"So what are saying with this?" I asked. "What is it that you want me to take home with me to America as India's gift? I came to share with you my own discovery of what I saw in Mary's work, of what seems to be the latest step in the journey of mankind out of its long sequence of dark ages. But you are telling me that the prior steps were just as rich and profound, even if they didn't go quite as far."

      Indira shook her head. "I just wanted to tell you that the truth has always been known that we are all human beings together as children of a common humanity. We have always lived with this truth in our hearts and let it move us within the context of the movements of the ages. I am saying that the Chandela temples of Khajuraho were no less profound than Mary's pedagogical structure. They were a part of a great Hindu Renaissance. Mary's 'temple' as it were, was a part of a great Renaissance of Science, a part of the dawn of the scientific age. I am giving you a parallel to take home as a gift of India, of the Hindu people. I am giving you something that is just as profound and just as puzzling, and just as enriching."

      "In this the case I want to see it all," I said to her. "I want to experience that parallel from the ground up."

      "I can't give you the experience that the boy had won for himself, which enabled him to help India to reclaim a treasure form its history. But I can take you to some of its places along the boy's path. That's possible with modern air transportation."

      She went inside an brought a book out. "I can take you to Haridwar on the banks of the Ganges, for the Ceremony of Lamps, the Harki Pedhi Arti," she said. "He is known to have been there. For thousands of years devout Hindus have gathered there to pay their respects to India's most sacred river by placing lamps afloat on its waters. I can also take you to the mountain village of Sripur that is famous for its grand shrine, Kamleshwar Muth where the boy is reported to have faced a man-eating lion or tiger alone in the night. He faced the great beast fearlessly and with respect for all life, and in his calm the beast caused him no harm. Also that is where his great achievements as a yogi began. Nearby in the Himalayas, at 11,300 feet, stands the Badrinath Temple, one of India's most revered temples. I can take you there, but there won't be anyone there. The temple closes for six months of the year due to the deadly cold winter in the Himalayas. He was there at the time of winter, a time when everyone was leaving the place for the warmer climates below. From there he began a six month journey of astonishing spiritual strength, climbing higher into this ice-bound world, crossing an 18,000-foot pass to the sacred peak of Mt. Kailash at the holy shores of Lake Mansarovar, the highest lake in the world that is also the source of four of India's largest rivers, the Indus, Brahmaputra, Karnali and Sutlej. From there he made his way across the deepest gorge in the world, located in the Annapurna Mountain range, cut by the Kali Gandki River. And from there, still at the 12,000-foot level, he visits Muktinath the site of an ancient temple of Lord Vishnu that still stands to the present day, encircled by 108 waterspouts that represent the 108 names for God. We can see all of these places from the air if you wish.

      When the boy left the Himaleyas behind, his journey took him on an endless seeming treck across vast distances, yet at the same time it was also a journey without motion, the journey of a yogi, a journey of standing extremely still while moving within. It was a journey of severe austerities locked in the unmoving motion of the yogic posture as months turn to seasons and the seasons turned to years. On this journey without motion the boy grew wiser. His path threaded through a richly ornamented land, a land of palaces and grand monuments of stone that must have seemed like a paradise of forms and shapes and colors and architectural styles.

Next Page

|| - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||

Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche