Sentimental Journey

Sentimental Journey

"Gonna take a Sentimental Journey,
Gonna set my heart at ease.
Gonna take a Sentimental Journey -
To renew old memories.

Never thought my heart could be so yearny
Why did I decide to roam?
Gonna take a Sentimental Journey,
Sentimental Journey home.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I begin our conversation with this lilting lyrical tune from 1944 (although, I feel there is never a need to apologise for Doris Day, it is for the context I may need to be forgiven!). There is reason, if not rationale, to this seemingly random premise, for my mind is forever awash with the sentimental reverie of ‘old memories’. This ‘renewal’ at times serves to inspire what our Guru would call a ‘clue’, a spiritual ‘tip’, which leads to some greater understanding:
“ You are feeding yourselves with all these tips, all is loose steps, do-it-yourself kit, so now go to your bed and take your spiritual ladder from earth to heaven.”
My own spiritual path has proved to be an ever evolving recipe, with ingredients taken from a vast store cupboard, a larder of experience, teachings and memory. To continue with this somewhat clunky culinary metaphor: The roux of mysticism, stirred over the heat of divine love, the meat of scripture basted with truth and sincerity, subtly spiced with the personality of the Masterchef, our GuruDev! - “ Cooking is you, converted onto a plate and offered to Brahman.”
But as ever I digress: -
Dear Friends, I have been contemplating and exploring this idea of a personal path, the path for and of the ‘individual self’:
“ Think of God in your own way. Think of yourself- how you can make it easy. Think of God in the way YOU approach God.”
This means finding your own technique, your own strategies for meditation and practise, discovering and crafting your own natural and intimate relationship with God:
“ I don’t meditate to force myself, I don’t go by duty, I go by nature and nature is divine. I don’t go by technique. So much the better if you have technique, but the first technique is love, that’s the only rope that can bind individual self to supreme self. If you have got love you have got everything. And on top of that, if purity is added, sincerity, truthfulness! It takes time, but as long as there is no ego, and you know nothing belongs to you...
Don’t force your own nature. If you can’t do something give it up, put it aside, sleep. But while you are sleeping, cradle your mind. Ramakrishna gives a tip:” When you go to bed, at least if you cannot do anything put your hand on your heart, and think of the Mother.”
To extract solitude or silence from your everyday ‘householder’ life is no easy matter. The Swami often described himself as a “ thief in the night, stealing time and solitude for meditation”. Although I have no memory of him actually ever sleeping, in repose, in meditation- yes, but not actually sleeping, not even snoozing! For me, even when the physical state of solitude is achieved, arresting the ever-racing mind and retrieving some real state of peace is a rare and precious thing. My Grandmother used to say, as she sat in contemplation in her wing-backed armchair, ” Don’t disturb darling, I’m thinking”. This ‘thinking’, I now understand was a natural form of meditation; disengaged yet fully present. What begins as reverie deepens into an expansive plateau of consciousness, what begins as a sentimental journey, can lead you home.
“ You have to have this mind, you have to be calm, to receive, to witness, to put all these divine things into your bones, so when you come back to your ordinary life, you know you are not this, you are soul!”
So my “Dears”, I have come to understand this one small thing about my’ individual’ Self: That my nature is sentimental and my journey through reverie to meditation always begins with a memory. A memory of something, that seemed so inconsequential at the time, can now evoke something profound. So that some thirty years later, seated in an armchair, just such a thought is pushed to the front of the mind. And one is forced to say to a small child peaking round the door, “Don’t disturb darling, I’m thinking”!
And this is what I am thinking: As a young child of the Ashram, I was given a task, a little chore by our Swami at the beginning of each kirtan. On his arrival at the abode of the hosting devotee, in one of his most beautiful and dearly loved celestial chariots, or bangers! In amongst the meeting and greeting, the salutations and welcomes, he would hand me his briefcase; a battered, yet decidedly formal attaché case, with gilded clasps and hinges. Though heavy, I would carry it with care, to his appointed seat in the kirtan room situated before the resplendent shrine. There I was to undo the stiff latches and leave it open and ready. I remember completing this procedure a number of times, over a number of years and in a variety of different locations. This is only of importance from the point of view of what it contained. Firstly the ubiquitous text, a holy scripture that was the ‘ Word’ of the time, be it: Universal Prayers or Sister Josefa, Vivekananda or Anne Catherine Emmerich, Shirdi Sai or Maria Valtorta etcetera, etcetera, for as you know we were never monotonous! It also often held small gifts for a particular devotee, a picture or card, a medal or amulet, specific yet simple treasures. But in retrospect, what was truly extraordinary, was what else the case contained: Never less than a hundred sheets, usually more, two inches deep of foolscap typed up and annotated notes. Page after page of prayer and text, dense sheets of type, with handwritten notations in margin and scrawled symbols in every available space. Now remember this was before the time of computers, before the time of photocopier or word processor. This was work done sitting at a typewriter toiling over key and inky ribbon, and what’s more it was rarely, if ever removed from the case. This was spiritual labour, preparation done prior to a meeting, devotion in the form of work and industry. We think of the Guru as one enlightened, inspired, filled with the spirit, teaching from the illumined page of divinity. He is fully formed teacher, preacher and reacher, the embodiment of Brahman. But also he is spiritual labourer, worker, artisan, skilled practitioner and messenger. His labour may be guided, and I believe in some cases supplied, but it is born of searching endeavour.
“ I didn’t read all these books before, I had a call first, then I wanted to find out more- the Virgin herself was supplying me. She is still supplying me, and it is not finished ... I am telling you what I am doing, and if you abide here, I am getting somewhere to the goal of my life, not forgetting what we have already done. Ramakrishna already reached his goal, then he practised different religions-Christianity, Mohammedan, different, different.... I am perhaps delaying in Hinduism because I have got a kind of work to do and I am doing it.”
There is work in worship, there is work in meditation. But is it not your own devised yet natural way of working, your “do-it- yourself kit”, that builds your spiritual ladder, rung by rung, from earth to heaven. Your own journey (sentimental or not) home.
“ Vedanta points out to aspiring men and women the numerous roads, hewn out of the solid rock of the realities of human life by the glorious sons or human manifestations of God, and stands with outstretched arms to welcome all to that Home of Truth and Ocean of Bliss, wherein the human soul, liberated from the net of maya, may transport itself with perfect freedom and with eternal joy. “
Swami Vivekananda


Blissings, Blessings and Sentimental Love
Sanjana Yogeshwaree
Of the Order of Ambikananda MSSA
(All quotations taken from the teachings of Swami Ambikananda)

yogeshwaree@gmail.com

And Only Say The Word

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Many moons ago a fellow child of the ashram told me a simple fable, the moral of which I hope will explain the premise of this humble attempt at an open letter. (Or to use the hateful modish terminology a 'Blog') &ndash But I digress, so to return to the tale:
On moving to a new abode, this dear brother had put much time thought and energy into the creation of a large and lovely Shrine. Complete with swathes of fabrics, precious holy statues and images of deities, Ishta Devs, Saints and Paramahamsas. Great church candles stood at the fore, incense held in ornate bronze receptacles and sacred texts lay open on a carved sandalwood plinth. On a small shelf, in his galley kitchen, he placed a photograph of our Guru, in his incongruous attire of knitted hat and orange vest! He told me that throughout the day, when making coffee, snack or meal, he would make salutations and abeyances to this tiny faded snapshot, a little nightlight burned, incense ash mounted in grey peaks and saucers of miscellaneous offerings of Prasad were regularly replaced. While the splendid shrine in the next room stood still and dormant, the little nook above the kitchen sink was brought alive by daily worship and devotions, in essence became a living shrine.
As our Guru said, "There is no particular room, no particular place. Where you are for Me, there I am with you, manifesting."

Since the passing of our Divine Master Swami Ambikananda, I have in my immaturity, devoted much time and energy to the architecture and construction of great temples to the Master's teachings. In childish grief, I have indulged in future plans for my spirituality; Aha, I have said, when I am free from the responsibilities of work and children and elderly relations, I will dedicate myself to the 'Inner Life', to devotion and prayer, meditation and the thorough exegesis of Holy Scriptures. These vast tomes of knowledge I will read and annotate from start to finish and come to great and wonderful understandings, as I meditate on the powerful Word held therein. "I shall become a Yogi", a Pilgrim on the Way of Truth, come to know the secret wisdom of my own beloved Master. Aha, I have said again (for I am nothing if not repetitious!), but I am at heart a Bhakta and so having imbibed the power of the word, I shall return to the path of devotion; in an attempt to find that divine love, that Agape. In the midst of these spiritually inspirational thoughts, dear Brothers and Sisters, I confess I am plagued by the imagined sound of 'laughter terrible and loud'! For I have a most vivid memory of a spiritually intense and joyous weekend spent at the Kedernath Ashram; I had just been initiated by Swami Ji and had spent much of the night happily ensconced in a caravan, writing up my future plans for my life of 'monkdom'. Page upon page of my 'Spiritual Diary', emblazoned with pious intentions of sacrifice and search, practise and prayer, to start on some future date, when the busy schedule of the 8 year old would allow. Next morning I took this handwritten pledge and proudly showed it to the Guru, he read it with due care and attention and then to my chagrin smiled, his golden smile; and complimented me on my handwriting!

So here is the rub, Dear Friends, this my resolve: To take a Word of our Master, a thought for the day, the week, the month; contemplate this, meditate on the meaning, "gather the broken pieces of thought into the basket of (my) your mind." And in doing so, create an internal living shrine in the hope of "treading the hidden path to the feet of my Beloved", through the somewhat thorny path of life.
"Let us go back once more, O mind, to our own abode.
Here in this foreign land of earth
Why should we wander aimlessly in stranger's guise ? ...."

This Word I will share with you as often as I can on the Ashram website, which due to the tireless work of the devotees, is the World Wide Web Living Shrine, sending Word and Music floating out into the firmament.
So here Brothers and Sisters is the Word of our Master, that I hope may induce for us a contemplative meditation, a 'centred thought':
"We are very blinded from what we are trying to see, We are living still in a dark world, it's up to us now how we are going to take our life up there or down here... You have to be very patient in this game of tossing up and down on present and future worries. You have to be strong-minded, to have the grace of your centred thought, the grace of God. Practise picture guidance - God in the shrine. Believe that God is in the picture, that suffices for the turmoil of life...
In reality there's nothing but One Thing (God). Due to the multifarious particles and atoms of this One Thing our minds are broken into these bits and pieces so we can�t come to full satisfaction to the One - our minds are already scattered. Before we can get a universal harmony in this world, we have to let our will work patiently through the will of the Knower." Swami Ambikananda 1981
And only say the word and I shall be healed...


Another day, another plan, another golden smile, and no compliment for the font!
Blissings, Blessings and Love


Sanjana Yogeshwaree, June 2010.
Of The Order Of Ambikananda MSSA
yogeshwaree@gmail.com
www.quintessenceashram.org