Thread by @mmpandit

Jai Mahakaal. On #GuruPurnima a short thread on my Veda Guru, the late Phatak Guruji.. Veda Vachaspati.

Story starts in 1998. I am a surgeon training in England at the time. I take a decent amount of leave more than a month and come down to Pune...

On my second day in Pune, I get a strange dream... which says to me to learn Pavmana Sukta. I decide to ask my good friend whether anybody can teach me Pavmana. He looks a bit shocked, the sukta is 635 Ruchas.

Still, he asks me to visit Nakhate Maharaj for advice. Nakhate Maharaj as usual just nods and asks me to visit Phatak Guruji who lives next door... he says “Just say that I sent you and describe your dream”.

Phatak Guruji is a towering personality. He still walks barefoot in the city of Pune and is asked for advice in many matters by very prominent people ... and here I am ... somebody who knows not the crazy task I am asking to undertake...
To his credit, he listens, smiles,

He then says “Come back in three days”... unknown to me, he has a method of verifying whether someone is speaking the truth or not.
A woman who gets possessed by one of the Great Goddesses is slated to visit him in three days.
#GuruPurnima

Three days later... I am late... I enter the old wada... the woman is there in the gau shala and the door is closed. The Devi only possesses her in that area after recitation of certain mantras.. Aavesha!
I am told to go and wait. I am served tea by his wife.
#GuruPurnima

An hour later I am still waiting. In curiosity, I try to take a peek and see a huge heap of kumkum and Haldi which is streaming from her hands...
After another hour Phatak Guruji emerges and after tea is served.. he tells me certain things.
#GuruPurnima

Till this day, I cannot imagine how he would know those things which were to prove right even after 20 years...
My dream is so crazy... he explains the dream. Then he accepts me (totally unprepared) for Pavamana Santha.
#GuruPurnima

BUT there is a catch.
He will only give the santha in that place. It will take 3 hours a day for the next 30 days...
I accept hurriedly... with no idea of the enormous task ahead.
Santha: Means to repeat each Rucha twice after him.

His son (now a friend) winces every time he hears me struggling with the Pavmana ... but I labour on, 3 hours everyday for 35 days... in the end, exhausted...
but a total novice still..
#GuruPurnima

Afterwards I practice the Pavmana somewhat irregularly in England, and sometime in 2000.... I become fluent in it.
#GuruPurnima

Will continue...

After 2001, I go on to become fluent at the Yajurvedi Rudram.. I decide to learn Krama patha... this takes me two years more. I take Phatak Guruji’s blessings to do these things in a better manner.

In 2002, I start learning Ghana patha of Rudram. I become reasonable at it, not fluent, not perfect but passable.
This takes me two more years...
What are the effects of learning this on the human body and on the environment? A short chapter exists in my upcoming book...

Vedic learning is long, tedious and painful... any learning is painful, but Vedic learning manifests in the most unlikely of ways. When done perfectly the Vedic mantras completely harmonise the mind, body and breath... but perfection is a long process.

Many practitioners of Tantra call Vedic mantras as snakes without fangs... this is not quite true.
The problem is with the rigorous rules and lengths of time required to make Veda mantras fructify. Even at 3 hours a day, you would barely cross 1800 Gayatri mantra in a day.

The requirement is 24 Lakhs. One purascharan of Gayatri according to the dictum “Akshar Laksha” is 24 syllables multiplied by 1 lakh each.

It will take you around 4 years after f living in a gau shala and doing this. Does anybody do this still?

20 years ago in Pune, small advertisements used to appear on occasion.
So, one person with his wife would go and live on the forest near Katraj ghat for 4 years.... the ad was for a volunteer to help them as the sadhana required complete isolation...

That sadhana was of the Gayatri Purascharan.... today of course it’s fashionable to diss Brahmanas... AND most of the time, this won’t cause too much karmic damage as many Brahmanas are only naam ka.. BUT the words of a real Brahmana.. even the Gods must fulfil it.

18 hours a day for 3 years... kisme hai dum to do it?
Even 9-10 hours a day sadhana requires Niyama otherwise the nervous system will be screwed... most people don’t really understand this. How can you understand unless you do it yourself?

I learnt all this the hard way... I thought it’s all bunkum (as all young people do)... when your sadhana is only of two or three hours a day how can you perceive ?
Now wiser, I understand why people can’t understand these things.

Late Phatak Guruji ‘s father of course we see to recite the Pavamana Sukta of 635 Ruchas in 45 minutes flat.
No mistakes. Superb intonation. He was the personal attendant of the great Vasudevanada Saraswati or Tembe Swami Maharaj in the forest for decades.

Avadhoot Chintan. Shree Guru Deva Datta!

It is important to keep the oral tradition of India in the form of the Vedas alive.
If certain shakhas don’t have disciples, then at least the principal suktas if those shakhas should be learnt in the prescribed manner by either
1. People in India
2. NRI’s willing to do it

This IMHO is another thing which is important.
The next important thing is to make the backward classes especially tribals as explicit stakeholders of Sanatana Dharma
Very important.
Very very important.
Janeus for all who desire it along with homam teaching.
Jai Mahakaal

No person from the backward classes and from the tribal background must be left untouched by the generosity of Hindus. They must be taught our heritage.... Start with each jati like the Moorti makers, the sonars, all of them. Not one should be or feel excluded.

How can “Richa” in actuality pronounced “Rucha” of the Vedas follow anything else?

A few friends met Phatak Guruji occasionally. The man was a towering personality. I still remember, his son bought a car, but Guruji continued to walk barefoot for years till his health permitted. Dharti khali, Akash varti, dolyat Shankarachi murti ani kaanat Veda dhwani!

Many people today talk about the environment, but Guruji embodied the concepts of Dharma... he firmly believed in rigorous prayaschitta rituals (for Brahmanas, these are very strict) and these were followed from time to time if rules were thought to be broken.

He had various sources of oracles which he would summon from time to time such as the one I talked about earlier... that made him extremely sure of certain things... I can only now recollect exactly how powerful these things are.

What kind of power each Vedic chant has.... is given in phala shruti of the different Vedic chant.
Pavamana he said could actually stop Mrtyu if done in the prescribed manner.

There was one chant he had which he used to prescribe to pregnant women : the child would invariably be Intelligence personified was his belief.
Unfortunately I can’t remember which one it was...

Many years later after much coaxing, I actually reciting a portion of the Rudram in public. It was in Croatia where I was called to screen “Krishna History or Myth”.
I recited an anuvaka of the Rudram... somebody may hv a recording of the actual event and its response.

That entire holiday of 1998 was spent in such an interesting manner.
Daytime was spent learning Pavamana.
Nights were spent in Parayana to try and help somebody....

Guruji was not above castigating Brahmanas when he felt they deserved it.
I remember how he totally lost his cool at particular kula Brahmanas for having no foresight for maligning two great Kshatriyas:
Shivaji Raje and Bajirao Peshwa...

It’s funny how things happen. Some time ago, I met somebody who was present at another meeting of mine... this was in 1994 with Nakhate Maharaj.

That person, now much older,remembered how everybody gaped at my words (my father was also looking astonished) and they all looked at Nakhate Maharaj to say something like “It’s all just a stupid delusion of this boy”
Instead...

Instead Maharaj was to say ... that “whatever he is saying is absolutely true”...
but what I had forgotten and what this person made me remember was his vakya to me “Do you not know what has happened and its significance “
All the older shishyas looked on in envy...

This person laughed and I too laughed at my own foolishness ... as he described my completely bhondu face... I actually asked Nakhate Maharaj “Who was that being “ and Maharaj laughed and told the 4 other older shishyas ...

Nakhate Maharaj said “See how Mauli’s play is. One who gets doesn’t even know what he got and here you are searching for the last 20 years and likely you won’t get what he got in this birth “... I was completely mystified... kya Bol rahein hain Maharaj?
But my father was laughing

Only in 1998 did it strike me like a bolt of lightning from the sky... exactly what had happened.... but Nakhate Maharaj knew and so did Phatak Guruji... AND so did a girlfriend of mine who I recounted that experience too in 1994... took me years to know.

Bhondu doesn’t begin to describe my condition at the time... someday I will upload a photo of mine from that time... “Ah the follies and innocence of youth “...

It was a year later that I was to meet another really spiritual person... BUT with a specific siddhi ... named Bhausaheb Parande... a normal, penniless person in his youth... he suddenly got darshan of Dattatreya... transformed him.

What was the Siddhi?
Well, every Thursday he used to sit in a temple in Dhankawdi and literally the who’s who of Pune used to turn up to ask him questions.. he would basically sit on an asana and the Naths were said to grace the place...

What could he tell you?
Past, present and future... seems impossible?
Ask any lecturer from Sassoon hospital... half of them were there...
AND in terms of what he could foretell... 500 people on a Thursday only... upto sunset.

Like... what magazine was lying on your coffee table at home?... what murtis you had in your puja ghar?.. what colour, what material they were made of, what size... etc.
Literally we tested him so many times... all true, 100% accuracy.

He could tell you what month things would happen in... although he would decline to tell you the year... but whatever he said... those things would absolutely come true, this was very useful if you had to decide what date things could be done on..

AND his knowledge of Vana Vanaspati was phenomenal... Many many people from the Govt Medical college in Pune benefited from his knowledge...