The Temple

The Temple
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To explain the events that I am about to narrate, I should tell you something about the environment I was raised in.

I was born in the city of Calcutta in Bengal, India. The British had long gone and the city was no longer the Capital city of the empire. The mix of cultures however, remained and this was important. Forty percent of the city is Bengali and the rest consist of Chinese, Armenians, Parsis and Indians from all the states. All religions are represented. There is a Hindu majority. However, the Mughals had ruled before the British and there is a large representation from Islam. School education, at least in the elite schools in Calcutta, is dominated by the Jesuits and there are Anglo-French protestant schools like La Martiniere where I was enrolled to begin my education. There are Zorastrians and Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. There is even a Greek Orthodox church. We went to each other's temples, churches and festivals. The candlelit midnight mass at the massive St Pauls' Cathedral is always a highlight during Christmas.

My Grandfather violated all the strict Hindu social norms of his time and went to study at the University of Cambridge, UK and then on to Lincoln's Inn, London to start a professional career in Law. My father was with the Port authority and pioneered the construction of the new port of Haldia. My mother is from the distinguished family of the Tagores, one of whom had won the Nobel prize for literature ( Rabindranath Tagore, 1913) and who was a great exponent of the philosophy of humanism. She remains an accomplished classical musician, a scholar of the Upanishads, a genius with things electrical and mechanical and lately an entrepreneur par excellence. The environment was filled with music, art and culture but with a strong base in logical and rational thinking.

We are Hindus, but no religious rituals are followed at home. Other than social functions, might I say that we were brought up not to be religious at all in the ritualistic sense of the term. We believed in God but it remained at the intellectual level. Philosophy was very important and many a heated discussion went into the middle of the night at the dinner table.

Early on, I began to understand the complexity of Hinduism and Vedanta. Hindu philosophy recognised that the same path was not applicable to all. The choice of the path is a personal one, but, the important thing is that there are choices. The path appropriate to a highly educated genetic scientist is not necessarily the same as the illiterate street sweeper. Try explaining an energy form God and superconsciousness to a street sweeper. This has nothing to do with the dignity of labour or concepts of equality of democratic citizens. So, through symbols and objects, the philosophy is pitched at different levels, though at the highest form of Advaita, everything merges into the omnipresent omnipotent superconsciousness. The holy triumvirate of Brahma ( the creator ), Vishnu ( the preserver )and Shiva ( the destroyer ), though worshipped in different aspects and forms, are symbols representing the mathematical wave sine curves over massive time scales, depicting the cycle of creation, preservation and destruction. From destruction starts creation again, trough to peak and back to trough again, continuing on its journey. All this to us was philosophy. We read, we discussed, we intellectualised. We did not go to temples to worship or seek salvation.

Through high school I studied the physical and life sciences and then went on to do a Masters degree in economics, statistics and mathematics followed up by a professional qualification in banking and finance from the UK. To me science and religion are very closely linked. Everything had to have a logical foundation. Direct religious experience was never in the horizon.

I joined a multinational financial institution and merrily began the career of a youngster's dreams. As one began to get more senior in the organisation, the seamier side of existence started presenting itself. The ethics that I had been brought up with were in question. People abused power for monetary gain. Everything was possible in the spirit of competition while at the base there was rampant corporate feudalism. But was it constructive or destructive competition? There were double standards.You were expected not to create waves. But then, I was brought up on those fierce dinner discussions with my family, wasn't I ? Was I going to act like a wimp? Bad idea. I began to understand the shades of grey the hard way. A naive individual's intellectual honesty is no match for the survival strategies of self-supporting power groups. But still I was not prepared mentally to accept things without question.

Years later, I got posted to the city of Madras in Southern India. It is a very spiritual place. It is now the Detroit of India, with everyone from Ford to Hyundai present in a boomtown atmosphere.

There was a force beyond my understanding which was leading me towards direct religious experience. I took courses in transcendental meditation from a German and a Pole (in India?) at the ashram of Mahesh Yogi. I went through a tough residential advanced course in yoga and meditation ( I was helped in my endevours by some accumulated excess leave that that we were forced to utilize).

I learnt the ancient Patanjali yoga sutras. In time and to my astonishment I learned to get direct access to energy fields. Throughout the course my emotional balance started to change. One week I was only thinking sex, then that went away. Next week, sound began to come to me greatly magnified. I could hear faint distant sounds like it was coming from next door. I thought that I had good control of my emotions, but one day I read the obituary of Mahalia Jackson in the papers. My wife found me crying away. I was howling. While I loved her music, I normally wouldn't have cried and my wife became very concerned. Then, this also stabilised and I became very sensitive to other people, smells, taste and surrounding vibrations. One week I was asked by my teacher to stay very quiet in office or otherwise I would start blowing up on people. I passed the test.

Then, during the course of mentally reciting the yoga sutras in silence, I started getting involuntary movements in my body. I swung from side to side, I spoke words that were not mine. Sounds came out from me that were not mine. Surges of energy streaked up my spine to my head and then the rest of the body. My impulse was to analyse it intellectually, but I quickly realised that the more I thought about it the less I felt it. I stopped thinking and gave myself to experiencing. I was after all experimenting with myself. But here the observer and the observed were merging; much like it is in the Heisenburg principles and bootstrap theory in Quantum physics. Brilliant colors swirled in my head and I felt wonderful. I felt physically, mentally wonderful and at peace.

On the final sutra, there was an impulse to take off from the ground while sitting in the lotus posture. I was jerking upwards. What was happening? When I saw other advanced students practicing yogic flying, I could not believe my eyes. In time I learned it too. External energy fields had been internalized and energy surges were manifesting itself at the physical level. We were not flying like the Hidden dragon. We hopped and moved while sitting in the lotus position. Some students could go from one side of the hall to the other in a few hops. They were photographed. But it was not the flying that was important. It is what happened to the mind and the Theta waves emanating from it that were important. But this was no longer intellectualisation or reading tomes of literature on religion and trying to make sense of other people's interpretations. This was direct experience and I loved it and embraced it. I had learnt to dance on vibrating fields of energy. While the scientists continue their debate about the Unified field theory, I know.

My experiences began to sustain me through tough times.

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The temple of Tirupati is located about four hours drive from the city of Madras. I had been living three years in Madras and not being used to visiting temples, I had never gone there, although I had heard much about it. My wife and kids had gone to Calcutta at the time and I was alone.

I felt a sudden desire to visit Tirupati. I did not know where it was, what the temple was all about, what it looked like and what it represented. I decided to go one Saturday afternoon. Another colleague heard and wanted to come along. As we were about to start the long drive, the driver of another colleague who had heard that we were going to Tirupati, came running. He wanted to visit the temple too. So now we had a driver who knew exactly where to go.

It was all very simple. We would reach Tirupati town at 10 pm, check into a hotel and get a good nights sleep. We would get up at 4 am to join in on the first early morning puja ceremony. Then we would have breakfast and drive back to Madras. We would watch on TV, the India versus Australia international cricket test match at 10 am. We wouldn't dream of missing that would we? We had it all figured out.

What we did not know was that I was about to have an extreme experience of chaos.

Due to delays along the way we reached an hour late, at 11pm. The Tirupati temple is situated on a hilltop. It is indeed a beautiful place. We had however not realised that a hundred thousand pilgrims visit Tirupati every day. We saw women with shaven heads walking solemnly up the hillside as part of a religious ceremony. There were serpentine queues leading up to the temple. There were pilgrims walking up the steep hillside in penance. No religious fervour for us. We drove right up, only to find that there were no rooms available in the entire town. We were asked whether we had booked in advance. Nowhere else in India did you have to have a booking in advance in temple towns. There were no entry passes available for the early morning puja either. The administrative officials thought we were mad to have come without prior reservations, rolled their eyes and told us to go back to Madras. It was nearing midnight and we had gone from hotel to hotel to no avail and it was certain that we would not be able to attend the 4 am puja ceremony. We were exhausted and about to give up. At one of the hotels the receptionist suggested that some passes might be available in the black market and would we be interested ? I for one, was not willing to go meet God through the black market and I politely declined.

Then things started to change. The driver located a hotel where there had been a cancellation. We were given the last room. The driver slept in the car. But we still needed an entry pass. The temple could not handle a hundred thousand people going through it at one time.

It was past midnight. It was quiet. The cool night air was filled with the fresh fragrance of flowers. We began to walk towards the temple. Someone pointed out a direction and asked us to walk ahead. Earlier, everyone that we had met had only shown us discouragement. Now, unknown people were suddenly pointing the way. We reached an administrative building where a bank clerk sat in the only active counter. It was a late evening counter which was about to close. Everyone else was gone. He was selling official temple passes at official rates. No black market? Unbelievable! He told us that there were no passes available for the 4 am ceremony, but would we like one for the 5.30pm for the evening ceremony? We were three of us and the pass was meant for five people. Suddenly we were lucky. I bought all the five passes on offer.

We made plans to drive though the hinterland and sightsee the next morning. Then the tiredness and a sense of relief came over us. It was 2 am. We hit the bed and immediately fell asleep. We would not have been able to get up for the 4 am ceremony anyway.

Next day, I believe I did everything right. It just felt good. A ferocious man with a huge flowing moustache asked us for a lift. Despite protests from my colleague who was terrified, I gave him a lift up the mountain side. We donated to charity at various places. Also, we enjoyed the leisurely drive around the lush green undulating hinterland. Yes, there was something about Tirupati that morning that felt different.

We rested that afternoon. We cleansed ourselves and wore fresh clothes for the puja ceremony. The ceremony was to begin at 5.30 pm. We got to the temple at 4.30 pm. We had time to kill.

We found a couple from Bangalore desperately looking for passes. They would have to go back to Bangalore, a great distance, if they did not get a darshan or direct view of the diety. I had place for two more on our pass and invited them over. No one was going to be turned away. They were very grateful and blessed us all the way into the temple.

We were going to witness the 'ceremony of a thousand lamps'. On the stone courtyard inside the compound of the temple, stood a sea of humanity. Thousands upon thousands of human beings kept in place by rope barriers. The temple, where the ceremony was to be held, stood in the distance. No worshipper was allowed in. The temple priests were in preparation inside. There was no point in even trying to get close to the main temple. So we sat down on the cold stone floor, preparing to watch the ceremony from a distance. It was 4.45 pm.There were still 45 minutes left for the ceremony to begin.

I closed my eyes and decided to meditate. With tens of thousands of people around, I had no problem transcending my surroundings and away I gently leapt into the great beyond. I opened my eyes at 5.25pm, still 5 minutes away from the start of the ceremony. We all saw a priest coming out from the distant temple and walk through the crowds sitting on the floor of the courtyard. He climbed over the rope barriers and kept coming towards us. A thousand eyes watched and followed him. There was pindrop silence. Where was he going ? He kept coming towards us.

Finally, he came right up to me, stood and asked me in his native Telegu language, to stand up. I was one amongst the thousands of pilgrims and I did not understand his language. He gestured with his hands asking me to come along. I was paralized. I did not know what to do or what was about to happen.

A few other people stood up and wanted to go with the priest, but he quietly asked them all to sit. My colleague sat speechless. Now, a second priest who was standing on the temple stairs, pointed in my direction and gestured that I come there. The first priest took my hand and I began a long walk towards the temple. A thousand eyes followed.

I was led through the crowds to the temple, up the stairs and right into the inner well. The crowd held its breath in disbelief. There was no sound. You could have heard a falling feather. Inside the temple, I was given a long decorated iron rod with canvas dipped in oil on one side. I was then solemnly told that it was my honour to light the first hundred and eight lamps with the flame. This had never happened to me before. It had not happenned to anyone before, not a story that anyone had ever heard about. I lit the long flame from the sacred fire and slowly lit the hundred and eight lamps . The multitudes watched.

When I had finished, the long flame was taken away and the priests lit the rest of the thousand lamps. I was given a ceremonial shoulder garment, the angavastram and some fruit, thanked for my efforts and allowed to go back to the place I was originally sitting.

Till today, I really do not know whether this has happened to anyone else and it may well have. But I was truly in heaven. I could have been flying. I was walking on sunshine and on the clouds. I was light headed and people were telling me they had never seen this before. I had not seen the white light. But I had connected and been blessed. I had glimpsed and touched the great beyond.

I have travelled through fifty countries and have had beautiful and varied experiences to cherish. But I cannot forget Tirupati and what happened to me there. I now sit and reflect under the huge Arabian desert moon in the Persian Gulf, thousands of miles from my homeland. My religion is not recognised here and if I die today my body will have to be flown out of the country for the final rites. This is so different from the diversity and tolerant environment I come from. I am surrounded by a glittering city floating on black gold, which has everything money can buy. There is a strong and aggressive religion but little spirituality. There are lots of good material things. But, recently they have also just introduced gender seggregation at the university. I do not understand this regression, but it gives me a scale to measure the tolerant society that I come from. I can understand what our social reformers were trying to do and why they were willing to give up their lives for it. It is only now that I understand the true meaning of freedom and the expanse of inner space. To do what is right without compromise, accept the consequences and move on. It is but a speck in the journey. The journey towards the light is wonderful despite the inconsequential chaos along the way, despite the pretentious pigmies posing as Lord Shiva.

I've had a hard day at work. I have to take my daughter to her piano class. I have to withdraw into the routine. I think of Tirupati and I am rested.