On the Razor’s Edge – I

Experiences on the Path …

This series is intended to be about interesting personal experiences as a seeker. Am generally reluctant to talk about them, but I know how ‘good’ I feel on reading such narratives by other devotees, and hopefully my stories may bring a little something into the dear reader’s life too. Let me try anyway with one story for a start, and we’ll see how it goes.

All this was prompted by my finding a forgotten, rough draft of this write-up sitting in an old folder on my PC. I vaguely remember having written it a few years ago and may have put it up on David Godman’s wonderful blog, in the ‘Open Thread’ somewhere. But do not remember now for sure.

Besides, this is a befitting story to tell as it is about Holy Arunachala, Lord Siva. It had been bothering me a bit that till now I had not written any post directly relating to the Holy Hill. How can He be missed out? Was reminded of the charming story [in “Day by Day”, entry of “24.2.46 Morning”] of how, when composing Anma Vidai (Atma Vidya), Sri Bhagavan specifically added the last, fifth verse, dedicated to Sri Arunachala, saying He had neglected to make a mention of Him in the first four verses: 

Anma Vidai, verse V: “Annamalai the Self, the eye behind the eye of mind, which sees the eye and all other senses, which knows the sky and the other elements, the Being which contains, reveals, perceives the inner sky that shines within the Heart. When the mind free of thought turns inward, Annamalai appears as my own Self. True grace is needed; love is added and bliss wells up. Lo, very easy is Self Knowledge. Lo, very easy indeed.”

Lovely composition on Lord Arunachala Siva, by He Himself!

And then, today is Advent Day, 1^st September, when in 1896, Bhagavan first set foot on Arunachala.

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The ‘Shepherd’

This happened many years ago, probably on my first visit to Tiruvannamalai and Sri Ramanasramam. By then I had already read most of Bhagavan’s works and knew Him to be my Guru. And so the first few trips were surreal experiences of joy, of visiting places in and around Sri Ramanasramam that I knew intimately, but had not seen or experienced otherwise. I had landed up in June, and even after so many years can still vividly recall the searing, furnace like heat in Tiruvannamalai that exceptional summer, when the following incident happened.

The story begins when one bright and sunny day, after the lovely idli and milk breakfast at Sri Ramanasramam, I headed out for Skandasramam and Virupaksha Cave from the back gate. As all devotees know, Skandasramam is about a 45 min, mildly strenuous walk up a hilly path. The path is naturally paved with stones taken from the Hill only, and it all makes for a very picturesque setting indeed.

Was determined not to wear footwear on Holy Arunachala. Coming from N. India, where we wear chappals even inside the house, one was actually quite unused to walking barefoot; and the softer soles tend to get sore and blister quickly. But I had reasoned that if I go to a temple of Lord Siva, I remove shoes. And here I am walking ON Lord Siva; so how can I wear shoes? And then Sri Bhagavan Himself had always remained barefoot on Sri Arunachala, thorns, bushes, hot stones et al (not that He is known to have worn any footwear, ever). I suppose this dilemma of wearing footwear or not when trekking up to Skandasramam or Virupaksa cave, or generally even when going for a walk on the Holy Hill, may have struck other devotees too at some point. Also, one must admit rather shamefacedly, that in those early years one was confident and sanguine about one’s ability to handle such silly ‘mundane’ things like heat and even pain; it would be “pain borne for the Lord”, or so one naively thought.

Those days the path up from behind Sri Ramanasramam was rather bereft of shady trees or heavy vegetation. The reforestation initiative had still to really get going and Sri Arunachala had a gaunt, bare-rock grandeur about it.  But in the early morning, the sun was rather balmy, and the stones on the path, lovely and comfortingly warm. It was a peaceful walk up the Hill then, and had a wonderful time at Skandasramam and Virupaksa Cave. Had carried an apple with me, so did not need to rush back for the 11.30 gong for lunch at Sri Ramanasramam. And so, started back at 2 pm or so. Well and truly dumb that.

Initially the path was not so bad. Closer to Skandasramam there was plenty of vegetation around. It was only after one-third distance that the path became bare rock-stones with no trees at all. And in the hot sun, the stones were furnace-hot. Within minutes my feet were in tatters. It was so hot that forget walking, one could not even stand anywhere without hopping about. I had a bottle of water and so decided to keep wetting my feet and walking on, in the hope of finding a sheltered stretch. Big mistake. Made another 100m or so when the water ran out. Now I was even more in the middle of it. Now I could neither go forward nor back, nor did I have water to drink. And so, simply decided that my backside was more suited for the spanking and found a rock to sit on, a large, burning rock by the path, right in the open sun.   

I knew I was in big trouble. There was not a soul in sight; not even any monkeys, birds, or lizards about. And not a breath of wind stirring about anywhere. Had been praying away to Bhagavan all this while. I remembered how He had told the Surya Mantra to Sri Jagadeeswara Sastri when he was unable to walk on hot stones, and one tried that too! But there was a lesson to be taught to me still. The cocky, confidence bit had disappeared long ago. And now one was confused, nauseous and so hot that one thought that one would literally melt away into the red, fire-like rock on which one was sitting.  

Had been cooking like this for perhaps half an hour, maybe 45 mins, when one saw coming down from a distant spur in front of me, a wizened, old shepherd. He was slightly bent and walking with the help of a long stick, almost as tall as he, like that we see being carried by Mahatma Gandhi in popular pictures. I picked him up from quite a distance away and it took him 15 minutes to come down to me, slowly, zig-zagging around stray patches of scraggly brown bush. His form was swaying in the heat haze, and he walked with his head down and bent forward. He didn’t pause or stop to do anything at all in between, but came straight towards where I was sitting; and sat down, close, right next to me on the rock.

He was medium-tall, darkish, aged, with very short snow-white hair. He was wearing a half-sleeved, dirty-white, tattered shirt, many sizes too small and unbuttoned (actually, all the buttons were missing), and a short lungi. He smelt of the trees, and it actually felt as if a big, tall, leafy tree had walked up and sat down next to me.

Sort of automatically I looked down at his feet and saw, to my astonishment, he was wearing, without any socks, a pair of brand new, spotless, gleaming, blue and white, 'air' padded sports-shoes; the ones that cost, in those days, Rs. 5,000/- !

I really cannot describe my feeling of utter bewilderment that time at seeing this simple shepherd sitting just next to me wearing his gleaming sports shoes. Those who have been on the Hill and have seen the occasional local grass cutters or leaf gatherers, or the odd shepherd grazing a few goats, will know what I mean. They are not only too poor to own any shoes of any sort, but even otherwise invariably work and walk-about in bare feet. But what really caused my jaw to drop to my chest was the realization slowly dawning on me that - the shoes that he was wearing were exactly the ones, brand, model, colour and all, that I had been checking out back in Delhi to buy, but had not done so given the steep price!

He did not say a word and my jaw was anyway now stuck to my chest. He gave the briefest of what I can only describe as a wistful, meaningful smile, the slightest of nods, and then he got up and quickly walked away, to my left and up the path towards Skandasramam. There was a slight bend after 10 or 15 metres and he was out of sight even before my jaw came back to meet its upper member. And it was to be a great regret later that I did not catch him then and there and hang on to him for dear life; whoever he had been.

For, I found that amazingly, and immediately thereafter, my head cleared up and it felt much cooler. Somehow, I seemed to be have developed a temporary immunity from the heat and I could sit there on the rock as if I was sitting out in the cool winter sun in Delhi. And that when I got up and started back, I could easily walk the hot, burning stones on the path, all the way back to Sri Ramanasramam. I was back in my room in no time, cool and fresh, as if I had come back from a stroll on the mall in a Himalayan hill-station.

And I learnt my lessons. The naiveté with respect to pain and heat went (along with a lot of the ego!); and I knew that Sri Arunachala had given me an unmistakable indication that it was alright for me to wear footwear on the Holy Hill if needed, though I STILL DON’T. I am just a lot more careful with timings when venturing on to the Hill; and I don’t mind the odd thorn and scratched feet from the tough bushes at all. But in general I now believe that as long as we keep the attitude of a little child playing about in the Great Father’s lap, it should be alright to wear shoes if needed. [Though the injunction of no footwear when OFF the Holy Hill on Giripradaksina stands as absolutely inviolable; there is another story there, for a later time perhaps]. And guess what, my sports shoes now are similar ones to the shepherd's, the same gleaming blue and white, 'air' padded ones, which I could however only afford to buy many years on ! 

So then, you would ask, who was the shepherd really?  Funnily enough, though I can recall all the other details about him and the incident vividly, I just cannot remember the features of his face; except that he had smiled. Also, I must confess, I did not feel any direct spiritual, or Divine sort of emanation from him. That could however be a problem of the receiving radio rather than that of the transmitter! But there was certainly an uncanny or, how do I put it, surreal sort of feeling about it all. Even now I get a thrill run through me and my hairs stand on end when I recall this incident.

Wouldn't want to speculate on who the gentle shepherd actually was. Am just very grateful that Sri Arunachala, our Great Father (and Mother), chose to take care of His young and naive devotee with such love and compassion, one who had the temerity to carry an overblown ego with him up onto the Holy Hill besides. 

And then, also, it is entirely possible that he was just a local villager-shepherd on the Hill, to whom some kindly visitor-devotee had given his own pair of sports-shoes. And my fevered, hot brain just read a whole lot more into it all than was warranted ... 

Scanned photograph of the path about 10 years ago (not
from the time of the story); few trees and generally bare
stones; would have perhaps sat on a stone like the one in
front here; notice the group of langurs hanging about!

Recent picture of the path; a lot more trees!



And again 



The path these days (the straight, slanting line in the
middle of the picture) from the top of a spur nearby

One of the leaves and sticks collecting ladies you might
encounter around the path

 

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Addendum:

[With reference to the comment of 16.2.2013 by Anonymous below]

Following is a picture of the sports shoes I picked up later. Sorry, these are a little dirty and worn down. The shepherd's shoes were virtually similar, except they were gleaming new. In fact, I still remember how struck I was then, that there was not one speck of mud or any scuff mark on them – they could have come straight out of the packing box ...