SUNDAY IS FUN DAY (Special)
A friend needed some help in Sri Lanka. So I went. While there I bought myself a snappy little black-handled knife. It was terrific for peeling fruits and veggies. I brought it home to Puttaparthi India without having it snatched up by Customs. It’s a gem of a kitchen tool I bragged to myself and what a shopper I am…. I paid only 45 Indian rupees for it.
I was home just a month and still pleased with my island purchase. Suddenly the thundering drums outside my veranda spoke to me. Oh! It was the last day of Ganapati Festival in our neighborhood and it was time to celebrate. I raced out of the house barefoot and followed the rhythmic, mesmerizing drums to the huge Ganesha idol, an elephant-headed boy—son of Shiva—who in this case had several arms and was in the pose of a dancer.
According to Puttaparthi Sathya Sai Baba, the Ganapati idol represents our own divine intelligence which removes the obstacles in our path, those blockages that prevent us from reaching our God Selves.
But today as I jogged across the road and sped to the spot where the idol stood, my thoughts were firmly on the ground. Native drums are primal. The loud and fast booming appealed to the wild she wolf within. As I danced, hiding behind the crowd, lest I be judged a weirdo, my entire being felt acrobatic. In my mind, I cart wheeled on the green grass of hills; and I floated like a thoroughbred horse over hurdles on the track to the winners’ circle. An amazing joy flooded my being. I pictured a peaceful world; I imagined that the accelerating beats of the drum, the fast stepping and leaping of the dancing boys, the tossing of colors like powdered rainbows was a boon from the heavens.
Indeed it was! After years in the spiritual trenches of our remote ashram town I was definitely in an ecstatic state, the longed-for Sat Chit Ananda!
The Guru teaches us to let go of desires, to treat everyone and everything as passing clouds, to divest ourselves of tinsel and trash, to seek the permanent reality, to move purposefully toward Liberation itself.
Ah, such is the magic of Ganapati Festival! I had stripped off all my attachments like ragged clothes.
On the way home, I notice my sparkling yellow sari is now splashed with magenta dust; but I can’t stop smiling. I am certain my feet are no longer touching the ground. How can I be so lucky, I muse, so blessed? The cat curled up on the porch chair doesn’t respond.
At least an hour goes by in this elevated condition. Then human hunger strikes. It’s 8:03 p.m. I look at the clock like a time traveler just returned from a journey to the moon. I decide to have an apple. I use the sweet little back knife. I peel the skin off carefully so as not to waste. I slice each piece attentively then place it on my tongue like a Holy Communion wafer. What a day, I sigh. Soon sleep comes, kisses me on the cheek, and I succumb.
In the morning I am thrilled to be alive, so content to be in my lingering state of euphoria. Health, wealth, reputation, these are not in my thoughts. I am far above the mundane. I am contemplating the Sat Guru’s words, his teaching that before Enlightenment we must pass through the fire of “The Three Zeros”.
Seekers will undergo the loss of health, the loss of wealth, and the loss of reputation. However, after the examination we are transformed. We are even stronger in our faith. I certainly had lost those three things and I suffered greatly; yet I remained full of hope and gratitude. For me, the hardest thing to lose was my reputation. I clung to it like a crutch. But then I let go and let God take care of my enemies.
I roll out of bed eager for my coffee. Slowly, I begin to realize I’m limping. My back is aching and feels like it was kicked by an elephant. Was it you, Ganesha? My muscles are stiff and my feet are shuffling over the tiles. In the kitchen I remember the high-jump athlete I was just yesterday, offering Arathi to the many-limbed idol.
I put on the water and wait for it to boil. I hobble to the counter to get the little black handled knife, my 45 rupee bargain, just right for sliding into the jam jar, just right for cutting the butter, perfect for slicing toast in half. It’s not where it’s supposed to be—in the knife holder. It’s not in the utensil drawer. I search the sink, the cupboards, and the refrigerator. I definitely search the trash. I repeat the whole process again. Hum, I come up with nothing. There are spiritual messages in every action the disciple takes.
How could the knife disappear? Sweet, little black-handled knives do not walk out of the house on their own. My heart races. It had to be me who lost it, after all, I live alone. Or do I?
Aha! I look at my Guru’s picture above the vessels and shout for him to help me find the precious knife. Yes. Now it has become a prized possession, a coveted tool, a nasty, rapidly growing ATTACHMENT. This is not nice, but it’s true, over a lost knife I am now berating my very own image of God. Guruji’s eyes just glare back at me.
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| Drummers of Ganesh Festival. Photo by Terry Reis Kennedy |
Then I turn my anger onto myself. I scold my body for feeling so lame. I scold my mind for following my Ego. Yesterday I was “liberated,” but less than 24 hours later I am The Fool, stuck like glue to a cheap, shiny knife.
Days have passed. I’m quieter. I’m not quite eating humble pie, but the pride’s been squeezed out of me. I’m powerless, propped up in my bed with a hot water bottle between my stiff, aching back and the soft, accommodating pillows. The drummers have gone back to their cities and villages; all of Puttaparthi’s Ganeshas have been submerged in the waters. And the knife, hiding somewhere in the house like a lizard, is most probably howling with laughter.
Meanwhile, Ganapati, son of The Destroyer of Desires, has taught me an important lesson. There is a fourth zero. In order to merge with Supreme Consciousness, it is necessary to chop away attachments that still cling.
very good writing
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