Beyond the web of factual right and wrong

 

One can commit violence even using the naked sword of ‘truth’—the so-called matter-of-fact truth. It’s a bland, statistical, mechanical bit of information. A soulless entity. It’s an arrow that’s strung on the bow of ‘honesty’ to pierce, to hurt, to settle a score. Most of the so-called ‘outspoken’ and ‘blunt’ people, who assume that they are truthful, are in fact using the facts to hurt and settle scores with the people they don’t like. They are no worshippers of truth.

The real truth is in spirit. Beyond technical accuracy, it has a soul. It possesses a sweet core. It’s a feeling, lively entity. A really truthful person will not unleash a factually correct arrow to outscore some rival in a debate or argument. The facts that hurt someone can be retained and left unused. And if you need to use these facts at all, it should be with love, care and an intention to guide and bring positive change in someone’s life, not just the plain intention of judging and showing someone in bad light and humiliate him/her.

So the intention behind what we say is the real decider of what is truthful in spirit. Even slightly modified facts that are meant to help someone, make her feel better, guide her on a nice path are far more ‘truthful’ than the naked, fanged facts that hurt someone and are basically used as weapons to pamper our ego.

The fight, the perennial strife

 

There is a dramatic and pulsating drive to build among the humans. Most of what we build is born of fears. Fear seems to be the predominant element of life on earth. Peace is a dream. We are always either fighting or preparing to fight. Therefore, the global military expenditure is 6.7 billion dollars per day. This huge amount of money is willingly spent, even eulogized under the jingoistic nationalistic banner. It’s taken as a matter of pride. On the other hand, at the climate summit the major countries are fighting to muster up just 300 billion dollars for climate financing. It seems unimportant to us. Little do we realize that climate-induced ocean heating leading to a super-cyclone dents the economy by as much as the entire amount proposed for climate financing.

We are comfortable to kill each other on a dying planet. We are fundamentally inclined to lose our peace and feel restless. We get bored even with love and create disharmony and disputes. We even get bored with our freedoms as well as the mechanisms and institutions meant to ensure our individual and collective freedoms. When we get bored with freedom, we turn cynical and show apathy to the organized degradation of democratic process and institutions. Presently, the world seems to be bored with democracy. Democracy is gradually degrading over the world. Autocratic maneuvering is stealthily taking a firm grasp on the throat of democracy.

On the face value, democracy seems to follow the time-tested process, but behind the screen the indirect, subtle forgeries, lies, manipulations and misuse are eating into its soul. It’s not that people can’t see and feel it. They understand. They know that the spirit of democracy is being compromised like never before. But just like we get bored with love, we are receptive to the processes of democratic degradation. It’s like we are ready for chaos and autocracy; a collectively depressed, anxious society getting addicted to autocracy.

While we smoothened and plastered our walls as the outward measures to cover the gaping holes inside our souls, the sparrows lost chances to build nests in niches, grooves, holes and crevices in walls, roofs and ceilings. The sparrows are now fighting to grab the abandoned wire-tail swallow mud-nest in the verandah. The mud-nest cup has a little space where they can put some grass sinews and lay eggs. The sparrows are cheeky, chirpy, petite, querulous ones. About a dozen couples are fighting to occupy the prime property. The moment a couple lands on the property, the others chase it away with angry, shrill notes. It’s a big fight since morning—a little ounce of the same ghastly battlefields where one country is bombarding another to grab land and resources. They twirl, swirl, dive and shout to discourage each other from occupying the property. Finally, the most stubborn couple will win the rights. One angry couple even chased the poor flycatcher around the yard. They just banged into him the moment it perched anywhere. The sparrows in bad temper and the poor flycatcher has to pay; just like angry world leaders make the common people pay for their bursting tempers.  

The thief of divine grace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The fulfiller of cosmic will

 

All this is a little funny innocent thoroughfare around. This creation is just pushing a unique expression through our identity, our point of existence in Her infinite folds. So let’s be proud of what we are doing. Our karma is nothing but a contribution from our end to help the eternal truth in maintaining its sanctity, its mystical depth. So let’s create well in full honesty to our own self. Spool your webs and feel that we are fulfilling a vital part in Her scheme of things.

Each step we take is in fact Her step to realize Her full potential. We are merely an expression of the infinite potential lying at the quantum level to take more and more shapes and expressions. So do your karma in action, thoughts and emotions in full sincerity, with full awareness, with full presence. And you make Her happy, happy about Herself because She is you and you are just a drop in Her vast cosmic sea. She is happy when you are happy. She is sad when you are sad. She feels like a majestic creator when you are consciously creating something in full awareness. And She is right there in you when you are aware of your full presence.

A little message for the traveler

 

Usually people, most of us, walk through a grey zone of shifting shadows. It’s not totally dark, it’s a mundane journey. Neither too painful, nor joyous one. It leads to a common destination as well. But some people have to walk through a dark cave, you may call it ‘dark night of the soul’. It’s painful involving lots of suffering. Many perish in the folds of darkness. But those who choose to continue, they finally come out and face the brightest dawn, the dawn of the soul in evolutionary terms. Such people are leaders, guides and inspiration just by default. They need not even try to accomplish anything. Just by being there they do goodness. And if they choose to guide fellow human beings, they make good masters.

So remember this, always, as you walk through your dark nights, that you are such a soul. And the patches of darkness will keep arriving periodically till you see the sunshine finally and be an inspiration to others. So keep walking. With a smile. And keep in touch with the people who care for you. Don’t allow the darkness to build more walls around you. Best wishes brothers and sisters!