The ascetic was clearly pleased with the king. “I do not want any of your things, noble king. Your wealth, power, and women do not interest me. What I would like is this: I intend to begin a special vow and I would like you and your wife to serve me unconditionally while I am thus engaged.”
This request filled the king with joy, and he immediately agreed to serve the excellent sage. The king summoned his wife, and the royal couple led their guest to his quarters in the palace, where a comfortable bed was neatly prepared. The sun was past its midday point, and the guest announced that he was hungry.
“What kind of food would the great sage like?” asked the queen.
“Bring an appropriate snack for someone like myself,” he answered vaguely. The two hosts hurriedly withdrew from the guest’s room and ran to the kitchen. They returned shortly, personally bearing trays with sliced fruit, cheeses, and sweets. As the holy man indifferently picked at this and that, the couple stood tensely by, waiting for his instructions. To their relief, the guest said nothing critical.
Now he seemed to be getting drowsy. “I should like to take a nap now,” he yawned. They were about to leave, but he stopped them. “No, stay here. Sit by the bed as I sleep, and whatever you do, do not leave and do not wake me up. Oh, and one more thing,” he added as they sat at the foot of his bed, “I should like it very much if you massaged my feet while I sleep.” Immediately, the king began to rub the holy man’s feet as the latter settled into a deep slumber. It was afternoon and the sun was beginning to set. Neither king nor queen left the room, and they took turns kneading their guest’s feet.
The entire night passed by in such a manner. The guest slept peacefully, while his royal hosts quietly continued to work. Another day came and then went, and the holy man slept away as the king and his wife diligently kept their promise to the ascetic. In such a way, sleeping deeply and not moving even once, the man remained motionless for twenty-one days and nights. Suddenly, on the twenty-second night, the holy man bolted upright, his eyes glazed, and without acknowledging the presence of the royal couple he left the room. Then he swiftly walked out of the palace. The king and his wife were mortified. Delirious from hunger and sleeplessness as they were, they managed to run outside after the holy man. They tried to keep up with him, but through his yogic powers he suddenly vanished.
The king fell to the ground, struck with grief and fear. The queen, however, remained calmer and helped him to his feet, and the two resumed the search. They looked everywhere around the palace walls, but to no avail; the holy man was gone. The royal couple slowly retreated back into the palace, worn out and depressed. Avoiding their servants, they dragged themselves into the guest bedroom and there, on the bed, was the saint stretched out and sound asleep. He seemed exactly as before—he showed no signs of having moved, other than the fact that he was lying on his other side. The couple resumed rubbing his feet, invigorated with relief. In such a manner, slow as the march of ants, passed another twenty-one days.
Finally the ascetic woke up. Stretching his stiff limbs, he announced that he was ready for a bath. “Rub my body with oil in preparation for the bath,” he ordered the king. Fragrant oils were brought, and both king and wife began to rub the ascetic’s entire body. The man sat on the bathing stool, luxuriating under the strokes of this four-hand massage. As long as he gave no sign of wanting to end the treatment, the royal couple worked diligently in silence. But once again the ascetic startled his hosts when he stood up and walked into the bathing room, where the highest-quality bathing soaps and scrubs had been prepared. Before the couple could follow him in, he vanished into thin air.
This time the king and his wife did not panic, but began preparation for their guest’s meal. The most sumptuous food was cooked and delivered into the holy man’s chamber. There were several dishes of venison and fowl, vegetables steamed in herbs, fried patties made of rice-banana-jaggery gruel, rice, and spicy dhal. Numerous types of sweetmeats and exotic fruits were also brought on jeweled trays. The holy guest emerged from his bath and took one look at the royal feast that lay before him. With one wave of his hand he caused it all to explode into flames. “I didn’t ask for food—you need not have bothered.”
The king showed no sign of anger or impatience. Instead, he lowered himself before the guest and asked how he could be of further service. The ascetic, looking at the king with intense curiosity answered, “I want you, along with your wife, to yoke yourself to one of your chariots. Then I should like the two of you to pull the chariot, in which I shall be riding, throughout the city.”
Hearing this request, the king eagerly inquired, “Which chariot shall it be, sir, a pleasure chariot or a battle one?”
“Make it your heaviest chariot, the one you use to charge into enemy fortifications,” the holy man answered, adding, “and make sure all your weapons are loaded onto it: the darts and javelins and golden columns and poles and standards and flags as well. I want it nice and heavy.” After a pause he added, “You shall pull it wherever I guide you, slowly or quickly, and do make sure everyone in the city comes out to see you and the queen pull it. Oh, and one other thing. From the chariot I shall distribute to the crowd anything I choose out of your treasury: jewels, gems, gold and silver coins, sheep, and even your servants and the women of your palace. Is that clear?”
The king ran to make the arrangements. Within the hour he was strapped, alongside his wife, to the chariot. A whip cracked, and the two began to pull the heavy chariot through the crowded alleyways of the capital city. Their progress was slow, one tortured step after the other, the heavy load getting heavier with each pull. For fifty days and nights neither king nor wife had rested, and they were now barely able to move. And yet, not a single word of complaint came out of their mouths. They just breathed heavily in silence, with a smile on their faces. Suddenly they felt a sharp blow, then another. The holy man began to strike them with a goad that had a sharp point. He struck them on their backs, and then on their heads and cheeks. Soon they were covered in their own blood, looking like a couple of kinsuka trees in flowering season. Still, neither one of them complained or so much as sighed. The citizens of the city beheld them with great compassion and whispered, “Look at the power of penance. The mighty ascetic is so brilliant we cannot look at him directly!”
After several hours the holy man had given away the king’s entire fortune and had reduced his body to a bloody pulp. The king, in turn, joyfully kept pulling the chariot. The holy man then pulled the reigns and called on the couple to stop. He descended from the back of the car and moved in front of the two. With a soft voice he spoke. “I am ready to give you a boon.” He touched the two lightly, with the tip of his fingers, and instantly their fatigue and pain were gone.
“Sir, my wife and I have felt no pain serving you. It has been our honor. We have regained our youth through this ordeal. Look at my wife; she has the beauty of a goddess. Our injuries have disappeared, and our skin is radiant. We do not require anything.” The king lowered his head.
“Dear king, I have never spoken idly, and I am not about to begin now. You shall receive your reward tomorrow.” The holy man showed the couple a kind smile. “You may not feel the fatigue right now, but soon you will. So return to your palace and rest. Tomorrow come back to this very same place.”
The royal couple returned to the palace. Although their entire wealth had been given away, the king and his mistress were now greeted by all their ministers and servants and by all the beautiful women of the court. The palace was overflowing with wealth and splendor as though their holdings had multiplied. They bathed for the first time in fifty days and ate a nourishing meal. Then, finally, the couple went to sleep.
In the meantime the holy man retired to a patch of woods by the Ganges, a place frequented by jackals and vagabonds. There he spent the night. In the morning, when the king arrived, the place was completely transformed. Where there had been only thistles and snakes, the king now saw trees blooming with pink flowers and
mansions with celestial cars. There were green meadows, speckled with yellow and red mountain flowers, and crystal blue lakes. Every imaginable bird and animal was peacefully feeding in that miraculous place that looked like the divine gardens. The king saw all this with amazement, knowing that it was created through the spiritual powers of the holy man. Suddenly he came to regard his own worldly power and wealth with contempt and found himself wishing he could renounce worldly affairs in order to become a spiritual being. However, because he was a Kshatriya—a member of the warrior caste—and a king, this was not possible.
The holy man saw into the mind of the king. He spoke. “You should know, noble king, that I came here to destroy you. I came to test you, waiting for you to lose your temper or your patience. Then, and only then, I would have destroyed you. And with you the entire caste of the Kshatriyas would have vanished. You see, I was seeking to prevent a future massacre of the entire priestly caste of Brahmins by the Kshatriyas. But you have proven yourself far superior to mere warriors—you are a true vanquisher of anger. You have mastered your own nature, which is the mark of a pure Brahmin. And now,” the holy man added as he swept his arm over the magnificent world around them, “now I see that you value the creative power of the spirit. In your heart you wish to become a Brahmin.”
“Yes, holy man. I recognize your supremacy over worldly power or wealth.”
“Well, then, I cannot make you a Brahmin—not even Shiva could do that. But your descendants will someday become Brahmins through marriage. Your race will be saved, and it will prosper under the spiritual guidance of Brahmins.”
I noticed for the first time that we were seated in the shade of a tamarind tree. Because the slope was steep, the tree never reached the majestic size of its brothers below, but its canopy was broad, formed into a huge bonsai shape by the northern winds. It was a beautiful spot, but I hated the story.
“What a vicious story!”
“Don’t you mean, what a vicious Brahmin?”
“Well, both. What’s the story saying anyway, that we prove our worth by putting up with capricious cruelty? That we gain something by acquiescing to injustice without putting up a fight? I don’t buy it.” My guide seemed genuinely surprised by this display of emotion. I might have been venting, though, because the magical date-palm lotion was beginning to wear off my feet.
“You sound almost like Job railing against God, if you don’t mind that I compare myself with God.” That made me laugh. This tiny wrinkled man in his brown polyester pants and worn-out rubber thongs—what a startling and comic image! Then he added, “Are your feet hurting again?”
I ignored the question and attacked. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that the story is merely symbolic, that it has nothing to do with Brahmin exploitation of the lower castes, right?”
This made the old man squint at me. “If you know what I’m thinking, then you tell me what I might say the story symbolizes. Go ahead. You’re in a feisty mood—tell me.”
I was no religion scholar—that’s Rony’s field—but it seemed obvious. “Mortification of the flesh. Asceticism for spiritual goals.”
“My goodness, there’s your Catholic mother again! We don’t use this kind of language—‘killing’ the body. It’s not the enemy you know…But then, you’re not very far off, I must admit.”
“Hey, thanks. I’m not used to agreement from you. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re getting ready to maul the story in that mystical way you have of reading stories.”
My sarcasm only seemed to make him happy, and he said, “Do you mean ‘reading’ or ‘telling’? Well, why not? We ‘maul,’ as you put it, we interpret our life all the time. Why not do it with a story?” He saw my skepticism and took a deep breath. “Look back on your own life: your childhood, your injury, all the events that are part of your life, not someone else’s. What makes it your life and not theirs? The hero, of course—the central character, the constant witness. That’s you, right?”
I nodded quietly, curious to see where he was going.
“Whether you tell your life to someone else or you carefully keep it concealed—as you prefer to do—in reflecting back on it you give it the shape of a story. At the same time, any given memory that you have, any moment in your life, means something, does it not? At the very least it belongs in your narrative rather than in someone else’s. This is your pilgrimage, not the old man’s—he’s just the…what shall we make me? The quirky guide…that sounds good. A bit typecast, but good. Are you still with me?”
I nodded again.
“No event in your life is a simple objective fact. It always means something to the memory-processing mind: ‘This is when I started suffering,’ ‘This was my best day in high school.’ All these judgments are literary interpretations, my friend, no more and no less. The only difference is that you are interpreting your own private symbols instead of a book or a story. But why not do the same thing with the stories I tell you? Pretend that they are part of your life. They are, after all, a part of mine.”
“Yes, I see that.”
“So with your permission I shall maul the story, but for your sake I’ll try to be conservative. Here goes. It’s a story about giving up the things that keep us back: food, sleep, sex, money, pride. Although the Brahmin is depicted as a vicious man, that’s nothing compared to the difficulty of renouncing those things. So you see, it’s not a story about self-torture. That would be too easy and superfluous. It’s about letting go of entrenched desires. You must learn to control that constant urge for something more, something always better, more pleasurable, more important. For you it may not be money or sex, but your pride, my son, your pride. With your permission, I would like to rest a bit longer.”
We sat quietly for a few moments as I tried to calculate how he came up with my major sin and whether I should pout. But then he interrupted my reverie. “Have you ever meditated, my friend, or practiced yoga?”
His comment made me eager to speak, and I told him that after leaving the hospital I took a yoga course in La Jolla, California, twice a week for over a year. The physical therapist had said it would do my back a lot of good. The students were mostly admiralty and faculty wives, tanned women with tightly pulled back blonde hair—it was a morning course. There were two instructors. Suzie, who was fanatic about “wellness” and a balanced life, never left me alone because she claimed I needed to learn how to release the tension in my body. The other was Ananda Devi or something like that. Her thing was nirvana—she kept telling us how close we were all getting to that blissful state beyond the cycle of all suffering. After class everyone would meet at a strip-mall café for coffee with milk foam, and the conversation would turn to famous gurus and life-altering diets. I always had espresso and a sweet—it gave me a kick in the pants and a taste of nirvana right there and then.
The old man laughed and congratulated me for being self-deprecating. “You’re quite right to see the humor, young man. Yoga has produced its share of comedy. Here’s an amusing little tale I once heard.”
LOVE FOR THE DEAD
A man spent many years studying yoga with a guru. He became quite advanced in the Hatha school, mastering many difficult positions and learning to still his mind. But he refused to renounce the world in order to seek final liberation. His guru would plead with him, “As long as you merely practice yoga but remain a married and professional man, it is as though you are rehearsing for a play. You must leave the world behind if you wish to seek what is real.”
“How can I leave?” the disciple would ask. “My wife and my children depend on me for support.”
“They will be fine,” his guru insisted. “You can make sure in advance that they will be taken care of.”
“That may be true, sir, but my wife loves me so very much. I can’t just abandon her in the prime of life when her needs…I mean, she loves my body so.” That was the disciple’s final word on the subject. Of course, his own needs went unmentioned. And so he kept putting off h
is renunciation.
The guru resolved to settle the matter by teaching his disciple an extraordinary yoga trick. That evening the man was found in his room lying motionless, in an awkward position—arms and legs stuck in every direction. He was dead. The house exploded into wailing and sobbing—the wife cried out loudly for her dear husband. “Oh, sweetheart, where have you gone? Why did you leave us so suddenly?” she collapsed sobbing.
Friends and neighbors gathered; they felt an urgent need to perform the final rites for the good man, before ritual pollution pervaded the house. Avoiding unnecessary discussion, they carried him to the door, but would you believe it? His body did not fit. Due to his awkward posture, the doorway was simply too narrow. One of the more resourceful neighbors hurried home to fetch his ax, returned, and quickly began to chop away at the door frame. Now the noise roused the grieving widow, who was sprawled on the floor in the next room, and she came running in. Despite her violent sobs she managed to inquire about the racket.
“Dear madam,” said the ax-wielder, “we have to cut the door frame. The corpse—I mean, your husband—will not fit otherwise.”
The woman surveyed the situation through a screen of tears. She then addressed the man, who seemed ready to swing again. “Please don’t cut the door right now. I am still grieving. He only just died.” She let out a sob, then another. After some time she added, looking around the room, “You know, he was a dear man, but he did not leave us with much. I shall now have to work in order to support the orphans he left behind. We’ll manage somehow, I know we will, but…I will never be able to repair that door.” Now she sobbed deeply. “Look, he died because it was his fate to die. There is nothing one could do. He’s dead and gone. I think you had better cut off his arms and legs. That will get him out the door, don’t you think?”
Climbing Chamundi Hill Page 13
