Ash and Lil in India - Blog 8 - A Visit to The King

Today we are going to have lunch with the King of all the Yogis, Swami Kailashanand Giri Ji Maharaj.

Giri Ji Maharaji is a spiritual guru, yoga guru, saint, and scholar. He is a writer in Hindu, English, and Sanskrit and the preeminent Vedic master and authority of all the masters of the Vedic world; Thom’s boss, I guess, although he is only 51 and Thom is nearly 80.

I am not as excited as everyone else, as I am just a new recruit to this weird but wonderful world, which requires quite a leap of faith. I am not sure how you can be a King without a kingdom, and this King was just one of many orphans when, showing an unusual preconsciousness, was sent to Guru Dev (who had himself left home at 9 to follow a spiritual path) to study the Vedic.

Thom says there’s nothing unusual about being an orphan in India, and India produces as many orphans a year as Australia does babies. This King lives here at the Dakshin Kali Peeth temple in Chandi Ghat, Haridwar, by the blessing of the Akhara sect, which means  the King  himself is homeless in a living arrangement not dissimilar to the Pope. He has lived here for 18 years, and he does own several cows, one of which he brought with him when he came to stay. It is 20 years old and 6 feet high at the hump.

If you stay overnight at the Temple, you will be woken at 3 am with a fresh glass of cow’s milk, which will have been squeezed after all six calves had had their fill. It is against the law to kill a cow in India.

When Thom was studying under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, he used to visit Guru Dev frequently, as Guru Dev was the divine teacher of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Thom’s teacher), who credited Guru Dev with providing the foundational knowledge and technique that has become known as transcendental meditation.

So Thom watched the young boy grow from a young orphan, and by the time he became the Supreme Master, he and Thom had developed a great friendship. Thom  says that one day  the young Maharaj came to visit him in disguise, but when his visitor suddenly leapt to his feet, Thom knew who he was, the Supreme Master, as he was wearing Guru Dev’s high sandalwood intricately carved sandals that have no ties, so you have to turn your toes around the end to keep them on.

Thom has appeared on Indian TV with his Supreme Master, who would not let him bow to him but hugged him tightly in front of 200 million Indians. The Maharaj told his viewers after hugging Thom, “I’ve known Thom all my life, and I have 49 years behind me” (he is remarkably young).

The young Maharaj has memorised the Veda, all 10,000 verses, and it takes him three days to say them. He is a beautiful singer, 6’3”, quite a guy, and a real treasure, according to Thom. Thom is one of his counsellors, advising him on the union of the individual and the universe, which is pivotal to all sciences, as knowledge is embedded in your consciousness, a word for which there is no synonym.

I have a slightly deflated feeling that I have left my run into Eastern spirituality a little late and will never be taken seriously as an enlightened one by myself or anyone else, for that matter. Thom says we can’t do a crash course and meditate ten times a day for two years, as that will cause brain overload, and enlightenment is a gradual process.

We all know Thom did 500 days of 14-times-a-day meditation, but he was only 16, in an ashram with naught else to do, and destined for a higher path than his devotees on their way to lunch with the King. I know my attempts to find whatever it is I’m looking for were futile with ayahuasca in Peru, and Thom says quick fixes can never enlighten you.

Habits are good, like brushing your teeth, which Lil is very vigilant about, brushing her teeth half to death twice a day, an approach I’m sure she will apply to her meditation.

Thom says Giri Ji, the Vedic King we are about to meet, adores Westerners and is very pleased that Thom is bringing knowledge of the Vedic world to the West. Giri Ji is the spiritual mentor to Modi, the current Indian Prime Minister, who seems to be reshaping India in a unique model which hopefully will function for the best of its people.

Thom has given us strict instructions on how to behave in the presence of the King. We must be in silence and never use our left hand when eating, or one of his Sadhus will scowl at us or perhaps banish us from the kingdom. We must, he insists, sit on our left hand if we have no self-control.

We must wait until our master blesses the food and takes his first mouthful, which I think most of us would do anyway. If we have to leave the room, we must walk backwards and wait till our master gives us a little nod, wink, or even perhaps a little wave.

When we arrive, there is a huge commotion going on all around the entrance with cows, dogs, children, pilgrims, monkeys, cows, and beggars, all being worked to a fervour by a couple of drummers. Everyone is pushing to get into the temple, but we have a special line.

Once inside, there are lines of people standing and holding flowers and fruit for the Gods. We get pushed down a side line where you ring a bell and then poke your head in a kiosk, but when I looked in, there was no one there, and I got shunted on over a marble floor littered with empty cement bags and everyday rubbish and on down a small winding staircase.

There is an initiator standing in the middle of the smoky staircase, smiling in that blissful way, despite a huge log of sandalwood smouldering and billowing so much smoke you can’t breathe or see clearly. I sensed a silhouette kneeling and putting some of the smouldering ash on his forehead, so I did the same. I learn later that we had been kneeling to Shakti, the divine feminine energy, so I was pleased about that.

We then enter a fancy room with Indian carpets and a big throne and a couple of small ones. We sit in a circle waiting for the great King, all hoping he might eyeball us, as this is good luck. We are all a bit uncertain what is happening as we wait for two hours.

I eat a samosa in honour of the King, the finest samosa I have eaten, but draw the line at sweets and lassi. I sit talking about mothers-in-law with the Sigourney Weaver look-alike when in walks Thom, with Peter as usual five steps behind, carrying his little carpet.

Thom seems smaller, and his head is bowed, and he seems a bit defeated. He has to stand there in front of the Mother Bear chair and look at us all, bedecked in our best white salwar kameez, bought especially for the occasion, and announce the King cannot see us.

He explains that the King has just had an operation on his lower spine and can’t walk. He says the King’s injury was caused by his having spent one month sitting without ever lying down while starving himself in minus 45 degrees Celsius. When he went to the water to drink, the black and white cobras went with him, as the Supreme Master says, “Snacks are my friends.”

I can sense the huge disappointment of the real disciples, and my heart goes out to Thom, but that is my putting my values on the situation. I know Thom will say you cannot dictate the will of the universe. It’s just I’m not in a state of divine acceptance yet.

Thom reassures us that he has been with the King and that Thom was the only person he wanted to see, not the 70 of us. This might seem as face-saving, but it’s not like that with Thom. He has a difficult job: keeping us committed while being humble. Now and then he has to blow his trumpet so we rally yet again to the cause of world peace through meditation.

We leave through a very special room where only an anointed few can ever enter (according to Thom). Another smoky sandalwood log is smouldering and has been, according to Thom, for 3,000 years. It is dipped in honey and blows smoke through the floor to the deity. Some members of our group stumble out, unable to see or breathe, and worry about their asthma.

Word has got around that the kiosk where we went to get blessed at the beginning was unattended, so we get blessed with some water, touch a yellow-painted statue, and go to the beach.

We sit rather dejectedly around a fire while we wait for lunch to be prepared, and Thom tries to amuse us, telling us the King is very particular about who he accepts donations from and will graciously accept five cents from a poor believer while turning away $100,000 from a heretic, saying we don’t need that at the moment.

We finally sidle into the dining room and are served a sumptuous meal by young boys who are probably giving their lives to spiritual service. There are people everywhere: eating, cooking, serving, bowing, cleaning, praying. It’s just this massive community that exists here, paying homage to the deities which give meaning to the lives of the people of India.

We eat off a red carpet, with the food being scooped with huge spoons into our bowls, and an American called Dave, who looks like Clint Eastwood, reminds me not to use my left hand, which I eventually sit on. There is a rather desultory air, as if the birthday boy never came to his own party, but we hear that he feeds all the people in the slums around the temple, some 10,000 of them, and 100,000 on his birthday, and maybe the mystery of never actually laying eyes on him just adds to the aura of the King of all the Veda, who has six cows.

On the way home, we share a car with a shy European woman. She is sad because her roommate has left to go back to wherever she comes from, and our new friend feels partly responsible that she has left. I think how funny we are, how easily we hurt when all we have to do is put on shoes as we walk on what is, let’s face it, a very stony road.