The early part of my pilgrimage travels involved much literal wandering and I felt rather like Siddhartha Guatama (aka Buddha) on his journey into becoming Buddhi: a lone wander seeking inner enlightenment, a kind of sadhu myself, my own personal bodi tree being wherever I was forced to stay for protracted periods, more especially during the later extended lockdowns consequent on the coronavirus pandemic.
I wrote this following statement from my hotel room in Rishikesh (where I lived for some eight months across the summer of 2020) at the conclusion of one major stage of my journey. I have made only minor modifications to the original text:
“I would like to give a brief summation of this time, or, perhaps more importantly, where I find myself now. I will try to make this succinct, and not pious, cheesy or otherwise too mystically incomprehensible.
Well then, briefly:
Have I found the philosopher’s stone, ‘enlightenment’? Very close now.
What is it? The journey to find it will teach you.
Truth? It’s not ‘out there’. It’s inside you and you find it through diligent self enquiry.
Has this journey been easy? No!
Expensive? It’s cost me everything I had.
Why do it? I couldn’t not.
Can anyone do it? With enough commitment and determination, probably yes.
Should everyone do it? At least consider it, but perhaps later in life. I can’t pretend I haven’t enjoyed my life and benefitted from many rich experiences in it, until this final stage. But anyone can make preparations and take small steps far earlier, and the earlier started, the more peace and stability will follow, not just at the personal, but the collective level too.
Guide books? The Bhagavad-Gita and the teachings of Jesus (although I’m neither a Krishna devotee or a Christian).
A guru? Everyone has one; it’s their own inner wise counsel, the ‘highest you’, otherwise understood as the Self. I wouldn’t bother with the formal kind that charge fees. And you don’t want anyone between you and the goal anyway.
Recommended methodology? Zen*; Jnana, Karma and Bhakti yogas (Wikipedia will help here). And meditation with all these. I don’t do Hatha yoga, I’ve never felt drawn to it.
Am I now a Hindu? Not really, I don’t see myself following any formal religion. I look widely and deeply to find the common denominators and deep truths in all belief systems and philosophies. That said, I do love the ontology, cosmogony and symbolism of the advanced esoteric metaphysical Shivaite traditions (sometimes called Kashmir Shivaism). We all need a certain level of ritual and symbolism. We live our lives and express ourselves principally through symbolism, and although I don’t experience this in any literal representative sense, my personal favourite will always be Shiva Nataraja, the ‘Lord of the Dance’, a bronze of which can be found at CERN, the particle accelerator in Geneva.
Closer to Moksha (‘liberation’)? It’s much the same as enlightenment.
Recommended companions? Doggedness, compassion and a good sense of humour. Music too.
My old life? Occasionally I still miss family, old friends or a glass of good wine and a plate of tapas in a little bar in downtown Seville, but that’s part of the price paid.
Will the world ever be a better place? It most certainly could be a better place, but only after a painful process of self reflection and root and branch reform. And perhaps the humility to understand that we are merely a relatively small part of something much bigger and living on this earth requires giving as well as taking.
Happy? I have ever been a restless, driven sort of person with strong views and feelings. I have most certainly found more peace, more patience, more detachment, more tolerance, more compassion.
Isn’t this all just a little too ‘esoteric’ and escapist from the ‘real world’ and its problems, given I am still a member of humanity? It’s the most effective way that we can solve the problems we have in humanity, by understanding ourselves better and taking responsibility for what we think and what we do, and why. The ontological premise is this: given, at source, we are but expressions of ‘God’ in the material domain, a part of the universality and interconnectedness of life, we only hurt ourselves by hurting others, as fundamentally we are all one. The word ‘religion’ means simply to be re united to the source you have become disconnected from. Yoga means the same.
Final thoughts? I concur with Eastern philosophies which contend that the cause of human (and therefore world) suffering is through ignorance, rather than ‘sin’. But much of this is culpable ignorance too. Enlightenment comes from engaging with truth within you, not prejudice, self interest, fear and hate. People simply wouldn’t do the things they do and justify them. Change might not be easy, but it’s never been more necessary. Only through such change can the world ever be a better, more just and peaceful place.
So where now? An open question!”
Here is the famous poem by John Bunyan, which says it all for me:
‘To Be A Pilgrim’
He who would valiant be, ‘gainst all disaster
Let him in constancy follow the Master
There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.
Whoso beset him round with dismal stories
Do but themselves confound, his strength the more is
No foes shall stay his might, though he with giants fight
He will make good his right to be a pilgrim.
Since Lord thou dost defend us with thy Spirit
We know we at the end shall Life inherit
Then fancies flee away, I’ll fear not what men say
I’ll labour night and day to be a pilgrim.
* ‘Zen’, at a practical level, is simply a methodology for seeing your conditionings, how you construct your identity and understanding of ‘reality’. But it can also become a higher quest for the ‘ultimate metaphysical reality’. How far you take it is up to you. There is no mystique to it, it can be done by anyone, anywhere. You don’t have to find an ashram or monastery, merely develop skills of acute self observation, enquiry and deduction. In fact, it’s likely more effective if conducted as an ongoing process in your everyday life, which is what I try to do.
Featured image of Author at the Virbhadra Temple to Shiva, Rishikesh. End of Indian phase of Pilgrimage, November 2020