Chap 11 contd.

Kanod

As we bumped along the gravel road in a dilapidated bus towards Kanod we were caught in a torrential downpour typical of the monsoon season. The skies opened up and soon we were crossing numerous streams that had sprung up instantaneously. At the approach to the village, the bus had to stop some two hundred yards short of its normal turning point just outside Kanod. A stream of some two to three feet in depth was rushing past, in what was normally a dry gully, and now formed a twenty-foot wide watery obstacle. Everyone got off the bus and merrily formed a human chain across the turgid waters, and I was helped over the flood this way to the crowd of villagers waiting on the other side.

It turned out that I had a large welcoming party waiting to receive, and garland me. Also present was a rather damp and bedraggled local band, of the village that was mostly used for wedding processions. I was ceremoniously paraded into the village to my temporary quarters. Just above the stream of water, on the village side, was a fifty foot bank and perched above it were the temple and the “house” I would be staying in.

Several people were working there in the rain at that very moment, putting in a cement floor and generally making the place habitable for me. For the present time I was to have a room in the village hall, and there I was to spend the next week nursing a heavy cold, while the skies poured torrents outside.

Kanod was in many respects a fairly primitive backwater, but there were friendly people keen to see that I became established at the little kutir*

* Kutir – hut like dwelling, of a sadhu.

To cook on I had one slow burning primus stove. Later I built a rough outdoor fireplace where I could cook rotis and chapattis over a wood fire and thus get the best flavor in my bread. Also I had a bed, mattress and mosquito net, although I found the area agreeably free of annoying insects.

Arrangements had been made for someone to come every morning to fetch pots of water from the nearest well some two hundred yards away down the hill, in order to give me sufficient for bathing, washing and cooking. For the equivalent of little more than a pound a month, a village girl would bring several head carried pots of water daily, as well as sweep inside and outside, and clean any dirty pots and pans. I was quite prepared to look after all my own needs, but one of the rules there was that women collect the water and do the cleaning. In my case, the village folk would have been embarrassed to see me carry my own water, and I was virtually forbidden to do so. Besides I would be taking away a job from the poorer village girls, who did a lot of housework for the wealthier households. Even an average household in India then, although incredibly poor by Western standards, could employ even poorer castes to do the cleaning, laundry and menial tasks. The richer families employ cooks, chauffeurs, night watchmen and so forth, although not usually on the scale of the British in the days of the Raj.

sy role even as a poor sadhu was definitely “upper caste” as far as the village rules and rituals were concerned and any deviation on my part would have caused offense or embarrassment. I found that even with my small “income” of donated money, I was able regularly to employ some of the village urchins for help with my garden projects. Sometimes I would employ two boys all day, when they were not at school. I paid the standard rate for adult laborers at two rupees per eight-hour day. It was half a rupee more than the child’s or woman’s rate. At that time there were twenty rupees to the British pound:

For many poor farmers in such villages as Kanod, supplementary paid laboring work is vital for their existence in the pre monsoon summer period. This covers the inevitable gap when their previous crop runs low or runs out altogether. Quite often I would find any work for the village boys to do in my garden, as I knew that just one rupee would buy a kilo of flour to feed their family that day. I was limited in the amount of work I could offer by my money supply, but when I received a, larger sum I employed adults to do larger scale jobs like building proper steps up to the temple.

Besides my room space, I had an outdoor verandah on one side, a tiny temple to look after, and an acre of land, including shady, bitter leaved medicinal neem trees. My plan was to develop the land into a garden with both shaded and flowery leisure areas and also to grow fruit trees and vegetables. Any villager could come and sit, away from the sparse, dry landscape, which was devoid of any eye pleasing shrubbery, due to the absence of irrigation and regular rain. Many village areas in India are sparse in terms of amenities such as gardens or parks, because in poorly watered places the population spends a11 their lives trying to survive by growing enough food in the monsoon and winter seasons. Villages with no irrigation can be very drab and dusty places for nine months of the year. If, however, there is any spare cash in the village, it may go towards building a temple or a communal garden space just in order to provide a little color or give a shady recreational area.

I wished to make my little ashram into a well-watered haven for trees, shrubs and flowers, for all to enjoy. The trouble lay in getting water:-up to my area of land. I had to wait for two years until enough funds were collected to build a new well and to organize electricity and a pump. A lot of effort in the fund–raising for this enterprise was put in by one person, the village head man and doctor, who had been so instrumental initially in getting me to stay at Kanod. For two successive rainy seasons I planted a grove of trees only to see most of them wither away and die later due to the paucity of ground water from those two poor monsoons.

Many trees are planted each year in India by the forestry commissions, but if there is a poor monsoon, then a lot of their effort is wiped out. I got saplings free and often delivered, from local forestry offices, and tried hard to encourage tree planting all around the village by my own example. However, after a lot of work by my helpers, and me the results were saddening. Not a few saplings that survived the hot summer, succumbed to the ravages of hungry and persistent cows and goats in spite of thorn barriers.

I began to see why villagers did not bother too much with planting flowers or trees in their locality. It was too difficult to keep them protected, or the rainy seasons was too sparse, or too much rain fell and flooded or washed everything away. Outside the monsoon season, the sun was merciless for the rest of the year, especially in the furnace like, shimmering heat of summer days. Even winter days were hot when the sun was up and sunbathing was unwise.

During the two thirds of the year that I was at home in Kanod, I spent much of my day time in a state of inactivity, coming to life only in the cool of the mornings and evenings. The tin roof of my home produced unbearable heat during the hot days, so I had constructed a tile roofed open verandah with a raised platform on the side that faced the slight breezes.

There I often sat and passed my time in a deck chair. Days, weeks, and months rushed by without really registering themselves. I had no need to clock anything or to regard time as having any influence on me. Christmas and birthdays did not exist for me, and only the big Hindu festivities brought some change into my routine. I was not bothered sitting in my deck chair or cross legged on a rug, about what was happening in the world or how my own life was passing by rapidly. I read no newspapers, I had no radio, or even time piece, and I was not interested in village gossip. I was quite content for long periods to let my Prarabdha take its course.

Prarabdha is a Sanskrit term frequently seen in Vedantic texts. It means literally “the fruits of previous actions”. A sannyasin is not supposed to do any activity (karma), which would create fresh Prarabdha to be experienced in the next or after life. The ultimate (and proper) state for such a person is to let the fruits or consequences of previous actions, (in this or earlier lives), spend themselves naturally with the passage of time. According to Vedantic theory, Moksha or liberation from the cycle of birth and re-birth is obtained in this manner, i.e. when all Prarabdha is exhausted. Prarabdha is thus the passing of time and events that occur quite spontaneously without push or interference. To passively enjoy or suffer ones Prarabdha might seem to be an extremely negative attitude to life in terms of Western ideals and culture. In the West, the more one does or achieves (especially materially) the more one is honored or respected. In Hindu philosophy the reverse can be true (In real life this can be sometimes true). In India the person who renounces worldly striving and accomplishments is often revered by many as a holy sage, a guru, and an altogether superior type of person.

Today in the West I believe that there is a somewhat undiscovered inclination towards the ideals of Vedantic philosophy, which promotes esoteric goals. Firstly many unemployed people, often by no choice of their own, have to come to terms with the prospect of time to spare, stretching out into the future. Secondly, people who have by self-effort obtained a large amount of leisure time for their own use, are growing in numbers. The leisure orientated lifestyle is becoming a fact of western life as further automation and affluence change roles and attitudes. At the moment, most people gear their leisure time to some form of physical activity where possible. However, the advancing increase of non-working hours could create more and more space for introspection and reflective mental activity.

My stay at Kanod was marked and dominated by the vast amount of “leisure space” that I had purely to myself. As there were not many diversions to keep me busy, I found that I could sit down to think about a subject, and continue my introspection in one direction for weeks on end. I did not become bored because I found even the most silent passage of time to be full of fascination. The day-to-day growth of a flower, or the scampering of a squirrel could hold my attention indefinitely. I sometimes thought that it would be interesting to be back in England, to use libraries, watch television and be “entertained” in numerous ways. When I did eventually return to England, I found that I quickly tired of the seemingly endless facilities for the occupation of leisure time. Much as children do with mud, sticks and stones, I gained more pleasure when I could occupy myself with the trivial but natural phenomena around me.

What was my mental level at that stage? Had I attained a state of self – knowledge and thus achieved Moksha? Furthermore, after all those years in India, had I found my own true religion and philosophy’: If I had, did my beliefs prove to be lasting?

I developed a clearly defined philosophic outlook on life, which was not to change with the passage of time. I gained a deep mental satisfaction from my knowledge of Vedanta, and I find to this day that it guides me towards a calmness and equipoise, which alleviate the ups and downs of everyday life. My practice of yoga brought me to a stage where I had, if I wished, a strong degree of control over my life. For me, the sense of control over circumstances was, and is, mellowed by my acceptance by the doctrines of karma and Prarabdha, (which means some surrender to the inevitability of fate).

My resignation to the whim of destiny did at times seem to make me a pessimist. However in the longer term I gained optimism and a belief that life’s events are enacted by an ordained force, which works for our ultimate benefit.

From this point of view the opposites of pain and pleasure, gain and loss, become equally acceptable. I had discovered that Mukti or Moksha is not a trance like state but simply the ability to accept the world as it is, and ourselves as we are. This does not preclude room for change, or personal endeavor, providing, that is, that one is able to be unaffected by success or failure. Also, that any objective or goal is itself not the only end. The journey, the effort, is also a goal. In terms of self-realization, what we seek to be or achieve is already within, already available.

The Self within, the Atman of the Vedanta, is so near and yet so hard to appreciate. All the Indian yogis and Gurus that I most respect, recommend the seeker to ash the Question, “Who am I?”, and also to seek the guru within as well as without. Vedantic teachers say that when we ask ourselves, “Who am I?” we are trying to find out what the true nature of the “I” is. Not the mind, not the body, but an unchanging entity that remains constant in our waking, dream and sleep states. An entity, which remains constant through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. It is the Self within, the Atman, which is the same “substance” as Brahman, the Cosmic Self.

*Brahman – a Sanskrit word for the impersonal “God”. To be distinguished from Brahma, the Progenitor (one of the Vedic gods), and from a Brahmin, the highest caste.

I cannot define precisely what my mental state was towards the end of my stay in India. This does not matter to me. I came to realize that the mind’s activities are transient and fickle, whilst the light of yogic awareness burns steadily behind the mental “screens”. Once having reached the transcendental inner light or awareness through our deepest subconscious, we can return to our chosen life and continue on our way bathed in a subtle serenity. My “quiet” years in an isolated Gujerati village gave me the time and space to consolidate and fortify an inner awareness.

During my stay at the small kutir in Kanod, I had few food supply problems. Often farmers would pass by my little temple after they had been out cutting by hand some crop or other. They would pop up and place a pile of wheat, rice, or pulse either in the temple or outside my door. This, plus regular donations of foodstuffs by other villagers and visitors, meant that I soon acquired stocks of grain. I had more than enough for myself and could feed any visiting sadhus or other guests. If I wished to cook, say, maize rotis, then I would fill a small tin box with maize grain and hand it, (with a small “tip”), to a village urchin for delivery to the local electric mill. In half an hour back would come the tin filled with freshly milled maize flour, warm and sweet smelling. Cooked over ‘a wood fire and eaten hot such rotis of fresh flour would make a tasty meal, even on their own.

A lot of the grain I used had been grown in fields fertilized by natural manure (as the farmers could afford no other). Such grain produced much sweeter and tastier flour than the artificially fertilized version. In today’s world of so -called “gourmet” foods, it is a pity that the real taste of naturally grown produce is experienced by few.

Almost daily during the cooler times of the day, I walked out into the surrounding area of field, scrub and gullies. uring the season when crops were ripening, I would often be invited into someone’s field to sample the produce. I had freshly picked corn on the cob roasted over twigs, or peanuts straight from the ground toasted in a similar fashion. Several farmers invited me to collect and pick green peas and pulses whenever needed for my pot. Vegetables were rarely grown by locals, even in the rainy season with the exception of chilies. Occasionally someone grew a few onions and perhaps potatoes or eggplants. Most villagers in this area, with the exception of the higher castes, rarely ate any vegetable dishes other than potatoes curried with fresh green or red chilies. In fact the average villager’s vitamin intake seemed to be derived purely from the large quantities of hot peppers consumed, often ground up as a chutney. Frequently this was the only accompaniment to a_. roti meal in a poor household, where dhal and other “necessities” were unaffordable luxuries on many days of the year.

I managed to grow a lot of vegetables in the rainy season, and planted peas, marrows and courgettes. In the summer I made use of lemons, which grew abundantly. Otherwise my vitamin intake was limited and irregular, especially as I could not eat chilies.

My body reacted to anything other than plain food, and in order to find out exactly how various foods affected me I experimented with a variety of diets. The diet that kept me in best health, I found, was a sparse regime of grains, pulses and vegetables – excluding salt, spices, sugar, tea, and all fatty products. I discovered that, perhaps due to the hot climate’s effect and my lazy lifestyle, I could not happily digest oily food or milk products. At one time, for a month or so, I tried a diet of only fresh, hot rotis – with absolutely no other intake except water. This very plain regime of bread and water solely, did me no harm at all, and I even enjoyed the experience. In fact, I found that by having no variety of taste in my food, I was able (after a while) to derive just as much overall taste satisfaction from plain bread as from a varied diet.

I did not fully know then why I was so sensitive to so many food items. My weight since my arrival in India had been a very low 130 lbs., in spite of trying at previous times to put on pounds with rich foods. Also, I always ate large quantities of carbohydrates even when I was on my simple diets. I feel that the large amounts of grain foods that I ate played a significant part in my skinniness, along with the debilitating effect of the intense heat. For slimmers I can recommend eating as much as you like providing you avoid sugar, processed white grain, and all products containing fat or oil. Whole wheat and non fat pulse proteins help to produce a digestive fire within the body, akin to fueling a fire wⁱth dry twigs. Thus the appetite and the digestive powers are increased and yet the body remains slim.

It is very difficult in India to avoid getting the occasional bout of a fairly serious illness. At Kanod I had a few alarming fevers. I hated taking antibiotics and during one bout of fever I became seriously ill and had an extremely high temperature. The village doctor persuaded me to take some Chloromycetin, and I duly recovered after a week or so. Afterwards I was told that probably I had suffered an attack of typhoid fever, and I could have died.

There are all sorts of illnesses and hazards to be found in India, all waiting to kill one off very quickly. My destiny, however, was to come through, at least that period in India, unscathed. Villagers succumbed to illnesses like tetanus, usually after cutting themselves with a farm implement and then not seeking medical help. Rabies was another hazard. The towns and villages were full of mangy stray dogs, which were a health risk apart from their bites. Bites from another common creature, the snake, were an ever-present risk for the worker cutting crops by hand, especially as the time spent getting to the nearest medical help often meant certain death. A Kanod man got bitten on the head whilst carrying a bale of freshly cut grass. The snake had slithered into the bale somehow and bit the farmer as he was carrying it in the normal Indian fashion. He survived due to the immediate medical attention, and serum, he received at the Kanod dispensary.

I saw snakes around Kanod from time to time and some of them were huge. I glimpsed one sliding through the center of a large bush. It was as thick as an arm and its body just kept sliding endlessly past. I never got to see its tail or head as I moved away pretty quickly. It was only on a few occasions that I saw any snakes around my kutir as I used to have a number of mongoose in nearby residence. I found a deadly poisonous snake in my room one day, but it left without much persuasion by prodding with a long stick. My main problem, especially in the monsoon season, was scorpions. They tended to scuttle around when the air was warm and humid, particularly at night. When I sat outside on such evenings or meditated in the dark, I always shone a torch around and looked carefully where I put my feet. Though not necessarily fatal, the scorpion sting gives a nasty jolt to the heart and produces much pain and swelling to follow. I once got stung on the finger by a baby one that was hidden in a, piece of moldy wood, which I had picked up for the fire. Its sting was like a large jolt of high voltage electricity shooting up my arm to my heart. Luckily little poison entered my finger, and I suffered briefly and mildly.

Scorpions carry their poisons in a little sac at the end of their tail. A needle like barb protrudes from the sac and is used for injecting the “victim”. If I found a scorpion in my room, I would pick it up by the tail with the long tongs that I used for handling embers of the fire. Some kids from the village used to dig out scorpions from their holes in earth banks, and catch them by the tail with something suitable. Then they would cut off the poisonous sac, tie a string to the tail, and parade their newfound “pets” around for a while until the novelty wore off.

I had a variety of animals dwelling in and around my acre plot. Squirrels nested between the walls and the roof of my kutir where there was quite a wide channel along the double thickness of the bricks. I could not see the channel but I could hear animals using it. Occasionally a baby squirrel would fall down from a hole in one corner into my room. The mother would then poke her head out and start squealing frantically while the baby stumbled around. The fall did not seem to do them any harm as even the smallest squirrel seems adept at landing upright and safe after a long drop. I used to grab the baby ones in a cloth and return them, squealing, to their home. I found out quite quickly that a thick cloth was necessary as even tiny squirrels have very sharp teeth. Rats were more unwelcome visitors and they also used the gap under the roof as a home at various times. They then scrambled down my walls at night to get at my food stores. I used to trap them and then release them a long way away in the fields. One other strange creature that took up residence was a giant armored lizard that looked like a small crocodile. I saw it once or twice in the evening on its way out to the fields. It was apparently a rare, shy creature that usually kept well away from human habitations. Less shy were the lizards that clung motionless to my inner wall during the day. They moved around at night and kept the place free of cockroaches. If they saw one they would pounce at great speed and gobble up their giant meal with a loud crunching noise.

I was able to spend many hours observing the animals and birds around me, and also watch my flowers, saplings and plants grow (or wither) day by day. Nowadays I do not always notice the flora and fauna around me. It was only when I had endless time to sit and watch that I was really aware of nature’s variety. In my home at Kanod the squirrels, the lizards, and even the rats were part of the animal family of my little temple area, and I was always aware of any changes in the wild life of my garden.

In the very hot weather of summer, I took to sleeping outside where a mild breeze made t^–he nights bearably cool. I had my bed above the ground of course, but I found that I slept very lightly, perhaps like an animal does, with some senses on guard. I felt that part of me was always awake, listening out for any untoward sounds. I can understand how an animal in the jungle feels, unable to relax like humans do in their secure houses. I was never too worried, however, about being on my own at night, in a corner of the fields without recourse to quick assistance in case of trouble. I had to accept and believe that the world around me was basically my nurturer and not my enemy.

This attitude I have found to be of immense benefit, not just in “wild” places, but also in everyday life. After all, the modern world is itself a dense jungle – which harbors its own multitude of deadly perils, as well as being the provider of innumerable benefits.

Goodbye India

After nearly three years at Kanod I began to think that perhaps I was destined to spend the rest of my life in India. I thought deeply about making an effort to establish some sort of ashram or haven out of my humble surroundings. I wanted more than the simplicity around me and I hankered after developing the place into something, that was, frankly, materialistic in many respects. It took me a while to arrive at the very obvious, logical conclusion that I was not really happy with my simple Indian life, because I still aspired to the “affluence” that I knew I could have in England. After a while, I began to recognize again that my destiny was not, perhaps, after all the sadhu life, either spent in my little kutir or in wandering around India.

However I was traveling a lot to near and distant villages or towns to which I had been invited by a variety of “devotees”. I gave a few talks or lectures here and there, and was starting to be the guru of a number of families spread over a wide area of Gujerat. I knew that if I was patient and built up my following over say ten ,years, then I could develop my base into an ashram that resembled something like that of my ambitions. However, quite suddenly the whole idea of staying in India started to seem rather strange and unnatural for me.

In a most intriguing way I began to dream and think of England and. English things regularly. This was the re awakening, of an area of my mind that had seemed extinct. I started to think in English again, rather than in Hindi or the Gujerati in which I was becoming proficient. I began to appreciate speaking English when I met those who spoke it well, and started to seek out news of world events, and to read books on non-religious subjects. I began even to think of my parents for the first time in eight or nine years. I had a peculiar feeling as if a veil had suddenly been lifted, allowing my previous identity as Raymond to intermingle with my Indian role as Ganesh Giri. I sensed that my life in India was reaching the point of maturity, and that I could achieve no more in my endeavors to fathom the depths of Hinduism and yogic lore. I did not feel that I had achieved the perfection of my sadhu lifestyle, but then I no longer needed such a goal. Something was pulling me in a radical new direction, not for the first time in my life.