Gurudev jayanthi

Thanks to Madhavi who suggested that we meet to celebrate Gurudev jayanthi, we had a spiritually rich and satisfying evening on the 8 of May. We chanted Guru stothram to begin with and followed it by reading a letter written in the 1950's by Gurudev to a devotee. He talks about how learning is the beginning and fulfills itself only in education. He also says that man begins with learning and becomes a real man when he turns the learning into education and becomes a super man in meditation. A man is a victim of his circumstances, a real man struggles and puts in self effort to gain mastery over the circumstances but a super man has all the circumstances under control.
We shared another interesting story about a king who renounced his kingdom to become an ascetic. He built himself a hut in the forest, but still did not attain realisation. A Holy man passed by and the King asked him for guidance to attain realisation. The Holy man replied 'renounce Oh' King, renounce what is yours'. The King thought he renounced the kingdom and all his possessions and all he had now was a hut. He burnt the hut and sat under the tree for meditation. He still failed to attain peace. The Holy man once again passed him and the King asked for guidane again. The Holy man replied ' 'renounce Oh King, renounce what is yours'. The King was puzzled and thought that all that his was his rosary and the water container. He burnt these two items and sat for meditation again. Once again he failed to attain realisation. The Holy man once again passed the King and repeated the same advice. The King was foxed and thought he had only his body to renounce and nothing else left. So he prepared his funeral pyre to immolate himself, when the Holy man appeared before him and stopped him and asked him "Is the body yours?". The King replied "This is all that is left of me...and when my body is burnt, all that is left will be my ashes" The Holy man replied, " you claim even the ashes to be yours...you have not truly renounced as long as you have not renounced the 'myness'. you have only replaced one possession for the other. One has to renounce not the possessions, but the possessiveness"

The evening ended with singing of Adisankara's Nirvana Shatakam. The chorus joining for 'Sivoham...Sivoham'. It was a memorable evening.

Hari Om