Yoga and meditation, spiritual articles from India

The India Story - part II
Excerpts from "Only Your Thoughts Can Upset You"
By Terry Winchester

The Masters in India teach in a very interesting way. It was Swami Chidananda’s birthday and many of the Great Sages from far and near had left their Himalayan caves and ashrams and were gathering for this auspicious occasion. There was much excitement in the air as these great Masters arrived in ochre robes and loincloths. The ashramites had spent all weekend preparing for this great feast.

For a Westerner in India there is not much sense-gratification to look forward to, other than the exotic Indian food. “This is going to be great,” I said to myself, thinking of all the delicious sweetmeats that were being prepared. I felt a bit guilty about my obsession with food when everyone else’s thoughts were on paying homage to this humble soul. It is a tradition in India for each guest to present a little gift of a flower or piece of fruit to the Master. In exchange the Master would give Prasad or blessed food. This was usually a homemade sweet cake called a sweetmeat.

So there we were, in line, waiting to touch the feet of this great man and receive our sweets. As there were hundreds of people at this birthday bash, there was quite a queue. To keep the queue moving there were a couple of ‘bouncer’ type yogi’s who would make sure you didn’t latch onto the Guru’s feet and deprive others of the opportunity to receive a blessing.

As I was getting closer I could see the boxes and boxes of sweetmeats piled up around Swamiji. I’d noticed with delight, delicacies that I’d never tasted before. I thought to myself, ‘Gee, I hope I get one of those, and those red ones look delicious!’ Suddenly I was with Swamiji and dutifully placed my shiny pebble that I had lovingly retrieved from the Ganges River, at his feet.

That was when disaster had struck. The two bouncers had dragged me off before Swamiji had given me any sweets. ‘It’s not fair!’ my greedy ego had silently screamed.
“Terry!” a melodious voice had called. I’d turned around to find Swamiji beckoning me to come back. There was a hushed silence as the eyes of hundreds of pilgrims had watched with interest. The bouncers led me back to the smiling saint who had taken a large cake box and begun to fill it with sweets, looking at me as he did so to make sure that every delicacy I had desired was placed in the box. He’d then handed me the box piled high with sweetmeats as the crowd stared. I had never felt so embarrassed in my whole life. Here was this great man humbly giving me exactly what I’d wanted whilst everyone else waited. My greed was out there for everyone to see.

A saint does not leave you feeling guilty. He understands your predicament and lovingly helps you out of it. “You go and feed the lepers at the river,” he’d said, giving me the honourable task of caring for the poor. I had been let off the hook. Instead of punishing me for my greed he had given me everything I wanted and then had given me a way out. That is how these great Beings teach.

I remember reading, many years ago, a wonderful story about a woman saint called Anandamayi Ma. The book was called “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda. There’s a whole chapter devoted to this Self-Realised soul who was just as famous in India for her miracles as Jesus was in his area and time. She has a group of followers who have to mother her because she takes no notice of the fact that she has a body. If no-one gave her food she would not eat. There are numerous Yogis’ in India who never eat. They simply live on prana. For days on end she would enter a divine trance and just sit there, hardly breathing, with unblinking eyes.

I was seeking initiation into Kriya Yoga by one of Paramahansa Yogananda’s disciples and, as he had spoken so highly of this woman saint, I became very excited when I heard that she was coming to town. The town was Haridwar, which was 24 kilometres downstream from my cave in Rishikesh. I’d set off at a trot without a clue of where to actually go. In India there are very few left-brain maps or street signs— for that matter where I was there are hardly any roads in the mountains—just jungle paths.

No one really seems to know where anything is but they all seem to get there in the end. You would ask for directions and they would just wave their hand in the general direction. So you would keep walking in that direction until you hit a brick wall and then ask someone else. Everyone is very helpful so there is no problem in speeding up your journey by hopping onto the crossbar of a stranger’s bicycle or sitting amongst the fresh vegetables at the back of a donkey cart. Eventually you get there much to the amazement of the left-brain.

I arrived at this small clump of buildings and found a few people milling around. “This can’t be right,” I said to myself. “This great soul usually has hundreds, if not thousands of people following her where ever she goes.” There was only a handful of us there—two Westerners and about eight Indians. I asked the Australian sadu with the long blond hair if this was where the famous Anandamayi Ma was. A sadu is a person who has renounced the world.
“Yes,” he said. “She is up in that little room on the second floor.”
“Is she going to give us darshan?” I inquired of my newfound friend.
“Who knows, you know what India is like, no-one knows what is going to happen until it happens.”
“Right,” I said, switching off my left-brain.
Then suddenly a woman’s head had appeared in the window. The small group of Indians fell flat on their faces as they prostrated themselves in respect for their Master. My Australian friend had simply bowed his head.

In India it is well known that you do not look an Enlightened Being in the face. Apparently their power is so great that you could not face the full force of their love and light. This is one reason why Ma would often wear a veil. Moses had the same problem when he came down the mountain after connecting with his Source. There was so much light radiating from him that he had to hide his face. But I am from the West, you see, and there we are taught to look someone straight in the eyes and give them a firm handshake. In any event, with all these people falling on their faces around me, I was distracted and by the time I looked up to the window she was gone. ‘Gee whiz,’ I said to myself. ‘I walked all this way for nothing, it’s not fair.’ Everyone else seemed to be happy that something had happened.

We all milled around in the hot little courtyard wondering if there would be a further encounter or not. There was. There was a sudden rush and everyone grabbed some sort of offering and scurried up the steps. We had been granted a personal Darshan. My wish had come true. We excitedly formed a queue outside the green door with an OM sign pained on it. There was much pushing and shoving and I ended up at the back. Then as the door opened we suddenly fell silent like naughty school kids avoiding a reprimanding. We slowly filed into the small but peaceful room. I was second last in line and although all the others had their heads bowed, I chose to peer past them and dared to look directly at her. There was a flash, and suddenly my head was filled with the most horrible, foul, disgusting thoughts that any human being could ever conceive. It freaked me out completely. Where on earth did all these thoughts come from? What made it worse was that I knew that these enlightened Beings could read every thought in your mind.

By now I was at her feet and laid my flower next to the others. I looked up at her to apologise for my disgusting mind. Her beaming face had filled the whole room with light as her deep, smiling eyes had looked right through me. The next thing I recall was walking back mindlessly towards my cave but my feet were not touching the ground. The trees had light all around them and everything appeared to shimmer although the sun was not shining. It seemed as if everything was brand new and I felt all smooth inside. Everything seemed to be a part of me and I was part of everything. It reminded me of the experience I had had in New York City.

It was many days later when I began to realise what had happened to me in that room. When I first looked at her, from the back of the queue, all my impure thoughts, anxieties and resentments had come flooding out. In contrast to her immaculate state of being all my impurities were reflected back to me. The second time I looked at her after placing my gift at her feet she blessed me with her unconditional love and completely cleansed my mind of all negativity. I now know why you are advised not to look directly at a Realised Soul you will see how impure you really are. Unfortunately, slowly but surely, my old negativity and ego stuff returned, bringing me back down to earth. This is why it is recommended that a devotee receive Darshan at least once a year.

Many feel the urge to create a new and better world.
Rather than let your thoughts dwell on such matters, you should
concentrate on that, by the contemplation of which, there
is hope of perfect peace. It is man’s duty to become a seeker
after God or Truth
-Anandamayi Ma


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