If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir (23 page)

I wanted to write more but felt dizzy, and the words swam before me. I did contemplate casting off my body and merging in the Supreme Consciousness for there was nothing more I wanted from the world. Life had given me everything I could possibly seek, and more. I had become what I had once sought; the seed of my individual existence had perished in the soft earth of realization. My journey was complete.

I had the choice of letting go my physical body but I felt that dropping it would be selfish of me. I owed it to the Universe to pass on what I had learned. I didn't want to direct people but only guide them and walk with them, for I firmly believe that we must learn to lead ourselves and not be led by others. For that matter, even within, most of us are controlled by our thoughts and emotions whereas it should be the other way around. Enlightenment turns the tables on us: we lead our thoughts and emotions.

It was time to redefine monkhood. Why should a monk be a burden to society? He should take responsibility for his own life, and not depend on others for his needs. I wanted to be a monk, not a mendicant. I vowed never to accept donations for my personal needs. I did not want to build an organization with ashrams everywhere. I had to stay focused on my mission to enable other seekers to revel in the same nirvana that I did.

I was going to descend from the Himalayas on 3 June, and Pradeep informed the villagers that I would be coming to stay in the village for a couple of days. With my sadhana over, he had decided to go on a pilgrimage to the Jagannath temple. I would see him later in the year.

On 4 June, many villagers came to receive me. Babloo was very keen for me to stay at the Anasuya temple in Chamoli. I agreed, and also conducted a small ritual of kumari poojan , where girls below the age of sixteen are worshipped in the form of the Mother and offered gifts. After the ritual, everyone was given a meal. Forty people ate to their hearts’ content food made from just two aubergines and one cauliflower; some people even got two servings. I’m not saying it was a miracle, but I am expressing my surprise at the mysteries of Providence. Did the curry multiply? It doesn't matter; what does matter is that everyone went home well fed.

While leaving the woods, I felt pensive for a moment. I say pensive because this place hadn’t just been quiet and lovely; it is where Mother Divine had come to me. It was a reflection of her. But, then again, what isn't her reflection? Besides, no matter how much I loved being there, I had to move on. Having eschewed the world, it was pointless becoming attached to mountains. An attachment, it doesn’t matter to what, is the cause of bondage and suffering anyway.

The trees and I had something in common: a sense of dispassion and detachment. Like me, they remained rooted to the ground, and I remained rooted in my devotion. They didn't change their position, they didn’t try and tempt me to return. I did not alter my stance either, for I realized the only thing worth loving was the emotion of compassion and not the object of compassion. After all, parting from loved ones is inevitable. Both nature and I understood this. I thanked the woods and walked away with a joyous heart, once again immersed in the thought of Mother Divine.

The powerful sensations in my head continued to affect me, and I still found it difficult to perform daily tasks. I wanted more time in solitude to be able to learn how to function in this altered state of being.

During my two-day stay at the Anasuya temple, I met a sadhu who asked me to come and visit him in his cave. I accepted even though I had  no desire to do so. Babloo accompanied me the next day to his cave and clicked my picture with his phone. And so it was that I had a good look at myself after seven months. I had used a small mirror in the woods to put the tilak on my forehead, but it was too small to show my entire face. Unsurprisingly, I had grown a beard and my head needed to be shaved again. But, expecting sunken cheeks and pale skin, I was not prepared for how healthy I actually looked. There was a radiance on my face I was completely unfamiliar with, and my eyes had a strange glow. Was this really me?

On our way back to the temple, I found it difficult to walk because the sensations in my head were overpowering. I felt dizzy and looked down. All of a sudden, the ground disappeared from sight: my inner vision opened up to receive everything that there was before me—the ground beneath my feet, the leaves strewn about on the path, the trees, the person walking beside me, the black snake that just slithered past and dashed behind the rocks, the skies … everything simply merged into me. Or did I merge into everything?

I could not walk a step further and sat down in the middle of the path. I told Babloo I was going into a deep trance. All this was happening was because I hadn’t yet learned to absorb the state of deep tranquility I had reached, and continue with my daily activities at the same time. Babloo asked me how long this state would last and I told him I didn’t know. He was kind enough to wait there. After a little I felt more centred and we slowly walked back to the temple. The next day, I got tonsured and left for Haridwar.

After spending a few days there with Swami Vidyananda, I went to Kamakhya on 19 June. A big festival was due to start there after three days, and the crowd was building up. I had never cared for crowds. I made my way to the temple and rather than approaching anyone, decided to wait for five minutes in the temple compound. If the instruction I had received in the mountains was the truth and not just my hallucination, someone should approach me, I thought.

I had developed a method of conversation with Mother Divine back in the woods. I told her now that I was only going to wait 300 seconds by the clock. If no one came to me during this time, I would move on. I circumambulated the temple, came back to the compound, took the watch out from my pouch and began the five-minute countdown.

Less than two minutes later, a man clothed in a white kurta-pyjama waved at me. This action met all my conditions: I didn’t initiate the interaction, it was within the five-minute limit and he seemed eager to talk to me. I walked up to him. Even though he was a Brahmin, he was sitting next to a tantrik clad in black, who turned out to be an aghori. Aghora is a school of vamachara tantra.

This aghori, however, like the majority out there, was more a boaster than a practitioner. Just as a good workman doesn't go around displaying his tools, a good aghori doesn't put his implements on display. This man, however, had made a circular firepit and laid out various items beside it: a human skull, bones, a box each of vermillion powder and turmeric, a metallic bowl, and containers with grey as well as black ash among other things. All this was merely to attract and fool people. After all, an aghori has no business conducting any rituals during the day; all aghora rituals are done at night, and a real practitioner is always discrete.

But the man’s khappar, begging bowl, looked inviting. It was made from a kapaal, human skull. He let me inspect it, and I have to admit that it was highly energized. Just like bats can hear sounds over and above the range of frequencies audible to human ears, and they use this knowledge to move around, prey and protect themselves, a seeker practising sadhana develops a sensitivity to energy beyond what the average person can feel. An adept then uses this energy to help others.

When I held the skull in my hand, I experienced a flow of energy and could tell that this was not the skull
of an ordinary man; it belonged to an aghori. I told him it was an amazing khappar. In response, he gave a proud smile and nodded. Then, in a flurry of words, he informed me that his ‘god brother’ had died of snake bite and, with their guru’s permission, he had taken the head, skinned it, prepared it with the right rituals for forty days and served wine in it to his guru before making it his khappar.

Meanwhile, the Brahmin, who was the reason why I had even sat down beside the two men, wanted to know what was I doing at Kamakhya. Instead of answering his question, I told
him
why he was there and what he had been doing the past few years. Then, I went on to explain why his sadhana had not been successful. He could not hide his shock and began to weep. Without saying another word or acknowledging what I had just said, he got up and left.

I resumed my conversation with the aghori. Some fifteen minutes passed and I was beginning to feel that I was wasting my time. I was about to leave when the Brahmin returned. He asked me again, with much reverence this time, what had brought me here. Had I come for the festival? I simply said that I had come to do sadhana for a month and asked him if he could recommend an isolated location for me.

Suddenly, the Brahmin shouted out loud, 'Aye Sadhu!' and waved at another ascetic. This ascetic, also in white, came over and joined us. The two began chatting. A few minutes later, I told them I was leaving. Upon hearing this, the ascetic who had just arrived insisted that he wanted to offer me a meal. I wasn’t keen but he wouldn’t let me go. I agreed and the three of us went to his place, leaving the aghori behind since he couldn’t leave his firepit unattended.

It turned out this sadhu wanted to do a mantra purashcharana, a rite of mantra worship and invocation that is done over a certain number of days. For example, to do a purashcharana
of the Gayatri Mantra, a practitioner may decide to chant the mantra 1.2 lakh times over forty days. Therefore, the mantra will have to be chanted 3,000 times every day beginning at exactly the same time each day. There are four other components of a purashcharana: yajna, fire offerings; tarpana, libations of water or other alchemical concoctions; marjana, ablutions for self-purification done with the same concoction as the libation; and sadhaka bhojana, where Brahmins or other adepts are fed at the conclusion of the ritual.

Before this ritual can begin, other preliminary rituals need to be performed, including the invocation of the divine forces and protective energies. The seeker must be able to chant the preparatory mantras in Sanskrit. The condition of the preliminary rituals can only be waived if the purashcharana is done the tantric way or at the instruction of the guru.

This sadhu was doing a Vedic purashcharana and had to carry out the necessary rituals. He asked the Brahmin to initiate the process of worshipping the local deities, but the Brahmin didn’t know how to conduct this ritual; he only practised tantra. The sadhu looked at me expectantly. I had renounced samsara, and a renunciant is not supposed to perform religious rites for others. Since he was a sadhu and a genuine one at that, I decided to perform the rituals for him.

Responding with gratitude, he served us delicious khichdi and asked me the reason for my visit to Kamakhya. I said I was looking for a suitable spot for a month-long tantric worship. He suggested a cave called the Siddhi Ganesh Gufa, which also contained a panch-mundi asana. Panch-mundi asana is a tantric seat made by burying the skulls of five different creatures, including that of a human, in the ground. The spot is then filled with ash from a funeral pyre along with turmeric and other ingredients. Sitting on the consecrated seat and invoking the Goddess through esoteric mantras is an important tantric practice.

When I heard about this cave, I immediately left his house and followed the directions he had given me. At a spot near a particular temple he had indicated, I had to descend a flight of 300 steps to reach the Siddhi Ganesh Gufa. It was by the banks of the Brahmaputra river.

Unfortunately, two sadhus were already living there. One of them was a tantrik absorbed in prayer. He was sitting not on top but in front of the panch-mundi asana, and had placed an oil lamp on the actual seat. As I stood waiting for the tantrik to finish his prayers, the other sadhu tried to engage me in small talk. I was least interested in this conversation and made to leave when the tantrik finished his puja and approached me. I told him that it was somewhat foolish to sit in front of the asana rather than upon it. It was like sitting next to a swimming pool and chanting water, water, water, hoping you would get wet. I suggested some minor changes he could make to benefit more from his sadhana.

He was deeply touched and asked me why I was there. Even to him, I just said I was looking for a quiet place to meditate. He suggested I meet a certain sadhu he knew who was a highly qualified tantrik. I was reluctant but he insisted, and offered to take me there.

The next day, we met the tantrik. In his mid-fifties, he was a vamachari tantric. When I sat in front of him, the same voice that had instructed me in the Himalayan woods to visit Kamakhya asked me now, in unmistakable terms, to share with him the purpose of my visit, including the tantric initiation I wanted to do. I did as I was told.

'I only know one adept qualified to give this initiation,' he said. 'He is really old and has not initiated anyone in the past twenty years. I cannot promise that he will initiate you, but you are someone I would definitely vouch for.'

I followed him through many small and narrow streets, which meandered this way and that, until we arrived at our destination. I was ushered into a little house, where the old tantrik, lean and frail, sat on a mat facing the door, as if waiting for me. Near him sat a
bhairavi
who must have been in her eighties. She was strikingly beautiful and had a glow about her that was hard to ignore. Fair-complexioned, with high cheekbones, there wasn’t a single wrinkle on her face except for a few crow's feet, though her hair had turned grey. She knew very little Hindi and no English; her mother tongue was Assamese. She felt like a mother to me.

We offered our obeisances to the great tantrik. He looked at me and smiled. 'I’ll initiate you,' he said, even before we had mentioned it. He knew exactly why we were there, but that didn't surprise me. After my vision in the mountains, nothing surprised me anymore.

As I was introduced to the bhairavi, who lived with the tantrik, she placed her hand on my head in blessing. The elderly ascetic enquired about my previous tantric initiations and sadhanas. He also wanted to know about my full name prior to renunciation, and about the guru who had given me sanyasa diksha. After I had responded to his questions, he said it wasn’t possible to initiate me during the festival as Mother Divine, known as Kamakhya or Kamakshi here, was supposed to be menstruating at this time. Menstruation is a sign that the feminine energy is getting ready to procreate, that it is preparing for evolution. Linked directly to the lunar cycle, those five days are most auspicious for aspiring tantriks not only to transform themselves but to transmute their desires and emotions into transcendental energy, for their spiritual growth as well as for the benefit of humanity. The tantrik set the date of 29 June for my initiation.

I went to the cremation ground to ascertain the suitability of spending a month there. I also tried to find out about Bhairavi Ma. I shared her description with everyone I met, but no one had heard of her. Even those who were born and raised in Kamakhya, who had lived there for more than sixty years, did not know anything about her. Once again, I wasn't surprised.

The cremation ground was quite modernized. It had iron racks upon which they burnt the dead bodies. As soon as the body had finished burning, they would hose down the pyre to save wood. The place turned out to be unsuitable for my month-long sadhana: there were no traditional funeral pyres; it was too close to the main road; there was a busy Shiva temple nearby; and there were plenty of drugged and tipsy sadhus, pretending to be genuine tantriks, about the place.

Thanks to such sadhus, the world has misunderstood tantra and its essence. It is wrongly assumed that tantra is about tantric sex, tantric massage, tantric yoga and so on. This is not where tantra starts or ends. Tantra is an inner journey the practitioner undertakes to break the conditioning of the mind and move beyond the conditioned and egoistic self, so that he may see himself as he truly is. I was absorbed in these thoughts when one of the committee members of the Shiva temple approached me.

Upon finding out what I was looking for, he insisted I should stay at their temple for my sadhana. He even promised to make the necessary arrangements. I had a simple way of deciding the spot for my mantra sadhana: whenever I travelled somewhere, I sensed the place’s energies. I always went with my first reading and it never failed me. I did not sense the right energy here, and made up my mind to look elsewhere.

There was still time before my tantric initiation, so I decided to go to West Bengal, hoping to meet someone there who could talk to me about the sensations I was experiencing. I caught a train to New Jalpaiguri and then a shared taxi to Darjeeling. There, I visited three monasteries and had quite a revelation: the lamas were so occupied with daily chores, prayer rituals and the study of Buddhist texts that they had no time for meditation. Despite the fact that a faith is pure, and its teachings and philosophy profound and original, it will turn into a corpse if institutionalized. One is left with a brain-dead patient on life support; the only consolation is that the patient is still breathing. I felt sorry for the Buddha.