The Cauliflower (24 page)

But after arriving by boat at the
ghat
his eyes were for some reason irresistibly drawn to Uncle, who was sitting in the pleasing shade of the
chandni
, wearing only his simple cloth, radiating sweetness and holiness as Uncle inevitably must. Immediately Tota Puri approached Uncle and asked if he had learned, or might be interested in learning, the
Vedantic
discipline. Uncle considered this question and then answered in a manner typical of himself: “I have no idea of what I should or shouldn't do. Only Mother knows. I do as Mother commands.”

Perhaps thinking that Uncle referred to his own birth mother, Chandradevi (who had always harbored a deep horror of Uncle becoming a mendicant monk), Tota Puri thought hard for a moment and then said to Uncle, “Well, go and ask your mother. I shall not be here for very long.”

Without another word Uncle went to ask the Divine Mother at the temple and she told him that Tota Puri had been sent to teach him. Uncle returned to the Naked One, quite beaming with joy, and agreed to become his pupil, but only on the understanding that the main part of the initiation (where Uncle would shave his head and remove his sacred thread) might take place in private, for fear of distressing poor Chandradevi.

And so it was. After a period of intense discipline and learning, late one night, in the
panchavati
, the
homa
fire was lit and Uncle made offerings for the satisfaction of his ancestors, and to his own soul. Many sacred
mantra
s were uttered and oblations made, including Uncle's sacred thread and his tuft of hair. Next Uncle sat with Tota Puri inside the wooden meditation hut, dressed in an ocher cloth and
taupina
s, and the Naked One guided Uncle in the familiar instruction of
not-this
,
not-this
, whereby Uncle would imagine everything in the world—everything of name and form—and then turn himself away from it, mentally, while identifying himself, all along, only with God, with consciousness-knowledge-bliss, with the indivisible
Brahman
.

Well, it did not take Uncle long to enter into a semi-trancelike state, but just as soon as he did he was confronted by his beloved Kali, the Divine Mother, his companion and inspiration throughout his many years of
sadhana
. How might he possibly hope to escape her holy form? Time and time again Uncle listened to the instructions of Tota Puri and time and time again Uncle closed his eyes and saw the Mother. Finally he exclaimed, in despair, “It cannot be done! I cannot dive into the self! I cannot resist form!”

Of course, Tota Puri was profoundly exasperated. He looked around him, scowling furiously, until his eye alighted upon a sharp shard of glass which he took up and stabbed between Uncle's eyebrows, exclaiming, “Concentrate on
this
!”

Uncle did not flinch or falter. He closed his eyes tightly, concentrated with all of his will, and when the form of the Divine Mother appeared before him—as he knew that she must—he took in his hand the sword of knowledge and savagely chopped his great beloved in half with it.

Ahhhh!
At once—without hesitation, like a small stone falling through warm, clear water—Uncle descended from the world of name and form and into
nirvikalpa samadhi
. Tota Puri left the meditation hut and sat outside it for three days and nights, waiting for Uncle to reemerge. But Uncle did not reemerge. Finally, the Naked One entered the hut and discovered Uncle sitting exactly as when he had left him—the shard of glass still rammed between his eyebrows. Uncle was perfectly still. There was no sign of life in him. No emergence of breath. No movement of the chest. Tota Puri was astonished. He could not believe that Uncle had attained the ultimate
Vedantic
state within only three days of practice—a state that it had taken him forty long years to achieve. And so—after a brief period spent in considerable awe and wonderment—the Naked One began the laborious process of drawing back Uncle's consciousness to his stiffened, lifeless body by various subtle means and devices, not to mention the loud and cacophonous reciting of the appropriate holy
mantra
s.

Tota Puri remained at the Kali Temple for nine months with Uncle, establishing him very firmly in the
nirvikalpa
plane of consciousness, and when he finally departed, Uncle—who will never do anything by halves—determined to remain in that plane of non-duality, completely merged with God, for an uninterrupted period of six months.

You cannot imagine what torment this decision unleashed upon us! For who else might be expected to take care of Uncle's mother during this most dangerous and secretive phase of Uncle's
sadhana
? Hridayram, of course! Chandradevi was already very overprotective toward Uncle and frightened of losing yet another of her beloved sons, so to protect her from Uncle's activities Akshay and Hridayram between them undertook a careful balancing act—forever struggling to keep Chandradevi preoccupied and distracted.

Uncle's mother—who we already know had never been especially fond of Hridayram, nor he, indeed, of her—now began to develop the idea that Hridayram was in fact an evil and conniving devil, only intent upon exploiting and manipulating her poor, innocent son. And as if this was not hardship enough, anyone with a small measure of scriptural knowledge must surely know that to remain in the non-dual plane of consciousness for any lengthy period of time is immensely dangerous to a person's physical health. So with Tota Puri now gone, how was Hridayram to make Uncle—who sat immersed in
samadhi
like an unresponsive rock—perform all of his necessary bodily functions? How might Hridayram hope to make Uncle eat or drink or wash or defecate?

Two things alone helped us to survive this considerable trial—by far the most trying and dangerous period of Uncle's
sadhana
. The first was the welcome assistance of a monk who arrived at the temple at around this time, and—being an expert in this field—helped Hridayram to feed and maintain Uncle (sometimes, I confess, only through acts of minor violence). The second was a vision which Uncle had been granted from the Divine Mother—a vision he had been granted on three occasions, in fact—which calmly informed him that for the benefit of mankind he would soon be obliged to descend from the
nirvikalpa
plane and instead remain in
bhavamukha
—a lower plane of dual consciousness. What would we have done without this holy instruction? Where might we have ended up without the Divine Mother's timely help and guidance? Truly, truly,
truly
, it does not even bear the thinking about.

The great Indian saint Ramprasad (a passionate adherent of the sweet mood, and worshipper of Ma Kali) once said—rather cynically—of nirvikalpa samadhi/the non-dual worship:

“We adore sugar,

But we just want to
taste
it,

Not to become it!”

A brief diversion to the Camargue:

May 24th. In perpetuity. Saintes Maries de la Mer, France

Just over a thousand years ago, the dark-skinned Romany peoples from northern India first arrived in Europe. This original group quickly fractured. Some—the
gitanos
—ended up in Spain, where they are justly celebrated for their flamenco music. The Roma—with their ancient language—inhabit central Europe. The Manouches—also musical—traveled up to the north. The Romany culture was—and remains—a culture of displacement, of persecution, of marginalization, of movement.

A thousand years earlier (in the year 42), we are told that the three Marys (Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome, and Mary Jacobe, all of whom—the Gospels tell us—bore witness to Christ's crucifixion) arrived in a seaside town in Gaul after being sent out of Palestine during the Christian persecutions in a boat without sails and without oars.

This town will later be called Saintes Maries de la Mer, and the supposed relics of the Marys will be held and venerated in a Catholic church there.

These Marys will prove contentious—if only because there are so many of them. Aside from these three there are several others, too. There is the Mother of God, Mary. There is Mary of Bethany. There is the prostitute Mary who rubs perfumed oil on Jesus's feet.

So many of them! So many Marys. And the fractured narrative of Christianity sometimes mixes them up and confuses them. In the complex figure of the Magdalene they become preeminent one moment (she is the first person to speak to the risen Christ) and then marginalized the next (roundly condemned as a woman of ill virtue). So many women sharing just one name! Marys, Marys everywhere …

In 1521, another saint will join this mess of Marys at Saintes Maries de la Mer: Saint Sara, described as “a charitable woman that helped people by collecting alms, which led to the popular belief that she was a gypsy.”

But this newer saint, this
arriviste
, this impostor saint, Sara, also has many faces. In some accounts she is Mary Jacobe's black Egyptian maid. In others she is a Roma, living on the banks of the Rhone, following a polytheistic faith (the statue of Ishtar—Goddess of fertility, sexuality, and war—is carried into the water and immersed, every year, so that benediction may be received by the Roma peoples). This polytheistic Sara is blessed with a vision that the three Marys who witnessed the death of Jesus are coming to France in a boat. Saint Sara the Kali goes to the beach and sees them, and through her prayers and her assistance they are brought safely to shore. She is a kind of pre-post idol-worshipping Christian midwife. A Saint of Welcome.

Of course, because this story takes place over a thousand years prior to the Romany people's first arrival in France, we must view it as a kind of wishful thinking—a rewriting of history, a helpful (nay, even opportunistic) Romany-style piggybacking onto the early (first-generation) Christian story. It's a poignantly juxtaposed symbolic reenactment of the economic, social, and spiritual welcome the Romany themselves most desperately hoped for (and still hope for) in Europe.

In the nineteenth century a tradition begins of the relics of the three Marys being taken from the church down to the Mediterranean to commemorate their journey.

In 1935, the Marquis de Baroncelli (a French writer, cattle farmer, friend of the Romany, and fierce proponent of the culture and traditions of the Camargue) persuades the Catholic Church to allow the Romany people to take their own Saint Sara (a black-faced doll-like creature with a red ribbon at her neck) down to the sea.

She is Black Sara, saint of the Romany. She is a saint with many roots, of many origins. Like Kali, she plays with time. Like Durga, she is taken to the water. She is accepted by the Catholic Church—tolerated—but formally unrecognized. She aims to include but often alienates (the little town she lives in finds the massive annual influx of Romany—often intent on arranging marriages, making money, and settling scores—both terrifying and overwhelming). She is the saint who is no saint. She is the un-saint of the pretense of belonging. She is welcomed through gritted teeth. She is the curious contradiction, the gaudily dressed and the raucously celebrated. She is the incoherent, the sincere, the love, the confusion. She is everything and nothing.

Who is Black Sara?

The impostor? The mother? The creatress? The ancient? The merging? The last word? The first word?

She is so dark, so mysterious, so magical, that if you draw too close doesn't she almost threaten to disappear?

Who is Sara la Kali?

Who is she?

Ah.

Don't you already know the answer to that question?

Sara la Kali is the Pair of Opposites.

1874, approximately

Sri Ramakrishna is irritated when a disciple—Sambhu Charan Mallick, his Second Supplier of Provisions—calls him
guruji
:

“Who is the
guru
?

And who is the disciple?

You
are my
guru
!”

Of course, Sambhu blithely continues to address the prickly but charming
guru
as
guruji
just the same.

1876, approximately

Since Sri Ramakrishna rarely sleeps for more than a couple of hours a night, he may often be found—several hours before sunrise—wandering restlessly around his room, or climbing up onto the roof above and gazing out at the Ganga, or strolling up and down his verandahs, or mooching around in the Temple gardens. Whenever he draws close to the
nahabat
during his regular perambulations (the tiny storeroom at its base now home to his wife, Sarada Devi, his beloved niece Lakshmi, and often several other visiting women, all somehow crammed in with their cooking utensils, groceries, water jars and—because of his weak stomach—Sri Ramakrishna's own special dietary provisions), the
guru
will clap his hands and cry out, “Lakshmi! Lakshmi! Get up! Get up! Chant the name of the Divine Mother! Get up! Get up! Waken your aunt! The crows and the cuckoos are about to sing!”

The women—exhausted after a long day of mundane chores and cooking—will refuse to rise at this ungodly hour. Sarada Devi will mutter to her niece, “Ssssh! The birds aren't singing! Don't respond!”

But more often than not, if the sleepy women unite to stage a mutiny, the mischievous saint will cheerfully generate unspeakable levels of wakefulness and consternation by playfully pouring a jugful of water under the doorsill (and drenching their thin straw mattresses with it).

Argh!

Time to get up, ladies!

Chant the name of the Divine Mother!

Come on! Come on!

Rise and shine!

1875, approximately

In the final years of her life, Ramakrishna's ancient mother, Chandradevi (now in permanent residence with him at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple) starts to develop paranoid fantasies about his servant and nephew, Hriday. After the tragic death of Sri Ramakrishna's other nephew, Akshay (from a mysterious fever in 1869), she starts to believe that Hriday has murdered him and constantly tells Sri Ramakrishna that Hriday is secretly conspiring to kill him and his wife, Sarada, too.