My guru, the musician
I clearly remember the day I met my music teacher, Vidushi Neela Bhagwat, for the first time. In between careers, having retired from working at an investment bank in London and with some free time on my hands, I was checking things off my bucket list. I remember singing a verse from a Hindi film song to her in her Mumbai apartment and thinking to myself that she did not seem very impressed. I had no idea that I was about to embark upon one of the great adventures of my life.
The process of searching for and finding one’s guru, or spiritual teacher, has been described by many as a pivotal moment in their life journey. This experience seems to encompass a sense of recognition, a familiarity, an ease combined with a deep sense of purpose. That there is something to be given and something to be gotten, something to be shared, something to be learned. An unmissable message – “you belong here”. The peace one feels in the presence of such a spirit is inexplicable. It is, simply put, a feeling of coming home.
This dramatic, yet universally relatable feeling, is what I experienced when I first met Neelaji. I was 37, a mother to two young girls, still a wife, looking for an identity that fulfilled me. All the labels in the world cannot fill the void we feel at times in our lives that propels us to seek a meaningful connection.
Learning new life lessons
I found that connection when I heard Neelaji sing for the first time: a composition in Raag Yaman that she had set to tune, written by Swami Vivekananda about his guru Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. The effect was indescribable. The sound pierced my being and uplifted me, and I got a glimpse of something perfect and eternal, that simply felt divine. If there was any doubt in my mind about switching out of a corporate career and starting to learn music from scratch so late in my life, this experience put it to rest.
Of course, how long one stays with such a connection and what lessons one learns vary greatly. Interestingly, this very sense of familiarity, psychology posits, drives one to choose one’s love interests. Born out of the deep shadows of our repressed traits, we repeatedly choose the people representing unresolved elements of our closest relationships as children, to advance our readiness for true connection. Therapists sometimes say that we “marry our unfinished business”, a way of learning important lessons through partnerships, usually romantic ones. Yet, these repressed yearnings can sometimes also push us toward fulfilling and passionate endeavors.
Remembering my grandmother
No surprise then that Neelaji reminds me of my paternal grandmother Saraswati. Tathi (the moniker for grandmother in Tamil) was one of five sisters who lost their mother when the youngest was only two. The Tathi I remember was yearning to be recognized and loved. Unable to continue with higher education as she married fairly young. Tathi pursued every avenue toward educating herself.
Without any formal lessons in sewing, Tathi taught other women in the neighborhood how to sew blouses and earned a small income for her family. While I went off to engineering school, Tathi reverse-engineered a coat and sewed a new one for her son. No recipe, however intricate, was safe from my grandmother. This ardent fan of MS Subbalakshmi went on to sing for All India Radio (AIR) with no formal musical training.
Seeking enlightenment
Tathi was in tune with the principle of Saraswati Devi, seeking to learn and be enlightened until the end. It was her deep desire that I should train in music, something that was denied to her in her life. How ironic (or fateful) that decades later, after multiple engineering degrees and working for investment banks in New York and London, this wish followed me back home, to learn from someone else who embodies this love of learning. And when I heard Neelaji speak to me about the piece that she had set to music all those years ago, I felt like I had returned home all over again.
As a student of the sciences at one of the premier technology institutions in India, I had minimal exposure to the sociological evolution of our country. In Neelaji I discovered – an intellectual progressive writer in Hindi, Marathi, and English, a wonderful singer who magically infuses her singing and poetry with pure classical idiom and a wonderful teacher and mentor who courageously guides her students to take the lesser-trodden path to self-actualisation. Above all, she is a genuinely caring individual, with compassion born out of empathy from one who has also seen difficult times.
A meaningful connection
Yet without knowing any of this, when I heard her sing for the first time at her home in Mumbai, all of it somehow reverberated in the sound of her words and touched me deeply. Steeped in a logical mode of thinking, I could not make much sense of this experience, nor the sudden pull to learn music. So I rationalized – if I knew nothing about music, then why not spend time with someone I found interesting and genuine? Clearly, I could foster a connection with my own country, its history and culture, by hanging around Neelaji. And that’s precisely what I did. Neither she nor I expected my journey to last this long or that I’d fall head over heels in love with this great art form.
Many years later, this same aha moment repeated, less dramatically but equally profoundly in an everyday setting. While struggling to deal with my strong-willed teenagers, I attended a workshop on Mindful Parenting by a fellow parent in my family-friendly suburban California community.. I knew about mindfulness and was already a meditation practitioner for some years.
The penny drops
The lady talking to some California parents in that unpretentious middle school library looked like any other parent. She seemed extremely relaxed and she spoke in a voice she’d probably use with her own friends and kids. Her name was Gayathri Narayanan and I paid close attention to her words. That’s when I heard “nonviolent communication”, and the penny dropped for me. Looking for a way to find peace in my home, I knew what we were missing.
COVID hit soon after, and the middle school lecture series was suspended. Gayathri started a series of mindfulness practice sessions online. I joined them, looking for some structure during the uncertain COVID times. That birthed my other deep passion – understanding and channeling the power of our thoughts, mind, and underlying nature, for greater peace in our lives and the world around us. Four years on, this practice has paved the way for great clarity in my life. Many things have changed, allowing me more time to practice and become one with the things that truly matter in my life – my love for my children and parents, my music, and my meditation practice.
The mirror principle
It was during one of my sessions with my mindfulness teacher, describing to her the experience I had when I first heard Neelaji sing, that she told me about the mirror principle. In essence, we recognize in others that which we are, not just what we seek. Neelaji’s singing reflected to me that which was in me all along – a love for an elevating form of music. Strangely enough, maybe that is what Gayathri was reflecting back to me – peaceful exchanges that were somehow buried in me underneath the turmoil of coping with teenage anxiety and hormones. After many years of practicing mindfulness and learning to live less reactively, peaceful exchanges are the norm in my life.
All this is leading me to wonder – rather than seek partners who represent our repressed traits, why not recognize those traits in ourselves and hone them on our own? The journey of coming home then is simply looking in the mirror, with new eyes. And this is what great teachers do – teach us to see ourselves in a whole new light. The beautiful verse that Swami Vivekananda wrote also holds for these two great teachers, and all great teachers. After all, they also reflect the divine in all of us.
Raag Yaman, teentaal
Prabhu tum antaryaami
Darshan de sab vidh swami
Man tu dekh pyar se sabahi
Karuna kara prabhu seva yehi
Mat ja dhoondhan sab vid swami
Prabhu tum antar yami
Oh Lord, You are the Inner Witness
Please reveal yourself, oh Almighty
Oh Mind, look upon everyone with love
Showing compassion is serving the Lord
Do not go looking for the Lord
Oh Lord, You are the Inner Witness