Never to Return: A Modern Quest For Eternal Truth, Chapter 26: "Who are You Calling Jad?"

NEVER TO RETURN:

A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH

A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis

Please take away my intellect, O Lord!
Take away my power to reason with clever words,
this knowledge and logic used in useless debates.
Instead, give me humility and purity.
Give me the ability to live selflessly.
Give me your love!

Chapter Twenty-Six

WHO ARE YOU CALLING JAD?

IN HINDI, THERE IS A GREAT WORD — "jad" (pronounced jud). It is such a wonderful word that I really wish it had an English counterpart. It doesn't exactly mean stupid. The best translation I've heard is, "inert, like a log." When applied to a person, it is that state where you are not really aware of what is going on around you. You're not paying attention. You're not noticing connections between different things. Jad is that state when someone is talking to you and you're not really listening. Or an elderly woman may be in need of help right in front of you and you don't notice. You're just staring blank-eyed right in her direction.

Once, our main cameraman invited our teacher to come to the video department and bless a new camera. Having not been invited to join in this ceremony, I went instead to the evening chanting session, and was contentedly chanting away when someone tapped my shoulder.

As fate would have it, my teacher wanted to have a puja performed to inaugurate the camera. Puja generally refers to rituals that honor a particular deity – it is a form of worship and blessing in the Indian tradition where, for example, a flame and other significant items are placed on a tray and waved in a circular motion before the person or object that is being worshipped or blessed.

Our teacher had asked this person to call me out of the meditation hall so that I could come and wave the flame before our new video camera. I was more than happy to be called upon by her, and left the chant to go to the nearby video room. Along with happiness I also felt excitement, mixed with a tinge of fear.

Every interaction with either of my teachers seemed to produce some dramatic occurrence, whether just inside myself, or both on the inside and outside. This walk to enter the guru's vortex of karmic cleansing energy was a walk into the tides of destiny. Anything could happen. This was a guru in whom I had placed my trust and commitment of obedience. This was a guru whose mere glance would often cause a revolution inside my heart and soul. This was a guru who could be gentle or ruthless – whose gentleness also contained ruthlessness, and whose ruthlessness contained gentleness. After all, spiritual growth can demand change, and change is rarely easy.

I had come to this place to attain the highest experience of spiritual truth – however, I knew this could mean breaking my contracted but comfortable notions about myself and the world. "Is it possible," I wondered, "to want and not want something at the same time?"

The experience I was about to have in the presence of my guru might manifest through her face, words, or personality; but for me, it would be an interaction with the Creative Divine Force itself. In a way, what was going to happen would have little to do with the guru's personal characteristics. It was the force which moves through the guru, and through this relationship of trust and commitment, that Indian scriptures referred to as "the grace-bestowing power of God."

When I walked into the video room, my teacher was looking quite serious. She instructed me to perform a puja to bless the new camera. For our main programs, pujas were performed in a very specific way, using a silver tray and a wick that had been soaked in clarified butter. Included on the tray would be several symbolic objects, including rice, turmeric, and kum-kum. Usually, a flower and a piece of gold jewelry or a coin would also be placed on the tray to represent beauty and abundance. I was only peripherally knowledgeable about all this puja protocal – although I’d waved an official puja tray several times, it had always been pre-assembled for me.

Just a few days earlier, the ashram held a special celebration that included an event called mahapuja, or "big puja." All the residents and visiting devotees had been invited to wave their own special, properly organized tray and flame to the statue of our grandfather guru in the temple. Thousands of people participated in this event, each with his or her own specially decorated silver tray to wave in front of the statue. The women wore brightly colored saris — the garment worn by women in India, and most of the men either wore suits or Indian-style clothes.

The mahapuja was an exquisitely beautiful event to participate in, but I had skipped it just as I might have skipped a class in high school. I never really liked wrapping myself up in a sari, beautiful though they may be. I also disliked group functions in general – especially ones that involved waiting in line for a long time. Although I was living harmoniously in this spiritual community, my independent spirit still remained strong. I wasn't one to do something just because everyone else was doing it. In fact, I was less likely to participate in anything being done as a group, even a beautiful devotional ceremony. My preference was to worship in solitude and silence.

During the recent mahapuja event, I had worked for a while on editing a video in the editing room. Then, curious about what I was missing, I went up to the roof and watched the whole thing from that elevated view. Nearly every resident and guest was there, lined up with their fully decorated bodies and trays. There was a line of lights moving into the temple doors, and several rows of puja flames being waved in harmony inside the temple. You could feel the devotion and love streaming through all of these beautiful people. Sitting on the roof watching this impressive scene, I felt that this was a perfect way for me to experience the beauty and holiness of this profound event, while still having a chance to enjoy my own silence and solitude.

So here we were, two days later, gathered in the video room as I prepared to perform a puja to the new video camera. There was no assembled puja tray in the room, so I picked up a nearby candle in a nice glass holder as what I assumed would be an acceptable substitute. But as I prepared to wave the candle flame in front of the camera, my teacher spoke. "Not with a candle! How many pujas have you done? You need to wave a tray with a wick, kum-kum, turmeric, and rice. Didn't you participate in the mahapuja two days ago?"

You can't hide anything from these gurus! I mumbled, "Um, no. I was editing that night." (Well, I was!)

My teacher's glow tangibly increased as she began to berate me. "You're jad!" She turned to the other people in the room, "She's jad! She's jad-ananda!" (which would translate as, "the bliss of being inert like a log"), I felt bad that she had discovered my secret lack of participation, but at the same time, I was filled with shakti, this sublime energy that surrounded my guru’s presence. Every time my teacher said "She's jadananda!" another bolt of energy would hit me. I started to feel giddy from the bliss.

There was a strange juxtaposition of the discomfort from being berated for having done something wrong, combined with an energy that seemed to lift me high above the entire arena of right and wrong. Part of my awareness was catapulted into a state of mind that left no room for self-judgment, guilt or shame.

It was also interesting to be called jad, because unknowingly, I did have some issues about intelligence. I had gone from being a class genius in first-grade, to the class dunce in my new school the next year. I had a very high I.Q. test score at age five, but had nearly flunked most years of my elementary school. I surprised myself with brilliance about as often as I embarrassed myself with dull-witted blunders. With this experience, my teacher was clearing away both the insecurity and pride from my heart. I didn't have to be proud of my intelligence, nor embarrassed at my ignorance. There was a sanctuary beyond this pair of opposites.

The little me may have been getting ready to feel guilty, stupid, or insulted, but while it was distracted, the whole of me, including the level upon which I was preparing to feel those emotions, was lifted up to a higher place. It was the lifting that was important, the breaking-free that was happening inside me. The outer events were only significant in terms of the inner transformation they were creating.

Although my guru was speaking these words with a stern demeanor, there was an unexpressed laughter beneath the surface. She had a definite sparkle in her eye. After all, the juxtaposition of the words "jad" (inert) and "ananda" (supreme bliss) is funny. It had the flavor of ignorance is bliss. Indian monks often add the word ananda to the end of their names. I chuckled to myself, thinking that maybe she was choosing a name for me just in case!

I didn't know whether to laugh or be remorseful outwardly, so I chose to mirror my guru’s play. On the outside, I appeared to be serious and repentant about having snubbed the mahapuja, but inside I was filled with joy.

Here was my guru – this person who I most wanted to impress, who I’d hoped would think of me as great, smart, and wonderful in every way – and she was calling me jad. And instead of being upset by it, I was ecstatic. It was okay to be jad, at times. I no longer had to worry about always appearing to be smart or on top of things. I didn't have to pretend to be perfect or right. I didn't have to act like I knew what was going on even when I had no idea. I could just be blissfully jad, without trying to impress anybody. On this day, an immense weight was lifted from my shoulders.