Into My Heart With Datta - Part 1

With surrender I begin this sharing with the invocation of the Guru Tattva (element). May each word carry the pure love, light and truth of the Guru into your being and open your heart to His grace in inspiring and expansive ways. May all come to know the glory of the Guru. May all experience His love. May all be uplifted.

I have had a handful of pivotal moments in my life. Moments that completely changed the trajectory of where I was heading. Moments that all involved the Guru Tattva. It is in the midst of such a moment that I find myself once again, at the cusp of an ending of the known and the leap of faith into the unknown. As such it feels like a part of the completion to contemplate my journey to date and express my experience in some form. This experience has primarily been one of the heart, for that is how I have come to know the Guru and open to the Tradition’s grace. So I share with you not just a story but a part of my heart in honesty and with love.

An Illuminating First Encounter

The first time I really experienced the Guru Tattva was as a child, only I didn’t recognise it as such at the time. This awareness only came very much later. I was perhaps seven or eight years old and I vividly remember that I was standing by the window in my bedroom. Dark thoughts clouded my little mind. Suicidal thoughts. I knew how many paracetamol tablets it would take. I knew where they were kept. I was just gathering a little bit more courage to take that final step. My sensitive soul couldn’t continue on in the world, it just couldn’t. I was drowning in the harshness of this dimension and from the suppressed trauma that neither my family nor I were consciously aware of but a deadly poison nonetheless. In the next instant there was a brilliant illumination. Not from the window but from directly above. It was so bright yet warm to the eye and not blinding. I was completely engulfed in this golden light and lost awareness. When my consciousness came back somehow the despair that had been overwhelming my being had been lifted. Something had changed, I could continue on. It was not my time to go, there was still a life to be lived, a purpose to be fulfilled. This is how the higher Masters entered my life. Not in a physical form but as pure illumination, healing and compassion. I never thanked the benevolent beings who helped me that day as I didn’t quite grasp what had happened and the incident was shelved in the recesses of my mind. I didn’t say it then, but in this eternal moment I can say it now, thank you. Truly, thank you. May the life you saved be a life well lived and of value to this world.

Contemplating this now has brought the awareness that whether we are consciously aware of the Guru or not, He most certainly is always aware of us. Like a mother tortoise who is away from her young but cares for them from afar, the Guru has always been watching over us, even before He physically came into our life. If we have any form of connection with Him in this lifetime or from lifetimes past, we are His. In this NOW moment that encompasses past, present and future we are forever in His presence. We are never alone and we are always held in His love. I know this, I feel this, I trust this and I absolutely love this.

A Predestined Rebirth

Life continued on but there was a persistent unrest within my being and a sense that there was something I needed to remember, some reason I was here, but what? It was always just outside of my conscious awareness. My soul had come pre-programmed to ensure that I wouldn’t lose myself in this world’s maya and true to plan I received my inevitable wake up call. It didn’t come through any tangible external source but from within me. I simply woke up one morning with a very resolute inner knowing that I had to hand in my resignation at work. It wasn’t a choice or something to consider, it just was. So it came to pass that based on nothing more than this intuition I left everything I had known behind without a second thought or a backward glance. A successful career, a profession that I had spent many years studying for, my home, all seemingly disappeared overnight and I was stripped of a lot of false identifications in one fell swoop. Within a short period I began to tune into another clear but soft whispering from the soul. I must find my Guru. I knew nothing about Gurus and why I would need one but I simply had to find Him. I became aware that we don’t find a Guru, rather the Guru finds us, so I waited. It thus transpired that within a few months the Guru did indeed find me at the most opportune time of Guru Purnima and He practically came to my doorstep.

His arrival marked my true birth. I found my spiritual family and my soul group in the Guru Mandala and the community around me. Like a bolt of lightning out of the blue, the Guru came with such intensity and illumination that I was instantly lifted out of the highly dissatisfying samsaric existence I was experiencing into an empowered and more fulfilling life where I was being liberated from lifetimes of bondages through sadhana and was able to serve others through seva.

Transformation and the Guru Tattva

The Guru’s physical presence in my life shook me to the core. I didn’t know what was happening to me as energies started moving through my system and impressions began coming to the fore. There was a powerful force working on me consistently through my waking state, sleeping state, dream state and introducing me to the fourth turiya state. Any thoughts of going back to work and a ‘normal’ life were rendered null and void. I entered into an intense period of sadhana and a hermit-like existence where my flat became my ashram and solitude my daily companion. The Guru held me very closely at this vulnerable time when I was literally being cracked open and was extremely raw. My experiences were primarily felt rather than seen. They were not the exciting visions and visitations in meditations that many talked about. Rather, through consistent daily practice I was witnessing an unmistakable and accelerated shift in my consciousness. I was no longer feeling the extreme highs and lows of life as I got stabilised in a more equanimous state of being. Desires seemed to weaken and were more like passing clouds in my mind rather than superglue. Emotions danced like waves on the surface but beneath was the calm of the ocean deep. I was becoming lighter as I began to drop my stories and the unwanted baggage that I had been unconsciously hoarding like a prized possession.

One of the first concepts I came across when I got connected to the Tradition was that the Guru is not an individual but rather an element, the Guru Tattva. This element was the consciousness of all the Masters unified as One and it wasn’t simply external but something that also resided within us. I understood this in theory but it was yet to be something I directly experienced so it remained just that, a theory rather than my truth.

As time passed, my connection to the Guru was deepening. Trying to know Him through the mind was proving to be impossible so instead I chose to give the Guru a place in my heart and His paduka were established in my third eye so that His consciousness became the filter through which I could perceive the world. My dakshina, given with immense gratitude, was to live His teachings and embody His love, light and truth in whatever capacity was possible for me. I learnt to simply surrender and with a pure intention align myself to Him – ‘May Your will be my will, may Your love be my love, may I be a pure instrument of the Guru Mandala.‘ This was my mantra, this was my heartfelt desire, this was my purpose in life, this was my all and everything. Since every aspect of my being was surrendered to embodying this intention, the Guru responded by mirroring back to me through the world all the impurities relating to my connection with the Guru Tattva that were like black soot over Its pure white light within me. Even the slightest speck would show. I had bound the Guru and my connection to Him with many limitations and untruths. It was time to be set free and to become an empty vessel for whatever purpose He willed in whichever way He loved. At this important juncture my relationship with the Guru was put through fire. With no forewarning and with full intensity, the storm shook me but couldn’t uproot me. I emerged from this experience with deeper faith and an unshakeable trust in Him but also just as importantly in my Self for in truth the Guru and the Self are not different. The theory on the Guru Tattva that I had picked up as dry knowledge was starting to become enlivened as the wisdom of experience.

The Guru Mandala Family

As I was opening and expanding to All the Guru truly is, His individuality began blurring into the vast ocean that is the Guru Mandala and its source, Datta. The heartbeat of Datta was soon to make Itself heard in my life. It was 2019 and through the Tradition’s sheer grace and blessings I found that the whole year was effortlessly being filled with a plethora of divine pilgrimages and sacred connections. With every place I began to feel the play of the various Masters, each with distinct flavours, but united in Their love, compassion and earnestness to help me in whichever way was for the highest. They were operating as One even if I was still seeing them as many. Like a much loved child belonging to the most incredible family, I was so well cared for by all of Them in turn. Tentatively at first, but then more surely I allowed myself to open to Their presence in whatever form They chose. It was at this time that Mohanji first kept coming into my awareness from myriad people and sources. He simply came and went like a gentle breeze with the fragrance of Shiva and the whisperings of Kailash.

A Homecoming to Datta

I came back from my travels as a different person. Much lighter, brighter and aware. My frequency had shifted and as Datta Jayanti came to pass that December I began strongly resonating with Datta as He awakened within me and all around me from seemingly nowhere yet everywhere. This connection arose firmly and deeply initially through the Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutham landing in my life. From the first moment I caught sight of the book, simply seeing it pierced my mind and I was magnetised to it, knowing that it was something that I had to connect to. I experienced the book as truly extraordinary. It was not just a book. It was alive. It was the Guru’s Consciousness and a transmission of the purest truth. It was the special key that unlocked my heart to Datta and the experience of not only more love and compassion within and without but also glimpses of a frequency of love that I can only describe as not of this world.

With Datta making Himself known to me, it was then inevitable for Shirdi Sai Baba to also come forth. I received prasad from Shirdi on New Year’s eve 2019 and I felt the significance of this keenly in my heart and opened myself to Baba’s blessings for 2020 and beyond. Indeed with the passing of Guru Purnima that year, I found that Baba didn’t just come as a visitor but He inextricably became a part of me and the world around me. I would spend many hours sitting with Baba daily as I would read the Sri Sai Satcharitra and melt in His presence. Parayan (a dedicated reading over a set period of time) of the Sri Sai Satcharitra became one of my main sadhanas at this time along with the parayan of the Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutam and Tapovanam (Sri Satya Sai Baba’s parayan book). I found myself burning very intensely in the Guru’s fire. As the gross energies transformed the process became more gentle and subtle. Various themes would play out during the parayan days relating to the impressions I was still holding. One of the themes was around whether I was still viewing the Guru as an individual or as the Unity Consciousness He truly was. Layers of these impressions were being peeled seemingly endlessly but increasingly effortlessly with much grace. I would be tested from time to time to see my progress. I didn’t always pass but I persevered. My connection with Baba brought Mohanji into my awareness again and many a time Baba gave me the indication that They were One. One night I had an astral visit from Mohanji. On seeing Him I immediately had the inner knowing that He had been sent by the Tradition as Their representative and the second awareness was that He had come to test me. I had the sense that this time I had passed. Shortly after this visit I was contacted by the Act4Hunger team in the UK. They had heard about me from a mutual friend and were looking to start activities in Africa where I am currently based. Would I help? My guidance from Baba was clear and it was His will so I humbly accepted.

This seems an opportune time to conclude Part 1 of my sharing. The journey into my heart with Datta will continue in Part 2.

Sharing in this way opens my heart and it is through the open heart that I find myself carried ever closer to the Guru on the currents of love, acceptance and surrender. I am learning to know Him and feel Him as He truly is – not as an individual, not even as a tradition, but as boundless, eternal, Oneness all around me and increasingly as the Self within me.

Till as long as I sense us as separate, I pray with pure intent,

May the Guru and I live as one breath
Move as one body
Think as one mind
Beat as one heart

In all I encounter, may I only see His truth
Under all I feel, experience only His love
In all there is only Datta
In only Datta there is all

Only one
One only

Om Dram Shree Gurudev Datta