Author: zenhealer

Just in case you have ever wondered whether you are a Hindu, or taken for granted that you are a Hindu, or questioned the definition of a Hindu, you can get an answer in two minutes. You just have to visit one of the 4 or 5 temples in India or the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu to get an instant answer. I have never considered myself to be a Hindu, but I was told in no uncertain terms at the Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneshwar that I was a Hindu. Many, who have a doubt about being a Hindu, would have been proud with that categorical statement at the entrance of one of the most revered Hindu temples in India. I was a bit aghast that religion was being imposed upon me when in fact I had no religion!

In secular and liberal India, there are these temples that allow entrance only to ‘Hindus’ and this is a known fact mentioned in all travel guides. Last month I was on a trip to Orissa with a motley group that consisted of Indians, NRIs and foreigners. We were on our way to Konark for full moon meditation at the Sun Temple. Full moon at the sun temple sounds like a contradiction, but what a blissful, empowering contradiction (but that is a separate story)! We had to pass Bhubaneshwar and Puri to reach Konark, and since the Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneshwar and the Jagannath Temple in Puri were listed in all our guide books as the top ‘sightseeing place’, we decided to stop by.
Having read that only Hindus are allowed entrance, some of the foreigners and NRIs were hesitant to even go near the temples. I had something else in mind, and convinced them to at least admire the architectural beauty from the outside (they are actually dirty and ugly!), and if we were fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your perspective!), the Gods may smile and make us all Hindus for a day! We reached the Lingaraj Temple, dutifully removed our shoes outside, and joined the long queue to enter. I lead the group followed by:

1. Sam (a NRI and non practicing Muslim who looks totally Indian),
2. Vijay (ex NRI now in Delhi, a self-professed Hindu) with his American wife Dolly (a Protestant converted to Hinduism and wearing a sari),
3. Himanshu and his wife Julie (non practicing Parsis living in Europe but speak Parsi accented Hindi),
4. Sonam (a practicing Sikh from Europe who can throw choice four letter words at you in Hindi but fairer and in her jeans looked more ‘foreigner’ than Dolly),
5. Michael aka Mohandas (from Lithuania who studies Sanskrit in Varanasi and teaches Sanskrit in Europe, in kurta pyjama, long hair, speaks chaste Hindi but clearly looks foreigner like Tom Alter speaking chaste Urdu) and
6. Elia (a Jew from Israel who looks totally Indian with pierced nose etc.) There were six others who were true non Hindu foreigners who would never have made it past the entrance even if the Gods were smiling, and therefore chose not to join the line.

I approached the 3 security type individuals (not sure whether they were cops) and was allowed to enter. Sam followed without any questions. Vijay was holding his wife’s hands, and one of the guys stopped Dolly and started talking to her in Hindi. Vijay intervened saying she was his wife and they were both Hindus. The guy said you may go but is your wife born a Hindu or Christian. Vijay replied she had converted to Hinduism to marry her. She was refused and they stood aside. Himanshu and Julie were very confusing for the 3 guys. They were also holding hands and looked as Indian as all Parsis and were conversing in Hindi with the guys. Names were asked, Himanshu sounded Indian and was allowed to go, but not his wife Julie. Sonam’s body language was such that the 3 guys dared not challenge her! She entered. Mohandas did not make it because he was speaking with them in such chaste Hindi that they doubted any Hindu could speak such perfect Hindi! Elia walked in.

I was waiting and watching and asked why Dolly and Mohandas had not been allowed. They said only Hindus are allowed. I said Dolly was a Hindu and that Mohandas was studying and teaching Sanskrit and perhaps he could speak with your priests. They replied, “converted and other such Hindus are not allowed”. I replied but you have allowed so many non-Hindus, so why not 2 more. I continued, “I am not a Hindu so why did you allow me”? I was told, “You look like a Hindu so you are allowed to go in” and they looked pointedly at the rudraksh mala in my neck and the red thread around my wrist. They insisted I go in! I then pointed out to Sam, Himanshu, Sonam and Elia and said, “but you have allowed a Muslim, a Parsi, a Sikh and a Jew to enter”. They were a bit taken aback and started giggling, ‘aap humse majak kar rahe hain, woh sab Hindu hain, Christian log aise nahin dikhte’! I pointed to Sam and said his real name is Salim and he is a Muslim, should I ask him to remove his pants so you can see? The 3 gatekeepers to the Hindu gods had no clue what I was talking about!

By this time, a large group had formed around us and it was quite a chaos. Needless to say, none of us (true Hindus or Hindu lookalikes or pseudo Hindus or non-Hindus) entered the Temple. There was a local journalist in the crowd who had watched everything, spoke with us, took some pictures, and apparently this ‘event’ was published in one of
the local newspapers. I have no doubt that this ‘event’ was a nonevent for almost anyone who may have read that piece, just as it was for the hundreds who were entering the Temple.

We repeated the same ‘event’ at the Jagannath Temple in Puri with almost identical results, except that Himanshu was also stopped in Puri. My previous similar experience was at the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu where I was in a group of 200 primarily Indians and NRIs led by Swami Chidanand of Parmarth Niketan. We were on our way to
Kailash Mansarovar. There were about 10 ‘foreigners’ including Sadhvi Bhagwati who has been initiated by Swami Chidananda as his main disciple. She is an American Jew who wears saffron saris, can recite the Gita and gives discourses on Vedanta. All 10, including her, were not allowed inside the temple, even though she was with Swamiji, and he went inside the Temple with the group without her. Some of us protested and stayed behind. Later we asked Swamiji about this, and he had no clear answer.

I have been to 80 countries, visited numerous temples, mosques, churches, synagogues and other places of worship by various faiths and denominations. Not once have I encountered a place that is closed to people of other faiths, except for prayer times. India has yet one more unique distinction.

When I embarked on the spiritual quest at the tender age of seven, staring at the sky and the moon and the stars, the question was, ‘Who Am I’?

After forty long years I found the answer, at the feet of my gurus Osho and Ramesh Balsekar, ‘I Am That’.

My love affair with myself started ever since, and it has been bliss, satchitananda, all the way.

I had gone through almost half my life living through a myriad of relationships, parents, siblings, spouse, friends, extended family, some thicker than blood, some thinner than water. Almost all of them were
conditional or expectational in some way or the other. There was always ‘the other’ involved; there was always give and take, joy and sadness, disappointments and fulfillments. It was only in the last days of my mother that I truly experienced unconditional love with someone. She and I had become one, there was no ‘other’. It brought to life the very teaching and awareness that had awakened in me, ‘I Am That’. It was not coincidental that my experience with my mother came about almost immediately after the awakening. It was almost as if God was putting his own seal on the teaching!

We spend our entire life looking for love everywhere, some obvious and some not so obvious. There are as many shades and definitions of love as there are individuals. The mother child love relationship is the most primitive and obvious and spans the entire lifetime of either one of them. The next rung down is the relationship with our father, siblings, children and other blood relatives that come in a whole range of colors. The next obvious love relationship is from the time we attain puberty and our sex hormones start to play the cupid game. It starts
with a crush on out teacher or nanny, flirting with the opposite gender, engaging in boyfriend / girlfriend games and finally getting caught in the marriage trap for good or bad. Along the way we have friends hom we swear by, but do we really love them? Marriage is by no means the end game, and the hunt for ‘true love’ continues right to our
death bed. We all want this elusive true love, and each new relationship promises to be that eternal love until it lies shattered on the altar of commitment and monogamy. I have never heard anyone say, ‘I love my God’ or ‘I love my Guru’. One always fears God and always respects the Guru. What does love have to do with religion or spirituality! We have put them on a pedestal and we can only look up to them. Love is looking in the eyes. You do ot look your God or your Guru in their eyes. Love is primeval and sublime and intimate and allencompassing and intoxicating. We may be devoted to them, but we do not associate these feelings of love with them. Meera’s feelings for Krishna were totally and purely devotional unlike that of Radha which was unrequited love. But Krishna loved himself, and thereby he loved Rukmini and Radha and Meera and all the gopis and cowherds. He loved the Pandavas as much as he loved the Kauravas. His love knew no bounds.

But we never look at that one person whom we know the best and who is the easiest to fall in love with, because there is no ‘other’, our own self. We loathe our self, fling scorn, wallow in self-pity and are unduly harsh and critical and negative of our own life. Instead of counting our blessings and being thankful for our life, we complain and beg and plead and pray for ever more. Sometimes we almost wish we had not been born. We feel the entire world and everyone is stacked against us, nobody loves us. But do we love our own self?

When I fell in love with myself, I rose up like a phoenix from the ashes. It was a new beginning, a new life, full of joy and happiness, brightness and clarity. The cobwebs of confusion from years of conditioning had cleared away. The sun was shining bright, and even in the darkness of the new moon night, there was always the knowledge that the sun will rise next morning. I hugged myself as I had never hugged any one, I smiled from ear to ear, and life became a blessing. When I realized that I am connected to every being in this world and we were all connected
to that one consciousness, my love for myself radiated in all directions. I would still get angry in the moment, but the anger would drop soon enough. I was no longer the doer, nor was the other. Unconditional love poured out in the form of hugs and healing circles and workshops and tete-a-tetes. The conflicts, the stress, the tension had all melted away. When you fall in love with yourself, I discovered, even God falls in love with you. I was after all his child. Doors started opening up, paths started getting cleared, answers started popping up. It was almost as if I had moved from the drudgery of the day to day life to the bliss of Now. Each moment seemed eternal. My prayers changed from asking to expressions of gratitude. Solitude became my best companion when I and my lover were the only ones together. I did not need anyone else. The change was anything but subtle.

You are in love with yourself. You take better care of your body. You start noticing things about it you never did before. The signals you were always getting from your body now become loud and clear. You start treating it with more respect and love! You are in love after all! Your mental faculties become sharper, your observation more keen.
Your spirit has rekindled the long dormant intuitive ability. You can now ‘read’ yourself better. You can ‘read’ thers better. Your love for yourself lights the path to reach out to others. You find your own inner child, the innocent self that came out crying from his mother’s womb with not a worry.

Once you fall in love with yourself, there is no getting out of it. Why would you? You have finally found your true love, one that is pure, pristine and eternal!

Full moon meditation has become an inherent and important part of my spiritual journey and practice. It has become particularly more regular and interesting in the last couple of years as I travel the world as part of my ongoing spiritual journey. The very first full moon meditation I had experienced was at Bodh Gaya in 2000 around the
millennium, on the terrace of the Root Institute guest house. Two of the more recent experiences I will share here. But first, what is full moon meditation?

Every full moon is when the sun shines the brightest in the night! Yes, this appears to be a paradox, but true and therein lays the significance of full moon meditation. As we all learnt in school, the moon has no light of its own. It is the sunlight reflecting off the moon’s surface that we call moonlight. As we also learnt and see in the sky, this moonlight changes from total darkness on new moon day to full bright light on full moon day, as the moon goes through the different phases with respect to its position with reference to the sun. So the Creator in its
myriad magical ways has given us this wonderful gift of light even in the darkness of night. We think the sun has set and darkness descends on us, and lo and behold, it comes back on the opposite side reflecting its light through the moon. There is never total darkness. Even on new moon day, our experience tells us that we will start seeing the crescent of light from the next day, giving us hope and something to look forward to. This play of the sun and the moon is extremely symbolic and totally reflective of our own lives as we go through the ups and downs. There is never any reason to be totally depressed and give up hope, because we know the sun is shining even when it is dark.

There is another aspect of the moon and its phases that has a very important impact on the human body. Again, from our science lessons we are familiar with the fact that the oceans rise and fall with the phases of the moon, and give rise to high and low tides. The human body is made up of almost 70% water and the brain alone has a much larger percentage of water. This water in our body is subject to the same gravitational pull from the moon as the oceans, and instead of manifesting itself in the form of tides, it manifests in the form of mood swings and various health related issues. There are many folklores, fairy tales and even personal anecdotes of strange things happening on new moon and full moon days. Some may be true, some may be imagination. But there is a valid basis behind it. In my workshops and meditation sessions which are predominantly attended by women, it is very easy to quickly determine the impact of the moon’s phases on a woman’s menstrual cycle, and if she is lactating, the impact on the flow of milk from her breasts. Many women, who keep a diary of their monthly cycle, also correlate it with the lunar calendar and find a very interesting relationship between the two. Men are quick to claim they do not have to go through any of this ‘womanly’ stuff. But that is not entirely true. It manifests in men in a different way, through their mood swings and energy levels, especially sexual energy. I have noticed this myself, and also challenged many men to maintain a diary to establish this correlation. They are all surprised when they see the results.

So, if the moon has such a profound impact on the human body and wellbeing, what could be better than to harness this wonderful energy on full moon day, try and remove the blockages that clog our energy channels and synchronize ourselves with the discipline and regularity of the moon’s phases? The moon, like everything in Nature, works like
clockwork, never late, never behind schedule, no sick day, no excuses. There is no reason why we, who are also gifts of Nature, should be any different. Meditating in the full glory of the moonlight, absorbing the moon rays full of cool, soothing energy, allowing it to melt away all the darkness within ourselves, is one of the most powerful practices in spirituality. In many tribal and traditional cultures, there are numerous rituals that take place on full moon days. In the world of tantra, Shiva performs his tandava dance on full moon day to woo Shakti, and the ecstasy of the male and female energies coming together helps them transcend this mundane world to the highest level of existence. Some of us have already experienced the sensual pleasure of a simple walk in
the forest, or by the shimmering lake or by the beach on full moon day, and reveled in it for hours later.

Each of the twelve full moons (sometimes thirteen) correlate to one of the zodiac sign, and the significance of each may vary for each individual, depending on the individual’s zodiac sign and the moon sign. On October 28th of last year, I was in Vilnius, Lithuania, and it was the Scorpio full moon day. We organized a full moon meditation. It was chilly at that time of the year, so we had to be indoors in a beautiful tea house with tatami mats, cushions and lots of hot tea of all kinds. Full moon meditation is ideally done outdoors basking under the moonlight. If it is tolerably chilly, I organize a bonfire. Only if it is unbearable, do I go indoors. The benefits are no less. There were 15 of us. I start with a healing circle, holding hands, giving thanks. We share deep hugs all around. We sit comfortably on the floor, warm and cozy. I start with a short talk on full moon meditation. This being the Scorpio full moon, I talk about the Warrior and the Disciple, urging the fighting spirit within us to come through and accept the leadership and guidance of our teacher or guru and surrender ourselves as disciples, totally and
unconditionally; just as the moon has surrendered itself to the gravitational pull of the sun, and then shines in its radiant light every full moon day. The guru will never let his disciple down. I chime the gong by my side to start the quiet period. Lights have been dimmed, there is only candle light. Everyone is now visualizing the beautiful moon shining bright outside, and drawing its energy within themselves. The energy permeates every part of the body, as we draw it in through the sahasara chakra, and see it flow down the spine touching each chakra, and then back again to the top, forming a full circle. We let it wander a little longer on the anahata chakra where it energizes our heart and we feel it bursting with love and compassion. We feel the pull in our hara and lower hakras as our energies get in tune with the pull of the moon. We experience a sense of upliftment as we try and reach out to the bright shining moon. A sense of calmness descends on us. A smile flutters on our lips and we want to stay in this reverie forever. But I strike the gong again. We look around and see smiles everywhere. We now ake a piece of paper and write an affirmation on it, something we want to share with the Universe. We gather around a
small fire set up in the middle of the room. Each of us, one by one, offer the affirmation to the fire and let the Universe take care of it. We again hold hands and sit quiet for a few minutes. It is bliss. We do another round of energy healing, this time keeping the affirmation in our attention. We close with another healing circle and lots of hugs all around. There is complete silence. No one wants to say a word. On December 28th of last year, I led a group of twelve people for full moon meditation at the Sun Temple in Konark, Orissa. No location on earth could perhaps be more appropriate for full moon meditation than the Sun Temple. The symbolism was just awesome. The logistics were a bit of a challenge. The temple is open from dawn to 8PM each day. No one is allowed to stay after 8PM. The Universe was with us, and we managed to convince the guards to allow our bunch of crazy meditators to stay after the crowds had dispersed. We had packed some snacks, flasks of hot lemon & ginger, brought our mats and
blankets. We did not need any candles. The beautiful moon would be our guide. We sat on a porch under this eautiful banyan tree on the North side of the temple. We got a small fire going in the center as we gathered around it. The ritual followed the same pattern as described above, except it was more drawn out. This was the Capricorn full
moon. It was about grounding and being with Mother Earth, with our self firmly planted here, as we gaze at the moon in the beautiful infinite sky. It was cool, but nice and cozy under our blankets. The energy was amazing and enough to keep us all warm. The warm yellow glow of the rising moon belied the cool energy it emanated, as it gradually bathed the entire Sun Temple in its radiance. This was irony at its peak. The Sun God was being bathed in its own light and energy through this luminous celestial body slowing rising up in the sky. It was almost as if the moon was giving back to the sun what it had gotten from it. There could be no bigger tribute or offering to the Sun God. It was a full circle. We stayed till midnight, enjoying the eerie silence all around. No one wanted to leave. But now the blankets were not enough to ward off the chill. Slowly we gathered ourselves, and walked back in meditative silence. This was the most powerful full moon meditation I had participated in.

After the full moon meditation in Vilnius, one of the women in her midtwenties came up to me, hugged me tightly, had tears in her eyes and confided that she has not had her monthly cycle since she was 18. She said she felt this surge of energy inside her as if she was rising up like a balloon. She had never experienced anything like it. I asked her to continue the meditation and the ritual every full moon. A few days ago, she called me up on Skype and was crying and could barely talk. She finally calmed down, had a huge smile on her face and said she just had her period last week after 8 years!
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