Bharati Theertahru’s questions were a bit intriguing but not surprising. He was recognized as the best tArkIka even at his young age. The way he built up his positions with logic, structure and syllogism was well known and every one trembled in front of him. Like a judo master, he would use opponents’ arguments against themselves. He was stickler to rigor and discipline. His love for Sanskrit was legendary. His speeches in Tamil was always cute, heavily sanskritized and delivered with a Telugu accent.
“What do I like? Lonely research, desk job or interacting with people?”, I echoed his question. I was very intrigued that as a person who dropped out of high school, left home to take refuge under jyeshta Mahasannidhanam with vairagya, he got to these points so easily. Logic is the knowledge of all knowledges. By his sheer logic expertise and structured questioning Bharati Theertha understood the nature of the professions.
None of this would diminish his great devotion to Lord Raama.His mastery of Sanskrit, chandas, vyakarana, nirukta ,nyaya, and Bhakti are in full demonstration in the simple devotional song ‘Garuda Gamana’ he wrote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVxB1xde5lg
Bharati Theertharu is like Vysasa Raja theertharu of Maadhwa parampara for our times. With Vidhushekara Bharati slowly taking over the Administrative reins of the Mutt, He will probably write Tarka Tandava , Nyayamruta and Tatparya Chandrika of his own and will be responded by Shri Satyatma Theertharu of Uttaradhi Mutt. Our next generation is perhaps destined to witness another ‘vyasa theertha- madhusudhana saraswathi’ battled of words and thoughts. “I like to interact with people “, I replied after a great deal of thought. “The choice is then pretty obvious. You go and join as management trainee in Hindusthan aeronautics’”, Bharati Theertharu quipped. That was it. The decision made and verdict given. I went back to Banagalore and updated Dr.Subbaramaiyya. He was not at all pleased.
He was one of those rare kinds of scholar jnAnis, who don’t hesitate to openly but respectfully disagree with even Acharyas. He was like Bhrigu Muni in a calmer version. He probably felt that Bharati Theertharu was overlooking he problems of worldly ways. “How can you join the management trainee program and yet maintain all the aanhika, achara etc ? You are from maadhwa sampradaya which is famous for its strict observance of Madi and Achara. You will not be able to do anything”, he sternly told.
“Acharays have not given me any restrictions in my saadhana and I am not a perfect maadhwa either" I meekly told. My late father was a great fan of EVR Naicker Periyar. Dr.Subbaramaiah was not pleased at all. He was not a great fan of us trying to follow Umesha either. Every one can’t be Umesha was his considered opinion. “ Any way Acharya has asked to do join HAL and so you go and do it. But bear in mind your difficulties in following Umesha is only growing and not reducing”.
My mother was the happiest person to hear this decision. For her, it was a win, being confident that once I get on to this job, she can slowly coerce me into abandoning Umesha, not just his ways. Little did she realize that Umesha would be with me forever and at best she can succeed is in getting me married.
So I went to Bangalore and joined Hindustan Aeronautics as Management Trainee. It was a residential program with first year at IIT Madras and next year at Management School HAL ran with IIMB. We were shipped to Madras and were allotted accommodation in Cauvery Hostel. The room mate allotted to me was Kaveri Renganathan , a pious Telugu brahmin. He was bright, calm, methodical and more importantly follower of achara anushtana. Both of us were a sight in IITM- doing sandhya vandane in the balcony overlooking sports yard and every one else ogling at us. He rose to become CEO of HAL Bangalorte and yet did not leave any of his anushtana.
But Dr.Subbaramaiyya was right . In the mess it was difficult to do the Nithya karma associated with eating. It became particularly bad when moved to Bangalore where it was all going properly dressed with shoes on into the mess and buffet system etc.
As I took my woes to Umesha, he would always say that when we are following Acharyas instructions, we should not worry. Achara Anushtana can be done anywhere the way circumstances allow. What is important is that we do. “ After all you are the’ spirit of the instruction and not of word’ man. Acharya knows this and hence let you join this job” would be his response.
I diligently followed this advice and it served me well as I travelled all over the world; as I took sales job later that meant I on travel more than 60%. Hotel rooms in Hongkong, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, Shangai, Paris, Dusseldorf, London, all over US, India and Canada have heard my Gayatri japa and Rayaru Japa. Over the last forty years I have realized that we live in our heart and heads; not at all in this physical world. What happens to this body of ours in this physical world has no relevance at all. Today we adorn this body and we don’t know what we will get next. Why should what one particular form of ours should have such a great influence on us? Let the karma play out for any body we assume and one day in this kalpa all will be over. The physical experience is very subjective, relative and hence Mithya. If we learn to dis-associate ourselves from this Mithya world , we do not get entangled. The world and experience is real, as Shrimad Anandatha Theertha says, but very subjective, relative having no serious consequence as Shankara says.
विश्वं पश्यति कार्यकारणतया स्वस्वामिसम्बन्धतः
शिष्याचार्यतया तथैव पितृपुत्राद्यात्मना भेदतः ।
स्वप्ने जाग्रति वा य एष पुरुषो मायापरिभ्रामितः
तस्मै श्रीगुरुमूर्तये नम इदं श्रीदक्षिणामूर्तये ॥८
As part of training, we were mentored by a few seniors of the program. A few of us were hauled to the aircraft final assembly hangar. “Hello, I am S.C. Ratnam”, he unassumingly said and gave an impressive talk. He inspired us in a short sixty minutes.
When we got out of the room, someone whispered “Do you know who he is? He is grandson of Mokshagundam Vishweshwaraiah”.
It was such a great feeling to have met the grandson of the legendary engineer Dr M.Vishweshwaraiah. And he was so humble and polite , not even mentioning it. When I asked him what was the single most important skill to acquire for becoming a very good Manager he gave a succinct answer. “ A good manager needs to be completely aware of the environment he is working in”, he had advised. “ If You know and respect the environment in which you operate, it respects you back and the chances of succeeding in that becomes higher”Those words got etched in my mind for ever; in fact they ricochet even today. What makes this very important is that it is universal and hence applicable in any situation in life. As I continued to learn from Umesha and Dr.Subbaramaiah, this message flashed up like a flame again and got connected with Vedic Mantrapushpam. I had heard Vedic scholars sing this in Sringeri first time during Chandra Mouleeshwara puja done by jyeshta Maha sannidhanam. While I was transported by the sounds, I learnt the meaning much later in the gurukul of Dr.Subbaramaiah and further studies.
The Taitireeya aranyaka 1.22 anuvaka implores precisely the very same message - understand the environment and become that to derive the benefits as well as influence that. Out of our ignorance and laziness, we have converted this life altering message into a meaningless ritual song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA1ZrPJC4tU
योऽपां पुष्पं वेद | पुष्पवान् प्रजावान् पशुमान् भवति। चन्द्रमा वाऽपां पुष्पम्।
पुष्पवान् प्रजावान् पशुमान् भवति य एवं वेद। योऽपामायतनं वेद आयतनवान् भवति ॥
अग्निर्वा अपामायतनम् ।आयतनवान् भवति । योऽग्नेरायतनं वेद आयतनवान् भवति ।
आपो वाऽग्नेरायतनम् । आयतनवान् भवति य एवं वेद । योऽपामायतनं वेद आयतनवान् भवति
The HAL training program took me all over India, visiting all HAL units-Bangalore, Hyderabad, Nashik, Khoraput, Kanpur, and Lucknow. Long periods of travel, stay in hostels and long working hours all interfered with anushtana. I was very impressed with Dr Subbaramayya’s ability to foresee this and caution me on this. While there was nothing I could do to keep up the timings for the anushtana, I never gave them up. However late it was to be back in my hostel, I would do them; or mentally do them while on travel. Jyeshta maha sannidhanam foresaw future, knew what kind of situations I would be facing and waived off all restrictions for me. It was not just his compassion, but definitive knowledge of what was in lay for me in my life.
“Our Shastras are very empathetic to situations”, once Umesha had told us. “They always focus on intent rather than mere actions. They provide so many different means of performing our Nithya karmas , while demanding rigor. The rigor is not so much on format of actions per se, but on adherence to principles of action and actually performing them”.
“For example let us take Saucha, purifying by Madi snana”, he continued. “ What do you do if there is no means of doing Madi snAnana in a situation? You take bath in tap water if available and you have time. What if you are in a train and it stops only for a few minutes ? Get down, go to a tap and do prokshana. If you can’t even do this, apply bhasma as snana”
And he delivered the clincher, “Or at the very least chant
ॐ अपवित्रः पवित्रो वा सर्वावस्थां गतोऽपि वा ।यः स्मरेत्पुण्डरीकाक्षं स बाह्याभ्यन्तरः शुचिः and you get pure to perform the anushtana in the mind”.
Armed with these pragmatic solutions, I continued to perform whatever little karma anushtana I was doing. So much so, all my North Indian friends would come to me and get Rakhi blessed by me to send to their Rakhi sisters. Somehow they all thought I was a good ‘Pundit’ ! This was very amusing to me as I was branded as ‘Kanaka’ in my household by family elders - not good enough or pure enough as a Maadhwa Brahmin. I embraced that epithet as badge of honor. Some orthodox maadhwas don’t respect him, as Kanaka was a Gowda chieftain; some even suspected he was agreeing with Advaita.
Having embraced Kanaka epithet gladly, I tried to follow him. I would happily visit any one’s house and eat-i even accepted invitation form our servant lady in Madurai and visited her hut and drank Goli Soda; let a SC/ST friend of mine to go to my kitchen and serve himself food; accepted room mates who were critical of brahminical style -Shetru, Nadar and atheistic Telugu brahmin. I would continue to do my japa, dhyana with bright bhasma marks even as they watch; they were nice and wouldn’t interfere. I Hated eating in restaurants and cooked my own food - simple , experimental ( rasam powder dressed cabbage playa) dishes. I took my style of Karma Anushtana to the extreme and became a Apastamaba for myself. Once I decided to perform Shivaratri puja , using a grape as Shiva Linga for abhisheka. At the day break, I had a problem at hand. What do I do with the green grape Shiva ? I didn’t have the heart to throw it along with flowers - how can I throw away namma shivappa ? How to dispose it the? I had a bright idea.
When I visited Sringeri that month, jyeshta maha sannidhanam broke into peels of laughter again. He called out “Shivana tinda Onde maaraya barthanayya ( the only guy who has eaten Shiva is coming)”.
I am also bursting in laughter with your grape Shiva experiment. But you are dedication and Bhakti are awesome 👏.
ReplyDelete