Strangely, all the motion now was taking place around me, and it was all uphill. The green blur of the landscape resolved into individual bushes, trees, and boulders; everything on the northern face of the hill was frantically running upward. “Hey, what’s up there? Why are they running up?” Then I remembered—“Shiva! Shiva’s up there, and they’re all running up to be with Shiva.” That made me laugh. Nims, tamarinds, banyans, and a myriad of bushes were jostling past me to get to him. What a riot. Faster and faster, everything moved in Shiva’s direction, a parade, a race, a great stream of beings crushing up the mountain to God. Then the stories with their characters passed by: the weaver and his friend, Sangayya floated by with his eyes wide open in amazement, the women with their suitors, snakes, demons, sorcerers, thieves—all rushing up leaving a trail of cool microclimates in and out of which I sprinted.
Suddenly I could see the bottom of the mountain, the ground was starting to rush at me, and at the foot of the path was a tiny figure, a man. It was Rony, and he was waving something in the air in my direction—a postcard. Then I got to him and stopped.
“There you are! It’s a card from your mother! You got a note from your mother, you lucky devil!” I couldn’t speak. I just stood there, leaning on my knees and panting, watching my feet reattach themselves to my legs. “Hey, as you were whiling away the whole day on the mountain, I’ve been busy, pal. I went back to the hotel and got you some fruit, and there was this postcard for you. How did you like the old man with the stories?”
I bolted upright. “What did you say?”
“I said, how did you like the old man with the stories?”
“No, not that. What did you say before that, about the day on the mountain?”
“You mean ‘as you were whiling away the whole day on the mountain’?”
“Yes! That’s it!
“Well, that’s what I said. What about it?”
Suddenly I understood the meaning of the last story, and all of them. I saw the meaning of the entire journey I had been through with the guide! That phrase my best friend had used—those innocuous, slightly judgmental words—that was one of my mother’s favorite phrases. Every time she used it, I would cringe. I took the card from Rony’s hand and looked at it. It featured one of those brilliant sunrises over the Sonora Desert—a standard Tucson postcard. On the back my mother wrote in her small and neat handwriting:
Hi Honey—
The monsoons were great this year—the desert flowers are gorgeous and they miss you. Enjoy India!
Love, Mom and Dad
That was it. Laconic and loving, no sentimental gushing. I missed her suddenly, as if I had not seen her in half a decade. I looked at Rony now, and he was watching me the way the guide might have.
“I get it now!” I said to him. “The last story—the whole trip. Listen, you and my mother are the companions from the last story—I made you up. I don’t mean that I invented you, but in a sense maybe even that’s true. You were the good one, the one who said all the right things and carried me forward. She was the bad one, the one who held me back, criticizing and judging. Just like the two companions in the story. But that split was just my imagination—there’s no real difference. You’re no better for my back, and she’s no worse for my spirit. That was the work of mind.”
Rony looked at me quietly. He seemed content to listen as I told him that the old man guided me—reluctant as I was—on a spiritual pilgrimage. Eventually I began to think that the goal was at the top of the mountain—God or moksha. Finally I geared up for some great revelation at the top. But when the old man felt I had made just enough progress, heard the right stories, he needed to show me that the goal was not at the top, but where I had started, down below. If the pilgrimage was to mean anything at all, it would have to lead toward my life, not away from it. The old man had been telling me that all along, in a hundred little ways. That’s why he said the solar-love flower was my key: it links the solar messenger in the last story to my hospital days on the rack—the moment I began awakening. He ended his storytelling with the tale that would close the circle, end the narrative of the pilgrimage, and take me back to my reality—where I had two companions whom I had created, perhaps when I was hanging on my trees: the tree in Bath County and the hospital device in Staunton. That’s when my splitting of reality became obvious and should have dawned on me, and that is where the guide was leading me at the end.
I threw my head back and laughed. My legs quivered from lactic-acid buildup, and Rony laughed with me. “So, how many times have you been up this mountain anyway?” I asked him.
“Just enough to tell him all about you,” answered my friend.
“And where do we go now?”
“There is only one place we can go.”
I looked again at the postcard of the sun rising over the Sonora Desert, and nodded.
Glossary
Aghori—An ascetic who is a follower of the god Shiva in his more horrific aspects.
Agni—The god of fire, especially of sacrificial fire, who was central in the ancient scriptures of the Vedas.
Ashvins—Twin gods, horsemen, who represented the twin stars that appear on the horizon before dawn.
Atman—The essential Self, which pervades the individual as a soul or essence. In the Upanishads atman is described as ultimately identical with brahman.
Ayurveda—The Veda of longevity: a sophisticated system of ancient medicine based on several detailed texts.
Banaras/Varanasi—Two names for the same holy city in northeast India. Varanasi is the official name, but Banaras is more commonly used in the city.
Brahma—The creator god who figured prominently in the mythological texts of the Puranas but is not widely worshiped today.
Brahman—The true and essential reality that underlies the flux and multiplicity of forms in the world. Described in the Upanishads as a kind of “world soul.”
Dharma—The rules and principles of appropriate behavior based on caste, stage of life, or gender.
Durga—A popular goddess, often depicted as riding a tiger, who possesses eight arms that hold weapons for slaying demons.
Gandharva—An atmospheric semidivine being who is temperamental and must be ritually propitiated.
Gauri—“The Brilliant One”: the name often given to Parvati, Shiva’s consort, in her more auspicious aspect.
Hatha yoga—The control of body and breath through the force of discipline.
Horse sacrifice—Expensive and prestigious ancient ritual performed exclusively by kings during the time of the Vedas.
Indra—The chief among the gods of the Vedas, the god of the storm, who wields the lightning bolt.
Kali—The goddess who symbolizes time, often represented as dark skinned and frightening but worshiped as divine mother.
Kama—The ancient god of love, who strikes his targets with his arrows.
Kshatriya—The warrior caste in the ancient social system, ranking second to the Brahmin.
Kubera—The god of wealth in Vedic India and later one of the guardians of the eight directions.
Lakshmi—The goddess of good fortune and happiness, represented as beautiful and seated on a lotus flower.
Mahabharata—An epic narrative telling the story of the Pandavas and containing a vast collection of myths, folktales, and didactic literature.
Mahadeva—“The Great God,” the name often given to Shiva and, more rarely, to Vishnu.
Mantra—A powerful verbal formula, such as a chant or the words of the Vedas, used in ritual or mystical contexts.
Maya—The illusion that the world is real, produced by the failure of discrimination.
Moksha—The release from the fetters of death and rebirth by realizing the unity of atman and brahman.
Nagas—Mythical creatures that combine the qualities of snakes and humans.
Pandavas—The five sons of Pandu who are the heroes of the Mahabharata: Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva. Panini—A Sanskrit g
rammarian from the second century BCE, author of Ashtadhyayi.
Parvati—The goddess of the mountains, who is most often worshiped as Shiva’s consort.
Pashupata—An ascetic follower of Shiva in his manifestation as “protector of the animals.”
Prajapati—The early Vedic “Lord of Creation,” father of both gods and demons.
Puja—Ritual worship and offering to the gods in contemporary Hinduism; performed in temples or homes.
Rakshashas—Demons who haunt and possess humans in a variety of forms.
Ramayana—A long epic relating the events of Rama’s life. Traditionally ascribed to the poet Valmiki.
Samsara—The cycle of birth and rebirth that continues endlessly or until broken by moksha.
Savitri—Another name for Surya, who is the divine Sun as the giver of life.
Shankaracharya—The great eighth-to ninth-century South Indian philosopher and expounder of Advaita Vedanta metaphysics.
Shiva—“The Auspicious One”: the popular and complex god often depicted as holding a trident and a drum.
Tantra—Traditions (“woven threads”) that describe and explain techniques for controlling shakti power for both mystical and worldly goals.
Upanishads—A large body of poetic and mystical texts originating in the late Vedic period of about 700 BCE.
Ushas—Goddess of the dawn in the early Vedic literature.
Vaisheshika—One of the six major schools of Indian philosophy; known for delineating the major categories of existence.
Varuna—One of the most important gods in the Vedas; controller of cosmic order and human moral conduct.
Vedas—India’s supreme scriptures, based on revelation (shruti) and said to be eternal; consisting of Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva.
Vishnu—“The Pervader,” one of the major gods in Hindu theology, sustainer of the world, who intervenes for the defense of dharma by means of his incarnations (such as Rama and Krishna).
Vishvamitra—Ranks among the most prominent of the Vedic seers but plays an important role in later epics as well.
Yantra—A mystical diagram used as an aid in meditation or for representing abstract theological ideas.
Yudhisthira—Eldest of the five Pandava brothers; king of dharma or righteousness.
About the Author
ARIEL GLUCKLICH is an associate professor of Hinduism at Georgetown University, as well as an expert in Sanskrit literature. A former Senior Fulbright Fellow in India, Glucklich is trained in Indian philosophy and theology. The most recent of Glucklich’s five books is Sacred Pain, which won an award for excellence from the American Academy of Religion.
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Copyright
CLIMBING CHAMUNDI HILL: 1001 Steps with a Storyteller and a Reluctant Pilgrim. Copyright © 2003 by Ariel Glucklich. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2007 ISBN: 9780061850462
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