Nine
Prem Nagar ashram in Hardwar, facing mother Ganges and the foothills of
the Himalaya. The few Western followers that had been there, like the American
with hepatitis-B on my ward in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, pronounced the
name with shiny eyes and covered in silence. The holiest place on earth. But
not quite built for receiving three thousand guests. Actually the ashram was
basically a bare piece of open field made of tamped down clay, with a rusty
fence around it and a small loam building in the middle. Just outside the fence
was a small vegetable garden. I saw a few mahatmas, who were driven around with
high esteem in luxury cars and accommodated with soft sheets and long pile
carpet back home, squatting on the ground to remove weeds between bushes with
melons on it. The loam building on the ashram grounds consisted of two rows of
small sleeping quarters (a door, a window frame, no glass, and a wooden bed).
For the mahatma’s. Perpedicular and at the one side there was a kitchen, at the
other were two toilets and an open air sink without a tap. Next to the building
was a space for satsang gatherings, made in the same style as the campsite in
Delhi: a roof made of pieces of fabric on poles. Underneath was a small stage.
Other than that the ashram consisted of wind and dust.
For the three thousand guests from America, Europe and Australia a
campsite was built on a small bare field next to the ashram grounds. It was
made up of about ten large tent roofs constructed from pieces of fabric, with
open spaces underneath where everyone coming from the buses tried to find a
spot with as little dust and sun as possible to roll out his sleeping bag. Next
to the campsite, on the way to the river, were two rows of canvas cabins, with
open fronts and backs, built on top of ditches where every now and then water
from the river would run through. The toilets. One row for the ‘brothers’ and
one row for the ‘sisters’. Behind that: mother Ganges, also the place where
everyone had to make a sincere effort to keep himself and his clothes sort of
clean.
That, the food (scooped from large buckets on a hold out chapati - ‘More
dahl brother? More rice brother?’), the heat, the toilet-ditches that soon
didn’t flush at all anymore and aimless hanging around in the ashram dust,
caused the number of sick persons to increase by dozens each day. Andy, an
American follower with a half-finished medical education, did daily
consultations in one of the tents. My job as ‘experienced’ nurse’s aid was to
go visit the followers in their sleeping tents that were too sick to attend these
consultations. Whereupon there was not much I could do. Almost everyone was
sick with diarrhea and most of them had already given up the hopeless run to
the ditches. When I could find anything clean, I put it on them. I brought some
drinking water that I could, with a lot of effort, extract from the kitchen.
And gave the number of their tent to doctor Andy. Who promised to drop by as
soon as he had a moment.
Other than that practically nothing happened in the ashram for four long
weeks. Sometimes a mahatma visited the open space alongside the loam house to
give satsang. And every day the rumor spread that Maharaj ji would come. Which
didn’t happen. We apparently lacked devotion.
A steadily increasing number of taxis and rickshaws appeared in front of
the iron ashram fence to drive followers that were, for the moment, fed up with
the guidelines of the guru to Hardwar, chai and chillum. It convinced me that I had to be
strong. This was a test. So I meditated in the mornings with the mahatma’s,
joined them singing the praises of the divine incarnation that was among us,
listened to their endlessly repeated satsangs (‘we are bery lucky souls’) and
saw my diarrhea patients.
That is, until I myself got sick. No diarrhea, but a headache like the
scratching of a woman’s nails in my forehead and a fever that put a layer of
down between me and the world. Andy by that time had gotten the help of a local
doctor who treated anything that wasn’t diarrhea with capsules of red pepper.
Same for my fever, that reacted by jumping up with leaps till the world was
reduced to my sleeping bag twisted in the dust and getting up only existed in
my dreams. Nobody had taken my job, which resulted in very scarce memories of
those last days in India.
When at the end of our stay the buses were ready to leave, the
housemother of the Amsterdam ashram ignored the commandment of a true follower
to not be ‘attached’: she went looking for me and got me to the airport. Of the
flight I remember a KLM-blanket and lots of sleep. And healthcare officials
that rapidly picked me out of the line at the Schiphol gate. Alarmed, I guess,
and wary that I imported something ugly for public health. When that turned out
not to be the case, but just a solid sinusitis, I got antibiotics and a ride to
the ashram at the Sarphatistraat.
Sleeping during the day there was a clear sign of faltering devotion and
besides that not easy to arrange since the sleeping area was meant for meals
and gatherings by day. In a major departure from the rules, I was allowed to lie
in my sleeping bag for a few days underneath the laundry, for which there were
some clotheslines put up in a small room at the side.
Nobody cared about me. If you are one with the divine energy, you don’t
get sick. I agreed on that. I had to do more meditation.
And I did. Every morning (befóre my temp job) and every evening (áfter
satsang) for at least an hour. Sometimes (often) I was so tired that I’d half
way tumble over under my white meditation cloth and fall asleep. Just like many
other ashram inhabitants around me in the meditation room. Like a line of
worn-out dominos. But then sometimes there was peace in my head and the
sensation of being very close to myself. Somewhere everything is all right.