SRI ANIRVAN REMEMBERS NEARLY DROWNING AS A CHILD
From the writings of Sri Anirvan:
The notion of space is always difficult to grasp. It leads us to life and also to death. I learned this when I was quite young. My father and my mother would rise very early in the morning, take their baths and sit side by side before a picture of their Guru who, later on, became also my Guru. And they would meditate for a long time.
We had a small house; when the curtain was drawn back, I would stare at them from my bed. They sat motionless, so still! That stillness made me full of awe. And I thought: "There must be something in that stillness." So, after a while, I began to imitate them and I felt: "Oh! so this is what they have!" It was Life connected with the life all around me.
And there is another thing related to death, which also came very naturally to me when I was a boy of ten. A few of my school friends and I used to go and bathe in the river. The river was dry in the summer. There was only a thin stream with a strong undercurrent, which people avoided when they crossed it. One day, when we were playing there, splashing in the water, I suddenly saw a whirlpool and heard the boys shouting: "Come back! Come back!" As I was swiftly carried downstream, I said to myself: "How is this? I was with them and now I am going away from them."
Suddenly, I remembered that there was an undercurrent somewhere, and I felt that I was caught in it. Then, where was I drifting to? Toward what? I had read in books that all rivers run into the sea. "So, I am going to the sea." I thought: "And what is waiting for me there? Nothing but water. So this is death approaching. Yes, death." I closed my eyes and thought: "I will float on."
I very often use these words: "Float on" -- when speaking with people. That was my first feeling of consciously floating on: "I float on, I float on." With closed eyes, I saw nothing. Suddenly, my head bumped against something. I had simply crossed the current and come to the opposite shore. My head had struck the steps that came down into the river. I let down my legs and felt ground under my feet . . . . "Well, that was death and this is life!"
I told no one about what had taken place, but it surely gave me an inner illumination and a sort of security. I thought: "Everywhere and in everything, I shall be floating on, and one day I shall come to the vast ocean." This is the whole of life, and from this you come to understand the words written in the scriptures: "I am Shiva! I have conquered death. . . . "
When, later on, I heard these words uttered by worshippers of Shiva, what did they convey to me? First, a feeling and knowledge of the infinite. You have to bind the two together. Everywhere you will see that first the bud appears and then the fruit. But in the case of gourds and pumpkins, you will see that the fruit appears first, a tiny fruit, and then the flower opens on its top. If God's feeling comes to you first, then His aura of knowledge is a splash of wisdom! Do you then still want books?
And so it goes on and on. Life runs smoothly in its own fashion. The mind alone wants to know more, and still more, of the things which separate what feeling is from what knowledge is. Let the mind rest awhile. Let it sleep and quiet itself, otherwise there is no chance of consciousness. People will learn this by and by. No hurry and no worry. It should just be like the coming to bloom of a flower.
-- excerpted from To Live Within, by Lizelle Reymond
The notion of space is always difficult to grasp. It leads us to life and also to death. I learned this when I was quite young. My father and my mother would rise very early in the morning, take their baths and sit side by side before a picture of their Guru who, later on, became also my Guru. And they would meditate for a long time.
We had a small house; when the curtain was drawn back, I would stare at them from my bed. They sat motionless, so still! That stillness made me full of awe. And I thought: "There must be something in that stillness." So, after a while, I began to imitate them and I felt: "Oh! so this is what they have!" It was Life connected with the life all around me.
And there is another thing related to death, which also came very naturally to me when I was a boy of ten. A few of my school friends and I used to go and bathe in the river. The river was dry in the summer. There was only a thin stream with a strong undercurrent, which people avoided when they crossed it. One day, when we were playing there, splashing in the water, I suddenly saw a whirlpool and heard the boys shouting: "Come back! Come back!" As I was swiftly carried downstream, I said to myself: "How is this? I was with them and now I am going away from them."
Suddenly, I remembered that there was an undercurrent somewhere, and I felt that I was caught in it. Then, where was I drifting to? Toward what? I had read in books that all rivers run into the sea. "So, I am going to the sea." I thought: "And what is waiting for me there? Nothing but water. So this is death approaching. Yes, death." I closed my eyes and thought: "I will float on."
I very often use these words: "Float on" -- when speaking with people. That was my first feeling of consciously floating on: "I float on, I float on." With closed eyes, I saw nothing. Suddenly, my head bumped against something. I had simply crossed the current and come to the opposite shore. My head had struck the steps that came down into the river. I let down my legs and felt ground under my feet . . . . "Well, that was death and this is life!"
I told no one about what had taken place, but it surely gave me an inner illumination and a sort of security. I thought: "Everywhere and in everything, I shall be floating on, and one day I shall come to the vast ocean." This is the whole of life, and from this you come to understand the words written in the scriptures: "I am Shiva! I have conquered death. . . . "
When, later on, I heard these words uttered by worshippers of Shiva, what did they convey to me? First, a feeling and knowledge of the infinite. You have to bind the two together. Everywhere you will see that first the bud appears and then the fruit. But in the case of gourds and pumpkins, you will see that the fruit appears first, a tiny fruit, and then the flower opens on its top. If God's feeling comes to you first, then His aura of knowledge is a splash of wisdom! Do you then still want books?
And so it goes on and on. Life runs smoothly in its own fashion. The mind alone wants to know more, and still more, of the things which separate what feeling is from what knowledge is. Let the mind rest awhile. Let it sleep and quiet itself, otherwise there is no chance of consciousness. People will learn this by and by. No hurry and no worry. It should just be like the coming to bloom of a flower.
-- excerpted from To Live Within, by Lizelle Reymond
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