Indian Mystic Seeks Goddess in the Himalayas

The goddess, they say, should not come to you easily. So the holy man seeks her every year by trekking for three days high into the Himalayas.

He climbs to a hand-built hut 4,050 (13,500 feet) up, where oxygen fades and nothing grows but a few wisps of grass.

Here, in the deep Himalayan wilderness, Swami Dharamand - mystic, ascetic, mountaineer and man of deep curiosity - seeks communion with the Hindu goddess Devi Annapurna.

Hindus have long seen the Himalayas as a place of purity and ennoblement. Many trekkers also speak of the mountains' mystical appeal - the beauty, the isolation, the challenge. It's a place where people of many faiths come seeking their gods.

Dharamand, a 32-year-old sadhu, or Hindu holy man, has been wandering India since leaving his far-off village 16 years ago. He left the world behind: no sex, no shaving, long periods spent in meditation.

From his hut, he sees a mountain named for his goddess, and speaks of it worshipfully. ''In the moonlight, you cannot look at her for too long. She is so beautiful, so beautiful, you will die.''

But all is not isolation. Dharamand, a sinewy man, normally clad in just a thin saffron robe, and nearly always smiling, is profoundly curious about the world he cast aside.

When he comes down from the mountain every winter, when the cold grows too intense and the snows too deep, he meets friends and followers across India. And he talks. He loves to talk. He talks about cameras and CD players, about mountaineering gear, about Bill Gates.

More than anything, Dharamand shares.

His life is a cycle of sharing: Donations of money flow through his fingers, on to others. Gifts left by mountaineers later turn up in villagers' huts. Help is returned in ways both material and spiritual, whether it's leaving a Gortex jacket with a young villager, or giving guidance to a follower in one of India's sprawling cities.

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Khorsheed.com - Sep 2002