Shri Anirvan left immediately for Delhi, where his disciples awaited him. Ahead of him were three months of wandering from town to town as far as Bengal and Assam.

My own task was to open the house in Almora and prepare myself for the life that would come to fill it. When we parted, Shri Anirvan had said, "It is good that you are going to the new house by yourself and will live there quietly, in retreat. Certainly you can absorb new ideas and make them your own, but later you will have to create freely your own way of expressing them. That is the work of the active power Shakti. And it can only be done in silence. I can help you find your own power, suggest a way, a means, for you to approach it, but nothing more. I never impose anything; I love freedom too much, and so do you! I am not expecting anything in particular and have no preconceived or stereotyped idea about you. I shall only be glad if you open your petals, and you, yourself, find yourself."

I arrived at Almora the next day, late in the afternoon, and was happy to find Bepin Joshi at the entrance to the town. He was there to warn me that the road up the hill was blocked by a landslide. The bales of books had been unloaded by the roadside. I was somewhat alarmed when I saw a horde of Nepalese coolies rushing at me and asking to be hired as porters. Bepin finally chose about fifteen men, as well as some torchbearers for the trips through the forest. What a procession! Bent double under the heavy bales of books hanging in leather straps, the men kept shouting at each other—a violent rhythm that punctuated the march.

I was exhausted by their efforts, ashamed because of their sweat, their fatigue, their tatters, their gaunt legs—all this so that our "knowledge" should shortly be arranged on the shelves that the carpenter had just finished. And I was imagining in advance the uproar there would be when the men scrambled for their shares of the few rupees that I was going to give them.

That first night I made acquaintance with the forest, the wind rustling in the pines, the yapping of the jackals together with the furious barking of the dogs, and then, early in the morning, the notes of a skillfully played pipe, repeated over and over like a prayer.

Shri Anirvan had suggested that this house on a hill in the forest be called "Haimavati." In the Kena Upanishad Haimavati is the immaterial whiteness, the daughter of the sky who incarnates the principle of expansion on the terrestrial plane. As snow she falls lightly, piles up, is transformed into ice so that torrents may flow from its energy. In silence, she is a blessing from the sky to the earth.

The hill stretches to the rock of Kasardevi, a natural hollow, like a matrix of the world, where human sacrifices were undoubtedly offered up in the old days. A vast landscape extends to the horizon—valleys and mountain ranges, on the summits of which dwell goddesses in tiny white temples. Almora, however full of light, nevertheless remains a land of dissolutions (pralaya), its beauty lying in the bareness of its mountainsides and the play of light on stone.

Below the house the road winds from terrace to terrace down to the bank of the River Koshi where the dead are burned. The green of rice or wheat alternates, according to the season, with the russet shade of the earth.

From a distance Shri Anirvan followed what I was doing. I kept him informed. A month after my arrival he wrote me:

"I am so glad to learn that the toil and moil of putting the house in order is over, and that you have settled down again to your personal work in a quiet rhythm. I know you will not mind if my letter is short since I have nothing to say. Only one thing is important; become an adult! You are responsible for the first atmosphere of Haimavati. May this house resound with the call of the Vedic Sages: 'Live, and move about in the atmosphere of the Vast.' Let all our friends come soon, may they hasten to visit Haimavati. For her alone, the force which is the child of the Void! Let no one come for you or for me! Let everybody throw off all poses, all trammels, and stand nude in the silence ready to bathe in its light until the soul is drenched by it. Discover yourself, identify yourself with the profound dumb power of the earth which silently fashions the dark clay into a spray of sun-kissed blossoms. You have this power in you, but you do not yet know it.

"It is the power of the dark night holding its breath in order to give birth to the new dawn."

A few days later he wrote again:

"I could not bear Haimavati to become a rendezvous. It must be a deep pool of life wherein one must plunge to live in death. And the work. This work is not a pretext to be taken lightly. It is a deep inner work in the rhythm of the heart of life. It is creation. For the moment, you can do but one thing—create in yourself respect for your own work, for your own effort, in silence, and with the discipline you are approaching."

I was impatient, and at the same time I had an unacknowledged fear of what was going to take place. I came and went in the empty whitewashed rooms of the house, which were waiting for life to fill them. Rope beds had been made on the spot as well as stools and a low table for the refectory.

Speaking of his pupils, Shri Anirvan wrote:

"A great period of interiorization has taken hold of them. I have planted a seed in their hearts and done my part of the work. I have only to wait, but without desire, without expectation. I may see a mighty oak grow or the seed may rot. . . . My days are so full that I cannot snatch even half an hour to write letters. So I give up! The people who come to see me are so kind, so quiet, and so free. They are cultivating their soil. I give them all my time. About your own work, do not force yourself. There is no hurry about anything. Remember the Baul's song:

     O stubborn one, by your cruel impatience,
      by your merciless insistence,
      by the fire do you really wish
      to force tight buds to open, flowers to bloom
      and fill the air with their perfume?

"So let Haimavati grow and let these things find their own place while calmly observing their movement. To be a tangent that touches the circle of energy at one point only without twining oneself round it—that is the whole secret of life!"




From To Live Within by Lizelle Reymond (New Delhi, India: Sterling Books, 1999)
Copyright © 1971 by Lizelle Reymond