Chants of Deliverance

This is a New Year's Story to be read to children. First take in the strange bouquet of this timeless story as if it were vintage wine. To sip and roll it around your mental tongue - to savor Joyce's agenbite of inwit - a slower, second read is advised. My passionately alliterative note here might help its glow illuminate your perception forever. And then, perhaps, you might revisit it every time you see a baby.


PROLOGUE

Embellished with star-inlaid galaxies, pulsar-tasseled and radiation-bands pleated, the wavy Space-Time curtain rises to the transudatory act of Creation. Death and Birth, juxtaposed in a joust, spin and circle each other in hyperbolic orbits.

When the Spirit whispers, Mortal Domains - tiny sweat beads, or stray dust particles - drop and twinkle out in a trice. Their epics and sagas are but a few syllables of the Eternal Song. Each femto-second, ancient memory transposes and jostles nascent imagination in a game of musical chairs. And the music? Everywhere, it plays - always.

Ends must, therefore, begin again sometime; maybe somewhere else; possibly fractellated; perhaps, reconstituted. Pawn or king, all chessmen are carved from the same wood. Whether Y'shua[1] or Gandhi[2], the divine, too, must perish - to reincarnate again.

Is no one immortal? Those sciences whelped by that woman who counts her periods [3] exclude, eliminate; terminate with prejudice. In the Empire of Reality, where abstractions casually crystallize and fantasies freely roam, the Forbidden Fruit grows only on the Impossible Tree. A handful of immortals, the Ancients say, live amongst and beyond us. When trust, initiative, and integrity trihedralize a soul, Death is water off a duck's back! The story of Maarkandeya's immortality discloses this can-do power of idealistic youth.

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STORY

Shiva Mahaadev's [4] gift - karmatically allowed for 10 years to a pair of pathetic Laments - Maarkandeya is born, beauteous and bright! Doubling by day - night, quadrupling - this divine luminance, wrapped in playful light, blooms with insights, breathing confidence and excellence! Joy and delight dance in his eyes! His voice rings as a honeyed bell. A wondrous peace pulsates his heart, synchronal to Shiva's drum.

But with him, grow his parents' worries. With Time, flies their happiness! Doleful depression, tense anxieties, and nervous confusion break them down. They tell him of the 'augurated Ominousness' [5] clawing up towards him through Time. . "But, it's simple!" Maarkandeya says to his parents, "Shiva Mahaadev must protect his gift! Permit me to go remind Him."

Under a leafy, sun-suffused canopy in the nearby forest, seated in front of a Linga [6] he has made, Maarkandeya broadcasts Shiva's call sign, the Mantra "Om Namah Shivaya!" In pellucid meditation, oblivious to the flow of Time - and engulfment by Space - young Maarkandeya's Being transforms into a selfless Spirit, indistinguishable from his plaintive chanting. On his tenth birthday, when Yamaraaj [7] comes to take him, so does Shiva Mahaadev, to shoo the Lord of Death away. His parents rejoice. For Maarkandeya it's a piece of cake!

"You are now immortal, Maarkandeya!" Shiva asks, "What are your plans?"

"Why, to thank you, pray some more! Then figure out what all this is really about!"

Shiva smiles, "So you shall!" -

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Aeons later, Shiva and Cosmic-Mother, Uma, visit to check on him. To them

Maarkandeya says,

I am doing fine, brimming with Sunshine. Sensorial fun seems very thin
Is all that's without, all within? Do please, bless me to know
Where all that comes, really go? How, in Time, do all things end
Begin then, all over again?

Uma smiles, begins to hum
Shiva lifts up then his magic drum.

"Maarkaneya, it's no problem," he says
"In the next few days, Your contemplative flight
Shall speed up faster than the Light! You, dear One, shall soon be
Privy to the awesome mystery!" Then they're gone
And the Sage-he awaits the revelatory dawn.

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One day, clouds blacken the sky. Lightning staples them to its dome. Chorusing winds push surf-lines beyond the beaches. Refilled by rains, the Festive Cauldron [8] spills. Quakes rip the Earth. Mountains submerge. Volcanoes counterpoint stellar explosions. End of Time. Deluge!

Inundated, lost, tossed about; but unfazed, Maarkandeya recalls he is Shiva's gift. In his ken glows the Banyan Tree that had shaded his Chants of Deliverance aeons ago. The leaves of an above-water branch are stuck to form an exquisite cradle. The glowing Radiance emanates from within it. Attracted to swim closer, he is blessed to envision the Cosmic Spirit incarnated as Baalamuukuunda, the Divine as a Baby.

Baalamuukuunda glows, gleams, shines, shimmers, and scintillates at each pore. The tiny, iridescent fingers of his splendorous, little hands grip his right foot! Holding it up to his lotus-like mouth, Baalamuukuunda sucks away at his big toe! Blissful, absorbed - his innocent insouciance at the chaotic Deluge outside hypnotizes Maarkandeya! He extends his hand to touch the Spirit Incarnate! A whisper of this Baby's breath transforms and reduces Maarkandeya into an air-molecule! Baalamuukuunda inhales him!

Within transudes, Creation afresh! Fluid Time circulates inside as blood! Bones and tissues are curving layers of Space! Encrusting them like Cosmic Coral, nebulae and galaxies, embedded with stars and planets! And within these are corralled and intersticed, minute, mortal niches!

When Baalamuukuunda exhales, the sweet breath loops Maarkandeya's 'Fantastic Voyage' [9] back to cradle-side! To exclaim at his ecstasy at the vision, Maarkaneya opens his mouth and------ZAP! ----The whole event of the Deluge vanishes!

Epilogue It is dawn again. Uma and Shiva Mahaadev appear. Eyes closed in absolute meditation, Maarkandeya is imperturbably still, Shiva has to infuse Himself into him to open his eyes from within! Through the eyes of Maarkandeya, Mahaadev sees his own creative aspect - Mother of Cosmos in all her Glory, Warmth, Beauty, Truth, Love, and splendor! Uma is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! [10]

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End Notes
1 Jesus Christ.
2 Mohandaas Gaandhi, the Mahaatmaa.
3 Mathematics.
4 A Hindu name for the Supreme Being.
5 Death.
6 A phallus-like icon of Shiva.
7 The God of Death.
8 The oceans.
9 A reference to a sci-fi movie authored by Isaac Asimov.
10 A word coined for the movie ‘Sounds of Music.’ Means ‘just beyond words.’
12 A Latin saying: `Revere the child first’

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(--Vyom Akhil, Oct 2001)