Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  ‘Yes, Arjun. In general, I agree. But let me meditate on that.’ He reached out, put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You look tired. Sleep now. We will talk in the morning. There is a bed for you in the small room.’

  He was right. It had been a journey across the world, and many days of conflict and bad news before that. I felt drawn out, thinned out, as if I was barely hanging on to wakefulness. He cupped my head with his hand, in blessing, and I felt as if I was sliding safely into sleep. His eyes were dark, opaque, huge. He raised me up, and embraced me. ‘Go to sleep. I will think about it. In the morning we will decide how we will act.’

  I staggered into the room to the side of the suite, collapsed into the bed. I barely had the strength to turn on to my side, and then I was asleep.

  I woke up to the sound of mantras. I sat up, and was instantly awake. As I padded through the suite, I was suddenly aware of how hungry I was, how alive. My shoulders were strong and relaxed, I felt the blood moving in my chest, there was sandalwood in my throat. I laughed. I felt like I had been reborn. One night of sleeping close to Guru-ji and I was young again.

  The big windows on the eastern side of the suite opened up on to a garden, and I could see Guru-ji and the sadhus performing a puja. They were seated in a hollow square, with Guru-ji at the centre facing a small fire. I sat cross-legged near the window, far from them, and watched. It was very early, and under the deep grey of this foreign sky a small glow lit up their faces. I didn’t know the mantras. It must be some ceremony for sadhus only, I thought, and I was content to sit and listen.

  But, afterwards, Guru-ji explained the ritual to me. At the moment of dawn, he said, they meditated on change. Through this small yagna, he said, they were working to bring about a change in the world. The universe was consciousness itself, in interaction with matter, which itself was just energy. The combined consciousness of the monks and Guru-ji’s own tremendous spiritual power were moving the universal consciousness towards transformation. ‘History has a shape, Arjun,’ he said. ‘The universe is a miracle of design. We have talked about this before. Look at this garden. For every insect, there is a predator. For every flower, there is a function. Some scientists still look at all this beauty, but insist that it is the result of mere random selection, of chance and nothing else. They are blind. They are afraid. Pull back from chance, look at it with the right vision, and chaos reveals patterns. The question is, are you able to read its signs, understand its language? The question is, can you look through the surfaces? You and I are sitting here, Arjun, talking to each other in a garden. The sun is coming up. Is all this just random, without meaning? Is there no direction to everything?’ With a wide motion of his arm he took in the earth, us and the sky. ‘Look into yourself, Arjun. Feel the truth inside you. And tell me, who is the creator of this direction?’

  I knew the answer to this. ‘Consciousness.’

  ‘Undoubtedly. And do you know where this consciousness is? Where it lives?’

  ‘Everywhere?’

  ‘Yes. And in us. You are He, Arjun. Your consciousness is the universal consciousness. There is no difference. If you can know that, really know that, then there is nothing you cannot do. You can shape history itself. Leaving the mind behind, the vira can direct events. He can move time towards transformation.’

  I nodded. ‘I understand, Guru-ji. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘We have to do one more run, Arjun, one last one.’

  He wanted to do one trip, one consignment. The cargo wasn’t very bulky, or heavy. There was some cash – rupees mostly, but also some dollars – which had been collected abroad and now needed to be transported into the country. There was some laboratory equipment, which Guru-ji’s people needed to run some agricultural experiments in Punjab. These they could have brought in through normal channels, but customs clearance would take weeks, maybe months, and important work would be held up. And finally there was some computer equipment, which again was urgently needed. No arms, no ammunition. Very simple, and even clear of the specific activities that Kulkarni was raging about. ‘I wouldn’t ask this of you, Arjun,’ Guru-ji said, ‘if it was not vital. Without this cargo, our work of several years remains undone, incomplete. Of course I could easily move it through other channels. But you and I, we have a history. We have trust. I trust only you to do this for me. And in this shipment, there must be no mistakes. Arjun, I know there is great danger for you. So I will not tell you that you must do this for me. But I ask it of you, and leave the decision to you.’

  Of course I agreed. I was bound to, as his disciple. And I owed him much, he had saved me time and again, in many ways. I told him I would do it, that I would begin to plan it as soon as I got back to Thai waters. Then I asked to spend another day with him. It was a risk for both of us, but I was compelled to beg this of him. I had a foreboding, a dense certainty that I would not see him again. I told him this, and he calmly agreed. ‘Yes, that is true,’ he said. ‘I know it too.’

  ‘You can see this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? What happens?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t see that, but I do see this. That this is our last meeting.’

  ‘How can we both know this? Has it already happened, whatever is going to happen? But how can that be?’

  ‘Our small minds think that time is like a single railway track, Arjun, going forward always into the future. But time is much more subtle than that.’

  ‘Are we already parted, in the future?’

  Guru-ji shook his head. ‘Every moment contains a number of probabilities. There are choices we can make at every minute. We are not machines moving along a track, no. But there is no such thing as full freedom. We are bound by our pasts, by the consequences of our actions. We can lean towards this choice or that, at the criss-cross of events. And sometimes the probabilities converge at a node, into something approaching a certainty. And then, if you are capable of listening, of seeing, you know.’

  So we both knew. I had no pretence of being a seer like Guru-ji, of having his spiritual powers or his insight. But I knew. ‘All right, Guru-ji. I remember you said in one of your pravachans that in every meeting there is already the beginning of loss.’

  ‘Yes. We find each other only to lose each other. Loss is inevitable.’

  ‘So there is no need to grieve. Perhaps we will find each other again.’

  ‘Perhaps. But Arjun, even if we are not going to see each other face to face, I don’t want to lose you in this life too soon.’

  ‘Guru-ji?’

  ‘I see danger for you in the east. I see great danger.’

  ‘From where, Guru-ji? From whom?’

  ‘I can’t tell. But there is danger to your life. Be very careful.’

  ‘I will. As always. I’ll be even more careful. Even more.’

  ‘I will watch over you.’

  So, we took a walk. There was nothing else to say or do. I lived in danger, I had done it for years now, and now Guru-ji had given me a warning. I would be even more vigilant, if that was possible. Guru-ji liked greenery, he loved flowers and trees, he had spoken of this often in his sermons, about the need to save the environment. In the centre of Munich there was a park, and we went to it, just Guru-ji and I and two of his sadhus. The sadhus walked some distance behind us, out of earshot. Guru-ji and I spoke of ordinary things, about the price of gold, and the increasing number of overweight children in the middle class in India, and the next generation of computers, and the worldwide changes in weather and the implications for the monsoon. After the cosmic conversations that we had had recently, it was a relief to come back to the ground, to this summer day with strolling families, and children who stared at Guru-ji, and leaping dogs. The braver kids came up to Guru-ji, and he talked and laughed with them. Looking at them, I thought of what a perfect shot this was: the rolling grass, the heavy-headed trees moving gently in the breeze, the generous sun, Guru-ji’s great bent head, and the slender, pale necks of the children as they clust
ered about him. Remember this, I told myself, witness this and remember it always.

  I tried to see Guru-ji clearly. He was so enlightened, so far advanced that he was somewhat removed from the world of men and women. I knew that he valued cleanliness, that he liked gardens and greenery, that he had vast amounts of knowledge about arcane subjects, that he liked to learn about the latest advances in technology as soon as they happened. But still he hovered a little above the earth, I couldn’t know him like I knew Arvind, or Suhasini, or Bunty. I knew them like I knew myself, I knew the shape of their desires, what they were afraid of, how they thought. I could predict what they would do, and I could make them want certain things, I could direct them and control them. I had them.

  But Guru-ji, when I tried to think about him, when I imagined him, he appeared in my thoughts like one of those pictures from calendars of Vivekananda or Paramhansa, vivid and unforgettable but not quite human, more than human. I couldn’t quite grasp him, my Guru-ji. Even when he was sweeping along in his wheelchair a few feet in front of me, leaning back so he was only on two wheels, followed by a comet’s tail of laughing children. I had asked him once about his family, and he had told me quite openly about his air-force father, who kept the country’s fighter planes running and had a drinking problem. And about his mother, who suffered from asthma and wept copiously when his motorcycle accident happened, but who was his main supporter in his quest for spiritual knowledge, and his first devotee. I knew about his tastes in food, that he was vegetarian but not at all fussy, that he would share a poor farmer’s meagre lunch and enjoy it with the same gusto as he would a prime minister’s fancy tea. I knew all this, and yet I knew that I knew him not at all. He remained hidden behind that steady gaze of his, that taking-in which gave back love and peace and certainty. Maybe I was being presumptuous, I thought as I walked along behind him, to hope that I could understand him as I understood other men. He had left the ego behind, and become something divine. And I was not yet close enough to divinity to comprehend this godliness. To attempt to do so was itself an act of ego, a movement of pride. All I could properly hope for was this moment of darshan, a fleeting connection. But still, I had an urge to try. I stepped up to him, past the children, and said, ‘Guru-ji?’

  ‘Yes, Arjun.’

  ‘I have a question. Perhaps it’s impertinent.’

  ‘All the better. Ask it.’

  ‘Have you ever been in love, Guru-ji?’

  ‘All the time, Arjun.’

  ‘Not like that, Guru-ji. I know you love me, and them –’ I pointed at the children ‘– but with a person. Ishq, pyaar, muhabbat, Guru-ji. Have you ever been a deewana?’

  ‘I was very young when this happened,’ he said, pointing at his legs.

  ‘So, never?’ I thought I knew the answer already. A man who had realized his own supreme essence loved all creation equally, he would have no need for this partial, fragmented blindness that was love for another person. If you were Brahman itself, why would you need to become Majnoon? But he surprised me.

  ‘A deewana? Yes, maybe once. Before the accident. When I was very young.’

  ‘No, really?’

  ‘Yes, really. We saw each other every day because we lived in neighbouring houses, and yet the hours apart were torture.’ He smiled. ‘Is that what you are talking about, Ganesh?’

  ‘Yes, Guru-ji,’ I said eagerly. ‘And when you saw her, you were afraid of each minute because it was passing.’

  A grinning blue-eyed boy spoke to Guru-ji in German, and Guru-ji answered him very seriously. He nodded at me – over the boy’s little shoulder – and said, ‘Yes. Like the other half of you is near you for a moment, but will be taken away.’

  I struggled down the choking in my throat. So he was a man after all, an ordinary mortal who had suffered these pangs, and had felt loss. ‘What was her name, Guru-ji?’

  He patted the boy on the shoulder, sent him away. He was looking towards me, but seeing something else, someone very far away. ‘What does it matter, Arjun? Names are lost in time. All infatuation leads to loss.’

  ‘Then what happened, Guru-ji? Was she sent away?’

  ‘This happened. And I went away, into injury and then into myself.’

  Then he had become our Guru, and now he loved us instead of her, whoever she had been. No doubt she remembered their love also, but perhaps she was consoled by the fact that he loved her still, in a manner much more profound than the mere love of one small, ignorant mortal for another. I was nevertheless comforted by the knowledge that he had once been something like me. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘Guru-ji, thank you for telling me.’

  ‘It’s nothing much,’ he said, and he was looking over his shoulder at the group of children, who had angled off, and were now running across the fields in a flashing of golden legs, with that boy leading.

  The sadhus came up now, and I fell behind, carrying my knowledge of a young man in love like a new treasure in my breast. We walked on.

  One of the sadhus was speaking to Guru-ji in French. This sadhu was Swiss, a balding, red-headed fellow, who had been given the name ‘Prem Shantam’. Guru-ji had all sorts in his following, and he spoke bits and pieces of many languages. He turned back to me now. ‘Arjun!’

  I stepped up. ‘Guru-ji?’

  ‘Prem here tells me that up ahead there is a section of the park where these Germans give up all modesty. They lie around without any clothes on. He is suggesting that we do not go that way.’

  ‘Maybe we should avoid it, Guru-ji.’

  ‘Why? Are you afraid of seeing their bodies?’

  ‘Me? No, not at all. I am used to it, Guru-ji, from Thailand and all that.’

  So we went ahead, down by a sparkling river. And there were the naked Germans, mostly men, lying on the grass and walking about naturally, quite without embarrassment. I had seen them on beaches far away, I was familiar with their white skin, their wrinkled behinds. But here I was vaguely disquieted. Here, in this city of churches and tall spires, this exhibition made no sense.

  Prem said something, and Guru-ji translated for me, still gazing down at the river bank. ‘He says they call it “Free Body Culture”. I don’t think it’s free, or cultured. They are deluded. There is a time and place and an age for everything. There are stages in life when certain things are proper. A sadhu who meditates naked in a jungle is truly naked. He has left all culture behind. These people are still clothed in the traps of language. They think they are free, but they are bound by their rebellion against proper shame. Truly we live in Kaliyug, when everything is upside down.’

  There were a few women among the naked, and two of them were watching us now. One was light-haired, typically German, but the other had thick, curly black hair, and she was very tall. She was a German all right, but her skin was tanned brown.

  ‘Come,’ Guru-ji said. He folded his hands in a namaste at the girls. ‘They will think we are looking out of some dirty curiosity.’

  He spun his wheelchair around. As we moved away, away from the river, I looked back and the dark item was watching us still. Guru-ji was right, she was shameless, fearless. Kutiya. But by the time we were back at the entrance to the park, I had forgotten about her. I was with Guru-ji, and I was much easier in my temper than usual. The irritation came and went. We went back to the mansion, and we ate a quiet lunch in the great hall, the sadhus and Guru-ji and I. And afterwards we sat in the garden next to the bedrooms again, enjoying the sunlight. I was sleepy and relaxed, content, not sad at all. If this was a node in time, the probabilities had all counted down to this silence. I was at peace.

  ‘There is something you haven’t spoken to me about, Arjun,’ Guru-ji said suddenly. ‘Is there something else?’

  Of course there was. I should have known better than to keep it from him. He always knew. And not just with me – on his website there were testimonies from dozens, hundreds of devotees from all over the world that spoke of his ability to sense their troubles, to see through their hesitation
s. Somehow, he knew. ‘It’s something very small, Guru-ji. After all the big things we have been talking about, it seems silly to even bring it up. That’s why I kept quiet.’

  ‘Arjun, nothing is small if it bothers you. A small grain of sand can stop a mighty machine. Your consciousness controls the world you make, and if your mind is crippled, your world is broken down as well. So, tell me.’

  ‘It’s the girl.’

  ‘The Muslim girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Nothing exactly. I mean, I don’t see her as often nowadays. She is very busy with her films and work. And I have much to do also. When we do meet, everything is good. She is beautiful. She is obedient.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But sometimes I get afraid. I don’t know. I don’t know if she really loves me. I look at her and I watch her eyes, but I can’t tell. She says she does. But does she love me?’

  Guru-ji shook his head. ‘That’s not a small question, Arjun. That is a big question. Even the sages can’t look into a woman’s heart. Vatsayayana himself wrote, “One never knows how deeply a woman is in love, even when one is her lover.” That is exactly what is happening here, to you.’

  ‘But you, Guru-ji, do you know?’

  ‘No, I do not. And even if I did tell you, that “Yes, she loves you,” what of it? Are you sure the same will be true tomorrow? Women are fickle, Arjun. They cannot control their emotions, they are changeable as prakriti itself. Would you try to love the weather for its constancy, or a river for staying in one place for all eternity? This bodily love is not love. It is only a momentary infatuation. It passes.’

  ‘Why then does she come back to me? And pretend?’

  ‘She is ruthless, Arjun. As long as she gains from you, you will feel that she might love you. That is the skill of the whore. It is a skill that comes naturally to women. It is not their fault, they must act from what they are made of. They are weak, and the weak have these kinds of weapons: lies, evasions, acting.’ I must have looked sad, or exhausted, because he moved over closer to me, so that he could rest a hand on my wrist. ‘You can only know this truth by experiencing it, Arjun. If I had told you not to be with her, you would have obeyed me. But you might have thought that I was a grumpy old man, suspicious of pleasures. But now you know. You have seen through maya. We have to go beyond this.’ He pinched the flesh on my wrist between a thumb and a long forefinger. ‘This is useful, but it also blinds us. The pain you feel now is the gateway to wisdom. Learn from it.’