
The new year began with a certain stillness. The year just gone by, 2024, had been eventful, even turbulent. There was no guarantee that 2025 would be any different, let alone better, for myself or the world. But whatever happened outside, I knew I had to retain my inner poise and calm. And that would only come from purity of intentions and cleansing the inner being. Through tapas, askesis.
A new year’s resolution materialised: accept, not expect.
Then, on January 2, I met Sri Nandkishore Tiwari, better known as Guruji, who said almost the same thing to me: “Don’t expect anything from anyone.”
He had sent his book, Sahaj Smriti Yog, in original Hindi to me, asking me to write a preface or foreword. Unqualified to do so, I offered instead to write a shorter comment that might serve as a blurb or endorsement. I wrote it in Hindi, so let me translate, rather paraphrase, in English. “In this concise and concentrated booklet, Nandkishore Guruji explains and expounds ‘Sahaja Smriti Yoga.’ In short, it is realising one's true nature through a transformative relationship with the guru. Through this process, a spectator becomes a seer.
The unique feature of Sahaja Smriti Yoga is it eschews artificial, complex and cerebral methods of self-realisation. It emphasises direct experience through prajna or intuitive understanding. We may also call it the reorientation of our mentality towards wisdom.
The foundation of Sahaja Smriti Yoga, like many other paths in Sanatana Dharma, is a simple, ethical life, including waking up early, daily meditation, physical labour, and being true in thought, word and deed. One’s progress is nurtured in loving contact with the guru. Once the guru within us—that is, the divine discernment, vision and self-realisation, is awakened—we can become the natural medium of transformation of others.”
Rereading Guruji’s book brought to my mind an interesting comparison—given how deeply embedded Hindutva is in our political and cultural discourse today—with V D ‘Veer’ Savarkar’s definition of who or what is a Hindu. In Essentials of Hindutva, after claiming at the outset that “Hindutva is not a word but a history”, Savarkar asserts, “Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.”
Savarkar’s entire exposition is dynamic, fluid and exploratory, rather than fixed or rigid as it is made out by critics and admirers alike. Initially, a large portion of the text is devoted just to the semantics and politics of naming, starting with an investigation into the meaning of ‘Hindu’.
Savarkar then insists on racial and cultural commonality, invoking a common history, culture and civilisation; rituals, practices and festivals; heroes, deities and gods. As also common enemies: “Nothing makes self conscious of itself so much as a conflict with non-self.” Those who fought against the repeated waves of invaders are Hindus: “Sanatanists, Satnamis, Sikhs, Aryas, Anaryas, Marathas and Madrasis, Brahmins and Panchamas—all suffered as Hindus and triumphed as Hindus.”
It is only afterwards that Savarkar hones in on the nation or rashtra, the ideal that molds the many into one, the enormous diversity “individualised into a single being”. Finally, towards the end, we have his famous thesis: “These are the essentials of Hindutva—a common nation (rashtra), a common race (jati) and a common civilisation (sanskriti).”
The entire idea is captured aphoristically in his own inimitable Sanskrit summation: “Aa Sindu Sindhu paryanta, Yasya Bharatbhumika Pitribhuh Punyabhushchaiva sa vai Hinduriti smritah.” (From the Indus to the Indian ocean, those who regard Bharat as their fatherland and sacred land are known as Hindus.)
Political, cultural, social, even psychological—yes. But where is the spiritual element in Savarkar’s approach to the essentials of Hindutva? Can one worship an idea or is the vital contact with a living guru mandatory? Jump to Nandkishor Guruji for whom the defining, if not only, trait of Sanatana Dharma is the guru-sishya parampara or transmission of self-knowledge from a living guru to a living disciple.
According to him, “Since ancient times, only the guru-disciple relationship has been the carrier of transcendental discernment.” This relationship, purely voluntary, arises not so much from choice as recognition. The guru, thus, becomes the missing link between shruti (revelation) and smriti (memory), turning the past into the present and the present into eternity.
The alchemy of transformation can neither be fully captured in words nor grasped in its entirety by the intellect. It must be experienced. For one’s true nature to manifest itself, one must give up the false identifications that are congealed in the illusory entity we call the ego. And the ego does not dissolve without encountering a living master.
These were wonderful words to hear and beautiful moments to cherish so early in the year in Bengaluru. Guruji arrived before time. I was taken by surprise that he drove himself. We had lunch and some talk. Again, we met at his modest residence, very far from my own place. Bengaluru being a city not only of distances but of the most congested roads in India took its toll. I arrived late, after being driven for over two hours.
I apologised. But what is time in the ever and omnipresent flow of pure consciousness? “This time is yours; you can spend it as you like.” This made me all the more conscious not only of lost moments or minutes but of years, decades, even lives. We continue in our selfsame foolish ways until we give it all up. But that is as difficult as crossing the ocean of samsara.
To get there, we must be the best, the most perfect version of ourselves. How is that possible when we see ourselves, like we do others, as terribly flawed, distressed, even doomed? It is the guru who shows that to us. He makes us believe we can indeed be our best selves. For what else are we but that?
Can we be equal to the task? Yes, because, as Guruji says, it is “Bharat that embodies the unbroken guru-disciple relationship since time immemorial”.
(Views are personal)
(Tweets @MakrandParanspe)
Makarand R Paranjape | Author and commentator