Part 5: Glimpses of My Master THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM
The tongue lashing that followed was fluent and vivid. We were described as the laziest souls alive and compared unfavorably with the first batch of Acharya trainees in USA who had all come thoroughly prepared and all that Swami had to do was to lounge on the swing and be entertained. We were all told to stay awake the next three nights to read up on the ASP material and start presenting to Swami on the fourth and fifth days, Thursday and Friday, be fore we dispersed from session one. Ananda Amrit, my favorite Ganesa was appointed the 'mahacharya' or Master Trainer for the Tamil group, and poor I for the English group. Over time the two 'mahacharyas' started being referred to as 'makku' Acharyas or morons by Swami. That we felt the same way did not make us feel any better.
The group of 20 odd English course Acharyas-to-be that I inherited comprised 15 women, who could have all come from community schools in Harlem. I was bullied, threatened and occasionally, very occasionally cajoled into letting them do what they wanted, most of which was to go to bed at eleven. My job was to prepare summarized briefs for them from the Six Days to Transformation book and cassettes which they could memorize and regurgitate. This was my first phase transformation from a corporate machine that could without a thought make hour long power point presentations to hundreds, into a bumbling idiot who was told by his trainees to speak from his human heart instead of his corporate head.
Tuesday dawned even worse. Instead of being ready with the Introduction as well as the Anahata and Manipuraka chakras as per the schedule given by Swami, most were still struggling with the Zen Master and the overflowing cup, mixing metaphors fluently and in blissful confusion between footwear, teacups and minds. Swami would make sudden appearances, sometimes peeping through windows, always unexpectedly and silently even as we struggled gamely. He found us clearly wanting and sent us packing to start practicing in front of the walls, the cowshed and the trees! Poor Lakshmi, the ashram cow; I am sure she stopped giving milk for a few days.
Sometime during the second evening even as I was struggling to develop summarized material for all the chakras, we were all summoned to Swami's quarters. We sat there for the next three or four hours as he flew on the swing in the verandah, alternatively telling us with great relish what he thought of all of us, which wasn't much, and keeping us entertained with tit bits of philosophical inputs. The first few days he used a stick for effect; the fourth day he switched to a trident for greater emphasis. Few of us understood what was happening.
Sometime late that night as we all sat up well past midnight, Swami came around and told our group in the Laughing Temple that there was a ten footer cobra behind the Temple. After he assured us that it had started moving away and that we were in no danger, we carried on well past two in the morning struggling with the six chapters that we were scheduled to finish that night, out of the total of eight chapters. For each chapter I would first prepare the script which was then handed over to Amrit for translation into Tamil. I would then present my script to the group amidst cat calls and demands to smile and show some heart. After this the group would split into four to make individual presentations within the sub groups to the four sub group leaders who in addition to me were Maneesha, Divoja and Vishal. The process took quite long as each presentation took about an hour, and even with the division of about 5 in each group each section took over 5 hours. Everyone was struggling and tense. No one seemed to be getting anywhere.
Early on Wednesday morning it dawned on me that it was all a huge cosmic joke that was being played on all of us. When Ma Priyananda, who had almost said yes when Swami had asked the first day for those who wished to drop out, started speaking, I sat transfixed. Her voice was so soft as to be almost inaudible; but then the communion that happened was from within her far deeper than her heart and was received at a point far deeper than the hearts of the listeners. We had the same experience with Gilda who had come from St Louis. Hearing these two was a turning point. It was no longer about how hard one struggled to memorize the script but about how well one internalized the message and spoke from the Being to the Being. If someone had said this to me a day earlier I would have laughed out loud.
I still continued to prepare the script, the group still continued to rehearse; but there was a difference; there was no longer any tension to finish on schedule; it was a process of active relaxation in understanding the substance of each section and doing as best as we could. That night Chandra came around at eleven saying that his mind was a blank; I told him to go home and sleep, and assured him that he would remember all that he had read the next morning, which he mercifully did. Swami called all those who had completed all the chakras for a walk at midnight on Wednesday; the entire English group followed. It was clear by then that it was the energy of the Master that mattered, not just the struggle of the disciple. When we returned around one in the morning from the walk, all of us went to bed without a trace of guilt.
By Thursday we were almost there and it was fun. For the first time the bullying women approved of my delivery and declared me fit for purpose. The last two days moved swiftly, too swiftly. The hours spent in front of the swing increased, the trishul (trident) replaced the stick, and advice given on how to face stones and rotten eggs when we conducted our obligatory ASP classes over the next ten days before we returned to the Ashram on the 4th of March. Swami blessed us and we left.
During the two weekends that we had before we reassembled on 4th March 2005 each one of the group of 63 had conducted at least one ASP class, the smallest class being 4 and the largest 45. Some had conducted three. I did one in Bangalore since I attended the NSP on the weekend following the first training session. My class of 20 included my parents and my wife. It was smooth sailing meriting praise from my father, who is himself a serious scholar of Hindu philosophy. Friday the 4th of March till Monday the 7th Amrit and I spent in evaluating the entire group with short 10 minute presentations. To make things more interesting Swami decided to add eight more new trainees to my group. Ten Acharyas-to-be conducted mass free ASP classes at Dhyanapeetam for a group of nearly ninety people who had come mostly from rural Tamilnadu on 5th and 6th March. At the feedback session after Swami's energy darshan that Amrit and I took, the mass ASP participants were ecstatic both on the content and delivery from their Acharyas and the unexpected presence of the Master (we had warned them that there would be no energy darshan!).
On March 8th Sivaratri night, 22 of the group of Acharya trainees were ordained as the first batch of Acharyas by Swami in Bharat. We were given ashramite status with new names that had both 'Nithya' and 'Ananda' in them, most of which Swami had used during his tapas. I became Nithya Advaith Ananda and Amrit became Nithya Amrit Ananda. After an energy darshan with the Paramacharya when he energized our tongues, he sat us down on the Nataraja platform in Ananda Sabha and happily dunked us with cold water at three in the morning. The next couple of hours we dried ourselves dancing to the kirtans, while the 500 strong audience sought Swami's energy darshan.
The next day before I departed I asked Swami what he was it that he did with us during the swing breaks on his verandah. He said: I was opening your Manipurakas where words originate and your Ajnas to give you command over the audience. He warned those of us ordained that he now resides in our tongues when we speak and anything we say would come true, and to avoid saying anything negative.
True I was happy to be ordained; however I was quite prepared if I wasn't as many of us were. The process of transformation had already set in. there was no comparison with another in the group. I was happy with each one who spoke so well. Would I ever match the intense vigor of Atma, the whirling dervish, he with the flowing beard and the gentle smile; or the mischievous gleam of Maneesha, bully-inchief; or the creative twists of Nitya Charan; or the deep belly laughs of Amrit; or the gentle voice of silence of Priya; or the sheer presence of peace of Priya Mai. Each one of them is so supremely unique that thinking about how good they are brings a lump to my throat and joy in my heart. The fact that they are so much better than I am is my bliss. This transformation through the grace of my Paramacharya is more important to my evolution than my Acharyaship.
My transformation has just started. The next bar that Maneesha and Priya Mai have set is that I smile all the time. I am sure that will happen; sooner than we all think, thanks to them; thanks to a family that I have inherited in the last 100 days, a family as close as I was born with and created through wedlock; a family with no distinction of age, gender and status that has been bestowed upon me by the grace of my Paramacharya, Swami Nithyananda. I salute him. So do all Acharyas.