7-Dec-19
Oakhill, Princeton

He had swellings at the base of his neck again yesterday evening. He was saying that the night before around 9 PM, he was very restless and felt strange. He didn’t know what to do. Then the mind stopped totally with no movement in any direction. It was a strange feeling. We looked up the calendar and found that it was the night of solar eclipse and it had begun around 8 PM. He said, now I know what the matter was! He said many years back, on the night of shivratri, his neck swelled and turned blue on the sides. His chest was red and it seemed as if he was wearing a thick red garland. 

***

He wants nothing from me. Never demands anything ever. The only thing he asks is for me to sing and write. He allows me to stay close to him. He made it possible for me to stay in America for 5 months. Who would do  such a thing? Such a man is rare on this planet. 

I gave him a haircut today morning. He looks ethereal! His face is shining! 

7-Jan-19:

While driving to Oatmeal with me, he asked me to write about the difference in attraction – what I had for my parents and what I feel for him. With my parents, the basis of the relationship was what we got out of each other. It was driven by a strong conditioning. We had to match up to the images we had of one another, otherwise discord ensued. It was a struggle. With him, I feel uplifted. The basis of this ‘relationship’ is freedom! There is no push and pull from him, he doesn’t need me, yet he allows me to hang around! He demands nothing, absolutely nothing! I don’t have to please him. Hence I feel no inhibition. 

***

He was listening to my songs in the car and said, “This thing can’t be stolen from you or be spent, it increases as days pass!” 

14-Jan-19:

He said while we were driving to Philadelphia, “You have to know the nuances of bondage.”

17-Jan-19:

Yesterday an 18 year old boy came to see him at Ansonia. He is a second year student of business administration at Minnesota. He had read JK & UG and came to know about Guha. He was in touch with Louis for sometime. He showed tremendous maturity for an 18 year old. I was an absolute dumbass at his age. G spoke for about 2 hours, words tumbling of out of his mouth, never pausing to think. His energy has access to the deepest recesses in us, which are like festering wounds, that nothing else can heal.

17-Jan-19:

What a beautiful thing his body is! The movement of his hands, his feet resting on the table, his slender frame so graceful, fluid – Mother Nature’s piece of art. 

It must have been rare people like him in the past that inspired artists to make graceful idols and label them as “God”. The nature and qualities of such an individual were called “Godly” as they appeared to be strikingly different from most people. 

21-Jan-19:

What is happening in his presence is too powerful, too sweeping for me to grasp. It is as if I am sleep-walking through it. I don’t know. 

There was a lunar eclipse yesterday night. He spoke for about 1.5 hours at Oatmeal. Louis asked him questions about the ancient Hindu philosophy and its foundation. He spoke fluently without ever pausing to think. I sat close to him with my body paralysed. My hands, neck, feet and eyes got locked. I listened with utmost attention but couldn’t process what he said. Tremendous bursts of energy were emanating from him and electrifying me. My head was tight. I felt drunk. 

When I woke up today morning at Radhika’s house, my body was charged up. Then, surprisingly, I couldn’t speak, my mouth wouldn’t move, no words were forming inside. I felt anxious. It reminded me of a similar happening in Kodaikanal earlier this year when I went completely dumb for sometime. A bit later we went walking in the Bridgewater mall. I told G, “Your eclipse-energy burst has made me dumb.” I started talking again when we went for lunch at the Thai Basil.

22-Jan-19:

I feel electrified. The head is tight, thoughts are bubbling up as if getting released by heat. The body is constantly hot and cold – G said it is like tempering steel. 

I was shaking all day as I sat next to him. He knew everything. He casually asked in the evening, “What is happening to you?” He had the most beatific yet mischievous smile on his face!

I can’t write anything, I am drowning in his immensity. What can I write about something so immense and beyond my grasp? He asked me what I was feeling. I said, “I feel as if the air from my lungs will be sucked out if I don’t see you for a second”. He smiled and showed me a thumbs up!

He told me today, “You can say to people that you are preoccupied, so you have no occupation!” 

23-Jan-19:

Woke up around 3 or 3:30 today morning. Tears welled up and won’t stop flowing. 

Till I have an image of myself I will have images of others. But what is ‘me’ and what is the ‘other’? Both are identical – an idea, a bunch of images. That is all there is. That is the show that is running in the head- image after image, reels of passing thought – fearful, hopeful, happy, anxious – draining the vital energy, punching giant holes in the awareness. 

Radhika came very early today. I was up long before and was waiting for him to come down. I was like an object stung by his tremendously high voltage energy. My body has become something else. The eyes are swollen- I didn’t know until I saw a picture that Radhika took of me staring at G in her house. After he came down and sat next to us, I was totally paralyzed. He said something and the crown of my head started paining heavily. I felt my head would burst from the top and my eyes will pop out because of the tremendous pressure. He is nature’s pure energy!

He spoke to a friend for about 30 mins on the phone around 7:35 am. He started with “The name of the game is confusion …” and uttered 3 sentences with such power that it seemed to me they were far more potent than all the uttering of the Vedas and Upanishads of a thousand years put together! When he finished, I almost screamed out, “You are like the purest of the pure, neat alcohol, the tiniest drop of which will make one crazily high. All else is like huge pegs of diluted stuff which cannot produce anything, forget being high! He said, “OMG what are you saying! Are you sure? You have no doubts at all?!” I couldn’t speak any more. 

His essence, his quality is denser and purer than the knowledge of all the scriptures. One can write a thousand books by merely being in his proximity. 

Night:

I am so overwhelmed I can’t recall what day or date or time it is. 

He is asking me everyday to write but I am drowning in this immensity and finding words inadequate. This night, he again said, “You should write down what you are seeing and feeling otherwise you will forget it all.” I said how difficult I was finding it to express anything and I was drowning in him. He said,”Then write just that.” Then he switched on the tv and started watching a show. And I started to write immediately. He sat close to me keeping an eye. Magic! This is real, in action!

The glow in his face is making me blind! I am so hot, I am clueless yet so crazily high! No drug can ever do such a thing! My spine is doing a number – weird sensations as if ants are crawling, and burning and pain. I also felt as if ants are crawling inside the head and there is a tremendous pressure. Today, from morning till late afternoon my eyes were very sticky and painful, there was great pressure in the eyes. I told him in the morning when I was walking with him in the mall and he just nodded. He is keeping an eye on me. I am shivering, sweating and cooling with so much energy all day! Again, I can’t eat. I don’t remember if I’ve eaten. The sight of food gave me a panic attack during lunch. The veggie soup that I drank so many times before, seemed like fire to me today. I think my throat is swollen from the inside. My mouth is highly sensitive to taste now and I can only eat very bland stuff. This is a familiar happening now – hypersensitivity to everything. Like he says, it is the body’s design, by design the body is highly sensitive for its own survival and protection and thoughts and ideas have numbed it. He told a friend earlier, “You are confused but your body is not.” 

After lunch the 3 of us Julie, him and me drove to Ikea. On the way he said to me in Bengali, “Tomar aar kono shongshoy nei? Konorakom sandeho nei?” (do you have any more doubts about me?) I said “No!” Then he startled me and uttered twice that famous sloka from Bhagavatam, “bhidyate hṛdaya-granthi, chidyante sarva-saṁśayāḥ” He said, “If the doubts are dissolved, then its over!” Then he laughed with great joy. I sat speechless as if hit by a lightening. 

After Ikea we went to pickup a freind from Newark airport and then went to Radhika’s. While returning home we were talking. G said, “I know the male psyche, how difficult it is to surrender. UG used to say it is easier for women to love him. I know because I was also a man! I was like them.” I took 2 seconds to digest what he had said and then screamed, “Julie did you hear what he just said? He said he “was” a man OMG! Now he doesn’t know what he is!” G started laughing coyly! My oh my!

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16th July, 2018
Kolkata

Sometimes I can’t help wondering what is all this? What am I seeing in front of my eyes? What is this thing that we call Guha? His movements are like the flash of lightning – unpredictable, unbounded, charged and precise. I told him this and he smiled shyly like a guileless child! All his actions and words seem to be borne out of a pure response to the dynamics around him. His behavior with an individual depends solely on the individual’s disposition and state of mind at that moment. Nothing is carried over to the next moment and there is no mental residue. He says this is how a vital, living system wants to function given a chance. He sys he has no such feeling as boredom or frustration, since he has no image of himself and of what he should do. To anyone who does not know him intimately, he will appear to be a just a normal, energetic person with a great sense of humour. He would engage in casual chit chat for hours and never utter a word about spirituality to anyone who was not serious. He has no agenda whatsoever with anybody in the world. Even when it comes to his closest friends, he never imposes anything on them. But if anybody asks sincerely for his help, he gives the most practical advice.  

He does not shy away from taking the help of an influential friend to solve the problem of another friend. “This is the only way to navigate through the challenges of social dynamics”, he would say. But he never uses anything or anybody for himself. What is his life like? I remember him saying, “My friends are all I have. This is my life, I have nothing else.” I could have never imagined that one could live like this until I met him. I had imagined certain things when I read about the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Ramana. But to witness a live-wire, a pure fire raging in front of you is a different ball game altogether. What is it that emanates from him that captivates me and many more? I cannot take my eyes off him even for a second! What is this attraction? Often I feel I’ll be blinded by the light of his presence and close my eyes. I remember a friend had taken some photos of him in Kodai and was showing them around. She showed them to G and he tried to show them to me. I don’t know what was there is those photos but my eyes just couldn’t bear to look at them! I felt blinded by their power and intensity! I turned away as if in pain saying, “I don’t want to look at your photos, I can’t!” He just said to the friends “ok let her be.”

What an intense attention develops in me in his presence! I feel a tremendous power in my body as if each and every cell is bursting with energy! It defies all descriptions and ideas! These are not my imaginings. It is not possible to imagine such things. If it is real, you feel it in your bones and see it as clear as daylight. And you will never seek anybody’s approval or attention; you will have no interest in discussing with anybody whatsoever!

If one is brave enough to expose oneself to such a phenomenon, the fire will burn down the formidable castle of ideas and images and perhaps bring about an irreversible change that is life-abiding. This has got nothing to do with what the holy texts and scriptures call enlightenment or brahma jnana or a state of eternal bliss which can be achieved through intense practice and renunciation. 

If there is anything called peace or happiness, it is the destruction of all inner conflicts, created by images and ideas, that drain the body’s vital energy, and establishment of harmony and balance with life around us. This is nature’s dynamic equilibrium that is maintaining the continuity of life since time immemorial. This supremely intelligent and complex process that has evolved over millions of years can never be known in its totality. It has its own mysterious origin and expression which will possibly remain forever unknown to the human brain, because whatever we can know is limited. Whatever we imagine about its scale, extension and effect are just models and assumptions created by churning what we already know so far as a civilization. In fact all models are created by observing and trying to understand the way nature operates. Knowledge is an after-effect of the living process. It is a memory, and memory is a fragmented, static imprint left behind by life’s interaction with our brain. Like a tiger leaves behind its paw marks in soft mud. But the footprints are not the tiger, not the real thing! How can such knowledge (any knowledge) ever discover the origin  and operating mechanism of life’s energy?! 

Closer home, how will this knowledge solve my conflicts, frustrations and boredom of living? Knowing whether life can exist in Mars or not will not resolve any of my problems at home or my fear of disease and death, while living in an oppressive society. Anything I do for begetting happiness or health leaves a bad after-effect, a fear and there’s no respite. Honestly, I don’t know what is good for me!

Thousands of years of knowledge-gathering has built up a tremendous momentum in our minds and is being passed on from generation to generation, taking on an ominous form. It is a formidable force, a self-destructive movement. On the other hand knowledge has produced tremendous results using science and technology. But overall, as a race, we remain confused, depressed, sick, fighting wars and looking ever more for entertainment to escape the difficulties of living which are our own creation. 

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9-Mar-21
8:46 pm
Prosperity Apartment
Pondy

Rahul, Revathi and I have been sticking to G like bees to a pot of honey. We sit cozily around him all day glued to his magnificent presence. Our trips to shops, the beach and every other place have reduced drastically. We hardly go out, cook just one dish once a day and stay close to him. He has been talking to us all day, saying things that are immensely significant to me and my life. Explaining what is real yoga, attraction, meditation, equilibrium and much more.

Read more

Guha: It’s an arduous process, almost like a constant introspection, to see ourselves responding to the social demand and dynamics, and gradually enriching ourselves with an awareness that understands the subtle difference between our needs and wants, and our vulnerability and strength towards achieving an equilibrium. This awareness creates a new process whose aim is to achieve freedom from the social slavery.

9-Mar-2019
Kolkata, India

This man lives without any burden of the past. His living is full of energy and punch. He says to me, “So many people have come to see me. Most feel nothing and go away. And here you are saying so many things about me and my effect on you. How is that?” His effect is not universal. It is subject specific he says. It depends on the person interacting with him. What will come out of him largely depends on me in my case. So it is with the others. Hence, it cannot be applied universally, unlike the laws of science. I used to feel his presence is bound to have some effect whether or not one is aware of it, but then I found it somehow largely depends on how the individual translates the effect into his or her understanding. The right kind of alignment in terms of information can perhaps lead to resonance. Without that, either the interest in him will snap quickly, or it will be one long struggle if one is somehow still able to hold some interest.

His presence cannot be used for social improvement or mass reform. On the contrary, it has no social value and one does not get any reward out of it. We cannot put Guha up on a pedestal and ask people to worship him, like the way Vivekananda did in his missionary zeal through the establishment of the Ramakrishna Mission. Life doesn’t function that way, Guha says. This shakes to the core our moral values and scriptural ideals of general good, peace and well-being springing out of spiritual pursuits. These are distractions. Practice makes us cunning and manipulative individuals.

The only way to get a glimpse of his living energy is to interact with him. His effect cannot be measured. All measurements require a reference but here there is none. No knowledge, no understanding can teach us how to deal with him. It has to be a personal discovery.

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4-Nov-19
Handmade Home, Kolkata
5:32 pm

I am high like crazy. It is difficult to contain such infectious energy. 

Since we came to Kolkata, G has burst open like a massive ripe, sweet, succulent fruit. People are buzzing like bees around him. The laughter, the craziness and the joy his presence is generating is like unlike anything one can ever imagine. He is also dead serious at times. His body language, the movement of his hands, his whole body is indescribably beautiful, oozing his scorching, healing energy. I feel electrocuted by him. There’s no sleep, no tiredness, I am running around, cooking huge meals, coordinating with people for cleaning, making travel plans, booking tickets, buying stuff – endless chain of activities just flowing one after the other under the shade of his gracious gaze.

---

“Your tendency creates more conditioning by using the pre-existing impressions. That is how the layers get added. Old conditioning cannot be wiped out, but if the innate tendency to create new conditioning is somehow shaken, then it will stop creating more mess. I attack the tendency not the accumulated conditioning. This changing of the core tendency is the radical transformation, and not the wiping out of past conditioning.

As your discrimination becomes powerful, the old conditioning will wither away and be rendered useless. After this, whatever new impressions are formed will not be harmful and will be used by your system for functioning efficiently. It is impossible not to be affected by the environment you live in, so you will take in only that information which is necessary and discard the rest. This will address the well being of the individual as well as life around him or her. This is how life functions.” 

Guha

“I have no miraculous powers. If I had any, the world would be at my feet, which is not the case! Some people say I have a funny effect on them and they feel something in my presence. That is what they say, but even they don’t know what it is. And I don’t know anything either, I don’t see anything in me. So, both are unknown.

Power means you should be able to use it to get what you want. But if it is unknown, what can you do with it?”

Guha

“What you see as my response to you, and my actions like taking you for a drive, giving you something, chit chatting with you etc. creates a solidified image about me inside your head. Then you begin to expect familiar responses from me, and then begins your trouble. You try to establish a relationship. But the real action, the life-abiding aspects are outside of this area. What actually works or happens is not in this field of relationships or conditioned responses. It does not depend on any of these. It is independent of what you think. It is not easy to see this! It requires total rejection of everything. When I was deeply reflecting about this in UG’s presence, my initial joy and excitement vanished.”

1-September 2018:
Pune, India

What joy there is in singing! I have been singing since morning and listening to Bach and Chopin. Feeling such lightness. There is joy without cause or reason. G called me before he went to sleep and I was giggling away and singing some of Tagore’s lines. His face glowed! We hardly spoke!

I am thinking his company seems to have exhumed all that was dark, resistive and fearful in me. His essence is cruising in my blood, giving me a new shot of life every moment. I feel like kneeling down to this life-abiding presence. Life feels worth living for the first time. He said yesterday, “I am ecstatic for you! Now live your life in style and don’t give a shit about anything.” This is pure magic as far as I am concerned!

What a burden I was carrying in my head for as long as I can remember. I was stuffed with rotten images, fearful projections and self-pity. I was helplessly dependent on the approval of others. I was also a clever manipulator using and dominating others for my gratification. This is what I knew as ‘Me, Myself’ and defended obstinately. I was nonetheless feeling suffocated in this private ghetto of my own creation. There used to be an inexplicable discomfort in by body all the time. Everyday, I used to wake up in the morning tense and anxious not knowing what do to. I was gradually becoming aware that thought was playing a fearful movie in my waking and dream states in an infinite loop. I just wanted out!

***

I am startled that the same information processing system that used to wreak havoc in my life, is now singing a different tune altogether. Much of the thoughts and feelings that it is now generating seem conducive to the well-being of this organism. This is making me realise that the body is everything and its equilibrium is the only thing that is necessary for me. It is not that I am in touch with what is unfolding in my body, that is not possible. I am only beginning to see that I have no business to obstruct its innate rhythm. I am nobody and have to stay out of its way.

What a mind-blowing shift this is. All my attention has been gathered and pulled into my body! There is hardly any distraction. Wow! I have become very focused even while doing minor stuff like cleaning my phone, organising my wallet or combing my hair. I seem to be in no hurry and no work seems monotonous. I am also becoming more attentive to my body’s signals like hunger, fullness, unease, repulsion, lightness, heat and more. There seems to be nothing in this world which is more interesting than this. There is a Bengali talk of his recorded in 2012, in which he talks about the body. He says “There is nothing unknown for the body. You think you know what is good for it! You don’t have any clue about what it wants. If you are lucky and you come to know, you will discover that your body is even mightier than your so called God! It is the life beating powerfully inside you which is the prime mover.” 

***

He told me sometime back, “Nobody wants you to be free, much less your near and dear ones. Nobody will like your independence.”

***

2-September 2018:
Pune, India

It is raining outside. I am nobody.

What business do I have to come in the way of the natural functioning of my body? My knowledge had established such a stranglehold on me that living had become a misery. Intellect, will, self, knower are all one and the same. 

The living energy that runs through every cell in the universe is the reservoir that supplies all that is necessary for life to continue and thrive. It has worked for millions of years in space-time to make us what we are today. This body is nature’s property. My idea that I am its owner, is the source of all sorrow. This is a powerful illusion thought creates. Until the body takes over, there’s no way out of this misery. How the body takes over is a mystery. Is there anything that I did to trigger it? I don’t think so. I was helpless and miserable. G says, “Thought and thinker are the end products of the workings of the brain. They can never discover the source or change anything there. Thought is never in touch with anything that is working inside you.” It is so simple to see. There is nothing to understand. I have no responsibility to know or do anything about it. This is freedom. 

I am drinking coffee at Starbucks and wondering what all my thinking and trying to understand did for me? Nothing, it now seems. This whole movement was false. A burden that keeps on multiplying every moment. Every inference, every conclusion interferes with life’s flow. I am feeling that there is nothing to be afraid of in this world other than my own ugly ideas and images. The enemy is inside, eating away at the body’s vital energy. 

***

We show false courtesy and engage in false conversations. We have nothing to say to each other. Living a false life has become a habit. He said, “Two people are two interacting images. Each trying to figure out what it can get from the other to fortify its own sense of self. There is no such thing as a relationship. Every relationship is mutual exploitation. Even sex becomes a problem after some time. You are free only when you don’t use anybody for your pleasure or satisfaction. Otherwise you are sold body and mind.” I realise the depth of this statement. If I don’t need anything from anyone, I cannot have any relationships whatsoever. Even the subtlest of demands can enslave me, including the intellectual ones. 

But this cannot be forced upon oneself. It cannot be practiced. You cannot not have sex if sexual desire is burning inside you. You cannot practice giving up anything. Any practice is torture. 

***

There’s no time for thought. I am not supplying energy to it. If anything comes to my mind, I act immediately. Like booking my stay at a hotel, going to the mall for coffee, buying flight tickets etc. And I seem to have no concern for money. I am buying whatever I feel like. There are no calculations. I am amazed at this change in my dealings with money! When I had a job and was earning handsomely, I used to be worried about money. And looking at a big bank balance would give me pleasure. And then I saw how he dealt with money given he has none of his own! He keeps a sharp eye on his accounts, settling dues with everyone on the spot. He says, “Keep it out of the way!” Many of his friends feel uncomfortable with his approach. He says sternly, “There’s no democracy as far as I am concerned. If you don’t like it, you can leave now!” People are used to playing games with money and he never allows that! To top it all, he silently pays for friends who cannot pay for themselves! 

About himself, he says “If I don’t have money, I don’t travel. I don’t ask anybody for money either. If I don’t have the means, I have no desire. Somehow money and other things come when necessary. I have this confidence that cannot be passed on to anyone.”

I sit in coffee shops and write. I watch people in malls. There is no unease. Sometimes thought habitually pops up trying to capture what’s going on, what state this is, but it subsides soon unable to take root. 

I find it rather strange that I fell in love with whatever I saw of G since the beginning. It didn’t matter if he was being sweet or bursting like a volcano, my friend was a spectacle to behold and still is! I have never felt what am I doing with this guy or am I wasting my time hanging around him. I questioned nothing about him. This is strange because I had never seen anybody as radical as him before, neither did I ever travel like crazy, as I did with him, without plans or agenda. Yet I felt at home with him, I had to be with him, there was no other way. It is like discovering your long lost friend all over again. He captured me even before I could blink and saved me all the trouble.

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