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A presentation of the research institute "Andishe Online Germany (AOG)."

Excerpt from the book "The Miracle of Guadalupe"

Author: Faramarz Tabesh

Date of completion/publication of the original Persian version: Fall 2006/03.01.2019

Publication date of the English and German versions: October 28, 2024

The following text was translated from German into English by Faramarz Tabesh.

"The soul is a traveler on the chariot of the material body, whose consciousness is the charioteer,

the mind the reins, and the senses the horses."

Bhagavad Gita

                

A lesson from Vishnu

The seeker of truth, a paragon of devotion, dedicated his entire childhood and youth to the worship of Vishnu. Even after more than 30 years of his life had passed, he had not neglected the remembrance of Vishnu, whom Hindus regard as the Lord of the universe. He fulfilled all his religious duties without missing a single point. Every morning, he purified himself in the river Ganges and then studied the Vedas and Puranas. He performed his mantra several times daily and seriously refused to eat meat.

"Isn't it true that cow's milk is the best way to enjoy and satisfy hunger? So what did it mean to kill a cow?!"

Everything the devout man had learned came mainly from the teachings of the time he served as Brahma Chari in the ashram. At that time, he was studying at the Dehyana School, and this school, like the Guyana School, did not accept the issue of student marriage. For this reason, this devout young man had spent his entire training at the ashram in the service of a senior mentor from the same school without marrying. His steadfast commitment to this belief, which has become a habit today, is a testament to his unwavering devotion.

It is doubtful whether this young man's sexual desires reached the stage of samadhi without disturbing the exchange and spiritual-psychic balance.

The Bhagati school is the highest stage one can reach. It begins with Karma Yoga and leads via Gyana or Ashyana Yoga to the Bhagati Stage. In contrast to the Dehyana school, this school allows married people to enter the ashram and begin their training. These people can have sexual relations with their spouses within the framework of their religious laws. Unfortunately, this devout man did not belong to this school. So marriage was not only impossible, it was taboo.

In any case, this young man, who had settled in Rishi Kesh to bathe daily in the waters of the Ganges, had only one wish, which he addressed to his God day and night in pure prayer.

"Oh, incomparable God, oh knower of inside and outside, oh great Vishnu, oh my beloved, I have prayed for you for years and led an ascetic life; I long to see you. O kind and beloved Vishnu, I am ready to sacrifice my life to visit you for a second."

The tone of voice and the words of this religious man testified to an inner longing that he had developed through years of concentration on the teachings of his time in the ashram. For him, the highest that could and should be achieved was to see Vishnu. Perhaps the seeker's idea of nirvana was a visit to the outer appearance and physical manifestation of Vishnu. Is it not also the case in other religions that pilgrims prostrate themselves before the statues and images of their outstanding personalities and want to meet them?

In the higher stages of Hindu religions, actions, thoughts, and prayers are performed exclusively for God to come closer to Him without expecting any earthly or later reward. From the point of view of the world view of this stage, which is called Bhagati Yoga, the question now arises as to the nature of these inner wishes and desires of the devotee and worshipper of Vishnu.

In any case, this devotee, who rarely left the city of Rishi Kesh, did not have much to do with other people and spent all his time praying to Vishnu, the God of the universe, day and night. He also did this when he bathed in the Ganges or performed the sacrificial ceremony. Apparently, he had no other desire than this. But sometimes, spiritual nobles want to teach something more. He will give you the world if you ask wholeheartedly and sincerely for a piece of bread.

Thirty years of this pious man's life had passed in this way. He wished to meet the God Vishnu, but it did not seem possible, or it was a futile wish!

With this thought, the devout man placed his vessel filled with river water on the ground to wash the Vishnu statue and his small personal temple daily. 

The man had known this area for a long time and had been bathing in the water of this river every day for 20 years for the joy of his God Vishnu and to purify his body and soul.

Around this river stood a mighty old Indian fig tree, believed to be over a thousand years old. This tree best witnessed the ascetic's love for his God. 

In his imagination, the young man had spoken to Vishnu thousands of times under this tree and asked him for a short visit. But now ....

Hopeless and heartbroken, the ascetic sat under this tree, losing hope for the first time and wishing for death. The thread of faith of the longtime believer was about to unravel like a rotten and loose rosary thread when suddenly a unique fragrance entered his nose, and the hot, steamy, and stifling summer air of the area became so mild. More pleasant than ever before. A calm, refreshing breeze blew, and the pious young man felt fresh blood coursing through his veins. 

At the exact moment, a high voice of royal majesty called to him from behind:

"My friend, what is troubling you?"

The young man turned around and saw Vishnu standing ten meters away on a hill. Vishnu manifested himself in the same form as his statue in his small temple and with a halo of light.

The seeker trembled, and he was out of his skin with happiness. He wanted to say something but didn't have the words to form sentences, as if his brain had failed to give him the necessary commands.

Vishnu said in the same celestial voice.

"Say something."

The pious man dared and spoke from the bottom of his heart to his beloved:

"My God, my beloved, I want to do something for you. I will do anything for you."

Vishnu replied with the same smile and radiant aura:

 "Just a sip of water."

When he heard these words from his beloved, who believed him to be the creator of the universe, the sincere devotee was confused. However, he soon regained his senses and, following his master's command, hurried to the nearby river.

The river's water was hot because of the heat, and the seeker thought of finding a spring and fetching drinking water for his God. As he looked around for such a source, his eyes suddenly fell on an incredible and desirable woman standing in her colorful sari dress on an island in the middle of the river, looking at him with a sweet smile.

The young man briefly wondered why he had never seen this island in this part of the river before, but the woman's allure and beauty were so seductive and exciting that he quickly forgot about it. It didn't matter where the island came from. What mattered was the beautiful, enchanting woman waiting for him.

 

The pious man stared at this scene in bewilderment for a while but then quickly recovered and searched for a boat or even just a piece of wood that would take him to this nascent island.

Finding a boat in such proximity was as easy as finding a cobra, an elephant, and a yogi in the Indian forests, and so the young man took the first fishing boat he found without hesitation and sailed to his new lover.

Whether Hinduism and the school he had been educated in allowed him to appropriate other people's property was another question that he could not think about in this situation. At that moment, the young man was so fascinated by the beautiful woman that he could think of nothing else.

“Pity about the wasted life in the ashram.”

The devout man seems to have forgotten that he is looking for a water source. It is as if he is no longer the same person his God Vishnu asked to do something for him just a few hours earlier. The young man had forgotten what had happened between him and Vishnu. Perhaps he had ignored the story of his master's ascension with the advent of a more recent event.

In any case, the pious man reached the island, which suddenly emerged from the water. He had not given a moment's thought to what would happen if he fell into the water, for he could not swim.

The woman was as beautiful as if she had fallen from heaven to earth, and such a woman had never been seen before. She slept warmly with the seeker.

A devout man who had been celibate for thirty years, his whole life, agreed to marry this beautiful woman without remembering that in the School of Guyana, a seeker does not have the right to choose a wife. 

With this simplicity and quickness, this man forgot everything he had learned, for he had become a new man. 

It seemed as if a miracle had happened.

Sometime later, the formerly devout man and his wife moved to their land and settled in Rishi Kesh, three hundred kilometers away.

.................

Years had passed since this incident, and the man in our story was slowly reaching middle age. Now, he thought only of his beautiful wife, immense wealth, and three children, aged twenty-five, twenty, and sixteen, each of whom ran part of his father's large tea factory. Like everything else, beautiful and precious, this factory was a gift from his incomparable wife; he had inherited everything from his father-in-law.

The days of bathing in the Ganges, studying the Samhita, one of the Hindu holy books, and religious rituals were over, and the man had forgotten them like many other habits.

Now, it was no longer life that had faded to the edge of his mind but his spiritual beliefs, which had moved to a very dark and opaque edge. What preoccupied him now was his beautiful wife, who, after almost thirty years, was still as radiant as the first day they met, then his children and, of course, his immeasurable wealth.

The devout man of old wandered through his dream world and experienced this metamorphosis as happiness.

Thirty years ago, when he left the town of Rishi Kesh on his wife's advice to work in her father's factory, he even forgot to take his beloved Vishnu statue with him. Now, in his life, the study of holy books had given way to checking the books and contracts of the factory, dipping in the sacred river to take a Bath in the luxurious bathroom of a private palace. He had forgotten entirely the daily worship of God and instead enjoyed his wife's beauty, his children's growth, and wealth.

All this was permissible for an ordinary man but not for a man who once saw himself as a seeker of truth.

He had given in to a dangerous illusion—an illusion from which one cannot free oneself without help. This man was completely unaware of his path and indulged in pleasures that floated in the air like soap bubbles. So he continued his false existence in a euphoria without thinking about what he was and what he had become.

The days, months, and years that followed passed with the same quality. The former disciple of Vishnu was now very old, but surprisingly, his wife had not changed at all. But that was not the only thing that worried the old man for a long time. He could no longer enjoy his beautiful wife or care for his business because he didn't have the power to run these huge factories. He no longer wanted it. His children were all married and busy with their own lives. They had taken over their father's factory and business, and his father was practically isolated. 



For some time, he had been sitting in his chair on the beach, watching the silver waves of the sea, but lately, this activity had lost its appeal.

Something was missing from the old man's life, and he searched for it in the emptiness of his mind. In other words, the fading memory and the darkness of a lost value gradually resurfaced inside him. One bubble after another burst, and the old man had lost his joy. The joy for which he had lost something much more significant, and now he was suffering for it.

What is the meaning of life? A lifetime of neglect or a moment of pride? A hard life or passing an easy test? Which is more meaningful?

That day, the former devotee sat by the sea as he did every day, gazing reluctantly at the waves and dwelling on his thoughts. Slowly, realizing that what he had acquired in his life was just a tiny illusion that was not even needed in its proper place, he felt dizzy, stood up, and felt nauseous. Then he fell to the floor and vomited. 

The poor man felt misery and decay. A thick, sticky misery that had spread through his psyche in a thousand ways. Actually, the old man vomited his mental confusion and forty years of errors.

The old man with the lifeless heart, who felt a strong wind while he had no more color in his face and no more strength in his skinny body, looked at the sea again and suddenly, shocked, saw a massive tornado in the middle of the sea approaching the shore at great speed. With the same speed, the tornado hit the whole village that belonged to the old man, and howling, it reached the eastern side of the beach where the man was sitting on the sand. As the man watched this scene, his body wrinkled and trembled with fear, but just as the terrible tornado reached him, he felt like a passenger on a ship who must drown together with the broken boat and give up his life, so deep inside he called out a name and a moment later ...

.................

As the pious man sat on the ground in agony with his head between his legs, he heard a voice.

"Darling, did you manage to get me some water?"

Suddenly, the man stood three hundred kilometers away in Rishi Kesh under an Indian fig tree, where he had seen his master forty years ago. It was as if nothing had happened, as if no time had passed.

........

Miraculously, the seeker of truth was now physically thirty years old, but his soul had thousands of years behind it.

Excerpt from the book "The Miracle of Guadalupe"

Faramarz Tabesh

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Faramarz Tabesh

A story from the book Miracle of Guadalupe

Article code in research institute AOG:

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