I was coming from Haridwar down to Mathura by train... this is a 15 hr trip and I couldn't get any seat, therefore I had to find a space on the floor... and the only space available was very close to the bathroom! ... There is nothing more disgusting than the bathroom of an indian train... believe me!
But what could I do? the other option was to stay in the station for one more day, and for me that was not a possibility, so I went for it ... I spread the other piece of lungi I had on the floor, took my saddlebag as pillow and tried to catch some sleep, which, for many reasons it became an impossible mission.
First of all theres a constant flow of people going out and coming in from the train, and if you dont move they'll just step on you... secondly, some trendy-partying indian boys that stepped on the train a little further started to ask me all sort of foolish questions... like: are you virgin? what do you do for a living? do you like women? etc etc ...they were a bit drunk so I didn't mind them to have some fun with me... And last but not least, the smell of human urine and fecal matter was so penetrating that I couldn't get rid of a nauseous sensation during the whole journey.
I hadn't sleep for hrs... I was all sweaty and dirty... and clearly enough, I was losing my patience... I remembered that my ex always used to say to me that I loose patience very easily when I can't hold a sleep, and just to recognize that it was true made more desperate...
Finally I reached Mathura... the sun was blazing as usual and I didnt had an idea of where to go... I had a couple of directions from temples, but to be honest I was a bit tired of them...
The words of the song "coconut flakes" by love as laughter were buzzing in my ears, so did moquitoes... the only difference from the song was that I didn't had nothing to get stoned with! but even if I would, the smiley-faced fool motion was not for me... specially not in such conditions. The fact that I was mercilessly smashing the mosquitoes against my skin (which is not one of my common practices) was a clear sign that all ahimsa and tolerance was gone by then... or at least most of it!
It was time to make a stop and observe the thoughts... at least thats what I do whenever I feel like I'm stepping out of my joyous child-like nature and start to behave as a grumpy old man... usually I find an intruder (thought) trying to drown me in a glass of water...creating suffering out of a circumstance... common! is just a circumstance... and as such is bound to pass away... if the mind doesn't label it, is just what it is... acceptance.... acceptance....acceptance. It is good to recollect yourself... develop the ability to rescue the unseen jokes that fills the air with laugh and... keep walking... Otherwise the illusion of suffering can easily possess your mind and suddenly you find yourself again in a self-created hell where you feel theres no way out... in other words; Maya embraces you very dearly.
I took a tuk tuk to Vrindavan for 20 rs (150 colones), and wandered there for a while... The good thing about being in a place where you have never been before is that it allows you more easily to stand in awe and in such a state of presence you are no longer focusing on the inconveniences that are seemingly contained in the circumstances.
Once a while I hear a voice trying to convince me to live the life of a regular tourist in india... after all I have some rupees in my pocket, not much, but india is ridiculously cheap and i could afford to stay in a decent guesthouse, eat "better" food and pay for "better" transportation.... nevertheless there is a stronger voice that knows very well the reason why I don't buy into such a style unless is extremely necessary... And this was a strong determination (adhitthana).
At this point I just wanted to reach a place where I could take a bath, a meal and hold some sleep...for some miles the whole place looked kinda desolated or perhaps I was already hallucinating... I kept walking and behold! a sadhu was waving his hand from a distance inviting me to enter a place, I wasn't in the mood to have any particular interaction but he was very enthusiastic so I followed. Suddenly I found my self in a big camp yard where at least a hundred sadhus and sadhinis were seated forming a line in the ground... I immediately understood that they were waiting for prasad and I was indeed pretty hungry, so I took my bowl out and sat along the line underneath a beautiful cashew tree... I felt like in a dream, some were only with a kaupinam (loin cloth), the whole body smeared with ashes, mats of dreadlocks on top of their heads and a shiva's trident on their hands, some had monkeys as pets, some were so skinny that I looked fat in comparison, others were all the time reciting a mantra out loud or bowing to the ground and holding a real skull as an eating bowl... I couldn't take a picture bc i thought it was inappropriate but it was perhaps the most surreal scenario I have ever been in my life.
I thought to myself: "this is getting better" ... suddenly I felt some warm drops falling in my head and bowl... of course, a monkey was peeing on me! ... Some sadhus were laughing while others started to throw stones to the monkey... I couldn't believe it...
Breath in, breath out... have fun... wash your bowl and eat!
To be frank, I felt a bit intimidated and also a little skeptic about the hygienic conditions of the place but I was hungry and in a space like that where you are surrounded by such pirate-like figures (literally) and where wasting food is traditionally seen as adharma you better put away your notions about purity and impurity and... EAT the whole damn thing!!! ... after all is prasad and in some way or the other I chose to be there. I guess :)
I brought to rememberance the following Zen story and it helped me a great deal:
THE MASTER FUGAI WAS CONSIDERED VERY WISE AND GENEROUS, YET
HE WAS MOST SEVERE BOTH WITH HIMSELF AND HIS DISCIPLES.
HE WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO SIT IN ZEN. HE LIVED IN A CAVE, AND
WHEN HE WAS HUNGRY HE WENT TO THE VILLAGE FOR SCRAPS.
ONE DAY A MONK CALLED BUNDO, ATTRACTED BY FUGAI'S AUSTERITIES,
CALLED AT THE CAVE AND ASKED TO STAY THE NIGHT.
THE MASTER SEEMED HAPPY TO PUT HIM UP, AND NEXT MORNING
PREPARED RICE GRUEL FOR HIM. NOT HAVING AN EXTRA BOWL HE WENT
OUT AND RETURNED WITH A SKULL HE FOUND LYING NEAR A TOMB. HE
FILLED IT WITH GRUEL AND OF OFFERED IT TO BUNDO.
THE GUEST REFUSED TO TOUCH IT, AND STARED AT FUGAI AS IF HE HAD
GONE MAD.
AT THIS FUGAI BECAME FURIOUS AND DROVE HIM OUT OF THE CAVE
WITH BLOWS. 'FOOL!' HE SHOUTED AFTER HIM.'HOW CAN YOU, WITH
YOUR WORLDLY NOTIONS OF FILTH AND PURITY, THINK YOURSELF A
BUDDHIST?'
SOME MONTHS LATER THE MASTER TETSGYU VISITED HIM AND TOLD HIM
THAT HE THOUGHT IT A GREAT PITY THAT HE HAD FORSAKEN THE
WORLD. FUGAI LAUGHED LOUDLY AND SAID:'OH, IT'S EASY ENOUGH TO
FORSAKE THE WORLD AND BECOME A BONZAI, THE DIFFICULT THING IS
THEN TO BECOME A TRUE BUDDHIST.'
I stood in gratitude for a while, washed my hands and bowl and continued... I usually dont engage in conversations with sadhus mainly for 2 reasons: Most of them dont speak english, and usually after a brief "interaction" they end up asking for money... sad but true.
The good thing about sadhus here is that when you find a real one, he can be so authentic, so humble, so loving, so wisdom-filled that it can be quite difficult to depart from his presence... This was the case with Swami Janardhan Das, a.k.a Chouhaun Baba.
After taking prasad and resting a bit I continued my journey, passed trough the famous ISKCON temple, made my flower offerings to Radha and Krishna and went my way... further on I found one of those water pumps on the road, so i decided to take a bath... It was already getting dark but i had recovered some strength from eating and taking shower , so I was "ok"... Still looking for a place where to spend the night...
I was sitting silently in front of a fruit stand with bowl in hand, a gentleman looked at me with a shy glance and threw a rupee in the bowl...he didn't spoke English so with hand gestures I managed to let him know that I didn't want money but a banana, somehow he understood so he switched the coin for the fruit... When I was peeling the banana, I saw right in front of me a slim figure with a long beard in a hut at about 50 mtrs distance... I felt a magnetic charm right away but at the same time I had the thought: "Is just one more saddhu" So I held back for a while with the debate in my mind... should I go?... should I stay?. The call was stronger than the mind so I ended up going... approached him in anjali mudra, touched his feet (as it is the tradition when you meet a swami)... He took my hands and said: "It is not necessary my son, guru and disciple are one" ... No doubt this was a real one, and indeed! I don't want to make the story long but he truly embraced me as his son and we spent the most glorious 3 days together... To my surprise he spoke english and sanskrit fluently. He told me that before adopting the life of a sadhu he was an advocate... When I asked him the reason of why he took this way of life, he said: "There is no answer for that" ... I replied: "That indeed, is the best answer".
So he let me stay with him, he gave me his string bed and told me that if it was too hot I could sleep outside under the neem tree... He's touching the 80's yet he was so humble. When we first met he said: "I am a poor sadhu, nevertheless you are now my guest and it is my responsibility to provide you with everything", so every morning he used to go to the temple and bring prasad for me and in the afternoons he used to invite me to drink chai and cookies. Whenever I would try to help him with something he would say "no, no, no, please rest and read" ... sometimes he would allow me to bring water with a bucket but apart from that he wouldn't allow me to help him much...
I remembered the last day with him, I was sitting under the shadow of the neem tree, took a little booklet on Buddhism that I had and opened it randomly... This were the words I found from the Noble One:
"Patient endurance is the supreme austerity."
Dhammapada 184
I closed my eyes in deep gratitude and smiled within... it was the perfect medicine. Needed not to read anything further, I went to pay respect to the elder and say goodbye... he asked me to give him a pen and a piece of paper... This he wrote in hindi, which he later translated into english:
"Jinako kacchu na chakiye ve shahan keshah"
"He who wants nothing from this world is surely a king of kings"
Goosebumps arouse in my skin... I embraced him and depart... he faintly smiled.
Perhaps I wont see him again, and that's ok for me.... yes, that's ok for me.
But what could I do? the other option was to stay in the station for one more day, and for me that was not a possibility, so I went for it ... I spread the other piece of lungi I had on the floor, took my saddlebag as pillow and tried to catch some sleep, which, for many reasons it became an impossible mission.
First of all theres a constant flow of people going out and coming in from the train, and if you dont move they'll just step on you... secondly, some trendy-partying indian boys that stepped on the train a little further started to ask me all sort of foolish questions... like: are you virgin? what do you do for a living? do you like women? etc etc ...they were a bit drunk so I didn't mind them to have some fun with me... And last but not least, the smell of human urine and fecal matter was so penetrating that I couldn't get rid of a nauseous sensation during the whole journey.
I hadn't sleep for hrs... I was all sweaty and dirty... and clearly enough, I was losing my patience... I remembered that my ex always used to say to me that I loose patience very easily when I can't hold a sleep, and just to recognize that it was true made more desperate...
Finally I reached Mathura... the sun was blazing as usual and I didnt had an idea of where to go... I had a couple of directions from temples, but to be honest I was a bit tired of them...
The words of the song "coconut flakes" by love as laughter were buzzing in my ears, so did moquitoes... the only difference from the song was that I didn't had nothing to get stoned with! but even if I would, the smiley-faced fool motion was not for me... specially not in such conditions. The fact that I was mercilessly smashing the mosquitoes against my skin (which is not one of my common practices) was a clear sign that all ahimsa and tolerance was gone by then... or at least most of it!
It was time to make a stop and observe the thoughts... at least thats what I do whenever I feel like I'm stepping out of my joyous child-like nature and start to behave as a grumpy old man... usually I find an intruder (thought) trying to drown me in a glass of water...creating suffering out of a circumstance... common! is just a circumstance... and as such is bound to pass away... if the mind doesn't label it, is just what it is... acceptance.... acceptance....acceptance. It is good to recollect yourself... develop the ability to rescue the unseen jokes that fills the air with laugh and... keep walking... Otherwise the illusion of suffering can easily possess your mind and suddenly you find yourself again in a self-created hell where you feel theres no way out... in other words; Maya embraces you very dearly.
I took a tuk tuk to Vrindavan for 20 rs (150 colones), and wandered there for a while... The good thing about being in a place where you have never been before is that it allows you more easily to stand in awe and in such a state of presence you are no longer focusing on the inconveniences that are seemingly contained in the circumstances.
Once a while I hear a voice trying to convince me to live the life of a regular tourist in india... after all I have some rupees in my pocket, not much, but india is ridiculously cheap and i could afford to stay in a decent guesthouse, eat "better" food and pay for "better" transportation.... nevertheless there is a stronger voice that knows very well the reason why I don't buy into such a style unless is extremely necessary... And this was a strong determination (adhitthana).
At this point I just wanted to reach a place where I could take a bath, a meal and hold some sleep...for some miles the whole place looked kinda desolated or perhaps I was already hallucinating... I kept walking and behold! a sadhu was waving his hand from a distance inviting me to enter a place, I wasn't in the mood to have any particular interaction but he was very enthusiastic so I followed. Suddenly I found my self in a big camp yard where at least a hundred sadhus and sadhinis were seated forming a line in the ground... I immediately understood that they were waiting for prasad and I was indeed pretty hungry, so I took my bowl out and sat along the line underneath a beautiful cashew tree... I felt like in a dream, some were only with a kaupinam (loin cloth), the whole body smeared with ashes, mats of dreadlocks on top of their heads and a shiva's trident on their hands, some had monkeys as pets, some were so skinny that I looked fat in comparison, others were all the time reciting a mantra out loud or bowing to the ground and holding a real skull as an eating bowl... I couldn't take a picture bc i thought it was inappropriate but it was perhaps the most surreal scenario I have ever been in my life.
I thought to myself: "this is getting better" ... suddenly I felt some warm drops falling in my head and bowl... of course, a monkey was peeing on me! ... Some sadhus were laughing while others started to throw stones to the monkey... I couldn't believe it...
Breath in, breath out... have fun... wash your bowl and eat!
To be frank, I felt a bit intimidated and also a little skeptic about the hygienic conditions of the place but I was hungry and in a space like that where you are surrounded by such pirate-like figures (literally) and where wasting food is traditionally seen as adharma you better put away your notions about purity and impurity and... EAT the whole damn thing!!! ... after all is prasad and in some way or the other I chose to be there. I guess :)
I brought to rememberance the following Zen story and it helped me a great deal:
THE MASTER FUGAI WAS CONSIDERED VERY WISE AND GENEROUS, YET
HE WAS MOST SEVERE BOTH WITH HIMSELF AND HIS DISCIPLES.
HE WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO SIT IN ZEN. HE LIVED IN A CAVE, AND
WHEN HE WAS HUNGRY HE WENT TO THE VILLAGE FOR SCRAPS.
ONE DAY A MONK CALLED BUNDO, ATTRACTED BY FUGAI'S AUSTERITIES,
CALLED AT THE CAVE AND ASKED TO STAY THE NIGHT.
THE MASTER SEEMED HAPPY TO PUT HIM UP, AND NEXT MORNING
PREPARED RICE GRUEL FOR HIM. NOT HAVING AN EXTRA BOWL HE WENT
OUT AND RETURNED WITH A SKULL HE FOUND LYING NEAR A TOMB. HE
FILLED IT WITH GRUEL AND OF OFFERED IT TO BUNDO.
THE GUEST REFUSED TO TOUCH IT, AND STARED AT FUGAI AS IF HE HAD
GONE MAD.
AT THIS FUGAI BECAME FURIOUS AND DROVE HIM OUT OF THE CAVE
WITH BLOWS. 'FOOL!' HE SHOUTED AFTER HIM.'HOW CAN YOU, WITH
YOUR WORLDLY NOTIONS OF FILTH AND PURITY, THINK YOURSELF A
BUDDHIST?'
SOME MONTHS LATER THE MASTER TETSGYU VISITED HIM AND TOLD HIM
THAT HE THOUGHT IT A GREAT PITY THAT HE HAD FORSAKEN THE
WORLD. FUGAI LAUGHED LOUDLY AND SAID:'OH, IT'S EASY ENOUGH TO
FORSAKE THE WORLD AND BECOME A BONZAI, THE DIFFICULT THING IS
THEN TO BECOME A TRUE BUDDHIST.'
I stood in gratitude for a while, washed my hands and bowl and continued... I usually dont engage in conversations with sadhus mainly for 2 reasons: Most of them dont speak english, and usually after a brief "interaction" they end up asking for money... sad but true.
The good thing about sadhus here is that when you find a real one, he can be so authentic, so humble, so loving, so wisdom-filled that it can be quite difficult to depart from his presence... This was the case with Swami Janardhan Das, a.k.a Chouhaun Baba.
After taking prasad and resting a bit I continued my journey, passed trough the famous ISKCON temple, made my flower offerings to Radha and Krishna and went my way... further on I found one of those water pumps on the road, so i decided to take a bath... It was already getting dark but i had recovered some strength from eating and taking shower , so I was "ok"... Still looking for a place where to spend the night...
I was sitting silently in front of a fruit stand with bowl in hand, a gentleman looked at me with a shy glance and threw a rupee in the bowl...he didn't spoke English so with hand gestures I managed to let him know that I didn't want money but a banana, somehow he understood so he switched the coin for the fruit... When I was peeling the banana, I saw right in front of me a slim figure with a long beard in a hut at about 50 mtrs distance... I felt a magnetic charm right away but at the same time I had the thought: "Is just one more saddhu" So I held back for a while with the debate in my mind... should I go?... should I stay?. The call was stronger than the mind so I ended up going... approached him in anjali mudra, touched his feet (as it is the tradition when you meet a swami)... He took my hands and said: "It is not necessary my son, guru and disciple are one" ... No doubt this was a real one, and indeed! I don't want to make the story long but he truly embraced me as his son and we spent the most glorious 3 days together... To my surprise he spoke english and sanskrit fluently. He told me that before adopting the life of a sadhu he was an advocate... When I asked him the reason of why he took this way of life, he said: "There is no answer for that" ... I replied: "That indeed, is the best answer".
So he let me stay with him, he gave me his string bed and told me that if it was too hot I could sleep outside under the neem tree... He's touching the 80's yet he was so humble. When we first met he said: "I am a poor sadhu, nevertheless you are now my guest and it is my responsibility to provide you with everything", so every morning he used to go to the temple and bring prasad for me and in the afternoons he used to invite me to drink chai and cookies. Whenever I would try to help him with something he would say "no, no, no, please rest and read" ... sometimes he would allow me to bring water with a bucket but apart from that he wouldn't allow me to help him much...
I remembered the last day with him, I was sitting under the shadow of the neem tree, took a little booklet on Buddhism that I had and opened it randomly... This were the words I found from the Noble One:
"Patient endurance is the supreme austerity."
Dhammapada 184
I closed my eyes in deep gratitude and smiled within... it was the perfect medicine. Needed not to read anything further, I went to pay respect to the elder and say goodbye... he asked me to give him a pen and a piece of paper... This he wrote in hindi, which he later translated into english:
"Jinako kacchu na chakiye ve shahan keshah"
"He who wants nothing from this world is surely a king of kings"
Goosebumps arouse in my skin... I embraced him and depart... he faintly smiled.
Perhaps I wont see him again, and that's ok for me.... yes, that's ok for me.
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