Leela of Spiritual wandering
Glittering honeycomb across the hillocks!
Let Me tell you an incident from My life:
Actually if you see, the moments of happiness or joy happen when the mind stops. This may happen for just a few moments, but the impressions and the relaxation from dropping from the mind will be tremendous. When I say the mind stops, I mean, the mind gives a gap sometimes. It is this gap that becomes an unforgettable memory!
This was during My wandering days before enlightenment. I was walking from one city to another in India. On the way to a place called Omkareshwar, there is a thick jungle and a river flowing between the two hillocks that are completely made of marble stone. Between the two hillocks, the sacred river Narmada flows.
On a full moon night, I was just walking with a stick in My hand, swinging the stick and singing to Myself. I was walking alongside the river. I was going down a small valley, and when I reached its end, I looked up and saw a big cliff in front of Me. I saw on both sides, the two big hillocks shining in the full moon. Because it is white marble, it was simply shining in the moonlight!
The river was so beautifully flowing with a mild murmur. Suddenly I saw that both the hillocks were bridged! There was a physical connection between them in mid air. I went a bit near and saw that the whole thing was a honeycomb! The honeycomb was at least 400 feet long!
Sacred Narmada
In the Avatāra Līlā, ten years after the enlightenment experience in Pavazha Kundru, the Avatāric Mission was revealed to The Avatār on the banks of sacred Narmada, Just outside the famous jyotirlinga shrine of Shiva, where Adi Shankara had his enlightenment experience.
Near the forests of Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh in Central India, Narmada flows, revered as the daughter of Paramaśiva. The Parikrama or circumambulation of her from her source in the Amarkantek Hill to the end point in the Arabian Sea in Gujarat, a distance of about 2600 kilometers, is considered a sacred pilgrimage.
In the forests of Omkareshwar
The Avatār stayed at Omkareshwar and in the surrounding jungles, then populated by local tribes. He perceived the tribal population as one with no ‘pain’ in their cognition, that the mothers gave birth in delivery huts with no midwife or helper. It led Him to develop the technique to de-condition the human system of the ‘pain’ cognition.
He experimented with fear and fearlessness with the wild animals of the forest. On one occasion when He opened His eyes from meditation sitting in a cave, He found a giant figure standing in front of him. He looked back at the creature, curiously and without fear. After a few minutes it walked away. It was a huge bear!
On another occasion, he beheld a cobra hanging from a tree when He opened His eyes. At first He felt no fear looking at it, and the cobra too stayed calm in front of Him. As soon as the thought that it was a poisonous snake entered His mind and fear crept in, it slithered away.
A deep depression hits Me
The Avatār describes the play of the mind on 25 Dec 1999, five days before the revelation of the Avatāric Mission:
I had done many different types of tapas (penance) and tried different types of meditation techniques. Actually, I literally killed myself with these meditation techniques. Finally, a very sudden and deep depression landed on Me. I had a deep feeling of being cheated and thought to Myself: For the sake of enlightenment, I have left My family. Whatever has to be done according to the Vedic scriptures, almost everything has been done by Me. Yet, it is not happening. No enlightenment, only days are passing.
One day suddenly, maybe in the evening at around four, I felt excruciating pain along with the deep depression. I felt that nothing more could be done, that there is no need to live anymore, because whatever has to be done has been done. I never learned anything towards material life, so I thought, either I had to become enlightened or I had to die.
I was convinced that the whole concept of enlightenment was just a story. I thought it was never going to happen in my life. I felt that at least there is no possibility for it in My life. So I decided, ‘Let me commit suicide.’ It was such an excruciating pain that made Me decide to commit suicide.
In His deep frustration, The Avatār threw away the few precious belongings He had carried till then – His meditation mala, the picture of Ramakrishna Paramahaṃsa that He always carried with Him, His water pot, and His stick. He says He also discarded mentally the mantra that He had been meditating with since childhood.
‘Of what use is all this,’ I felt. ‘I believed in these people and wasted my precious youth. I no longer have any trust in all these great masters like Ramakrishna and Ramana. They have misled Me.’
I enter Narmada
I was on the banks of the River Narmada in Omkareshwar. This is the place where Shankara became enlightened.
I entered the Narmada river. Between the two hillocks, it runs very deep and fast. It has big falls as well. I started walking. When the water started coming up to My hip. In the terrible fear, I just shut My eyes tightly and continued walking. I continued walking and walking. I could feel the water continuously rising in level. At one point, I felt My breath to be very painful. I was breathing the pain inside, the suffering inside.
So much of pain had gone inside and at one moment, something hit Me. Suddenly something broke. When the breath came out, it came out just as bliss!
But I found that I was continuing to go inside the river. I was just moving. Since I had My eyes tightly closed, I don’t know how much distance I would have walked. When the breath came out with bliss, I felt completely rejuvenated. It was as if the whole of life had entered Me. I fell down and saw that I was in the other shore! I do not know what had happened. What I am telling you is the simple truth.
I do not know what had happened in between. Whether I walked through the water, or I walked on the pebbles and rocks, I don’t know. Suddenly, I could very clearly feel that Narmada was laughing at Me. The river Narmada is considered a virgin girl, Shiva’s daughter. I very clearly felt she was laughing at Me!
I wanted to share this experience just to tell you that when you touch the deep core of pain, you will see that bliss opens in you!
A week after the depression of 25 Dec 1999, on the 1st of January 2000, The Avatār arose with the overwhelming Truth that He was One with the Universe. The Avatār then shared that it was in the utter relaxation on the banks of Narmada that the Avatāric Mission revealed itself to Him.