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Chapter 68, from Like Two Rivers

The Beginning


Kheerganga. Parvati Valley. May. 1968. Walking barefoot across the steep alpine meadow. Away from the log cabin. The first bright spring morning made the short grass shine verdant and glossy. Babaji was sitting at a distance, cross-legged and erect on a smooth, flat rock that the sun had dried of the night dew and warmed. Around him, a couple of dark khaki, woollen shawls and thin, white cotton loincloths had been laid out to dry. He had washed them in the warm holy spring, Kheerganga. When Gabriel came closer, he could see that the sadhu was engaged in polishing the copper snake bracelet with ruby eyes.

The strings of prayer beads, too, whose gnarly wooden beads were dark and damp, he had cleansed in the holy water. He had stretched them out, side by side, on top of the shawls. This was everything he owned. The air was filled with the scent of wet wool and wood. Quietly, Gabriel sat down next to the ascetic and was immediately immersed in the profound silence around him. In front of them was the vast, savage mountain with its countless craggy peaks and crevices where the thick compact snow of winter still rested white and firm. From the river far below, the indomitable thunder of cascading meltwater could be heard. At their right, like an undulating curtain, a solitary shower floated slowly along. Its fine mist of suspended droplets refracted the rays of the sun and erected two radiant rainbows. They spanned the valley like a bridge or a gate. Behind the rainbows, far away up there somewhere was the sacred place. The lake whose name he had heard. Mantalai.

Gabriel plucked up his courage. “Babaji, I … have to … I …” Overcome by a wave of sadness, his voice dried up like a puddle in dry season.

With an expression of unfathomable love in his coal-black eyes, the ascetic spoke, “Friend, I already told you. This ‘I’ you keep speaking from is nothing but a ghostly peg holding back the barrage of God’s infinite wisdom.”

Gabriel felt a tearful clutching in his chest. Even though the sage’s words created a deep longing in him, he did not understand what he was saying. “I don’t get it, Babaji.”

“Exactly!” the sage chuckled. “When liberated from ‘I’, a barrage will rip away man, mind and world in a roaring torrent of absolute nothingness.”

“Liberated how?” Gabriel asked.

“Look for guidance. The teacher you need has liberated himself from the mandala of this world, he stands outside as guru… calling your name.”

“Where?”

“Keep searching, but know guru is not a person—guru is the mercy that allows this flow, this torrent to drip patiently onto those who listen, drowning them at the speed they can accept. He is the lighthouse and the keeper of floodgates. His love is infinite.”

Gabriel wanted to cry. “But, I have to go now,” he said with a tear-choked voice that was high pitched even for his young age.

“The world is a continual movement of coming and going, welcoming, and sending off.” Babaji put his bracelet down on the rock and turned towards Gabriel. “Find out who you are without that movement.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Without that? I don’t know.”

“Why is this not enough for you?” the sadhu asked.

Gabriel looked out at the glorious beauty of the landscape in front of him. “How can you just remain here?” he muttered.

“Why can’t you? This sadness of yours has, for ages, led you back to me, and on this endless road, I have always held your hand.” Babaji lifted the copper snake off the rock, twisted it into place on his upper arm and said in an almost apologetic tone of voice, “Gabriel, the world is like a shadow on the surface of clear water. The river is my scripture. One day you will understand.”

Gabriel looked up. “But I have to go back to the world.”

The sadhu held his gaze. “That is the difference between you and me: I know for certain that nothing in this world can satisfy me. So, I am forever at peace.”

Gabriel’s head drooped slightly. “But I am not like you.”

Babaji smiled. “No, you are not like me. ”He placed a hand on the delicate shoulder of the young man. “I am you.” He opened both his hands slowly in front of him with the palms facing up, as if he was supporting the sky. “And I am nothing but eternal space … ” Babaji’s elegant hands found each other and came to rest in his lap, one cupped in the hollow of the other. He closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. Once again, profound silence exuded from him. Gabriel felt himself falling—in every direction.

After a few minutes, Gabriel stood up. The mule caravan was ready to return to the valley. In the delicate shade of the naked branches of sturdy walnut trees, the animals were drinking from the clear cold spring. Life is formless like water, he thought and joined the pack.

The forest swallows up everyone.