Ecstasy excerpt

From Ecstasy by Sudhir Kakar

 The garden was as still as the night sky. Neither a leaf nor a star was stirring. Gopal sat under the tamarind tree, unmoving and erect, breathing slowly and rhythmically till the breath slowed down so much as to be barely perceptible. The object of his meditation was Nangta. 'My Guru is in my head. He is in my forehead. My beloved Nangta is in my ears. He is the light of my eyes. He has come into my throat. He is in my arms, in my hands, in each of my fingers. He is now in my heart, now spreading through my veins, entering each cell. Nangta is my abdomen. He is in my back, in my thighs, in my genitals. He is in my knees. He is in my legs, in my feet.' Thus Gopal installed Nangta in his body, limb by limb, while silently repeating 'Guru Om, Guru Om.' The installation took three hours and was accompanied by a sensation of lightness and deep joy. Fully absorbed in the meditation now, Gopal had the feeling that the Guru was everywhere-in the mantra, in the branches and leaves of the tamarind tree, in the ground on which he sat, in the bejewelled canopy of the sky above him. The mantra itself was like a running refrain in the background, like the drone of a tanpura of which he was no longer consciously aware. As the meditation deepened, he felt a stab of pain at the base of the spine, as if a blunt wooden spike had been tamped against the coccyx with the single blow of a hammer. The pain was followed by an extraordinarily pleasing sensation flashing upward through the spine like a reversed bolt of lightning. Suddenly, with the roar of a waterfall, he felt a stream of liquid light enter his brain and fill his cranium. The roaring became louder and the light brighter, pouring into his head like moonlight through a window, flooding the glass without altering it. Gopal felt himself slipping out if his body, encircled by a halo of light which was not only a visual perception but also an exquisite sensation. Indeed, his body appeared to recede, become a mere dot in the distance. Gopal was now pure consciousness, a sea of light, unaffected by feeling or sensation. He was without an outline, spreading in all directions without any barriers or obstructions, existing in every point of space. The state of exaltation accompanying this reversal-of no longer being a small point of awareness that existed in the confines of a body but a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a tiny dot-was indescribable. After a while-the duration of this 'while' equally impossible to pin down-the circle began to narrow. Gopal felt himself contracting. He became smaller and smaller. The outline of his body, starting with the head and then extending to the torso and its extremities, began to take shape and dimly intrude upon his consciousness. It was followed by a perception of its mass and density, and of the beat of his heart, as his corporeality reconstituted itself. He became aware of the silence in the garden, felt a prickling sensation spread through his arms and legs as they stirred to life. With an effort he opened his eyes, prising open the lids that seemed gummed together. 

© Sudhir Kakar