Have you ever seen a shooting star and made a wish? Pick any random night and you might spot one or two, provided the sky is clear and you have the patience to keep looking long enough. Some nights of the year are different, though. On these nights, you can witness a meteor shower with the naked eye and make dozens or even hundreds of wishes every hour.
For a disciple, Guru Poornima is that magical night. There’s no meteor shower, but unsought wishes rain down as blessings from the sky of a Guru’s presence. This shower of grace is no slave to time. Yet, as Sri Guru revealed to an awestruck gathering of lovers, the Guru Poornima fortnight is a rare cosmic event when the disciple doesn’t need much preparation or patience to witness the shower; all he or she needs is to be under the sky.
The Guru’s sky comprises three mystical dimensions – their words (Vachan), their touch (Sparsh), and their gaze (Nazar). This year’s shower of grace began in the dimension of words with a special Satsang on Shri Atmasiddhi Shastra. Our latest odyssey of Shrimad Rajchandraji’s epic 142-verse spiritual masterpiece began more than three years ago, back in February 2023. Now, what are the odds that we would have arrived at verses 124-127, expressing the peak of a disciple’s surrender and devotion, during Guru Poornima? In yet another proof that we are merely actors in a script written by the Divine, that is exactly what transpired. The perfect verses for the perfect occasion.
How many of us had always assumed we understood what these verses expressed? In reality, we had barely scratched the surface. Prabhu took us deeper in clarity and higher in devotion. After all, these are the expressions of Shri Atmasiddhi Shastra’s disciple – blooming fresh with the dew drops of enlightenment, yet feeling like a speck of dust before his Beloved Guru. A disciple who has balanced his intellect yet opened his heart to divine madness. Only a Guru can decode the words of this ideal disciple, taking the aspiring ones like us closer to this exalted state.
As expected, and yet beyond expectations, the outpour of blessings continued even after the Satsang. While SRM’s latest spiritual journal was greeted with eager excitement, Sri Guru’s masterclass on meditation, ‘Dhyan Kala’, filled the hall with wondrous reverence. A new prayer, ‘Prem Kshamapna’, ushered in a heart-altering era of seeking forgiveness, not from a place of guilt and shame, but from pure love and longing for the Beloved. Ending the evening on another high note of devotion, Sri Guru personally blessed seekers who wished to begin a pure life of Brahmacharya.
The Expressions evening of Guru Poornima always brings with it a rhetorical question – how to express the inexpressible? Since rhetorical questions are not meant to be answered, we ignore the question and try to express our bhaav anyway. Like every year, this evening was another wave of gratitude and blessedness that kept rising higher and higher and never crashed. The opening Bhakti captivated not just the disciples facing the stage, but also the ones on it, channeling Sri Guru’s presence into words, notes and chords of devotion. This state of pure immersion left the Bhakti team transfixed on the stage even as the Bhakti ended, giving us all some intimate moments of raw connection.
The expressions that followed from SwaRaj Kriya leaders, Sri Guru’s young book-reading group (‘Club 40’), her lights, and a lover from across the seas, Minal Prabhu – all found their way straight into her heart, felt in the Master’s serene smiles and loving gestures of appreciation. Some of the Gen-Z inspired gestures she used might have been new to seekers born before this millennium – a playful reminder that love always finds new languages to express itself.
A musical play, ‘Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein’, was the standout dedication presented by SRM’s Cultural Seva team. With a stunning portrayal of Sant Kabir’s life, the play spoke to every seeker in a language increasingly becoming the heartbeat of SRM – the pain of separation and longing for the ultimate union. It was an exceptionally moving ode to a priceless jewel in the lineage of Enlightened Masters – a Fakir with the endless wealth of Love, who liberated the word ‘Guru’ from the narrow confines of religious sects.
And then came the most breathtaking expression of the evening by light years. In what was undoubtedly a blessing to be celebrated for years to come, the evening transcended into another dimension with a single touch of grace: ‘Sab Ka Mangal’, a prayer of universal well-being written and voiced by Sri Guru from the peak of meditative flow and compassion. If Love could be described in words, it would be these words. If Love could be given a voice, it would be this voice. If Love could be labelled with a feeling, it would be the feeling that Sri Guru has so effortlessly poured into this prayer. And we have been soaking in this ‘Love’ on loop ever since.
During the final Satsang of the Bhagavad Gita series at SRM’s annual retreat in 2018, Sri Guru made a promise with tears in her eyes: our journey with Lord Krishna would always resume after a comma, never end with a full stop. On the final day of this year’s Guru Poornima celebrations, that promise came alive. Ten years of transforming lives completed a full circle, as SRM embarked on a new journey of the Bhagavad Gita with Sri Guru.
While the first series was to sharpen the intellect of every seeking Arjuna, this one is for the Krishna within all of us. The distinction was evident right from the outset. Faces glowed with anticipation. The exquisite stage backdrop set the tone. A popular Bhakti was renewed with lyrics that touched the depths of longing and faith. And then, the most-awaited beginning: Sri Guru inaugurated the epic Satsang with a mystical poem to reveal how this will not be a journey of understanding a scripture, but of flowing with a divine song. These moments more than justified the eager wait for this day, even before the first Shloka was recited.
Bhagavad Gita, the scripture, has returned as ‘Bhagavad Geet’, the Song of Love. Lord Krishna, the upholder of Dharma, has returned to sing to every heart. History is in the making, yet again!
Sri Guru’s gaze must have fallen upon hundreds of seekers throughout the three days. But as she recollected her first-ever encounter with Lord Krishna nearly three decades ago, she also gave away the secret of a Guru’s gaze, without explicitly saying so: it rests upon the heart that yearns to bring the Divine out of idols and images.
Have you ever seen a shooting star and made a wish? If you are blessed with a Guru’s presence, maybe you have seen billions of them through all your lifetimes, and wished for a Guru every single time. Or maybe you have seen only one, yet wished for a Guru with the longing of a billion heartaches. Either way, this rare blessing doesn’t come easy. Let us celebrate it while it lasts. The next time you see a shooting star, just make a wish that it lasts forever.
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