Part 5: THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM As We Know Him
In the Arms of the Master
But THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, first they must get enlightened, no? I ask, laughing. Otherwise the stories won't be true!
The laughter leaves his eyes; he is suddenly staring me intently, serious. I feel somewhat uncomfortable.
Why do you worry about that?
His words cut into me.
You just write – do you understand? Do you understand? Your (people's) getting enlightened is my responsibility. I am here to see that it happens. That is what I took this birth for! Don't you know that?
(as we grasp the enormity of the Master's statement, a deep silence descends on Laughing Temple)
In the Arms of the Master
~ 30th November 2003 ~
Even his admonishing was an outpouring of compassion - compassion which, in our ignorance, we usually failed to see. What a test we must have been to him!, I shudder to think.
One day, after one of us had goofed up as usual – I forget what the mistake was – THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM assumed a pose of utter exasperation and ultimate hopelessness about our ever making it. Stubbornly rejecting our apologies, he threatened to go without his meals that day (he knew just where to hit us to make it hurt!).
Being the only girl in the group, and older than most of the boys, I usually received decent treatment from THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. After sending the boys away, he complained bitterly to me, saying that he didn't know how he was saddled with the scum of the earth as disciples. How was he ever going to manage his mission? What sort of punishment was this? And so on and so forth.
Exasperated by his words, not realizing that all this drama was actually a test of my insight, I finally asked him why on earth he hadn't chosen the right people in the first place.
In an instant, anger gave way to a glittering smile.
Because, ma, they have the only qualification I need from them: Love, tremendous love for me! You will see, out of this very group the right people will emerge.
Unpolished diamonds, my boys are..! These naïve boys you see today will be the gems who will carry my message to the world!
~ 25th October 2003 ~
Astonishingly, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM himself came up with an Ashramites' Union of sorts - called SEM (Self-Expressive Movement)! He himself coined the name, and even a hilarious jig to go with it. According to him, SEM was a forum where ashramites could meet, conspire and organize rebellions against the master's cruel ways! The leader was to be Vishwa – our 'prime questioner'. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would chaff us mercilessly about the supposed activities of SEM, embarrassing us no end. To drive home the point, he would repeat the story of the Buddha and his disciples:
When the Buddha got enlightened, it caused great alarm in Hell. One more human being won over by Heaven! Not only that, this mortal looked like he had the capacity to convert hundreds of others onto his path.
But while the younger devils complained loudly about how no steps were being taken to curb the fatal spread of goodness, the older, wiser ones remained calm and silent.
Finally one of the young campaigners asked the wisest devil why nothing was being done about the Buddha's enlightenment.
Who said nothing is being done?, smiled the old devil. We have already sent down so many disciples for the Buddha. They will ensure that the Buddha's teachings are thoroughly distorted before they reach the people. They will do our job for us!
After recounting this none-too-flattering tale, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would laugh long and loud, all the while shrewdly watching our faces for any telltale signs of anger or hurt. Like a bunch of scolded schoolkids, we would sit and glower at the floor, determined not to let him see how mad at him we were.
What could possibly be the purpose of such a drama?, we often wondered.
Then one day THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM gently clarified:
To forge a strong group consciousness, I need to create some common enemy!
Right now you are all going through a severely trying phase. Your egos are suffering blow after blow from all sides. You may not be able to handle all the negativity rising up inside and outside you.
When you target all your negative emotions against me, you don't throw it out on each other! That's why I take it on myself…
We could do nothing but listen in wonder.
O Nithya! What have we done to deserve your depthless Compassion!
In the Arms of the Master
~ 25th October 2003 ~
It was especially touching to watch THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM fumble for scientific proof during his discourses – knowing that the sheer enormity of his experience, the absolute authenticity and utter honesty of his words could never be fathomed by minds attuned to demanding scientific proof for everything they saw or heard.
I don't know what I felt at those times! An overwhelming gratitude for his compassion. Reverence for his gentle wisdom. And a mother's deep concern – as if watching her kindergarten child struggle through a recitation contest in public, badly wanting him to go through it without fumbling…knowing that the people out there are somehow sitting in judgment of him, knowing they'll never truly understand his joy, his love, his utter innocence…
Later, when we heard that scientific research in the USA was proving so many of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's statements, it was more a sense of relief that we felt. Relief that so many more hearts would now open to him; relief that humanity would finally understand the selfless compassion that drove him onward to heal a seriously ill world…
In the Arms of the Master
~ 18th April 2004 ~
To live around THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM was to get used to witnessing daily miracles.
Apart from the healing he gave patients at Ananda Sabha in the mornings and the City Centre in the evenings, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM usually had to deal with casual complaints of all sorts from ashramites and devotees. Not just us, but the ailing tamarind tree in his private garden, the bamboo grove near the patients' quarters – even our sole struggling computer – his healing touch was placed equally upon all.
Old-timers tell of their first visit to the Bidadi ashram site, when the land had just been accepted from a devotee.
The sight of the vast thorny wilderness was enough to dishearten practically everybody. The few plants that stood among the brambles were wilting away in the harsh sun. The tamarind tree in a corner of the site was reduced to a brown skeleton, its few remaining leaves eaten away by disease. Fringing the border of the site was a dying clump of bamboo.
No one saw THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's eye fall upon them with silent compassion.
Within a month after THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM moved to the ashram, the tamarind tree began to sprout fresh leaves. When I first saw it four months later, it was already a vibrant, leafy tree, just coming into fruit. Who would have believed it! The powerful energies released in THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's buddhafield allowed nothing to waste away.
Magically, as if in response to his very presence, the bamboo grove too came to life overnight. You should see it now! - a riot of yellow and green, a hundred flutes dancing to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's joyous song! And most heartening of all, the Healing Sticks (energized lengths of bamboo) that THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM grants devotees when he initiates them into Ananda Healing, now come from that very bamboo grove!
Our sole ashram computer was just as idiosyncratic as the rest of us. A Celeron machine, decadent even by own (very lax) standards, it especially hated being woken up at midnight – THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's preferred time for checking email.
The computer's regular mode of protest would be to refuse to connect to the internet (we had a paleolithic dial-up connection). With THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM sitting impatiently beside me, I would be furiously pounding the keys, foolishly trying and retrying – with no results.
What is it - hmmm?
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would raise his eyes from the book or letter he was busy with. His voice, splendidly weary, would speak volumes about my incompetence.
Just a minute Swami… I'm trying…it was working just this evening…
I would break out in a cold sweat. I dared not tell him that the computer wasn't cooperating – again. He didn't believe in the words, It's not my fault or I don't know.
Finally, after twenty minutes of pathetic effort, I would turn to him.
No choice.
Swami… can you heal it… please…?
Chuckling in amusement at my failed efforts, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would bring his palms together in a resounding clap, and force the energy towards the computer.
And instantly, like clockwork, the numbers on the monitor would start moving again!
This I have witnessed myself, numberless times… And why not, indeed? Cannot the power that moves the sun and the stars coax a mere computer into life?
What language did he speak?
I don't know, but there was none who didn't understand.
In the early days, practically all the devotees spoke Tamil, so THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would usually conduct his talks in Tamil. The only person who didn't understand the language was Keerti, a gentle Marwari lady – a staunch devotee who attended the talks every single day, nevertheless. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM always had an especially kind smile for her.
During the talk one day, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM made one of his hilarious observations which had us all in splits. Spotting Keerti joining in the laughter, we asked her teasingly what she could possibly be laughing for. To our astonishment, she gave us a clear English translation of the joke that THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM had just made in colloquial Tamil!
How did you figure that out?, we asked, stunned.
I don't know! It just came to me – is it correct?, she asked, no less surprised herself!
We were to witness this strange thing several times with her. She would give us the meanings of discourses - even Tamil poems! – with near-perfect accuracy. And the funniest thing was, if one of us gave her even a simple sentence to translate, she would end up shaking her head helplessly!
What was at work here?
Baffled, we took the issue to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM.
This doesn't happen just to Keerti Ma. It is true for every single one of you!, he smiled. When I speak to you, I don't communicate in words. It is a communion, a transfer of energy from Being to Being.
I use words simply to keep your mind engaged, intellectually satisfied. At that time, when you are no longer resisting me, my energy is free to enter and transform you!
But because you also understand the language (Tamil), you don't realize that what you're absorbing is at a far deeper level.
You think that it's the words you've understood! If your awareness is 100%, if your devotion is total, you would understand me even if I spoke in Spanish! That kind of awareness is difficult to maintain. But Keerti Ma manages to achieve it occasionally. That's when she performs all those translation miracles!
Of course, what he said about not understanding through words was devastatingly true for most of us.
It is a fact that the more you'd enjoyed a talk by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, the less likely you were to remember a single word of it! You would somehow have a complete sense of it, but if someone were to ask you for specific information, you were sure to find yourself struggling for words!
At first, each of us kept this 'shameful' fact to ourselves – angry with ourselves for not paying more attention to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's words.
It took that explanation from THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM to bring out the confessions – and to forgive ourselves!
In the Arms of the Master
It hadn't occurred to us that for THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, this transfer of energy was equally possible with any living thing anything in the Cosmos, one could say. It simply wasn't a concept that you could grasp with your mind. And THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM spoke nothing about it.
He was especially averse to a display of power for purposes other than healing.
I'm not running a magic show here, he would reply curtly if we ever hinted at it.
But one day, in his deliciously wicked way, he caught me unawares.
Emerging from his kuteer one morning and catching me dreaming in the sun, he smiled broadly and asked - out of the blue -
What ma, what is all this you've been saying to the tamarind tree today?
Then he proceeded to give me an exact description of my pell-mell thoughts when I had sat under the tamarind tree earlier that morning!
Oh my God! How did you know, Swami..?
I was incredulous.
The tree told me, of course. How else would I know? He tried to keep it as simple and non-scary as possible. You mean, in words, Swami?
No, ma! In .. hmmm… pictures. Something like pictures… He must've felt like someone trying to explain the Theory of Relativity to a pre-schooler!
I had the sense not to pursue the matter, and watched in wonder as the Master walked away, chuckling merrily at his little revelation!
In THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's benign presence it was easy to be playful as a child, joyous - sometimes even careless. He took such good care of us that we sometimes forgot our reciprocal responsibilities.
Every day, devotees would bring baskets of fruit to the ashram for THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. Except for the occasional glass of juice for breakfast, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM rarely consumed fruit. Busy (and heedless) as we were, none of us ever enquired as to what was happening to the fruit that piled up in the kitchen.
One day, it came to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's notice that large quantities of fruit were going waste, for lack of any initiative to chop and distribute them.
Without a word as to why he was summoning us, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM called a meeting in Laughing Temple late that night. That night we were to witness one of his rare outbursts of kopa (Divine rage).
All of us were seated silently at his feet, afraid to meet his eyes. Somehow, we knew that something was terribly wrong.
Do you know what this is?, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM asked suddenly, pointing at the thatched roof of Laughing Temple. We kept silent, bewildered by the question.
Are you thinking, It's a thatched roof*?*
It is not! It is my tapas (penance).
Every straw in this thatch is a fibre of my tapas!
Every structure here carries the imprint of my years of struggle.
Every meal you eat here is a meal I have gone without!
Every night you spend comfortably in your rooms is a night I have spent shelterless, in cold and rain, during my years of struggle!
It is my tapas that brought enlightenment.
It is my tapas that has built this ashram.
And it is my tapas that people are saluting when they pour their love and money into this place.
Do you think that the public has nothing else to do with their hard-earned money? Why should they choose to offer it here? They are saluting the enlightenment that resulted from my tapas. They are paying their gratitude for the healing powers that blossomed with enlightenment. Even the humblest offering is a tribute to my struggle, to my tapas. When even a morsel of food is wasted here, it is not only the devotion of the people that you are disregarding. You are showing direct disrespect to my tapas. Be very clear..!
Never before had we heard THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM speak about his years of relentless tapas. Never had he demanded any acknowledgement of his struggle.
O Nithya! Your Compassion had blinded us to our duties to the world! How unfit we are to live up to your Vision!
Who could resist his radiant warmth? THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM drew children and animals to him like a magnet. To us, it was no surprise to watch him walk around the campus with a little girl in pigtails swinging on his arm. They especially enjoyed sharing with him all the little-big details of their lives – which he listened to with complete attention and patience.
He had the marvelous capacity to turn into a child with children, a woman with women, a naughty young boy with naughty youngsters. He entered into each role so totally that no one would suspect that he was anything other than what he was revealing himself to be at that moment. A very dangerous thing, that. In his charming way, he would coax risqué jokes out of middle-aged women – and then tease them nonstop about their lax morals! When he chose to, he could drive anybody to exasperation. But still, he couldn't put us off him…
And the animals!
The two much-loved nameless ducks on the campus always behaved as if he was their personal property. They would waddle behind him all the way from his kuteer to Laughing Temple, quacking officiously. I wonder what he spoke to them in return!
The canine couple that had made us their adoptive family usually preferred to sleep on his seat in Laughing Temple, their muddy paws resting on his satin bolster! Then there was a honey-coloured puppy, the sole survivor of a litter, that became simply too attached to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. It was suffering from a skin allergy of some sort, and THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would give it healing once in a way. In the way of all babies, it achieved an intimacy with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM that we longed to have! - climbing into his lap and 'helping him' read his email, or curling up in the sun with its head resting against him.
One pet that THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM himself still recalls was a baby squirrel, badly bruised from a fight, that made its way into Laughing Temple from god knows where. In THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's gentle care the squirrel healed rapidly, but it stayed for days, playing hide-and-seek with itself in the thatch of Laughing Temple (sometimes plopping down on THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM in the middle of a serious discourse!) We were to see another miracle in those days – in THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's presence, the puppy and the squirrel gradually gave up their natural hostility and became good friends. (Both puppy and baby squirrel have been since immortalized in 'The Many Moods of Swamiji'!)
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's stone seat in Laughing Temple was home to an astonishing variety of insects. Between the seat and the large cushion laid on it, one could practically witness the evolution of species! Brilliant lizards and chameleons, rows of ants of every size and colour, interesting spiders – they all seemed to live in perfect harmony in that sacred space. No amount of dusting and cleaning could make the creatures vacate.
One day we warned THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM about the teeming planet under his cushion.
Under my cushion? Really?! We have to be careful! He sounded very concerned.
Yes, Swamiji. One never knows, they may be poisonous... Oh, don't worry about THAT!, he waved us away impatiently. I was thinking, I keep shifting around on the seat…have I been hurting them? We must find a solution for this… I had no idea..!
With THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, we should have known..!
In the Arms of the Master
There was no end to the weird things that kept happening around THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. Even the most casual incidents would take on the awesome significance of divine revelations.
One morning, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM emerged from his kuteer all puffy-eyed and red-skinned. He seemed to have broken out in a rash of sorts. The funny thing was, he didn't have the least idea what it was, or what might have caused it. He just kept saying that his skin itched and the rashes hurt terribly.
We were on the edge of panic, when someone suggested we check his room for any insects. We checked – and found that the space under his bed was simply crawling with red ants! Where they came from or why, we didn't have a clue.
When we told THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM about it, he just sat silently for a while, shaking his head in amused disbelief. Then he revealed,
Now that you mention it, I remember this happening last night! When I left the body and was in my Consciousness, I distinctly remember seeing these ants crawling all over my body.
But at that time, being myself in a boundariless state, I couldn't perceive any difference between them and me. It's very difficult to explain… actually, I couldn't realize where I ended and the ants began! We were all just one Energy… And of course, I felt no pain. So naturally, I felt no need to shake them off!
It's only after I returned to the body this morning that I slowly started experiencing these sensations of pain… but by then, the ants had disappeared from my bed, and I couldn't remember what had happened!
And we thought all we had witnessed that morning was a common rash..?!
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM could put any eight-year-old to shame, at playing truant from meals. The only difference was that an eight-year-old could be spanked into obedience! The truth was, he rarely remembered whether he'd eaten or not. He truly didn't feel the need; it was just a chore he had to perform for the sake of his body.
At six in the evening, in the middle of some really interesting talk, he would suddenly turn to Amma and ask,
Amma - have I eaten anything today?
Amma would simply scowl at him angrily, and turn away. She'd already have begged him about six times that day to eat something.
Then THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would put on his sweetest accent and plead, Okay, I'm sorry! Won't you bring me something to eat? I'm really hungry now…
That was enough to melt Amma's heart!
On the rare days when he ate with relish, it was usually in the homely ashram kitchen. Behind the closed doors of the kitchen, out of sight of the eyes of casual visitors, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would happily sit cross-legged on the kitchen platform and munch crisp dosas straight off the stove. The Ladies of the Kitchen would bustle about, serving him, watching over him – glad to have him all to themselves for a while. And he, in turn, would accept their loving offerings with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy.
Those were really special mornings!
In the Arms of the Master
Swamiji just loved creating chaos in our lives. As if the conditions we were operating under weren't chaotic enough already, he would dream up creative ways to drive us crazy.
He usually returned from the city center only after midnight, sometimes even close to one a.m.
Where are those fools?!, he would roar in mock rage, if any of us was not present to receive him. (Nobody dared remind him that people are usually asleep at one o'clock in the night!) Then he would hold a group session which would go on till 2 or 3 a.m.
It was his special custom to start us on six different tasks that were all top priority, and then ask us innocently why each one wasn't complete, each time completely ignoring any mention of other tasks! In other words, he behaved just like a bully boss in a big corporate – the kind we thought we'd escaped from when we came to the ashram.
One night he summoned us to the office and asked for all the photographs of the public programmes he'd held that year. We brought in a staggering pile of albums, neatly organized and labeled. Organizing the photographs had taken us more than two weeks of collective effort.
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM asked for a mat to be laid on the floor. Then, before our horrified eyes, he started rapidly removing photographs at random from the albums and throwing them down in an untidy pile on the floor! When he had removed more than a hundred photographs, he selected a few from the pile and then told us casually,
Here, put the rest back where they belong – quickly!
We were ready to cry from sheer exasperation. The way the pictures had been jumbled, there was simply no way we could sort them! Everywhere the same thronging masses, the same stage decorations, the same ceremonies! Many of the pictures were close-ups of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, and those were the worst. Everywhere he wore the same ochre robe, the same garlands, sat upon the same white cushioned seat. How were we to tell which event was which?
That night THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM returned to the office at 1 a.m., and found us still bent over the pictures in sleepy confusion. Then he picked up the photos and patiently started to show us:
See the largest garland I'm wearing in this picture? There are more red roses in this garland than pink ones. Can you see? This garland was the one I wore in Salem - didn't you notice at the programme? That means all the photos where I'm wearing this garland are from the Salem programme.
Another picture: See this clock here in the background? It shows two-thirty. The only places I held afternoon programmes were Mumbai and Coimbatore. And only in Mumbai were the lights switched on in the hall – don't you remember? Here, can you see a reflection of the lights in my eye? That means this is Mumbai. Simple! Now sort out the rest.
This was detective work!, we groaned in despair.
But still we worked, pushing our powers of observation to the maximum, calling up every memory of the actual events, scrutinizing each picture with an altogether new awareness. We noticed, in wonder, how much we'd missed in each picture. Now it was like seeing them for the first time, with fresh eyes, with total mindfulness. It took us till morning to realize that Swamiji's 'careless' behaviour the previous evening had been an expert device to lead us into intense meditation, only minus the name!
Hour by painstaking hour, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM cleared our clouded vision. He chipped away at our rusty minds, broke us through into new layers of awareness. He plucked out by the roots, the comfortable habits built up over a lifetime.
I am here to break your heads!, he would laugh.
I have to destroy your thinking, your planning, most of all your habits – because that is where the ego lives.
With schoolboy glee, he would repeat time and again: H-A-B-I-T is like this!
If you remove H, still A BIT is left, If you remove A also, BIT is still left, If you remove B also, still IT is left.