The Soul Energy
Sacred Journeys. Soul Tales. Energy Healing
The Jasmine Trail
She stood on the little balcony, taking a deep breath. The moon was shining with a blue hue, in a clear summer night sky. There was something magical about tonight, but what was it? Ekanya wondered. Before moving to Mumbai, she had stood at this very spot every night, during her growing up years at her maternal home in Bhopal, but had never felt this way. Then she realised – it was the smell of jasmine. Somebody had planted a tree here while she was away, and the fragrance of the flowers was almost intoxicating.
She had come to her hometown to break the news to her parents that she was leaving her husband. It was not an easy decision at the age of 38, but she no longer wanted to be stuck in what she thought was a loveless marriage. Ekanya could herself never understand why she could never love Nikhil, a good husband, and a caring father to their 8-year-old son. She knew she was being selfish, but all her life she had searched for a love, a fulfilling relationship, she has never been able to find. It was as if a part of her was missing, which she needed to discover.
A new job offer from a Hong Kong based financial company, seemed like a perfect opportunity. Ekanya has been constantly trying to assure herself that she was doing the right thing. She was sending her son to a prestigious boarding school, and the distance will make things less complicated between her and Nikhil.
Later, as she lay down on the bed, tears trickled down her eyes. The moon, the balmy breeze, the fragrance of jasmine, all seemed to overwhelm her anxious mind ….
The smell of jasmine is stronger at this end of the blue verandah. As she approaches him, he looks up from the book he is reading while waiting for her. There is a bandage on the right side of his forehead. She knows he was injured in an attack by the police on a group of young freedom fighters in the bazaar. A common occurrence in early 20th century Bengal, in British ruled India. She also knows that the only love that surpasses what he feels for her, is his love for the motherland, and his mission to free his country.
She can almost read his thoughts – their love is doomed, but even death cannot keep them apart. The intensity of his feelings has always terrified and excited her, and she can feel her heart being drawn into a vortex.
Next, she is running around the blue verandah with the book she has snatched from his hand. He is trying to catch her. There are creepers on the walls, and as she places her hand on a branch to steady herself, she pricks her ring finger. He takes her hand and puts the finger in his mouth, sucking the drop of blood and easing the pain. As she looks into his dark eyes, she knows she can never love another man ….
Ekanya sits up on the bed. What a dream – it almost seemed real, the old heritage building, the blue verandah, the creepers on the walls, the intoxicating smell of jasmine.
She goes to the balcony. The air had become cooler, but she could not see the moon now. The smell of jasmine seemed stronger … the only thing which was common from the world of her extraordinary dream.
Or was it something more. As she sat on her bed, she realised her hand was paining. She switched on the bedside lamp, and saw that her ring finger had turned pink and was throbbing. Then she noticed her wedding ring.
She kept awake the whole night. Next morning she told her parents she had to return to Mumbai for some urgent work. She never mentioned about Nikhil. But she did know that she was not leaving him, and had to make some major amends.
Ekanya herself could not understand how the dream that drew her into a magical world of love, changed her. Who was the man? Was he her lover from another lifetime? Or her subconscious mind?
Somehow she felt the dream had made her break a pact with the past, and she was free now – to live and love.
The Sacred Dance
It was the blast at a football stadium in Istanbul that turned Shams’ life upside down. Severely wounded in the attack, the 32-year-old well known fashion designer from one of the city’s illustrious families, took to the wheelchair after 40 days in the hospital. It was then that her fiancé, the scion of a leading industrial group, decided to part ways. Shams, who had always taken great pride in being a bold and beautiful young icon of Istanbul’s high society, became a social recluse.
For almost two years, she would never go out of the family bungalow, her bitterness further vitiating the atmosphere of the large joint family, which already had complexities of its own. Then, one day, she realised she did not want to stay with them, and requested her father to send her to Amasya, a beautiful little town in Northern Turkey, where they had their ancestral home.
He sent her to Amasya, thinking that her traumatised heart would find some peace in the sprawling heritage mansion, with its vast orchards and salubrious environs. Shams was alone here, with only her caretaker and the cook.
Unable to sleep at night, she would aimlessly move from room to room. One night, she had almost dozed off in front of the fireplace in the main hall, when she noticed some movements in the large mirror above it. She could see some swirling strands of light going round and round in circles. Did her sleep induced mind imagine it? Shams wondered.
The next night also she waited. And yes, it was there again. This time she could make out faint forms, who seemed like the whirling dervishes. Shams knew that the black and white floored hall has been witness to many spectacular happenings in the past. One of her forefathers was a revered Sufi mystic. She wondered if the dervishes had danced here during those times.
From that day onwards, her mind was gripped with finding answers to her questions. The days she would spend trying to locate information about her mystic ancestor and the whirling dervishes in the mansion’s old library. And at night she would sit in front of the fireplace, looking at the mirror, hoping to see some remnant of the sacred dance.
It is said that the walls and the environment absorb the energy imprint of whatever happens in its confines. While it might seem like a supernatural happening, but it is actually a natural phenomenon.
Sometimes Shams would cry, her heart filled with a strange ecstasy, watching the sacred dance. Then one night, she could hold herself back no longer, she forced herself out of her wheelchair and wobbled around, joining the forms in the mirror. Her steps could not match that of the dancing dervishes, but her spirit whirled with them. She would often fall, somehow pick herself up, and start again.
This continued for several months. Shams herself did not realise when she had no need for a wheelchair any longer. She could limp around the house with a walker. Her heart now needed no crutch though – it constantly soared in the sky, like a bird of freedom.
Thoughts Of A Sentient Being
The Shiva temple where I live, has been in a state of disrepair since last few decades, but continues to draw devotees. It was built many centuries ago by a Muslim prince for his favourite nanny, who happened to be a Hindu and an ardent devotee of Shiva. He loved her more than his own mother, and in her honour, got constructed the beautiful structure, along with living quarters for priests, in the outskirts of Lucknow city, in North India.
I myself have no religion. Though my existence is connected to the temple, I know that the God who is in the sanctum sanctorum is also within me. I have stood silently, in a state of meditation, constantly regenerating myself.
With each dawn, I would begin my day with salutations to the Sun, and pay my obeisance as it disappeared from the horizon. In my own small way, I have tried to follow the generosity of the Sun – always giving, always nurturing.
With time, my penance became more severe. Then one dawn in summer time, just before the first rays of the Sun touched the sky, I saw the Golden Light. It shimmered within me and around me. I had myself become Gold – the Light of God.
The young son of the temple priest, who was sleeping outside, looked at me with astonishment. He gave a scream and ran inside his house, calling the family. By the time people had gathered around me, I was no longer bathed in gold, at least not from the outside. It had come to rest in my being.
From that day onwards, they understood that something about me had changed, and started worshipping me, offering flowers and doing rituals to seek my blessings.
If only they had an understanding of their own divinity. They would then discover the Golden Light, like me, whom they call the Old Peepal Tree in the Shiva Temple.
The Dragon’s Tail
Uttarakhand is a state in North India, known for its scenic beauty and the great Himalayas. A large segment of the state comprises of coniferous forests, meadows and valleys. A small section of the subtropical pine forests, have been known, since time immemorial, to be the home of a creature of lore. The golden coloured creature could be straight out of a fairy tale book, but the locals have believed in their existence. In particular, the women who would never forget to tell their children innumerable stories of the long-tailed dragons who inhabited their forests.
There were stories of golden streaks of light in the forests at night. So it was believed that the dragons slept during the day and moved about in the night. The most recent sighting was in 1968, when the driver of a heritage train claimed to have seen the long golden tail of a dragon. The creature was on the tracks, trying to escape the fast approaching train and finally disappeared into the night. While the official report submitted by the train driver was dismissed as fabrication by the railway authorities, but the locals who came to know of it had no doubt that the driver was telling the truth.
Now this area of the state had always been known for frequent forest fires. If any pine cone caught fire and the wind took it to another hill, the fire ravaged the adjacent hill also. Watch was kept at night by local villagers, to warn people of forest fires. Interestingly, it was found that whenever women of self- help groups (SHG) called ‘Sakhis’ guarded at night, there were few such incidents. Some believed that the fire was caused by the dragons, and maybe they feared the women folk and that is why they caused less mayhem when the Sakhis were on guard.
Soneha had grown up on the tales of the dragons, told to her by her mother. She had come to love the mythical creatures and always felt that they had her back. Till, she recently lost her home to a forest fire.
So when the 17-year-old kept vigil with two more girls at the eastern edge of the village that bordered the forest, that night the only thing that raged in her heart was anger for the dragons who had made her family homeless.
It was a windy, moonless night as the girls huddled together, but ever vigilant. Suddenly they saw embers from a burning pine cone fall on the trees near them. And before they could call out for help, a section of the trees had started burning. The village was a little distance away, so Soneha sent both the girls for help, while she stood guard.
Then she saw something which would remain the most incredible experience of her life – a golden orange shape emerged, just behind the burning trees. She stood transfixed, not able to even breathe, as the dragon opened its mouth and consumed the fire. A little distance away, she saw another dragon appear, and then another. Within a few minutes, the fire was out and the creatures had disappeared.
By the time the villagers appeared, they saw the girl standing and crying. They thought she was terrified by the fire that had burnt some trees and had strangely died down. Little did they know that her tears were of gratitude and remorse. She had understood that the dragons did not create the fire, but consumed it. And the reason why there was less forest fires when the Sakhis were on guard, was because it was mostly the village women who believed in these mystical creatures, not the men. It was the strong faith of the women, which probably brought them forth.
Since that night, Soneha again started believing what she did as a child – that a guardian dragon always watched her back.
Garden Of A Thousand Lotuses: A Fairy Tale
The Garden Of A Thousand Lotuses was once the playground of a prince and his consort. Today the place lies derelict and abandoned, but Chinima and her friends found it the perfect hideout to escape for a few hours in the afternoon, on their way home from school. They lived in the village nearby, where they called it the “enchanted garden”, because it is believed that fairies used to live here. Some people had also seen a few strange sightings.
The girls were too young to pay any attention to these rumours, and they had never noticed anything unusual. They just loved the beauty of the place, even with its scattered ruins, overgrown weeds, and the central pond where once a thousand lotuses had bloomed.
So one afternoon when Chinima, Gaiko and Yahuna sat at the edge of the large fountain, near the entrance to the garden, they thought they heard laughter. Puzzled, they looked around, but found no one.
As they started discussing about the source of the sound, they noticed a woman wearing a royal dress, a short distance away. Strangely her feet was above the ground, almost as if she was gliding in the air.
As she looked at them, the girls ran to her. They saw she was holding a big bunch of white flowers in her hands. She extended her arms, offering them the flowers. Chinima stepped forward to take them. Then she noticed that the woman’s hands were a blood red colour, in sharp contrast to her porcelain white skin.
“Who are you madam? And what has happened to your hands?” asked a shocked Chinima.
The woman answered softly, “I was a consort of the prince. I have been here for more than 260 years. My prince lies buried there.” She pointed out towards an outcrop, where the girls knew the noble prince’s grave was – buried in the garden he loved.
The girls stepped back. Chinima almost dropped the flowers from her hands. Gaiko blurted out fearfully, “So you are a ghost then?”
“No I am not, I never died you see,” came the answer from the woman, who looked very young despite the passing centuries. She continued to say, “I am an elemental, a nature being. I fell in love with a human being, the prince. I stayed in this beautiful Garden Of A Thousand Lotuses for his love and now I cannot go back to my world.”
When Chinima pointed out at her red hands, she explained, “The king was killed by his brother’s henchmen. In anger I killed both the men and threw their bodies in the pond where the thousand lotuses bloomed. Killing any living being is against the rules of the world from where I came, so I have been cursed with blood red hands.”
“So it was you who was laughing, we thought we heard many voices,” said Gaiko, now visibly relieved that the woman was not a ghost.
“Those were my sisters, sometimes they come to keep me company. They got scared when they noticed you so they went away.”
“We scared them !” exclaimed Gaiko, finding the idea almost preposterous.
“Yes you did, they are not comfortable around human beings,” came the reply.
Finding the whole story very tragic, Chinima asked her, “Will you always be like this? Can’t you go back to your home?”
With tears in her eyes, the nature being answered, “The day a thousand lotuses will bloom in this pond again, the energy of the place will be the same as it was before I made the colour of its water red with blood. I can then return home. However, I have lost all hope.”
Chinima stepped forward, held the red hands in her small hands, and said quietly, “I will see that you are free one day.”
It took Chinima another 23 years, but she kept her promise. It seemed fate paved the way for her. Always a good student, she got through civil services examination, and became a career bureaucrat. Rising through the ranks, when she was appointed as the tourism secretary of the state, one of her first orders was to restore the Garden Of A Thousand Lotuses, as a key project for attracting domestic and international tourists. After another 18 months, the project got successfully completed.
The evening before the grand inauguration, Chinima stood at the edge of the pond, where she knew more than a thousand lotuses now bloomed. She heard a laughter and felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder. Turning around, Chinima saw her – the ageless face now looked more beautiful, lit up by an enchanted smile. Her hands were white, almost translucent. Then she was gone.
The media and political bosses were effusive in their praises for Chinima, and the drive she showed in successfully completing in record time, a major tourism project. For Chinima, nothing more mattered of course but the fact that she could keep a childhood promise.
Quiet Flows the Invisible River …
They were three sisters – the Pure One, the Wise One and the Beauteous One. For thousands of years, they have lived in their essence of playfulness. Each representing a river, flowing never too far from each other. Their play determined the destinies of those whose lives were connected to the land from where they flowed. While playing together, if the Pure One swung too fast on a swing, her river overflowed its banks. When the Beauteous One preened herself, man was mesmerised by the breathtaking views of her watery form, inspiring immortal tales of love from the lands she touched.
The Wise One was the quietest of them all, her essence was to know. For unlike her sisters, she was much more than a river. Her spirit permeated everything that flowed – from a thoughtful insight to every song sung and each written word.
She would contemplate so much that in time her physical form ceased to be. In India, they say she is the invisible river, who flows beneath her sisters, Ganga (the Pure One) and Yamuna (the Beauteous One), and millions congregate at the sacred confluence of the three to wash away sins of many lifetimes. Then there are others who believe she is a river in the sky, called the Milky Way.
A river that cannot be seen, is manifested as the womb of creativity – a poet’s inspiration, an author’s words, an orator’s skill, a musician’s talent – few among the many forms of Sarasvati, the Goddess of Speech, Wisdom and Learning.
Soul Tales: Magical Fables
My very first ebook in the Soul Tales series, Magical Fables, is now published.
A collection of short tales – the story of an unusual saint in a desert fortress … the lost legend of a silent tribe … an encounter with a forest deity … a strange haunting at a seaside heritage homestay … the Blue God as a playmate in a sacred grove … magical sightings that save the life of a Mughal prince … a talisman powered by a mother’s love … the tale of a mysterious child from a pilgrim township … the unexplained appearance of a woman mystic under the Peepal tree … finding what the heart truly seeks in the magical realm of the twilight, and other stories.
You can find it at Apple Books, Barnes and Nobles (Nook), Kobo, Scribd, Thalia, Playster, Bol.de, !ndigo, Angus & Robertson, Mondarori Store.
Universal Link to stores and digital libraries: https://www.books2read.com/u/mYowYd
It is also available at Kobo India. Link: https://www.kobo.com/in/en/ebook/magical-fables
The Love Beyond
History has time and again indicated that stories of true love have seldom had a happy ending. Tales of star-crossed lovers have captivated our hearts and been immortalised across all cultures. The story of Shireen and Abdul from the beautiful valley of Kashmir in North India is no different. When the only daughter of a village landlord fell in love with the shepherd boy, everyone knew it had to have a sad end.
Shireen was also engaged to the son of a Nawab (a Muslim nobleman), in a neighbouring village. Abdul, the third son of a poor shepherd, had nothing apart from a fiery spirit and great love for the girl. This was enough to capture her heart, but far from enough to convince her father.
Like many love stories, class and wealth were the biggest deterrents which drew them apart.The day before Shireen was getting married, Abdul in desperation and frenzy, went to her home. He was caught by her brothers, beaten up and thrown in a lake, on the outskirts of the village.
This tale actually begins where their love story ends, well kind of. The lake was home to a family of swans, who were believed to be mystical, and therefore never troubled or killed by the locals. As Abdul’s body sank to the bottom of the lake and life started seeping out of him, the swans surrounded him. They were in despair to see him die like this, their sensitive soul could feel his pain and anguish. They knew they could not bring his body back to life, but they wanted to help.
Being mystical creatures, there was no difference for the swans between this world and the other world. So they connected to the dying Abdul and asked what they could do for him. “There is only one thing I want, to be near my beloved Shireen all the time. She is my great love. In life or in death, nothing else matters for me,” came the answer.
The swans asked,“If it is only love that you seek, then there is another great love, our journey is on the path to discover it. Would you like to join us?”
Abdul refused. So they granted him his wish.
The next morning, about 50 miles away, in a carpet weaving centre when the master craftsman reached his workshop, he was in for a surprise. He, along with his apprentices had just finished work on a beautiful Persian carpet which had to be delivered that very day to the home of the Nawab, as his son was bringing his new bride home. The indigo blue carpet had multi-coloured floral motifs.The master weaver was astonished to see the image of a white swan amidst the flowers and leaves. It was not there when he had left for home the night before. He wondered which of his apprentices would have created the beautiful life-like image, so quickly.
The day Shireen went to her new home, the carpet was already there in her chamber. As she stepped on it, her heart fluttered for she could feel Abdul very close to her.
Right under her feet, another heart was also beating fast, as he could feel the touch of his beloved. Despite the pain of seeing her married to another man, he was grateful that he was so close to her, could see her all the time and feel the touch of her feet.
As the years passed, Abdul’s love became a distant memory for Shireen.
And Abdul, who was neither alive nor dead, had also come to realise that the love of the woman he thought was the reason for his soul’s existence, was not enough. There was much more.
Exactly 7 years, 2 months and 5 days from when Shireen had first set her eyes on the carpet, she was shocked to find one evening that the image of the swan had disappeared from it. She was unnerved by this strange occurrence. She had been thinking of replacing the carpet, ever since her eldest child had dropped a bottle of blue ink on it a few months ago.
Not too faraway, when a few children came to feed the family of swans at the lake, they were delighted to find a new swan, it was as beautiful as the others, but had some blue marks on it.
Once a boy named Abdul, had finally started his journey of finding the greatest love.
Song of the Storm
Shain lived in a picturesque little village in the backwaters of Kerala, in India. Her father owned and operated three houseboats for tourists, and was considered the most prosperous man in the village. She was the only daughter to her parents and the family might have been everyone’s envy, except for one aspect – Shain was born without the ability to hear or speak. She always felt tortured by her condition, and nobody had ever seen her smile in a very long time. There was a constant storm that raged in her heart, which made her always angry and bitter.
A few days after her 13th birthday, something happened, she communicated in the best way she could to her mother that she was repeatedly seeing a dream. She always saw the same thing – a woman standing on the pier near a lighthouse. Wearing red and black clothes, her long black hair blowing in the wind, she was playing a violin. While Shain could explain the physical details through sign, what she could not convey was that it was the first time in her life she had experienced music – it entranced her completely. She wanted to remain in that state forever.
After she saw the dream three times, within one week, her mother started taking her seriously. There was a lighthouse, about 185 km away from her village. It was a historic structure built by the early Dutch settlers who came to India in the 1600s. The restored lighthouse was a popular tourist attraction in the area. Following Shain’s insistence on visiting the lighthouse, her parents relented.
When they reached the place, it was late afternoon, but the sky had turned dark, lightening streaked the sky, indicating an impending storm. Soon enough the wind picked up speed and it started raining. The family sat in the car, waiting for the storm to subside. Then suddenly, Shain just opened the door of the car and stepped out. Paying no attention to her mother’s shouting, she ran towards the pier, and stood almost where she thought she had seen the woman. There was no one there, only the raging storm. To hold on to the remnants of her dream, she tried to clutch the air. Then, her arms outstretched, tears streamed down her face, as she felt one with the rain and the wind.
Her father, who had followed her, forcibly picked her up and brought her back to the car. The family reached their village safely, and for two days Shain just wouldn’t stop crying. Those few moments on the pier had filled her with a completeness she had always found lacking because of her handicap. Her mother, who was initially perturbed, was soon delighted by the change in her daughter – the constant anger had given way to calmness. For the first time in many years, Shain was smiling again. The storm, it seemed, had finally brought peace to her heart.
While Shain was too young to comprehend, but her mother often wondered who was the woman, her daughter saw in her dreams – was she a spirit? An angel? Just an imagination of a troubled mind? Or somebody else? Whoever she was, her music had transformed the girl. What her mother would never know was that Shain had found her completeness by feeling one with the elements of nature, and that she could tap into the source again and again.
The One Witness
They were walking along the shade of Ashoka and Pilu trees, near the banks of Yamuna river. The seven maidens of Braj were in a hurry. They were carrying water from the river for a sacred ceremony at the village headman’s house, where they were celebrating the birthday of his son. Following the ceremony, they would all head to the woods and dance through the night, as always.
Normally they avoided this stretch of the forest, as from sometime they had started believing that the area was haunted. It had happened a few times that while crossing the place they could feel a sudden swish of the wind, a rattle and an unusual vibration. Today they had no choice as it was the shortest way to the village. Wearing their best of clothes for the celebrations, with the pitchers of water precariously perched on their heads, they hurried along. A few steps and they could feel the rumble, the force of the wind seemed closer this time. Terrified, they closed their eyes and started praying to Krishna. Soon, it was over. Thanking the boy God for his protection, the women started walking faster.
At that very moment, from one of the last compartments of Jammu Tawi Express Train, four-year-old Alina peeped out from the window to see seven women standing by the tracks. Their colourful and beautiful clothes caught her eyes, she tugged at her mother’s arm and pointed out. Prying her eyes away from her mobile, the mother looked out, but could only see a quietly flowing Yamuna and some sparse trees. If only she could have known that her little daughter had a peep through the folds of time to witness a scenario 5000 years ago.
As the women neared the headman’s house, they could see his son, the young Krishna, looking out from the window. They decided to recount their ordeal to him later. Forever the prankster, Krishna chuckled. He often enjoyed such confusions, but knew he would never be able to make them understand that the past, present and future all existed together in parallel worlds. It was an endless play, and he was the only witness.