Never to Return: A Modern Quest For Eternal Truth, Chapter 19: "That Gracious Glance"

NEVER TO RETURN:

A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH

A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis

We are but shadows:
we are not endowed with real life,
and all that seems most real about us
is but the thinnest substance of a dream –
till the heart be touched.
That touch creates us –
then we begin to be –
thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity.

Chapter Nineteen

THAT GRACIOUS GLANCE

MY TEACHER WAS LEAVING for India after three years in the United States. A final chanting session with him had been scheduled, and I was asked to play the harmonium. This was going to be my first opportunity to play an instrument right in front of my teacher, which was exciting enough. But little did I know what else was about to happen.

Initiation is a central tenet of the guru/disciple relationship in many traditions. There is said to be a transference of energy, a kind of deep bond that is earned by the disciple, and solidified by the intention of the master. In most traditions, this gift is given only after the sincerity and strength of a disciple have been tested. With spiritual power, you are given keys to the stuff from which reality is constructed. You have to be ready.

However, my teacher had a different theory. He wanted to create what he called a "meditation revolution." He wanted to give initiation to anybody and everybody. He wanted to awaken the entire earth with this flame of spiritual energy. So he held programs around the world, giving an initiation he called shaktipat, which translates as the descent of grace.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting or waiting for another initiation. Many of the powerful spiritual experiences I'd already had would be considered signs of initiation. These special moments seemed to reveal what lay ahead, allowing me the taste of a more enlightened perspective before my time. After rising into more these lofty states of consciousness, even when I'd find myself back in the petty day-to-day events of life, the vibration of that space would be singing beneath the surface, urging me onward and upward in my journey.

Now, my guru was on his way back to India, and I sat in the aisle before his empty chair, preparing to play the harmonium organ for this farewell chanting session. Nobody was sure how long the chant would go, or how it would end – it was going to be somewhat spontaneous. I was told to begin with the slow recitation of our mantra, Om Namah Shivaya. Several hundred people sat in the dimly lit hall, waiting to see my teacher off. Most of his closest disciples had already left for the airport, but our teacher was going to be taken to the airport in a helicoptor, which was waiting for him across the street.

I began to play and chant the mantra. After a few verses, I felt our guru brush by me, and watched as he bowed to the chair of his spiritual lineage and sat down. I was a little nervous about playing in front of this great master, but also felt a certain confidence due to his praise for my harmonium playing just three weeks earlier, during our seven-day chant, when he was listening to the chant by audio broadcast in his room.

We were singing the mantra in call-and-response format. I would sing a verse into the microphone, and the rest of the group repeated it back. My teacher sat completely still, with his eyes closed, listening. I realized at one point that he was listening to my voice, since I was singing the mantra into the microphone solo. This created a mixture of emotions. I was nervous, thrilled, focused, devoted, and surrendered to the inner intelligence that could do everything right as long as I stayed out of the way. For this to go smoothly, I had to remain centered in a deeper inner space, beyond ego.

He was looking directly into my eyes, and I froze. Not outwardly – no, I continued to play the harmonium and chant the mantra. But inside I froze with his glance. Time stopped. My false, limited identity slithered off like the skin of a snake, and it was just me, the me that I've always been, even before becoming this personality. With that one glance, I was ripped open to the soul.

Now it was my soul sitting before the master. And he was, in essence, the same soul. It wasn't me playing for him, or wanting to learn from him, or trying to please him. It was just my soul and his soul, two projections of the same one light.

We began to chat. It was as though we were sitting together, sipping coffee at a café. There was that kind of informal one-on-one, or more accurately one-as-one, talk. Where was this conversation taking place? In my head? In the ether? On an astral plane? There was no room for such questions in that moment.

Where this idea came from, I didn't know. It was not based on anything I had ever consciously thought. It was as though an intelligence inside me was having this conversation with him while I eavesdropped.

He replied, "It's okay — you've received what you were supposed to receive from me."

"But what will happen to my sadhana (spiritual practice) after you leave this world?"

"The seed I have given you will continue to grow and blossom. Just keep doing your sadhana."

The conversation went on for nearly half an hour. It was an intense discussion about my journey and the work I was to do, both in the context of my spiritual path and the world. For that half hour, I had access to a space of understanding that had previously been beyond my reach, although it had clearly always existed inside of what I had come to refer to as me.

I understood in that moment that this is what the guru does. He, or she, is the universal gardener, planting seeds of realization into our soil of inner understanding. Then it is up to many factors as to when and how these seeds will sprout.

All this was happening inside me. On the outside I was sitting there, my gaze completely locked onto his. It seemed as though neither of us blinked for the whole time. This was the first time I had experienced more than a few moments of direct eye-contact with my teacher. When all the devotees came up to meet him in the evening darshan line, he would often look into people's eyes for a moment. Many times I had relished the uplifting force I felt from his eyes. The intensity of his glance was so strong that I would often have to avert my eyes or look down. But now our eyes were completely locked, and I was not about to turn away.

My guru finished a verse of Om Namah Shivaya, and sang a Sanskrit phrase that would normally have signalled the end of the chant. But the chant didn't end. Instead, he began to sing a fairly complex song from our morning services.

Fortunately, I had played many morning chants on the harmonium, and was able to play by ear. I played the melody without breaking our gaze for even a moment. I had to focus completely. I had to step out of the way and allow my subconscious mind to hit all the right notes.

After this five-minute chant, my guru began chanting other complicated mantras from our afternoon services, which I also was able to play without looking down at the harmonium keys. It felt as though he was playing with me, directing this very unusual combination of chants, perhaps to test my focus. Because in that moment, nothing was going to make me break the eye-to-eye union with him. He could have started a Bach concerto and somehow I would have followed. My fingers took care of the playing, while our silent communion continued.

My guru sang the final mantras, unfolded his legs, and sat up for a moment. Breaking our gaze, he stood and briskly left the hall. Everyone else followed him outside to the helipad, hoping to catch one last glimpse before he left for India.

It helped that everyone had run out of the hall. This gave me a chance to sit quietly and absorb what had just been given. I began to come back from the depths of my naked soul, my inner being, into a new, improved waking consciousness.

As I sat in this holy space relishing all the teachings my guru had just shared, they began to slip from my conscious mind. I tried to hold on to them, but to no avail. It was similar to what sometimes happens when we awaken in the middle of a dream. We lie there remembering events that have just unfolded within our consciousness. Even while we see them so clearly, the images sometimes slip right from our memory. Though we try to hold on to them, they dissolve from our grasp.

And so I sat empty-minded now, yet still basking in the powerful presence. My teacher and I had met one another in what felt like the closest way possible. I had never experienced this depth of intimacy with another person before.

I didn't really want to return to the outer world, with all its people, concepts and experiences. Yet I knew I must. Having savored this taste of a more enlightened state, I now had to find my way back there in my own time, and through the circumstances and dilemmas of my own journey.

Enjoy Additional Works by Sharon Janis as part of the
Night Lotus Offering of Multimedia Spiritual Resources

Click on a book or CD cover to enjoy it online

(All but Spirituality For Dummies are available to enjoy online in their entirety):