It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve been living in Gangotri and the surrounding mountains. Time moves fast and smooth. I have been getting used to the high altitude, the icy air and water, the strong sunlight that sparkles in tiny diamonds of ice floating around, while at night the stars and moon light up the sky turning it into a distant village far out in Time, black, Kala. There are many, many lights out there.
It should take 10-15 days to acclimatize to the high altitude but on the 6th day I was invited by a group of 3 Babas and 1 Mata on a trek to Kedar Tal. They had little supplies and were going in lungis, barefoot or wearing flip flops, so I thought they’re my kind of people. You do not take anything but Faith, Courage and Will on your journey to meet Mahavatar Babaji, circa 2.000 years old and never counting.
So I decided I’ll join them, I packed some similarly mystically useless items and we all started walking. They said it will take 2 days and 1 night – I’ve been with the Juna Akhada long enough to at least know that this could mean 3 years.
The trek crosses a Bugyal, generic name for high altitudine valleys of wild mountain flowers, and we ascended two little peaks before we would have been supposed to descend into a ravine and cross a tributary of Ganga Ji, Kedar Ganga, who gushes out of Kedar glacier, forms high altitude glaciar lake Kedar Tal and continues downwards to meet Baghirati Ganga in Gangotri.
We would have been climbing from 3.300m altitudine, where we are now, to 3.900m, and walk 50 kms there and back.
Photo reportage. Imagine, and then know that it surpasses all your imagination. The Universe is conscious, vibrating.
It took three days, two nights, some 40 kms and we had to turn back 6-7 kms away from the Tal, which could be felt in the near distance, because the path (rasta) was collapsed. A chunk of rock as big as a little mountain fell and dragged some of the Earth’s crust with it, tumbled all the way down and could be seen sat majestically in the middle of the torrent.
Water, rocks, sand, trees and vegetation drip and drop occasionally, unsettled, dislodged by wind, rain and good vibrations. It rained everyday at 3.30 PM for 40 minutes. Clockwork. There are animals, birds, insects and vegetation. You can find stones with insertions of gold, silver and other metals. There are shards of naturally formed coloured glass, also crystals in various stages of diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire formation. Some plants can be eaten and turned into infusions or soups, while others are highly poisonous. Some gorgeous small blue flowers emanate cyanide and if you smell one close up, you die in a few minutes. True story.
Kriya Yoga. Practice breathing up and down your physical and energetic corridors, into every corner of your being. Breath is the process of turning energy into matter, ethereal thought into quantifiable life. Atman is covered by 7 Layers, like the 7 colours that split from Light into Rainbow. The 7 layers have 7 centres of control, the chakras, the vortexes of energy that form the energetic matrix of what we experience as our physical life.
Sanatan Dharma is not a religion, it is the Art of Living. It is never ending and point less, it ‘ends’ in the dissolution of the self in the universal. It is the scientific art of Maya that leads to the Absolute. Details fit into ever expanding typologies and structures that bring clarity to the Mind, which is getting more and more luminous and reflective. For example, Kali, Black Energy and Black Matter as now conceptualized by astronomers and physicists, created AUM, the atomic triad, aka Brahma Vishnu Shiva. Then Brahma, nucleus, created Kali’s body, energy and matter. Feminine energy conceptualized masculine energy, who in turn materialised the former. This is yin yang.
Immediately upon descending from Kedar Tal there is the proposition to go to Dharali for a few hours and come back. Deepak is in town. Home is where the Self is, always, so I take a blanket and catch a motor ride to Dharali, where I end up staying two days and participating in this big mela, celebration. Treks, fire juggling, music and much activity. Do or don’t, as per personal inclination, always.
Kelp Kedar Mandir. I’ve been living, somewhat unwillingly, with this temple in my consciousness since I first saw it, 3 years ago. I could call it infatuation, I’ve been in love with it, I dream of it and so on. Whenever I am in its vicinity, I feel weirdly complete, as if I am meant to be and have a purpose, it’s a great joy to eat and sleep there. Now I found out its magical story. Dharali was the last inhabited place before Gomukh, some 800 years ago. The glaciers were larger, covered more land and they were naturally closed to the ‘ general public’. Not open like it is now, just pack a cloak and a bag of peanuts and trek to Gomukh to photograph Shiva in his socks. Kelp Kedar Mandir was then Kedarnath, the last signpost. Around 800 years ago, the hills collapsed and erased human traces, which were then rebuild. This is when they found the hidden temple, they stumbled on its top stone. Thus, locals say it’s 800 – 500 years old, because that is all they know.
This I know from the Babas, at least four, living in Hanuman Mandir right next to our Gangotri ashram. One 60 yo baba I know from afar, from Uttarkashi ashram. He is with one chela, student in Guru-Disciple tradition, a different one from the chela he had in Ukki. There is another baba, saddhu style, fitter and younger at the same age. There was also a phenomenal Adivasy young wild boy from the jungles, who was rubbing ganja and turning it into maal.
There’s also an old Mataji I sometimes meet, a surreal woman talking about the Impermanence of all things. A few days ago I chanced upon some old friends coming from Rishikesh. It was an Incredible pleasure to see someone familiar, two close friends in a group of 8 people. We tried to go to Gomukh, road was closed. Then we tried to go on bikes 40kms north to ‘China border’. Do you know India and China have been at war, quietly but really, on the North Indian border? This has been happening for 2 months. We arrive at sunset, 6 people on 2 motor bikes and 1 scooter, demanding to reach the last village before the Tibetan border, Nelang. The young soldier guarding the road looks at us as if we are insane and from another Time Space dimension: lockdown, corona pandemy, war, no permission and no question of permission, are you blind and deaf? Thankfully, yes.
The (pseudo) Moni (silent) baba who brought me here has left, after a little harassment. This is acceptable, one cannot go rafting on a mountain torrent and expect a smooth ride. There is another older Moni Baba living around here and you’ll meet many Monies along the way, because for some it is a necessary stage of life, silence. One Baba from Hanuman Mandir has been silent from 1996 until 2010, 14 years and 3 months. This older Moni is very sweet and it is possible that he is a life moni, that he will never start speaking. One evening when we are all gathered around the dhuni holy fireplace, near Ganga, fire is crackling and we are passing round the day’s peace pipe. Moni baba shows me a picture on his phone and then writes, Ganga milk. He took a photo of Ganga Ji and to him it looked holy, like milk. He was smiling full of joy and love and holding my gaze, do I understand the truth behind this? The fantastic thing is that he uses a phone from the 80s, with a very old and scratched camera that makes everything look like a milky torrent. One sees what one chooses to see, always.
There is Dharma, right understanding, and adharma, repetitive ignorance. Adharma is infinite because it is fundamentally unreal, whereas Dharma is a stage in a process. The ashtanga system of eight limbs of Sannyasa, closely mirroring and ‘modernising’ Patanjali ashtanga eight limbs of Yoga, is:
Swadhyaya, self study. Satsang, positive communication/community. Seva, practicing non-doership, service as performance, not for exchange or profit. Sadhana, sustained effort towards changing the Mind progressively from outer towards inner focus. Sannyan, conscious behaviour, knowledge of both object/action and Self, own greed, desires, fears and repulsions, one’s Mind known and under control.
Then, the last subtle internal stages: Viveka or developing discrimination of truth, Vairagya, transcending attachment to Self-nonSelf, and Samarpan, flowing in surrender.
In life be like a bee in a valley of flowers.
SitaRam SitaRam SitaRamJai SitaRam
Jai Mata Di
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