i began to meditate in 1990. About a year later, at my guru’s ashram, I was asked to teach meditation. Given the fact that I myself was relatively new to the practice, I was not sure of any success as a teacher. However, I had underestimated the power of grace.
The teaching sessions at the ashram went off quite smoothly. I grew in confidence. Within the next one year, I started introducing meditation to my office colleagues (at Mumbai, India). This brush with the energies of group meditations has been quite rewarding.
In 1991, my office had a group of 40 odd female staff members, pursuing spiritual practices. They had the same guru. Bound by this fellowship, they would get together in the office every day during lunch recess to study scripttures and to meditate. Once or twice, I joined their sessions and they did mine. Then the requirements of work took me away from Mumbai. The contact was severed.
I returned to Mumbai about a year back. One day, I happened to meet one of these ladies at the office. She filled me in on her group. The guru had passed away and was no longer there in the physical body to guide them. Several members of the group, including the one who led them, had retired from service. Some members had been transferred to work at offices in other locations within Mumbai. These developments had forced abandonment of the daily satsang. Yet, the group had largely remained cohesive. Those members, who could, met for four-five hours of practices one Saturday each month at some convenient place.
My contact with the group having been renewed, soon they invited me to lead them into meditation at a get-together they had organized within the office. It was nice to meet them. A few months later, once again they invited me in. This time, I encouraged them to speak about issues relevant to their sadhana. We dealt with several questions. How did they feel about their sadhana? Where did they think it was leading them? What issues they felt they had to work on? How to evaluate the inner work, carried on by the awakened energy? How to deal with the physical absence of the guru? And so on………
Very soon it became apparent what was a significant issue with many. They were being bogged down by unwarranted judgment about how little sadhana had done to them in helping them get rid of undesirable thoughts or habit patterns. Just because they were focused elsewhere in areas of want, they were overlooking the wonderful transformation that was all too evident in their lives and did indicate great progress through inner work.
In the course of discussion, I was the facilitator allowing them to change focus to look for and appreciate the positives. Gradually, the result was obvious. Their general demeanour began to change perceptibly. Faces began to lighten up more and more with hope and self-belief. This discussion had consumed considerable time. So, I suggested that we had had a “discussion satsang” and we could call it a day.
However, the ladies weren’t ready to forego meditation. Looking for a swift way out, I thought I would give them a short visualization for healing and be done with it. I began giving instructions accordingly, beginning with a breath awareness induced limb by limb relaxation starting from toes upwards. I was half way through, when I began to feel a great build-up of energy within. It started taking hold of me. The instructions, I was giving thus far, had to stop.
A few seconds later, a suggestion for a different kind of concentration and meditation began to take shape within me. It was about meditation on the guru’s form (by identifying one’s body with that of the guru). Instructions began to form in my mind spontaneously. I went ahead with the flow and started articulating whatever came up.
It began with the awareness of the toes. There was silent repetition of the mantra “Om guru Om” with the suggestion that the toes were no longer ours but those of the guru. Limb by limb this visualization was carried forward with silent repetition of the mantra. Eventually, we reached the crown of the head.
Normally, I would have stopped at that and would have let the ladies meditate on the inner silence arising out of this identification with the guru’s form. But, this did not happen.
New instructions began to come forth. These were about visualization of a very private and intimate meeting with the guru, seated comfortably on a lovely chair in the cave of the heart. Everyone was taken through the steps of this process slowly – welcoming the guru, seating the guru in the chair, offering their most loving service to the guru, and sharing with the guru their innermost feelings and gratitude. Each one was asked to sit in silence and listen if the guru had any words of advice, instruction and benediction; and, let the words sink in.
Perhaps at this point the instructions stopped. We were in an office hall. There was some loud conversation outside. But, a pool of silence had engulfed all of us. We sat quietly, each one deeply absorbed in the company of the inner guru.
After a while, I began to guide every one into regaining consciousness of their bodies and the outside world. I looked at my watch. More than 45 minutes had passed since we started the meditation. Even after everyone had opened their eyes, a curtain of silence hung over us. No one was willing to speak. It took quite a while before we spoke out.
This experience was a strong reminder to me of how the inner guru guides from within. My ‘limited’ mind had conjured up a concept of the meditation I needed to give those ladies that day. Obviously, the inner guru thought otherwise. He acted decisively and with grace, compelling me to fall in line and change course. What eventually took place was hugely more enjoyable. The guru had used me as an instrument. What a splendid blow to any sense of doership that I might have had.
There was another teaching that came to me strongly from this experience. I had gone to these ladies as a ‘teacher’ – ‘somebody’ who would help them ‘receive’ ‘something’ but it their love for spiritual life, simplicity, purity and receptivity that largely engineered the experience that had befallen me.
And, lo and behold, the teacher became the taught.
Ladies! My heartfelt salutations to each one of you!!
This is the greatness of satsang. It allows one to discover his or her better part in the most inscrutable ways.
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