MOKSHA: Liberation

By Tara Lamont

At a New Year's Eve party in Manhattan, an American woman listens closely to the story of the young boy Nachiketa and his conversation with Yama, the Lord of Death. That same night, she is involved in a tragic accident where she carelessly leaves a woman to die. In an act of contrition, she volunteers to work in refugee camps, the worst hellholes imaginable. Five years later, she meets Sidh, the man who told her the story of Nachiketa, on that fateful New Year's Eve. She insists that Sidh reveal the secret that the Lord of Death imparts to the boy. Mystics and visionaries throughout history, from Thomas Merton to Rumi to Emerson, have had intimations of that Absolute Reality that resides within us and all around us. But it is only Advaita Vedanta that provides a practical, logical, and eminently doable roadmap for the committed seeker to discover her true nature and attain moksha, freedom from suffering and rebirth, within this life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667858289

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© 2022 Tara Lamont

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any license permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

Published in the United States by Westford Publishing House,

Kendall Park, New Jersey USA.

ISBN: 978-1-66786-073-2 eBook 978-1-66785-8289

Printed in the United States of America.

For my sister Gita who brought the eternal light of Advaita Vedanta into my life.

I

prajñaanam brahma ~ brahman is the highest wisdom.

AITAREYA UPANISHAD

Gods and demons roam the earth.

Once long ago, Shiva, the Lord of the Cosmos, failed to bring his beloved Uma, the Mother of the Universe, a garland made up of flowers from every season within His allotted time of one year. When her Lord finally returned, late and without the garland, Uma was heartbroken. To punish Him She deliberately lost her memory of Him and all that She was.

The universe subsequently fell into chaos. The demons rejoiced and made plans to seize the three worlds. Indra, the King of the Gods, appealed to the great Lord to set things right. Lord Shiva thus took on the task of bringing His beloved back to Him with the aid of sacred texts. He enlisted the help of Lord Vishnu, the Sustainer of the Universe and His consort the Goddess of Wealth Lakshmi; His sons Ganesha and Murugan; and His greatest devotee Nandi the Bull, His vahana, His vehicle.

Within every yuga, such tales are told and retold, events enacted, lessons imparted. But in this Kali Yuga, a calamitous cycle of 4,320,000 years where we find ourselves, this story while appropriate is unraveling all too soon and well before its time.

1

We were crouched under two bent palms on this poor man’s beach of coarse sand and rock. I, engulfed in shawls, a large pair of goggles across my face as if set for a polar expedition, and Sidh off to one side, cool and blank, idly tracking a large black ant as it maneuvered its way along a shriveled frond half buried in the sand. A dispiriting stale breeze came off frothy brown waves. I was keeping a wary eye on distant black shapes that swirled against a bleak sky. Vultures? Two bodies had floated ashore the day before. Had they been left to rot?

It’s the cremation ground, Sidh murmured not looking up but possibly referring to the birds. The ant gracefully alighted from its perch and sped across the hot sand.

Pheidole megacephala! Sidh exclaimed, then added dolefully. Jellyfish, limpets, tiny crabs, the small sea creatures, have all gone but that big-headed ant has not given up, he will see us to the end.

He scooped up a handful of sand, scrutinized it, and let it slip through his long fingers. There’s no life here, he said of the sand.

A malevolent red disk sluggishly came into view.

Here comes the sun, I said cheerily.

The sky remained a stubborn gray but the limpid sea stirred, then churned into an oily chartreuse. The dark shapes wheeled and swooped as raucous pleas to the divine orb issued from the temple. Soon the heat would drive us into the shadows.

I stood and dusted off my shawls. I’d love a cup of coffee, I said.

Sidh also stood and shook out his sandals. We set off slowly, loitering for a few minutes at a sea shell stall where its rotund proprietor, comically propped up on a stool, eyed us with a calculating, early morning optimism. Horizontal ash stripes and a large red dot decorated his expansive forehead, broadcasting I presumed, that he had completed his morning rituals. Why did he imagine that anyone would be interested in his wares at this hour? Hadn’t the civil war that raged in the neighboring island discouraged all but the most wretched devotees and foolish do-gooders like ourselves from coming here?

Sunrises and seashells, the main produce of the region. There was also the great temple. Mercifully, the man with no arms and legs, who lay on a mat in the blazing sun and screamed all day long, had not yet reported for work.

I give you half price, missus! The man shouted at me, ignoring Sidh. You say price you like missus!

I picked up a conch shell, delicate and pink, held it to my ear, and became absorbed in the deep rushing sound that was so like the ocean. I gave the man a few coins and slipped the shell into my bag. We meandered, single file, darting this way and that to sidestep sidewalk sleepers and bell-ringing bicycles weighed down by loads that teetered on handlebars and backseats. The business of the day had begun.

Sidh took a sharp right onto a muddy path and stopped at a café, a thatched overhang with communal tables. Sadhus draped in orange and bedecked with necklaces of corrugated beads were silently bowed over their meals. We washed our hands at a grimy metal trough and Sidh chose a spot farthest away from them. All had stylish dreadlocks in elaborate coils and the three horizontal ash lines across their foreheads. I slid into my seat and removed my goggles.

What’s with the lines of ash and the dreadlocks? I asked, playing the tourist.

Lord Shiva, he said abruptly.

Neither I, blue-eyed, deeply tanned, tall, skinny, with dirty blond hair in a knot, nor Sidh, also tall, pale, leonine, with dark melancholy eyes and dark hair to his shoulders, prompted any interest.

These are intensely religious sanyasis, renunciates, he said as he beckoned to a boy in yellow T-shirt with the words Cool Kids Never Sleep emblazoned across the chest. The boy hurried over with flattened banana leaves that he placed in front of us, then went away.

The coiled matted hair protects the energized crown, Sidh continued drily, and the necklaces, malas, made up of rudraksha seeds, when coiled around the matted hair bring a cooling energy. The lines of ash symbolize the Lord as rest, stability and serenity. Each stripe represents a stain, an illusion to overcome. The ash is cooling to the third eye and provides valuable trace minerals.

The boy returned with bowls of sambar, a spicy lentil soup with dried red chilis floating on the surface, steaming rice cakes, idlis, and coconut chutney. Sidh dipped a piece of an idli in the sambar.

It was five years ago wasn’t it? I said with a polite smile. "When we met? At a fancy hotel in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve? A lifetime ago, several continents away. You asked me to dance. We spun around the floor, twirling, bending, reaching. When Ricky Martin’s Jaleo began its frantic drumbeat, you threw me across, and I dragged you around by your tie. People made way for us. Do you not remember?"

He did not respond.

I went on. We were hot and breathless from dancing, and we dashed out to a terrace for air. It was very cold. You stared up at the dark sky with its twinkling stars and said ‘what’s there is here and what’s here is there.’ The Lord of Death, you said, speaking to a little boy. Do you not remember?

It was the night Rory got on one knee and placed a square-cut solitaire on my ring finger. It was the night we left a woman to die. The night my world collapsed.

Nachiketa, he said.

Nachiketa, I repeated, not touching the food. Yes. The little boy’s name. It was five years ago. Do you not remember?

I remembered. New Year’s Eve, in New York City. I was drunk, high, barely coherent, but on that starry night I had listened closely to his story of the boy Nachiketa who becomes distressed when he sees his father give away sickly old cows as charity. The boy pesters his father, tugs at his coat, but cannot get his attention. To whom will you give me father? the boy asks in desperation. His father ignores him, but the boy asks his question over and over again. I give you to Death! his father shouts, exasperated.

The boy knows his father has spoken in anger but to save his father’s honor he sets off to meet Death, but Death is not at home. The boy waits outside the gates for three days and nights without food or drink. Death returns and is horrified at the gross inhospitality shown to the boy by his household. To make up for this infraction, Death grants the boy three boons. Two are easily granted. For the first, the boy asks that his father is told that he is alive and to forgive him for leaving, and that he will return. For the second, the boy asks to be taught the Fire Ritual that leads to heaven and knowing which all mankind would benefit.

It was the third boon that stymies Death. The boy wants to know about the afterlife and no one was a better authority on this thorny subject than the Lord of Death. Death offers gold, horses, lands, women, but the boy cannot be persuaded. He insists that Death teach him about that infinite space beyond the heavens. He wants to be shown the path to immortality and liberation from suffering.

I leaned forward. Do you really not remember? I insisted you tell me Death’s response to the boy right away and you said that the path to this knowledge was more difficult than walking on the edge of a razor.

I waited for a sign of recognition, an acknowledgement of this shared memory. Five years had gone by, and here we were in the city of Rameshwaram, at the southern tip of India, a lost corner of the world, attending a conference entitled Accessing Big Data to End Food Insecurity. I knew Sidh immediately when we were checking in, but while he nodded, I could see that he had no idea who I was. I introduced myself, and he simply said Sidh and extended a hand. We shared a few seminars and noting that a free morning was scheduled the next day, agreed to take in the sunrise highly touted by the hotel manager.

Sunrise is most beautiful in the world, the manager promised. Tomorrow morning you will see. Beach is right here only.

As we set off for the short walk to the beach at dawn, the manager, who was stretched out on a couch in the lobby, called after us.

Finish sunrise, then we are giving full tour of greatest temple in universe! Rameshwaram Temple, here only!

Sidh ate with focused attention, consuming every morsel—member of the clean banana leaf club, I noted. When he was done, he carefully placed his leaf on top of an overflowing compost bin and washed his hands. I ate slowly, taking my time. How could I expect him to remember me? I was different then, five years ago, newly engaged, happy, in a pink sateen ball gown, blonde-tinted curls down to my waist. I was considered a beauty. I wondered what he saw in this barely recognizable version of that other self. No longer beautiful, no longer flirtatious, no longer drunk. He had changed as well—from a gray Armani pinstripe to cotton pajamas and shirt, from a lively humorous outlook to a gaunt distracted indifference.

I stood, washed my hands and discarded my banana leaf. The boy brought us glasses of piping hot milky coffee. We sat silently, waiting for the coffee to cool.

When we’re done we can walk in the orchard nearby, he said.

The orchard was a disorderly cluster of wizened fruit trees on rocky terrain. A dry wind rustled narrow silvery leaves that gave little shade. A funeral procession advanced through the trees with the corpse wrapped in a sheet and quivering precariously on wooden planks carried by four men. Shrill chanting and the clanging of metal drums created a lively din. We made our way back to the hotel not speaking, and soon its high walls topped with shards of colored glass came into view. A purring air-conditioned bus that would take us to the temple was parked outside, and our guide, a nervous wiry man in a khaki uniform, clipboard in hand, was ticking off names.

Sidh, what did Death tell the boy? I asked as we stood in line, a little disconcerted by my own earnestness. Why won’t you tell me? You can’t know this but since that New Year’s Eve five years ago, I have been walking on the edge of a razor. Check my bleeding feet.

You are not qualified, he said without a trace of malice or mockery.

I raised an eyebrow. And the little boy was qualified?

Yes.

The greatest temple in the universe was a gigantic intricately carved stone edifice dating back to the tenth century, that grandly presided over run-down lesser structures that stretched in all directions. This site, we were informed by the guide, commemorated the end of the Great War of the ancient epic Ramayana and marked the spot where God Himself, the victor, did penance for atrocities He might have perpetrated.

First time in history God Himself is saying sorry, the guide said apologetically.

High time, someone yelled to hoots and jeers.

We were all administrators from various NGOs, go-betweens, whose idealistic and naïve notions had driven us to this point, who garnered little respect, whose daily grind was arduous, and for the most part, futile. We had been dispatched to this conference ostensibly to bow down to the promise of Big Data in doing away with world hunger, but our real and unstated objective was to woo corporate sponsors whose self-important executives would arrive in their limos that evening. Over cocktails and a fine dinner of many courses, the hard selling of one particular brand of suffering over another would commence. My competition was single purpose suffering that was easily understood and costed—cataract operations, medications for elephantiasis, etc. But I was not discouraged. My ace in the hole was that I was an American representing a Catholic NGO—a critical asset for American and European consortiums who were given the assurance that I, one of them, fully understood their insistence on accountability as being key in providing credible backup for their tax avoidance strategies.

After footwear was removed and placed under seats, our self-conscious group made its way into a forecourt jammed with stalls offering the necessary accoutrements for various rituals—fat garlands of roses entwined with gold thread; strings of marigolds, jasmine and hibiscus; and baskets of fruit, mounds of loose flowers, brass lamps, incense packets, camphor, colored powders and seeds. Devotees rushed past us into the main hall, greedy to catch a glimpse of the deity dimly outlined within a deep recess. Carnival and desperation permeated the air.

You want promotion, job, money, you want son, I get priest for you, the guide offered, bracing himself as roving bands of priests descended on us and uttered curses when none of us would subscribe to their services.

I might ask for a new job, I suggested to Sidh. Maybe a new life?

He took hold of my arm and drew me into a deserted corridor that encircled the main shrine. The stone floor was mysteriously layered with an inch of water, sacred water, Sidh averred, but I suspected a plumbing malfunction. I held my skirt up high and wondered what bacteria might be eating into my soles. Sidh strolled along unconcerned, allowing the water to reach the edge of his pants.

"‘I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled,’" I lobbed off a shot of J. Alfred Prufrock.

He was up to the task. "‘Time present and time past are both present in time future,’ he quoted. T.S. Eliot began by insisting that his narrow Christian beliefs were all there was and ended up lifting truths from the Gita."

As did Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kant, Husserl, Emerson … I threw in.

I let go of my skirt and childishly splashed my feet in the water.

So, what are your so-called qualifications? I asked a little sharply. You know, the ones I don’t possess?

The term he used was adhikaritva. He said he needed to say the word out loud and in that ancient language before he could fully explain it. To be fit for an undertaking, adhikaritva. To have the necessary qualifications for initiation into the secret of immortality and freedom from suffering.

A tall order, I said. Rituals and incantations?

These prerequisites are four in number, he said, ignoring my attempt at levity. "viveka, the ability to discriminate between the real and unreal; vairagya, dispassion; sama, serenity, with its four subsets—dama, self-control; uparati, withdrawal of senses; titiksha, forbearance; and shradha, faith in the teacher pending understanding; and finally, mumuksuhtva, an intense burning desire for liberation. Without these, there is no possibility for self-realization."

I’m able to discriminate between the real and the unreal, I said at once then asked, taking up the first qualification, discernment between the real and the unreal. How can anyone view the absurdity of this world as anything but unreal? I should know! The refugee camps where I’ve worked and still work, places of horror. I have witnessed great suffering and I have suffered myself. In West Africa I was stabbed almost fatally. I’ve had severe cases of cholera and dengue, the after effects of which are still able to derail me. Pains and fevers plague me.

He was impassive, unmoved.

I know what you’re getting at, I said, shifting the thrust of my argument. "I am familiar with the Buddhist idea of nothingness, the Hindu notion about maya, the