If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir

by Om Swami

Baba was sitting outside with some people when we arrived. With difficulty, I prostrated before him in the usual way. He asked me a question I couldn’t even hear, much less respond to. Unable to speak, I ran to get my inhaler. After pumping more than ten doses, I felt dizzy but started to recover after a while. When I returned to the others, I heard Ranjay telling Baba about my health. I apologized to him for not answering his question. 'Go man, go away from here, first get well and then talk to me.' Baba sounded frustrated and angry.

  Even though my life had been difficult here, it was still worthwhile because each incident was another blow to my false existence; each experience caused one more crack in the hard shell of my ego. When you are treated a certain way, eventually, you start to feel that way. I was treated like I was nobody, and I was beginning to feel like that.

  I bowed again and Ranjay drove me back to his place. I took a bath and Dr Vani gave me a light meal. That was the last time I had to struggle for food. After I was discharged, she began sending me a tiffin box twice a day; it consisted of two curries, soft chapattis and a dessert. I felt nourished by the food she cooked for me with great devotion. She also sent fresh yogurt and two mangoes every day. Between running the hospital and tending to her own family, she would still find the time to cook for me daily. Ranjay travelled to and fro twice a day to deliver my meals. If not for these two angels, I might not have survived at Baba’s.

  Having said that, with each passing day, life wasn't getting any better. My main issue continued to be an environment that would not let me meditate. I had left everything and everyone behind because I wanted to find myself, merge with the Divine. I was tired of books and talk, and yearned for the actual experience of self-realization. But here I was, living with a different set of people, and my goal didn't feel any closer. My family and friends were worried about me: they didn’t know where I was, what I was doing or how I was. By not doing what I had set out to do, the very reason I had left them, I felt I was doing them a grave injustice.

  I acknowledged to myself now that I was simply wasting my time. Baba no longer needed me for his construction projects as they were drawing to a close. From buying stone for the temple to the construction of the cottage, I had ticked off every item on his list. He didn’t really need my love or devotion either, he never seemed happy with what I was giving him. I didn’t want to beg for a place in his heart; I didn’t want to struggle for a place by his feet. I tried whatever I could, I did whatever he asked me, but I could not move him.

  Guru Purnima, the day you express gratitude towards your guru, fell on 27 July that year. It was fast approaching, and Baba had promised to put me on the path of sadhana after Guru Purnima. I was supposed to buy some things required for various tantric rituals, but he never sat me down to give me that list. I had mentally decided that if my sadhana didn’t begin the day after Guru Purnima, I would leave the ashram. Not starting it on the full moon day would have meant waiting another month. I wasn’t prepared to wait even a moment longer. I knew the value of time; I had seen good times and bad times, comfortable ones and painful ones. Baba and I travelled to Varanasi on Guru Purnima. His devotees from different parts of India were gathering there for his darshan; there was to be no discourse. He had been a renowned tantrik in his heyday and these devotees had known him since then. Baba didn’t yell at them; he didn’t swear at them. On the contrary, he spoke to them happily. All day long, they sought time with him to discuss their problems.

  Varanasi had no charm left for me. I asked myself if I could ever find God in these noisy, crowded streets, amidst the garbage and the chaos. Would the moment of realization dawn here? At times, I even felt that God had long abandoned Varanasi. There was no sign of him, not in the temples, not in the priests, locals or pilgrims. Bookish, dry knowledge is what prevailed.

  Baba decided to extend his stay in Varanasi, and I concluded that there was no plan for my sadhana. In the evening, he called me to his room, which was full of people, and told me to speak to a Sikh gentleman in Punjabi: he wanted me to tell him a joke. I tried but couldn't recall one. Baba wanted to know why I wasn’t laughing and socializing; I remained quiet. There was nothing new to say. He knew what was in my heart. He had once told me that he had not seen God, but it was possible to do so. I had believed him. Whatever that possibility entailed, whatever it required, I was eager to do it. I was willing to give up my life for it. My present quietude upset him for some reason. He said out of the blue, 'Khushi se rehna ho toh raho, nahin toh jaake Ma…' (If you can live happily, good, otherwise go f*** your mother).

  If there was a human being I had worshipped other than Baba, it was my mother. Hearing him say this untied the last knot that tied me to him. I wanted to kill myself for allowing him to finish that sentence. I didn’t feel any anger towards him, only disillusionment and disappointment. I prostrated before him and came away. Perhaps Baba realized what had slipped out of his mouth, for he quickly summoned me back and gave me sweetmeats. But nothing could undo what he had just said.

  The following morning, some devotees were returning to the village; the vehicle was also carrying Baba’s belongings. I informed him that I needed to go to the bank, and for that I needed the key to my safety box, which was at the ashram. I told him I’d be back in a couple of hours. I had actually spoken a half-truth. I did need to go to the bank, but I didn't tell him that I was not planning to come back. It was the first and the last times I lied to my guru. From the vehicle, I borrowed someone’s phone and called Ranjay. I knew his number by heart; I still do. I asked him to bring his car around to Baba’s ashram in the village.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ I could hear the worry in Ranjay’s voice.

  ‘Yes, don’t worry.’

  I wrote a letter for Baba and left it with Ranjay. I was leaving my guru in the same manner I had left my family once. I asked Ranjay if Baba might try to harm him. He told me to not worry about anything and to do what was best for me. There was a small sum of money I had left with Ranjay, and he asked me if I needed some now. I nodded.

  He immediately went to the bank to withdraw it. Meanwhile, Dr Vani cooked a tasty meal for me. As I ate, she cried. Ranjay and Dr Vani were happy to see me get out of the mess, but were sad to see me go. They weren’t two people separate from me, but an extension of myself; their surrender was second to none.

  From the ashram, I decided to go to Haridwar by train and then further on to the Himalayas, to which I had always felt deeply drawn. Perhaps I had been there in previous lives. Ranjay got my ticket booked and I went to the bank in Varanasi. I had very little cash on me, and needed more. In one of my dormant bank accounts, I found there was some more cash, a couple of lakhs. I transferred the amount into my active account. Later, some of the investments I could not liquidate at the time of my renunciation because they were in a lock-in period would also yield dividends, and suddenly money would no longer be an issue for my sadhana. I got my head and beard shaved. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I could not believe it was me. It felt as if I was looking at someone else. I had become extremely weak, and was shaken and battered. But my spirit was intact.

  On my way to the Himalayas, I looked up at the sky, I looked within, and I said, 'O God, O Mother Divine, if you truly exist, then please hear this: henceforth, I will never, ever knock on any human’s door. Never again will Swami seek answers from any guru or preacher. If you exist, either show your form to me or I’ll perish in meditation. If I'm convinced you don't exist, I’ll go to all corners of the world and tell people not to waste their time with you; I’ll tell them there is no God.'

  All that I had known, and been, in the first thirty years of my life no longer existed. Four months ago, I had cast off the various labels that defined me, but it was only now that the reality was seeping in. I knew I was not a CEO or multimillionaire or an Australian or even an Indian for that matter. I was not even a disciple or a sadhu. I understood all this, finally, because I found I was truly nothing. This is what my experience w
ith Baba had done to me: it had emptied me of everything I had been. And only when you are empty can you begin to be filled. My cup was empty.

  All these years of my life had merely been a preparation, and this time simply felt like a wave in the ocean, a cloud in the sky, a mist near a waterfall: it came, and just like that, it was gone. There was nothing left to lose now, not even a guru. I was ready to go to the source of all things.

  12

  In the Cave

  I disembarked at Haridwar station in the morning, and took a bus to Badrinath, one of the last inhabited regions in the northern Himalayas. Due to heavy rains, there were many roadblocks and landslides. Being in the bus all day, on windy roads, I was thoroughly exhausted by the evening. To make matters worse, I had barely eaten anything all day because I hadn’t been able to find much food without onion and garlic. Admittedly, it was foolish of me to reject the food that was available while travelling. There is a fine line between sticking to your principles and losing your balance; I'd blurred it.

  The bus was almost four hours behind schedule due to the roadblocks. I got down at Chamoli, 50 km before the scheduled stop, Joshimath, and checked into a hotel. Too tired to eat, I fell asleep right after a bath. The next morning, I took a shared taxi to Joshimath; about ten other people also squeezed in.

  At Joshimath, I hopped into another shared taxi. A young traveller in the taxi kept staring at me. I patted my face to see if I’d got anything on it. A few minutes later, he smiled at me, and I smiled back. After a while, he complimented me, saying I had a divine aura. He asked me if I was going to Badrinath, and if I was, where I would be staying. I told him I didn’t have a place in mind, and would put up anywhere. He offered me his accommodation and I accepted on the condition that I wouldn’t share the bed or bathroom. He agreed. Introducing himself as Dinesh Aggarwal, he told me he was a regular traveller to Badrinath, and went there once every year.

  Finally, we arrived at our destination. As soon as I stepped onto the land at Badrinath, I felt an inexplicable surge of joy. The spiritual vibrations here were indescribable. The sky was full of rain clouds, and I was moved by its dark beauty. In those moments that I stood there breathing in the pure mountain air, I knew what it was to just be in the present moment, to simply … be.

  At the Badrinath shrine, I could not control my tears. Before me was a form of Vishnu—an idol. Hadn’t God created this stone as well? Wasn’t he in everything? I just wanted him to come out of the stone and show me his true form. Was this too much to ask?

  'O Lord,' I said, 'tossed and lost, a great sinner has arrived at your doorstep. I couldn't belong to anyone, not to my loved ones, not even to my guru. I tried but couldn’t win my guru. I haven’t been able to win myself either. I know I can't win you, but you are the ever merciful lord, please allow me to lose myself in you. You know what is in my heart, you know there's nothing else in this world I want. I beg you to either kill me or show me the way to you. You are patit-pavan, you purify the fallen ones, and I'm the 'most fallen'. So, please cleanse me. You are my last refuge. I don't know how to pray, I don't know how to beg, I don't know how to live and I don't know what is good. I only know one thing: my life is useless without you.

  'Test me, torment me, torture me, destroy me, my Lord, but please keep me close, I'm worthless but I'm still yours, I don't deserve you but I won't leave you. I'm tired of this world, I'm scared of this world, do what you will to me but don't kick me away. I'm tired of pleasing this world, I can't do it anymore, show me the way to please you instead. I fully accept my defeat, I'm tired of figuring things out, O compassionate, ever merciful Sri Hari! I've no strength left, please don't forsake me but accept this arrogant and defiant pet of yours. Your Grace has brought me to the threshold, please open the door for me, don't lock me out, don't abandon me. In this holy place, in thy presence, I solemnly declare that your child won't give up crying for you till you show up.'

  Suddenly, the skies roared, the clouds broke and rain came pouring down. Streams of tears continued to roll down my cheeks; the more I cried, the closer I felt to the Divine. They were not tears of pain, they were not tears of joy either; they were tears of love and surrender. The door hadn't opened for me yet, but I knew I was home.

  None of the pujaris in the temple bothered me, and I spent the next few hours in the temple compound, surrendering to the Grace I was enveloped in. Something had broken down in me, and I washed myself clean of everything I'd done and everything I'd been.

  In the afternoon, the sky was blue and the sun bright. Dinesh insisted I go and explore a couple of places with him where I might find a suitable spot for my meditation. We went to Mana Gaon, India’s last village before the Chinese border, but I wasn’t able to find a location I liked. I couldn’t wait to sit in a cave and meditate, with every breath in and every breath out, all day and night, focusing on the divine form.

  But the Universe had another reason to bring me to Mana Gaon. We met four young men there who had come to visit Vyasa Gufa, one of the main attractions of Mana Gaon. It was said that Vedavyasa wrote the Mahabharata in this cave nearly 5,000 years ago. Dinesh began chatting with them while I stood quietly, waiting for him to finish.

  One of them was quiet, like me. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. I smiled at him, and he introduced himself as Krishna Mohan. Meanwhile, Dinesh and the other three decided to go further and see a bridge called Bheem Pul. It was said that the mighty Bheema had flung a giant stone across the river to build this bridge so that his brothers could cross.

  Krishna and I declined to join them, choosing to stay back and have a chat. Quite an adventurer, he had ranged a fair bit of the Himalayas. He was due to leave for Swargarohani, a mountain summit 40 km beyond Badrinath, in two days. When I told him I was looking for a cave, he decided to take me towards Neelkanth right away. Neelkanth, named after Lord Shiva, is a mountain in Badrinath, and a popular tourist site. From Mana Gaon, it took us over two hours to reach the spot, situated a few kilometres before Neelkanth.

  He showed me a cave, a cavity underneath a big rock really, that was good enough for my needs. Krishna left for his trek the following day, and I ventured towards the cave again. On the way, I met a local construction worker who was willing to help me get the cave ready. He agreed to build a wall of rocks, install a small door, cover the roof with a tarpaulin to protect me from the rains and make a small platform outside where I could bathe, among other things. I was keen to start my sadhana. According to the lunar calendar, the date was fast approaching. The worker told me that the repairs would take seven days. Every day, for the next week, I travelled to my cave to see the progress. In the meantime, I got a couple of blankets, a wooden plank, a gas stove and some other provisions.

  There was another cave en route to mine. A couple of days later, a sadhu stopped me and asked if I could accompany him to his cave. I wanted to know why. He said that someone had come to visit him and wanted to give him a mantra, but neither of them knew how to write. He wanted me to scribble the mantra for him.

  I said, 'I’ll write it down for you, but how will you read?'

  He replied, ‘I know you’re getting your cave ready. I’ll come one day and you can read it for me.'

  He was carrying two cans of water, and I took one from him to help him. I was younger, so I walked faster and reached his cave before him. I saw three people sitting inside, all in ochre robes. Two were men, while the third ascetic was a lady; she looked like she was in her late forties. There was a certain radiance on her face. She asked me to come and sit inside, but I declined, saying that I was waiting for the other sadhu to arrive and didn’t want to take his seat. She grinned. ‘Quite some manners you have,’ she said. I didn’t say anything; I just wanted to write the mantra and leave.

  She turned out to be a bhairavi, a female practitioner of tantra, and claimed she had acquired a couple of siddhis. One siddhi allowed her to look into anyone’s past, present and future. She went on to tell me a few things about myself,
which were all correct. Then, she dictated the mantra of the karna pishachini and asked me to write it down for the sadhu. Karna pishachini is a lower form of Devi that a practitioner subjugates and invokes to find out information about someone. The spirit then whispers secrets about the person in question into the practitioner’s ear.

  The sadhu wanted to invoke this mantra in his sadhana so he could know anything about anybody and thus impress them. It is something quite difficult to rise above the desire to be complemented and accepted. You can move beyond anger and lust, you can remain unaffected in gain or loss, but to let go the need for another’s approval, what is said or thought about you, isn’t easy at all. It takes great insight and a strong sense of self-worth to move beyond this need. Anyhow, I wrote down the mantra for the sadhu.

  While we were sitting in the cave, it began raining. My reality hit me all of a sudden. I was finally in the Himalayas, in the company of mendicants. And I was free. There was no struggle of any sort, no worries of the past or the future: this is where I had always wanted to be, and each moment was unadulterated joy. I felt like a sadhu for the first time. In my devotional sentiment, I sang a full-bodied stuti to Mother Divine. The bhairavi was delighted to hear it.

  'I want to impart to you a special knowledge, a supernatural power I have,' she said.

  'Thank you, Ma, but I don’t want any supernatural powers.'

  'Take it, son, you are the first and the only one I’m giving it to.'

  'Thanks, but I really don’t want it.'

  'Give it to me, Mataji,' one of the other sadhus spoke. 'I want it.'

  She didn't answer him, and continued, 'You have to take it now. I know you’ll never misuse it.'

  'Ma, I don’t want to waste any time on anything else. I just want to see Mother Divine.'

  'But she was already here! Didn’t you see that when you sang, a butterfly flitted about you and then sat on your robe? That was her; it was her indication, a clear sign.'