One Day in the Cave Above Yamunottari
Pavan’s Press Presents: The Worst of Vaishnava Fiction…
“One Day in the Cave Above Yamunottari”
by Swami Garamhawananda
The seasons of the rains had ended, and now pilgrims were once again trekking through the peaks and valleys of Uttaranchal. Places like Badarinath (the northernmost of Bharatanhumi’s four dhamas and sacred tapo-bhumi of the revered Sage Vyasa); Kedarnath (India’s northernmost of the twelve jyotir-lingas); Go Mukha (“the cow’s sacred mouth” from whence begins the holy Ganga); Gangottari and Yamunottari each now witnessed a steady stream of pilgrims. They were seeking solace in the holy waters of the hills and before the divine forms of the Lord. Pilgrims were praying for refuge from the travails of karma that they’d momentarily left behind in the big cities down below, where a few days earlier they’d boarded buses for the pilgrimage of a lifetime.
Now, about three weeks after the final rains of the varsha-ritu or monsoon, an English yogi arrived here at Yamunottari, the “place where the Yamuna flows East.” Since Yamuna Devi, the goddess of the holy river, is the revered daughter of the Sun God, and an intimate devotee of Lord Shri Krishna, she is most worshipable among all the other holy rivers by the Vaishnavas. Indeed. She is also the wife of the god of the ocean, Lord Samudra-Narayana. So in this way she is married to Krishna.
Since she is indeed the daughter of Lord Surya Narayana or Ravi, who is a form of Maha Vishnu brightly dwelling in the sky above our heads, that place where she turns east into the direction of her father’s udaya (sunrise) is considered very sacred. Here the Sun god has sent his blessings by appearing as hot springs for the sacred purification of Himalayan pilgrims seeking refuge from the cold in the warm waters of forgiveness and healing here at Yamunottari.
Actually the Yamuna is equally sacred at any place along her banks, but devotees especially enjoy bathing in her purifying waters at places such as Yamunottari, Keshi Ghat, Vishram Ghat, Bhramar Ghat, Shringar Ghat, Akrura Ghat, Saraswati Nala, Ambarish Tila, Triveni, etc. The elevation of Yamunottari is a mere 10,500 feet and it is a quite comfortable altitude for most pilgrims and trekkers. Since time immemorial, many old and bent-over widows have walked the 150-mile “Himalayan Char-dham Route” holding onto the arm of their devoted sons. This is their last hope of a means of finding the Supreme Lord who presides over The Last Pilgrimage. Before arriving at that Unavoidable Destination Governed by Time, they have come here in the tradition of countless generations of ancestors to make peace with the Absolute Truth Personality of Godhead.
One day, an English yogi arrived at Yamunottari and was greeted by a few of the disciples of one Gaudiya Vaishnavite penancing there named Guru Charan Baba. No one knew from where Guru Charan Das Babaji had originated from years earlier. It had been maybe a decade now that Guru Charan had been living at the tiny Yamunottari Dham. Ten years earlier he had marched in and asked the local mahant, Mahatma Madhab Das Babaji, for “his kind permission to live in the cave for a few nights.” Shri Guru Charan had never left. A few years later, after Mahatma Madhab das and Guru Charan Ji had spoken to each other barely half a dozen times, Madhab das appeared at the mouth of Guru Charan’s cave. The sage yelled inside: “Guru Charan, keep a watch on the area and please be sure to keep the tantrics from camping here. Please care for the pilgrims and answer all their questions. The goddess has called me to Kanya Kumari in the South and I must begin walking. I shall return in a few years.”
Now, Guru Charan had domiciled there barely for another four or five years after the departure of Mahatma Madhab Das when his “darshans” or informal gatherings around him had caused a small following to spread his fame around certain quarters of India. So when he announced that he wanted to spend one year in silence or maunam, except for constant recitation of the Lord’s holy names, no one thought that such a penance could be completed. Indeed, it proved to be an impossibility with his followers constantly seeking his advice on all subjects. Some called him the Chanakya or Birbal of Yamunottari, while others called him simply referred to him as Bhakta Yamunadas Ji. Indeed his advice on all subjects was always given a serious consideration by Himalayan villagers and local yogis alike.
This mysterious yogi named Guru Charan had “neither a name nor a past”, he had once told a journalist from Calcutta. His name Guru Charan was “simply a description of how he hoped and prayed to spend his life.” And the only thing Guru Charan ever said about his past was that he had twice been initiated by Om Vishnupada Paramhamsa Parivrajacaharya (108) Abhaya Charanaravinda Das Bhaktivedanta Goswami Shrila Prabhupada. The first hari-nama diksha was in the winter of 1971 and a year later he had received his second gayatri mantra diksha. He had added to that bit of information that, “These were the most meaningful days of my life.” Then he told the journalist, “If you wish to continue, we will discuss Bhagavad Gita As It Is and nothing else.” Falling silent, the journalist backed out of the cave on all fours, and that was the end of a very rare interview.
It is true that, to this day, Guru Charan Ji prefers to discuss philosophy rather than the activities of this body, which he disdains as “merely a filthy, rotten bag of sewage.” Since he professes a strong devotion to Shri Krishna, he is often asked why he does not choose to spend his days in Vrindavana. To which he’ll typically answer that he’s “too sinful.” Conversation with him could be one-sided, if he was in the mood to speak. Yet if a point piques his interest, he catches onto every facet of it and will discuss nothing else for months. Points such “the means of finding the eternal function for the individual jivatma through surrender to the sankirtan-yagna of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu” in particular have occupied his conversations with both seekers of the truth and the merely curious. Otherwise, on a normal day, he can be heard in the back of the cave muttering constantly the mahamantra:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
One day an English yogi calling himself “Bhrigu Maharaja” arrived at the cave of Yamunottari. Guru Charan had had the good fortune of evading any sort of dialogue and conversation for some weeks and he was feeling quite comfortable in speaking only the holy names of the Lord. His Guru Maharaja had taught that Krishna and His names are non-different, and Guru Charan, or whatever this mysterious yogi’s name was, took those words seriously, even if he felt that any number of his Godbrothers had neglected this vital detail and gone their own way.
A few yogis who lived in the area and who spoke a little English met this Bhrigu Maharaja at the opening to the cave, gently preventing him from entering. Bhrigu demanded the right to have Guru Charan’s darshan because “he had a few philosophical bones to pick with him.” Bhrigu Maharaja explained that he had accepted his Sanskrit moniker only after an explosive burst of yogic trance wherein he had “become God.” Now he wanted to straighten out this Guru Charan Das, this “servant of the feet of his Guru Maharaja.” Now the English yogi wished to “promote” Guru Charan and teach him how to “become God.” The exasperated followers of Guru Charan finally explained to the yogi that “Guruji can be a bitter pill to swallow.” And the British yogi “may not like what he has to say.” Finally the Englishman pleaded that as a visitor who had come from afar, he was none other than atithi devo bhavah or “the guest who has become God.” On these grounds, he gained an uneasy admittance to the inner sanctum of the naturally-heated cave wherein Guru Charan had heard the entire conversation.
In the light of the akhand deep, the burning ghee lamp, this Englishman calling himself Bhrigu Maharaja was surprised to make out that Guru Charan was also, like him, a middle-aged Westerner. Strange, he had expected this yogi to be an Indian. Suddenly, speaking up in his natural dialect, the Brooklyn-ese street lingo of an illiterate New York hood, Guru Charan said, “Beat it, you arrogant sack of crap, and just be glad that I’m not still living on the streets of Kings, where I met my spiritual master Shrila Prabhupada back in ’71. As devotees, we cannot tolerate the defiling of any holy place along the banks of Lord Krishna’s favorite river with impersonal, sinful blabber about becoming God. Now that I’ve been forced to listen to your rambling and speculative nonsense, it’s time for me to take a long bath in the sacred waters. Now exit the cave immediately or I’ll have a dozen non-violent yogis hog tie you and drag you out.”
-We warned you that this would be terrible. Hey, the unedited version was worse, yet. For a truly terrible experience, those who want a copy of the raw original version, may please contact the Editor. – Ed.
Last Word
Shrila Prabhupada has given an example that attempts, in a way His Divine Grace called “crude”, to try to convey the unknowable, the vastness of Lord Krishna’s energies, to his disciples. In his English translation of Shrila Rupa Goswamipada’s Bhakti-Rasamrita Sindhu, which Shrila Prabhupada gave us as Nectar of Devotion, he explains that since Lord Krishna’s energies are always expanding, by the time the Supreme Lord Himself has understood His limitless energies, His energies have expanded beyond even Shri Krishna’s own comprehension. Of course this is just an analogy, a gentle admonition to those who think that they know God. Such are the multifarious glories of Lord Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Remaining ever thankful to Shrila Prabhupada for his thoughtful guidance over the swirling deep ravines of materialism’s whirlpools, we must never allow ourselves to be fooled by the audacity of impersonalists and mayavadis who claim to know God, or even claim to have become God. With his simhacharya prowess, Shrila Prabhupada taught each one he met that he who would know God best must serve Him under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master.
Many thanks to all of you dear Godbrothers and Godsisters for reading this issue of Pavan’s Press. All glories to Shri Guru and Gauranga.
Till the next issue,
Your fallen servant,
Patita Pavana das Adhikary
