A few months ago I went to a wrestling tournament in Illinois, hosted by a Christian school. I try to go to this one every year, as it’s the largest wrestling invitational in the country. Chicago is in Illinois, but somehow it doesn’t feel like it. Chicago is a world unto itself, and bears little resemblance to the rest of the state, politically or socially. Anyway, this city is about a hundred miles west of Chicago, so the evening before I took a couple different trains to get there and arrived around eight o’clock at night. I met my Airbnb hostess, a lady who keeps her small house absolutely shining and immaculate for the steady stream of guests. I left my stuff in my nicely appointed room with its big soft bed and walked over to the college. I suppose it makes sense that the hosting school is a Christian college as wrestling is a very rural American sport, manly in a Christian sort of way. Lots of wrestlers have quotations from the Bible tattooed on their bodies and many of them bring their pocket New Testaments to the tournaments. Often the guys pray and point to the heavens before bouts.
I don’t usually discuss my spiritual life with devout Christians. At least, I don’t tell them about Guru, I tend to keep our conversations Christ-centered. This school is the most respected and probably also the most conservative and single-focused of all the Bible colleges in the US. Many of the students are children of missionaries. It’s not the place to break out my mala beads and to chant from the Shiva Ratri. They would not be able to understand a spiritual tradition apart from the Christian faith. So, how do I go about offering Guru’s light if I can’t talk about Guru? This is a quandary, a dilemma.
At the same time, because it is a religious school, the students are different from the kids I meet at other colleges. Alcohol is prohibited, as are drugs of any kind. Chapel is mandatory, lasts two hours and is held three days a week. Every student carries a Bible with them everywhere they go. When I go to this tournament, and I go every year, I will sometimes stop a student (not a wrestler!) in his tracks and just ask him a random philosophical question, like “What is beauty? Or “Mind and brain- same or different?” And no matter what else he has to do, very often this random college guy will talk to me for ten minutes and tell me his thoughts on the subject. His arguments will be thoughtful, practiced and supported by wide and deep reading. I invariably come away from these conversations impressed.
And it’s not totally true either that I can’t mention Guru or my own spiritual path. Some of the guys there have expressed tremendous interest in the meaning and origin of my name, and how I got it from an Indian Guru. I’ve been rejected out of hand as a non-Christian, but some people there are fascinated by meditation and Eastern mysticism. I think I have more in common with these guys than I do with most people in the secular world.
I guess this place is special because it provides spiritual training. People don’t get that at the University of Chicago or Northwestern. But the first colleges were founded by monks in the early Middle Ages and one of their expected functions was to impart spiritual knowledge, the inner life. So, I may say that the students at this school do not have a wide spiritual perspective, as they focus only on one faith, but they have a deep foundation. And where there is depth, eventually breadth and height can come as well. This is why I think our Guru asked us to read his books first, to be well established in our own foundation and home before we try to shake hands with other paths. Know your own house.
So, I finally arrived at the college gymnasium maybe around 9:30 the night before the big tournament. I went to the locker room and saw a student pacing in front of the lockers and looking a little distracted. I think I asked him what he was studying and he said biology but he was thinking of switching to Anthropology.
I don’t remember how we got on the subject but I started talking about consciousness and matter, and how there doesn’t seem to be an elementary particle, it seems like science can just divide and divide reality forever. He agreed with me and said that the foundation of life is God’s Grace, and I started talking about Maya and how the Indian tradition holds that the Universe is just the expression of God. The Supreme used his power of Maya, the Mother Power or Prakriti, to divide Himself into trillions and trillions of forms, and thus the finite is God’s Play, His Manifestation. He asked me to tell him more about Indian philosophy, and so I quoted some of Guru’s poems on science and the physical Universe:
“The formless is as true as the form, as beautiful, if not infinitely more beautiful as the form.”
“Beauty non-pareil has blossomed in the heart of the subtle atom tapestry.”
“Science is desperately searching for the cosmic key. Nature already has it.”
He really responded to these poems. I told him I don’t usually share my Guru’s poetry at this Evangelical school, and I don’t tell people about Guru but that he seemed very open and kind. He told me has just suffered from a tragedy in his personal life, and he’s grateful to hear these spiritual words from me. I asked him if he would like to hear some of my Guru’s poems on Jesus Christ and he said he would. So, I recited for him for maybe fifteen minutes, including every poem from Guru’s play The Son as well as many poems from The Dance of Life and Transcendence Perfection. It’s an old locker room, vast and empty, and my words came back to me in echoes, so I was listening to myself also. And after some time I felt that I was no longer speaking, the words seemed to just come from a distant source and Nate and I were just listeners, observers. When I finished, I felt that we were both bathed in light, and he thanked me very deeply and I thanked him for listening to me and for being open. We’ve continued to keep in touch. It’s good to have Guru’s poems ready at a moment’s notice, you can make connections with people that way.
The tournament was wonderful, the best I’ve seen. I paid special attention to the heavyweights- the 285 lb. plus guys. Lord! When I first started watching college wrestling, ten years ago, the heavyweights never touched each other. Boringly they just circled each other like sumo wrestlers, waiting for the chance to take the other guy down which often never happened. Sometimes there would be some above the shoulder grappling, but it was more just circling and formulaic lunges. Not this year! The heavyweights have come into their own. They threw each other like sacks of rice, only very heavy sacks of rice. I was scared because I standing at the edge of the mat and the last thing I need is a thrown 300 lb. wrestler falling on me. I wouldn’t survive that. But it was thrilling. At the end of the night I struck up a conversation with one of those heavy weights, I noticed the Bible quotation on his shoulder, and asked him if he’d like to hear a poem about Christ. He said he would, so I recited Guru’s poem that has that great line where Christ says “On earth, I am my Father’s Face. In Heaven, I am my Father’s Eye.” He was very pleased with this poem, and he said that there’s a passage in the Bible that sounds a little similar, and he pulled out his pocket Bible. He read me a portion of Christ’s oration where he declares that His true children are the ones who believe in Jesus for the sake of His Father who sent Him.
I also had the occasion to recite one of my own poems “David and the Diamond” to a wrestler named David, as he was recovering between matches, bruised and bloody. He liked it very much, and he introduced me to his mom, Karina. I told her that I know a song for Lord Buddha that has the word “Karuna” in it, and she asked me if I could sing it for her, so I sang, “Karuna Nayan”, and she was deeply moved by it.
I wanted to referee some of the matches, but I’m really not there yet. I will be. I just need to study more and be patient. I guess time removes all stains, as the Vedas say. And if we are patient and watchful, then time can just be synonymous with God’s Grace also.
So many fascinating anecdotes. I never expected to read about Guru’s poems recited at an evangelical Christian college in between wrestling bouts!
A wonderful and surprising story. Truly courageous of you to seek and find the depth of spirituality in all whom you meet…including Christian wrestlers. I am sure they were inspired by your poem-offerings, just as much as you were inspired by their athletic prowess! I am going to share with our friend Databir who was a very good wrestler in his youth!
Looking forward to your poetry recital