The Sadhus - Peter Malakoff

THE SADHUS

I had procured my rickshaw in Hardwar, after asking all the various drivers there, ‘How much to drive to Rishikesh?’ He was not only the cheapest but he spoke good English and so I chose him. We settled at 400rupees.

When we got to the very edge of the town of Rishikesh, he stopped the car and said that he wanted more rupees to go further. It was a masterful ploy. After all, he did drive me to Rishikesh. He was making a bet- After all, I now had some kind of relationship with him. He knew I was a stranger, with my luggage, in the midst of all the honking horns and cows and carts and people and a terribly busy road, and so, he won

I agreed to the extra money, telling him that I did not like the way he did it, mainly to protect future travelers from this scam.

Personally, I found it amusing.

It was only 300rupees more to take me slightly on the other side Rishikesh, to where I told him I was going originally, that is less than $10USD,

but, I must admit,

I was still was kind of pissed at the way he did it and pissed at myself for not being more specific.

One of the things that the persistent scams and differences of the Indian culture have taught me, is to make very, very clear and specific exactly what it is you want and to specify what they are offering.

Still, even with all attempts at such clarity, it will be impossible to keep up with all the ploys and plays that will befall you,

but

nonetheless, this must be ones practice.

They say that Hardwar is where the Ganges comes down to the plains,

Hardwar

where the sacred river then flows east

over a thousand miles to the sea near Calcutta.

But, to me, it seems like Rishikesh is the place

where the Ganges really comes down to the plains,

flowing out of the steeply rising valleys of the Himalayas onto the flatlands.

As such, it is a transitional town,

a door between two strikingly different 'worlds' of India.

Rishikesh

The next day, I hired a driver to leave Rishikesh,

and head up the Ganges towards the Himalayas,

As we passed beyond Rishikesh,

the road, all of sudden, became dramatically uncrowded.

After a world of bumper-to-bumper,

loud, honking, hectic, ugly, dust and smoke filled,

crowded with people, taxis, businesses,

signboards and cows lining the roads,

when you drive up the Ganges out of Rishikesh

you pass into a quiet, silent, beautiful, ancient India,

the India I read about in the epics

such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.

Banks of the Ganges 15 miles above Rishikesh

This is the beginning of the Himalayan foothills

where Arjuna went during the thirteen-year exile of the Pandavas.

These are the mountains where Rama, Laksmana and Sita

passed through on their long exile as well.

Rishikesh is where the Rishis came

when they went to winter at the lower elevations

out of the Himalayan winter.

Here, they did not descend fully down onto the plains.

Rishikesh is that place,

where a sadhu once said to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,

pointing to a bend in the river below the cave where they sat,

“Beyond there we do not go. It is all mud”.

As you go up above Rishikesh,

You see what the ancients saw,

the peaks rising up all around you,

some of the hills shaped like Mt Kailashian Lingams

and always at their top a temple.

The beautiful ancient holy river flowing

between steep-sided huge hills in a vast valley.

The scale of things, the sheer size of these mere foothills,

cannot be explained, only experienced.

You hear what they heard, the sounds of the Ganges -

sometimes more quietly,

as the river seems glasslike in its downward slide,

sometimes in the excited rush of many falls,

as it passes quickly,

blushing in white waters and waves.

Above Rishikesh,

the Ganges appears without the pollution

that exhibits itself so terribly as you pass through the Indian cities

on the plains below.

(This so-called 'pollution' is simply not there to many Hindus,

imbued with vision born of the myths of their religion.

Almost everyone I spoke to

found the Ganges absolutely pure, everywhere it appeared.

So, let this last description be mine and mine alone).

This is a sacred river

and, to me, it also stands as a symbol of what has become of the sacred

through misuse and neglect.

(The Ganges at Benaras)

Above Rishikesh,

the Ganges flows and rushes and shines and delights.

When you are by the Ganges,

you feel cleansed and the mind becomes quieted with the rush of the waters

all conspiring to shanti, to peace.

I saw the forest with spiders larger than my hand hanging in the trees.

I saw the large tracks of tigers that had come down that night

to the very same beach

where I bathed in the morning

by a small Shiva Temple.

The groves of bamboo,

the freshets of small springs rushing toward the Ganges.

The tops of the high ridges outlined in trees.

I felt the evening fall and the chill, cold air ,

rush down the valley to the river

from the higher mountains above.

I understood how important it is to have a fire at night

or in the near freezing mornings.

I looked at where the tall trees rise up above the river

and the hills rise up steeply beyond them for a long time

and for a long, long ways beyond the trees. . . .

And, as I continued to look, here and there,

I could see the snow covered Himalayas,

the 'laya' or place of eternal snow-'Himal'.

Beyond that is only the sky.

As we drove further up the Ganges into the foothills of the Himalayas,

we came around a bend and passed a timeless tableau-

three nearly naked sadhus, sitting in the sun,

with a large red trisul, the three pointed spear sacred to Shiva,

planted next to them,

all of them bare-chested and barefoot.

I told the driver to stop and back up and he did so.

When we came back to where the sadhus were,

I got out and approached them.

I felt a mutual recognition between us

and I raised my camera in the gesture I use to inquire

'if it might be all right to take a picture?'

They shook their head affirmatively with a smile

and also waggled their heads back and forth

in the Indian style of saying 'everything is OK, yes and fine'

all together.

I expected that they would want some rupees,

as every sadhu I had met up till now had done,

but,

they asked for nothing.

It had been a cold night and they had spent it outside,

like all the nights they spent.

Now, the sun was bright and full where they were sitting

and I took care not to block that sun for an instant.

They were eating some rotis (Indian flatbread)

spread with green herbs and tomatoes.

I said ‘Namaste’.

They looked at me and smiled and said ‘Namaste’ back.

I asked them where they were going.

I enquired, "Dev Prayag?

(Dev Prayag, the divine confluence, where the Bhagirathi and the Alakananda Rivers meet to form the Ganges)

Uttar Prayag? Badrinath, Kedarnath?"

These were all pilgrimage sites, further up the Ganges,

up into the Himalayas.

They were tirthas (holy places) that sadhus had wondered to and through

for thousands of years,

following exactly this very path or 'road' up the Ganges.

They smiled at my English pronunciation of these great holy places

and waggled their heads at all of them, affirmatively.

One of them offered me some of the roti they were eating,

breaking off a piece and offering it to me.

I had not been feeling so great in my stomach and so I passed

(I later wished I would of taken it

as I now know that it means so much to share food with someone in India).

I always like to take it slow, to simply ‘hang out’ with anyone I found interesting.

I especially practice this with anyone whose pictures I am taking and I liked being with these guys.

They represented an ancient order of religious practitioners

who desired to 'experience' the Divine,

not just 'believe' in God.

They had left their homes and family and died to their life,

indeed, sadhus actually perform a funeral for themselves

as part of the ritual initiation into their order.

This order of religious wanderers

has been around India for thousands of years.

Theses sadhus,

like so many who came before them,

were wandering up the Ganges,

on pilgrimage to the sacred mountains above,

meditating in caves

and along the holy river,

(Vasishta Gufa- site of the cave of Vasishta)

praying and praising God and life.

It is as if they are on vacation in God for their whole life.

They accept as grace whatever is given to them,

taking only what they need, giving any excess to others.

Now, with only what they were carrying,

they were going to spend the winter in tapas/ austerity, prayer and meditation

in the high Himalayas.

These guys seemed happy and different

from almost all the sadhus I had met up until that point.

They were calm, clear, clean and happy.

They each had little bags to carry their meager possessions and needs.

They are called 'Baba' bags,

(Indians often call both the Sadhus and Lord Shiva- 'Baba'

which among other things means 'Father')

and you see the small bags on many of the wandering renunciates.

Their hair was worn 'sadhu style',

long, matted, uncombed and loose.

Their skin was beautiful and clear and their eyes were bright.

Every one of them wore some kind of small brown Rudraksha bead,

a sacred representation and reminder of Lord Shiva,

the supreme Master and inspiration of all sadhus and yogis.

One of them had a small drum.

Pointing at it, I asked him,

“What is the drum for?”

“Do you do Bhajan (singing of the names of God)?”

He liked that I knew the term and had noticed the drum.

He lifted it up and tilted his head back and forth

like there was music playing and smiled.

We all smiled and there was a happy shared silence.

My driver was uncomfortable.

For me, it was nice to just hang out with these guys.

For him, they were no better than bums.

He was a 'westernized' Hindu

and, as many of them often do,

felt some embarrasment at the still living representations

of their ancient, 'non-western' culture

and especially at these sadhus.

Then,

another of the Babas,

the one who had offered me some roti,

pointed to the sun and waggled his head,

put his hands together and then raising them over his head,

smiled at me.

“Surya Namaskar”, I said

(I salute/worship/give thanks to Surya, the sun).

I put my thumb and forefinger together

to join in an expression of the humble delight of life

and we all smiled and again were silent.

I told them that I was an Ayurvedic practitioner.

That I had come to India to study Ayurveda.

They must of understood some English

and seemed to like what I had said.

One of the Babas said something back to me.

I asked my driver to translate and he said,

‘They want 10 rupees’.

I knew this was not accurate

and with a stern and scowling voice said to him,

“That is not what he said!”

He was chastened by that and then translated-

“He said that Ayurveda was good work. It is a noble thing to do.”

After he said this, they looked at me and smiled.

We sat in silence for a while.

I took each of their hands and held them.

Then I gave one of them 100 rupees.

It was rolled up and he did not even unroll it.

He just gestured at the sky and the sun above seeming to say,

“It is a great and wondrous mystery.

We are always fed from the day of our birth.

There is nothing to worry about.

We are happy and blessed.

God is great and there is nothing but God.”

I agreed with them in a shared intimacy.

I looked each of them in the eyes,

all of us smiling together,

and then I got up and left.