My Old Friend Martin
by Peter Berking
My association with Martin goes back to about 1996, when we were fellow students of an advaita teacher nnamed Ganga-ji. We were both quite familiar with Bhagavan since Gangaji was a devotee of H.W.L.Poonja who was with Bhagavan while He was in the body.
Martin and I decided we wanted to travel to Sri Ramanasramam to walk where Bhagavan walked, touch what He touched and experience for ourselves, the Grace emanating fom the place where Bhagavan inhabited this earth and where His Guru, Arunachala, was located. So Martin and I went there for the first time in 2002. After going Ramasramam then, it became clear to us, that we were truly Bhagavan devotees. So we dropped pur affiliation with Gangaji and joined local satsang groups, which for Martin was Arunachala Ashrama and for me was Anand's group in Washington,DC. We went together to the Ashrama for a few weeks almost ewvery year after that until the pandemic last year.
Some of the most connected and precious moments I've ever experienced with another human being were with Martin, happenning for a total of almost a year's time that we spent at the Ashram; usually as roommates there and including of course all the travel to and from the Ashram and at our respectives houses, whe he visited me in DC or I visited him in NJ.
What I discovered in getting to know Martin was that there were some deep connections in our individual personal histories. For example, we both started pursuing an interest in Bhagavan's teachings at the same time, in 1986, by reading Talks. Also, berfore he and I were brother disciples of Bhagavan, we were students of another pair of brother disciples. Martin was a student of Swami Shantananda Saraswati through an organzation he was a member of and I was a student of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of T.M.fame. These two were brother disciples of Brahmananda, the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math. This meant that he and I learned the same meditation technique through different pathways and probably had the same mantra. We could not verify this because we were forbidden to reveal our mantra. Maharishi brand the meditation technique as T.M., Transcendental Meditation and Swami Shantananda called it Bija mantra.
My path and Martin's path were intertwined like this in many other ways. I have no doubt this was all arranged by Bhagavan. This common background was of course a powerful driver for our friendship. But I would attribute our close relationship mainly to being brother devotees, or you could say, friends in Bhagavan, that is, our shared desire to understand and apply Bhagavan's teaching naturally drove us to be friends and support each other in our shared goal of self-realizzation. This mutual support and friendship is an important part of Bhagavan's sadhana for all of his devotees. The more friendly and supportive we are towards our fellow devotees, the more we experience one another, not as 'other' but as 'our own self'. This then drives us to greater heights of friendship and support. That is how the cycle builds on itself and keeps accerating us towards the goal.
So my experience of being friends in Bhagavan with Martin reenforces to me that the quest for self-realization is a group effort. It is Bhagavan's Will for us. As I wrote recently to a devotee who is a prison inmate in Texas, "You are not alone in this quest. The devotees are here to support you." This love and friendship between devotees is something you can't really experience unless you are a devotee yourself. It is something I think we all experience everytime we get together for these satsang meetings or even in social events outside of satsang. It is something that I hope we all continue to treasure and aspire to, even though we restricted to online meetings only.
It is my fervent wish that my account of being friends in Bhagavan with Martin further inspires you to further cherish your relationships with other devotees as an instrument of sadhana and Grace. Your fellow devotees are a gift from Bhagavan in this life.
All of this is not to say that my friendship with Martin was based only on being brother disciples. It was based also on all the human factors that drive friendships. Martin was an inherently likable person. He was friendly, compassionate and considerate to all! And engendered friendliness from everyone - devotees or not. He and I had tremendous mutual affection and respect, apart from any spiritual connection. Our attitudes, thoufghts and feelings were amazingly in synch; We seemed to know what each of us was thinking. Sometimes I would say something Martin was about to say and vice-versa - with uncanny premonition.
I want to say a few words about how unique Martin was. Think about how rare it is to be chosen by Bhagavan to be one of his devotees but on top of that to be chosen as a non-brahmin westerner, to learn the Vedas. Martin had to really persevere through significant hurdles to pursue this desire to learn the Vedas in a tradional vedic learning context. I think most you have seen the fruits of his labor. You've probably seen Martin chant the vedas expertly and exquisitely on many occasions at the Ashrama.
When he was at Sri Ramanasramam, he would sing every afternoon in the main hall along ewith the Veda Patasala. He also recorded two CDs of his chanting, one called "I do nothing at all" and one called "Shakti Bhakti" which you can actually get on amazon.com.
One of my fondest memories of Martin is going on pradakshina with him on the inner path through the woods and hearing him sing vedas as the sun was rising. It doesn't get any better than that!
In closing I would like to honor Martin's wife Billee, and their two daughters, Elisha and Diana, for supporting Martin as only a loving family can - especially through this long illness. Bille is an ardent Bhagavan devotee, and has been a close friend in Bhagavan to me along with Martin.