Climbing Chamundi Hill

by Ariel Glucklich

  In the meantime, the eight wives at home sank into inconsolable grief. They removed their jewelry, shaved their hair off, and refused to eat cooked food. The goddess Parvati, who roamed that forest retreat like a kindly spirit, saw the young women acting in the manner of widows. Deeply moved by their devotion, she appeared before them. “I am very pleased with your loyalty and modesty. Tell me what you would like as a reward.”

  The wives answered in a single voice, “Please grant immortality for our husbands.”

  But Parvati shook her head. “I can’t do that. It runs against the natural order of things. Ask for something else.”

  Again in unison, the wives responded, “If not immortality, then please grant that when our husbands die, their spirits may remain at home.”

  Parvati readily agreed to this and even added another boon. “Your husbands’ efforts to rule the earth shall be successful.”

  The wives were so thrilled with their good fortune that they immediately vowed to undertake a pilgrimage. They chose Kalapagrama because it was a holy place for worshipers of Shiva, the lord and husband of Parvati. Wasting no time, they gathered a few belongings, remembering, of course, to invite their elderly parents-in-law. Although the trip took several long days of dusty walking, a happy mood prevailed, and they all found the discomforts of the road easy to bear. One morning they arrived at the Godavari River, where all the pilgrims had to board a ferry. The women took their place in the long line, supporting the old couple as they waited patiently. Directly in front of them quietly stood a short, stout man, whose long messy hair was flaming red and whose skin was filthy with white ashes. The young women had never seen anything so odd—they eyed the man with suspicion. As soon as the ferry arrived, they pressed their parents-in-law forward, nudging the stranger aside.

  The man, however, was a powerful and ferociously temperamental ascetic named Durvasa. Instantly, he exploded in rage and glowered at the old couple. Then he spit out this curse: “Your sons have set out to rule the world. They have recently obtained boons from the goddess. Whatever boon they received will produce an opposite effect.”

  Before the women or the old couple could open their mouths to apologize, the man vanished. They searched frantically among the crowds, behind the stalls and kiosks, and pleaded with the dhobi women who were beating clothes against stones at the river’s edge, but he was gone. The family members boarded the ferry and continued on their pilgrimage, anxious to win reassurance from the god that all would turn out well. The joyful mood was now replaced by a dark foreboding. How could the eight brothers possibly rule the world now? And how could their spirits remain at home even after they died? It all seemed lost. The pilgrimage ran its full course—the divine couple was duly worshiped—but tragically, both Shiva and Parvati remained silent.

  Back at the huge fig tree Kundadanta was hanging by his feet. Time stood still for him as he journeyed into unknown spiritual realms. But time also flew by as the tree bore fruit twelve times in what seemed like one summer. After twelve years a brilliant being, bright as the sun, appeared to him and declared soundlessly, “You may stop your penance now, Kundadanta. Success is yours. Go now and rule the earth.” At that very instant the ascetic felt a tug, then another. He blinked his eyes open.

  A pleasant man with lotuslike palms, four arms, and a mace was gently tugging on his arms. “Holy man, are you well? I thought you looked like a corpse, but from close range I can see that your skin looks almost healthy. Why are you engaged in this torturous penance?”

  “Leave him alone,” came a voice from another man—this one was a fierce dark man with two arms and three eyes. In his hand was a trident. “Let him hang there. What is it to you?”

  The two began to argue, promptly forgetting the hanging ascetic. “Help me down,” Kundadanta interrupted the noisy quarrel. “Please, can you cut the rope?” The pleasant man helped him down gently and brought him some water. Then he began to massage the ascetic’s feet while his companion was visibly trying to interrupt these acts of devotion by getting in the way.

  “Sir,” said the first, “you are clearly a great ascetic. May I serve you?”

  Before Kundadanta could respond, the other jumped in, “Why do you want to serve him, you fool? Can’t you see he’s nothing but a corpse? Come on, let’s go and let him rot.”

  Kundadanta saw another argument about to erupt, so he got up stiffly and began to walk away. “Thank you for cutting me down, friends. I am now going back home.”

  This seemed to upset the first one, who began to plead, “But sir, may I join you on your journey? It would be my great pleasure to serve you.” He shook off his companion, who was just then pulling on his shirt, and joined Kundadanta. The two walked in a southeasterly direction, back home to the Gauri forest retreat. The fierce companion shook his head in anger, but followed the others.

  The journey back was difficult. Kundadanta walked with great difficulty, and his two companions kept quarreling. As one served him with a cheerful demeanor, the other tried to sabotage his friend’s efforts and kept hurling a steady stream of invectives at both his traveling companions. The ascetic often felt his anger starting to flare at the wild man, but it was quickly doused by the good cheer of his new friend. As they walked, Kundadanta told the two about his spiritual experiences, explaining why he took on such a harsh penance. He said that having obtained his wish, he was now going back to see his brothers and reclaim his wife.

  The pleasant companion was awed by the description of the solar being and by his message. “Undoubtedly, sir, that has come true. I am sure that you are in fact the ruler of the entire world.” He had no reason to think so, of course, but his support was sincere.

  Meanwhile, the other man howled with hysterical laughter. “Ruler of the world. Ha! Ha! Look at him, he can barely walk!” He began to chant obscene meters about Kundadanta’s “royalty” and only interrupted himself to pass wind at the king. The two companions broke again into one of their many fights, while Kundadanta tried to ignore them.

  Eventually they arrived at the old forest retreat. Kundadanta was sure this was the place, but it was hard to tell. The trees had all turned into boulders, and the fruit into rocks. The lush Gauri ashram was now a desert. Kundadanta’s vicious companion began to laugh. “So this is the lush ashram you told us about? And these rocks, I suppose, are your brothers?”

  The kind companion hushed him forcefully. “Quiet, man! Can’t you see this is a tragedy?” Then turning to Kundadanta, he added, “I’m so sorry, sir.”

  In the place where the family house had been only a single nim remained, intertwined with a mango tree. Under these was now sitting a wispy holy man, bowed by the desert wind, deep in meditation. The yelling woke him from his trance, and he smiled at the three traveling companions as though expecting them. “Hello, my dear Kundadanta. Come here, son.” The young man approached the holy sage, touched his feet, and sat before him.

  “You are wondering what happened here, why your home is gone and where your family has disappeared to. That is understandable. You must have patience, my boy. I will tell you everything.” And so he did. As Kundadanta’s two companions sat down not far away, the holy man talked about the sorrow of the eight wives, about Gauri’s promises, and about the curse of the powerful Durvasa.

  The three-eyed companion interrupted loudly, “Ah, Durvasa. There’s a true holy man. A great man. He’s as powerful as Shiva himself.” He turned to Kundadanta, “Forget your boons, friend, you are certainly doomed. As you were whiling away the years on the tree, bigger things happened in the world. Nothing will erase the curse of Shiva’s holy man!”

  The other companion quickly responded, “Don’t mind him, sir. He’s completely deluded. Your boon from the Sun is more powerful. You cannot compare the curse of a man, however powerful, to the boon of the Sun.”

  “Ha!” yelled the wild man. “Durvasa prevails!”

  “No, he does not—the Sun does!”

  Kundadanta was confused an
d alarmed. He bowed before the holy man and begged him to settle the dispute. The man smiled and answered briefly, “Consider which one of the two possesses inner truth. They can tell you that, right gentlemen?”

  The pleasant companion nodded vigorously. “Yes, that is completely true. The boons depend on a pure and virtuous consciousness while the curse does not. When someone gets a boon from a god or a man, both parties—giver and receiver—are conscious of the fact. The giver is conscious of the receiver, and the receiver is conscious of the giver. The boon is the very essence of virtue—it does not require a body and can exist in the soul of a man. But when one is cursed, the curse has no such subtle existence, because the receiver denies it. It is not part of his essence.” He looked at his companion triumphantly, while the latter lowered his eyes.

  Kundadanta looked at the holy man and asked, “Does that mean that my boons will overcome the curses? Am I saved?”

  The old man looked at him sadly for a few moments and responded, “Your boon may be satisfied, but trust me, you will not be. Look,” he added after another pause, “it’s rarely easy to tell the difference anyway. The boons and the curses usually coexist, and you end up with mixed results. You prefer the boon over the curse, but the result is that you see things as in a dream. Even being a ruler of the world is just the appearance of a boon.”

  “I don’t follow you, sir. Do you mean to say that I will be ruler of the world, or not?”

  The holy man smiled. “Can you not see the truth? It is right there in front of you. Have you never wondered how eight men can each be ruler of the entire world? Or how you can rule the world and still remain in your own house? You have done severe penance for twelve years, but you do not see through these paradoxes?”

  Kundadanta merely shook his head silently.

  “Listen, young man,” the saint continued. “The boon seems superior to you and more real only because you want it. But it is inseparable from the curse, which you hate. The two must always travel together. Now look at your friends.” The holy man picked up a stone and threw it at the vicious companion. The stone sailed through him as though he were made of smoke. Another stone then went flying and sliced through the foglike substance of the pleasant companion. “You see, they do not really exist. You made them up. They are figments of your limited consciousness.”

  “But where did they come from? They came to me, after all, when I was hanging in the tree…And why are they so odd-looking?” asked Kundadanta.

  The holy man was calm. “They are your boon and your curse. They came to you as soon as you died.”

  “Died? What do you mean died?” Kundadanta was patting his chest and pinching his shoulders. He felt normal.

  “Look at this,” answered the holy man, picking up another rock. He threw it, and Kundadanta felt a soft swoosh as it sailed through his midsection. “The only way for you to obtain both your boon and your curse was to die. The moment you died on the tree both arrived.”

  These words were followed by a long silence. Kundadanta sat there, contemplating everything that had happened, and everything he knew. He did not feel as he had always believed death would feel. Mostly, he was confused and lonely. Then he asked, “So the answer to the paradoxes—how I can rule when my brothers rule and how I can rule from home—the answer is that I must die?”

  “No, my dear. Death is no solution. Death only answers the paradox in one way. Your body dies so your spirit rules, and so forth. That’s shallow. No, the positive solution is to realize that you brought your two companions into being through your own efforts. You must realize that your consciousness created them: home and world, one and many, good and bad. What is truly real, my friend, is void. Infinite consciousness is void. When you obtain that knowledge, you will see that you never left home, that you were always ruler of the whole world, that this desert is a lush forest, that the forest was always a desert. You are not yet ready, boy.”

  “How will I know when I am, sir?”

  “Turn around, boy, and look at your companions now!”

  Kundadanta turned around quickly, but the two were gone. In their place he saw his seven brothers, smiling, with their wives at their side. It was impossible to say whether they were alive or dead, whether they had been there all along, or not. He felt a loss of bearing, as though he had no place to stand. Then he heard the holy man.

  “Just be patient, my boy. Take your time, and keep the right course. Eventually you will know.”

  I stood still, quietly gathering my thoughts. The story was not about moksha, or spiritual liberation, and I could not understand why he told it just then. I wanted to ask him, but the old man had moved ahead very rapidly and disappeared behind the banyan tree. How did he manage to move so fast? By the time I reached the bend in the path, walking past the scrubby bushes, it felt as though I had not seen him in eons. I turned the corner, and the old man was now seated on the ground, perfectly still, as though he had been here in meditation since the rocks formed. Behind him and up the mountain the terrain had changed drastically from the trees and scrub below. There was no vegetation at all, just a vast bowl-shaped plateau of rocks and boulders, the steely brown of volcanic basalt under the gray, cloudy sky. From his spot in front of a rock, the old guide calmly watched me approaching.

  “Sir,” I said, feeling a strange reverence that had not been there earlier, “can you finally clear my confusion? Would you please teach me the truth?” That was not quite what I had intended to ask; it came out sounding so grand, but an earnest feeling followed the words.

  He looked at me seriously and gestured for me to sit down in front of him. I approached but remained standing. “What is the truth, sir?”

  “Sit down.”

  His response sounded too mundane, so out of proportion with the gravity of the moment. It felt like a distraction, a delay. “Please just tell me what it is!”

  “Sit down,” he whispered.

  I bent over then, partially facing him, and sat down.

  The minute I came to rest on the ground, I realized the truth. My inner thoughts and great expectations evaporated, and I emptied out. The field of rocks suddenly crystallized into a vivid, eloquent image of merely what it was—an empty field of rocks. It was filled with a soft but clear light that emanated from the ground and the rocks. I felt the slow descent of relief and a surge of joy that completely defied pleasure. As I dissolved before every minute detail of every little stone, my consciousness at the same time expanded to embrace the entire mountainside.

  “That’s all there is!” What an astounding, simple fact. “That’s all there is!”

  I did not experience a fullness of Being, there was no Divine Presence, no grace. Instead, everything was completely empty of anything other than what it simply was. But at the same time everything was perfectly full. “All just is—supreme suchness, nothing more, nothing less. Bliss.”

  Every notion I had ever entertained about moksha and nirvana, about discipline and salvation, absented itself. There were no hopes or plans, no worrying or fearing. It had always been there, simple—not majestic—just the way it filled all of space, which was perfect. I turned my head toward the old man, whose features disappeared into the landscape around him. Then I realized that he was blurry because of the tears in my eyes. It was cold. I put on my shoes and stood up. The steps up the mountain were behind me, leading toward the west.

  “Listen,” he whispered, although I heard every syllable. “This is high enough for today. Don’t go any farther.” I turned again to look at the steps, and he continued, “Going farther will do you no good right now.”

  “But I’m so close to the top! And Shiva’s huge bull is just around the corner…”

  “That makes no difference. It’s better that you turn back now—in fact I want you to run down the mountain. Don’t walk.” I kneeled down next to the old man, who was now in deep trance. “Why do you want me to run? That makes no sense.”

  “Go!”

  Before the word stoppe
d booming around me, I was already down several steps. It was as though those first few steps never existed, as if I had been blown by a powerful percussion. Then I found myself hurtling down the mountain at a ridiculous speed, eyes glued to every step that rushed at me. The steps were uneven in height and depth, some were slippery and others were jagged, and I had a tiny fraction of a second to decide which was coming up next. I accelerated, leaned forward into a near stumble, no longer sure what kept me going. I felt the old man’s eyes, but what could he do? Clutching the cane more firmly, I increased my speed. As I watched the shifting pattern of steps, always looking two ahead of my landing feet, the vegetation of the mountain became a green blur framing my field of vision. I gave myself over to the force that pushed—or was it pulling?—me down the mountain and suddenly realized something strange.

  Because I was looking ahead of where my feet landed, something else must have been guiding them to the right spot! The perfect placement of each of my steps had nothing to do with planning or intention, or even the fear of falling. Cheetahs don’t have to plan their cuts, and impalas don’t have to design their landings! The biologist in me screamed, “It’s natural, you fool! Let go!” But that thought flashed and disappeared in the space of two steps. In its place I was back on the roof in Pune, realizing that mind was just riding piggyback on something else; it doesn’t have to be in control because it isn’t in control. At that very instant the steps disappeared. I kept going down, furiously, faster than ever, but the steps were gone, and my mind stopped scripting everything. Then the agent dissolved and running just happened on the northern slope of Chamundi Hill as the young biologist finally gave himself a break and let go, like a tired passenger leaning into his seat on a streaking train.