Daughter of Fire

by Irina Tweedie

  And the sky in the meantime began to turn from this heavenly crimson-orange into a purest, transparent gold. The snows were glowing, and for a while I could not think, but was just looking.

  Where was I? Oh, yes, like a sweet pain. Carrying a sweet burden.

  And suddenly I remembered his saying:

  “It takes time to make a soul pregnant with God.” Good heavens, this is it, I thought, struck by this idea like a revelation. This is it!

  Pregnant with God! That’s what he did all the time, nothing but that…. Confused, perplexed, in the darkness I did not see it… somehow expecting that I will “get” God from him…. Heaven knows how I thought of it; as a sudden realization, I suppose… but it was nothing of the sort. After purifying it, he put the seed into my heart. And how apt is the expression “pregnant.” He probably translated it from Persian, I suppose. Pregnant is correct. Because He has to be born within our heart. Born. Born within me…. It is only a question of time….

  “And the time will come when one wishes that twenty-four hours should be twenty-five in order to love someone one hour more….” And how his eyes shone when he said that.

  Pregnant with God… my heart was overflowing with tender·

  ness…. Guruji, my dear, yesterday it was twelve weeks…. And I looked at your photos, and my heart was hot with sorrow. This face… the high forehead. The beautiful strong hands. Guruji, my dear… I wanted God so badly. And I still want Him just as I did then. I looked at this face once so dear to me. Him speaking, him in Samadhi on the lovely colored photos H. had made. The man alive, speaking, laughing or in Samadhi—and the man dead, the face which belonged not to him anymore, but to the body to be buried in a few hours.

  Guruji smiling, seated behind the grave of his father covered with garlands of flowers during the ceremony of the nephew of Happy Babu. Guruji standing, tall, slender, all in white, like an ancient priest of days gone by, at the fire ceremony at the wedding of his son. And now… no more…. Now, only a tremendous Power to be reached in moments of non-being… a center of blissful energy, an answer to my cry for help, a merging in Something—but the man, the human being, is no more. How could I even think in the past that he deceived me? That I was left an orphan, that I would never reach him?

  He showed me the way to reach him through the divine love.

  Ungrateful wretch that I am… and this feeling, this feeling of sweetness and immense satisfaction when I call His Name and I feel His response, God’s very being throbbing in the depth of my being!

  The magic of a mantra; each time I say it, it brings me nearer to Him.

  Literally so. But you, Guruji, you are something so different now from what you were then; looking at your photos, my heart is crying for you, yes, but somehow it is difficult to believe….

  And each time I say the mantra when going up the hill, I am suffering; with each step I say it, and my heart is so glad, full of unbelievable peace; it is beating so much, I feel a suffocation….

  Guruji, dear Guruji, YOU DID NOT DECEIVE ME. You made my soul pregnant with God.

  “People who are intended to realize God in this life have a sign on them.” Rare are such souls for whom Vasudeva is all, says the Bhagavad Gita.

  One gets from the guru what one wants: I came for the Absolute Truth. He made me pay the price for making my soul pregnant with God….

  “How much Grace of God you have received you will know only later, now you cannot understand,” he said. Impregnated with God… Guruji… what do I owe you? How can I express it ever? How can I tell you, now, that I know?? Guruji, my dear.

  25th October

  I AM WALKING MUCH NOW all around in the hills. The forest is still damp but it is very lovely, and the snows seen from different angles look quite different, absolutely fascinating.

  It is true that at sunset one sees here all the seven colors of the rainbow. Yesterday I saw it. And I nearly felt like crying because the Galloways who stayed here for three days and who left yesterday at one p. m. could not see it. One more day and they would have seen it….

  For the first time since I am here we had a perfect sunset. All the snows, the whole range up to Nepal, were very clear. At first they became pale golden yellow, and the three rows of wooded hills below them became of the most atmospheric amethysts and shades of mauve and soft violet. Then the snows became deep-gold and the hills indigo and misty blue. Gradually they changed into vivid coral pink, and the hills became of a misty-turquoise color, a kind of greeny blue. Then at last they are crimson, the light dying away slowly, slowly, and the hills become green. Of a strange, unreal green. The sky is all the time of an incredible transparency, pale greeny as if secretly shimmering with hidden light….

  And this morning we had a dramatic sunrise with immense curtains, gold, crimson and orange, displayed liberally all across the sky even as far as to the south. And then the sun rose, still invisible behind the opposite hill, showering with its oblique rays the snows which were cold grey a moment before, and now all of a sudden were bathed in a kind of brown light. It all appeared like an etching in sepia against the now completely grey clouds and the paleness of the sky in between.

  Poor Galloways… I bullied them out of their beds at five a. m. to sit on the ridge and watch the sunrise. I used to bring the two easy chairs, drag them to the edge of the ridge, and all the blankets I could get hold of to cover them up. Poor pets, to be roused at such an unearthly hour. But I hope they found it worthwhile, the dawn chorus and the peaks lighting up, and I told them all the names of the different peaks, and there was the smell of the pines and the sounds from the village. I thought it was glorious; I hope they thought so too….

  28th October

  I SAW A COMPLETELY ROUND RAINBOW. It was a rainbow circle as if glued to the edge ofTrisul after a short shower. It was quite clear, and I think such sight must be rare. All the colors were there; it was complete. It was not very large, for if it were, it would disappear behind the snows. It just stood there and paled away.

  1st November

  THE SUNSET WAS LOVELY and different again, even if further from Panchencholi towards Nepal the snows were not quite clear, but half hidden behind the clouds, so delicately pink and fluffy. My glass mountain, Nanda Kunti, seemed to be made of pink crystal. Each time I look at her, she reminds me of the piece of music, ”The Legend of the Glass Mountain.” She gives the illusion of being semi, transparent; it seems as if one could see the sky behind, through her, owing to the color of the rock showing in practically vertical stripes in between the covering of the ice and snow. My lovely glass mountain… she is the first object I look at as soon as I come out of my door.

  What is so particularly beautiful and startling is the afterglow.

  When the sun has completely disappeared behind the horizon, the snows become grey, frozen, so cold looking. Then after a short while they light up again. At first snow,white, shining against the greyish sky, blending with the palest pink and turquoise near the snows, and the whole dome of the sky becomes magenta pink. Then the snows become gradually golden. Not so vivid as at sunset, more subdued, more tender. The whole phenomenon is due to the reflection of the sky from the rays of the sun already beneath the horizon. And the gold deepens. And the sky becomes more and more greeny. Even the hills below partake of the afterglow, seem to radiate from within the soil, the trees as if illumined by golden,pink light. And then they become coral, and the snows in the meantime turn into deep crimson. And so they stay for a while getting deeper and deeper red.

  By now the hills below are veiled in grey,blue mist. And the sky too is pale grey with just a suspicion of turquoise above….

  And the glowing snows seem to be suspended in between the darker mist by which the hills are covered and the transparent greyness of the sky. Unreal, so fairy,like, so light, weightless… and then it is over. All at once it is all grey. Cold. Forbidding. It makes you shiver just to look at them. And one by one the stars appear.

  8th November

>   THERE IS NOT MUCH TO SAY, so it seems. Strange isn’t it? I have been here for three months. Sixteen weeks have passed since Guruji’s death. So much happened within me, so much, so much….

  Slowly, gradually, ever so slowly, by degrees the world begins to look differently, to change imperceptibly.

  Yes, the sunrises, the sunsets, the garden, the people, the whole of my daily life seems outwardly the same. I am nearly all the time alone, walk much, read books from the Ashram library. But the values have changed. The meaning underlying it all is not the same as before. Something which seemed intangible, unattainable, slowly, very slowly became a permanent Reality. There is nothing but Him.

  This of course is not a novelty to many of us. But at the beginning it was sporadical; later, of longer or shorter duration when I was acutely conscious of it. But now… the infinite, endless Him… nothing else is there… and all the beauty of nature which surrounds me is as if only on the edge of my consciousness. Deep within, I am resting in peace in His Heart. The body feels so light at times—as if it were made of the pure, thin air of the snow peaks.

  I noticed that I am a bit breathless lately. Joan Galloway drew my attention to it, when she was here two weeks ago. I am sure it is not due to the altitude, which is not much, only slightly over 6,000 feet.

  It is true, when I walk up on some surrounding hills, it can be much higher; still, I think, it is not due to it. I think the heart Chakra is responsible for it. For my heart is humming incessantly its song to Him… the infinite, endless Him, all around… and like a fish in water I am in Him and have my being…. Wherever I try to look, there is nothing else… absolutely, nothing else. And neither can there be. Strange (or is it?), how this constant vision of the One deepening, increasing in one’s mind, gives one eternal peace….

  There is nothing to be worried at all. All is well with the world and with me.

  Last week I saw the waning moon rise just in the depression of the two peaks: the nose of the Dog and the next peak. It rose out of the depression as out of a cup. Mysterious was its light, peeping beyond the range, ghostly, before it rose completely. The disc at first peeped out, then as if taking courage seemed to shoot up. Some music in the distance from a radio; a dog barked incessantly far away near the next hill. The sky was a shimmering movement of stars. The Milky Way was so clear, so dense with light. The Pleiades had just risen and stood above the next hill. Fancy that we belong to this constellation, so small and on the very edge of the mysterious Milky Way, forming part of this nebulous, rather small agglomeration of stars, there on the horizon, in the east…. Strange and rather difficult to conceive with the mind of an ordinary person like myself.

  The day before yesterday I was watering the flowers with the hose.

  Below our plateau was stationed the car of the military wireless operator. The music was coming from there. The usual miauling of a childish fem ale voice, so popular in India, squealing some silly songs from a film. This music brought memories, so vivid, so painful.

  Looking at the stream of clear water coming from the nozzle of the hose, I was musing…. Memories of the hot days in the plains. I seemed to be enveloped again in this acute feeling, a mixture of fear, hope, despair, hope again, the burning of the rebellious mind, the helpless feeling before him, my Master, who kept beating me down mercilessly…. So vivid, so real were those memories, the feeling, what a strange feeling it was… I did not realize it then…. Now I see what a powerful driving force it was. Something in its terrible intensity, richness and fear, did not really belong to this world of mortals…. This world of ours, I mean…. And I stopped watering the plants. Went to cook my meal in order to escape this banal and haunting music.

  All the time I was with Guruji I heard something similar from one loudspeaker or another. From Deva Singh Park, at every wedding festivity, from the bazaar, across the Moti Jheel Park coming from afar, or so near that the ears were splitting. Intruding into my meditation, disturbing our meetings, or making my sleep impossible.

  … And now… now it made my heart ache with longing… for it brought memories back, rending my heart apart….

  Cried desperately while I was cooking. Tears were streaming down my face. The same intensity of the longing and despair, so terribly deep, so much a part of me that I was amazed. I forgot how intense the suffering was then; it nearly knocked me over now .… Yes, I must have forgotten it. And now remembering it clearly, I am astonished; how could I bear this intense burning, suffering, like fire consuming my body, unquenchable for years?…

  After having eaten something, I was lying in bed crying and praying. How much I cried for you, Guruji.… How much, only you and God know. Had rarely a ray of light. And when I had, some poison was always hidden underneath. Had seemingly little kindness from you. Not much I had except this kind of pain which was unbearable, as I clearly see it now. And I did bear it all for the Sake of Him…. You who are all Justice, You whom I wanted so much and whom I still want more than ever now, help me to You! How I prayed! Could not stop.

  And then the great vibration in the heart began and went on for hours. The pulse rate was 104; I listened to my heart. Prayed and prayed. Guruji, my only one Guruji; how I wanted the Truth, you know it! Even I, mysdf, have forgotten it, but you, you MUST KNOW…

  Tried to read. But of no avail. Went to bed not waiting for the dying light to spend itself on the peaks. Cried a little and prayed much and was already half asleep when the words of the prayer formed themselves in strange shapes of flames and became verses which l HEARD:

  For the sake of the love which I have for You, For the sake of the torture you gave to me, For the sake of my pining, my sorrow, my pain, Help me to reach You….

  For the sake of my heart which was hurting so much, For the sake of my infinite longing—For the sake of my crying for years tears of love, Help me to You….

  For the sake of my darkest months of despair, For the sake of the deepest surrender,

  For the sake of the hopeless endeavor and plodding, Help me to You….

  Fancy seeing it written with dancing flames and hearing it, I thought. Help my rebellious heart! I cried this time aloud. Something snapped in me and I fell asleep, sinking into it like a stone thrown into the water….

  9th November

  THE GREAT SEPARATION IS HERE. And each time, the greater is the Nearness, the deeper, the more terrible is the Separation. Keep crying for Him. Crying endlessly. When I am so alone, it seems unbearable. Was wondering what to do, how to help my mind to remember Him all the time. Then an idea came into my mind: If I could only consciously see Him in everything, as in moments of Oneness. Absolutely in everything, see Him, literally SEE, then the Absolute Trust will be here. Absolute Trust; this is a great Grace of God…. But the trouble is that I cannot induce at will those moments of oneness…. They come when they want to come….

  It does not depend on me….

  10th November

  MEMORIES COME CROWDING IN…. Unexpectedly I seem to hear his voice, remember his kindness….

  A moving episode stands out vividly as if carved in my memory.

  It was a day with a sparkle in the air, a kind of trembling luminosity, a limpid transparence which in Spanish is called “dia luminosa.”

  He was already seated outside. An Indian village woman was talking to him.

  She was small, very thin, her face was wrinkled, shrunken, as if dried-up by the merciless sun, the hot wind of the plains.

  From the little Hindi I knew I understood that she was telling him her troubles of which she had many. An endless sorrowful litany of illnesses, misery, death of her husband, of most of her children, and now she was alone, useless, and nobody needed her, she had nothing to hope for, nothing to live for….

  And she came out with a question which seemed to burn, scorching her trembling lips:

  “Maharaj, why did God create this world so full of troubles? Why did He create me to endure all those sufferings?”

  I saw him leaning forw
ard, a shimmering light in his eyes, the light of compassion I knew and loved so well. Soft was his voice when he answered:

  “Why has He created the world? That you should be in it! Why has He created you? He is alone; He needs you!”

  Never will I forget the broad, blissful smile on the lined, emaciated face when she was walking away. She went happy in the knowledge that she was not alone, not really, for God needed her to keep Him company because He too was alone….

  And never will I forget the utter admiration I felt then; only a very Great Soul could have expressed so simply and convincingly one of the greatest Mysteries to a childlike mind of a village woman—the Ultimate Metaphysical Truth: that He who is Alone and Perfect in order to realize His Perfection, He created the Universe….

  11th November

  ONE IMPORTANT MAN CAME, one of the trustees of the Gandhi Ashram Memorial Trust. So, there was lunch prepared for ten people and I was also invited. The caretaker prepared a good lunch. After lunch there was some rain. The sun came out immediately when it was still raining. I looked out for a rainbow. And here it was very wide, all colors very vivid and clear, so bright. It began and ended both ends on the slope of our hill towards the north. And I noticed that it was a double rainbow, the second one above, and very faint. And the yellow, my dear, was the most prominent in both…. Since you have gone out of my life, the yellow color is NEVER missing!

  12th November

  VERY COLD THIS MORNING. After the rain the snows are azure and so near and so clear; every crag, every glacier, every rock is outlined sharply, in this clear bluish tinge. How incredibly lovely they are like this…. Writing, seated on my doorstep, I need only to lift my eyes to see the Panchencholi, majestic, enormous with its seven peaks, each peak bearing the name of one of the Pandavas, and the Draupady behind, and the smallest peak (the dog) in front. And the glacier which seems to reach nearly to the sky where all of them went into Heaven…. One after another marching into the Swarga Loka (Heaven). The dog leading and Judishtra holding on to the tail of the dog.