Immortal Self by Aaravindha Himadra

Author:Aaravindha Himadra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sounds True

15

MYSTERIOUS BLUE

The white light was so lustrous

that even the undersides of the surrounding branches

were delicately aglow.

I awoke early to the sound of a distant prayer echoing through the hills. Now that I was alone, Amarpura’s aura of serenity seemed significantly more apparent, offering me a calming sense of being bathed in sacredness. I pushed aside my blanket and sat up, pulled my legs into half-lotus, and let my thoughts fall to the pull of gravity. In seconds I found myself suffused in Amarpura’s tranquil luminosity, its limitless touch converting my simple process of letting go into an effort-free and motionless observing. All sense of constraint or need for control gave way to a fluid expansiveness so immense that I was no longer able to sense myself in the world. Instead, I experienced the world inside me. My relationships, my journey here, the lifetimes that had passed since I had left this valley, the masters—all of it was there in a solitary sweeping perception. Then even that view seemed too small, vanishing into a preeminent goldenness, an absoluteness—lush, free, and immediate.

It may have been minutes, or possibly hours, but when my bodily awareness finally returned it was due almost entirely to the seductive pull of the warming daylight brushing over my eyelids. I would gladly have stayed there with eyes closed, floating in the sweet afterglow, but a peculiar scratching sound came from the opposite end of my hut. I opened my eyes sedately, slowly focusing through the blur only to catch sight of an enormous spider, nearly half the size of my shoe, creeping ominously along the base of the wall.

My awareness had been so broadly spacious that it took me a moment to reclaim my focus. By the time I did, I realized that my body was already standing. Rather than the spider turning out to be a sci-fi monster readying itself for an imminent attack, it rushed out through a small, frayed rip in the wall the instant it saw me move. Its mind-blowing size conjured up a salvo of potential future confrontations, making my first task of the day to repair the rip.

My hair and clothes were a muddle of disheveled conflicts. My skin was sticky to the touch and my face felt scratchy. Snapping up a razor, soap, and a small towel from the table, I set off toward the nearby sound of flowing water. The morning air was freshly moist, warm, and abounding with the scent of flowers and cinnamon. A gentle breeze rippled through the branches, spilling chutes of sparkling dew from leaf to leaf. By the time I found the stream’s rocky bank, my clothes were soaked. There was something new and interesting in the air—an enticing sound of children singing. I followed a narrow footpath to a slightly arched, wooden bridge built of logs and expertly woven branches that led to a sunlit, green clearing. A group of children, possibly twelve in all, were gathered in a half-circle around a small-statured, white-haired man.

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