Lalleshuri ------ (Lal Ded)

It was in the middle of fourteenth century that a great ascetic poet was born in Kashmir within chaotic conditions of great upheaval that was shaking Kashmir to its root. Lalleshuri, fondly called Lalded (granny Lalla) was born in a Hindu home and married at a tender age. She wasn’t treated well at her in-laws and so she left home and took to the mantle of a wandering ascetic. She was actually meant for a much higher purpose of life and so under the guidance of her Guru (teacher) she achieved the highest goals of self realization. She, in her ecstasy of spiritual achievement gave out gems of her Vaakhs, the four line poetic compositions, extempore which were instantly committed to the public memory and for centuries preserved safely in the memory lane as a divine word. Her poetic compositions (Vaakhs) describe primarily her personal spiritual experience and serve as a guide for the seeker in the path of spiritual advancement. She emphasizes on controlling the overpowering senses and the wavering mind and concentrating on meditation and Yoga as a means to attain salvation, i.e. merging of individual soul with the universal consciousness. She stresses upon the suffering humanity to get awakened to the real purpose of life along with the futility of the glamour of worldly existence and also shows the escape route through the awakening of spirit and the practice of Yoga. The human life is full of miseries due to undue attachment to the worldly pleasures, pursuit of greed, power, riches and the ego. Lalla was not in favour of total renunciation or running away from the worldly responsibilities. She wished people to be the real human beings and work for the liberation from the worries of the world. The teachings of Lalla are a treasury of high moral and spiritual guidance for the seeker of truth and tranquility. Her universal appeal lies in the fact that she spoke in the idiom of the masses. She, in fact became the founder of modern Kashmiri, the language that with slight changes down the years continues to retain the infrastructure of Lalla's making.
Lalleshuri was very much dedicated to her Guru. While expressing her gratitude to her Guru in guiding her in all her progress she says that her Guru is both father and mother to her, who made her blind eyes capable to see, her bare body able to wear the celestial garments and thereby discriminate between falsehood and the truth. Lalleshuri has repeatedly described the importance of a teacher in the way to self realization. She says one who develops full faith in his Guru and follows religiously his directions, is able to control all five senses with the help of Gyan Yoga and succeeds in overcoming the sea of ignorance. He is lifted above the gross material world and all worldly events, joys and sorrows, sound immaterial to him. Lalla says in one popular Vaakh--- she asked her Guru a thousand times who was the one who was nameless and beyond comprehension but she didn’t get a reply. When she got tired by asking repeatedly and hence helpless she was suddenly satisfied without an answer and understood the truth of life and its creator who was responsible for all creation and still beyond comprehension. The purpose here is to bring home to the seeker that the Guru guides his disciple in all circumstances and the seeker doesn’t fall short of guidance in association with him. Lalla says she has washed her body with the Gangajal (water of the sacred Ganges) of the Gura-Shabda (word of her Guru) and thus attained pure salvation living the same material body. -------- (to be continued)