My new book "The Old Man & His Soul" is being published in India, and at the same time in the UK and USA as a self-published book until I connect with the best book deal for world distribution. My India publisher in New Delhi publishes the highest quality spiritual books and it is a great honor to be included in their lists and in their book fairs. Publishing takes time so I will keep you informed as to when the book may be ordered either in e-book version or printed. Happy to share these beautiful passages that I so enjoyed writing. Enjoy!
"As the summer sun rose
higher and burned more fiercely during the day the old man walked only in the
morning and in the shade of evening when the sun was hidden behind the
mountains. During that time he walked in any direction that the roads and paths
took him, every day more deeply immersed in the life of India and its people.
During the heat of the day he sheltered under trees, behind buildings, by cool
streams and caves. He had never been exposed to the intense heat of summer but
the heat had come on slowly so he had adjusted. Like everyone around him, he
longed for monsoon, for rain, for cool, and yet as the heat penetrated deep
into his bones he felt it purified him.
Sometimes in the shade of
irrigation ditches he dug into the softer moist earth to wait out the intense
hours of heat. There, in a grave of his own digging, he discovered the mysterious
clicking and rustling of tiny insects, the winding traceries of cold worms, the
feel of stones and dank earth against his skin, and the branching and weaving
of roots. These spoke to him of the worlds that nourish the living and feed off
the dead. “My body will become part
of this earth,” he said as he inhaled the odors of pungent humus and bitter
roots, crumbled moist earth on his face and body, held cool stones in his
hands, grateful for respite from the burning sun. “But where will my soul go?”
Sometimes he floated in
shallow streams to blend with reeds and grasses in the flowing currents. His
immersion in the symphony of water drowned all sounds except the rustling of
pebbles and stones below the rushing water. The moving embrace of ripples and
waves caressed him as he held on to boulders or sheltered against the banks so
he would not be carried away. Whenever he surrendered to the water he felt the
edges of his body disappear and he become one with the moving changing water. “They
mystics speak of the ocean of love. How can I find my way there? Perhaps if I
imagine myself as a stream I will have to flow into the ocean,” he mused,
always his thoughts transforming all experiences through the lens of his seeking and longing.
He wandered through changes
of desolate landscapes, dry stubbly hills with spare trees, lush water lands,
deserts of sand and stone and when he came to a river shadowed by large
boulders he found sheltered spaces to settle for a while in their shade. The
boulders spoke to him. He leaned into them listening to their eternity, feeling
his cells slow to their stillness, enjoying the cool stone touch on his skin.
At night he climbed high to search and then settle on a flat surface where he
could lay on his back to ponder the brilliant diamond ice stars in the black
night. The sky seemed vast and unknowable but the giant boulders grounded him
as he listened to the singing of the stars and the moaning of slow hard stone
as one song. On these nights the old man did not sleep. His body pulsed, his cells
rang and a sound filled him as though he had become part of the song of
creation. And he wondered how he could ever understand they mystery of life and death and heaven and earth.
The lush grasses also
captured him at times with a greening softness that offered surprised flowers,
startled butterflies and dedicated bees to accompany him as he waded deep in
moist meadows that grasped his sandaled feet with a grip so strong he had to
fight to free them. The feeling of the grasses felt so luxurious
after the spare deserts, dry hills and stony places that he was moved to remove
his clothes and wander naked touching the tips of grasses with his fingers,
marveling in wonderment at the beauty of sensation. “I drove by these places
all my life and never stopped to experience, to feel, to become part of them,”
the old man acknowledged as sorrow ached in his heart for the absence of
connection and the blindness in his old life.
Whenever he found clay or
mud in a riverbed he covered himself with the slick slippery earth and enjoyed
the first moments of shivering before the sun’s warmth stiffened the clay to
crack and vein during a wild howling madness of stamping and leaping that
overcame him before he stretched onto hot rocks where captured heat penetrated his body to meet the baking from the sun. The immersion into heat
satisfied him in a way he did not understand. He only knew from time to time he
must bake and burn so that a deeper calm would enter into him. “This body is
coming alive even as it is dying,” he thought, in awe at the sensations his
elemental immersions were awakening. “I am becoming part of nature and like all
things in nature I will die and all that has been a part of me will become part
of all of this.”
The forests called him with
their shaded mystery but he also felt a dread of animals so he beat his bowl
with his spoon as he walked the desolate paths. The quiet receptivity of the
trees, the soft step of his feet on moss, the rustle of leaves overhead, the
chatter of small animals and the calls of bird eventually dispelled his fears
as he relaxed into the forest life around him but he remained vigilant and
never slept in the forests unless he joined other travelers or wanderers around
a fire.
Whenever strong fear left
him he sat under a tree, leaning against the trunk, listening to the life of
its slow growing, the rising of the sap and the branching and leafing that
mirrored the hidden searching roots beneath the earth. A deep peace overcame
him, as though the tree spoke to him in some unknown language of energetic
vision that both calmed and deepened his sense of presence. Eventually his
breath slowed and his mind settled into timelessness and the old man became so
still he become a part of the forest and the movements of life around him
connected to his breathing.
He loved this deepening
quiet and rejoiced in his passage beyond fear and understood the meaning of the
phrase so often heard in his life and studies, “As above so below,” and matched
the metaphor to his life. “Just like this tree the deeper I search into my
ground of being the greater my opening expansion into my spiritual sky,” he
realized in a flash of understanding that stirred a thrilling excitement that took hold of
him and he gathered his belongings, took his staff in his right hand and strode
strongly through the forest to seek and discover new paths with renewed strength."
Copyright Farida Sharan - anyone in touch with publishers or agents is welcome to have them contact me - the book is in final stages of editing
