The thief of divine grace

 When I’m near Gaga Ma I somehow go footloose. Walking on Her banks or on the landscapes shaped by Her torrential flow becomes my meditation, my ritual, my tapasya. I just find myself keep walking. The pent-up energies, emotions, karmic entanglements all start flowing as if pushed by Her blessing shove. I just walk. Gently. In a fine flow with myself. No destination. No goal. She does what is supposed to be done; what is needed for Her child’s growth.

This is late April and I’m staying at Dharali. I’m here to walk with Ma Ganga Doli Yatra from Mukwa to Gangotri—the colorful procession starting from Her winter abode to culminate at Her summer home. It’s a soulful procession, full of colors, redolent with local hill people’s unquestionable faith in Ma Ganga. No words can describe the feeling. I walk with them and simply keep looking at Her beautiful, kind, pious face visible through the small opening in the little silver shrine being carried by the bearers. I’m just soaking myself with as much darshan as possible. Plundering the divine prasada actually. Greedily. Copiously.

It’s a lovely little trek lasting about 22 km. When the procession reaches Gangotri, the entire little pilgrimage town lines up to welcome their mother. The place is as good as nonexistent without Her. No wonder it’s abandoned during the winter months when the mother is away at Mukwa.

There is a suspension bridge over Ganga Ma linking Dharali on this side to Mukwa on the opposite hill. During nights I keep walking from this end of the bridge to the other. The hill people usually stay indoors after the dark, so I have the bridge all to myself for meditative walks. It’s a spiritually heady cocktail of elements: the mountain wind rushing through the valley, Ma Ganga’s roar, my seeking self and pristine open starry sky above. All the elements forming a tiny intersection defining my path.

I keep asking people whether they know some real saint to recommend for a meeting. Almost all of them say—with helplessness—that presently it’s all about money, power, authority, perks and privileges; religion is more or less a big business and political tool now; the babas are powerful and do liaisoning work facilitating big interests of powerful people. But when was it not so? The ritualistic part has always engaged with worldly matters more or less on the base frequency.

I’m more into spirituality. Moreover, this is kaliyuga—the age of darkness and expecting satyuga purity in kaliyuga sages would be asking too much. To me it’s pretty simple. Earlier in pure climate you had massive trees lasting centuries; now we have lesser trees struggling to survive in the changed climate. The same is the case with the sages in the changed, degraded social climate. They are also the stunted version of the lofty mythical sages of the ancient times. But at least they are carrying the lineage and deserve respect for that. So I’m not too judgmental and usually try to have satsang with kaliyuga saints.

Mahesh, the gentle and kind hotelier, is a thorough gentleman; always ready to do something for the babas and matajis of the entire area from his place till Gangotri. I ask him about any serious baba. He also says with sadness that it’s all business now. ‘But you can try meeting this avadhuta. But it depends on his mood. Usually he asks the visitors to leave within a couple of minutes or straightaway refuses to meet,’ he tells me.

This babaji stays at the other end of the bridge towards Mukwa. As you emerge on the other end of the bridge, the main steep climb goes to Mukwa up the hill. The baba has a tiny hut of planks and tin fixed against a rockface on the left side a few meters above Ma Ganga’s stream. To reach his ramshackle little gate, one has to walk under the bridge along the bank and cross over to the other side of the bridge’s base.

As I reach the tiny indicator of the start of a human’s domain in free wilderness, I see a stocky figure sitting under a tree on a platform in front of the hut. I gently hark his attention from the gate. He waves his hand asking me to come in. I walk gingerly. I’m extra cautious, full of additional politeness in order not to disturb him. As I come near, with a swift action he throws a small durri piece on a beaten down wooden chair near him. I touch his feet and sit at the chair’s edge with folded hands.

‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you swami ji. I just wanted to see you. I simply come as an empty vessel. Ready to accept whatever you bless me with,’ I cautiously approach with respect and acceptance of his graceful presence. He laughs with childlike innocence.

I keep my promise of being an empty vessel and just listen. The baba talks. I’m lucky that he is feeling happy to talk today. He is a Begali baba initiated into Ramakrishna mission. But he found the ashrams too binding and has been on his own for the last six decades, most of which he has spent in this area near Ma Ganga including the last 37 years here at this place. Earlier he was at a cave about one kilometer up the stream for some years and before that at Gangotri.

He speaks with a cute Bangla accent. Quite hale and hearty for his 77 years. The baba is happy to share his life story and even tells me about his family. It’s a nice satsang for an and hour and fifteen minutes. He is quite vocal about a sadhak keeping the vow of celibacy. I have my opinion on this but I know he knows more than me and I must listen to him.

‘O narayan ji, why are you unnecessarily entangled in this worldly maya? Leave it. Quit,’ he says it very naturally like he feels that’s what I should do now. ‘Sit for sadhna. You can sit in my former cave some distance from here. I’ll ask the villagers to help you initially. In any case, what does a sanyasi need? The basic needs are met by mother nature. So you need not worry about that,’ the baba is quite optimistic about me taking full sanyas and abandon all worldly connections.

‘Can’t one achieve peace even while staying in the world with its issues?’ I ask. He says a firm ‘no’ and doesn’t explain it further than this. I have arguments in my talkative mind but I don’t say anything.

Even Kaka Maharaj, who stays outside the village, asked me to abandon everything and sit for sadhna somewhere by the canal in the area where he has been staying for the last many decades. In fact, my brother laughs that I have been offered two penthouses by two babajis. But I know I’m not for complete severance of worldly ties. I’m for a balanced life in all matters. More than that, I believe in reading and writing and that I will do till my last breath. I’m not worried even if that creates situations not conducive to absolute peace. No problem.

‘If you don’t quit, the God will force you to leave all this worldliness, which stops one from enjoying the grace of absolute peace,’ the baba says emphatically. I just clear my throat apologetically.

As I take leave and stoop down to touch his feet, the baba puts his loving, kind hand on my head and gently pats my back saying, ‘Peace be with you! Peace be with you!’ He gives me two apples, a bit stale, dejuiced, somewhat shriveled. Actually all his apples were like that. He isn’t bothered about freshness of fruits. But the fruits are fresh with divine grace.

During our interaction the baba has a firm idea that I’m a bookworm. He opens a bundle of soiled cloth and from the stack of very old books randomly picks a part of an old, dog-eared book. ‘Read it! But reading scriptures is like using a thorn to take out the thorn in one’s flesh. After taking out the thorn both thorns have to be discarded,’ he says. The baba knows the utility and futility of knowledge. He is after all a graduate himself.

There I walk back after hitting the jackpot—satsang with a saint, two apples and an old book about the lamp of knowledge. The rumpled, crumpled book has been thoroughly thumbed; possibly during his former knowledge-seeking days. The thorn of knowledge which he used to pull out the thorn of ignorance. The pages bear extensive markings, underlines, sidenotes and scrawls in Bangla to give me an idea how extensively babaji has gone through this book. He seems to have gone into depths over each world and phrase on the banks of Ganga Ma over the decades. This is a prized catch—in worldly lingo. I might not be able to read it as extensively as the baba but its mere presence among my books is enough to dispel the dark corners of ignorance in my study. It’s enlightening just by its presence. How it can’t be? After all, it has stayed in the hands of such a longtime sadhak who has definitely attained a joyful state. I feel that joyfulness in my head now. A feeling of ease. Palpable. Not many ideas swimming in the brainy pool. Just an emptiness. I feel the grace of his peaceful touch as I walk back.

Yea, missed to tell it. The baba listens with the cute excitement of a child listening to fairy tales. I was telling him the story of a Zen monk and he looked and listened in rapt attention, a childlike smile on his face all along the narration.