Spirals

He didn’t know where to go, so he followed the road. The road was already there, he was not there yet. So, not knowing when or where he would arrive, he drove. He looked on either side, behind him, and in front– the world’s mysteries lay before him. As he drove on, neatly staying within the little white lines, things came at him fast. Foliage of many kinds, people of even more, surrounded him, getting closer and then farther away as he whizzed by. Concrete, steel, and wood structures grew out of the ground, concealing the people living inside in the same way that each of them hid their souls. There were a few windows, he thought, to let the light in; but these only offered a glimpse. A closed window cannot be penetrated without the shattering of glass.
As he traveled, these abstract thoughts filled his mind. They entered like osmosis and lingered until he forgot where he was. The steering of the car, the shifting of gears, the very actions that were propelling him across the landscape became as involuntary as his heartbeat. The blazing sun snuck silently across the clear sky until it had gone too far and begun to fade. He had started driving at dawn and the open flatlands and the forested areas had changed to rolling hills with mountains visible in the distance. He reflected on where he was and realized that he was not going back home. A week ago, he was going to the family office and making phone calls trying to arrange jute sales. That all seemed long ago and far away though, and the thought was like a relic of an ancient civilization that he had dug up in his mind.

His car hurdled over a bump in the road, jarring his mind away from what he had been thinking and back to what he was doing. Up ahead he could see that the road was going to get more and more windy as it spiraled around the foothills of the mountains. He stopped the car on the side of the road. He had been driving all day, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to drive up into the mountains just yet. He got out and began walking away from the car down a narrow path that looked as if it could have been created by the monotony of a single human life. He put his hand to his crown making a visor and looked out into the setting sun. There were lush tea gardens flourishing not far away that evoked a strangely deep yet momentary peace in him. The tea gardens were deserted at this time, and although they were man-made, he admired how they seemed so devoid of humanity.

Without too much deliberation he drifted along the route, which itself aimlessly looped around areas that could’ve been traversed easily in a straight line. The atmosphere was thick with silence. Like a thousand insects, his head buzzed with it. It didn’t annoy him, though, because the silence was more like the harmless gnats which came out here in the summers than the itchy mosquitos. It swarmed around him till it was dispersed by a faint stirring of his awareness. The culprit was not a rustling in the brush, nor a shimmering bough, but was the far-off scent of his religion. If his faith was less distant, perhaps he would have smelled the burning incense sooner. It was a sweet smell for him. He associated it with quiet, cool alcoves that provided respite from the noise, the pollution, the gritty squalor of the city. As a child he had enjoyed these places, and he regretted that as he grew older, the aroma’s simple enchantment had been superseded by associations of silliness and unease. Maybe the winds had taken that charm to someone else, he reflected, as they now brought someone else to him.

The man was staring up at him with an unflinching gaze. Humbly dressed, he clasped a small clay pipe between his hands which was cylindrical in shape, tapering at the end. A sadhu, he thought. The ragged man sat cross-legged around the single stick of incense which had drawn the two men together. Neither of them spoke. For ten minutes it remained this way, the man putting the tapered end of the pipe to his mouth and inhaling calmly every so often. His guest remained standing. He looked beyond the bony man but watched him at the same time. His mind was gaining momentum and his mouth began to move ever so slightly, but at the threshold of speaking, his jaw dropped down again in silence. This man, this ascetic, with eyes fixed on him, what did he want?

“What do you want?” asked the sadhu. He did not wait for any answers. “Do you come to live like me?” At this he paused and took another puff. His voice was measured and his speech mirrored the economy of his actions. His eyes were a fiery red.

The traveler thought to himself for a minute. “I smelled the incense,” he replied.

“If you like it, take it and be on your way. It is my gift.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t want it.” He had seen there was only one.

“Nothing will content he who is not content with a little.”

The traveler hung around, but did not comment. The man continued, “You will not find what you are looking for here. I was once told when I was young like you: ‘A large mountain has many streams.’ For years I explored this mountain. I have seen the many streams, and I have found the sources of those streams. But I have chosen this clearing now, and chosen to stay here, for it nourishes me, and...”

By this point he had stopped listening. He still didn’t know where to go, and he was beginning to feel like he should have just taken the stick and left. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture or a lesson, or whatever it was that this man was trying to express. He didn’t make eye contact, but he looked at him, examining the creases on his forehead. When this became tiring, he nodded a final time and then asked, “Have you found what is the source of the mountain?”

Caught off-guard by the question, the sadhu briefly showed his bemusement before quickly recovering his wits and replying, “The mountain has always been there. It is the oldest and most important of all things.”

“How can you speak so much about this? Have you ever even climbed to the top?” He had imagined sadhus to be men for whom silence was the source of great wisdom. But he knew that in his own experience, speaking always took him farther from the truth. As his surroundings gave way to night, the peace which had warmed him during the day began to vanish along with them.

“No, I have not climbed to the peak...” he said, gazing thoughtfully, “but I have been there.”

“What do you mean? Do you mean to speak in riddles?” He was getting flustered.

To this the sadhu smiled and said quietly, almost to himself, “The quest in a question is never fulfilled by the answer. You have not yet become akin to how I seemed to you the first time we met. I’m sorry. Come back again when you have lived both sides of the coin. Now choose. Do you wish to see the ancestors or the aliens?”

“What are y–” The old man’s last question jolted within him a feeling of deja vu, which reached him after he had begun to respond in confused dismay. He abruptly fell silent, and as he searched the man’s eyes for clues that would explain the fleeting familiarity, he noticed something quite new. It was the staff, swinging beautifully, which the sadhu had kept by his side for the duration of their encounter. Carved on it were the grooves spiraling up to the culmination which in the crescent moonlight he could see large and vividly, and when it crashed through him and split him open and his head thundered, and for a second made him feel like he was back in the beam between the sky and the earth, he dropped. And then it all leaked out.