Everyday Yogi
Page 12
I felt disgusted, almost nauseous upon hearing this. I had seen the power of his magic but I felt that even if this kind of power could make me the emperor of the world, I should reject it. I was also afflicted by a strange kind of fear. I came out of his house with the Srichakra and decided never to go back to him. Meanwhile, I didn’t know what to do with this object he had given me; I feared its power but I was also wary of throwing it away.
I went to Brother the next day and told him everything. Brother prayed and said, ‘This person has no divine power whatsoever. He has come in possession of a karna pishachi.’ A karna pishachi is the spirit of a dead person or animal that a black magic practitioner subjugates to get things done. This is because the spirits of the dead have far greater powers than the living. Such spirits are said to whisper secrets in the left ear of the person using them, hence the term karna pishachi, the spirit of the ear.
Brother continued, ‘He has imprisoned the spirit in a bottle and the spirit is doing all his work, but this cannot go on forever. One day, when it gets free, it is sure to wreak vengeance on him.’
‘How come he has pictures of Lord Tirupati and other sattvic deities?’
‘Those pictures are only covers to hide a lot of black magic yantras placed behind them. He wanted to take possession of you so as to siphon off your spiritual powers for his selfish ends.’
‘Why did God send me there?’
‘He wanted you to experience temptation and get out of it.’
Brother prayed for my protection. Then he asked me to leave the Shrichakra in some temple after sunset. I went to Malleshwara temple and left it there.
Meanwhile, the black magic practitioner was very eager to meet me and sent word through Darshan again and again. Darshan had received a similar Srichakra from him and had benefitted immensely. A few months later, there was a sudden reversal in Darshan’s life. His guru started demanding money from him. He also said that Darshan would get his blessings only on the condition that he brought big politicians to him. Even Darshan started having misgivings. Finally, something happened that made him leave that man altogether.
Darshan explained later. ‘I thought that he was a mahatma. But last week a young girl came to see him, and he raped her. This came to the knowledge of his neighbours who beat him up and took him to the police station, where he was beaten up again. The next day they forced him to vacate the house and leave the area.’
After this episode, my curiosity in miracles ceased.
I also learnt that there are other forces at play in our lives, which may not work for us. I had gone to Bhopal to attend a big poetry meet. On my way back to Bangalore, I bought a book by Acharya Rajneesh from the bookshop at the railway station. The moment I started reading the book, I began to feel feverish. I simply couldn’t read on. Even after reaching Bangalore, there was no let-up in the fever. I struggled to get back to the book and my fever went up further. I went to a certified doctor and took his prescriptions diligently but the fever refused to leave me. Whenever I felt a little energetic, my hands would reach for this book.
Finally, it occurred to me that my fever could be connected in some way to this book. I wasn’t sure why I was trying to read a book even though I felt it was working against me. I knew I had to meet Brother to find out.
When I told him about my fever, he asked, ‘What book are you reading?’ I told him. He said, ‘There is a violent conflict between your path and the author’s path. If you forget about that book, the fever will disappear.’ It did.
Sometime in 1996, I had a strange dream. I saw a mosque and a church on the road that I was crossing and I wanted to enter both. Each time I tried though, something stopped me. When I told Brother about this dream, he said, ‘Till now, you have got help from Muslim and Christian saints. You’re not allowed to do this any more. From now on, you should depend on your own sadhana. Jesus is telling me that going to followers of other faiths can only create confusion in your mind. He is asking you to stick to Devi worship. He says that if you had been steadfast, you would have got enlightenment by now.
‘There is one more thing. Jesus tells me you should not go to any human gurus. Indirect paths don’t work for you. Those who go through the direct path, without human or institutional mediation, will see the Light face-to-face. Many followers of even great gurus imagine their own enlightenment, and if that isn’t enough, the enlightenment they think they have got is a carbon copy of their gurus’ experiences. This is a result of faith but not of realization.’
He continued, ‘Don’t think that only the most famous gurus are close to God. A king may have a minister whom everybody knows but it is quite possible that the king’s cook or washerman is closer to him. The greatest devotees are like the king’s cook or washerman.’
Some years later, newspapers reported that many Christian priests were attacked and killed in Odisha. I was disturbed by the news. I went to Brother to ask him about this incident. His response was very unexpected. He said, ‘What is the faith of Jesus? To die for others. These priests should thank Jesus for what has happened to them. Many priests, instead of preparing themselves to die for Jesus, start building fortresses of material comfort around them. Nobody can become a follower of Jesus so long as he is not ready to die for Jesus.’
It is very difficult to place Brother’s experiences and healing in any readymade framework. But anyone who gets close to him, gets closer to Light.
By Way of Not Concluding
Around 1996, when this account ends, big changes were already taking place in my life. A major shift happened when I moved to Delhi to take up a new job. This phase of my life brought me fresh problems, which needed fresh solutions.
My spiritual evolution did not stop where the present story ends. My mahaguru, Shivalinga Swami, and my spiritual mother, Mata Amritanandamayi, had already entered my life by this time. They went on to become very powerful forces in my life. I have made stray references to Shivalinga Swami and not talked about Amma at all because my experiences with them cannot be mentioned in passing. The life-changing shaktipat, energy transmission, they gave me, will be one of the main themes of my next book—the sequel to this one.
In the years following the period described in Everyday Yogi, I was initiated into Srividya practice by Prof. R. Satyanarayana. Briefly put, Srividya is the worship of the Cosmic Mother through mantra chanting, the worship of the Srichakra yantra and several other rituals. This practice brought me powerful experiences and revelations. So did my intense bouts of sadhana in the highly charged Billeshwar Mahadev temple in Chamiala, a village in Tehri Garhwal district, where I had very intense visions of other dimensions. All this material will go into my next book.
I once asked Shivalinga Swami, ‘Why do I need to go to so many sources?’
‘This is because you have so many samskaras.’
‘But the scriptures emphasize loyalty to one guru. How do I reconcile my many experiences with this injunction?’
‘Go by the spirit and not the letter of such injunctions. See me in all of them.’
However, I have never seen Shivalinga Swami’s form, either in the dream state or the waking state. He has appeared physically to many of his other disciples in spite of not being alive in the physical body, but he has chosen not to be visible to my eyes.
Troubled by this, I asked him, ‘Why do you refuse to appear before me though so many of your disciples have seen your form?’
His answer was brief and cryptic. ‘I am within you.’
Perhaps the dramatic experiences I am hoping to describe in my next book will be an elaboration of his short and cryptic answer.
Ajnanatimirandhasya jnananjana shalakaya
chakshurunmilitam yena tasmai shri gurave namah.
He who pierces the darkness of ignorance
with the needle of awareness,
Before that Guru, I bow down.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Bangalore in 1954, poet and playwright H.S. Shivaprakash is con
sidered one of the most influential voices in Kannada literature today. The recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, he has also received the highest awards in Karnataka for literature and drama. His literary works have been translated into most Indian languages, as well as into English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. A significant scholarly contribution is the rediscovery of the aesthetic facets of Indian Bhakti traditions. His plays are widely staged in Karnataka and other parts of India.
The former editor of the Sahitya Akademi journal, Indian Literature, Prof. Shivaprakash is a professor of Theatre Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Since June 2011, he has been serving as the director of the Tagore Centre, Indian Embassy, Berlin.
I Keep Vigil of Rudra, his translation of the Kannada vachanas, was published by Penguin in 2010.
First published in India in 2014 by Harper Element
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Copyright © H.S. Shivaprakash 2014
ISBN: 978-93-5136-295-1
Epub Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 978-93-5136-296-8
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
H.S. Shivaprakash asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design: Amrita Chakravorty
Cover photograph: Dinesh Khanna
www.harpercollins.co.in
HarperCollins Publishers
A-75, Sector 57, Noida 201301, India
77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8JB, United Kingdom
Hazelton Lanes, 55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900, Toronto, Ontario M5R 3L2
and 1995 Markham Road, Scarborough, Ontario M1B 5M8, Canada
25 Ryde Road, Pymble, Sydney, NSW 2073, Australia
31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand
10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
1 From ‘Nagarjuna’ (1984) by H.S. Shivaprakash. Translated from the Kannada by the author.
2 Jaideva Singh (tr.), Spanda-karikas: The Divine Creative Pulsation, Motilal Banarsidass.