Photo courtesy: Sorab Irani

Ihad repeated dreams of lions and theplace was Girnar. The Gir forest is

home of the Asiatic lion, and now itslast refuge. In one such dream, my gurugave me mystical initiation to becomea sadhu in a cave up the mountain,while the lions roamed outside. Inanother dream, the lions wanderedonto a backyard porch on which nes-tled my workstation, and two of themcame and sat on either side of my PC!I was afraid for all the dogs that wereroaming around me, in case the lionshurt them. There was a palpable senseof urgency to this dream.

I understood the hukum or com-mand that the dreams implied, unableto put it off any longer. It was barelya week away from Guru Purnima. Imade enquiries and learnt that therains were yet to set in at Junagadh,where Girnar is located. So I set offon an impulse with the barest of prepa-rations, on the night train fromMumbai to Rajkot. From there it wasjust a couple of hours on the bus to thetown of Junagadh, and on to the manydharamshalas offering inexpensivelodgings at the base of Girnar.

Mount Girnar is one of the holiestof the holies for Hindu ascetics and

Jains. There is a famous akhada of sad-hus at its base. Many sadhaks andadvanced souls have laid their lives torest on the mountain, most notably, theJain tirthankar Neminath, adding to itssanctity. It is home to the beautiful Jaintemple complex on a small plateau, fol-lowed by the Amba Mata temple on oneof the tunks (peak). Then there aresteps rising and descending to theGorakhnath shrine. There is also a spotvenerated as the place of the Pir, sacredto Muslims. Girnar is said to have a totalof 10,000 stone steps leading to its top!

Along the last leg of the climb is theKamandalu Kund ashram, with stepsdescending to a ledge-like plateau onwhich it is located. It houses Dattatreya’sakhand dhuni, the sacred fire of theascetic. The ashram is home to youngsadhus from different regions of India.

According to legend, there was amajor drought in the region, and thegreat guru is said to have hit his kaman-dalu (brass water canister) on a spot inthe rocks, from where emerged a peren-nial spring of freshwater, to quench thethirst of pilgrims.

Then, on the last peak, is the famousDattatreya shrine, open to the elements,bearing his footprints clearly etched in

march 2005l i f e p o s i t i v e8

by Amodinispirit ~ T R A V E L

mt. girnar in gujarat is

one of the holiest places

of pilgrimage for jains

and for hindu ascetics

wishing to pay homage

to dat tatreya, the great

guru, worshipped here as

the formless or unclad

ascetic. here is an

account of a

transformative

pilgrimage up its

perilous heights

l i f e p o s i t i v e 9

the rock. He is said to have engaged inrigorous tapascharya at the spot for12,000 years.

A gruelling climbI set off on the climb at around 5 a.m.as advised by the dharamshala official,armed with a sturdy staff to assist me onthe steep stairs. He instructed me to restawhile at the ashram close to the sum-mit, before undertaking the last bit ofarduous climb to the top of the moun-tain, to visit the shrine of the primordialguru. The first two hundred steps of theascent along the wooded foothills seemedto be the most exacting. Then, as the skiesbegan to lighten, the climb assumed arhythm of its own, quite enjoyable.

It was a strange experience to bewalking alone for hours on end with-out a shelter in sight. I had left farbehind the endless forested foothillsat the base, rising steadily above the flat-top Saurashtra landscape!

After visiting the temples and shrineson the way, I made my weary way downa short descent to rest and makeinquiries at the Kamandalu Kundashram described earlier. It was alreadypast 1 p.m. It was a great relief to beassured by the young sadhu in chargeof the ashram that on my way down,I could rest there that night instead ofhaving to undertake the steep descentthe same day! I knew well by then thatI was simply incapable of it.

The boys told me with joy that theyfelt as though their motherhad come visiting, and insist-ed that I should first eat lunchand rest a bit, before leavingfor the holy shrine located atthe very top. It was cool andfoggy up there, but rains had-n’t yet begun in Gujarat.

Then, just as I climbed upthe last and final step, tocross the threshold of theopen sanctum at the top,huge drops of rain and thensheets of it started pouring,

giving me a thorough drenching. TheDattatreya shrine itself is not even knee-high, just like our little mandirs athome, so that at that great height, youare completely exposed to the elements.

Abhishek, a watery initiationI couldn’t see a thing through the wallof fog and rain! It was water, watereverywhere, and the young pujarishouted, asking me to sit down, insteadof standing there laughing up at thesky! He thought I’d be blown off themountain top by the strong winds. Iplonked down besides him, little real-ising that there was a flooded pond ofchilled water on the floor. The waterjust seeped through the clothes right upto my waist to give me such a shock thatI let out an involuntary scream. It wasa completely mad moment!

The relief of having reached the topand the amazing abhishek happening atthe exact psychological moment simplychased away all concerns of womanlydecorum or about catching a cold. In thatmoment I was just a sadhu, sans worryabout what I’d do without dry clothesuntil I got back to my secure dharmashalaroom at the base the following day!

I laughed and laughed with pure joy,flinging my head up to the rain and thesky, which was a tremendous purgingof all my life’s concerns. The pujari alsostarted to laugh, touched with the infec-tious laughter, and we had a long chatthrough the lashing rain about Girnarji

and the guru force and all! It was socrazy to see all the notes offered to theshrine that day floating in a shallow panfilled to the brim with rainwater! Andas I made my offering, he insisted thatI place it right there in the water.

By then of course there was Girnarjiin my heart and in my soul, and laterwhen I thought about it, there wasnothing to ask for or even to pray aboutat the end of the mercilessly long trek!

That kind of joy happens just oncein a lifetime, I think. There were nothoughts, no worries, nothing... just thewind, the rain, the sky, the scrupulouslyclean marble floor beneath my feet, allpure... and a fountain of laughter bub-bling out from the depths of my being,face raised to the sky.

It is just not possible to share whatI felt in its entirety, carefree, degendered,just a part of existence, surreal and wet,facing God all alone with so much hap-piness. A cleansing, a new birth, arelease... There was no view from upthere, mind you, just the fog and therain, so you could see a few steps aheadat a time! And it was so safe. Or rather,I was without a trace of fear, a beingcompletely in control of my environ-ment, destiny, purpose; a gentle beingof power, self-containment and joy… ifeven for just that entire hour. But thatfeeling comes back whenever I think ofit, and it will stay with me forever.

On returning to the ashram, a solic-itous young man gave me dry and clean

saffron robes to change intofor the night in my room,but there was no way that Icould dry my clothesthrough the steadily increas-ing downpour that resem-bled a cloudburst!

As I later discovered,many of the sadhus werehighly qualified engineers.Truly, there was such perfectplumbing in the caveashram, that the rains driv-en by insane high velocity

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Jain temple complex

winds could not make ingress into theashram precincts, even as the waterrushed down the steep stairs in a tor-rent. Lord Dattatreya displayed greatdiscernment in his choice of sadhus forGirnar, I thought to myself.

On my return to the base of themountain, I had taken in the fog, wind,rain, rocks and the skies so complete-ly, it was like being a part of the land-scape, as the natural meditative statecontinued undisturbed.

The downpour returned many timesto soak me, just as the swirling windhad dried the clothes I was wearing. Ican’t tell you of who I met on the waydown, by way of a darshan, but therewere many important spiritual revela-tions during the journey that havechanged my consciousness forever.

And a new consciousnessI think this strange episode in my life wasin the manner of meeting self. It brought

to me a sharp awareness of the extentto which I enjoy my own company.Through it all, there began the emergenceof a new detached consciousness, with

greater understanding of how my every-day actions influence the karmic record.

Reflecting on that experience ofecstasy, I think happiness is not theabsence of pain; rather, it is the abilityto go to the centre of pain... over a peri-od of time, until it is gradually possibleto diminish and dilute the attachmentsthat are at the roots of the pain. People

we interact with remain the same, anecessary part of our sharing, but weare not, because it is a conscious, self-willed sharing, of free choice ratherthan bondage. It matters to see peopleas reflections of our own self, our mis-takes, indiscretions, bad judgments, andalso the good within ourselves. Untilnegativities being to loosen their holdover us, and a little step at a time, welearn to laugh at the absurdities of life,even through genuine pain and grief.There is always that thumb-high partof our integral consciousness that stayspure and untouched, always, the corethat creates laughter, release and lib-eration. Yes, I’ve been extremely happythrough most of my life, because of thatbeing who has been the orchestrator ofmy life’s path, self-chosen, self-direct-ed for the major part. I think I havelived life as openly as possible under thecircumstances, like the unclad man ofthe skies —Girnarji! �

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Mount Girnar