My Maharishi: Enlightenment Through Devotion

My Maharishi: Enlightenment Through Devotion

[00:45] Guru Parampara – The Holy Tradition

I’d like to talk to all of my listeners about and reminisce about my Maharishi. Right now, I’m looking at a beautiful photograph of him from about 1980, when he was absolutely in his prime of teaching—a few years before he retired from active teaching in the world.

My Maharishi, the time that I spent with him, the things that I heard him say about himself, and also just witnessing him. In order to start this, I want to return to a memory of what we in English refer to as “The Holy Tradition.”

The Holy Tradition, in Sanskrit, the words would be different. They would say the Guru Parampara. Guru, G-U-R-U, and then Parampara, P-A-R-A-M-P-A-R-A. Param-para, The Absolute, Para, the tradition of gurus.

The tradition of the holders of the truth—that all of us, at our baseline, have the same source, the one indivisible whole consciousness field, the Unified Consciousness Field, the universal field, which is the source of all thought, the source of all material, the source of all particles, the source of all relationships between all particles—the one indivisible wholeness.

Brahman, B-R-A-H-M-A-N, Brahman means the Totality Field. Not to be confused with the word that sounds quite like it, Brahmin, which is B-R-A-H-M-I-N, a description of a particular style of functioning. Socially in India, a Brahmin is somebody who is a scribe or a scholar, whereas Brahman, B-R-A-H-M-A-N, is Totality.

Totality. Everything. The oceanic Unified Field in its unmanifest form, and also including all of its undulating manifestations. So, the Totality of unmanifest and manifest altogether in one state—Brahman.

Who are the holders of the truth that this is our reality, our ultimate reality? They are the Guru Parampara, the tradition of masters. And one of these masters was named Trotakacharya. Trotakacharya. Trotakacharya was the youngest of four primary disciples of a great master by the name of Shankara. Properly named, Adi Guru Shankara. Adi, in Sanskrit, means first—the first guru named Shankara, Adi Guru Shankara.

Shankara was a pivotal character in the Tradition of Masters, although he stood on the shoulders of many great rishis or seers who came before him. Many. Shankara, and his name ends up being attributed to the entire Tradition of Masters. So it is called the Shankaracharya tradition, meaning the teachers of the teachings of Adi Guru Shankara—Shankaracharya.

The Shankaracharya tradition is the name given even to those masters who preceded Shankara by many generations of teachers. They are also referred to as being members of the Shankaracharya tradition, even though Shankara didn’t exist for perhaps several thousand years after the commencement of the tradition. It is referred to as the Shankaracharya tradition nonetheless.

[05:24] The Four Disciples of Adi Guru Shankara

Shankara had four disciples.

Hastamalaka, meaning the great saint to whom the truth was as clear as a fruit—an amalaki fruit—sitting on his hasta, the palm of his hand. Hastamalaka, to whom the truth was as clear as a fruit sitting in the palm of his hand.

Another of the four lead disciples of Adi Guru Shankara was Padmapada. Padmapada means lotus foot. Pada is foot; Padma is lotus. It is in the mythos of the tradition that once upon a time, Padmapada, in great devotion to his master, crossed a body of water by stepping onto the water, which was deeper than what was possible to stand in, and lily pads—lotus pads—appeared beneath his feet, supporting his weight and allowing him to walk across the water. And so, in the mythos of the Guru Parampara, The Holy Tradition, he is known as Padmapada, the one with lotuses under his feet.

Vartikakara was the elder of the four lead disciples of Adi Guru Shankara. He had a previous name, Suresh Varacharya. He had been a householder—meaning a married person with children, property, and a very influential position in his community.

But when the young Adi Guru Shankara appeared in his village, Vartikakara arrogantly challenged Shankara to a debate before a large crowd, most of them very illustrious members of the town where Suresh Varacharya lived. They agreed that whosoever won the debate—as assessed by all the witnesses to the debate, by common acclaim—that person would become the master of the other, and the other would become the disciple.

And so, they put everything on the line. The young Shankara, who at that time was about 16 years of age, was considered by the amassed crowd to have won the debate hands down, at which point Suresh Varacharya became the disciple of Adi Guru Shankara, and his name was changed to Vartikakara.

In our depiction of the Guru Parampara, which some of you will see one day when you learn Vedic Meditation, you may see a picture of the assembled masters of the tradition of teachers. Vartikakara is evident as being the elder member of the four lead disciples who are seated around the feet of Adi Guru Shankara.

Then there’s the fourth—Trotaka—whose proper full name was Trotakacharya. Trotaka Acharya. Acharya means a teacher of The Absolute. A teacher of The Absolute. And Trotaka was his family-given name. Trotaka Acharya. Trotakacharya was— and, you know, we use this word in the kindest possible sense—but the way that my master, Maharishi, would describe Trotakacharya was as follows: “He was not endowed with the cerebral virtues.”

[09:52] A Devoted Simpleton

Not endowed with the cerebral virtues. My teacher always had a very sweet way of phrasing things, the sweet truth for “a simpleton.” You know, in the common parlance, we may well have referred to Trotakacharya as being intellectually disabled, or what was once upon a time the phrase “simpleton” would have been used for him. Maharishi’s way of describing it: “Not endowed with the cerebral virtues.”

Anyway, you get the picture. Trotaka was somebody who, when Adi Guru Shankara would sit with his assembled lead disciples, but also with the crowds that would amass around him to hear him hold forth on Vedic knowledge, Trotaka would not fully comprehend or even begin to understand some of the deep and deeply discriminating intellectual concepts that were being parlayed.

And so he would busy himself with other things—making things ready for his master, making sure that there was sufficient foodstuff for the master to imbibe after the evening discourse. Making sure that wherever they were traveling to—because they circumambulated famously—circumambulated, meaning walked on foot in a cycle following roughly the coastline of India. Walked right around the entire diamond shape—you know, India is roughly diamond-shaped—the entire periphery of India. 

They circumambulated the whole of India with Adi Guru Shankara lecturing his way through the Indian subcontinent with his lead four and many, many others following him. Many of them taking notes and writing, and Adi Guru Shankara himself writing considerable treatises, which are extant today, which you can pick up—things about Shankara.

And so Trotaka would wash the master’s clothes, mend them if there were little holes in things, stitching them up beautifully. He was skilled at being a domestic caretaker of his master and someone who would occasionally utter things that would cause the other lead disciples, very gently and good-heartedly, to wink amongst themselves or chuckle or titter a little bit because it was evident by his comments that Trotaka was not really following what it was that the master was teaching on that given day or in a particular discourse if he happened to sit in on one.

[13:11] A Shining Star Returns from the River

One day, all of this changed. Trotaka had gone to the nearby river near the encampment in aid of washing the clothes and doing the laundry of his master when the last stroke of establishment in Being gained full grip of him.

There’s a phenomenon that happens as we are, in a graded fashion, gaining our “enlightenment.” It means when our inner identity is ruled more by the inner, one, indivisible, whole, unbounded Brahman, The Totality Consciousness. “I am The Universe having a human experience” comes upon us in grades—you know, 10%, 12%, 15%, 20%. We start off with, “I’m a human,” as a meditator, occasionally having these universal experiences. My inner Beingness appears to be a vast, unbounded field.

This is the beginning days of meditation. As those beginning days graduate into being more of a meditation adept, then, in grades, there’s more and more of, “Evidently, actually, I am The Universe having a human experience, rather than the other way around.” And this grows and grows in percentages.

While washing the clothes of his master at the river, the last percentage point or two of Universe having a human experience snapped into reality, and Trotaka came up from the river with all the clothes beautifully folded and ready for putting away, singing in an unbelievable voice, in deep tuneful measures, in a previously unheard meter, the wonderful deep praises of his master Shankara. And then, from that moment on, he was a shining star and the lead intellect amongst all the disciples of Shankara.

He went through a phase transition. The Universe reclaimed its property, the Shankara individuality, the Trotaka individuality. The Trotaka individuality was reclaimed by Universal Consciousness.

[16:10] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Meets Guru Deva

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, my master, sometimes rather humbly, I feel, found it a very apt comparison to compare himself to Trotaka.

Trotaka lived about 2,578 years ago. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi lived during the single digits of the 20th century up to 2008 when he dropped his body at the age of approximately 100 years.

And, you know, I had the great good fortune of spending nearly 26 years of that time—26, 27 years—with him, being trained by him. During that time, on several occasions, I heard Maharishi compare himself to Trotaka. 

Now, it was a little bit “as if,” between you and me, because Maharishi, after all, was someone who held a master’s degree in physics from the University of Allahabad in central India. He was no simpleton. He was somebody with already a very polished intellect, but his comparison came from the facts of his arrival at the ashram.

So when Maharishi was a semester or two away from completing his master’s program at the university, the great Kumbha Mela—Kumbha Mela is the great gathering of the gurus that happens once every 12 years, the Maha Kumbha Mela, Maha means great—where tens of millions descend upon the city, which for many years was known as Allahabad.

Today, it has reclaimed its original Sanskrit name from before the Mughal invasion. The name now is Prayagraj, the king of the confluences, where three rivers all meet.

Anyway, at the Kumbha Mela of about 1939, Maharishi met Guru Deva for the first time. Guru Deva told him to finish his degree and then come to the ashram. The ashram at that time was in the city known as Varanasi, sometimes mispronounced by the British as Benares, but its ancient name, Kashi, K-A-S-H-I, Kashi.

So Maharishi went to Kashi to join the ashram of Guru Deva after completing his master’s degree, as instructed, to lay himself at the feet of the master. But he discovered, to his chagrin, that there were already 250 disciples there—maybe 240, actually, is the exact number—and there he was, adding himself to this enormous group of people, all of whom wanted to spend time day and night with Guru Deva.

[19:42] Maharishi Finds Himself in an Awkward Position

Guru Deva, being Swami Brahmananda Sarasvati, the Shankaracharya of that era, was the undisputed master of all the masters, the preeminent one in India, the king of the yogis, as it’s referred to, the Maharaj. Maharaj means the great king of the yogis—Mahayogiraj, the great king of the yogis.

There was Maharishi, day one at the ashram, and one of the rather haughty disciples looked at him and said, “If you think you’re going to just start coming into the lectures and all of that, forget about it. You have to be handpicked to come into the lectures. You can hang about here, and food is served once a day over there at that kind of buffet area. You’ll get whatever the leftovers are from the selected ones who get to sit in on Guru Deva’s discourses.”

Maharishi, rather than taking up the role of being the offended one—being, in fact, quite a clever man—said to this haughty person, “Look, there must be some job that you don’t like, that you have to carry out. If there’s anything you can think of, absolutely anything that you don’t like, just give that job to me. I’ll get it done, and that will liberate you to serve the Master even more and to be in his presence even more.”

The haughty one said to Maharishi, “Take a piece of cloth from anywhere. Tear off a little bit of your dhoti—you know, the robe that they wear—that’ll do. Then go into Guru Deva’s private rooms while he’s lecturing. In a different place from the lecture room, you’ll go into his private residence and just wipe all the dust off the skirting boards. If you see dust anywhere at all, get rid of it and quickly leave before the discourse finishes and he returns to his private rooms for his quiet time.”

Maharishi: “Gladly!” And he took up this job, doing it week after week, uncomplainingly, serving the master in that way—without being seen, without receiving any credit—making sure everything was neat and clean and ordered inside the private residence of the guru. Then, one day, Maharishi found himself in an awkward position.

[22:23] “I Know English”

The discourse had evidently ended earlier than expected, and Guru Deva and all the selected disciples arrived suddenly at the residence, with Maharishi rather trapped inside. They entered, and there was Maharishi sitting in the corner. The haughty one was looking at him, giving him the eyebrows, but Maharishi was kind of trapped in the corner—he couldn’t come out.

So he just quietly stayed there, kneeling over in the corner. The Master sat. They began looking at the mail, and there was very important mail from the Governor-General, the British Governor-General of India, by the name of Mountbatten, with the Royal Seal on it, but it was written all in English. Guru Deva looked around the room and said, “Is there anyone who can read English?”

Maharishi cleared his throat. “Ahem, I know English.”

Guru Deva said, “Then open this and read it to me. I’ll dictate an answer. You’ll translate it into English and send it back to Mountbatten,” the Governor-General from Britain who was ruling the British Raj at that time. The Viceroy of India, as the position was called—not to last long, because shortly after that, India gained its independence from Britain.

Maharishi received the dictation from Guru Deva, translated it into English, and typed it up. And then suddenly, Maharishi discovered he had a job. Guru Deva, day after day, relied upon Maharishi to be there, to look after things, to dust and clean the room. Maharishi did not attend Guru Deva’s lectures.

[24:32] Holding Wisdom Through Devotion and Adjusted Thinking

However, he attended to him personally, night and day, and spent the next 13 years sleeping on the floor, without padding or anything like that, at the threshold of Guru Deva’s door, so that he could be close in case Guru Deva had any needs. He only had to say a word, and Maharishi would be available. And for 13 years, Maharishi “adjusted his thinking,” as he put it. “I adjusted my thinking to that of Guru Deva.”

It was this devotion to and attention to great detail, and also something akin to osmosis—Maharishi sitting with Guru Deva, being in his presence and, as Maharishi put it, “…breathing his air”—that allowed Guru Deva to raise Maharishi’s consciousness state. Maharishi’s consciousness state was receptive to that raising by Guru Deva to a point where Maharishi and Guru Deva were on the same level.

Jai Guru Deva.