Interview: Sri M On How The Upanishads Can Guide Us To Keeping Steady Amidst Worldly Interactions

Spiritual teacher, social reformer, activist, and author Mumtaz Ali, better known as Sri M, has been a guide to spiritual seekers, providing knowledge from the scriptures to people across the globe. He travels widely from his base in Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh (140 kms from Bengaluru) where he heads a Satsang Foundation.

When Sri M led the ‘Walk of Hope’ that cut across 11 States, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and covered 7,500 kms in 2015-16, people connected widely with his easily comprehensible responses to philosophical queries that brought in a humongous gathering wherever he went.

The respected-guru, and Padma Bhushan awardee, often speaks about his ‘divine-call’ he experienced as a nine-year-old at Thiruvananthapuram where he was born.

It swept him away a decade later from his parents of a Muslim lineage to the Himalayas, 2,000 miles away from his native place. It took the teenager through a few adventurous months wandering in Haridwar, Rishikesh and Badrinath sheltering himself in temples, ashrams and meeting a host of saints, sadhus, scholars, and experts on yoga, even as he journeyed through thick-and-thin looking for ‘his guru.’

As he climbed the mountain ranges in the Himalayas, his search took him to the farthest village Mana and the Vyas Cave where he heard the voice of his guru Sri Maheshwaranath Babaji, the ‘call’ that helped him surrender and gradually gain insights on every possible aspect of living in the teeming world. The youth wandered with Babaji in the Himalayan caves for the next few years getting tutored and readied “for his mission.”

Instructed by Babaji to return to his parents and lead a normal life while indicating a go-ahead to his spiritual missions - that would take him closer to people with ancient philosophy, Indian scriptures, knowledge, and inner peace – Sri M has been addressing gatherings to packed halls and at his public Satsangs with his teachings, always punctuated with light humour.

“Babaji trained me in Vedas, Upanishads, meditation and kriya yoga. He would ask me to fetch veggies and learn to cook for myself. My guru didn’t want me to be inclusive with books and recitations but wanted me to ‘see’ the world as it exists,” says Sri M, adding that spiritual evolution is individual.

“Although my parampara is kriya yoga, I propound Satsang as it cuts across barriers of caste and creed. After all, the world around you is your touchstone to spiritual practice,” is his advice to the thousands that visit his Foundation.

Sri M has written several books apart from his autobiography, including On Meditation, Wisdom of the Rishis, Jewel in the Lotus, Yoga is also for the Godless, Shunya, a novel, The Homecoming, a book of short stories and The Upanishads. His compassion towards the homeless has his Satsang Foundation extending a hand for humanitarian projects and a free school for children of the tribal communities living around Madanapalle. During the pandemic too that created a hunger crisis the Foundation volunteers distributed food in several cities in India.

Even as a dis-belief is expressed that a spiritual guide like him has attempted a piece of fiction as Shunya, a storyline imagined by the head of a Satsang Foundation at Madanapalle, Sri M quickly reacts, “I have offered books on philosophy, yoga and Indian mysticism, but I also wanted to offer my message in the form of a ‘fiction’ expecting that it will be better consumed than ‘facts’ written earlier,” he laughs, quoting Einstein ‘Imagination is more important than being intelligent.’ 

Ahead of his three-day discourse on Ishavasya Upanishad (also called Ishopanishad) in Bengalury (December 28-30, Chowdiah Memorial Hall, 6pm) that he deems “will be completely impromptu” Sri M shared a few thoughts on his childhood, and what turns such a deep philosophy as Upanishad into a subject to be handled in an open classroom where people could take home lessons for day-to-day practical life.

 Some extracts. . 

What would the gist of your three-day talk on Upanishads be? What exactly makes up the Ishavasya Upanishad?

The subject isn’t just an ocean but of oceanic understanding, unfathomable. I will be taking up several shlokas from Ishavasya Upanishad that will throw light on ‘how to tackle situations in different aspects of life.’ I have always said in my books and talks that although the Upanishadic statements appear to be contradictory and paradoxical many a times, when you go into the fulcrum, the deeper layers bring out its meaning and will gradually bloom like a flower.

My master Maheshwarnath Babaji would say: If you are alone in a cave, meditating for 20 years, and declare you are free of jealousy, anger and so on, who is there to get angry with? Of whom can you be jealous if you are living alone? One has to learn to remain steady and sane amidst interaction with others.

The Ishavasya Upanishad, the smallest of the 10 major Upanishads, has attracted the attention of major savants. It teaches us that the whole world is pervaded by God. It advocates the performance of karma or one’s duties; and advises the practice of a balanced combination of vidya (meditation); and avidya (karma, sanctioned by the scriptures and helpful to meditation); as also sambhuti (meditation on brahman); and asambhuti (duties to be performed in the world).

What does the word Upanishad actually mean? 

'Upa' means to move closer and in this case, it means moving closer to the Truth. It also means moving closer to the teacher, paying attention, and dissolving the mental obstacles, so that the listening takes place without reservations. 

'Shad' means ‘to sit’ or settle down not only physically but getting more receptive to what is being taught. ‘Ni’ which literally means sitting down at a lower level than that of the teacher, indicates the openness and humility required to listen and understand.

Are Upanishads the ‘Taatparya’ (essence) of the Vedas that are easier for people to comprehend?

They are somewhat like Zen teachings, trying to prove that things cannot be attained by way of linear logic, somewhat cutting across both Newtonian Physics where everything is certain, and Quantum Physics where everything is uncertain.

Upanishads, in a way, deal with imponderables and yet one must touch it, otherwise there is no point in the whole exercise.

The Upanishadic teachings are those that have to be listened to, thought over, understood and realised for making an experience of the matter. One must strive for its meaning, like the Zen Buddhists who beautifully describe the role of a human mind and eye, when a bow and arrow is used for shooting a target. 

What would you address from the Upanishads that would benefit a personality change?

In our everyday lives, we don’t look at ourselves closely and the tendency is to blame someone else if the outcome is not in our favour. This is only because we do not have the courage to open ourselves up for investigation, as it may open a Pandora’s Box. But unless this is done and the elves are allowed to get out, we cannot dwell deeper.

Our search is for That Truth, the Supreme Being, and ancient scriptures like the Upanishads provide us the guidance. The Upanishads do not expect you to believe them. They attempt to make us discover the truth on our own.  If this is not done, one cannot discover the different layers of one’s own mind. In this search, there is no ready-made formula. A platform is provided for looking at oneself and finding out.

Your background has been beyond belief, the spiritual call you followed when you were so young. How was it to face the family and people’s responses later?

I was born into an educated Muslim family in Thiruvananthapuram and named Mumtaz Ali Khan. My father, a PWD contractor, was a Graduate of Philosophy from the Kerala University who practiced Yoga and even had a book on Gayathri Japa in his drawer. Although I do not remember my mother or sister wearing a burkha, my grandmother was a devout Muslim and as a little boy I grew up constantly listening to her Sufi stories.

The mystic element was kindled then, with philosophy and thoughts crowding my mind all the time. When I was nine I had a divine call when I got absorbed into a deep meditation, but at 19 was magnetically pulled towards meeting my guru at the Himalayas, and to find knowledge from yogis there.

Even after years of disappearance, my mother welcomed me with not a word of protest when I came back a wandering yogi, far from the religion she and I were born into. Only a mother can do this. 

Even today I do not subscribe to any organized religion, I am interested in the deeper aspects that each scripture provides. So, I like to research and learn when it comes to the Gita or Upanishads. Similarly, in Islam, it’s the Sufi teaching that appeals to me. I call myself Sri M, and my passport and bank accounts have my original name Mumtaz Ali. My guru at the Himalayas called me Madhukar Nath. And I want to be a true human, Manav, so I chose to be called M, although people call me Sri M out of respect.