The Mountain Logs Day 10A - Arriving At The Horizon

The Char Dham means “The Four Stations”. Why “The Four Stations” is because it is not just a reference to the four places in Geography. It is also a reference to the four stations of artha, kama, dharma and moksha. The four stations of a well lived life namely acquiring of prosperity or means, fulfillment of desires and passions, living a life of coherence with Nature, Nature out there and one’s own nature, and finally the station of transcendence where you get established in your own sense of being. 

On this pilgrimage, the four geographical stations of Gangotrti, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath, the pilgrimage seeks to get insight into the truth of these four stations of life through a combination of physical and mental effort, emotional aliveness, openness to the spirit and surrender to Nature. 

It’s quite beautiful, profound, intense and transforming. It’s unique as a pilgrimage, as an experience and breathtaking in its conception. 

In the following Episodes, Dr. Bharat Thakur takes you along this pilgrimage over 10 days, sharing the daily logs and some insightful blogs that will have you want to experience the Yatra for yourself.  

Episodes

1. Day 0 .. Rishikesh … A Little About Yatra
2. Day 1 .. Breaking The Trance ..
3. Day 2 .. Night at Barkot .. A Lovely Day, An Uncertain Night … Initiation Into The Yatra 
4. Day 2 blog: Legends of Yamunotri
5. Day 3 … Trek to Yamunotri .. Night at Barkot .. Living The Mountain Life ..
6. Day 4 .. Travel to Uttarkashi .. Prayer .. An Intimate Of Happiness .. 
7. Day 4 blog: River of life .. 
8. Day 4 blog: We go to Gangotri next
9. Day 5 .. Gangotri Darshan and back to Uttarkashi .. Immersion At The Source
10. Day 6 .. Travel to Guptkashi .. The Critical Period .. 
11. Day 6 blog:  Yamunotri to Kedarnath 
12. Day 7 .. Trek to Kedarnath .. Crossing The Threshold ..
13. Day 8 .. Kedarnath Darshan .. The Thawing Of The Glacier .. trek back and travel to Gupt Kashi .. 
14. Day 8 blog: Kedar .. The Field
15. Day 9 .. Travel to Gurudwara .. The Pause .. 
16. Day 9 Blog: Road to Badrinath
17. Day 10 .. Darshan of Badrinath .. Arriving At The horizon .. 
18. Day 10 Blog: Nar Narayan … The Ancient Archetype Of The Student

Transcript

Day 10 Mountain Logs - a journey into the void 

Arriving at the Horizon 

Knowing all

And then knowing 

Nothing 

Intervals cease

Till there is 

Nothing 

A journey from

Objects to their original

Nothing  

Love ending in

Beloved 

Nothing 

From life to 

Its final 

Nothing .. 

The origin of everything.

Dear friends

In the cosmos, it has now been confirmed that at the center of galaxies such as ours, The Milky Way, there are extremely dense objects called ‘black holes’.

When a massive star dies, it leaves behind a small core. If the core is heavy enough, it produces a black hole.

A black hole has such high gravity that beyond a line called the ‘event horizon’ around its circumference. Time itself comes to a stand still and nothing can escape the black hole inside this line, not even light. It’s called ‘black’ because it does not emit any light, so it is not visible to our naked eyes.

Imagine this, on your way to entering a black hole, you pass through a giant quantum copying machine somewhere in outer space which according to a quantum law produces another you, your clone because the law says this is what will happen should you hypothetically walk towards a black hole. One of you will walk in and the other will stay out and watch.

As your clone passes through the event horizon, you stop hearing from him. Life for your clone may not change much but you will never know as he and you cannot be in touch beyond the event horizon.

An event horizon of a different kind is called death, here too we don’t hear from the other side and as in the case of the black hole, in death too, there is no coming back to tell the story.

An event horizon is a discontinuity, a rupture in the fabric of time and that other side, is a ‘beyond’ something beyond comprehension.

It is a void.

But let’s remember, the black hole is also formed out of the same matter that our sun is. Death too happens to the one who is alive. It’s just a breakdown of time and of a certain set of physical laws that we are all familiar with.

A void is where there is a breakdown of time and space.

In this pilgrimage, We have been making a journey towards a void that the Yoga Sutra calls ‘Samadhi’ and here it is not like a star collapsing to become a black hole nor is it the ending of a life which we can call death, here it is the disappearance of one’s own form, one’s identity. What the Yoga Sutra call ‘swarupa’ where it is not possible to identify with any kind of formation of space and time, be it the body, memory, thought, pain, it is in fact the very breakdown of the laws which govern the process of identification.

And yet, it is a heightened state of aliveness and an expansion rather than a collapse.

But yes, it is a void, a discontinuity, a rupture and the Char Dham Yatra can be seen as a journey to our respective event horizons.

Let’s describe some of the things we have done but in a slightly formal language, so that we can discuss and absorb its essence and internalize the lesson because, the Char Dham is a planting of seeds which are meant to sprout in our lives ‘back home’.

1.  INDULGE AND WITHDRAW

Gazing at vacant pupils 

Closing my eyes 

Searching the point between

Two worlds

With no bonds or ties

Sans horizon or center

We are found lying by the void

It is the tenth day, the sun is out, the road has been cleared and as a precaution we have been asked to step out of our cars while crossing the landslide because the vibrations of the cars could trigger off another cascade of rubble. This is just like what we do with ourselves when we want some peace, we do things quietly.

We are on our way to Badrinath.

Around here people like to say ‘Badri Vishal’. ‘Vishal’ means ‘limitless’. The village folk seem to have no problem with this high level of abstraction.

Badrinath Dham is also called ‘Moksh Dham’ by the pundits; the station of liberation. A lot of people from India, grow up hearing the word ‘Moksh’, always looking for something more than what meets the eye. It is like wanting something from the ‘other side’.

We arrived at Badrinath. There are too many pilgrims because of the landslide, a lot of them were not able to visit yesterday it seems.

Just before the entrance to the temple, are the tanks where you immerse in the hot springs. There is a separate one for women and for men. We can see copious amounts of steam emerging from the waters, looks so inviting. It's like the whole body has become a mouth. Our eyes have become tongues with millions of taste buds and we want to drink the whole tank in, consume its goodness.

Ahh it's so relaxing, refreshing, invigorating, the body, now used to the cold. When treated to the healing sulfur laden hot waters from the bowels of the earth, the sheer contrast, the pleasant shock makes you weightless. The skin which is in a state of bliss just dissolves, disappears.

The ancient text ‘Vigyan Bhairav Tantra’ says, “abandoning consideration of one’s own body, one should contemplate with a firm mind; ‘I am everywhere’, this way one becomes happiness”.

Abandoning considering one’s own body. Let's remember how it feels in the tank. The moment of this dip is a culmination of ten days, “abandoning consideration of one’s body” has taken a lot of effort.

The feeling is not one of a body limited by its skin but a feeling of “I am everywhere”, the feeling of ‘vishal’, the feeling of space.

Now close your eyes, withdrawing attention from the water, just stay with the internal feeling.

The deity may be a destination but the goal of communion with the deity is ‘darshan’, a transcendental experience.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra says, “whatever one is dwelling on, cast it aside and the mind becomes support less”. 

We drop the very quest itself, after having been on it relentlessly.

Over the last ten days we have had a very intense and insightful journey to this point “cast it aside”, the sutra says, “cast it aside and the mind becomes support-less and free from disturbance”.

So first you fill your mind with a single object. It could be anything, the deity, a chant, a mountain peak, the sensation of hot water or the anger at being blocked from reaching the destination because of the landslide, the experience be it joy or pain, we give it our single pointed attention, so that there is nothing else apart from it.

To give our undivided attention, we have to be able to do as we please with what we experience, so we realize that we are not the experience, we are the experiencers. This realization is called ‘pratyahara’ and this allows us to literally zero in on a particular experience.

The zeroing is called dharna, single pointedness.

Initially the object comes and goes in the mind and then you reach the point where the object is steady, it’s called dhyaan and then you cast it aside.

Because the mind is just the support we provide thoughts by identifying with them, the Tantra says, “whatever one is dwelling on, cast it aside and the mind becomes support less”.

We had done havan at Uttarkashi. We offered an oblation of herbs, minerals and ghee into the fire.

The Bhairav Tantra asks us to take this to the next level, it says “the real oblation is when sensory experiences and the perception of the five elements are offered into the fire of the great void using consciousness as the spoon”.

The real prayer, the real havan, the real ritual is what we do with our thoughts and experiences, “offer them to the fire of the great void using intent as the spoon”.

How do we gaze at the mountain peak or on the deity or become aware of the lovely sensation while dipping in the hot springs. It says, momentarily gazing, becoming acutely aware of the sensation in a flash.

What is special about that moment? It is the moment when sore joints, aching limbs, cold body, chattering mind, dip into the hot waters and you feel a wave of bliss. That moment is a glimpse of our essential nature, bliss.

And when we are acutely aware of the sensation, letting it overwhelm, it peaks and at that point, withdrawing attention from the external experience from the tank, the water, the visual, the sounds and becoming aware only of its impression, what you feel as the internal experience.

Because the joy, bliss, what you feel, when you let it overwhelm you. It's a powerful state of absorption by withdrawing attention from the actual physical water, vapor,  sound and just being aware of their effect.

It is said, “at the beginning and end of sneezing, in terror, sorrow or confusion, when fleeing from a battle during acute curiosity or hunger or satiation become intensely aware of the sensation and then withdraw attention from the experience and be with the mental image and as it dwindles, experience the void”. 

2. YOUR PRESENCE AFTER YOU DISAPPEAR 

Looking at the black sky

Body of dark space 

More than a million Suns

Disappear in the embrace 

Of the immaculate Void

The quality of darkness of the night sky is measured on a scale called the Bortle’s scale, class 1 is considered the best where you can’t see even your hands and the light of Jupiter and Venus can be so bright that they can disturb your sleep and even distant constellations cast shadows, clouds in the night will appear as dark voids and not reflect even a little light.

Most of our cities are class 9 where you can barely see a star at all.

In these parts of the Himalaya, we probably experience class 3 level of darkness where the clouds have a slight glow but this darkness is quiet dark.

Black is a color for us, eye liner, hair color, shoe polish, grease, soot, paint but here the dark is not a color. It is everything, it is beyond what the eyes can see.

But we don’t see it this way. We mostly look at night as an absence of the sun, light, day, mostly to be slept away and so when we look at the sky, we notice the stars, constellations and so on. We become aware of the dark sky that is there because of all the sources of light.

Let’s take our awareness to the space between the stars, the space between the eyes and the stars, the space all around.

With no sound, light, breeze, odor or taste, darkness is space and it is not at all visual maybe what we are unconsciously resisting is that it is not entirely a sensory experience, it's something more.

Are we afraid of the dark or are we afraid of going deeper into our experience of the dark, is this a fear or just the way we are trained.

Closing my eyes, closing the anal-genital space, plugging the ears, breathing very softly to the point there is hardly any movement, experience the dark.

Experiencing the same dark with the eyes open is contemplation.

Looking at a constellation in the sky, zeroing in on a space between the stars, we enter that dark space with the gaze.

Sitting in a cinema hall, the gaze shifts from the screen to the space between the eyes and the screen and the melodrama on the screen ceases, we are now aware of the illusion of the images.

In an argument, one becomes aware of the space between the antagonists, one becomes aware of the words spoken, the sound they make, the pauses between the words and as we become aware of the space between the sounds, there is no argument anymore, there are no antagonists.

We are thus in deep contemplation.

The thing about the dark is that class 1 darkness is available when we close our eyes and tie a black out cloth band on our eyes. It is available in our bedroom with our eyes open if we close the windows with black out curtains.

It is the same dark when we stare at a jet black dot on a white paper in a fully lit room.

It is the same black if we can contemplate the darkness of the black dot with our eyes closed.

It is the same black if we can completely immerse our thoughts in our recollection of the dark sky with our eyes open in the day.

The dark transcends the boundaries of the sensory and non sensory. The sensory and the mental, the dark we see with our eyes closed, the dark we contemplate with the eyes open, the dark that we experience in the forest, the dark we experience in the bedroom is the same and we don’t mean the same kind of darkness but the very same darkness, because light is something and therefore measurable and many; dark is nothing and is therefore beyond measurement and is just one. It is the same dark here and there and everywhere.

That nothing is the bridge we walk on to drop the sensory aspect of an experience and enter its essence.

3. OWNING OUR ORIGINS

Time

Never straight

Never going backwards

Somehow 

Reaches the 

Beginning 

Every time 

The void 

Ancient rocks are vivid history books for a geologist, a section of a rock will have layers. Each layer of rock represents the slice of time in which it had formed and from chemical analysis of the layer. The geologist gets a picture of specific environmental conditions that prevailed on earth during that period.

On the basis of this study we have a Geological Time Scale, which has nothing to do with our cultural history and by absorbing this time scale, we can tune in to a deeper level of our existence.

In 4.7 billion years of earth’s history there have been phases when there was no life, there was a phase when all there was, were giant fungi. In some periods giant animals, dinosaurs and mammoths roamed, many meteors and asteroids have crashed into the earth wiping out huge segments of life. There have been major climatic events which have triggered off the genesis of new species and wiped out civilisations.

A Geological Time Scale divides earth’s history into various time periods of eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages with ‘age’ being the smallest unit of geological time.

We live in the Holocene epoch of the Phanerozoic Eon which began 500 million years ago.

The Holocene began around 11,700 years ago when the last ice age ended and the earth became significantly warmer. It is said that when this happened, the sea level rose and a lot of coastal settlements got submerged and so we see them under the water today.

The Holocene has been further divided into three ages and the current age which began 4,200 years ago is called the ‘Meghalayan age’ named after the Indian state of Meghalaya where the evidence for the beginning of this new age has been found in the Himalayan foothills.

The Meghalayan period began with extreme draught conditions world over many civilisations which had formed around rivers are said to have collapsed in this period with the drying up of rivers, the geo morphology of huge segments of earth changed.

Why absorb this information?

Because this is a way of dialling the earth so that we can tune in. When we learn something new, it changes the topography of the brain. New synapses are formed, knowledge is a means of creating lasting internal change and healing and our pilgrimage is in essence, a knowledge journey, in which we are constantly striving for authenticity in our experience.

Here we want to break the barrier between who I am and what I experience.

In our prayer and meditations, We challenge our set patterns of existence in trying to absorb what we have been through.

We are therefore vulnerable and open to change.

When we watch a movie like Jurassic Park, we enjoy a drama where dinosaurs are villains and we clap when they are destroyed. Similarly, we live out many dramatic constructs in our lives which are very limiting.

Absorbing a geological timeline is in itself a way to alter our perception of who we are. It is not so much about becoming knowledgeable, it is about breaking limitations of perspective, gazing at the mountain peak helps you develop a gaze for infinity.

This is also an aspect of the ‘Teerth Yatra’ or the Pilgrimage where we learn to listen to the earth because the ‘Teerth’ is a place like that cave near Shillong in Meghalaya from where we have a fresh insight into the earth.

Geologists have their own ‘teerth’ in knowing the Himalayas so intimately through its rock history, it’s science but by doing this we also make the whole earth sacred for ourselves, the whole earth becomes a place of pilgrimage.

As we show interest in the earth, the earth too begins to talk to us. We feel at home everywhere, we are not trying to gain data here, we are beginning a conversation.

The ancients had a much older timeline than the the geological timeline. It is said that their recollections are from a time when there was continuity of land between India and Africa through where the Arabian Sea is today, through to Indonesia. It was all land, the landmasses, river systems and civilisations of that time are recalled and geological tools are now rapidly evolving to be able to study these recollections and separate myth from truth.

But what we can be aware of is that we have been around for a very long time through many cycles of evolution and dissolution and the knowledge of the ancients including the pilgrimage has origins not rooted in mythology but in reality.

Maybe we are essentially pilgrims who have forgotten this and so we have traded our intimacy with the earth with a fractured way of life in concrete jungles.

4.  DRESSING UP IN SPACE

How to talk about that which is beyond thought, we talk sitting around it that’s what fires are for.

How to walk towards that which is subtler than thought, we disappear into it, that’s what pilgrimages are for.

How to prepare for a walk in the sky, we dress up in space, that’s what the mountains are for.

Friends, here we conclude our series on the Char Dham Yatra but we hope the pilgrimage continues.

Losing ‘form’ 

The ‘grasping’ mind 

‘Gasps’

Losing the 

‘Ra’ sound

All ‘relation’ becomes 

‘Elation’ 

And thus through loss

We approach

The journey into the void 

Lots of Love

Bharat Thakur