Memoirs Going Beyond Wisdom With His Masters’ Grace
Summary of Journey
Nitin Ram had been deeply spiritual since his childhood without knowing what he was looking for. A potent but passing stillness experience couldn’t satisfy him. Professional challenges & 2 bed ridden months intensified his search. Reading & listening to Osho’s recordings led to clarity. But when a vivid feeling of approaching certain death induced great fear, he realized he had not intuitively grasped what Osho was pointing at. An encounter with a poor yet fully contented boy made him realize that total contentment- regardless of situations- is what he was looking for! He then discovered & immersed himself in Nisargadatta Maharaj’s audios. The resulting faith led to ‘dialogues within’ with Maharaj. It is at the end of such dialogue spanning 3 days- triggered by a deep dilemma- that his seeking ended: all ingrained concepts dropped off, including the notion of a ‘separate seeker/me/I’! Only a life of uncaused joy, totally free of suffering, remained.
I was deeply interested in spirituality ever since childhood, through devotion, as was the tradition in the family. During my growing years, I was attracted to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s literature, Saint Meerabai’s bhajans, Saint Tukaram’s abhangs, and Sufi songs. Deeper search persisted, though not knowing what it was for! Being an entrepreneur, my business after engineering studies was taking its own time, and a serious accident around that time made things worse and confined me to bed for a couple of months. This was when I came across Osho’s literature (1995). Business worsened, nothing seemed to work, in spite of the best of my efforts. This situation persisted for almost 12 years and all efforts seemed futile. And then, a deeper urge surfaced, to find a Guru, to realize how things happen, does cause and effect truly exist at all, and what is life ultimately all about?
Once, during early 90’s, when I went to the temple of lord Vitthala, in the holy place of Pandharpur, I don’t know why, I never felt that I should be inside the sanctum, though that’s the usual practice. It always felt like, here or there, He is everywhere! And when I was sitting faraway in the temple, I don’t know what happened, eyes closed, I lost my sense of being in the body, and it was an unique experience where consciousness and unconsciousness both were absent and yet, that moment was full of pure awareness, overflowing, and complete. This was pure grace, so sudden and totally unexpected, when I had not even asked for it! Maybe this was just a divine remembrance.
This was shortly followed by another unforgettable dream, when I had another glimpse. I was going round the temple, doing pradakshina in the same temple of Pandharpur.. And I don’t know, I was the only one there, and, suddenly I came across a stranger, dressed as a warkari, who was also doing pradakshina but in the opposite direction! This man shot his piercing glance at me and suddenly, out of him, manifested this huge overwhelming Lord Vitthala (Krishna) himself! And He exploded with the brightness of innumerable suns and that was more than I could take. I collapsed and woke up shouting loudly and it was 7 in the morning! And I could not stop wondering who that person was! Someone said this was ‘enlightenment’, what the rishis strived for in the ancient times doing so many penances. But despite this, the “experiencer as a separate entity” prevailed. There was still a separation between divine and me!
Later in 2008, during the making of the film “Tatvamasi”, I recognized that person to be none other than Nisargadatta Maharaj Himself!
"Tatvamasi"
"I was ignorant and yet he arrived at my doors, just with an intense call...save my soul! His grace is unlimited!"
Around year 2000, when the search for a Guru was desperate, I was fortunate to come across Osho in my dream.
I found myself in a small room somewhere in a hilly terrain. There was Osho himself, and I was there sitting at his feet with a couple of people. I prostrated before him, kept my head on his feet. He then kept his hand on my head and I then went into a trance. This was just like the one I had experienced in the temple. I then went to the commune in Pune as I was very eager to get initiated there. They enquired if I resonated with Osho’s teachings. I told them about my experience, and they said Osho Himself had initiated me and so there wasn’t any necessity for a formal procedure! But nevertheless, on my insistence I was granted initiation. During initiation, again I don’t know what happened or for how long, but I went into a deep state of trance.
This ended my desperate search for a Guru. It also reminded me of Osho’s words that the Guru Himself comes in search of His disciple!
I was ignorant and yet he arrived at my doors, just with an intense call…save my soul! His grace is unlimited!
Shortly after this, I felt I had reached that ultimate state, and this was IT! I thought I was now ready to even face death. And I prayed Osho for a glimpse of death! I wanted to so badly encounter death!
And an experience that followed later changed my life forever!
It was sometime in the year 2000 when I would often travel to Jalgaon, a place in Maharashtra, for business. It was when I was travelling by a semi sleeper bus at night that I suddenly woke up from deep sleep. It must have been 1 or 2 am. The bus was traveling at a high speed, and I had a tremendously strong feeling of impending death! I could sense death staring at me! There was fear mounting with each breath. I was shaking, with tremors all over! I sensed death standing right in front of me and that there was no escape! Time had stopped forever and it was as if that this was the last moment of my life, I was finished and death was going to pick me up in any case and that was an order! The bus was running at high speed. I moved the curtains of the window and tried to open the window but couldn’t. I think I would have jumped out of window had it opened then. I tried desperately to escape from the clutches of death, staring as it was at me! I stood up from my seat and found everyone in the bus sleeping comfortably except me. I envied them and found them damn lucky to be able to sleep so comfortably. And here I was, shaking with fear, of losing life. I felt totally helpless, I did not want to die.
This lasted for quite some time, and when I recollected this experience in the morning, I realized that I didn’t remember my Guru, my parents, my wife, my son or anyone else. The one and only feeling I was aware of was that I wanted desperately to somehow escape from the clutches of death. I then realized that my Guru had come to meet me in the form of death and I had failed to recognize Him! He in fact had answered my prayers for a glimpse of death, but I was not ready. The three days that followed after this, I was simply crying because I had failed to recognize my Guru. This overwhelming experience woke me up from deep slumber, made me realize that death can happen anytime. It heightened my sensitivity and my level of awareness in life. This made me realize that each moment of life is a gift. I also realized that I did not know anything! And it slowly dawned on me, that Guru is just not an embodied person. It so happened that I started seeing Him everywhere, in all my experiences of life! He seemed to be always with me, no matter what was happening in my life!
“No, thank you madam,
this is MORE THAN ENOUGH!”
Another life changing incident happened in 2006 when I was on a family trip to Kerala. We were traveling early morning from Munnar to Thekkady, and in the Ghats we stopped at a breathtaking turn, high in the hills in the valley to watch the lovely clouds beneath us. There, we saw a young teenage boy, who looked like vagabond, with his dog. He had such a carefree attitude with an attractive smile and looked like he did not have a single worry in this world! Leave alone worrying about whether and when his next meal would come from, if it would come at all that is. We offered him some cake that we were carrying, and he happily offered it to his dog, and of course the dog gratefully wagging his tail, finished it within no time! We offered him some biscuits, which he again gave to his dog and both looked so happy, for no reason! Then my wife offered him some chips, which, to my surprise, he offered it to my wife! When he was eating them, we offered him more biscuits thinking that he will be hungry, since he had given everything to his dog and gestured to him that he should eat it, as we were not familiar with the local language. To our utter amazement, he raised his hands high up in the air and replied in English, “No, thank you madam, this is MORE THAN ENOUGH!” We were so stunned with his words that we were speechless! Those words of his still ring in my ears! I saw living divinity in that boy and touched his feet. I thanked my Guru for visiting us in the form of this boy and his beloved companion dog, so far away from our home, to teach us the highest lesson and purpose of life…CONTENTMENT.
Until that incident happened, I never knew what I wanted from life, though I considered myself spiritual. That ‘looking like beggar’ boy, was actually one of the richest persons on this earth with his causeless joy and lovely smile on his face. We took many pictures of that boy with his dog, to store it on hard drive though his memory was permanently etched on our heart drives. Later during our trip, somehow I lost all those photos and they vanished in no time, as the format button of the camera was accidentally pressed. I could not help laughing, and realized that the main purpose of this family tour so far away from home, was to know the real purpose of life! My Life changed after this, and every moment was filled with Guru’s presence and his unlimited blessings.
Much later I came across Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teachings and this touched me deep inside the core of my Being. Maharaj’s words were imbibed intensely, and with such heightened awareness, that I did nothing other than listen to Maharaj’s words, for almost a year! I somehow resonated with Maharaj’s words so well, that there wasn’t even an iota of doubt on His words! The faith and trust in Maharaj was so complete!
An undeniable faith in Him and the irresistible urge to merge resulted in something that I was not aware of!
“Urgency & Patience are two sides of same Coin! ‘Urgency’ in getting caught by His fire and ‘Patience’ in the process of Annihilation!”
I was completely drenched and absorbed in Maharaj’s words through recorded audio CDs for more than a year. In every new listening I would absorb different dimension of His words and something unwanted within me would burn out. I started feeling overwhelmed by His direct pointers and would often be attentive on “what is that which is yet to be grasped or recognised?” I would think “What is that” which I am still missing! Certainly something was missing otherwise why I would be required to repeatedly listen to Him!? Intuitive understanding about my real self was missing even after listening to Him so many times.
It so happened that In mid-2008 with arising of abundantly overflowing fulfillment followed by tremendous sense of gratitude for Maharaj and with an inner calling, we started making a biographical film on Him. All the necessary information for making the film started pouring in from all over the world! Somehow I knew that this film is already done, and now I am going to watch it happen!
During making of this film TATVAMASI – YOU ARE THAT, I would always feel that Maharaj is making this film through me and that I am just an instrument being used by Him. Film work was going on, with His grace and a time came when the editor requested me to write down the only script that was still left to be written. And that was the description of Maharaj’s enlightenment! His experiences when He got enlightened! That scene was yet to be shown in the film.
I got stuck, with the shock of my life here! How can I write about what “enlightenment” is? How would I know it without my own intuitive experience? And if I myself haven’t experienced yet that so called awakening, how and what right do I have to express it in words? How can that be authentic? I am not a professional writer or a poet who can write with a sense of imagination! And out of the blue, a thought came… Since I myself do not have any personal experience about enlightenment, I have no right to talk or write about it. So, why should I make this film? I am not making this film anymore!
In response to this thought came another counter question from within, “Do you still think that ‘you’ are making this film? All these days you were saying that Maharaj is making the film through you as an instrument!” This counter question woke me up from the subtlest slumber and shook the spiritual ego within me. I broke down into tears and we paused the film work for a few days.
These three days were such that I cried and argued and prayed Maharaj like a helpless child! “This is not fair at all. How can I share your teachings to the world through this film when I myself haven’t experienced it yet! How can you be so cruel? You tell me to share your teachings, without blessing me with the transformation! How’s that possible!? You need to do something even If you feel I am unripe for it. I cannot do anything, it’s beyond my reach anyhow. I know that only you can do it. And if you won’t do it, why would I need any more breaths! I have intuitively realised the futility of material riches through your grace and I seek nothing other than ‘that’ what you have.”
Three days passed with similar arguments, prayers, pleading and childlike insistence. I knew that He knows. I wasn’t aware of what I wanted, I didn’t tell Him either. And yet He delivered what was worth delivering. His grace is unlimited.
I woke up from deep sleep on the third day, with a small thorn on my right palm and obviously it was paining. I was very much surprised to see the thorn, like a tiny wooden piece there. Where had it come from while I was asleep!? Sudden intuitive contemplation started, “This palm has always been there, but I never noticed it until a thorn pricked it. I became aware of my own palm only because something pricked it, although the palm existed much before that! And I burst into laughter with a sudden flash of the understanding of the divine play! I could clearly correlate this “thorn” as the sense of presence (consciousness) within myself. And instantly realised that ‘I’ (Formless & Eternal I) too existed much before this ever palpable consciousness along with this body of mine which is just a temporary house for this temporary consciousness. This discretion that happened in a split moment was nothing but His divine grace and the whole picture got transformed forever. I was laughing at this divine joke, divine play where I myself was playing a hide & seek game with my own self. I felt again that there is nothing beyond Master’s Grace which is unlimited. Finally and thankfully the Master overtook ‘me’, completely. This persistent and unbearable Idea of separation vanished forever. Shadow, the idea of being a separate seeker dissolved in its own Substance, the omnipresent divine reality. The Silent pause between breaths now sing … Thank You… Thank You!
Words started flowing effortlessly and with a “causeless joy” which is ever unstoppable….
“Whatever never existed vanished, and whatever ever existed, prevailed eternally!”
“Osho cleaned the slate of consciousness and Nisargadatta Maharaj broke it thankfully!”
While I was totally immersed in my Satguru’s Words;
His Words prevailed as the Eternal Truth!
All concepts & beliefs simply disappeared,
Every bondage became dreamlike!
All doubts, suspicions dissolved,
Pleasure & suffering both became illusory!
‘Trigunas’ (satva-rajas-tamas) became unreal
‘Trinity’ (knower-knowing-knowledge) vanished,
Birth itself became an imagination And Death ceased to exist!
It’s not that I found all answers,
In fact all the questions simply perished!
I was searching for myself, and during the search, the so called ‘Searcher’ disappeared and the search ended.
The Understanding dawned that ignorance and knowledge are just two sides of the same coin!
Freedom was from ‘conceptual bondage’, bondage of varied concepts! Real Freedom was from ‘Concept of Freedom’ itself!
Whatever never existed, just vanished and
Whatever ever existed prevailed eternally!
Dream which was looking profoundly real, ended!
Now my silence speaks that my emptiness is full!
And with this, it was as if Maharaj Himself completed His own film, and also blessed me to continue His legacy!
I am grateful to my Masters for their gift of a sensitive heart to surrender, and an undeniable urgency to unlearn… I am thankful to them for keeping alive the sense of wonder and amazement, needed for appreciation of their most precious gift, This Moment!
