The smile of a sunburnt rose

 I'm a sunburnt rose in the little garden of a common man. My smile is singed with scorching May heat. These are the scorched edges born of my battle to survive and smile and spread fragrance and give nectar to these little creamy white butterflies that flutter around. They draw life from me and I take inspiration from them. Aren't they small flying petals bravely flirting with hot wind in this scorching heat?

I won't say the margins of my petals are burnt. I would say they are the embroidery work born of my flirtatious ways to kiss the sunrays. Well, no shame in that. My law is to smile, flirt, kiss and get kissed and spread fragrance. If that gives me burnt lips that's no problem. And no problem with sunrays either. They are what they are. I don't blame them. Their law is to warm, mine is to smile. Don't they give life to my frozen petals in the winters after a frosty night? When the frost melts on my lips to make me the seductive prince in the garden. Well, that's then and now is now. Why compare dew-fresh lips to parched ones? Both are beauties in their own ways. Most importantly, both are smiles in different conditions. So no problem with them furnace of sunrays. Now they give me this beautiful embroidered smile, marking their craze for me over the borders of my petals. They can't help it. They are in love. I look majestic with the mark of their love on my lips. Don't I? I do, I know.

We are a few flowery soldiers fighting for love, truth and beauty on a branch. I'm in the front and would take the lead in getting my authenticity singed and branded on my petals by the fiery kiln. Then my deputy stands in wait. He would be leading the smiley charge once my burnt petals scatter to the winds. And after him, the little bud that you see just getting ready to hold the baton for love and beauty will take charge.

Love, beauty and truth is what we convey and carry across our generations. No wonder, we survive as a single entity named 'rose'. A symbol of beauty and love. And of course smile. So we have to smile at all costs under any circumstance. If a rose won't smile, I'm afraid smile would vanish from this small planet.

'I' and 'we' smile simultaneously. 'I' and 'we' are just the same. Due to this sameness between 'I' and 'we', I can still enjoy the full handsome youthful smile of my deputy as if it's my own. I'm happy that all of us are roses only, not Mr. or Miss x, y, z, etc. For then our smiles would scatter and turn to pieces and my smile would become different from other roses. Thankfully we are spared that fate.

A smile isn't just for full, luscious lips. It's there for dry, parched, thirsty lips as well. A smile on parched, thirsty lips is a smile of bravery, conviction, wisdom, fortitude and determination, like mine as of now. A smile on full, luscious lips is a smile of youth, of romantic dreams, adventures and excitement like that of my deputy. A smile on a child's lips is the purest, a rose itself. See, can you see it in the little daughterly bud? Now forget all the nagging facts of life and smile for a moment. If I can do it under the hot fiery sun, you can at least do it with all the equipment there to help you keep safe from direct bombardment by the sun.

A meeting with Bhootnath

 

There was a knock at the gate. A sadhu with kindly eyes stares at us. He had snow-white beard, a typical well-established mendicant’s beard. And his hair was also pure snow-white. It was very surprising to find him looking with a certain familiarity. And there was a twinkling mischief in his eyes, a pleasant teasing as if he knew all about me and I hadn’t any clue about him. For sure, he knew who I am but I had hardly any clue about his identity.

My brother puts up a challenge for me to find out who this great sadhu is. I kept on staring at his face. But I couldn't tell who he was. And then my brother tells me he’s Rakesh. I nearly jumped out of ceiling. At the mention of Rakesh the faded signs of a once familiar face began to emerge out of the little space that was not covered by facial hair and his long mendicant hair locks. I could now make out yes this was Rakesh. It was a massive surprise, big enough to rattle my nerves. Even wildest imagination about him as a sadhu was impossible. After all, he used to be a normal boy. He was interested in physical exercises in the akhara. A not too vocal boy he had a very nice stocky and strong physique. I couldn't make out how come he has turned out to be an ascetic.

Since I hadn't met him for the last 15 years or so, it was very difficult for me to find out any logic into his becoming an aesthetic. He looked a perfect elderly sage even though Rakesh is a few years my junior. There was kindness in his eyes and his prematurely snow-white beard and orange robe were enough to make you feel that he belongs to that class of ascetics are not mere careerists, who are genuinely on the path of self-exploration leading to ultimate realization. Just after interacting with him for 15 or 20 minutes, I could make out that he is a genuine Seeker.

Rakesh used to be an average student, unassuming, without having any urgency to show off his talent or skill of any type. He hadn't have any big visions or dreams. Even the villagers hadn't too much expectations from him. Just like any other boy, you can say. His rocky story went like this. He was doing well as a transporter; he was earning decent bucks. You can say that he was going well and economically was well off, so there was hardly any financial problem. There wasn't any family problem either in his small, happy unit. And he was physically very strong as I have already told you.

But then his body revolted against him. There was a serious problem with his back. His spine would get locked up, a kind of dislocation where the facet joint of the lower vertebrae slips over the one above it. His body would get jammed, leaving him immobile and he had to lie on bed for months at end. The doctor told him that even a surgery stood very slim chance of curing him completely. There was a big risk and he might get worse than earlier. So they won't recommend the surgical procedure. In that way he kept on lying on bed. His life now meant precautions, painful injections, no physical work. And when the symptoms aggravated he would be bedridden. He even got bedsores one time. It was horrible, he told me. He got fed up with life. It was the same body that he felt so proud of, it was the same body that he used to put up into physical exercise routines to hone it, it was the same body that he used to feed so lovingly with all the nutrition and now it was failing him. The medical science was also helpless before this condition.

He went into depression as one can imagine and there were a lot of questions staring in his face in the league of ‘Why me?’. It shook the foundations of his faith in life itself. One day he found himself running into the cremation ground at midnight. He was losing the fervor of life. There was a fire still burning on a pyre and he put up the hot ashes on his forehead and yelled to all the evil spirits to come and challenge and fight with him. He knew that he was losing his sanity. His mind had at last given up after facing chronic physical problems. He told me that he was feeling so helpless that he was yelling and crying in the cremation ground at midnight. Then some soft whisper chimed in his suffering soul. It asked him to go to Haridwar and bathe in mother Ganga. His inner voice assured him that it will help him. That night itself he left for Haridwar. He stayed there for a fortnight, bathing in mother Ganga, simply enjoying the positive wives of the place. The hot lava and inner turmoil and agony cooled off in the holy waters over a fortnight. Now he could think with reason and logic and regained some balance.

Again a soft whisper told him to take sanyas lifelong and become an aesthetic full time. A complete U-turn in life for a completely different destination. He took diksha from a guru belonging to Gorakhnath sect. The Guru mantra very soon catapulted him into a full-grown sadhu in just a few years. You can imagine the power of Guru Mantra if somebody is very diligent and honest about it in meditation and tapasya. He was ready, the divine spark of devotion burned the stuck up karmas and the energy knots inside his body opened up for a free flow within three or four years. He rose quite tremendously on the path of spirituality. I could feel those spiritual vibes, a scent of purity and love, emanating from him.

When he came to meet me, he was on the 63rd day of his fasting. He was just having water, tea and smoking beedies, just these three things; imagine surviving on these three things for 63 days and still he was energetic, he was playful, he was joking, in fact I couldn't see any trace of fatigue or signs of sickness about him. Rakesh joked like a little boy that the doctor had told him not to lift a weight above 5 kg, not to walk more than a kilometer at a stretch and take every damn precaution in order to keep his spine out of danger. Now after meditations on guru mantra and tapasya as per Gorakhnath sect, Rakesh was in a position that just on water, tea and smoking beedies he could walk on a pilgrimage to a distance of 300 km, carrying a bag weighing almost 20 kg on his back just in order to challenge the medical diagnostics. As per medical science all this would have left him a crippled man. He had just returned from pilgrimage, on the 63^rd day of his 101 day fast, and here he was laughing and telling his story with full innocent vigor.

I could see the pride in his eyes and rightly so. He is the chief protagonist of his story, a maker of his own destiny, a keeper of his life in his own hands instead of surrendering it to the doctors. He decided to chart out a separate course for himself instead of getting daunted by the diagnosis where an injection would cost 60,000 rupees and bedsores awaited to define his life in terms of pain and suffering. There was a time when once the situation aggravated he had to take bed rest for two or three months at a stretch and bed sores would eat into his sense of dignity, giving him immense agony, helplessness and pain. Now he was a free man floating around on the fuel of spirituality, fueled by the blessings of his Guru, strengthened by the meditating powers that gave him unbelievable amount of energy even though he hadn't eaten anything solid for more than two months.

 So the almost crippled Rakesh was gone and here was a joyful, merrymaking, kindly, pious sadhu rechristened Bhootnath by his guru. When you become a true spiritualist you start grabbing the traces of ultimate truth that are cascading around in each particle of energy swarming around you and for that you need not be a well-educated person, you need not be a well-versed person in scriptures. Life itself is such a big teacher. It makes you a perfect knower of things. I have read thousands of books and Bhootnath has hardly read a few dozen books in his life and that too without much attachment in his heart for the habit of reading. But when we started talking on various topics, of course belonging to the domain of spirituality, I could see that the path of self-seeking gives one so many mysterious avenues of knowing things from very fresh perspectives, almost from hidden sources. He seemed to know all without reading or hearing the kind of stuff the novices like yours truly use on the path of true knowledge.

It was wonderful to talk to him on various topics. He told me about his numerous experiences. He had reached up to a level where he had clearly enjoyed out-of-body experiences where his consciousness could see the material body lying on the ground and could recognize and feel that duality. It's expected from anybody who is on the path of spirituality to feel very close to nature. Bhootnath feels very close to Mother Nature. He had recently undertaken a plantation drive and was eagerly looking forward to get some help in his mission of making Mother Earth green. He stayed with me for more than two hours and it was a treat to be with him, this entirely reformatted man. If I compare his former self to the present Avatar, it is unbelievable to even think of this transformation. Is it the same Rakesh who used to appear so normal in most of the things that the village boys enjoy while they are growing up in the bucolic, free environment? But now it wasn’t Rakesh anymore. He is Bhootnath now, so wise and a perfect ascetic.

Bhootnath was oozing with a kind of imposing elegance, which anyone on the path of spirituality can feel. It was wonderful to see him having a cup of tea, a glass of water; it was a treat to watch him smoking beedies. It was like a bird has gone out of the cage and was now enjoying free flights in the limitless expanses of the sky. He walks on foot most of the time. He says his stick is his main companion, his sole support apart from his guru's blessings and his Guru mantra. His saffron cloth bag his entire possession.

I asked him did he miss the village driving him to come to the village. He told me the reason for his recent visit was his mother, mai he called her, just like he would call any woman mai on earth. He somehow came to know about her blood cancer. He said even though I’m an ascetic I cannot forget that she is my mai, she's the one who gave me this body. I'm eternally obliged to her. In the hairy spools of detachment, I could feel very feeble, sadly pining notes of affection that would somehow identify a special mai from all the mais around. And what is wrong in that? Love comes in multiple layers. A mother is a mother forever even for an ascetic.

Bhoothnath was planning to take this special mai to Himachal for Ayurvedic treatment. She would be very happy to see all the open nature around her; maybe at least this much I can do for her. He said this in a very loving, soft, gentle tone, as if he was now father and mother both to all the worldly sufferers like us.

As I saw him off at the gate, it was such a soothing side to see him walking on his path, slowly putting his stick in front with each step and the village dogs barking at the stranger. He moved as if this meeting with me didn’t carry any leftovers with him. As an ascetic you become a stranger in your own village. Most of the people in the village won't recognize him if they come face to face with him because the robes, big beard, long locks of hair have completely redefined Rakesh, sorry Bhootnath.

He is in a different league altogether. He has a genuine smile, a smile of kindness, forgiveness. I sincerely believe and I'm 100% sure about it that he will go very far on the path of spirituality. He may even attain ultimate liberation in this lifetime only. I could see it on his forehead. It was wonderful to meet this spiritualist. Nonetheless, it was a big surprise to me. I do hope to meet him sometime because I miss those positive vibes, the fragrance of his spirituality, the scent of selfless seeking. Who won't like to meet such people?

The beginning of a new day

 

In the pre-dawn silence of a cold morning, a laughing dove sadly coos her dissatisfaction about love. A broken heart that wants to be heard in the eerie silence. A puppy barks. Someone clears his throat loudly. A jungle crow caws. A tailorbird picks up his notes. A shoal of house sparrows sings morning prayers. The day has begun.

This is the first week of December. There are no farm fires now but the air quality index (AQI) in Delhi is still hazardous on the pollution scale. The narrative about the farm fires helps the politicians in hiding their failure year after year. During the winters, the AQI becomes more important than the Sensex. It should nail down the fact that we are now at the edge of a painful fall. Take climate change seriously.

You realize the real worth of sunshine after a few overcast days in the winters. Sunless days in winters stare at you very snappishly. And when the sun shines openly one fine morning, you welcome it with gratitude. It heals you like your frozen hands get a lease of life on a warm hearthstone. You run to put the damp clothes to dry. In my enthusiasm, I hang clothes on the line and block the little aloe vera plant’s share of the golden rays. The plant must have complained for I realize the mistake. I remove the hurdle and warm sunrays kiss its green spiky sturdy leaves. Soak your part of the sunrays but take care not to block others’ part.

Another little family of honeybees came scouting for a place to pass the winters. They hovered over the little clump of trees in the garden. The resident honeybees must have objected to another hive so nearby. There was a lot of confusion for some 15 minutes, or maybe even some scuffles and heady altercation. The visitors agreed to the objection and settled for the giloy-covered acacia clump outside the fence.

The little sapling of peepal is doing well in the nursery bag. It was a tiny sapling, dusted, crushed, barely visible among the cracks in the yard bricks. I retrieved it and planted it in a little nursery bag. Bathed it with tiny water droplets and the dust came off its half-crushed little leaves—just three of them. The thin stem was almost mauled. It barely held onto life for two-three weeks, neither dying nor growing. And then one fine day a new leaf shone under the mild winter sun. Let’s hope it will be a majestic, massive tree one day.

A blue monkey from the blue dye factory enters the village. It’s a small unit a few kilometers from the village on the road to the town. The monkey made its territory there and maybe loved the heady smell of the chemical and the blue-spattered compound. But it lost the red of its face and bum in the bargain. Then getting bored of the monotony there, it left the place and entered the village. The rest of the monkeys are scared of him. He has come seeking company but they run away. I think he better approach the ladies in the dark. He can claim to have descended from the heaven and try to be their King by default for being completely exclusive.

Granduncle’s Labrador Tuffy has a gruffy bark now. It seems his throat is overused. Actually, a rascally young monkey sits on a tree overlooking the terrace. He keeps teasing the dog. The latter keeps barking. By this time, there are too many simian residents in the village. Almost every roof has a claimant. It seems there has been mass emigration to the village. They love the concrete jungle. Tiny baby monkeys have nice play-spots on the roofs. They slide down the slanting rooftop solar panels. They are learning to bite properly also. They practice on solar-system cables. 

Well, coming to some warmth in the chilly days of December. A cat comes with a lot of warm flattery—if you feed it well—and lots of purring around your legs. But you cannot avoid some extras from the feral cats who pay you visits and get friendly. They arrive with poop as well. Maybe they think they are paying you back for your kindness. It forces you to be more tolerant. Small-time writers can learn to share the sun-bathed terrace with cats. They love sleeping as much as I feel like writing. So I try to draw better inspiration and ignore the drying cakes of cat poop. If you cannot do that then stop pretending to be a writer and be a cat-beater.

Satsang with a religious man

 There is a simple man in our village. He is in his early fifties and a gristha. He is a small farmer but his wife is a government teacher. His son and daughter and their spouses are in government services. People say Almighty has been very kind to him in giving him almost everything, without much effort; in fact, most of the things that other villagers struggle to achieve seem to be given to him on a platter. Whenever I meet this man, I can see a spark of the divine feminine in him.

As we know this universe has a divine polarity comprising divine feminine on the one side and divine male on the other side. It is not necessary that a person who has been born as a biological man or woman or any other gender identity will essentially have the corresponding divine male or female aspect or element in him or her. We categorize people either as a born male or a born female or some beautiful combination overlapping genders. But irrespective of their categorization in terms of biological genders, people have a subtler layer of categorization: divine female element or divine male element defining their personality. This latter subtler, more nuanced characteristic is not necessarily bound to the biological male, female or any overlapping gender identity. A biological male can have the spark of divine female in him, defining him as a soft, elegant, receptive persona. Similarly, a biological female may possess the divine male spark in her personality, making her aggressive, dominating and loud. The neighborhood peasant women, most of them, fall in this category. A few of them even beat their husbands, sitting on their chest, gnawing their face, shrieking loudly. I call them a warrior women clan.  

Now this person that I mentioned is biologically a man. He possesses the divine feminism beautifully personified in his personality. The way he speaks, very soft spoken, gentle with words, almost whispers. He is elegance personified the way he moves his body, the way he takes his soft steps, the way he smiles, everything. You can say he is a very nice personification of the divine female element. His emotions are poetry personified. But this spark of the divine feminism in his male body is intriguing for people. Things get still tougher in a male-dominated Jat society where being a man is about being loud, aggressive, raw, rough and tough. On account of this visible contrast in the material world, the contrast of a male body and feminine elegance, there are many who would just laugh at him. People pass sarcastic remarks. But that is their problem. This man is not bothered about what people talk, think or say about him. He is very busy on his path of Bhakti. People with divine feminine element in them have a great potential for self realization through Bhakti marga involving total surrender to the deity. It stands on complete receptivity of faith, unquestioning acceptance. How can it be possible without the mellowable, fluid strength of the divine feminine?

I have seen him and heard about him following various gurus in the region. He would go into the ashrams and do selfless work. He organizes kirtans and sings wonderful bhajans of love for almighty. In fact, there is a group of women in the village who almost take him as their guru who is there to guide them on the path of Bhakti. It’s a wonderful sight to see him and his group of women going for religious congregations, following pious rituals or singing devotional songs. I always had this feeling that this man is on very solid footing, with his feminine steps, as far as the ultimate realization is concerned.

Sometime back I found him standing in front of my gate, very submissively, even hesitatingly, as if lost in many inhibitions whether he should knock at the gate or go back unannounced. By chance I saw him standing there otherwise I believe he would have even left without calling on me. He greeted me in his gentle, elegant voice and manner and asked me if I can give him a bit of time because he needs to talk. As we started talking, there were tears in his eyes, the tears of an unrequited love for the almighty, his divine lover for whom his soul has been doing tapasya; the stream of tears almost a river of sweet suffering to meet his divine lover, the Almighty. After decades on the path, despite being a great selfless servant to many holy men, he openly confessed that there is the same restlessness, the very same suffering, the same stress as it was when he started on the path decades ago. He asked me frankly what was the use of selflessly serving all those gurus, what is the need of that selfless work in the ashrams, what is the purpose of holding those kirtans nightlong singing songs in Lord’s praise. A huge why staring at his soul?

‘What was the use of all this if after so much time and service I feel I am where I started from? There is the same restlessness, the same suffering, the same torturing feeling of something missing. Now I wonder has it been worth it,’ he seemed thoroughly shaken.

I felt that he was disgruntled with his gurus, with the manner things are organized in ashrams, the sweet sour bickering among the devotees, all summing up to give almost a kind of feeling that you have in the society at large, or within your house.

‘Who am I to tell you? A novice while so many Babas haven’t been able to guide you?’ I was about to reply. But a split-second reflection stopped me. And I would go on to explain a few things to him as per my level of understanding born of my journey so far. Why I chose to speak to him? It needs a flashback.

There is this girl who is a very distant relative of mine. She is a sweet householder with three beautiful children. From the derivative threads of relatives, I qualify to be her maternal uncle so she calls me Mamaji. I had never met or talked to her in life. She had heard a few summarizing bits about me, just vague biographical pheases. She is a devotee of Mahaavtar Babaji. She called me for the first time and introduced herself. As per her belief system, she acts as a medium to convey Babaji’s messages. She goes into a trance, the pen draws of its own will, a psychotic trance, and meaningful messages surface, many of which have resolved problems for those asking divine intervention from their side. ‘Mamaji I hardly know Sanskrit and chaste literary Hindi words but sometime the messages come in such highly refined language that even I’m surprised and they help people,’ she told me. The problem-solving messages by Babaji helped many in her friend circle. She was intrigued and wanted to know more. She pestered Babaji to tell more about it and he would just laugh her away in her dreams. Feeling more intrigued she thought of going to Sadguru to get a clearer idea about things. But Babaji laughingly teased her that don’t go to him. His mission needs people like you and he will keep you as a spiritual worker among his followers then who will take care of your children. ‘Then Mamaji your name struck me. My inner voice said that this man knows quite a few things intellectually that may explain many things. But experientially he is still a novice, in fact a fool. So Mamaji explain things intellectually, your being a fool experientially doesn’t matter,’ she laughed.

So I poured out my entire verbal diarrhea in response to her never-ending queries. ‘Ho Mamaji you can set up a nice business in the bazaar of spirituality. Who is bothered about experiential aspect of true knowledge? Nobody. You can start selling yourself. I will help you. There are so many judges and high officials who are lost souls and need words, words and more words on spirituality,’ she teased me and gave a business plan. ‘I will surely fail in any business, be it material business or spiritual one,’ I laughed away the plan. Then after a few more conversations and having been bombarded by more intellectual words, she started wondering about my fate. Now, yours truly has waded pretty testing waters in life. She felt sorry for me, the typical way nieces do for their senior relatives and then when she went into her trance she put up my question to Babaji. ‘Why has it been so tough for Mamaji? Why has he such a floundering date with fate?’ she asked. And Babji assured her, ‘Don’t bother about him. It’s his own choice. This speeding of karma. He wants to take a leap. A leap of five birth’s karma in a single lifespan. Now that will raise sparks and raise the temperature for him.’ She told me this sullenly. I said don’t feel sorry beta, it’s our own journey based on our own choices. After that as an intellectually crammed (to the extent of verbal and written diarrhea) and experientially novice, I try my best to explain a few things to those who arrive at my doorstep. Beyond that I’m not interested in anything. So I decide to talk to this wonderful human being who had now come seeking my advice.  

I told him, ‘See you should not expect the people on the path of spirituality, the devotees, the religious institutions and gurus to be the perfect replica of divinity on earth. These are mere indicators; they just systematize a certain set of rules so that the devotees can progress on the path, a start, a beginning, to further build upon it. All this systematization of scriptures, rituals, gurus, deities is just a vehicle. The main reason of your pain is that you considered a mere vehicle as the destination. Just like you take a train or a bus or a two-wheeler or an airplane to reach a particular destination, does it mean that particular means of communication is your destination. Don't we just forget about the vehicle and enjoy the destination once we arrive. The means are never the end. But this is common human folly to start taking the means as an end in themselves. The same is with gurus, with ashrams, with followers, with holy works and pious bhajans. All these are just material or not so material means to an end, the end of supreme realization. You should not look for perfection in institutions, in gurus, in your fellow devotees. It is never about them. It is always about you. Because wherever you have an institutional build up, there are certain elementary or basic things of life that we need to run a particular institution or ashram. Worldly materiality cannot be avoided. It is always looking over the fence to creep in. So after a time the very same feelings that you feel as a householder, they also manifest in ashrams and institutions and a devotee feels almost cheated thinking what is this, I was expecting something totally different but here things are more or less the same as they were in my house. Please do not fall in this trap of judging the gurus, the fellow devotees, or a particular stream of belief or sect or ashram. Don't feel victimized or cheated that it was not worth it, that nothing came out of it, that you wasted your life. It has been worth it believe me. It has served its purpose. It was first in the hierarchy that accepted you with its divine grace. You must have been feeling suffocated and restless within your duties as a householder, as a part of society just like any other person around. And that is why you, in accordance with your soul’s eagerness to spread its wings and be a part of something larger that defines you as something above and beyond your identity, came out and met these wonderful people. You were adopted in a sort of larger family where the rules and responsibility that were streamlined as a householder are now modified to give you a feeling of freedom. An opening. A coming out from a narrow alley to a wider street. There you were the head of the house, here it is guru. Instead of the family members, now you have fellow devotees. Instead of the common mechanism of running a house, here it is about running a larger organization for an institution or an ashram. The fundamentals are the same, just that you become a part of a larger entity, a larger household, a larger community where you feel better, relaxed just for the more open nature of it. A breaking of former confines. It is just like this. Suppose there is someone who is incarcerated in a small cell in a jail. And if that person is brought out and allowed to come into the prison yard, which itself is still a part of the prison but the moment he comes out of his narrow cell he sucks in the free rays of the sun and he can smell the traces of freedom, he can enjoy life even though he is still in the jail. And if you keep him in that prison yard for a few months, the same feeling of being trapped, being incarcerated, being jailed will come creeping even though now the space is far-far bigger than what it was there in the tiny cell earlier. So similarly earlier you got fed up with the little cell of your household, then you were given a bigger platform as part of ashrams, as part of devotees, as part of devotional music groups and you felt better. Now please don't think that this stage in your life has not been worth anything. It has served its purpose. Just like the prisoner coming out of his narrow's little cell feels better in the prison compound, similarly you were coming out of your house and its troublesome confines and enjoying life as a part of religious communities. It gave you a sense of freedom. But now your soul wants something more, it wants to become a part of a larger entity, a large group, a lot of further spread out setup where it can further spread its wings to fly in liberated skies. Now as far as I can feel and understand, you want a dose of further unqualified freedom, unconditioned from disciplehood, serving in ashrams, massaging guru’s legs and the like. I will tell you a few simple techniques that will help you feel liberated from your situations that you feel have confined you in a narrow bracket as of now.’

I pointed to his footwear and said, ‘Why deprive yourself of graceful contact with mother earth? Try to walk as much as possible on naked feet.’ I could feel that he is not in a position to renounce his material world. He is pretty much attached to the beautiful world mainly through his little grandson. Nothing wrong with that. So I suggested him a long pilgrimage of let us say two months to visit Haridwar and Rishikesh, ‘Keep a cloth bag, put your footwear in it, have a bottle of water, have a stick as your guardian, as your companion, keep a yellow ascetic robe in it. If you feel hesitation in wearing the ascetic robe in the village itself, thinking what will people say then you can wear the robe at a distance from the village where nobody recognizes you. Now why am I telling you to wear the ascetic robe even though you are not a renunciator. The reason is it is a mark and symbol of asceticism and it will save you from many a dark eye on the way. It is not an old sight in India to find ascetics in their traditional robes moving across isolated places. So many people would just give you respect and they won't bother you. For example, when the night is falling and you need a place to spend the time and some villager or someone from a little hamlet comes across and sees an ascetic coming he or she will offer you a place to spend the night and even offer you food. And then you can just stay on mother Ganga’a banks for a couple of months. You used to take bucket bath earlier, now you have to spread your identity to be bathed by the unlimited, blissful waters of mother Ganga that are not bound by any material restrictions or physical limitations. Earlier you used to define the sky above you in the form of a roof on your head but now you will be defining your identity in terms of the infinite vault of the sky above. Anyway it will be as good as the prisoner, who got fed up in the prison compound, now coming out of the prison gate and becoming a part of the open society at large. Similarly from the definition of your identity born of your footwear’s touch on ground leaving a footprint by your shoes, a mediated reality, a fake ego reality, here now as you walk with naked feet you will be giving the infinite lovable touch to mother earth and get defined in a new manner by the real sole of your feet not just by any intermediary footwear intervening between you and mother earth. Use your footwear when it becomes too difficult for you to walk on account of rough terrain. Now you would be taking bath in the open rivers and ponds and water bodies instead of just being bathed by the limited waters of your bathroom or your bucket. Stop now getting defined by the roof of your house and its suffocating limitations. Now you'll be defined by the open skies. It will give you the space that you need. It will provide you an opportunity to spread yourself on a bigger platform. And believe me once you return to your house after 2-3 months, you will retain those glimpses of freedom and unbound deliberation with you. Because on the path of spirituality the barometer won't come down at least in this lifetime. If you have touched, tasted and smelt the divine, you will retain that divine grace with you. You are lucky to be located in a village where there is still open space around, where there are canals with freer (relatively speaking) waters, where there are big trees. So I would advise you to spend two-three hours daily walking on naked feet on canal embankments where there is solitude. You can take bath in the canals and imagine you are bathing in Ganga. Everything is emotion, bhaav. With pure emotions this village canal will transform into Ma Ganga. You can just visualize or imagine that these are the waters of divine Ganga. Ma Ganga will be washing you of your pains and suffering right here in this canal. If you're not satisfied with the company of humans, go and embrace trees, talk to them, sit under them, enjoy their company. And this according to me brother seems to be the appropriate way as per your journey spent so far. You just need a bigger space to allow your soul to further spread on its path.’

I spoke many other things. I spoke with spiritual excitement to the extent that my mouth went dry. What I have presented here is just from recall, there were many other outpours of verbal diarrhea. But what wrong it does if your intellectual jargon helps someone feel better. He had tears of joy now. I could feel him opening up to the scenarios described by me. ‘I already feel so much better, just by imagining it,’ he said. ‘Any experientially challenged fool—like me—will talk and give the longest sermon on earth but main thing is following it. It looks simpler than it really is,’ I thought. But I didn’t say anything. I could see the change in him. He arrived with a lot of suffering but left a happy man. A temporary respite. But then all spiritual practices are about temporary respites, a series of little salvations, little-little battle won for peace and ultimately there are few fortunate ones who win the entire war, the ultimate triumph, perfect self realization, call it nirvana or whatever. 

Shiva and his naga

 Indian mythology is full of beautiful fables and interesting tales. Now they have very mystical meanings if we analyze them, interpret them in a higher dimension. I always thought why do they depict Shiva with a Naga, mostly a black cobra, around his neck and my individual interpretation is something on the following lines. A snake being one of the most perceptible creatures on Earth. Their entire body is in a position to perceive things to a level that is almost impossible to even imagine for human beings. Like for example there is a snake in its hole and there is an earthquake thousands of kilometers away. Now there is a high possibility that the snake will perceive the tremors because it is so sensitive to even the softest reverberations coming across its body. We humans have almost a primal fear when it comes to snakes. Just think of a snake and you get goosebumps and when you come across a snake it can perceive the fear in you. It can perceive the change in your blood chemistry because when you get excited, when you get fearful your blood chemistry changes and your breathing pattern also turns abnormal. Now a snake being so perceptive, even if you don't show any outer sign of being afraid, but you are scared inside, it can perceive the biological or chemical changes in your bloodstream and it reacts to that fear. It is commonly believed wherever there are meditating spiritualists the snakes really like their company. I have read stories about meditating ascetics in the forests and as their mind goes into that state of equilibrium, that equanimity of temperament, that balance of mind and the consequent lessening of fear, a snake especially a cobra really likes those waves of higher frequency. In the neighboring village there was a realized Soul, he left this body about 25 years ago, but people accepted him as an enlightened human being and he used to meditate a lot when he arrived in this area. He used to meditate in a little scrub forest. In his memoirs he has clearly written that when he would meditate there was a black cobra that would continue moving in a circle around him and that continued for at least 5 or 7 years. So it proves that a Cobra has a special liking for those who are spiritually evolved or who are on the path of spiritual evolution because there are certain changes, biological changes as a result of the spiritual practices, which create a kind of divine atmosphere where there is no fear, where the snake loses its instinct of fear and biting. I think the reason they show a Naga around Shiva's neck is that Shiva being a realized soul, a supreme  being who was 100% established within himself, so there was no fear and the snake would find him just like a warm rock during cold winter days, where it could relax since there was no fear, no change in that great yogi's blood chemistry  or emotions or thoughts or energy field. As established as a rock. So a snake would be near Lord Shiva the way it would prefer to crwal on a rock. According to me, the main purpose they show Shiva with a naga was that he was a supreme personality that was 100% realized and established within its human form; there was no turbulence either in his emotions or in his body or in his energy field and a snake would be so comfortable around his neck as it would be comfortable on a rock during harsh winter days in order to soak in the sunrays. The adiyogi established his chitta in all forms, to be like a living rock, a supreme fluidity inside a supreme stability.  And with someone so blissful why won't a naga fall in love. It abandoned its fears and biting insticts. And there we have our beautiful Shiva with a Naga around his neck.