Chapter One : Mountain Magic and Me
I had spent the last two decades adventuring across the rough and tumble landscape of filmmaking. In many ways, it was my first love, or at least the first that I fully gave myself to; and we all know how those relationships go — I gave so much of myself, I didn’t have much of me left for me. And, I found many parts of me empty.
That is when my therapist scribbled out a non-negotiable prescription for me. `Three months in the mountains. Doing nothing.’
A most-confounded me: How is that possible? I have three projects I’m producing.
Her: So, start disengaging.
Me: But, this is what I do! How can I not do it anymore?
Her: Well, don’t do it.
Me: What do I tell people? Why am I not working?
Her: Say you’re on a break. Everyone takes a break.
Me: I’ve never taken a break. Do nothing? How?!
Her: …
Me: But, this is who I am — this person who does everything I do. Who will I be if I don’t do what I do?
Precisely. I didn’t know it then, but I was about to discover. I was about to discover the person I am if I didn’t do what I do.
Once the decision was made, even if tentatively at first, things started falling in place.
Vipassana course booked. Check.
A cosy home-stay in Manali. Found and booked. Check.
Work refused. Calendar cleared. Check.
Home entrusted to sublets. Check.
Tickets booked. Bags packed. Check. Check.
And, I was on my way. Ten days of silence at a Vipassana course in Dehra Dun. It was my first course in 13 years. The silence beckoned me once again, enveloped me, held me. As I spiralled deeper within myself, I also called out to the skies above, the universe. A deep longing, so many longings, most of all, the longing to know and make sense of this world, to truly find my home here. This was the beginning of that journey, even if I didn’t know it then.
Armed with the stillness still pulsating within me, I made my way to my homestay — a cosy room in a little village near Manali. This would be my home for the next three months. My window overlooked the valley with the snow peaks towering in the distance. In the blaze of summer, the snow glistened in the distance.
Here I arrived, clutching my prescription — the words, “do nothing” staring at me, challenging me, confounding me. How would I do that? Why would I do that?
I started to form a rhythm in my days — wake up, yoga, walk, make breakfast, read, do my riyaz… and so on. And, everyday, some part of my logistically planned routine would crumble off.
I received further clarity about my prescription — no routine or rhythm. Start to sense the moment, and yourself in it; tune in to what your being seeks in the moment; tune into the spaces between the moments — the `now’. It was time to live all that I had read and been moved by.
Gazing at the mountains, reading, singing — this is what peppered my days. Sometimes also finding myself numbed by social media, and then chastising myself for being on a screen. Then returning again to walks and meditating and all that felt like the “right ingredients” for my time here. I could sense there was a part of me expecting some kind of “result” from this Sabbatical, and yet, I knew I was also being called to surrender to the unknown. The Unknown.
One weekend, as I often did, I took a bus to a neighbouring town — Naggar. One of my many explorations beyond my home village. I googled “Places to See in Naggar” and came across the Roerich Museum. Bookmarked.
I did not look up what the Museum was about. It didn’t seem to matter. But, as I roamed through the beautiful, old, mountain top mansion, I was entranced by what I read on the plaques.
The museum was the house occupied by the Roerichs, a family of Russian artists and intellectuals. Nicholas Roerich and his wife Helena were deeply interested in Theosophy. I was taken back to a long time ago.
In my late teens I had read several books published by the Theosophical Society. Charles Leadbeater’s Clairvoyance had been a significant influence at the time. I had been completely taken in by the mysteries of the unseen world.
And, as things go, my early twenties brought a flurry of film work. Auras and chakras didn’t have a place amidst the mayhem of movie production. And, so I left behind a road untrodden. The books I had collected lay buries underneath glossy books on editing style and camera techniques.
Close to twenty years later, I was being called to re-explore that world, a world I hadn’t ventured into for as long. It felt like an opening, a portal that (unbeknownst to me) had beckoned me all my life. Back from my day trip to the Roerich Museum, I launched myself on a mission. I read books, googled history. I found myself adrift in a labyrinthine universe. That is when I stumbled upon this most peculiar persona — Rudolf Steiner.
How to Know Higher Worlds was the first book I read by Steiner — my threshold to this world. And, I found it most unsuspectingly (or not), on a quiet hilltop in a Manali village. This was the beginning of my journey into the Waldorf world, my Waldorf Wonderland.
