How Gurukulam Learning Differs from Regular Education - What I Learnt at AVG Part 3

Links to Part 1 and Part 2

What I value most from my time at the gurukulam apart from the teachings which have held me in good stead in my life’s highs and lows are the relationships that I formed there. Usually we tend to make the best of friendships in school and college, or with those we grow up with; our relatives, cousins, neighbours. As adults it is really tough to strike that innocent chord and allow for the outpourings of deep affection for a stranger. Interestingly, a stay at the gurukulam radically changes this reality and all such false perceptions. An instant bond is formed, a community to call our own, irrespective of the individual issues and differences. All the while a lot of learning is done simply by interacting with our sahapāṭhīs. There is a lot of exposure to various minds, their questions help answer your own, and their behaviour, observed in close proximity influences your own. This is the actual satsanga as it is all guided by dharma. 

There were joint families a few decades ago - and I have had the privilege of experiencing some of its largesse in my early years - big and hearty, they took care of individuals in times good and bad, not leaving anyone behind; an orphan, a widow, a mentally or physically challenged relative, a poor cousin, all found succour under its giant shade. Then came the nuclear family but there were always childhood friends and affectionate neighbours who stepped into this familial role, when the large family went missing. What with Hindus globe trotting and the diaspora increasing day by day, what with migrations happening day in and out even within India and people uprooting themselves from their known spaces like no one’s business, it is no surprise that we are seeing all sorts of psychological and mental issues crop up. Having lived in the West for almost a quarter of a century I know how lonely it can get there without people to call your own, those who accept you as you are and come to your aid without being asked. Someone to spend the lazy Wednesday afternoon with chatting about nothing in particular.

When one belongs to a religious group or a particular spiritual sampradāya this need is very well taken care of. I have been fortunate to find friends among the Arsha Vidya community (and Chinmaya Mission), people who have taken care of me in a myriad ways.  Along with them I also found mentors and gurus who have guided me in the right direction and helped me become who I am today. To all of them I bow my head in love and gratitude. I now have a global network of well-wishers whom I can safely call my own. I wish this for everyone who is in search of camaraderie. Find your people. Until the time you do can do with or without them. Being spiritual does not mean that we have to cut off all ties. Being detached or having vairāgyam is not about looking down on others or getting irritated with them or not wanting them in our lives. It simply means that I recognize the impermanence of it all and thus am not too invested in the person, place or thing as a source of permanent happiness. It means that I have reorganized my priorities and will populate my life with people who will help me along in my spiritual journey, i.e. I will be invested in a satsanga, not in relationships which are detrimental to my spiritual growth. 

When I first reached AVG in the winter of 2012, Shankar ji (now Svāmī Shankarananda ji) asked me, “so you are here for mokṣa is it?”, and I was dumbfounded, what did he mean by that? It sounded a bit off too, seeing as I was coming in from the ‘regular’ world where we did not talk of mokṣa ever. Yes, I was keen on studying śāstra (for this inexplicable interest since a young age I thank my ancestors and my genes) but wanting mokṣa, what did it really mean? He stated it matter of factly and I simply smiled. Shankar ji then turned to Radhika ji (now Svāminī Aaptananda ji) and said, “perhaps she has adhikāritvam (qualifications needed to study and respect the śāstra as it ought to be) - or else why would Pūjya Svāmī jī take her into the course so late in the day”.  I could neither respond regarding mokṣa nor did I appreciate what he meant by adhikāritvam at that time.

Today if he were to ask me the same question regarding adhikāritvam, I would be much more humble and say it is by the grace of my ancestors, my parents, my gurus and the gods that I am here. And regarding mokṣa, I would not hesitate to answer a resounding, ‘yes’. śāstra tells us that mokṣa is in the here and now - that we can be free of insecurity and fear right here and now and that we need not continue as a hamster caught on a rotating wheel for lifetimes together. Such a path breaking knowledge system exists here (for those who want it and have trust in it), which can change the course of public discourse and transform many lives, yet has found no takers in schools and colleges! From Svāmī Vivekananda to Srī Aurobindo to Ramana Maharishi to Nisargadatta Maharaj to Amma, to all the various saints and sages of this land, they all have spoken of one and one thing only, the ultimate happiness that lies within that is waiting for us to re-discover it, to uncover it. That there is a system of knowledge which removes our ignorance of the Self, and shows us who we are in all our splendour, right here and right now. And all this is offered for free. 

But there is no place for such knowledge in our academia. Nor in our educational institutions wherein we continue to superimpose our smallness on our grandness via competition, via envy and jealousy, by running a rat’s race, by internalizing the falsehood that is taught to us in the name of freedom and liberty; how are we to be free and independent if we are slaves to our wavering emotions and our vacillating feelings? How are we free if we are constantly caught up in the past regrets and future anxieties without ever being in the present? 

A short class of 30 mins of yoga or prāṇāyāma calling it fancy names like ‘alternate nostril breathing for a steady mind’ will not cut it. We need a more detailed understanding of who we are and where we come from and where we are going. The purāṇas and itihāsas do a great job of this by exploring the various aspects of the varṇāśramadharma and puruṣārthas, so that we may make educated choices in our lives. This is enabled by focussing on mokṣa  and not so much on artha, kāma, dharma, which will happen naturally, as a by-product. A cognitive shift has to be made consciously from identifying with the body mind sense complex to one’s svarūpa which is sat cit ānanda. We need to know and to educate our youth too that we can make a conscious choice; to not resort to compulsive behaviour and that we can exercise our freedom to say ‘no’ when confronted with adharma. 

For example I could have exercised my right to say no to more sleep and gotten up when Mio did. Mio you see was always up at 3.30am every morning, she would complete her ablutions and would wash her clothes, then climb up to the terrace to hang them to dry on the clothesline at around 4.30 am. I am not sure if this is because of the famed Japanese work ethic but it did give me a complex for sometime. I discovered this accidentally - for of course I was asleep at 3.30am most days. One night Vasanthi jī (now Brahmaleena Svāminī Vidyananda jī) and I decided to sleep on the terrace to enjoy the full moon. We slept late after a heart to heart and some chit-chat only to wake up to tinkling sounds of anklets and a figure in white gliding past. After the initial scare of assuming this to be a ghost we found ourselves face to face with Mio! It was then that I started noticing how diligent she was. She never missed any class, any pūjā, any talk, any group study, any sevā. And not only was she hardworking, she was also extremely respectful and friendly. When my mother came for a visit, Mio, although not a close friend, made sure that she wished ammā whenever she saw her, asked after her well-being, enquiring politely how amma liked the gurukulam and so on. So much so that amma assumed Mio was a dear friend. Mio has left a lasting impression on me ever since and I have tried to emulate her diligence and friendliness especially when in the gurukulam.

Then there was Yoko too. Yoko’s room was immaculate at any time of the day. Given how hectic our schedule was it was a miracle that she found time to keep her room so beautiful and neat. She would get up early in the morning and sweep and mop on all fours, wash her clothes, do pūjā at her altar in the room (which was so gorgeous) and only then step out. What I did learn from her was cleaning up the place that I reside in - daily. It is not that I have lived in mess before, just that house cleaning does not come naturally to Indians who have had maids all their lives and most of us do. After Yoko’s example, I have never shied away from lifting up a broom or a mop. And I have made sure that my altar is prettified wherever I am, even when travelling when I carry my ‘utsava’ devatās with me. I offer a flower or a fruit and light a candle if nothing else. What in fact took my breath away was Lakshmi ji’s room - usually we never entered each other’s rooms unless invited, also we had hardly any time to socialize - so this one time when I got a chance to peep into her room, Lakshmi ji was from Russia, it looked like she had just moved in. The room was sparse with absolutely nothing personal in it except for a plate and glass. A suitcase in a corner and a few books on the table. That was it. It was a huge learning curve for me that someone could live with so little even by gurukulam standards and still be so happy.  

During our evening walks around the gurukulam premises Gina and I would talk about various personal issues and how to look at problems anew now that we had this knowledge at hand. It was amazing to hear an American Jewish person speak of dharma, karma, punarjanma with absolute conviction. This strengthened my own beliefs in the bargain. Coming as it were at a time when I was still deeply mired in the western convent educated mores. Leandra, another American Jewish person whom I met in Rishikesh on Vasanta Pancami a decade ago, continues to be a friend I can go to for solace and support. We hit it off instantly, sampling parathas and street food, learning shlokas and mantras, discussing the sacred and the sensuous, apprising ourselves of Telugu culture and customs, and what not, since she had also been to Hyderabad.

Meanwhile Svāminī Sumatamananda jī (who was studying in the course as a student) would drop by in the evenings to check on me, Naval would help me pay my mobile bills online, Vibhuti would give me a head massage after a rough Sanskrit class, Radhika jī would warn me about certain unsavoury men and ask me to keep my distance,  she also shared Andhra pickles with me apart from coaching me in sanskr̩itam, Lakshya (Eloise, who was Dutch and Indonesian)  would take me shopping to Giri traders and celebrate my birthday in Coimbatore, all the while not missing her daily yoga practice, Nandana (now Brahmacāriṇī Nandana Chaitanya) would treat us all ever so often with ice cream and snacks from the city, Shriti jī (now Svāminī Tattvapriyananda jī) would secretly leave the previous day’s jasmine strand that had adorned the deity at my door, to my delight, Manasvini jī (now Svāminī Vimuktananda jī) would regale me with her bhakti ladden music, her stories from the Bhāgavatam, as she was from Vrindavan, and Julie jī (now Brahmacāriṇī Janani Chaitanya) would advise me on what texts and whom to listen to next. It was like being in a boarding school, yet with the freedom and independence of being an adult. Such shared experiences with those who have a common pursuit and goal are so precious. 

Now of course not every foreigner who joined the gurukulam turned out to be a Medha Michika, a Lakshya, a Jonas Massetti or a Janani Chaitanya. Many went away even before the completion of the course, unable to handle the tight discipline that was expected of them to participate in this live experiment. Living in close proximity with so many people from different backgrounds, religions, ages, outlooks requires us to be hypersensitive on how we behave in public. One wrong move or word can be detrimental to the whole gurukulam. What one does in a family - adjust and accommodate - is what one does at a much higher scale in a gurukulam. There were those who could not appreciate this type of expectation and went away bitter or broken. There were also those who came with a specific agenda to disrupt the calm of the atmosphere, goaded either by personal egos or by a ‘foreign hand’ of which there is no dearth in India! Then there were those who wanted to learn the vision but refused to abide by the cultural norms - gorging on food with both hands, staying out late outside the gurukulam, speaking ill of the teachers, mocking rituals, questioning and interfering in Hindu practices, it was one big cauldron of boiling emotions on which one had to do tightrope walking daily. But in the end this type of living teaches us a lot. How to manage people, how to manage our emotions, how to navigate differences and how to eventually find peace and quiet within oneself. 

Educational institutions mostly pander to the child these days, helicopter parents who are constantly hovering do not help their children grow emotionally either. If a teacher is not allowed to reprimand or punish, instead only praise, there will be no growth on the part of the ward. If the young are not exposed to different mentalities and do not learn to be sensitive to others, they will turn into adults who will always want their way, refusing to budge an inch for the sake of the larger good or society. They will only deal in terms of me and mine. It would be good for educational institutions and parents to expose their children to such thoughtful experiences so that they grow up without the sense of entitlement that is prevalent all around. 

One of my favourite memories of gurukulavāsa has to be that of Śivarātri. Shankar jī was taking sannyāsa in the Feb of 2013, Pūjya Svāmī jī would give sannyāsa every Śivarātri in Rishikesh where he would also teach Chāndogya to students of his Vedānta course. I was excited as this would be my first time witnessing such a ceremony. Most of us do not know what being a sannyāsī means, what it entails, what rituals take place, what vows are required. Shankar jī transformed into Svāmī Shankarananda jī and through witnessing this whole process my respect and awe for the institution of sannyāsa rose manifold. Giving abhayadāna a blessing of fearlessness to all is not easy, to give up friends, family, one’s identity from a previous life which is full of security is harder still. Not knowing where the finances will come from, where the next meal will come from, to be under the sky open and secure, what courage this type of lifestyle needs! What trust in śāstra one must have that one will be given one’s due, and state that I am willing to accept all that comes my way without a fight. To accept sannyāsa is to have the willingness to embody ahimsa in all its glory. 

The rest of us watched in awe and ran to offer bhikṣā to the fresh sannyāsīs once the initiation ceremony was completed. I have never felt as fulfilled as in that moment. Of course Pūjya Svāmī jī made sure that we the rest of the course students too understood  what it meant to ask for and accept bhikṣā, so he made us all queue up in front of the Baba Kali Kamli Wale’s dharmaśālā for our daily diet of dāl and roṭi for a day or two. We were all given bhikṣā pātras and had to ‘beg’ for our meals. I started valuing what I ate and what was offered from the kitchen from then on without a quibble! Pūjya Svāmī jī had subsisted on this for months at a time while studying Brahma Sūtras at the Kailash Ashram from Svāmī Tarananda jī. Two days of the same meals and most of us were already making plans on which restaurant to hang out at after. Indu and Krishnan took me around Rishikesh, and ended up treating me to some fabulous global cuisine at some of the most hipster joints there. This stay also clearly revealed to us our own mettle. Who among us could withstand what, what could we do without, what could we not do without, this was our testing ground. 

My stay at the gurukulam was made sweeter due to my guru bhais and behens. Without their support, recommendations, discussions and sometimes dismissals I would not have been able to grow in the way I did. Just as being a householder or a parent rounds off one’s unwarranted preferences and prejudices and makes a person whole, so too a stay at the gurukulam. And not only that it also rids us of our false and fancy ideas of life and death. When I was just about to give up in the Winter of 2013, exasperated that I was lagging behind all the seniors who were exemplary and showed no signs of relenting either in their studies or in their sevā, a very young Svāmī Prakashananda jī who was also student in the course, told me to take it easy, to take ample rest, to concentrate on the Bhagavad Gīta for now, that the rest would follow. An advice which served me well. I had entered the gurukulam all too eager to study what I considered then the major texts, the ten Upaniṣads on which bhagavān bhāṣyakāra wrote his commentary on, I was not willing to spend time on a ‘minor’ work like the Bhagavad Gīta! How foolish I was. I had brought my vyavahāra, my A type personality to the gurukulam with me and was being unnecessarily unhappy at my ‘lack of progress’, which was the very antithesis of what gurukulavāsa was trying to teach me. 

While I thought that I had it tough, having to struggle to explain at home what I was doing here far away from my husband and family; Sarala Kumari, a Tamizh nurse from Malaysia, talked to me of the terrible state of Hindus and how marginalized the Hindus were in that country. How growing up she had to dodge stones being pelted at her often, for simply being a Hindu. She spoke of the inhuman treatment she and her family had faced and how they were second class citizens in the land of their birth, and with what fond hopes she had come to India, the land of her ancestors, to study from the best. Her first person account made me take the Hindumisia discourse seriously. Before meeting her I would be dismissive of all such reports assuming them to be mere rants or a one off incident gone rogue. But talking to Sarala exhibited the deep chasm that exists due to the flawed theology of the Abrahamic religions  which dismiss and vilify anyone who does not tow their path. Compared to what she had gone through to just get here, my own issues seemed very juvenile. 

Then of course there were many young and pretty foreign girls who just showed up at the doorsteps of the first Indian gurukulam they had Googled, which happened to be ours! I was aghast at their courage, at 20-21 years to just board an aeroplane across the seas to land in a strange country not knowing the language or the culture, especially if the girls were Brazilian or Japanese, since most of them do not speak English. But most of them ended up taking in all the sights, sounds with ease and acceptance as also the relentless daily routine at the gurukulam in their stride. All this helped reinforce and reinvigorate my own śraddha and bhakti in the śāstra. 

It was not all study and meditation of course. It was not just our weekly bus trips to the city either. We were ensconced in a prime natural locale, as the Sterling Resorts aptly describes it:

Nestled in the foothills of the Nilgiris, Anaikatti is a picturesque dream come true. Blessed with verdant hills, gushing streams, roaring waterfalls and forests teeming with wildlife, this place is a natural habitat of wild elephants. Hence the name Anaikatti, which means a ‘group of elephants’. Located just 30 km from Coimbatore, the road trip to Anaikatti is an experience in itself, driving through winding roads along the breathtaking western ghats, as you enter Kerala from Tamil Nadu. 

Anaikatti has another claim to fame - it is home to the River Siruvani, India’s sweetest river. A short trek through the forest has its reward - the magical Siruvani waterfalls. If you love the call of the wild and wish to get off the beaten path, Anaikatti has plenty to offer. Nature walks, wildlife sightings and yes, an audience with the gentle giants. Anaikatti is the ideal destination to experience the natural glory of the Western Ghats, around the year.

Given such a backdrop, who would want to sit in a classroom studying śāstra all day? So I followed the lead of Neema and Surya jī (Achāryās Neema Majmudar and Surya Tahora) who had completed their three year study already but were there at the gurukulam because, why not! So they would regale us with tales of how in their batch many moons ago they would go hiking, trekking, encounter wild elephants and what not…so despite being warned at satsanga time that we ought not to venture into the jungles behind the gurukulam without a forest guard, we got the courage to do so from our ‘seniors’! Neema ji would show us all the various nature trails in and around the gurukulam and we would follow suit excitedly, a stick in hand, as though that could ward off a family of Wild Elephants native to Anaikatti. It was simply lovely being in the outdoors and outside the physical constraints of the gurukulam space, walking on well trodden dusty paths flanked by the local flora fauna, occasionally encountering a villager or a village dog, jumping at the slightest sound not sure at what was lurking behind the bushes, all the while discussing Vedanta texts and clarifying doubts. Neema jī also taught me how to give back, how to be a contributor at the gurukulam. She told me that I could sponsor a lunch or dinner for the whole gurukulam in a loved one’s name or for a special occasion. She also informed me that I could choose the menu as a sponsor of that day’s meal. Many meals were sponsored by Neema and Surya jī on a regular basis with delicious dishes, which we the ever hungry students at the gurukulam were very glad to dig into. I discovered that Vedānta and Sanskrit study makes the stomach growl easily. 

There is so much to learn from people around us, we are after all the sum total of the people we meet, but what was probably unique at the gurukulam was that we were not simply exchanging life stories over a meal, that too, but we were also thrown together in a way which is a mix and more of a sainik school and an elite boarding school. People of all ages, in all stages of life, from all over the world, men and women, coming together to be at the feet of the greatest Vedanta teacher of our times, to learn from him about who we are; of the self, the world and god, of the relationships and connections thereof. It was more than exhilarating to sit on the floor in the lecture hall, in single rows, waiting for the class to start.  To say our prayers in unison and then be together in silence, in understanding and in appreciation of the greatest truth that is hidden from us, although in plain sight. Of knowing that each person who is with me here is pursuing the same truth, the same goal, and that we are all in it together, how wonderful is that feeling!

Nowhere else have I felt such camaraderie nor have I experienced such pleasure.

Om Tat Sat!