Pilgrim's India

by ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIAM

  Once when I was putting up at Manmatha Babu’s place, I dreamt one night that my mother had died. My mind became much distracted. Not to speak of corresponding with anybody at home, I used to send no letters in those days even to our Math. The dream being disclosed to Manmatha, he sent a wire to Calcutta to ascertain facts about the matter. For the dream had made my mind uneasy on the one hand, and on the other, our Madras friends, with all arrangements ready, were insisting on my departing for America immediately, and I felt rather unwilling to leave before getting any news of my mother. So Manmatha, who discerned this state of my mind, suggested our repairing to a man living some way off from town, who having acquired mystic powers over spirits, could tell fortunes and read the past and the future of a man’s life. So at Manmatha’s request and to get rid of my mental suspense, I agreed to go to this man. Covering the distance partly by railway and partly on foot, we four of us—Manmatha, Alasinga, myself and another—managed to reach the place, and what met our eyes there was a man with a ghoulish, haggard, soot-black appearance, sitting close to a cremation ground. His attendants used some jargon of south Indian dialect to explain to us that this was the man with perfect power over the ghosts. At first the man took absolutely no notice of us; and then, when we were about to retire from the place, he made a request for us to wait.

  Our Alasinga was acting as the interpreter, and he explained the requests to us. Next, the man commenced drawing some figures with a pencil, and presently I found him getting perfectly still in mental concentration. Then he began to give out my name, my genealogy, the history of my long line of forefathers, and said that Sri Ramakrishna was keeping close to me all through my wanderings, intimating also to me good news about my mother. He also foretold that I would have to go very soon to far-off lands for preaching religion. Getting good news thus about my mother, we all travelled back to town, and after arrival received by wire from Calcutta the assurance of my mother’s doing well … Everything that the man had foretold came to be fulfilled to the letter, call it some fortuitous concurrence or anything you will …

  Well, I am not a fool to believe anything and everything without direct proof. And coming into this realm of Mahamaya, oh, the many magic mysteries I have come across alongside this bigger magic conjuration of a universe! Maya, it is all Maya! …

  I used to beg my food from door to door in the Himalayas. Most of the time I spent in spiritual practices which were rigorous; and the food that was available was very coarse, and often that too was insufficient to appease the hunger. One day I thought that my life was useless. These hill people are very poor themselves. They cannot feed their own children and family properly. Yet they try to save a little for me. Then what is the use of such a life? I stopped going out for food. Two days thus passed without any food. Whenever I was thirsty I drank the water of the streams using my palms as a cup. Then I entered a deep jungle. There I meditated sitting on a piece of stone. My eyes were open, and suddenly I was aware of the presence of a striped tiger of a large size. It looked at me with its shining eyes. I thought, ‘At long last I shall find peace and this animal its food. It is enough that this body will be of some service to this creature.’ I shut my eyes and waited for it, but a few seconds passed and I was not attacked. So, I opened my eyes and saw it receding in the forest. I was sorry for it and then smiled, for I knew it was the Master who was saving me till his work be done.

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  This extract is from Swami Vivekananda on Himself.

  18.

  Living in swamps and wandering in jungles

  Sultan Bahu (17th century)

  Translated by Jamal J. Elias

  Living in swamps and wandering in jungles, not one of my needs was met.

  I went to Mecca to make the Pilgrimage, but the racing of my heart did not stop.

  The thirty fasts and five daily prayers: these too I did until I was tired.

  All my wishes were fulfilled, Bahu, with one merciful glance of the Perfect One.

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  This poem is from Death Before Dying: The Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu, translated by Jamal J. Elias, University of California Press, Berkeley.

  19.

  The Journey Home

  Radhanath Swami

  This is an extract from a book that maps the journey of a young hippie from Chicago who left home in his teens in the year 1970 to wander the world, eventually adopting the path of bhakti, or devotion. It describes a phenomenon common to the lives of many wandering sadhus: the warmth of a sudden, serendipitous friendship and the inevitability of separation.—Ed.

  I decided to leave Rishikesh and travelled north into the higher elevation of the Himalayas. In Dev Prayag, I came upon a man whose character is forever engraved in the slate of my memory. On a chilly morning, as the stars were fading and the new day’s sun about to emerge, I scrambled down a mountain to the place the rivers Bhagirathi and Alaknanda converge. From the point of this confluence the river is called the Ganges. The river’s song there was tumultuous. I submerged myself for a bath, ignorant of the power of the current.

  As I took a step forward, the rushing current yanked my feet from under me and swept me towards the treacherous rapids. At that moment, a powerfully built man who happened to be bathing beside me seized my arm with a vice-like grip and pulled me towards him and then on to the riverbank. My rescuer then placed his right palm on my head and, with great feeling, chanted a series of mantras for my protection. This was how I first met Kailash Baba.

  A holy man who appeared well into his sixties, he had a powerful build and matted, greying hair that he coiled around his head. When unwrapped, I would learn, it extended to the ground. Decades passed since he had cut any hair from his body. He had a square face, large brown eyes, high cheekbones and a full mouth of teeth, something quite rare among old sadhus. All he wore was a single quilt garment that extended from his shoulders to his feet. In his hand, he carried an iron trident with a huge damaru drum tied to the top. This drum had two heads, each about twelve inches in diameter on opposite ends of a hollow wooden drum base. Between the heads a ball hung on a string. When the Baba shook it, the ball bounced back and forth, beating loudly on the drums. A metal begging bowl and an old blanket were his only other possessions.

  Kailash Baba was the first to instruct me in how to survive as a wandering ascetic. On cold nights, we slept on hillsides often overlooking a river. One night, he offered me his blanket, and although I at first refused to take it, he insisted. For many nights, we slept together under the one blanket. He taught me how to procure food and medicine by identifying the edible roots, fruits, and leaves in the forest.

  Taking me into a village, he instructed me on the proper behaviour in which a sadhu respectfully begs alms. Unlike in the West, the begging of religious mendicants in rural India is considered an honourable way of life because the people receive so much in return from the sadhus they serve by giving alms. And as Kailash Baba was such an exalted person, I, too, felt that this was an exalted thing to do. He educated me in surviving on dried, flat, chipped rice. Because it is the cheapest food, any grain merchant will gladly offer it, and because it does no spoil, it can sustain one in the jungle for weeks. All that is required for a meal is to add some stream water to a portion of it. He taught me also how to clean my body by brushing my teeth with the twig of the neem tree and washing my skin with mud from the riverbed. Beyond lessons in how to eat and clean myself, he taught me how to respect not just sacred rivers, temples, trees, the sun, the moon and the sacred fire, but also snakes, scorpions and wild animals. He did not speak English, but seemed to have a mystical ability to transmit ideas to me, particularly the idea that God was in the heart of all creatures. He taught me to see the soul within the heart of a poisonous snake, for example, and to show my honour and respect for the creature by giving it its space. And when among other sadhus, he trained me in the etiquette of how to address different denominations an
d how to eat with them.

  As we travelled alone together, he became more and more like a father to me and he lavished affection on me as if I were his own son. Although we never talked, where there is affection of the heart, communication transcends all language barriers. By a simple gesture, pointing of the finger, a smile or frown, he taught me whatever I was to learn. To an onlooker he appeared to be a fearsome, unkempt mountain of a man hardened by austerities and carrying an iron trident. But I found in him one of the kindest, gentlest men I ever met. Whatever simple food we collected, he always fed me to my satisfaction before he would take anything. When I resisted taking first, he easily defeated me by his innocent glance. In fact, every time he looked at me, affectionate tears filled his eyes. This man, a mountain of affection, drew a love from my heart like a lifelong friend.

  From him and the other people I was meeting, I had begun to learn more about the different manifestations of God, or deities that made up the pantheon of Hindu religion. I wasn’t sure of how I felt about all of these deities and the many forms they took; it was all quite foreign to me. But I could see the deep love and devotion these manifestations inspired. My mind was open and I was eager to understand.

  A worshipper of Shiva, the aspect of God presiding over material existence and its destruction, Kailash Baba constantly chanted the mantra ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. As we walked along the forest pathways, he would call out the names of Lord Shiva, ‘Jai Sankar’, ‘Hey Vishwanath’, ‘Hey Kedarnathji’ and ‘Hey Uma Mata’. Whenever we were with other worshippers of Shiva, or Shaivites, we chanted together. When the chant reached its crescendo, Kailash Baba would enter into a trance and wildly play on his damaru drum. It resounded almost to a deafening volume. That drum made the sadhus wild with joy. Madly, they shook their heads, their matted hair whipping from side to side. Some clapped, while others sprang to their feet to perform a mystical dance.

  Among these homeless sadhus, Kailash Baba was highly revered. One aged ascetic in the forest confided to me that Kailash Baba could be several hundred years old. No one really knows his age. He possessed supernatural yogic powers to heal the sick and perform extraordinary feats. ‘About thirty years ago, I witnessed his miracles,’ this man said. ‘Crowds of people flocked to him, worshipping him as a God. But,’ he told me, ‘Baba realized that divine life is not about powers or fame. He vowed to never speak of his powers or make a show of them. He had neither disciples nor an ashram, but roamed alone in the forests of the Himalayas.’ I was not surprised to learn that Kailash Baba possessed great yogic powers, and I was impressed, but it was his character and devotion to his spiritual path that impressed me most.

  As the days passed, I began to sense that Kailash Baba wished to enter into seclusion. I didn’t want to impose myself on him and I knew that it was time to move on. Bowing at his feet, I begged for his blessing. Baba laughed heartily and, with tearful eyes, hugged me with the strength of a bear, then offered his blessings with the recitation of a mantra. I was touched both by the unyielding quality of his detachment and the softness of his heart as he bid me farewell. Like a father and son we loved each other, but as roaming sadhus, we sensed that we would never meet again.

  This bittersweet experience of developing dear relationships, then moving on to never again see the people I was meeting was part of the life I had chosen. It was difficult for me, but the pain of separation kept the joy of our relationship alive in my heart. As I turned and walked away from Kailash Baba, I prayed never to forget him. And I never have.

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  This extract is from The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami.

  20.

  The Sleepless Saint

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  There’s no avoiding this one. A mandatory read for every seeker in the subcontinent and beyond, Autobiography of a Yogi is considered ‘one of the hundred most important spiritual books of the twentieth century’. Yes, it appeals to every exotica-hunter’s fantasies of the Orient, brimming as it does with all manner of yogic esoterica and Himalayan magic. But most readers invariably revisit it later for other reasons. There’s no missing the deep warmth, respect and endearing humanness of the young yogi’s relationship with his master—also his passionate commitment to the path.—Ed

  ‘Please permit me to go to the Himalayas. I hope in unbroken solitude to achieve continuous divine communion.’

  I actually once addressed these ungrateful words to my Master. Seized by one of the unpredictable delusions that occasionally assail the devotee, I felt a growing impatience with hermitage duties and college studies. A feebly extenuating circumstance is that my proposal was made when I had known Sri Yukteswar for only six months. Not yet had I fully surveyed his towering stature.

  ‘Many hillmen live in the Himalayas, yet possess no Godperception.’ My guru’s answer came slowly and simply. ‘Wisdom is better sought from a man of realization than from an inert mountain.’

  Ignoring Master’s plain hint that he, and not a hill, was my teacher, I repeated my plea. Sri Yukteswar vouchsafed no reply. I took his silence for consent—a precarious but convenient interpretation.

  In my Calcutta home that evening, I busied myself with travel preparations. Tying a few articles inside a blanket, I remembered a similar bundle, surreptitiously dropped from my attic window a few years earlier. I wondered if this were to be another ill-starred flight towards the Himalayas. The first time my spiritual elation had been high; tonight my conscience smote me at the thought of leaving my guru.

  The following morning I sought out Behari Pundit, my Sanskrit professor at Scottish Church College.

  ‘Sir, you have told me of your friendship with a great disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. Please give me his address.’

  ‘You mean Ram Gopal Muzumdar. I call him the “sleepless saint”. He is always awake in an ecstatic consciousness. His home is in Ranbajpur, near Tarakeswar.’

  I thanked the pundit and entrained immediately for Tarakeswar. I hoped to silence my misgivings by getting permission from the ‘sleepless saint’ to engage myself in lonely meditation in the Himalayas. Behari Pundit had told me that Ram Gopal had received illumination after many years of Kriya Yoga practice in isolated caves in Bengal.

  In Tarakeswar I made my way to a famous shrine. Hindus regard it with veneration, such as Catholics feel for the Lourdes sanctuary in France. Innumerable healing miracles have occurred in Tarakeswar, including one for a member of my family.

  ‘I sat in the temple there for a week,’ my eldest aunt once told me. ‘Observing a complete fast, I prayed for the recovery of your Uncle Sarada from a chronic malady. On the seventh day I found a herb materialized in my hand! I made a brew from the leaves and gave it to your uncle. His disease vanished at once and has never reappeared.’

  I entered the second Tarakeswar shrine; the altar contains nothing but a round stone. Its circumference, beginningless and endless, makes it aptly significant of the Infinite. In India cosmic abstractions are understood even by the unlettered peasant; in fact, Westerners have sometimes accused him of living on abstractions!

  My own mood at the moment was so austere that I felt disinclined to bow before the stone symbol. God should be sought, I reflected, only within the soul.

  I left the temple without genuflection and walked briskly towards the outlying village of Ranbajpur. I was not sure of the way. My appeal to a passer-by for information caused him to sink into a long cogitation.

  ‘When you come to a cross-road, turn right and keep going,’ he finally pronounced oracularly.

  Obeying the directions, I wended my way alongside the banks of a canal. Darkness fell; the outskirts of the jungle village were alive with winking fireflies and the howls of nearby jackals. The moonlight was too faint to be helpful; I stumbled on for two hours.

  Welcome clang of a cowbell! My repeated shouts eventually brought a peasant to my side.

  ‘I am looking for Ram Gopal Babu.’

  ‘
No such person lives in our village.’ The man’s tone was surly. ‘You are probably a lying detective.’

  Hoping to allay suspicion in his politically troubled mind, I touchingly explained my predicament. He took me to his home and offered a hospitable welcome.

  ‘Ranbajpur is far from here,’ he remarked. ‘At the cross-road you should have turned left, not right.’

  My earlier informant, I thought sadly, was a definite menace to travellers. After a relishable meal of coarse rice, lentil-dhal and curry of potatoes with raw bananas, I retired to a small hut adjoining the courtyard. In the distance, villagers were singing to the loud accompaniment of mridangas and cymbals. Sleep was inconsiderable that night; I prayed deeply to be directed to the secluded yogi, Ram Gopal.

  As the first streaks of dawn penetrated the fissures of my hut, I set out for Ranbajpur. Crossing rough paddy fields, I trudged over sickled stumps of the prickly plant and around mounds of dried clay. An occasionally met peasant would inform me, invariably, that my destination was ‘only a krosha’ (two miles). In six hours the sun travelled victoriously from horizon to meridian, but I began to feel that I would ever be distant from Ranbajpur by one krosha.

  At midafternoon my world was still an endless paddy field and heat pouring from the inescapable sky was bringing me to near-collapse. I saw a man approaching me at a leisurely pace. I hardly dared utter my usual question lest it summon the monotonous ‘just a krosha’.

  The stranger halted beside me. Short and slight, he was physically unimpressive save for an extraordinary pair of piercing dark eyes.