Secret channels of spiritual telepathy

 Mount Kailasa depicting the sacred family.

The Gods are clever; they gave us a mind to think and also gave it the nature to wander. We are small minor spiritual centers that dot the earth, each center housed in the mind, have a task to do. The purpose is simple; it is to log on to the mother ship of spiritual thought and meet the celestials in other worlds. This is easier said than done for the mind generates thought, but while it meanders through it, it gives little consideration to the quality of the thought it nurtured on the way. We live in a mental swamp, a place that we call home and feel familiar about but scarcely do we realize this stinks of rotting thoughts that need to be disposed.

So here is a swamp inside the mind, being constantly fed by the muck of every one's swamp outside, so much so that we tune ourselves to get used to everyone's swamp being important enough to be a part of our own. Yes, in our journey to meet the celestials on the other side, we are looking for a couple of gems within the swamps that surround us but there is hardly any luck in finding it. Given the miserable helpless lives we lead, a few great beings who once dotted our earth decided to give us a set of rules, as defined by a school of thought. They gave the Gods a form, they gave them character that we would understand, they gave them names, they gave them sacred syllables and they assigned all of them a mystic path, that we could latch on to in order to reach them in the other world.

Here is where the whole cosmos seems to have played the game in sync with these great masters. They just didn’t give rules and tell us to follow it. They derived an ingenious method to bring in intrigue and mystery into this search leaving us ever wanting more with no apparent luck to getting it. Our journey into this mysticism gets thicker as we realize that the realm we apparently deal with is something quite beyond the swamp. As we spend more time and energy with it in what is termed as ritual, this process starts to clean up the thoughts we have and slowly the swamp within begins to flower. The experience of this change, the color and fragrance within, the freshness and newness of these thoughts lead us away from the swamp we belong to while physically we still exist in it.

The more the cleaning of these thoughts, the greater is the inner resistance to let the outside swamp bother us so much so that we start living within this beautiful garden inside and scarcely look at the swamp outside, it is as good as non existent from here on. But is that all?

Not really. This inner garden has the tendency to log onto the bigger paradise in the other realm. This garden now starts to have the nature of being a drop of paradise and as it transforms itself, it urges us to start the outside journey to visit the sacred earth that once held the power centers as part of them. What we apparently assume is a temple hosting the idol of the Gods with the walls defining their character; we scarcely realize that deep down within its core is a circuit that connects directly to the Gods, giving us mysterious access to one of the doors of this invisible mother ship. These are sacred mandalas or yantras that are housed with great reverence within the temples and are constantly fed everyday with living worship to ensure the doors remain open permanently to all who seek. The other way of accessing these spiritual doors is to house the yantra itself within one's own home, but that comes with a set of rules. To keep to door open, and to feed the yantra we need to be spiritually clean and the mental swamp has to try hard enough to clean itself up through a disciplined approach which has also been defined.

And so life moves on, giving us living moments to ensure we evolve ourselves and transform our swamps into paradise. Finally we reach the sacred power centers that call out the rules really loud. These are zones that we don’t get to visit often, they are almost inaccessible and have the nature to resist the swamp from a long mile. They are the actual mother ship, the axis mundi, the host spiritual power center and the home of million celestials. We are blessed to even get the opportunity to access these zones and our time is short. Access is limited to these zones based on how unclean our swamp is. The rules are so potent here and the experiences so intense that should a person have no swamp at all, they can simply fly to the mother ship discarding the body that housed the mental swamp. Others simply see and experience the realm of the mother ship, feeling the tingle of spiritual bliss as they view the grandeur of the mother ship for the first time with their naked eye.

How would this metaphor translate to real life?

Should we be blessed with purity that we worked hard for to clean up our own mental swamp, and managed to be blessed to visit the shores of the ocean of beauty, the Manasarovar, we would have the joy of viewing the crystal moon, this pure white dome of snow, this huge peak draped in white, the great abode of Kailasa.

Kailasa is one such zone, the others being Mount Meru, Mount Mandara and the like. These are spiritually clean places, hardly allowing us to inhabit the earth around their zones, and hence they exist in bleak regions. They are extremely sacred power centers, rich with life in other realms. They are the homes of the celestials who live in the space, in the air, in the realm of the atmosphere around them. Lesser celestials live closer to the earth and greater beings live higher and deeper within these zones. What is invisible to our swamp is the richness and the purity of the earth, water, air and wind around here. This is an overwhelming experience because the purity outside has a very strong impact on the swamp inside which undergoes a sudden urge to transform into a garden leaving us emotionally very intense resulting in tears on the exterior. The need to want to stay, the urge to remain and the weakness of attachment to the swamp makes us retreat to our marshland.   

Back home in the stench of swamps, we have managed to grow a pretty garden inside the mind. We have connected with the Gods, and touched the sacred door to paradise. Our mind has made a connection it cannot forget, though we are incapable of expressing it. We only feel the beauty of that paradise, we experience the sublime feeling of freedom to disconnect from the swamp, we know there is a path and we want to take it. This garden is now beginning to flower and mystical path is now open and is speaking to us. We have opened the channel to the celestials, to the Gods and if we are persistent, they will visit us. And when they do, we speak a language they understand, a set of syllables strung together, a particular set of sounds when woven in line will produce music to their ears and make them appear to us. What a beautiful world, what an ingenious technique to make the mysterious super world a part of ourselves and transform this swamp into a path leading up to the mother ship of the super gods.

Photo courtesy: Wikipedia: Axis Mundi

The miracle at Manimahesh peak, Chamba

In Rabbinical literature from the scene of the Law-giving, there are different names that have been attributed to the Mountain of Horeb, the sacred peak under whose shadow Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Etymologically speaking, the name Horeb is thought to mean Glowing Heat which could reference the Sun. The alternative name given to this peak is Sinai, a name derived from Sin, alias the Moon God who is a Sumerian deity. Among other names, are the Mountain of Elohim and Mountain of Yhwh, but the peak finally settled with the name of the Mountain of Horeb while the land around it is called Sinai, and in Hebrew literature, this is referenced as a desert. 

Let’s go back to the moment, when the Lord appeared in front of Moses in the form of a burning bush and gave him the Ten Commandments of good living. Moses saw this bright fire while he was tending his sheep. Working back on what this vision would have been, Moses would have seen an extremely bright light on the peak of the Mountain of Horeb, a blinding light that glowed on him as the sacred rules came forth. What a miraculous moment in time it was, experienced by Moses and recorded for posterity. Further in this story as referenced in the bible, the Israelites came to camp at Rephidim after the Exodus from Egypt. Moses watched his people suffer from thirst and by the Grace of God and His command, he smote water from a rock on Horeb, and there is believed to be this rising oasis of water in this bleak region that surrounds the Sacred Mountain. 

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Lost in deep mountains of the Himalayas, in the steep undulating landscape of Himachal Pradesh near the village of Bharmour, Chamba district is a mountain of equally great value. Proclaimed to be a replica of the great mountain of Kailash, this peak rises up into the landscape delivering a majestic view of itself. Gigantic in form that almost reduces us to mere ants in its monumental presence, this peak rises up into the sky draped in the white robes of the glacier that covers it. And right there, at its foot is the Shiv Kund, the natural lake that mimics the Mansarovar at the foot of Kailash Parvat.

The vision of this peak and the landscape around it as well as the value of sacred lore that covers it make this experience a lot more worth while. Apart from the treacherous trek of 13 kms up-slope following narrow paths along these steep slopes, the view of this Mountain is what we received when we finally reach the foot of Manimahesh Mountain, and this is a divine treat for all the hard work.   
 

The Lord's grace works in strange ways. While Moses had the opportunity to see the Grace of the Lord in what is referenced as a burning bush of fire, this piece of paradise in Chamba promises similar grandeur. The serenity of this location, in poetic terms is known to showcase the many aspects of Lord Shiva. In the backdrop of the blue sky, dotted with clouds that seem like celestial beings floating and gracefully dancing around, this peak mirrors itself in the reflection visible in the sacred Kund that stand directly below it. What a presence it has and what a view it is for us to imbibe.

They say that when the sky is clear, on a starry night, the moonlight falls on the white glacier of this peak and the reflection of it in the Shiv Kund below appears like the very Lord Shiva is seated here, draped in light with the same crescent moon on his forehead, glowing as it were on the peak of Manimahesh mountain. The moon, as it adorns this peak, appears like a sparkling jewel, alias Mani, which glows in the night sky giving this mountain its name - Manimahesh.

But what happens the next morning is an even more breath taking view. Strange at it is, the direction for the view and the location of the mountain with the Shiv Kund at is feet, is a magical placement to bring us one of the most divine spectacles of life. People flock to Manimahesh to catch a glimpse of this miracle, which in my mind equals that of what Moses saw on the sacred mountain of Horeb.

During the months of August and September, people scale these great slopes of the Himalayan foothills to reach this mountain and be granted this view. The idea is to wake up early and catch the first glimpses of the sun as it rises. And then the divine world strikes its chord. In the early hours of the morning, as the sky begins to slowly brighten up, this great mountain stands in front, as a silhouette to the phenomenon that is about to unfold. The day brightens slowly, and as we face east to view this great wall of earth, the first glimpse of the Sun God we receive is from the pinnacle of this mountain. As time passes by, and the light glows into the horizon, the sun rises up in dazzling light, like a blazing diamond glowing in its supreme self at the peak of Manimahesh, blinding us and blessing us with this experience. At this moment, the Mani on Lord Shiva's head shines out far more in brilliance like a thousand suns glowing in the morning sky presenting us this absolutely spectacular view. 

This divine experience, this breathtaking view is one such example that showcases the miracles of the supreme in its own strange way, making us relive the presence of Lord Shiva during our earthly existence. This is reality in our terms and this divine experience is not hard to come by, it just needs to be discovered!

Photo courtesy:

http://traveltolight.com/

http://www.smmsisters.org

The experience of Shivahood, the state of real bliss.

The inner search for the Lord in the environs that we live in is practically impossible to keep the mind in focus towards a single goal, especially when it is not shared by anyone around us.

To work and make money is a goal we can all talk about, to buy real estate and get married are topics every one is interested in, but to talk about a spiritual goal hardly has any takers for a discussion. Yet it is a fight at some point in everyone's mind to want to know what spiritualism is.

What is illusion, inner soul and the beauty of enlightenment? What do we mean when we say these words, what are we meant to experience? Going to a temple in the city and having a glimpse of the Lord is not going to get us the answer. How do we even try to remotely get to this experience?

The only answer that hits my mind to get a glimpse of this supernatural effect is a visit to Tungnath or Mount Kailasa or some such remote place. I am sure that other places can, in some form render the same result, but a difficult trek to Tungnath or Kailasa are sure hits. Why? Because when the mind decides to do this journey it has agreed that its going to be physically challenging, it does not promise a darshan in winter and therefore time of the year matters and by the time we even get a glimpse of the destination, the mind and the body have had enough but the only energy that rules is the emotion to achieve the pilgrimage.

Let’s start from the beginning, gathering information on any of these two journeys defines that the weather may not support the trip and there is room for a flop. Just viewing pictures gives a rough indication that these treks are long and pains taking and there is hardly any help in the way. The altitude gives a feeling of distance from comfort that it results in mental detachment from all materialism, all emotion, and all attachment. The very fact that the mind decided to do this trek means that the emotions and the soul are ready to have a glimpse of this superior power.

At the foothills, before we begin the actual journey, the heart is overwhelmed that we made it this far, the mind is exhausted and can’t really entertain thoughts anymore. The difficulty now is the trek. Bleak regions, strong winds, bring the raw forces of nature close to us, so close that the familiarity of civilized life is a distant memory. Here there is only one thought - the discovery and the experience of the unknown. What stands in front of us is a snow capped mountain, cold, formidable, silent and powerful. And the only pool of resources we have is the fast diminishing reserves of energy within us. Food is brought down to the basic minimum and water may be hard to find and what’s more - money cant buy us anything here. Credit cards are a piece of junk here; because the rules that work here are very different. This is the first realization of detachment. This is also the first realization of freedom. 

As we take each step, the body begins to tire but the beauty of the region is a treat to the eye. The freedom to be in a land so bleak, the achievement to have fulfilled the wish to be here to imbibe the beauty of this land is a great feeling indeed. We can simply feel free to experience the power of this earth. How do we understand this power? Scaling these heights or even attempting to do the parikrama is a tedious effort of time, physical energy that is being squeezed out of every bone in the body to move the foot to the next step. All we have is the sheer will power to achieve this goal or overcome this challenge. We can look at it either way. Tungnath certainly doesn’t give the impression of easy enlightenment, its a difficult up slope trek that makes you, breaks you, exhausts you even before you made it to half the mark and we still do not have any sight of the temple. Kailasa parvat on the other side gives you a distant glimpse of its enormity and tells you to go home but doesn’t let you come any closer. In either case there is a realm of curiosity that is teased, the need to discover is prolonged and desire to break loose from the shackles of our existence and be one with the forces of nature can be reasonably enormous. Here too there is a strong echo of the dualism of life; this journey gives us the dual experience of frustration and spiritual bliss at the same time.

Approaching Tungnath on a winter morning

Do we ever get to feel this power? When we are exhausted and look up to the great temple or the mountain peak itself, the mind is blank and there is a sense of achievement to have reached or completed the trek. The minds eye now opens up to the forbidding reality in front of us. The world is at our feet, civilization is a distant reality and all that there is now is the Mountain and me. The first glimpse up close brings no thoughts to the mind, no words to the mouth, no fears to the heart and no pain to the body. The result of feeling this power is the feeling of being small and weep, weep like a baby full of emotion, and just pour out this overwhelming feeling into a pool of tears that are probably the most beautiful pearls of enlightenment we could generate selflessly. Just weeping into a pool of overwhelming love and emotions rolling out towards the power of the unknown is the most strangely blissful moment we can hold on to. If we felt this emotion at the moment of death, I guess we would be blessed with immortality.

The whole trek becomes a selfless journey of love, a churn of the mind and the body as it works its way up the spiritual grind of churning out the self from within. This emotion that floats to the surface of oneself is described very beautifully in a verse written by Thirumular.

Lord stands as Ghee in milk

He is Mukti, Jnana and Nada
That in the three branches of knowledge resound [poetry, music and dance]
Thus they praise the Lord
Through time unending;
As the ghee within milk
The pure one within them stands
That light they seek not and love not [2115]

Just as ghee belongs to the essence of milk, it floats on the surface of the milk untouched and unmoved. It is pure and concentrated and yet it doesn’t dissolve into the depths of the milk itself. Similarly the emotion of joy and supreme bliss that is felt on getting the closest view and discovering the Lord at these sacred shrines is an extraction from the process of churning the body, mind and emotions to reveal that we possess it. Once its out it floats of the surface of the milk of our existence, of our conscious self it is there to be experienced in all its purity and when it is experienced, what results is a tear of the overwhelming emotion of love.