Maya (34 page)

“Bananas,” Chotilal interjected thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Bananas,” Chotilal repeated. “The elephant went after him because he carried those bananas. He should have left them behind.”

“You are correct,” acknowledged Pundit-ji, who really did not seem to have considered this before. “The elephant went after the swami to get his bananas.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing, mulling over Chotilal's observation, as if this single detail might suggest some new meaning to everything that followed. “Yes, well, in any case, the bananas were the least of his problems. Not far from where the swami had been talking, there was an abandoned well. It had long ago dried up, and for some time sweepers had been filling it with trash. In his haste to get away from the elephant, the swami stumbled and fell over the edge, down into the well. The rubbish broke his fall, but he was too far down to climb out. The elephant came close and looked over.”

Pundit-ji raised both brows and peered down into the imaginary shaft. Placing one hand in front of his nose as if it were a trunk, he began sniffing and snorting.

“Kela Baba and his bananas were out of reach, so the elephant soon lost interest and went away. When they were quite certain it was safe, my father and the others who had been listening to him speak came over and
looked down. There he was, lying amid the refuse—a pitiable sight. One of them called out, ‘
Aray
, Swami-ji! Are you hurt?'

“‘My friends! Please get me out of here!'

“Someone went for a bamboo ladder. Now, as it happened, among the group there was a student from BHU—very proud of his modern scientific views. He looked over the edge of the well and called out. ‘Baba-ji, you told us everything is illusion. If the elephant was not real, then why were you afraid? Why did you run away? Even you do not believe this maya talk! You are a fake and a liar. From now on I will call you Garbage Baba, since that is where you belong—in the garbage.'

“‘Get me out of here,' the swami called back, ‘and then we will talk.'”

“But it's
true
,” interrupted Chotilal, whose mood had once again shifted. “Why should the swami be frightened of an elephant that is not real?”

Pundit-ji waved a hand to silence him and continued. “Certainly Kela Baba was in a . . . a compromising position. When they pulled him up he was covered with manure and other rubbish, and he gave off a strong odor that did not seem the least bit pure.” Here the great pundit paused in his narrative and daintily pinched his nostrils between two long fingers, all the while fanning the air between us with his other hand. “But he dusted himself off as best he could, then looked out at the group, a few of whom had begun to smile. ‘Listen closely,' Kela Baba said, ‘and I will explain. The elephant was indeed an illusion. That it became angry and charged through the bazaar was another illusion. And it was also only an illusion that I
appeared
to run away.' The student was about to object, but Kela Baba pointed at him and continued, ‘Even he—this one who thinks himself so clever, so certain of his views—even he is not what he believes himself to be.' Then he turned to face the young man and addressed him directly, ‘What you see, my son, is nothing but a distorted image of your own face, reflected in the mirror of fear and desire.'

“At that the young man stepped forward, right up close to the old sadhu, and spoke boldly. ‘If only you had told us this while you were still in the well, then we would not have taken the trouble to raise one illusion out of another! Why should we care?!'

“
Why should we care
?! You see, Chotilal? This was his problem, as well. Those were his very words. I remember well, because what happened next was—for my father—quite distressing. This arrogant young man gave the swami a push that sent him tumbling over the edge into the filth. He then
turned and walked away, without so much as looking back. He may have done this in order to prove to everyone present that he himself really did
not
care; it was certainly a shock—and not only to my father. Of course, once again the people helped Kela Baba out, but this time as soon as he was free, the swami left without a word. And that was the last time he was seen in Banaras. We heard later that he was living as a hermit in the Himalaya, somewhere in the mountains near Kedarnath. I do not know if it was true.”

I glanced over at Chotilal to see what effect, if any, Pundit-ji's story might have had on him. It could have been lifted right out of the pages of any number of classical Vedanta texts. That's not to say all of this didn't actually happen, but I had to wonder. Judging from his expression, though, Chotilal was quite obviously troubled.

“But Guru-ji, was Kela Baba only pretending to be afraid of the elephant?” His gloom had returned, and I could see he was working himself up all over again. “What good is it to know that the world is maya if . . . if . . .”

He suddenly became animated, throwing up both hands in frustration.

“He
ran
from the elephant, Pundit-ji! He ran to save himself! There is no reason to run from a dream!”

“Exactly.” Pundit Trivedi pounced on his words, speaking calmly, but with great authority, almost before Chotilal had finished this last sentence. “There is no escape from a dream, because even the
idea
of escape is itself only a part of the dream. You have grasped Shankara's essential point. The dream of escape is the final illusion. When you see this, there is nothing more to understand.”

It was as if a trapdoor had abruptly opened beneath my feet, and I felt myself falling through endless space. I had been studying Vedanta for years, but with these few words Pundit-ji had turned everything on its head. Of course he was right. But what does it mean to say that life is a dream when there is no possibility of waking up from the dream? What, then, is the meaning of “liberation”? For all I know, Chotilal was struggling with the same conundrum. Pundit Trivedi had so swiftly turned his own words back on him that the poor man appeared speechless. At any rate, I'm quite sure this was not the lesson he had come here to learn. I thought he might break out in tears. Pundit-ji must have sensed this, as well, for when he resumed speaking he struck a different tone.

“But enough, I think, of this maya talk, which can so easily lead to confusion and trouble. Let us set aside Shankara and his theories and look to the
Gita
alone. There are certain shlokas to which you should pay particular attention.” Before Chotilal could respond Pundit-ji began to recite a Sanskrit verse, after which he offered his own Hindi translation:

“Do you grasp the distinction? Right and wrong actions we know; this is not difficult to understand. But what is this other type of activity? What is the meaning of nonaction? This is explained in the very next shloka:

“Here, Chotilal, Lord Krishna offers the profound teaching of karma yoga. We have no choice but to act—even to
refuse
to act is a kind of action. Of course we must always act in accord with our dharma, but Krishna explains, here, that any action aimed toward achieving some result—even a good result—only brings more suffering. What the Lord calls
nonaction
is action that seeks no reward. Action that has no goal or purpose other than to serve Lord Krishna. Already in the third chapter of the
Gita
, the Lord explained this to Arjuna:

“This is a most useful teaching. Please contemplate its meaning carefully. Then do what you must, and let it go.”

For the first time Chotilal acknowledged my presence with a fleeting, self-conscious glance. “It is late,” he said. “I have interrupted your lesson.”

“Do you understand, Chotilal? Whatever comes of your action, it is not your concern. You have only to act.” Pundit Trivedi held out both his
hands, palms down, and gently patted the air between them. “Do what you must. And then let it go.”

Chotilal pushed himself up from the chair and moved his hand in a single motion from Pundit Trivedi's feet to his own forehead.

“Namaskar, Chotilal.” It was a simple goodbye, but Pundit Trivedi's voice held the power of a blessing.

Chotilal backed away a few steps, then turned and walked slowly across the garden and into the house.

When he had gone Pundit-ji sat staring at the text we had been reading. At last his lips began to move. He spoke in Hindi. “I have known this man all his life, since the time he was born. He is a good father, a good husband. We must pray that his wife regains her health.” He looked up at me, the great nose suspended between us like a bridge between two worlds. His eyes were as soft as shells polished by the sea. “And you!” he said sternly, in English. “You have not touched your chai! What's the matter—too much sugar?”

“Pundit-ji?”

“What?”

“The story about Kela Baba. Is it true?”

“I told you already. I saw it myself. That is its truth.”

“What do you think?”

“Think?” He eyed me suspiciously. “About what?”

“About Kela Baba.”

“What about Kela Baba?”

“Did he understand Shankara's teaching, the meaning of maya?”

He smiled. “Why ask me this question? What do I know of such things? I am an old man telling stories. That is all.”

“I'm curious. What do you
think
?”

“He waved one hand in the air, as if to brush away a fly. “All is illusion! All is real! What is the difference?” He paused, then answered his own question. “No difference at all. This is precisely Shankara's teaching, is it not? All distinctions are merely apparent; all difference is ultimately false:
Neti, neti
. It is a lesson as old as the Upanishads:
Not this, not that
. Very simple. But illusion or not, we must live here, in this world.” He rapped the bench with his knuckles. “A world filled with hope and disappointment. In any case,” he huffed, “this teaching of maya is not found in the
Gita
.”

“But Shankara's famous commentary . . .”

He held up one hand like a stop sign. “Shankara is an illustrious philosopher, but he has imposed his monistic philosophy, his nondualism, onto the
Gita
. It is not there. The philosophy of the
Bhagavadgita
is Sankhya, not Vedanta. This much, at least, should be obvious to any knowledgeable person. But all of this is not important, for what is most distinctive about the
Gita
has nothing to do with philosophy. Krishna teaches Arjuna not how to think but how to act. How to live in accord with his dharma.”

“This word
dharma
, would you tell me what it means, Pundit-ji?”

Pundit Trivedi was accustomed to my endless questions, but this time I appeared to have stumped him. It was as if I had asked why he stood upright and walked on his hind legs rather than crawling about on all fours. I believe it suddenly struck him just how far I had traveled to sit here in his garden on this perfect December morning.

“Dharma,” he said, repeating the word. “It is from the root
dhru
—to hold, or support. Dharma is the foundation on which everything is built. Dharma is our duty, our obligations to others. It is the life given to each of us, the life to which we surrender. It is the life of a son or daughter, a father or mother. It could be the life of a warrior, as it was for Arjuna. Or the life of a farmer, a sweeper, or a scholar . . . the circumstances are of no particular importance. To live in accord with your dharma means simply that you do things the way they have always been done. You choose nothing, and nothing is yours.” Pundit Trivedi looked over at the new calf, so small and vulnerable and, now, so apparently content, as it lay curled and sleeping in the warm winter sun. “In such a life, even the joys and sorrows are not your own.”

28

O
N
J
ANUARY
23, 1977, Indira Gandhi announced that she intended to bring the Emergency to a close and to hold free and open elections later in the spring. She immediately released her opponents from prison and allowed them to speak publicly. It was as if she had tossed a stick of dynamite onto a dam. The censors were fired as summarily as they had been installed, and the press went on a rampage. All the pent-up animosity, all the fear and resentment, spilled out into the streets. Her fiercest critic, Jagjivan Ram, immediately allied his Congress for Democracy with the newly formed Janata Party, and the stage was set for all-out war. Everyone was on edge, talking and arguing about politics in anticipation of the coming elections. And yet none of this had any appreciable impact on my life. Completely dissociated from the dramatic events unfolding all around me, I moved like a ghost through streets crowded with demonstrators. My days were marked, as always, by morning and evening meditation, by the meticulous reading of Sanskrit and Tibetan.

One morning in early February I returned from my meeting with Pundit Trivedi and found an official-looking manila envelope that the postman had slipped under my door. It had been sent from the States via registered mail; a form was affixed to the outside with a space for my signature. Of course, in India all of this meant nothing. The seal had been broken by customs agents, who had obviously inspected whatever was inside. In itself, this was not unusual. My mail was often opened and then clumsily resealed with wide swaths of glue that occasionally leaked through, making it necessary to tear apart the pages of my letters. This time, however, the reader hadn't bothered to reseal the envelope, and the contents slid easily out into my hand: a single piece of legal-size, pastel-blue cardstock folded back on itself in thirds. The cover bore the following message: