It is good to be 73: Another life report

A couple of days ago I wrote on Facebook:

It is good to be 73. I feel as though everything I have done in my life is coming to a ripening. Eventually the fruits that have been growing for a lifetime start to ripen. Just as long as you water. Fortunately, I have had plenty of water, and still have, and hope to have more.

I wasn't even thinking about my birthday when I wrote the above, though I suppose there must have been some subliminal processes going on. But it is more like a coming to terms with being in Canada and staying here for so long, something that was both unexpected and has been challenging.

It is often hard to find a synthesis between the various worlds that one inhabits. The Vedic system always seeks to minimize disruption through simplification. The theory is that the sattva guna is the highest promoter of happiness and one should increase the sattva guṇa throughout life. It is not that growing old inevitably means only tamas.

The varnashram concept sees a nice progressive line of maturing in the life of a human being. For me, however, it has never been a nice straight line, even though the quest for understanding and achieving the highest goal of human life was almost never far from consciousness.

I see that whatever errors I made were also done in good faith, in the spirit of experimentation and testing premises received from authority. But even when temptations arise and you follow them, you have to recognize it as the Great Author helping you to write your story. To shake things up for a greater good, that of attaining wisdom.

I know that is a bit cliché to talk about "writing one's story," automythologizing, autohagiographizing (!), but in fact you cannot avoid it. It is not a flaw, but a fundamental characteristic of human psychology to try to give a coherent form to the events of one’s life. This is ultimately how we can understand the point of intersection between our own lives, rasa, and bhakti.

Anyway, for the moment I am giving almost full attention to my Sanskrit and Gītā classes on Zoom, which has a small but nicely qualified students participating.

I wrote them: I don't know how many are listening to these Gītā classes outside of my two or three regulars live participants. Nevertheless, it is good to have two or three regulars.

I feel that the quality of the classes is improving and that is immediately the consequence of the students' capacity to follow. That in turn, lights the fires of inspiration and clarity. All of which is extremely gratifying. It will be hard for me to give this up even when the Jiva Tirtha session finishes. I seem to be getting energy rather than losing it.

It has also been good for me to "start at the beginning," as it were. It is a long trek from the Bhagavad Gītā to Prīti Sandarbha. They are like two poles of a continuum, even though the Upanishads are present there in the Gītā, and Rupa and Raghunath and Vishwanath are all just waiting to be relished by one who has assimilated the Bhagavatam in the Chaitanya spirit.

My Sanskrit classes have a slightly larger number of dedicated regulars, and a few more on the irregular side of things. Some people have been taking my course on and off for years now. I must say though that I have found it even more enjoyable this year than previously and that too is due to the high caliber of the students.

I really wonder why I never really was a successful teacher in all these years. PhD students don't get trained in either pedagogy or in being entertaining. I never really got to hone my skills through teaching, which is one of the best ways to mature one's understanding of one's subject. It seems to me that since starting these courses my insight into Sanskrit has taken off by leaps and bounds. When you teach, the gaps in your knowledge that need to be filled are constantly being revealed to you.

This is the eighth time I am giving it, so the materials I have accumulated in doing so appear to be coming to some kind of final form. That is also gratifying.

I am happy with the course in other ways too. There have been lots of nice unexpected and unplanned synchronicities in the material -- like unexpected repetitions of a theme or vocabulary. We do lots of quotes. We memorize one verse every week. We are distributing tat-sāhityajāmodam. It might not be prema directly, though some might argue it is, but at the worst, it is its twin brother.

Most of all, these days I am on the last leg of my journey through the Sandarbhas. Anyone who knows me is probably tired of hearing me profess that I am working on Babaji's Sandarbhas project. I have promised to complete whatever it is that I do by the end of our school year and that deadline is looming very dark over my head.

As a result, almost every other aspect of my life is being neglected to a degree that has been rare in my life. And it strangely coincides with the Bhagavad-Gītā, which as we are only in chapter 5 is all about karma, karma, more karma. कर्मसंन्यासात् कर्मयोगो विशिष्यते ॥

It just happens that my karma is studying the Tenth Canto and especially the madhura-rasa portions. Toss in a bit of Bhakti-rasāmr̥ta-sindhu and Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi for good measure.

So in a sense I have come full circle, as the next project as soon as this is done will be to finally revise and publish my work on Gopala Champu. Now at least I will be able to say that I read everything that Jiva had to say on the matter _before_ he wrote Gopāla-campū, which I could not say when I wrote my doctorate more than 30 years ago.

All of the above, which keeps me sane in the midst of all the insanity, is the grace of Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji. I have had the good fortune to have two patrons in the latter part of my life -- Swami Veda Bharati and Satyanarayana Dasaji. I have no idea why he has entrusted me to work with him on the Sandarbhas. I rather hope that it is because my contributions are valuable. But I selfishly only consider my own profit, which I do not measure in financial terms, but in the profit to my own edification as a worthy devotee of Radha and Krishna, Chaitanya-Nitai, the Aupaniṣada Puruṣa.

Physically I am in excellent shape. I walk a couple of miles every day in the cold Canadian winter air, which is quite invigorating. I have now been practicing yoga in such a way that my system has become quite personalized, but centered on the joints and glands exercises that I learned at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama. This exercise cycle can be done standing or sitting in padmasana, slowly or quickly, incorporating pranayama and mantra. It has developed into a powerful personal practice over the years.

This is what I mean about accumulated benefit that comes with aging.

At any rate, my public persona has been greatly reduced, my blog practically deserted. Any effort at making videos abandoned. for the time being. It is almost like being on a vrata, a mauna-vrata.

But I do hope to return more fully afterwards. Jai Radhe.