Pink Man

My major field of study in college was cultural anthropology. One of my professors shared some interesting experiences he’d had during a year in which he lived with a remote tribe in New Guinea. These people were so inaccessible that they’d never seen a Westerner before.

At first they just ignored him or stared at him suspiciously as though he were a new variety of albino snake or toad. After weeks of such treatment, he would withdraw into his tent, read Shakespeare, and try to affirm, “I am an educated, intelligent human being who is part of an advanced civilization.”

Little by little the tribe’s people saw that he meant them no harm, and they allowed him to enter into their daily life. As he began to learn their language and culture, he realized that what they’d been calling him all along was “Pink Man.”

After more time had passed, he no longer had to affirm who he had been, but could accept that he was now a different version of himself. After a year, “Pink Man” returned to his university and wrote an ethnography of the tribe that had opened his eyes to another worldview and helped change how he thought about himself.

Considering the professor’s experience, I realized that what interested me was not so much the customs and languages of other peoples, but the opportunity to expand one’s self-definition by immersing in a different reality. Fortunately, God showed me a better way to do this through the spiritual path and discipleship.

Inner self-transformation is never easy, no matter how you approach it. In trying to transcend self-limitations and old ways of thinking, we find ourselves clinging to the familiar, even if it no longer serves our aspirations.

In Paramhansa Yogananda’s unparalleled explanation of the Bhagavad Gita, he tells us that the challenges Arjuna faces before the battle of Kurukshetra are allegorical. Each character, friend or foe, is symbolic of an inner quality that lives within each of us.

Those on the opposing side, the Kauravas, are his relatives and mentors, although they represent such things as material desire, ego, habits, and attachment. As the great warrior Arjuna surveys the Kaurava army before the battle begins, he becomes discouraged, drops his bow, and says to his charioteer, Krishna, “These are my kinsmen. I cannot kill them. Therefore, I will not fight.”

Yoganandaji explains that this is the inner battle we all must face. We fear killing old patterns and habits, because we’re not sure who we will become when the familiar is gone. Yet unless we take up the fight, we can never discover our own higher Self.

In the remainder of the Gita, Krishna explains to Arjuna that the true Self is never lost, but through spiritual effort, its energy is transmuted into a higher expression. “The soul is never touched; it is immutable, all-pervading, calm, unshakable; its existence is eternal.” (Chapter 2:24)

As Jyotish and I enter our second month of traveling to Ananda centers in Italy and India, the process of personal transformation and letting go of the familiar is something we face daily. What a joy to offer oneself up to the process, allowing God to guide us toward inner freedom.

Whether through the example of “Pink Man” overcoming the fear of loss of self-identity, or Arjuna transcending the reluctance to fight old mental tendencies, we need to take the leap of faith. It’s by surrendering the self to God that we go beyond our limitations and find who and what we really are: a spark of the Divine.

With joy,

Nayaswami Devi