Waiting for the saviour

Things will fall into place.... Recite this a 108 times. Doesn't work? Keep reciting the magical mantra by the 108s. No effect? Keep on reciting the mantra, for it will start working from the next life onwards or several lives later. Work it will, for sure.

As for when, it all depends on your accumulated karma, o mortals! One fine day, it will work just fine. Till then, meditate by reciting this mantra and do many other worldly things, leaving the recital sessions aside. You see, lesser mortals like you people have to do it lots and lots of times, given that you have whole lot of karma accumulated over the past several lives to get rid of. Meantime, take care of your worldly duties, earn a living, marry and make merry (funny, isn't it?), look after your families and friends. 

That's quite a juggling act, no? Can't we just meditate in these lush woods, leaving the world behind as great saints like the Shakyamuni Buddha did? After all, that is the shortest way to extricate oneself from what appears to be the never-ending cycle of birth and death.   

Perhaps that was this scribbler chiming in, but in what language? Sanskrit? Prakrit? Paali?

Leave it. There are several questions left to answer and time is running out, so racking your brain on just one question is sheer foolishness. 

You see, the chimer of all times has this habit of speaking even when it is absolutely unnecessary.

Now, just recall what the Guruji said. 

Nope, came the order from Guruji, throwing cold water on the meditation-in-the- woods plan. No means a strict NO is Guruji's very own maxim, copyrighted since ancient times. Others have used it illegally, at their own peril.           

Anyway, thus spake Guruji, aeons and aeons ago before vanishing into you don't know where without wasting a nano-second. You see, Mahapurush are like that. Their disappearing acts are no less mysterious than the vanishing of the unicorn, the Pegasus or the Maya people from Planet Earth, all of them combined together. 

Whether the Earth devoured the Guruji or the high heavens swallowed Him? His disciples still debate the beloved Guruji's possible fate. His vanishing has given rise to several conspiracy theories and several disciples have made fortunes by producing voluminous books on the topic. 

No, that is not the only thing that His disciples do. Clad in robes of different hues and colours, they keep searching for Him during several spiritual journeys that take them to cavernous caves, the lap of the Himalayas, deep woods, riversides, lakesides, mountain-sides and high heavens. They keep searching for Him till their eyes become sore, bodies go numb. Still, there's no sighting of Him. 

Sadly, things have never been the same since Guruji went out of sight. The world has fallen into chaos and all’s not well with our motherland. But Guruji continues to live in hearts and minds. 

Several lives later, lesser mortals like this scribbler are still reciting the mantra with not much difference to their lives. 

With this land of the brave and the home of the free bracing for local and general elections, rumours are rife that Guruji will descend on this heaven on Earth in a new avatar and bail us all out of troubles galore. Tea-stall and five-star hotel talks are all alluding that Guruji will dirty his hands and clean up politics.

If He does, well and good. Even if He doesn’t, we have the sacred mantra to recite, perhaps for aeons to come. What say you, guys?

- Devendra Gautam