Woke up little late (around 7) this Sunday and remembered the vague plan we had about cycling to “Dodda Alada Mara”(big banyan tree). It was already feeling hot and humid, but wanting not to waste a Sunday called my usual co-conspirators and fortunately, two of them (N and K) had also woken up late. N was still ready to go to big banyan but K had different plans. He is a bit religious and had plans of visiting a Guruji who was visiting a yellamma temple in Attibele. Guruji is hosted by one of the landowners of that area. I am a bit wary of such settings but after quick huddle decided to take an inside scenic route to Attibele and let K do his thing and we ride back in another route (about 60 KM overall).
Scenic routes always have their share of jewels but often one needs to cross a lot of bad patches. Taking a side route near the industrial area we ended up on a toxic dump-yard. Picking up our cycles we crossed the dump gingerly to be greeted by a magnificent swamp with a lot of water and wader birdlife, flowers, coconut grooves and that could easily pass off as Kerala backwater territory. Feeling happy and sad (imagine what the toxic dump will do to the lake) at the same time we spent some time and headed to Attibele. On the way, I enquired about the name of the Guruji. It was something on the lines of Shivatmananda Saraswathi. My interest piqued. I am a long time student of Vedanta and the “Saraswathi” indicates a relation to very pure rationalistic (jnana yoga) tradition of Vedanta called Arshavidya. I spent some time studying in the US branch of the same. I asked K if the Swamiji is related to that. He wasn’t aware of these traditions. I was skeptical about that being the case and shrugged it off.
Reached the temple and turned off by the site of two bus full of people attending a naming ceremony there. But went up to the first floor where the Guruji was staying and we offered our respect. A very cheerful person in fifties, he was dressed in conventional khavi. We started speaking and turned out he is indeed related to Arshavidya tradition and a direct disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswathi. Very thrilled I dwelled on his life story.
Turns out he lived in the small hamlet in north karnataka that I also spent some time as a kid. As a teenager, he got heavily influenced by “An autobiography of Yogi” (I am sure one of many, BTW I was not impressed by this book at all when I first read it, I am still skeptical but do have a healthy regard for that tradition (kriya yoga)). For uninitiated it is a world-renowned book on the “quest of god” by a young Bengali who goes off to the Himalayas and meets incredible yogis and eventually gets initiated into that tradition. The book talks about miraculous experiences (telekinesis, life after death and the likes). He(Paramahamsa Yogananda) went on to establish ashrams across the world which still follow the teachings and carry on the tradition. (Steve Jobs instructed his family to gift this book in his funeral. — legit fact, Salesforce CEO who attended the funeral talks about it in TechCrunch).
So he(Guruji) decided to go to the Himalayas. As a young teenager from Bagalkot, he didn’t have any means and his plan was to meet this yogini from Bangalore who is supposed to have lived in Tapovan (a place above Gomukh on Ganga glacier). He landed there after some struggle and found out that due to ill health that Swamini was in a hospital very far from there. Completely lost he wandered around and did find few people who took care of him by providing food and shelter. He eventually found the practitioners of the tradition he was looking for but that experience left him highly unimpressed. Finally, he ended up in Arshavidya Gurkul and studied and practiced there for 15 years. He came back to Karnataka to spread the teachings and lives in a small hamlet near Bangalore.
We spent 2–3 hours talking to him, the conversation just flowed with us trading stories and philosophies. We must have created a nice spectacle for the folks there. A very traditional ornately dressed Swamiji and we three yuppies in shiny reflectors and cycling jerseys and shorts. What was quite refreshing was he was very frank about troubles of reconciliation of Vedantic ideals with the traditions of the mainstream which often go against the very essence of it. He also talked about the frauds in the name of religion, social work and how his learnings help to assimilate them and be peaceful (while doing necessary things to curb it). This was something I need reiterating as one goes through similar struggles in entrepreneurship as well. (innovation, money and the mix). We left after 3 hours, vowing to visit him sometime.
Rode back happily entertaining both rational thoughts and irrational ones.
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Originally published at manjulasridhar.wordpress.com on September 7, 2015.
