Inner radiance

In his book Reforming Vaishno Devi …, former J & K Governor Jagmohan
recaptures his first visit to this cave shrine. Excerpts…

Infinity extends inward as well as

— Oppenheimer

THE entry into the Vaishno Devi cave was an emotional and spiritual experience of its own kind — unforgettable, unique. The tiny, narrow, curving and dimly lit tunnelled path, with ice-cooled water hissing my feet, created a gripping atmosphere — mysterious, awesome, and elevating. Because of the low height, I had to hunch my back, bow my head and go up a few stairs and then turn to a small even space with flowers-decked moortis studded with silver and golden chhattars brilliantly lit. I sat before the moortis flanked by a pujari who seemed to be affected more by my presence than by the glittering radiance around.

The atmosphere was overpowering. The anger, frustration and cynicism over what I had seen on the route had vanished. The tiny remnants of the burnt up agarbatti, lying in front of me, symbolised the burnt up anger. Something began to unravel the layers of my mind; it seemed to be flying into the boundless space of higher consciousness.

Here, instead of a twisted, truncated and fragmented piece of faith, rusted by the ill-winds of history and polluted by the foul stench emitted by a chronically sick social order, I found myself at a great signpost of inner radiance.

It was a different level of consciousness altogether – consciousness that activates the hidden spark of divinity in man.

The three moortis acquired a mysterious glow; they seemed to expand to an overwhelming size. The strong and solid walls of the cave appeared to be melting into spacelessness. The tiny stream of water, the rustle and coolness of which I had just experienced, assumed the shape of a mighty torrent.

It appeared to be washing away all the sins, and all the accumulated dirt and dross of daily existence. Its onslaught tore away the wall that existed between mind and matter, between life and death. It was an experience of pure unitary consciousness. I could dimly perceive the signatures of divinity on the moortis, on the walls, and on everything else contained in this little cave.

Mere symbols seemed to have caused the transformation. The moortis and the cave enclosure had, perhaps, ignited the sparks within me, illumined my inner spaces and elevated me to an extraordinary level of awareness, when I had started using my ‘mind as a tool to go beyond mind’ and tap its unlimited power. Subconsciously, I sensed, I had become an ‘awakened self’.

It dawned upon me how physically small I was and how vast the area to which my thoughts travelled. The words of Chandogya Upanishad flashed across my mind: "The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. The heaven and the earth are there, and the sun and moon and the stars; fire and lightening and wind are there, and all that now is and is not yet – all that is contained therein."

I understood what was meant by saying: "He who realises the space hidden in the cavern of his heart grasps all that may be desired and comes into contact within Ultimate Reality". The radiant stillness of the cave seemed to whisper: "I am the ar of the Ear, the mind of the Mind, eye of the Eye, the speech of the Speech, and life of the Life. By my Light, all is lighted. I am smaller than the smallest atom, and yet greater than the greatest."

I was, perhaps, in the process of turning into a spiritual principle and journeying to the Ultimate Reality which is the essence of everything and which pervades everything from the tiniest blade of grass to the mightiest star on the horizon.

The rational mind had not ceased to exist; it had merely started merging into the waves of deeper spirituality and discovering the greater truth that lay embedded in the symbols and images.

Suddenly, the lights within the cave went off. It became pitch dark. Before the pujari could light the candle, the power returned with equal abruptness. The momentary darkness in the cave brought visions of the dark womb of nature, which is believed to be the mother of all creation. The whole cycle of creation, destruction and recreation, and of life, death and rebirth was symbolically enacted before me.

The message appeared to be clear: "Darkness is the mother of light and death is nothing but a signpost of rebirth. Neither life nor death nor rebirth can occur without Shakti, the cosmic energy. She is the Ultimate Reality. From Her the world arises as nature and person. And in Her the world merges. Shadows and sunlight are, perhaps, the same."

Like the ‘memory of a music fled’, a few lines from Emerson’s poem, Brahma, which I had read years ago, sailed across my engrossed mind:

These lines brought home to me the truth of the belief: "We have not come out of zero and will not go back to zero. We have been existing eternally, and will exist. There is no power that can undo our existence. We are inextricable, part of the Overall Divinity who is immortal, invisible, unborn, undying and formless and whom no sword can pierce, no fire can burn and no water can drown. Once we realise the unbreakable, everlasting, relationship between the ‘tiny divinity’ that we are and the Greater Divinity that constitutes the Universe, we would understand why we call our religion an Eternal Religion, a religion that is true for all the people, at all the time and in all circumstances. It rests on a simple principle of a dynamic relationship between the ‘little self’ and Greater Self. The more we activate the ‘little self’ the more deeply we become aware of the Greater Self. It is a process, a process of uncovering the divine within, moving from alone to Alone and recognising that the centre of the universe is the centre of man."

From this reverie, trance or my newly discovered level of consciousness – whatever one may call it – I was pushed out by the mantras recited by the pujari. He spoke briefly about the religious significance of the cave and the three Shaktis – Maha Saraswati, Maha Laxmi, Maha Kali – residing therein. Then, he suddenly came to more mundane items. "Here, Mrs Indira Gandhi came. She presented this beautiful chhattar. Sanjay Gandhi came, too. The Mata blessed them. They won the 1980 Lok Sabha elections."

The pujari named a number of other VIPs – Sanjiva Reddy, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, Chandrasekhar, S.B. Chavan, etc. "Sanjiva Reddy’s cancer vanished the moment he knelt before the Mata." I made a sincere attempt to be attentive. But my thoughts had started moving in different directions. Why did the pujari mention all that he did? Why were the ‘people of God’ dazzled by the power and prestige of politics? Why, instead of conveying the meaning of Ultimate Reality, the VIPs had to be brought in, and the mood of reverence undermined? Was not political power and prestige mere maya? How was it that even in the hands of priests, maya got precedence over the spark of divinity? Were not the priests really spreading the net of maya and propagating irrational faiths even in the cave where the atmosphere was conducive to activisation of the deep, though dormant, spirituality of ‘man’?

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