So much ras in my life…

Listening to Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s rendition of ‘Mera Piya Ghar Aaya’ on YouTube. There used to be a website – www.pakistanimusic.com that had a great collection of Sufi qawaalis with lyrics. It was a wonderful resource but seems to be down now.

Music is so transcendental and Sufi music really embodies this divine quality. Many years back, I felt that music was the destination. It was where everything came to a rest, a state of completion and peace. But now I believe that music is a medium, a path. Not everyone learns to meditate, few are lucky to *find* their Guru but music is available for all. It is one route to realizing the divine within. It makes the little self dissolve until all that remains is the music, the heightened awareness, the sensitivity to the force around and within. When I get back to my little self, I bring back a little of that heightened awareness and that completely makes my day. Sufi music really puts it into words – the bhakti, the devotion, the magic of surrender. Like Guruji says, ‘What power do you have to lose? You are so powerless!’ – to just let everything go to Him and His Grace and to sit back and enjoy the show… in total happiness.

Even up to a few years back, I’d never have imagined a Guru in my life. I thought that meditation and a Guru and such were for loonies – people who didn’t have a grip on reality. Or reality as I thought it was… 🙂 What pride, what vanity – in my understanding of what reality was. Well, it was my version of reality. I imagined life to be a series of experiences, relationships, places, learnings… and I really felt that that was all that could be there to life. Now I smile at the shallowness of my experiences. They were so flat, so dry – even though they brought me that *high*, that sense of being alive. But meeting Guruji has brought such depth to my experiences – with Him, with bhakti, with life, with people. It would never have occurred to me that a Guru could bring such *juice* into my existence but that’s what my Sadhguru has done. It’s like, my life was a series of lines, curves, shapes… and He just poured the colours into it and made it three-dimensional. That makes sense because I probably was living life in 2-D. Total lack of awareness about the third dimension – the dimension of the Self. He gave me a glimpse of it… what luck!

There is such a feeling of contentment – like I am moving from a state of completeness to another state of completeness. Moving from a level of perfection to yet another level of perfection. This Guru Poornima, Guruji had mentioned the signs of having a Sadhguru in one’s life –

1. Dukha Kshayam – End of sorrow and suffering
2. Sukh Aavebhav – Joy welling up for no apparent reason
3. Jnana Raksha – Protection of knowledge
4. Samruddhi – Abundance
5. Sarva-Gun-Samvardhan – Blossoming of talents and abilities

For me, the very experience of devotion is the sweetest of all. To think about Him and feel the tears welling up, to feel the catch in my throat, to feel my head bowing down in surrender, to feel His Grace suffusing my life, to feel His Love permeating my very existence…

A devotee’s love manifests in so many ways – like a Guru’s grace, I suppose! Some of us string beautiful flower garlands, some of us sing ourselves hoarse, cry our eyes out until they turn red, travel endlessly to meet Him, fly all over the world to be in His magnificent presence…

To quote from the song I am listening to right now,

Mera Ik Nazar Tumhein Dekhna
Ba Khuda Namaz Se Kam Nahi…

My taking a single look at you,
Is, by God, not less than prayer…