A self-inspired soldier of orderliness

 

This little sketch is inspired by a nice human being possessing a lovely positive approach to life. Ajay is a man in his fifties. He is an uncommonly sobered man. Smart, active, graceful with gentlemanly elegance, he is the principal of a government senior secondary school in Haryana.

One can clearly see that his school is an extension of his home and hearth: a constructive, creative zone of personal and professional elements that mix and blend harmoniously to form an outstanding institution.

No wonder the school under his charge stands out for its cleanliness, neat and clean garden, well-maintained building, clean bathrooms and well-meaning and concerned staff.

The head teacher’s kindly, ponderous eyes scanning the bestial blows of entropy and disorder spooling the typical mischief that has sadly become the hallmark of governmental schools in the country. 

Given the above facts, the school looks seas apart from pathetically neglected government schools surrounding this nice and cozy educational nest. The casual flightiness, so ubiquitous in state run schools, is missing in the school under his care.

He loves plants and trees. The kindly school chief’s spare energies are duly invested in regular plantation drives on the school premises as well as the surrounding areas. Many students purposefully footing along the chief teacher.

The soft crooner of melodies standing like a guiding star in the messy coop of boisterously squalid germs of ignorance and apathy in government schools.   

The gentleman principal has a great attitude towards life. When he finds something unnecessarily scattered around—some broken furniture, things disarranged and out of order, some randomness jutting out of the clean scheme of things—he is instinctively drawn to bring symmetry and order to it.

A little bulwark against the cranky, frisky, sneaky, rag-tag parliamentary disorder.

He has a very gentle and soft philosophy that drives this dignified urge to put things in order:

‘See, every disorder, any type of physical or mental disharmony, organizational disorder, clutter and chaos of things in a room or in a garden is seeking your attention. It wants to be remedied and put in decent order. It’s seeking symmetry and a well-shaped meaning. That’s a drive towards beauty and truth. But it can’t do it on its own. It seeks your attention; gropes for empathy in your heart to bring its ‘will to order’ into effect. So you have to be aware of this possibility of setting things in proper order. You have to be conscious that you are here to help the cause of positive change by rearranging the scattered things and elements around you.’    

When the great Taj turned into a barn

 

The legendary Jat king of the eighteenth century, Maharaja Surajmal once captured the great Taj Mahal in Agra. The Mughal kingdom was in disarray and the Jat ruler of Bharatpur in Rajasthan made challenging, humiliating forays into Mughal territories.

Jats are hereditary peasants. The great king of farming clans hadn’t much clue as to what to do with the wonder in marblework. But his farming knowledge helped him in this regard. He did something that assuaged his winner’s pride as well as kept the monument’s timeless beauty intact.

Even at the cusp of aesthetic inarticulateness, he didn’t strip the marble beauty of its honor; didn’t rape it like the clichéd ways of the medieval Islamic empire builders who ravaged beauty in stones with incalculable indigence of the soul.

With charismatic, ready, rustic wit, and naturalness of a mirthful clan having long affinities with jokes and puns, he turned the grand monument into a barn, put fodder in its grand ornate chambers and tied horses in regal arched passages.

But that was temporary; a temporary transmutation; a short eclipse like a cloud briefly covering the face of full moon on a clear night. He lost control of his glittering white barn after some time. So the wonder of mythical proportions was left almost untouched even after falling in the hands of a rival king. It just needed cleaning to get into order again as a beacon of love and beauty.

But to give the Jat ruler credit, he didn’t damage the wonder of the world like many medieval Islamic zealots, carrying archetypal punitive zeal against the kafirs, who attacked and destroyed many beautiful monuments, temples and libraries just for the sheer blind-faith born fun and revelry of intolerance and violence on those who followed a different faith. Carrying dexterous menace, they prided themselves as destroyers of statues, which they condemned as unholy, pretentious and perfunctory. And hence mutilated thousands of loveliest artworks in Buddhist monasteries and Hindu temples.   

   

The burning kiln of lost love

 

In keeping with the great syncretic traditions of India, Ranjha (a Muslim) after being bashed and thrashed by Heer’s wards and taunted by merciless society became an ascetic—a Gorakhnath sanyasi.

The burning kiln of lost love, the golden billows of pain, firing him into high orbits of spirituality. His heart exiled from itself; his grief opted for shelter under the healing cover of saffron robes.

The tragic love-tale is much sung, but his ascetic journey is put hindermost in folklore. The very same worldly wheedling enunciating love in terms of what he gave, what he received. But truth is never straight like this give-take equation suggests. You will see it if you look a bit slantwise. And avoid the oft usual credulous cauterizing.

As a Hindu ascetic, maybe, he wasn’t lolling sullenly as the thrifty tongue might tempt you to believe. Maybe he crossed over the dark cave—exceedingly impenetrable to the strenuously accustomed masses peering from behind the grilled posts—and tasted the real honey of love as a much broader lover. Maybe he turned a flame that no longer required a wick; a heart that got widened and vast beyond a particular lovely face; a house that got emptied to let the sky pour in with all its glory; his tears distilled and sublimated into mystical chastity and divine clarity; a lover transformed into a peaceful witness; a spating river that broke the banks of bondage to become a sea; the ash of dead love cooling down to become prayers.

The arc from wounded to boundless love: walking away from his former tormented identity; the sweet desire of a lover for his beloved shed like it was burden on the soul; his loneliness distilled into stillness and listening; his wounds healing after learning tranquility; his possessive cravings transforming into easeful presence; his love no longer asking rewards or compensation for his suffering; sitting in silence and no longer asking for fruits of madly selfless love for a woman; his love collapsing inwards to bloom like a lotus in a muddy pond.

But he is portrayed merely as a crestfallen, ashen-hearted loser, moving hollowly and despondently, jeered and leered by the motley squawks of sadistic tormentors.

I think, with his odd escape—a gaping hole in his heart; his heart nailed to the image of his beloved, his desire bound to the pearl of his heart—he reached where not many so-called successful lovers would ever reach.

The lady with a manly grip on life

 

Bla Bla car pool with a woman and her daughter from Mathura to Sonipat.

We take an early morning bus from Sonipat to Mathura, complete Govardhan parikrma by two in the afternoon after starting at nine, and then seek the most feasible ways to return home.

The return journey is usually challenging because there is no direct bus to our place in the afternoon. We take multiple buses or car pools to reach Ballabhgarh—outside the real log-jammed traffic congestion in Delhi that might take hours—then take a metro train (with one changeover on the way) to reach Subzi Mandi, then some passenger train to Sonipat, then ride or drive back to our village in either our car or on bike parked at the railway station at our hometown. We get back around eleven at night.

But this time we are lucky to get a Bla Bla car pool to Sonipat. A direct car pool to our hometown is a rarity.

The car owner is a criminal lawyer from Kurukshetra practicing at the Punjab and Haryana High Court for the last two decades. A strong woman with manly attitude to take life head on. She means business. Short and simple. Her daughter had law entrance examination at Mathura so she published a ride for three people. The third passenger is a serviceman going home for Diwali vacations.

She drives her Ciaz car like a racing driver, continuous honking and flicking dipper with utmost urgency, clearing and changing lanes with gazelle agility. She is talkative and shares her story.

A confident woman she drives her car even to Bihar in pursuit of her cases. Her parents died early and she was raised by her relatives. She was an orphan and felt like one as well under the care of insensitive relatives.

Later, her supportive husband proved a great factor in her law practice. She now supports education of five orphan girls and helps innocent juveniles unjustifiably snared in the net of law.

She is grooming her daughter quite well. The girl, aged nineteen, is running a café and plans to join her mother as a criminal lawyer after completing her degree.

Her two boys are in school. But they aren’t interested in studies. They mean business and give their mother a logic that even after education one goes on to make money so what is the problem if they can make money without big degrees. She agrees with them to a great degree. They are already earning through stock brokerage and internet marketing. ‘They are already earning more than many PhDs. So I don’t believe in this talk about quality education in prestigious institutions,’ she makes her point.

She says great lawyers and big businesspersons are groomed by the book of practical life itself.

Well, the entire family has a big consensus on earning huge bucks of money. And what is wrong in that? It’s their right, just like anyone else. On top of it, they work very hard to earn honest money. More importantly, the lady lawyer says she has the conscience to help the needy through her legal knowledge. She even works extra sincerely when she is fighting the legal battle for someone whom she thinks to be innocent.

I wish her all the best in this fast journey about hard work and money. She is a successful lawyer, supportive mom, good conversationalist and a furious yet safe driver. She has chartered the specifics of life with firm-jawed determination.

I count it as the story of an educated, successful, confident, empowered woman.

A kind farmer

 

There was a 250-year-old banyan tree. It stood on a parcel of land owned by a farmer named Balbir Singh. The land was acquired by the NHAI for road construction. The farmer tried to save the tree and requested to let the tree stay at its original place and divert the road a bit.

The kindly farmer had absolutely no problem about his land being acquired for building roads. He just wanted to save the tree. He was ready to offer more land for development provided the highway was re-routed to save the tree.

He told them that the tree would look beautiful as a landmark. But they didn’t listen to him. The roads go straight with a dreadful effrontery. Mere trees are just insignificantly irksome. The roads, on the other hand, are the swords cutting distances. They are cold hearted and cut trees, hills and homes in their wake. Unsparing insentient beings.

All his efforts to save the ancient tree went unheeded. The farmer really loved the tree and requested the authorities to replant the tree at a suitable place. He launched a campaign to force the authorities to replant it at a place of his choice.

A social media campaign was started to save the tree. Many activists, NGOs and volunteers also added their voice of support. They even reached the doorsteps of the local Member of Parliament.

His efforts at least convinced the authorities to relocate the tree to another place in his landholding. The NHAI officials, the local administration, horticulture experts and land acquisition authorities assured him that they would try their best to expertly uproot the tree and replant it at a different place. He was clearly given a word that the tree would surely survive after the scientific relocation.

He chose his own land for the grand old tree’s replanting and became the axis of the replanting drive. The administration kept emphasizing that the roots would be intact and the tree will be grafted using all the scientific practices to ensure it will re-grow.

Sadly, even after a good monsoon came and went, the tree didn’t grow a single new shoot. The farmer himself watered the replanted tree and took ample care. Even the horticulture experts visited frequently for follow-up steps. But the tree didn’t sprout.

The farmer is feeling let down by the authorities. He is thinking of taking them to the court for making a false promise and breach of trust. Kisan Unions and environmentalists have been lending their voice in support of the farmer.

The farmer sees the tree as a legacy for his progeny. His ancestors had worked hard in the fields and rested under its shade. The tree was the pride of the village and was said to be planted by some Muslim family in pre-independent India. He fondly reminisces that cattle, animals, birds and humans took shelter under it in the scorching heat.

Well, it’s a glimmer of hope that there are people around who love trees more than the commerce of land. The cherry-toned whisper of love for nature in this post-modernist bewilderment. The soft-springed gait amidst the collective floundering rush towards the precipice overlooking a still nastier abyss. 

 

Afghanistan is a beautiful but bloodied land. So many dreams die even before they take birth. But a 13-year-old boy dreamt big and high. He took a gutsy step to fulfill his dream of going to Iran. A brusque and curt plan propelled by boyhood’s innocence where there is hardly any difference between facts and fancy.

On a promising Sunday morning, dressed in white kurta-pyjama, he managed to sneak into Kabul airport and got mixed in a queue of passengers going to board a plane and occupied his free, unauthorized seat in the plane’s rear wheel well, his private business class in the internal compartment housing the landing gear.

He had come all prepared. His luggage included ‘a small red-colored audio speaker’. The boy must be in love with it. Perfect. But he boarded the wrong plane. The plane was bound for India rather than Iran.

Flying over 40,000 feet, where temperature drops to minus 50 degree Celsius and oxygen just a small fraction of what it’s at the sea level, he landed at Delhi airport after the 90-minute flight. A miracle survivor in the unheated and unpressurized wheel well. Hypoxia and hypothermia make mortality rate as high as 80 percent for such stowaway passengers. Then there is a great risk of getting fatally injured by the movement of the landing gear. Or one may fall during flight or while landing due to the sheer shock of it.

The boy has entered the elite club of 132 such passengers who travelled in landing gear compartment between 1947 to 2025 (according to the US Federal Aviation Administration). But the boy didn’t know that it takes more than boarding a plane to successfully reach the destination. He could barely feel the solicitous sensation and playful air of a boy realizing his dream. He had no clue how and where to go, so was easily spotted by the security personnel. Sadly the Indian authorities had no ways to reward him for his feat. Under the immigration laws there was just one option. He was made to board the same return flight in the evening. But inside the aircraft this time.

Well, his stowaway journey earned him a stopover at the IGI, New Delhi and a normal ticket back home apart from the status of few rare surviving stowaways. He is still a kid and I’m sure will retain his spirits and share all about his popular journey with his friends. He definitely has dreams of flying. But he needs to work, study, turn wise, skilled and then board a legal flight to pursue his Iranian dreams.

Given his raw cache of guts he can surely do this. He has lots of stamina apart from bundles of courage. But courage and stamina should never be put to such wayward, random plans. There is always a proper, legal way of realizing one’s high-flying dreams.

His courage is irrefutable and incredulous. He possesses the seeds of a handsome stalwart. He just needs to tone down the thundering pitch of raw valor and guide it for proper objectives. Rather, the Afghan authorities need to take note of his potential and guide him for better plans than stowaway flights.

The story of a Tibetan sadhak

 

Tibetan Buddhism is one of the most pristinely preserved belief systems. There was a time when every Tibetan family had a full monk or nun devoted to keep the lineage going. Tibet had more monks than soldiers. Imagine the spiritual depth of this vast land during those times. Then tragedy struck. Atheist China put a big challenge for the Tibetans to preserve their unique culture and religion. Scattered over different countries in tiny communities, Tibetans still hold onto their faith with devotional perseverance.

I know a few lovely Tibetan Buddhist sadhaks, one of them a deeply, spiritually imbued woman sadhak. She is a good friend. She was out of radar for the last three years and I was worried about her. But the other day it came as a relief to know that she was fine. She was in a remote cave in a totally uninhabited part of Ladakh. Faith makes you quite daring on the path and pushed by the same force she carried her basic provisions on six pack horses and trekked for one full day to reach a remote cave. She meditated here for three years in complete isolation.

I am amazed at the spiritual passion of the Tibetan Buddhists to maintain their legacy. It’s a vast domain of esoteric, mystical practices. I myself don’t believe in extreme austerity on the path of religion and feel comfortable with Buddha’s middle path, but I respect such honest seeking by someone on the path of realizing the true Self.

She is back to her east Asian country at the moment and sends me a mesmerizing collection of pictures. The pictures from her spiritual hideout somewhere in Zanskar, Ladakh are unbelievably grand, almost mythically exciting.

It was a little cave-cum-room away from a remote hamlet in Zanskar, beyond the glutinous knick-knacks of crowded worldliness; in unmoored, unfettered, uncontrolled, untouched, unmoved, untrammeled barren hills; among stones and a few wild streams. Using her woman’s skills to mold her surroundings in the colors of her aesthetic sense, she covered the tiny hovel with colorful Buddhist murals, cloth paintings and carpets covering the entire walls. And there trying to come out of the zigzag course of follies, she—surrounded by the colorful syrupy souvenirs of faith—sits down to meditate to realize the straight, simple path to wisdom.  

Emptiness here is clearly defined by miles of barren brown canvas, pristine blue of the sky, pure white of the clouds, a rippling stream in the gorge down the slope and howling mountain gales. Here she would look into the distances, witnessing the nature’s avatar as a serrated knife on the one end and a wisp of wool on the other. As she sat exploring the miles of emptiness in her heart, the cutting mountain wind went harping on the sturdiest stones and the clouds melted in the pristine blue.

In winter she would sit down under the falling snow on the frozen banks of the once gurgling stream. The rushing blue liquid in a thin line between the frozen banks. Her maroon great cape cradling her physical body while the soul kissed the snows on the slopes around.

Mother nature slowly filled its few colors on the almost empty canvas. Brown fire on sunlit slopes. Blue snows on the shadowed slopes. Massive boulders beaten and shaped by the wind stood like ferocious demonic sentries protecting her isolated haunt. The sentinels of this isolation singing with the mountain winds. A leafless bush standing like a torn banner of summers; but still holding up the hopes for a revival. The subdued murmur of the thin stream between frozen banks carrying the prayers alive to burst forth with the songs of summer some day.

Her neighbor would be a tiny sparrow peeping with curiosity from the makeshift window sill, wonderstruck at the tiny cocoon of colors inside.

She would muse over a rainbow above the chocolate brown hills against dark grey clouds, its arc vanishing into the clouds suspended like hanging waterfalls of wool. Then the summer would have sparse grass and wild little flowers. She would hold a flower and muse over the irresistible force that life is, always fighting to come out of snows and stones; the iron will of a little seed to stay under the snows and burst forth with joy as the summer sun melted the snow sheets.

She would peek into the sky where the little fluffs of clouds floated in a mauve sea of tranquility. And all this would again transform into iciness, all cloaked in thick snows, just a few very steep snowless slopes visible. A perfect sun beating on a blinding blizzard of white. The sky flawlessly dark blue, not a speck of cloud. With the warmth of her faith cloaked in her maroon woolen cape she would sit to meditate on the snow. A drop of pious blood of life on the white icy face of death.

A few fluffy sparrows would sit meditatively with eyes closed on the little grain bowl. The snowy desolation making it feel remoter; the deep blue of the sky condensing the mystery even further, but drawing it still nearer to the soul. The strings of prayer flags hanging languidly with their sagged but discernible multiple colors: an effort of putting meaningful colors among the binary of white and blue prevailing around.

A flock of dozens of pigeons busy in searching among the partially visible dead grass on the frozen slope below her window, picking the grains of life, to fly, to play. Like an excited girl, catching to some innocent strand of harmless fun that she had in childhood, to see their fluttering flight in a flock, to play like a girl, to feel the excitement of the flight of the pigeons, she would move the creaking window. A lovely little prank with the birds in that snowy wilderness. And they would lift with a flutter and swoop down the valley.

Her only neighbors the birds playing on the snow-beaten dry grass, chirping to keep warm, grabbing some grass seed, some wisp of food for preserving life in this cold desert. Sometimes she saw flocks of gorals, the muscled, nimble essence of what the barren stones have to offer in the form of the beaten grass.

Then one day right in the middle of meditation two policeman arrived bearing a letter signed by the Senior Superintendent of Police-cum-FRO, district Kargil, copied to the SHO police station Zanskar. It accused her of illegally overstaying at Shadey village (for this was the nearest village) in Zanskar after the expiry of e-visa which had been extended by one year after the expiry of the initial one. The extension visa had expired six months ago. In her innocence she had even forgotten that boundaries existed in this divided world. She thought they would just forget her. So she hadn’t applied for further extension. The notice directed her to leave the country within ten days.

The policemen said, ‘Please leave India because your visa expired long ago.’ They were gentle people, didn’t scare her, so she served them tea and thought maybe she could mollify them. She replied, ‘I’m not going because I’m just meditating here and playing with animals. I am not meeting anyone, not doing anything bad against India.’ They laughed at her elementary schoolgirl’s pure innocence. How she wished there were no borders!

With a heavy heart she had to say a goodbye to the lovely pink colors of a dawn peeping over the dark brown hills as the day arrived. 

I had been sending her one-liner messages to know any update about her on Facebook and WhatsApp for the last three years. No response. The messages stood undelivered. Then she surfaced.

‘Hello, it’s me. I just finished a three year retreat in the mountains, everything is fine! Don’t worry! I will keep in touch with you,’ she assures me about her safety.

‘I’m glad mother existence gave you these golden hours of silence and seclusion. Let your path be showered with sunshine of awareness,’ I’m relieved that this nice woman, who reads my books and whom I met at Majnu Ka Tila Tibetan colony in Delhi over Tibetan tea and tsampa bread, is safe and well on her path to self realization.

‘I wanted to do a retreat for three years but now my visa is expired, so I have come back to Hanoi. So many wonderful experiences. I will tell you later. Now I am taking another five months of meditation and practicing speaking again. I have not spoken for almost three years now. Sometimes I will. Will send messages to you,’ she wrote.  

She seemed to be gingerly tottering back to the worldly clatter after that near perfect peace in the Himalayas. We had a deep exchange of messages over the coming week, I as a curious seeker and she as someone who is already at a very stable frequency.

‘You were in India all this time?! Vow… I was in Ladakh for two weeks this summer. Had I known I would have come to meet you,’ I’m excited like a child.

‘It would have been very difficult for you to access my hideout. I had to use six horses to carry my things and walk for a day to reach my hideout,’ she is very excited about this feat of isolating herself in an alien environment.

‘Are you into secret tantrik mystical Tibetan Buddhist practices?’ I ask because I feel that maybe she is into something very esoteric in nature.

‘I can’t tell you all. But I’m back home. The Indian police moved me, asking me to leave India immediately because my visa expired six months ago,’ I can feel traces of sadness in her messages. Why do the borders exist for such sincere mediators, I wonder.

‘Kindly share the wonderful experiences when you have time. I can try writing on these,’ I request.  

‘It is difficult to talk about my experiences during my days of retreat in the Himalayas. My mind was completely empty and there was only a gentle joy in enjoying everything around me. If you want to write something about it you must send me a list of your questions, because I do not know where to start and cannot describe to you my nameless joy. My meditation hours were always consecutive but did not put pressure on me. I did not use language but communicated by communion with the environment and the animals. Silence for me did not become heavy but a sweet absorption of stillness. I communed with the sound of the wind, of the river and the birds, the howling of wolves when the snow came. Each and every sound went straight to my heart and was very gentle. I can talk about my feelings all day long but for you to write it down you have to give me your list of questions, because I cannot tell you my experience in solid bullet points. I can only tell you that peace in emptiness always takes over me,’ her soul feels satiated with joy. I can feel this in each of her words.

I take closer looks at the pictures sent by her. It’s simply incredible. Even in virtual two dimensions they speak countless volumes about some mammoth dimension redolent with unbound peace and joy. 

‘This is paradise… a spiritual charging port for the willing person who is aware of this openness… beautiful… thanks a ton for sharing… I enjoyed watching these… So is it like charging the self, like we charge the batteries? But the batteries get discharged, so we get them plugged again for charging? So does your self also crave for charging after spending time in the city and hence you seek solitude again? It’s a lovely craving if it’s so…but how is it fundamentally different from other common cravings of the common people like me? Craving seems to be craving, even though it seems a holy one, but isn’t it still a need?

‘Do you expect to reach a stage where you feel the same serenity and peace which you feel in Zanskar in Hanoi itself? I mean an awareness when one is at peace even in outside chaos… like a steady lamp even among winds,’ my logical mind is full of questions.

‘Any mystical experience? I mean that would give some logical validation to the skeptics? Did you have any experience with entities and disembodied beings?’ my questions are endless.

The vacuum that she created in solitude is now spontaneously getting filled with explanatory words. This is very surprising because she has been very reserved during our interactions and hardly speaks during meetings, just silently listens to you. But now she has many words. 

‘Yes, I agree with you that true peace is when you are as comfortable in the middle of the market as you are in the mountains. Your emotions and awareness are not affected or get changed. But you also know that this is really difficult if you have not experienced true peace, and to achieve this you need to change your familiar living environment to clearly see how your mind and body work and how you recognize the entanglements from your mind. Being addicted to something cannot achieve true bliss. Sometimes you have to separate yourself from your familiar environment and experience different things.

‘I am not saying that living in the mountains will give you enlightenment or a super wisdom but I am saying that your experience with different living environments is important because only then you can separate yourself and observe how your mind works.

‘For me living alone in the mountains is not a challenge but a gift, I do not need to make any effort and when I return to the city I will have objective experiences when observing life in the city.

‘I want to experience contrasting ways of living so that I can observe how my mind works. That is my purpose when I withdraw from society and live fully with nature. Then I return to society and test myself.’

She is very clear about this lovely urge to merge with solitude on her solitary trail.

‘I can experience the mystical even when I live in the cities. It happens to me all the time, but living in the Himalayan environment and practicing silence there, it is always magical. I easily communicate with invisible beings and dakinis or angels. I can communicate with them mentally or I can see their manifestations through their transparent bodies. I can hear their music and smell their mystical scents. In short, I communicate with them as sentient beings with bodies. When I sing prayer songs in the mountains, sometimes they join me and sometimes I dance with them on the snow.

‘To others it may seem miraculous but to me it is normal communication. When you open your heart and immerse yourself in bliss you can easily feel the joy or suffering of all beings in other realms.

‘When you live in the mountains this is a great place for you to penetrate and communicate without words. This communication is completely different from verbal communication. You can easily understand every animal, every invisible being who wants to communicate with you and you can talk to them by opening your mind and heart to them. They will easily understand you.’

She expresses it beautifully. Yes, one’s experience is beyond words because words are fragments and are limited to our interpretation. But when we tell others, we are bound by words to convey what one has felt. But I have a questioning mind and I’m seeking answers on the plane where I have perceived things myself. She is talking of a different plane but she is graceful enough to try to make a bridge so that she can convey a portion of what she experienced there.

I’m trying to interpret her experience in my dimension, ‘You are right about the significance of exposing the self to different environments. It definitely enlarges the perspectives, gives additional dimensions of awareness and perception. So you mean basically it’s about exploring the mind, its ways, its patterns and impulsive structure. But can’t the mind mind its own business? The entire body is mind, each cell has memory and function and millions of spontaneous actions keep going without our conscious effort. So why should we mind the mind so much? Every thought, emotion, pattern, feeling, fluctuation is inherently part of the over-all cosmic pool of cosmic intelligence. So why should we just filter out a particular state to be better than the others, when mother existence is willing and ready to have the so-called worldly elements in its leela? You mean we mind the mind to that extent that we go beyond the patterns of impulsive thoughts and random changes in our feelings?

‘A very strong mind can manifest its beliefs. They say at the quantum level, there is no abstract reality without the observer. And the observed and the observer are interlinked. Tibetan Buddhism has concepts of dakinis and with conscious effort you manifest that reality. Maybe in that very pristine environment some Muslim or some tribal shaman from Africa or a Hindu devotee will manifest their deities and entities mentioned in their faith. Have you ever seen anything which is absolutely not related in shape or feeling to the dakinis mentioned in Tibetan Buddhism? Do they have strong likes and dislikes?

‘In India there is this story of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Totapuri. It tells to what extent Ramakrishna had taken his faith. He had taken it to the extent of seeing mother Kali alive in the idol at the temple where he stayed. He worshipped mother Kali, a prominent Hindu deity. And he was stuck up with that beautiful mind construct, the image of Ma Kali. He needed to be convinced to stop manifesting this reality at the quantum level—the observed is always related to the observer. Swami Totapuri could feel that Ramakrishna is stuck up in the holy chains of his mind construct (attachment to the deity) and needs to be set free. Using the same mental construct, he guided Ramakrishna to behead that image. Mother wanted him to grow beyond Her image. To become mature, to grow into a highly spiritual man, a true son of the divine mother. Dense perception, dense concept, dense focus create a too solid image. It also somehow restricts one’s flow. In infinity there is no final limit. All remains to be known even despite knowing all.’

I have my counter logic inspired by what the quantum physicists say about the ultimate nature of reality.   

Logic is insatiable. No point was ever proved by the sword of logic. Ever. Because each and every logic has a counter logic. But sweet is the addiction to logic, the bane of modern man, so I’m still on my logical fusillade, ‘Those who know that they don’t know and can’t know all despite being seen to know very much, will say there is nothing miraculous. What we take as miraculous is a simple cause and effect in its own dimension, just that we don’t understand and feel it. In its own field, the apparent miracle stands like a normal existence of a flower in my domain of existence. So I very much believe in your lived reality. It’s a cosmic soup, infinitely layered with potential for self-manifestation of its self through various means, for example through a gentle, highly aware peaceful being. And that includes you as well. So I don’t have any doubt about it. Yes, I might have a vague feel of it myself—the words of the wordless, the language of silence. Everything manifests in the womb of nothingness. This is what I felt in Ladakh myself.

‘In moderate climate you have luxuriant manifestation of life forms. But there is emptiness and sheer sense of nothingness in harsh Ladakh climate. No tree, just stones, open skies, distances redolent with the possibility for the emptiness to unfold miles after miles. As you move towards Ladakh, you are moving from dense manmade manifestations in the cities to naturally produced forests in middle Himalayas to the lofty barrenness in high Himalayas… from collective pool of struggling frequencies, we are moving to more harmonized layers of energies. No wonder, we feel relaxed in open forests. Here, mother earth is responding to favorable weather elements, trees, meadows, grass. It’s more evolved type of manifestation than the cluttered cities, but it’s still manifestation… under the burden of being so… in trees you have the game of life, natural noise, romantic and poetic… but still there is some heaviness, simply because there is a struggle for survival in this manifestation.

‘In Ladakh, on the other hand, it is almost empty. It feels like we are moving from the manifest to the unmanifest in that pure, lucid stony high-altitude desert. One feels even more relaxed and peaceful… it’s beyond the game of manifestation… just open iciness… the open forces of nature, unbridled, untouched by competing frequencies… a still picture… the frozen moments of just being so… so near to the unmanifest on the roof of the world. There have been so many sadhus and sadhaks who could feel the joy of just being so.’

She knows the value of silence. A logical talk about what can only be conveyed through a wordless smile can only be met with silence—a nice, courteous full stop. She doesn’t reply.

I acknowledge it, ‘Your “silence” is the best answer to a “chatterbox” like me. Words can never give answers. Mere pointers they are. But yes, by being relaxed and at peace one adds to the beauty around. A peaceful mind is like a honey drop in this bitter world. Lighted be your path to peace and joy!’

Now she knows that laughter is the best answer in this situation, ‘Haa haa.’ I visualize her laughing; her lovely, narrow eyes closing with childish mirth. ‘Don’t worry, I’m just a little busy and I’ll reply to everything for a talkative person like you.’

A spiritual person can easily laugh off such minor irritants like talkative persons. I’m amused that silence here was work, ‘If you have the time to waste then most welcome because the more I speak and write, the more I know how irrelevant and illusionary all this is.’

I find typing too limited to carry on with such a profound discussion, so I propose why not we talk on the issue.

‘I really have difficulty listening and speaking after three years in silence and solitude, so please write to me what you want to say,’ she is comfortable with typing.

‘It has been a long time since I spoke and heard human voices. Yup, everything written and spoken is a product of the mind and being a product of the mind it is an illusionary thing.

‘When I write down my feelings to send to you and then I read them again, I still feel like I haven’t said anything, what I want to convey to you is still far away.

‘You asked me “but can’t the mind mind its own business? The entire body is mind, each cell has memory and function and millions of spontaneous actions keep going without our conscious effort.” Yes, the mind is not capable of doing that, because the nature of the mind is always fluctuating and uncertain. It cannot take care of the peace of each of us, but it is only an expert in creating fake problems and dragging us into them, so recognizing and observing the mind is extremely important for each practitioner.

‘The mind cannot be spontaneous, only emotions from our heart or from our body can be spontaneous.

‘The mind operates from our conditioning of knowledge and it habitually dominates all our perceptions and gives us the illusion that we perceive from our own spontaneity.

‘The intelligent universe is not present in the mind but in the cells that make up our body.

‘Buddhism has the concept that the mind is the greatest obstacle that every practitioner must face and recognize his mind and not identify himself with the mind. If we are not controlled by the mind, no practice will be needed and religion is unnecessary. As you know, in primitive societies when people were innocent and lived naturally with themselves and there were no laws to control people, religion was unnecessary.

‘It is very important that practitioners today are always interested in methods to recognize and control the mind because we have lost our innocence and we have overvalued knowledge over real life experience.

‘The masters have spoken a truth: outside of the mind there is no Buddha, god or devil. Our mind creates heaven and creates hell.

‘So if you are a Buddhist then the visualizations like dakinis will correspond to your Buddhist perception and if you are a Hindu then your mind will always have images or symbols of Krishna, Mahakali. There is no fixed or standard religious or demonic image, all images will appear corresponding to your mind.

‘There are so many religions in the world today because we have so many different types of minds.

‘You asked “have you ever seen anything which is absolutely not related in shape or feeling to dakinis mentioned in Tibetan Buddhism? Do they have strong likes and dislikes?”

‘This is impossible because you can only see them through your mind, if any form is outside your trained mind you cannot see it. So when I tell you that I communicate with invisible entities like dakinis, they all come from my Buddhist mind.

‘Now I’ve said it, any questions you have I will continue to answer until eternity.’

Words are the limited waves that temporarily surface on the ultimate sea of realization of the truth. She is very confident of creating more waves to make me feel the uselessness of wordy waves in getting profound answers. 

‘You have problem in talking and listening. I have mine of typing because I am typing on my laptop most of the time and feel saturated with typing. All of us have our comfort zones. But yes that’s how one feels when ego melts and one feels like a small medium for the expression of a few things,’ a person with theoretical knowledge of the experiential matters is a very irritating rival in a spiritual discussion. 

Since she has given me a free hand in wordy discussion by saying that she is willing to talk till eternity to answer my questions I carry on with my queries.

‘What exactly is the mind? The concept of mind itself is our creation and what we have created can’t be an entity in abstract from our biological operation. Mind is a very vague concept, a wonderful creation of our brain operation. To me mind is the entire body. And what matters is a balanced body functioning. This in turn will create a balanced output at the operational level and for convenience we can say it is to have a balanced mind,’ I ask the question and give my answer for the same.

She answers, ‘In my experience there is never a balanced mind, we can only have a balance between mind and body. Mind can never be the whole body. Mind is a big illusion of ours, it does not really exist, it is a creation of the karma accumulated from our body. Mind exists because body exists, when you lose this body the mind also disappears. Our whole world is created by mind, that is why the masters say that the world is Maya.’

The subject of mind has always been very significant for me, so my counter comes readily.

‘Whatever you have written about mind arises from an assumption of mind as an abstract entity, something having a separate dimension from the body. It isn’t. The concept of mind is merely a total summary for the way our biological systems operate in entirety. This extreme focus on mind is the root cause of all the problems. Why give it that much importance to erect an entire system of theology, religion and meditation practices? Why not accept one’s reality at the natural level without the concept of mind? An existence in totality, like the rest of the species.

‘First we create an entire mountain of the complexity of mind, give it a name, assign it a problematic domain and then we set out to cut it down. It’s very easy to live at ease, in totality, in the moment without giving too much attention to this concept of mind. I don’t look at myself as a mind struggling with the rest of me. It’s just me, pure me—my flesh, my energy, my thoughts, my feelings. I don’t segregate and first visualize a mammoth entity like mind that’s putting hurdles in my evolution or enlightenment. I see myself as something very normal, an animal like a cat or dog, weak in my areas and strong in some zones. Simple. And the more balanced is the body operation, one need not get haunted by the ghost of mind.

‘Sorry I don’t agree. There is no separate zone between mind and body. I accept them as one. Then one need not fight for balance.

‘You say “mind exists because body exists.” Yes this is what I mean. Mind is a human-devised concept to indicate the operational output of our biological systems.’

My kind and loving mediator friend now realizes the futility of words and also that one cannot answer till eternity to curious, argumentative people like me. I feel she is irritated a bit and feel sorry for triggering this unorthodox reaction in her.    

‘The difficulty is that you have never had an experience outside of your mind and you are talking to me from your mind, this will be very difficult for me to explain to you clearly,’ she is coming near to accepting the futility of taking about mind, the ways to dismantle it using the mind itself.

But the whirlpools of conceptual mind have taken me in. I’m rather fighting my own battle with the concept of mind, ‘Why create a false enemy first and then create a huge system of religion to defeat the enemy. To me there is no adversary mind to tame it and balance it with body. To me it’s merely a thought, a thought about mind, a mere output of my biological existence.

‘I have had my own experiences of the so-called mystical  things but I don’t overvalue these and leave them as something that’s not yet comprehensible to me at this stage. I think you too are merely talking from mind because you are just centered around the concept of mind’

She seems to mind the talk of no-mind through the concept of mind, ‘Yes, you said “is no adversary mind to tame it and balance it with body... to me it’s merely a thought.” So what are all your questions for? What are all those books you’ve written for?’

She has a point here. I try to revalidate my position, ‘Mind is a beautiful thought but still just creation of our operational system at the levels of body and energies. It’s very easy to say to someone that you have never experienced anything beyond mind but I can say the same to someone that you haven’t experienced God, so you won’t understand.’

‘Yes. This is the destination where we use our minds to talk to each other, when we use our minds to talk or argue we can only go to this destination,’ she seems resigned to the futility of discussion about the mind.

Nonetheless I clarify my point, ‘I’m not asking you questions to understand mind. I just asked about your experiences as a fellow seeker. It’s you who said you will talk through questions and answers format. I just wanted to ask about your experiences like I would ask another friend who went to Thailand and I would say how was it. Just that. I didn’t mean to experience more about the mind or God through questions. It was your interpretation. I am just about experiences. And all the books that I have written aren’t meant to seek some meaning of the ultimate truth. They are written as a form of wonder, curiosity, acceptance of this game of life, in its entirety… just an expression… without any purpose… simple. It feels good to be in wonderment and trying to express my small view about this endless game.

‘I flow with life. I am not erecting check dams of mind to tame it and divert the flow to take myself to divinity. I accept the present, the way it’s… in totality. And when I feel totality, there is no mind, no body… just being so. That’s why I don’t find them contradictory in nature to be battled out for balancing them. We have to fight to balance them because we ourselves have conceptually set them as adversarial entities. To me they are one and I don’t find myself wedged between body and mind. I just feel the way it’s, something that’s just me beyond body and mind bifurcation.’

A smilie from her side.

I fill in the blanks, ‘Joyful be your battle with mind. Let’s meet over coffee sometime in India. I will try to speak less. Do you read these days? Or just meditate?’

‘I took a break from reading and just meditated and watched birds and flowers. I think I will read again in six months,’ she says.

‘Vow that’s lovely! You have a very interesting way of managing your life. If I may ask, when was the last time you had an erotic dream? And what could have caused it? Extra energy born of food, or surroundings, or memories, or plain old habits of the mind?’ the stream of my questions hasn’t yet dried out, especially about this unsolved puzzle about sex and spirituality.

She is very honest and open about it, ‘This happens on my monthly periods. It doesn’t happen usually. It’s not regular but if it happens it’s usually on those days. And I think it happens because the old habits have not been fully purified and because a women’s body and mind are strongly influenced by the lunar cycles. This is a big obstacle for the women on the path of practice, but if you have full observation at the times when it happens, you can turn this obstacle into an opportunity to come out of it completely.’

I know a woman is best placed to talk about it but I take it still in flow with the previous discussion, ‘So we can accept it as a natural thing influenced by uncontrollable elements like lunar cycles which have a cause and effect on our biological systems, right?

She agrees, ‘Accept with observation and understanding. Accept with observation and awareness and grasp the cycles of its occurrence.’

But my doubts won’t stop barging in, ‘Why should it then be taken as an obstacle? Something so natural. Isn’t it like taking gravity as an obstacle because it is a hindrance in our urge to fly? Because we are evolved to walk? And if we nurture a pious end to fly, then even gravity is a hindrance! Should we then get into hard core tantrik mystical practices to levitate? Why can’t be just staying natural be pious? Why is it taken as an obstacle? Something so natural as walking under the force of gravity. I mean why can’t we be at ease and restful with what we are? Why try to be something different?’

‘It is only an obstacle if we do not observe and grasp it, but if we observe and understand it, it will be the door for us to transcend the physical. Your question is answered. Yes if you can be at peace with it, there will be no need for any question or any practice. If you can accept your whole body and mind as it is then you have come to ultimate enlightenment. Otherwise you have to search,’ she seems at a very stable frequency.

But mine is a speedy stream of questions and curiosities, ‘Why do we consider the physical urge to be a bondage? So as to transcend it. Why can’t we just accept the way we are? Just like a tree does. Is it the human destiny to try to be something else from what he is? Humans try to be scientists, artists, sports people, wealthy businessmen, politicians, stars. And just in the same flow, some of us try to be pious and holy and transcend the physical dimension. Isn’t it the same striving? To be something else.

‘I’m asking from your perspective, out of curiosity, because I hardly feel the requirement to know and be something else than what I am. It’s like just a child’s play to me. All this reading, writing, questioning are just in sync with what I already am; not something aimed at changing myself fundamentally.’

She takes a nice, cute, innocent jibe, ‘Yes, so you have attained the state of supreme enlightenment and I have not, so I have to search.’

I firmly deny this, ‘No. I don’t have the concept-bound mind regarding attaining supreme enlightenment. I just am. And while I search, seek, read, write, ask questions or give answers, all this is just like a child plays; for the sheer fun of it; not to become something extraordinary or supernatural. Ask a child why does he play? He doesn’t play to become something else; he just plays.

‘O my Tibetan friend, take me just as an argumentative Indian and meditate in peace. Joyful be your day!’

Then she used the best language befitting argumentative Indians. The language of silence. I believe she went into another long silent retreat. I just added to the noise around.

Gau seva

 

Loitering on the banks of Ma Ganga I see the real beauty of India. The faith, seva bhav, love. A few sadhus and animal welfare volunteers have come together to treat the injured horn of a bull. Coming from a farming family I have seen such scenes in my village. When pinned down like this by the humans, the poor cattle think they are getting slaughtered. I remember that fear in the rolled eyes of the pinned down buffalo or bull. Those strong puffs of breath spurting saliva and slime on the muzzle. But here the bull is somehow relaxed. Its eyes aren’t popping out with the fear of death. This I feel is due to the touch of the sadhus. There is an assurance of safety, love and care. Their presence makes the bull behave well even in the face of such a painful, scary experience. Its eyes are normal. Its muzzle isn’t oozing with slime, which a cattle normally does with strong puffs of breathing under such circumstances. The bull seems assured of safety. The touch of loving sadhus mixed with the touch of caring animal lovers from an animal welfare foundation. It’s in safe hands. The injured horn is dressed. And the volunteers move away slowly releasing the rope, leaving only the sadhus near the bull as it gets up. The young bull gets onto its feet with wonderful calm. The sadhus pat it lovingly. ‘You are a good boy. Now don’t fight too much over girlfriends,’ says the young doctor. The onlookers laugh. The sadhus guide it to a relatively open space.

The dagger

 

There were killings, slaughter and genocide. Holocaust. From its fire a dagger was born. The Desert Dagger. Forged in the sandy, fiery furnace of killings, torture and annihilation. Enemies rasping at its edges from all sides to annihilate it. But that merely sharpens the edges. The Desert Dagger has a pointed tip, the pinnacle of all the sharp, serrated edges around it—survival. It has the soul of steel. It has one soul, one goal, one dream, one people— survival. It knows how to reshape its pain into hope and then turn hope into cutting-edge technology—sharp, precise, surgical, unsparing.

 The Desert Dagger cuts and writes its destiny on the book of life having sandy pages. It’s a mighty pen held in one hand. It knows what it has to write—the book of survival, the manual of survival at any cost. Where do the Desert Dagger’s soul, spirit and matter come from? It comes from the memories of the millions who perished in gas chambers. It comes from the teary, rosy dreams in the hearts—the dreams of the survival of a race. It comes from the razor sharp logic in the mind—the logic of fight when surrounded from all sides and kill before getting killed.

Sam Manekshaw

 

The legendary Indian soldier, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, fought as a junior officer in the British Indian Army during the Second World War. In a daring endeavor to catch a strategic hill in Burma, bravely leading from the front, he was hit by a light machine gun burst. He had nine bullets lodged in his lungs, liver, kidneys and intestines. His orderly Mehar Singh lifted his injured boss on the shoulders and walked fourteen miles to reach a military field hospital. His torso ripped apart and bleeding like flooded rivers, the young officer seemed sure to die.

From the look of it, only death seemed a reprieve for the injured officer. The British senior officer, fully aware of the Indian junior officer’s brave fight, tore his own Military Cross (one of the most prestigious military awards) and put it on the chest of the apparently dying soldier saying, ‘Military Cross is given to only living soldiers. So hereby I confer it to you while you are still alive.’

The Australian surgeon, heavily burdened under the big tasks with limited resources, thought it wastage of time and medical supplies to attend a definitely dying soldier. Sam had a few traces of consciousness at that time. ‘What happened to you?’ the doctor asked ironically. And the legendary soldier’s answer would later change history, not just for India but for Bangladesh as well. ‘A mule hit me,’ Manekshaw joked, a weak smile emerging from his messed up body. The Australian surgeon was shocked. ‘If someone can crack a joke even in this situation then his life is worth saving!’ he said. He operated upon the soldier and extracted the bullets from his lungs, liver, kidneys and intestines. It was a bloody operation; a major part of Manekshaw’s intestines had to be cut out. But the bravest are the ones who can smile and joke even in the face of death. By cracking the joke with death staring at his face, Sam had already defeated death.

The rest is history. Sam Manekshaw not only survived but went onto play important roles in all the wars including Pakistan (1947-48), China (1962), ending with Bangladesh war (1971) when he was the army chief.

He was as much famous for his bravery and military strategy as he was for his sense of humor. If not for this sense of humor, the Australian surgeon won’t have even considered treating him. If not for this sense of humor, Sam would have died with a borrowed, consolatory Military Cross on his chest. With this sense of humor, he retired as a Field Marshal, living to the ripe old age of late nineties, holding the proud baton of a perpetual soldier who is entitled to a salute from the highest of the high in the country as long as he is alive. I think this unbuckling sense of humor won him the toughest battle of his life by defeating death.

So keep your sense of humor dear readers! Keep it alive! It’s precious because it defeats even death sometimes.