Yesterday was such a Beautifully glorious day. The Sky was this perfect shade of blue all through the day. Including the evening skies. Something was Magical about it.
Bandstand
I am suddenly reminded of three things.
Yesterday was the completion of 40 days of my 100 day experiment. Yesterday was the start of Mount Mary Fair. Yesterday I remembered as a child I used to draw pages after pages of three things. An eagle, a Unicorn and the Mount Marys church Steeple- which I can now literally see from my window right now.
This was a Miracle. I had never dreamt, consciously , one day. I would be here.
While growing up we waited all the through the year for this Mount Marys fair. Childhood joy was made up of this trip, the anticipation, the toys, the walks, the aroma of different eats, the rosary, the hat with multi-coloured feathers, the annoying sounds of the pppeeepppp, the soap bubbles in the air, the photo booths with fake jeep or moon cut-outs, the Ferris wheel ride in September garden…everything about this was special.
As I found out Bandra Fair started when a statue of Mother Mary was found floating in the Arabian Sea between 1700 and 1760, which, according to a legend, a Koli fisherman had dreamt about a few years earlier. It was believed to be a miracle by the locals, and the Bandra Fair was started to celebrate this. So Bandra fair was the celebration of a Miracle. – So Apt I think.
That it continues till date is in itself a Miracle
As the stories of its ‘Healing” started to spread – The Shrine began attracting devotees from all the surrounding areas. Devotees used to arrive at the foot of the hill by bullock carts. Some arrived by ferryboats from across. They would park their carts along groves of mango trees at the foot of the hill and walk up the slope to the basilica at the top. After concluding their spiritual obligations, the pilgrims would now move back down whilst enjoying the merry fair.
This place is believed to be holy and healing and people now come from far off lands for the “Pilgrimage” It is still up a hill. When I take a rickshaw I have to tell him “Upar jana hai “- Have to go up- I smile every time I say this. Ofcourse upaar hi jana hai.
This suddenly made me think of the 40 days. And It’s Significance.The two were somehow connected.
Forty is a very significant number in many beliefs. Starting with the gestation of Birth – 40 weeks. Forty days after that, the mother and baby ‘rituals’. Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, the period of Lent. Moses and his people walked for forty years. Ramadan fasting for 40 days, Noahs Ark and the 40 days and nights, before the Rainbow. In India, in many families, a ‘diya’ is kept lit for the departed soul for 40 days and it is believed that on the 40th day, the soul crosses the river that separates the world of the living and the world of the dead and the soul’s journey to the other side. Also, in the Sumerian era was “Enki” – The God of creation, crafts, magic and mischief was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40”, occasionally referred to as his “sacred number“. Ok so 40 was sacred mystical and magical. Get it.
To bring it back from the Sumerian age our current reality – The word “Quaranta,” is the Italian word for 40, became “quarantine.”
Phew !!!
This was really something and yet it felt right in my heart and gut. Pilgrimage of 40 days.
Pilgrimage as a process is eons old. And there in almost all faiths. But still it has some similarities. It made me think of how a Journey was different from a Pilgrimage. A journey was about a conquest to get from one place to another. While a Pilgrimage was about, surrender.
It is a devotional and spiritual practice, consisting of a prolonged journey, often undertaken on foot or on horseback, toward a specific destination of significance. It is an inherently transient experience, removing the participant from his or her home environment and therefore identity.
I remember the many trips to Vaishno devi on foot or Mount Mary or Haji Malang, or some other ‘Mountains’ I have had to climb or walk in my life. The “actual” destination was hardly anything. We got to ‘see’ the deity for just a few seconds. Of course I always hoped the deity saw us for longer period. So what was it then, that we walked towards or for? I wondered.
We walked, and in a way enjoyed the ‘hardships’. Pilgrimages are often arduous, I suspect by design. In a way it was getting yourself out of your own way. A way of saying not my will but Thy will be done. A way of knowing, challenging and the overcoming our own limitations and also belief about limitation.
Perhaps the Belief about limitation was a limitation of Belief.
When I started to observe lent, I could not do it for more than a couple of days. Temptation was always real and lurking and I would cave in. I am reminded of Jesus and the Devil story. It was hard. When I started to walk, my feet had blisters, I had sun burns, that made it impossible to walk and yet I refused the horse.
There is something about Human Spirit that chooses to burn in the suffering, that which is ‘not divine’ – that which is not limited – that which is not True. When we burn that which is not divine, limited, not true – We are left with – Divine Unlimited and Truth.
Maybe that was it.
In the Pilgrimage of 40, was a repeated act of the process in which we were made in the Womb. The 40 weeks.
And perhaps we go through these ”challenging “ 40 days pilgrimage as a way to unconsciously enact the 40 weeks of being made, with and in partnership with the Universe so that we are finally ready to “come out” in to world?
We Act out the 40 day process fo Being made – again and again THAT is our pilgrimage. We started our lives with one.
I remember, we also made many “pilgrim friends” since we were not going to meet each other again, we were open and honest in a very different ‘non-attached’ way. No one bothered about where we came from. Except when we shared food. We were here on this pilgrimage together. And we helped each other – On a Pilgrimage there are No leaders and No followers.
Perhaps this has been one of the biggest lesson. I have no real idea of the ‘destination’, but I am changing everyday in the process of just walking. There have been and continue to be many “temptations” but so far so good . Thanks to all my “Pilgrim Friends” – Big Shout out to all of you !!!
I realised life was not too different from a Pilgrimage. We are all walking, have chosen to walk. Some paths and mountains are harder than others. But along the way is also joy, friendships food and the amazing sights.
All the while, even as we look at the sore feet and exhausted faces and shining eyes, We are reminded of having become “better than” our older versions. And deep journey travelled to our own divinity and truth. Our Real divine nature.
Perhaps we need to look at Life in 40 day, weeks months spurts? Perhaps if we saw this as a co creation process we would see different things – see differently. Maybe even see the Divinity in each other. Perhaps if we lived as if life was a Pilgrimage we could complain less about the hardship and look at them as a cleansing opportunity? and not worry about who was leading or following whom?
I don’t think this should be to hard – After all we have been schooled in 40 min periods. And not to forget the “Prasad” in the End. That we also carry back. I think that is why we do all this hardships – for the Prasad. I don’t know who offered it to whom. We offer it to God’s or other way around or perhaps it is the same thing.
And Perhaps the Prasad is, the opportunity to walk each other Home.
My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on;
they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distant blue haze.
They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries.
All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! –Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise,
but found no response in me.
I gave myself up for lost – in the depth of a glad humiliation -in the shadow of a dim delight.
The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom – slowly spread over my heart.
I forgot for what I had travelled, – and I surrendered my mind without struggle
to the maze of shadows and songs.
At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes,
I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile.
How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome,
and the struggle to reach thee was hard!(The Journey – by Rabindranath Tagore)
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