Guruji Paints!

After only one night in the Ashram, we felt a pull from the north, especially after spending the day unsuccessfully finding a hotel in Rishikesh. Although a magnificent and holy place, Rishikesh happened to be in the midst of a one-week International Yoga and Mediation conference and the city was packed with pilgrims and foreigners. 

Before we departed, Swamiji said that Guruji would be happy to answer any questions we might have. Once again, I entered the greeting chamber where Guruji welcomes and speaks with disciples, devotees, travelers, and pilgrims.

I asked Guruji, “what is time?” 

He smiled. He might have even chuckled a bit. 

He replied that time is one of the universal qualities of God which we come to know on the earth. We know it a sunrise and sunset, and in the human form of past, present, and future. Time in its universal form occurs in the present. God the universe is all time.

 

He also spoke to me of health and of actions.

 

 Guruji said that we should use our mouths with great caution. A wise person thinks twice about what he drinks, twice about what he eats, and twice about what he speaks. 

He also spoke about how the body is constructed of three parts: the head, the hands, the heart. The way that we use each part can determine how we live our lives. In conversation, when we use the head, we react. When we use the hands, we retaliate. When we use the heart, we respond. The correct and most valuable action always comes from the heart.

“Where are you going now?” Guruji asked. Clearly he was happy to help guide our trip.

“We do not know yet,” I responded.

“Well, it is better to have some idea of where you are going before setting off somewhere,” he replied. “Have you no idea where you might want to go next?”

“Yes, Guruji, we were thinking of going to Mussoorie,” I answered.

He thought Mussoorie a good decision and provided very accurate travel information that saved us from the constant “fleecing” that follows us throughout India. We packed our bags and stopped by for a final goodbye.

There we found Guruji, standing in the dining area with a large paintbrush in one hand, and a small transistor radio and a cell phone in the other. His four meter long locks draped casually upon his forearm. His paintbrush moved in long strokes along the pale yellow walls. 

“It is so nice to see that you are a painter as well as a guru,” I said to him. “We love to paint. We spend a lot of time painting.” 

“I love to work. I love to paint, to construct,” he replied.
 

And we waved goodbye, leaving the Guru, paintbrush in hand, looking out across the expansive Ganges river.

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An Incomplete Address

***written by nathan

While exploring Old Delhi one day, I met an unemployed school teacher at the fancy restaurant Haldriman’s. I bought him a chai, and he scribbled down the address for an Ashram in Rishikesh. He said that unlike many Indian Ashrams, this one would host foreigners. Ashrams are places where pilgrims gather, rest, meditate, sing and dance. 

However, the address written down on the small scrap of paper was incomplete, a fact that was rather evident as we repeatedly asked for directions along the winding streets of Rishikesh. We finally reached the ashram, thanks to the help of several other holy men of other nearby ashrams.

This is how we found Guruji. The Guru.

Upon our arrival, we spoke with several disciples, who politely asked us to rest while they spoke with Guruji. After just a few moments, we were asked to enter Guruji’s waiting room. While he listened to our story, and how we arrived at his Ashram, Guruji arranged himself. The long hair dread that was piled in a mound on our arrival was slowly wound atop his head in a knot. He wore a saffron-colored length of silk fabric wrapped around his body, which he adjusted to a snug fit over his round belly. Guruji remained (except when seated) at all times perched upon wooden sandals that had platform pieces to ensure that his feet did not touch the ground. His beard was long and grey. His eyes were kind and wise. His age was absolutely uncertain. He listened to our responses with closed eyes and deep thought.

Guruji offered us a room in his ashram to stay in. After our backpacks were stowed in a dormitory-style room, we were asked to join the Ashram members for meditation. Forty-five minutes of sing-song chanting whizzed by in an instant, and afterwards, we shared sweet treats. Guruji seems to have a penchant for sweets.

Guriji has devotees all across the world. At the time of our visit, seven were living at the Ashram, while others visited during the day. Devotees who live in the ashram eat meals together (consisting of ’harmless food’: food that is not heavily flavored or spiced and does only good for the body and mind), meditate daily, work and sing. Guriji and his devotees take long walks along the Ganges river, along which many Ashram‘s are located. Every year on both Guruji’s birthday and on a 9 Day Festival for Universal Goddess devotees travel from around the world. Many stay at the ashram. They pray, meditate, sing.

‘Swamiji’ is Guruji’s disciple. He used to work for government offices in Delhi and has three sons: two are doctors and one computer engineer. All live in the United States. Swamiji was our guide to the Ashram and told us many stories and provided countless insights into an environment which, for us, was very new.

“It is hard finding a Guru who is a true Yogi.” He told us.

Swamiji shared with us the story of Guruji and his path to perfection. Guriji had gone to the source of the Ganges river, and for fourteen years, lived in a cave. Alone. He prayed, singing chants every evening and morning. He wore no clothes. He meditated. After fourteen years, Swamiji and others followed him. People traveled from across the Himalayas, from across India, from China Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet to meet him and worship with him, high up in the Himalayas.

“He never needed food,” Swamiji told us, Whatever he needed, God provided him. “To be a true yogi” Swamiji said, “you must live like this in these mountains, you meditate and pray to God.”

The tallest mountains in the world connect by way of mountain passes. Passes are very high passageways through mountain ranges that attach two or more valleys. Passes have been used by travelers (and special guides of the Himalaya mountains called sherpas) for thousands of years. Ashrams often connect the passes offering pilgrims a place to stay.

Some gentler passes have roads. Other, lower passes can be used by special horses, cows, sheep and goats who are herded to markets and to graze meadows.. Most passes are so high they only used by people walking to cross the mountains. Sometimes these perilous crossings are razor thin, dropping off to steep cliffs and gorges on either side. Oftentimes, such as in the Himalayan passes, the snow is so deep as to be impassable for most of the year.

Guruji and Swamiji never took roads to the mountains. They walked.

All across India, pilgrims are walking, making sacred pilgrimages between places where gods are worshipped. These places are sometimes rivers or mountains or lakes. Sometimes these sacred places are marked by temples. A small temple marks a place where the great Ganges River begins in the Himalayan Mountains of India. The Ganges is very small here and pours gently out of a cave.

Far from perfection ourselves, we were unable to traverse into the great Himalayas. Instead, we learned about their fierceness from Guruji and his devotees.

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The Missionaries of Charity in Delhi

During the course of one of our many days of wandering through Delhi, we stumbled upon the Missionaries of Charity in Delhi. They were founded in Kolkata in 1950 by Mother Teresa to “give wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor” children of Delhi. Now they have homes to help children all over the world. In Delhi, when we visited, there were almost 75 children being cared for by the nuns. Many abandoned children are dropped off at the neighboring Delhi Council for Child Welfare, and then turned over to the Sisters. The children are aged up to six years old. Families adopt them, mostly from within India. The sisters provide love, healthcare, early education, and the countless other elements that allow children to feel safe, respected, and cherished.

We met with the head sister, who generously shared some stories about the current work of the project and of the life of their Mother. “She asked for nothing her whole life,” the head sister told us. “She had faith that God would hear her prayers and give her what she needed to care for the children.”

Now, more than 50 years later, the venerable Convent is known all over the world. Before she died, Mother Teresa was given a Nobel Peace Prize. Not only does the Nobel come with a one time significant monetary award, but brings much notoriety, attention, and needed privileges that make Sisters of Mercy a stable, sustainable organization. The Head Sister told us there were many similar organizations in Delhi and all over the world which did not have the good fortune which they had had. “There are a good many groups helping poor children in India which need assistance so much more than we do,” she told us.

After making a donation to the Mission, we asked the sister for a business card, or some information that we could pass on to blog readers. She thought for a moment, and then returned with a small, rectangular yellow card. It read:

“The fruit of SILENCE is Prayer

The fruit of PRAYER is Faith

The fruit of FAITH is Love

The fruit of LOVE is Service

The fruit of SERVICE is Peace."

- Mother Teresa

Best business card we’ve ever seen.

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'Step-by-Step' the story of a giving tree

This is the story of a Giving Tree. It lives on a beach and everyday at high tide the tides come up and give it a bath. When the tide is high, its low trunk is a step to keep you dry. When the tides are low but the high sun burns the skin and the hot sand burn feet on the sand the tree provides shade and keeps you cool. Birds sit in the tree in the cool evening breezes and sing to lovers who watch sunsets beneath the branches. The tree has held many swings. Tire swings. Swings made of drift wood and washed up rope.

One day the tree was surrounded by trash that swept up onto the beach in a storm. There were many nets which had stuck together in the terrible surf. There were also toothbrushes, empty bags, and plenty of empty cans of soda (lots of straws too which lost their bottles in the surf). Most of all there were shoes. Lots of shoes. Mostly flip-flops and sandals people may have lost on the beach in the waves. There were also fishing lures, Styrofoam, and fishing floats which must have come a long, long way because they said 'Made in Japan' on their sides.

One day a nice couple arrived from the other side of the world. They had been best friends in high school. When they grew older they they married and separated. Sadly, they had recently lost the husband and wife. Luckily they met again, fell in love, and decided to get married. They were very happy people and treated each other like each day was their honeymoon. They had come to the island before the trash came back and spent every evening watching sunsets beneath this giving tree.

They picked up shoes for two days and other trash. They kept the shoes in one pile and the interesting trash they thought people could reuse in another. With empty bags collected off the beach they separated all the bottles and cans to be recycled. They put the other trash in all the left over bags.

That night, as the sunset, they counted the number of shoes they had found between Monkee and Big Easy beach. They had collected over 250 and not one matched. What would they possibly do with all these shoes without their pairs?

The next day they made jokes with the people who passed as they separated the best shoes from the most broken and torn up shoes. "Are you missing a shoe?" they asked.

But they remembered an old man they had met on an Island near Iryan Jaya, too far from anywhere in between Australia and Indonesia in the far, far Pacific. The old man collected trash and hung it on the beach as art. They had been very moved to see such amazing uses of washed up trash. The old man had told them he hung bottles and shoes in tree to keep away bad spirits and carry his message of the need to clean the oceans all over the world. He told the happy couple that the shoes had found them and brought them to his island to learn what they could do to save the oceans. They could not be here, he said, if they were not wanting to work on his special mission, because the bottles in the trees would keep any bad spirits away.

When this couple remembered the old man, they knew what they could do with their collections of trash. Over the next two days they spent half their time collecting more shoes and the rest of their time using the piles of fishing lines and pieces of of net to tie their shoes to the trunk of their giving tree.

The next day they returned and found that the waves of high tide had undone much of their work and a string of maybe 80 shoes was drifting off from the tree back into the sea. Quickly they regathered the the shoes and tied them more firmly to the tree. The tied up floats to test how high the tides came up. When the water came up the next morning the floats got seaweed on them and they were able to test where the needed to tie the shoes with more knots.

People stopped by as the couple worked on their tree. In the evening, the trunk and the main branches were completely covered in sandals and flip-flops. There were floats attached that bobbed like mobiles in the wind. They looked up and down the beach, Not a piece of trash could be seen in either direction.

"Step-by-Step", the woman said to her loving partner who held her as they watched the sunset under their giving tree, "Step-by step, together we can clean all the oceans in the world and make the beaches all beautiful again!"

"That's it." Her husband responded. They had a name for their giving tree.

The next day they found a piece of driftwood that must have washed up years before in the mangroves behind the giving tree. The wrote "Step-by-Step" on it and tied it with some rope and hung it on the giving tree.

This is a picture of the happy couple who traveled around the world to sit under a tree they loved and watch beautiful sunsets. But they found a storm had thrown trash on there beach including lots of shoes, especially sandals and flip-flops.

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