Rajasree Sen*
Through ignorance
I once imagined I was bound.
But I am pure awareness.
I live beyond all distinctions,
In unbroken meditation.
Indeed
I am neither bound, nor free.—The Heart of Awareness, a Translation of the Ashtavakra Gita, Thomas Byron
As I walk past the banyan tree, in what would be a part of a diurnal routine, I decide to sit down. Class 12 music practicals is on; the music wafting through the whole of the Art Village, alongside the beautiful winter morning weather, makes it all seem dreamy. I try and get ready to initiate my daily conversation with the tree, when with a start, I realize a young boy is perched high upon it, his silhouette blending in totality with the tree!
Surprise, shock, disbelief—a multitude of thoughts race through me in an instant. I shout out, ‘Please be careful, that is pretty high up!’ Reply: ‘I am used to it; I climb a lot of boulders where I come from.’ Another thought resurfaces, this is a ‘holy tree’, we don’t put our feet upon it, let alone climb up on it and be perched so comfortably up there. There is a slight feeling of irritation too, I notice, and I repeat, ‘Please, be careful!’ The selfassurance of all youth retorts, ‘I am very comfortable!’… a moment of silence… the very next moment he declares, ‘You know what? I am coming down!’ ‘Be careful,’ is what I want to shout out, but I hold myself back and wait with bated breath.
The child alights, walks upslope and comes straight to me with a kind of familiarity, though we have barely met a few moments ago. ‘I have never experienced what I experienced, I have climbed so many trees, usually fig trees, with the same kind of fruit but…this was different; she seemed so…’ ‘Grounded, holding tall!’ I stepped in when he seemed to be fumbling for words. Silence. ‘This is supposedly the tree that Krishnamurti saw when he decided to accept this land to build a School,’; a silent as if acquiescing nod. ‘The tree is…’ Again that silence. I see that this half-formed declaration is not the assuredness of youth, but of a mind that has experienced something beyond itself!
A magical, humbling moment; who was I to decide that he was not to perch himself upon the tree! I tell him that the tree ‘speaks!’ His eyes water up, or so I think. Silence. ‘What is your name?’ Jamie, Miller… What was it?! ‘What is your name?’ he asks me, and I reply. We walk away but I turn and do a quick thank you to the banyan tree, for the magic that I had just been privy to!
When did I start speaking to—no wait—when did the banyan tree start speaking to me? I really cannot think of any dramatic moment … I wish I had paid more attention! But speak it did, to my soul—my great friend, my anchor who calms my soul when I just go and stand beneath ‘it’. Years ago, I had written a poem to be published in the school magazine; I wonder, was the seed of association planted then, or did we forever know each other? Why do mornings feel incomplete without greeting her (why am I ascribing a gender? … let it be!), why do I feel a sense of rootedness just standing below her?
As I was walking back to the staff room, one young colleague was staring out of the window, blankly: ‘Isn’t today surreal—the weather, the trees—all of it!’ I nod silently and walk into the staffroom, and sit down to write; something in me wants to capture it all.
How often have I felt ‘loved’ by the tree? Love, beauty, goodness are all the same, says Krishnamurti. One cannot fall in love; one can only be love. Truly it is all about love, not the one springing from fear, loneliness, bigoted desires but something profound, more intense; there seems to be a big enveloping hug holding it all just like the Banyan tree is flanking it all.
Kabir says, ‘Haman hai ishq mastana, haman ko hoshiyaare kya, rahe azad ya jag se, haman duniya se yaari kya.’ Loosely translated, it says: my love is a state of maddening joy, there isn’t any need to go the worldly way, let me always be free of this world, what is my friendship with this world!
Love is truly synonymous with freedom from desire, from fear; surely what has one to lose anyway? Freedom, without thought and desire, is empty of every man-made thing. Love means that vast limitless space, and where there is space, there is silence and energy. The eternal, the nameless. There has to be beauty, goodness in living as if it is all that mattered; no noise, nothing can ruffle the silence, the stillness.
Krishnamurti speaks of that state as one of emptiness, a kind of meditative state where man is living a life of excellence. He strongly appeals to us to just go to the ‘other shore’, the only clue he gives is to be in a state of nothingness, to have a meditative mind, to be living a life of intelligence that has nothing to do with cleverness or the machinations of the mind. Only in such a state of being can one get a glimpse of the other shore, the so-called ‘holy’.
If we accept the challenge and pause, then perhaps most of us will agree that sometimes when we are truly in the ‘meditative state,’ we feel intense love and compassion. We must have noticed that life then seems to acquire a new meaning. For instance, what was a mere job, perhaps a stop-gap arrangement, soon becomes all-consuming. Something happens in the interim period that one can barely sum up in words—moments of sheer bliss, clear insight, suddenly veils of the past lifting up—answers to deep questions seem to be coming up and touching recesses of the soul, life surely seems blessed then!
What began as a passion perhaps becomes more deep-rooted in philosophy, arts, poetry, singing, academics, greenery; everything adds up and seems to touch the soul. The job then becomes a kind of life, a way of living. Blessings seem to be coming in every moment. Teaching, learning, interacting, informing, being informed, all keep on happening simultaneously. Life then surely acquires a new meaning, a new purpose. Academics or the ‘real’, the rigour, the schedule, associated fears, all become moments of ‘seeing.’ The so-called real, daily living perhaps then becomes the sublime, the holy, the most sacred. In that perhaps one gets to see the heavens, not little manmade heavens.
One is left wondering: those moments of conversation with the tree, heart-touching deep insights, deep knowing, deep connection, intense turmoil, compassion, love, what seemed as a silent blessing–was it the answer to one’s search for something ‘beyond the material’? Whatever it was or is, one stands humbled!
The Buddha’s friend and first disciple, Ananda, once remarked to his master that, ‘Half the holy life, O master, is friendship with the beautiful, association with the beautiful, communion with the beautiful.’ To this, the Buddha replied, ‘Say not so, Ananda, say not so. It is not half the holy life. It is the whole of the holy life.’