Salon Wanderlust | Spiritual discomfort

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
Roughing it after 40: Boomers and their parents discuss hitting the road in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y

Adventures of my youth
By Louise Rafkin
Can midlife travelers recapture the carefree wanderings of old?
(06/15/98)
Suddenly last summer
By Hal LaCroix
Babes, buzzwords and biz-bonding at the Nantucket Film Fest
(06/12/98)
Letter from Jakarta: After the sky falls
By Jeff Pulice
When expats flee, foreign guys become very attractive -- and other bits of wisdom
(06/11/98)
Are we the world?
By Andrew O'Hehir
Despite our uneasy place on Planet Soccer, the United States will be one of 32 nations vying for glory as the globe's most passionately watched sporting event begins
(06/10/98)
The Internet comes to the Outback
By Simon Winchester
A 7-year-old boy's life changes forever
(06/09/98)

Browse the
Wanderlust Feature archives

SPIRITUAL DISCOMFORT . | . PAGE 1, 2, 3
The sadhu lived in a cave on a ledge high on a snow-draped hillside, with a tiny lean-to of stone and plastic tarps attached to the cave's mouth. Roused from meditation by Jai Singh -- who called "Maharaj! Jai, Maharaj!" and flashed my feeble, dying Maglite around the inside of the lean-to -- he drew back the canvas flap of the door and stood squinting at us in the snow-reflected light. He was a thin man, apparently in his 50s or 60s, with a twisted knot of black beard and a great mass of hair bundled up in a brown scarf. He did not seem entirely pleased to see us on his doorstep.
Vehement talking in Hindi followed, along with much gesticulation toward me and an occasional phrase in English from Jai Singh, who appeared to be listing the credentials that made me worth rescuing from the storm: "Journalist ... yoga ... pure vegetarian."
Finally, a deal was struck. We were welcome to stay with the sadhu, if we didn't mind sleeping on the bare dirt floor of his storeroom, with one thin blanket as our only bedding and no fire. But the sadhu ate only one meal a day -- consisting mainly of nuts and potatoes -- and he'd already had it. So if we wanted dinner, we'd have to beg it from Menno.
We plowed through the mounting drifts back to Menno's campsite, a journey that felt like a snowy form of time travel -- could Menno and the Maharaj possibly coexist in the same century? I hung my soaked socks to dry by the fire and sat as close to the flames as I could without igniting, watching the steam rise from my damp cotton pants. Menno boiled up a pot of Top Ramen -- "Macho Masala," a flavor I've never encountered in California -- and regaled me with stories of drinking binges in London, Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. ("And so there I was, locked out of my apartment in Soho; and so I wobbled on down to the local police station and slurred, 'Excuse me, officer, I've misplaced my keys; would you mind putting me up in an empty cell for the night? My firm will be happy to make you an appropriate donation.' And they were just about to give me a bed when word came in on the radio that there had just been a drug raid, and they were bringing in 25 new criminals for the night; so I couldn't have a cell. I tell you, I made a stinking fuss. 'What about me?' I was almost crying. 'What about the cell you promised me?'")
By the time we made it back to the sadhu's cave, it was almost dark and still snowing hard. We pushed in through the canvas door flap and shone my Maglite around. We were in a tiny, dirt-floored room -- walls of misfitting stones with burlap and plastic tarps stretched over the gaps; roof of birch poles supporting more burlap and plastic tarps; and plenty of gaps everywhere for frigid air to circulate. Hanging from the ceiling were woven baskets, piled with cloth sacks of potatoes. Behind the canvas-draped door that led to the entrance of the cave itself, we could hear the sadhu chanting in occasionally faltering Sanskrit.
Tentatively, I pulled aside the flap and peeked inside: Our host was sitting cross-legged next to an oil lamp, peering at yellowing manuscript pages through Buddy Holly spectacles. He did not look up at my intrusion. Dropping the flap, I pulled a blanket around me and sat down to meditate. For half an hour I tried to focus on my breath and the Sanskrit song, which contained a recurring phrase I recognized from my days as an undergraduate religion major: "Neti, neti ..." "Not this, not this." The transcendent vision of the Upanishads, the mystical verses composed 3,000 years ago by seers in deep meditation: "Is this body the true Self? No, not this. Are the thoughts the true Self? No, not this. The feelings? No, not this ..."
When I opened my eyes, Jai Singh was looking at me. "While you were meditating," he said brightly, "three very large rats ran next to you. Back and forth, back and forth. Oh, very, very large!"
For the first time, my enthusiasm began to falter. I'd been feeling pretty excited about the chance to spend one night as an honest-to-God ascetic. But rats?
A few minutes later, the sadhu pulled aside the flap and stuck his head into our chamber. Through Jai Singh, I asked him his name, which he said was Rampal; he had been living in this cave for 15 years, he said, ever since Gangotri began to feel too social for a serious sadhu.
Rampal began to lecture me sternly in Hindi, which Jai Singh translated. If I ate mutton, he informed me, I would have to spend 64 lifetimes as an animal before attaining human birth again. I assured him that I didn't eat mutton (but thought, a little guiltily, of the occasional sushi -- how many lifetimes for a piece of maguro?). "This human life is precious," Rampal told me. "So rare it is, to be born a human! Do not waste your time."
Abruptly, the interview was over. Rampal dropped the curtain and retreated into his cozy chamber -- the really luxurious part of the cave, where there was even a fire flickering. As a woman and a foreigner, Jai Singh explained, I would pollute his home by entering and necessitate several lifetimes of penances.
My mini-Maglite was barely functioning, casting a faint circle of light about as big as a quarter. From the bottom of my day pack I pulled out a stub of candle, left over from some ashram ritual months ago. "Do you have any matches?" I asked my wilderness guide, hopefully. "Madame," he replied with stern indignation, "I am not a smoker."
A few minutes later, my light blinked out, and I lay down on a floor as cold as an ice-skating rink, huddled under a rat-gnawed blanket. In the next room, I could hear Rampal chanting the lilting song that accompanies arati, the ritual "offering of fire." I peeked though his flap and watched him swirling a candle flame in a circle before his altar. Then I watched as, still chanting the name of Ram, he busied himself in another ceremony involving a flickering flame and a kettle: It took me a while to realize that he was preparing a pot of tea. Wistfully, I dropped the flap and prepared to shiver my way through the night.
Every half hour or so, I'd hear the thunder of an avalanche cascading from a nearby peak. With every crash, Rampal would toss in his bed on the other side of the curtain and call out praises to the gods -- "Jai, Sita Ram!" To keep myself warm, I tried to practice the yogic breathing technique known as "breath of fire," a vigorous bellows-like snort that, after all, had probably been developed in a cave much like this one. Using such practices, some yogis can raise their body temperatures high enough to dry wet blankets in subzero temperatures. I soon discovered that I am not one of them. Instead I settled for turning over every 15 minutes, whenever the part of me pressed against the floor started to go numb.
I was starting to get tired of my adventure. All right, I'd visited an actual sadhu in his cave; I'd had my sampling of genuine mystical experience. Now could we fast forward the tape to the time when I was back in Rishikesh, drinking lassi by the Ganges again? How had I failed to appreciate its charms? My bones were aching, my nose was running, my head throbbed with exhaustion and altitude. I'd been waiting for weeks for a mystical moment; now it was here, I couldn't wait for it to be over.
The most exotic experience, I reflected, is made up of the most mundane details. I was in a Himalayan cave with a holy man; back in California, I could tell that to my yogi friends and they'd moan with envy. Yet the actual experience mainly consisted of damp socks, numb fingers, sore throat and shivering jaw. Maybe my spiritual teachers were right when they told me, over and over, that all moments are equally magical, if we give them our full attention. Maybe my mystical adventure had been happening all along. Maybe Menno was as mysterious as Rampal.
I wondered if Rampal found his own life extraordinary -- alone year-round, with nothing to do but meditate, chant, study scripture and pray. Was he happy? Did he manage to attain -- at least intermittently -- the state of blissful union with the cosmos that is the ultimate goal of a yogi's practice?
Another wall of snow crashed from a distant mountain. "Jai, Sita Ram!" called Rampal. "Jai, Sita Ram," I whispered, and turned my other side to the icy floor.
Sometime toward dawn, Rampal began to sing again. I peeked into his chamber and watched his shadowy figure moving about his cave, singing in Sanskrit, the ancient language whose syllables yogis believe have the power to shape reality. As pale light began to seep in between the chinks in our stone walls, Jai Singh lifted our canvas door flap and we peered out at huge drifts of snow, with scattered flakes still falling.
Rampal poked his head out and began speaking urgently to Jai Singh. "He says we must go now," Jai Singh translated. "More snow will be coming. Avalanches could also be coming as day is getting warmer. If we stay, could be trapped here long time." Clearly, this thought was as alarming to Rampal as it was to me.
I pulled on my boots; Jai Singh wrapped his feet in plastic bags and slid them into his canvas tennis shoes. We stepped out into the drifts, put our hands in prayer position, bowed to our host and started off.
But before we left, I took a long look out over the valley, blanketed in snow, with the dark thread of the river snaking through it and the mountain peaks disappearing into clouds. I thought of my friend who had asked me to bring him some Gangotri air -- and I took a deep breath, and held it.
SALON | June 16, 1998
Anne Cushman is a writer who lives in Northern California. She previously wrote for Wanderlust about a wandering sadhu from Texas named Charan Das.


	T A B L E_T A L K Roughing it after 40: Boomers and their parents discuss hitting the road in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Adventures of my youth By Louise Rafkin Can midlife travelers recapture the carefree wanderings of old? (06/15/98) Suddenly last summer By Hal LaCroix Babes, buzzwords and biz-bonding at the Nantucket Film Fest (06/12/98) Letter from Jakarta: After the sky falls By Jeff Pulice When expats flee, foreign guys become very attractive -- and other bits of wisdom (06/11/98) Are we the world? By Andrew O'Hehir Despite our uneasy place on Planet Soccer, the United States will be one of 32 nations vying for glory as the globe's most passionately watched sporting event begins (06/10/98) The Internet comes to the Outback By Simon Winchester A 7-year-old boy's life changes forever (06/09/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives		SPIRITUAL DISCOMFORT . \| . PAGE 1, 2, 3 The sadhu lived in a cave on a ledge high on a snow-draped hillside, with a tiny lean-to of stone and plastic tarps attached to the cave's mouth. Roused from meditation by Jai Singh -- who called "Maharaj! Jai, Maharaj!" and flashed my feeble, dying Maglite around the inside of the lean-to -- he drew back the canvas flap of the door and stood squinting at us in the snow-reflected light. He was a thin man, apparently in his 50s or 60s, with a twisted knot of black beard and a great mass of hair bundled up in a brown scarf. He did not seem entirely pleased to see us on his doorstep. Vehement talking in Hindi followed, along with much gesticulation toward me and an occasional phrase in English from Jai Singh, who appeared to be listing the credentials that made me worth rescuing from the storm: "Journalist ... yoga ... pure vegetarian." Finally, a deal was struck. We were welcome to stay with the sadhu, if we didn't mind sleeping on the bare dirt floor of his storeroom, with one thin blanket as our only bedding and no fire. But the sadhu ate only one meal a day -- consisting mainly of nuts and potatoes -- and he'd already had it. So if we wanted dinner, we'd have to beg it from Menno. We plowed through the mounting drifts back to Menno's campsite, a journey that felt like a snowy form of time travel -- could Menno and the Maharaj possibly coexist in the same century? I hung my soaked socks to dry by the fire and sat as close to the flames as I could without igniting, watching the steam rise from my damp cotton pants. Menno boiled up a pot of Top Ramen -- "Macho Masala," a flavor I've never encountered in California -- and regaled me with stories of drinking binges in London, Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. ("And so there I was, locked out of my apartment in Soho; and so I wobbled on down to the local police station and slurred, 'Excuse me, officer, I've misplaced my keys; would you mind putting me up in an empty cell for the night? My firm will be happy to make you an appropriate donation.' And they were just about to give me a bed when word came in on the radio that there had just been a drug raid, and they were bringing in 25 new criminals for the night; so I couldn't have a cell. I tell you, I made a stinking fuss. 'What about me?' I was almost crying. 'What about the cell you promised me?'") By the time we made it back to the sadhu's cave, it was almost dark and still snowing hard. We pushed in through the canvas door flap and shone my Maglite around. We were in a tiny, dirt-floored room -- walls of misfitting stones with burlap and plastic tarps stretched over the gaps; roof of birch poles supporting more burlap and plastic tarps; and plenty of gaps everywhere for frigid air to circulate. Hanging from the ceiling were woven baskets, piled with cloth sacks of potatoes. Behind the canvas-draped door that led to the entrance of the cave itself, we could hear the sadhu chanting in occasionally faltering Sanskrit. Tentatively, I pulled aside the flap and peeked inside: Our host was sitting cross-legged next to an oil lamp, peering at yellowing manuscript pages through Buddy Holly spectacles. He did not look up at my intrusion. Dropping the flap, I pulled a blanket around me and sat down to meditate. For half an hour I tried to focus on my breath and the Sanskrit song, which contained a recurring phrase I recognized from my days as an undergraduate religion major: "Neti, neti ..." "Not this, not this." The transcendent vision of the Upanishads, the mystical verses composed 3,000 years ago by seers in deep meditation: "Is this body the true Self? No, not this. Are the thoughts the true Self? No, not this. The feelings? No, not this ..." When I opened my eyes, Jai Singh was looking at me. "While you were meditating," he said brightly, "three very large rats ran next to you. Back and forth, back and forth. Oh, very, very large!" For the first time, my enthusiasm began to falter. I'd been feeling pretty excited about the chance to spend one night as an honest-to-God ascetic. But rats? A few minutes later, the sadhu pulled aside the flap and stuck his head into our chamber. Through Jai Singh, I asked him his name, which he said was Rampal; he had been living in this cave for 15 years, he said, ever since Gangotri began to feel too social for a serious sadhu. Rampal began to lecture me sternly in Hindi, which Jai Singh translated. If I ate mutton, he informed me, I would have to spend 64 lifetimes as an animal before attaining human birth again. I assured him that I didn't eat mutton (but thought, a little guiltily, of the occasional sushi -- how many lifetimes for a piece of maguro?). "This human life is precious," Rampal told me. "So rare it is, to be born a human! Do not waste your time." Abruptly, the interview was over. Rampal dropped the curtain and retreated into his cozy chamber -- the really luxurious part of the cave, where there was even a fire flickering. As a woman and a foreigner, Jai Singh explained, I would pollute his home by entering and necessitate several lifetimes of penances. My mini-Maglite was barely functioning, casting a faint circle of light about as big as a quarter. From the bottom of my day pack I pulled out a stub of candle, left over from some ashram ritual months ago. "Do you have any matches?" I asked my wilderness guide, hopefully. "Madame," he replied with stern indignation, "I am not a smoker." A few minutes later, my light blinked out, and I lay down on a floor as cold as an ice-skating rink, huddled under a rat-gnawed blanket. In the next room, I could hear Rampal chanting the lilting song that accompanies arati, the ritual "offering of fire." I peeked though his flap and watched him swirling a candle flame in a circle before his altar. Then I watched as, still chanting the name of Ram, he busied himself in another ceremony involving a flickering flame and a kettle: It took me a while to realize that he was preparing a pot of tea. Wistfully, I dropped the flap and prepared to shiver my way through the night. Every half hour or so, I'd hear the thunder of an avalanche cascading from a nearby peak. With every crash, Rampal would toss in his bed on the other side of the curtain and call out praises to the gods -- "Jai, Sita Ram!" To keep myself warm, I tried to practice the yogic breathing technique known as "breath of fire," a vigorous bellows-like snort that, after all, had probably been developed in a cave much like this one. Using such practices, some yogis can raise their body temperatures high enough to dry wet blankets in subzero temperatures. I soon discovered that I am not one of them. Instead I settled for turning over every 15 minutes, whenever the part of me pressed against the floor started to go numb. I was starting to get tired of my adventure. All right, I'd visited an actual sadhu in his cave; I'd had my sampling of genuine mystical experience. Now could we fast forward the tape to the time when I was back in Rishikesh, drinking lassi by the Ganges again? How had I failed to appreciate its charms? My bones were aching, my nose was running, my head throbbed with exhaustion and altitude. I'd been waiting for weeks for a mystical moment; now it was here, I couldn't wait for it to be over. The most exotic experience, I reflected, is made up of the most mundane details. I was in a Himalayan cave with a holy man; back in California, I could tell that to my yogi friends and they'd moan with envy. Yet the actual experience mainly consisted of damp socks, numb fingers, sore throat and shivering jaw. Maybe my spiritual teachers were right when they told me, over and over, that all moments are equally magical, if we give them our full attention. Maybe my mystical adventure had been happening all along. Maybe Menno was as mysterious as Rampal. I wondered if Rampal found his own life extraordinary -- alone year-round, with nothing to do but meditate, chant, study scripture and pray. Was he happy? Did he manage to attain -- at least intermittently -- the state of blissful union with the cosmos that is the ultimate goal of a yogi's practice? Another wall of snow crashed from a distant mountain. "Jai, Sita Ram!" called Rampal. "Jai, Sita Ram," I whispered, and turned my other side to the icy floor. Sometime toward dawn, Rampal began to sing again. I peeked into his chamber and watched his shadowy figure moving about his cave, singing in Sanskrit, the ancient language whose syllables yogis believe have the power to shape reality. As pale light began to seep in between the chinks in our stone walls, Jai Singh lifted our canvas door flap and we peered out at huge drifts of snow, with scattered flakes still falling. Rampal poked his head out and began speaking urgently to Jai Singh. "He says we must go now," Jai Singh translated. "More snow will be coming. Avalanches could also be coming as day is getting warmer. If we stay, could be trapped here long time." Clearly, this thought was as alarming to Rampal as it was to me. I pulled on my boots; Jai Singh wrapped his feet in plastic bags and slid them into his canvas tennis shoes. We stepped out into the drifts, put our hands in prayer position, bowed to our host and started off. But before we left, I took a long look out over the valley, blanketed in snow, with the dark thread of the river snaking through it and the mountain peaks disappearing into clouds. I thought of my friend who had asked me to bring him some Gangotri air -- and I took a deep breath, and held it. SALON \| June 16, 1998 Anne Cushman is a writer who lives in Northern California. She previously wrote for Wanderlust about a wandering sadhu from Texas named Charan Das.