Celebrating small wins - Śivajñānabodham

Image for Ref. Not the actual publication used.

In the spirit of celebrating my small every day wins, and at the risk of sounding vain – and maybe precisely because of that – I am going to share a few things I am quite kicked about. 

It has been a mad year for the whole world. People’s lives are turned upside down and more importantly, there’s a collective sense of possibility – a new way of living that we had not considered before – that we are given the unique opportunity to try out risk-free. It has been a tough time navigating the new rules of everyday existence for oneself and for one’s family but in the midst of the melee there is also a glorious sense of freedom and possibility.

The most significant opportunity has been the unlocking of learning with more classes getting online. It is one such windfall that I want to talk about today.

Also the power of magic. And how the Universe conspires always to bring about crazy coincidences and accidental alignments just to make your dreams come true. And how it is important to dream that dream.

So with that unabashed gushing –

I have always wanted to learn the Śivajñānabodham. It is a 12^th century text written by the Saivite saint Meykanḍār, the founder of the Tamil Śaiva Siddhānta parampara, centred in Tiruva-vadu-thurai today, called the Tirukkayilaya paramparai. There is a Sanskrit text and a Tamil text. The Śivajñānabodham is said to contain the very essence of the Siddhānta philosophy, the sum total of the jñānapāda of the Śaivāgamas.

In 2014, around the time that I submitted my thesis, I took it to a few gurus for their blessings. I had the good fortune to visit the late Sivacharya guru, Śivasri Chandrasekara Sivacharyar, also called Chandru mama and Tirupati mama (because he taught at the Tirupati pāṭaśālā). He was already frail but had just finished his sandhyavandanam. When I told him the topic of my thesis – that I was trying to find out the āgama references to temple management – he immediately pointed out the exact chapter from Kāmikāgama that is the key to the management hierarchy in a temple. I was amazed that he told me that in seconds – I had of course spent 5 years finding that out. He blessed me and said, “Study Śivajñānabodham.”

The next time, I visited him around Pongal. He was bedridden and was not talking much. But his son kindly allowed me to see him for a minute. Mama was lying down and was happy to see me. And then he raised his hand in a blessing and told me again, “Study Śivajñānabodham.”

When the lockdown happened late in March, after a few days of setting a routine, I realized I would have time to take up a large project. It seemed to be the right time to start studying the text. I took out my copy of the Tamil Śivajñānabodham (hereafter SJB) published by the Tiru-vavadu-thurai Adheenam and started studying.

SJB is only 12 short sūtras. How difficult can 12 verses be, right?

I wish!

SJB is so packed with the Siddhānta philosophical concepts and complex references that one needs special guidance to understand it. But Guru Meykanḍār has also written explanatory verses for each sūtra, first breaking down the sūtra into several adhikaranam – which is a single phrase that has an idea unit – and a few verses of illustrative examples under each adhikaranam.

My initial target was to study 1 sūtra a day. As added motivation, I also intended to write my own notes on each sūtra every day. I didn’t realize the difficulty level of course and that I would have to study many whole adhikaranam and example verses for each sūtra.

But I was very excited and paying mental obeisances to Chandru mama, I began struggling through the first sūtra and the accompanying material. The adheenam text also had long Tamil notes and I ploughed through them as well. I finished the first sūtra over many days and began the second one. It was slow going and I forced myself to stick with it. I did miss a few days in between because it seemed daunting and it didn’t seem like I would make it. I told myself it didn’t matter how long it took, I would just take my own time and finish it.

One day, I received a message. It was from one of my gurus. He sent me a flyer and asked me to share it with a common friend because he didn’t have his number. The flyer was for an online course he was offering on – yes, Śivajñānabodham. This was incredible. He is one of the most respected scholars in the field. And he was offering these classes on weekends, over 3 months. And classes were beginning in a couple of days. It was perfect. What are the odds that he would send me this flyer just as a postbox of sorts? It is unlikely he didn’t have our friend’s number – he must have just missed it that time. Just so I could get this information. I was just so grateful that the Lord sent me help when I needed it. I signed up immediately.

Over the next three months, I attended the weekend classes. It was beautifully conducted. There were teachers who explained the text word by word for an hour and a half in the first half and then my guru would talk about the deeper significance of that lesson.  The teachers tried to make it accessible with powerpoint slides, diagrams, examples, videos etc. And the free-flowing lectures of my guru were simply beyond anything I could have learned in a book. It was the essence of his wisdom, his years of study and sādhana. It was so precious.

I wish I could say that I was the ideal student. But our crazy lives take over our noble intentions and I dragged my feet through assignments and submissions and lost my way quite a bit. But finally I did finish it all and was so ecstatic when I finally received the award of completion.

Of course it doesn’t mean that I now know the SJB. It means that I have begun to understand it a little. It is a vast ocean of Siddhānta knowledge that needs to be lived in order to be fully realized. The Tamil text is explained using so many other texts that I have a list of those to study. Also, I still have the Sanskrit text to study. But I remind myself that it is not about completing a course but a continuation of many lifetimes of study so that so day it might fructify in Divine Grace.

I hope I remember that always, and not get caught in dry pedantic pride.

Having said that, I am so delighted that this particular project happened – with lots of divine intervention and support of course! It’s a big milestone for me and the kind of thing that I am teaching myself to celebrate so I don’t keep rushing off to the next thing, so I can savour the joy of working at something and finishing it, no matter how big or small. I want to acknowledge the blessing that one is able to study at all in the midst of all the usual madness of life. It is a blessing that one is able to take at least baby steps on the path, that one is still on the path.  

Shivoham!