Swami Vivekananda wrote that talking to oneself once in a day is important, for unless one does it he would miss meeting an excellent person in this world.
Whenever I think of undertaking a pilgrimage to Kedarnath I feel I am not yet fit for it. For, I have not yet contracted the habit of talking to myself as much as I ought to. Who is this wonderful person residing in us whom we should talk to as the Swami asked us to doIJ Is this just another layer of mind, something that lurks just underneath the surface mindIJ But I think that the Swami meant another thing.
Sri Aurobindo defined the entity Swami Vivekananda referred to as psychic being, seated deep beneath the surface mind, exulting in victory, wailing over defeat, struggling for the crown, identified with body, life and mind, and yet, it remains unmoved by the transient shows - the immortal self, supporting the actor in the human drama while pushing him unceasingly to wisdom’s heights over misery’s gulfs. It is the spark of the Divine that is the leader of the evolution of soul, hidden deep in us, the inner-most self, leading us from experiences to experiences to the end of experiences in the eternal existence of absolute bliss.
My great grandmother Rajlakshmi Devi undertook a solitary pilgrimage to Kedarnath and Badrinath hundred and ten years ago when she was in her seventies, an infirm, old widow and yet endowed with an invincible strength to ascend the pinnacle of the wisdom’s heights. She recounted her experiences in a book that has been recently republished at the behest of the School of Women Studies, Jadavpur University in Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore appreciated the book for its simplicity of style. What she wrote in her preface is that those who have received the inner call and whose devotion is strong enough for an unconditional self-giving to God should undertake this pilgrimage. For, this pilgrimage marks the final one, as it brings the consummation, the nectar of life, the ultimate salvation, she wrote.
But now, it is different or rather it is being made to be different. The Government seems to have taken a pledge to rid the pilgrimage of its exclusiveness. Ours is, of course, an egalitarian age where nothing should be left exclusive. But the question is - in matters spiritual, can or should things be soIJ Post-2013 deluge, the Government seems to have thrown a gauntlet to Mother Nature to bring more than what she kills.
This is why it is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that as many tourists as possible visit these places of pilgrimages. I have used the word ‘tourist’ purposely, for the focus is riveted not on the pilgrims but the tourists or, worse, those enamoured of adventure sports. Chopper service is being expanded by building helipad on the delicate body of the young, fragile mountains.
I do not know whether they are after the revenue that would follow the tourists’ footfalls or whether they are intent on using it as a feather in their cap, a crowning glory, to flaunt it to the people as a stupendous achievement with the crucial election approaching. But, whatever, ‘the more the merrier’ approach is permeating every fibre of the governmental thinking. And this is wherein the danger lurks - the danger of the shrines being reduced to prima donnas of the world, as I have written in an earlier column of mine.
In that case, they who have stood erect amidst vicissitudes of history and cataclysmic twists of time would be robbed of the luminous aura that keeps hanging over them for countless ages. I know that the soul of such places never perishes despite the body being changed or even transformed. Yet, I feel that the spiritually evocative appeal of such old pilgrimage centres would certainly diminish if tourism is allowed to bulldoze pilgrimage.
The temples of Uttarakhand are simple in their grandeur, shorn of pomp, yet, permeated with a sublime glow of transcendental wisdom. They beckon those who feel tired of the endless journeys through the bitter-sweet experiences of surface life. Someone says that life is a pilgrimage where the wise, not inclined to rest by the roadside inns, chooses to march straight at certain stage of his subjective evolution to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his final destination. This is what the temples here epitomize - the march ahead, the adventure of consciousness from darkness to light and from the evanescent light to eternal light. Things should be kept so only to help the sanctity of the world-acclaimed Debobhoomi endure through the volatile, rather perilous times.