When the Serpent Stirred: My Journey Through Kundalini, Consciousness and Grace

 

Hi everyone. I hope everything is fine with you, and I hope you are enjoying your life and are joyful in your pursuit. Almighty has been lenient enough to allow us to pursue our dreams and the activities that lie close to our passions.

Audio 1 on Kundalini

What I am going to share here is deeply personal. It is based on my own first-hand experience. I am not presenting a theory, nor am I trying to prove anything to anyone. I am simply narrating what happened to me, how I experienced it, and what I have come to understand from it over the years.

Audio 2 on Kundalini

I don't know how, but it is happening like this: I feel driven, even pushed, to talk about Kundalini, such a majestic and apparently mysterious force. Once you experience something of it, you just can't help talking about it. You feel compelled, pushed, driven, even honored to talk about it and share your experience.

Audio 3 on Kundalini

There may be people somewhere who need this information at this particular stage of their lives, and that is primarily the reason I am sharing it. Even if one person gets some help from it, I think the purpose is served.

Audio 4 on Kundalini

These are highly experiential things. Primarily, something happens to you. Later, when you read about it or listen to other people talking about similar experiences, you begin to correlate things. You fill in the gaps, and gradually you create some sort of theory around what happened to you.

But when it comes to expressing a phenomenon like this through words, words are always insufficient. Still, we have to use words and sentences. There is no other way.

Sometimes, if you don't have experiential knowledge of something, you may find it theoretical. But even theoretical knowledge can help a person later in life. Most of the time, things first come to us in theory. Later, if we are lucky, practical validation happens and the experiential dimension opens before us.

All of us are essentially spiritual beings, with lesser or greater amounts of worldly baggage tagged along on the journey. The worldly baggage is merely fuel for the journey. But there is always a temptation to take the fuel as the main thing, whereas in reality it is supposed to get burnt in the process of karmic dissipation, taking us gradually toward a higher dimension of perception.

Kundalini, as I have come to understand it, is an auxiliary dimension in our psychosomatic system. It is an extra dimension in the evolution of consciousness.

To lead a healthy, successful and joyful life, it is not essential to have an awakened Kundalini. There are so many people who have made a big mark on the stage of time without having anything whatsoever to do with Kundalini. Most of us are quite capable of wading through the challenges of life through ordinary sense perception.

So Kundalini is an extra dimension. This fact should first be accepted.

To me, Kundalini is something lying at the interface of our psychosomatic structure and the larger cosmic energy of which we are a part, just as a drop is a part of the sea.

It is a shortcut, a kind of gateway. You can even call it a portal—a speeding up of the evolutionary processes of consciousness.

And just like any other shortcut, it has its risks, dangers, possibilities, rewards, agonies, ecstasies—everything, in fact.

The fundamental law of the cosmos is pure potentiality, and Kundalini, to me, represents that potentiality, that unbounded field of possibility. It is a trigger point. It is a gateway. It is a portal to enter another domain.

It can kick-start and unleash a sudden current of energy that may take consciousness to a level which, in the natural sequence of karmic resolution, might otherwise have taken several lifetimes of entanglement, pain, experience and learning.

There is a set of controllables and uncontrollables in one's life.

As far as I am concerned, I tried my level best to succeed in normal worldly terms, just like anyone around me. But somehow the uncontrollables, operating at a level of existence beyond my efforts, would repeatedly push me back to square one.

Again and again I would find myself standing almost exactly at the point from where I had started, despite the best of my efforts.

And, as you can imagine, that gives a person a lot of pain and suffering.

You begin questioning the basics that seem to operate the world around you, and before you even realize it, you have entered a spiritual dimension.

I think this is how it happens with many of us who take to this path.

I never had a guide in physical form on the spiritual path. Involuntarily, I began doing yogic practices on the basis of what I had read in books.

One particular practice almost hammered the very base—the Mooladhara—and I continued doing it for almost a decade. I would even say that in some way I felt forced to continue it.

Much later, I realized that perhaps what I had been doing amounted to provoking the snake in its hole—that is, Kundalini resting in its natural state.

They say Kundalini lies coiled at the base of the spine. These may sound like mythological images, but they carry a very substantial meaning.

Imagine that you are walking through a forest. Beside your path there is a hole, and inside that hole a large snake is quietly resting.

You are simply supposed to walk past.

But suppose you become obsessed with that hole. You pick up a stick and keep prodding inside it again and again, trying to bring that resting snake into activation.

What do you expect?

At some point the snake is going to move.

That is exactly how I now look at what happened in my case.

Energy, according to the laws of input and output, moved.

But my organic structure was not prepared for the sudden onslaught of energy.

And, as could be expected, it gave me many nightmares.

They manifested at every level—at the level of thoughts, emotions and body. It left me in what I can only call a dark night of the soul.

It was a karmic leap, a huge jump.

And being completely alone to fend for myself made it perhaps the toughest phase of my life.

There was tremendous agony, pain, fear, phobia and challenge at so many levels.

I was running everywhere, clutching at every possible straw of salvation.

I went on pilgrimages. I wandered in seclusion in forests. I visited ashrams. I fell at the feet of many holy men.

I was trying somehow to save myself from being sucked into that void of darkness and to find some meaning in life—to discover some purpose behind all the apparently meaningless chaos spinning around me.

And something very beautiful happened during that period.

Religious differences melted away.

I would enter a gurdwara, a masjid, a church, a temple or a Buddhist monastery with the same reverence and faith.

I was looking for anything that could save me from darkness.

I tried to become an unquestioning bhakt of different deities. I tried yoga, mantra sadhana, pranayama—whatever presented itself on the way.

The pressure of energy was making me dance to its tunes almost like a puppet. It required tremendous activity at many levels, and I was constantly looking for avenues through which this energy could be dissipated.

About six or seven years ago, I took to worshipping Lord Hanuman.

I began keeping a fast on Tuesdays and reading Hanuman Chalisa from a booklet because I simply could not recite it from memory.

Around that period, I was also visiting Osho's ashram at Murthal, where Sadguru Osho Shailendra, who happens to be Bhagwan Osho's real brother, gave mala diksha and held satsangs and sermons.

On one occasion, I was fortunate enough that he placed his blessing hand on my head.

Around the same broad period, I had also been to Dharamshala and was blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

That was a very fortunate phase of my life, and something seemed to intensify further in the energetic process.

I have no other explanation for it except that I took it as a possible case of Shaktipat.

Experiences began happening that would later shape the theoretical foundations of my understanding.

Shortly after this period of blessings, one Tuesday I was reading Hanuman Chalisa from the booklet while observing my fast.

Incense was burning. There was an oil lamp. Offerings were placed before the idol of Lord Hanuman in the small temple at home.

And then it happened.

An intense force gripped me very tightly.

I was in perfect awareness of everything that was happening, but my body was no longer under the control of my voluntary conscious mind.

It was happening to me, and I was watching it.

My body was twisted and turned into extremely difficult yogic postures which I cannot even imagine performing in my normal condition.

It felt as if a powerful hand was twisting me, turning me, gripping me tightly and forcing the body through the toughest postures.

I was helpless.

Yet these were not random or weird contortions.

There was symmetry.

There was precision.

A movement would complete a cycle.

The Hanuman idol was kept in a little stone temple with a sharp ledge.

During one of these postures, I was twisted into something like a lotus posture, and then my forehead began moving slowly toward the sharp stone edge.

The descent was extraordinarily precise.

My eyebrow began drawing a thin line along one side of that stone edge.

The pressure was very, very, very hard.

And the line of movement was extremely narrow.

Just a millimeter lower and it could have injured my eye because the force was so intense.

But it went with unbelievable precision.

The same thing later happened with the eyebrow on the other side.

There were many such moments during those approximately forty-five minutes.

When the force finally released the involuntary control of my body, my spine felt completely drawn and straight, almost as if it had been aligned according to some plan.

And then came what I consider one of the sweetest prasad of that entire divine exercise.

I began singing Hanuman Chalisa by myself.

Suddenly, I knew it.

Until then I had always needed the booklet. I had been chanting it for perhaps a year, but somehow now it was flowing freely from memory.

To me, it felt like prasad from the great Lord.

After that, for almost six months, involuntary mudras and bodily movements continued to happen.

Sometimes the body would play with me as if I were a lifeless puppet.

And I think one of the lessons in such things is to make us realize that we are not exactly what we imagine ourselves to be.

Perhaps it is also a way of tracing and reducing the ego—the belief that we are in complete control of everything.

You begin realizing that there may be dimensions of existence beyond the narrow command of the conscious mind.

At the bodily level, perhaps such movements also remove psychic entanglements from our karmic structure.

I know that I have many karmic entanglements from the past to resolve, and perhaps that is why the rise of energy has posed so many challenges.

And the journey continues, my dear fellow travelers on the path.

As the brain and the whole system adjust to this new surge, I have also heard many different types of sounds over the years—the kinds of sounds people read about in descriptions of Kundalini awakening.

I can credibly say from my own experience that I have heard them.

I have heard sounds like buzzing bees, tinkling bells, a flute, a sharp chin-chin sound, rumbling clouds and many other varieties.

To me, this is the divine music of higher vibrational frequencies.

I don't see anything mythological, miraculous or superstitious about it.

It is simply that perception reaches a level where you begin sensing vibrational realities which were previously beyond your awareness.

They say that meditating on these sounds can take a seeker into still higher orbits.

But I am a common man.

I have my responsibilities.

I have my worldly duties to fulfill and karmic issues to resolve.

So I continue travelling on the path while balancing the needs of worldly life with the needs of my soul.

And I remain open to guidance from every corner.

Guidance has always arrived from different directions.

Sometimes through a book.

Sometimes through a satsang.

Sometimes through somebody speaking online.

Sometimes through television.

Sometimes through a YouTube channel.

Sometimes even through a thought that comes exactly when it is needed.

I see all of these as divine mediums through which fellow travelers can receive guidance.

Presently, I have a hunch that His Holiness Avatar Babaji is guiding me on the path.

I feel privileged.

I feel blessed.

I don't know the truth.

But that is how it feels to me.

It is my truth, and I am happy with it.

There is another thing I have gradually understood.

Many people enter spirituality expecting supernatural powers. They think perhaps miracles will happen, that they will reach some level of godliness, that flowers will start showering from the sky.

It is nothing like that.

To me, spirituality is simply evolution in consciousness.

The traditional description of Kundalini rising through seven chakras from Mooladhara to Sahasrara is expressed through beautiful symbolic and mythological language. Such stories capture our attention and help communicate something which is otherwise difficult to explain.

But the process itself, as I experience it, is quite simple.

Scriptures speak of lust, greed, jealousy, anger, hate and other tendencies, sometimes calling them sins.

I don't like calling them sins.

These are simply the normal ways in which an ordinary human being is expected to live.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Nature does not condemn.

Nature is impartial.

These are simply different ways in which energy is being utilized.

Suppose you are deeply involved in material pursuits.

You are competing with somebody.

You are uncomfortable because somebody else has become materially richer.

You constantly compare your situation with theirs.

Or suppose you become deeply involved with a man or a woman.

That particular relationship can create an entire ecosystem around itself.

Thoughts, emotions, expectations, fears, fantasies, hopes—all of these begin consuming enormous amounts of energy.

Similarly, if you are trying constantly to raise yourself in the eyes of others, you evaluate your position according to what other people think about you.

Most of your energy goes there.

Again, nothing wrong with it.

These are your energies, and you have every right to spend them the way you wish.

But then very little surplus energy remains for anything beyond those pursuits.

This is where my pipe analogy comes in.

Imagine a pipe with seven outlet holes along its length.

Suppose you are pushing water or some fluid through this pipe.

If the lowermost opening is extremely broad and all the upper openings are blocked, where will most of the fluid go?

Naturally, through the lowest opening.

Let us imagine the spine as that pipe and the chakras as those openings.

The lowest outlet is Mooladhara.

If all the higher channels remain closed, most of the force of life finds expression through that lowest available outlet.

And on the basis of that energy, we create our life and our individual manifestation.

So we become busy with material cravings, sexual cravings, competition, anger, hate, jealousy, social position, fears, phobias and the countless things that enter our psychosomatic system from time to time.

Again, this is not about leading a virtuous or sinful life.

In pure pristine nature, such duality does not exist.

Those categories arise from our perspective.

Somebody who is uncomfortable with worldly life may judge these tendencies as sinful.

But nature itself does not judge.

It is simply energy being spent in one way rather than another.

The entire path of spirituality, according to my understanding, is about clearing those higher openings.

Suppose the second outlet, Swadhisthana, begins to open.

Now energy has another channel available.

Naturally, some part of the life-force can begin expressing through that higher opening.

And since every chakra has its own frequency, inclination and characteristics, the world we create through that energy also begins to change.

Our perspective changes.

Our behavior changes.

Our priorities change.

Then comes Manipura, which operates at a still higher vibrational frequency.

And so on.

I have another analogy for this.

Suppose you are living at the Mooladhara level.

It is like standing inside thick stone walls.

You cannot see beyond them.

Everything around you appears segregated, compartmentalized and separated.

Because you cannot see beyond the fence, the ego becomes very strong.

You naturally begin thinking, “It is only about me.”

And all your efforts at creating meaning revolve around that enclosed identity.

The mind even begins feeling secure inside those stone walls.

It says, “This is me. Everything outside is something else.”

But as spiritual work begins—as you meditate, practice sadhana, discipline the mind, tame impulsive behavior and move toward higher frequencies—you begin dismantling those walls.

At first, perhaps only a small opening appears.

You get a glimpse outside.

And suddenly a doubt arises in your mind:

“Maybe it is not only about me.”

You see something beyond your enclosure.

Curiosity begins.

“There is something larger. There is another dimension.”

As the energy rises further through Manipura, Vishuddhi and Ajna, those stone walls begin melting away.

Eventually, instead of thick stone walls, imagine a wooden countryside fence around you—posts and wires surrounding a pasture.

The boundary is still there.

Your ego is still trying to maintain itself.

You still know where “I” apparently end and “the other” begins.

But now the fence is see-through.

That makes all the difference.

Earlier, you could see nothing beyond the stone wall.

Now you can see clearly through the fence.

Even if you have not completely broken the boundary and you still feel separate from the overall unity of existence, there is now a parallel realization:

“Yes, the fence is there, but I can see through it.”

As the journey continues, those boundaries begin receding toward the horizon.

Your field of identity becomes larger.

More and more things begin feeling connected with you.

You begin sensing that they are somehow part of you.

And ultimately, they say, even that fencing disappears into the horizon.

There is no boundary left.

You become one with everything.

By the time energy reaches Sahasrara, to use my pipe analogy again, most of the energy is flowing through the uppermost outlet.

The frequency becomes so refined that perception becomes holistic.

The fence around the little individual self has vanished.

And you feel:

“All this is me.”

This, to me, is what is meant by Aham Brahmasmi.

I know my pipe analogy may sound a bit funny, but it helps me understand the process.

I also look at it through the analogy of a bulb.

Suppose you have a 100-watt bulb in your room.

But along the transmission line, 90 percent of the energy is being dissipated because of resistance in the wire, and only ten watts reaches the bulb.

What happens?

The bulb glows very feebly.

The room remains largely dark.

You cannot see things clearly.

And because you cannot see clearly, you are forced into assumptions and presumptions.

You create unwarranted fears.

You imagine phantoms.

Something in one corner looks threatening because there isn't enough light for you to see what it really is.

This is what I mean by remaining in darkness.

The things themselves are exactly as they are.

But because there is insufficient light, our mind invents what it cannot see.

Now suppose the resistance decreases.

Twenty watts begins reaching the bulb.

There is more light.

You can see slightly more.

Your assessment of the room becomes more holistic than it was earlier.

Then thirty watts.

Then forty.

And suppose ultimately the bulb begins shining at its full hundred-watt potential.

Now the entire room becomes visible.

The darkness doesn't have to be fought.

You don't take a stick and beat darkness out of the room.

You simply bring in light.

And darkness disappears by itself.

Then you look around and say:

“Oh my God! Those fears, those assumptions, those phantoms—I created them myself because I could not see.”

As simple as that.

I create the same analogy between the bulb and the brain.

Earlier, only a small part of our potential was being illuminated because most of our energy was being spent through the lower chakras.

As more energy begins rising through the central channel, more and more of our inner potential begins to light up.

What was earlier dormant begins to activate.

New neural pathways become available.

New perspectives become possible.

You become creative.

You become loving.

You become compassionate.

You see things differently.

Call it enlightenment.

Call it Kundalini.

Call it evolution of the soul.

Words are just words.

They can never fully justify reality.

They are only symbolic representations of something which is ultimately beyond words.

This also explains another analogy which came to me from ordinary life.

Once I was standing in a crowded bazaar.

It was a very narrow street, almost claustrophobic.

People were pushing and jostling against one another.

There was a sort of collective stress in the air.

Standing there, you could not see beyond a particular corner of the street.

And when you cannot see what lies beyond the corner, the mind is free to invent anything.

Maybe my enemy's house is there.

Maybe there is a dead end.

Maybe there is danger.

Maybe there is no way out.

You simply don't know.

To me, surviving at the level of Mooladhara is something like standing in that narrow street.

You cannot see beyond the walls.

You cannot see around the corner.

Your mind can create all kinds of imaginative possibilities.

Now suppose you begin rising into the air.

Imagine that suddenly you are looking at the same bazaar from a hundred feet above, like a bird.

Nothing on the ground has changed.

The street is exactly the same.

The houses are exactly the same.

The corner is still there.

But your perspective has changed.

Now you can see the entire layout.

And you say:

“Oh my God! I was stuck there and thought there was no way out. But it was such a small setup. I only had to walk a few paces, and there was an opening leading into this beautiful garden just nearby.”

The garden had always been there.

The outlet had always been there.

Only from street level I couldn't see it.

This, to me, is what happens as consciousness evolves.

We begin seeing things in greater totality, greater comprehensiveness, in a more holistic way.

Nothing necessarily changes outside.

But our view changes.

And many things which earlier triggered impulsive reactions simply lose their meaning.

This is just like childhood.

Children fight over toys.

Why don't we fight over the same toys when we grow up?

Nobody has forcibly taken the attachment away.

We simply realize the futility of it.

The toy loses its meaning.

Similarly, as perspective expands, many things which once made us fume, fret, fight, hate, compete and suffer begin looking like toys.

They are still there.

But we are no longer compelled to fight over them.

Perhaps this is what liberation means.

So this is enlightenment, according to my understanding.

My opinion.

In my humble capacity, I can only say these are my personal experiences and conclusions.

Jaisi drishti, waisi srishti.

As the vision changes, the world changes.

Perspective changes your viewpoint, and your entire experienced surrounding changes accordingly.

The same idea also makes me look differently at what we call ego.

When we are trapped behind those thick stone walls of the lower perspective, tremendous energy is needed simply to maintain the prison.

And a prison remains a prison, regardless of the beauty of the facilities inside it.

You can decorate the prison.

You can make it luxurious.

You can provide beautiful surroundings.

But somewhere you still feel that something is missing.

Because confinement is confinement.

Much of our energy is spent maintaining that closely confined identity within the walls:

“This is me.”

“That is mine.”

“That is yours.”

“This person is against me.”

“I must prove myself.”

“I must become bigger than him.”

“I must protect my position.”

“I must satisfy this expectation.”

“I must be seen in this particular way.”

That itself is exhausting.

It is like being caught in a whirlpool.

You keep swimming.

You keep spending energy.

You are tremendously busy.

But after some time you suddenly realize:

“Oh my God! I am not proceeding anywhere. I am only moving in circles.”

That realization can itself become the beginning of spiritual life.

You begin feeling not at ease with the existing pattern.

Something in you starts looking beyond what has apparently imprisoned you.

You begin questioning the boundaries created by collective beliefs, customs, traditions, habits and inherited knowledge.

And that, to me, is spirituality.

It is coming out of the cage.

It is the natural tendency of consciousness, of the soul-force, to broaden its platform of operation.

It wants to experience a larger dimension.

It wants to create from a broader field.

And opening the higher chakras is one way of expressing that movement.

After Mooladhara comes Swadhisthana.

Earlier, suppose Swadhisthana was blocked.

Then through sadhana, yoga, jnana, voluntary effort, disciplined living, working with the mind, taming impulses and instinctive reactions, this second opening gradually becomes available.

Now the energy which previously had no option except to flow through Mooladhara finds another outlet.

And because Swadhisthana operates at a higher frequency, the life created through that frequency must naturally have a different quality.

Then comes Manipura.

Then Anahata.

Then Vishuddhi.

Then Ajna.

Then Sahasrara.

With each rise, perspective becomes broader.

I also believe that every authentic spiritual path is capable of helping us in this movement.

Bhakti yoga.

Karma yoga.

Jnana yoga.

Yoga sadhana.

Meditation.

Love.

Compassion.

Service.

Surrender.

Different paths may look entirely different on the surface, but they serve their own purposes.

I have used all three major paths—bhakti, karma and jnana—in different ways, and what I have realized is that they complement one another.

So we should not commit the folly of looking down upon another person's path.

Every one of us has an individual system.

What we are given, what appears before us, and what we encounter on the path of sadhana may have something to offer us.

If we remain receptive and open, there are always takeaways.

And I have increasingly come to believe that Mother Existence itself becomes the guru.

I never had one particular physical guru guiding me continuously.

But I have never felt that guidance was absent.

Whenever I have genuinely needed something, it has come.

Sometimes through a certain thought.

Sometimes through a book.

Sometimes through somebody's words.

Sometimes on television.

Sometimes through a YouTube channel.

Sometimes through an apparently accidental encounter.

At the end of it, I find myself saying:

“Yes, I received help.”

That is why I say my guru is entire life.

Mother Existence.

If you remain open to it, it will guide you according to your circumstances, your karma and where you presently stand.

It creates situations.

It creates circumstances.

And guidance arrives from here or there.

If you are lucky enough to have a genuine guru in physical form, you are fortunate.

Cherish that blessing.

Honor it.

Proceed on the path.

But if you don't have such a guru, don't think that existence has abandoned you.

Life itself can become a great guru if we are open enough to learn.

There is another dimension to all this which I see in terms of evolution.

Somebody may be completely occupied with material pursuits in this lifetime.

There is nothing wrong with that.

That may simply be the stage of his or her journey.

Perhaps that person has to fulfill certain prarabdha karmas at that level.

At the end of this life, while shedding the body, there may come a realization about the futility of certain attachments.

That realization itself may carry the Jivatma slightly higher in another lifetime.

Then further disillusionments may fall away.

Slowly, across lifetimes, consciousness continues evolving.

It may happen voluntarily or involuntarily.

Circumstances prod us.

Life pushes us.

Just as a tree grows according to sunlight, soil, water, wind and the larger ecosystem around it, the Jivatma also evolves in response to the push and pull of circumstances.

I call this circumstantial living.

Evolution is happening, but you are largely a product of circumstances.

Yet sooner or later, Mother Existence seems to want us to take a more conscious leap.

It wants us, metaphorically speaking, to launch ourselves like a satellite into a higher orbit.

That is where voluntary spiritual effort comes in.

This, to me, is the higher purpose of life.

Something that might naturally take many lifetimes can be consciously accelerated.

We voluntarily intervene.

We give ourselves to sadhana.

We give ourselves to awareness.

We give ourselves to love, discipline, compassion, service, meditation and understanding.

We take a leap.

Perhaps that is why Kundalini is such a shortcut.

But precisely because it is a shortcut, it should never become an obsession.

I would strongly say this to anyone interested in Kundalini:

Don't crazily try to awaken it.

Don't make it a destination.

Don't sit every day thinking, “I must awaken Kundalini. I must awaken Kundalini.”

Let it happen by its own choice.

Let it happen through the grace of the Guru.

Let it happen through long hours of meditation.

Let it happen through discipline.

Let it happen through love.

Let it happen through compassion.

Create the background.

Prepare the soil.

Don't be in a hurry.

There are many reasons why this resting snake may come into activation.

It may happen through very intense yogic sadhanas.

It may happen through the blessings of a Guru whose vibrational frequency is such that somehow the last blockage in your energy channel gets removed.

But even for Shaktipat to work, I think the seeker has to have reached a particular point of readiness.

The Guru perhaps only provides the final spark.

Imagine something that is completely dry and ready to burn.

You only need one spark.

The Guru gives that spark, and suddenly the entire thing lights up.

Near-death experiences may also trigger something.

There are so many accounts of people whose normal sense perception apparently stopped for a few moments, and consciousness tasted something entirely different.

They returned with glimpses of that experience, and their lives changed.

There can be many reasons why the resting snake comes to life.

But once it does, life changes.

You now feel a completely different type of nervous or pranic energy flowing through your system.

You can't simply ignore it.

You have to adjust to it.

It can be very strong.

The whole system may feel as if it is undergoing a refabrication.

That is the word I would use: refabrication.

A complete reshaping of the system.

The nervous system, the body, emotions, mind, conditioned knowledge, relationships, ideas of identity—everything can come under pressure.

You become almost like a workshop where, day and night, visible and invisible forces are working.

Old conditioning gets jolted.

Your understanding of yourself gets challenged.

The way you define life changes.

Your relationships may get tested.

Many people may leave.

But those who are genuinely meant to remain with you will remain.

So I would say, don't become too hard upon yourself when these things happen.

Once this treasure—or this burden, depending on the moment—of extra energy has been let loose into the system, one has to become receptive.

One has to bow down to its grace.

And one has to lead a disciplined life.

There is no other way.

You have to allow yourself to be reshaped into a new persona.

It may be challenging.

It may be testing.

It may at times feel unbearable.

But I gradually learned to believe that the process was not meaningless.

I began trusting that whatever was happening was somehow taking me toward another dimension of consciousness.

This does not mean that every moment was pleasant.

Far from it.

There were times when the body itself seemed to be fighting a battle to adjust to the new intensity.

At another level, there was a battle with the conditioned mind.

Old knowledge.

Old definitions.

Old emotional patterns.

Old fears.

Everything was being shaken.

It was almost like casting off an old skin.

A new version of yourself is trying to emerge.

And perhaps that is why Kundalini is so often described in powerful symbolic language.

Most of us have heard about the seven chakras—Mooladhara, Swadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddhi, Ajna and Sahasrara.

To me, these are junctions of energy in our system.

Just as electricity can flow through a wire even though you cannot see electricity itself, our apparent body is also a huge functioning machine of different energies moving around.

Once Kundalini becomes active, you can actually begin feeling energies moving and spinning around the system.

This is my personal experience.

Initially, it can leave you awe-struck.

You may even become scared if you have no theoretical understanding of what you are experiencing.

That is why I think some theoretical knowledge is helpful.

There have been people far, far more capable than me who have studied and experienced these domains deeply.

Pandit Gopi Krishna's books on Kundalini, for example, helped me greatly.

He describes various aspects of the process and the way an individual system can be reshaped.

For me, reading such material helped put words around things that had already begun happening experientially.

But again, books are not the experience.

Words are not reality.

They are maps.

Reality remains larger.

And all in all, I would say Kundalini is not about miracles.

It is not about becoming supernatural.

It is not about displaying powers.

It is not about the sky showering flowers on you.

It is about consciousness evolving.

It is about perspective expanding.

It is about slowly realizing more and more of one's potential.

The entire potential of cosmic intelligence, I feel, is present within every one of us.

Just as the essence of the entire sea is available in one drop of seawater, the essence of existence is present in each one of us.

That is our deity.

That is our hidden potential.

Aham Brahmasmi.

Infinity cannot be meaningful if it is somewhere else but unavailable here.

If the whole is infinite, that infinity must somehow be reflected in every fragment of the whole.

That is how I look at it.

And once we realize that we have to proceed on this path, we have to give our best to it.

Not forcefully.

Not obsessively.

Peacefully.

Read good books.

Listen to people who have experienced dimensions of life that resonate with you.

Meditate.

Live with discipline.

Love.

Serve.

Be compassionate.

Stay open.

And believe me, help keeps arriving when we need it.

I have seen this again and again in my own life.

Maybe somebody somewhere needs these words at this particular time.

Even if only one person reads till the end and feels, “Yes, somebody else has experienced something similar; I am not alone in trying to understand this journey,” then perhaps this narration has served its purpose.

Sometimes I feel this majestic force itself wants to come out, to get verbalized, to be conveyed.

Maybe somebody needs the information.

Maybe somebody needs a little reassurance.

Maybe somebody simply needs a direction.

As far as I am concerned, all I can offer is my personal experience.

Nothing more.

I am still a common man.

I still have responsibilities.

I still have worldly duties.

I still have karmic issues to resolve.

I am still travelling.

I am not claiming that I have reached anywhere.

I am simply sharing what has happened to me and what I have understood so far.

And the journey continues.

So, my dear fellow travelers on the path, move peacefully.

Don't be in a hurry.

Don't become obsessed with awakening anything.

Allow Mother Existence to work according to your circumstances and your karma.

Remain receptive.

If guidance comes through a guru, bow to that grace.

If it comes through a book, receive it.

If it comes through a stranger, receive it.

If it comes through a satsang, receive it.

If it comes through silence, receive it.

Life itself can become the guru.

And perhaps, when we become sufficiently open, we realize that guidance was always there.

We simply had to become capable of receiving it.

Happy be your journey on the path.

Stay blessed.

May Almighty guide you.

May you realize the potential that lies within you.

And may you travel your path with love, discipline, openness and grace.

Blessings.

Ma Ganga's bidding

 

Pre-script: This one is inspired by my conversation with one of the best devotees of Ma Ganga I have come across.

Who wouldn’t like to stay longer on the banks of Ma Ganga? But She would like Her children to be active in the world as well. To me Her maternal touch is like prasad. Even the little bit of it gives a feeling of getting satiated and fulfilled that buckets of normal food won’t give. Frankly speaking dear friends, I feel blessed and happy whatever time She allows me near Her for my learning and growth. Don’t you see those who are born on Her banks and stay there since birth are even more common and worldly than those born in cities far away? I mean most of them are. Because to them Her presence is like food, not prasad. They take it for granted. The people like you, me and countless others who get Her presence like prasad now and then are really blessed. She calls us at intervals, gives lessons and new realizations, sends us away to find the meaning of life, come back again, evolve a bit more by Her touch and go back again—a real prasad in small bits. But to those who stay with Her all the time She is mere food, in abundance, and thus taken for granted. So bow down and be grateful for the loving prasad She has given you.

We go to the temples but not all of us stay in a temple to feel blessed. We can carry the spark of divinity that we get from the temple. To me She is a living temple. And whatever chance She gives to have Her darshan is prasad. I know She would love me to do my worldly role, which I do with a very balanced approach. I just told my view dear friends. I’m not saying everyone should feel like that.

Maybe She sends us away when She feels that prasad ought not to become food. Separation with an assured coming together: the loveliest subtle twine that binds the deity and the devotee. Subtle and effective, just like silence is the best language.

Amarnath Yatra

 

Lucky are the ones who get Mahadev’s blessing to go on Amarnath pilgrimage.

Lord Shiva agreed to tell the tale of immortality to Ma Parvati. With sweet resignation to His wife’s insistence, He, with an enigmatic smile, took care that there was no one apart from Mata Parvati to hear even a single world about the secret of His immortality. Gods have mystical sentries guarding the entry and the exit to the portals of real knowledge pointing to the ultimate, unqualified reality, the absolute truth. The gem of truth is hidden in the chest of illusions, the manifesting maya. That’s why this remote cave, the holy shrine of Amarnath, was chosen for the purpose of telling the tale of immortality. It’s a remote area in high Himalayas, the barren cliffs covered with snows for most of the year.

As the Lord told the tale in a pensive, loving and kind tone, perchance (or was it secretly planned by destiny acting independent even of the Gods’ will) a pair of pigeons overheard the story and became immortal. The pilgrims get excited and feel validation of their faith if during their darshan in the holy cave they see white pigeons fluttering under the high, craggy roof of the cave.

The holy cave is located in a narrow gorge at the farther end of Lidder valley at an altitude of 4000 m. Since that mythical episode, beyond time’s whence and thence, the ice lingam kept waxing and waning with the moon in complete solitude and isolation for many centuries. The cave is mentioned in ancient scriptures but was lost to humanity for many centuries. Finally, about 150 years ago a shepherd named Buta Malik discovered the cave. He was grazing his sheep and goats when he met a sadhu. The sadhu gave him a bag of coals. Back home when the shepherd opened the bag, he found gold coins instead of coal. He ran back to the place to find the sadhu. Buta Malik found the cave while he was looking for the sadhu. That’s how the Muslim shepherd found himself face to face with the holy ice lingam and two more ice formations, which we now revere as Ma Parvati and Lord Ganesh. A sadhu appeared (believed to be Lord Shiva Himself) and asked the Muslim shepherd to make arrangement for annual pilgrimage to the cave. Unfortunately, these days there is a mischievous effort to separate Hindus and Muslims from each other’s religious places.  

Buta Malik’s descendents took care of one of the holiest sites in India? Did that diminish its holy status? No. Then times changed and religious polarization became a major factor in Indian politics. In 2008, Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) did away with Malik family’s management of Lord Shiva’s shrine. There were three parties involved: the pundits of Mattan temple, the Mahant and the Malik family. The SASB offered 1.5 crore each to the parties to abandon their custodianship, so that SASB could be made the sole guardian. The two parties accepted the money but the Malik family refused the money. A gentleman of modest means from the family told the governor, who heads the SASB now, that mosques and temples can’t be valued in terms of money. They maintain that they were never after the proceeds from the offerings; rather it gave them spiritual satisfaction in doing this seva work. They still keep a charity medical stall to give free medicines at the shrine. In remembrance of the old, more secular times, many sadhus visit the Malik family during their stay at the Nunwan base camp before taking the arduous journey.    

It’s a difficult trek, especially for the common plainsmen like me who are at the most below average amateur trekkers. Barren, stern mountains stare down at you with a foreboding look. You gasp for breath and take a grasp at your faith to help you struggle ahead. I have been lucky to visit the shrine thrice so far from the Baltal route, which is a short-cut but involves a very steep, risky climb. It might be difficult to look at the pilgrimage as one unit. We have been conditioned to deal with parts and fragments. So that’s how one can proceed to make it easier. Baltal to Domail is 2 km. Walk with spring in your steps. Give your best and focus just on reaching Domail. From here on, brace yourself with a bigger challenge. Domail to Barari is 5 km. This is where you are supposed to be steady, almost warmed up, your lungs now inhaling the thinner put pure air with increased efficiency. Barari to Sangam gives you a 4 km of tougher challenge. Most of the walkers are now on the down-slope of strength and energy. So add your voice to the chants of Lord Shiva to give a kick to your lungs and legs. The 3 km final stretch from Sangam to the holy cave is the most arduous one. Each step a milestone on the path of faith. Here one leaves oneself to the Lord’s mercy. This is the classical calculating way to rationalize the tough pilgrimage. One can mix it up with the poetic, romantic approach as well to make it more joyful.

Why not reach three days in advance before your scheduled registration date for the climb? Your lungs and legs will get acclimatized to the high altitude conditions. Roam around leisurely like you are at a funfair. It indeed is a big festive environment with tents, music, dance and free feisty langar food in plenty at the Baltal base camp. Go on small walks in the picturesque Baltal valley on the foothills of Zozila mountain pass. Enjoy the encouraging escalade of Amarganga on whose banks Baltal base camp is situated. Amarganga emerges from the glaciers around the holy cave. The joint flow of five streams from Panchtarni meets Amarganga at Sangam. Further on from Baltal another stream from Machoi glacier joins Amarganga to become Sindh river. The latter flows for 108 km to join Jhelum, which in turn rests in the lap of the Indian ocean. So enjoy the langars, dance to the devotional music and enjoy strolls through Baltal valley meadows, which further extend to Sonmurg’s golden meadows few kilometers down the valley.

The more you observe, the more you learn and know, the wiser you become, the better life seems. There is more light under the sun of understanding.

Snow leopard is the flagship species here. They have become rare but you can visualize the silent snowy serenades of this solitary hunter on the slopes surrounding you. In the nearby meadows enjoy the violet or dark blue Himalayan bellflower and colorful dwarf rhododendrons. Inhale the freshness while walking through vibrant herbaceous community of aster, jurinea, morina, anemone and primula. See the stoic muse of the willows lining up along the shallow mountain streams. Peek into the lofty heights surrounding you and have a feel of the cold, imploringly impartial and majestically neutral game of mother nature where snow leopards and Tibetan wolves hunt mountain goat, goral, blue sheep, serow and Himalayan tahr. Open your face to the blue vault of open skies where avian predators like lammergeier, golden eagle and Himalayan griffon scan the predator radars for more colorful and agile preys like blood pheasant, western tragopan and Himalayan monal.

There are bouquets of beauty waiting to welcome you everywhere. Do your research on local flora, fauna, geography, culture and places. This knowledge and understanding gives a totally new meaning to your presence here. If you are an above-average observant of what passes on your path, just start soaking the unfoldment of mother nature in your journey from Srinagar itself. Pale yellow elderberry flowers hold a bouquet of their gentle smile by the roadside as you move from Srinagar to Baltal. Pines on the hillsides stand with grand elderly patience and fortitude. Say hello to the fresh, summer meadows blooming with roseroot, poppy, lousewort and aster flowers. Feel your ascension into higher mountains from the paradisiacal valley as the tree line gradually gives way to twisted, stunted rhodendron, juniper, stunted birch; green coniferous forests slowly surrendering to alpine shrubs and grasses between the tree line and the snow line. Keep going, following your faith, pampering the adventurous pilgrim in you, to reach the dark brown barren mass of sky-kissing rocks and cliffs wearing snowy tiara, finally to pay homage to the divine ice lingam, God. Feel the change in life forms from chinar and willows in Srinagar to the divine ice stalagmite formation as the drops of divinity from the cave roof fall for the benefit of devotees to form the representative of the majestic Lord.

Taushif, the taxi driver, is a happy man. An expert driver with quicksilver reflexes he would grasp narrowest chances to overtake on the heavily burdened narrow mountain road. At the dead-ends in traffic jams he flaunted an army taxi vendor card to get a special privilege to proceed. The long line of faith slowly crawling to the Lidder basin, a 40 km long and roughly 3 km wide escarpment surrounded by Pir Panjal and Zaskar ranges. And there the Lidder river fed by the glaciers at the looming heights flows to the tunes of mountainous serenity. Among all this snowy barren wilderness stands the holy cave made of limestone and gypsum. The people of faith from the plains make their way up panting for breath. The local Muslim Bakarwal Gujjars offer their services to the Hindu devotees.

We had to wait for a couple of days before we could start our trek from Baltal. Landslides in the upper reaches kept the pilgrimage suspended. The rains made the route to the holy cave very dangerous. Finally we found ourselves moving in the squelching mud while it was still dark early in the morning. By daylight the mass of pilgrims formed a bottleneck at the check post where one has to show the required papers. It comes a big reprieve to come out of that tight squeeze.

Our ageing bodies not up to the mark of taking up this difficult track and return in a single day, we got ponies as we struggled in the squelching mud on the narrow foot track. With three days of pilgrims stranded from both sides struggling to push and jostle ahead there was a thick wall of humans, ponies, horses and palkis. At a place the palki bearers slipped on the treacherous slope. They rolled down the stony slope like melons. Thanks God they didn’t fall into the narrow gorge below.

It was taking too much time to move even a few yards. It was a frail pony I was perched upon. It was shivering even under my modest weight. The owner would wallop it cruelly from behind. I felt like a culprit torturing this poor, weak, possibly ailing pony. To avoid being the cause of its death, I got down, paid the owner full fare and started walking. I was lucky to even find some place to dismount. It was just a foot away from the edge of the dirt path overlooking a deep fall. I was even scared that the shivering weak pony might fall and roll down taking me with it. So kindness and fear were both equally involved in my decision to start walking on foot.

My friends had sturdy ponies bearing them and they were so stuck up among a mass of ponies that even to get down would be a serious challenge. I left them in their jammed, crammed security and comfort. It had been a gloomy, overcast, freezing day. It started drizzling on the way to the holy cave during the last phase of walk in the gorge.

It was something beyond tiredness. You get numb. You realize the significance of a single step. I walked past the makeshift tents bearing shops, night-stay accommodation and bhandaras hardly able to think anything or even feel. There were long lines of pilgrims stuck up on the wet steps leading to the holy cave. It started raining a bit more intensely and I simply allowed myself to be pushed by the crowd, letting myself to be moved by the energy of the humans squeezing from all sides. An early evening fell as I reached the holy place.

There I stood staring in awe at the majestic, tall ice lingam representing Bhagwan Mahadev. It felt like reaching home finally. The whitish glimpse of divinity as a prasad for all the troubles faced during the climb. We humans are habituated to link one’s effort with the result or the outcome. We view them as inseparable. From this equation, what a beautiful outcome it was at the cost of all the trekking troubles! Such places are massive spiritual charging ports. We need not do anything special to get a sip of divinity there. All we need is just to be there, open ourselves and allow the high-frequency energies to give us a better alignment as per the natural laws. All that needs to be done for our evolution is done automatically, if we just stand there with acceptance, reverence and gratitude.

The pilgrims aren’t allowed to carry their mobile phones during the pilgrimage, so there was no avenue to get in touch with my friends. As a gloomy, wet, cold night looked imminent, I started for the return journey. And finding it a very tough task to trek in the dark with the rain pouring, and having taken no rest, I hired a horse. I chose wisely this time. It was a robust one and hence costly. But the Lord wanted me to take the entire trouble of walking to bear the burden of my faith on myself. I got my test just 3 km down the trek. It was an impassable jam of ponies and horses jutted stomach to stomach on a narrow ledge. Just a big mass of animals, so thick that one couldn’t see the land below. I had to draw up my legs in order to save them from getting crushed and lacerated by the saddles of others. Ponies from both sides blocked each other’s path in a narrow pass. There was some fresh landslide somewhere. The army had forbidden the movement of ponies from that point onwards. It was a scary night, a freezing rain pouring, and cold wind howled on the narrow ledge where we were stranded.

The ponies would get jittery now and then and a stampede loomed large. If they got out of control, many pilgrims would find themselves in the gorge below. Getting down was the biggest challenge. There was hardly any place to land your feet and if you tried the ponies would squeeze you from all sides. So I struggled to get down and after almost half an hour of effort I was lucky to hang onto the inside cut of the ledge like a little monkey and crawled to the narrow path on which some of the pilgrims were already moving to take the footpath. The horse guy won’t agree to part payment. ‘I’m ready to wait all night and take you to the destination. It’s your choice to get down, I’m not asking you to dismount,’ he had a point. So I paid him the full amount and started my long, struggling walk to the base camp. There was hardly any energy left in me. I was tired to the core of my muscles. I literally crawled, chanting Lord’s name and somehow managed to reach the rented tent in the wee hours.

My friends were more prudent. They stayed at a tent near the holy cave and made it comfortably the next day after a night’s rest. As fate would have it, the next evening after our arrival there was a cloud burst near the holy cave and the rushing torrents of water claimed many lives.

When I dumped myself on the damp bedding under a thick musty quilt, the Pandit ji from Ujjain opened his eyes from the neighboring bedding in the tent. He was sharing the tent with us. He looked at me with genuine feminine compassion in his lovely eyes. I was too tired and fell asleep even before his loving, empathy-full look was over. He had started the trek on the same day and driven by his unquestionable faith in Lord Shiva had made it before anyone of us.

He was a loving man, spoke with extempore musicality of wit and humor or caustic remark as the situation demanded. He loved putting on different avatars. Sometimes a leopard skin print draped around his torso like a yogi; sometimes you found him in a sun hat and goggles in company with a swanky track suit and flashy sneakers like a celebrity from the entertainment industry. He was an impressive narrator of myths, bhajans and stories when the audience was receptive. But he could taunt and shut down the nonsense people with good effect. He possessed a beautiful feminine space in his sensitive loving heart. A sort of shakti looking for solace in her Shiva. He would hold my hand with a lover’s affection and I felt pressure on my palm. I respected his feminine outreach in showing love and liking for someone. I maintained a straight face and responded at a neutral, respecting level. During the time when we were waiting for the trek to open, we had a friendly outing in the pastures around the base camp. He loved getting clicked and honoring his social media needs I tried my best to operate like a professional photographer. On our return journey, I saw him strolling with gentle ease at Srinagar airport as well. He was a head turner with his style, feminine elegance and charisma in his male body. We greeted him and hugged him like real friends.

Me and my friends had stayed at Srinagar for a day before the return flight to Delhi. I gave myself a treat in a shikara in the Dal lake. Naughty boatmen sold beer and cigarettes. With a bang the little boat would meet the shikara and beer cans and cigarettes changed hands and money passed on. I had two bottles of beer. And being a non-drinker who reserves this entertainment for few odd occasions not lasting more than two-three times in a year, I was on a high. I wanted to swim in the Dal lake with my clothes, mobile phone and purse. But my sober friends somehow held me back.

The next morning we hired an auto for taking us to visit Shankaracharya temple, Dilshad garden and Nishat bagh. The auto-driver was a kind fellow giving us full hospitality like a caring host. He also offered salvation in jannat: ‘Hindus are very nice people. If a Hindu reads the kalma, he will definitely go to jannat long before common Muslims like us.’

Well, I know kalma but I somehow didn’t recite it while on the way to the airport. Who knows he would have jumped with ecstasy on seeing a kafir getting salvaged by his Muslim faith and it could have toppled the auto. So I thought it better to end the journey on a happy note. We were nearing the airport, so I thought it prudent to let things remain normal.

‘But we are already in jannat! Isn’t Kashmir jannat on earth?’ I politely asked. He was thinking of some finer argument but luckily we reached the airport and the discussion was left incomplete.   

Musing Monkey and Mediating Monk

 

A musing monkey and a meditating monk are simply two of the aspects of ‘being’ among the infinite ways of ‘being’ in mother existence. I celebrate life and its varied colors. I enjoy the musing monkey tricks of my own self (which I take as the mind, an all-pervading entity coursing through my psychosomatic system). I feel the joy of its stabler version as well—the meditating self.

To me mother existence is like a rose plant—lovely fragrant flowers, leaves, thorns, hard stem, roots, earth. Will the flower exist without the thorns? There is a unity of being. One aspect supports the other. A musing and mirthing monkey is somewhere and somehow is the cause (as well as effect) of a meditating monk and vice-versa. The main thing is the celebration of life. I enjoy the spectacle of musing and jumping monkeys. Watching their antics is a funny game. I deeply respect meditating monks—stable, peaceful people, carried by a cosmic frequency to bloom as flowers in their lovingly isolated (but subtly united) selves. But at a deeper level, these flowers are also the gist of the pain of many thorns. A thing of beauty is joy forever and for all. So let’s pay our respects to the meditating monks. But let us also take time to enjoy (and be) musing monkeys also. Because in the endless fabric of interconnected existence, musing monkeys and meditating monks are two faces of the same coin.

Basically, I feel like a bee musing over varied flowers (even thorns) taking sips of the nectar that I need both for physical necessity as well as the need born of the aesthetic hunger. It feels good to be able to appreciate something in everything. It gets you a kind of fluidity and flow in life. Somehow, I don’t feel like getting cast in a strict mould of a particular ideology, belief system, religion or sect. In my opinion, being cast in a particular belief system sets up a rigidity around one’s existence. But it’s obviously one’s sovereign choice and rightly so. We should never judge and compare. Every ounce of this existence is unique and that’s what makes it marvelous and miraculous, yet so simple and innocent. There should be absolutely no problem if you feel comfortable in a solitudional space, which you work out for yourself with single-minded focus, iron-clad determination and steely willpower.

I really appreciate and bow down to those who show marvelous perseverance in setting up an oasis in their life while walking through a harsh desert. It’s like striving for the full flowering of the self. It’s as good for the others as it’s for the self. Isn’t a flower meaningful and helpful to so many lives—to the artist, to the bees, to a child? Isn’t an oasis a source of joy and life to many weary travelers who take rest in it after struggling the sandstorms in the desert?

So let’s celebrate this life, this marvelous interplay of forms, shapes, emotions and thoughts born of the same sea of energy, the ripples in the same sea. Let’s enjoy this innocent skirmish between two ripples—a mediating monk and a musing monkey. There are no lessons to be drawn from this innocent interaction, no philosophy to be churned out, no morals to be spun out. Because these are mere opinions of two seekers on their own paths. Two waves crashing into each other playfully before moving on to take many other forms in the lap of Father Sea. 

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.