What I've Learned In 3 Months At A Hindu Monastery
"The Arabian Sea is very vast. You are like a drop in that sea. You are part of it, and ultimately, like a rain drop hitting its surface, entirely inseparable from it."
I stood in my neigong practice facing the sun set over the Arabian Sea. Two men came to sit on the stone bench where I'd placed my bag. One, Gautama, struck the flint of conversation.
He was dressed as is typical of older men in Kerala: a blue dress shirt and an off-white doti, the traditional wrap-around skirt. He said to me: "I met Amma in 1987. Back then, the ashram had only the kalari. The Kali Temple was under construction. Now I live 12 hours north by bus, in Kannur. I come every month to receive Amma's grace."
Meeting Gautama's deep brown eyes, I try to imagine what the kalari was like 37 years ago. It's a small ceremonial hall with a firepit, where daily ceremonies of adoration are performed for Ganesha, the 9 Planets, Shiva-Shakti, the Divine Mother, and the whole host of the Hindu pantheon. By the sounds of it, those daily rituals have been going on for 40 years uninterrupted, except, maybe, by the 2004 South Indian tsunami. Now, Amritapuri ashram is home to 3000 people, it's a village unto itself.
"Amma is God, you know. Like every Guru, every mahatma, She is as a banyan grove tree. She provides us with a place to rest, to lay down our baggage and find shelter along the path. She carries our burdens for us. A Guru is much needed on the spiritual journey. How old are you?"
"28," came my reply, dazed and surprised to have shifted from contemplative silence into deep inter-relational focus. It takes all my concentration to follow the man's accent in english.
"So young! I am 64. You meditate every day? Of course you do, with a face like that. Look at his face!" Gautama gestured right at me and clasped his friend's shoulder, excited to point out some quality of peace that has become a mark on my features.
"Yes, yes." said Deva Das through glasses so thick and eyes so cross that anyone might be forgiven for doubting whether he could see the outside world through those globes. "Meditation is essential," Deva went on, "it is the way to create clarity within the body so that we may heed the soul. God dwells inside you, it's just a matter of listening. Through meditation, you can learn to sort the signal from the noise. I just met Amma in the flesh yesterday, it was an old-age wish of mine. How many years have you lived here?"
"Not years! I am only visiting, I met her this February, I've been here nearly three months."
"Wonderful," Gautama, not so interested in the details of my stay, cut in "you know, God is everywhere. We start by seeing Them in temples, in idols, but with time we recognize They are everything. That is what Sanatama Dharma teaches us. We may seek God outside, searching the world over, ever wandering, but always They dwell in each of our bodies, in each of our hearts. God is your Self. When you know this, great things happen. Do you pray?"
"Yes, every day, constantly," came the earnest reply.
"That's good. If you always remember God who is within you, that you are That, then with time you will get self-realization, maybe another next lifetime. Look." Reaching out, he directed my gaze with one hand, and with the other swept a wide arc towards the westward horizon.
"The Arabian Sea is very vast. You are like a drop in that sea. You are part of it, and ultimately, like a rain drop hitting its surface, entirely inseparable from it. It is One–and more, the sea is part of the World Ocean, which is like Brahman–total unified consciousness. This, Vedanta teaches us. I am Brahman. Gautama, Deva Das, Laure, these separations are illusion, they are maya. Humans make so much trouble for themselves by breaking things up into little atoms. There is no separation. Just look at the earth. It is in crisis now, because humans forget that we are One with her. The covenant has been broken, so we all suffer. That is karma. Action, response. Earth is responding now."
I'm left with a mixed bag of feelings, joy and grief dancing a duet. Gautama and Deva shook my hand farewell, had a bus to catch. The sun had finished setting, and the dusk was taking hold. I could hardly see my notebook scrawl in the ascending dark. Still, I took some notes. Then, standing again, raising my arms into the tree pose I have practiced daily for 5 years, I wonder, how much more potent was that 15 minute transmission than the sum total of all the philosophy I've read in my life?
