- To be is to know that you are not separate, but an ongoing flow of every history gone before.’
My father was the scholar and linguist who awakened me to the magic of words. Through scriptures, chants, and books, he introduced me to friends across epochs. He taught me to romance poets who charmed my soul, and philosophers who silenced the hunger of the dust. In his eyes, I sought to dance past every milestone; he made achievement so effortless that it became a habit. Yet, when I grew too lost in the past, he gently urged, “Close the books now, dear, and read from the pages of life.” Growing up under British rule, his accent was flawlessly British—to me, he was simply the ideal, and he was my own.
Mom was his perfect foil. Where Dad was vocal in celebrating his seven children, Mom’s appreciation was quiet. I only ever heard her praise us in the early hours of dawn, as they shared filter coffee brewed to her fastidious standards. When I was reluctant to marry, she reprimanded Dad for nurturing my independent streak. I laughingly told her, “How can I marry when you have already married the man I love?”
Today, I realize how subtly they gave me back to myself, awakening me to my programmed continuity. I can never truly be “me” without them. I carry an innate universality; I am just a drop, but I possess all the characteristics of the ocean. To belong implies we are separate, but I walk today with a unity that grants me the open sky, the fullness of the earth, the cradling ether, the motivating fire, and the flowing meanings within.
We live in a world that trades frantically in the currency of validation. From our very first steps, we are conditioned to look outward, to seek the nod of approval from an external audience, to measure our worth by the standard of applause. The world tells us that we are empty vessels waiting to be filled, or incomplete jigsaw puzzles waiting for the right pieces of praise, titles, and societal checkboxes to make us whole. It offers a conditional nurturing—a pat on the back when we conform, a badge of honor when we match its narrow expectations. We spend lifetimes building a fragile “me” constructed entirely out of what others think of us, foolishly calling this- identity !
But on this sacred full moon of Guru Purnima, as the silver light washes over the earth, a deeper truth rises from the silent spaces within. True nurturing—the kind that flows from a true Guru, the kind that my parents subtly anchored within my soul—does not hand you a mirror to show you how well you fit into the world. It does not offer you validations to soothe a hungry ego. Instead, it shatters the mirror entirely to reveal that you are the light itself. True nurturing does not build you up; it strips away everything you are not, until all that remains is your inherent infinity. It awakens you to the staggering, breathless truth of the universality you already embody.
Looking back at the quiet dawn rituals of my childhood, at the aromatic steam rising from Mom’s filter coffee and the resonant cadence of Dad’s voice quoting ancient verses, I see clearly now that they were performing the ultimate role of the Guru. They were not raising a child to become a trophy for the family or a product for society. They were gently, persistently turning my gaze inward. When Dad celebrated my milestones so effortlessly, he wasn’t teaching me to become addicted to winning. He was stripping away the fear of failure, making success seem so natural that it lost its power to trap me. He made me realize that external achievements were merely playground games, not the definition of my existence. And when he saw me getting lost in the intellectual maze of his beloved books, his intervention was immediate and profound: “Close the books now, dear, and read from the pages of life.”
That instruction was the classic paradox of the master. It was the transition from Jnana (knowledge) to Vijnana (realized wisdom). He was telling me that the scriptures are just maps; the terrain is inside me, waiting to be walked, breathed, and lived. He was pointing me toward the open sky of direct experience. He was ensuring that I did not become a repository of other people’s thoughts, but an embodiment of original truth.
Mom, in her majestic, quiet grace, reinforced this in ways that words never could. Her silent dawn praises, whispered only into the listening ears of the early morning over coffee, were completely detached from the theater of public validation. She did not need to exhibit her children to the world to feel fulfilled. Her nurturing was an underground river—deep, invisible, yet entirely life-giving. By scolding Dad for fostering my independence, she inadvertently highlighted the very fire she had helped him stoke within me. They were co-conspirators in my liberation. They created a sanctuary where my spirit could grow so fiercely authentic that the conventional structures of the world, like the standard pressures of marriage or societal conformity, could not easily bind me.
Shri & Smt Parameshwar
When I laughingly told her, “How can I marry when you have already married the man I love?” it was a jest wrapped in an absolute truth. I had already witnessed a union that was complete, an ideal that transcended the mundane. In their partnership, I saw how two distinct forces could exist in perfect harmony without dissolving their individual essence. They showed me that true love, like the love of a Guru, does not colonize or possess; it sets you free.
The world’s nurturing is transactional. It says: If you do this, you are worthy. If you look like this, you belong. It keeps you perpetually small, a dependent entity begging for crumbs of assurance from a world that is itself starving for certainty. The world wants you to believe you are a separate, lonely entity navigating an indifferent universe. It compartmentalizes you into a name, a gender, a profession, a nationality. It forces you to belong to a specific fragment of reality, because fragments are easy to control and manage.
But the Guru’s touch—the cosmic nurturing that aligns with the rhythm of Purnima—does exactly the opposite. It refuses to validate your smallness. It ignores your superficial complaints, your minor anxieties, and your fabricated limitations. It looks directly into the core of your being and recognizes the ocean. It whispers: You do not belong to the world; the world belongs within you.
This awakening to universality is not a loud, dramatic event marked by trumpets. It is a subtle, beautiful shift in perception. It is the realization that I do not need to seek unity, because I cannot possibly achieve separation. The boundaries we construct between ourselves and the cosmos are nothing more than lines drawn on water.
The sands flow on, the hourglass crumbles, as every cell throbs with the dancing stillness at that still point that is neither toward or from.It is a dimension where time ceases to be a horizontal line of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Instead, it becomes a vertical plunge into the immediate now. The crumbling of the hourglass is not a tragedy of decay, but a spectacular release from the cage of linear progression. We spend our lives running toward destinations we think will fulfill us, or running away from histories we fear will define us. Yet, here, at this intersection of the human and the cosmic, the pulse of every single cell becomes an echo of the cosmic dance—vibrant, electric, and completely alive, yet rooted in an unshakeable, silent core.
Kalaimamani Vidwan GuruShri T.S.Kadirvelu Pillai
This is the ultimate paradox that a true spiritual nurturing births within you. The world conditions us to believe that to be still is to be stagnant, and to dance is to be restless. It forces us to choose between the noise of action and the numbness of withdrawal. But the touch of the Guru—the awakening to your own innate universality—reveals that the highest movement is found within the absolute stillness, and the deepest stillness sustains the most intense dance. It is like the eye of a hurricane; everything revolves around it in a furious display of life, yet the center remains completely untouched, pristine, and quiet.
Today, as I stand under the expansive sky, I do not feel the need to look for my parents in a distant past, nor do I feel the need to look for a Guru in an external ashram. They have become the very fabric of my awareness. The flawless British accent of my father, the fastidious standards of my mother’s morning coffee, the ancient chants, the independent spirit—these were never external inputs. They were the keys that unlocked the ancient doors of my own soul.
I carry their programmed continuity, not as a burden of expectations, but as a passport to the infinite. Because they did not bind me to their personalities, I am free to experience the cosmos as my true home. The five elements are not external forces I interact with; they are the extensions of my own being. The open sky is the vastness of my mind. The fullness of the earth is the grounding of my presence. The cradling ether is the space that holds my silence. The motivating fire is the passion of my purpose. The flowing meanings within are the rivers of my consciousness.
On this Guru Purnima, my gratitude does not take the form of a formal prayer or an external offering. It takes the form of a quiet, ecstatic surrender to the reality of who I am. I bow to the lineage of teachers, parents, poets, and philosophers who refused to let me settle for the cheap thrills of validation. I bow to those who had the courage to push me past the milestones and into the formless, trackless terrain of self-realization.
To the world, we may look like single individuals, walking our lonely paths, collecting our little trophies, and seeking our fleeting validations. But to the eye of wisdom, we are the universe experiencing itself in human form. We are the ancient sages chanting through modern lips; we are the timeless love of mothers brewing coffee at dawn; we are the unyielding independence of spirits refusing to be caged.
The search for approval ends when the realization of the absolute begins. I no longer need the world to tell me who I am, because the world is merely a reflection in the mirror of my consciousness. The drop has finally discovered that it never left the ocean, and the ocean has joyfully recognized itself within the drop.
There is nothing to achieve, nothing to prove, and nowhere to arrive. The books are closed, just as Dad asked. The pages of life are wide open, turning effortlessly in the gentle breeze of grace. Every breath is a disciple’s prayer; every heartbeat is a master’s blessing. In the stillness of this sacred moonlit night, the noise of the world fades into nothingness, leaving behind an infinite, resonant, joyful truth:
‘I AM’ and in that being,… everything else ‘ IS’
By Kalashri Dr Lata Surendra
(Renowned Bharatanatyam Exponent, Teacher Choreographer ,
Writer ,Curator, Independent Researcher, Dance Journalist and in the field for over Six and half decades)
