Guru Poornima is on July 13 and I remember the Mahaswami of Kanchi, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (1894-1994). He did a lot to revive Hinduism with many an initiative like the conservation and repair of old temples, his ecumenical approach to differing sects, and bringing lost prayers to the public, be it the Vinayaka Agaval or the Thiruppugazh. What is perhaps forgotten in today’s contentious times is that he was a pluralist or rather, a universalist. In the 1960s, he is said to have single-handedly saved the mosque next to his ashram in Kanchipuram from demolition by the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. He apparently remonstrated, “Why? We worship the same God,” and the Chief Minister reportedly dropped his plans, abashed.
The Kanchi Mahaswami is further said to be the person who gave MG Ramachandran the socially transformative idea of the mid-day meal for poor school children, saying that it was hard to imbibe knowledge on an empty stomach. With such personalities in our history who aimed to uplift the public, we don’t lack inspiring examples in the Guru department although it’s the charlatans who repeatedly steal the headlines. The Kanchi Mahaswami’s universalistic view of the world can be attributed directly to the Upanishads, that ‘God is One’.
I discovered to my great amazement that many gurus, even the reformers and iconoclasts, talked about the one-ness and universality of God in exactly the same words as the Upanishads. This knowledge is unaccountably kept from us although it stares us in the face. The Upanishadic view is that God is ‘like oil in the sesame seed, ghee in milk, scent in flowers and fire in firesticks’. Guru Nanak said, ‘Puhapmadh jiu baas basat hai, mukarmah jaisi chhayi, Taise hi hai Hari nirantar, ghat hi khojabhai’. ‘Like scent in a flower and your reflection in the mirror, so is God inside you, look within, brother.’ Interestingly, the late KPS Gill who put down terrorism in Punjab in the nineties, once sat me down at a party and delivered a discourse on Guru Nanak and the Upanishads. Perhaps we were not told these things at school as a matter of course because we were expected to learn by osmosis?
Take Kabirdas who is widely celebrated for his ‘Nirgun’ or abstract verses. That Nirgun is none but the ‘Self’ described in the Upanishads. Says Kabir, ‘Jaise til mein tel hain, jyun chakmak mein aag, Tera Swami tujh mein hai, tu jag sakey toh jaag’. ‘Like oil in sesame seeds and fire in fire sticks, your God is within you, awaken if you can.’ This view is also heard in Namasankirtanam concerts in the famous Kabir bhajan, ‘Andar Rama ho, bahar Rama’, meaning Rama, the euphemism here for ‘God’, is within and without everywhere. You find a similar universality of spirit in the Tamil devotional song by the late Nagore Hanifa, ‘Iraivanidam kai yendhungal’, ‘Lift your hands to the Lord’.
Essentially, the Bhakti tradition, though replete with ‘Sagun’ or the personalised view of God, is nevertheless built on the premise of God’s oneness and universality.
A story I like to retell is about Tulsidas. The 16th-century author of the Ramcharitmanas wrote his ‘people’s Ramayana’ in Awadhi, the everyday dialect of his region, to simplify matters for the common man. The history of religion changed forever in North India with the Ramcharitmanas though not perhaps quite as Tulsi envisaged.
Tulsi, as noted by Ramayana scholars, observed that the public was prone to be easily impressed and misled by all kinds of fantastical ascetics and their doctrines.
He disapproved of yogis who grew long nails, bound their hair in extravagant coils, wore strange ornaments and dressed bizarrely for the fairground. He is noted as saying in Vinaya Patrika, a work in Brajbhasha, ‘Bahumat muni bahupanth puranani, jahan-tahan jhagaro so’. ‘The seers profess many opinions; there are many old stories about many paths to salvation, and quarrels all over the place’.
He submitted that real religion was much less complicated, that it was a direct connection between a soul and universal God, whom he was personally taught by his guru to address as Rama.
Therefore, Tulsi’s spiritual advisory for people living out their lives in this Kaliyuga was brief and straightforward: ‘Kalyug jog na jagya na gnana, Ekaadhar Ram gun gaana’. ‘In Kaliyuga, neither austerity, nor sacrifice nor deep knowledge is required, singing in praise of Rama is the only path to salvation’.
Regarding Kaliyuga, what most of us want is an easy death and a stress-free life, ‘Anayasena maranam, vinadainyena jivanam’. To pass the time between birth and death in religious agitation seems a great pity when we have better examples to follow. May this Guru Poornima point us to the peace essential to a happy life.
Renuka Narayanan
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(shebaba09@gmail.com)