Chapter 8
One day I was in the cave. It was a clear day and the sun was scorching outside. The wind was still. I was perspiring inside the cave. I sat on the stone which had now become my usual throne. The sadhu didn’t appear to be visiting this place anymore and I hadn’t met him during my last several visits. I closed my eyes and sat still for some time. All of a sudden a gentle breeze swept the cave. The heat inside subsided. It even became cold after some time. I slowly went into a trance.
I was suddenly jolted by the sounds of thunder. The sound turned louder and louder every moment. It also started raining outside. The sound of the rain coupled with thunder was music to my ears. I thought I opened my eyes and saw the sadhu standing before me.
“Where did you go?” I asked him casually, as though we were friends from our childhood.
“I was travelling along the river Tamirabarani. I was making some preparations for you.”
“What were you doing? What preparations do I need?”
“You don’t really know you are a very, very special person on earth. Men and women come and go. But you are here for a very special purpose.”
“What is my purpose?”
“Over centuries, people in this country fought for liberation from one or other foreign ruler. Gandhi, a man with great conviction and vision, led the last Independence Movement. They killed him because people couldn’t bear with Liberty and Truth. Gandhi stood for truth, inner integrity, inner peace and honesty. Gandhi was fearless. People didn’t need him, once the nation attained political freedom from the British rulers.
But, what people hadn’t realized is that their political freedom would be transient. It won’t be permanent. Soon, they would all become slaves – slaves of a different kind. They would all become slaves to their desire for power, money, greed, vanity and ego.
Your condition is different. You are fighting for the liberation of your mind. A true liberation! Mind interferes in every moment of one’s life. When someone is ruled from the heart there is no problem. But when the mind rules someone, he can become a kind of dictator, wanting everything for himself.
Come on! Continue your fight! Don’t give up!”
He went on to give me a sermon on liberation – liberation from life, from one’s body, from one’s mind, from one’s social conditioning, from one’s society, from one’s education, from one’s work, and from one’s self. When he finished the sermon, he went out and disappeared. But this time, I didn’t care to follow him to find out where he went.
*****
Nearly seven years passed by.
It was the Tamil month of Margazhi, a month traditionally reserved for complete devotion to The Lord. In South, people, in groups, sing in praise of the Lord and chant His various names day and night. People in places like Courtallam, Shencottai and Tenkasi were very traditional and ritualistic. The temples opened very early in the morning and devotees lined up there for an early morning darshan of The Lord. In agraharams, they maintained bhajan mandaps (halls meant for devotional singing). Men in groups walked through the streets before sunrise, bare-chested, brazing the early morning mist and cold, singing bhajans, playing sruti box, harmonium, jings, dolak and ganjira. Small girls walked through the streets in groups in the early morning, reciting and singing sacred verses from Tiruppavai in praise of Lord Krishna and Thiruvembavai in praise of Lord Siva - the two ancient Tamil scriptures. On certain days, the singing and chanting went on throughout the night – they called it akhanda nama. On a few other days, the bhajan singers went for biksha – a tradition of seeking alms, dressed in traditional bhagavatha attire. On select occasions, children accompanied the bhajan singers dancing around. On some days, the bhajan singers performed deepa pradhashina (dancing around a lighted lamp). People performed symbolic marriage for the devoted Radha with Lord Krishna, in a day-long ceremony of rituals, singing and dancing – a tradition recognizing an individual’s longing to be one with the Lord - this Jeevatma, the human soul longing for Paramatma, the Universal soul. Distribution of delicious puliyodarai, pongal, sundal, etc was always the climax on these occasions; it was a kind of community lunch and dinner.
Margazhi is also the month for two very important festivals. One named Vaikunta Ekadashi (the eleventh day after the New Moon day) is meant for moksha – liberation. On this day people went to Vishnu temples for prayers and this is the only day in a year when the northern gates to the Vishnu temples were opened; north remains the gateway for kailash (Himalayan Peak) and moksha. The other festival is Arudhra Darshan or Thiruvaadhirai when Lord Siva performs His Cosmic Dance. On both the days, the temples are crowded with people.
It was Arudhra Darshan day, when I happened to be in Chithra Sabhai. The temple wore a festive look. The temple and its tank looked completely cleaned and repainted. The water in the temple tank looked colorful with the lotus flowers and its leaves sprouting everywhere. The temple priests were busy readying the Nataraja Idol in a specially prepared palanquin, decorated with colorful flowers and leaves, for the dance. Devotees were moving in and out of the temple restlessly and awaiting the great dance performance by Siva. The palanquin bearers move back and forth – alternating between slow and fast movements, rocking and resting to the music coming from nadhaswaram, thavil and drums - inside a large hall, carrying the palanquin on their shoulders, Lord Nataraja idol firmly seated on the palanquin and thus they create an ambience of dancing, sending devotees into an ecstatic trance.
The ‘Cosmic Dance’ had just begun when I thought someone was calling me out in the din and noise. Then someone was holding my hand and pulling me away. I tried to resist. But then when I turned around to see who it was, I was stunned.
The sadhu was holding my hands firmly without saying a word and signaled to me to come with him. He managed to extricate me out of the crowd. He was virtually dragging me along. We went on the main road, then into the forest and in the next few moments, we were at the entrance to the cave. Not a word passed between us until then.
Inside the cave, he asked me to kneel before him, while he himself sat on the stone slab at the centre. He asked me to close my eyes and then touched the space between my two eyebrows with his right thumb. I went into trance instantly. And then he spoke to me. I heard him very clearly.
“I have already told you, I was away to a few places to prepare things for you. Your time here is over now. You have a number of very significant tasks to carry out in other places. You were kept in a different plane in the last few years for a purpose. You will now return back to normalcy and lead a normal life. You have to leave now. But remember your contract with me. You have completed only the first leg of your journey in meeting with me. During this initial phase, I prepared you for the next six stages of your life. From now on, you will have no fear or anxiety. No one can harm or hurt you. Six more places are waiting for you. In each of these six places, you will spend approximately seven years and you would be accomplishing something very significant in every place. You are born to do great things in life. But it won’t be without struggle. It is going to be tough and arduous. But don’t worry. Regardless of what happens, I am going to be there with you all the time. Know that!
Now, I am going to show you a very extraordinary experience. Never talk about it to anyone, anywhere.”
Words and languages are inadequate to describe the experience of my next few moments. I shall try as best as I can, to narrate what happened to me, without a word of exaggeration. ………………………………….
*****
“We have all seen the metamorphosis of ice melting to become water and water boiling to become steam. Once water vaporizes as steam, it merges with the atmosphere and we can’t see it anymore. This is the property of water and many liquids. Can that happen to other objects too?
Yes, it happened to me!
I saw my whole body melting into a sticky liquid, then vaporizing and disappearing into the thin air. I was a dot now – no volume or mass to talk about. The dot travelled in space and time.
When the time travel completed, I fell on the banks of a river. The river was flooded and was breaching the banks. There was a small group of young people sitting before another who appeared to be their leader. The leader appeared still younger. Everyone was clean shaven, had tonsured their head, wrapped themselves with saffron cloth and looked like monks. Yes, they were all young monks and the leader was their ‘Guru’. They all looked to him reverently and addressed him as Shankara Prabhu. Soon this dot that I had turned into, transmuted into a body and sat in the group as one of the monks.
Shankara was speaking to the fellow monks. The language was Sanskrit. The speech was eloquent, candid, forceful, and convinced everyone there. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.
“Everything is One in this creation. Duality is our mental makeup – ‘maya’. There is no duality here. We must carry this message everywhere we go,” concluded Shankara.
The crowd dispersed. Everyone walked back to a few small huts scattered along the banks of the river.
I was standing there before Shankara. I prostrated before him. ‘Prabhu! You were elegant once again today. I marvel at your eloquence and the force of conviction in your speech. Please bless me.’
Shankara silently smiled, placed his hands on my head and walked away to his place.
I stood dumbfounded, motionless envying his stature as our leader. Momentarily I fell from a state of reverence into envy and jealousy. I knew I was a very capable disciple for Shankara. I had assisted him during several ‘Vedanta’ debates, substituted him in many debate forums, on his instructions and I had equally forcefully argued for Oneness in the whole scheme of things. I had also won debates, conquered very powerful orators and forced them to surrender to Shankara’s philosophy. People often looked to me as the next in command. But I knew I was never a match for Shankara. People considered him alone as their leader – their guru. I was burning with comparison and jealousy. I desired to be the Supremo - the number one. I suspected that Shankara had already guessed my ambitions – he was an omniscient master.
Here I was – a skilled orator, an intelligent, astute, and learned monk - sharp in mind and tongue. But I was only the second and can never hope to be the first in the order. With Shankara’s charisma, everyone else around him became insignificant, like the stars before the Sun.
I struggled between my reverence to Shankara and jealousy about his stature. They both grew in me simultaneously. In his presence, all my negative feelings vanished into the thin air like the mist before the early morning Sun and I was the personification of benevolence. I submitted voluntarily, completely to his mighty presence. When he was away, all my benevolence was overpowered by feelings of jealousy and I became a monster.
Did Shankara know my evil mind? He must have! I guessed for sure. He was all knowledge. If he had known, at the least, he never exhibited. He radiated kindness and compassion all the time, even to me. But he also tested my capabilities, by assigning me to more and more challenging tasks and every time, I came out victorious. He seemed extremely satisfied. The more compassionate he was towards me, the more jealous I felt inside. At times, I felt my own emptiness, but for him. That did not deter me from my wanting to be number one.
I was becoming more and more passionate about my dreams to be the leader of this group. My mind schemed and one day, I gave it a final shape. I waited for the right opportunity.
The opportunity came soon. It was a New Moon day and Shankara was to deliver a ‘pravachan’ to a large group of villagers on the other side of the river. It was early evening and it rained heavily. The usual boatman didn’t turn up and there was no message from him. Shankara never made anyone wait for him, nor he waited for anyone. He was rearing to go. On occasions, I had rowed boats for him and Shankara commanded me to row for him this time again. I jumped at the rare opportunity. My scheming mind suddenly became very alert. I was more than usually enthusiastic. My imagination was running riot. I tried to hurry Shankara, lest he changed his mind. A few other monks offered to accompany us, but luckily for me, the small boat could take only two.
I got into the boat and signaled that I was ready to row. Surrounded by other monks, Shankara elegantly walked to the banks of the river and I was already seeing the great aura around him. My heart began to pound faster. Shankara was all in his graceful smiles and looked to be challenging me. ‘What harm can you do to me?’
He came down the few small steps that led to the water to where I was waiting in the boat. The heavy downpour too had suddenly abated and the sky was getting clearer.
‘Come on, let us go! Hurry up, otherwise we could be late,’ Shankara ordered me.
I let loose the moor and the boat began its free float along the current. Soon, we got into the swift current of the river. Fortunately for us, we were to sail with the current to the other side of the river and my labor was limited to maintaining our course and avoiding twirls. In many places, the river was very deep. Shankara was in deep contemplation, as he used to be on several occasion, oblivious of the surroundings.
I knew that Shankara was not an able swimmer. The water current was quite strong and rough. Visibility was poor. I was just ready for action and was about to lift the oar to complete what I had schemed in my mind.
A sudden powerful lightning blinded me for a moment, followed by a roaring thunder that deafened me and that was it. I was shell-shocked to clearly know what happened immediately after.
The boat turned three hundred and sixty degrees and capsized. I was thrown into the river and carried away by the water current. I vaguely remembered trying to catch hold of the boat which was moving away from me. I was being pulled into a few water twirls and felt completely powerless. I was normally an able swimmer, but that day, I lost all my strength and started drowning. Water entered my lungs and I was losing my ability to breathe. I tried to shout out, but words didn’t come out. Next thing I remembered was, I was dying. No one could prevent that happening. I was gone forever. There was no chance of my becoming number one in the monk order. Would I ever get a chance again?
But it appeared I was biding time with destiny. When I opened my eyes, - I didn’t know for how long I was gone – Shankara was holding my hand and I was feeling the energy returning back to me. I was lying on the muddy banks of the river. Shankara didn’t say anything, but I could see compassion in his eyes. He continued to radiate comfort to me. I was overwhelmed with guilt. Before Shankara said anything, I opened my both arms and begged, “Oh, Prabho! Please forgive me!’
I might have been saved from drowning in the river, but even Shankara wouldn’t be able to save me from drowning in my guilt, I believed. “To what level had I fallen, my God?”
I felt a sudden shooting pain in my chest and I couldn’t breathe anymore. Once again I tried to plead guilty and ask forgiveness from Shankara, but words failed to come out. This time, I saw my life slowly extricating itself from me and a silence falling on me. I do not really know whether I heard Shankara speaking to me thus:
“No, it wasn’t your fault, after all. Carry no guilt. I knew you were born to do great things, but it appears you became impatient. Do not worry, time will pass by quickly. We will again be together after two spells of nearly seven hundred years each and our association then would be for a very long period. You will come back again, to be number one. You will commit yourself to a number of stupendous, noble tasks that millions of people will remember you for and I will be with you in all that you will be doing. Your name will be inscribed in history for your individual commitment and dedication. Now, I cannot hold you for long. May that Divine be with you!”
I was gone, but the words were ringing in my years as I rose higher and higher only to disappear.
*****
I returned to my present plane and everything was very hazy to me. For a few moments, I couldn’t guess where I was. An authoritative voice brought me back to the ground.
“Now, keeping your eyes closed, stand up, turn back, then open your eyes, and walk ahead looking straight. Never turn back to find out who I am! That is unimportant to you. But be assured, I would be your shadow all the way. Now, you may go!”
Whatever one might feel – one may believe it or not – about my experiences during these seven years - this was exactly how it happened. Even I had no clue and not for once, did I try to understand. I knew it was futile to find meaning for every experience.
‘An enlightened person is one who understands that there is nothing to be understood in this creation!’
But I knew for sure something very curious, interesting and exciting was lying ahead.
I walked away confidently. I felt normal. For the first time in several years, I felt very hungry, only to know that I had nothing with me to barter for some food. I searched for my one rupee coin that had disappeared mysteriously from me.
The talisman given by the Catholic Father years ago when I left the hospital in my village was safely dangling from my arm.
*****
