Courtesy: The Isha Yoga Foundation Website
I walk gingerly down a flight of roughly hewn stone steps, clutching onto the wall with one hand and the folds of my soaking wet robe with the other (we had to shower before—like at a swimming pool). My hair is supposed to be tucked under a hairnet, but I can feel a clump that has escaped it, settle wetly on my neck. I doubt that Mr Degas, despite his penchant for bathing women would have found me a prepossessing sight. In the decidedly unsexy, grimy orange robe and cheap snood, I look more like a slightly deranged sadhvi than any sort of temptress.
I’m at a kund (there
are two here and the one for women is called Chandrakund) in a popular yoga
ashram in South India. It is the sort that is mostly frequented by prosperous businessmen
in search of meaning, corporate doyens trying to discover new facets to
leadership and Caucasians flirting with the exotic, the esoteric, the obscure. Its
founder is a mystic of sorts with a wicked sense of
humour, a bit of a reputation and plenty of sass.
I am not a believer. I haven’t been one for years now, so I’m not sure why I’m walking
down slippery stairs into a dank cavern (they really have spent money to create
atmosphere, I must admit) and have agreed to immerse myself in the dark,
bubbling water below.
A few women are already there before me. One stands under a
cascading water-fall l that feeds the tank; another floats on her back gazing wistfully
at the ceiling which has some pictures of random yogis and sages (think a
Tantra T-shirt version of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel); another is hugging to
her chest a huge metallic ball (the lingam, which to my horror is said to be solidified
mercury. Hello, hasn’t anyone heard of Minamata?).
I, on the other hand, have only one thought on my mind as I
step into the water, “I hope no one can see that I’m wearing nothing underneath,”
and I cling fiercely to my robe with both hands, cursing buoyant force and
telling myself it would have been a sin for me to subject my gorgeous, new M&S
lingerie to this freezing, dodgy-looking water.
My companion, an attractive, intelligent woman is almost one
with the water: she glides dreamily along to the waterfall, her face aglow and
stands under it, looking like a slightly older version of the Liril Girl (in hideous
orange not minty green, though). I reluctantly venture in neck-deep, give the
mercury lingam a desultory pat and then declare I am ready to leave.
In dripping robes, we ascend the stairs, shower and change
back into our clothes before proceeding to the space we had to get into the
cold water for (to activate chakras) in the first place. They call it the
Dhyanalinga Yogic Temple: a huge meditative space made of wood-fired bricks and
mud, unsupported by pillars, concrete or steel
At the entrance, is a pillar with symbols of various
religions inscribed on it, “We welcome all religions here,” says my companion,
a sense of pride and ownership, creeping into her voice. I smile, frankly
unconvinced. Religion doesn’t work for me anymore, syncretistic or otherwise.
You cannot speak beyond this pillar, so I follow her
silently inside, my bare feet leaving behind footprints on the hot stone step
at the entrance. The first thing you see in the inner parikrama is a massive
granite effigy of Patanjali fused with the body of a snake. The corner in which
he is placed is sunken so all you can see is a pair of beady eyes, surmounted
by a cobra’s hood (Nagaraja (Siva) is the world’s first yogi).
Opposite him is the Vanashree shrine and the walls around
the pathway that lead to the inner sanctum are granite panels telling the tale
of six South Indian Saints.
We crouch on the floor waiting to be called in: a bell is
rung every 15 minutes and you enter and leave only when you hear the sound of
that bell. It is warm—no, hot and I desperately want a shower. I do what I
always do when I am bored and have to wait (in church, at the doctor’s, in
class): I check out what all the other women were wearing and how much nicer/less
so, her outfit is compared to mine. Hardly, spiritual I admit but it staves off boredom.
The bell rings: people troop outside silently with the same
expression on their face that you see on a Christian’s after communion. But
then, perhaps that makes sense—the Eucharist is the most important of the
Christian Sacrament because to sip of that wine and sup off the bread is to
acknowledge the existence of divinity, divinity so close that you can touch and
feel and taste it.
A bare-chested priest summons us inside, a placard in his
hand that tells visitors to wait inside for 15 minutes till they ring the bell.
In keeping with the general trend, I bend my head, assume an expression of
piousness and follow the rest of the people inside.
At the risk of sounding cliché as hell, the space is surreal—some
sort of nameless, primeval, intense force almost ricochets off the walls. Or
perhaps it is my imagination and that is just the Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves setting: think slow, dripping water,
oil lamps, high ceilings and a silence so thick that you need a woodchopper to
slice through it.
In the centre of the cavernous dome is the linga: a
humongous, 13 ft high, phallic structure composed of black granite that
represents energy. It is surmounted on a white granite mass, fashioned into
coils and there are garlands of marigolds splayed across it.
I’m not greatly impressed but what I’m very kicked by are
the tiny meditation nooks that have been carved into the walls of the dome. I
make a nuisance of myself, shuffling my feet and tripping over already-meditating people, as I seek to find one just for me. The priest frowns
at me and tells me to sit. Luckily, I spot an empty nook and crawl into it.
Ok, now it gets creepy. See, I’m a restless person: I shake
my legs when I have to wait for someone; I can’t sit at my desk for more than
an hour; I almost always take a quick peek at my watch during Shavasana (unless
I actually simply sleep off, I have done that, I admit).
But in there: time actually stood still, the seconds and
hours and minutes deposed by a silent, searching infinity where nothing
mattered and yet, everything did. The oil lamps sometimes flickered and sometimes
were still; you could hear sometimes the breath of the person in front of
you and sometime not; the golden golden ceiling of the dome descended and then
went back to being very far away.
Nestled in my nook, the space in my head went quiet,
something that almost never happens. I wake up at three in the morning thinking
about work, about the past, about relationships: all those niggling little
burrs that cling to your skin so tight that they soon dissolve into it and become
one with it.
I barely felt those 15 minutes—I didn’t hear the bell either
(and I was awake, mind you). It is only when people around me started getting
up that I did too, silently following the crowd outside, more than a little stirred,
a little shaken, a little closer to that country we call peace.
