I woke up early morning, it must been around 4 am. I arrived to this hotel around middle of the night. I went to sleep straight away as I wanted to see the sunrise early in the morning.
I was standing in the balcony of the hotel room and looked at the nature with awe and wonder. Flowers filled the place with fragrance, the river was flowing gently. The moon shone with a gentle radiance, the stars added to its brilliance. It was early in the morning, but night had left its traces. It looked like the moon was gazing at it’s own reflection in the water, just like I was. A gentle breeze from the river and the trees kept me perpetually cool.
Suddenly I felt this unknown joy and excitement. I wanted to embrace the darkness, the river, the moon and the stars and wanted to become one with them. I felt like getting into the skin of the long grown trees and the leaves and wanted to feel as if I was them and I wanted to touch the skies and feel in them in my hand. This must have what god wanted to feel, otherwise why did he became everything from a human being to down an ant. All scriptures were confirming this, I felt as if god was a lonely man. I myself felt like god, wanted become everything so I could taste and feel the nature in my single cell. These feelings lasted for few minutes.
“Is this what people call love?” The closeness or the yearning of an intimate connection, a form of madness where one loses oneself. Yearning for oneness but can never be achieved in this way. The physical reality will put a stop to this. No wonder this type of love end in disappointment. This is impossible, To achieve this, you simply have to melt away and lose your individuality and risk yourself to becoming the other. But none will take that risk. Could I take the risk of melting away and become the river that flows in front of me? Of course not! I am so used to be me, used to myself, I simply cannot lose this identity. I might pay a high cost, I never know. Knowingly or unknowingly humans loves themselves most and they cannot take the risk of losing their individuality. You cannot let go of this “I”, you have build your entire life and death around it.
Suddenly I realised I was merely being an observer, who was longing for an intimate oneness with the nature. It seemed impossible, as there was a separation and this cannot happen if I couldn’t melt away and become one with everything that existed, a physical separation is there indeed or I was habituated with my physical body that I cannot see any other means of getting closer.
My heart became heavy, sadness was creeping up and suddenly the sky darkened. As the rain drops started to fall, I suddenly had a vision of a deep dark hole, within me,
it could swallow me any time and eat me. I refused to fall into it and I was trying to shake this feeling out of myself. I never wanted to look into this, but now this was brought in front of me and I had no choice but to look into it. I felt a sense of dread and a question popped into my head. “Are you unhappy?”
I dared to not to answer. “Not now, I cannot deal with this now”
My thoughts were chased by the sound of a motor; I looked the direction, a white car entered into the hotel. I saw my guide getting out from the car.
First I thought to go down, and then I thought I better stay and watch the sun and then go down later.
After couple of hours I made myself ready and went downstairs to meet the guide. I couldn’t wait to get out from the hotel.
All my life I dreamed to come here now finally I found myself in the laps of lower of Himalayas, and surrounded by scenic beauty of the hills on three sides with Holy Ganga flowing through it.
“What a mysterious place I thought to myself!” Even the air felt so different from any other places that my breathing had become different.
“Good morning Madam! “Did you have a good night sleep”?
I thought all the Indian guides sounded like Old English butlers.
“O common, call me by my name” and I sat right next to him, which made him move further away from me.
He continued, “I am waiting for your other family members, but since you are here what is that you would like to do?” “If you let know, I will try and see if i can fit it in into your itinerary”
He was very tall and fair and must be little younger or same age as me. When I looked at him, he reminded me of a deer. He had long neck, thin legs and small ears with curious eyes. He was scanning the whole environment at once and his movements were like he was ready to take off anytime if there was any danger. He didn’t look like an ordinary guide we had earlier. “He must be a fast runner and he must use his legs a lot”, I thought to myself.
With so much excitement, I said, “Can you take me to those places where I could see people, I mean real people”?
He looked at me with an impression that he didn’t understand what I was on about.
“What a stupid thing to say”, I bit my tongue, “I need to think before I speak”.
I blurted out something and I was myself trying to make some sense of what I just said.
Before I could say anything, he said, “You will be seeing people all day”.
“What I meant was, I was not interested in usual tourist spots, I want to go where life is, where the villagers are and where I could see the real life and culture of people, sages, or baba jis as you may call them. The people of the Himalayas and river Ganga.”
Suddenly I had a picture of my geography teacher in my mind when I mentioned the word culture. Once he spoke about Himalayas, he said, “the culture is very different in this particular hill sides. Women marry more than one man. It is almost like marrying the whole family. First she would be introduced to the eldest son of the family and the rituals take place, soon she would be marrying rest of his brothers. This is the custom here and all live happily together. These marriages are conducted for practical reasons; normally the man will have to leave the family for six months to work to provide food. At this time her other husband, his brother will be staying with the woman and the children, once first husband returns, the seond will go away for 6 months. They take turn and normally the children will call all of them their fathers “Dad” and there would be never a question of separation or divorce. All men will love these children as their own.
Compassion and love! Is this existing for the survival of the selfish gene?” Dawkins made little sense to me now, although I always found him irritatingly boring.
“For this you will have to do some trekking and I don’t think we could do this in this trip, you are only here for three days.” I was awaken from my thoughts by the guide.
He mentioned couple of temples in the area and he said, “I was going to take you there”. These temples are very famous and he said “well there are actually number of 60 Sakthi Peethas and we will be going to one of them, where Sakthi entered into the fire”.
I gave him a frustrated look and he couldn’t understand this, “How many Sakthi peethas are there?”, “I thought there were only 52”
He knew I was right. I turned away like I was disinterested in what he was about to say. He had already rejected my suggestions and he couldn’t get the facts right. I didn’t see any point in continuing this conversation with him.
He was thinking for a minute and then he spoke, “I don’t know much about temples,
I don’t know anything in details, just the basics. Truly I don’t take this type of jobs. I am a trekker and I take the westerners to do trekking or mountain claiming and normally this lasts for like 16 days to a month.
For this I turned around and said,
“I want to do some walking; you might know some interesting places where I could walk on my own”.
“But what about other family members, I am not sure how they would feel about this”. “Beside I cannot leave you on your own” I cannot risk my job”.
“You don’t even have to come with me, I will find my way, just guide me a little and let me wander around and see everything for myself”.
“I can’t do that”, he was firm this time.
I looked at him and then I realised that there was no point in having this conversation.
“Then do not ask me what I want to do today, obviously I cannot do that”.
He was silent for minute. It looked like as if he was thinking of something and trying to make a decision.
I know a Baba, I used visit him at his ashram and he is loving person. Normally women don’t go to his ashram. His disciples are there, only men. I am not sure whether I could take you there. I will see.
“We can go there and if I am not Welcome I am happy to stay away”, that wouldn’t be a problem at all”, this is all I wanted, nothing else”.
“Well let us see how others feel about this and if they are happy with this we can go”.
My family members came one by one, I was simply waiting for them to find a table to sit-down so I could go and sit far away from them on my own.
Somehow I felt annoyed with myself and with all the others around me. With this type of mood Aloneness appealed to me.
Our journey started and we walked through long grown trees and hills. We had been to few temples. They were all wonderful. Everything looked like a fantasy, I found myself admiring things that I normally wouldn’t notice, and it felt like that everything was so unimaginably beautiful that even time was stood still to take a glance. “I am taking you to baba ji, you will have 15 min to be there, and then we will be heading for lunch. It is almost lunch time.
“Do we have to do this? I am already hungry! Can we not go the restaurant? Please take us to a good restaurant”. The voice of the others annoyed me.
I asked the guide, “Can’t you show them the restaurant so they can go and have food there, and take me to the ashram”?
He turned around and spoke to THE OTHERS, he could sense some tension in the group and he also knew how adamant and irritating I had been whole day.
Some how this trip had made me more monster like, I normally look/act like a loving person, my compassionate "look like" face actually support this. A calm and loving face and willing to accommodate others and normally people would look at me and say that I am friendly and socialising person.
However the face was still the same, but my heart or mind was not. I was not at all accommodating, I wanted to do what I wanted to do and I found myself sitting on my own and most of the time I felt like I was acting like a snob.
He said, “Actually the ashram is located in the river banks of ganga and it is such a beautiful spot”, “then if we walk 30 min from this place we will go to this nice vegetarian restaurant and from there the saree shops are only 30 min.
“That is wonderful then so we can do shopping later on” I heard exiting voices from the group.
“Of course” he smiled.
I looked at him and we exchanged smiles, because we both knew that we were only 15 min away from the shopping area.
He was simply trying to persuade the others to join us. He cannot be in two places at the same time and he felt a sense of duty towards me.
Suddenly I felt sorry for him; we had put him in middle of our tension.
.
He always walked a head of us. Others were walking very slowly. I had to do some fast walking to keep up with him. Once I was beside of him, I said, “I am sorry, I truly feel bad.”
“Oh common, I have a family too, I know how everything works”. He smiled.
“I simply don’t want to disappoint you, I will take you to this ashram as I promised”. he continued to walk faster.
We walked through a dense area of the jungle. Somehow the image of Buddha came to my mind. He feared a life time of unhappiness and discontentment, Siddhartha, destined to a luxurious life as a prince and was married when he was 16 and left the palace when his wife gave birth to his son. That is one version of the story.
The other version says, Siddharta was an honorable and responsible man who would not abandon his wife, his child, or his kinfolk to go on a spiritual journey, but he left when his wife died and his son got married.
The third version is much better though, Siddharta wakes up in the middle of night and experience the dancing girls had fallen asleep and were sprawled about, snoring and sputtering. He get a great shock as if the beauties have turned into beasts, thus he leaves the palace and runs to the forest in utter bewilderment.
But I would say Buddha was lonely, loneliest man in the world. Perhaps he was loneliest when he was in the midst of his own kinfolk. There was nothing and nobody outside of himself that he could turn to or relate to. Then there was this outside world, the forest, which was threatening him.
Forest was the wild, unknown monster that was out-side of his castle and was threatening his happiness day and night, “I might come and swallow you at any time”. He couldn’t help but to face, face the forest and look into its eyes. He trusted himself enough to leave his comfort zone (his castle) and ran to the forest and became wild with the wild.
Thus he transcended the fear of the unknown and fell in love with the unknown. He connected to it in solitude with a more loving and intimate way. He made the unknown known, not just to him, but to the world too.
He had the courage to trust his own insights, to acknowledge when something wasn’t working, to let it go and to keep going. He was practicing his life. He was exploring his mind, used every opportunity to see more clearly.
He was most courageous, this is very difficult for a normal human being. We are driven by our habits. We cannot rise beyond our comfort zone, even if this comfort zone meant suffering and pain, Buddha had a sense of direction and he trusted that. He trusted himself and he trusted the moment of now.
Finally we were at the ashram.
I saw a hut and it was very small and simple, at the entrance of the hut, I saw orange robbed figure almost naked to the waist and dark skinned. His eyes were wide open, yet it looked quite vacant. Although he faced the guide, spoke few words in the local language, he didn’t look surprised at all to see new faces at his ashram.
The guide fell at his feet and said baba ji and continued to speak in most humble way.
I followed the guide and fell at his feet and prayed to him and asked the guide to translate for me.
“I have come here without your permission, I apologise if I had broken the ashram rules”.
The guide looked little uncomfortable, yet he translated this, and the babaji ( this is how he was referred by the Guide) spoke to him.
“Tell them to come in and have the dharsan of my guru”
At this point I was thrilled as he had invited us in.
The Guide turned around and he looked pleased now, he said, “ Babaji wants us to visit his guru’s Samadhi where he mediated for many years and he never took food”.
This baba ji is now his deciple and he had not taken food for last 16 years. So let us go to the cave where his guru ji meditated.
I was happy and I said lets just do that.
We now walked passed the ashram and turned into a small path which led us to the cave at the banks of river Ganga. When I saw the cave, I walked first and without any thought processes took off my trainers and I simply jumped into the cave. When I hit the ground I felt as if I had received electric shock.
“Don’t go in there, that place is sacred, that is where guru ji sat and meditated, come out”
The guide was quite annoyed and he sounded like he regretted bringing me here.
I wanted to get out, but I couldn’t. My feet was paining so much that I couldn’t move. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by sense of guilt as if I had done something terribly wrong.
I was almost crying “ I was speaking to the guru ji, please forgive, I am such an ignorant person”
Suddenly I had a vision, vision of lord Siva smiling at me.
“what is happening to me, I was not sure, perhaps I had hurt myself so badly that my brain was not working properly.
I felt this overwhelming energy engulfing me with so much love and compassion, at first I was struggling and then I surrendered and allowed it overtake me. The minutes passed with unspeakable slowness. It was almost like I experienced eternity in the fragment of seconds.
I heard the voice of my guide again, “ Madam are you okie?” do you need any help to come out from there.
I came to my senses and quickly got out of the cave.
I apologised, but he didnt say anything and he was disappointed by my act.
I bowed down to the cave and asked for forgiveness again, but I was not myself and I felt like a drunkard. I walked back to the ashram slowly and entered into the small room and sat down with crossed legs, meditative position.
The baba ji was sitting far away from me in the corner of the room, he was looking at his guru's picture, perhaps he was meditating.
I took my chance to gaze at both his guru and him.
Suddenly I felt like closing my eyes, it was almost like something was getting hold of me, this energy was flowing internally like a river of silence and was penetrating me with deep peace.
I didn’t know how many minutes I was gone, but I saw baba ji standing in front of me, and the guide was speaking to me,
“madam your family wants to leave and baba ji is asking whether you would like to have prasadham before leaving.
I looked at them and didn’t say anything.
I had to think where I was, my eyes landed on the incense sticks that was burning in front of the guru’s jis picture. It looked like that they had surrendered fully to their nature of being burned, melted away as ashes while emanated fragrance.
I scanned myself to see if I was hungry, I was not, I felt peace and when I feel peace, strangely I dont feel hunger.
Yet I was offered prasadham by this great personality and of course I would accept it.
I said “yes I would love to have some food, at least some water”.
For this I heard the voices of THE OTHERS, “are you gone totally mad, this place looks so dirty and how on earth can you think of eating here. We are hungry, we need to go to a restaurant, Can you please get up and come now?”
Then other voice was going, I don’t think I would come to a trip like this ever. This is not holiday. Is it? I don’t like this place at all. You can stay and eat if you want to die”.
I said silently, “go and have your food and come back and pick me up on the way”.
“she had gone mad”, I am leaving now. I am not going to speak to her”. That was the voice of one of the member.
The guide said, sorry I cannot leave you here, we will have to go together and then I will take you to the most holiest spot where you can take bath, baba ji is also asking you to leave with your family". THe guide was speaking to me as he was speaking to a child.
For this I said, “I will have some water at least” and looked at the baba ji while my heart was screaming at me, don’t leave, you are home”
.
“I got mineral water and don’t you dare to drink water here, you will get ill”, The voice of The Others.
I didn’t have any choice but to go, I didn’t want to make a big scene in front of Babaji, I didn’t want to give any trouble to my guide and I didn’t want to be selfish.
I promised myself that I will return. I got up quickly as possible and was ready to leave, then suddenly remembered that I must bow down to the Baba ji and his guru ji, and asked the guide to thank him for his hospitality and asked him to tell him that I am hoping to come back again.
For this Baba ji didn’t say anything, he looked at me silently, like I will find whatever I am seeking in this life. It felt like he was blessing me through his silence.
I quickly walked out of the hut and walked faster, almost ran away and I didn’t even look back as it felt so painful. But I had to leave before I change my mind.
