Water. This force contains life and purity. It cleanses whatever it touches and provides life to whoever drinks it. Water flows unceasingly. If it stops, it becomes stagnant. “Keep moving, keep moving” is the lesson I learned from water.

Lord Dattātreya

We don’t have to go far to meet this Guru. 70% of our body is water, and most of the Earth too is water. Million years ago, evolution began in water. And, no thanks to climate change, as glaciers melt, seas rise, fertile land is swallowed, with each passing year, more land is submerged under water while other regions crack open in drought. A human being can live for weeks without food, but only a few days without water. We know it instinctively, when someone is crying, angry, or anxious, the first thing we say is: drink some water. When the body trembles with heat or agitation, we reach for water to soothe, to ground, to return us to balance.

Sikh guru, Shri Guru Nanak called pāṇī pitā, māṭā dharat mahat, water the father, and earth the great mother. It is only when the father’s cool touch meets the mother’s dry womb that life stirs, that seeds crack open and the green pulse of existence begins. Without water, the earth remains barren; without earth, water has nowhere to rest. Together, they are the first parents of creation.

Before everything, there were only oceans, vast, formless, breathing under the young sun. From that depth came the first flicker of movement: a single-celled organism, the amoeba. From it, life unfolded into countless forms, evolving slowly from the waters onto land. The tale is so old that so many of those forms have folded in the void. Science calls it evolution, but perhaps it is simply cosmic archive. Maybe all of us, or rather, every living being still carries the memory of the ocean inside. Even in the womb, we float in our own little sea, nourished and protected, before we take our first breath of air. The water bag breaks and our eyes squint in the light of the world.

Every plant, every harvest, every patch of green life is possible only because of groundwater and rain. Sant Tukaram, who had lost everything to desertification, even family members, stood hopeless until one day he witnessed a small plant sprouting on parched land. That simple sight, a sapling on dry soil, broke open his heart and his poetry. It was that small plant, a sign of hope that the sookha (drought) was ending, since no life of any kind is possible without water, that awakened the poet within him. The scene from the movie Tukaram (available on Amazon Prime) moved me deeply, and I recommend everyone to watch it. Here are the subtitles of his words as he beholds the little plant gently, “How did this bud sprout? From where did it get water and nourishment? How did it breach this rocky ground? What hope made it come out or is Lord Vithoba Himself standing before me?”

Another time he says:

Ādhi bīja ekāle,

At first there was only one seed.
bīja ankurāle, ropā vādhale.

From that seed came a sprout, then a sapling, then growth.
Ekā bījāpoti tarū koṭī,

From a single seed, countless trees arise,
koṭī janma gheti, sumane phale.

countless births are taken, bearing flowers and fruits.
Ādhi bīja ekāle.

But in the beginning, there was only one seed.
Vyāpuni jagata tuhi ananta,

You pervade the world, O Infinite One,
bahuvidha rūpe ghesi ghesi,

taking on countless forms again and again,
pari ānti brahma ekāle.

yet in the end, only Brahman remains One.

In such simple words, Tukaram ji gave the meaning of life itself, countless births and deaths, all springing from the same seed which can sprout only with water. Yet when the people of his time felt threatened by his free spirit, his abhangas were submerged in water as well. Still, whatever remains through oral tradition and history tells us that only those who truly lack water, whether in the body, to drink, to bathe, to live will ever know its true importance. Especially, in a country like India, where rivers and oceans carry such rich and revered myths and lores, the condition of these marvels of Mother Nature today is heartbreaking. The same waters we once worshipped as goddesses now cry for mercy.

For as long as I can remember, water has been integral not only in geography and society but also in poetry. So many writers and saints have lived by rivers, sung of them, even given their lives to them. From Kālidāsa’s cloud-messenger that follows the rivers in Meghadūta, to Kabir’s call to see the ocean within, to Rumi’s reminder that we are all “drops returning to the sea”, a metaphor we keep hearing. Idols in temples are bathed in water; that consecrated water is then distributed among devotees as charanāmṛt or jal prasād. In the Rig Veda, the waters are praised as the mothers of all that exists, the keepers of fertility and flow. Genesis, too, begins with the Spirit moving over the waters before light and form arise. Every tradition, in its own language, asserts the same truth, that the beginning was fluid, unbounded, alive.

Water is both origin and return. It teaches us to yield without losing essence, to cleanse without discrimination. It takes the shape of every vessel yet remains itself. We too are vast, flowing, without edge or center. We just have to keep reminding ourselves of this truth. I remember reading a book by Bruce Lee’s daughter, Be Water, My Friend, which I loved. In it she quotes her father: “Water may flow swiftly or it may flow slowly, but its purpose is inexorable, its destiny sure.” Another line from the book says, “When you stop resisting life — even the hard parts of life — you start to be a part of life, and life takes you under its wing and says to you, ‘Look. This is how we live.’ And after a time, you realize you are ready to stop swirling around and around in that little eddy at the riverbank, because you know yourself to be the stream, and it becomes safe to let yourself flow forth again.”

The destiny of a river is to merge with the ocean, just as it is our destiny to merge with Baba, the Absolute. All our diversions, our whirlpools of fear and resistance, are only temporary detours on that inevitable journey home. When we stop fighting the current and allow ourselves to flow, the path becomes effortless, because it was never separate from the Source. Everything we resist is also a part of the path. But the most important thing is to remember that we don’t need to focus too much on the little eddies, the temporary swirls of confusion, the debris floating on our surface. Our true nature is the stream itself. We often become so absorbed in specific circumstances, in what happened or who said what, that we forget these are not us. They are events moving through us, arising for us to witness, to learn from, and then to let pass, as the river does.

On this path, we will inevitably leave behind people, patterns, places, dreams, everything that cannot flow with us anymore. Yet, have you noticed how water takes the shape of any vessel it’s poured into? It changes forms e.g. vapour, rain, river, snow, and yet remains water. In the same way, no matter what happens, our true Sai-nature does not change. It remains unbroken, fluid, untouched beneath the surface movements, knowing that all of it, joy and loss, meeting and parting, is simply passing through it. Jahnavi Harrison once sang, “My heart flows like a river,” and that bhajan played a deeply important role in my own heart’s awakening when I had just begun walking the spiritual path.

When there is no resistance, when each obstacle is seen not as a wall but as a boulder we must flow around, the pain lessens. Like the stream, we learn to keep moving within & without, to keep flowing, because rivers never flow backward. Our sexuality (Shakti) and creativity, the forces that help us birth something beautiful into the world, spring from the svādhiṣṭhāna chakra, the energy center of water. Its healing lies in letting go, being open, going with the flow, in complete surrender. And isn’t that Baba’s lesson anyway? To have patience, faith, and steadfast surrender, to trust that whatever our ocean, Baba, is doing, we, His drops, will receive with open hearts.

Water teaches us this humility, that yielding is not weakness, but wisdom. And that to serve the Source, we must remain fluid enough to reflect His light. So let us honour water not only as metaphor but as life itself. Save nature. Let not the rivers within or without run dry. To protect the flow outside is to protect the flow within, for both are Baba’s body, both are sacred.

Love,

Priyanka

SAVE WATER!

Note: This essay is part of “The Twenty-Four Mirrors”, a contemplative series on the Gurus of Lord Dattātreya. All Rights Reserved.

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|| SHRI SATCHIDANANDA SADGURU SAINATH MAHARAJ KI JAI ||