"I don't want to have to rescue you..."

It never crossed my mind that what I’m doing might affect my family…maybe even scare them a bit....

At the beginning the aspirant should go into solitude now and then. Spiritual discipline is necessary. You want to eat rice; suppose you sit down somewhere and say, ‘Wood contains fire and fire cooks rice.’ Can saying it cook the rice? You must get two pieces of wood and by rubbing them together bring out the fire.

Sri Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

I'd decided to go to the Vedanta Society’s retreat center in Olema, California, near Point Reyes National Seashore. It required a letter from Swami Sarvadevananda and permission from the swami in charge of the retreat center – and I’d gotten both. The women’s center allowed no more than eight women at a time so, on a Sunday afternoon, I brought it up with Kevin. “The retreat center said it would be okay if I came up so I have to decide when to go.”

Kevin was at the sink, filling up the tea kettle. He’d gone straight from the gym to the farmer’s market without a shower. The late morning sun was coming through his wild, early silver hair. Sundays are sweet, sleepy; each of us usually puttering somewhere in the house in the comfort of communal solitude.

Kevin walked from the sink to the stove with the kettle and said, teasing, “I’m not going to have to come rescue you from a cult or anything, am I?”

A messy pile of newspapers was on the yellow-and-blue tablecloth in front of me along with the tops of a few strawberries on a small white plate. There was so much light coming from the windows near the table, Kevin hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on over the stove, the darkest part of the kitchen. We were both in our Sunday best: sweats and shorts, loose shirts, shoes meant to be worn, not looked at. Kevin put the kettle down on a burner.

“It’s just a silent retreat,” I said. “There aren’t any group events or talking or even eating together. You even have to bring your own food.”

His back was still to me as he bent down to make sure the gas was turned on under the correct burner even though he knew those burners by heart.

This wasn’t a joke. He was actually worried.

I got up because I couldn’t think what to say. I started to take some useless receipts and out-of-date school lunch forms off the refrigerator door when the kitchen door slammed open. Luke never could just open a door; his entrance was always an event. “Bertrand Russell’s a fucking idiot.” He paused, looking for a reaction, but then barreled on without one. “You think Mickey Morgan would mind if I called my essay: ‘Bertrand Russell’s a Fucking Idiot’?”

Luke was standing in his boxers and socks. There was no muscle, bone, organ or hair follicle in his body that wasn’t straining and stamping towards adulthood but not always at the same time or in the same direction. Still in front of the lichen of promotional magnets, yellowed receipts, a half-full grocery notepad and ancient school announcements, I was torn, between life and lists, between loving and organizing. I gave up on the fridge door. What were my options? Deal with the words or with the passion? Teacher Mom or Etiquette Mom? I hate Etiquette Mom. She ‘s a priss, and pretty ineffective, too. Of course, there was always Tired Mom or Distracted Mom or Keep-to-the-Schedule-Mom or I’m-Talking-to-Your-Father Mom.

Maybe it’s time to experiment with no official role at all.

I turned from the fridge door and said, “I think you have a perfectly grabby title without that one word.”

“Yeah, but he is, he’s a fucking idiot.”

I decided to concentrate on the fact Luke was, well, talking about homework, at least. “What’s this essay about?”

“God.”

“God?”

“God.” He swiped a glass from the cupboard and got between me and the refrigerator to pull the cranberry juice out of it.

I threw the papers I’d taken off the door into the trash and said, “How long is it supposed to be?”
“The usual. Two to three pages.”

That made sense. God, in two or three pages. By Wednesday. My insanity is spreading.

Or maybe he’s just fifteen.

When I was fifteen I took a stance that all music was bad, that it filled up space in brains like so much cotton, protecting people from the sharp edges of their thoughts. I took it mostly to see what would happen. It was thrilling standing out there alone on a plank, seeing what passion I could stir up just with words and stubbornness.

Kevin, who’s usually game for debates, was staying focused on his tea-making so I bit: “So why is Bertrand Russell an idiot?”

“He takes the position that Thomas Aquinas’ Prime Mover theory – you know the one that says that of course God exists because nothing can start moving without something making it move?” He waited, glaring. He’d even stopped mid-pour. When I nodded, he continued pouring but not before roughly wiping his long hair off his face - with the hand with the cap to the cranberry juice bottle still in it. “Well, Russell says that’s bogus because nothing can exist without a cause. Just because he can’t imagine something that could create itself doesn’t mean it can’t exist. I mean, if God is omniscient and omnipotent and infinite, then why couldn’t God create itself?” He threw the bottle of cranberry juice back in the fridge door, turned back to me, and said, “Om – ni - scient. Om - ni - po - tent.” He snorted and then took a swig of his red juice.

This was the child who, at six, announced that he knew there was no God because he thought the Big Bang theory made the most sense as the origin of the universe. Now, he's God’s advocate. Of course, his younger brother, Matt, whose answer when he was four years old to Luke's Big Bang thesis was , simply, that God did exist and who has insisted on saying grace before every meal before anyone can eat since he was five, now thinks he's Wiccan.

I took hold of Luke’s forearm so I could stand on my toes to sort of kiss his scruffy cheek and said, “I know you’ll figure it out.”

“What-ever.” He wheeled around, long hair flying, pounding the living room floor as he left for his room. Just before his bedroom door slammed shut, Kevin and I heard, “Fucking Bertrand Russell.”

Kevin and I just looked at each other in the stillness Luke left behind, the question and answer didn’t need to be said out loud: did we just do the right thing? Not reacting, not going after the language? Probably not, but who knew? Kevin scooped some loose tea from one of his tins of Chinese tea into a small pot.

I said, “Don’t worry, Boy. I’ve stayed away from any temple where they looked way too happy.”

“I’m not sure what that means, but, okay. I just don’t want to have to rescue you.” Kevin was on the other side of the butcher block island slowly pouring the boiling water over the dry leaves.

“Boy, don’t worry. It’s still me.”

Clay image

While some of Ramakrishna’s story makes me nervous – or more precisely, incredulous – when I read something like the passage below, I know I’ve been paying attention to the wrong thing.

This is from a book called The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna which is actually a compilation of anecdotes written down by one of this most devoted followers, Mahendranath Gupta, who wrote the collection under the simple letter “M.”

Sri Ramakrishna:
You have faith in God without form. That is very good. But never get it into your head that your faith alone is true and that every other is false. Know for certain that God without form is real and that God with form is also real. Then hold fast to whichever faith appeals to you.

M (a devotee):
But, sir, assuming it is true that God has form, he is surely not identical with the clay image of him?

Sri Ramakrishna:
Why say the image is clay? The image is composed of spirit.

M:
But those who worship the clay image should be made to understand that the clay image is not God, and that while they are bowing down before the image they must remember that they are worshipping God. They must not worship the clay.

Sri Ramakrishna:
Making others understand – giving them lectures – that’s all you Calcutta people think about! You never ask yourselves how you can find the truth. Who are you to teach others? It is the lord of the Universe who teaches mankind. Will he who has done so much for us fail to bring us to the light? If
we need to be taught, he will teach. He knows our inmost thoughts.

Supposing it is a mistake to worship God in the image – doesn’t he know he alone is being worshipped? He will certainly be pleased by that worship. Why should you get a headache over that? It would be better if you struggled to get knowledge and devotion yourself.

Doing it...

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature: external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control , or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

Swami Vivekananda

I went to learn some rituals. Swami Sarvadenanda said he’d teach them to me after aarti. It meant I had to figure out what aarti was.

The ritual worship of Ramakrishna at the Vedanta Society is easy to miss, at first. It wasn’t in the schedule the temple sent out every month but that’s because it happens every day at six in the evening. In its own quiet way, it was every bit as dramatic as the rituals at the temple in Whittier.

In a class, the swami had described the importance of ritual this way: “God is love. But how are we to know that?” he said, pausing as though one of us sitting in the class might actually answer him. “If you see a person who shows more love than is commonly manifested in everyday life, then you can use them as a role model. Like Ramakrishna. This is the source of the evangelical idea that you can only go to God through Christ. It’s important to see these spiritual giants as a role model so that we get encouraged to try to develop that kind of love.”

Okay, so the idea of revering a historical figure is starting to make some sense. I don’t think I can go so far as to worship Ramakrishna as though he were Divine but perhaps I can find traits of his worth admiring and even emulating although I’m not so good at the hero thing. It seems that everytime I get one, I look too close and they crash down.. Maybe I’ve looked for them in the wrong places like books, plays, movies, and biographies. Or maybe it’s because I demand too much of them. I’ve always thought heroes had to be perfect. Perhaps it's both of those reasons and one other: I doubt I could recognize a hero if I’d met one; I’m always too busy looking out for the clay feet.

Does it take death to fully recognize a hero? I deeply loved and admired my father-in-law while he was alive. When I think of a life lived on faith, I think of him, of his decision to become an orthopedist to help disabled children as Christ did and he did it outside his regular practice, without compensation, for his entire life. But it wasn’t until his death that this essential fact became untangled from the mundane family and human logistics which distracted from the truth, his truth, and now my truth. John didn’t need to be perfect to be one of my heroes. From his example I’ve learned what it means to live on faith and to give for no other purpose but as an exercise of that faith.

But it’s not easy with Ramakrishna. Even his main disciple, Vivekananda, the guy who started this sect of Hinduism called the Ramakrishna Mission or Vedanta here in the United States after Ramakrishna died, took quite some time before he fully appreciated his teacher. So what can I appreciate about Ramakrishna? I admire his unshakable desire to know the Unknowable and his single-minded devotion to the search, to know for himself. So I might not find myself swept away by spiritual ardor but I might be able to lay a flower at the base of his photo or get some sustenance from having his picture around the way I do from the photos of John on my mantelpiece at home.

At the aarti that night, everyone who came into the temple walked to the front, kneeled down and then most touched their heads on the clean carpet. I figured now was the time. No one much cared what I did or didn’t do. Plus, it was dark. So I walked up to the far side and did it: I kneeled down, touched my forehead to the carpet, and sat down on the floor.

All I felt was relief.

Whether or not it will ever be any more than that, I don’t know. Something about the idea of getting to the Divine through thinking of or reflecting on an example of someone who really tried, with every fiber of their being, to live a spiritual life makes it much less of a big deal. I’m not worshipping a picture or an icon so much as paying respect to an effort made, hoping to learn what I can from the act.

In half-light, Swami Sarvadevananda came in through a side door and stood facing the altar while a short-haired Anglo nun did all of the rituals which included a near constant ringing of the brass bell in her hand. Two congregants beat gongs while everyone chanted “Jai Sri Ramakrishna” - like Hemu’s greeting “Jai Swaminarayan” only with a different name. In the description on the website, it said the service was called “Arati” or Vespers; its purpose was “to remember that all we do is for God’s sake.”

The nun waved a brass candle holder followed by a pitcher of water, a folded piece of cloth, a flower, and a long fan made of hair from a yak’s tail which almost floated through the air when she was waved around. The bell ringing symbolizes the sound “OM” which is the symbol of Hinduism and also represents God (Brahman.) “The lights symbolize the light of Brahman (the Godhead). They also symbolize fire, one of the five elements that comprise the universe.” The water stands for itself; the flower represents earth; the flowing fan, called a chamara, symbolizes air; and the cloth represents space (as in cloth covers the body as space envelops all creation.) The point of the fire and the chanting of Ramakrishna’s name was to ask him to be present in the service.The nun moved each item with a rhythmic but slightly sensuous dance-like movement confined to her right arm while her left moved just enough to keep the bell gently ringing at her side.

When the ritual was over, a silent meditation began. Swami Sarvadevananda sat on a mat to the far right side of the altar, his back utterly straight, until the hour was over. By the time we opened our eyes, at the back of the chapel was a basket of flowers taken from the altar for people to take home with them.

The lights came on, the night class began and still the swami hadn’t had a chance to teach me a single ritual. After class, came dinner and I went to that, too, hoping he hadn’t forgotten.

More than twenty people sat down to eat, a number of them guests from out of town. I scooped the little food I took – rice and spiced vegetables along with homemade bread – off the paper plate and into my face as quickly as I could. In an awkward moment, the Swami abruptly excused himself from the long table and motioned for me to follow him into another room for a few private words, not my idea of how I wanted this to go. I couldn’t forget the large group eating, waiting for his return.

For the daily rituals and an explanation of their meaning, he suggested I get a small book called The Worship of Sri Ramakrishna but, as to the first steps he’d suggest for someone like me? “Try to think that there is a divine in everything, and there is a divine presence with you and you are connected in that way. This is a whole day awareness, hmm?” His hand emphasized just how complete this moment-by-moment focus should be. “That means bringing the mind a little bit internal but focus on your work, whatever that is. At the end of your work, make your time for meditation. When you do that, forget everything that happens: what he said, what she said, what happened.”

This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a list, details, directives and “One other thing— “ I hesitated. “Uhm, a mantra? Isn’t that part of it?”

“A mantra, I cannot give you. Only the senior swami in each center can and he is out of town for at least a month more” the swami said. “But you— Which form of God speaks to your heart? Tell me: who? Who is your ideal?”

Who is “my ideal?” I had no idea and no idea what to say. I guessed he meant one of those altar icons I’d seen in other Hindu temples, those enormous elaborate statues, but they were all a blur to me; there wasn’t one that spoke to me more than any other because I didn’t know their stories. What I wished I’d said was: What do you mean? Or: What’s on the menu? Or, even: What do you suggest? But what I said was, “It’s not a form. Not a form.” All I meant by that was, so far, I still had a hard time saying or even typing the word “God” because it felt too concrete, too specific a term for something I can’t grasp, like an idea at the edge of a dream. “Form” meant that bearded guy, to me, and that notion of the Divine just doesn’t work for me. I saw the men walking on the moon far above the clouds. I saw the pictures of earth hanging in the sky like a blue swirled moon. Those swirls held God? I don’t think so.

“Okay,” the swami said, “get out of form. Say that it is infinite, like space, like ocean, an ocean of light and joy, like that, and chant a simple ‘om’.” The swami closed his eyes and immediately went somewhere else. His voice was low and lasting. “Oooooooooooooooommmmm Iiiiinnnfiniiiiiiite liiiiight. Iiiiiiiinfiiiniiiiiite joooooooy.”

I was unable to be where I was. Watching him chant, one-on-one, made me nervous. I kept thinking about the swami’s half-eaten plate of food and the twenty people back at the table wondering where he went and when he’d come back. “I’ll let you get back to your dinner. Thank you, Swamiji.”

I got up to leave and then, with out a hesitation, without a thought, I found myself bending down to touch the swami’s black socks. I touched them then stood up with my hands together and said, “Namaste.”

He smiled, bowed back at me, and then went back to his dinner and I went home.

I done it. I’d done something.

(17 October 2006)

The Path of Love

By meditation, some men
can see the Self in the self;
others, by the yoga of knowledge;
others, by selfless action.

Still others, not seeing, only
hear about it and worship;
they too cross beyond death,
trusting in what they have heard.

Bhagavad Gita 13.24-25

I have the shoe thing down. Slip-off shoes or sandals are the way to go. I walked in to the Swami Sarvadevananda’s weekly class in the Vedanta chapel, knocked off my sandals with a kick of my heel on the carpet and put them up on the white wooden shelves almost without a thought.

The swami was already cross-legged on the dais, his long arms resting on the low table. He was in the middle of saying one of those many words which all sound the same to me. The one I heard was “Ishta” but wasn’t even sure how to spell it so I settled for phonetics. “…that from which all creation comes and which is beyond all change,” he said. “But we must create an image of it. We can only love what is concrete. We love human beings, beautiful flowers, the rising moon because they are tangible. But how do you love the Infinite?”

I guess you need to think there is an “Infinite” to begin with before you can start trying to figure out how to love It. As I sat there scribbling down notes, I was pretty sure I could accept that much, that there probably is an “Infinite” but “loving It?” Why does It need me to “love” It, to worship It? Isn’t recognizing Its existence or just being open to It enough?

“In the beginning, we need forms to worship, forms like Buddha, like Christ, like Ramakrishna,” the swami said. “God cannot be worshipped except in symbols. There is no religion in the world that is not practicing on the concept (a symbol) of God. To say: ‘my symbol is better than yours’ is silly.” The swami said we mustn’t confuse the picture of Ramakrishna - or any symbol for that matter - with God Itself.

So, according to the way Hinduism is practiced at the Vedanta Temple, all those icons in Hindu temples all over the world are not meant to actually be considered Divine themselves but to be images of the Unknowable or the Absolute Reality. They’re forms which appear in the minds of people meditating, a different one for you and a different one for me. They each represent some of the powers of God as most of us need something specific to love. And that is what Bhakti yoga is all about: Love.

This idea of a religion acknowledging that different people might need different approaches to worship is one of the more stunning features of Hinduism. Built into its very structure is the notion that there are those among us who might be more comfortable learning about God in an intellectual way (jnana yoga) which might include a concept of a formless Absolute that was everywhere present. There might be some of us who want to demonstrate our devotion through selfless action (karma yoga), and still others who might revel in learning to control their bodies and minds as a way of coming into contact with the Divine (raja yoga). “But,” the swami added, “most Hindus, like most people, find it more natural to worship a representation of the Absolute. And that practice is called bhakti yoga.”

There were about a dozen of us in the pews. I still wasn’t sure what kind of person I was but I was getting an idea. My natural inclination is towards the notion of God without form ­­‑‑ the guy on a cloud thing never sat well with me, ever, -- and I clearly feel safer inside a book than in a ritual or service so that would make me, by Hinduism’s terms, more comfortable with jnana yoga and likely to find the bhakti path a bit of a stretch. But I hadn’t started this with the idea of staying the same.

Hinduism considers Christianity a bhakti path, (the path of devotion) where Christ is the Beloved; the cross, a sacred symbol of worship. The idea is that, because we don’t know what Absolute Reality looks like or even how to express it, it’s natural for limited humans to worship God in a symbolic way. But the ultimate goal is to come face-to-face with the Divine yourself. “But,” Swami Sarvadenvanada said, peering up over the top of the small book in his hands, “first you have to be convinced, intellectually, that this can happen. Once your conviction is strong, you can then make a journey to practice this in your life.”

That is the problem isn’t it? How do you get that conviction? I could look at my life before all this as either a journey without conviction or a conviction without a journey. I had the desire to know more but I’d taken only those steps I could hide under a disguise called work, mostly as television news stories. Did conviction have to come first or was it something that could grow from a journey begun in its absence? Or maybe, just maybe, I already had it if I wasn’t afraid to admit it. Maybe my struggle was really over what my definition of God was and then, what to do about it. Should I be grateful to this explosion of interfaith dissension for being the final push out the door to figure at least some of this out?

The swami then talked about how Ramakrishna eventually left rituals behind and disliked discussing theories once he saw that Divine light. He simply wanted to love God. “Ramakrishna said, ‘What use is it to walk into a grove of mango trees and discuss the number of branches, the shape of the leaves, or who planted the trees or when they were planted? What is the need of all this? Just eat the mangos.’” Swami Sarvadevananda laughed.

It would be great to have the kind of faith that was clear as seeing fruit hanging from a tree. But, right then, I couldn’t see the mango grove let alone the fruit.

“People are emotional more than rational,” Swami Sarvadevananda said. He was getting warmed up. “Can we use this emotion for God? All Ramakrishna cried for was to see the face of God and, when he did,” the Swami’s hands were flying farther and farther from his body. “He was filled with JOY and JOY and JOY!”

Why was this extreme abandon the swami described so off-putting?

Ramakrishna lived in the late 1800s and frequently went into spiritual reveries so intense, he’d lose all consciousness, sometimes for hours. At least once during one of these episodes, he fell down and broke his arm. Thank goodness earlier that day I’d spent some time with Christopher Isherwood’s books on Vedanta Hinduism. In his introduction to Vedanta for Modern Man, Isherwood said, “Ramakrishna is presented always as an exemplar (and not the only exemplar) of Vedanta.” He said that, while the Vedanta Society did worship Ramakrishna, it was “a matter of individual choice” and “no student of Vedanta need necessarily take part… much less discard his loyalty to any other divine personality.” So, when Swami Sarvadevananda became rhapsodic about Ramakrishna, Isherwood’s thoughts gave me permission to learn from Ramakrishna without worshipping him or even, necessarily, being comfortable with him. It made it possible for me to stay in my seat and listen.

“In our early devotional life we need rites and rituals – puja, and the like – every day. We do this until devotion grows. For many people, just thinking about God isn’t enough. That’s why the Catholics have mass, Jews have Torah study. It’s a great help to have spiritual people leading us to the highest experience of God. So, you start with the formalities, like when you first meet someone. When you start a journey, we have these little formalities: do this, don’t do that. But, once you love God, it’s not so important. All of these rituals are the reason that India has produced so many numberless saints and seers. There are rituals all day in the temple and from birth to death. Many think: ‘Oh, these rituals are so bad.’ Okay. But it’s like cleaning the bathtub with the baby. You don’t throw away all of the flavor of love that goes with the puja. Suppose you only bring the philosophy? That’s like bringing the structure without flesh and bone. There’s no sweetness, no manifestation of joy. Don’t destroy the rituals until they’ve raised your consciousness to the Divine. If you discard it, then you’ve got nothing but dry bones.”

I was getting pretty excited about the notion that I might be able to cut to the chase, to by-pass all those rituals that felt confusing and made me feel awkward and just stick to the reading, the meditating and the discussing but that wasn’t what the swami meant. Reading and learning about Hinduism without entering into the ritual, devotional part of it, was going to get me nowhere. Karen Armstrong, a former nun, wrote in The Spiral Staircase,

Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but doing things that change you. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life-enhancing. But you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.

But, how?

The swami said, “Make a small altar in your room and put pictures of those who inspire you, those who you find divine. A picture of Christ, of (the Vedanta’s) Mother Durga, of the Buddha, and, after you shower, offer flower incense every morning and ask for their blessings. If you don’t do anything ritualistic and I ask about what you did, you will talk, talk, talk, about what happened in your office – that’s it. You have to make a separation between mundane life and spiritual life so that, eventually, you see the face of God everywhere. But you have to start with a ritual.”

I’m not sure I’m a ritual sort of girl after my experience trying to do Hemu’s rituals but this seemed at least a bit more within reach, something worth trying, at least.

Outside the cut glass windows of the chapel in the Vedanta Center, it was already dark when someone in the class raised their hand to ask Swami Sarvadevananda another question. “Can’t you do good work with out this?” Clearly I wasn’t the only one wondering if rituals were required, if we measured up if we didn’t do them.

“What happens to that good work when the world collapses into dust?” the swami answered. “When there is no world anymore? Ritual devotion adds spiritual flavor, makes our life more peaceful. More good will get done in a more substantial and permanent way by practicing devotion. One ounce of spiritual practice is worth more than tons and tons of frothy talks. How many times do we listen to great scholarly talks given by great (teachers) but, then, once we get out of the temple and someone asks what was said and many will answer: ‘I don’t know.’ (Whereas) someone else will speak simply, from the heart, and the world changes.”

Swami Sarvadevananda glanced at the small clock on his table and, before closing his book and ending with a chant which included “Om, shanti, shanti, shanti.” or “Om, peace, peace, peace,” he looked ahead in the book to next week’s topic. “Next time we’ll read ‘The Need of a Guru” which will answer the question: Who can help us and how we can reach the truth? Who can hold our hand?”

Wearing socks on his feet, the swami stepped down from the carpeted dais and walked down the center aisle to stand in the back to greet each person as they left with the night’s book tucked under one arm. Some bowed to him, others bent down to touch his feet.

At the end of one of the last classes, I’d told myself I’d finally do it, finally bow and touch his feet, but there was there was a ridiculous and growing chorus of voices in my head: “Will you bow? Will you touch his feet?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What a moron for even thinking of doing it.”

“What’s the big deal? You signed up for going through this so just do it and see what it feels like.”
“Nah, get outta town.”

I could go on because “they” did in my head. It’s amazing how many things I can think of in the short walk from one end of a small room to the other. Well, I told myself, at least I’m certain about one thing: I’m just not a bow-er.

That night, I thought I’d gotten over it, that I was going to be able to do it but, when it was my turn, I still couldn’t. I stood rigid, an awkward distance from him. There was going to be no spine-bending from me.

He smiled and asked, “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Not tonight. I have to get home.”

“Okay.”

“Is there a time you could teach me some of the rituals, Swamiji?” At least I’d learned what to call him: Swami-ji or Maharaj.

“Oh. After class on Tuesday.”

“Thank you, Swamiji.”

I sort of bobbed my head but I couldn’t even squeak out a “namaste” so there was nothing to do but turn and walk out of the chapel.

I took my sandals from the shelf, dropped them to the carpet and slipped into them, opening the heavy wooden door into a cold night.


(4 October 2006)

First teacher...

He who teaches this primal
secret to those who love me
has acted with the greatest love
and will come to me, beyond doubt.

No one can do me a service
that is more devoted than
this, and no one on earth is more
precious to me than he is.

Bhagavad Gita 18.68-18.69

Swami Sarvadevananda told me to ask for him at the bookstore. I was nervous opening the glass-paned wooden door and stepping up into the small store. The raw wood shelves were jammed with books on Hinduism as well as on every faith imaginable. There was other stuff, too: incense, incense burners, some photos, and small figures for sale. I looked around for someone to talk to and then realized that, down behind the boxy checkout counter, a gray-haired woman was bent over, peering at an old computer.

“I’m here to see Swami--,” I realized I’d only seen his name on the website and had no idea how to pronounce it. I stumbled through some approximation of it.

The woman looked confused so I did my best with all those syllables a second time and then said, “I have an appointment.”

She dialed the phone. The voice on the other end did not belong to the swami I’d met. When she hung up she said, “Oh! You don’t mean Swami Swahananda! You mean Swami Sarvadevananda!” but she pronounced his name “SHARva-day-veh-nan-duh” The other swami was Swami Sarvadevanada’s boss, the head of the Hollywood Vedanta Society temple. I confess I was still completely confused, their names still indistinguishable to me.

A few minutes later Swami Sarvadevananda came walking down the brick path. He pulled his keys out from somewhere inside his orange robes and opened the door to his tiny office. In his hand was my proposal. He’d read it overnight.

The swami began as if we were in the middle of a conversation, not the beginning. “I think this should be the question: Why religion? What’s the need of religion? Religion must help one to rise from animalistic instincts to human, and human to divine, and from divine to godly, from godly to an infinitely compassionate personality like Christ and Buddha’s. So, this is a great question and many people don’t understand: what is religion? Thousands and thousands of fanatics and followers and they don’t know what is religion!” Swami Sarvadevanada’s hands were flying. His lilting, accented voice made the already new words and thoughts even harder to follow sometimes. “They don’t know that the transformation of life is religion. Transformation means fighting with my evil tendencies inside, which is meanness, ugliness, which creates pain and suffering for others. That which brings even a little pain for others is not religion, it cannot be religion! ‘Blessed are the peace-makers.’ So, who remembers that word in the scripture? Eh? You should be peaceful, you should radiate peace!”

It was hot in that room even though the windows were open but the swami was untouched by it, his hands kept dancing farther and farther away from him as he talked. It was exciting to see him grab on to this crazy idea of mine instead of what I’d feared would happen. I’d come up with all sorts of ways imaginary spiritual teachers might reject me and my crazy project but I don’t think I had even one scenario that came close to this – complete acceptance.

He was really on a roll. “The transformation of life is religion and anything that causes even a little bit of pain for others isn’t. Sri Ramakrishna, who was born 1836, did not know the complexity of life and other religions. He was a seeker and lover of God.That is called religion. ‘I am religious’ does not mean that I go to any temple and bow down my head twenty times and come to my room and beat my wife, eh? Or I’m a religious person so I can go and straighten you by telling you are on the wrong path, and I can go to heaven, by killing you, if need be, forcing you to believe in my way. That’s a nasty concept of spirituality that has nothing to do with spiritual life. Have you read The Life of Sri Ramakrishna?”

Ramakrishna was the guy on the top shelf of the altar, the main guru of the Vedanta branch of Hinduism. I’d picked up a few books that morning. “I just bought The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.”

“Christopher Isherwood also wrote a book about his life. What Ramakrishna did was simple, he didn’t go for any philosophy. From the early days he wanted to know the secret of the universe. From the early days he felt the pull for seeing God and, after going through rigorous spiritual practice, he declared, ‘As many faiths, so many paths.’ He was born into a very spiritual family. His father (was apart from his wife when) he had a dream in which a deity said, ‘I shall be born in your home.’ About the same time, his wife also had a vision of a beam of light from Lord Shiva entering her womb and felt she had conceived a child!” And Ramakrishna was born, his given name was Gadahar.”

Okay, it must be said: I get nervous around immaculate conception stories. I always wonder if they were trying to compete or maybe the devout think us regular folk won’t pay attention, might not value the message, unless they hype their leader’s story. This was one thing the former biology major in me might never ever get over. I can accept the notion of divinity in people, of certain people, perhaps, being more in tune with that Something More than the rest of us. But beams of light causing a pregnancy in a person? A metaphor, a “true” story I can handle, but insist that it is True, that actually happened and that my faith depends on acceptance of that “actual” fact, well, I don’t know what to do with the big “no way” in my head.

Swami Saradevanada decided to give me the highlights of Ramakrishna’s life, a kind of book-flap synopsis. He said Ramakrishna began his spiritual journey by worshiping God, the Mother, in the form of Kali, a black female Hindu goddess. He went to the Kali temple in Dakshineswar on Ganges River near Bengal every day, demanding that she appear before him. “He’s like a mad guy, daytime and nighttime he is meditating on Mother. When the excruciating pains set in he used to cry, ‘Oh, Mother, another day is gone in my life and you have not come. What is the meaning of this life?’ And he’d cry and weep and rubbing his face on the sandy bed of the Ganges, so much is his urge to see the face of the Divine Mother who is the cause of this universe – that is called religion.” He cocked his head to one side and smiled. Swami Sarvadevananda really liked that story.

I sat politely on the other side of the desk. All I could think was: now why did he have to go and tell me a story like that? If that is religion, I haven’t got a prayer.

Of course the story ended with him seeing the Divine as a beam of light coming from the image of Kali. But – and this was what got my attention – it was through that vision that Ramakrishna came to realize that God had no form. “He reconciled all religions as true: ‘he’ and ‘she’ – gone. Now, you can understand what Hindu philosophy is. It is like a gateway. And after that what happened? Mother is gone, the form is gone. He’s lost into infinite waves of light, an ocean of light and joy.” Swami Sarvadevananda’s “joy” is so much more than a bland single syllable. It’s an explosive word that starts out like the word “jaw” and ends with a curlicue of sound as his mouth wraps around the sound of the “o” and “y.” Jahw-oy! …and he was remained in that ocean of jahw-oy for twenty-four hours!” The swami said Ramakrishna soon came to realize that there was nothing but God.

“He was going to Calcutta afterward. He was so humble that he will run, run towards anyone calling God. So one day a public (carriage) took him by mistake through a red letter – what you call it?” he asked, “A red zone? What is the word? You know, with prostitutes?”

“A red-light district?”

Swami Sarvadenanda nodded, “Yes, a red-light district. And the car he was in was moving and the ladies were looking and Ramakrishna was looking at them and saluting them, ‘Oh, Mother! You are here in this form?’ So if you see the end result is, what? The end result is you see the one Mother - call it whatever name you wish – the oneness in every being. That’s spirituality.”
He sat back, waiting for me to speak. I guess everything my written manuscript provoked in him had been said. I started to ask him about 9/11 but he didn’t want to talk about events like that, at least not right away. “We are trying to understand what is religion first.”

“Right.”

“We must understand our weak point. We must diagnose the disease and then put the medicine there. So if any religion does not allow anyone to think freely, if any religion contradicts normal rational and reason-based thinking, even like this Vedanta, this philosophy, we should discard it as poison! Say ‘I have no need of that religion.’”

Did he really say that? Throw away even his religion if anything he said sounded false or contradicted my own sense of truth? He was saying I had a choice to reject some or all of what he believed. I was surprised, surprised and relieved. That meant he was giving me permission to have my doubts about Ramakrishna’s immaculate conception, for example, which, therefore, gave me room to consider what of his wisdom, his practice, his ideas might have meaning for me. It wasn’t all or nothing.

Okay, so I didn’t have to run out of the room. At least not right away.

The swami continued, “And nowhere is that so strongly said except in this Hindu religion. (Other religions) say my book is the only book, you cannot deviate one letter from there, no? But Hinduism says you need not believe a single word we say, you (can) discard the whole Vedas, the foundation on which the whole spiritual tradition of India is based, unless you find it verifiable. Verified and verifiable. If you can’t, forget it.”

In the briefest of pauses, I tried another question. “Were you born into this part of Hinduism? Was your family also of your same tradition?”

“What if one is born or not, what does it matter?” With that one statement, the swami tossed away my personal question, returning to what he considered the more pressing topic at hand: the necessity of different paths for different seekers. “It’s like you want to eat fish? Fried fish? You want to eat McDonalds? Go. You want curry? Someone makes curry. But the question is: are you eating fish or not?” He laughed. ”Why fight? That my fish is better than your fish?”
The swami lifted a fold of his orange clothing with two fingers and said, “I wish to dress this way, you that; you should have your freedom, I should have my freedom. So, in our dress we don’t fight with each other. In our food, we go to restaurant and we choose one out of so many types food. So, why in the world would we have to have only one religion that survives and others will have to go?” He seemed very pleased with his analogy.

But I was trying to get to specifics. “So, if I came to you and said this is the path I want to follow, what would happen next?”

“Spirituality would unfold in your heart. What we’d do is give you some guidance.”

“Like, things to do and read?”

“Suppose I will put to you the very first question. You are asking me: what is religion? I would put that question to you back. I would say: who are you talking?”

Silence. I had no idea what he was asking me.

He tried again. “Are you a man, are you a woman?”

“Uhm, I’m a, ah, woman?”

“Yes. Are you the woman talking?” Meaning was the person sitting across from him. Is this everything that I am, the sum total of my existence?

“No.”

“Who’s talking?”

“I, well, there is a drive to know this that (comes) before the issue of ‘woman’ or ‘man’.”

My answer wasn’t good enough for him. “My question is a specific, intellectual question: who is that “I”? You say, ‘I drove here.’ Who is that ‘I?’ Is it the physical flesh and bone only? Is it the eyeballs?”

“No. That, I’m clear about. It is not just what I can touch, taste, hear, see. I know that.”

“That is what the rational mind wants to explore. In Vedanta, we say explore more. Go in.” He began to demonstrate what beginners like me should do, the questions we should ask ourselves. “Who sees? I see. What is the ‘I’ that sees? First comes: The eyes are seeing? No. No, eyes cannot see. My mind is seeing? Go one step more. Mind cannot see. Mind is also matter. Because when you sit for meditation, what do you see? Your mind is rambling here and there and there. So, your mind can be seen by somebody. You say: ‘My mind is not very happy today, I’m not happy, my mind is upset today.’ You say:‘My shirt.’ ‘My spectacles.’ And ‘my mind.’ So you are using the word ‘My mind.’ So the question really is: who or what is beyond the mind, the thing that claims possession of it?”

So, I am not my body. That makes sense to me, it makes sense that there’s more to life than this specific collection of skin and bones, dark hair and hazel eyes. But, until Swami Sarvadevananda pointed it out, I’d never really thought about the phrase “my mind” that we all use with its implication that there was something to which my mind “belonged”, something that can observe my thought process.

But rolling ideas around like this is comfortable. I think I’m looking for what might make me uncomfortable, what might challenge my assumptions, what I think I ”know.” I said, “I would like you to tell me things I can do or read. I want to take direction.”

“You have this wonderful basic understanding of spiritual life, about life, about who we are.”

I wasn’t at all sure what he meant but I said, “That’s good to hear.”

“We say, in Indian psychology, that we are the product of all our past thoughts and deeds. And Hindus believe and Buddhists believe that we are not in one life. Eh? One life theory is Christianity, a Judeo-Christian idea: one-life theory. There comes more responsibility, you know? If you have the one chance only, you have to do the best you can do and, if you don’t, then you are going to hell, they say. But Indian hell, Hindu hell is a little less disruptive,” he chuckled, “because you do some bad karma, you go to hell, and then come out and, then again, start your journey. You are not forever lost. Also, to go to heaven is not our goal because that is also temporary, the result of good actions. The goal is to realize God. So this is the many life times theory has a little hope and a little relaxation, also. ‘I could not do this much?’” he continued with a happy shrug of his shoulders underneath his orange robes, “‘Okay, I’ll do it the next time.’”

The swami’s smile was so broad it jostled his eyeglasses. I told him how much I appreciated all the time he was spending with me.

“This talk,” meaning the talk we were having right then, “is not talk, merely. For me, for my spiritual journey, I am worshipping God through serving you. I am talking to you, actually I’m serving God in you. We serve God through all of our actions.”

“And following what I’m driven to do is--"

“Exactly. All our duties are nothing but a chance to serve God. God has given you the life. God has given you the strength – it is to be utilized with proper understanding. God has given you the quest to know the truth and the skills to do it. It is like the waves – God is the infinite ocean and I am only one ripple and you are another ripple and we are dancing in God, we are crying in God, we are serving in God, there is nothing but God. So, to bring this awareness, read the Upanishads. It is the ancient wisdom of our spiritual practice.”

I felt like I’d gotten a seal of approval. “I’m almost through the Bhagavad Gita.” The central text of Hinduism, it seemed like the right place to start.

“When you have a question, make a point, and when you come we can discuss one of these points. How long it takes you to come here?”

“You won’t believe this but I have been all over, temples all over. My office? I can almost walk here.”

“Is it?”

“I couldn’t be closer. It takes five minutes, unless there is a Hollywood Bowl event. Then it can take half an hour.”

The swami told me the times of the classes he taught and then said, “Above all, if you have any questions you can come talk.”

I gave the personal questions another shot. “Now, did you always know you wanted to be---what do you call yourself? Are you a sadhu?”

“We are sadhus. ‘Sadhus’ means we are celibates from our childhood and they call me assistant head, so-called assistant minister.’

“You always knew that you wanted this life?”

“Because I was born in that culture, as you asked me. When I was a very young boy, the sadhus, the monks, the renounced people used to come and their life is so attracting, so much alluring, their faces beaming with joy (jahw-oy!) as it were. That attacted me very much. As I grew, fifth grade, sixth grade boy, the sadhus were very kind. They said: ‘What you are doing? Come here.’ So our home was not that far from the headquarters of the Ramakrishna organization which is near Calcutta. So on vacation I used to go and stay there on the banks of the Ganges. The sadhus meditative life and unselfish love filled with purity, peace, and no outward pretense attracted me most.”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

He looked pained at the question, like I’d gone one step too far. “I have brothers and sisters but that has nothing to do with what actually God calls you.”

I was nothing if not nosy and persistent. “Have your other brothers and sisters—"

He interrupted, “They are also very spiritual. Nowadays western materialistic ideals are creeping in through the television and other media otherwise in each Hindu Indian family but every morning and every evening, they start with God, they end with God, they pray in between, and before food they pray because the culture is there. All that intense practice goes only for a few very sincere people but, even our father, grandma, mom, our aunti, won’t eat before they take a bath, repeat the holy name, pray and meditate some time. Before that they will not eat at all. So, that is the tradition there. But these sadhus are more profound in their practices. From the early days I never thought of becoming anything but a monk. Seeing them, their joy, their freeness, their openness, their relentless service to others and how they are so princely even though they have no possessions!”

The swami said the Ramakrishna Mission was a huge organization in India. “We have 150 or 160 (temples) in India and activities are multifarious for the poor, for the downtrodden, for flood relief, for tsunami relief. For anything, these monks just jump and go to be the first to help with whatever they can: with material help, with medicinal help, with building up their homes and houses, and with establishing schools and community halls and everything. So that dedication also inspired me.” He tried to explain his thinking at the time. “What is this life, you think for yourself? Only eating, sleeping and dying? Do something for others. At least if you don’t see God, at least you don’t hurt anyone, don’t harm anyone and be a better person, be a loving, caring person.The world is full of misery. You can give a little peace to others.”

“And how did you end up in the United States?”

Swami Sarvadevananda smiled and raised his eyebrows. I’d hit a sore point. “Thaaaat is not my choice. Our organization has a central control in Calcutta and we have all over the world centers. We are not big like the Catholic church - about fourteen hundred, fifteen hundred monks, nuns and novitiates. According to the need of the work, the senior sadhus think who will be fit for what work and send us. I was in one village center, I was the head of a center actively working with the poor people, the needy people, building their homes, giving them education and self-employment skills to the women. Education gives them the strength to become self-reliant.”

“What village was it?”

“Sikra, a village near the border of Bangladesh. So, this was the way I was working very happily in the center and suddenly I was called here!”

“And you weren’t happy about it.”

“In the beginning, I was not at all! Because I had no idea to come and I never imagined in my life to come over here. It is not my choice. I was saying: ‘Please don’t send me, don’t send me. Send some other person.’ I was quite happy with the poor people, being with them, building up their hearts, giving them some shelter, giving them some education and the center was not very affluent but there was a great joy to serve these people. But, anyhow this is also a service to God, what I’m doing.” He laughed. “I didn’t plan. God plans! If you accept, it’s joy. If you resist, suffering.”

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you were open to this and how much I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Please come to the class and give me a call, ask me any questions. It is a lifelong journey. Many people in this country, they want instant effect. Ah, so many impressions, good, bad, have accumulated in our mind and now our mind has to be cleansed. Cleansed how? By loving others, caring for others without keeping any selfish motive.”

“I know this project will be, at best, only a beginning. What happens after—”

“--will be your own journey. In your writing, you referred to Huston Smith. Huston Smith was closely connected with our Vedanta ideas.”

“He was?”

“There was a senior swami who passed away in St Louis, Swami Satprakashananda. And Huston Smith used to go there and he learned Vedanta and this universal idea of oneness. He’s very close to us. Our nuns know him. I also met him. A very humble and spiritual person!”

“See, there’s no accident that I’m here.”

“I tell you one thing: we do not publicize this Vedanta in the newspaper. We are a very silent group but at one time Vedanta created a great impact in this country. Alcoholics Anonymous which is so popular everywhere? Who is the founder? A Vedanta student.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He employed all the Vedanta principles. Read their books, ideals, goals – all Vedanta. Vedanta has had an impact in subtle ways but it’s not that popular a religion.”

The swami told me Ramakrishna himself had actually spent time practicing other religions. “He one day prayed to Mother: ‘Mother, you are also worshiped by people in the churches. How do they worship? Why not make me like that?’ He had one Christian devotee and he used to go and ask him what is in the Bible. And one day he saw the image of the Christ, the baby, with the Madonna and that vision became tangible and that ray of light came.” Ramakrishna then spent “day and night, not a second thinking of any aspect of god or goddesses; only Christ and Christ and Christ. Then he practiced Islam. No one in the world ever appeared before who in one lifetime has ever practiced all those disciplines that you find in Huston Smith’s book. That’s why Ramakrishna finds truth in every religion. There is truth in every religion.” But, the swami said, there is only one important question. “Are you sincere? Are you following that? Are you living that life? Or are you only fighting for the purpose of fighting in the name of religion. So this is to be understood and this message should go to everyone. Swami Vivekananda (the first Hindu representative to come to the United States) said, ‘I did not come here to convert Christian into Hindu or a Hindu into Muslim or Muslim into Buddhist. We want to make a Hindu a better Hindu, a Christian a better Christian, a Muslim a better Muslim.’ So, we are not to convert. If you are following a path called Christianity, why not love God and see God? ‘Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.’ Where have these principles gone? You’re are talking about other things, abortion, gay marriage, this, that --- these are social issues. Why are you bringing them into religion? Why not make your life spiritual? God sees gay? No, God sees the heart of your love. Eh?”

I felt heavy when I stood up, a thanksgiving meal’s worth of new ideas in my head, but then I remembered a question I’d wanted to ask Hemu but hadn’t gotten the chance. “Now, I watched them last night, the other students. They touched your feet.”

“In the Indian tradition, they do.”

“Is that what the greeting is?”

Swami Sarvadevananda stood up, too. “Anyone senior to us, we touch our head to their feet – it’s our deepest respect. It means I am bowing down my head to you - not you, the person - but the God in you, manifested better, because you’re senior. Our mom, our dad, our elder brother, our elder sister, anyone in the society that is a teacher, a school teacher, because their wisdom is higher. So, we go and touch their feet, but in this country we follow our own way. Okay?”

He was letting me off the hook, giving me an alternative I might be able to handle. He put the palms of his hands together in front of his chest and said, “Namaste. This means: ‘Salutation to you, the Lord in you.’ So, when you do, you remember the God in me is bowing to the God in you. This is the Indian custom.”

I tried it out. “Namaste.” Not too weird.

He said it back., “Namaste.”

And, with that, I dropped my notebook and pen on the floor.


(27 September 2006)