An Empty Drum by the Roadside : SWAMI CHINMAYANANDA

30/12/2018

While sitting in satsanga with Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, as often happened in his presence, a deep *peace overtook the assembled crowd and no one said a word, although many of us surely had saved up plenty of questions for him earlier, with every intention to ask them.

However, especially after we were already some days into a yajna or camp and had slowly allowed the usual turmoil in our minds to abate a little, we often found ourselves simply sitting in satsanga in *silence.

Gurudev focused his large, #expressive eyes on our silent faces, drummed his fingers along the sides of his chair, and said :

“Come on! I’m just an empty drum by the roadside. Unless you beat on me, no sound comes out!”

So some *listeners managed to summon up a question or two from the recesses of their minds and drummed away at the always willing drum of the Guru.

Swamiji outshone many a *teacher in knowing how to reach down to the level of the audience. The proof of the efficacy of his method was in the number of people who turned toward the spiritual life as a result of his words.

He knew that if half or more of the audience came in ill prepared to receive the highest teachings of the *Upanishads in their pure form, he must find ways to bring that sublime message forcefully into his listeners’ *minds.

He used *stories, *similes, *jokes, *charts — whatever means he could devise — to reach past the tumult in many a mind.

Yet there were always some listeners in the audience who heard the message behind the stories and glimpsed the subtlety and simplicity of the *eternal teaching.

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