Ahymsin Newsletter: Yoga is Samadhi
  AHYMSIN NEWSLETTER, ISSUE - June 2014  
 
   
 
   

SVB and the Sunflower

by Joanne Sullivan (Divya)

Here, at a certain time every morning there is the one-note call of a particular bird whose call goes deep in me. This call makes an arc straight to anahata---or so it seems. I can never identify its caller. I have spoken of this before. If I am outdoors, I hear but cannot see who is making the sound. If I am inside and open the door to see, the caller always ceases calling.

At the height of summer here, it is difficult to describe the startling beauty all around you. Yesterday, I plucked a huge sunflower from my garden. I generally don't pick flowers, but this was a 15-foot tall mammoth sunflower who measured a foot across! All manner of birds have been eating the other sunflowers---within a day or two of their showing. I decided to give this one to Swami Veda on this full moon day [13th June 2o14].

A handful of us sat with him upstairs near his private quarters for the Full Moon Meditation at 7 am and again at 5:45 pm. The magnificent sunflower sat pristine at his side for the evening meditation. There are rivers of sunlight in that mammoth sunflower. It vibrates with such beauty.

A thunderstorm followed on the skirts of the evening meditation. Upon arriving back at my cottage, I flung the windows open to the fragrant night air. In the morning the whole house felt cool and clean and fresh.

When I first brought this stupendous flower upstairs, I was eager for news of Swamiji’s reaction upon their first meeting. That flower could be a prince from a distant kingdom. It certainly was royalty of some sort. So Tejaswini carried it in to Swamiji and after some time, came back and said, “Just wait.” I was already quite content just to sit, eyes shut.

When she returned, I gathered from Tejaswini’s facial expressions and colorful gesticulations that there had been some amount of enthrallment at the arrival of the sunflower. Then she showed me a few snapshots of the two princes at first meeting, each of his own royal lineage.

This was more than I had hoped for. In truth, I had just wanted Swamiji and the flower to enjoy one another’s presence. I say this, knowing full well that by now some of you are rolling your eyes. I understand.

But you have not been here long enough to learn the outer fringes of plant talk and bird talk. Sometimes I ask the birds a silent question. Sometimes there is an answer. If you sneak up on me, you might catch me talking to the gardenias, the roses, the nasturtiums, the honeysuckle or the jasmine. Or to a bee. I know. It could be a sign that I am going completely lulu. But at the very least, I often do feel these beings and that I am in their world.

A reverence for Mother Nature and for birds in particular is not a new idea. The seers of Ancient Rome are said to have read the behaviors of the birds to divine the future. The etymology of the English word auspicious, meaning propitious, leaves a footprint. Auspicious derives from the Latin avis (bird) and specere (to look).

I was so happy to discover this masterpiece of nature---the 15-foot tall sunflower, with only one kernel missing. The birds had only just begun to make a meal of the flower. Though I did feel ambivalent cutting the flower---a sensitivity that has been trained into me---I was glad to give the flower to Swamiji and to learn of his reaction. The following email had come in the night:

Dear Joanne,

Swamiji writes he just wants to be in a very green forest with water all around him. He goes out on the balcony every evening after meditation to touch all the plants grown in pots that have been lovingly nurtured by a team of devoted gardeners under the gentle and watchful guidance of Mrs. Dixit. 

He goes out again around 1 am to see the sky, be with nature, and listen to all sounds.  Do his usual pranaam to the moon and stars and earth.

He likes to feel the plants and rests himself on the green vines and fragrant creepers that grow on the balcony wall.  He writes on his small slate: these are my kin.

He always writes about driving into the forest so he can be with trees and birds. 

The sunflower immediately cheered him as I brought it to him in the morning just before his morning rest.  He just wanted to hold it near his heart and Surinder and I decided to take pictures. 

The sunflower is kept in his room facing his bed when he sleeps and facing his chair when he sits in his armchair.  It is like having the sun in the room without the heat.

This morning while he was having breakfast he wrote that he felt like a King of Udaipur.  They ate facing a sun image so the prana of food and prana of sun would merge.

A slight thrill went through me as I read the email.

 I remember many years ago, Dr. Arya (now Swami Veda) said that (the sound of?) waterfalls are anahata chakra.

Jay Prakash of our own AHYMSIN Publishers snapped the photo of Swamiji utterly bereft in love, appearing to hug some lush greenery [see article “svb at home” in this newsletter]. The man himself is a walking waterfall, is nature alive.

Some years back I heard Swami Veda pose this question:

What is the language by which the stars and the flowers communicate?

In Ancient Rome, there is the story of a Sybil. She is a seer who appears as an old hag at the king’s gate in the hopes of giving him all the wisdom of all of time which she has poured into 9 scrolls. The king laughs at her and tells his guards to remove her from his presence. She returns to her cave and burns 3 of the 9 scrolls. Upon reflection, she decides to grant the king, a mere mortal, another chance. She returns to him with the 6 remaining scrolls perhaps with the sole desire of bestowing a great gift of knowledge upon him. But the king is not a wise man and, once again, rudely tells his attendants to remove her. She goes back to her cave and burns 3 more scrolls. Again she returns to give him one more chance to receive one third of all the knowledge of this world and beyond. Some say that the arrogance of the king prevailed and that he unceremoniously had the old woman thrown out, depriving future humanity of that wisdom. Others say that his advisors somehow persuaded him to humble himself and receive from her the 3 remaining scrolls.

I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be a person who has so much to give that s/he cannot possibly give it all---though a powerful love and compassion would have it otherwise.

The profound children of the Light have been likened to the skin of the eye---and I believe that we have one such being here among us.  I bow to the divinity within.

 

   
       

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