Merging with  Maharishikaa
Blessed indeed are they who find themselves at the feet of their guru, and so am I, having embarked on the epic journey of realising the self, dragged by Maharishikaa Preeti Maiyaa, with my ego in tow.
I knew Maharishikaa Preeti Maiyaa since our school days, and since we were family friends, I often visited her house. It’s not easy to accept someone whom you have once attended school with, as your guru.
I had not been in touch with Maiyaa for a long time till the day I received an invitation to the first Presence day in Mumbai, over a decade ago. In a gathering of about 60 or 70 seekers, various far-ranging questions were raised, and I was amazed to see Maiyaa giving precise answers to all of them, be it relationships, money, sex, or existential queries about the purpose of life, and the after-life.
After the session, each of us had the opportunity to take Maiyaa’s darshan, which involved sitting in front of Maiyaa and gazing into her eyes. This was one of the most powerful experiences that I’d ever had. As I knelt before her and looked into her eyes, it seemed like an eternity before she broke the gaze. I’ve had many opportunities to take Maiyaa’s darshan in the past decade, but that experience is particularly etched in my mind. I believe I underwent a change at that time as I never missed a single Presence meeting for a very long time, till the time I took an introspective break (as Maiyaa puts it).
My friend and guru-bandhu, Ramesh, who had invited me to my first Presence day often visited our office and sometimes offered us (me and my partners) advice related to effectuating certain changes in our office or operating in a specific way. His casual manner of putting forth the suggestions, never once gave away that they were not his own.
For example, he told us how objects lying unused over long periods attracted negative energy and convinced us that clearing our office of the junk that lay gathering dust over the years, in our loft, would pave the way for clear thinking and prosperity. Interestingly, soon after we had disposed of all the old and un-utilised articles (old computers, spares, empty cartons, etc.), we felt a transformation in the energy of the office.
Maiyaa’s benevolence
A vaastu expert once advised us to embed some copper wires in the floor of the office and in my flat. These copper wires were ‘prayed upon’ or ‘energised’ (as he put it) to usher in prosperity and well being. When Ramesh learnt about this, he dissuaded us and also explained why it was not a good idea. He explained that the process involved disembodied beings (spirits), and it wasn’t advisable to get involved with something we had little or no knowledge about. He said that one would not know what price one would have to pay for getting involved with spirits or the consequences thereafter.
Good sense prevailed, and we decided against the installation of the copper wires. The journey towards self-realisation entails embracing the truth and surrendering the ego to the guru. It was much later that I learned it was none other than Maiyaa sending these ‘suggestions’ through Ramesh to me. I kept attending Presence and found the sessions fascinating. Maiyaa had manifested a body of knowledge that covered practically every aspect of life and living. Her answers were cutting edge, scientific, practical, and filled with beauty that satiated the intellect each time she gave an insight. With passing time, I learnt that Presence was not simply about understanding things conceptually. It was fundamentally about transformation—transforming those aspects about myself that obstructed my own prosperity, my self-realisation.
Ego’s enemy
The most fundamental transformation was my acceptance that there was someone who knew more than what I did. Having thus been made aware, it was only logical that I accept Maiyaa as my guru and, having done that, I had to give of myself and remain in surrender to her.
In the early stages, every time I received an invitation to a Presence, I would feel my heart sink because each time I attended it, the experience was heavy, in the literal sense of the word. The gross nature of my body was like dragging a piece of lead. While on the one hand, everything that Maiyaa said resonated with me and her answers set me free, on the other hand, I felt a certain heaviness lugging at me. I often wondered why… It was, of course, the ego crying for survival (which Maiyaa told me later). The ego knew that this is where it would be hacked.
Maiyaa showed me—and it was an incredible realisation—that it was the society that shaped our ego so that we could serve it. I lived largely as per the rule book, the norms and protocols, mores, and ethical code of conduct that my society had created for itself. This ensured that I adhered to the straight and narrow path and served the society by desiring and acquiring goodies like everyone. A fine way of keeping the truth of our existence hidden. This perhaps was the story of the whole of humanity.
The master sculptor The master sculptor that Maharishikaa Maiyaa is, she sculpts away at the ego to unveil the truth hidden within a being. My ego, which wanted to survive at all costs, reared its head time and again and continues to do it ever so often. It did so in the most cunning and baffling of ways—manipulating, pretending, and obfuscating. Yet, Maiyaa recognised the subtlest play of my ego and removed it swiftly and incisively. Casting aside layers and layers of falsehood with surgical precision, she chiselled away the foul stuff which had weakened me, till a fragrant and strong self began to emerge.
One feels stifled, claustrophobic, nauseous, feverish, and suffers all types of psychosomatic ailments while undergoing this extreme ego whittling—a long-drawn, relentless, and painful process of intense and microscopic observation of each act committed and every word uttered. Well, it’s as long drawn and relentless as the shishya would want to make it. Sometimes, so subtle is the play of the ego that even the shishya doesn’t know what they have done to be subject to such intense scrutiny. The guru battles the ego till it’s reduced to just that much which is required for mundane living. The shishya is increasingly anchored in the truth. This process, Maiyaa tells me, will continue till my last breath. And then, there is also the intense relief—relief that I can transform and live, guided by the truth.
The easier way
I’m amongst the many shishyas who have run away from their guru’s ashram thinking that they’d never return. Very few students survive these battles; most don’t come back.
The shishya can bypass this long and painful process by taking an ingenious shortcut on this yatra to the self. There’s hardly any ego
bashing and painful experiences, and it is smooth sailing for most of the part. This shortcut is called surrender (samarpan) to the guru. An unequivocal surrender, where you do not entertain doubts. Actually, in a classical guru-shishya relationship, this is de rigueur.
Maiyaa often spoke about surrender. Most of us, coming from a westernised, urban, English-educated upbringing, struggled with this concept. For most of us, the word had negative connotations. It meant to give up control, to not have free will, to lose. Another issue was acknowledging that the one sitting on the aasana knew more. The ego didn’t want to accept this.
I had been attending Presence for a couple of years and was struggling with the idea of surrender. Try as I might, I simply could not grasp it!
The final act
Then one day, I decided that the only way to apprehend this was to experience it. Before the close of the Presence meet, we had a 20-minute session called ‘strength’. During ‘strength’, Maiyaa awakened shakti within each seeker. We sat in quiet contemplation and could take turns to go in front of Maiyaa to do a sashtanga namaskar (full body prostration). What a struggle it was!
I felt like stone, unable to move from my chair. Totally tense. Bowing down like this to another was never an option. After a humongous effort, I managed to stand up and make my way to the front. I knelt before Maiyaa and then, for the first time in my life, I lay prostrate, in the ancient posture of total surrender, the sashtanga namaskar!It seemed like an eternity before I got up to take my seat. The first thing I experienced was physical relief. The tension in the body vanished instantly, and I felt light. My head felt empty too, as though, along with my body, I had also laid down at Maiyaa’s feet, the heavy sack that I had been carrying in my head all these years. A sack full of ideas about myself and the world at large. A sack full of nothing—fodder for the ego. Lying prostrate in front of Maiyaa, I did not experience my ego for even a millisecond.
The sashtanga namaskar is an ingenious kriya (practice). The body is at its most vulnerable, incapable of defending itself. A no-ego position. What a discovery!
It’s a very simplistic and absurd interpretation that surrender to the guru is akin to giving up one’s freedom. This is how the ego experiences surrender: That one doesn’t have any say in one’s living, and that the guru is directing every move—and such absurd thoughts. And sadly, I too had to battle these machinations of the ego. However, nothing of the sort happens. A shishya who has made it to that step, experiences surrender as exquisite freedom.
The taste of freedom
The guru only frees the shishya from the clutches of the ego and from the shackles of social obligations, to make him hear the voice of truth from the antar-aatman, the ‘source’ within; to become fearless, brave, and courageous; to remain anchored in the truth at all times. The guru ensures that the shishya is steady on the path to knowing the Self and to empowering and serving others. This automatically ensures prosperity and minimal pain of suffering for the shishya. This is a freedom experienced by very few on the planet. I’m blessed to have experienced true freedom in this life.
Unless the shishya surrenders to the guru, things are bound to remain more or less the same. At best, only a few cosmetic changes may occur because of the purely conceptual understanding of what the guru is teaching. Students have been known to experience anxiety as part of this ‘surrendering’ process. A very common feeling (and also quite scary) is that one is dying! Many experience this as pain in the heart or in the solar plexus area. Yet, others experience this as suffocation or as palpitations. Maiyaa says it’s the ego that is dying and that the shishya must endure it till it passes. I’ve suffered too, throwing up bile every morning for nearly ten months! And weeping incoherently.
I see now that surrender could come easier than it did with me. It could begin with a simple sashtanga namaskar. When the material body is put in a posture of surrender, the ego will follow. It may take some time, but it will happen. I try to do the sashtanga namaskar kriya as often as I can, even if I’m not in front of Maiyaa. For, eventually, as Maiyaa has so often said, surrendering to the external guru is only the preparation for the final great surrender, which is to the great guru within, when we transform into the unquestioning servants of the antar aatman—the source, the truth within us—and begin to follow its commands.