My Guru - My Father

I woke up breathing rapidly, and the darkness that generally lulled me to sleep seemed to strangle me today. The pitch-black darkness seemed to shoot tendrils of dark thoughts, drilling into every crevice and sealing off every source of happy memories that generally comforted me during such episodes.

I slowed down my breathing like my father taught me and focused on slow, deep breaths. The tendrils retreated before striking with renewed ferocity. As I sunk deeper into the darkness, a single shining voice suddenly broke free and called out my father's name. Once, twice, three times, ten times, fifty times till it became a rhythmic chant. A silence descended as thoughts started subsiding.

I suddenly felt a warm embrace sweep me into its arms. The winter chill was replaced by a blanket of love and infinite strength as the smell of sandalwood wafted into my nostrils. Father always seemed to wear this perfume; hence, the lingering fragrance of sandalwood in temples or saree shops reminded me of him.

I tried to open my eyes and gaze into his big, loving eyes that radiated infinite love and compassion, but as usual, I fell into a deep, dreamless, restful, and refreshing sleep. It was impossible for me to stay awake in his presence for more than a few minutes. The body automatically goes into deep sleep almost as if it subconsciously knows that his presence is the only place where it can drop all guards and relax.

I woke up to Amma's gentle bhajans with a beautiful smile and a broken heart. Father would have slipped away in the night after tucking me in. Baba's gruff yet earthy voice joined Amma's as they sang about Sri Ram's birth and how he mischievously confounded Ma Kaushalya by appearing as baby Vishnu with four arms. She had forgotten that she had asked him for this experience in her past life and that the little baby lord was fulfilling her deepest desires.

You must be wondering who Amma and Baba are. If they gave birth to me and are raising me with so much love, why do I call someone else's father?

Ever since I was young, I have felt a strange dichotomy. Everything felt complete yet incomplete at the same time. I was utterly content with life, yet it felt like I had a hole in my heart. The emptiness did not always manifest but led me to strange books and odd places. A yoga class here, a meditation session there, a Bhagwat Gita lecture, and so on.

I distinctly remember the first time I stood in front of father. I was a proud, brash boy who thought highly of his virtues and considered the world a better place because of his presence. I asked him a question, and he looked at me unblinkingly as he answered. My heart melted, and peace oozed like chocolate from a lava cake. Just when life felt perfect, and my heart felt whole, a part of my mind launched a furious assault on itself. Thoughts and feelings that I never consciously contemplated emerged. They were repugnant, slimy, loathsome, and yet they were mine. Like seeds buried beneath the soil, they manifested due to the sunlike radiance emerging from him. The light illuminated every corner of the dark attic of my mind, and my carefully constructed self-image collapsed.

It took me years to come to terms with his presence and understand the nature of our relationship. I fought so hard to feel and behave like a grown-up child while internally feeling like a small, scared child who longed to hold onto the finger being offered by his father.

Most other children I met talked so lovingly about my father's gentleness and almost motherly nature, but that's not something I have experienced. The most profound emotion I feel is pain.

I feel deep pain because my father has no time for me. Other children talk nostalgically about times when father was always available, where he would make jokes, laugh freely, perform magic tricks, and be always available for them. The world seemed divided into two groups. The first group had twenty people who knew him during those magical times and could retreat into those cozy memories at will. The second half included the rest of the world and me, who knew father only after he became the responsible statesman we see today. He is perfect - he is Purushottam and does not have a spare second in his day. Some days, the pain of missing him was so deep that it completely overwhelmed any joy of having him in my life.

Father was a strict teacher. He knew my pain, and I know it moved him, but his will never cracked. Slowly, my father taught me how to find him in profound silence and contemplation. He existed as the gentle voice of conscience with me, which always showed me the path but left it to choose if I had the willpower to walk it.

As I spent more time thinking about him in silence and contemplation, he showed me why he was so busy. My father is a billionaire and could afford not to work a single day in life. Yet he spent every single waking minute in a slum near his house. The people living there did not even know about his true identity. He told me how he first tried to give each of them a million dollars, hoping they would all invest in long-term deposits and live a comfortable life while helping other less fortunate people. Instead, the hardened tendencies of their minds meant they squandered and gambled all the money away in a matter of months and came back to the same squalid living conditions. Instead of giving up on them, father decided to live among them. He worked with them, laughed with them, ate with them, and as they trusted him, he slowly started teaching them how to save a small portion of their income. He became a shining example of everything he wanted them to do, and slowly, they started learning about financial independence, finding meaning in life, rising above habits, and finding a more profound peace within themselves. My father, who could choose to sleep on a bed of clouds and eat the choicest meals every day, slept on the floor and ate lentil soup.

Now I can see that no amount of time I spend with my father will ever be enough for me. He taught me that the only path to such lasting joy and peace is to become like him.