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Swami Suddhananda |
It was a lovely June morning when we left Lamasangu,
a small mountain village, tucked in the hills, and headed for
Kharidunga.
The sky was clear blue and the cool morning breeze
brought about an unusual freshness that enlivened everything. While
driving up from 4,000 feet to 9,000 feet through serpentine roads
and seeing the vast mountain ranges all around, the mind gained
dimensions in which everything was lost.
It was a beautiful trip from myself to myself
through this great expanse of vastness, loneliness, isolation and
quietude. Everything had a tale to tell. From the rocks to the
trees, to the ancient hills and the majestic snow peaks. And they
were so mysterious. Such unfathomable secrets were etched in every
bit of them that the mind lost itself trying to comprehend even the
most conspicuous mystery. Conspicuous because the whole atmosphere
invoked the same unknown depth, mysterious because few took note of
it and those who found a response within became speechless,
completely lost in themselves.
Inexplicable as the feeling was, the eyes roved in
silence, the mind reduced to a functional nothingness. And there I
was as “I am”, the most mysterious part of the mystery, the content
of all that was seen, heard and experienced.
It was not my maiden voyage, my first journey, my
first flight across the timeless and spaceless existence, where
indeed no travel is ever made possible. Yet the travel from infinite
to infinite through the finite world experiences is a pleasant
journey without movement where often millions are confused and
confounded on the path.
The first hurdle on the path is the outright
rejection of the fact that there is something called Infinite,
Immortal, Existence, may be some call it Truth, God, love or
happiness.
When first heard, the name Kharidunga may also
invoke a response of outright rejection. The man who is not familiar
with either the name, place or the meaning of the word shall reject
the word as a meaningless noise, a by-product of a mind which may be
fertile in imagination.
But that does not deny the fact that the place
exists and a name exists to describe the place. Those of us used to
living in our own worlds, in our own countries, cities, states or
villages, will not bother to accept this strange name. The usual
argument is that things we don’t know about do not exist. As even
those of us with a tiny mind cannot comprehend the strange vastness,
the so-called informed minds become intolerant of the fact that
something can exist even if they do not know of it.
The mind plays strange tricks and the ordinary man
falls a victim to it.
Those who outright reject the fact that there is a
place called Kharidunga may never travel that picturesque path,
never cross that meandering girdle to the mountains, never enjoy the
deep, quiet green of the mountain trees, the fragrance of the wild
flowers, or the simple mountain folk who have learnt patience from
the mountain, a patience which helps them to stand by the worst of
disasters, the poverty, the ravages of nature so common in such high
altitudes. They also lost sight of huge birds soaring in the sky,
gliding with the breeze, and the blazing, colourful snow peaks
constantly changing their mood, from dawn to dusk. And the best of
it, they shall not see this beautiful mining town from which one can
see the lovely snow peaks and the deep gorge from the same point.
The strangest thing is that when I grow ecstatic
about the whole experience, others look at me in utter disbelief and
think I am crazy. To make them also enjoy this splendour, I would
have no option but to take them to this wonderful place and show
them the beauty that transports one into a different dimension.
But most are unwilling to try because they can never
believe there are such heights, such calm, such comforting coolness
where the sun has apparently lost its harshness. Used to the plains
and the heat and the dust, our senses numbed by the gross exposure,
our sensibilities crippled by deceptive emotions, we feel so
degraded, so degenerated that we can never believe in a mood, a
climate, a height where everything disappears leaving us back on our
own lap! We cannot believe that nature here cradles a man and swings
him to an incomprehensible extreme from where nobody ever returns
untouched.
Long before I came to Kharidunga, I had seen it
within myself, had felt it, touched it, all within my own being. It
had brought out a native calmness that was spontaneous, effortless.
I found that here, there, everywhere. Kharidunga was here, there,
everywhere.
For long after I saw it, felt it, experienced it,
knew it in the depth of total silence and calm, I tried to transport
a lot of people to that realm. Those who have responded have found
that beauty and those who have not are still being suffocated in the
heat and dust of life, a condition imposed not by life but by
themselves.
Every day begins with a dawn and every night ends
with one. But for many people the day never dawns, and neither does
the night come to an end.
Lamasangu is a beautiful place on the plains not far
from Kharidunga, as no place is, or as far from the cool haven of
Kharidunga as all places are. There are a few hundreds of people,
living in small hamlets in their own tiny hutments. There the day
begins a little after dawn and continues till the sun sets. Just a
few years ago people there were solely dependent upon agriculture
for their sustenance. Agriculture being what it is, the people
cultivated their lands for a few days a year, sowed their seeds,
weeded their plots, then left them in the hands of nature to
germinate, grow, flower and ripen for the harvest. Throughout this
time men, in their leisureliness, learn a lot from the friendly
mountains. They move with the cows, they talk about the weather and
the harvests with the same characteristic ease as they talk about
birth, death, marriage and all other celebrations of life.
The people of Kharidunga lived with that natural
ease and leisureliness for generations. Nobody ever kept track of
time. Nobody ever recorded the history of the village or its
surroundings. The mountains in their majesty overwhelmed them and
the people unconsciously surrendered. If the mountains had no
recorded history, if nobody ever knew when they began or ended,
these men too never tried to find out about their beginning and end.
If they had no choice to begin with, then they also had no choice as
to when their lives would end. And they accepted both. Hence they
celebrated both birth and death. In between, there were a few
moments of excitement. Marriage or coming to know a man or woman was
an exciting event in which the whole village participated. Not only
to share the joys of the newly-weds, but also to remind the old of
the beautiful dreams they had once revelled in. They neither
accepted death as an adversary nor friend but as a part of living.
This was how Lamasangu the village was a few years
ago. Innocence was in the air, so much of leisureliness, so much of
passive acceptance, until the landscape changed with the onset of
industrialisation and the maize fields yielded to the erection of
kilns and chimneys.
The hours of work changed and drastically changed
the lifestyle of the local inhabitants. Now there was work
throughout the year and the leisureliness of the agrarian society
disappeared. When the hooting of the factory sirens echoed and
re-echoed in the mountains, people assembled and dispersed for the
sake of ready cash. Everyone had money but few had food. It had to
be purchased with ready cash. Money started ruling their lives. The
people of Lamasangu found that not only did the money buy them food
but also radios, televisions and all the modern appliances available
to the consumer society of which they had become a part.
There was tremendous competition. With the arrival
of many experts from the outside world, came the symbols of
prosperity, fine clothes, big cars, gold watches and pens. The local
people struggled to achieve a similar status and their lives were
changed for all time. The bug of prosperity and conspicuous
consumption eroded the people and their native innocence handed down
through the generations could not withstand the new way of life.
But it was not a sad affair. It was a sign of growth
and loss of innocence is the price that everyone has to pay for
growth.
It happens to individuals, it happens to society, it
happens to civilisations anywhere, everywhere. A sudden momentum
gathers with the advent of prosperity and we, as a society, do not
know how to cope with it. No more is the living isolated and free
from interaction with the masses but it becomes a life where one is
unconsciously dragged into involvement with strange terrains of
human minds.
There life becomes a burden. An emptiness settles
into the midst of plenty. At that time we wistfully look back to the
past, missing that innocence, that state of carefree leisureliness
that once ruled our lives. There, in the realisation of that missing
world, we move as sleepwalkers in an apparently colourful world,
oblivious to all that is happening around.
There are, of course, many who become completely
involved and get lost in the hectic present. These are the people
born into this present or those who have wilfully severed their
links with the past. Since they have neither tasted nor have value
for leisurely contemplation, they dance and fret until one day they
disappear from the scene. Such disappearances do not mean death, a
callous end to everything, but the scenario changes and they are not
more acceptable to the swinging set. Often they rot as would a bull
elephant thrown out of its herd by the arrival of a younger and
stronger male.
There on the outside they form groups of rejects who
find solace in one another’s company, never imagining that a
different tune, a different strain may exist. And they too strive to
perpetuate that myth of pragmatism where stress, strain and chaos
are the rule. In their eyes this way of life is the ultimate symbol
of manliness, strength and human dignity.
Sometimes it becomes almost as difficult to dissuade
them from this way of life as it is to dissuade the alcoholic from
his addiction. And while a death-wish haunts the alcoholic, these
people are haunted by death every moment. Death, to an alcoholic,
may stare him in the face but he will ignore it in his drunkenness.
But the man obsessed with living refuses to think about death. He
fights over changes and struggles to survive. But eventually change
overtakes him and his struggle ends on a helpless note.
If it has not yet happened in Lamasangu, then it is
happening slowly. If it has not yet happened in our lives, it will
happen soon. But those of us who are real fighters do not fight to
be defeated all the time, we must sometimes taste victory. Victory
is not a myth. And it may be one thing to romanticise human
sufferings and miseries but it is yet another to make it a part of
life where even death is a co-passenger on the journey.
Long before we strive to go beyond pain and
pleasure, long before we strive to go beyond conflict, there is
usually an intermediate effort to solve the problem, to avoid the
conflict. At that time we may wish to fall back on the innocence
that our society once enjoyed, or our people in the lap of the
mountains enjoyed far from the din and bustle of the so-called
progressive world. We want to travel back in time to when the speed
of life did not catch us up.
Yet it is exactly there that our approach to life
goes completely wrong. We consider the conflict, the pain, the
trauma, the stress and strain of life moving ahead to be a disease
or something unnatural that should not be there. We strive to either
avoid that conflict or replace it with something else so that we can
escape the tormenting situation. The pragmatists and the
psychiatrists try to avoid the problem in order to solve it or
unconsciously they take the help of time, prolonging the need to
analyse the situation.
The situation never wavers whether we delay finding
a solution or take the regressive step of going back to the past.
Innocence born of ignorance never stages a comeback. Therefore, we
must go beyond conflict. Now that the dust is raised in the
otherwise sylvan surroundings of Lamasangu, we cannot settle it
down. Instead we must bring Kharidunga there, superimpose that haven
of calm, composed bliss over the turmoil. It is in the eye of the
cyclone where we find absolute stillness even though it is
surrounded by tremendous activity.
This is a peculiar centre spreading in all
directions. All activities take place in and around it. Lost in the
activities we have lost sight of the centre, the base, and thus
there appears to be a necessity for a long journey from the turmoil
to the central point. But in reality there is no such distance. We
can find our destination right now and here, wherever we are.
I found Kharidunga long, long ago. It had no
geographical and historical limitations. I, too, was overwhelmed by
its might, its pervasive presence but since then I have ceased to
exist other than as a part of total existence, even the concept of
“part” and “whole” have become meaningless as even the word
meaningless is an attempt to conceptualise and describe it. Even
mind does not exist, never mind its trying to comprehend or its
refusal to move in the vast presence.
However, that simultaneous possibility and
impossibility, mobility and immobility, sound and solace make this
existence so utterly mysterious.
Existence is, yet it does not exist. It is seen yet
it is not seen. Neither is there a seer. It is too much to talk
about it. Yet it almost suffocates if it is not talked about. Full
of apparent contradictions, the presence makes itself so mystical so
mysterious that cutting across it is almost impossible. Yet having
cut across those non-existent pairs of opposites, it is impossible
to talk about.
This becomes a strange language for the novice.
Those of us who are men of the world, those of us from Lamasangu do
not comprehend this diction, these expressions, these descriptions.
We have our own language, our own descriptions. In our vocabulary
the happiness exists as an absence of unhappiness. In our diction
immortality exists as opposed to mortality, liberation or freedom
exists as opposed to bondage, misery and suffering, with which we
are all too familiar. The day-to-day language speaks of misery,
pain, poverty, deprivation and despair. The opposites are looked
upon as mere romance which has absolutely no reality.
Hence, to talk to the man from Lamasangu who is used
to the heat and dust of life, in terms of cool snow peaks, quiet
space, calmness and serenity, means only to establish a gap in
effective communication. Yet it is difficult, it is inhuman to keep
the information a secret while looking at the painful drudgery in
the directionless heat of the plain.
There is no other choice except to take refuge in
the language that the men from Lamasangu will understand. Since they
are used to travelling around in search of something and seeking
fulfilment through achievement, I asked the men at Lamasangu to take
a trip with me to Kharidunga if they wanted to escape the heat and
dust forever.
That was on a clear evening after a day of hectic
activity. Almost all of them were tired. The drudgery of their
routine had taken away the freshness from their lives. The
expectation of a new dawn, a new day, a new evening or place had
long since failed to thrill them. They had nothing to look forward
to in their lives. Even strangers had ceased to interest them as
they quickly learned that every stranger had the same tale to tell,
a tale they had heard so often and had monotonously lived out
themselves.
I could not tell them they were wrong. Nor I could
tell them about my perception of the universe. There is no way they
would have understood. Yet, I did not want to leave them where they
were, oblivious to the beauty they were unconsciously enjoying. It
is difficult to hide beauty. It is difficult to enjoy something
alone. Especially when one knows that the potential for that
enjoyment lies hidden within oneself.
So, on that beautiful evening when the day’s work
had ended and all of us were huddled together in an open space each
with our own thoughts, I began my story – the story of my journey
from Lamasangu to Kharidunga.
Born in a village in the coastal district of Cuttack
in Orissa, I had a normal childhood. There were no miracles when I
was born, no stars moved, no blind men had their sight restored.
Growing up amidst the simplicity and innocence of village life,
along with other children of my age, I had the company of beautiful,
natural surroundings. I had seen nature in her divine splendour as
well as in her devastating fury.
When schooling began I learned that natural laughter
was a liability rather than an asset and that it had to be used with
circumspection. Slowly, all natural instincts were curbed in order
to grow up as a sophisticated, polished human being There was no
doubt that education informed me about the world but it also made us
competitors and taught us that others were adversaries standing
between us and the goals we had set for ourselves.
We learned about deception and how spontaneous
laughter, a smile or off-the-cuff comment was seen to have an
ulterior motive. It was difficult to be natural. If at Lamasangu,
the industry changed the way of life, in my life, education changed
the pace. Going back to the village and its natural environment did
not solve the problem. Because there too the world of the grown-ups
was vicious and deceptive.
I discovered that if I could not fall back on the
village way of life, I could not move ahead in life either. I had
already seen and met people labelled by society as “achievers” whose
private lives were a failure. They wore masks in public. The
professional heights they had reached made it impossible for them to
be themselves but they painfully walked through life without being
caught on the wrong foot. Even if their hearts were bleeding, they
could not show it, as they were not expected to be miserable in
their lofty positions. And there was tremendous pressure on them to
hold onto their positions as there was competition and it was
considered disgraceful to be superseded or replaced.
I had met professors, educationists, administrators
and wealthy and influential people on intimate terms. I had seen
them drop their masks of achievement and show themselves to be just
children, pining for the simple pleasures of life. At the core of
these polished professionals was a tender, helpless child
camouflaged by a fragile crust of conditioning. They never talked of
the futility of their lives nor did anybody care enough to ask.
Everyone seemed to be floating. No one ever stopped awhile to think
about where they were going.
I was in such a state that neither progression,
regression nor suspension meant a thing. It all seemed futile and it
was impossible to carry on with what we call normal living. It was
Lamasangu at its greatest height.
(To be continued)
Swami Suddhananda
Samvit Sagar Trust
Tiruvannamalai
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