5 Sri Lanka (The High Hills)
June 4, 2022

78 Climbing to the Peak

Usually we dwell in this forest in solitude, even those who come to feed the monks rarely venture into the forest proper. However, passing through the monastery is a rocky mountain stream that leads up to one of the highest peaks in this range of hills, and which provides an adventurous climb for those willing to try it, and this proves to be particularly popular with the local youth on any holiday.

There are many sounds here in the jungle, both by day and by night, and somehow they all belong to it, but as the youngsters climb they whoop and cry out, beat drums and play guitars, and it all seems to cut across the soundscape unexpectedly. All day today there has been a large group of teenagers shouting to and fro as they made the ascent. I watched a mixed party of them as they came down in the early evening. They were a curious sight dressed in their brightly coloured clothes bearing the signs and emblems of another culture. Things in this part of the world are changing rapidly and even though this country is deeply conservative, the youth especially are being enveloped by the rising global materialist culture, and all the crude sensuality that goes with it, and one cannot help but wonder how long it will be before the traditional society disintegrates completely, and the alienation that dominates so many other parts of the world sets in.

One day a friend asked if I’d like to make the climb with him and I readily agreed. We started in the mid-afternoon and had only gone a short way before my friend, who had only been once before, got lost. We ended up improvising a route through an extensive tea estate which had for a long time been abandoned and was now being reclaimed by the wildness of the jungle, a confusion of grasses, weeds, shrubs and creepers, all climbing up towards the light wherever they could find room. The path was also littered with the debris of the trees around, leaves and branches, not a few of the latter being of quite a size where half a tree or more has finally come tumbling down. We hacked our way along, stumbling over crumbling walls, and other remains from the days of cultivation, trying to ascend but mainly going sideways.

We eventually emerged out of this tangle and found ourselves a long way off course, and had to make our way through head high grasses to get back to ‘our’ part of the forest. After a detour that had taken more than an hour, we regained the path and started the climb once more. Just before the peak there is a rocky incline, very steep, and at the top a magnificent panorama over this beautiful hill country. Ranges of mountains that I know from other vantage points in the area lined up the one next to the other, it all coming together into order and relation, it was a breathtaking thing to see.

After a while we crossed to the next peak, only a few hundred metres away to see the sight from there, but as we approached something else that lies just beyond the crest caught our attention. It turned out to be a satellite TV relay station, an ugly mess of corrugated iron and steel girders protecting an array of electronic gadgetry, and it immediately occurred to me that in the days of the prophets the people would set up idols on the mountain tops and worship them, while now we have the previously unheard-of ability to bring the idols of the modern world right into the homes of the people. And it may be thought that at least when there was worship at the high places there was still a sense of the sacred, but in our day the profane, and even the downright corrupt, dominates not only the outer, but also the inner landscapes of our world.

Darshan in the Morning

The hills roll gently away
into the far distance until
they are met by mountainous foothills.

The river, a rich dark brown,
meanders through the countryside
bringing the waters.

As the sun rises it lights
the lingering low-lying clouds
that cover the valleys and meadows.

In the sky swallows and swifts
twist and turn as they chase their prey
on the light breeze that blows through the air.

In every place that I look –
above, below, and all around,
there is but one thing that greets me
– yes, it is darshan of the morning.

79 Companions in the Forest