THE  MIRROR OF BRAHMA

 

 

My Search for the Self in Twentieth-Century India

         

 

by  SWAMI ATMANANDA

 

 

 

 

 

Indra, king of the devas, and Virochana, king of the demons, once approached Brahma to learn knowledge of the atma or self.  To test their intelligence, Brahma taught them that the self is the image seen in a mirror or a pan of water.  The foolish Virochana happily returned to his kingdom and was hailed as guru by the demons, who eagerly embraced this worthless doctrine.  Indra, unsatisfied, had second thoughts.  He returned to Brahma and received the true knowledge of the self as eternal soul.

               

                                                                                                                -from the Chandogya Upanishad

 

 

The basis of this narration is factual,

although some names, places and events

have been altered.

 

 

 

Two

 

    LIGHTING THE MYSTIC FLAME

 

 

In 1968, I moved from my family home in Coimbatore to the house of an uncle, S. Balasubramanian, in Ernakulam, Kerala.  The previous year I'd gotten a job with TVS (T.V. Sundaram Iyengar and Sons), the premier automotive corporation of South India. I'd shown promise as an office boy in the Coim­batore factory, so my uncle, a TVS executive, arranged for my transfer to a just‑started branch company called Sundaram Industries in Kalamassery, not far from Ernakulam.  Uncle was the managing director, so I came into Sundaram Industries with the best recommendations.  At age seventeen, it was a move I welcomed.

 

I needed a change of air.  A teenage romance (something that is still risque in India, where most teens are paired by parentally‑arranged marriages) had just ended in disaster.  She was a bayadere (dancing girl) whose family lived near mine in Coim­batore.  Her low social status had invoked my sympathy--bayaderes are only a notch above whores in Hindu society.  I fancied myself as her Prince Charming and planned to marry her to save her from her misfor­tune.  But I discovered that because the girl's father, a drunk­ard, was no dependable bread­winner, her mother had been training the daughter in pros­titution to support the family.  I, a young Brahmin with a good job, was to be but a stepp­ing-stone in her mercenary career.

 

I stayed with my uncle's family for six months.  That was time enough to improve my Malayalam, the language of Kerala.  I already had some familiarity with it, since both of my parents were Keralan-born Tamils.  Uncle provided whatever I needed during this period, so I was able to send almost my entire salary home to my parents.  But when I could speak Malayalam well enough, I moved into my own rented cottage in Kalamassery. Living frugally, I still managed to send home a con­siderable percentage of my pay.

 

I took an immediate liking to my new surroundings.  Kerala is lush mountain jungle country with long, tropical paradise sea­coasts, much more pleasing to the eye than the rugged scrubland around Coimbatore.   But I was attracted by something more than just scenery.  It was something I intuited but could not ar­ticulate...something primeval and mys­terious. 

 

Of late, I'd come to admire the inner strength and calm that I'd observed in people with reli­gious convictions.  But I felt I would need a lot more convincing before I could take up a belief and ritual myself.  And the truth was, I wasn't really inter­ested in becoming convinced about religion.  Earning money, living on my own, and mixing with Ernakulam's up-to-date youth crowd on the weekends for camerader­ie made life full enough.

 

One morning at the office I noticed that Ram­nathan, an accountant a little older than me, hadn't shaved and was wearing black clothing to work.  No one else seemed to mind, though we did have an unwrit­ten dress code that we were expected to follow.  When somebody told me that Ramnathan dressed this way every year at this time for forty days as a vrat (vow) to Ayappa, my cur­iousity was piqued.  I knew Ayappa-worship to be one of Kerala's most popular religio­ns, but little else.  Why, I asked Ramnathan, would a fellow who seemed otherwise so normal go in for this?  He invited me over to his house for lunch to find out more.  

 

Ramnathan was a 'guru-swami' of the Ayappa cult.  He'd turned his house into an ashram; five teenage boys lived with him as his dis­ciples.  They all ate common meals together, and now, during the forty-day vrat, their lunch consisted of only one banana each per day.  The intense dedication of the ashrama inmates was a little discon­certing.  Among my friends of the same age, friv­olity prevail­ed.  I wanted to know why everyone here was so serious.  Ram­nathan answered me by narrating the story of Ayappa and his worship.

 

It is written in an ancient Sanskrit scripture called the Skanda Purana that a son was generated from the mind of Shiva when he gazed upon the unparalleled beauty of Mohini-murti, Vishnu in the form of a woman.  This son of Shiva's mind is called Dharma‑shasta.  Dharma-shasta has two wives, Purna and Pushkala, who are daught­ers of a demigod.  Once they asked their husband to allow them to visit their father's home, but he refused.  Learning of this, the father angrily cursed Dharma-shasta by saying, "Now you will feel the same separa­tion from your wives as I am feeling from my daughte­rs.  I curse you become a human being." 

 

Meanwhile on earth, a Kerala king who had been regularly praying to Shiva for a son was told by a sage to go to the lake called Pampa, where he would find his prayer answered.  The king found a baby boy there with a bell tied around his neck; he was brought home to the queen and named Manikantha (bell-neck).  Two years later the queen bore a son of her own.  Though the king accepted both boys as his sons, the queen thought that only the one born from her womb should be the heir to the kingdom.  She tried to poison Manikandha, but miraculously it had no effect on him. Manikandha performed further wonders--he gave sight to a blind boy, and pacified a pirate horde that had caused much grief to the kingdom by befriending Wavar, the dangerous pirate leader. Still the queen remained cold to Manikantha.  But when she was stricken with a severe headache that could only be cured by tiger's milk, Manikandha went into the jungle and later reap­peared riding on the back of a female tiger with the cubs following behind.  The tigress then gave milk to the queen. Cured, the queen embraced Manikantha and accepted him as her own flesh and blood.

 

Word came that some brahmins living in the Kerala mountains known as the Western Ghats were being harrassed by a demoness named Mahishi in the form of a wild buffalo.  The king of that region was helpless--the demoness could be slain only by a boy with no sexual ex­perience.  Manikantha volunteered for the task, and made the dangerous journey to a remote mountain called Sabari Giri, where he found Mahishi and killed her.  As Mahishi died, a beautiful demigod­dess named Maligai­puram arose from the buffalo corpse.  Maligai­puram had been cursed to be Mahishi, and she knew that only Dharma-shasta, the manasa­putra (mental son) of Shiva, could release her.  Now she begged Manikantha to marry her. Manikandha replied, "Temples for you and I will be built at the top of Sabari Giri.  Every year pilgrims will march up to worship me at my temple.  The first year there are no virgin boys among the pilgrims, I will consent to marry you." 

 

Thereafter the king of the Western Ghats had two temples con­structed atop Sabari Giri.  In the main one, prie­sts ritualis­tically serve a large black stone murti (or wor­shipable carved form) of Dharma-shasta, who is known as Ayappa (father-lord) to his devotees.  The murti sits in a cross-legged pose of yoga medita­tion.  In January, every year, the jewelled ornaments that Ayappa wore while he was on earth are brought up to the temple. The preists dress the murti in them and offer worship with arati (waving of flaming lamps as bells and gongs are sounded).  When the worship is complete, Ayappa appears as a flame above a peak called Magnetic Mountain.  The fiery form of Ayappa can be seen for a few minutes from Sabari Giri after the sun has set. 

 

Ayappa himself gave the rules of the yearly vrat to the king who built his temple.  Only those who follow this vrat strictly are able to see his form of mystic fire over Magnetic Mountain.  The primary rules is brahmacarya (celi­bacy).  Females may also participate in the vrat, but only if they are of prepubes­cent or post-menopause age.  Women devotees are addressed only by the name Maligaipuram.  The men are called Ayappan.

 

As the vrat nears its end, the devotees are expected to walk up Sabari Giri to attend the puja (worship) of the murti.  They may choose between two routes.  One, the short path for begin­ners and the less physically firm, is four kilometers long.  The much longer and more dangerous path requires the pilgrim to cross six peaks and ford four rivers.  Pilgrims who fail to strictly keep the vrat risk such divinely ordained mishaps as snakebite or attack by tigers.  And even if a vow-breaker manages to complete the trek, he is faced with the final hurdle of the Ayappa temple itself, built according to a mystical design.  There are eighteen stone steps leading up from the summit of the mountain path to the temple entrance, and on either side of each step there is said to be a goblin who protects the temple from unclean persons. Anyone who who does not properly follow the vrat will be tripped by these goblins and refused entry.

 

Devotional offerings and the pilgrim's provisions are tied in cloth bundles that are carried on the head.  Every pilgrim brings a hollow coconut shell that has been filled with ghee (clarified butter) through a hole in the top; the hole is then closed with wax.  The coconut-shell butterpot is to be emptied over the murti as an abhishek (ritual bath).  The ghee is collected after it has run off the murti and may be drunk by the devotees as prasada (mercy).  Ramnathan said he knew of many persons who drank the ghee and were cured of all sorts of physical ailments. 

 

When Ramnathan spoke of the miracles associated with Ayappa worship, I sceptically prodded him to admit to a more rat­ional explanation than the power of Ayappa.  But he wouldn't budge from his faith.  With serene confidence he disarmed all my chal­lenging questions, saying, "If you really have a scientific mind, then you'll put what I say to the test.  Follow the vrat under my direction and see what happens.  Otherwise, what can you learn here just by asking questions?  This ashram is a school of practice, not theory."  I finally agreed, reminding myself that the vow would last only a week more than a month.  Following it would not mean life-long service of Ayappa. 

 

If you're born in India, you imbibe tales of the divine and super­natural with your mother's milk.  While it irked me that most Indians blindly believe the likes of what I'd just heard from Ramnathan, I couldn't pride myself for being any more rational--under Peri­yar's influence I would just blindly reject it.  Now, I thought, I'll try once in my life to make an objec­tive analysis of our mythic Hindu culture.

 

Strictly following the vrat, I ate one big banana per day and nothing else.  Three times daily I chanted Ayappa's names in a Kalamassery Ayappa temple.  I wore wear black clothing and grew out my beard.  And I avoided thinking of women.  Gradually, a liking for this austerity developed in my mind, and with it came a detached willfullness that seemed to effortlessly carry me through my day's duties.  My fixedness of mind markedly increased my efficiency at the office.  The manage­ment took favorable notice. 

 

Before the pilgrimage, the guru-swami had to fill our coconut shells with ghee at his ancestral home.  Ramnathan's was in the city of Trichur.  As he prepared our shells, he ordered each of us to ask a benediction from Ayappa in return for the great sacrifice we were about to make.

 

"I don't want anything," I told Ramnathan. 

 

He said, "This is not the right attitude.  Just ask Ayappa for some benedic­tion--anything you want--by announc­ing it to me. After you complete the pilgrimage, you will see that your prayers are answered.  This displays the power of the god." 

 

I refused: "Sorry, but this sounds too much like business.  I'm doing this for knowledge."

 

"Look," he said angrily, "I am the guru-swami.  I have made this vrat and pilgrimage five times already, and I know how it is to be done.  You've got to do as I say if you want to continue with us.  Now pray for something." 

 

"Well, for what?  Give me an example." 

 

"Why don't you ask for something concerning your job--a promo­tion perhaps, or a transfer?" 

 

"But we don't have to beg someone greater than us for these ordinary things.  A job promotion I can get by my own endeavor. If I am to do all this only for what I can get by myself anyway, then I am not going.  What's the use?  Better I use this time to work extra hours." 

Alarmed that his young disciples were just standing there listening to me question the value of the Ayappa pilgrimage, Ramnathan reasoned with me.  "All right, good.  Then don't pray for that.  But kindly fulfill the require­ment of the vrat.  Pray for something that you're sure only Ayappa can grant you." 

 

"Well, I'm just doing this to see that flame.  So let that be my prayer--I want to see the flame on Magnetic Mountain."  That satisfied him. 

 

Since this was our first pilgrimage, our party was led by Ramnathan over the four-kilometer route.  Our starting point was the Pampa river. We joined a great crowd of 'Ayappans' and 'Maligai­purams', including a few cinema stars whose arrival touched off a sensation among the folk.  What irony, I thought-‑the black dress is supposed to put all the pilgrims on the same level: no high, no low.  We addressed each other as 'Ayap­pan' so that we are identified only as servants of the murti.  But human nature being what it is, the terms of worldly politesse crept into our speech nonthless: here was an 'Actor Ayappan, there a 'Brahmin Ayap­pan', an 'Advocate Ayappan', a 'Magistrate Ayappan', or a 'Doctor Ayappan.' 

 

Near the Pampa river is the tomb of the pirate Wavar.  A group of Keralan Muslims was worshiping there when we arrived.  Muslims respect Wavar as a saint.  The Hindu Ayappans mixed freely with them, all caste considera­tions tem­porarily forgotten.  At Wavar's tomb we had to cover our bodies with ash and dot our ashen skin with different colors.  The guru-swamis then gave each of us one of five kinds of weapons to carry to Sabari-moksha, the spot where Mahishi was liberated by Ayappa.  As a first-year pilgrim, I was handed an arrow by Ramnathan.  Second-year pilgrims took clubs, thirds swords, fourths bows and fifths spears.  We were to dance the two kilomters from here to Sabari-moksha, singing "Swami din daka dum, Ayappa din daka dum" the whole way.  The purpose of the singing and dancing is to bring on a state of trance.

 

Sabari-moksha is two kilometers above the Pampa river.  We had to place our weapons on the spot where Mahishi fell dead.  We watched reveren­tly as the murti of the goddess Maligai­puram was brought down from her mountaintop temple by a raucous procession of bearers, priests and musicians to inspect us.  She had come to see if celibate young boys (kanya-Ayappan or vir­gin Ayap­pans) were making the pilgrimage.  The kanya-Ayappans meant that the murtis of Maligai­puram and Ayappa were not to be married this year.  Solemnly, her procession withdrew.

 

We pilgrims continued to wait at Sabari-moksha for the jewels of Ayappa to arrive from Pandanam, the place where Manikandha was found by his adoptive father.  They were carried by a procession led by a man in trance holding Ayappa's sword.  In the sky high above the sword-bearer, a white-faced eagle circled lazily. Every year an eagle of this type usually not seen in Kerala accompanies the procession on its way from Pandanam to Sabari-moksha.  There the procession takes a short rest and the eagle flies off.  With the resumption of the journey from Sabarimoksha to the Ayappa temple, another eagle appears and flies above the sword-bearer to the top of Sabari-giri.

 

We followed the procession up the peak.  The eighteen steep, narrow stone steps that lead to the temple must be negotiated with the bundle balanced upon the head; after puja, pilgrims descend the steps backwards, facing the temple.  I witnessed several people suddenly scream and lose their footing.  Once one's balance is lost, there is almost no way to avoid tumbling down the stairway to the ground.  I climbed up without mishap, stood in the abhishek queue and took my turn at emptying my coconut-shell over a small murti of Ayappa made of pancha-loha (an alloy of five precious metals). 

 

In the meantime, behind the closed doors of the main altar, the priests decorated the large black stone murti of Ayappa with the jewelled ornaments and weapons brought from Pandanam.  At dusk the doors were opened with great fanfare.  At this time a kind of dancing flame-like lumines­cence became visible above the Magnetic Mountain, between the Evening Star (Venus) and another star.  I watched this display for about five minutes; then it faded from view.

 

I was fascinated by all that I'd experienced.  As I made my way back down Sabari Giri, I resolved to dedicate a part of my time to further inves­tigations of the esoteric and paranormal.  But I was not prepared to sacrifice my present standard of material happiness.

 

I now lived across the road from Sundaram Industries, in a spare cottage on a Muslim family's estate.  I'd become very ambitious at work, and was moving up the office ranks.  Every morning before departing for work I would light a votary candles to a picture of Ayappa in my room.  Promptly upon returning in the afternoon I would sit down before the picture and chant Vishnu‑sahashra-nama-stotram (the Thousand Names of Vishnu).  That was the only Sanskrit prayer I knew; I'd learned it from my father as a youngster.  My Muslim landlord was very happy to see my strict daily observances; he considered his home and family blessed by my presence.  I became friendly with his son, Ahmad, who was about my age.

 

At the same time I led the life of 'a man of the world', albeit a tame Hindu version of it.  As before, I continued to see movies and mix with the modern boys and girls my age, though now and then I'd muse over someday renouncing these trivial pleasures al­together.  But for the moment I strove to find a happy balance between the dual fronts of human experience: the religio-mystical and the mundane.

 

On the holy day of Shivaratri, the respected sannyasi (monk) His Holiness Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal came to Ernakulam to lead the Hindu community's worship of Shiva.  Although he was only fifteen years old, his aged guru had appointed him to be the Shankaracharya or leading swami of the Kamakoti Pitham, an important Durga temple in Kanchi­puram, Tamil Nadu.  His position among the Aiyars (the smarta brahmins of South India) was so powerful that he could be rightly called their Pope.  In order to have his audience, I took an early morning bus, accompanied by Ahmad.  We arrived in Ernakulam at about 3:00 AM.

 

Within an hour after that, we were standing before the dormitory hall where Jayendra Saraswathi and his entourage were staying. This building was located on the grounds of the Shiva temple where the religious functions were to be held.  A Nepali guard in a khaki uniform was posted at the entrance of the dorm.  "Every­one is sleeping," he told us.

 

"We won't disturb them," I replied.  "We've come a long way to see His Holiness.  He'll be up at this hour."  With a jerk of his head, the guard indi­cated where we'd find the swami.  We careful­ly threaded our way through some two dozen sleeping smarta brahmins sprawled across the floor of the common hall to a cur­tained-off doorway at the other end.  A brahmin was slumped in a chair outside it, his head on his chest, snoring.  Through the curtain shone the glow of a bare electric lightbulb.  From within the room we heard the soft chanting of Sankskrit.  Ahmad and I entered.

 

A young man in deep orange robes sat on a cloth mat reciting mantras.  A bamboo staff was propped against the wall behind him. My friend and I offered obeisances by falling flat on the floor (I'd already rehearsed this with Ahmad so that he'd know what to do).  The swami gave us each akshada (a pinch of raw rice grains died yellow with turmeric) as a blessing and bade us to sit. 

 

He asked us where we were coming from.  I told him we lived in Kalamaserry, and that I worked for TVS.  He nodded appreciately-‑TVS carried a lot of weight among the brahmin community.  With a boy's smile so simple and open-hearted that it threatened to undermine the gravity of his post, he said, "I'll be conduct­ing the Shivaratri ceremonies here and will lead a procession through town.  Would you like to join us?" 

 

I smiled back apologetically.  "My job starts at eight.  I'll have to be back in Kalamassery by then.  That's why I've come so early."  I concluded by citing Nehru's maxim (with a slight, ironic chuckle because I'd always thought it nonsense), "Work is worship."  But Swamiji did not detect the irony and nodded approvingly.  "Yes, yes, very good." 

 

Just then the brahmin who'd been asleep in the chair outside came in.  After looking Ahmad and I over curiously, he announced the visit of an elderly brahmin couple.  His Holiness consented to see them.  The old man and woman entered, fell flat before the swami and received his blessings.  In a quavering voice the old man implored, "My dau­ghter's marriage--please help."  Indicating his brahmin aide, Jayendra Saraswathi told the old man, "He'll arrange some gold for your daught­er's dowry."  But the old man pressed on.  "Besides that, it is not a proper match.  Can you advise a better choice of a husband for her?"  Swamiji closed his eyes and silently brought his palms together in the pranam mudra. He did not open his eyes until they'd exited with the aide.  The instant they'd left, he slapped his forehead.  Shaking his head wonder­ing­ly, he looked at me. 

"I am a sannyasi, but these house­holders come to me for charity. All right, so the temple has a fund to assist poor brahmins.  I can let them have something from that.  But then they even want me to pick a groom for the girl.  Is it for arranging marriages that I've renounced the world?"  Trying to find a pleasanter topic of discussion, he then asked me, "Do you have any ques­tions?" 

 

"Just one, Your Holiness," I replied.  "You are awake and chanting your mantras, but all these brahmins with you are sleeping.  Why is that?" 

 

His eyes widened.  "What, they're still sleeping?" 

 

Ahmad spoke up.  "Yes, and they look so funny, their big bellies going up and down." 

 

By his speech, Ahmad revealed himself to be a Muslim for the first time to Jayendra Saraswathi, who was suddenly at a loss for words--according to the caste rules of the smarta brahmin community, it was unthinkable for a Muslim to enter the Shankara­charya's private quarters.

 

To assuage the swami's sudden discomfort I said, "My friend has risen very early on this holy day to come and have your darshan while your Brahmins sleep the morning away.  Is he not better than they?  After all, it is not his fault that he's a Muslim--he had no choice in the matter.  Still, he shows respect for Shiva."

"Anybody who rises before dawn on this day gets the blessings of Shiva," he admitted.  Ahmad then asked, "But will Lord Shiva bless a Muslim?"  "Shiva is Brahman," His Holiness replied.  "For Brahman there is no distinction of Hindu or Muslim." 

 

"Then why," I asked, "is your proces­sion advertised 'For Hindus'? Why not 'For Human Beings'?"  His Holiness smiled and said, "I am trying to make these Hindus into human beings."  The swami's reserve dissolved in boyish mirth as we all laughed heartily at his joke.  

 

He rang a small gong.  In a moment the Nepali guard appeared at the door.  "Get a bucket of water and throw it over these brahmins," His Holiness ordered.  "Just see--even a Muslim has come here for darshan at this time; why they are still asleep?"

The guard promptly bowed and marched out.

 

Nepalis are famous for unquestioningly following orders.  Within a minute's time we heard water splashing the floor outside followed by shouts and groans.  After a more joking and laughter, my friend and I paid obeisan­ces to the swami and left.

 

After my experience at Sabari Giri, every month I made a bus journey to the Guruvayur temple to see the murti of Lord Vasu­deva, famous all over India for answering the prayers of the sick and distressed with miraculous intercessions.  I got to know the brahmin Anjaam Nambudri, a former Communist who had dedicated his life to reciting the Srimad Bhagavatam in the temple.  Srimad Bhagava­tam is lengthy Sanskrit philosop­hical and devotional text held in the highest esteem by the Vaishnavas.  Anjaam Nambudri would daily recite hundreds of verses at a time from memory before a large audience of temple visitors.  Local people considered him a saint.

 

On one visit to Guruvayur I sat through his whole recital.  He began by a sweet melodious recitation of eight Sanskrit stanzas from the Sikshastakam, a scripture I'd never heard of.  Then he translated them into Malayalam.  The eighth verse particularly struck me: "I know no one but Krishna as my Lord, and he shall remain so even if he handles me roughly by His embrace or makes me brokenhearted by not being present before me.  He is complete­ly free to do anything and everything, for He is always my worshipful Lord unconditionally."

 

After Anjaam Nambudri had completed his recital of Srimad Bhagavatam and the crowd had dispersed, I introduced myself.  He consented to answer a few questions.

 

I told him I wanted to know more about the Sikshastakam.  His eyes brimmed with tears.  In a soft, trembling voice he replied, "I am not the person you should put this question to.  I am too hard-hearted to answer you properly.  My mind is too polluted with sensual desires and my intellect is too crippled by endless specula­tions to understand the Sikshastakam." 

 

At first I misunderstood what he was saying.  "Sir, with all due respect, how do you know I am so polluted and crippled that I can't understand the Sikshastakam?  Why don't you just begin the explanation and see if I can understand or not?  After all, I am an educated..."

 

He held up his hand and stopped me.  "No, not you.  I mean to say, I am too polluted and crippled to understand Sikshastakam. So how can I explain it to you?"

 

I was very surprised by his words.  I'd never before heard a brahmin present himself as unworthy.  He continued.

 

"All I can tell you is that these eight verses were written by Sri Chaitanya about five hundred years ago."

 

"Who is Sri Chaitanya?" I persisted.

 

Now the tears were gliding down his cheeks.  "If I answer you, I'll be condemned, for I cannot answer correctly.  My understand­ing is too shallow.  Sri Chaitanya gave humanity the greatest blessing, but it is being kept out of sight by certain saints in Brindaban.  You know Brindaban?"

 

"I've not been there," I answered, "but everybody has heard of Brindaban, where Krishna was born and danced with the cowherd maidens."

 

"Yes, yes.  That's where you should go to learn about Sri Chaitanya."

I changed the subject.  "How did you come to recite Srimad Bhaga­vatam in the temple every day?"

 

"Years ago I was a con­vinced Marxist and radical activist.  I had no faith in God whatsoever.  One day I came here to organize a Communist Party march that was to begin outside the Guruvayur temple.  We wanted our marchers to meet here because the temple is the most well-known place in the city.

 

"Now, at that time I had been suffering from a persistent digestive ailment.  I was unable to digest solid food--I would always vomit it up.  It so happened that a distant uncle of mine was the head priest of the temple.  He called me into the temple. Out of family respect I went in to see him.  He gave me a plate of paramanna, rice cooked in sweetened milk.  I told him, 'I am very sorry, but I cannot take solid food.  It makes me ill.'  But my uncle said, 'Don't worry, you can take this.  Nothing will happen.'

 

"I said again, 'No, I can't.  If I do I will vomit.'  And he said, 'It is prasadam.  Even if you vomit, you'll be spiritually nourished.'  To please my uncle, whom I hadn't seen in years, I ate the paramanna.  Then I went back to work outside.  Well, I was very surprised because during the whole march I experienced no sickness. 

 

"After the march ended I went back to the temple to talk to my uncle again.  I told him, 'You know, that sweet rice I ate here gave me no problem.  I wonder why?'  And he said, 'You should know why.'  'Well, why I should know why?'  'Because you are a communist.  Communists know everything, don't they?'  And he smiled. 

 

"That was his challenge to me: you have a materialistic explana­tion for everything else, why not for this?  So I said, 'Give me more paramanna.'  I ate three, four platefuls more--and nothing happened.  The next day I went to the doctor, who examined me by testing my stool.  He was as surprised as I.  'It's amazing,' he said, 'but you are digesting again.  I suppose it means you are able to eat this particular type of preparation.  So find out how they make that paramanna, and make it yourself.' 

 

"I returned to temple and again took a big plate of paramanna along with with four appams (cookies).  And I had no problem at all.  My uncle said, 'Don't think this has something to do with proper diet.  This is the mercy of Guruvayurappan Vasudeva upon you."  'Look,' I told him, 'I don't believe in miracles.  But I'm grateful to you for having shown me what kind of food I am able to eat.'  

 

"I hired a brahmin cook to prepare the paramanna just as it is done in the temple.  The cook told me, 'I can do all the same things as the temple cook, but if the paramanna isn't offered to the Deity, it won't be the same.'  I said, 'I'm paying you to cook, not to preach.'  He said, 'You'll see.' 

 

"I ate a plate of the cook's paramanna.  It had exactly the same look, smell and taste as the paramanna my uncle gave me.  But I immediately vomited it up.  Well, that made me doubt all my mat­erialistic convictions.  I went straight to the temple and told my uncle all that had happened.  He just said, 'Krish­na, Guru­vayu­rappan', and went back to his duties on the altar.  After he finished his puja he came out and found me still standing there. He could see that I was very perplexed, so he told me, 'You should take a vrat to serve the Deity for forty days.  During that time eat only Krishna prasada.  At the end you'll be cured.'

"So I did just that.  I took up this recitation of Srimad Bhagavatam.  And of course my Communist Party friends were angry with me.  I just told them, 'Look, without life, there's no politics.  Let me live.'  I gave all that up and have stayed here ever since.  And now I can eat anything.  But only as long as it is offered to the Deity."

 

I was impressed with Anjaam Nambudri's humble spirituality, and his story hit home.  Until recently, I too had been a jeering critic of all that is religious.  But I was not ready to sur­render my freedom for whatever peace of mind Anjaam Nambudri had attained by surrendering his.  'Let me sometimes peek behind the blinds of this world to see what lies on the other side,' I thought to myself.  'But I am not going to step over the thresh­old.  What if I get stuck in the other world and can't come back?'   

 

I failed to consider what might happen if I got stuck in the threshold while dilly-dallying between the the two worlds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three

 

THE SWORD OF THE LAMPS

 

I soon came to be known to the Sundaram Industries manage­ment as a bright young star.  I'd begun as a junior assistant, handling service records  in the person­nel depart­ment, but soon leaped into the ambitious role of 'office hero' by tackling tasks that others were not able to handle quickly or skillfully.  Within a few months of my arrival, my vanity was gratified by a promo­tion to the post of senior assis­tant to the chief payroll accoun­tant.

  

I had also discovered that because of my being the nephew of the Directing Manager, I could ignore the office dress code, which called for white shirt tucked into trousers.  My attire was kurta and lungi.  The kurta (the tradi­tional collarless North Indian cotton shirt) would be worn long, down to my knees.  The lungi (a white sarong worn by South Indian men) I would wrap up to my knees when I walked and let down below my feet when I sat at my desk.  To top off my odd appearance, I sported long hair and a handlebar mustache. 

 

One day a spare man with slicked-back hair and a peculiar gleam in his eye strode into the office and went from desk to desk collecting donations.  He wore a lungi and a simple cotton cloth draped over his torso.  His forehead was marked with a sindhur dot that indi­cated he was a shakta (a devotee of Devi, the female prin­ciple).  I recognized him as a member of the Kerala brahmin caste known as Nambudri, who are sometimes feared for their reputed powers.  There was a theatri­cal, effeminant air about him that I found silly.  Still, everyone was giving him a few rupees.

When he saw me in my unusual attire he assumed I'd be a soft touch.  Wordlessly smiling with lowered eyelashes, he put out his hand. 

 

"For what?" I demanded irritably. 

 

"I am collecting for the Bhagav­ati temple here at which I am the priest.  I want to hold a great festival of the goddess." 

 

"I'm not giving you any money."  I turned back to work. 

 

"But I heard you are very reli­gious." 

 

Though my interest in religious experience had been reawakened as a result of my experience as an Ayappan, I hadn't lost my dislike for indolent and grasping brahmin priests.  I saw no good reason why he deserved my money.  "I said I am not giving you anyth­ing."

 

"Be careful of your attitude," he snapped haughtily. 

 

This only roused my bile.  "What are you going to do if I'm not?"

He turned to the other office workers and demanded, "Tell him about me."  They looked at me disapprovingly.  "You should give him someth­ing," one said with a hint of warning in his voice. "He's a tantric fellow." 

My eyes widened in mock surprise.  "Oh," I marvelled in my best stage voice, "a tantric?  Well, then ... of course I won't give you anything." 

 

He raised a forefinger into the air and glared at me.  "I dare you come to my temple on Friday and face my power." 

 

Sounding as unimpressed as I could, I parried, "Friday, you say? Well, you just might regret your invitation.  I've seen power before, and I've also seen powerful silli­ness.  Don't think you can fool me so easily." 

 

With a dramatic flour­ish, he stalked out of the office. 

 

"You simply could have given him two rupees and avoided a scene," one of the staff reproved me.  "Why this chal­lenging attitude?" 

"I just wanted to know what sort of good cause it is that you're all so eager to waste your money on today." 

 

"Look, youngster, that was a tantric!  Be care­ful!"  I made a rude sound and got back to work.

 

But that Friday I did go to the temple, bringing Ahmad with me. We came expecting at best a magic show, at worst a farce.  In either case, we'd be entertained.

 

Bhagavati, also called Devi, Mahamaya, Durga, Parvati and many other names, is the divine Shakti (potency) known universally as Mother Nature (mulaprakriti).  In India she is wor­shipped by people who seek to enjoy her at­tributes like rati (the erotic), bhuti (riches and pros­perity), tushti (pleasu­re), pushti (pro­gress) and so on. 

 

Tree temples dedicated to Bhagavati are a common sight in Indian villages, and the temple in Kalamassery was one of these, near the edge of a pond.  It consisted of a small brick room built around the tree's base.  Inside the room, in a hole in the side of the trunk, was the altar to the goddess. 

 

When Ahmad and I got there, we found a group of local people standing in two lines before either side of the door of the tree temple, praying in unison: "Amme-Narayana, Devi-Nara­yana, Lakshmi-Narayana, Bhadre-Nara­yana..."  These are names of Bhagavati that describe her as the energy of Lord Narayana (Vishnu).

 

The shakta pujari arrived on a bicycle from his job at a chemical company.  Parking his bike next to the pond, he jumped into the water, clothes and all.  He climbed out dripping wet, entered the small temple room and closed the door behind him.  From within, sounds of a ringing bell and the chanting of mantras could be heard.

 

The crowd got wilder, singing and clapping to the rhythm of a hand drum.  The men were all black-skinned, many with bushy‑heads and beards, the younger ones wearing colorfully printed shirts open at the neck.  Exchanging fierce looks of some shared inner awaken­ing, their eyes and teeth flashed a fearsome white as their limbs jerked about in an increasingly aggressive display of energy.  The women flocked behind the men, swaying in unison, eyes closed, brows furrowed, some with hands clasped or uplifted.

Suddenly the door opened to loud cries from the assembly. The shakta priest did arati, a ceremony in which incense and a brass‑handled ceremonial lamp are waved before the murti. 

 

After setting the lamp down he came out of the room and started hopping around on stiff legs with his feet held to­gether, somewhat like a bird.  I heard someone shout, "Now he is in trance!"  To a non-Indian, all this might seem bizarre, even devilish.  But to my friend and I, it was so rustic as to be incredibly funny.

 

The mad priest hopped through the crowd handing out strands of colored thread to be worn against disease.  When he came before me he announced dramatically, "I will show you the spiritual world.  Don't doubt what you see."  He bounced over to a row of stones laid out on the ground, and while standing over them, his body bent ninety degrees at the hips and his head swiveled left, right, up and down.  He then announced, "I am going to build a great temple on this spot.  These stones will trans­form themsel­ves into wor­shipable murtis!"  He suddenly straightened and demanded money from me for wada-malas (garlands of wadas, or South Indian dum­plings) to be offered to these stones when they changed their shapes. 

 

Vainly struggling contain my mirth, I snickered, "I'm sorry, but I won't give you anyth­ing." 

 

He looked me black up and down, trembling with exaggerated scorn. The crowd, now gathered around us, had become ominously quiet. His voice raised to a woman's shriek, the shakta challenged, "Oh, you don't believe me?"

 

I said no and stood my ground.  He asked someone to bring a coconut.  Seizing it in both hands, he broke it over his own head. 

 

"This doesn't mean anything to us except that you've got a very hard head," I deadpanned, shrugging.  Ahmad laughed out loud. His laughter was shared by the crowd, and that broke the tension, but it did not deter the priest.

 

"You will yet acknowledge the potency!  Wait here."  He went back into the temple room and finished his worship.  In the meantime the crowd drifted away, sensing that the show was over.  Ahmad also left, his interest spent.  I loitered, waiting for the man to finish, curious about his crazed deter­mination to prove something to me.  When he came out he brought me into his modest house just a few steps away.

 

Scattered around the place were all sorts of weird paraphernalia --strange weapons, masks, staring painted eyes, artificial teeth. In one corner was a massive two-foot tall brass floor lamp with five wicks burning in its plate-shaped oil reser­voir.  Directly over it, about four feet above, another oil lamp hung suspended by a chain from the ceiling.  A cere­monial sword lay on a small wooden table before the two lamps. 

 

Picking up the sword, the shakta eyed me through fierce slits. "You still don't believe me?" 

 

More curious than apprehensive about what he would do next, I said, "No, I don't." 

 

He held the sword upright in the space between the two lamps. After a moment, he let go of it.  It remained in mid-air. 

 

"Let me see how you did that," I said, moving in closer.  Instead of trying to stop me as I expected he would, he stood by and grinned venge­fully.  I gripped the sword and tugged with all my might.  It didn't budge an inch.  I waved a hand above and below the sword.  No wires.

 

He cackled at my growing confusion.  "You're having trouble uncovering the method of my magic?"

 

"Well," I replied as calmly as I could, "swords don't just stand in mid-air.  So what's the trick?" 

 

"This is the potency of tantra.  It's not a trick."  I didn't say anything, not knowing what to say.  Turning to leave the room, he said, "I'll be back in a moment--you're free to study this mystery however you like." 

 

I checked the lamps and examined the sword from all angles. There were no signs of fakery at all.

 

He returned.  His voice ringing in defiance of all the faithless­ness I represented, he declared, "I will put on a festival two weeks time, and if people don't care enough to help, I will have to use tantric power to arrange everything,"  

 

"Let me help you," I heard myself say as I marveled at the sword glinting in the flickering lamp­light.  "I'll organize this entire fes­tival for you."  Whatever the explanation was, I found this man's sword-magic the most unearthly thing I'd ever seen in my life, even more so than the vision of the flame on Sabari Giri. If I could follow Ramnathan to see that, I could follow this man to know more about tantra.

  

Now that I'd finally accepted his power, the shakta's bluster evaporated.  Now truly sorry for my former indiscretions, I made friends with him.  He smiled warmly, looking me full in the face. "Let us not only be friends, let us be fellow tantrics.  You're a smart young man.  You'll learn quickly if you just behave yourself." 

 

The next day I returned so he could introduce me to his con­gregation.  They held me in great regard, consider­ing me an educated and religious young brahmin come from far-off Tamil Nadu to assist their own local priest.  I broke the barrier of caste by mixing with them, visiting their homes, helping them in whatever way I could.  Thus I won their support as well as their respect. 

 

A week before the festival I called the young people of the village together and engaged them in decorating the town, cleaning the streets, hiring elephants, buying fireworks, and sending inviations to the local politi­cal leaders.  The organiza­tional talents I'd learned in the DK came in quite handy.

 

I printed flyers featuring a photo of the Bhagavati murti.  These I had dis­tributed from house to house as part of a fund-raising drive; we collected more money than the shakta pujari had ever seen in his life.  The festival lasted four days.  Each day, I led a proces­sion around town with two elephants at the front.  In a small com­munity like Kalamas­sery, this was an event that would be talked about for years.  After the festival ended, I got the Hindus to donate regularly to the pujari so that he'd not be in need.

 

Later the Muslims of the village asked me to organize a festival for them at their mosque; this I did likewise with great success. I suppose I could have become a leading political figure among the locals.

 

Around this time one Mr. Murlidharan Karta came from Calcutta and joined our TVS branch.  We became friendly.  His hereditary house was in Ernakulam, and once he drove me there to meet his family. Later that evening he took me to Chottanikara Bhagavati Pitha, an important place of Devi worship in the countryside.  We arrived for the midnight puja.

 

The shrine was representative of the cleanly evocative style of Kerala temple architecture, being a simple, compact struc­ture beneath a low, pagoda-style tiled roof.  The small courtyard within was il­luminated by rows of brass oil lamps hung by chains from the ceiling.  The walls were decorated by intricately carved motifs of mystical significance.

 

I went down a narrow dark stone stairway into a cave beneath the shrine, where I saw rites being performed to a stone that reputedly grows in size each year.  In the dancing orange glow of fiery oil lamps, I saw ceremonial white chalk mandalas drawn on the cave floor and markings of red sindhur on the walls.  The ceiling was bedecked with banana bark and leaf trimm­ings, and there were strange figurines made of white flour positioned here and there.  The effect on the mind of this ancient ethnic cultism was palpable.  The atmosphere was heavy with the preter­natural. 

 

A huge tree grew from out of the cave floor up through the ceiling and into the courtyard of the shrine, where it spread its branches above.  I watched as a group of haunted lunatics were brought into the cave, each to have a tuft of hair wrapped tightly around a nail that was then driven into the tree.  In their madness they tore their heads away, leaving the hair--and the ghost--on the nail.  Their disturbed symptoms immediately vanished.

The ex­perience did much to change my attitude to life.  I came away convinced that I should delve as deeply as possible into the secrets of tantra.  I went back to the Kalamas­sery pujari and learned all I could about Devi-worship from him.  

 

The word tantra means 'thread' or 'woven pattern' in Sanskrit; it refers to the underlying order of the uni­verse.  This knowledge may be colored by one or a mixture of three types of desire: tamas (base desire), rajas (desire for material success), and sattva (desire for spiritual en­lighten­ment and peace).  Usually the term 'tantric' only applies to someone who practices tamasic tantrism.

 

A soul conditioned by the tamasic quality is obsessed by lust to the point of madness and illusion.  He is compulsively drawn to dark, degraded activities that are ruinous to his spiritual progress.  The tantric scriptures, spoken by Shiva to Devi, prescribe a code of religion that is attractive to such unfor­tunate people addicted to sex, in­toxication and meat-eating. They are advised to ceremonially engage in these sinful acts as a way of worshiping Shiva and Devi.  The goal is to overcome these obses­sions and rise to a higher standard of life.  As induce­ments, Shiva and Devi offer material benedictions to faithful followers of tantra.

 

There are two paths (margas) in tantra.  The shaktas, like my new friend the Kalamassery pujari, follow the dakshinamarga (right‑hand path).  Shaktas seek communion with Devi through temple worship and trance; from her they get powers of prophe­cy and healing.  The right-hand path of tantra is considered 'clean' because the rituals are confined to symbolism that only suggests the offering of meat, fish, wine and sexual congress.

 

But the vamamarga (left-hand) tantrics practice a most unclean ritualism.  Like the voodoo sor­cerors of Haiti (who, inter­est­ing­ly, are known as the bokor, 'the priests who serve with the left hand'), the left-hand tantrics of India seek to attain black magical powers by methods strange and terrible.

 

Strange displays of power were the food of my teenage enthusiasm for the occult, so the pujari recom­mended I take up studies under a master of the left-hand path.  He explained that in vamamarga there are two specialties.  One is necromancy: the summoning of evil spirits, ghosts, goblins and the like for particular tasks. Ghastly rituals are per­formed to bring these entities--known by such names as Yaksha, Yakshi, Dakini, Shakini, Mohini, Chatan and Udumban--under control.  Their home is the under­world, but at the bidding of an expert tantric they rise to the earthly plane and perform wonders.

 

The other specialty is a kind of short-cut siddha-yoga, a method of gaining magical powers by meditation upon lesser expansions of Shiva or Devi.  The yogi offers some type of vow, sacrifice or ritual to these fearsome, las­civious forms.  After satisfying them, he receives siddhis (yogic perfections) in return. 

 

A vamamarga master may perfect one or both of these means to power, and he may perform right-hand rituals as well.  There are so many intertwining branches within the general divisions of tantra that it is not always possible to make clear distinc­tions between them. 

 

On the advice of the pujari, I sought out a vamamarga master at a small village close to Chottanikara Pitha.  The center of town had just one real building, a temple, surrounded by huts and shanties.  When I arrived, there was a competi­tion going on in the market­place between two tantrics who'd selected an onlooker from the crowd to be their instrument.  They had him standing stiff as a board, in trance.  One tantric pointed a stick at him and said, "Lie down."  He fell flat.  The other pointed and said, "Get up."  He rose up straight without bending a limb.

 

One of the tantrics placed a figurine made from rice flour and eggs on the ground.  It was about six inches long, with two bones stuck in the bottom like legs and a knot of hair stuck on the top.  The tantric recited a charm and the doll stood up and started moving towards him, rocking back and forth on the bone‑legs.

 

The crowd grew restless.  People edged away from the tantrics, muttering fearfully among themselves.  I soon found out why.  In their zeal to outdo one another, the tantrics called more people out of the crowd, causing them to perform increasingly danger­ous acts.  Finally, to the relief of everyone, they ended their duel with a challenge to meet each other again on another date. 

 

The crowd broke up.  I walked around the little bazaar where I saw one of the tantrics going from stall to stall demanding goods and receiving them for free.  Everyone was deathly afraid of him.

 

After he left I asked some of the stallkeepers why they allowed this to go on.  One man answered, "If I don't give, he'll change all these vegetables into creatures."  Someone else said, "He can make snakes fall from the sky."  A third told me, "He'll change the color of my wife's skin."  Another said, "Anything may happen.  This man is heart­less.  He can do what he likes, and no policeman will dare touch him.  He has Chatan working for him." 

 

The word chatan is derived from the Sanskrit chetana (conscious­ness).  Whether or not there is a relationship between this and the Arabic Shaitan or Hebrew Satan is a question for etymo­logists.

  

I was eager to get to the bottom of what I'd seen and heard, so without wasting more time in the bazaar I headed for the woods outside the village where the pujari said I'd find the master's residence.  After a time-consuming hike through thick foliage I finally reached the place in the after­noon. 

 

It was a small shelter of piled rock walls with a crude wood‑beam roof built under a banyan tree.  Scattered all around it were animal bones and skulls.  There were even a couple of dried severed human hands hanging in the branches. 

 

A very attractive young lady sat inside the doorway of the hut. She was not yet twenty and looked fresh and vir­ginal.  Her hair was worn long and loose, and she had on a simple ankle-length maroon red dress.  There was a vacant look in her eyes that did not change when I spoke to her.

 

I asked her about the man I was looking for.  She slowly mumbled "Please wait, he said you would come," which didn't really tell me what I wanted to know.  I rephrased the question and got the same reply, now repeated over and over.  I could see she was under some kind of influence.

 

I gave up and sat down outside the stone shelter.  Soon I heard someone moving through the forest.  A man stepprd into the clearing, and I recognized him as the tantric I'd seen demanding goods in the village.  Now he didn't look so wild-eyed and fearsome.  In fact he could have been any common fellow off the streets--a rickshaw driver, for instance.  Still, one could see in his face a strange sort of lust: not that of a gross sen­sualist, but a lust for power.  One might say he had the same sort of air about him as a success­ful businessman, a mixture of ruthless ambition and cocky confidence.  But his success was not in business.  It was in the black arts.

 

Wordlessly, he led me into his hut.  The far side of its dark, disjointed interior was taken up by a stove that was simply an arrangement of bricks housing a wood fire.  Upon that squatted an oversized copper kettle with two ear-shaped handles.  Steam spewed out from under the lid, filling my nose with a faintly disgusting odor.  Lined up gainst the opposite wall was a flat stone with a highly polished mirror surface, a small bookcase with thick tattered tomes crowding the shelves, and an old har­monium.  In a corner I saw more of the now-familiar rice flour figur­ines, chilling in their combined morbidity and childish­ness. As I walked in, stooping, my head brushed against bones tied with knots of hair hanging from the gnarled timber rafters above.

 

He lit a couple of candles with the stove's fire and we sat down. Nervously, I began explaining myself and my new-found interest in tantra.  He gazed at me steadily with a cold thin smile until I faltered.  Then he asked in a deadly calm voice that matched his smile, "How far do you want to go?" 

 

I said, "Well, to tell you the truth, my real interest is to develop some faith in spiritual things by actually seeing them."

 

"Did you see the show I did today?" he asked, maintaining his reptilian smile.  "Oh yes, and it was very impressive.  How do you perform such feats?" 

 

He studied me thoughtfully for a moment.  Then he replied, "I can tell you where you can get a little deeper look into the mystery of power.  This will be a sort of test for you.  But it will have nothing to do with me;  I'll tell you where to go and give you some advice in prepara­tion, but you'll be on your own after that. If what you see convinces you that this is not parlor magic, you may return here for some serious instruc­tion.  Are you inter­ested?"

I nodded eagerly, very interested.  He told me about a small Muslim settlement near a stand of 'shavuk' trees.  In the midst of the shavuk woods was a clear­ing.  I was to go to that clearing on the next full moon night, sit there and simply watch for someth­ing to appear.

 

"Don't fall asleep, whatever you do," he warned.  "You should bring with you a pocketful of small white stones.  If you get frightened, spit these stones one at a time and throw them behind you as far as you can.  This will help you get away."

 

He paused.  "If you survive this encounter, you may return here." I left in no small state of excitement, eager for the next full moon night.

 

On the afternoon before that night, I returned to the region with Ahmad.  We soon found the little village the tantric had told about and made discreet inquiries about the shavuk forest. Around sundown we located it.  Just in case we might need help, Ahmad made a quick acquaintance with a Muslim family living some hundred meters across a road that skirted the edge of the tree stand.  These people confirmed there could be danger, and told us they'd keep a lamp burning in the window so that we could find our way there easily.  We both had our pocket­fuls of white stones. 

 

After some hours of killing time in the village, we returned at about 11 o'clock and entered the woods.  The moon was high in the cloudless night sky, flooding everything with its pale sheen. After a brief walk down a gentle incline we came to an area where some trees had been felled.  In the midst of the clearing we saw a broken circular wall that rimmed an old well.  We sat down on a fallen trunk some twenty meters away from it. 

 

Not knowing what to expect, our attention was drawn to each and every rustle of the woods.  But nothing happened.  Finally, after midnight, Ahmad nodded into sleep.  I remembered the tan­tric's warning and remained alert, my back to the well and my gaze moving like a search­light along the line of trees all around. 

 

Ten minutes after Ahmad fell asleep, I felt a cold nervous prickling at the back of my neck.  Leaping to my feet, I spun around and saw, standing on the well's rim, bathed in the moon­shine, a tall, statuesque woman swaying slightly from side to side.  Her eyes were closed.  For a moment I wondered if she was a sleep­walker.

 

In face and physique she did not resemble an Indian woman.  She had long loose hair that hung down over the front of her body to her ankles; otherwise, she was naked.  She was hauntingly volup­tuous in a way that was both enticing and frightening.

 

Staring open-mouthed at this apparition, I jabbed Ahmad.  He sat up with a start and turned to see what I was looking at, then gasped and scrambled to his feet.

 

At once her eyelids lifted, revealing twin orbs from hell.  They flamed hotly, penetrating the darkness with a glare like the eyes of a tigress.  She fixed those terrible eyes upon mine and stepped off the well, alighting to earth as if she was not heavier than a wisp of cotton.

 

The woman's legs propelled her forward.  I cannot say she 'walked' or 'ran', for these words are simply not able to give an accurate picture of how she advanced upon us.  Her legs moved without bending at the knees, making swift little steps of such fluid effort­less­ness that I was reminded of the locomo­tion of a centipede.  It was almost as if below the waist her body was motorized, for when her legs started, her head, upper torso and limbs snapped back slightly from the sudden forward motion.

 

Ahmad, shaking violently and gibbering, caught my hand and tried to pull me with him in a dash for the road.  But I was rooted to the spot, transfixed by the mysterious woman's eyes.  I tried to tell him I couldn't run, but no sound would come from my con­tracted throat.  He let go and fled for his life just as she halved her distance from us.

 

What deadly hypnotic power an automobile's headlights have over a deer standing at gaze in its path, her eyes had over me.  She closed the last few feet between us.  I heard my friend shout from behind me, "Get ready to run!"  Something flashed through the air and landed behind the woman.  She broke off her mesmeris­ing stare and turned to see what it was.  As soon as she looked away, I regained control.  I bolted in sheer terror to catch up with Ahmad who was now in the woods on his way up to the road.

 

He turned, took something from his mouth and threw it past my head.  It was then that I remembered the stones.  Still running like a madman, I fumbled in my pocket and pulled one out, popped it in my mouth for an instance, then tossed it over my shoulder without looking back.  Hearts pounding, we burst out of the grove, crossed the road and entered the field at full tilt on our way to the Muslims' house.

 

I turned and saw the woman emerge from the trees and skitter eerily over the road right behind us.  An awful thought seized my mind: "We'll never make it."

 

Slowing to a stumble, I plunged my hand in my pocket to snatch a whole fistfull of stones.  I licked them ravenously before hurling the lot right at her, then pelted off again at full speed.

 

Looking over my shoulder, I saw her stoop to examine some of the stones, picking them up one by one.  But as if in sudden fury she flung them down again and rose to resume her pursuit.  By this time we had reached the house.

 

We entered breathlessly and bolted the door behind us.  A man and his old mother came out of another room and bade us to sit down as they quickly drew the blinds on all the windows.  That done, the man handed Ahmad and I each a large shiny-bladed knife.  He rubbed the open end of half a lime on the sides of the blades and told us to hold the knives ready.  In the meantime the old lady read aloud from the Koran. 

Whoever--or whatever--the mys­terious woman was, she did not try to enter.  After an hour or so the man and his mother retired. Ahmad and I, still trembing with fright, didn't dare drop into sleep before the first rays of dawn.

 

 

 

 

 

Four

 

SECRETS OF LEFT-HAND TANTRA

 

When we met again, the tantra master was much more forth­coming. I was greeted with a warm embrace and invited to relax under the banyan tree.  I sensed that I now belonged.  In an awed voice I asked him, "What was it that I saw?"

 

He chuckled at my neophyte's excitement.  "So, you were im­pressed?"  I nodded.  "You saw Mohini, a demoness from the under­world.  Had you known how, you could have entered a pact with her for the next cycle of Jupiter (twelve years).  You promise to satisfy her lust once a month, and she will do your bidding in return--protect your property, destroy your enemies, whatever. 

 

"But a pact with Mohini is very dangerous.  When she comes for sexual satis­fac­tion, she may assume eighteen forms in the course of the night, expecting you to fulfill the demands of each one. If you cannot, it will cost you your life.  And if during the twelve years of your relation­ship with her you have an attraction to another woman, that will also cost you your life.  You suddenly vomit blood--finished."

 

I asked, "Why was she attracted to the white stones?" 

 

"Mohini draws energy from the male sexual fluid," he answered. "Besides the pleasure of sex, this is her main inter­est.  Of the bodily fluids, saliva is the most similar to semen; that's why throwing a white stone upon which you've spat is a sure way to divert her attention.  People who drool while sleeping unknowing­ly invite this kind of succubus to take control of their bodies."

Looking at me appraisingly, he then asked, "Has your faith in the occult increased?"  I swallowed and blurted, "Yes, how could it not?  I'll never forget that experience as long as I live!"

 

"So, you want to learn something from me?"

 

"Yes, of course!"

 

He devised a schedule of appointments based on my days off from work.  On the average I would see him once every two weeks, but sometimes he insisted that our meetings be separated by as much as forty days, in deference to his own obligations.  He ordered me to keep my relation­ship with him a strict secret.

 

During our meetings he taught theory, reading and explaining Sanskrit verses to me from a old book.  In the course of these lessons, I learned he had twelve chatans under his control.  He engaged these demons in grisly tasks for paying customers, such as frightening or inducing insanity in the customers' rivals, or even killing them.

 

I also learned that my master had taken up vamamarga in ven­geance against people who had used the same methods to hurt his family. He destroyed these enemies and then went into business for himself.  In India, vamamarga has always been the last resort of the downtrodden in securing justice and getting respect: 'Dog as a devil deified, deified lived as a god.'

Apart from my master's ruthlessness towards his enemies, I found some things in him that were admirable.  One was that he was strictly self-con­trolled, despite the fact that he used women in many of his rituals.  He was a rare man who was motivated not by sensual pleasure but by sheer power. 

 

Another good quality of his, fortunately for me, was that once he was your friend, he would not betray you.  Many tantric masters accept disciples simply because they need assistants, not because they want to impart knowledge.  Since in tantra today's disciple may become tomorrow's rival, a master's students can find themselves in grave danger when he no longer needs them.  But my master accepted me as a friend, knowing that I would not serious­ly pursue tantra later on.  I was only experimenting.

 

For the last ten years he'd been attempting to get mystic powers by a method known as uttara-kaula: the worship of Shakti in the form of a virgin girl with par­ticularly fine lakshanas (physical quali­ties).  His chatans would search for such beauties as he traveled around Kerala doing his magical exhibi­tions. 

 

From time to time he would place one of these women under hypnotic control and bring her to a burning ground, where bodies are crema­ted.  There he would bathe her in liquor and invoke the power of the goddess with mantras and mudras (symbolic hand ges­tures).  Yet during all this he had to remain completely unper­turbed by sexual desires (he'd been celibate for the last thirty years).  After the ceremony he let the girl go home un­touched, unharmed and unable to remember what had happened.

 

Having completed theory, one night I assisted him in a par­ticularly gruesome ritual.  He took me to a crematorium where he had the cooperation of the man who burned the bodies.  This man had pulled from the fire a smoldering half-burned carcass that we used as a kind of altar.  My master sat down near the body in medita­tion.  I had a box containing eight different powders; on signal from my master, I would sprinkle one of them on the hot, crack­ling corpse.  The other fellow would place burning cinders on the body from time to time to keep it hot.

 

The powders produced different colors and flavors of smoke.  With the rising of each puff from off the carcass my mind would be opened to a particular realm of thought.  For instance, one powder caused thoughts of clear skies to flood my mind--the dawn sky, noon sky, sunset sky and night sky.  With another I saw different kinds of clouds.  Visions of bodies of water were induced by a third.  Sometimes the visions were horrible, as when I saw huge piles of stool. Sometimes the visions were very sensual.  In all cases, I had to keep my mind under control and not allow it to be overwhelmed by fascina­tion, lust or revulsion.

 

I was being used by my master as a 'video monitor' for his own medita­tions.  I was to sustain the images in my head undis­turbed while he en