Tapovan Maharaj and my stash of curry leaves
The beautiful form of surrender
July 4th means something different to me than whatever America is celebrating. My first ever pet, my love, my dog Bruno (whom I call Bhooma) was born on July 4th. He passed away last year on another day in July and has since left a hole in my soul that I have yet to fill. But this post isn’t about him, although he somehow always leads me to beautiful things.
My mission was to find something distracting yet productive instead of doom scrolling through my photos app to look at Bhooma and cry all day. And I heard there was a retreat at our ashram for adults on that day. I decided to go. The retreat was to learn and discuss about Sadhana Panchakam, a beautiful work by Adi Sankaracharya, a fellow Mallu, which honestly makes me disproportionately happy inside. Of course, if a living, breathing Acharya caught me feeling this pleased about “regional pride”, he’d probably just quote the man himself back at me:
deśakālaviṣayātivarti yad brahma tattvamasi bhāvayātmani
(Vivekachudamani v:254 second part), translated as - That you are the Brahman transcending space, time, and sense-object; meditate on this.
Message seen ✔️✔️, Acharya. I’ll go back to transcending my ego now, right after this one small moment of Mallu pride.
The retreat was such an amazing way to spend Bhooma’s birthday. It gave me so many lessons to learn and apply in life, but a story on surrender became the most important takeaway for me.
This story is about Tapovana Maharaj, a Hindu saint and Vedanta scholar, still admired and loved by many Vedantins. Did I mention he’s another Mallu? Okay, at this point I’m just flexing.
Now, the story - Tapovan Maharaj decided to undertake a Kailash yatra. It’s an incredibly difficult journey, and along the way, he ran out of food and water. Exhausted, he was caught in the rain. Yet through all of it, his faith in the Lord was strong and his surrender was just beautiful to witness, even generations later.
As he lay down, unable to go on, the thought that arose in him wasn’t - “Will God save me?” but “How will God come to save me?” Such an innocent, honest form of surrender! I still get goosebumps thinking about it. He was so sure of help coming to him but just curious in what form or through whom.
Maharaj ji was eventually found and cared for by robbers, who had come to rob him. That’s how the story ends. But what stayed with me wasn’t the ending. It was the form of his surrender.
That single shift made me question myself - how arrogant I actually am in my own moments of misery, convinced I’m all alone, even while I keep saying the words I surrender to God or I surrender to the universe. I say the words, but I still worry. My only emotion in those moments should be curiosity, like Maharaj ji’s, not worry.
Surrender is not asking “will I be saved,” but wondering “how beautifully will I be saved.”
Now, what do curry leaves have to do with any of this? Okay, let’s get to that. That same weekend, my stash of curry leaves also ran out. It’s not very common to find curry leaves in regular stores here in Australia, and while I’ve had a curry leaf tree in the past, I don’t have one now. My stash always comes from friends who generously bring them to me from their own trees when I ask. So, this week, when my stash ran out, I simply did nothing. I left my curry leaves dealers completely in the dark. And just like that, a friend showed up with a big bag of curry leaves, the same evening!
I smiled inside, thinking - did I just pass one small test? Not worrying about something I don’t have, but might need later (and oh yes, we use a lot of curry leaves in our food). And I smiled at the Lord too, thinking, if He can tend to something as trivial as curry leaves, how much bigger and better must His plan be for when my whole world crumbles before me.
So really, the theory on July 4th and the practical on the 5th taught me that
surrender isn’t a one-time declaration I make and then forget.
It’s a daily, sometimes hourly, choice to trade worry for curiosity. Curry leaves today, something far bigger tomorrow.