Fierce grace

Fierce grace

August 2023

The purpose of a pilgrimage, just as of life,  discovered K Geethanjali, is not so much  

what you can gain but what you can let go of. 

Why do we do this to ourselves?  

I asked myself as the pony  I was holding on to for  dear life made its descent down the 

Yamunotri Mountain. As it teetered to  the edge, I held my breath. One wrong  move, and I could hurtle down the  cliff and be a goner! Why, God, why?  

Do we really have to go through so  many sacrifices and so many trials to  have a darshan of the deities? Why are  they placed in such difficult-to-access  

places? I was on my Chhota Char Dham  pilgrimage and was visiting Yamunotri,  Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath. 

I now looked at the hordes of ponies  carrying their burdens up and down  the yatra trail. They had no choice but  to follow the urgings of their masters,  making the same back-breaking trip again and again. Trekkers braved the  rain and jostled with the pituwallas (frail young mountain folk who carried  pilgrims in baskets) and the doli bear ers. It all looked so scary and chaotic. 

Narrow and treacherous mountain paths:

A lesson in surrender. 

As the pony boys reached a treacherous trail,  without warning, they asked us to get down  and walk a few kilometres up the trail as it  was too dangerous for the ponies to do so car rying us. This was an experiment in living in  the moment. There was no time to complain  or grumble. The trail was slushy as it had been  drizzling throughout the trip. Each step had  to be taken in awareness lest one slipped and  fell. Our joy when our ponies met us ahead of  the trail was short-lived as we found we could  not mount our ponies yet as there was a jam  ahead since pilgrims made their way single file  to the goal—the Bluewater goddess, Yamunotri. 

“Are we mad to have embarked on this trip,  when Ramana and other Advaita masters point  out that we carry the very one and same God  within us?” we asked ourselves throughout. 

I did not receive any answers to my questions  though I went through the other Dhams. Maybe  that was because I was so busy hurtling from one  end of the Himalayas to another in our hired car,  drinking in the beauty of the landscape—the  snow-capped mountains; the Mandakini, Alak nanda, Bhagirathi, and Ganga rivers; the ash rams and sanyasis; the beautiful remote villag es; and the pure fresh air—absorbing the lives  of the mountain folk, and realising what a priv ileged life we city folk lead. Surrounded by such  awesome beauty, the mountain folk, neverthe less, lead tough lives trying to make ends meet,  deprived of educational and job opportunities. 

It was only when I came home and rested af ter the trip that the answers kept coming. It’s  not about gaining anything, a voice inside me  reminded me. You have nothing to gain. You are  the Divine Essence. It’s about letting go.” Letting  go of likes and dislikes and adapting to the sit uations. Accepting the same type of food con tinuously: roti, sabji and dal when my palate  longed for the familiar idli and sambar; being  fair and taking turns to sit at the back of the  

Bolero we had hired; willing to be bumped and  thrown about as the car swung round hairpin  bends; looking out for each other in the group;  giving up the comforts of a warm home; and  tolerating the terrible chill we South Indi 

ans were not used to. It was about accepting  life in all its hues with grace and openness.  

I found it very difficult to accept the dark face  of life when I came upon a dying horse which  had collapsed due to exhaustion, with no one to  care for it. The other horses trampled on it as  they kept trotting on, along the trail. I felt my  heart break when I saw this. There was nothing we pilgrims could do for it in the middle  of nowhere but pray for it to have an easy pass ing. For many days, I could not get the scene off  my mind. Accept the unacceptable,” came the  voice again. “Life is fierce and raw sometimes.  Accept that too! And so the next time I resist ed the thought of the dying horse and the tired  plodding horses carrying their burden, I didn’t  shrink away. Was there a reason for all this dark ness? I really couldn’t tell. All I could do was to  send up a prayer for them. I didn’t understand  why it was happening, but God must have His  reason and I knew that I had to trust that He  would look out for His creatures while I did  whatever was within my capacity to ease their  pain, even if it meant making a decision to stop  using these ponies for my spiritual upliftment. 

I learnt to accept that people have their quirks  and patterns, and feel compassion for them  and myself. I learnt to let go of expectations.  I learnt to trust the higher power when I tumbled from my pitu and found myself sitting  on a mound of snow in the middle of the Ke dar trail, with none of my family members in  sight. I knew I would be taken care of through  the toughest of times, and sure enough, I  was. Each time I found myself in a tight spot,  some kind hand would help me. It could be  that of family members or total strangers. I  realised that didn’t matter. It was the Divine  looking out for me through different guises. 

A strange calm began to take hold of me, and I  began to accept and even enjoy the tough parts  of the pilgrimage almost as much as I enjoyed  the happier parts, like sitting by the banks of  the Ganges in Gangotri. The mountaintop temples like Kedar and Yamunotri were tough,  but there was a fierce grace in them which was  balanced by the serene beauty of Badrinath  and Gangotri, which were easier to access

I came back from my Chhota Char Dham, worn  out but exhilarated. I had really stretched myself  physically, mentally, and emotionally to my max imum. I expected to come back home and have  a long rest but, instead, found myself thrust into  the capacity of a caregiver for an elderly relative. 

That I realised was the litmus test. It was about  applying what I had learnt on my pilgrimage  to real life. For, ultimately, Life is the greatest  pilgrimage, and if I can accept the tough times  in Life with as much grace as I could during the  pilgrimage, I would be empowered. Like the  Chhota Char Dham yatra, it is not about what I  gain but how much of my false self I can let go of. 

K.Geethanjali is a mother, writer and Senior and Secondary English teacher. She  has published two books of short stories for children entitled The Enchanted Land  and Who am 1? She is also an ardent seeker and meditator.