(Excerpt from Living with Himalayan Master's)
My master often
told me, “This whole world is a theatre of learning. You should not depend on
me alone to teach you, but should learn from everything.” One time he
instructed me: “Now, my boy, go to Darjeeling. Outside the city
there is a stream and on the bank of that stream is a cremation ground. No
matter what happens, for forty-one days you should do a particular sadhana [spiritual
practice] which I am going to teach you. No matter how much your mind attempts
to dissuade you from completing the sadhana, you should not leave that place.”
I said, “Very well.”
Many people are
afraid of staying at such a place. They have funny notions. But it didn’t
bother me. I went there and lived in a small thatched hut, where I made a fire
for cooking. I was going to the University in those days and it was summer
vacation. I thought, “It’s very good for me to spend my vacation in sadhana.”
I followed the
practices he had assigned to me for thirty-nine days and nothing happened. Then
some powerful thoughts came into my mind: “What a foolish thing you are doing,
wasting your time in a lonely place, cut off from the world. You are wasting
the best period of your youth.”
My master had
said, “Remember, on the forty-first day you will definitely find some symptoms
of improvement within yourself. Don’t give up before that. Don’t be swayed by
the suggestions of your mind—no temptations.”
I had said, “I
promise,” but on the thirty-ninth day my mind advanced reason after reason
against this thing I was doing. I thought, “What difference can two more days
possibly make? You have not experienced anything after thirty-nine days. You
promised your friends that you would write to them, and you haven’t written a
single letter. You are living among the dead! What type of teaching is this?
Why should your master have you do this? He can’t be a good teacher.” So I
decided to leave.
I poured a
bucketful of water on the fire and I destroyed the small thatched hut. It was a
cold night, so I wrapped myself in a woolen shawl and walked toward the city. I
was going down the main street when I heard some musical instruments being
played. There was a woman singing and dancing. The theme of the music was “There
is very little oil in the vessel of life, and the night is vast.” She repeated
the phrase again and again. That stopped me. The sound of the tabla drums
seemed to call to me: “Dhik, dhik! Fie on thee, fie on thee! What have you
done?”
I felt so
dejected. I thought, “Why don’t I complete the final two days? If I go to my
teacher, he will say, ‘You have not completed your practice. You are expecting
fruit before the plant has matured.’ So I turned back and continued my sadhana
for the remaining two days. On the forty-first day, the fruit of the practice appeared
just as he had predicted.
I then walked
back to the city once again and went to the house of the singer. She was a
beautiful and famous dancing girl. She was considered to be a prostitute. When
she saw a young swami coming toward her house she called out, “Stop, don’t come
here! You are at the wrong place! Such a place as this is not for you!” But I
kept right on. She closed her door and told a servant, a large and powerful man
with big moustaches, not
to let me in. He commanded, “Stop, young swami! This is the wrong place for
you!”
I said, “No. I
want to see her. She is like my mother. She has helped me and I am grateful to
her. Had she not alerted me with her song, I would not have completed my
practices. I would have failed and I would have condemned myself and felt
guilty the rest of my life.” When she heard this, she opened her door and I said,
“Really, you are like a mother to me.”
I told her what
had happened and we talked for some time. She had heard of my master. When I
got up to go, she said, “I promise to live like your mother from now on. I will
prove that I can be not only mother to you but to many others as well. Now I am
inspired.”
The next day she
left for Varanasi, the seat of learning in India, where she lived on a boat on
the Ganges. In the evening she would go ashore and chant on the sand. Thousands
of people used to join her. She wrote on her houseboat, “Don’t mistake me for a
sadhu. I was a prostitute. Please do not touch my feet.” She never looked directly
at anyone’s face and never talked to anyone. If someone wanted to talk to her
she would only say, “Sit down with me and chant God’s name.” If you asked, “How
are you?” she would chant, “Rama.” If you asked, “Do you need anything? Can I
get you something?” she would respond, “Rama,” nothing else.
One day before a
huge crowd of five or six thousand people she announced, “I am leaving early in
the morning. Please throw this body in the water, where it will be used by the
fishes.” And then she kept silence. The next day she cast off her body.
When awakening
comes we can completely transform our personalities, throwing off the past.
Some of the greatest sages of the world had been very bad—like Saul who later
became St. Paul. Suddenly the day of awakening came for Saul on the way to
Damascus, and his personality was transformed. Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana,
one of the ancient epics of India, had a similar experience. Don’t condemn
yourself. No matter how bad or how small you think you have been, you have a
chance to transform your whole personality. A true seeker can always realize
the reality and attain freedom from all bondage and miseries. In just one
second you can enlighten yourself.
- Swami Rama
