32 A New Hermitage
Earlier in the year, while Bhaiya was walking in the interior looking for a place where it might be possible to be away from the ashram and its duties for a time, he met a farmer who was digging for water on his land, and as it happened that day he found it. As a thanksgiving he gave the ashram an acre of land on which they might build a hermitage for those wishing to make a more intensive retreat. The gift was accepted, but months went by without anything being done to mark it off or develop it.
We went out to visit this spot when I first got here, it’s very quietly situated between two villages, and is easily accessible from the ashram. The land is on a high plateau and commands a good view of the plains around. On the first Sunday in Advent, we made a kind of procession to the land, with three of us carrying young trees for planting. The plot had been marked off the previous day, but when we arrived the owner wasn’t satisfied and went and moved a couple of stones making it that much bigger. Bhaiya then planted the first tree, a banyan, and next Bahenji put in a neem, and I was last with a peepul tree, before Mataji filled in the ground binding these three together.
During Advent I had decided to maintain silence, so after the planting was completed, I made my way quietly back to the ashram by myself. It had been agreed that I should go and water these trees during the coming month, and my walks into the wilderness became quite regular. After an hour’s meditation in chapel, as the light was starting to come in, I would make my way along the ox-cart track that leads into the interior. This dirt track which was a muddy road during the monsoon, and which later gave way to the baked earth of the late summer, had by now become the sandpit of winter, and parts of the road were inches deep in sand. The way leads through scrubland with cactus and bramble punctuating the route.
It can be bitterly cold on the plains during winter, and I went fully wrapped up, with jumper and shawl, and a scarf wrapped round my head to keep warm. The road was usually very quiet as I went out on these mornings, and I hardly ever saw anyone, but one day as I went I saw a solitary man sitting round an open fire he had made from brushwood gathered nearby; he was travelling between the two villages, and his ox-team were grazing on the stubble in the field. There was a great starkness to the scene, and it etched itself into my memory.
The road runs north, and one morning as I went along, on one side of the world the full moon was setting, while on the other the sun was about to rise. In between, idle clouds were lit up pink and peach against the open blue sky. From a treetop a buzzard as big as an eagle flew off, the strokes of its wings slow and powerful, and I was aware of myself as an infinitely small but precious atom of creation walking this vast earth. A red orb appeared on the horizon with a remarkable quietness. This most momentous of all natural events which brings light and warmth to the world, took place without a fanfare to break the silence. It is only in the silence that one can see such a thing, if one is caught up in thought it is possible to miss this marvellous event; indeed, if one is caught up in thought the miracle of one’s life might just pass by also.
People may think silence is a withdrawal from the world, but the truth is it’s only a withdrawal from self, and the world in its fulness is there present when the self ceases to be. The self is the bundle of memories, experiences, and ideas held together by thought, born of the past, and seeking continuity by sacrificing the present to the future. When we become aware of this we also become free of it, and we become aware of it in the silence when the normal modes of relationship, within which the self operates, are broken, and we are thrown back upon the bare reality of ourselves. The exposure the self receives when it is no longer entangled in action and reaction can be painful, for to abide in the silence is to come up against the fulness of oneself, all the contradictions of the human condition; but if one can bear with it, one will be totally transformed. Walking on the plains it is a tremendous thing to see to the horizon on all sides, and the vastness of the space on the outside is reflected on the inside when there is the beauty of being totally awake and present to the moment, walking with God.