Mic’s Visit to India and Meeting Poonja-ji

Dear Friends,

When the HarshaSatsangh yahoo group started in January 1999, about a hundred or so people joined in the first few months. Here is a post of introduction that came to the group from Mic about his going to India and meeting Poonja-ji (also known as Papa-ji). Poonja-ji visited Sri Ramana and considered Ramana his Sat-Guru.

I don’t know where Mic is now, but his letter has stayed with me over all these years and I wanted to share it with you. I have only made minor edits in his letter to retain the original flavor of Mic’s vital spirit that comes through his words.

Harsha
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Hello all,

A brief introduction. My name is Mic, though most of my friends here call me Mohan. Advaita found its way in my heart as my heart in the summer of 91.

While wandering India, by chance I encountered Sri Poonjaji, a disciple of Bhagavan Ramana Mahrishi. I stayed with Poonja-ji and the small gathering there for two months. It was a time of great joy, intensity, revelation, and incomprehensible silence.

I mostly recall the great stillness. The presence of this man, Poonja-ji. In this dirty town of swirling dust storms and buildings swimming in the heat before me.

At night candles cast a golden hue upon the Indian markets, dancing in the buzz of bicycle songs and branches of lush red lychees being sold on the dusty streets.

The silence. The torrential flow of humanity, pulsing through the hot polluted streets, watermelon stalls.

The astonishing passion of seekers at Poonja-ji’s house. It was like the sweetness of sugarcane juice. It was the end of seeking itself in the embrace of the always so.

Like many there with Poonja-ji, I had also walked other roads in my search.

I had come to India on a Buddhist yatra, with plans to finish the journey in a Thai monastery. Yet relaxing into this resplendent heart of being, the seeking and the struggle fell.  The seeker and the story melted away as monsoon rains of India drenched me in joy.

And I finally saw the True heart of advaita, as my own.

Leaving India, with the blessings of the mountain, I felt almost drunk on the ringing clarity of these words from the Tripura Rahasya;

” Know yourself as Pure Consciousness, the unaffected witness of the phenomenal world.”

Integrating this with a world that demands commitment and authenticity, I meet with surrender and an open heart.

Some days I struggle, some days I sing. The devotion I feel to Shakti I know is but a reflection within consciousness of this love.

The silence.

And it is in this love I am earthed in freedom, and can play out my role in the theater of this world in peace.

Warm regards,
Mohan (Mic)