NEVER TO RETURN:
A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH
A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis
Mistakes are the portholes to discovery.
– JAMES JOYCE
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A PERFECT MISTAKE
MY TEACHER WOULD BE LEAVING for India in two days. Instead of saying farewell to all the staff members at one large program, she decided to meet with us in smaller darshan meetings, based on our departments. Everyone was looking forward to having a chance to meet with her in a small group. It would certainly up our odds of having some much-treasured personal interaction.
My meeting was originally scheduled for noon, but at ten o’clock a.m. I received a phone call informing me that our meeting had been changed to ten-thirty. I went upstairs to my room to prepare myself, and even surrendered to using a bit of make-up for this special occasion. I changed into a fresh outfit and made my way down the stairway, right next to where our meeting was scheduled to take place, in an area called the Namaste Room. The word namaste translates as “I bow to the divinity within you.” This was in harmony with our first guru’s main message:
Meditate on your Self, Worship your Self, Kneel to your Self. God dwells within you, as you. And, see God in each other.
– SWAMI MUKTANANDA
I looked over toward the Namaste Room, and saw that the meeting was already in progress. Two of my roommates and about eight other friends were sitting in a small group with our teacher. I walked over and sat down to join them.
While settling in, I realized that something was wrong. They were discussing business. They were discussing the trips they would be taking to various meditation centers, to give programs and make sure everyone was behaving themselves. Although these were friends and roommates, they were not the people from my department. I hadn’t paid enough attention to notice this before sitting down. I realized with horror that this was not the meeting I was supposed to be in. I was in the wrong darshan!
I looked back into the carpeted lobby. At least 100 people sat patiently, waiting for their meetings. I looked over at the clock, and saw that it was only ten-fifteen – fifteen minutes ahead of my scheduled meeting. I turned back toward my teacher and the small group I was sitting with. As if I hadn't just crashed their meeting, they continued to discuss matters that were none of my business. What should I do now?
If I got up and walked away, surely my blunder would not go unnoticed. I would have to deal with the situation right then and there, and I was feeling way too shy for that. I had hoped for an interaction with my teacher, but not like this! In addition, all the people waiting in the lobby would see what a silly thing I had done and would certainly laugh at me. Also, the truth is that I was right where I would have liked to be, at the feet of my teacher. I decided to postpone my fate.
After a few minutes, I started to loosen up, and even began to chuckle with their jokes. I felt like a kamikaze pilot – inevitably there was going to be a confrontation about my being in the wrong meeting, so why not enjoy the ride down?
Finally, the jig was up. My teacher told one of the monks, "Let's go around and have each person tell where they're going."
I wanted to laugh, but managed to control myself. She was always so creative. Each person gave their response, and finally it was my turn. I looked up, and didn’t quite know what to say. My teacher broke the ice and asked the monk, "What is Kumuda doing here?"
I was pleasantly surprised when this monk very kindly tried to justify my presence by explaining that I had rushed to finish a batch of video edits for them to take on their travels – which was true.
But I knew it was a feeble attempt. I had to 'fess up.
"Well, I was told to come down for a farewell darshan, but it appears I'm in the wrong darshan." With that, I bowed my head and stood up to walk away.
My guru spoke, "Did I tell you to leave?"
I turned and looked into her piercing, dark eyes. "No."
"Then why would you leave? What a big ego you must have to leave when I didn't even ask you to leave. How many years have you worked in the video department?"
I responded, "Six."
"And what have you learned in all that time?"
Inside, my mind was giving its unspoken commentary, "To keep my mouth shut at times like this."
I sat back down.
As the meeting continued, two other devotees made the same mistake I had, and wandered into the meeting. Both were stopped and asked to wait in the lobby. This was a punctuation to my lesson about moving beyond mistakes. I would not have been brought to this meeting and allowed to remain there if it hadn't been God's will. You might ask, "Well yes, but what about the two people who were sent away?" I saw in that moment that they too were brought to the meeting through God's will, specifically to be sent away.
I also began to understand that, in spiritual terms, having a big ego is not about praising yourself or thinking well of yourself. In Sanskrit, the word for ego is ahamkara, which literally translates as “I-maker,” or that which creates the sense of “I am,” as in “I am a man, I am a woman, I am rich, I am poor, I am happy, I am beautiful, I am flawed, I am special, I am unworthy,” and so on. Ahamkara creates and sustains the illusion that we are separate from the life process within which we exist.
The part of me that got up to leave the meeting thought that “I” had made a mistake. My guru’s chastisement made me realize that, on the level of universal perfection, no mistakes are possible – including the mistake I thought I’d made by entering the wrong meeting, as well as the mistake I then thought I’d made by getting up to leave without being asked to leave. After this lesson, life became a little easier.
Journal notes:
A poem about the monastic life
What is it like to live in the ashram,
Being torn apart inside and out
only to be put back together the right way,
finally.The comforting scent of burning frankincense and myrrh,
the fragrance that must have carried Jesus
through his most trying times,
floats through the air,
lives in the strands of your hair,
and follows you even to the store.The air is not just for breathing,
it is thick, vibrating.
It holds you and carries you, and loves you.
The power of the saints lives in the air they breathe,
and as I breathe their air,
my heart tastes the sweetness of their divine state.Mornings come early here.
There is no debate:
Should I roll over and sleep in?
No.
The Divine One is waiting for you
in his warm temple.
He wants to cradle you in his peace.
He wants to enfold you in his blanket of meditation,
in his blanket woven of dreams and purity.The music of the chant begins before the sun explodes.
As the strains of love fly through the air,
my soul is lifted high, riding on the wave of sound.
As I chant the powerful Sanskrit syllables
long ago memorized,
now they are a part of me.
I exist in the vibration of sound,
as my heart, breath and mind unite to sing His praise.Time is on hold.
Does it last for an hour and a half,
or does it connect with eternity?
The space of chanting may be repeated day after day,
but it is always the same time, the same space.
Troubles of the day — joy, guilt, fear, anxiety —
must wait outside.
Here there is just the sound that sparks the soul
and allows my entire being to sit in unity.Then comes the time to work, selfless service.
Well, not always has my service been without desire,
yet it was given freely, without boundaries.
My service is the way I can give back
for all that has been given to me.
It is a way to perform actions
without being bound by my actions,
with devotion and heart-filled care.Here, there is no need to focus on current news.
Why read and watch and hear over and over
about the waves of change
that come and go, endlessly?
Events will always arise and they will always subside.
They always have, and they always will.
Why not focus instead on the eternal spirit
inside the flux of the world, inside my heart,
inside the flow of the daily schedule?In this place, there is Supreme Aloneness.
You are truly alone,
even in the midst of thousands of people.
Supreme Aloneness is not limiting, it is not lonely.
Supreme Aloneness is full and rich.
You feel your own sweet presence.
You have always been Supremely Alone
but you never knew it,
and now you do.
On to
Chapter
Twenty-eight
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