XLIV
For the benefit of those weakened by lack of purpose, fatigued by self-made conflict, the Tradition is given.
Mountain saying
THE BUOYANT WHISTLING of a jaunty tune heralded Samuel’s return. He was carrying newspaper-wrapped canisters in his arms, fresh faggots for the fire tied across his back.
‘Wood’s a bit damp, but it’ll do,’ he announced cheerily. ‘Might make your eyes smart – but then who needs to see their food to eat, or their teacher’s face to learn?’
He laid down his load, then sat close to share my shawl and warm himself.
‘So, finished all your yamas?’ he asked, poking my ribs.
‘How do you know what I’ve been learning?’ I responded with surprise.
He said nothing, but reached out to unwrap parcels and prise off lids, scenting our smoky grotto with the steam of chana daal, cumin rice, aloo dum and a steaming curry of gingered egg. Another package revealed three small tapari leaf-plates, whilst tight twists of paper provided portions of pink salt and dry mulako achar radish pickle.
‘It’s a feast!’ I declared.
‘And I’m famished!’ added Samuel.
We three shuffled forwards to serve each other, until our plates of stitched saal leaves were flattened with the weight of food.
‘Did you know that in these hills we consider every mindful mouthful to be a puja?’ asked Kushal Magar as we plunged the fingers of our right hands into the spread. ‘For every act of self-sustenance can be a meditative undertaking.’
I reflected on his words in hungry silence as I bound fluffy rice with runny daal between fingertips to form a manageable ball, and considered the potential extent of ‘self-sustenance’ beyond simple nutrition.
‘You see, the Tradition talks of different ways by which to comprehend our true limitless natures,’ he continued between mouthfuls. ‘One of these is consciously to settle awareness on moments of intense pleasure – such as the savouring of good food, a reunion after extended separation, the touch of water on the skin.’
‘Or, traditionally, the memory of licking a beloved!’ added Samuel, protruding the pale tip of his tongue and wiggling it at me in threat, until I prodded him away with an elbow.
I offered the last of the chana daal to Kushal Magar, which he declined.
‘So dajoo,’ Samuel said, scooping up red aloo dum and white achar pickle, ‘are you counting?’
‘Counting what?’
‘Your mouthfuls!’ he replied. ‘Didn’t you learn about moderation in eating this morning, as part of the yama of non-stealing?’
I raised another generous scoop of rice and daal and shook my head quizzically.
‘Well, traditionally we say moderation is thirty-two mouthfuls per meal for a householder, sixteen for a forest recluse and only eight for an ecstatic – and if you ask me, jolly hungry – sage!’
‘So are you counting yours, bhai?’ I challenged, as he served himself yet more aloo dum potato.
‘But of course!’ he retorted with a spicy grin, sweeping fingers around his leaf-plate to gather more rice. ‘It’s just a good job that nobody says how big those thirty-two mouthfuls ought to be!’
XLV
My body, once restless as the waves, he in calmness fixed.
Thirumandiram
POTS HAD BEEN gathered. Hands and mouths washed and wiped.
Samuel bowed in respect to the jhankri as he left our sooty huddle, then offered me a leave-taking grin.
‘Good luck with part two, dajoo!’ he called through the deepening mist, as he commenced his muddy descent along the forest path a second time. ‘But watch out for Tapa! It might give you blisters!’ he concluded enigmatically.
‘So to our five Observances of Personal Conduct,’ Kushal Magar announced, indicating that I should settle comfortably and restore my focus. ‘The niyamas, a word that means “precept” or “determination”. But lengthen the first “a” – niyaama – and you have a boatman, able to maintain his chosen course even against the fiercest mountain rivers in full spate.’
I nodded, even as I resisted a creeping, post-prandial compulsion to nap beside the fire.
‘In combination, they are a personal code applied to your relationship with yourself, guiding you to reduce the conflict between your internal perspective – your thoughts and conscience – and your external action. In this way, over time and with mindful effort on your part, the body–mind is rendered increasingly calm and trouble-free.’
This, I could not imagine. In addition to the daylight struggles with myself – the anxious obsessions, at times crippling self-doubt and a tendency to near asphyxiating depression – I had not known a peaceful night in years. Since childhood my sleep had been so regularly tormented by unhappy dreams that my restless sleepwalking about the house had become a natural part of my long-suffering family’s domestic round. In deep, dark slumber I had sought lost loved ones in the garden; scrawled visionary poetry on tabletops; piled furniture into towers; and laid out cutlery, pins and buttons in complex labyrinths, without the need for light to guide my way.
My parents had done their best. They had endeavoured to douse my young cheeks with water to interrupt my troubled sleep, but I had cowered at all attempts to touch me. They had sat me on the loo and read aloud Black Beauty, but in my somnambulist sobbing I had repeatedly fallen in the bowl. I had been poked by doctors and grilled by therapists, had had my soul blessed by a bishop and my skin pierced by an acupuncturist. Yet nothing had delivered me from the impenetrable and distressed sleep I had so long endured.
‘Then are you ready for our niyamas?’ Kushal Magar asked.
I nodded eagerly and raised my pen and notepad – for I trusted that if anyone were able to guide me towards the lasting changes in myself that would prove imperative if in the coming years I was to survive my own internal chaos, it would be this smiling man.
XLVI
If you wish to avoid thorns, don’t cover the earth with leather – put on sandals.
Mountain saying
OUR FIRST NIYAMA is Santosha,’ Kushal Magar began. ‘The wisdom learnt in choosing to be content with the necessities of a healthy, fulfilling life.’
‘All right,’ I responded, ‘but how do I determine what my necessities might be?’
‘Well, what more do you really need than sufficient food and physical security; mental stimulation and purposeful, rewarding work; human intimacy and meaningful friendships?’
He was right, of course. The necessities of life were not the alternating annual holidays of sunny Med or snowy Alps. They were not the New Season’s colours and cuts, the relentless tedium of celebrity, or the altering of perfectly healthy bodies by diet, syringe or knife to emulate someone else’s fickle notions of beauty. Nor were they the fortunes and time spent on securing some promised, otherwise inaccessible ‘spiritual enlightenment’.
‘In practice, Santosha could simply be to reduce your needs,’ he suggested. ‘Therefore, attached to Santosha is the niyama of Hri – modesty in all things.’
‘But,’ I interjected, even as I wondered whether my persistent challenges were a source of quiet irritation to him, ‘doesn’t the contentment encouraged by Santosha suggest an impotent, passive condition? A submissive attitude to life, in which hardships, poverty or perhaps even abuse are meekly, hopelessly tolerated?’
‘What you describe is complacency and compliance, not the active, mindful contentment of the Tradition,’ he asserted. ‘Santosha does not suggest that nothing requires change or challenge. Do not forget, the moderating heart of each of our vows is Ahimsa, in which nothing is thought, said or done that is of detriment to the well-being of yourself or others. Perhaps, then, think of Santosha as contentment with the necessities of life that you have attained through your own sufficient and suitable efforts.’
I nodded, knowing that I had barely begun truly to understand the premise of these Eleven Vows.
‘And yet wherever it may be applied, Santosha teaches us to embrace the pleasure of the moment, whilst mastering desire,’ he concluded. ‘For a primary principle of the Tradition is that it is not pleasure but selfish desire that limits the boundaries of man’s consciousness.’
Again I nodded – but now with new determination to acknowledge the innumerable yet too often unnoticed delights my daily life afforded. And this, that I might one day know the wholly unfamiliar contentment, the ease of heart and mind, and the lasting self-acceptance, this first niyama alone seemed to promise.
Learn to receive in order to give.
This is the order of Nature, the balance in the universe.
This is Wisdom.
Bindra
‘THE SECOND NIYAMA of our Tradition is Dana – the wisdom gained by learning to give of oneself without thought of reward.’
He slowed to allow me to catch up with my note-taking.
‘However, Dana is not merely the handing out of alms or charitable acts, but a liberality of spirit in every interaction. A warmth and openness of heart to all life, without condition.’
‘Where I come from, people have a strong inclination to donate time, money and cast-offs to good causes,’ I assured him. ‘But in ordinary dealings I sometimes think we have been led so to mistrust our fellow man that we have forgotten the rewards of being open-hearted.’
‘Which is a reason why here, with our preference for the practical, we remind ourselves of this niyama in our daily domestic rites, our puja,’ he explained. ‘For Dana is represented by one of the eight flowers we place at the feet of whatever symbol we have chosen to represent our true, limitless nature.’
I looked at the fresh petals clustered at the base of the flame-lit linga that nestled in the niche before us. I had never considered they might embody far more than a simple, customary symbolic ‘offering’.
‘You see, these flowers represent the eight qualities we are encouraged to strive for in our lives,’ he continued, following my gaze. ‘Tolerance, self-discipline and patience. Knowledge, dedication and contemplation. Honesty and generosity of spirit – Dana. In fact, these qualities are of such importance to both individual and, thereby, social well-being that we represent them in the eight lotus petals of Kali, in the eight arms of Durga, and by the eight teeth of Kubera, our Himalayan symbol of life’s unfailing abundance.’
I sat in silence, my eyes fixed on the delicate blooms scattered about the linga in an effort to retain his every word.
‘To assist in the exploration of Dana, we have an additional niyama,’ he added. ‘Huta, self-sacrifice – but only ever in keeping with Ahimsa. Their combined benefits in the path to freedom from all our mindlessly adopted limitations are immeasurable.’
Kushal Magar paused to feed the fire, as I considered the potential benefits of giving without thought of reward and of self-sacrifice without harm to myself. I reflected on those times when I had shown a false generosity, begrudgingly and with ulterior motives, and remembered too well how I had resentfully complained that life was friendless, mean, affording me nothing. In contrast, when I had deigned to approach the world with a liberality of character, unprompted altruism and benevolence of spirit, I had found life unfailingly abundant.
‘For of course, brother,’ he offered in conclusion, as I leant in to help him with his kindling, ‘none of us really sees the world as it is, but only ever as we are.’
Freedom from ignorance is the goal.
Vidyeshvara Samhita
‘OUR THIRD NIYAMA is Tapa – a word that literally means to “glow”, or to be “consumed by heat”, for it signifies the wisdom learnt through demanding dedicated practice.’
I wrote the word with ease, yet could not imagine what he meant. A fiery sadhana? The source, perhaps, of Samuel’s parting joke about blisters?
‘Think of Tapa as any mindful practice that assists us to develop self-discipline and willpower, or physical, emotional and mental endurance – qualities without which life cannot be fully and fearlessly lived.’
He waited until I had finished taking notes before continuing with careful emphasis.
‘There are some, of course, who take this notion of endurance to debilitating extremes, with little purpose beyond competitive self-interest. Or to earn some imagined celebrity – even “sainthood” – among the gullible.’
I knew exactly what he meant, for I had once had a disquieting encounter with a sadhu on my journey across the Plains. He had been sitting beneath a palm umbrella on a river ghat at Varanasi, his right arm raised and withered to near fossilisation, a feat of such alarming self-abuse that it assured attention and even monetary veneration from the passing hordes.
Nor were such traits to be found in India alone, for a plethora of Christian saints had similarly earned their hagiographies through well-publicised ‘salvific’ masochism. I recalled from school divinity the fervid flagellations of Francis, Catherine and Thomas More; Ignatius with his iron chains and knee-ties, accoutrements I had always envisaged as a pair of unyielding Boy Scout garters; and Sister Mary Lucy of Jesus, who had blithely given away her packed lunches and flogged herself with stinging nettles.
‘In the Tradition, of course, Tapa is only ever undertaken in accordance with Ahimsa,’ Kushal Magar emphasised. ‘Tapa is therefore never a punishment, nor cruel. Never disrespectful of the body–mind. Never to our own or others’ detriment. The self-inflicted torture or neglect found among orthodox and exhibitionist fanatics alike are not Tapa, for they produce little more than disordered psychological imaginings.’
‘Then if not standing on one leg or lying on a bed of nails for years, what exactly is it?’
‘True Tapa is any restraining practice by which we may learn to remain steadfast, in balance, unaffected by external circumstance. A demanding yogic posture, for example, may be maintained whilst the body–mind is focused on the antithesis of what the practitioner wishes to overcome. Heat to defeat cold, joy to defeat sadness, pleasure to defeat pain. Compassion and forgiveness to defeat the desire for revenge. In this way, Tapa may be applied to help us overcome a self-defeating habit.’
He peered into my eyes to ensure I was still following.
‘Tapa can also be the withholding of our ordinary impulses through intense, single-minded concentration – in darkness or silence, or by the simple repetition of monotonous sounds – as a means to afford ourselves a tranquillity of heart and mind. And this that we might steadily learn to remain unaltered by gain or loss, praise or insult, victory or defeat.’
I thought of the drumming and chanting that had played a central a role in my own initiation, the impact of which I still could not properly explain.
‘Tapa can also be selfless action,’ he continued. ‘Even hospitality is regarded here as one of its expressions.’
I wondered whether this last might, in part, explain the extraordinary generosity I had been privileged to know among these mountain people. The helpful hands to ease and guide my passage through their jungled hills. The proffered cups of tea and feasts of food from people who were in far greater need than me. The smiles that cheered my heart and brightened every day of my course across the subcontinent’s vast breadth.
‘And yet whatever form they take – whether overloading or withholding impulse, or simply acting selflessly for the benefit of others – all Tapa focus our will and energy to free ourselves from the limitations of detrimental self-interest,’ he concluded. ‘And this – as with all teachings and practices of the Tradition – that we might learn how to live and love fully, fearlessly, joyfully, wisely and without condition, in a world with which we are more meaningfully connected.’
Liberation is not attained in any other way but by severing the knot of ignorance and that … is brought about by the expansion of consciousness.
Tantraloka
‘OUR FOURTH NIYAMA is Svadhyaya – literally “one’s own study”. The wisdom found in remaining open to new learning, expanding our ordinary ways of thinking through personal enquiry, contemplation and mindful sadhana.’
I scribbled down my notes in the hope that I might understand them later.
‘So how open are you?’ he challenged. ‘How willing to sacrifice your own self-interest in order truly to learn?’
‘Oh, very much so!’ I exclaimed, exposing pride in what I believed to be my irrepressibly enquiring character, for I had been compelled from childhood to seek out insight deeper than the superficial recitation required by school curricula, or the restrictions of religious rhetoric.
‘And yet, from our earliest years we decide the way the world is through the filter of our familial and social cultures. We become so attached to habitual thought and action that many of us rarely accept new learning. Instead, we only accept that which supports the beliefs we have already chosen or have been trained to make our own. And whatever does not fit that narrow spectrum, we simply reject as untrue.’
I recognised such behaviour in religious fundamentalists of all creeds whose tightly blinkered eyes refused to see rational evidence before them when it did not support the irrationality of their faith. And yet, I found myself struggling to admit that I too could be limiting my intimacy with life by comparable narcissistic filters.
‘The purpose of this fourth niyama is therefore, first, to develop a greater understanding of our true nature, in contrast to our impermanent personality – that microscope through which man tends to view life in obsessively insignificant detail.’
I had never before considered that the ‘personality’ – upon which my culture placed such excessive attention – might be a restrictive lens that merely maintained its focus on the trivial and self-serving.
‘Second, it is to develop in the student a greater understanding of the teachings given, and thereby their practical application in the wider world. For the primary purpose of Svadhyaya is never merely personal reward, but always for the benefit of others.’
Again the tenet of social betterment that had first convinced me to pursue the jhankri’s teaching.
‘The Tradition adds to Svadhyaya the supporting niyama of Sravana,’ he revealed. ‘Attentive listening – not only to music or words that inspire the mind, or to the insights of another’s experience and wisdom, but to your true heart through honest self-reflection.’
As I noted this new Sanskrit word, I pondered how a life moderated by the principle of avoiding causing harm in thought, word or action might be when lived according to one’s ‘true heart’.
I imagined a life in which even the domestic and banal might gain new significance, every interaction meaning. A life of fearless, passionate engagement with everyone and every moment.
It was undoubtedly the only life for which I yearned.
Whoever wishes to, may sit in meditation
With eyes closed to know if the world be true or false.
I, meanwhile, shall sit with hungry eyes,
To see the world while the light lasts.
Rabindranath Tagore
‘OUR FIFTH AND final niyama is Pranidhana – the wisdom learnt through applied endeavour and focused attention. And this not only in everyday life, but specifically to the three-part tantric practice of self-mastery we call ulto sadhana.’
He paused as though to test my interest.
‘Which is?’
‘The supreme Tapa of “reversed” or “contrary discipline” – so called because it goes against the current of ordinary processes.’
I could not imagine what he meant. And yet the notion of self-mastery appealed, for I was too well aware that my thoughts and feelings were undisciplined and all too often detrimental to myself. I was impatient with my failings, resentful of my weaknesses, for they affected my relationships and the colour of the world through which I moved, whilst filling my nights with disruptive dreams as evidence of perpetual and profound disquiet.
‘So where does this ulto sadhana begin?’
‘With the Eleven Vows I have described to you today, that you might learn to release habits of unhelpful behaviour at every level. Next, the physical practices of Hatha Yoga to afford mental and physical stability. Only then may we explore the first step of tantric ulto sadhana: mastery of the breath, learnt through the progressive practice of pranayama, for nothing restores balance to the body–mind so effectively as mindful breathing.’
I knew of pranayama through my elementary yogic explorations. Even its most simple techniques of bhramari ‘gallant bee’, ujjayi ‘victorious’ and anuloma viloma ‘alternate nostril’ had already proved their benefits to me.
‘Second, mastery of sexual response. This is explored through practices we call bindusiddhi, for when we pause at the pinnacle of pleasure, a tremendous, positive force is made available that might be directed to any meaningful purpose.’
This was an idea so new to me, so far beyond the least hint of possibility afforded by my upbringing, that I struggled to accept it could be so.
There! I thought. I had caught myself rejecting another’s experience for no other reason than that it did not fit with my culturally dictated perception of reality.
‘Third comes mastery of the mind, truly achievable only once breath and sexual response are mastered. This we call pratyahara, an attentive withdrawal of the senses that promotes a spontaneous state of meditation. For only when the mind is brought to stillness can we know the inner truth of ourselves – the “enlightening” piercing of consciousness, as we call it – through which we are able to resolve the conflict between our internal perspective and our external actions.’
I struggled to see this potential in myself. My ‘internal perspective’ seemed one of only faults and failings, selfishness and muddle.
And yet I sensed that I now sat before a man who had resolved his conflicts, restored his balance, ‘reversed’ the ordinary in himself and ‘pierced’ the reaches of his consciousness. And if he were to be believed, as I thought he was, then the qualities I perceived in him were also already mine. And to reveal them to myself was all I truly wanted.
‘Attached to this niyama is Gurusushruta, respect for one’s teacher,’ he explained, ‘through whose careful guidance the process of Pranidhana can be most effectively achieved. And all this, that you might learn to be happy in yourself – with clarity of mind, peace of heart, free from the limitations of selfish desire – and thereby, of course, of ever greater benefit to others.’
I nodded, my heart swelling with gratitude for this opportunity, wholly unexpected and unsought, to sit before a man so unsullied by self-interest and so willing to share with me something of his learning.
And in that moment I knew with more than mere intellect that I no longer wished to live an ‘edited’ life, filtered through the cultural norms in which I had been raised. No longer for me the life of easy, empty comforts buoyed on the single hope that the years of unthinking self-absorption might draw to their close with a medic at hand to ensure a pain-free death. Instead, I now chose to challenge and dismantle my every limitation, that I might plunge in with open hands and hungry eyes, living, feeling, knowing every exquisite, precious moment.
And even as I felt this new determination in my heart, heard this new vow resound within my mind, Kushal Magar touched his chest and leant forwards to place both palms on my head in blessing.
Here, we prefer to choose a bright, open, fearless consciousness, free of everyday concerns. So why don’t you?
Kushal Magar
I HAD BEEN asleep.
On completion of the niyamas, Kushal Magar advised me not to ask more questions. He suggested instead that I put aside my frenzied note-taking and simply let the long day’s teachings find their proper place. I would remember what I needed.
In reflective silence, I watched him boost the fire to boil another brew of ginger tea. We sipped together at our beakers, captivated by the energetic dance of flames across each other’s faces. And once the dregs of root and leaf were reached, I laid my head to rest on a bundled blanket at his encouragement, my body wrapped in two warm shawls.
‘Just a little nap,’ he said. ‘We’ll be on our way once you’re awake.’
And then a soothing chant of undetermined end. A lilting, languid lullaby.
It was the scuff of feet that woke me to new light. I had slept untroubled until Samuel returned with breakfast eggs and puri aloo dum still hot inside their tiffin tins.
‘Good dreams, dajoo?’ He grinned, sitting down beside me to brush dust and ash from my face and hair.
‘None at all,’ I grunted, still surprised that I had slept so long.
Samuel warmed water for me to wash in, for only once I had shown my body the required respect could we together undertake our morning Ganesha puja. We first lit mustard oil lamps, then unfurled twisted strips of paper that we might each place a pinch of rice, sidur and jaggery – emblems of life’s irrepressible creative energy and intrinsic pleasures – on the elephant-headed image in its niche.
‘Ever noticed what the figures we employ for puja are usually sitting on?’ Kushal Magar asked.
I re-examined the carving we had just smeared with vermilion. ‘A bed of petals?’
‘A lotus, symbolic reminder of the unlimited possibility and inherent joy in life found through our daily fulfilment of the four Purushartha and by applying the “mindful intent” of bhavana. And this that we might learn truly to know and value ourselves, living with honest and constructive purpose, whilst overcoming fear, anger, conceit and envy; duplicity, regret, hypocrisy and resentment. Only then may we learn really to live and love without attachment to our own past – without condition.’
I looked back at the cheerful Ganesha in wonder that there was always new learning to be found here, even in the most unlikely places.
Next, Kushal Magar led Samuel and me in japa – tantric chant employed to quieten the body–mind’s ordinary obsessions – that we might affirm our intention to be receptive to the new wisdom our day would inevitably bring.
We finally voiced our gratitude to sky, earth, cow, chicken and loving hands that had produced the food before us, then tucked in with relish, until all was hungrily consumed.
‘So how am I to “do” all that you’ve taught me here, jhankri-dajoo?’ I asked as fingers were rinsed and fire doused. The truth was that I felt almost overwhelmingly daunted at the thought of the Eleven Vows.
‘You have the yamas and niyamas in theory, so now explore their practice, one by one from the beginning,’ he replied. ‘Simple!’
‘Simple’ was not the word I would have used – but still I asked, ‘So starting with Ahimsa?’
‘Exactly,’ he replied, preparing to tie blankets across his back. ‘All else is based on this one principle. So first discover the wisdom in avoiding harm in thought, word and action to yourself and others. And then see what your life becomes.’
LII
A man who has a sceptical nature and is without conviction can never receive the desired fruits of his actions.
Tripura Rahasya
SAMUEL HAD DOUSED the remaining embers with the dregs of tea, and was already gathering up the charcoaled canister and tins.
‘You off somewhere?’ I asked.
‘Jai Kumari-bhaini is expecting to give us chiya down at Lapu,’ he replied. ‘And then we need to be getting on our way back home. The weather’s changing.’
‘Already?’ I exclaimed. ‘But why so short? I have a week left on my permit – and still so much to learn!’
I turned to Kushal Magar, who was binding his head and shoulders with a shawl.
‘Dedication to your learning and practice is one of the Tin Gunharu,’ he responded, reading the plea in my eyes for him to intervene. ‘One of the three qualities that all who choose the Tradition are wise to cultivate. For it is only by following the path that we discover it.’
With an insatiable hunger for his teaching, and desperate that it might not finish so abruptly for yet another year, I stopped Samuel in his preparations and asked Kushal Magar to explain.
‘Well, dedication is that essential longing in the heart for new insight, learning and wisdom,’ he replied. ‘The desire to liberate ourselves from detrimental behaviour, expressed by a fearlessness of change. Without it, all study, contemplation and sadhana are fruitless.’
I stood still to assimilate his words, but noticed Samuel slowly edging back towards the cave’s narrow entrance, his arms filled with tiffin tins.
‘In a hurry?’ I challenged him.
‘Just chilly now the fire’s out. And desperate for hot chiya!’
Puzzled by his impatience, I picked up the last blankets.
Only once I bent low to follow his passage through the cave’s tight entrance and stepped out into the chill of mountain mist did I feel the full frustration of what seemed a hasty, if not enforced, dismissal.
The Tradition: Self-discipline without rigour, positive-living without sham or excess.
Brajamadhava Bhattacharya
KUSHAL MAGAR WAS evidently impervious to the mountain chill. He strode ahead on bare feet to mark the path for our descent, leaving Samuel to beckon me to follow in his footsteps.
‘Jhankri-dajoo!’ I called out towards the dark smudge already forging fast into the mist. ‘You said there are three qualities. So what’s the—’
I hit the cold, wet stone with such speed and force that I had neither opportunity nor breath to express my consternation. With arms still clutching the blankets, I had no hands to ease my fall and felt anew the bony parts of elbows, knees and chin.
It was Samuel who cried out on my behalf as he ran to rescue me from my foolish inattention. Thick winter wear had saved my joints from all but bruising, but my unshaved jaw was cut, against which my cousin now pressed a cotton hanky from his pocket.
Samuel’s alarm had summoned Kushal Magar. He hurried back, insisting he check for himself that my head and limbs were unharmed.
‘So now to answer what might have been your last question.’ He smiled with relief. ‘The second quality we choose to develop is concentration – being aware of every moment of our lives …’
He paused.
And we three burst into laughter.
‘Concentrating on what we think and speak and do demands that passivity in life is dispelled,’ he continued, helping me back to newly conscientious feet. ‘Remember the importance of bhavana? The setting of your intention, free of everyday concerns, that life might be lived with honest, constructive purpose?’
I did. This one aspect of his teaching had proved remarkably challenging to me, and yet had afforded a new intensity to the past twelve months. I had noticed how the trivial and unconsidered had begun to lose their lure, even my words to bear more meaning, my actions to be more thoughtful – and thereby more fruitful.
In just one year, my life had gained a greater value to myself and, I liked to believe, was therefore already gradually beginning to prove of greater benefit to others.
LIV
Those who have seen never tell;
Those who tell have never seen.
Pampatti-Chittar
OUR DESCENT THROUGH forest fog had been so fast, the smarting of my chin and jaw of such distraction, that we reached the road before I had time to think about the grazes on my knees.
We hurried on towards the village far below, its corrugated roofs and weather-stained walls reflecting sunlight as we escaped the woodland clouds. And then the little temple in its bamboo grove, the drying cobs, the smiling daughter with her chickens, and the crows that now alighted as though in welcome.
I noticed the eagerness with which Samuel offered Jai Kumari the cheerful benefit of his assistance, even though the fire was already lit, the chiya prepared and, as I had hoped, fresh daal-bhat rice and lentils bubbling for our pleasure. We gathered close to warm our hands in celebration of our return from what had seemed quite another country, and thrilled at steaming cups of tea spiced with black pepper and cardamom that promptly passed among us.
‘So, brother.’ Kushal Magar smiled. ‘The third and final quality that those who choose the Tradition are wise to focus on is discretion.’
This was not the concluding attribute I had imagined. Fortitude, perhaps, prudence or temperance – all evidence of my own upbringing. But discretion?
‘All that you learn is for your benefit. There is no profit in drawing the attention of others, for pride is an easy downfall for any student of our – or any other – Tradition.’
I flinched. Had I not already known the tempting glint of smugness that I was privy to some mystic mountain knowledge?
‘Consider that the open discussion of one’s initiations, for example, or glib conversation about one’s practice, dissipates the force of their experience. There is no benefit to be gained in attempting to share such details with others. Authentic inner experience cannot be expressed in language. For that which can be told is not the truth.’
I was astonished by this assertion.
‘A true shaiva tantrika makes no show of his knowledge. It is wise to be wary, therefore, of those who do.’
‘Then I shall tell no one – unless you give me permission,’ I vowed. ‘I’ll keep it to myself and just work hard to make myself a better person!’
‘Brother, permit me to suggest that you do not allow an obsession with what you imagine to be “self-development” to become its own hindrance,’ he advised. ‘Attend instead to the application of the teachings you receive purely for the benefit of others, rather than yourself – and their profit will be greater.’
‘Of course.’ I nodded earnestly. ‘Always for the benefit of others.’
‘Always,’ he repeated. ‘For as we like to say, in those whose intention is unselfish – who are tranquil, yet passionately engaged in life, who apply the practice of the Tradition as given by their teacher without drawing attention to themselves – shines wisdom.’
I bowed my head in gratitude. I had no more to ask.
Kushal Magar responded by touching his heart, then placing his hands on my head.
His blessing of farewell had been bestowed.
His teaching was finished for another year.