The Guru Story

For all those who come in contact with His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji (Guruji), would know what I mean by a Guru Story. HE meets millions of us and with outstanding consistency HE is able to make an impact so deep that it automatically becomes a Guru story for us. Well here is ours, the first ever encounter.

This is from the time when Anjana and I were going around, the time had come to face the reality and talk about marriage. Anjana belongs to Jain community (Katchi speaking), I belong to a South Indian Brahmin family, my father would joke that I need to be married to a Guajarati girl just because of my inborn liking for the Guajarati food, mother wouldn’t say anything much to that. Little I realised what was to come in the future when shackles broke, (MOM did not agree, infact could not agree for a long while). Also, we had the wonderful odds supporting us, that no body had ever done an inter caste marriage in Anjana's family. Obviously the girl's dad was pissed off and the mother crying like a baby when she first met the prospect (that would be me). The only nice thing happened in our lives that time was that we had done the Art of Living course, and were getting involved in organising activities. Both the sets of parents did the course and it was then that BAWA came for a DSN to anjana's house. Of course, with his impeccable ease on any situation he suggested to anjana's parents, that lets not break our heads on the situation, go and ask Guruji and if HE says yes to the marriage let it happen if no then no. He went on to add a humour as usual, 'Waise to vivek Cigarette pita tha, lekin abhi accha ladka ban gaya hai'. This has been our motto since then, if we have a situation we look to Guruji for indications, and turns out that it has been like a special power walking with us all the time. Anjana's parents agreed and my father was ok, but my Mom had stopped talking to me since a year, so couldn't explain this to her. One good thing she was regular in her Sadhana.

The first meeting materialised. Myself and Anjana went to the ashram, it was Diwali times, and the first entry in the ashram made us realise this place is blessed, and even with all the tension in our mind we were actually having a ball singing and dancing away to glory in the satsangs. Guruji with his usual playfulness was creating waves of joy. An other friend of ours took us for a ashram tour for the key highlights and special places like Sumeru Mandap, Meditation hall, Ved patshala, ampi theater etc. The satsang was amazing and my liking towards music instantly made me realise that this genre is not only musically good, but it has the greatest ability to move the hearts of people with instant gratitude and joy.

The satsang got over and we suddenly realised that we were in ashram, in fact to ask Guruji if we should get married. So we immediately hurried to wait outside his Kutir (Shakti Kutir). Amazingly, along with us there were about 200 other people waiting for Guruji. Heart started to pound on the glimpse of HIM making his way towards his kutir, we were thinking how to talk about this. And then the most amazing thing happened which I like to call the Guru impact. Guruji in a crowd of 200 people made way specifically towards us, put his hand around my shoulder and looked straight into my eye and asked 'You want to say something tell me what is it'? Although I was shocked not understanding how did he come to know, I quickly pounced on the opportunity and told HIM 'Guruji bahut tension hain, can we have 5 minutes in private with you' he said ' Paaanch minute, nahin nahin abhi bolo' and all the 200 people were starring at us. Gathering the courage and ignoring the embarrassment, I told him, 'guruji Iam a south indian tamilian and she is Katchi Jain, and we wish to get married' and I expressed a what say you kind of look to him. He started looking at both of us keenly for few seconds and ofcourse he had gauged the situation, he asked me, 'Tumhare Mummy ka kya hai' , i said 'Guruji Mummy ko hi to problem hain' , again I was shocked how does he know these things. But ignored it as I was looking for an answer, he said ' Thik hai karo, abhi November hain, December ke baad karo'.

So it was done, we were quite happy that he had oked it. After that things started improving and it was done deal, other than one little thing, my Mother could not still agree. A few months passed Anjana went for Teachers training course of Art of living, and we again went to meet Guruji this time also with anjana's parents, again we got a chance to ask HIM, I introduced again, as I would have normally thought a person who is meeting so many thousands of people everyday could have forgotten one meeting a few months back. As soon as I introduced he again asked me the same thing ' Tumhare Mummy ka kya hain?' I told him 'Mummy ko ab bhi problem hain' by this time I had already given up that she would agree and had decided to get married without her consent, and then Guruji said something that shocked me totally ' Tumhare Mummy ke blessing ke bina kaise karenge' i was shattered, but then later I realised A Guru always keeps a holistic view, and had to take care of my mother also, he went on to say ' wait for 6 months she will be fine' and believe it or not in exactly six months she was able to come to accept the inevitable and had started liking the idea, about the same time, myself and anjana got married .

Since then life has been full of wonderful experiences connecting with Guruji,, I will post more going ahead...