“May I come in?” He gave me a cold look, not answering. I sat down. “Your brother told me that you are not too well.” He turned his face sideways away from me and nodded quickly. But I managed to catch a glimpse of such compassion and tenderness, and it puzzled me. I kept quiet. His wife came in and sat opposite him looking at him with concern. They exchanged a few words in Hindi. Then I heard him say to her (simple sentences I understood in Hindi): “I have great trouble with breathing.” In fact his breathing was rapid and obviously painful; cardiac asthma, I thought, and became alarmed. I changed my place for I wanted to see his face, so I sat on the settee opposite, next to the wife. Babu was sent for the doctor. I could see he was obviously in distress; the body seemed to labor with each breath. I asked him:
“Shall I go to Dr. Ram Singh?” This was the heart specialist who treated him previously and helped him through all the previous heart attacks. He made an indefinite movement with his right hand. I was not sure how to interpret it. I think he meant: “What’s the use?” I looked at the wife. “Yes,” she said. So I got up quickly, went to Virendra who was doing his homework in the next room, and he immediately said that he is coming too. Actually he had to come for I did not know exactly where the heart specialist lived. I waited for a few minutes till he dressed, took a rikshaw and went to the medical college. He lived there in the compound, for he was the head of the Heart Department. I happened to look at my watch; it was ten to six.
While going along, Virendra told me that he was worried—it was the third major heart attack he was suffering this year. I agreed that it was very worrying. I was worried, it was true, but somehow not too much. I had a stillness in me and a great peace, but this I realized only afterwards. In this very moment the only important thing was to get the doctor as quickly as possible. The journey seemed endless to both of us. The sky was grey with clouds, heavy with water. Dr. Ram Singh was at home, fortunately. He came at once, taking us in his car.
When we arrived, Dr. Kant, the family doctor, was there already, and Ram Singh came to sit near Bhai Sahib, took out his instrument for blood pressure. I knelt behind him trying to see, but I could not see from where I was how high the blood pressure was. Bhai Sahib seemed a bit better and talked to Dr. Ram Singh. Then they all went out to consult outside, standing in the garden. Another doctor joined them, one of his disciples. I also left through the side door. I saw that he gave me a brief look while I was going out. Outside they all stood in a group in serious consultation; his sons and the brother were listening. Ram Singh was saying that it was a heart attack, and he did not like the look of it because it happens too soon after the last, recent and severe one in the middle of May, and this time the same left ventricle was affected.
“It is an attack all right. There is a cardiac asthma,” he said to me.
I went back to the side door. Guruji was reclining, his elbow on the pillow, supporting his head with the right hand. I stood outside the door for a few seconds. My eyes, my face, must have expressed that all my being was crying out to him… my heart was full of anxiety.
Without lifting his head he gave me a deep unsmiling look… lowered his eyes for a brief second and then looked again. It was the look of a divine lover…. My heart stood still as though pierced by a sword… I was so profoundly disturbed that I literally ran away back to the others, and Dr. Kant was preparing an injection which last time worked wonders. I was trembling somewhere deep inside.
… Something did happen… my God, this look… a small voice was crying, crying… it was too terrible, and too sweet, I could not bear it… but I did not realize that it was his last look, and it was his special look for me….
The doctor went inside and gave the injection. I sat outside with all others, and we were talking that now after this injection he will be better. Virendra who just came back from the room said that he was sleeping now, and I was telling Babu that in this case I will not stay here all night as I originally intended, but will go home. I will not be of any help anyhow. Suddenly we heard a strange sound like a kind of roar. Babu listened, I too.
“It is nothing,” I said, “he only cleared his throat”… it sounded like that. Virendra stood near the door. I joined him. I noticed that his eldest son Ravindra was sitting on the bed behind him supporting him. After a few moments there was a commotion in the room.
I left the place where I stood for a moment, then came back, drawn by an invisible force. He was leaning on Ravindra’s arm, but I heard somebody say that his head is too low; he should sit up, supported by the pillows. I could see that he made an effort to sit up, but I could not see well from where I was standing outside the door—did not want to go into the room, already several people were standing there.
Virendra stood with me; his large dark eyes were wide open with anxiety.
“Father is not completely in his senses,” he said in a low voice, “not completely conscious after the injection.”
I looked at Bhai Sahib, half supported by the pillows. And I saw to my surprise his abdomen going up and down in a strange unusual way, working like billows. I pointed it out to Virendra.
“He is breathing with the abdomen,” he answered, but I did not like it; I felt it was quite abnormal. Later, I was told, those were the last gasps…. The wife came into the room with several women. I saw him suddenly falling back heavily on Ravindra’s arm. The wife took a look at him, uttered a piercing cry, and then threw herself on the bed weeping loudly. Virendra rushed into the room, took a look at him, came running back.
“He is dead,” he cried, “he is dead!!”
I ran into the room. He was lying supine, heavy on Ravindra’s arm.
His face was as if swollen with effort and red…. I went out, dumbfounded. So many people were streaming in; they seemed to have appeared suddenly; they had not been here before …. Dead?
I could not believe it… I felt deep peace… stillness… it could not be. He is not dead… not he…. No… how can he be dead?
Impossible!! I stood there alone in my isolation amongst general commotion. Women began to howl like hungry wolves at the moon.
Horrible habit that, I thought… such dreadful noise and so useless…. Be still you all…. He is not dead…. He cannot be….
But he was…. I went into the room and looked at him. He was lying on his back now, hands stretched out along his body; he looked so tall, so slender. His face was severe, his lips a fraction open, but it was hardly noticeable. His eyes were closed. There was such a noise in the room. I went out. Like a lost sheep I walked near the mango tree, then I went inside. The wife cried helplessly, poor woman, an inconsolable, distressed sound of no hope…. I approached his tachat, bent down and kissed his already cold right hand, lifting it tenderly with both my hands. Goodbye, Sheikh. Never again, never again will I hear your ringing voice, your laughter….
Nobody will call me idiot, I will miss it….
In the electric light his face seemed severe. I kept coming and going…. Somebody brought a small lamp which was put into the recess where he kept his books. The electric light was switched off. In the dim light his face assumed a strangeness, no more of this world…. I still kept coming and going. All was silent in the room now, full of mourning women with veiled faces crying silently.
I went in and knelt down at the end of the tachat. Pressed my forehead against his feet. Their coldness seemed to burn my skin.
“Goodbye Sheikh,” I said mentally. My heart was aching with tenderness, the mind full of confusion…. A young doctor rushed in, a disciple or a relation.
“Are you sure he is dead?” he asked excitedly and began to press his chest with both hands, listening at the same time with the stethoscope. The wife made a movement with her hand.
“He is dead,” she whispered, “no use…. “
The Sharmas came. He went inside and she sat with me for a few minutes on the tachat, outside. Went home about eleven. And cried myself to sleep. Heard midnight strike somewhere…. How will I live with
out you?? But in my heart was all stillness and eternal peace….
Got up at four a.m. Had a cup of hot tea. Cried again but not much. Peace was with me and great vibrations in the heart.
Went there about five. Sat outside with others. When it became sufficiently light, I approached the side door and went inside the room. And to my surprise I saw that his face bore a smiling expression. A strange mysterious smile with closed lips. The mystery of Pax Aeterna …. It was so wonderful, so unexpected, that I could not take my eyes off his face. And my heart was beating so violently that I heard its beat in the whole of my body…. The tender curve of his lips… the beard which was cut yesterday with so much care and attention… his magnificent forehead. Never again, cried my heart, finis, the end…. Once more I kept coming and going, could not remain in the room. If I wanted to remain, I had to sit on the floor amongst all the women and I would not see his face…. So I kept coming and going, looking with hungry eyes, trying to remember this face forever, until my physical body would last…. This face so beautiful, so serene, so full of eternal peace….
Went to the bank at Ravindra’s request to get some money, then went home to have a bite to eat, cooked some spaghetti in milk, but could not eat. Went back and into the room, to look, to look, and to look…. And each time I looked the heart seemed to jump out of my chest and I was trembling… a kind of small, minute trembling inside the spine….
The funeral would be about one, but it will be later… here nothing is on time. Many people were sitting outside on tachats and chairs; the garden was full with a milling, talking crowd. Then all the male members of the family went inside to wash him. We heard loud wailing and crying coming from the room. Then when he was dressed, the women were shepherded into the room. A great howling began. Durghesh and her husband arrived by taxi direct from Aligarh. They began to cry loudly, practically running from the garden gate through the crowd. Mrs. Ahuja came. I helped her to get through the crowd into the room to show her his face. Somehow I managed to propel her and myself to the front, next to the tachat. His face was still the same—smiling, enigmatically tender, but already there was a kind of remoteness, a “going away”….
Prof. Batnagar said to me: “Courage, he is not dead; they make a noise for nothing.” I smiled. Couldn’t agree more….
And it was the last time I saw his face (except for a fleeting glimpse when he was lowered into the grave). He was dressed in white kurta, and topi was on his head….
We went out, and soon the wailing began again, increasing to a crescendo. A litter, a kind of a stretcher made of bamboo sticks, was prepared by the disciples in the meantime in the garden. It was taken inside; he was wrapped in a new white cotton sheath, and women kept wailing and wailing. Then he was carried outside by his sons and the nearest relatives. The Sharmas were there, so we went by car.
Strangely, I don’t remember the moment we reached Samadhi. But I clearly remember the grave. Two diggers were still inside throwing out large clumps of clay. I noticed that it was much deeper than in the West, and it had on the left side a niche, like a drawer, for the body to be put into it, which later was sealed off with bricks, before the earth was filled in. After a while the body arrived. There was such peace around, so much sunshine, clouds in the sky, the wide Indian plains and the wind….
Sheikh, my Sheikh, never again… my Sheikh… Oooh….
They put the body on the ground beside the grave; some jumped into it supporting the stretcher, and some were lowering the body. “Take off the sheath from the face,” somebody said, “the topi, the topi it is falling down!” It was adjusted, a glimpse of this serene face which after so many hours and the intense heat seemed fresh and only sleeping, and then it was all over, except for the sound of the moist earth being filled in. But I had time to notice that they put him into the niche and bricked it off. The grave diggers closed the opening, not very carefully I thought, jumped out, and then all the present began to shovel and throw earth, more and more of it: ·… Sheikh… Sheikh…, my mind kept repeating, and the sky was transparent with thin white clouds and the wind smelled good….
I took three handfuls—goodbye, this is for your body from me….
But you, for me, you will live forever, for always…. Took a little earth for H., blessed earth from a Saint’s grave…. After that it was filled in quickly by the grave diggers. All remained there for a while, but as the Sharmas wanted to go, so I went too, though with much regret…. Was at home after four. Had something to eat… then was resting and crying and crying, and the vibration in the heart was very, very strong….
84 Freedom
AND I WENT TO HIS HOUSE as usual, yesterday. In the night I slept fairly well though the vibrations were strong and persistent. Told all of them assembled in the garden that while I am here in town I will come every day, and everybody approved.
Was thinking in the morning that there is not much point to stay in this heat. I will go for a few months to the Himalayas to be alone, to find myself—but which self! didn’t know, for can this nothingness be called “the self?” And then I will return to England to my work….
Must write to H. for some money, so if I leave here by the 15th of August, there will be time to arrange all this. But where to go?
Rishikesh, surely not, neither Darjeeling which is far too fashionable, far too worldly for one who seeks solitude. Somewhere… where it is beautiful, where I can be alone amongst the rocks, and the trees, and the mountains. A name came into my mind—rather a picture from a leaflet which I got once from the Tourist Office, showing a serene plateau and a chain of mountains. Almora district.
That’s it. But the name of the place? It begins with K… Kasali?
Kosini? No, I cannot remember.
Prof. Batnagar came asking me what I intend to do, and I mentioned that I would like to go to the hills before returning to England. I will have to borrow some money for my return journey, so I can just as well live in the hills and try to save which will take some time.
“Where?” he wanted to know.
“I was thinking of Almora district,” I said.
“Kausani? Why not there? Gandiji was there, and he said that it was the most beautiful place in the world.” That’s exactly the place I could not remember, I thought, and wrote down the address of a center where he thought that I might get a temporary accommodation and perhaps some help in finding a residence for a few months.
Wrote to H. for money and telling her about Guruji’s death.
Wrote to L. Wrote to the center asking for information and possible accommodation.
The garden is every day full of people now. We were discussing that we have great peace. All of us. We cannot grieve. He is with us.
Such peace…. For the first time I really understood the Christ’s meaning when he said: “I am with you always until the end of time.”
It means that this is the Gift of a Great Teacher when parting from his disciples.
25th July, 1966
YESTERDAY AFTERNOON WE WENT TO SAMADHI, in two cars, full to the brim with people. It was the third day, so they began to fill the grave with water… buckets and buckets of water. Incense was burned and prayers were chanted. At first I was puzzled but was told that it has to be done in order that the earth should settle before they put the stone over it. We were supposed to go at five p.m., but the cars were late so we started at six. I was squeezed in between Babu Ram Prasad and Babu who was talking in a loud voice all the time.
While water was carried from the well and poured over the earth to be sucked up immediately, I watched. Watched the sky and the plains and listened to the wind. The peace was unearthly. All those past days I hardly cried. Am full of such peace. And looking at the working man I was thinking that a great man of his time was gone from this earth, and his body will be surrounded by cold mud….
How will his death affect me? It is easier for me now. All I need to do is to keep being immersed in him. Disappear in Nothingness….
�
�Can you drive out Jinns?” I asked Babu Ram Prasad yesterday.
“Of course!” he answered, his eyes shining like lamps. “I merge in him, then I can do anything!”
Here is the answer… and I feel that I can merge in him. I must practice to do it all day long, not only in the night, duning the meditation. Then I will go on automatically…. Go with him, remain with him. Always.
When coming back from the Samadhi, in the evening, Babu Ram Prasad said in conversation that the color of Nakshmandia was yellow, and the color of Chishtia was rosy-pink. He had the two colors. And I thought of his last sunset, when he and the whole garden was bathed in gold and pink… and how beautiful he looked in this light…. A great Soul was leaving this world; signs were in the sky that he was going. A great heart, which was beating only for others, was tired… had enough. Apparently during the last Bandhara in Bhogoun he had said:
“I nearly finished my work; I still have some to do… hut I have nearly finished.”
27th July
WENT YESTERDAY TO THE SHARMAS for lunch. She told me that his sentence, “There is nothing hut Nothingness,” had no connection at all with the question she had asked him that evening. And she wondered about it. It became clear to her when I told her that it was meant for me. And she was telling me that she was saying to him that Mrs. Tweedie has something now which was missing before something was taken away from her. He laughed and said that it was quite correct. And then he added:
“It is difficult for them from the West. L. has an Indian temperament. She had to struggle less.”
And yes, she too had noticed the very unusual color above Guruji’s bungalow the evening before he died. And she called to her husband from the veranda:
“Krishna, come quickly and see the wonderful colors, right above Guruji’s garden!” It was very startling.
28th July
THIS MORNING RAVINDRA was talking to me. He is upset because there is no cooperation and much jealousy. And he read one of the letters of his father in which he tells him to have courage… he is always with him. Later in conversation he told me that his father said once: “The fate which is allotted to a human being cannot he changed.”
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