neelkantha lives as a practical sage. they embody intuitive philosophy and yogic anarchy in the way of the rishi. they reveal the cosmic wisdom in everyday life, and cultivate space to invite you to grow into that wisdom. they offer insights with elegant prose, fierce clarity, and a sweet baritone. they devote themselves to their children, friends, and cats.
The story begins, as most stories of this sort do, a Very Long Time Ago.
It begins with the fiery rage of Lord Shiva, directed upon those who fail to walk the path of righteousness. One day this rage made the other gods flee from Lord Shiva, enraging him further and tempting the Lord to violence. At the behest of the goddess Parvati, the Lord purified himself and deposited his anger into a mortal. He thus created an avatar of himself in the raging sage, Durvasa.
What is a sage?
This is the question with which I arrive here, in the valley of the moon. JK died here, on this day, thirty nine years ago.
I blast through the great Central Valley at unsafe velocity. I can’t help it. I marvel at the vastness of the valley before me. I marvel at the Diablo hills to my west, swarming with winter green grass, dotted with cows euphoric for fresh ruminations. I marvel at the distant Sierras to the east, snowcaps distinctly visible through the rain-cleansed air. I marvel at the vastness of humanity that refined the earth into this exoskeleton of metal and glass and rubber, in which I now fly at mercilessly high speed. I marvel at the hands who guided the machines who ground the raw earth into roadways of asphalt and concrete, and constructed my companion the aqueduct, now to my east, sometimes to the west. We dance together, all of us, evaporating water and carbon dioxide, as we descend toward the South.
Sage.
That is immediately clear.
It absolutely is one of those jump-off-the-page, slam-bam-intuitive-man slices of Experience.
The kind of experience that happens all the time, if you can manage to pay attention.
As you stare down the word, you recall your first job out of college, and the first sage you met.
Jon S______ was his name.
He was an older guy, pushing 60 at the time. Well-fed and well-learned, the type of engineer as much at ease tuning a carburetor or finessing the fit of a rocking chair as designing a microprocessor. Indeed, he was the Chief of the electrical engineering team you joined, but more than that, he was the person you asked for guidance in solving your own design problems. And if he didn’t know how to help you, he would tell you directly; however, you could never quite be certain if he was testing you, inspiring you to muddle through the void of uncertainty, like the professors you endured just one year ago, like the path you have learned to walk in the decades since.
