NEVER TO RETURN:
A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH
A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.
– SOPHOCLES
Chapter Twenty-Four
CLOTHED IN DEVOTION
AFTER MY SUMMER JOB, I returned to the video department, now as the video editor. My wish from three years earlier had finally blossomed. All day long, I watched tapes, read transcripts, researched quotes, and created outward video reflections of all the powerful transformations that were occurring inside me while living in this powerful, monastic environment.
As time went on, my devotion to our new teacher continued to increase. She became the mother I'd never had, but in a more spiritual, divine motherly sense. I decided to really trust her with my heart, and jumped headlong into the yogic practice called bhakti — devotion. Devotion consumed my entire being, and inspired new breakthroughs on my journey.
“You are my mother and my father, You are my relative and friend, You are my knowledge and my wealth,
You are my all, O Lord of Lords.”– THE VEDAS
Through this fountain of devotion, I became willing to change, to suffer the pain of breaking out of old habits and comfort zones. My entire consciousness was absorbed in the contemplation of this person who represented divinity for me. Her every flowing movement seemed to indicate the gracefulness of God. Her smile would burst forth in my heart like a dramatic rising sun. Her tender words melted my sharp edges, and her harsh reprimands moved me beyond egotistical identification. Through this guru, I was able to have a continuous and constant interaction with universal grace and divine consciousness. Everything I did became an offering to God through her. In the path of bhakti yoga, we worship all the highest qualities that we are not yet able to see in ourselves through the form of another. We can love this image, this wonderful reflection in the mirror of consciousness, as we could perhaps never love ourselves.
The end result of this path of devotion comes when a merging takes place between lover and beloved. Through one-pointed focus, this intimacy is created and nurtured, until it breaks through the imaginary walls that separate "I" from "Thou."
Journal notes:
A poem composed from the absorption of devotion
My eyes have become intoxicated
drinking, drinking, drinking You.
This is no ordinary thirst,
The more these eyes drink of Your form,
the thirstier they become.
Who can care about ordinary food or drink?
Your presence is the nourishment for my life.
Who can care about philosophy or knowledge?
You are my philosophy.
I can hardly even see myself anymore,
But Gurumayi!
With my eyes open or closed, I see Your face before me.
Your voice resounds throughout my being.
Somewhere along the way, this cup spilled over.
Now it sits waiting to be filled with Your sweet nectar.
I would gladly wait a thousand years
for one loving glance.
And the moment it is revealed,
I'll begin waiting for another.
This is the mission of my life, the value of my life.
If I can serve You even once, my life will be justified.
I may never be able to understand
or appreciate You as I should,
Yet my entire being is filled with You.
My wardrobe seemed to be a fertile ground for new lessons of surrender. Most of the residents and visitors dressed very nicely. Part of the teaching of this path was that the body is a temple of God. Therefore, we wouldn't just worship external images but, as my first guru used to say in his main message, "Kneel to your own Self, worship your own Self, honor your own Self, because God dwells within you, as you, for you." Years later, I not-quite-so-jokingly added my own addendum to this message, so it would read, “Kneel to your own Self, worship your own Self, honor your own Self, because God dwells within you, as you, for you – in spite of you!”
So I did get the idea of honoring your body as a temple of God, but still didn't like to dress up. It’s just not something I’d ever really learned to do or wanted to do. I liked to be comfortable and not feel constricted by outer clothing. I had sported the grunge look long before the term was coined. Also, with my limited finances, it wasn't as though I could just run out and buy a fancy new wardrobe, even if I had wanted to. I was living on a small monthly stipend. My teacher had once described me publicly and compassionately as someone who "gets all her clothes from the free box."
In the basement area of our ashram there was a "free box," where people could place garments they no longer needed for others to sort through and use. Much of my wardrobe did, indeed, come from there. It was like having our own little free ebay, with a mixture of great clothes, crummy clothes, and mostly mediocre to just fine clothes. I was quite contented with my simple but adequate wardrobe; however, my teacher seemed to prefer that I didn't have to sort through other people's discards for my clothes. Soon after her mention about this, I was given a special allowance so I could purchase some new clothes. Too bad the money didn't also come with good taste in clothes!
Actually, it is not all my fault. Two very elegant women with high positions in the ashram were thrilled and practically drooling at this opportunity to take me shopping and help me to finally buy some good clothes. They volunteered and insisted on taking the task upon themselves, and I agreed. The problem is that their idea of good clothes was very different from mine, so I ended up with a batch of clothes that I hardly ever wore. One of the women actually convinced me to buy a pair of tight jeans, which you can be sure didn’t get much play in my wardrobe.
After this wasteful day of shopping, I went out on my own, and bought a fairly inexpensive but nice white sweater with a hood. I thought it was a great article of clothing although, upon reflection, it was pretty funky. Nevertheless, I wore it proudly one day, walking through the lobby. My guru was also passing through the lobby, and walked toward me along with a large group of devotees. She came up to me, and began to speak somewhat harshly in Hindi. One of the Indian monks translated for me. He was kind enough to whisper so the entire throng of people couldn't hear the words.
"Look at you! Even if a ghost were to see a person dressed like you, he would run away!" He whispered, "Even a ghost! He would run away!" At first, I was confused by this message. Wouldn't getting ghosts to run away be a good thing? Who wants to have ghosts around anyway? But the tone of my teacher's voice made it clear that this was definitely not a compliment. As my guru and the crowd moved by, I walked over to the basement area to make my own contribution to the free box.
Another time, my teacher was sitting with a small group of us in the video room, as we watched a television screen to see the noontime program that was taking place in the nearby meditation hall. During that summer, our guru would often come and sit with us in the video room for a while on her way to the chanting portion of the noon program.
On this day, a friend of mine with the spiritual name Pushpa, was giving a talk and sharing some of her experiences on the spiritual path. Pushpa told a story about one time when she was visiting Los Angeles with our guru’s teaching tour several years earlier. Pushpa had missed the shuttle bus to her residential building. As she stood on the side of the road, wondering what to do, our teacher's car pulled up to where Pushpa was standing, and our teacher rolled down her window and offered a ride in her car. Having just come from a hatha yoga exercise class, Pushpa was dressed in sweat pants and a T-shirt. While relating this part of her story, Pushpa mentioned how uncomfortable she had felt about being dressed so informally in front of our teacher.
As we watched this talk on the video screen, my teacher looked over at me and teased, "You always dress like that!" Then she repeated the statement to the other people sitting in the room, one by one. "Kumuda always dresses like that!" She looked at me again with a piercing but twinkling glance and repeated, "You always dress like that!"
I realized at this point that clothing had become an issue on my spiritual journey. I was going to have to surrender to wearing nice clothes. I certainly wanted to follow the divine instructions of my guru, even though I wasn't sure why she would care about what clothes I was wearing.
Upon reflection, I can imagine her motivations for pressuring me. My desire to wear funky clothes probably reflected a certain lack of self-esteem, born during my childhood. Being a spiritual teacher, she had a knack for picking up on these kinds of things. Also, I had never learned how to put together acceptable combinations of clothes, and would constantly break the rules in terms of color and fabric combinations. Maybe my guru saw that the ability to assemble an acceptable outfit would be valuable for me in the future. Clearly, nobody had ever bothered to teach me how to dress nicely before.
I didn't look for clothes in the free box anymore, but one day I happened to walk by en route to the laundry room, and noticed a great pair of wool pants lying right on top. They fit perfectly. That night, I decided to wear them to the evening program with what I thought were a nice blouse and jacket. The outfit looked fine to me, though I suspect it may have been seriously mismatched in terms of texture and color.
While walking through the lobby the following day, I was called to the phone. One of my guru’s assistants was on the other end. He repeated a message from my guru into the phone: "From now on, you should only wear skirts. No more pants."
Oh my. I had already surrendered to wearing skirts to the evening programs, and now I had to wear them all the time? While remembering all the stories of disciples who had gone through extreme challenges to attain spiritual growth, I also contemplated how you never know what an extreme challenge might be for any particular person. Most people would consider a command to dress well as a very pleasant command, however for me, this message required a definite need for surrender.
While speaking to this assistant, I got up the nerve to mention that I only had two skirts and that one of them had a broken zipper. Soon, another young woman was asked to give me some clothes, and called me up to her room. She had a lot of money and tons of clothes, and was about as kind hearted a person as you could ever meet. Chandrika was only too happy to have been asked by our teacher to help me out. She gave me the first really classy clothes I had ever owned – beautiful clothes – including a grey skirt with poodles, but hey. . .
I was quite grateful, and actually did manage to enjoy the feeling of being well dressed, although wearing expensive blouses and skirts definitely did require more care and attention while eating and sitting, not to mention while cleaning (who knew that good clothes shouldn’t go in the dryer!?!)
I was also in another quandary. Recently, I had started working in the garden for an hour a day, to get some sun and exercise in the midst of all my video editing work. I wondered if it would be all right for me to wear pants in the garden. I really didn't know. I debated this for days. I could have worn a skirt to the garden, but that seemed ridiculous. Yet if I wore pants in the garden and was spotted going back to my room, my teacher might not realize that I was coming from the garden. I had been told specifically to wear skirts "all the time."
After a few days, I finally decided that it would be okay to wear pants in the garden. I would just be careful not to be seen in the building with pants on. I was planning to go out that afternoon for an hour or so after lunch. While eating, I heard my name called over the loudspeaker. When I phoned the switchboard, the operator told me that our teacher wanted me to meet her in the outdoor pavilion called Shakti Mandap. I walked there with excitement and trepidation, not knowing why I had been called.
As I entered the large outdoor hall, my guru was standing there alone. Trying not to be nervous, I respectfully bowed my head down to her feet, but was so clumsy that I wondered if I’d hurt her toes by bumping my head on them. But she didn't seem bothered in the least. She smiled sweetly and pointed to a large, neatly folded pile of clothes on the bench next to her, "These are for you."
With relish, my guru took each piece of clothing and showed it to me. These were really elegant and expensive clothes. There was a woven silk magenta sweater, a silk dress from France, another exquisite pink sweater, and a cozy bathrobe. Then, she handed me a pair of Ted Lapidus red gabardine wool pants.
Pants? These were not just pants, but really expensive pants – and this, just a week or so after giving me very clear instructions to wear only skirts.
I often became tongue- tied in my guru’s presence. Sometimes, I couldn't speak at all. What I meant to say at this point was, "Oh, I guess that means it would be okay for me to wear pants in the garden."
What came out of my mouth was, "Oh, in the garden."
My guru looked at me with a surprised face, and very compassionately explained, "No, these are expensive pants. You can't wear them in the garden."
This twist of being given a pair of pants after the command to only wear skirts illustrated for me in a tangible way that instructions and rules are not meant to be followed in a blind or fanatical way. Looking toward the spirit rather than the letter of this insruction to wear skirts revealed that it was more about respecting and honoring myself than about whether I was wearing a skirt or pants on this body.
Through this surprise gift, my guru was guiding me to understand the deeper teaching behind a surface directive. This process is important if a disciple is to develop the inner intuitive understanding that will allow him or her to receive guidance from the guru within.
Journal notes:
A poem written during this time, in praise of Divine Love
O Love, See what You've done to this life!
With Your wild, churning throb
Exploding beneath every instant.So obvious, O Love, yet at times very subtle,
Always there just under the surface,
Below the words, the ideas, the feelings.You, O Love, are the feeling behind all my feelings,
The impulse of my life,
The only reality in this crazy, scattered world.Even if I am not able to hold on to You at all times,
O My Love, You have enveloped me within Yourself.
No fault of mine can upset You at all.It's not that You belong to me,
Or even that I belong to You, O Love,
Nor is Your Truth to be understood by my clouded eyes.Yet, O Love, You are there at all times.
This is not a fact to be proved; but accepted.
No sadness, no grief — not even joy can touch You.Perhaps You are not the Highest Essence of this world.
But who is there who can say that You're not?
You are within Everything, and far beyond Everything.Even now that You have spread throughout my being,
So many images continue to play on so many channels —
Good feelings, bad feelings, sportings of the mind.Still, O Love, how wonderful that we watch together,
Like a contented couple watching TV on Saturday night,
Flipping the stations and laughing at the play.O But Love, You are a Beast! What have you done?
You have ignited a restlessness in my Soul,
Which can never be fulfilled.As the One whose Glance slaughters me twelve times over,
You have chosen a being who is beyond this world.
How will I ever be able to reach Her?You've stolen every pain I could have kept,
To hide myself from You, O Love,
And you've left me with only Your Sweet Pain.May I always drink of Your Divine Essence,
While laughing and while weeping,
Drowning myself in your mad waves.Let the mind lose its petty control.
Why should the intellect always have to have its say?
O Love, My fear and greed can just jump overboard.Let this boat glide through Your Sweet Nectar,
Flowing from the Heart into the Light of the Sky,
Your Sweet and Devastating Elixir of Love.Wherever Your glance is cast through Her Eyes,
Every particle is destroyed, O My Love,
Where is room for existence before Her Smile?When You speak my name through Her Lips, O Love,
There is no one left to claim that name!
How I Love You, O My Love.
How I Love Your Sweet Love.
On to
Chapter
Twenty-Five
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