It was a train to Mumbai – I hadn’t caught that train before.. I had no idea what it was going to be like. I didn’t know that I would have to run.. have to push and jostle and shove to even get on the train. I didn’t know that there would be no place to sit.. that I would be jammed between seemingly hundreds of people – ‘personal space’.. what is that?
And no fortunately I was not alone otherwise I probably wouldn’t even have managed to get on the train.. but by dint of almost dragging me on .. and elbowing some of the other contestants for the ride, out of my path, and yanking me forcibly by the hand at the last minute as the train began to move did I actually find myself in the carriage. Satish had booked.. yes he had even booked seats, but at the last minute we hadn’t found our carriage. We had to jump on the wrong car and there were no seats to be had in any way. I simply stood there.. jammed together – trying to find place to plant my feet securely so I was not unbalanced – and with the prospect of a 2 hour journey rocking and swaying against each other. No time for feeling shy about other bodies pressed against mine.
And so I thought.. ‘okay if I am going to be here for a couple of hours – how to pass this time? How to ignore the discomfort I was feeling?’
This discomfort extended beyond the train carriage – beyond the noise and the crush and the staring dark eyes of the other passengers – me a Westerner – light skinned – light haired, strange clothes even while wearing customary salwar kameez – I didn’t wear them ‘right’ … but the ‘discomfort’ was a feeling I had also been wearing for some time.
This is it how it is…
I am living at Shikshangram – with the kids – all 130 of them – we live in a heap.. I have my own room yes – but it is a thoroughfare with constant comings and goings. Both of children and of the teachers who also live there and come for tea and chats and advice. The days are full with little time for myself.
Finally at night around 9 o’clock things start to settle and I close my curtains and shut the door and generally I am then alone. I let down my mosquito net – tuck it securely around the edge of my mattress – making sure there are no creepy crawlies or flying bitey things inside.. and crawl in.. time to read, time to assimilate the day’s challenges and learnings .. and to simply breathe a deep sigh, and know another day is done.
But in this time I am troubled.. something is not right in myself – something I can’t put my finger on – but I am constantly crying… That’s tough here because the folks I am surrounded by don’t really understand my tears and frankly neither do I.
They come without warning in any moment.. I cry when I see the kids standing alone, confused, not connected, I cry when I hear the ladies chopping at the trees in the forest around us… cutting them down for firewood – with no concept in their minds that the forest is disappearing before our eyes and that the stripped denatured hillsides are fast becoming erosion channels for the heavy monsoonal rains. No longer able to support the lush and dense forests of before.
And I cry when I go to the local town and see the young mother trying to settle her two year old on the small piece of cardboard her husband has carefully found for her as a sleeping mat.. under the open sky with the threatening rain clouds gathering.
I cry it seems almost for nothing – and in crying, I don’t know where the tears are coming from or when they will cease.
But now standing crushed in the crowd on the 9.35 am train to Mumbai I manage to extricate my headphones and plug them into my phone. With great difficulty manipulating the phone controls to find the downloaded recording from Andrew Harvey, a gifted spiritual teacher. Andrew was born in India – studied under Masters here and is now a teacher of world repute. Ah here is his voice, – Let me escape, let me at least take my mind off the fact that the man behind me seems to have his backpack leaning against my shoulder as if I were the wall.
But wait .. here comes the chai wallah.. what.. how is this possible.. this little man calling his musical hot chai call, “Chai Chai – Chai Chai” – struggling his way through the morass of bodies, carrying his urn and his little paper cups in their plastic tube .. “chai chai .. chai”.. he calls and people manage to find their 5 rupees for a steaming cup of chai.
Not me…I press play and lose myself in the voice of Andrew Harvey.
He is talking about becoming a spiritual activist.. and suddenly his words transport me… suddenly he is speaking directly to me. To no-one else.. just me. Because he is telling me why I am crying.. what my tears are about. His words sink in my ears – and my confusion and feeling of loss begin to become clear. He tells me: “In order to become a spiritual activist you have to have your heart broken. Unless you break your heart you have not seen. Unless your heart is broken open – you cannot understand.”
Suddenly I know.
My crying is because my heart is breaking. The shields that I have built over the years of my life to stop me seeing are falling away. As I spend more and more time with the children – simplifying my life – stripping away the Western trappings of ‘things’ and mind and imagined needs – my eyes are also being stripped. Being opened .. and as my eyes are opened and I start to really see, my heart breaks open too. And all the pain of the world around becomes real – becomes palpable.. the young mother, her pain. Her life with nothing .. not knowing where the next mouthful of rice may come from or how to feed her child tomorrow. The pain of the children around me… most of them covering it up very well with play and laughter – but not all .. some hide, some are very quiet some always stand in the back – hiding their eyes. And I have no possible chance of ever truly understanding their pain .. their past lives on the platforms and rubbish dumps of this teeming land. And the trees – the scream of the trees as the axe bites into their bodies – as they topple and fall ..
All these things can be seen by my heart .. as my heart breaks open. And now I see .. now I understand .. now I know why I am crying… I am crying for the world, the world that has laid itself bare in front of me so that I too can step into the life I have come here for. I have glimpsed this before – lying on the earth in an ancient temple in Peru – but never so clearly as this.
Now I know.. now my heart is open – Now I too can do my work.