I was planning an entry called "Reverence for Life." Thanks to Erika Andersen for using this phrase in an email message yesterday. It's the best two-word summary of Maharaji's message I have seen. More to come on this topic, but I wanted to get this up.
There have been things in my life that I wanted to do, but not enough to persist in learning to do them well. For example, I learned to play the bassoon, but I never learned to make bassoon reeds, a very different craft that requires at least as much skill and practice, perhaps more. No one can do everything. We have to set our priorities. But without persistence, we can’t do much of anything.
Persistence is admirable when the endeavor is both worthy and seriously challenging. The more worthy and the more challenging the aspiration, the more admirable the persistence in pursuing it. In this light alone, Maharaji’s persistent lifelong efforts toward what is arguably the most worthy and the most challenging aspiration of all, bringing true peace and contentment to all people, is obviously admirable.
Passionate admiration arises from a more personal perspective, and there is a very personal side to my appreciation of his persistence.
I’ve been listening to Maharaji for more than 35 years. His message is very consistent, but each person’s path through life is utterly unique, and our understanding and perception of that message lives and evolves. For many of those years, I thought I understood him pretty well. About ten or fifteen years ago, I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the experience vividly, while listening to Maharaji, I reached the point of admitting to myself that I did not understand much of what he was saying in his satsang (literally, “company of truth,” practically, Maharaji speaking about his message).
It was a relief to recognize this, but a much greater relief came right behind as I said to myself, “It’s OK. You don’t have to get it all right now. He’s going to come back to express it again and again.” Whew. That was really a relief. That very moment was the beginning of a whole new level of understanding for me.
I once heard Maharaji say, in an informal context, “Except for satsang, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to repeat things.” I can really relate. I am also that kind of person. He went on giving an example of some practical point he recently had to repeat that he would have preferred not to. But here it’s that little exception that is the important thing. It is so like him to just toss out a little parenthetical comment with such profound overtones. I admire that, too. I am sure I have missed many such jewels, but I got this one.
Another facet of this subject is patience, which is often associated with persistence. It’s hard to separate the two. Persistence indicates patience. But I think it is the persistence I most admire, because that is what I most depend on. I might argue that this is the very most difficult thing of all, to persist and persist and persist again in an effort that requires so much patience, and to persist not doggedly, but with unfailing freshness, enthusiasm, and inspiration. Here we step beyond admiration, and into gratitude, a feeling that is at least as important as admiration, and at least as natural when the subject is Maharaji.
We seem to be back on the subject of music. But in a different way. This starts with music, but goes beyond it.
We learn in music theory that the basic elements of music are melody, harmony, and rhythm. But there is something else. One of the words used to describe this other thing is timbre. Timbre is the unique sound quality of individual voices or musical instruments. Music physicists tell us that timbre derives from the particular combination of overtones that creates the distinctive resonance of that voice or instrument. Whatever it is, we can hear it, and we can feel it. The common word for it, a wonderful word that sounds like the thing it represents, is twang.
Some musical instruments have a certain twang. The harpsichord, especially Wanda Landowska’s Pleyel. The bassoon. The celeste. Indian instruments have an abundance of twang. The sitar. The tabla. The Indian flute, especially when played by Hariprasad Chaurasia.
Twang is a critical component of musical experience. A certain twang is why I fell in love with the bassoon when I was eight. I practiced, practiced, practiced, because I wanted to make that sound myself. The twang touches something very deep within us. Melody, harmony, and rhythm, are all about patterns and progressions. The twang is just one thing. But it’s a very subtle thing. It’s evanescent. It’s like the light of a firefly. When you love a certain twang, you can’t get enough of it. You just want to hear that twang again and again. The melody, harmony, and rhythm, magnificent as they are in themselves, become secondary. They are only vehicles to carry that twang, to bring us that endlessly fascinating vibration again, and again, and again.
Maharaji has a certain twang. You can’t hear it with your ears. I don’t know what I hear it with. But when I relax and let go a little, I definitely hear it. I’ve been hearing it for 35 years. More than any other twang, this twang is always fresh. You never get tired of it. You can’t get enough of it. But nothing is more satisfying.
Maharaji’s twang is the twang of twangs. Returning to the musical analogy, the oboe sounds the note that tunes the orchestra. But what tunes the oboe? These days it’s probably an electronic gadget. But back in my day, the oboist always carried a tuning fork, and struck it, and listened to it, before sounding that note. Maharaji is like a tuning fork. Listen. Enjoy that twang, admire it, and let your admiration tune you up. You’ll sound a whole lot better, especially to your harshest critic, yourself.
It seems to me that we have lost our true voices. For us, moments of truth are rare and memorable occasions. That’s what we call them, right? “The moment of truth.” THE moment of truth. As if truth were something that happened only once in a great while. Isn’t truth happening all the time? How could it not be?
It’s not dishonesty in the usual sense of the word that occupies us. It’s a constant posing, a continuous adjusting of our presentation and behavior to the expectations of others. This is what we learn to do in life. Accustomed as I am to all the posing that I do, I don’t expect Maharaji’s honesty. It takes some getting used to. At some point, it dawns on me. He isn’t posing. He is who he is. He’s not afraid to say it. He’s not afraid to be it. This is very rare.
Passionate admiration comes in my moment of truth – the recognition that I hunger and thirst for that honesty, that I have been looking for it all my life. It’s music to my ears. How does he know me so well? I don’t mean “when he starts talking about being stopped on the highway by a cop, how does he know that it happened to me driving to the airport that morning?” I mean “how does he know me?” Not Steve Kowarsky. Me. No one else knows me that way. But I know the answer: because he knows himself. As Emerson said, "To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius."
His honesty is not brutal. It’s the very opposite of brutal. It’s refreshing, revitalizing, inspiring. “Brutal honesty” is a strange and unhappy phrase. Why brutal? Who wants to be honest if it means being brutal? Is it because, as we also say, “the truth hurts?” Somehow, we can all relate to that. I guess that life could really be that way. Lucky for us, it isn’t. The real truth doesn’t hurt. It comforts. It supports. It’s beautiful. Not the simulated comfort of verbal reassurance, “It’s OK.” The real comfort is that the truth we tend to avoid is the very thing we want and need most. Slow down, for starters. Stop, even. Turn around. Take a look. Take a good look. No hurry. You’ve done enough hurrying. Just slow down a little.
This might seem an odd place to start a catalog of admiration points, but it’s not odd for me. I am, as one of my finest music teachers said to me, “a born musician.” Music has been extremely important to me all of my life. Many of the most formative hours of my youth were spent practicing and playing music. Some of the most deeply enjoyable experiences of my life have been in making music, which to me has always been the most powerful form of listening to and feeling the beauty of music.
When I hear a great musician perform, admiration is one of the feelings that comes up, because I know something about what it takes to do what that person is doing, and because I appreciate the great gift of beauty being given to me and to all who are listening. Other feelings may intrude, of course, like envy of that person’s talent, and frustration that I have not reached that level of proficiency in my own performances.
There are moments when I am listening to Maharaji’s voice and suddenly realize that I am hearing the sweetest music I have ever heard. It all comes together, the clarity of his words, the nuances of each pitch, tone, and stress, the rhythm of his cadences, the balance of sound and silence. It is poetry, and music, and the essence of all art. It is beauty itself. Passionate admiration wells up. Admiration, and a sense of good fortune for having the privilege of hearing this virtuoso of virtuosos, this Heifitz, this Horowitz, this Maria Callas.
And, somehow, envy doesn’t come into this experience. I also realize in such moments that I have the same instrument he is using, and that I have the potential to play it in the same beautiful way. However far above and beyond me and any other person I have ever listened to it seems, at the same time it is recognizable as my own human nature. His music is telling me, just as his words are telling me, that deep within me is the same source of inspiration and grace that makes this possible for him. No envy needed. Talent is not an issue. It’s just a matter of practice.
It's not exactly an oxymoron. But the two words don't seem to be a natural pair either. How can passionate describe admiration? Doesn't passionate usually describes a different set of feelings?
How deep can admiration go? How intense can the feeling be?
When I see Maharaji, I feel an admiration that is deeper than I ever thought it could be, and so intense that it stretches and expands my very ability to feel.
It's like walking from the shallow end of a swimming pool toward the deep end. Little by little, deeper and deeper, and then, suddenly, the bottom drops away, and it's only the water that is supporting you, not your legs. Surprisingly deep. Deeper than you. Admiration you can let go to. Not the carefully reasoned and measured kind. Unqualified. We have built up a lot of defenses against feeling something like that. But then, what a relief to find something worthy of such a feeling.
Maharaji has his own way of summarizing the story of the Bhagavad Gita. What he emphasizes is a moment of recognition in which Arjuna sees Krishna as he has never seen him before. He paraphrases the nearly dumbstruck Arjuna's expression to Krishna: "I - had - no - idea."
I love it when he says that, because that's how I feel every time I see Maharaji. I literally had no idea.
My plan for this blog is to write a series of postings that each express one of the qualities I have seen in Maharaji that I find passionately admirable. I don't expect to run out of ideas.
The idea for this blog came from a comment I made on a posting in Mitch Ditkoff's excellent blog, The Heart of the Matter. Mitch was addressing one facet of the problem of expressing the unexpressible, the inadequacy of any single word to describe the relationship with Maharaji. Mitch brilliantly dissects the strengths and weaknesses of the five most common words: student, follower, devotee, friend, and premie. I'll quote my comment here:
Mitch, this is a magnificent piece. What a dilemma we have, being unable to find an appropriate word to communicate with others about such a beautiful loving relationship. This entry addresses that dilemma in a big way.
There is one other word I have found myself using recently that avoids many of the traps you pointed out in the big five. That word is "admirer."
When I say that I am an admirer of Maharaji, almost anyone can relate to the idea without turnoff. Everyone has experienced admiration, and most people value the feeling. It feels very precise. To me, there a continuum between everyday admiration and devotion. Their essence is the same. The distinction is one of intensity and depth. Devotion is admiration without walls, without restraint.
Some of my recent uses of the word admirer in this context are my Harvard Class Report for the 40th reunion coming up in October, and a comment on another blog I stumbled across that mentioned Maharaji here. But posting this really got me thinking about admiration. There is something to this idea of "admiration without restraint." The phrase "passionate admiration" came to me. "There's a blog in that," I said to myself. And here we are.
My personal charter for this blog is to express something of my passionate admiration for Maharaji. Rabbi Tarfon's wise words quoted above provide comfort and support as I embark on a task that I know will never be completed. It sounds a bit daunting, but actually that's the whole fun of it.
