A Time of Infinite Blessings

Bhagavan Nityananda’s Punyatithi

by Eesha Sardesai

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In my introduction to August on the Siddha Yoga path, I shared that Gurumayi has given the practices of meditation and mantra japa as a focus for this month. We can, therefore, draw connections between this focus and each of the Siddha Yoga holidays in August.

The first of these holidays is Bhagavan Nityananda’s Punyatithi. By the solar calendar, Bade Baba’s Punyatithi takes place on August 8, while the lunar punyatithi is the day right after, on August 9. As I explained in the introduction, Bade Baba’s Punyatithi is the anniversary of his passing, the day in 1961 when he left his physical form and merged with supreme Consciousness. In the scriptural text Viveka-chudamani, the great sage Adi Shankaracharya gives an analogy which can help us to better understand what it means when a realized being passes. Adi Shankaracharya says:

When an earthen pot is broken, the space within it becomes one with the limitless space outside. In the same way, when the outer appearance dissolves, the knower of Brahman becomes Brahman itself.¹

Bade Baba is, was, and will forever be one with the supreme Consciousness that pervades our world. The body may be transient; the guru-shakti is not. This is why Bade Baba’s presence, and his blessings, remain so vibrantly with us sixty-five years later. (To learn more about why, in the Indian tradition and on the Siddha Yoga path, we observe a great being’s punyatithi, I encourage you to read the exposition on this topic that is on the website.)

When I think of Bade Baba, especially on the occasion of his punyatithi, my mind often goes to Gurumayi’s beautiful poem A Temple Without Form. In this poem, Gurumayi speaks of how the entire universe is Bade Baba’s Temple—and that we can, for example, receive Bade Baba’s darshan in the beauty of nature. To do this, Gurumayi explains, “is to meditate with the eyes open.”

I remember the awe I experienced when I first read this poem by Gurumayi. It expanded my understanding of who Bade Baba is and was, as well as my perception of what Siddha Yoga meditation could be. It is a practice for which we need not remove ourselves from our world. We can meditate in and amidst that world; in fact, our meditation practice can be inspired by it. In her poem, Gurumayi gives many, many examples of things in nature—and even things that are human-made—through which we can connect with Bade Baba’s presence. In all of these things, we can perceive an underlying Consciousness, the very energy we seek out and endeavor to tap into when meditating.

Of course, it might take some effort to see the world in this way. To hear the silence in sound, to recognize the calm that undergirds activity. For this reason, we are incredibly fortunate that on the Siddha Yoga path, the Guru has given us a direct means by which to access this awareness. We have been given the mantra Om Namah Shivaya.

Bade Baba imparted this mantra to the seekers who came before him. It was famously through Bade Baba’s imparting of the mantra that Baba Muktananda received shaktipat initiation. Bade Baba taught that among the many fruits of mantra repetition was the experience of oneness—that is to say, oneness with God, oneness with the Guru, oneness between the worlds outside and within one’s person.

What I love about mantra japa is that it is a practice we can do practically anywhere. And it is often when I take the mantra with me, so to speak—when I remember it, and repeat it, in the course of my day-to-day life—that I have glimpses of this oneness that Bade Baba speaks of. I am thinking, for instance, of how Gurumayi has encouraged us to take japa walks. She has even invited us to join her on a japa walk via the Siddha Yoga path website! I find that as I walk and repeat the mantra silently to myself, eventually it starts to feel as though the mantra is emanating from everywhere and from nowhere. It is in the trees as their leaves rustle in the wind. It is in the sunlight dancing on the surface of water. It is in the sound my footsteps make and in the beating of my heart. It reveals itself in all the countless forms around me.

It’s freeing—is it not?—that our spiritual practice is not contingent upon our environment always being perfectly still and silent. The Indian scriptures tell us that the world itself arose from a propulsion of sound, from the primordial sound AUM. Recently, I learned from Gurumayi that even flowers emit sound when they bloom. The frequency of this sound is beyond what we can hear with our ears alone, but still, it is there. On some level, it resounds. This is wonderful, inspiring knowledge to hold in mind on the occasion of Bhagavan Nityananda’s Punyatithi, as we look about our world and remember that all of this is Bade Baba’s abode, his Temple, the formless given myriad forms.

Audio recording by Eesha Sardesai

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