Sri Guru Maharaj recently granted me the great opportunity to participate in the Char Dham Yatra along with Pujya Sri Mathaji and other devotees. Since it's yatra of four holy places, wanted to share four things I learned/observed during the yatra.
As we went through the Himalayas we observed that many mountains were converted into farm lands through the process of step farming. We all know that it's the nature of water to always reach the lowest altitude. So all the rain that falls on a mountain directly follows down to the valley. To retain the water on the mountain, the farmer flattens a small portion of the slope and constructs a retaining wall. This will retain the water and make the soil ready for cultivation. He then flattens the next part of the slope and constructs another retaining wall so that any overflow of water can be retained in the next step. Like this the whole slope of the mountain is converted into several steps and used for farming.
If we imagine the mountain as God and the rain water as our mind, when we try to concentrate our mind on God, it keeps sliding down to the worldly things. The mind never likes to stay in place and always has the lust to wander, shop etc. So a Sadguru constructs retaining walls like yatra, deeksha, puja, japa, homa, etc to still retain the mind on God while we do our favorite things like travel and shopping.
The second thing we witnessed was the origins or holy rivers like Ganga and Yamuna. A river is formed with rain water from a mountain which in turn was the evaporated water from the ocean. Once a river forms, it starts it's journey to go back and merge with it's origin, the ocean. At the starting of a river there are huge rocks and big boulders washed off from the mountains by the mighty force of the river. The river also flows very actively with gushing sound. But as the river advances, the rocks keep colliding with each other and turn into small stones and finally sand and dirt. At the stage the river turns calm and serene. Finally when the river merges with the ocean it leaves behind that dirt too.
In the same way when we start our spiritual journey to reach our origin, the God, we are filled with the big rocks of our good and bad qualities, or Gunas. They keep colliding with each other throughout the journey reminiscent of the epic battle of Mahabharata. As we progress in the journey these Gunas diminish into insignificant proportions and we attain Sthitaprajnatva. Finally we leave out all these Gunas when we merge with God.
The third thing we observed was the ghat road. In plains the roads are straight and we don't see anything twice on the road. But the roads on the mountains go back and forth on the same side of the mountain and we see the same scenes again and again. One may think why are we going on the same road again and again, but we should understand that with each iteration we are attaining new heights. Same way, in a wordly curriculum there is no repetition. Punarukti, or repeating same words is even called a dosham. But in spiritual curriculum, we keep listening to the same concepts in the discourses and one may wonder why am I listening to the same things again or doing same yatra or puja every time. But we should realize that with each repetition we are attaining new spiritual heights.
The fourth thing we observed was that there are two kinds of mountains, those made of hard rock and those made of soft soil and small rocks. The rocky mountains are tightly packed and hardly have any tall trees, unlike the soily mountains that are loosely held together and host a lot of tall trees. It's very hard to construct roads on the rocky mountains but once constructed, the road is safe and free from risks of roadblocks by mudslides and trees falling. On the other hand it's easy to construct roads on the soft mountains but you always have the risk of the above mentioned roadblocks.
Great Gurus like Sri Babuji Maharaj went through the hardest of Adhyatmik Sadhana at a very tender age and through their hard work constructed the safest road for our spiritual journey. On the other hand those who give discourses by simply reading some books and memorizing, lead us on a road full of risks.
