A Bit of Background Information: 1998, Summer holiday – I just passed my 7th Grade in School.
It was a good summer vacation and as usual I was in my Grand Parent’s home. Unexpectedly I was joined to a meditation course by my dad’s old man! It was an ashram in mid of a vast garden surrounded by few water bodies. I expected a very old man in a saffron dress with long beard as I saw the outlook of that ashram. But my guess was 66.66% correct. He was a very old man with long white beard, but just wearing a simple white dress. He was my grand dad’s friend (through some RSS link) and he spent a considerable part of his life in Japan. It was really a great experience that shaped my life and what follows is one of the conversations we had during that experience!
I started from my home with my grandfather and he dropped me at the entrance. From there till the ashram it was close to a mile, which I have to walk. I was the last one to enter inside the hall like how it happens daily. He was in middle of the lecture to some 10 odd disciples and I just crept in without any shame. It extended for a long time today and each day’s lecture will be more interesting than the previous day’s. I was the only kid there and so I had no reservations to ask questions. I was just eagerly waiting to ask him few of my doubts even on that day. He is a good mind reader and asked me if the questions can wait till the meditation session is over. There is a record which repeats “ahhhh - uuumm” for some 100minutes and we meditate sitting on our legs, folded behind as shown in that picture.
After the session was over few people said they saw a blue light and some saw different colour lights. I saw nothing because I was not meditating. I cannot sustain for more than 10 minutes. Some or the other thoughts always come inside my mind and again i will start fresh.
So this became my first question to Guruji when we met after the meditation session. At what stage of Meditation will I see a blue light in between my eyebrows? I was hoping he will say some kind of percentage data. He asked me, “Why are you here?”
Me: I don’t know. My grandfather joined me here
Guruji: Why did he join you here?
Me: May be because I am unmanageable at home and he wants to reduce his responsibility atleast for the day time (in a humorous sense)
Guruji: I was told your temper is becoming uncontrollable and you are easily getting bogged down seeing initial failures. Also you have less interest to study? He wants to try if meditation can be of some help.
Me: What else did he say????
Guruji: That is not the point. So if this meditation can help you in channelizing your mind and if it can control your anger and make you concentrate on your studies, I would say it is a success.
Me: How do you measure it then? Can you tell me with some examples?
Guruji: That you will have to tell me. You have been here for this whole vacation and do you feel any difference because of this? Is there any change observed!
Me: I don’t see any major changes.
Guruji: I do see but! The question you asked “How to measure it” shows there is some change as expected. You joined here without any vision of what you need and why you are doing this meditation without spending the vacation just playing and having fun with friends. But now you atleast like to quantify something that you were doing the whole 30 plus days. It is indeed a start of mind’s channelization towards objectives.
Me: Who are the best mediators? What objectives did they achieve?
Guruji: I learnt this meditation from Japan and I was told Japanese are the best, especially the Samurais.
Me: The Ancient Warriors, right?
Guruji: They represent the warrior clan in Japan and the Japanese are said to invent the martial arts and swordsmanship through very deep meditation.
Me: How can that be an outcome of meditation? Isn’t that a bloodthirsty person’s aid?
Guruji: So what? Meditation will be of use to what you want. One has different objectives and meditation will help in achieving that. Their mind will be focused on this objective. Meditation is just a tool to channelize your mind and the results will reflect in daily life and it is upto the person in using his channelized mind.
Me: But won’t meditation change or refine their mind from a wrong way to the right way?
Guruji: You are too young to understand this. But I will try telling to you since you brought this up. There is nothing right or wrong. Whatever you feel like doing and if it is beneficial for a bigger group then it will evolve as a right thing and vice versa for a wrong thing. Doing the same thing eventually will cause boredom and that time to keep the life interesting the wise ones will do a different thing. Others will enjoy a bored life!
Me: Ok. So do you mean to say nothing is wrong?
Guruji: Yes. You can do anything. But doing mutually beneficial thing will keep you at a proper position in the society. They usually call the other acts which do not have any benefit to groups as unethical! So the degree of wrongness depends on the position that you seek in society!
My grandfather came back to take me home. He too said there has been some better change in my behavior. With that they both started talking something else and I will be returning back to Coimbatore in a couple of days.
After that summer vacation I never met him! My grandfather sometime says he enquired about me and also wished a very good future. As years passed, both my grand father and grand mother left this world. I reduced my visits to meet my relatives and cousins there. Eight years passed and I did not get a chance to meet my Guru. I decided I will meet him this year and went there with full of eagerness. There was no ashram and a big concrete structure like a palace stood there. I was informed by the security that he passed away two years back and his sons sold that property to some other person! He brought in some marvelous changes in me. Till my 7th grade, I almost fail in all subjects except History (my mom is a history professor) and Mathematics (never below 90%). But this meditation eventually brought me into Honour roll! I now know how to control and direct my mind towards achieving some objectives. I know what to do so that my mind will stop longing for something. Thanks for everything! I wanted to reintroduce myself and tell these things along with lot many things that happened in that eight odd years to the person who helped me knowing my mind! I don’t want to blame my fortune. I am convincing my mind whenever it asks me why you didn’t meet him before!! Still I feel its agony in this aspect! Memories still come in whenever I meditate.....
