← In the Vision of GodHis autobiography, book two

CHAPTER XXXIII

Chintapurni – Jwalajee – Pathankot

(i) Pain Transmuted into Joy

In the evening they reached the station of Hoshiarpur, where they spent the night on the terrace of the huge rest-house for pilgrims. Here some pilgrims provided them with a drink of undiluted warm milk and cots to sleep on. Dysentery continued to harass Ramdas’ body. Early next morning they prosecuted their journey on foot to Chintapurni, which lay about forty-five miles from Hoshiarpur. They had to walk up a gradually rising tract of land. They covered fifteen miles during the day and found rest in a small village rest-house. Except stopping four or five times to answer calls of nature, Ramdas and Ramcharandas walked the distance at a rapid pace.

Ramdas eschewed solid food. He had a cup of milk while Ramcharandas procured by bhiksha some dal and roties for himself. At daybreak, next day, they started again. About eight o’clock they reached a wayside hamlet. As they neared a sweetmeat shop, the eatables exhibited in the shop drew the attention of Ramcharandas. Poor boy! his mouth must have watered at the sight of the tempting sweets! There was by the side of the shop a small thatched shed for the use of customers. Ramcharandas entered it followed by Ramdas. They sat on the floor. There was none else in the shed. Ramdas thought that Ramcharandas proposed to have some rest after the three hours’ walk. God’s ways are wonderful! A few minutes after they entered the shed, two Punjabis came in and sat near them.

One of them saluting Ramdas enquired, “May I get for you some milk from the adjoining shop?” Ramdas gave an affirmative nod. The Punjabi then got for them two huge brass cupfuls of milk. Each cup contained about a seer of the liquid. Ramcharandas and Ramdas drank it.

Then the Punjabi asked Ramdas: “Maharaj, where are you going?”

“To Chintapurni,” was Ramdas’ simple reply.

“We are also on our way to the same place and I should consider it a great privilege to go in your company,” he pleaded.

So the four forming a party continued their journey. Ramdas now walked at an incredibly quick pace. He suggested that they should reach Chintapurni that very night. Although he had had half-a-dozen motions due to dysentery on the way and in spite of the undulating ground, a rapid pace was maintained. They had to cover a distance of twenty seven miles. About nine o’clock in the night they arrived at Chintapurni. They spent the night outside a stable.

Chintapurni is a small town with a temple of a Devi after whom it was named. The belief goes that a visit to this shrine dispels entirely one’s sorrows and anxieties. Hence the name of the goddess. Next day the party after bath paid a visit to the temple. The Punjabi friend, whose name was Pandit Jewandas, persuaded Ramdas to take rest for a day in that hamlet. He felt great concern about Ramdas’ health on learning of the attack of dysentery.

Refreshed by a day’s rest the party started again. They were bound for Jwalajee which lay about twenty five miles from Chintapurni. Again they commenced their journey at a brisk pace. At midday, they had a halt for about two hours beneath the trees on the way. By now dysentery had stopped, but, as they neared Jwalajee, Ramdas felt something wrong with his right foot. However, by evening they reached Jwalajee, where they spent the night in the ashram of Dashanami sannyasis, an ashram very near to the temple of Jwalajee. Here they were provided with meals and treated with great kindness and hospitality.

Next day Ramdas, wishing to find out a separate dwelling place, searched the hill for a cave and discovered a few yards above the ashram, a solid structure containing a number of vacant rooms in a line. Ramdas proposed to occupy one of these. Ramcharandas and Jewandas also became his room mates – the other friend, who accompanied Jewandas, having separated from the party on the way, as he was a college student returning to his parents who lived somewhere in the district.

Ramdas now detected a slight swelling on the sole of his right foot. However, they wished to finish the darshan of Jwalajee for which purpose they had come.

The temple is made of a square block, cut out of a solid mass of rock. The roofing is of plated gold having a beautiful dome with artistic designs carved on it. The dome shone with great lustre in the bright sun. It is said that the gold roof was presented by the great soldier and king, Ranjit Singh of historic fame. As Ramdas entered the temple he observed that its inside was conspicuous by the absence of any image. Within a few steps of the doorway was a small oblong pit, in which was seen a big tongue of flame waving and hissing and there were also similar smaller flames issuing out of the rock walls at other places, all round the interior of the temple. There were altogether about seven such volcanic flames. By Jwalajee is meant “Flame goddess.” The worship and darshan were of the flames.

Coming out of the temple Ramdas ascended a flight of steps to the right of the temple and came to a small shed, where he saw a circular hole bored in a rock, to the depth of about two feet, in which water was set boiling by the heat of a flame below.

Later, Ramdas heard from Jewandas that the flames in the gold-roofed temple accepted the offering of milk by licking off nearly half the quantity of the milk presented to them, leaving the rest as prasad to the devotee. He gave out this as his own experience.

The darshan over, Ramdas and the party returned to their room. The succeeding day, the swelling on the foot of Ramdas increased. It took the shape of a boil. In three days it assumed the size of a large lemon. Jewandas and Ramcharandas busied themselves applying various ointments to it so that it might ripen and burst.

All the time Ramdas, in spite of the boil, was smiling and cheerful. Sadhus in great numbers came to see Ramdas in that condition. The thing that surprised them most was Ramdas’ smiling face, although the condition of the foot could not permit of such a merry demeanour. Ramdas hardly slept in the nights. He sat up the whole night leaning against the wall. He was experiencing unbroken ecstasy. In such a mood he would go on talking about devotion and divine vision. Jewandas, who was eager to collect Ramdas’ sayings, would jot down on scraps of paper, as quickly as he could write, every bit that fell from Ramdas’ lips. He used a country oil lamp made of an earthen dish. The notes covered several sheets of paper.

Seven days passed. The boil showed no signs of bursting. One early morning, a sannyasini, i.e. a female sannyasi paid a visit to Ramdas. She saw the boil. Her heart was touched.

“Maharaj,” she said, “the boil seems to be quite ripe now, it requires only opening up. I shall run down and send a barber who will open it and give relief to your foot.”

So saying, the kind-hearted mother went down the hill. About half-an-hour later, a barber, who was also the village surgeon, turned up. Ramdas stretched out his affected leg towards him, and with a blunt instrument the barber began to operate upon the boil. The skin of the sole being naturally thick the instrument had to be used with some force. However, he made an incision, and thrusting the point of the instrument inside the boil, he pulled it out tearing up the skin. Then he squeezed out the pus. A strip of cloth was wrapped round the wound.

“Maharaj, don’t do any walking for some days. If dust is allowed to enter the wound, you will get into further trouble,” the barber warned.

Jewandas left Jwalajee the next day for his native place, Rawalpindi, and Ramdas also started. Some sadhus including Ramcharandas tried to dissuade Ramdas from travelling on foot just then, when the wound was still raw and unhealed. But Ramdas did not take their advice and came out on the road.

(ii) Ramcharandas Fails the Test

Ramdas limped as he walked. By midday they covered about ten miles and reached a small wayside hamlet. Ramcharandas undertook to fetch bhiksha of cooked food from the villagers. About one o’clock he returned, his cloth-sling filled with all kinds of food mixed up together. After dinner and rest they proceeded on their journey. In the evening they came to another village, where they remained for the night on a neighbouring hill top.

The following day they passed through the fertile and enchanting Kangra valley and reached at dusk a small town on an elevated plateau. Ramdas proposed that they might occupy a dilapidated rest-house for the night. But the boy was in no mood for rest, he was feeling hungry and the thought of food was revolving in his mind.

“Swamiji,” he said, “I shall try to get some food by bhiksha. You may wait here beneath the tree.”

The tree was in front of the rest-house. Ramcharandas passed into the darkness, but returned in a short time barehanded and with a wry face.

“What is the matter, Ram?” Ramdas questioned.

“I approached two houses,” he replied ruefully; “I got instead of bhiksha, reproaches and scolding of a very virulent type, and at one place, a young man of the house mistaking me for a prowling thief pursued me with a stout stick in his hand. I raced for very life and am here.”

His graphic narration made Ramdas burst into laughter. “Consider, Ram, the scoldings and the offer of blows from the stout stick are also bhiksha. You received the former, but why did you refuse to accept the latter, the more precious of the two?” Ramdas remarked humorously.

“Your wit is out of place, Swamiji,” he said, not relishing the way in which Ramdas expressed things. “I am hungry and I must have something to eat. I shall not be baulked. I am off again.”

And he disappeared once more. In half-an-hour he was back. This time his face indicated fright coupled with a sense of relief at escape from an unpleasant scrape. Ramcharandas was a simple boy, sincere and outspoken.

“Swamiji,” he recounted, “two narrow shaves. Soon after I left you, some knocking about brought me to a crowded house and in the front room over a fire I saw roties being prepared. I rushed into the room where a pile of roties was beside the fire. The room was full of men. I stretched out my hands and requested the man at the fire to give me a few roties. The man said that they were Pathans and that if I had no objection they could spare a couple of roties for me and also a bit of curry.

“Now a look round presented to my sight a number of rough, burly, ferocious Pathans with shaggy and ominous beards. I lost no time; one leap from the room and I was on the road. I heard a faint rumble of laughter from the direction of the house, but I did not remain there to listen to all that. I took to my heels. I ran wildly without knowing where I was going. Now a row of huts stood before me. Here is food for me, I thought and approached one of the huts. The host welcomed me, and, coming to know the reason of my nocturnal visit, said: “Well, I have no objection to give you food. We have it ready, but I may first warn you that we are chamars or cobblers by caste!” “What!” I exclaimed and the next instant I shot out of the hut like a bullet from a gun and I am here! Hunger is welcome, but tasting food from the hands of Muslims and chamars – well, I draw the line there.”

“Ah! Ram,” Ramdas exclaimed, “you have failed the test. The distinction you are making is unnatural. You are out for universal vision and yet you adhere to these ignorance-born prejudices! The Muslim and the chamar ought to be the beloved Ram for you. Is He not dwelling in all?”

“You are right,” he agreed, “but to rise above the distinction of caste is very hard. Look at the way how I was fooled by it.”

“One more attempt,” he said and left. In a few minutes he returned with a bland smile.

“Swamiji, come on. We have an invitation for supper in a Hindu household.”

Ramdas followed him. The kind host was a touring officer. After the meal they rested on the verandah and early at day-break took their departure. By noon they arrived at Kangra. Kangra is a hilly tract of land full of shady trees and clear water springs. The climate here is cool and bracing, and so it is a health resort. Ramdas passing through the streets went outside the city and, entering the enclosure of a Mahadeva’s temple, beneath two giant banyan trees, sat down on a stone pedestal in front of the temple. Ramcharandas stayed behind in the city. His first concern was to arrange for meals. A visitor to the temple seeing Ramdas came to him.

“Maharaj, I shall be so happy to offer you bhiksha in my house,” he said. “Or if you wish to have the food here I shall bring it here.”

“Ramji, Ramdas will visit your house for bhiksha,” replied Ramdas; “but you have to feed also another who is Ramdas’ companion. He will be here presently.”

“All right, Maharaj, I shall come here to fetch you both at exactly twelve,” he said and returned to the city.

Soon after this, Ramcharandas turned up. He informed Ramdas with great delight that after some knocking about he had at last procured an invitation for dinner for two from a pious old mother in the city.

“You need not trouble her, Ram,” said Ramdas; “we have an invitation already from a merchant friend of the city. We shall go to him. He will be here to take us at twelve o’clock.”

As they returned to the temple, after bathing in a neighbouring tank, the merchant came and escorted them to his house. Ramdas had requested him to feed them with a plain meal. He fed the sadhus with great love.

They stayed in Kangra for four or five days. One night was spent in the company of a sannyasi at his ashram situated in a beautiful spot. The sannyasi was all kindness and hospitality. The latter part of the stay was passed in the Mahadeva’s temple which they had first visited. Here Ramdas met a doctor, who had newly come to Kangra for health and had taken up his lodgings in the outhouse of the temple. He was extremely kind to Ramdas. He told Ramdas the stories of his extensive travels in Europe. He had visited England, France, Germany and other countries in Europe. He was a well-read man. In the course of his talks he remembered the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish philosopher.

“Swedenborg, the Swede,” he related, “when he saw so much misery in the world, once said with great vehemence: ‘If I could only find that arch-tyrant God, who created so much misery in the world, I would strangle him to death.’ What do you think of this?” he asked.

“If Ramdas were there when he said so, he would have taken the philosopher’s hands up to his own throat and urged him to strangle himself, because the misery he sees in the world is of his own making.”

When Ramdas’ departure from Kangra approached, the doctor pressed on Ramdas a couple of rupees for expenses on the way. Ramdas declined the offer with thanks, but when it was presented to Ramcharandas he accepted the gift in spite of Ramdas’ remonstrances.

Leaving Kangra behind, they continued their journey and took their position for the night on the raised platform, beneath a tree at the brink of a well on the outskirts of a village. Here Ramdas proposed to Ramcharandas a separation between them.

“Ram, you may go your own way and gather experience. Ramdas will also go alone. Remember we are both bound for Kashmir. We shall meet in that place.”

At first Ramcharandas refused point-blank to accept the proposition. He grumbled, fretted and wept. But Ramdas brought home to him the absolute necessity for such a course, as it would be to his own benefit. Through independence alone does a sadhu learn the secrets of life and Truth. Hanging on always to an external prop in spiritual matters hampers his progress, because his vision lacks then the flexibility for expansion and universalisation. The centre of interest becomes cramped and localised, while his aim should be to comprehend and realise the infinite nature of Truth.

(iii) God in the Form of a Serpent

Early at four o’clock, next morning, Ramcharandas parted from Ramdas and proceeded on his way, while Ramdas started three hours later. At midday Ramdas came to a temple in a village and rested on a verandah. Here again, a pious householder, who visited the temple, took Ramdas to his house and fed him with rice and curds. The same evening he reached another village, where he spent the night beneath a banyan tree. There was a terrible storm in the night and a countless host of night-flies beset the place where he rested. He watched silently the whole night the ravages of the cyclonic blast and the officious attentions of innumerable flies.

At daybreak he prosecuted his journey. The foot was nearly healed. The old skin was dropping off and the new skin was getting hardened. At midday he came to the bank of a large tank surrounded by trees near a village mostly peopled by Muhammedans. He took his seat beneath one of the huge trees. A little later he went about the houses for bhiksha. He approached first a small thatched house, where he saw the mother of the house at the front door.

“Will you kindly feed your child with a roti, O mother?” Ramdas begged in Hindi.

“O sadhuji, I am a Muslim by religion while you are a Hindu sadhu. How can you eat food at my hands?” she asked.

“Ramdas knows no difference between a Hindu and a Muslim. You are his mother and he knows only this relation and nothing else,” Ramdas answered.

She at once fetched from her house one roti on which was some chutney, made of green mangoes. Ramdas, sitting down in the open yard, ate the food and, drinking some water from the hollow of his hands, went up to another house in the neighbourhood. Here also the same story was repeated, because the house he visited happened to be again of a Mussalman. When he told the mothers that he had no objection to eat their food, they gladly served him with a roti and some curry. He had his fill. Now he started to leave the place. The sun was hot. Very often he had travelled in the heat of the midday sun without caring for rest.

When he was passing out of the village a brahman spotted him, and taking him by the arm escorted him to his house and placed before him a full meal. He had no appetite, but the brahman would not let him go without accepting some bhiksha. So, he had to eat another roti at his house. He then left the village and proceeded onwards.

About five o’clock he reached Pathankot. He saw a white tower of a temple on the road-side into which he entered. The moment the pujari of the temple saw him, he showed great delight, as though he had been long looking for Ramdas’ coming. He embraced Ramdas with great love and made him sit beside him on a cot. He offered Ramdas a sweet drink and talked to him in a most friendly manner. The night was drawing nearer.

“Maharaj, Ramdas desires to spend this night in a perfectly solitary room in your mandir. Kindly provide him with such a place,” Ramdas pleaded.

The pujari at once said that there was a cave-like room underground, at the base of the main temple structure, a place free from the disturbing noises of external life. It had not been in use for a long time. Still it was fit for habitation. Ramdas agreed to occupy it for the night. Taking an old mat, the pujari led him down a flight of stone steps into the semi-dark room, about ten feet square, in the bowels of the earth. Dust lay heavy on the floor which was perhaps unswept for years. He spread the mat on which Ramdas sat and bade the pujari good-night. The pujari left. When night descended on the outside world, the room was merged in inky darkness. There was a single small window to the level of the outer ground.

For hours Ramdas sat on the mat in a state of complete oblivion of his body when he was brought down to the external consciousness by the sound of footsteps. He opened his eyes and saw three persons enter the cave. They had a lantern with them and also a hand harmonium and a tabla. They were the pujari and his friends. The pujari had also brought with him a brass lota full of milk for Ramdas. At his pressure Ramdas drank the milk.

“Maharaj,” the pujari then said, “we intend to sing a few songs here. Hence we have come with the musical instruments.”

“All right,” Ramdas replied, “Ramdas will only be too happy to listen to your music.”

The light was placed in the centre of the room and the friends stationed themselves in a line to the left of Ramdas at the base of the staircase. The music commenced. The song was in Hindi composed by a well-known saint. They sang the first verse which meant: “He is a jivanmukta, or a liberated soul who has discovered the joy of having Ramnam on his tongue.” When they finished the first verse, there was a sudden stoppage of their song. The musical instruments also ceased to function. Ramdas turned to them to see what the matter was. All the three of them with mouths wide open and frightened eyes were looking in the direction beyond the light on the right side of Ramdas. A venomous snake was observed slowly creeping towards Ramdas. At one bound they stood up as one man and exhorted Ramdas to do the same.

“Let us leave this place, Maharaj, I can find you accommodation elsewhere,” said the pujari. “That snake is the worst of its kind. It is full of poison from tail to head. Do get up and follow us.”

Ramdas was cool and quiet, and replied: “Ram, why are you so afraid of the snake? God himself has given us darshan in that form. He has come with so much love to hear music. He won’t do any harm. Sit down and go on with the kirtan.”

“Impossible,” cried out the pujari, “to sing when the messenger of Yama himself is so close at hand! We are off. We advise you to come away with us.”

“Don’t give way to fear. The snake will do no harm. You need not sing, but don’t run away. You will know that the snake means no ill,” urged Ramdas.

They would not sit down. As the serpent crept nearer and nearer to Ramdas, they turned like the hand of a clock and drew round at the tail-end of the serpent. The reptile came quite near Ramdas. He beckoned it and said “Beloved Ram, come on; don’t hesitate.”

He had a piece of jaggery tied to his cloth, which he untied and placed before the snake and said: “Beloved Ram, this is the only offering Ramdas can make you, please accept it.”

The snake approached the lump of jaggery, and with its forked tongue licked it well for a few seconds and then came onwards. It was now only about two inches from him, but he was sitting stock-still. Somehow, it did not quite approach him, but turned its head outwards and took a circuitous path close behind him. As it emerged on the left, the friends moved round to the right side of Ramdas. They took care to see that they always maintained a distance of at least a yard from the tail-end of the snake. The snake now slowly made for the flight of steps and started creeping up from one corner of it.

“Maharaj,” cried out the pujari in a tone of anxiety, “there are about forty steps to ascend to reach the higher ground level. The snake goes so leisurely that it might take hours to gain the top. Till then we are caught up here. Also there is no knowing when it might take it into its head to turn back into the cave. We are done for.”

“Have no fear. It is going up one corner of the steps. You may safely ascend by the other,” Ramdas suggested.

“Nothing of the kind,” quickly put in the pujari; “we dare not do it. We have no such trust in it as you have.”

Ramdas then proposed to stand midway on the steps, so that they might securely pass up between him and the wall, opposite to the course followed by the snake. They agreed and he took the position indicated by him. One by one, the friends went up the steps, leaping four steps at a time! Before going, they warned him again of the danger, appealing to him to follow them out of the place. They took with them, besides the musical instruments, the lantern also.

Ramdas was again immersed in pitch darkness. He regained his seat on the mat. He groped in the darkness for the lump of jaggery tasted by the serpent, and after some search got it. Being the prasad left by the serpent, he threw it into his mouth and ate it with great delight. He remained in the sitting posture the whole night, absorbed in a blissful trance.

When the first glow of the morning was filtering through the translucent panes of the small window of the cave, he found a head peering into the room from a landing step at a sharp corner of the stone staircase. It was the pujari peeping to make sure that Ramdas was alive! Ramdas looked at him and smiled. He then entered the cave room with his friends of the previous night close at his heels. They sat down before him and gazed at him in wonder. Then the pujari’s attention was drawn to the spot where the lump of jaggery had been. Not finding it there he questioned Ramdas as to what had become of it. He replied that, being the prasad of the snake, he had eaten it up.

“Good God!” he exclaimed, “you are a terrible man.”

“Ramdas is not a terrible man,” Ramdas returned. “He is only a child and servant of God.”

Then Ramdas left the cave room and temple, and proceeded on his journey.