We only need eyes that see.....

himalayan haven

Author and meditation teacher Ajayan (Henry) Borys, former Kirkland resident, shares his experience of living in a cave in the Himalayas during the spring and summer of 1996.
The spring of 96 was a fateful moment for human visitation in the Himalayas. That season saw the terrible Mt. Everest climbing tragedy, as well as the filming of the spectacular IMAX movie, Mt Everest. These two events would respectively shock and inspire the world. Yet just a few hundred miles from Everest, something else was taking place in the Himalayas. Something much, much quieter. I was sitting in a cave, meditating. And it was the experience of a lifetime.


What brings a man with a wife and two daughters to spend two months in a dirty, scorpion-invested, natural freezer of a cave? Well, it wasn't exactly to kick back and enjoy creature comforts. Ever since 1970 I had explored with a passion various forms of meditation. I had traveled the globe studying with saints and yogis. In 94 our family had sold our Kirkland home, Aerostar, and all other belongings, to live in the south of India. There I taught meditation. It was only a matter of time before I'd land myself in a Himalayan cave.

For my retreat I selected the remote pilgrimage spot of Gangotri. This is the legendary source of the holy Ganges River (actually 18 kilometers below the glacier that is the present-day source). For untold centuries this area, at just over 10,000 feet, from which springs India's most revered river, has been a favorite spot for yogis seeking union with the Divine.

There is a saying that everywhere in this world is the earth, but the Himalaya is heaven. It is not just a saying. Though raised in the Cascades, still, I had never seen so much beauty in one day as that day I first approached Gangotri on a rickety, packed-jammed Indian bus. Keep in mind that even the foothills of the Himalaya are so extensive that only after a full day's drive within them does one glimpse snowcapped peaks. Yet then more appear: the towering wind-swept, snowy mammoths, the highest mountains on earth. And everywhere are waterfalls-cascading from incredible heights, showering silvery streams and rainbows over the alpine forests of pine, Indian cedar, and birches.
The Ganges itself at these higher elevations doesn't merely flow, it explodes. Every foot of that river brims with unimaginable power-gushing, boiling, rising and falling in oceanic waves, cutting through the maze of cliffs and mountains surrounding it in every direction for hundreds of miles. Finally, one arrives in Gangotri, a tiny, remote hamlet, nearly uninhabited most of the winter, but a favorite pilgrimage site from May through October.
Somehow I had thought finding a cave in the Himalayas would be easy. I soon discovered differently, however. This was prime season for holy men to come from all over India to pursue their spiritual practices in Gangotri. All caves were filled. We're talking zero vacancy rate. Yet on my third day there, by the miraculous blessings of a local saint (who lives naked much of the year at that altitude), I discovered an ideal cave as I hiked through the mountains.
This hovel was about a mile outside of Gangotri, surrounded by virgin pine forests, overlooking the Ganga with 360 degree mountain views-and no one lived within a kilometer. Adjacent to it was a dramatic canyon rising above the Ganga, serene meadows, and natural rock gardens. That spot would have been one of most beautiful National Parks of the world-and it was all mine.

For the next two months I observed strict silence (no talking), meditated, ate one warm meal daily, did yoga (after establishing a truce with the scorpions, who liked to sunbathe on my blanket), bathed in the icy Ganga, and drank its holy waters. My daily meal consisted of rice and dahl (mung bean soup), which I ate with the other swamis in the area. I supplemented this meager diet with wild edible plants growing in the mountains.

Yet cave life, I discovered, is not quite as comfy as the creators of the Flintstones would have us believe. First, caves are dirty. Ergo, lots of laundry, and the Ganga freezes your fingers in seconds. Caves leak and are musty. They are home to many bugs, beetles, mice, etc., which often joined me in bed or during my meditation.
One morning, for instance, a couple of hours into my meditation, I felt something crawling at the base of my neck inside my clothes. Reaching under the neck of my sweater with my hand, I grabbed it-carefully so as not to crush whatever it was. When I opened my hand, I saw that it was a huge, black beetle. Just like the kind you can see on exhibit at the Science Center. Gently, I placed it outside the cave. As I continued meditating, though, I couldn't shake the thought that I had seen a beetle of this sort before. Where had it been? Wasn't it in that movie about Richard Burton's and John Speke's search for the source of the Nile (Mountains of the Moon)? That beetle had crawled into Speke's ear while he slept-for the purpose of burrowing into his brain! Speke had stabbed the critter while it was still in his ear, and this had permanently damaged his hearing. The more I meditated on the beetle, the more afraid I became that it was indeed related to Speke's. This beetle had, after all, been heading in the direction of my ear… My cave was infested with them, too-dreaded, black, Himalayan, brain-burrowing beetles! Nevertheless, by God's grace, I would emerge from my retreat fully endowed with brains and ears intact.

As for wild animals, I had heard that tigers roamed these forests. That was my one unspoken fear. Tigers always struck me as a bit overwhelming.

Before going into silence, I asked a swami about this, "Are there any tigers around here?"

"No tigers."

Hmmm. He seemed pretty sure about it. "How about bears?"
"Bears no disturb sadhaks," came his unequivocal reply in broken English (a sadhak is a spiritual aspirant).
This still left one question: How would the bears know I was a sadhak?
As it turned out, I never saw any beast larger than the small rat that shared my cave. Speaking of this rat, he turned out to be a most worthy and pious roommate.
I had been keeping a little food in my cave, and each night I had been awakened by some nocturnal forager. One night, after the rustlings disturbed my sleep, I figured it was time to draw the line. Picking up my walking stick and flashlight, I crept in the dark over to my food. Turning on the flashlight, I walloped with the stick the plastic bucket that contained my goodies. A moment later a small rat hopped out of the bucket. He walked a few feet towards the wall of the cave, but very slowly, as if my blow had stunned him. It would have been easy to do him in then and there, but I didn't want to hurt him (in fact, I hoped I hadn't hurt him); I just wanted some undisturbed sleep.
Then the strangest thing happened. The rat turned and lifted himself onto a large rock directly in front of me, making himself completely vulnerable. Crawling to the rock's edge closest to me, he faced me, bent his forelegs, and bowed his head down to his paws as if prostrating. Next, he slowly raised himself and lifted his head to look at my face. For perhaps 15 seconds he looked at me with large, soft, unblinking eyes. Finally climbing off the rock, he crawled into a crack in the cave's wall.


From that night on, whenever my pious little roommate woke me up, I just rolled over and let him eat his fill.
Caves are also natural refrigerators. Wearing everything I had brought with me (including wool ski hat, gloves, etc.), piling blankets on, topping it all with a rain slick, I just managed to stay warm enough to sleep through the night. It took me half an hour to dress for bed.
At first the cave's cold seemed almost unbearable. In the first week I often pondered the possibility of borrowing a propane heater from some local ashram. During my freezing meditations at least, it seemed a reasonable enough request: "Excuse me. I'm living in a cave. Could you lend me a propane heater? It's very cold."


Gradually, however, the discomforts began to seem an essential part of my retreat. This was tapas (spiritual practice with an attitude of self-denial), and I took solace in recalling the many sages who had done tapas in these very mountains throughout the centuries. They, too, could have chosen to live in the comfort of home, but they savored such spots as this. Indeed, such musings occasionally transformed the biting cold into a penetrating presence of God.

Then there were those precious breaks in my routine of meditating 12 hours a day. I would crawl out of my cave into the brilliant mountain sun, stand surrounded by rugged mountain peaks jutting into the clear, blue sky, savor the solitude, holiness, and beauty of that place, the Ganga dancing before me, and know that I could ask for nothing more. Pilgrims visiting such sacred spots consider that their life has been fulfilled. Perhaps it is true. What I felt in those mountains was indeed something rare. Such spots have offered their beauty and solitude to thousands of sincere seekers of God. They have been the resort of saints and sages throughout the ages, and have been adorned with a vibration of sanctity. To stay even for a few days amidst that beauty, to bathe and drink of that holy river, to see the valleys of flowers and gaze on the peaks of the Himalayas, was indeed to be blessed by God.
What about social life? Well, in spite of observing silence, I did make wonderful friends with some of the swamis (it is easy to make a good impression when you don't say a word). These included the naked saint, and two others who dearly wanted me to spend the rest of my life wandering the Himalayas and meditating with them. There is great kinship found without effort in the Himalayas amongst sadhaks-regardless of nationality, race, or religion-and this added greatly to the charm of my time there.

But the real attraction of living in a cave and doing all that meditating, is what happens on the inside, and in this respect each day brought new treasures. One's appreciation for life, one's awe for this miraculous existence of ours, grows in a way that cannot be described. Here is a short excerpt from my daily journal (hopefully someday to become a book), to give a flavor of the upside of cave living, and why I went there in the first place:

Doing asanas outside my cave, the giant boulder that is the roof of my cave caught my attention. The white and gold rock face gleamed in the sun. Moss covering much of it formed an inviting, warm, deep green carpet. A net of fine spider webs I had not noticed before shone in the sun. Every inch, every crevice, every glimmering facet and shadow cast by overhanging pine branches, was a glorious work of art. I could not take my eyes from it; the golden light of God beamed from the rock.

How easy to see God in nature! We may spend hours watching sitcoms and videos, but to spend even half-an-hour a day in a garden, learning to lavishly appreciate its wonders, its fine details-this will open our eyes to the Divine.
Continuing asanas, I noticed the pine rising above the boulder; it too shone with the light of God. My eyes then went to the deep blue mountain sky, the gleaming white sun, the billowing white clouds; they all shone with glorious divine presence. All is God's grace. We only need eyes that see.

Maya is hard to fathom, harder yet to transcend.

For a jivanmukta - who has transcended the realm of MAyA, the snake of samsara may well be a jewel, that like the Lord Parameshwara he can wear around his neck. For anyone but that rarest of mahatmas, one has to be weary about samsara.

Take the instance of King Bharata, from the Bhagawatam. Here was a King who renounces his family and kingdome, takes to the life of mendincancy and after years of tremedous penance and singlepointed worship reaches the rarefied heights of self-realization - and one day while this perfected Sage is bathing in a river, a tiger is giving chase to a pregnant doe who dies drowning in the water as even as she gives birth to her baby doe. Looking at this poor doe, a single thought came to Bharata's mind - 'Alas! by the Controller turning the wheel of time, has this one deprived of its kin, and now finds me alone for its shelter, only me as its father, mother, .. Surely having no one else it puts great faith in me to rely on .. fully dependent on me for its sustenance, love and protection; I shouldn't look away but instead know what the fault is of neglecting someone who has taken shelter and thus also act accordingly. Indeed is it surely of great importance that the civilized, the saintly, even though complete in their renunciation, as friends of the helpless are committed to the principles, even at the cost of their own self-interest......Indeed is it surely of great importance that the civilized, the saintly, even though complete in their renunciation, as friends of the helpless are committed to the principles, even at the cost of their own self-interest.'

Thus one sees that through the Bhagawatham Vyasa drives home a extremely important lesson here. What Bharata felt was undoubtedly dharmic. After all it was just a mere doe child. Why not take care of it? What is there to say that such an action is lacking in propriety. Surely he was acting only appropriately - just doing what needed to be done, and that too, thinking himself as a mere instrument of the Lord who seems to have put this young hapless doe at his feet to nurture. But as the Bhagawatam describes so vividly the nurture and caring for this single doe-child, not even a human baby, much less his own child, step by little step, day by day, has this Sage so bewitched, and engroseed, that it leads to his spiritual downfall - so much so that at the time of death it is the doe that is uppermost in the minds of that sage and he takes birth in the next janma as a deer himself! By the Lords Grace he actually remembers his prior life and what led to his downfall and laments thus "'Oh what a misery! I have fallen from the way of life of the self-realized, although I had given up my sons and home, lived solitary in a sacred forest as one perfect to the soul who takes shelter of the Paramatma and although I was constantly listening to and thinking about Him, the Supreme Lord Vâsudeva, with chanting, worshiping and remembering being absorbed, filling all my hours; by time does a mind fixed in such a practice turn into a mind fully established to the eternal, but again, fallen in affection for a deer-young, I am a great fool far from that!" The point is that even at the absolute pinnacles of spiritual ascent, one small lack of caution can drag a seeker down as rapidly as a ball spiralling downhill.

We can take the example of a alcoholic here. After years and years of going to the bar with his friends, per chance one particular person, out of a hundred hears about the dangers of alcohol, and a small desire creeps in him to quit. As he keeps hearing more and more about the dangers of alcohol, his dispassion or vairagya towards alcohol bbecomes stronger and this desire to quit and become free from his habit or mumukshutvam becomes stronger and stronger. At some point this alcoholic has built up enough discrimination or viveka to know that it is only his conviction that there is pleasure in alcohol that causes him to drink, and that as long as he drinks he will be tossed between the pair of opposites of joy on tasting the alcohol and sorrow when its effect wears off. Thus he realizes that unless he obtains freedom from alcohol, his death is both certain and imminent, and this further strengthens his vairagya to alcohol. Everyday he keeps brooding over these thoughts and building up more dispassion. ONe fine day while in the same bar with his same friends he finally makes a decision - enough is enough and i need to quit for good - and quit now. Now of course once this firm and extremely intense desire to quit has arisen, there is nothing preventing him from remaining in the bar. After all these are his friends and he can continue to sit with them and engage in lively banter, - if he is firm in his conviction that alcohol is poison, he is surely not going to consume! Sadly that is next to impossible. As long as even a whiff of alcohol is close to him, that alcoholic in his state of dependency, cannot but help get dragged right back into the old habit. Unless he makes a clean break from his fiends, from the bar, from any sight and smell of alcohol, his rehabiliation, which nothing but an establishment in sobriety, is impossible. Until the last vestiges of the alcohol vasana has not been fully and totally purged from his antahkaranam is he has his own interest at heart, this recovering alcoholic will never step anywhere near a bar. Only after he is established in his status as a sober individual, will he have the freedom to reenter the bar - and even then early on will at least exercise a degree of caution in making sure that come what may, no drop of alcohol ever touches his lips - there may be zero chance that now after all those vasanas have been erased that he will go back to that state but having known the miseries associated with that state this sober person will be wary of taking a chance.

This was what was Bharata's mistake - in one fateful moment of indiscretion he allowed what was seemingly a minor lapse in his sadhana - and the downfall was both abrupt and brutal.
SImilarly too, for a seeker, until he is well-established in his realization, and in his jnananishtA, he is best-served only by complete abandoment of karma - of course this can happen only when he has developed enough maturity, and most importantly enough intensity in his desire to really want to be free. But if after that he continues to tempt fate as it were, and remain in the midst of the very samsara his still feeble mind hopes to transcend he is severely depleting his odds of freedom.

That is why the Vivekachudamani cautions-

309. Even though completely rooted out, this terrible egoism, if revolved in the mind even for a moment, returns to life and creates hundreds of mischiefs, like a cloud ushered in by the wind during the rainy season.

310. Overpowering this enemy, egoism, not a moment's respite should be given to it by thinking on the sense-objects. That is verily the cause of its coming back to life, like water to a citron tree that has almost dried up.
324. As sedge, even if removed, does not stay away for a moment, but covers the water again, so Maya or Nescience also covers even a wise man, if he is averse to meditation on the Self.

325. If the mind ever so slightly strays from the Ideal and becomes outgoing, then it goes down and down, just as a play-ball inadvertently dropped on the staircase bounds down from one step to another.
Furthermore a question is posed and an answer also provided -
How is the exclusion of the objective world possible for one who lives identified with the body, whose mind is attached to the perception of external objects, and who performs various acts for that end ? This exclusion should be carefully practised by sages who have renounced ALL kinds of DUTIES and ACTIONS AND OBJECTS, who are passionately devoted to the eternal Atman, and who wish to possess an undying bliss.