If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir (20 page)

A few weeks later, I began sleeping from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and brought my meditation forward by yet another two hours. So, I meditated for thirteen hours straight. Eventually, I gave up on those two hours of sleep as well. In a trance-like state, my mind stopped asking for sleep, and my body never sounded an alarm suggesting it needed sleep. Then I realized that I had to give my body and mind some rest. So I forced myself to nap for two hours in the evenings.

I used to sleep on three wooden planks laid next to each other on the floor of the hut. The one in the middle had bent due to prolonged sitting there. There was a thin mattress, no thicker than three cotton sheets, that I had laid over the planks. And I had a quilt. This was my bed. I was at the same level as the insects and rodents that came into my hut.

You would think that living in an isolated mountain abode, miles away from habitation, I would find the deepest silence. Yes and no. While there was no artificial noise, no traffic, TV or human beings, there were plenty of other sounds that made it hard for me to meditate. Most notable were the birds. They would chirp for hours every night; I presume they were attracting the females. One poor male would sing continuously for 20–30 minutes, take a break of a few seconds and call out again with the same fervour. An hour or two later, some female would respond, the communication would start and the male would fly out to the female. Of course, none of this was actually visible but I could make this out from the way their songs travelled. I had no problem with the amorous nature of these birds. After all, sex, and not religion, is the basis, cause and consequence of evolution. Only, their loud noises were a great distraction in my meditation. Imagine you are trying to concentrate in the deafening silence of the night in the snowy Himalayan forests, and a bird starts to make a sound: ‘Tnk, tnk, tnk, tnk, tnk, tnk …' I even found myself praying sometimes, 'O Lord, if you exist, please send this fellow a companion. Have mercy on him. He’s desperate.'

Over time, I learned to ignore these distractions. Perhaps this was all part of my sadhana. Birds continued to sing at different times and at varying pitches, but they eventually ceased to bother me. During spring, a variety of hornets and crickets would produce exceedingly loud sounds. Hundreds of crickets would stridulate in unison. Whether they all competed for a handful of females or they were celebrating, I had no clue. Learning to transcend such noises took my meditation to another level altogether. Each time I crossed a hurdle, I gained better control over my mind, my senses.

Baboons also visited me. These fellows would freely jump onto the roof of my hut, hang on to the walls and peep through the holes. Sometimes, I felt they were intentionally teasing me. Of course, that was not the case. It was just that earlier, this hut had never been occupied in the winter, so they were not expecting anyone inside. When they were clambering all over the hut, there was nothing I could do because I wasn’t going to move and disrupt my meditation for some baboons.

When I was outside, I used to watch them swing from one tree to another. The sight always amazed me because I never saw a baboon falling down. If I could have that mindfulness in my meditation, it would have been quite an achievement. In their case, it was in their genes. I suddenly realized that this is what I needed to do: shift the meditation from my conscious mind, where it was an effort, to the depths of my subconscious and unconscious states, where it was effortless. Over time, I would learn to do this.

Initially, when I started meditating, there were many wild animals around. I could hear boars snorting around at night but, as they smelled a human, they began shying away too. They never stopped coming though, you could easily make out from the trail in the snow in the morning.

The greater challenge, however, was not from the wild animals; it was from the rats, spiders, wasps and other insects inside my hut. Rats in the woods were as large as they were aggressive. Even though there were numerous holes in the walls and they were free to come in and go out through those holes, they kept on making new ones every day. As if imitating the expert predators, they would drag whatever they could get their teeth on into a corner and gnaw on it. No sooner would I sit down for my meditation than the rats would begin making noises. That constant sound of nibbling was a distraction at the beginning, but I learned to overcome it by persisting with my meditation. The rats often took the liberty of resting on my pillow while I meditated.

The spiders, unlike the rats, worked rather quietly. Every night, without fail, while I sat absorbed in my meditation, some persistent spider would weave a web from my head up till the roof. The roof of the hut was quite low. Once seated, there was less than 3 feet of a gap between the roof and my head. My mental state was such that, every morning, I would forget to check for the web. Whenever I got up, I had to spend the next five minutes cleaning my face of the fine threads of the gossamer web they'd weaved from their spit.

As at Baba’s ashram, I had the choice to destroy these creatures as well; it was not hard to do so. But these were not compassionate choices. I was here to practise compassion, and never so much as a mosquito did I ever hurt intentionally. Interestingly, not once was I bitten by a rat, stung by a bee, hornet or wasp, or attacked by any wild animal, and it wasn't a coincidence. Before the commencement of the sadhana, one of the rituals I had carried out involved praying to various divine energies for their protection. I invoked the gram devata, the protector of that region; the sthan devata, the protective energy of my immediate surroundings; and the vastu devata, the protective energy at the site of the sadhana. The lineage of the sages protects a true seeker, and this is, in fact, the primary purpose of initiation through a mantra. This was not all though. I had made a peace pact with all the living entities around me; they were all a part of nature, just as I was, and made from the same elements I was. There was no room for disharmony.

Apart from the animals, there were other challenges to the body. A seeker goes through three types of obstacles: daihik, of the body; adhibhautik, physical; and adhidaivik, divine or environmental. My aches and pains were challenges of the body. The lack of food, resources and amenities were physical hurdles. The dangers posed by the wild animals or the unforgiving Himalayan weather were my environmental challenges; and there were plenty of all these.

High up in these mountains, massive storms arrived regularly: snowstorms, windstorms, rainstorms, hailstorms and blizzards. The sounds were deafening at times, as if unseen forces wanted to drive me out or the Divine was testing me, wanting to see if I still feared for my life. Or perhaps she was cheering me on, I couldn't be sure. Anyway, in these storms, you sense the magnitude of creation: one man, surrounded by gigantic mountains and dense forests, standing defenceless below thundering clouds and stormy, grey skies … But what could nature possibly want from an insignificant being like me? Everything I was or had, including my body, was bestowed on me by the Divine. It was a liberating feeling to realize that I had nothing to lose, and therefore, nothing to be afraid of.

During the storms, the mighty winds would push and pull at the thatched roof of the hut, raising it by a few inches for a few seconds before violently slapping it back into place. Every time this happened, hoards of insects that had collected in the roof, both living and dead, would fall on me. The roof was harnessed by ropes; otherwise, it would have simply flown away. I had managed to slip a tarpaulin under the ropes, and placed heavy rocks on top to hold the tarpaulin in place. But the winds were too strong and, every time a storm came—almost daily for four months—they would displace the tarpaulin. If displaced, it was of little use. Pradeep would climb up on the roof and patiently readjust the tarp after every storm.

On one occasion, there was a hailstorm. The sound of hail falling on the roof was deafening. I was glad that the wall behind me was properly covered with tarpaulin that had been secured with many nails. When I went out in the morning, I thought the wall looked somewhat different. It took me a few seconds to register that the tarpaulin was no longer on the wall but on the ground. In tatters. I figured that with the tarpaulin gone, rain would seep in through the wall. Since I sat by this wall, my bedding would also get wet.

This place had become unsuitable for me, but I was not prepared to leave under any circumstances. I looked up and said, 'Is that all you have? Show me what else you’ve got. I challenge you to move me from this place. I’ll die but I won’t move till I see your form. Why just the tarpaulin, take the roof, take the whole hut for all I care. You can torture my body, but my resolve is unshakable.' I wasn't feeling reverential but rebellious. This time, I decided to not have the tarpaulin replaced. I was prepared for whatever nature wanted to put me through. It rained umpteen times thereafter, and water did seep in, but it never wet my bedding.

I remember the first time it snowed; there must have been about 12 inches on the ground. I started walking towards Pradeep's hut, but found myself unable to walk after about twenty steps. The chill in the snow was unbearable. I had driven in the snow, I had even played in the snow, but I had never walked in it with just my slippers on; I wasn’t wearing socks. Walking another step became impossible; of course, there was no place to sit. I stood midway between the two huts, completely stuck. I could not go back and I could not move forward. I was now in extreme pain and thought my feet would just fall off. Pradeep was under instruction that if I went into deep absorption, I would skip my meal and have it the next day instead. Therefore, if I collapsed now, Pradeep was unlikely to come looking for me, assuming I was in samadhi.

I wasn’t worried about being attacked by wild animals if I fell down in the snow. And I wasn’t afraid of dying. I just didn’t want to leave my journey incomplete; I wanted to go right to the end. I looked up to the grey sky, the green trees around that were mostly covered in snow, at the pristine peaks, and they were all quiet, indifferent. I looked up at the gods even though I wasn’t expecting a miracle or help. I was carrying a walking stick with me, which I used because my knees still ached sometimes. I put all my weight on the stick and lifted my right foot to massage it with my free hand. But I could only do so for a few seconds because the other foot was giving up. This way, I alternated between both feet. I wanted to believe there was some relief but there was none. And now, my hands were completely numb and wet as well.

Chilly winds were blowing and the sky was now a dark grey. I thought that if I had to fall down anyway, I may as well move towards Pradeep’s hut. If I called out for him, there was a chance he might hear me. It took me another twenty minutes but I made it to his hut alive. Once there, I could not feel my feet for a while. When the blood did start to flow again, my feet hurt so badly I wished I didn’t have any feet. Not a nice thing to wish for.

After my meal, I now had the challenge of going back to my hut. I told Pradeep that if it continued to snow like this, it would become impossible for me to visit him. In such an event, I would just munch on some dry provisions and try to survive. He nodded, and packed some things for me to take back. I tied a polythene bag on each foot. Then, carrying the bag of provisions on my back, I began to walk back slowly. I was better prepared this time, and I made it. It was still hard, but nowhere near as hard as before. It’s amazing what preparation can do. The right preparation is the key to the greatest attainments, the antidote to all fear, the seed of competence and confidence, I concluded.

It continued to snow but I managed to get to Pradeep’s hut daily because I wore a pair of worn woollen socks the temple folks had given me; they offered me some respite from the snow. Even though they would get wet, it was still better to have a layer between bare feet and snow. At least I could walk. The snow decreased after January but patches of snow would remain outside my hut till April, and the surrounding peaks were covered till the last day I was there.

The winter made other aspects of daily life rather difficult as well, attending the call of nature being the foremost. I had to go in the woods for the task, which was not a problem. But walking to the woods in the snow, and then squatting on the snowy ground as my feet became numb in a matter of moments, was not an adventure I cared for. In some ways, it was even harder than meditating. There, I could tame my mind through alertness and persistence. But here, my body was subject to the laws of nature.

Bathing in winter wasn’t easy either. It was icy cold, of course, and it felt like I wasn't bathing but rubbing snow on my body. On the day it snowed for the first time, I had taken a bath at 1 a.m. When I sat down for my meditation, my body was like ice. I covered myself with a quilt, and it took nearly two hours to feel the warmth again. Yet, there was something divine about bathing on clear nights in the Himalayas, especially when the moon was waxing. In the quietude of the wilderness, through the gaping holes of my hut, I could see the silvery mountains illuminated by the moon.