THE MYSTIC: PART I - THE SEEKER (Part 1 - THE SEEKER)

by Arindam Bhattacharjee

  Raghav seemed to have enjoyed the conversation. He forgot his pain and sufferings amidst the serene environment and Acharya’s stories. Acharya again looked at Raghav who had been keenly following the talk. Raghav was still reasoning the motive behind his being in the cave but despite these questions he felt that he had not enjoyed such solace in the recent past.

  Acharya continued to look at Raghav and continued,

  “Look around you in these mountains. You will see many yogis involved in mind-culture. Some of them are so mystical and reclusive that they might not like your company; some are frauds and innumerable others who don't know what they are trying to do. But you will see many indulging into deep meditation even during winter. Just try to understand why they are putting in so much effort.”

  “They want to train their mind to move to higher realms of understanding. There are so many stories of the power of mind in our culture which many Westerners either do not know or fail to understand and admit.”

  Acharya paused to be given a hot water by his disciple and looking at Raghav he continued.

  “You must have heard about the story of Yudhisthira in the Mahabharata. In reply to a question he answered that nothing was faster than the mind. Mind is most powerful and it could become either your friend or your enemy. As Buddha had said, ‘One who is the lord of 1000 men is not the greatest but the one who is who the lord of himself is, or the one who controls himself is the greatest.’ Such is the power of mind. I will teach you how to tame your mind so that you can understand your own future.”

  Raghav could not resist but to ask,

  “What about the space time continuum that the scientific theories talk of? The many future spaces?”

  Acharya looked back at Raghav and replied,

  “We will come to that but before that you need to understand what the basic definition of truth is. Isn't it what you are seeking?”

  Raghav was taken aback by Acharya's understanding of his state of mind. He could feel Acharya's gaze penetrate his eyes and enter his mind. He could sense the light in Acharya's eyes. Looking back at his shishyas the Acharya continued.

  “To begin understanding about truth one must understand few things about human mind. First we will talk about memory. We must understand how the memory of humans works and how it has played an important role in sustaining the cultures and the societies.”

  Suddenly a chill passed through Raghav's spine as if Acharya had just pressed the right note that was bothering him the most. Acharya continued,

  “Forgetting about things is the most amazing part of understanding memory. Forgetting about past events has helped humans to survive from the dawn of civilization; this is also the most important factor for its survival in the future. The day humans start tracking each and every moment of life outside the realms of the human brain (and that time has come) will sound the doom for mankind.”

  Acharya seemed to have pinpointed Raghav's suffering. Raghav could not understand how the Acharya knew so much about him.

  Acharya continued,

  “If humans lose the ability to forget then he cannot have a healthy mental state and that may lead to depression and other mental disorders. A yogi does not believe in machines over one's own ability. The ultimate step is a union with Nature, to be one with the Nature and become what we call the living dead. Not so far in the future I see a machine in existence in tandem with the human mind. This will be the darkest phase of human suffering.”

  Acharya looked back at Raghav with a gaze that penetrated through him again as if warning something. His whole body shivered and he became scared – fear overtook him. He suddenly realized that Acharya knew much more than what even Raghav understood about the machine. He felt as if his muscles were jammed and his body felt very heavy. Acharya looked back at the disciples and continued.

  “Now another question I would like to ask you. Can you remember each and every account of your childhood, each and every moment of life - when you had felt sad or when you had felt happy?”

  The disciples shook their heads indicating negative. Acharya continued,

  “It’s is true you cannot do so right now with the type of culture you have been exposed to. But in reality your memory stores each piece of information from the day you were born to this day. As a matter of fact it has also information about the future stored inside.”

  The disciples looked puzzled. Seeing this the Acharya said,

  “You have to train yourself to be able to remember everything. You must have heard that when one dies all his memory flashes in front of him at the last moment. Actually there is no such thing as Time in this world.”

  Raghav overcoming the initial shock took a deep breath and asked Acharya.

  “Acharya you explained how the future is written. But is it true that if the future is written and then what is the truth behind our existence? What is the truth behind all the excitement and all the troubles in the world? What is the truth behind all love and hate in the world?”

  Acharya looked at Raghav with a smile and this pleased Raghav. Acharya replied but in again in a very concerted manner,

  “Tell me….whether whatever you are seeing is the truth. Whether the materials you see around are real, are these mountains, these huge pine trees, these huge boulders, these ravines real? Do you think they are all real”?

  Raghav replied with new found confidence,

  “We have heard of these concepts many times. Everywhere the dharma gurus would lament these lines of these being are Maya emerging from moh or Mahamaya.”

  Acharya smiled and continued

  “But truth is not just this. It has a vast definition and it’s difficult to understand what truth is. What we perceive of the material reality is not the actual truth; it is our mental perception of material reality. A truth for you will be different from a truth of some other individual. Do you agree with this? Do you agree that everything is relative?” Raghav acknowledged these facts.

  Looking at the intensity in which Acharya was engaging Raghav left the shisyas confounded by the sudden introduction of new topics. They had waited for many years but Acharya never spoke his mind with such veracity as he was doing now. But they knew that they had to keep their excitement in check to enjoy the moment and not cause any interruption.

  They had spent months with Acharya in the cold chilling weather moving with him in the mountain terrain, visiting many monasteries but they had never seen Acharya in such a mood. They could not understand how the sudden arrival of Raghav brought this change in the Acharya. Acharya took a deep breath and looks into the eyes of the two shishyas. He could gauge their inquisitiveness apart for the longing for knowledge and truth.

  Meanwhile Acharya continued with his discourse

  “For us reality means the objects surrounding us in the world. The image of the world that our mind generates is for us the truth. The objects in itself and the mental perception of the object are two different things that our memory and our imagination construct for us in space and time. Now one must first understand what time is. There is a difference between time and kaal.”

  He looked at the shishyas pretending to wait for his answers and continues,

  “Kaal is beyond our perception and made up of kalanu but on the other hand time is something that our mind is being trained to perceive.”

  Acharya continues,

  “Experience is the unstated way of understanding reality but truth in itself spreads across both space and time. Today’s truth may be not-truth tomorrow; but as reality changes the idea of truth changes accordingly. So the question is what is the real notion of truth? Is everything relative?”

  Acharya first looked at his students and waited for an answer and then turned to Raghav. He knew the answer would not come and so he continued

  “Let’s look at it in a different way. Truth is the description of the totality of life, totality of experience and totality of time; so any idea of truth that is prevalent takes into account past, present and
future. Thus it is very necessary to keep the real picture of past to build up a fair idea of truth. That is why we were talking about history and the past. It is our collective memory that helps us organize the social and political structure.”

  “In the East especially in India, civilization goes back thousands of years. The fact is that this collective memory never dies but continues through generations; it forms the basic structure of society. This aspect of the memory is important for human beings building up social and political structures but it also brings in the notion of evil and good.”

  Acharya looked at Raghav who was intensely concentrating on Acharya's discussion. Keeping his hands behind him the Acharya continued,

  “Human beings have the ability to understand what is present and what is not present. Animals only have the understanding of what is present. As we are capable of remembering what is not there we are also capable of conceptualizing it. In other words memory is the mother of imagination. This is another aspect of the human brain.”

  Raghav felt very uncomfortable and felt as if the Acharya had exposed his soul and he was standing naked in front of him without any shame.

  Looking at Raghav the Acharya continued,

  “So a human notion of truth is the sum total of the entire human experience of natural world. In this memory and imagination forms two parts of the human mind. We all know that it’s the cream of human imagination that has expressed itself in the form of arts and music. Imagination helps Man to transcend the apparent reality and time to help build up a different world But in reality imagination represents truth through metaphors. You might now ask why it is required?”

  Acharya waits again but the pause was painful for Raghav as he wanted to know more,

  “Nature has helped us to create the imagination to supplement the inadequacy of experience and this renders experience as a total experience. But imagination is not enough to understand all of virtual world or virtual time.”

  Acharya looked at Raghav and asked,

  “Am I making sense to you?”

  But without waiting for a reply he continued. Raghav thought how does Acharya know so much about his past or is it just a coincidence. Acharya continued,

  “But a yogi's perception of truth is very different from that of an ordinary person. To achieve this you have to free your mind before you can really understand everything. This needs a lot of practice. I have been meditating and trying to free my mind for the last 14 years while travelling across the foothills of Himalayas.”

  Raghav asked, “So what have you learnt?”

  Acharya jokingly replied,

  “It's a secret. And if I have to tell you I will have to kill you!”

  All of them broke into laughter.

  Suddenly the younger shishya asked

  “So what does Moksha actually means in this world? ”

  “In some ways it means that your mind gets out from the clutches of time. It frees itself from time and after doing so it externalizes time and is able to jump time and move through spaces. This is how you are able to see the future. Once you free yourself from the clutches of time then there is no such thing as past, present and future. Memory for us creates the time we have and then it externalizes time so that we can understand it.”

  “Once your mind is free then you will realize that the universe is comprised of spaces that can be mapped into many dimensions and this will enable you to jump spaces. The untrained mind can only understand three dimensions. But a free mind can jump through spaces. The future that you understand is just another space in the multi-dimensional universe. But to know the actual meaning of Moksha you must understand what a yogi’s perception of truth is and what are the means by which they achieve it.”

  “Also you need to understand the different paths a yogi can take to achieve this concept of truth. But first I am hungry and need to have some breakfast.”

  He looked at the shsisyas and asked,

  “We cannot keep our guest hungry. And once he is ready you should take him for some acclimatization walk through Tapovan. Introduce him to different yogis but be careful of the Bengali Baba over there.”

  Raghav asked, “But what about your talk?”

  Acharya replied,

  “It's a vast topic, we can start discussion on this tomorrow but first you need to experience the place where you are. It’s the experience that matters. And remember these mountains have amazing healing powers.”

  The shishyas took Raghav to a height of 16000ft through a path crossing Mount Shivling. He was totally exhausted when he came back to the cave. He spent the rest of the day in his sleeping bag mulling over what Acharya had said while gazing at the high peaks of Mount Gangotri, Mount Kedarnath and many others. He felt pleasantly calm and no longer worried about what was happening in the plains and what his men were doing. He was within and with himself.

  8.3: Knowing the Path and Walking the Path

  Next morning Acharya sat with Raghav and the two students after going through the morning meditation practices. Two disciples had joined him in meditation, but Raghav could not as he had difficulty waking up early because of the exhaustion of the previous day. He joined after meditation and Acharya looked at Raghav and enquired,

  “What do you plan to learn today?”

  Raghav said,

  “You were going to explain the truth of yogis.”

  Acharya queried,

  “So what do you think a yogi is? Do you want to know”

  Raghav replied, “yes” and on this Acharya takes out his mobile phone to search the definition of yogi. The shishyas started smiling and Raghav also followed suit.

  “As per internet, In the Classical Sanskrit of the Puranas, the word yogi originally referred specifically to a male practitioner of yoga. In the same literature yoginī is the term used for female practitioners. The term "yogi" is also used to refer specifically to Siddhas, and broadly to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of Indian religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. But the definition is very wide.”

  Raghav smiled at Acharya’s opening up the mobile and reading the definition. Acharya continued,

  “Now I will describe the different ways through which a yogi can find out the truth which is there in the text. Later I will tell about what can’t be written. Here I will quote what Vivekananda has spoken about yoga from web about truth.”

  Then Acharya did some more search on the internet and Raghav could understand that Acharya was in different mood today and seems to not give spontaneous answers.

  Acharya reading from mobile continues,

  “As per Vedanta philosophy made famous by Swami Vivekananda, the easiest and simplest way to achieve this is following Bhakti yoga. Bhakti yoga teaches that the quest for truth can be reached through love and worship of the personal God, who is the creator and governor of the phenomenal universe. This process is especially suited for people who are emotional in nature and have the feeling of love and devotion highly developed. Through Bhakti Yoga true communion of soul with the supreme deity is accomplished.”

  “Each movement of one’s body and mind is performed simply to please the Beloved one. His power is Love and by this he breaks the chain of selfishness, transcends the law of Karma, and becomes free. His mind is concentrated and one pointed on the beloved and meditation becomes easy for him. His true devotion to the divine leads to unceasing meditation, and ultimately lifts the soul into Samadhi, where it realizes God and communes with him. After this he realizes the actual truth about universe”.

  One of the shishyas asked

  “Is this the way our religious preachers follow?”

  “Yes”, said the Acharya,

  “This is the foundation of all religions in the world. All religious leaders would make the common people understand the sacredness of the Creator of universe; through this process they make them realize the actual truth” Acharya looked at Raghav

  Raghav asked, “So what is the next one?”<
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  “Then we have the Karma yogis.” Acharya continued reading “Karma signifies action, and refers to all actions whether of mind or body. Wherever there is an activity of any kind, it is Karma. Also the chain of cause and sequences is called Karma; and every action of body and mind is governed by the law of Karma. This is like action and reaction. Many people speak of these aspects.”

  At this moment Acharya looks up and the shishyas give them a nod knowing acceptance of what he was saying.

  Acharya continued from his mobile

  “The effect of each action leaves its impression on the mind; it becomes the seed of a fresh action of a similar nature in the future. So in this sense future events include the accumulated results of past actions. Hence the character of an individual, which is the aggregate result of his previous life, may be called Karma. In the same way, the future life will be the sum total of the results of the mental and physical actions of the present life.”

  “This leads to the belief in re-birth. In this way the individual soul can extricate itself from the wheel of action and reaction, and having escaped from the irresistible law of causation, by which everyone is bound, can attain perfect freedom and through right action alone achieve the ultimate truth. It says that we reap the fruit of that which we ourselves have sown. It tells us that every action is inspired by the motive of desire for results, and consequently becomes the source of bondage.”