Chapter 7
When I woke up, I was lying in the inner ‘prakara ’ (corridor) of Kutralanathar temple. But for some feeble light coming from a few oil lamps, the place was dark. It seemed to be night and the temple was closed. I was alone. Lord Siva seemed to be my only companion. I was scared to death. I gathered some strength and ran to the exit door, but it was closed. I circled around the corridors, but there was no other exit. Crying and shouting aloud for help, I banged the main exit door hoping someone outside would hear me and arrange to open them for me. I ran back inside, saw the temple bell, pulled the rope and rang the bell several times hoping it could be heard outside. The ringing of the bell echoed from all directions. I ran back to the entrance and banged the door again. Nothing happened.
‘Is the temple sound proof?’
I felt checkmated. I had no escape. I had no choices. I was trapped.
There was only one route for my escape.
Surrender. Surrender to Lord Siva who had risen as Kutralanadhar here in this temple.
That was what I did. I ran back to Lord Siva. Strangely, the doors to the sanctum Sanctorum were open. How could it be? This never happened in the temples during the nights. How can the poojari be so careless? I stepped inside the sanctum Sanctorum, fell flat before Lord Siva and cried and cried like never before.
‘What is happening to me? Please help me.’ I asked Lord Siva.
“I won’t get up until I find an answer.”
The stone idol of Lord Shiva gave me no response. I must have been lying down there crying for long in frustration. Out of exhaustion I must have fallen into deep sleep.
The next morning, when the temple was opened, pandemonium broke out. I was surrounded by the security, the police, the administrative officers and a big crowd of curious onlookers. I was interrogated, intimidated, warned, and nearly assaulted. They found no clue as to how I got into the temple during the night. In the end, they couldn’t frame me with anything. Many believed I could be innocent. They didn’t want to trust anything that I told them, though several onlookers were seen gossiping and debating punishing me. They must have come to the conclusion that I was a fit case to be sent to some mental asylum for treatment. I was finally let out in the evening with a stern warning. It still remained a mystery how I got into the temple.
I was hungry and dying.
Once I was free and outside, I forgot my hunger and the painful experience. I was again drawn to the same spot inside the cave up the hills where I found the sadhu sitting in deep meditation and radiating. I went back to the hills, but now, I couldn’t locate the place immediately. But with perseverance and patience, I recalled every step I took the previous night – in fact, it was not the previous night, but a few nights before; it was hard to explain what – I found the place at last before it became very dark.
I went through the same maneuvering to get into the first cave – knelt down, crawled, occasionally sat down, twisted my body and managed to reach the entrance to the second cave. I banged my head on the rocks a few times, my knees were bleeding, and I was breathless with exhaustion.
‘Will I be able to get back to Courtallam alive?’
The opening to the second cave appeared more manageable this time, though I had to repeat the same process once again in darkness.
Now I was well inside the second cave. The lamp was still alive with shimmering light.
How come?
Alas! The sadhu wasn’t there in the cave. The shadows inside the cave were still terrifying, but I wasn’t so much scared this time.
‘Let what is to happen to me happen to me!’
Out of some bizarre curiosity, I approached the stone where I had earlier seen the sadhu meditating. I sat over it, crossing my legs and closed my eyes. In that weird setting, with eyes closed, I noticed for the first time that I was breathing.
‘How many times I have ever witnessed my own breathing?’
I also realized for the first time that my breathing was erratic. When I focused on my erratic breathing, it tended to become more normal. The more I focused on my breathing, the more relaxed I felt – first in my body and then in my mind. Some inexplicable feeling of relaxation slowly spread from my head, passing through my face, my shoulders, my chest, my stomach, my back flowing down to my knees, ankle, and feet and then flowed out through my toes. As I relaxed more, I noticed the same relaxation flowing backward from my toes to my head. This happened several times – the downward and upward movement of the feeling of relaxation - and then I seemed to be losing myself. At times, I felt as though I was very heavy and other times, I felt as though I was very light floating away. After some time, I felt some energy passing through me – head to toes and toes to head. As time passed, more energy flowed into me and soon, I was rocked by very high energy – as though a million volts electric current was passing through me. I rocked, jumped and flew high up in the air and very soon I lost all my consciousness.
When I woke up, I was in the Kutralanadhar temple again. ‘How did I come here?’ ‘Who brought me here?’ ‘Am I dreaming?’ ‘How many days have passed by?’ Nothing was clear to me. I didn’t remember anything.
It was day time, no one seemed to have noticed my presence inside the temple, and so no one was bothered about me.
I was thoroughly confused about how I was brought inside the temple. That remained a mystery even today after several decades. I tried to find an answer and but I always hit a wall.
I felt lured by the same location and the stone in the cave on the hills repeatedly. I went back again and again and followed the same routine. The experiences too repeated. When I regained consciousness every time, I found myself inside the Kutralanadhar temple.
‘Was HE bringing me here every time I lost myself?’ The mystery continued.
I was also getting addicted to these experiences and I sought them repeatedly.
The experience continued into the next several weeks. I lost all track of days or nights or time. I hardly felt hungry and I ate virtually nothing. I lost any desire to eat. I lived, drinking water and breathing air. But I felt stronger and stronger with each passing day and I seemed to be ‘possessed’ by some indomitable energy.
‘Am I a possessed person?’
I never dared to share my experiences with anyone. Like an addict, I longed to have the same experience again and again. The same hill, the same cave, the same stone and the same pitch darkness. The high energy seemed to shatter me to thousands of pieces, rock me, and toss me up in the air every time, while ultimately, I always lost consciousness and then I found myself in the temple when I woke up.
And now, no one seemed to be taking notice of me. ‘Have I become invisible to them? Have I become a ghost?’
I wasn’t afraid of darkness anymore. Rather, we became friendly. I could see through darkness even at night. Darkness revealed many things that light didn’t.
‘What is happening to me?’
For the next several months, I didn’t see the sadhu . It didn’t matter to me. I didn’t bother to go to the congregation to check whether he visited there anymore.
After several weeks of recurring mystical experiences, I noticed my fear and apprehensions disappearing and in its place, peace and tranquility filling me. I never felt wanting. Every moment of my life was ecstasy and fulfillment for me. A strange and inexplicable satisfaction and contentment prevailed. It never occurred to me that it was a kind of rebirth and that my destiny had been re-scripted. I had never anticipated a complete change in my life.
A couple of years passed by, like the wink of an eye or snap of fingers. During those years, I never recognized myself as someone existing. The school that employed me came to me to find out what was happening, but I wasn’t interested in teaching anymore.
I was also seen in Chithira Sabhai very often in deep meditation. People must have concluded that I was a saint too. As they usually did with other saints, they began surrounding me, attending on me, prostrating before me and anticipating a few good words from me when I opened my eyes. But when I opened my eyes, all that they got was a blank look from me and they appeared satisfied even with that. Rather, it appeared that the only thing they expected from me was a mere look at them. When they thought I made an eye contact with them, they would immediately tap their cheeks with their hands in devotion, as they usually did in temples before the deity whenever the arthi was shown for the idol.
Soon, I seemed to have gained popularity. Words spread about me. People sat in congregation in front of me, but I did not offer them anything other than a blank look. But the people were satisfied even with my look at them. Some whispered that I was a saint observing ‘mouna vrath’ (silent retreat) all the time.
My sojourn into the hill and the cave was getting less and less frequent, though occasionally, I went there without even knowing myself. Mostly, I had no track of time. I went into trance without any effort.
I was getting strange visions while I was in trance.
In one such vision, I saw people struggling in floods in some hilly slopes, gasping for breath and in another moment I was there saving several people from the flood.
In a second vision, I and another unidentified person were recovering some treasure hidden beneath the earth in a temple.
In a third vision, I was leading a movement for ending children begging and giving them literacy.
In my fourth vision, I saw young boys and girls playing in trapeze and bars.
In my fifth vision, I saw a village meeting where I sat as the chairman of the meeting and an acrimonious fight was taking place among those present.
In yet another vision, I saw myself doing business, employing thousands of people, and exporting goods.
And many more visions!
When I had these visions, it looked as though they were happening to me right then at that moment. I stayed with those visions for days together. ‘What did those visions tell me?’ I had no clue.
The visions usually went hazy, until finally I saw myself lying in a bed, unable to move my hands or legs. They went dead for hours. When I tried to speak, nothing came out. I had seen a few ladies lifting me on the bed to a sitting posture and assisting me in eating. Tears rolled down my eyes and they wiped it away. I was telling them something they didn’t fully comprehend.
Once, I started developing strange and mysterious bruises and cuts all over my body and I was bleeding. People around me were curious and worried. They asked whether it was hurting me. I didn’t know. I had no explanation.
Another time, some of my followers seemed to have traced me outside the cave and they found me totally unconscious in front of the cave in the most repugnant conditions. When they told me after I regained consciousness, I had no awareness of anything and gave them a blank look.
More and more people kept coming to me for reasons unknown to me. They were all innocent villagers and peasants. Many of them would narrate their personal woes and miseries and look to me for some blessings or solutions.
Some of the visitors filled me in great detail, the happenings during the last days of the British Raj in India, about the negotiations that took place between Gandhiji and the British rulers about giving freedom to India, about Noakhali riots in Oct 1946, about India becoming free in August, 1947, about Nehru becoming the first Prime Minister of the free India, the massacre in Punjab and much more about the last days of the freedom struggle. At other times, people told me about the riots and tension prevailing everywhere in the country because Gandhi ji was assassinated during one of his bhajan sessions. People in tears congregated before me in very large numbers.
Another person, who claimed himself to be a great devotee of Shri Ramana at Tiruvannamalai, returned crying from Ramana’s Ashram and told me how Shri Ramana seemed to have developed very serious cancer, how he had been undergoing surgeries - one after another - without any cure and that Ramana refused to have amputation done from his arm to shoulder to save his life.
I could offer nothing more than a silent look at them. I neither had pain nor suffering, neither sorrow nor joy; I was bereft of any emotion. But I felt complete fulfillment – no wanting, no longing.
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