by Anita Desai
‘Welcome!’ smiled the devotee, and vanished.
Matteo waited for the crash to follow.
It did not come. The day played itself out like the cicadas’ song that had risen out of the sunstruck landscape and now dissipated in the twilight that fell upon the ashram like a visual silence. But then bells rang, conches blew and lights came on; everyone came out of their lairs and hurried towards a central courtyard. Here, on open verandas, the devotees were fed in the usual ashram arrangement of the pangat, seated in rows and bending over their trays that were filled for them. In spite of his preoccupations, Matteo could not help noting the freshness of the food and the tastiness. Once that was out of the way, they collected on a large, flat patio outside, under an immense ficus tree. Music followed, on drums, harmoniums, cymbals and guitars, and devotional songs were sung. Matteo saw that most of the devotees were young, particularly the foreign ones, dressed in pink and some of them quite comely, but there were also older people, dressed in white, who sat crosslegged up in front, and these were chiefly Indians. The singing was led by a young man of great beauty who played the harmonium, tilted his face to the sky and poured out a song so filled with the ache of desire that Matteo felt he could hardly bear it.
Then silence fell and everyone appeared to shuffle and change places; the rows broke up and instead a circle seemed to form. The circle of course had no leader and there was no one at its centre. When Matteo heard a voice begin to speak, in low, reverberant tones, he looked to see who it was that spoke, but it was a while before he made out the speaker: a small, aged woman who sat crosslegged like the others, dressed in a deep crimson robe under which she seemed shrunken and somewhat hunched, with her large head sunk between her shoulders, her hair done up in a turban and her eyes heavy lidded, hooded. She was speaking very slowly and clearly, enunciating each word very precisely, almost as if it were a lesson in elocution, but it took Matteo some time to make out that she spoke in English, for her voice and accent sounded so Indian, in its pronunciation of ds and ts, its rolled rs and heavy emphasis on the first syllables. Her deeply wrinkled skin was also dark as an Indian’s, and he took her to be one of the older, perhaps the oldest devotee. Certainly the woman bore no resemblance to the handsome and radiant woman in the photographs of the Mother. Yet it quickly became evident that she was a figure of authority: when she spoke, or fell silent, everyone waited in intense anticipation of her next word, her next gesture, and took it in with grave avidity.
Then words did begin to link themselves into sentences and Matteo found himself taking them in.
‘My friends, why have you come today? Why do you come every evening to sit with this old woman? You think she is old so she must be wise and can give you wisdom?
‘She can give you no wisdom at all! No Knowledge!
‘Do you hear that? Do you?
‘You only smile! Why? Now you laugh! Tell me, why do you laugh? What is it that makes you smile and laugh? Ah, I understand! When you sit here with me, you remember why you have come to live here, you feel again the purpose of your lives: to experience bliss. And you are smiling because you know that together we experience Bliss, experience Joy. We feel we are in the presence of the Master. Yes? You feel his light coming to you like the Light of the sun that has set over there but still sends out light. No longer hot, no longer blazing, but tender, loving, good. Yes? And in this light, we feel ourselves loved and we are filled with Bliss. Yes?
‘It is not like going to church, eh? Not like going to the temple? We do not bring offerings with us, we do not take off our shoes or put on hats. We come as we are. We know the Master does not care what we wear, how we sit, what we sing.
‘This is no church, my friends, this is no temple or mosque or vihara. We have no religion. Religion? Like the black crows up in the tree, caw-caw-caw, scolding, scolding! But do they crow at us now? No, they are silent! We have silenced them! They know we do not listen to the black scolding voices of religion here. Religion makes one ashamed, makes one guilty, makes one fearful. The Master has told you not to feel guilty, not to feel ashamed, not to be afraid. Open your hearts to love and light and the joy of loving, he said, and so we turn our backs to religion – so, like this! – and we close our ears to the scolding – like this! – and instead we look at the sky, and the light . . .’
And although everyone’s attention, including Matteo’s, was so concentrated upon her, upon her extraordinary words and her commanding gestures, what was strange was that this did not preclude an attention to the outer world. What Matteo noticed – and Sophie would have been incredulous for she was convinced that Matteo noticed nothing – was that while she spoke crows had settled into the branches of the ficus tree, ruffling their feathers, but made no sound and that an invisible cricket that had earlier played a strident tune now merely whispered in the background, and that the light in the sky that had seemed to dwindle into darkness while they ate now flared up behind the tree and over the rooftop in an extravagant display that was heightened from pale yellow to intense gold, and pale pink to deep rose, before it was finally blotted out, suddenly, by an inky welling up of darkness. In a strange way it was the old woman’s voice – not the words but the voice itself – that gave all these natural phenomena a wonderful significance. It was the music that heightens emotion, heightens mood, and becomes inseparable from it. So she, too, was inseparable from the evening light, the silhouettes of the great trees, the darkness, the stirring, breathing life within it, and the first star, and because of her they had now an intensity that they had never had before.
Matteo, in an effort to describe later, to Sophie, how it had been, could describe it only as an experience of unity, the unity of the spiritual with the physical, the dark with the light, the human with the natural. But Sophie was to grimace and Matteo to fall silent – his words were dead words, they failed to convey the quality of flowering, of the opening up of petals and the revealing of a great luminous bloom which was what he experienced that evening.
‘No, we have no shrine, we have no god. People come to us from the town, from cities and countries all over the world, and ask: What do you believe in? You believe in no God? Oh, they are shocked!’ she laughed, clapping her hands. Everyone laughed. ‘Shocking, is it not?
‘But are we unbelievers? No, we are not! Oh, we believe, we believe much more than even they believe. We know the Divine Force is not in some idol, not in the cross, not even in the book. We know the Divine Force is everywhere. Sitting here under this great tree, this old tree that has been here ever since we first came and was here much before that, don’t we all feel its Power? Is it not a good Power – giving us shelter, giving us shade, providing those birds with roosts and berries, and so many insects with homes? Yes, yes, I just felt one here on my neck – it dropped onto my neck to remind me, you see, that it also exists . . .’ She touched the back of her neck and everyone roared. ‘And look up at the sky, those birds that are flying home, making their way to their nests before it is com-plete-ly dark. What power is it that makes them fly through the sky and cover so much space with such beauty and grace that you would also like to have? But it is they who have been given the Divine Power. They too possess it.
‘Everywhere we turn, my friends, we come upon the Divine Power. Turn, turn – and everywhere you turn, please look, please touch, please see. Be open to the Divine, let it enter you. Let the Power of the tree and the bird and the Master flow into you. Feel it enter your body, flow up through your fingers, up into your arms to your shoulders and into your very centre. Feel it here on your chest and down here on your abdomen –’ she touched these parts to show them – ‘feel it go through you like a glowing light. When it enters you, are you not transformed by it? Allow it to happen, allow this transformation to happen!
‘Some of you tried to feel the transformation and did not feel it. Some of you are feeling a little sad. I see some of you are sitting there and feeling a little sad, a little tired. Now you look around, you smile quickl
y, you put your shoulders back – so! Why? Why are you ashamed of feeling sad, or tired? I will not come and whip you. Do you see a whip in my hand? I am stretching my hands to you, my friends, I am telling you: take from me, take my strength, take my love for you, hold my hand, let me help you. Why do you think I live here amongst you? Why did the Master call me and tell me to stay with you? I would have followed him but he said No, he wished me to stay with you and help you at times when you are a little tired, a little sad.
‘Do not try to pretend you are not tired and you are not sad. Let yourself be tired, be sad. Allow yourself this feeling – it is not bad. The sadness will take you along a path that will lead you where you have not gone before. The tiredness will let you experience what you have not experienced in the day when you were strong and active. These feelings must be felt fully, with all your being. That is the only purpose of our existence here, to experience fully, to be fully, my friends!
‘Yes, I am limping a little today. You saw me limping when I came. Now my leg is a little stiff and I have to keep it – so. It hurts – a little. Walking here, I stumbled. She is growing old, you thought. And that is true,’ she laughed, ‘but I know something else. That stone was put in my way to make me stumble. Oh yes. Now you look surprised: who would do such a thing? Who is it who wants Mother to stumble and hurt herself? You look at each other, you look at yourselves, you wonder.
‘No, no need for that. An Evil One put that stone in the path, an Evil One made me walk into it. Has it not happened to you? Have you not been hurt sometimes, fallen ill, heard someone shout at you, or perhaps even hit you? Yes, there is Evil in this world. If there is God or not, I cannot say, but there is Evil, I know. We do not want to believe this beautiful world contains Evil but it is there. Every day it tries to break into the world and destroy what is beautiful and well and happy.
‘So, please, watch for it. Be very careful. Take very great care, please, and whenever you see it – turn upon it and tell it, Shoo! Go away! Do not come near!’ She made shooing motions of her hands, creating ripples of laughter in her audience. ‘I will tell you a story. When I was very young, came here as a very young girl, full of ideas, full of dreams about gods, about temples and religion – I went to a temple. I said all the prayers, I went around every one of the idols, left them money, placed flowers – but I was not happy, and I was not blessed. Oh no, I was not. It was very dark, and even if there were lights, it was still dark. And I could see Evil – I could feel Evil. And from one corner of that temple, from behind a pillar, the Evil One stepped out and approached me. I could see it – oh it was so ugly! It said to me, whispering in a low, low voice – like this – Come with me. Together we will be strong. We will be friends and together we will go out and make fools of the people and laugh at them and grow rich.
‘Did I listen to it?
‘Well, I stood, listening, and then I made such a face – like this! – and I pushed, pushed, pushed with all my strength – oof! – I pushed till I had sent the Evil One back into the hole from which it had come. And I stamped, stamped, stamped on it to keep it down, down, down – with all my force, yes.
‘But sometimes it comes out again. It tries to catch me. Puts a stone in my path to make me stumble. Then I remember it. Ah, I think, the Evil One! It is hiding, it is not gone. I know I must be alert. I must be careful, so-o-o careful . . .
‘Now, my friends, I let you rest a little. I let you sit here after eating a good meal, and rest a little. You have worked all day. Cutting vegetables, watering the garden, looking after the chickens and the cows, building the new sheds – oh, this Mother, she thinks up a lot of work for you to do, does she not?
‘Yes, it is hard work. If you write and tell your families what work you are doing in the Mother’s ashram, they will ask: Why? Why are you building sheds and milking cows and growing vegetables for the Mother? You never do these things at home! You do not need to do these at home! Is that not what they say to you? Tell me!’
There was laughter, embarrassed.
‘Well, let me tell you why. You are doing it for the Mother because one must work, one must make efforts to achieve anything. And what are you trying to achieve? To make a farm for the Mother? To feed the Mother?
‘I will tell you, you do not need to feed the Mother, my friends. The Mother is happy to retire to a cave in the mountains and live on spring water and roots and berries. That is all I need. I do not need this estate you have made through your efforts.
‘But yes, you do need to learn the life of a devotee, have the experience of being a devotee. And that cannot be done without an effort.
‘Ask a musician how he trained and he will tell you – how he went to his guru, begged to be taken as a pupil, came to live in the guru’s house so that for twenty-four hours a day he lived in the atmosphere created by the guru. He served his guru, even by cooking his food and sweeping his floor, everything. Then the guru agreed to give him a lesson, and he learnt. Through many years this sadhna carried on before he could call himself a musician and play music.
‘This effort, this endeavour, this exercise, it is sadhna! If the artist performs this exercise, it is artistic. If the farmer performs it, it is agricultural. If the devout practise it, it is spiritual. And it all leads to Achievement!
‘So, if you, the devotees of the Master, make these efforts for the Master, you are performing a spiritual sadhna, yes? And if the farmer achieves a crop of corn, and the musician plays a di-vine raga, and the sculptor carves a perfect piece of sculpture, then the Master’s devotees are achieving the spiritual e-quiv-a-lent, yes?
‘And what was it you came to achieve? Eh? Tell me.’
No one breathed. The expectation of her next words was so great, it stretched itself so taut, it almost split when she spoke again:
‘Bliss! Bliss now, bliss here, forever bliss!
‘There is the ordinary world that most people experience in the ordinary way – that is, they touch, they taste, they see, but without being aware because it costs the greatest effort, my friends, to be aware, con-stant-ly aware, full-ly aware. So mostly we eat our meals, we wash our hands, we go to sleep.
‘But if you are aware of what you are doing – every minute, with every breath – then this ordinary world takes on a vi-tality, it is transformed. That vital world will feed you and nourish you and offer you experience such as you never dreamt you could have: you can drink just one cupful of water and find it will quench your thirst for a whole day even in the hottest summer; you will eat only a few grapes and these grapes will nourish your body for twenty-four hours and there will be no weakness, no hunger pangs; you will close your eyes for only a minute, or two minutes, and when you open them it will be as if you have slept for eight hours. Water has these in-cred-ible properties, and grapes, and sleep – but you must discover them, my friends, discover them! Do not think oh, I know what a cupful of water is, or a handful of grapes, or five minutes of sleep. I beg you, don’t! Go a little further, and then a little further still – stretch and stretch the possibilities and you will find you make such discoveries.
‘You don’t believe me? Listen. Suppose you are going down the road. On the way you meet a beggar. Poor man, dressed in rags, hungry, his hand stretched out, like this. You feel in your pocket – have you money? A little, not too much? Yes, you take it out and you drop it in his hand and you go on your way. But have you really met this beggar on the road? Do you know that he is a pilgrim who has travelled the whole length and breadth of India, visited all the places of pilgrimage and paid his respects at every shrine, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist? Do you know what his home was like that he left, how he turned away from his family and what they said? Do you know what experiences he had along the way that turned him into the ragged fellow you met on the road? What do you know about him?
‘Anything? Nothing! Nothing!
‘So, I tell you, you know nothing about a drink of water, or a bunch of grapes or the act of sleeping that you perform so well for so
many hours every day and every night – you cannot know till you have made the effort to know its whole, its true and total meaning which is nothing less than divine.
‘And think, if you can extend this exercise, what you can make of your entire life – the prison you are locked in, the cell in which you are chained, the murderers and beggars you meet. Think how they might be transformed, my friends, and how it might be for you to live in a world so transformed!
‘How do I know this? How do I tell you this as if I know it? But it was so with me! Till I met the Master, the world was my gaol, I lived in a cell and the people I knew were criminals, murderers, they nearly finished me off. But when I entered the presence of the Master, these very things were transformed. He transformed them by teaching me what I try, try so hard to teach you.
‘In whatever you do, all day long, remember the Master. Not his work, not his words, just the Master himself and his love for you. If you do that, I promise you that you will never be sad or hungry or in pain.
‘You ask: is that all? Is that all I have to do?
‘I want to tell you – stop struggling. The Master does not want you to struggle. Let the Master pick you up and carry you. You know the saint Ramakrishna said we should be like kittens – allow the Master to pick you up and carry you. Don’t struggle, don’t resist. The Master, the Mother – they are the mother cats, they will carry you, the kittens.
‘Was Ramakrishna not de-light-ful?’ she laughed.
‘You will ask: who is this old woman who tells us these things about the Master?
‘I will tell you. I am the one the Master left here on earth to show you the way into His Divine Presence. I can show you how to find his Light, and how to live with his Light.
‘I am here to drive away Darkness and remove screens so that you may come directly to the Master and see his Light. I am here, my friends, to bring you the Light,’ and she raised her arms above her head and her fingers were long and tapering and reached up to the tree and the stars that shone there.