SHYAMDAS 1953-2013 IN MEMORIAM

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Jai Jai gave me a room in his ancestral temple home in front of the Govardhan Hill. His grace-filled patrimony, with its lovely paths through the groves of Vrindavan, became the avenues I loved to stroll. And for me, he became the living manifestation of the Path of Grace. Although timeless, the Path of Grace was manifested by úrà Maháprabhu Vallabhácárya (1479-1531), Jai Jai’s forefather, fourteen generations ago. úrà Vallabhácárya taught that this creation is comprised of Blissful God, and nothing but God. Such a pure view inspires us to discover Käüóa’s joy not only in ourselves, but in the world as well. We should experience úrà Käüóa everywhere and with every feeling. For grace-filled souls, the world is not unreal or something to be overcome, but rather a divine realm in which the experience of God and of His manifold creation can be experienced as a làlá, or divine play. I was encouraged by Jai Jai to live happily in this world and to offer everything to the Lord of Sweetness. “úrà Käüóa,” he told me, “pays close attention to those who adore Him and returns every favor a hundredfold. To know and love Him is devotion. To experience His rapture is Grace. So employ the powers of your heart and mind in His pleasure, use your body and every resource in a brilliant and sensitive manner, so you can ultimately become possessed by Divinity. In that blessed state, what need is there of even liberation?” I discovered the path of Satsaïg, or association with the saints. For if we truly live in the light of good fellowship, the loving mood of devotion will be “downloaded” through emulation. First is the recognition of devotion in someone else. Then, if we humbly bow to the bhakta’s realization, we may be allowed in. But for all this to occur, there must be Siddhánt, which is the 34 Special Issue • Shyamdas ~ In Memoriam teaching that brings us to perfection. Siddhánt is true philosophy. It is “siddha,” perfection, at the “anta,” or end, and is strictly for soulful attainment. I found úrà Vallabhácárya’s nondual Path of Grace full of devotional inspiration, and began to study his teachings and poetry, first in Hindi and later, as my knowledge grew, in Sanskrit. Satsaïg became my main practice, and I spent the next thirty years developing a taste for the gracefilled view. I learned that sublime matters become part of daily life when they are contemplated daily. Whenever Jai Jai traveled outside of the Braja area, I would stay in the village of Jatipura and attend a daily Satsaïg with two senior practitioners, Jetabhai and Gopilal. Gopilal was a Yogi Sanskrit man who not only taught, but wrote Sanskrit. He had lived all over the Braja area and had gathered in his blessed being profound Käüóa experience. Jetabhai was a Käüóa bhakta and the only man in town who spoke English. Every evening I would sit between the two of them and listen to their Hindi Satsaïgs. This association nurtured me and protected my mindheart. For the seed of devotion begins as a subtle notion and matures into a wishing tree that provides the blessed one with the priceless fruit of bhakti. In this blessed state, the Beloved appears first in the heart and then everywhere. When i was in high school, learning another language proved so difficult for me that I obtained special permission to forgo taking a second language. In Jatipura, however, just by sitting between these two practitioners, I began to understand them within a few short months. As I listened, my spiritual interests increased and I would literally run to meet them every day. In spiritual life, a clear understanding of why a practice is undertaken, as well as an intense desire to come face-to-face with Hari, is needed. Yet it is always easier to listen to the teachings of those who have already advanced than it is to try to formulate something on our own. My first years in India were spent in absorbing the teachings and honoring the wisdom of those who had traveled the Path before me. My goal remained the Path of Grace and I was helped along by the teachings of úrà Vallabhácárya and his followers who composed a remarkable body of spiritual teachings in Sanskrit and Braja Bháüá based on the Vedas, Brahma Sâtras, Upaniüads, Gàtá, as well as the úràmad Bhágavatam. úrà Vallabhácárya’s teachings are referred to as Brahmaváda, or the reasoned doctrine that explains that all is Brahman and nothing but Brahman. This pure, non-dualist view of threading the mind into úrà Käüóa served to support the devotional view and practice that was natural to me. This view holds that the whole of creation is úrà Käüóa’s divine play. It is His làlá. We souls manifest into it like sparks from a fire and are like actors appearing on the authentic stage of the world. Such a view of unity allows for diversity that is free of animosity. The world is not an illusion, but a perfect conclusion, God’s own modification. What is needed is for us to correctly cognize and witness a non-duality between the soul, the world and blissful Brahman. Another aspect of Brahman’s formless, timeless, endless, total being is the creation. It seems to be an illusion only when vision is tainted with máyá. When that confusion is removed, the world is seen as it is, as comprised of pure Käüóa, Who stands at the beginning, middle and end of everything. He is existence, its cause, its support, and its end. He is the rays of the moon and the light of the sun. His forms are varied and His face is hidden everywhere. Concealment and manifestation are the two powers whereby He brings forth the dance of creation. It was in the Braja region that úrà Käüóa expanded and tasted the
joy of His own Being. And it was there in Jatipura where I would sit every evening between the bhakti yogi Gopi Lal and the devotee Jetabhai and imbibe their Satsaïg. Life in Jatipura was spiritually effortless, but at times physically torturous. No electricity and 120 degree weather were hard on the body, but the Satsaïg was always good. Associating with the saints of Braja was so sweet that I somehow managed to withstand the extremes. When knowledge is combined with devotion, the soul is experienced as joyful, and what is celebrated within becomes a festival throughout the world, regardless of the weather. For eight years I remained in the small village of Jatipura and rarely saw another Westerner. There, devotional practice was not a weekend retreat but rather a continuous affair. I knew that my dedication needed to be free from fanaticism and my practice devoid of any false sense of attainment. I also knew that it should blossom into a loving view, which is the foundational stuff needed to understand úrà Käüóa, Who is totally devoid of all material attributes, and yet who is personal and replete with divinity, and can respond to anyone. As the yogi Gopi Lala once said to me: “Käüóa is multi-dimensional. When He walked into Kaêsa’s wrestling arena, úrà Käüóa’s parents looked upon Him as their son, while the women in the stands saw Him as Love Incarnate. The yogis regarded Him as the absolute unblemished Brahman, while the young cowherds viewed him as their friend. The wrestlers saw Him as a mighty foe, while King Kaêsa looked at the divine cowlad as death personified. And yet they all became liberated through their personal views of úrà Käüóa.” My greatest days in Jatipura were when Jai Jai came to visit. We would spend hours together in his room by the Govardhan Hill, where he would fill me with wonderful teachings. “Brahman’s attributes appear in every object in the world,” he one day explained to me. “He is the clay as well as the various forms of clay-like pots and plates. Máyá is simply the power of the Lord that deludes and therefore creates false cognition. A person sees a white cloth as yellow because he is wearing yellow-tinted sunglasses. If you can discern that the white cloth is what is real and that the yellowness is a product of máyá, then you can remove the máyá and not the world. So, don’t pull your eyes out. Take off the yellow glasses!” Another time, during one of our conversations in Hindi which I recorded and later translated into English, Jai Jai said, “The blessed soul desires to become a vessel of her Lord’s grace so much that she manifests a spiritual form that pleases Him! Then she aspires to nothing else. Whoever is capable of digesting God’s grace can become a blessed vessel.” “A bhakta is so sensitive that she feels the pain the Blessed Lord feels for His separated souls. The bhakta also knows that He is all powerful and can surmount every obstacle. It is pride of practice that causes even sages to stumble. The bhakta who sees Bhagaván as both the means and the reward is free from this pride. Her non-attachment to the means is called nissádhana. But nissádhana does not mean that spiritual practices should be avoided.” “Are you saying that within the process of nissádhana there should be an attitude of nissádhana?” I then asked him. “Absolutely! A person is confused who thinks that through a particular means he can achieve purity. The state of nissádhana is realized when the soul sees that it is God’s grace that gives a spiritual practice power. What strength is there in sádhana? Sádhana only becomes effective when you remove the misconception that sádhana is the controlling force. Wisdom is seeing the process of sádhana as the workings of God. “If you do not wish to meet someone, then you will not make any effort to find them. But let’s suppose that you use a car or a plane to meet someone you do not want to see; the means you use to arrive at a place that you really do not want to go to are all useless. Also a meeting will never occur with a person who wishes to meet you, but makes no effort to arrive. “A practitioner is confused when he imagines that God can be controlled through a particular practice. You see, practice by itself lacks consciousness. If you have a thorn in your foot, you will automatically feel it. There is no need to practice the feeling because every time you put your foot down, you feel the pain. Understand nissádhana from that example. “The Bhágavata describes how the Gopis, intent on winning úrà Käüóa for a husband, bathed every morning in the Yamuná river. Their profound love brought Käüóa before them and ultimately freed them from their worldly bonds. They left their clothes, their worldly attachments, by the banks of the river. úrà Käüóa took these garments and, when He returned them, he awarded those Gopis divine bodies with senses full of divine cognition. “Normally our senses are limited in perception, but when the Lord endows them, we engage unceasingly in His darùan. No words can adequately reveal their experience. Bhaktas are always absorbed in God and can never be confused by mere words of wisdom. The Gopis appeared from úrà Käüóa’s bliss body which, as Rasakhān sings, is full of love: ‘The ever-new, passion-filled Käüóa is lovely, His form is embedded in my eyes. His words are engraved in my heart. His glance centered in my heart.’ ” Then Jai Jai suddenly stopped and asked me, “Can you bathe in Niagra Falls?” January <strong>2013</strong> 35
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SHYAMDAS 1953-2013 IN MEMORIAM

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