Barmecide was a patronymic name of a family of princes that ruled Baghdad just before Haroun-al-Raschit. According to a story of the Arabian Nights, once a Barmecide prince welcomed a beggar, Schacabac by name, to a royal dinner in his palace. As the beggar stumbled into the Royal presence, gold and silver cutlery and diamond studded dishes dazzled his eyes. He saw bearers scurrying noiselessly with numerous scintillating trays in their hands. They were displaying animated motions as if they were serving delicacies onto the spread out tableware. To his utter befuddlement, Schacabac saw that the dishes remained empty as before. And then he was politely requested to eat to his heart's content! The Barmecide feast had all the grandiose festivity minus the feast!
If we interpolate religion in place of the foregoing feast, a situation similar to this obtains for India in the field of religion, just before the advent of Adi Shankar. At that time a number of cults--72 according to one estimate--such as the Charvaks, the Lokayatikas, the Kapalikas, the Sankhyas, the Shaktas and the Madhyamikas, had sprung up out of nowhere. All sorts of so-called religious joints and sancta, sanctuaries and shrines made their appearance conspicuous with their numerous flags, rituals, rites and ceremonies. Though a plethora of sects claiming religion as their ware came into existence, religiosity was at a premium. People were driven into the dens of vamachar (deviance) where various kinds of bigotry, perversions, superstitions, and kinkiness were practiced.
Amidst the noise of gongs and tongs, cymbals and dumbbells, kettles and rattles, the music of prayer floundered in these places. Now you know prayer without prayerfulness begets beggars and religion without religiosity breeds grabbers. In the din of this motley crowd of beggars and grabbers walked in the great navigator of man--Adi Shankar. Shankar was a prodigy nonpareil. By the age of seven, he had mastered the four Vedas and at seventeen he had started his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Brahmasutras, and the Upanishadas. He floored the master discussant Mandan Mishra and his equally erudite wife Ubhaya Bharti when he was barely out of his teens. And he established four reference points of absolute monism at the four corners of India before taking samadhi at the young age of 32.
Now it is reasonably natural to misunderstand a genius. Who is there to stand upto him and size him up? It is only the test of time that decides his worth. Today he is remembered as Adi Shankaracharya, the first ever Shankaracharya who salvaged Hinduisim by purging it of the sectarian dross that it had managed to wrap around itself over the time. He is also remembered as a great dilectician, a great debater, besides being a profoundly learned being. But he was much more than all these appellations. While it is true that a logician, a debater, a knowledgeable person can vanquish his challenger with his sound and penetrating arguments, the question remains : Is it simply an academic exercise to earn Brownie points or will it help bring about the desired transformation in the vanquished person?
I feel the vanquished will, in turn, try to become a more sound logician, a better debater, and a more knowledgeable person so that he may retrieve the lost ground next time. A tug of war is likely to ensue which will defeat the very purpose for which the debate was initiated. In place of bonhomous cooperation, we will invite rankling competition. It is true that the intellect can see into the distance but it can not take us very far because it is only half the story. The other half comes from the wellsprings of the heart. Some people lean heavily on the second half but that again is a mistake because the heart lacks discretion. It knows only how to love. Shankar was great because he happened to be a fine blend of logic and devotion. He knew how to improvise a tango of the head and the heart.
Intellection is dry, devotion lucid. Shankar had the knack of lacing his logic with the lucidity of devotion. The outcome of this blending were the melodic cadences of his immortal song, Bhaj Govindam. It appears as if the ecstatic hymn just flowed out of the heart of the ecstatic peripatetic. The fragrance of this melodious chant wafted across the length and breadth of India. It resonated beyond the domes of temples, on the farmlands and moorlands, in distant hearths and hamlets, and above all in the hearts of men, women and children. This melliflous paean reminds us of The Ambrosian Chant of St. Ambrose, a fourth century Christian mystic. Prior to St. Ambrose there used to be no singing in churches. And the churches had a hard time attracting people, to justify their presence in that area.
After the introduction of St. Ambrose's melodious hymns, called after him The Ambrosian Chant, the very ambience of churches underwent a sea change. People started flocking in great numbers to fill churches that had been lying empty since long. A similar impact was made on the lives of people in India by Shankar's Bhaj Govindam. I say Shankar is unique because Bhaj Govindam is unique. Let me give you an example. Once Sri Ramakrishna was invited to bless a marriage celebration. There he heard someone summoning a guy named Govind. Sri Ramakrishna immediately went into a trance becoming statuesque. Govind was frozen inside him. Govind was not available to anybody else. But this ligatured locution, this ravishing melody of Bhaj Govindam is like the sempiternal flow of Ganga.
What is Ganga? Well, Ganga is the stream of consciousness that bounds along freely shored up by the twin strands of devotion and understanding. To rephrase Einstein's famous quote, knowledge without devotion is lame, devotion without knowledge is blind. For Ganga's flow to remain rewarding, it is obligatory to strike a balance between devotion and understanding. Though anybody can take a dip in Ganga, Shankar says just a sip of the holy water--gangajal luvkanika , if taken with right understanding, is enough to take us through. Ganga moves forward touching everyone who comes to her without asking any questions. She doesn't judge whether someone is young or old, healthy or diseased, beautiful or ugly, virtuous or sinner. J.Krishnamurti gives it the name of choiceless awareness.
In choiceless awareness, one remains aware without making any choices. One does not choose because one knows the futility of choosing. As such, there is nothing beautiful or ugly, virtuous or sinful--punyapunyaviverjitpanthah(there is no merit or demerit on this path). When the Ganga flows into the ocean, both the banks disappear. Only an awareness remains. There is no need to invent the Devil. Only God (awareness) is enough. Baba Muktanand used to remind us so often that there are only two things worth remembering--God and Death. However, nobody can approach God without dying first. Also it is not possible to welcome Death without first knowing God. We are capable of deceiving everybody including ourselves but we cannot deceive Death. Death is a certainty.
Death is the only touchstone which tells us in no uncertain terms whether we have lived our lives intelligently or stupidly. One must always keep enquiring whether one is well prepared to meet Death squarely or not. You see there is big difference between being driven unwillingly into the mouth of Death and walking gracefully to welcome it. The first act makes Death look ugly. However it needs a Shankar, or a Socrates*, or a Jnandev to make the event look graceful. Death makes us realize whether all that we had been collecting meticulously all our lives--power, prestige, pelf--have left us fearless or afraid. Bhaj Govindam moodhmate (sing the name of Govind, stupid!) presents a simple way to prepare oneself to become fearless--tasya yamah kim kurute charcham (what can the god of Death do to such a man?).
Just think, for no reason at all, God breathes into us, looks through our eyes, hears for us! He talks and sings and dances and plays! He has become the very fabric of our lives. In this limitless expression of his creation, he gives so much significance to our insignificant existence. Don't you think that the least that we can do on our part is to show gratitude to Him? On behalf of every one I express my gratefulness to Shankar for giving us Bhaj Govindam which has rendered the expression of gratitude to the Lord so enchanting. The beauty of Bhaj Govindam, beside its dulcet strains, lies in the fact that it rubs off on us quite effortlessly. One may find to one's pleasant surprise humming it all of a sudden, one fine morning. It sort of becomes a perennial undercurrent of nectar inside us.
Bhaj Govindam is a temple where love is expressed and experienced. Don't consider a temple to be a mere structure. No, a temple is the very abode of love. Nobody goes to a temple who goes there with a begging bowl or bagfuls of complaints, instead of love. See, love is a delicate mix of adoration and longing. When love is unrefined, longing turns into possessiveness. That is the lowest form of love, the nadir of love. But when love is sublimated, adoration becomes prayer. And prayerfulness is the highest form of love, the zenith of love. Shankar brought into focus, for the laymen of Bharat, the fact that the path to godliness runs through one's love of prayerful singing and dancing. The upshot was that Bhaj Govindam became the heart throb of Bharat. It still is. The need is to rediscover this nectarean chant once more.
SOCRATES: For the death scene of Socrates, please go to March 1, 2010 blog: Consciousness: The Cosmic Constant.
You may go to U-Tube to listen to MS Subbulakshmi's rendering of the song.
Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi
If we interpolate religion in place of the foregoing feast, a situation similar to this obtains for India in the field of religion, just before the advent of Adi Shankar. At that time a number of cults--72 according to one estimate--such as the Charvaks, the Lokayatikas, the Kapalikas, the Sankhyas, the Shaktas and the Madhyamikas, had sprung up out of nowhere. All sorts of so-called religious joints and sancta, sanctuaries and shrines made their appearance conspicuous with their numerous flags, rituals, rites and ceremonies. Though a plethora of sects claiming religion as their ware came into existence, religiosity was at a premium. People were driven into the dens of vamachar (deviance) where various kinds of bigotry, perversions, superstitions, and kinkiness were practiced.
Amidst the noise of gongs and tongs, cymbals and dumbbells, kettles and rattles, the music of prayer floundered in these places. Now you know prayer without prayerfulness begets beggars and religion without religiosity breeds grabbers. In the din of this motley crowd of beggars and grabbers walked in the great navigator of man--Adi Shankar. Shankar was a prodigy nonpareil. By the age of seven, he had mastered the four Vedas and at seventeen he had started his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Brahmasutras, and the Upanishadas. He floored the master discussant Mandan Mishra and his equally erudite wife Ubhaya Bharti when he was barely out of his teens. And he established four reference points of absolute monism at the four corners of India before taking samadhi at the young age of 32.
Now it is reasonably natural to misunderstand a genius. Who is there to stand upto him and size him up? It is only the test of time that decides his worth. Today he is remembered as Adi Shankaracharya, the first ever Shankaracharya who salvaged Hinduisim by purging it of the sectarian dross that it had managed to wrap around itself over the time. He is also remembered as a great dilectician, a great debater, besides being a profoundly learned being. But he was much more than all these appellations. While it is true that a logician, a debater, a knowledgeable person can vanquish his challenger with his sound and penetrating arguments, the question remains : Is it simply an academic exercise to earn Brownie points or will it help bring about the desired transformation in the vanquished person?
I feel the vanquished will, in turn, try to become a more sound logician, a better debater, and a more knowledgeable person so that he may retrieve the lost ground next time. A tug of war is likely to ensue which will defeat the very purpose for which the debate was initiated. In place of bonhomous cooperation, we will invite rankling competition. It is true that the intellect can see into the distance but it can not take us very far because it is only half the story. The other half comes from the wellsprings of the heart. Some people lean heavily on the second half but that again is a mistake because the heart lacks discretion. It knows only how to love. Shankar was great because he happened to be a fine blend of logic and devotion. He knew how to improvise a tango of the head and the heart.
Intellection is dry, devotion lucid. Shankar had the knack of lacing his logic with the lucidity of devotion. The outcome of this blending were the melodic cadences of his immortal song, Bhaj Govindam. It appears as if the ecstatic hymn just flowed out of the heart of the ecstatic peripatetic. The fragrance of this melodious chant wafted across the length and breadth of India. It resonated beyond the domes of temples, on the farmlands and moorlands, in distant hearths and hamlets, and above all in the hearts of men, women and children. This melliflous paean reminds us of The Ambrosian Chant of St. Ambrose, a fourth century Christian mystic. Prior to St. Ambrose there used to be no singing in churches. And the churches had a hard time attracting people, to justify their presence in that area.
After the introduction of St. Ambrose's melodious hymns, called after him The Ambrosian Chant, the very ambience of churches underwent a sea change. People started flocking in great numbers to fill churches that had been lying empty since long. A similar impact was made on the lives of people in India by Shankar's Bhaj Govindam. I say Shankar is unique because Bhaj Govindam is unique. Let me give you an example. Once Sri Ramakrishna was invited to bless a marriage celebration. There he heard someone summoning a guy named Govind. Sri Ramakrishna immediately went into a trance becoming statuesque. Govind was frozen inside him. Govind was not available to anybody else. But this ligatured locution, this ravishing melody of Bhaj Govindam is like the sempiternal flow of Ganga.
What is Ganga? Well, Ganga is the stream of consciousness that bounds along freely shored up by the twin strands of devotion and understanding. To rephrase Einstein's famous quote, knowledge without devotion is lame, devotion without knowledge is blind. For Ganga's flow to remain rewarding, it is obligatory to strike a balance between devotion and understanding. Though anybody can take a dip in Ganga, Shankar says just a sip of the holy water--gangajal luvkanika , if taken with right understanding, is enough to take us through. Ganga moves forward touching everyone who comes to her without asking any questions. She doesn't judge whether someone is young or old, healthy or diseased, beautiful or ugly, virtuous or sinner. J.Krishnamurti gives it the name of choiceless awareness.
In choiceless awareness, one remains aware without making any choices. One does not choose because one knows the futility of choosing. As such, there is nothing beautiful or ugly, virtuous or sinful--punyapunyaviverjitpanthah(there is no merit or demerit on this path). When the Ganga flows into the ocean, both the banks disappear. Only an awareness remains. There is no need to invent the Devil. Only God (awareness) is enough. Baba Muktanand used to remind us so often that there are only two things worth remembering--God and Death. However, nobody can approach God without dying first. Also it is not possible to welcome Death without first knowing God. We are capable of deceiving everybody including ourselves but we cannot deceive Death. Death is a certainty.
Death is the only touchstone which tells us in no uncertain terms whether we have lived our lives intelligently or stupidly. One must always keep enquiring whether one is well prepared to meet Death squarely or not. You see there is big difference between being driven unwillingly into the mouth of Death and walking gracefully to welcome it. The first act makes Death look ugly. However it needs a Shankar, or a Socrates*, or a Jnandev to make the event look graceful. Death makes us realize whether all that we had been collecting meticulously all our lives--power, prestige, pelf--have left us fearless or afraid. Bhaj Govindam moodhmate (sing the name of Govind, stupid!) presents a simple way to prepare oneself to become fearless--tasya yamah kim kurute charcham (what can the god of Death do to such a man?).
Just think, for no reason at all, God breathes into us, looks through our eyes, hears for us! He talks and sings and dances and plays! He has become the very fabric of our lives. In this limitless expression of his creation, he gives so much significance to our insignificant existence. Don't you think that the least that we can do on our part is to show gratitude to Him? On behalf of every one I express my gratefulness to Shankar for giving us Bhaj Govindam which has rendered the expression of gratitude to the Lord so enchanting. The beauty of Bhaj Govindam, beside its dulcet strains, lies in the fact that it rubs off on us quite effortlessly. One may find to one's pleasant surprise humming it all of a sudden, one fine morning. It sort of becomes a perennial undercurrent of nectar inside us.
Bhaj Govindam is a temple where love is expressed and experienced. Don't consider a temple to be a mere structure. No, a temple is the very abode of love. Nobody goes to a temple who goes there with a begging bowl or bagfuls of complaints, instead of love. See, love is a delicate mix of adoration and longing. When love is unrefined, longing turns into possessiveness. That is the lowest form of love, the nadir of love. But when love is sublimated, adoration becomes prayer. And prayerfulness is the highest form of love, the zenith of love. Shankar brought into focus, for the laymen of Bharat, the fact that the path to godliness runs through one's love of prayerful singing and dancing. The upshot was that Bhaj Govindam became the heart throb of Bharat. It still is. The need is to rediscover this nectarean chant once more.
SOCRATES: For the death scene of Socrates, please go to March 1, 2010 blog: Consciousness: The Cosmic Constant.
You may go to U-Tube to listen to MS Subbulakshmi's rendering of the song.
Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi
