The Gods within us

If you walk down from the Glass House towards the Band-stand, and then turn left, you are on your way to the Rose Garden, which will appear just after a small roundabout, on your left. If you turn right there, you can walk along a path, rimmed with palms. Look left, and you will see a gazebo, somewhat like the band-stand, and you will also notice, if you come early enough in the morning, a motley group of women, chanting loudly. If you had come a little earlier, before the chanting began, you would have heard the same group of women laughing loudly, raising their arms skywards, and formed into a nice little circle.

This group had come into existence a few months ago, led by by the formidable Venkamma, who was the owner of a sari shop in Basavanagudi. She had grown tired of only worrying about the shop, which had been left to her by her late husband. The last time she had met the doctor, he  had said that she needed to reduce her weight drastically, and be aware of her diet as she was a border-line diabetic. 

And so, she had decided to walk in  Lalbagh every morning. And as she was a gregarious soul and didn’t like to walk alone in the park, she had roped in some of her friends, and this had become a welcome change from the boredom of running a shop. At first, there were just three or four of them, but as word spread, the size of of the group had expanded, and now, there were at least twenty of them.

Someone in the group had suggested that they should start doing Yoga. While the younger ones in the group – there were not many of them, though – welcomed the idea, the older ones felt that it would be too much to expect their tired bodies to stretch and move in the way all those people did on TV.

Savitramma – one of Venkamma’s oldest friends – then had the bright idea of doing something that she called ‘Laughing Yoga’. She had read about it on the internet, and this kind of Yoga seemed tailor-made for their group. 

And so it was that the early morning walkers, and the birds around, were woken from their somnambulistic activities by the sound of  loud laughter. 

Savitramma led the group  on the first day. She explained the exercises – they are very simple, and there are just five of them, she said.  

First, she said, “when we greet each other, we do namaste, and then laugh out loud, at least ten times”. hands were folded into the namaste mudra quickly, as the women turned to one another and everyone in the group started laughing at this suggestion. 

“That was the first exercise”, she said, smiling.

“And now, for the second exercise. Imagine you are holding a cell phone against your ear, and that someone at the other end of the line has told you something funny. Begin to laugh, and don’t stop till I tell you to”. Everyone took out their imaginary cell-phones and began to laugh – the laughter went one for a while, till Savitramma told them to stop. By now, the women in the group had begun clutching their stomachs, and there were small beads of perspiration on some foreheads. But everyone seemed pleased.

“Let’s start the third exercise”, Savitramma said, after a short break. “ In this exercise, you must begin slowly, first smile shyly, gently.. Imagine you were seeing your husband-to-be for the first time, and then begin to laugh slowly, as you began to find out more about him, and finally, laugh out really loudly, as if you had finally realized what he was all about.” The women in the group seemed to really like this exercise, and as each one of them moved from the gentle smile to raucous laughter, something seemed to clear up in their minds, as if their problems had really vanished.

“For the fourth exercise, imagine yourself in an awkward situation – perhaps when you began looking for your spectacles everywhere, before you realized that you were actually wearing them, and laugh at yourself”, Savitramma said. This was easy, and restful – almost everyone in the group had actually done something similar.

“And now for the fifth exercise. For this, you need to raise your arms up, look up at the sky and laugh heartily.  After laughing ten times, bring your hands down, and after a short rest, repeat the process, maybe four or five times. Perhaps you could think of what an odd kind of thing this is – laughing, and exercising at the same time, or imagine what your grandchildren will think of this, Ajji exercising and laughing at the same time..” 

Hands went up, and the laughter began, and went on. This time the exercise went on for about three minutes, and by the time they were done, some were sweating profusely. But something inside them seemed to have changed, for the tension on their faces had vanished, and in its place, the happiness of the once care-free child had begun to appear.

Laughing Yoga was a success, and Savitramma was very pleased. Everyone thronged around her at the end of the session and congratulated her. Venkamma too joined in, but she felt left out, after all she had started everything, but Savitramma had now turned out to be the leader of the group, and all the attention of the group was focussed on her. 

Venkamma was resolved to get back, shall we say,  to the top spot. But what could she do? The Laughing Yoga sessions had been going on for a few weeks now, and she had no idea of what she could do to oust Savitramma from her position, who seemed to be going from strength to strength. She had been invited now to various functions, and other womens’ groups sought her guidance on how they could start similar programs.

One evening, sitting in her shop – it wasn’t the marriage season, and customers were few and far between – Venkamma was flipping through TV channels, when she chanced upon a program where a lady was delivering a discourse. Something about the lady seemed familiar, and then she realized, it was indeed someone who had come in some days ago, asking for donations. And she had donated some money to her, and the lady had left her visiting  card.

Venkamma’s  curiosity was aroused, she decided to watch the entire program, and then, when it had finished, she got the idea that she had been waiting for. She would, she decided, ask Mataji – that was how she was referred to in the program – to talk to her group, and then we shall see what Savitramma does, she thought. She looked through the records in the shop, got her number, and called her. Mataji was only too happy to hear from Venkamma, and she readily agreed to talk to Venkamma’s Lalbagh group, and a date was fixed.

Mataji came on the appointed day, and she joined the group just after the Laughing Yoga session. She was a short, tubby woman, dressed in white, and with a pleasant smile on her face – everyone seemed to like her at first sight. Venkamma introduced her, and explained that she would talk to them about spirituality and Yoga. 

Mataji began with an invocation from the Upanishads, and then began her discourse. She talked about the gods, about Siva, about Vishnu, about Brahma, and the others. Everyone in the group knew the stories, but it was always nice to hear them again. And although some of the younger women in the group were restless, the others paid some attention. 

It was good to have this kind of ‘refresher course’, and maybe there would be some new stories to tell the grandchildren, Venkamma thought, as she enthusiastically clapped when Mataji finished her stories for the day. 

Mataji had some last words to say, though.

“Did you know,” Mataji said, “the gods reside within us?” 

How could that be, the women thought. How could Brahma. Vishnu, Siva be within us?

“Not only do they reside within,” continued Mataji, “they work through us every day.” This seemed even more confusing: what work had she done that the gods did?

“Brahma creates, Shiva destroys, and Vishnu sustains the Universe”, said Mataji

and continued: “This may seem astonishing to you, but yet it is true, and so simply true that you will be astounded that you hadn’t seen this before.”

“Every day, when you wake up and try to keep things going, you sustain your world, you are Vishnu”. 

“And then, in the night, when you go to sleep, you are Brahma. you create your dream-world, a different one, every day.”

“Later, as you move into deep, dreamless sleep, you destroy that world which you had just created-you are Shiva!”

“And from the depths of sleep, that world of Narayana, the cycle of birth, sustenance and destruction repeats itself, endlessly,” Mataji concluded with a flourish.

Venkamma’s heart swelled with pride. Now, that is real Yoga, she thought, as the crowd gathered around her and Mataji, everyone anxious now for contact with a real Yogini.