Velukkudi and my wife would come much later; years after jyeshta mahasannidhanam changed the tracks of my life and trajectory.
The life as a bachelor was getting tough with me throwing myself completely into my job as management trainee. I was perhaps the only guy in a public sector to work two shifts every day.I was even served with a show cause notice for working hard and long hours..
The theoretical knowledge that I acquired during the two Masters degree I did came to no help; having chased quantum theory and tried to prove Einstein wrong had only made my mind more analytical than making my hands practical. And the first assignment I got was to install and commission a most modern large CNC facility in Bangalore. I was the designated project manager to oversee installation, commissioning, and prove out of more than a dozen CNC machines. I couldn’t tell a hydraulic valve from an electric circuit breaker.
My total ignorance was a great fun for the machine operators and technicians. But none of their mockery and name calling deterred me from learning and acting. I clearly remembered a heated debate I had with Umesha once.
“How can you reconcile the fact the Acharya and you continue to be deep in activities while claiming that karma has no relevance to a realized jnAni? Isn’t like hunting with a dog while running with a Hare ?”. I wanted to say it sounded like hypocrisy but thought wise to use moderate language. “ I can understand the intensity of engagement with activities among Maadhwas”, I continued, “their entire saadhana model is built around Karma and Bhakti ,with jnAnan stressed being realizing that we are not Vishnu but a lowly entity in a hierarchy”.
“Yes indeed, there are no activities enjoined for any one who is self realized, self content and is conscious only of the Self. Like wise there is no purpose served by his engaging in activities nor any sin attached if activities are ignore- as long as there is no dependency on any others”, he affirmed , quoting Bhagavat Gita.
यस्त्वात्मरतिरेव स्यादात्मतृप्तश्च मानवः।
आत्मन्येव च सन्तुष्टस्तस्य कार्यं न विद्यते।।3.17।।
नैव तस्य कृतेनार्थो नाकृतेनेह कश्चन।
न चास्य सर्वभूतेषु कश्िचदर्थव्यपाश्रयः।।3.18।
“But until one achieved the brahma jnAnan and moksha state, one needs to get engaged in activities enjoined. Don’t forget King Janaka and other ancients achieved perfect jnAna by deeply engaging in activities righteously. This is the best way out for those in laukika”, he paraphrased Gita again. “ Of course, I am including the laukika activities as well, not juts Vedic Karma”, he added with his bewitching smile.
तस्मादसक्तः सततं कार्यं कर्म समाचर।
असक्तो ह्याचरन्कर्म परमाप्नोति पूरुषः।।3.19।।
कर्मणैव हि संसिद्धिमास्थिता जनकादयः।
लोकसंग्रहमेवापि संपश्यन्कर्तुमर्हसि।।3.20।।
“ See how our Acharya is so engaged in activities , in contrast to Shri Chandrashekara Bharati who was a recluse. Why do you think our Acharya is visibly engaged not only shastrik activities but also in administrative actions ? His curiosity in getting to know science and engineering has to be seen to be believed”, he continued.
“ Here again, millions of people look up to him as a guru and role model and will blindly follow whatever he does or does not. He is engaged in intense activities for the welfare of humanity”, he concluded echoing the Bhagavta Gita.
यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जनः।
स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते।।3.21।।
Recognizing that the then Sannidhanam Shri Bharati Theertharu guided me to take the Management Trainee job, I put my heart and soul into the job. Umesha would always tell us that whatever the direction Acharyas gave are to be followed with all seriousness and with deep sanctity. Actions by themselves are neither good nor bad ; the intention behind the actions , the desire we have for a specific outcome, and egoistic possessiveness of the good results make the action bad.
Krishna urges us to have the ownership of action , without the possessiveness of results.
So, with gusto I plunged into my responsibility of setting up the CNC shop, slowly learning, contributing and making a difference. Ignoring all the humiliations that were heaped on me, I continued to work , hands on, dirtying the hands with grime, grease and oil . Steadily workers began to respect and admire me. When my manager indulged in petty politicking and moved me out, the entire shop floor personnel protested to GM who brought me back to the position. I was literally given a hero’s welcome by the very same people who were once laughing at me.
This praise meant nothing to me either -just as their ridicule did not. Both were mere happenstances which truly meany nothing. If we calibrate our minds to view ridicule as unwanted while praises are welcome, our heart pains and jumps in joy respectively. If we calibrate our mind to treat both same or ignore both, we just see a set of happenings with our minds steady and calm as ever.
Umesha would demonstrate this always - his smiling face would never change, whatever the provocations were.
Months rollled and one day Umesha called a few of us and asked if were ready to be ‘guinea pigs’ in an experiment to be conducted at IIT Madras. “ Sringeri Samasthana runs a research academy on Vedanta. I have been discussing with Acharya about how we can establish the positive effect of Vedic Chanting and Meditation using ECG,EKG and Body measurements. We have contracted IIT Madras to help us do that. The experiment subjects will be seated in EMI & RFI free cages. Do you want to be a guniea pig”, he repeated his question.
“ Of course we are”, I said in all excitement.
It was all excitement as I took the train to Chennai to participate in the Meditation experiment orchestrated by Umesha. I never expected such scientific experiments from an institution whose primary goal was to foster permanent happiness to people through traditional methods. What is more, Sringeri Mutt was famous for its committed views and people murmured that it was stooped backwards in time. Umesha was of course a scientist beyond peer.
We had seen Umesha in action many times in college; his academic brilliance, his publishing all the PhD thesis work on Clusters even when he was in undergrad and his penchant for playing with Lyapunov criteria in Adaptive control systems. We had seen his Yogic skills of his Car starting only when he said so - if any one of us tried to start and he did not give his command, Car would not start at all. He had also narrated a story of how jyeshta mahasannidhanam would demonstrate his power with a visiting scientist who was demonstrating the Faraday’s laws - JMS would just look at the lab contraption and right hand cork screw rule be violated with needle swinging in opposite side!
With all these, what was he doing in IIT Madras researching on impact of Vedic chantings and meditation on human physiology and psychology ? And it was in early 1980s .
As we entered the IIT lab, we were ushered into a lab room that had an RFI cage- literally a cage made of copper mesh that was all grounded. This ensured no external radio waves would interfere with our experiment. There were quite a few people assembled. Umesha grouped every one under three categories - those who haven’t heard Vedas in their life, those who have but not meditating and a tiny group that had people who hear/do Vedic chantings and meditate every day.
We got into the cage one by one , sat on the floor of the cage and were all wired up with ECG,EKG, Skin resistance, breathing sensors. The heart rate, ECG waves, brain waves -beta, alpha, theta and delta, skin resistance measurements would be taken for all the three groups. It was a day long work that was completed with lots of enthusiasm and fun. The data collected was sent to Shankara Vedanta academy for analysis.
What was Umesha looking for to establish from all these experiments ? He had been teaching us essentials of Patanjali Yoga Sutra and how a state called Samyama helps Yogis achieve great progress and reach what is termed as unamani avastha.
त्रयमेकत्र सम्यम: तज्जायत प्रज्ञानलोकः (Patanjali Yoga Sutra)
(When concentration, meditation and absorption are one pointed it is called) Samyama which opens up light of knowledge, that leads to Vibhuti
“Unmani avasta is a state of human consciousness that helps an individual to ‘conquer’ death” , he had explained. “ Don’t get confused or elated - the death being mentioned is not of physical human body which will follow biological laws and perish one day. The conquest of death pertains to individual identity that we tend to have. We call ourselves Umesh or Paddy because we identify our trueself with this body that we got now in this janma. Lord Krishna has reminded us that all, including himself, have had so many bodies in previous births that we don’t remember. Samayama leads to unmani avastha that helps us break the identification with a particular body”.
“How do we attain the unmani avastha?”, we asked with all our eagerness. Umesha smiled and gave a long talk on what he had learnt from jeyshata Maha sannidhanam and the Acharya’s direction that he should teach us the methods.
तारे ज्योतिषि किंचित् अन्नमयेत् भ्रुवौ
पुर्वयोगं मनो युञ्जन् उन्मनी कारकः क्षणात्
Fix the gaze on the light (seen on the tip of the nose) and raise the eyebrows a little, with the mind contemplating as before (in the Śambhavî mudrâ that is, inwardly thinking of Brahma, but apparently looking outside.) This will create the Unmanî avasthâ at once.
सर्व अवस्था विनिर्मुक्तः सर्व चिन्ता विवर्जितः
मृत्तवत्तिष्ठते योगी स मुक्तो नात्र शंशयः
There is no doubt such a Yogî becomes free from all states, from all cares, and
remains like one dead
But what was this in connection with the experiments he was conducting at IIT Madras? We need to dive into structure of neurons and electro chemical activities in a neuron cell that leads to electrical signals that move from one cell to another. Our ancient Yoga texts suggest we have some 70,000 naadis or energy tracts in the body through which energy flows; this meant we should be able to track it by measuring electrical activity in human body.
More importantly, if out claim that Raja Yoga helps us ‘conquer’ death, there has to be scientific evidence to prove that claim. Modern science has developed instruments to track this electrical activity in key body parts like heart, brain, skin, breathing tracts etc.
This was precisely the hunting ground for Umesha in that experiment. As the electrical signals from body were very weak, there was a need to conduct the experiment in an enclosure that isolates external signals from interfering. It was not a big surprise that IIT Madras came into the picture with its RFI cage for conducting the experiment.
What was surprising was that the entire scientific experiment was a launched at the express direction of jyeshta mahasannidhanam Shri Abhinava Vidyatheertha Mahaswaminah. His scientific focus was well ahead of even Harvard University that stumbled on it years later.
I never imagined that day that some 30 years later, the very same experiment will open the keys for another mystery - the great Maadhwa Yati Shri Ragahavendra Theertha walking alive into his Brindavana Tomb and assuring his devotees that he would continue to help them for hundreds of years from the Brindavana.
My 30 years hunt would yield a rational, logical and scientific proof for such a claim.
The life as a bachelor was getting tough with me throwing myself completely into my job as management trainee. I was perhaps the only guy in a public sector to work two shifts every day.I was even served with a show cause notice for working hard and long hours..
The theoretical knowledge that I acquired during the two Masters degree I did came to no help; having chased quantum theory and tried to prove Einstein wrong had only made my mind more analytical than making my hands practical. And the first assignment I got was to install and commission a most modern large CNC facility in Bangalore. I was the designated project manager to oversee installation, commissioning, and prove out of more than a dozen CNC machines. I couldn’t tell a hydraulic valve from an electric circuit breaker.
My total ignorance was a great fun for the machine operators and technicians. But none of their mockery and name calling deterred me from learning and acting. I clearly remembered a heated debate I had with Umesha once.
“How can you reconcile the fact the Acharya and you continue to be deep in activities while claiming that karma has no relevance to a realized jnAni? Isn’t like hunting with a dog while running with a Hare ?”. I wanted to say it sounded like hypocrisy but thought wise to use moderate language. “ I can understand the intensity of engagement with activities among Maadhwas”, I continued, “their entire saadhana model is built around Karma and Bhakti ,with jnAnan stressed being realizing that we are not Vishnu but a lowly entity in a hierarchy”.
“Yes indeed, there are no activities enjoined for any one who is self realized, self content and is conscious only of the Self. Like wise there is no purpose served by his engaging in activities nor any sin attached if activities are ignore- as long as there is no dependency on any others”, he affirmed , quoting Bhagavat Gita. यस्त्वात्मरतिरेव स्यादात्मतृप्तश्च मानवः।
आत्मन्येव च सन्तुष्टस्तस्य कार्यं न विद्यते।।3.17।।
नैव तस्य कृतेनार्थो नाकृतेनेह कश्चन।
न चास्य सर्वभूतेषु कश्िचदर्थव्यपाश्रयः।।3.18।
“But until one achieved the brahma jnAnan and moksha state, one needs to get engaged in activities enjoined. Don’t forget King Janaka and other ancients achieved perfect jnAna by deeply engaging in activities righteously. This is the best way out for those in laukika”, he paraphrased Gita again. “ Of course, I am including the laukika activities as well, not juts Vedic Karma”, he added with his bewitching smile.
तस्मादसक्तः सततं कार्यं कर्म समाचर।
असक्तो ह्याचरन्कर्म परमाप्नोति पूरुषः।।3.19।।
कर्मणैव हि संसिद्धिमास्थिता जनकादयः।
लोकसंग्रहमेवापि संपश्यन्कर्तुमर्हसि।।3.20।।
“ See how our Acharya is so engaged in activities , in contrast to Shri Chandrashekara Bharati who was a recluse. Why do you think our Acharya is visibly engaged not only shastrik activities but also in administrative actions ? His curiosity in getting to know science and engineering has to be seen to be believed”, he continued.
“ Here again, millions of people look up to him as a guru and role model and will blindly follow whatever he does or does not. He is engaged in intense activities for the welfare of humanity”, he concluded echoing the Bhagavta Gita.
यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जनः।स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते।।3.21।।
Recognizing that the then Sannidhanam Shri Bharati Theertharu guided me to take the Management Trainee job, I put my heart and soul into the job. Umesha would always tell us that whatever the direction Acharyas gave are to be followed with all seriousness and with deep sanctity. Actions by themselves are neither good nor bad ; the intention behind the actions , the desire we have for a specific outcome, and egoistic possessiveness of the good results make the action bad.
Krishna urges us to have the ownership of action , without the possessiveness of results.
So, with gusto I plunged into my responsibility of setting up the CNC shop, slowly learning, contributing and making a difference. Ignoring all the humiliations that were heaped on me, I continued to work , hands on, dirtying the hands with grime, grease and oil . Steadily workers began to respect and admire me. When my manager indulged in petty politicking and moved me out, the entire shop floor personnel protested to GM who brought me back to the position. I was literally given a hero’s welcome by the very same people who were once laughing at me.
This praise meant nothing to me either -just as their ridicule did not. Both were mere happenstances which truly meany nothing. If we calibrate our minds to view ridicule as unwanted while praises are welcome, our heart pains and jumps in joy respectively. If we calibrate our mind to treat both same or ignore both, we just see a set of happenings with our minds steady and calm as ever.
Umesha would demonstrate this always - his smiling face would never change, whatever the provocations were.
Months rollled and one day Umesha called a few of us and asked if were ready to be ‘guinea pigs’ in an experiment to be conducted at IIT Madras. “ Sringeri Samasthana runs a research academy on Vedanta. I have been discussing with Acharya about how we can establish the positive effect of Vedic Chanting and Meditation using ECG,EKG and Body measurements. We have contracted IIT Madras to help us do that. The experiment subjects will be seated in EMI & RFI free cages. Do you want to be a guniea pig”, he repeated his question.
“ Of course we are”, I said in all excitement.
It was all excitement as I took the train to Chennai to participate in the Meditation experiment orchestrated by Umesha. I never expected such scientific experiments from an institution whose primary goal was to foster permanent happiness to people through traditional methods. What is more, Sringeri Mutt was famous for its committed views and people murmured that it was stooped backwards in time. Umesha was of course a scientist beyond peer.
We had seen Umesha in action many times in college; his academic brilliance, his publishing all the PhD thesis work on Clusters even when he was in undergrad and his penchant for playing with Lyapunov criteria in Adaptive control systems. We had seen his Yogic skills of his Car starting only when he said so - if any one of us tried to start and he did not give his command, Car would not start at all. He had also narrated a story of how jyeshta mahasannidhanam would demonstrate his power with a visiting scientist who was demonstrating the Faraday’s laws - JMS would just look at the lab contraption and right hand cork screw rule be violated with needle swinging in opposite side!
With all these, what was he doing in IIT Madras researching on impact of Vedic chantings and meditation on human physiology and psychology ? And it was in early 1980s .
As we entered the IIT lab, we were ushered into a lab room that had an RFI cage- literally a cage made of copper mesh that was all grounded. This ensured no external radio waves would interfere with our experiment. There were quite a few people assembled. Umesha grouped every one under three categories - those who haven’t heard Vedas in their life, those who have but not meditating and a tiny group that had people who hear/do Vedic chantings and meditate every day.
We got into the cage one by one , sat on the floor of the cage and were all wired up with ECG,EKG, Skin resistance, breathing sensors. The heart rate, ECG waves, brain waves -beta, alpha, theta and delta, skin resistance measurements would be taken for all the three groups. It was a day long work that was completed with lots of enthusiasm and fun. The data collected was sent to Shankara Vedanta academy for analysis.
What was Umesha looking for to establish from all these experiments ? He had been teaching us essentials of Patanjali Yoga Sutra and how a state called Samyama helps Yogis achieve great progress and reach what is termed as unamani avastha.
त्रयमेकत्र सम्यम: तज्जायत प्रज्ञानलोकः (Patanjali Yoga Sutra)
(When concentration, meditation and absorption are one pointed it is called) Samyama which opens up light of knowledge, that leads to Vibhuti
“Unmani avasta is a state of human consciousness that helps an individual to ‘conquer’ death” , he had explained. “ Don’t get confused or elated - the death being mentioned is not of physical human body which will follow biological laws and perish one day. The conquest of death pertains to individual identity that we tend to have. We call ourselves Umesh or Paddy because we identify our trueself with this body that we got now in this janma. Lord Krishna has reminded us that all, including himself, have had so many bodies in previous births that we don’t remember. Samayama leads to unmani avastha that helps us break the identification with a particular body”.“How do we attain the unmani avastha?”, we asked with all our eagerness. Umesha smiled and gave a long talk on what he had learnt from jeyshata Maha sannidhanam and the Acharya’s direction that he should teach us the methods.
तारे ज्योतिषि किंचित् अन्नमयेत् भ्रुवौ
पुर्वयोगं मनो युञ्जन् उन्मनी कारकः क्षणात्
Fix the gaze on the light (seen on the tip of the nose) and raise the eyebrows a little, with the mind contemplating as before (in the Śambhavî mudrâ that is, inwardly thinking of Brahma, but apparently looking outside.) This will create the Unmanî avasthâ at once.
सर्व अवस्था विनिर्मुक्तः सर्व चिन्ता विवर्जितः
मृत्तवत्तिष्ठते योगी स मुक्तो नात्र शंशयः
There is no doubt such a Yogî becomes free from all states, from all cares, and
remains like one dead
But what was this in connection with the experiments he was conducting at IIT Madras? We need to dive into structure of neurons and electro chemical activities in a neuron cell that leads to electrical signals that move from one cell to another. Our ancient Yoga texts suggest we have some 70,000 naadis or energy tracts in the body through which energy flows; this meant we should be able to track it by measuring electrical activity in human body. More importantly, if out claim that Raja Yoga helps us ‘conquer’ death, there has to be scientific evidence to prove that claim. Modern science has developed instruments to track this electrical activity in key body parts like heart, brain, skin, breathing tracts etc.
This was precisely the hunting ground for Umesha in that experiment. As the electrical signals from body were very weak, there was a need to conduct the experiment in an enclosure that isolates external signals from interfering. It was not a big surprise that IIT Madras came into the picture with its RFI cage for conducting the experiment.
What was surprising was that the entire scientific experiment was a launched at the express direction of jyeshta mahasannidhanam Shri Abhinava Vidyatheertha Mahaswaminah. His scientific focus was well ahead of even Harvard University that stumbled on it years later.
I never imagined that day that some 30 years later, the very same experiment will open the keys for another mystery - the great Maadhwa Yati Shri Ragahavendra Theertha walking alive into his Brindavana Tomb and assuring his devotees that he would continue to help them for hundreds of years from the Brindavana.
My 30 years hunt would yield a rational, logical and scientific proof for such a claim.
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