Posts Tagged ‘satsang’

In Silence Sweet
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
“Love said to me,
 there is nothing that is not me.

Be silent.”
~ Rumi
“When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” …… “Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.
If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity,
then and there is silence.
She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will
we may always hearken to her admonitions.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to heaven.
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.”..
“Let silence take you to the core of life.”
~ Rumi




In Silence Sweet

In silence sweet
we may retreat
from every care and woe,
and there we’ll learn in perfect peace
all we need to know.

In silence sweet
we shall meet
the thrill of ecstasy.
and thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we’ve nothing more to be.

In silence sweet
we shall find
all we’ve ever sought.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
that all our wants were naught.

In silence sweet
we shall see
that everything is light.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
there’s naught to fear but fright.

In silence sweet
we shall greet
our own true Self and Soul.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we are the timeless Whole.

In silence sweet
we shall enjoy
Eternity’s repose.
For perfect peace we e’er shall be,
Peace no mortal knows.



Ron’s audio recitation of “In Silence Sweet”

Listen to


Ron’s dedication and explanation of “In Silence Sweet”

Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusundandas


Dear Friends,

The foregoing poem “ In Silence Sweet” is dedicated to my beloved Guruji, Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusundandas, whose blessings inspired and permitted its composition.

In recent “Why Be Here Now?” memoirs I proposed that the essence of all spiritual teachings is to exist in thoughtless presence (as Universal Awareness or Cosmic Consciousness) rather than in the past or future, as an ego-mind story of a supposedly limited and separate mortal being. And I recounted how by faithfully following (for many years) my beloved Guruji’s emphatic instructions to “meditate regularly” I’m learning about living with a stilled mind.

Today to clarify those memoirs I’ll try to explain why much more important than Guruji’s spoken words to ‘meditate regularly’ was his immense and intense spiritual Presence, demonstrating his realization of Truth; his silent cosmic energy emanations from an infinitely enormous life-force energy field, which Hindus call Kundalini “Shakti” .

“Kundalini is the cosmic power in individual bodies.
It is not a material force like electricity, magnetism, centripetal or centrifugal force.
It is a spiritual potential, Shakti, or cosmic power.
In reality it has no form.”
~ Sri Swami Sivananda


Experiencing Guruji’s Shakti.

After my midlife spiritual awakening experience I became claresentient, and e.g. began seeing and sensing human auras. (See https://sillysutras.com/kundalini-kriyas-a-potpourri-of-peek-experiences-rons-memoirs/) So on meeting Guruji two years later, I was immediately impressed with his extraordinarily powerful emanations of “shakti”, and his extremely luminous silvery subtle aura unlike any other I’d ever before perceived.

Gradually thereafter I learned that Guruji’s energy field was independent of his physical vitality, and even his physical presence. Moreover, I learned that Guruji not only emanated intense shakti but that he was one of those rare yogis who could intentionally transfer it to others not only by touch, gaze, or mantra sound, but also by thought.  Thus on occasion I experienced Guruji’s shakti even when not in his physical proximity. And I have experienced intense shakti emanating from Guruji’s body even when it was very weak.

My most amazing and memorable experience of Guruji’s immense energy Presence happened two years after Guruji had left my San Francisco apartment in 1980, and returned (physically debilitated) to India.

In January/February, 1982, for the first time in this lifetime I had journeyed to India on a guided spiritual pilgrimage tour with Sant Keshadavadas, a devotional Indian spiritual teacher then known as a ‘singing saint’. That guided tour was, and remains for me, the most important trip of this lifetime. (See https://sillysutras.com/synchronicity-story-miraculously-manifesting-memories-of-a-spiritual-pilgrimage-to-india-and-nepal/ )

Throughout the pilgrimage tour I was constantly seeking to advance my spiritual sadhana , as a quest for “enlightenment”. By the time the tour ended in New Delhi, I was quite weary from following the intense travel schedule. But I was determined and anxious to remain in India to pay my respects to my beloved Guruji, and to receive his guidance and blessings for my sadhana.

Guruji’s body was then approximately 104 years old and physically very weak. So he was living reclusively with Indian devotees, who cared for him as he recuperated. Because of his debility Guruji’s whereabouts were kept confidential, and known to only by a few trusted devotees. Only after ‘miraculously’ overcoming an amazing series of extraordinary obstacles was I finally able to locate and visit Guruji in a small Gujarati town, Godhra.

There my aspirations for his guidance and blessings were fulfilled in an amazing silent satsang where Guruji spoke only two unforgettable words: “Meditate regularly.”

(For details see https://sillysutras.com/a-long-but-short-guruji-satsang-story-rons-memoirs/; satsang is a sanskrit word meaning being with a sat guru or being with “highest Truth” – https://endless-satsang.com/nondual-advaita-satsang.htm)

On arrival at the house where Guruji was staying, I was pleasantly greeted and told that Guruji was then in the garden, but that he would soon come in to greet me. I was brought into a lovely altar room with fresh cut flowers and a prominent throne-like seat for Guruji. As I waited there, my ‘monkey mind’ became quite active.

Despite many wondrous spiritual experiences during the pilgrimage tour, I was busily dialoguing with “the voice in my head” about my possible questions for Guruji. So when Guruji entered the altar room to sit enthroned in front of me, I was feeling far from mentally peaceful, as I sat there waiting for him to entertain my anticipated questions.

He appeared much weaker than when I first met him four years earlier. But he was emanating indescribably intense ‘shakti’ life-force energy, which seemed as powerful as ever. His energy field was so extraordinarily immense that it soon enveloped mine, and transformed my previously agitated state of mind. So, as I sat there gazing at Guruji, I began harmoniously resonating with his supernal ‘shakti’ life-force, and thereby feeling unusual peace of mind.


Thus my questions for Guruji gradually seemed to melt into silent infinite awareness. But they didn’t all dissolve. So after sitting there in silence for a while, I asked Guruji a preliminary question. But he remained silent, and kept intently gazing at me without answering the question.

Whereupon, supposing that he might not have understood me, I asked Guruji another question. But he still remained silent. Finally, as my appointment time was about to expire, I desperately exclaimed:



“Guruji, I’ve come halfway around the world to see you.
Please tell me what I should do for my sadhana.”




After a pregnant pause, Guruji at long last replied:





“Meditate regularly!”






We had no further dialogue. And soon I was politely informed by Guruji’s host that it was time to leave.

Afterwards.

As you might imagine, the unforgettable memory of Guruji’s profoundly silent ‘satsang’ has remained indelibly imprinted in my heart and on my ‘mental software’. His words “Meditate regularly!” were not merely spiritual instructions, but a timeless heartfelt blessing or sankalpa that my deepest aspirations for Truth might be fulfilled through regular meditation!

Moreover, beyond words but only with deep mental silence, Guruji eloquently demonstrated that the eternal LOVE we all seek is within each of us; and he ineffably validated Rumi’s profound observation that

“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi


Since 1982, by faithfully following my beloved Guruji’s emphatic instructions and blessing for me to “meditate regularly”, I’ve been learning about living with a stilled mind.

Perhaps fifteen years after that unforgettable satsang, my ‘monkey mind’ seemed to cease its ceaseless chatter, permitting me the option of using it or not, and of choosing to enjoy moments of choiceless awareness. Instead of constantly swinging backwards and forwards, like a pendulum, between the past and the future, it seemed to rest in a sort of ‘default position’ when not activated by conscious thoughts.

Whereupon I’ve enjoyed precious moments of Being with a stilled mind which have transformed my experience and deep understanding of incarnate human life, in previously unimagined ways.

In 1996 (after Guruji’s 1994 mahasamadhi and during my extended post-retirement period of reclusiveness), I was inspired to compose the above poem “In Silence Sweet”, which only hints at Guruji’s profound blessing bestowed in that unforgettable silent ‘satsang’.

In grateful dedication to Guruji, I have republished the poem today with the foregoing authoritative explanatory quotations.

May everyone everywhere enjoy the blessings of Silence Sweet and of those quotations.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


A Long But Short Guruji Satsang Story
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
“We search for Him here and there,
while looking right at Him

Sitting by his side, we ask:

Oh Beloved, where is the Beloved?

Enough with such questions

Let silence take you to the core of life

All your talk is worthless
when compared with one whisper of the beloved”

~ Rumi
Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas

Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas


As explained in other memoirs chapters, during a traumatic 1976 divorce I experienced a transformative mid-life spiritual awakening.  Two years later, I met a one hundred year old Hindu guru, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and evolved from being a secular Hebrew, to becoming a “born-again Hindu”. And thereupon I developed an ever increasing interest and curiosity about Indian spirituality and culture. After a few years, the “universe” presented me with an ideal opportunity to satisfy that curiosity.

In 1981, soon after my beloved Guruji, Dhyanyogi, had returned to India, I met Sant Keshadavadas, a devotional Indian spiritual teacher known as a singing saint. Thereafter, on learning that Sant Keshadavadas would be conducting a spiritual tour of Indian holy places, I wanted to join that tour, if it was okey with Guruji.

Guruji had always told us that it was not necessary to see other spiritual teachers, but permissible. So I succeeded in getting his approval for me to tour with Sant Keshadavadas.

Thereupon, in January and February 1982, I journeyed with Sant Keshadavadas on a wonderful spiritual pilgrimage to Japan and India. That guided tour was, and remains for me, the most important trip of my lifetime. Never before had I been in a land with such a palpably spiritual ambiance as I experienced everywhere in India.

Our tour group crossed the length and breadth of that vast country (mostly by airplane and local buses) visiting many spiritual shrines and meeting saintly beings, like Mother Teresa, Anandamayi Ma and Satya Sai Baba. And I had numerous wondrous experiences. (In other chapters I will recount some of those experiences.)

Throughout the tour I was constantly seeking to learn how I could best advance my quest for “enlightenment” – my spiritual “sadhana”. By the time that the guided tour ended in New Delhi, I was quite weary from following the intense tour schedule. But I was determined to remain in India to pay my respects to my beloved Guruji, and to receive his guidance and blessing for my “sadhana”.

With unexpected difficulty, I finally succeeded in having only one brief satsangwith Guruji. This proved much more complicated – and much more memorable – than I could have previously imagined. (Satsang is a sanskrit word meaning being with a Sat Guru or being with “highest Truth” – https://endless-satsang.com/nondual-advaita-satsang.htm)


Here is the story of what happened.

After four years of tireless efforts in the US, Guruji had become extremely debilitated and was obliged to return to India in 1980 to recuperate. After his arrival in India, his whereabouts were sometimes kept confidential so he could rest and recover without constant interruption.

Before I departed for India in January 1982, I was told that after my guided tour ended I would be able to learn Guruji’s whereabouts by calling Shri Anandi Ma’s father, Pundit Pravin Jani. And I was given his Bombay phone number.

Over a month later, just before our guided tour ended in New Delhi, I began trying to phone Pravin Jani – who was in Bombay – from my New Delhi hotel. In those days India had not yet joined the digital communication age, and surprisingly I could never get a long-distance telephone connection from Delhi to Bombay.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts, I decided to make a brief trip to Katmandu, Nepal to see Buddhist and Hindu holy places there. But, I remained determined to see Guruji. So on return to Delhi from Nepal, I again repeatedly tried calling Bombay to learn his whereabouts.

But I was still never able to get a long-distance telephone line from New Delhi to Bombay. So I had to book a flight across all of India from Delhi to Bombay, so that I could then make a local Bombay phone call to Pravin Jani. Only by so flying to Bombay was I finally able to reach him by telephone.

Whereupon he readily told me that Guruji was then staying in Godhra a small town not far from Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujurat state. Paradoxically, my flight from Delhi to Bombay had overflown Ahmedabad long before it reached Bombay. If I had known Guruji’s whereabouts while in Delhi I would have flown directly to Ahmedabad. But that hadn’t happened.

So, it was now necessary for me to book a flight from Bombay to Ahmedabad, and to arrange ground transportation from there to Godhra.

But I then learned that the only flights to Ahmedabad had been cancelled, and that I could only get to Godhra by train. So, I needed to take an eight hour trainride from Bombay to Godhra, and learned of a departure later that day.

Thereupon, I promptly took a taxi to the Bombay central railroad station where I arrived less than an hour before the train was scheduled to leave. At the station ticket booth, I was told that no first class train compartment was available; that only non air-conditioned second class space was available for the long trip. With no other choice, I attempted to purchase a second class ticket using my American Express dollar travelers checks or credit card, which until then had been accepted everywhere I traveled in India. But they were both rejected by the train station cashier, who told me that they only accepted rupees, which I could get at a nearby American Express office in downtown Bombay.

Hurriedly, I left the train station and on the sidewalk asked the first knowledgable looking person I encountered if he could direct me to the nearby American Express office. Instead of telling me he couldn’t help me, he pleasantly and unequivocally told me where to go. I quickly followed his directions, which turned out to be completely wrong.

Frantically, I finally got proper directions which I speedily followed. Arriving at the American Express office soon after it had opened, I obtained necessary rupees from a very lackadaisical clerk and rushed back to the central station, arriving just as my train was scheduled to depart.

At the last minute I purchased a ticket and boarded the train just before its departure. Up to then my body – already quite weary from over a month of intense travel and last minute stress in getting directions to Guruji – had been running on extra adrenaline. But on boarding the train I soon realized that I needed to rest. However, that proved difficult.

The seating was not very comfortable, my compartment companions were not quiet, the sultry temperatures required that we keep windows open to outside disturbances, including noises from many interim station stops. So my first long journey on an Indian train proved very interesting, but not restful.

On disembarking at Godhra that evening I was quite travel weary but excited at the prospect of seeing Guruji again for the first time since he left my San Francisco apartment in 1980. I called the Godhra phone number given me by Pravin Jani and was courteously welcomed by one of Guruji’s hosts, a woman lawyer. I learned that Guruji was convalescing at the home of her father, a retired judge, and that I could see him for a short while at an appointed time the next morning.

That night I stayed at a Godhra guest house in a very warm room with a mosquito netted bed. Because of heat and bugs, I did not sleep soundly. But nonetheless I awakened with great excitement about my imminent satsang* with Guruji.

A few hours later I arrived at the judge’s house where Guruji was staying. There I was pleasantly greeted and told that Guruji was then in the garden, but that he would soon come in to greet me. I was brought into a lovely room with an altar and fresh cut flowers and an empty prominent throne-like seat for Guruji.

As I waited there, my ‘monkey mind’ became quite active. Despite all of my wondrous experiences during the pilgrimage tour, I was busily dialoguing with “the voice in my head” about questions for Guruji. So when Guruji came into the altar room and sat down in front of me, I was feeling far from peaceful. But I sat there quietly gazing at him, waiting for him to entertain my questions.

Though Guruji looked physically healthier than when he had been carried out of my apartment to return to India, he still looked quite fragile and much weaker than when I first met him four years earlier. But he was emanating indescribably intense ‘shakti’ life-force energy, which seemed as strong as ever. His aura was so extraordinarily powerful that it soon transformed my previously agitated state of mind. As I sat there I began harmoniously resonating with Guruji’s supernal ‘shakti’ life-force and felt more and more peace of mind.

And so “the voice in my head” stopped ‘talking’ and my previous questions for Guruji gradually seemed to melt into silent infinite awareness. But they didn’t all dissolve. So after sitting there in silence for a while, I asked Guruji a preliminary question. But he kept gazing at me without answering the question, and remained silent. Whereupon, supposing that he might not have understood me, I asked Guruji another question. But he still remained silent.

Finally, in desperation I exclaimed:

“Guruji, I’ve come halfway around the world to see you.
Please tell me what I should do for my sadhana.”


After a pregnant pause, Guruji at long last replied:

“Meditate regularly!”


We had no further dialogue. And soon I was politely informed by Guruji’s host that it was time to leave.




Epilogue

As you might imagine, the unforgettable memory of Guruji’s profoundly silent ‘satsang’ has remained indelibly imprinted in my heart and on my ‘mental software’. His words “Meditate regularly!” were not merely spiritual instructions, but a timeless heartfelt blessing or sankalpa that my deepest aspirations for Truth might be fulfilled through regular meditation!

Moreover, beyond words but only with deep mental silence, Guruji eloquently demonstrated that the eternal LOVE we all seek is within each of us; and he ineffably validated Rumi’s profound observation that


“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi

Since 1982 by faithfully following my beloved Guruji’s emphatic instructions and blessing for me to “meditate regularly” I’ve been learning about living with a stilled mind.

In 1996 (after Guruji’s 1994 mahasamadhi and during an extended post-retirement period of reclusion), I was inspired to compose this poem “In Silence Sweet”, which only hints at Guruji’s profound blessing bestowed in that unforgettable silent ‘satsang’.

In Silence Sweet

In silence sweet
we may retreat
from every care and woe,
and there we’ll learn in perfect peace
all we need to know.

In silence sweet
we shall meet
the thrill of ecstasy.
and thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we’ve nothing more to be.

In silence sweet
we shall find
all we’ve ever sought.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
that all our wants were naught.

In silence sweet
we shall see
that everything is light.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
there’s naught to fear but fright.

In silence sweet
we shall greet
our own true Self and Soul.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we are the timeless Whole.

In silence sweet
we shall enjoy
Eternity’s repose.

For perfect peace we e’er shall be,
Peace no mortal knows.