The Teacher Teaches through His Own Life
I just now saw an envelope kept on top of the cupboard in my room. Pulling out the brown envelope from under a pile of books kept on the dusty top (it used to be the office almirah scattered with staples, files etc. until I recently shifted to this office room.) Taking a peek inside it I found some money “someone must have given it to me to be offered as Guru-Dakshina during the festivities”, I recalled.
I took the 500 rupees note to Bodhi’s room and placed it on a stool that already had a couple of notes from visitors. It is a ritual during festivities to touch the feet of one’s Guru, one’s parents and elders and offer a small amount of donation as a token of gratitude and respect for the inner and outer wealth that they bestow on us to move forward in the journey of life with wisdom and comfort.
Bodhi asked me what I was doing and I told him that some visitor had left him an envelope.
There has never been even one visit to Bodhi’s room in all the years I have been with him that has not been without receiving some pearls of wisdom. This time too he transformed this simple mundane act to a sublime teaching.
The teaching comes in two stages. The first stage is – I find him stopping his work whatever he might be doing – be it his yoga routine, conversing with someone or writing a reply message to seekers or cleaning, making tea, washing clothes and utensils or watering the plants with tender most gaze. When he stops for a few moments his eyes get transported to a different world and his whole being seems spellbound with awe, wonderment, divine love and gratitude. These four emotions form his very heart that very often bursts into rapture at the most unexpected times.
The second stage, the wisdom flows. The words are spontaneous and from the direct source, unhindered, uncontaminated by ‘learnings’ from the external world. The words flow like a creek whose water is so transparent that every pebble underneath shines like diamonds and rubies. The source of the creek water being a remotest mountain spring.
On finding a few rupee notes in his room, gifted lovingly by visitors, Bodhi was instantly lost in divine intoxication. “Oh dear Lord! You love thy child so much to shower him with such love through the hands of men and women – who are none but embodiments of thine formless form! Words fail when my heart detects thine divine grace!”
The very next moment he said, “With your hand you shower your child with gifts and with the other you take away the gifts! Oh what a mystical, playful Lord you are, my Beloved!” Bodhi was referring to his recent grave financial losses entirely due to his child-like trusting nature upon a person who took advantage of his goodness and humility. After the man’s true motive was discovered it was too late to recover the losses. On learning about the deceit and hypocrisy, Bodhi’s hurt eyes melted with motherly compassion as he said with his hand upon his heart, “Oh Mother Divine! Please have mercy upon this poor man! He might have cheated me, but please guard his family and his little children so they might not incur the karmic backlash incurred so heavily by their father!”
He had prayed this for several days to the Mother asking Her to spare the betrayer’s family the onslaught of his dreadful crime. Now, looking upon the stool with some money, Bodhi laughed and said to me, “Life’s journey is like a flowing river. Losses and gains are the two banks on the opposite sides of this river. Most people spend their lives sometimes ecstatic and sometimes in an abyss of depression – all by being too attached to the riverbanks but ignoring the river’s destination. If one focuses on the destination, one will reach the ocean. One will reach the permanent Truth.”
This morning too, like many other mornings, I walked out of the door with a fistful of priceless pearls. I had my sight even more firmly set upon the destination! Lifting one’s mind off the chaos of the ‘banks’ feels so liberating and calming. A true Teacher stages such mysterious but interesting dramas with their own life. The ‘sea’ has to effectively play the role of a ‘river’ and manufacture sub-plots of riverbanks too, all for one reason – to drive home a universal lesson for thousands of souls so they can one day become the ‘sea’ too.
Debdutta (Didi)
