Eight
The next morning most inhabitants of the campsite rose early. To round
up the festival guru Maharaj ji was going to give ‘darshan’: a personal
encounter between master and follower, the biggest favor a ‘perfect master’ can
grant and by the true ‘devotee’ seen as a short cut on the road to
enlightenment. Kissing the holy lotus feet of the lord just once, was equal to
at least one year of intensive meditation, according to the mahatma’s.
So behind the stage on the festival grounds a smaller platform was
built, with Maharaj ji’s throne on it, decorated with gold colored fabric and
flowers. At the actual grounds the thousands of Western followers had to form a
line (‘single line, single line’), on the orders of the World Peace Corps, a
long mark in the yellow dust, blown into little clouds by the many feet. When I
lined up there early in the morning at the end of the line, I could see the
stage, where the front of the line disappeared, only in the far distance.
Around me people sang ‘The answer my friend...’ and songs especially written
for Maharaj ji (‘The lord of the universe, has come to us this day’). Others
chattered, or complained about dust, heat and the long wait that would come for
sure because Maharaj ji himself was not yet to be seen.
I stood there, in my ‘Indian pajamas’, my white meditation cloth as a
veil draped around my head to protect me from the sun that was no doubt going
to be al lot more fierce later on. I didn’t sing along and I didn’t chatter
along. This was about a confrontation between me and guru Maharaj ji. This was
about surrender. Like when I decided to become a mission father when I was
eleven. Everything aimed at one thing: the good. After two years of boarding
school with bitchy fathers who had to prepare for that (‘for a sound further
development of his character more discipline will be necessary’), I only wanted
one thing: to go home. But the desire never disappeared.
After hours of waiting some movement occurred, accompanied by the
mumbled message that Maharaj ji had arrived. Most Western followers were by
then on the festival grounds and formed a line that I couldn’t see the end of.
The World Peace Corps (WPC) security people walked alongside with strained
gestures, pushing here and there to maintain a single line. “Don’t move, stay
in line.” With my white cloth I had made a little shelter above my eyes against
the sun and I saw that the line far in the distance started moving. Not long
after that this movement reached the place where I was waiting, encouraged by
the security people who started pushing to speed everybody up. “Keep moving,
brother, keep moving.” People around me looked at each other a bit surprised
when the speed went from a careful shuffle to walking and eventually to a
sturdy stroll. I removed my mediation cloth from my head and saw the stage
rapidly approaching where the line disappeared. The closer I got to the stage,
the more security people were standing on both sides of the line, until at a
distance of about three hundred feet I merely walked on a narrow path between
two rows of security guys. It went on this way at a constantly higher speed,
around the curve, to the backside of the stage. There, just around the corner,
on a table with a white cloth draped over it, stood a wooden box decorated with
golden paper with a large slot on the top, for donations to Maharaj ji. A few
steps further, very rapid now as we were pushed forward by the WPC’s, there he
was. Casually chatting with two of his staff members kneeling besides his
throne. His feet on a white pillow. Only there the row of WPC’s was shortly
interrupted, to give each follower the space to kiss Maharaj ji’s feet. I got
there too and bowed myself forward. As an offertory. Here I am. At that same
moment two WPC’s pulled me off his feet to pass me on through the double row
and remove me from the stage. Pushed and carried, without will and without
weight.
I wrapped the cloth around my head again and slowly walked back to the
campsite.
That same afternoon everybody packed their things. Beside the campsite a
long row of Indian buses were parked. Gaily decorated and with a complete Hindu
altar on the dashboard. The narrow wooden seats were suited to two Indians, or
one and a half Westerner. As soon as you had your things together, you boarded
the first bus in the row. When one was full, it left for the ashram of Maharaj
ji in Hardwar, a place I only knew mentioned with great awe by the first
generation of followers who had themselves, traveling through India, found
Maharaj ji. I shared a bus with American and Australian followers, my Dutch
ashram mates I lost days before in the crowd. We took off through Delhi, that I
hadn’t seen before yet because the festival grounds were away from the city and
as an ashram premie I had no money to take a bus or taxi into town. Didn’t want
that either, because I’d left that world behind me. But now I saw it anyway.
Rambling buses, ox wagons, mopeds, motorbikes, cars at least missing their
mirrors but sometimes whole doors, booths with melons, booths with bananas,
policemen with shrill whistles, cyclists, rickshaws, pedestrians. And
everything and everybody dispersed colors, dust and noise.
After Delhi what was outside the window started to look a bit more like
my idea of the India of the yogis. Green hills, women in colorful saris, men
in white robes with knotted pieces of cloth around their head. The driver
twitched and bumped his bus through the scenery in his own world of incense,
shriveled African marigolds and a blue Krishna with eyes half closed in a
golden frame. As soon as he saw a chai[1]
and hash cafe somewhere along the road, he slammed on the breaks, threw the
door of his little driver’s temple open and walked with stiff legs to the
cabin. After a bowl of hot chai and a big chillum[2]
he stumbled back into the bus with blood stained eyes and crooked legs, looked
around for where the hell the steering wheel might be and swayed back onto the
road in a big cloud of dust.
Whatever happened on that road, seemed after every chai and chillum stop
to have less to do with him. He did watch it, but as if looking at fish in an
aquarium. Fascinating, but not your world. Especially when it grew dark.
Avoiding the man walking on the road with his ox wagon, was just not an issue
anymore. When I looked through the rear window, I saw the man standing there,
crying, his arms desperately in the air. Ox on the ground, wagon on its side at
the shoulder, the flour he apparently transported in a big smudge on the road.
It whirled up when our driver accelerated.