GIRI PRADAKSHINA: THE UNWINDING
When an intimate devotee of Bhagavan, soulfully told him that he was finding it very difficult to cope with mundane life, the mountain of munificence looked at him deeply and said, “Go along with the current. Don’t try to swim against the flow of the river. All that is happening is what a higher power has already enjoined. Human efforts to change it or alter it to one’s advantage amounts to going against His writ. Acceptance of it is a natural movement and defiance of it, wholly unnatural. Surrender is nothing but total acceptance of it. Then it becomes the burden of the higher power and no more yours! Everything is perfectly all right as it is. Realise it! Go along with it to its natural completion.”
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When Krishna Bhikshu narrated the above to me, I sought further clarification from him. He said, “Has not our Bhagavan clearly told us that our natural state is happiness? And that thinking is not natural to us? When we go along with the dictates of our thoughts, for certain, we go against God’s injunction. Such resistance in our past lives accumulates as samskaras, latent tendencies. Guru’s grace –by look and sacred instructions –quickens the exhaustion of these stored up samskaras. In this life, our suffering itself is proof enough that we have accrued vast samskaras, that are yet to be expiated. Out of compassion, the guru expedites the process of their completion. That is why Bhagavan said, “Go along with the current!”
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I asked Krishna Bhikshu to explain with example. He continued, “You know, Bhagavan has always approved of our doing giri pradakshina of this Holy Hill. How do we do it? Clockwise, isn’t it? The scriptures prohibit us from doing it anti–clockwise.
Do you know why? Accruing of samskaras is like the winding process of a steel coil. But it is anti –clockwise. Now, please understand, thinking or thought is the root of every samskara, whether there is less or more of it! Bhagavan has said that thinking is not our nature. Therefore, samskaras get coiled up in an anti –clockwise bundle. When we do giri pradakshina correctly, that is clockwise, the process of unwinding is powerfully given effect to. This dissolves our samskaras and finally reduces them to a nil balance.”
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I asked Krishna Bhikshugaru why we should blindly follow the clockwise system. He said that he himself had put this question to Bhagavan. This was Bhagavan’s reply. “Have you observed the movement of the planets around the sun, the macrocosm? And, have you noticed the blood circulation in our body, the microcosm? Both are clockwise movements only!”
Let us move clockwise, flow with the current, submit to the Divine Will!
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