Eternity

As I look back over the last three years of my spiritual journey with Swami, I find a large number of defining points that changed my understanding of the universe and subsequently how I lived my life. Swami calls these "clicks". Two amongst them, I find, have had the deepest impact on me. The first one was during one of the Tamil Shiva Sutra talks he gave in Bidadi in Mach 2008 and the other was during the first ever Kalpataru he conducted in Nov 2008. This writeup is about the first one. I am trying to dig up the video so I can do an accurate translation.. but in the interim here is what remains etched forever in my memory..

It was a couple of months after the first course I had done with Swami - a NSP in Jan 2008. The death meditation and the talks swami gave during NSP had given me certainty about the fact that life continues after death and shaken a lot of ideas I had about my life and the universe. But at one level it was still words and some parts of me had doubts.

In this Shiva Sutra session, Swami was talking about how truth can be delivered only to a small set of people as otherwise it gets diluted - like the Gita was told to Arjuna, Katho Upanishad to Nachiketa, the Shiva Sutras to Devi who was just one part of Shiva etc..

He then stopped suddenly for a few seconds as if deciding whether or not to talk about this. Then, perhaps after deciding that we were ready to hear, he went on to talk about an incident that happened in the ashram some days back.

He said that he was sitting with a few of his closest disciples in a casual mood... when he suddenly asked them if there was anything if he did that they would consider him greater than they already did. They all, he recounted, said that he was the greatest and that they couldn't even imagine anything that was greater. He then went on to ask them if there was anything else remaining with them that they could give him. These were disciples who had been with him for a long time and had given everything they had - money, time, effort etc - for the mission and the master. And so they said that all they had were His' and that there was nothing more to be given.

Swami at that point told them, "Great! Now listen to the truth... For, actually, only in such a situation can truth be told.

There is no motive for me to say this except for the fact that this just happens to be the truth. And.. ", he added "What I am saying does not need any complicated logic... or does not have any 'hidden meaning'.

What you understand with the language you learnt in elementary school.. what the words mean to you in a simple way.. is the only thing I am trying to tell you.

"And the simple truth is", he said, with slow words:

"What you feel as you...

... right now..

... is eternal.

It has no end ...

and it cannot change".

Saying this he paused.

He continued after a few seconds saying that the moment he had said this, all those disciples sitting around him started rolling on the floor with tears in their eyes .. as the truth.. and the pure simplicity of it got transmitted right into their being.

The whole hall listening to it for the second time sat in stunned silence. And his words hit me right on my head. And for someone who hasn't cried in ages, my eyes started to tear. At that point, something in me knew the absolute truth of that statement. And has ever since..

Leaving me in eternal debt and gratitude.