Honoring Our Teachers During Guru Purnima

Teachers have the capacity to burn within us a hunger for knowledge, cultivate latent talents and lift us out of maya (illusion). They also leave us with silly memories.

One of my grade school teachers Mr. B., seemingly loved the cold. In the dead of winter, with snow cradling the ground, us students would shiver in his classroom where the tilting windows were opened - all of them. Occasionally, due to the uncontrollable shaking knees of school girls wearing their uniform plaid skirts, he would close one or two windows.

"The cold is good for you!" Mr. B. would say. We still shook, but I hold that memory as a cherished one from my childhood.

In my life, I have had the extraordinary opportunity to be in the presence of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hahn, Krishna Das, and my guru H.H. Radhanath Swami. To be in the presence of these teachers is frankly mind blowing to me when I think about it. Access to books from other brilliant teachers has been an easy thing for me to obtain. These books are where I met (and subsequently absorbed the knowledge) of Pema Chodren, Yogananda and more. In a world where access to such things is limited, a blessing was bestowed upon me.

Guru is a Hindu word for a spiritual leader who has the capacity to drive out maya that binds an individual. Gu means darkness or ignorance. Ru is the remover of such things. Today is the day to honor those teachers who help to drive out our ignorance, instilling the ability to see with open eyes.

Guru Purnima is a celebration of Buddhists and Hindus alike, honoring and offering puja to their teachers. This annual holiday is on the full moon of Ashadha (Nepali/Hindu month June-July)

For yogis the history of this festival lies in the birth of Adi Guru (the first guru) 15,000 years ago. Through a lifetime's persistence of those around him, he opened the doorway for all of us to undergo a conscious evolution.

For Buddhists, today marks the anniversary when Lord Buddha traveled to Sarnath and gave his first sermon after achieving enlightenment. It was on this full moon day, that he delivered the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.

To Hindus, today marks the memory of the sage, Maharshi Veda Vyasa (also known as Krishna Dvaipayana). This avatar of the God Vishnu edited and divided the Vedas, wrote the Mahābhārata and eighteen of the major Puranas. To Hindu's, this day marks his birth and the date of the dividing of the Vedas. 

Guru Purnima gives us the chance to offer puja and thanks to our teachers - both spiritual and scholarly. Those teachers drove out ignorance for us in various ways. We can also take the time to acknowledge those in our daily lives who through a multitude of actions, provide us with important lessons, as well. Some of them are not easy lessons to learn.

HH Radhanath Swami. Source: Wiki Commons

I once heard a story of my guru's guru, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. A devotee had written him letters and Swami loved to have them read to him. When the devotee returned to  Prabhupada, another person suggested the devotee read his letters out loud to Prabhupada. When the devotee did so, Prabhupada started talking over him. Again and again this happened.

I remember feeling such empathy for the devotee when I heard the story and anger welled within me for Prabhupada. With time and distance, I recognized the hard lesson. Prabhupada had become for his devotee like a father. Guru's can take on that role for many of us. It hurts us when we disappoint them. It causes our heart to burn in pain when they do not readily give the love we seek. Swami Prabhupada was driving away vanity. It was a difficult lesson!

What if only Prabhupada said "What you are doing is vain!" Would the devotee have listened? Would his mind have reasoned why it wasn't? If your parents said something like that to you, would you listen? Sometimes the tough lessons come disguised in emotional cloaks to drive us deeper into a place beyond our egos.

My life is built up of lessons. The most impactful ones were uncovered through deep, painful, emotional moments. Of course it took time to see beyond my feelings. There were also those inspirational words, but they too generally invoked great emotional response.

For the inspirational and disciplinary lessons I have received from my life's teachers, I offer my humblest gratitude.

Jai Meher Baba!
Jai Sri Yuketswar!
Jai HH Dalai Lama!
And for my guru, Jai HH Radhanath Swami!

Jai to the many teachers I have met in my life and those who teach me daily. Hari Bol!

Electric Evening with Pastor Bell

I fully expected to be standing at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia last night. It was a concert venue and General Admission tickets generally meant no seats. As a newly converted copious note taker, my plan was to sit on the floor instead of awkwardly stand with notebook and pen in hand while listening to the loved, yet controversial Pastor Rob Bell. 

When my husband and I arrived, the dark room was covered in stackable maroon chairs. The entrance way dangled colorful glowing balls of lights made of material interwoven in such a way, that my husband stared at them as we waited in line for our photo op with Pastor Bell later that evening. He was trying to figure out how the staff opened them to change a light bulb. 

On the brightly lit stage was a large triangle. I'm talking big! The length appeared only to be matched by lining up my 6'5 husband twice lying sideways.

"What's up with the triangle? I noticed he has them on his t-shirts too," my husband inquired.

"I have no idea. I guess we will see!" I replied.

About a half hour after we arrived, Real Rob Bell, as his Twitter handle indicates, took to the stage immediately providing flair you'd expect from fireworks. A tall presence, sharing my husband's light blond hair, he walked and stood purposefully on the stage. Letting his humor flip through his opening words, he loosened up the crowd. The Philadelphia audience may have been sleepy at 8:45 P.M., but not Bell. 

Pastor Bell led one of the fastest growing churches in the country until his book, Love Wins, was published. Challenging the views of mainstream American Christianity about the concepts of hell and salvation, Bell was pushed out into reaching a new audience with his sermons. 

I had no expectations. Frankly, I didn't know much about him except for a blip here and there from Oprah and author, Elizabeth Taylor. However, I found myself starting to take notes as the triangle on the stage turned into its purpose - a whiteboard. In the dark, with a small spiral notepad, I wrote for the next two hours without stopping. Whether my handwriting was legible or not, I would not know until the next day, but I could not let that stop me. 

He started with concepts like death and rebirth are happening at a cellular level every day. Plus, the concept that we are made up of star dust. There was a purpose to this story. Starting at the whiteboard, he drew a dot. And that's where it all began. Rather than jumping into a spiritual philosophical sermon, Bell spoke for almost an hour about the evolution of the world. From particles to molecules to atoms to cells to us. Building seamlessly, he bound together science into his underlying message - the next evolution of the universe is through unity. 

"Everything in the freaking universe wants to be part of something greater than itself," he said with sheer enthusiasm. 

Corny jokes and big laughs peppered his presentation along with emotional wrought stories, cutting through our defenses so he could adequately fill our mental cups with a new story, as he called it. Our universe was self-transcending. It keeps going and growing as it has for 13.8 billion years. And perhaps we are lonely, because we are being called to do something we cannot understand.

We all share the common underlying human condition of loneliness. Since the beginning of time, particles bonded together to create atoms and atoms bonded to create molecules and molecules united to form cells. To Bell, loneliness exists in all humans because we, who are made of particles, atoms, molecules and cells, are looking to bond with one another. Yet, we don't. We isolate ourselves going against the very grain of our universe.

The Big Bang created something new each time it bonded with its counterpart over the course of several billion years. Evolution after evolution happened in our universal history simply by uniting with like. 

We are like those particles, atoms, molecules and cells, seeking similar essences and energies as our own, Bell explains. The very subatomic particles in our makeup did the same thing. "We want to bond because for 13.8 billion years we have been doing this."

And from all of this bonding, comes the concept of God, or love. The former pastor danced around the word God, but not the subject. He acknowledged the stigma the word invokes for many people. In doing so, he focused on the one concept we can all appreciate - Love.

"Love is when you move beyond yourself for the well-being of another. Love is when you transcend yourself for the well-being of another."

Bell explores the thought that if we let go of hate, racism, persecution and ego, we transcend the self and bond with another. And that bond is what invites in love. It invites in God. 

"We are all deeply connected. When one suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice." 

"Is the universe done?" Bell asks. "Or are you being invited to bond with others of similar essence and substance? And if we do it well, are we creating something new?"

And to that question, Bell leaves the answer up to us. But he leaves it with a side-note. The earth itself is quite young. Humans are just got here. If you take the timeline of the existence of our planet and you use the analogy of one day, humans arrived at 11:59. How can we ask what our greater purpose is in the universe? We just got here, Bell explains.

As my husband equated, "It's like arriving at a party and instantly asking the host 'Am I having a good time? Should I have come here?' Meanwhile the host replies, 'You haven't even stepped though the doorway yet.'"

Maybe we need to go with the flow of the universe and start to bond with like energies. From there, we can relax a bit. We don't need to have all of the answers right now. 

Leaping Without Knowing

I find that as I get older, I am more tentative with change. I am not as risk taking as I was in my youth. Even when I am called to change something, the prospect of listening to that silent wave pushing me deeper into my dharma, is put on hold. My mind like a hamster wheel wants to evaluate it and let it sit for awhile. The quiet call does not cease as my mind turns. 

As I pause at this very moment, a Grey Catbird flys over towards me, perches just a few feet away on a clothing line. It looks at me with equal curiosity, appearing to ask "what are you waiting for?" 

How often do we all pause on the precipice of change because we are scared? How often does our mind want to evaluate a calling of our soul? If we only jumped in, perhaps the waves would soften. 

Perhaps it's time, no matter how  ridiculous it may appear, to make that change that's calling us. Maybe it's time to jump in without knowing what's on the other side. 

We may fall and bang up our knees, but for all we know, that may be where our next chapter begins. Taking a page from Nike, maybe we should "Just do it."