Sunday, 3 March 2019

The Manuscript पांडुलिपि

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि / I AM THAT (Hindi) 
--
In the year 1990 I was determined I didn't need a livelihood, because that meant I had to yield to many kinds of pressures, fears, apprehensions, compromises and the most important; to remain a slave to the 'Psychological Dependency'.
I had my hard-earned money in the form of my bank-balance that helped me in meeting the urgent and essential needs at that time.
So one fine day on 4th April 1990 I overcome my apprehensions and fears about the future-course of my life and just decided to quit the job. The job that I was pursuing was just eating into my life and had nothing to offer me in return except a blind hope to survive and 'enjoy' the life of a man with worldly desires and ambitions; -duties and responsibilities to be performed in order to 'achieve' some 'goals' or 'ideals'.
Summarily I went into retreat for good. That meant I had enough time to ponder over and think about my life and the life as a whole.
A year passed and on 11th February 1991, I arrived at the bank of the River Narmada, namely at the place Onkareshvar. Living upon a high place, some 50 feet away and 50 feet higher too above the bank, I lived in an Ashram beside Sri Ramkrishna devotee's place then known as 'safed-kuti'. This place was upon the 'parikrama-path' that encircled the 'Mandhata Hill'. This Hill is thought of as much sacred as the 'Arunachala-Hill' in the South-India. [In Skanda-PurANa, we find a narrative about both these places]. This 'parikrama-path' that winds along and inside the river which has the 'Mandhata Hill' as an island in its waters circumvents around the hill also. For me, this is very auspicious a confluence of the two rivers at two points which form a loop in this way. The rivers Narmada and Kaveri meet at some point about 4 k.m. away from the hill, merge into one where the two distinct streams in two shades run all over, and finally reaching the hill bifurcate again into two. This way, the bifurcation looks like as if there were two different rivers which met again at the next confluence.
Thus there are 2 confluences of the same two rivers.
The two rivers merge, bifurcate and re-merge.
This also forms what is called 'Somatirth / सोमतीर्थ' / जलाधारी', which is the path around a traditional Shiva-lingam in any Shiva-temple.
--
I had the great fortune of living in that place all alone. Often I didn't even speak to a man for days together. I used to go to local market beside the main temple 2 k.m. away from my place.
On a very hot day in April 1991, I was gripped by an urgent inspiration that the Book :
"I AM THAT" of Sri Nisrgadatta Maharaj ; 
needs to be translated into Hindi.
I went to the market in the evening and bought a rough-paper note-book (price : Rs. 4/-) and meant for students who could not afford the costly stationery. I took to do the translation-work myself and soon realized it was a hard and very difficult job for me. Then I bought 2 pencils and erasure, because the alterations and corrections in ink made the whole thing rather clumsy and incomprehensible too.
I did this work there and then I finished the translation of some 10-12 chapters of the book.
Then I left that place and my work came to a temporary halt.
After some 6 months I took a place on rent (43 Bhaktinagar Ujjain) and started the work again afresh. During the next few years I kept translating at a regular pace but with no proper order. I would take-up whatever chapter came before me and do the same.
This way I had done some 46 chapters when I had to take a brief break for about 6 months when I lived at No. 427 in a Colony in Sethinagar, Ujjain.
Then in 1995 I changed my residence and was living at *LIG II, A-18/15, Mahanandanagar Ujjain, which I finally left for good on February 5, 2000. Here I completed the whole text and neatly wrote down in pencil, edited once more and finally copied-down in ink once again.
This was a great period when I completed the manuscript, and God knows how it went to the publishers, and was subsequently brought to light in 2001 by chetana.com .
The first edition of the book mentions my address as given here, but I never lived there afterwards, after February 5, 2000, nor had any contact whatsoever with that place.
-- 

                      

No comments:

Post a Comment