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  In addition, vachanas, the sayings of the saints, time and again reminded me that the path was closed unless the guru led one there. Vachanas by Basavanna and Akka Mahadevi were the staple food of my childhood. I started waiting for my guru like ‘the lotus waiting for the sunlight’, to use a metaphor from Basavanna’s poem.

  After I turned four, I began to accompany my mother to the Shiva temple and the Kashi Vishweshwara temple near the house. However, these visits had no impact on me. My mother also used to take me to visit the tomb of Sarpabhushana Shivayogi in a math near Geetha Talkies quite often. When I was there, I used to get flashes of my past lives. On one visit, I even had the feeling that somebody was fondling me. There was a shrine in the tomb, and I used to feel a deep peace whenever I sat before the Shivalinga. The tomb is still there and has a strange effect on me even now.

  While at school, I enjoyed the company of the workers in my father’s press. I was particularly friendly with two Christians. One of them was a man called Valentine. Whenever my father brought other women home, my mother would protest. Infuriated, my father would push her down and start beating her with his walking stick. I would hide underneath the cot in fear. My mother’s screams would bring Valentine, who worked in the press adjacent to the house, rushing in to rescue her. He would insist that my father vent his anger on him, not on my mother. I got interested in Christianity because he was a Christian.

  Arul Das, another young Christian, brought me booklets on the gospels of Saint John and Saint Mark. I found the life of Jesus very compelling and was moved by the simplicity of his teachings. I loved the parables, similes and metaphors he used. I started accompanying Arul Das to Hudson’s Church near Corporation Circle. It was around this time that I had my first spiritual dream: I saw a huge flame in a far-off land, which I identified with Jerusalem. The flame seemed sacred to me. The air around was filled with unearthly music and I felt like Moses in front of the burning bush.

  At this time, I was also completely enthralled by Swami Vivekananda, so much so that I read his complete works. Nagaraja, a Brahmin schoolteacher, used to come to our house to work as my father’s scribe. I grew very fond of him because he was a superb singer. It was he who inspired me to read books on Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda’s book on raja yoga was my favourite. I also read books written by Swami Shivananda on different forms of sadhana. My father used to visit him during his trips to Rishikesh, and bring these books back for me, duly signed by the swami. With the help of these books, I began my practice of yogasana and pranayama as I wanted to improve my delicate health. I also believed that the practice of asanas would help me to live a spiritual life.

  My mind, however, continued to remain preoccupied with Swami Vivekananda. I yearned to see him. Finally, he appeared in a dream in the form of a statue, which did not come alive despite my desperate prayers. As time went by, my yearning increased. There were times when I would lie down on the terrace of my house and weep inconsolably, waiting and praying. In my next dream, it was not Swami Vivekananda but Sri Ramakrishna who appeared.

  I remember the dream vividly. Sitting in front of a Kali statue, Sri Ramakrishna beckoned to me. He gave me a blanket and said, ‘Sit down and meditate.’ The dream ended there. I had no clue as to how to meditate. Then I decided to ask Swami Purushottamananda. He was a young monk from the Ramakrishna Ashram, Bangalore, I had become very fond of. He sang bhajans with such absorption that it seemed as if his whole body had been transformed into the voice of the Divine. His mien somehow reminded me of Swami Vivekananda. When I asked him about meditation, he said, ‘Visualize your deity in the heart and go on meditating.’ I found this hard because my mind was very restless. I forced myself to block the thoughts racing through my mind. The result was that I started getting severe migraines, and it took me several decades to get rid of them.

  When I was about fifteen, I was introduced to Ajit Kumar, a young and handsome RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) worker. He had learnt yogasanas from B.K.S. Iyengar and had become an expert. He was kind enough to teach me how to practise these asanas in a systematic way, and I realized then that you cannot learn yoga through books. I put in hard labour and perfected some of the most difficult asanas in a couple of years.

  Around this time, our family was afflicted with a host of problems. My mother developed tumours in her left armpit, but did not disclose this to anyone. Oddly enough, I happened to read an article on cancer in Divine Life, edited and published by Swami Shivananda. Tumours in the armpits or chest can indicate cancer, it said. It was only when I read this article out to my mother that she told me about her tumours. Our visit to the doctor confirmed it was cancer. She underwent surgery and radiotherapy, and the cancer went away.

  After she was cured, my father was hospitalized for several months with a heart problem. The strain of looking after him, along with managing other responsibilities at a time when she had not yet recovered her strength, was too much for my mother. She was completely exhausted, moving back and forth between the house and the hospital, attending to everything all by herself. My father eventually returned home healed but, by this time, my mother was sick again. So was I. Our family doctor’s treatment failed to bring down my high temperature. I needed to be hospitalized but would have preferred to die at home rather than go to a hospital. My mother asked Swami Purushottamananda to persuade me. I finally agreed because he insisted, and was rushed to Victoria Hospital.

  I shudder to think of those three months. First, I was admitted in a general ward where I was allotted the bed in which an old man had died the previous night. Thanks to my father’s influence, I was shifted to the special ward after three days, but this still did not get me the right kind of treatment. Given my high temperature, the doctor diagnosed my condition as typhoid and treated me for it. Later it was found that I had actually been suffering from double pneumonia.

  Thanks to the wrong diagnosis and treatment, I contracted pleurisy. Disillusioned with the hospital, my parents brought me back home. Subsequently, I had to undergo continuous treatment for a whole year for pleurisy.

  I can vividly remember two psychic happenings during my illness. The first one occurred when I lay sick at home before being moved to the hospital. I felt as if someone was lifting my body up into the air and then throwing it down. My eyes were open but I could not see anything around me. I had no idea that my mother and grandmother were weeping by my bedside, thinking that my end was near. What I did see was the Mother Goddess sitting next to me.

  Slightly dark-complexioned and dressed in a green sari, she had a crown on her head. A gold necklace hung around her neck, and there was a big vermillion mark on her forehead. I saw her smiling benevolently and this irritated me. How could she smile when I was dying? I tried to strike her and the whole scene vanished. Later in life, when I thought about that vision I had, it seemed to me that the compassionate Mother of the Universe had come to save me. It was a shame I hadn’t been able to understand this at the time.

  The other experience took place while I was in the special ward. I had been living on diluted milk and fruit juice for two months, and looked like a skeleton. One night I had a vivid dream. My mother opened the door to find two young men standing there. They gestured to her to send me with them. My mother refused, indicating that she would rather go herself than send me. I woke up with a start.

  It turned out my mother also had a dream the same night. Both of us were waiting for a bus in a desolate place. It was getting dark but there was no bus in sight. Instead, a Shivayogi arrived in a horse-drawn cart. My mother begged him to take us back home, but the Shivayogi was willing to take only me. My mother agreed. In the next part of the dream, my mother returned home very late and was relieved to find me already there.

  It took me a long time to puzzle out the meaning of those two experiences. Finally, this is what I understood: my death was at hand and Yama’s messengers had come to take me away; my mother saved me by giving up her own life. The yogi in
the dream was Male Madeshwara, a great saint.

  There is a story about Male Madeshwara. Before I came along, my mother had been hankering for a son. She offered prayers to this effect when she went to the shrine of Male Madeshwara. When she saw a flower fall to the right side of the deity, she took this as a sign that her wish had been granted. She did get pregnant with me then. But there were complications during childbirth, and my mother was in great physical pain. The doctors did not think either one of us would survive.

  As she lay delirious, my mother heard the sound of wooden sandals, and then the saffron-clad Male Madeshwara, his forehead covered with ash, came and stood before her. Placing his feet upon her head, he applied ash to her forehead and said, ‘Do not be afraid. A part of me will become your child.’ It was a vision she would never tire talking about, always believing that it was Male Madeshwara himself who had rescued me.

  By the time I recovered from my illness, my mother’s cancer had relapsed. Another surgery and more radiotherapy followed, but the cancer soon invaded her intestines. She was unable to eat. When we brought her home from the hospital, she was lighter than a bird. Despite the state she was in, she insisted on talking to me about marriage. She wanted to see me settled before her death but the mere mention of marriage made me furious. Her health continued to deteriorate and then she slipped into a coma. People would try to call out to her, but in vain. Whenever I called out to her, she would respond in some way.

  My mother was taken away when I was just nineteen. I will always remember her with gratitude, for she gave up her life for me. She was also responsible for arousing in me feelings of devotion and self-effacement. I have not really been able to fulfil her wishes. Her chief ambition was to see me happily married. I was married, but never happily. Another ambition was to make me into a great poet. For this reason she had named me after the famous Tamil poet, Shivaprakasha Samiyar. Perhaps this ambition has been partially fulfilled. Her last wish was for me to become like Swami Vivekananda. I have been trying very hard to see that this desire is realized, but with little success.

  My mother was taken away at a young age, but through her short life, she had managed to win the respect of everyone in our locality. People often spoke about her hospitality and kindness. Vegetable vendors would start their daily business by coming to her first because they believed that she brought them good luck.

  The whole family of Rajmal Sait, our neighbour, was beholden to my mother. On the day she lay dying, a big Jain ritual was going on in their house, with a well-known guru of their faith presiding over the rituals. Rajmal brought his guru to have my mother blessed. For nearly half an hour they chanted Prakrit mantras, which I did not understand. With my eyes closed, I was praying to the Mother Goddess who had once appeared to save me from death. The same evening, my mother died.

  Within the next few months, we had to sell our house to a rich Jain merchant. A Jain temple built of marble now stands where my mother breathed her last. Perhaps this is no coincidence. As Kalidasa said, affections and affinities span lifetimes. My mother’s ancestors had fled to Tamil Nadu when Vijayanagara was invaded. They had been Jains.

  TWO

  Three Paths, Three Yogis

  There was a bhajan hall near our house in Rangaswami Street, where a sadhu called Madake Swami lived. He held a bhajan session here every Saturday. He kept a madake, pot, on his head all the time, and hence the name, Madake Swami.

  This swami wore just a silver waistband and underwear, though sometimes he would drape a small shawl around his neck. He lived on alms from neighbours and used the pot as a begging bowl. He also kept chocolates and peppermints in this pot and would freely distribute them to children. Every day, he would run into me on his way back from Chiklalbagh, a nearby park, and call out in Tamil, ‘Dei shastri, inge wada’ (Hey Shastri, come here). He would then slip a chocolate or peppermint into my hands. I was about twelve years old at the time and loved candies.

  In those days, I was completely crazy about the movies, and there was no space in my heart for Madake Swami. When I was in class nine, I noticed one evening that there was a huge crowd near the bhajan hall. Madake Swami had left his body, I was told. I felt a great emptiness within on hearing the news.

  Years later, it was my Sufi guru, Ashad-ullah Quadri Wali, who told me that Madake Swami was actually the disciple of the famous saint of Tamil Nadu, Sant Ramalinga Adigal. It was Adigal who had initiated Madake Swami in a dream and instructed him to go to the Himalayas. After practising austerities for a long time, Madake Swami came to Bangalore as commanded by the guru. A small merchant, Nagarajappa, gave him shelter and also built the bhajan hall for him. After he received the swami’s blessings, Nagarajappa became very rich. He bought a huge building in Balepet and rented it out to shops and hotels, making a lot of money in the process.

  I gathered more information about Madake Swami from Madake Swamiya Divya Pavadaglu, a book I picked up from Avenue Road in Bangalore around 1990. Madake Swami practised a version of animisha yoga, the yoga of sleeplessness. It involved keeping awake the whole night and focusing the mind on a mantra or on some chakra of the body. His nights were meant for sadhana and, during these hours, he would circumambulate a tulsi shrine. My own Sufi guru had practised a similar sadhana for twelve years in the burial ground in Sultan Palya in Bangalore.

  Once, I was going to Swami Maneeshananda’s Ashram in Kengeri along with my friends, Dr Siddaraju and Shivanandappa. We were travelling in Dr Siddaraju’s car. Somewhere along the way I saw a board that said ‘Madake Swami’s tomb’. I suggested we pay our respects to the swami before proceeding, but Dr Siddaraju was not for it and drove on. Within a few moments, one of the tyres got stuck in a pit filled with mud. Unable to get the car out, one of us had to walk to the nearby village to get help. Dr Siddaraju had disrespected the holy man, and I asked him to pray for forgiveness, which he did. We managed to get the car out only after that. This exercise had taken us nearly three hours.

  The way of yogis is mysterious. We tend to take for granted their casual nod, glance or touch, and it can take years to comprehend the impact they have on us. I understood the feeling of emptiness that I had experienced after Madake Swami’s passing away only when I shared these feelings with my Sufi guru, and saw his reaction. He was thrilled to learn of my encounters with Madake Swami. Then, he heaved a long sigh and said, ‘You did not realize that you had received his blessings. That is why you are here.’

  We are not destined to meet certain yogis more than once or twice in a lifetime, but even a single meeting with such people can have an everlasting and indelible effect on us. One such yogi was Swami Bhajanananda, a monk from the Ramakrishna order, who affected me profoundly.

  The day after my mother’s death, I had gone to the Ramakrishna Math in Bangalore to meet Swami Purushottamananda. He suggested I go and talk to Swami Bhajanananda, who lived in a hut in the ashram garden.When I reached the hut, I found the door closed. After I called out a couple of times, a frail-looking monk came out. He arranged two chairs for us to sit on. I introduced myself and told him of my mother’s death.

  He said, ‘We the living, mourn the dead, and we think that death is frightening. We dread death till we die. But the truth is that death is freedom, and the dead are happier than we are. Yet even death is not the end. We have to get back here to exhaust our karmas. Please read Swami Abhedananda’s book on this subject.’ I did read Swami Abedhananda’s book, and it gave me several insights into life after death.

  Swami Bhajanananda was incredibly well read. Still, he warned, ‘Books can’t lead us to inner knowledge. However, those who thirst for intellectual knowledge should quench this thirst before they get into sadhana. Some people are innocent by nature and the inner path is easy for them. But if you have intellectual leanings you can’t help fulfilling those karmas.’

  He then asked me an unexpected question. ‘Have you studied communism?’

  ‘Since it is all atheism, I haven’t bothered about it,’ I repl
ied.

  ‘I don’t think you are right there,’ he said. ‘Some people plunge into sadhana unthinkingly. Soon, their hearts are full of doubts. It is better to experience atheism before you start your sadhana, else it will come back to disturb you later. Please try and understand atheism as well as you can. Stick to it while your experience agrees with it. Live it. Get into sadhana only when your atheism is shaken by your experience. Sadhana has nothing to do with theism or its opposite. It is beyond both.’

  Swami Bhajanananda spoke very highly of existentialism. He felt that for the first time in the history of Western philosophy, Sartre and Camus had confronted life head-on. While earlier Western philosophers distanced themselves from experience by focusing on conceptualism, existentialists took experience by the horns, prioritizing existence over essence.

  Though it was Prof. Jamakhandi, a retired professor of physics I knew, who introduced me to Western science and philosophy, it was Swami Bhajanananda who sparked off my interest in Marxism, which would continue to fascinate me for several decades. Swami Bhajanananda was eventually transferred to the Ramakrishna Ashram in Almora and later to Belur Math. I was not to meet him a second time.

  Soon after I completed my master’s degree, I forced myself into marriage. This turned out to be the greatest disaster of my life. I was deeply troubled, and my heart began to yearn for the closeness of a guru figure. My desire was soon fulfilled. When I was living in Tumkur and working as a lecturer at the government college there, I was in the habit of going for walks on the narrow tar road behind the college. The place was quiet and lonely in those days. I used to sit underneath a huge tree, and become reflective. One evening, I walked down the road till I arrived at an old temple, which housed the tomb of one Sappani Swami. Born into the Tigula caste, this swami was known for khanda mundana yoga, the yoga of taking the body apart. The legend has it that he used to separate his body parts every night while sleeping.