One day he entered one of the most notorious casinos in town, a dangerous gambling hall where the clatter of rolling dice and the voices of players produced a tumult that challenged even Kubera, the god of wealth, to come try his luck. That nasty sound was completely misread by the tone-deaf ears of Chandrasvamin, who thought—because he was a sucker—that the gods were inviting him to win a fortune against all those other players. He brought plenty of money, and his credit was good too. But before long he lost everything, the beautiful silken shirt off his back included, and gambled himself into a debt he could never repay. The owner of the gambling hall set his thugs on the Brahmin, and they beat him savagely with sticks until Chandrasvamin feigned death.
He remained lying in the corner of the hall for two days, drifting in and out of consciousness, too afraid to move. When the owner realized that the young Brahmin would never pay his debts to the other gamblers, he summoned some of them and suggested they throw the wretch into an empty well; he even promised to make good their earnings. They took him to a nearby forest looking for a well, but an old gambler, out of fatigue or maybe compassion, spoke out. “Look, this man is almost dead. Let’s just leave him here to die and tell the casino owner we dumped him in a well. Who would know?” The others agreed and they dropped the body under some bushes.
Hours later the naked Brahmin regained his senses and painfully dragged himself to an abandoned Shiva temple, a small white stone structure deep in vines with thick jungle foliage. Because he was bruised and crusted with dirt and blood, going home was out of the question. He resolved to wait till darkness, then look for food, perhaps even something to wear. Meanwhile he rested on the cool floor. After some time a tall Pashupata ascetic looking like Shiva himself walked into the temple. He had long matted hair, and his nearly naked body was smeared with white ash. In his right hand he was carrying a long trident. The holy man recoiled at the sight of the broken Brahmin, but hurried to offer him help. Chandrasvamin, lowering his eyes in reverence for the holy man, introduced himself softly. Despite his obvious shame, he told his story honestly, without covering up his own fault.
The ascetic smiled compassionately and said, “You have suffered too much for such a minor sin. But it was good fortune that has led you into my hermitage, for I shall help you heal and feed you until you feel ready to go home.” He offered some rice from his begging bowl, but the young man declined.
“Thank you, sir, but I can’t eat that food. As a Brahmin, I am permitted to eat only food cooked by other Brahmins.”
The ascetic apologized for his absent-mindedness and told the Brahmin not to worry. He possessed a magical power, which he now called forth, commanding it to nourish the Brahmin.
At that very instant Chandrasvamin found himself in a golden city, sitting under a mango tree in a luxurious garden of jasmine, roses, vasanti, and fragrant henna, dressed in silk garments with golden embroidery. Seven female attendants, all lovely and sensual, floated like mist out of a marble pavilion and beckoned him to rise and enter. The most beautiful among them took his hand—he could smell her soft water-lily perfume as she led him to a throne inside the house, where she made him sit beside her. The attendants brought tray after tray of heavenly food beginning with fruit: sliced papaya and pitted mango, guavas and bananas, sweet oranges and sugarcane. Then came the main course of flavored boiled rices, vegetable savories, pancakes made of wild figs cooked in clarified butter, and sweetmeats, which his beautiful companion fed to him with her own hand. He finished the sumptuous meal with betel nut flavored with five fruits. The meal made him drowsy, and he fell asleep reclining on satin pillows, with a soft hand stroking his head.
He woke up in the morning to the sounds of the forest, lying on the floor of the old temple. The ascetic was there, staring at him with a kind, inquisitive smile. “How was your night, good sir?”
The Brahmin was feeling a grave loss. “I enjoyed the night, sir, but without that beautiful woman my life will be empty. I must go back to that garden!”
“Yes, I understand,” said the renouncer. “As long as you remain my guest you shall be able to visit your beloved. My science will transport you to bliss again and again.”
This arrangement worked for a while, but finally the young man lost patience with having to rely on the power of another man for his own pleasure. He begged the ascetic to teach him the secret of his wondrous power, but met only refusal. “This science,” he heard, “is far too difficult to acquire, especially for someone as young and inexperienced as you.”
But the Brahmin persisted. “Why?” he asked. “What makes it so hard to learn?”
And so the ascetic explained. “The science of creating new realities can be mastered only while you sit at the bottom of a river, chanting a secret spell. The science will erect obstacles to confuse you.”
“What kind of obstacles?”
“I can’t really say—it’s different for different people. You might be frightened by demons and ghouls, while someone else could be lured by beautiful sirens. Some may experience themselves as strangers: young or old, foolish or wise, a man or a woman. Perhaps even a she-wolf. But regardless of what the magic does to you, at a very specific time you will be summoned by the power of your instructor in a very subtle way: it will dawn on you that your experience—your life and identity—is an illusion. You will then have to climb a funeral pyre and burn yourself, without hesitation or fear, and walk out of the river in which you have been sitting. Should you fail to do so, you will never see your beloved, and I too shall lose this power forever. This is why I hesitate to teach you the science—I fear your inexperience.”
But Chandrasvamin refused to listen. Driven by his desire for the beautiful woman of his visions, he pressed the holy man daily, until he broke down the resistance of the sage. That morning, the two men went to the river, where the ascetic showed the Brahmin how to enter the river and where to sit. He gave him the spell along with instructions. “Repeat this charm in the water, and you will immediately encounter the power of its magic. Meanwhile, I shall be right here on the bank. I will summon you when the time is right. Do not hesitate to respond to my call!” The Brahmin followed his directions precisely.
Just then, in a nearby district, a child was born to a family of the carpenter caste. He was a beautiful and passionate baby, a bawler with an insatiable appetite for his mother’s breast, a responsive giggler to the adoring attentions of all the women in the extended family. He grew up to be a spoiled but sweet child, nurtured by everyone who knew him until he became a soft and lazy young man. He passed the time in daydreaming, playing pranks on his relatives, or wandering the fields and hills of the district. Even his father shrugged off the young man’s slack disposition. When the time came to find him a wife, the parents scoured the surrounding districts for an appropriate social match who would be beautiful and generous, someone who would cheerfully take care of their boy. They found a fair-complexioned girl with long limbs and sparkling eyes, a distant cousin from another carpenter family. Her patience and kindness domesticated the young man, who finally began to learn carpentry and gradually help around his father’s shop.
As the years passed by quickly the young couple gave birth to a boy and a girl, whose growth only made time accelerate further. On the day that the carpenter’s son turned twenty-four, his oldest—the boy—was already six and almost ready for school. At midday, when the carpenter’s son walked home from the shop, a vague recollection percolated into his consciousness. He stopped and closed his eyes. It was something like déjà vu—but stronger: another reality, images from other places (familiar places, but he had never been anywhere!), a voice. Suddenly, unaware of how he came to know this, the young man was sure that he had to end his life, burn himself on a funeral pyre. He remembered—or felt—someone who had told him to do this. Was it a dream he had? From a previous life? But he was sure now; he knew what he had to do.
Everyone thought this was another hoax—his worst joke yet. As he spent the af
ternoon building the woodpile, friends and relatives gathered around, half of them joking, the others gesturing impatiently, waving away the joke. But for the first time in his life the young man acted decisively with steady hands preparing the pyre for lighting. That was when the family members realized he was serious, and pandemonium broke out. His wife and his mother ran at him and grabbed his shirt. Shrieking, they tried to pull him away, while the two children, who were confused and horrified by the women’s hysteria, started to scream for their daddy. His father was seen lecturing at him, but no words came out, or perhaps they were drowned by the noise of all the people there who were yelling at him or crying. The carpenter’s son looked at his little boy, the very image of his own distant childhood. His heart seized in his chest—and he hesitated. Will the boy take care of the women? Will he miss his father? He turned to the little girl and ran over to hug her. But the voice exploded in his ear, and he finally tore himself away and lit the wood.
Something stunning then happened. The roaring flames that burst from the dry wood—pushing everyone back several steps—the fire that consumed him as he climbed his own funeral pyre was as cold as snow. It had felt hot from the ground—but now, sitting on the pile, he was shivering cold. He opened his eyes in surprise and found himself at the bottom of a river. Suddenly he remembered and shot up to the surface. On the bank of the river, standing quietly, was the Pashupata ascetic, looking like a figure from the distant past.
Chandrasvamin walked out of the water, shook off the memory of his family along with the water in his hair, and then lowered his head in respectful salute. He did not know how long the holy man had been waiting there. Twenty-four years—that was the duration of his life as a carpenter—seemed too long even for such a great sage.
As though reading his mind, the ascetic said, “You were under the water for as long as it took you to speak the spell twice. That is all. Now tell me, what did you experience?”
Chadrasvamin told him everything that took place, ending with the mysterious cold fire. The ascetic was somber. “Son, I’m afraid you made a mistake, either with the spell or in some other detail. The flames have to be hot. The cold flames punctured the mental reality.”
“No, sir. I’m sure I used the correct spell,” the Brahmin cried, and to prove it he repeated the words accurately.
“Still, something went wrong. You will not have the magical power, and I probably lost mine as well.” The holy man tried to call forth his science, but nothing happened.
The Brahmin repeated his story and began to cry, feeling that he had lost his beloved forever. But then he remembered his dear wife, whom he also loved, and his Brahmin father, and his voice became faint and unsure. “What did I do wrong? I did exactly what you told me!”
The holy man looked at his student sadly and said, “You hesitated. You clung to your life, refused to leave your wife and children.” He added, “It was a brief hesitation, just a few moments, but the chance was even briefer, and it went by forever.”
We were stopped under a Ficus bengalis that looked like it was dying—it was a perfect hangman’s tree with its naked limbs running parallel to the ground. The old man leaned against the tree. He looked at me expectantly, waiting perhaps for a compliment or a question.
“So that’s it?” I asked. “It’s now back to his miserable old life of gambling and losing?”
“I don’t know, really. The story just ends there. What do you think of it, my friend?”
I suddenly remembered my feet, or else the sensation crossed a threshold again, because I began to feel a burn. I found a shady spot under a low scrubby tree and sat on a rock. The bottoms of my feet, which I had totally forgotten for a while, were bright red, like lobsters in boiling water. The soil added to the raw color, but when I tried to brush it, the redness grew deeper. I muttered a curse, and the old man laughed. Of course, he was wearing his thongs.
“So now you’re really feeling your feet I see. It’s my great story that made you forget, don’t you think?”
He seemed serious about that, so I scornfully said, “I find it very ironic that a man of god, a man of Shiva of all gods, would use his great powers in order to help a compulsive gambler achieve his sensual—his sexual—desires. That’s the reason he lost his magic. The whole thing is so amoral, it’s beyond me.”
At this the old man laughed out loud and made a few rapid comments about my puritanical sensibilities. But then he said, “No, my friend, what the Pashupata taught our hero has little to do with wealth or women. It’s about time, or better yet, about timing. He gave him another life in the blink of an eyelash and showed him firsthand how easy it is to miss one’s chance.”
“Chance for what?”
“Chance to wake up to what is real. To see through maya—the cosmic illusion. It’s like that pain in your feet. They have been burning for a while, but you have felt nothing. Your mind was elsewhere. Suddenly you woke up to what was there all along. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What are we missing all the time that is constantly here? What kind of voice does it take to wake us up from the dream of our life? A good guru can teach us these things, but who can find one? And besides,” he added as he turned and poked his finger lightly at my chest, “who wants to wake up from this dream?”
We continued the climb. I resolved to keep my shoes off for a while longer, but only out of pride and stubbornness. “It seems hopeless then,” I said. “You miss your one chance, which is too easy to do. I mean, how do you tell a true voice from a false one anyway? And then you’re stuck until you die, or forever maybe.” I was now moving gingerly, planning carefully where to plant each step. “A one-shot deal. You blink and you lose. I really don’t see the point of trying.”
The old man was watching my deliberate walk and said, “No, not once. That’s your Western tragedy, not ours. We try again and again, if not in this instant, then the next, or if not in this life, there will be another, or the one following that. The opportunity is always there, although the key is not to look for external signs, but to realize that the issue is perception itself. Let me tell you another story.”
THE TURTLE BOY
A long distance to the south of us, on an island I believe, a king and his chief minister made a very unusual arrangement. They vowed that as soon as they produced offspring, they would have them marry each other. Regardless of who had the son and who gave birth to the daughter, their children would surely marry.
As the years passed the king was far luckier than the minister in progeny. Though both worshiped the amalak tree according to the tradition for obtaining sons and both prayed to Shiva often, the royal couple gave birth to several daughters, all lovely and clever. Meanwhile, the minister and his wife were able to give birth to one male child only, and a turtle at that. The minister’s wife was pregnant with Turtle Boy, as he later became known, while the queen was carrying her first girl, and so the two were promised to each other. Of course, the royal couple was mortified to discover the identity of the match for their eldest, whom everyone regarded as the most beautiful girl in the land.
But a deal was a deal. When Turtle Boy reached a marriageable age, his father went to the king and announced that the time had come for uniting the two families. The king tried to change the topic for a while, commenting on the weather and the latest palace gossip. Finally he coughed, cleared his throat, and said, “You know, my friend, these are modern times. Why not let the children decide whom they wish to marry. Let us go and ask my daughter. As she decides, so shall it be.” The minister, who was in no position to argue, mumbled his assent, and they went to the young lady.
The charming princess, radiant like a reflecting pool in a mountain garden, found it inconceivable that she should marry the turtle boy, but she knew her father was in a bind. So she agreed on one condition. “I shall marry him,” she said gravely, “providing he can bring me the solar-love flower.” The king smiled to himself. How could any mortal obtain that flower, about which even gods have only heard
rumors? Turtle Boy had no chance. Downcast, the minister returned to his son and told him of the new condition for marrying the princess. The turtle, however, was not discouraged at all. “I can do it, father,” he exclaimed enthusiastically. He ignored his father’s doubts and set off, lumbering slowly on his four legs, in the direction of the rising Sun.
It took the turtle a long time to reach the east, the place where the Sun rises every morning in his flaming chariot. When he finally arrived at that place, exhausted and famished from the long journey, Turtle Boy did not delay at all in executing his plan. Just in front of a huge arka tree, which would conceal him from the rising Sun, he lay down his shell across the path of the chariot and stuck out a fifth of his body. He hoped either to be crushed by the chariot wheel or win an audience with the Lord of Light. The Sun, indeed, stopped the chariot in time and addressed the turtle lying in his path.
“What are you doing there my boy? I nearly ran over your head!”
“I beg your pardon, Lord Sun,” answered the turtle. “I did not mean to delay your journey. But my life is worthless unless I get one-fifth of the brilliance of your rays.”
“And why, son, do you want all that brilliance?”
The turtle told the Sun about the princess and his impossible task. He explained that being brilliant would undoubtedly lead to great things—to the rare flower itself. The Sun nodded compassionately. “I shall give you the fifth part of my rays’ brilliance, but you must come out entirely from that shell.” As soon as the turtle crawled out of his shell, a blinding ray of light struck him and he became a fair-skinned and handsome man.
“There you are, my child. Your soft self is now revealed to the world.” The Sun gloated over his handiwork. “But now we must get you that special flower, the solar-love flower. I’ve heard of it, but have never seen it. I must admit I like the name…Unfortunately, the only one who knows how to get this flower is a godling who sleeps for a month at a time. In order to get to him you must first go through the godling who sleeps for two months at a time, and the road to him leads through the one who sleeps for three months at a time. Make sure you are there when they awake, and they will give you what you need.” With these strange instructions the Sun left the minister’s son, who retreated back into his shell and went looking for the godlings.
Climbing Chamundi Hill Page 8