very well what was inappropriate to accept. And therefore rightly turned it down. I had to take back the gifts that day and give it to mom later. 

This was something I was blessed to experience in my lifetime. The closest such encounter from history that I have heard about is from the life of Sant Tukaram. After the good name of the saint reached the ears of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the king sent his men with trunk loads of precious gold coins and jewelry to the saint’s house. Tukaram was living in dire poverty. There was never enough food to feed his family. He was devoted extraordinarily to the chanting of Vitthala’s name and in the process neglected his worldly duties. His wife was, for a good reason, perpetually unhappy with him. She knew the hardships the family had to endure because of his devotion. But she was ignorant about the subtle principles of right and wrong. For her there was nothing wrong in accepting riches that were gifted without stealing or begging. For Tukaram, accepting anything for which you haven’t worked was sinful. Despite their obvious poverty, he made her refuse everything that the King had sent in his generosity. 

Anna was not poor like Tukaram in terms of material wealth. But he was just as principled as the saint. I haven’t met another person like Anna in my lifetime. 

In Marathi there is a term वाम मार्ग which means wrong way. Everything is by convention assigned a right side and a left side. वाम is left. Left is the opposite of right =wrong. What the saints and principled men like Anna were very clear about was what is right and what is wrong. Accepting anything that is not earned through rightful means is a wrong. Enjoying anything that is not earned through rightful means is a wrongful act. This applies to the smallest pleasure in life. Whether anyone is watching or not, the Ishwar nishtha folks adhered to this principle. So while hearts were soft as butter, their will was harder than diamonds. 

That brings me to another wise point I learned from mami. I was beginning to fall behind in my studies due to what I now recognize as a feeling of loneliness. It got to the point where I was on the verge of dropping out of medical college. At that time, mami who herself was educated only up to fourth grade, told me something that got me through but probably did not completely sink in to become permanent wisdom at the time. She said “ you are the eldest amongst your siblings. What you do will set a precedent. You shouldn’t do anything that will mislead your siblings.”

Today I look back and these lessons begin to look so precious and important. Providence sows seeds and some time down the road they begin to germinate. Anna and Mami came into my life to plant these seeds. 

Ganga is considered the holiest of rivers for the Indians. In Hindu mythology Ganga has metaphorical significance. The river represents the purest of energies that manifests out of the constant or immovable divine consciousness. This consciousness is metaphorically represented by the tall Himalayas. The origin of the river is high within this mountain. Imagine if this river is poisoned at its source? What a catastrophe it would be! 

The same analogy is to be understood when we as individuals allow ourselves to get corrupted. When we indulge in accepting what doesn’t belong to us. When we defer our righteous duties. When we start behaving in unlawful and unethical ways. Whatever will flow out of us will carry forward to our heirs. Every manifestation of the divine is a Ganga. We forget our original divine source and model ourselves after less than pure role models. That’s where things go downhill. 

As I was pondering on the physical model of progression of time, I could see in it, the parallels to human degeneracy. But the physical model does not allow for the reversal of degeneracy or integrity. No one hears about a river turning its course and instead of getting increasingly polluted until its merger into the ocean, starting to get purified and tracing her way back to the pure source in the mountain. It would be like playing the video in the reverse mode. Instead the physical model shows a recycle mode of matter. Philosophies rooted in duality more or less mirror the recycle model. There is a difference between reversal and recycling. River water meets the ocean, then with evaporation forms clouds , then follows rain and then the river is born again. River does not bypass the ocean and turn back to the mountains. 

That’s the question I asked when I watched the Story of Time video by Jim Al Khalili. If the kid’s bedroom tends to naturally go from tidy to messy, and it would take intervention to make it tidy again, what would be that intervention? It would be involving consciousness. So stepping out of an automatic mode to active conscious intervention mode. In the absence of this conscious intervention, man would be slave to matter. That’s what we see ordinarily, don’t we? 

The Advaita path does not try to alter the normal course of matter. The physical part of those who realize the unborn consciousness within themselves, that is their conscious self which is transcendent to their thinking mind, follows the same illusory path as all matter. There is growth, decay and death for the physical part. But no recycling because illusion comes to an end for them in the most definitive way. 

In the context of these theories mind often diverts to muse over the Hollywood movie Sixth Sense. The mom is concerned about her son’s “odd” behavior. She doesn’t believe when he tries to tell her about his sixth sense. So eventually he learns to stay quiet and not say anything about it. But that doesn’t take away his ability to see what ordinary people can’t see. The irony of the screenplay is that the child psychiatrist is trying to “cure” the child’s illness. The child knows the psychiatrist doesn’t exist!! This is the perfect metaphorical representation of the self realized person’s experience with people moving around in ordinary consciousness that is admixed with matter. 

My mind that has spent considerable amount of precious time searching for my real source tends to wonder if science can spare its precious time considering the importance of consciousness in its study models. If one model suggests that consciousness has no role, can they not discard it as the final truth? My mind is simply not ready to accept the fact that matter is totally autonomous. If it was, my life would have carried on along an entirely different trajectory. But it didn’t. My room went from a state of being messy to becoming tidier each day. If it wasn’t because of the active role of consciousness then what else would it be? 

The paradox however is that one is less aware about the messiness when you are in the middle of greater messiness. You become more and more aware of messiness when the room gets tidier. Small faults within oneself stand out more as you begin the self cleansing process. The art to be still learnt and mastered is how to remain objective and just work on removing the fault rather than get emotional about it. Ironically being emotional about one’s mistakes and shortcomings boosts the ego. It keeps the focus on the faults in an unhealthy way without actual effort to remove those flaws. It takes time to know the difference between taking necessary action and simply fretting over something.

Such fretting widens the gap between how you believe you should be and how you actually are. This gap in your belief and your reality is what is known as hypocrisy. 

Muktabai had to tell Dnyaaneshwar at one point: आशा दंभ अवघे आवरा! 

Clean up your mess. Let go expectations and hypocrisy! 

Saints are not immune to imperfections that were carried forward through old conditioning. They just deal with their own lingering imperfections proactively.

For most of our married life it used to frustrate me to think that Abhay ( my better half) found fault with me whenever I was in a showdown with anyone. The kids could see I was fighting for the right cause and the other person was on the wrong side of the argument. But Abhay never saw it that way. After all these years of holding grievance about this trait in him, I finally figured out the mental chemistry that underlies such behavior. Why Tukaram faulted his wife for getting lured by the gifts from the king? Why Ram sided with the low thinking washerman and sent his righteous wife into the forest? Because each identified their wife as part of themselves. They did not want the slightest corruption to touch themselves and extend to what they see as part of themselves.  The integrity they insisted within themselves was extended to their better halves. Even when someone else was wrong. Personal fault is always visible to the pure minds. And correcting personal fault becomes more important than correcting someone else. 

I got a taste of my own medicine recently when I inadvertently did what Abhay did to me throughout our marriage. I pointed out the corruption that is rampant in India. And it wasn’t received kindly. Our own people are not ready for criticism from us. One of my school teachers actually commented saying criticism towards one’s own is equivalent to spitting on a plate one has eaten out of or biting the hand that fed us. When your teacher looks at you that way it stops you in your way. I had to stop. 

But her comment acutely reminded me of Anna. I had not written back to Anna and Mami for extended periods after I came to the USA. I was feeling very guilty and apologetic about my long absence from people who had treated me like their own child. Being the gracious man that Anna was, he told me “ I will try not to judge you unfairly. I will try to understand you rather than misunderstand.”.

Such effort to understand someone rather than misunderstand is rare to find. It requires love to be stronger than the ego. That’s why in today’s world people like Ram, Tukaram, Anna, Mami or Abhay are rare to find. Forgiving, honest,kind, loving, understanding people are rare. And what is rare is precious and to be cherished. Some of these saintly people I met in person in my life. Some I connected by reading their teachings and reading about their lives. The commonalities were unmistakable. Each helped me to inch a little closer to my source with every passing day. 

Some lotteries won in life miraculously multiply with time rather than getting blown away. These people are the lotteries I won through my life. Not that the others were not important. Every person gave something. But these people gave without expecting anything in return.