The Hills Beckon Again – 6

I sleep soundly, and dream of the mountains, and the green lake, and the house with the green top, and the steep incline that leads us here…..there is a dog barking in the distance, the cat which sleeps on the porch purrs, the crickets are trilling, the mynah sings….am I asleep or awake? It is the second state of consciousness, the swapna, the state of dreaming……and then I drift off, peacefully, into a dreamless sleep…..there are no sounds, no sights, no worries, no happiness, no waking and no sleep……it is the third state of consciousness, the susupti, the dreamless sleep, when one is not aware of being alive, or dead….and then there is the fourth state….the state of cessation…of nothingness….will the hills lead me there…..the state called turiya….

There is a light which shines through….I can see it even though I am asleep…and a sound, faraway but clear, melodious, beautiful…..it reverses my descent into deeper states of sleep….brings me back….I am aware that I lie on the bed, I know that I am sleeping, that the tiredness of my limbs is gone, that the soreness of my heart is gone, that the hope, the spark has been kindled again….it is the hills…they have been at work while I slept…they have cured me of the malady called sansara…..it is the endless ocean of this world where the souls drift, trying to find their destination, their purpose, their true meaning, their source……

And then the mynah is chirping again, and the thrushes, and the bulbul, and the jay, and the peacock, and the pigeon….they all raise a splendid cacophony, a symphony of chaos, beautiful, melodious…..

I open my eyes to see the colour of the sky lighten…it is not dawn yet…the sun is below the horizon, but the indigo of the night is receding…the sky is a light grey….the mountains appear again, covered with their green carpet….in the distance one can see the smoke rise over the hills, the smoke from the houses scattered over the mountainside…..it mingles with the mist which is rising now…..

The sky is covered with clouds, of various shapes and sizes and colours, they move around, drunk with youth, and energy….they tumble over the hills, they roll down its sides, they kiss the surface of the lake, they form a canopy which blots out the blue from the sky, turning it grey…..

It is drizzling outside….the drops of water descend from the heavens and explode on the surface of the earth, splash in the mud, splat on the concrete surface of the balcony…..the fall on the iron railing, slide down its side, and hang on to its undersurface….looking like a string of pearls….then they wait….plop, plop, plop…the drops continue to fall….and then the string of pearls is broken as the drops fall from the undersurface of the iron railing on to the marble steps of the stairwell through which the cat had ascended at night to curl up on the chairs.

The cat has gone, the chairs are getting wet….I must get them out of the rain….

I get up quietly, and slip on a jacket, it will be cold outside…..quickly I venture outside into the cold and wet morning…..the mountains are stirring back to life…..I collect the chairs from the balcony and bring them inside the porch. And then I wake up Vaishali.

‘Lets have some tea’, I say to her. She smiles dreamily, and nods. It is a happy burden. Getting up to make tea and sit quietly and sip it, knowing that we don’t have to rush for work. That it is a Monday morning makes it even more satisfying……..

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