In my meditation today, a thought that has been with me all these years impinged upon my mind very forcefully. This thought in its germinal form many years ago formed the basis of the dream that gradually impelled me to return to India, whereas continuing to live in the United States would have been materially advantageous and more convenient. While I lived the most important years of my adult life (about 35 years), in the USA, and while I still spend part of every year in my ashram there, my spouse, born and brought up there holding also a lucrative job like myself, followed me to India out of her love and loyalty. In fact she prayed for me to leave a high paying job so I can engage in my God-given mission completely. She had to fully uproot herself and come to the opposite side of the globe. She does not speak the language (Malayalam). The cultural shock is enormous. While there in the U. S. I see her driving our Toyota Camry at the speed of 70-75 miles (113-121 kilometers) per hour like a free gazelle, I see her sitting or lying in the back seat of our car frightened by the mad, chaotic, unpredictable, dangerous, self-centered, and self-defeating driving of most of the Kerala drivers who do not take their turn creating a bottle-neck and delaying everyone including themselves. It is not that I cannot do in USA the psychological and spiritual work that I am doing in India. It is not that people there do not need my services as much as or even more than people in India. I also felt India, especially Kerala, is at crossroads, and is ready to receive what I would like to offer. Besides, I felt very few Indians want to return to India at least now from the paradise (USA). I may also note from my observations that in this age of information marked by instant communication, fast transportation, and considerable travel shrinking the world, India is importing the worst such as capitalistic cut-throat competition, acquiring unbridled wealth through quick and easy money, mindless technology and medical tests that may prolong life without quality while letting go of its best values and traditions such as tolerance, non-violence, cooperative living, self-sufficiency, closeness to earth, growing food, and dying at home among loved ones. Proven Gandhian models of satyagraha (truth force) and ahimsa (non-violence) are more practised in the West than in the East.

             After 50 years of being away from Kerala, I was appalled on my return to see a Kerala where there is less freedom, less safety and security especially for women than when I left. A highly educated woman who worked in a well-known college told me that women in Kerala are considered to be the kalippattangal (play-objects or toys) of men. A principal of the college who was a priest tried to rape her; a faculty member tried to violate her; another faculty member saved her holding him to keep him away from her with difficulty while she ran for her life as the perpetrator was physically very strong. I asked her why she did not report. Her response was that they (college authorities as well as the police) would not believe her since she was a woman and especially since she was an un-married woman, and since bad elements in the college were spreading rumors that she is a prostitute. She also told me that even priests including her close relatives would not believe in her integrity. Interestingly, she only draws a pension of Rs. 10,000 per month from the government upon retirement instead of the usual Rs. 25,000 per month her qualification would have entitled her because of the sheer callousness and possible vindictiveness of the college principal and management.
            
What is the thought in the beginning of the series of articles that I started with? It deals with actualization, realization, holiness. What is realization or holiness all about? Being all that we can be; becoming all that we have the capacity to become; more specifically, becoming all that God has placed in us to become, or becoming perfect as your heavenly father (God) is perfect in the words of Sadguru Jesus Christ (Matthew, 5: 38). Becoming aware of who we are and living that awareness every moment. Here a story from Bhagavat Puranam comes to my mind. Pingala was a highly sought after prostitute who lived in the city of Mithila in ancient India. She, decked in beautiful dress, ornaments, and make-up, and living in a palatial house with expensive decor, entertained rich clients and persons with high status in society. One day she was very upset as nobody showed up. She became very inconsolable and started crying. Finally she cried out in her despair: Ashahi paramam dukham (Desire is the cause of supreme sorrow); nyrashyam paramam sukham (No-desire is the cause of supreme happiness). From her philosophical insight she broke out into a spiritual insight: Santham sameepe ramanam, rathipradam, vittapradam nityamimavihaya (With the presence always of the entertainment innermost reality: Supreme Being - in me I have all the sexual pleasure as well as financial bliss).

Real Truth

            What is the thought in the beginning of the series of articles that I started with? It deals with actualization, realization, holiness. What is realization or holiness all about? Being all that we can be; becoming all that we have the capacity to become; more specifically, becoming all that God has placed in us to become, or becoming perfect as your heavenly father (God) is perfect in the words of Sadguru Jesus Christ (Matthew, 5: 38). Becoming aware of who we are and living that awareness every moment. Here a story from Bhagavat Puranam comes to my mind. Pingala was a highly sought after prostitute who lived in the city of Mithila in ancient India. She, decked in beautiful dress, ornaments, and make-up, and living in a palatial house with expensive decor, entertained rich clients and persons with high status in society. One day she was very upset as nobody showed up. She became very inconsolable and started crying. Finally she cried out in her despair: Ashahi paramam dukham (Desire is the cause of supreme sorrow); nyrashyam paramam sukham (No-desire is the cause of supreme happiness). From her philosophical insight she broke out into a spiritual insight: Santham sameepe ramanam, rathipradam, vittapradam nityamimavihaya (With the presence always of the entertainment innermost reality: Supreme Being - in me I have all the sexual pleasure as well as financial bliss). them.

             We are all in a way like Pingala in the sense we prostitute ourselves in some ways. We are in a constant struggle between the flesh and the spirit, between the material and the spiritual quest. Holiness and the lack thereof is on this continuum of struggle. Interestingly, we also look for and run after others, for instance, the so-called God-men and God-women for fulfillment without being aware that the One that can give the true and real enjoyment and happiness is within us, nay, more intimate than we ourselves are as St. Augustine, perhaps the greatest pillar of Western civilization, put it. These God-men and God-women would not tell their devotees the real truth that they cannot give lasting joy as they themselves in their illusion (maya) consider themselves to be avatars (incarnations) of god or some holy persons of old. Looking at it another way we are all in illusion, a variant of delusion; we are all in reality God-men and God-women; the only difference, perhaps, is that those who proclaim themselves to be are aware of being such and we do not have that same awareness. Here awareness (insight) plays the most crucial role. Pingala the transformed woman moved from her maya - the transitory and therefore illusory state of commercial sexual union with men for livelihood - to the reality of sublime union with God. In the whole of Christendom, Mary Magdalen is known not as a prostitute but as one of the greatest saints who was privileged to witness to the risen Christ first, and to communicate that all-important news to his apostles and disciples. In the coming articles I would like to look at awareness, realization, and holiness from Eastern and Western perspectives, more specifically, from Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian points of view.