A new chapter &...... a broken bone .
"Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in your spiritual journey. From this moment on, you can consider yourself initiated by me."
I had eagerly awaited this. It was a response to my request for initiation from my now guru Om Swami!
The next day, I fractured my foot!
I can almost picture Swamiji reading this and bursting into his characteristic laugh at the absurdity of the correlation. "I don’t work like that—wishing people broken bones!" he might say, I think. But I wonder what more would follow. In his memoir, he writes - "Coincidence generally means the occurrence of something in a striking manner without any causal connection. The truth is there are no accidents in the play of nature. Nothing is non-causal; everything supports a bigger cause."
When the minor accident leading to my fracture happened, I was on the 5th day of my Ganesh Sadhana. And if I allow my imagination and intuition to guide me, I can sense a parallel with Ganesha’s own story—the loss and replacement of his head.
The week that followed and my insights from that are a case in point.
For over a month preceding this event, I had hiked in the beautiful mountains around Seattle every weekend. I had hiked in snow, done lengthy trails, and scaled some challenging peaks. I admit that while sharing my experiences, there was a hearty undercurrent of ego. I am going to be honest, it wasn't just pride, but possibly a hint of superiority with which I narrated these experiences. My fractured foot has abruptly halted my hiking plans, and it's disheartening. I was enjoying hiking and had hoped it would be the highlight of this summer. Perhaps there are other things that the universe wants to draw me into—perhaps I needed to boost my calcium levels, focus on other priorities, and most importantly - purge any remnants of ego as I continue to scale mountains, the ones inside and the ones outside, after healing.
That wasn't the only lesson learned last week. Lately, I believe that I had started becoming over-judgmental about certain aspects of my social interactions. Although drawing myself into a cocoon was for valid reasons, I did ruminate excessively on the negatives. By enabling myself to delve deeper into spiritual and inner growth by distancing, I was simultaneously feeding my ego with a holier-than-thou attitude. I know this to be true within. These same people have surrounded me with care, food, kindness, support, and love as I heal. In choosing to be conscious about social interactions, I had become overly fixated on the negatives. It took a broken foot to ring in Rumi's words - The wound is the place light enters you.
Much like Shiva's first act as a guru to Ganesha was beheading him, essentially severing his ego, this has been my immediate experience post-initiation. As I prepare to practice the art of Sadhanas with more awareness, I am in awe of the truth in Swamiji’s words from one of his talks, "Sabse Kathin Sadhana hamari vrittiyon ko tyagna hota hai." The most challenging Sadhana is to renounce our afflictions—one aspect at a time— kama, krodh, lobh, moh, maya, ahamkar
..lust, anger, attachment, greed, illusion, ego.
Every day as I hobble around my yard with a huge shoe on one foot, I see tiny seedlings sprouting from seeds that I planted before my small accident. I am being invited to witness imperfections with compassion. In allowing my mind to conjure its meaning from the fractured bone, Swamiji words in his recent blog post ring true - "If you remain open to lessons that life imparts, you will automatically gain Samayika (equilibrium)"
I am overjoyed beyond words that at no point did my experience feel like a test of faith. On the contrary, I feel taken aback by the clarity it brought. My initiation could have been an uneventful and ordinary experience. Yet here I am, bowing down to this unexpected, somewhat startling, but undeniably insightful welcome into this new chapter.
Jai Sri Hari
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