Guru Nitya – My Life-Changing Catalyst

 

Even though I haven’t seen or met with Guru Nitya, I came to know Guru from an incident that happened involving my relatives. During my childhood, I heard from my family that my first cousin ran away from home to join Guru Nitya when her family attempted to coerce her to marry someone. However, her family went after her and brought her back and she was forced to marry someone, which she did eventually! From that day, I was curious as to why my cousin was so interested in Guru Nitya. So, whenever I visited her, I enquired about Guru, and she explained about Guru and Guru’s relation with Sree Narayana Guru (SNG) and their work.

 

Regardless, I know about SNG from my father’s collection of books and my mother used to draw pictures of SNG when I was young. I was attracted to these books but didn’t understand them much. I am just recalling a vision that I had during my childhood. After school and during weekends, I had duties to guard our freshly sowed paddy fields from birds picking up the paddy grains. When I was sitting on an elevated open space lawn near our paddy field, I was looking at the coconut trees swaying in the wind near the shore, the grass and the mud and a small babbling brook, which fascinated me a lot. Simultaneously, I had an unknown, puzzling feeling of confusion regarding what I was really experiencing! One evening, when I was concentrating on the grass and mud, a bright light of vision suddenly shone around me. The grass and mud seemed brighter than usual and a voice inside me said, “One day you will come back to this same vision but understand it better! (after you (me) grow up and explore the world with greater knowledge, whoever you will be!)”

 

Later, I was attracted to wisdom studies. With whatever I read and studied, I had more and more doubts and questions. I had the opportunity and blessings to study Living the Science of Harmonious Union – Principles and Practices of Patanjali’s Yoga Sastra by Guru Nitya with Nancy Yeilding. But the intensity of my queries diminished after I studied Guru Nitya’s The Psychology of Darsanamala. Now, like a jigsaw puzzle, my vision is getting clearer and easier to understand, but I am certain I can get more clarity with Guru Nitya’s books.

 

Everyone may have this kind of vision once during their childhood and we pursue efforts to understand it throughout our life. But the real pursuit happened to me when I started studying Guru Nitya’s The Psychology of Darsanamala. A combined study of Eastern-Western perspectives which reveals the depth of knowledge concerning what we and the universe are made of (or not), and how we and the universe are not different from each other. In a sense, the mind we have should be created from the mind of the universe as we are part of the universe. Questions like: what is the connection between infinity and zero; small (suksma) and big (sthula); beginning and end; or subjectivity and objectivity? The problem is that we are trying to solve it with dualism, not with nondualism. The understanding of oneness (totality view), similarly nothingness, has the core understanding of all our queries. This is revealed in Guru Nitya’s work on Darsanamala with a scientific view and the psychological/philosophical perceptive to guide us towards the true vision/grounding.

 

During my Darsanamala study with Nancy, I really began to contemplate well. Below is an extract from the comments that I wrote for Chapter 2 – Verses 5 to 7:

When I experience happiness, the resting place of Absolute

Mind flows between real and unreal in a figure eight pattern 

So, trying to relate joy to all events of my life, then the real ever shines!

Maya is strong when perceptions relate to memories, the mental modifications

Moment to moment is veiling, the play of senses due to this mentation

Trying to break away the associations and be here and now

Oh God (Absolute)! remind me each moment to be myself, the awareness

Which is the truth about myself, the conscious of the universe!

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During the study, I had my bypass surgery. The study helped me to overcome challenging situations, through analysis and recognition of myself and my actions. Below is an extract from the comment for Chapter 4 – Verse 3 and 4:

Verse 4 explains about the incoming sensory data; if we have the capacity to leave it unmodified (in a sense, not to think further about it) then this data won’t shift my awareness from the equilibrium state. But to reach this point, I understand there needs to be constant practices applied to daily life. One such occurrence that I would like to expound here is an extreme end, but I believe it highlights how adopting this method may help train ourselves towards leaving sensory data unmodified!

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The second day after my Bypass surgery, I was transferred to HDU (High Dependency Unit) for recovery. This Unit was occupied by four people including myself who were also recovering from a bypass or a similar heart operation. That night, one person started to snore very loudly, which affected everyone’s sleep. They all started to complain but the duty nurse said she “can’t do anything about this!.” I was so tired and tried to concentrate on my breath but wasn’t able to sleep at all. On the third day, my condition improved a little, but it was still very painful to move around even within the bed. Later that night, I tried meditation, but the snoring was so loud it really penetrated my ears, despite using tissue paper to try block the noise as nothing else was available! I felt I had a great idea strike as I used airpods to play deep sleep music, but with its low volume it did not help me at all. After much struggle, I thought about my cousin sister’s advice on chanting the following Mahamrityunjaya Mantra:

Om tryambakam yajamahe

sugandhim pushtivardhanam

urvarukamiva bandhanan

mrityor mukshiya maamritat

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I played a continuous audio chanting the above mantra and I chanted with it. This changed my mood completely. After some time, I couldn’t hear the snoring anymore as I completely immersed myself; I felt lifted from that atmosphere, calm and at peace (there were tears in my eyes too but can’t explain why?!). Moreover, beginning to see light, gaining more strength and confidence and no longer feeling the pain and tiredness. At some point soon after, I fell asleep. The chanting was set to 108 times only. What I learned from this incident is that if I can use the right tools that suits me at the right time, I can overcome a difficult situation caused by this sensory data without needing it to change.

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On fourth day, I contemplated and realised that my attitudes around the snoring was opposing the situation and worsening my tiredness and irritability. I thought about thinking positively to accept the situation. The person apologised for his snoring affecting everyone’s sleep in the daytime and I personally said not at all, we really love you (it was great to observe my action here; the unconscious adaptation of compassionate behaviour). Afterall, we were all enduring a similar and tough situation. I continued to practice meditation by concentrating on my breath and accepting any surrounding sounds. At night, to accept the snoring sound, I meditated as above also, chanted the above Mantra in my mind. Gradually, the sound seemed quieter and leaving without affecting me. I was also able to shift my attention inwardly from the snoring sound and eventually fell asleep. I’m not sure whether the snoring seemed lighter after some time!

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This was a great lesson for me to handle sensory data without it affecting me! As I am a ‘Visual’ person, irritable ‘Auditory’ data is not a piece of cake for me to accept! (I was a Visual person by the VAK Learning Style analysis but am becoming more balanced in terms of VAK).

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Guru Nitya’s commentary of verse 3 of chapter 4 of Darsanamala, explains the process of my inclination to “act”! It starts with the preference of “pleasure” over “pain.” In the above incident, “pain” was the effect of snoring, so it was replaced by the “desire” of a pleasurable situation. Therefore, the “volition” should prefer the “act” which favours bringing “pleasure.” I realized that the effective act should be the act that turns my attention inwards to my true self. The closest act was the third day where I attempted “to accept the situation,” as explained above! My ultimate goal is to bring this light (of acceptance/positive attitude) to all my activities by realizing it in the moment and acting accordingly!

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As Guru pointed out, if I can identify the true happiness which belongs to self rather than the happiness through “gratification of the senses in the world external to myself” then my actions will be more pleasing to my inner self and to the world. I am after a state of being in which the sensory data gradually does not affect “the real world.” This is evidenced in the examples above, where I used my action of calming sounds (Mantra) to counteract the sensory input of disruptive noises (snoring). Then I was able to change my mood to acceptance with meditation which is much closer to inner self!

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Above is one example of when I have applied the learning from Guru Nitya’s justifications to a transformative event in my life, and I have made an effort to continuously do so. The distinctive writing style of Guru inspired me and equipped me with the right tools to tackle situations whether it is a pleasurable or painful event. It is the psychological depth analysis leading to synthetical solutions which are apt to any current situation from any verse of study. I am blessed to study Guru Nitya’s books, and I will continue to do so until my childhood vision is clear without a second thought.

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From the study of Guru Nitya’s commentary on Darsanamala, what I understand so far is that I can begin to experience each moment of my life with wonder (realizing I am ananda): when I am doing something to capture that present moment to its ultimate clarity in another sense here and now in time and space, when I can experience my existence (listening to my body, bodily functions, etc), or experiencing the quintuplicated world which also includes my body (modulations). Then like a windmill rotates when wind blows through it, I can let my body (psycho-physical system) survive as required by nature and I don’t bother about it as I am with myself, the universal consciousness! Guru Nitya’s explanations for the ten chapters gives greater understanding to achieve this. AUM!