Becoming God Read online

  Once, a dark, tall woman appeared in the queen’s dream and desired, “I want to be born to you.” The queen was awestruck, though she mustered courage to affront the dark woman, “But I don’t want a dark daughter.”

  “The complexion you may choose”, the dark woman relented.

  “May I have a golden girl?” the queen probed the prospect.

  “May it be so”, the dark woman granted, and entered the queen’s womb.

  The dream ceased; the queen awoke from sleep in bewilderment, and disclosed it immediately to the king sleeping beside her. The royal couple were overawed that some goddess was imminent to be born to them. They, however, decided not to disclose the dream to anyone, even to the chief priest.

  In due course, the queen gave birth to a baby girl. To their astonishment, the baby was of golden complexion. It firmed their belief in the dream, though they kept it a secret, and the daughter also did not exhibit any sign of abnormality, except her wondrous beauty and shining golden complexion. They named her Gauri, meaning golden girl.

  6.2

  Gannu from Deul along with his father would keep visiting various countries and places, selling wool. Their visits to Himachal were a bit more frequent because the country was situated on the route of their travels. While in Himachal, they would ensure to visit its capital Champavati, and there they would invariably seek opportunity to call on the royalty to sell out soft wool, which they would bring especially for them.

  The royal family had developed a lot of liking for them, particularly for Gannu who would tell the stories of various countries he visited. On such occasions he would take much pride in describing his own country, Deul. His description of Mount Kailash and Manas Lake would cast magic spell on the royalty. Gauri, who had grown an exceptionally beautiful young lady by then, would evince keen interest in Gannu’s description of Deul, raising many queries.

  Once, Gannu disclosed that Shiv, the Perfect Man, lived in Deul. The king could readily recollect Shiv, relating him to the event organized by Daksh for the marriage of his daughter, Sati and the subsequent developments as he himself had witnessed those events. Gauri was almost hysterical listening to the quirky stories of Shiv and insisted on repeating them umpteen times seeking more details. Gauri’s intense curiosity prompted Gannu to invite the royalty to pay a visit to Deul.

  6.3

  Gauri was growing by leaps and bounds, with her bounteous beauty increasing day by day. She earned unbounded virtues, and garnered appreciation from all and sundry. But to her parents, she continued to be a cause of worries – this time for finding a suitable groom for her. Their worries were compounded with Gauri’s demeanour that she never took interest in any man, except Shiv of Deul. Her father was silent, but her mother did not approve that her daughter, the beautiful golden girl, should take interest in a person who was already a widower, and now a recluse whose conduct appeared wacky.

  In the summer that year king Haimvat, queen Mena and princess Gauri, along with entourage comprising a few courtiers and attendants, besides an army detachment, visited Deul on an excursion. They set up camps near Gangaju at the space between the Manas and Rasas lakes.

  Enchanted with the scenic beauty of the area, they delighted in bounty of the nature as well as earning of virtues, by taking baths in the Manas Lake and performing parikrama, the circumambulation, around it. The king’s engagements included hearing petitions from the people of Lohtsa, Thongsa and some faraway villages of the valley, while the queen opted to interact with the villagers, though she scowled at their untidy ways and weird customs.

  Gauri was enthusiastically collecting details about Shiv and the Mount Kailash, and expressed desire to climb the forbidden peak. Her desire was strongly disapproved by the villagers who tried their best to scare her away with stories of spirits and unkind description of Shiv. The more condemnation by villagers, the more pull Gauri felt towards Shiv. Ultimately, throwing all restraints to the wind, one night she escaped from the camp and hoodwinking the villagers set out to climb the Mount Kailash. Up to the cremation plateau she did not encounter much difficulty in climbing, but thereafter the climb was steep and risky. Her indomitable longing for Shiv, however, made her tenaciously cling to her path. She had gone up not much ahead, when she heard a rumbling bellow of a huge bull that had blocked her path and was almost to charge on her. Undeterred, Gauri yelled, “Halt. How do you dare stop me from meeting my Shiv?”

  Taken aback over such a hectoring command and possessive claim on Shiv, the bull, that was Nandi, was dazed. He moved ahead gingerly to see who actually she was. On a close look, He squealed with joy, “Oh, it’s you, Mother! Come I’ll take you to Shiv on my back.”

  Gauri reached Shiv who had turned into a mound of ice. With her bare hands she started removing ice from the cold and cadaverous body of Shiv, which was covered again and again with heavily falling snow. Undaunted, Gauri persisted in her endeavour without bothering for food or water or any comfort.

  6.4

  At the royal camp ashore Manas, there was a great commotion on Gauri’s disappearance. The villagers were being questioned; the army contingents were pressed into search, and the village Gobas were asked to make prayers to the village goddess and spirits for safe return of the princess. All efforts were of no avail. Enquiries from the villagers, however, led to a conclusion that Sati must have gone up to the peak of Kailash to meet Shiv.

  Queen fell sick due to separation from her darling daughter; the distressed king had no option but to return to the capital leaving a small contingent of army there to wait for Gauri to come down from the peak.

  Months passed, winter after summer and summer after winter, Gauri remained steadfast in devotion to Shiv. This was her tapasya, her austerity and ascesis. She forgot everything – her parents, hunger, thirst, and even rest and relaxation.

  Down below at the camp near the Manas Lake, the army personnel were growing restless, waiting for the return of the princess. They would pick up quarrels with the villagers, sometimes for pastime and sometimes due to irritation over the bizarre behaviour of the villagers. Once the soldiers agitated over filthy rumours being spread by Thokan, the Goba of Thongsa village, about Gauri and Shiv, beat him badly.

  6.5

  After tenacious tapasya sustained for months, Shiv’s body one day shivered a bit due to warm touch of Gauri’s coddling hands. A faint smile flickered on his stony lips, and he opened his eyes a bit. He recognised who that beautiful ascetic was, but feigning ignorance so as to poke fun at her he asked, “Who are you and how have you reached here?”

  Shamefacedly, Gauri recoiled and remained silent. Shiv repeated his question, pretending annoyed. “You know who I am”, whispered Gauri shyly.

  “How can I know you; I’ve just seen you. You appear some princess”, Shiv said with a glint of mischief.

  “Lo, I am no princess. I am just a slave to your feet,” asserting in a flux of emotions, Gauri started throwing away whatever little remainders of royalty were left on her body.

  “Wait, wait. I don’t mean that”, Shiv hurried to assuage her, asking, “What do you want?”

  “To remain united with you”, purred Gauri coyly.

  “Granted”, proclaimed Shiv waving his right hand joyously, playing his damru to announce his approval and to signal to Nandi to arrive in attendance. He instructed Nandi to take Gauri down to Gannu who would take her to her parents and make arrangements for their wedding.

  6.6

  Gauri was reluctant to leave Shiv so early. While trying to linger her stay with him for a little longer, she broached a solemn subject by expressing her curiosity, “What do you do sitting all alone in the icy contemplation?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Shiv wondering at Gauri’s inquisitiveness.

  “What is that you remain so engrossed in, so pensively, in this icy seclusion?” Gauri elucidated her query.

  Shiv laughed loud, making a startling revelation, “I see the Existence with my Third Eye”.

 
“Third Eye? Do you have one more eye besides your two visible ones”, asked Gauri in an excited bewilderment.

  Shiv laughed again, asserting, “Yeah, I’ve one more eye other than these two physical ones. Of course, everybody has got a Third Eye.”

  Perplexed, Gauri gaped at Shiv blankly for a while before urging him, “Could you elaborate this recondite subject for me?”

  “Oh, yes. Listen”, Shiv was pleased over her innocent curiosity. He went on speaking cheerfully, “The Existence radiates through myriad of myriad layers of illusory existences. There is only one and unique Existence permeating through all the phenomenal world of apparent existences. These existences are actually no existences, but just illusory images of the Existence.”

  To Gauri it all appeared mere philosophizing and artful play on words. In grave doubt, she butted on Shiv’s rhetoric, “Are we mere images of what you call the Existence?”

  “No and yes,” was the terse reply from Shiv.

  Stymied, Gauri besought Shiv to make her comprehend the subject in a simple and straight manner.

  Shiv said smiling, “It’s simple, though it appears complicated, and that is because of our ignorance.”

  Gauri was again nonplussed over addition of a new element of ignorance to the already enigmatic subject.

  Sensing her predicament, Shiv came forth spontaneously, “Don’t be perplexed. It is true that our ignorance - ignorance about the Existence - is at the root of all confusion. The Existence is the only Reality. The common people perceive It in Its manifestations through transitory and non-existent world, and because of their unawareness of the Existence they perceive the transitory things as the only reality. I see the Existence with my Third Eye, the eye of awareness, and thus see the ultimate Reality and Its manifestations clearly.”

  Gauri, who was hooked more strongly to the Third Eye than to the Existence, voiced her fear and concern, “I am spooked at your insinuation about the Third Eye.” “Will you please dispel my fear about the Third Eye”, Gauri implored Shiv.

  Shiv explained, “Common people see things with their two physical eyes, which are good enough to see this phenomenal world. To see beyond that one needs to activate one’s Third Eye, the inner eye, located in the subtle body. That can be felt in the middle of the forehead just at the junction of the two eyebrows and root of the nose in the physical body. Everybody has got this Third Eye, but it remains dormant in most of the people as they remain blissfully ignorant of this great asset bestowed by the Existence.”

  “Why this Third Eye is not automatically activated as the other two eyes are?” asked Gauri, trying to ground Shiv’s flight of philosophy.

  Shiv smiled over Gauri’s puerile poser, and replied, “The Third Eye is already and automatically active as the physical eyes are. The only issue is that we are not aware of it. Take the example of physical eyes, which if remain closed, cannot see anything, though the existence of sighting and objects sighted are real in the phenomenal world. Similarly, in the spiritual world the Third Eye exists, but if it remains closed, how can one envision the spiritual realities? Unaware of this great spiritual asset and constantly remaining entrenched in mundane and banal living; one will naturally doubt the existence of the Third Eye.”

  Under the spell of Shiv’s eloquence, Gauri nodded her assent to what Shiv had told about the Third Eye, but she was still curious as to how Shiv made his Third Eye to see, while others could not. Realizing what Gauri wanted to know, Shiv proceeded to reveal, “Every individual, being on one’s individual level of spirituality, has one’s own way of opening one’s Third Eye. I’ve got my own. Initially, it was a bit difficult, but once the Third Eye was opened, it became as easy as with the normal eyes. However, I rarely use the Third Eye in normal living. It is used while entering spiritual world through meditation. It also happens in case of grave provocation when it is opened automatically. But, this situation needs to be averted as such opening devours a lot of spiritual strength”.

  Gauri grew impatient to know the method Shiv utilized to open his Third Eye. She asked him to describe the method in tangible manner. Smiling, Shiv described his experience, “First, I sit in an erect posture with folded legs. Naturally feeling calm and composed, I resort to deep and slow breathing for some time. Then, a sound like aum a..u..m.. emanates involuntarily from the pit of my stomach, which keeps gurgling in my throat and further striking at the middle of my forehead above the root of my nose, and ascends up to the centre of my skull, where it resonates softly and soothingly. The strike of the sound at the middle of the forehead is so forceful that it seems to have been put on fire and the sound seems to be bursting out of it. But this burning is put off by the nectar of bliss flowing from the Brahmarandhra, the divine aperture in the skull. Simultaneously, I keep collecting my consciousness from outer world and even from my limbs and mount my consciousness on the waves of the sound. This is the most difficult part, and initially I encountered many failures at this stage. But, the sound and consciousness jointly strike the middle of the forehead so forcefully that an aperture is opened there, enabling me to see a whole new world of Existence. I call this aperture the Third Eye”.

  Coming out of the spell of Shiv’s description of the Third Eye, Gauri wanted to know if there was any method easy enough for an ordinary person. Shiv smiled in affirmation, asserting that there were many. On insistence by Gauri to spell out some of them, Shiv said stoically that he would do that at the right time in future.

  6.7

  Gauri’s arrival at home was a great relief for the parents – King Haimvat and Queen Mena. They were elated to see an angelic aura glowing around the daughter, though Mena was concerned more about the daughter’s emaciated body. She chided her, drawling Uma, meaning ‘don’t do’ intense austerities, and instructed her to refrain from such acts. Gauri laughed heartily at the mother’s affectionate concern. The mother’s chide was so sweet and her uttering Uma was so wonderfully tuneful that Gauri lapped it up as her another name, as a sweet remembrance of mother’s care.

  Champavati, the capital of Himachal, was abuzz with applause for Gauri. There were wide talks in the capital, eulogizing Gauri as to how she climbed the forbidden mountain and how she encountered Shiv, the Param Purush. Talks of her feats spread far and wide assuming various versions - coloured with myriad hues of perception, imagination, fiction and fabrication. Some called her Devi, the goddess, in awe, while some addressed her Maa, the mother in veneration. Many others praised her calling Parvati, the lady mountaineer, to acclaim her feat of climbing the Mount Kailash, and being only the third in achieving this distinction after Shiv and Sati. Almost all such praises stuck to Gauri as sobriquets. Among them, Parvati became the most popular, occupying the centre stage as her proper name, and relegating her real name Gauri to background.

  6.8

  On the day of marriage, Shiv’s men from Lohtsa, Thongsa and Vishwayatan assembled in Champavati and marched in a procession towards the king’s palace, which was the venue of the wedding. The pale Deul villagers - with flat faces and small eyes, braided hair on heads but moustaches and beards almost missing, clad in goatskin were a laughingstock to the citizens of Champavati. Some were accompanied by their ferocious dogs; some were walking their favourite goat or sheep, while some were moving beside their yaks carrying stinking loads. They all looked like aliens to the city people. Shiv appeared no different from them, though he was remarkably distinguished with his sharp features marked by high cheekbones, tall height and fair complexion, and above all a glowing aura. Nevertheless, his tiger skin waist-clothes, his rudraksha beads, his trishul and damru and his straddling Nandi caused laughter and ridicule among the onlookers.

  A group of ladies from the palace and quarters of priests and ministers, flanked by the royal men led by the king on one side and the prominent citizens of Champavati on the other side, had gathered to welcome the groom and his people. Gannu and Narad approached them hastily the reception party to announce formally the arrival of the groom. Mena
, despite being acquainted with the villagers, was deeply provoked to see them in their abominable native costumes and stinking odour. For the first time she saw Shiv, who despite being a handsome and attractive youth, appeared horrid to her because of his outrageous costume and riding a bull. She was so repelled that she refused to welcome the groom, and instead scurried back towards the palace, throwing away the accoutrements she was carrying to ritually receive the groom.

  Meanwhile, Shiv, unmindful of the developments, was playing his damru rapturously, staring, in a fixed and bewitched gaze, at Parvati, who was standing, along with her friends, in the front balcony of the palace, waving her hands to express her joy to welcome Shiv. All the people present there were spellbound witnessing the two lovers. Sensing the critical situation of the occasion, Haimvat rushed to receive Shiv, and helping him with his arms alight from Nandi, took him to the wedding venue.

  6.9

  Inside the palace, Mena was fuming with rage that her daughter had made a wrong choice. She was condemning Shiv to have come to marry a princess in a beggar’s clothing, and had thus sullied the dignity of the royal tradition. She started sobbing, announcing her decision not to let her daughter to marry that wacky beggar.

  Parvati was perturbed, realising that the situation was getting out of hand. Modesty prevented her from approaching her mother, in presence of other women, to convince her about the greatness of Shiv and her love for him. Suddenly, a ray of hope gleamed on her and she asked one of her friends to immediately bring Narad and Gannu in, to intervene into the matter.

  Narad tried his best to convince Mena by praising Shiv a lot, highlighting his high education at Vishwayatan and having been acknowledged across the world as the Param Purush. He emulated Shiv as a divine incarnation and Parvati as none else but Shakti, the power of Shiv, in the human form. She is the eternal partner of Shiv; they have come on the earth for their divine play and none can keep them separated.