Evolution of Love 2

SADHGURU’S ENLIGHTENMENT

“Blissfulness is not a rare visitor in your life, blissfulness is your constant companion, because that is the nature of your being.” Sadhguru. He tells the story where one afternoon he went up Chamundi Hill in Mysore and went to a particular rock. It was a huge rock which was his usual place and he sat there with his eyes open. “ After a few minutes, I didn’t know where I was. Till that moment, like most people, I always thought this is me and that is someone else. But for the first time I did not know what is me and what is not me. What was me was spread all over the place. I thought this madness lasted for 5 to 10 minutes but when I came back to my normal way of being, four-and-a-half hours had passed. I was sitting right there, fully conscious with my eyes open. For the first time in my adult life, tears were just starting to flow ceaselessly from my eyes. My whole shirt became completely wet from the tears.
I had always been a happy person, that was never an issue for me. But the feeling that came over me that day when I sat on that rock was absolutely indescribable. Every cell in my body was just bursting with ecstasy. I had no words. When I shook my head and tried to ask my skeptical mind, “What's happening to me,” the only thing that my mind could tell me was, “Maybe you are going off your rocker.” I didn’t care what it was but I didn’t want to lose it because this was the most beautiful thing that I had ever touched. I had never imagined that a human being could ever feel like this within himself.

The next time this happened to me was very significant because there were people around me. I was sitting with my family at the dinner table. I actually thought 2 minutes had passed but actually seven hours had gone by. I was sitting right there fully alert but I had no sense of time. This happened many times. Once this experience lasted for 13 days. After about six weeks these experiences became like a living reality within me and everything about me changed in those six weeks. My voice changed, the shape of my eyes changed. If you see photos of me during that time, you can clearly see something changed dramatically in the body. I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know what. All I knew was this blissfulness that was simply bursting within me. I then came to the realization that this can happen to every human being. That every human being has this same inner ingredient. “

Sadhguru says it is his wish that this experience would happen to every human being. He says whether you become the richest man on earth or not, your experience of life on this planet should be pleasant. He says there is bliss within you. When you learn to regulate your mind you can feel this bliss all the time. The fact is that thoughts and emotions are generated within us and we ought to be able to keep them under our control. But when you're not conscious of the nature of your mind, then thoughts and emotions turn nasty. He says this blissfulness comes through the practice of yoga. When you find the bliss within yourself...through yoga...then everything in your life becomes beautiful.

Sadhguru goes on to say that he eventually met his wife Vijaykumari, fondly called Vijji, two years after this experience of spiritual awakening. Their first encounter was in Mysore, at a lunch Sadhguru was invited to. This was followed by a brief but heartfelt exchange of letters, which culminated in marriage in 1984, on the auspicious occasion of Mahashivratri. In 1990, Sadhguru and Vijji had a daughter, Radhe. Sadhguru says that in the month of July in 1996, they were consecrating the Dhyanalinga at a temple. Vijji had decided that once the linga was complete, she would leave her body. She announced that she would leave on a particular full moon day, and she started working towards that. I tried to talk to her, “It’s not necessary now, wait for some time.” But she said, “Right now, my life is perfect, inside of me and outside of me. This is the time for me. I don’t know if another time like this will come for me.”
For some reason we could not complete the consecration at that time. So on that full moon day, she sat with a group of people, meditating. Eight minutes later, she left her body without any effort and with a big smile on her face. She was at the peak of her health, just thirty-three years of age. It is not easy to leave like this without causing any damage to the body. Just walking out of your body like you drop your clothes and go is not an ordinary thing. When a person has reached that point in his life when he feels everything that he needs is fulfilled, and there is nothing more to see in his life, he drops his body, willfully. If there is any struggle or injury, it means suicide. When there is no struggle, when somebody just walks out like he walks out of a room, that’s Mahasamadhi.

Once a person leaves like this, that person is no more. When somebody dies, you say they are no more, but that’s not true. They are “no more” the way you know them, that’s all. But once a person leaves in full awareness, shedding the body without causing any injury or damage to the body, that person is truly no more. That person doesn’t exist as a being anymore. They have just melted away, the game is up, completely.

Sadhguru says it has always been hard for him to explain to people what Vijji is. When I say Vijji, I am not referring to her as my wife or as a woman. Even as a being, she has always been truly wonderful in my experience. But as many of you know, she was a person of very intense emotions. In her childlikeness, whatever emotions were within her always found expression, irrespective of the situation. Now she attained Mahasamadhi – the ultimate aim of all spiritual seekers – with such effortlessness, and has proved her worth.

This is not child’s play. Even accomplished yogis who spent their lives in spiritual sadhana struggle to attain this. To throw one’s life out of the body without injuring the body takes something else. One has to generate tremendous amount of energy, which requires intense sadhana. She just made this possible with her love, probably the only thing she knew.

When I look at the whole series of events, it is very clear that there is a direct intervention of the Divine. It seems like it was Shambho that her heart was crying for. He has taken her by the hand. Out of sheer love, He made it possible. ( Shambho represents a gentle form of Lord Shiva ).

To a few people who were close to her, she had spoken about this many times. She had been expressing her intense desire to leave her body in full awareness, without any sense of attachment. “I want to leave” – this had been her constant mantra with me also.

One day we dropped Radhe and were driving down from Ooty, as she used to normally do when we are travelling, she was chanting “Shambho.” Tears of devotion were flowing from her cheeks. Then she held my hand and asked me to stop the vehicle. She said, “I don’t know any other Shambho. “ There were moments when I have seen you in that form. Only you should help me towards my moksha,” and she cried. I said, “Whether you know him or not, he knows you. Just be sincere in what you are doing. You will definitely experience him and know him beyond my form.”
On the Guru purnima days, she was into certain intense sadhana. On that day, I was with her but then went back to the class that I was teaching. At 6:15 in the evening, she dissolved into that utterance of Shambho and became His.

“Victory’s Daughter”
Even now, when we feel the energy that she has left behind, it is very clear to me that she found her exit through the Anahata chakra – the seat of love. The Anahata chakra is the heart chakra. For any being, to transcend the limitations of the physical body, there is really no better way. For this being, there is no more bondage of a physical body. Her name was Vijaya Kumari, which means “victory’s daughter” – the highest possible victory for any being became hers.

She has left my home empty but our hearts full. One important aspect is, she had a vital role to play in the consecration process of Dhyanalinga. Till now, the process was progressing in a glorious manner. But now we are a little stuck. That Shambho who took her as His, He only should show us the way.

The death is not a problem for me but this energy called love that she has left behind, I am unable to bear. All the sadhana that we are doing here will now take on a new fragrance of this love absolute.

For all spiritual seekers, Mahasamadhi is the ultimate goal – the very culmination of their sadhana – to dissolve into Divinity. Let people know that this kind of opportunity is available to man, that one can take the very process of birth and death into one’s hands. Generally, people believe that all these things were over with the sages and rishis of ancient times. But spirituality in its highest possibility is still very alive today.

The public at large has come to the conclusion that the age of genuine saints are over. Now, the present situation here is a clear proof that it is not over – and it never will be.

I did not wish that at this stage, anybody here should leave the body and go, but somehow she aspired for it. She dissolved into the Mahamantra “Shambho.” It is not for me or anyone to ask whether this is right or wrong. I am not big enough to question Him.

This is incredible, truly incredible. Without even my assistance, she transcended the bonds of mortality. Out of her love, she has gone beyond. Out of our love, we are required to be here and fulfill the task on our hands.