If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir

by Om Swami

  I prayed at the Jagannath temple, and then told Pradeep I was heading back to the Himalayas.

  'Please, Swamiji, I've found someone like you with great difficulty and I don't want to lose you.'

  His eyes filled with tears.

  'I must leave for my sadhana, Pradeep. Once I am done, I'll establish contact with you,’ I reassured him.

  Leaving him behind, I went back to the Himalayas to continue my search. I had heard of the Anasuya temple near a village called Mandal, and decided to go there. I got down at Chamoli, took a shared taxi to Gopeshwar and then another from Gopeshwar to Mandal. From Mandal, there was a trek of 4 km to the Anasuya temple. When I reached, two local boys, Babloo and Vinod, who were the sons of the temple priests, struck up a conversation with me. I told them I was searching for a place to meditate, and preferred a cave. They told me about a cave called Atri Muni Gufa, and agreed to take me there. It was a lovely site but not as remote as I would have liked; pilgrims to the temple often came here as well.

  Meanwhile, something else occurred to me. As soon as I had arrived at Mandal village, before proceeding to the Anasuya temple, I had noticed a small, white structure in the far distance, high up in the mountains. Apparently, it was a tiny temple belonging to the local deity. The villagers told me that no tourists were allowed there because it was a wildlife sanctuary; only locals could go there to find firewood and hay for cattle. Some shepherds did have huts there, but these were old dwellings, built long before the area was marked as a reserve forest by the government. Upon asking, I was told that the huts remained unoccupied during the winter since the place was uninhabitable at that time. A deserted location. Dense woods. This was music to my ears.

  I asked Babloo and Vinod if they could show me this hut. They informed me that it would take one full day to go and come back, as it was a steep hike of 6 km. They recommended I use the cave, saying it was a more practical option. Reluctantly, I agreed.

  I paid them some money to buy a wooden plank, some provisions and a tarpaulin to cover the mouth of the cave, which was 5 feet wide. Then I went back to Haridwar to pick up my bag. I had left it behind because I didn’t know how long it would take me to find a place, and I didn’t want to carry my backpack around. But it wasn’t just for this that destiny sent me to Haridwar.

  I had left my bag with an elderly sadhu I had met in Badrinath. His name was Swayam Prakash Brahmam and he was originally from Tamil Nadu. Presently, he lived in Kankhal near Haridwar. He was protective, even possessive, about me.

  When I reached his place, another young ascetic was there with him.

  He seemed a quiet, sincere seeker.

  'You can have a darshan of Mother Divine,' I said, when I saw him looking at the floor.

  His eyes lit up, and he said, 'Really, Swamiji?'

  I nodded. 'You worship the Goddess.'

  He had never told anyone this. He came and sat near me and told me his name was Swami Vidyananda.

  'Please say something more,' he said.

  I asked him to meet me the following day.

  Swami Vidyananda came back the next day and said, 'Swamiji, I thought about you the whole night. I couldn't wait for dawn, I couldn't eat; I was so excited. What sadhana should I do for Mother Divine’s grace?'

  'Self-purification.’

  'Will you accept me as your disciple and guide me?'

  'We don't need to label the relationship. I'll see you when I get back from the Himalayas.'

  His big eyes welled up.

  'Don't worry, Swamiji, I'll hold your hand and take you to Mother Divine,' I assured him. 'This is one swami's promise to another.'

  'I saw in your eyes yesterday that you knew everything but I was scared to talk to you,’ he replied softly.

  'No one knows everything, Swamiji. But I did see that you were special, a true devotee, and wanted to help you,’ I said.

  I asked him not to accept money or any material gifts from anyone. I also told him that I would take care of his necessities for the rest of his life. He was no ordinary devotee. For years, he had cried for God, searched desperately for a guru and even kept an idol of Mother Divine on his chest every night while sleeping. He'd fasted, he'd chanted, he'd meditated, he'd done everything anyone had ever told him to. If anyone deserved blessings, guidance and direction, he did.

  I travelled back to the Anasuya temple, this time with my bag. At the temple, I met with Babloo and Vinod and insisted on seeing the hut on the top of the mountain range. A strange force was pulling me towards it. Vinod finally agreed to take me there. We crossed several streams and walked through dense forests full of tall deodar trees. At times, hearing a sudden sound from behind a shrub or a tree, he would suddenly stop.

  'Why the sudden halt, Vinod?'

  'It could be a bear or a tiger, Maharaji,' he said, 'we have to be careful.'

  I couldn't be certain whether it was because of my stint in the cave or my burning desire for God, but I didn't feel any fear.

  The trek was a bit arduous, particularly because I had no proper shoes, only slippers. But the woods had a hypnotic quality about them, and I enjoyed the walk. It took us nearly three hours to reach our destination, and it was love at first sight. The place was extremely quiet and remote, and there was a water source nearby. Around the hut, there was an open field dotted by tall trees, behind which stood the majestic mountains. There was even a small temple not far from the hut. I couldn’t have asked for more. I also discovered there was another hut at a distance of about 200 metres, which would be ideal for Pradeep.

  I had a message sent to Pradeep via his brother, since that was the only phone number I had. I wanted Pradeep to get in touch with me immediately. Even if he was to leave for Mandal right away, it would take him three days to reach me. I had to start my sadhana on 19 November, and there were just three days to go. Further, we had to be in the hut a day earlier so that I could start on time. Otherwise, I would have to wait another month for the right date according to the lunar calendar.

  In the rituals of tantra, the lunar calendar plays a crucial role. Just like your vote only counts if you vote on polling day, not a day earlier or later, some sadhanas can only be started on certain days. This information is never fully documented in the scriptures to prevent abuse or misuse of the powers a seeker gains by way of mantra siddhi; it is usually communicated through an oral tradition.

  Currently, the chances of Pradeep making it in time were unrealistically optimistic at best, and downright unrealistic at worst. However, when we called Pradeep’s brother, he said that Pradeep had left for Haridwar two days ago. He said he would pass on the message to his cousin who was supposed to receive Pradeep at Haridwar station.

  Pradeep was already coming towards the Himalayas even though he had no clue where I was. Interesting. The Universe had planted a thought in his mind before I had even seen the huts. I wondered what he had been thinking. What if I had not made contact? How would he know where I was? The fact was, the Universe knew.

  ’Maharaj!' said Babloo, 'with your sankalp, you already had Pradeep start out two days ago!'

  'Oh no, Babloo, not at all. I didn't do anything, I didn't even know two days ago. This is how the Divine operates.'

  'What a miraculous coincidence then.'

  'We use this word a bit too casually, you know. Coincidence generally means the occurrence of something in a striking manner without any causal connection. The truth is there are no accidents in the play of nature. The creation of this universe, our galaxy, the species of flora and fauna, the five elements, a near perfect ecosystem—none of this is a coincidence. Rain, storms, mountains, seas, trees … they are all there for a reason. Nothing is non-causal; everything supports a bigger cause.'

  'You already know so much. I'm intrigued as to why you still need to meditate. Why do you want to go through hardships in the woods?'

  'Like everyone else, Babloo, my mind can be talkative at times. It has been conditioned and has lost touch with its natural, pure
state. I want to rise above this conditioning, above the intellect. I too have baggage to let go off so that I may become light enough to fly and see the world from a different angle.

  'I no longer wish to be a balloon filled with water, heavy and unable to fly. If anything, I want to fill myself with unconditional love and light. Everyone is a balloon, you know. Some are full of waste water, while others carry a certain fragrance. When circumstances or situations prick them, they burst. But it's only when a balloon bursts that we really know what’s inside. Some stink when they burst, they let out foul words, they perform despicable actions; others emit a deep fragrance. I want to empty myself so I can fill the balloon of my life with love and light, with compassion and humility.'

  Pradeep arrived in Haridwar the same night. His cousin picked him up, and he contacted Babloo right away. The following evening, Pradeep was sitting right in front of me. He had a fever, yet he had chosen to travel. The next day, Babloo went to the town to get provisions while Pradeep and I travelled to our destination.

  My hut, at an altitude of 9,000 feet, was near the edge of a cliff. You could step out and, at a distance of less than 15 feet, fall over the edge. The hut had probably been used for cattle; it wasn’t really designed for a human being. The entire space was approximately 30 feet long and 10 feet wide.

  The hay on the thatched roof was old and mushy, while the walls had numerous holes. One of the walls was made of concrete, and tilted at an odd 70 angle. Boughs of trees several feet long had been placed on the outside of that wall to prevent it from falling. How that wall withstood the massive and merciless Himalayan storms was beyond all reasoning. Perhaps it goes to show that when you are willing to bend a little, you may look out of place, but you will survive. The remaining three walls were made of planks of wood laid next to each other in a haphazard way. Due to the tilting wall, a gap had formed between the roof and that wall. As a result, during the rains, water would come in through the gap. In a corner of the shack, there was a little enclosure that could house six to eight cows, and that is where I used to bathe.

  I began my sadhana on the night of 19 November. It was a beautiful night sky. A cold breeze was blowing gently, and the woods were quiet. When I started meditating, I knew that coming here was the right decision. The peace was profound. Only the locals knew this place and they rarely came this way because it was right in the middle of the jungle. Even people like Babloo and Vinod, who were born and brought up there, had never been in this part of the forest.

  Initially, I meditated for a straight stretch of ten hours, starting at 2 a.m. I also meditated for shorter sessions ranging from 2 to 7 hours. At noon, I would go out to eat in Pradeep’s hut. This was my only meal in twenty-four hours, and consisted of three thin chapattis, lentils and, occasionally, a bowl of vegetables. It was due to Pradeep’s exceptional organization that we managed to get any vegetables. He had tied up with a villager to have the vegetables delivered once a week. This was not all though; Pradeep was a great help to me in other ways too. I used to perform a yajna after my meditation every day, and he would stock enough wood for me in advance. Every four days, he would also fill my bucket and another vessel I used for storing water.

  After an hour in Pradeep’s hut, I would go back to mine. From 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., I would practise contemplative meditation. Meditation is predominantly of two types: concentrative and contemplative. In the first kind, you build your concentration. In the second, you use it to reflect on the nature of reality and your own existence. Contemplative meditation gives birth to insight, and it is this insight that changes how you see and interpret the world around you. Deep concentration leads to samadhi, and deep contemplation allows you to maintain that state while dealing with the challenges of the world. I alternated between the two types of meditation.

  My sleep reduced drastically as a result of the intense meditation. The highly uncomfortable living conditions and the single frugal meal I had also affected my sleep. I would sleep from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. A bath with ice-cold water would follow, while chilly winds blew through the holes and cracks in the walls of my hut. At 2 a.m., I would start my meditation and sit till noon the following day.

  However, as my mind began quieting down, I could not sleep for even the four hours I used to. Reduction in sleep is a natural outcome of correct meditation. Why do we even sleep at the first place? It's because our body and mind need rest. The vital energies flow naturally in a restful state, making us feel refreshed after a deep sleep. Meditation does exactly the same: it rejuvenates your body and mind. I changed my routine and now slept from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., after which I would begin meditating.

  A few weeks later, I began sleeping from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and brought my meditation forward by yet another two hours. So, I meditated for thirteen hours straight. Eventually, I gave up on those two hours of sleep as well. In a trance-like state, my mind stopped asking for sleep, and my body never sounded an alarm suggesting it needed sleep. Then I realized that I had to give my body and mind some rest. So I forced myself to nap for two hours in the evenings.

  I used to sleep on three wooden planks laid next to each other on the floor of the hut. The one in the middle had bent due to prolonged sitting there. There was a thin mattress, no thicker than three cotton sheets, that I had laid over the planks. And I had a quilt. This was my bed. I was at the same level as the insects and rodents that came into my hut.

  You would think that living in an isolated mountain abode, miles away from habitation, I would find the deepest silence. Yes and no. While there was no artificial noise, no traffic, TV or human beings, there were plenty of other sounds that made it hard for me to meditate. Most notable were the birds. They would chirp for hours every night; I presume they were attracting the females. One poor male would sing continuously for 20–30 minutes, take a break of a few seconds and call out again with the same fervour. An hour or two later, some female would respond, the communication would start and the male would fly out to the female. Of course, none of this was actually visible but I could make this out from the way their songs travelled. I had no problem with the amorous nature of these birds. After all, sex, and not religion, is the basis, cause and consequence of evolution. Only, their loud noises were a great distraction in my meditation. Imagine you are trying to concentrate in the deafening silence of the night in the snowy Himalayan forests, and a bird starts to make a sound: ‘Tnk, tnk, tnk, tnk, tnk, tnk …' I even found myself praying sometimes, 'O Lord, if you exist, please send this fellow a companion. Have mercy on him. He’s desperate.'

  Over time, I learned to ignore these distractions. Perhaps this was all part of my sadhana. Birds continued to sing at different times and at varying pitches, but they eventually ceased to bother me. During spring, a variety of hornets and crickets would produce exceedingly loud sounds. Hundreds of crickets would stridulate in unison. Whether they all competed for a handful of females or they were celebrating, I had no clue. Learning to transcend such noises took my meditation to another level altogether. Each time I crossed a hurdle, I gained better control over my mind, my senses.

  Baboons also visited me. These fellows would freely jump onto the roof of my hut, hang on to the walls and peep through the holes. Sometimes, I felt they were intentionally teasing me. Of course, that was not the case. It was just that earlier, this hut had never been occupied in the winter, so they were not expecting anyone inside. When they were clambering all over the hut, there was nothing I could do because I wasn’t going to move and disrupt my meditation for some baboons.

  When I was outside, I used to watch them swing from one tree to another. The sight always amazed me because I never saw a baboon falling down. If I could have that mindfulness in my meditation, it would have been quite an achievement. In their case, it was in their genes. I suddenly realized that this is what I needed to do: shift the meditation from my conscious mind, where it was an effort, to the depths of my subconscious and unconscious states, where it was effortless. Over time, I woul
d learn to do this.

  Initially, when I started meditating, there were many wild animals around. I could hear boars snorting around at night but, as they smelled a human, they began shying away too. They never stopped coming though, you could easily make out from the trail in the snow in the morning.

  The greater challenge, however, was not from the wild animals; it was from the rats, spiders, wasps and other insects inside my hut. Rats in the woods were as large as they were aggressive. Even though there were numerous holes in the walls and they were free to come in and go out through those holes, they kept on making new ones every day. As if imitating the expert predators, they would drag whatever they could get their teeth on into a corner and gnaw on it. No sooner would I sit down for my meditation than the rats would begin making noises. That constant sound of nibbling was a distraction at the beginning, but I learned to overcome it by persisting with my meditation. The rats often took the liberty of resting on my pillow while I meditated.

  The spiders, unlike the rats, worked rather quietly. Every night, without fail, while I sat absorbed in my meditation, some persistent spider would weave a web from my head up till the roof. The roof of the hut was quite low. Once seated, there was less than 3 feet of a gap between the roof and my head. My mental state was such that, every morning, I would forget to check for the web. Whenever I got up, I had to spend the next five minutes cleaning my face of the fine threads of the gossamer web they'd weaved from their spit.

  As at Baba’s ashram, I had the choice to destroy these creatures as well; it was not hard to do so. But these were not compassionate choices. I was here to practise compassion, and never so much as a mosquito did I ever hurt intentionally. Interestingly, not once was I bitten by a rat, stung by a bee, hornet or wasp, or attacked by any wild animal, and it wasn't a coincidence. Before the commencement of the sadhana, one of the rituals I had carried out involved praying to various divine energies for their protection. I invoked the gram devata, the protector of that region; the sthan devata, the protective energy of my immediate surroundings; and the vastu devata, the protective energy at the site of the sadhana. The lineage of the sages protects a true seeker, and this is, in fact, the primary purpose of initiation through a mantra. This was not all though. I had made a peace pact with all the living entities around me; they were all a part of nature, just as I was, and made from the same elements I was. There was no room for disharmony.