Vision of the hermitage revival in the Czech Republic.
I have a vision. I see hundreds and thousands of young Czech men and perhaps even women wearing a brown or green cowl made with their own hands, maybe even an orange robe. I see them leaving this civilization and the company of their neighbours for the solitude of the border mountains or the highlands in the interior. I see them looking for abandoned mountain chapels, which there are thousands of in the Czech lands, I see them settling in there and becoming creatures of fairy tales. Hermits, shamans… strangers in the eyes of other people, who live in solitude in sacred places, in oak groves, in prehistoric hillforts, in caves and by forest springs. They are people who have given up their roles and ambitions in this grey joyless world to dedicate their lives to the greatest adventure which is the Spiritual Journey. I see them wandering aimlessly in the forests, talking to flowers, making friends with butterflies, praying among the trees, meditating on mountain tops, singing sacred chants and practising their spiritual exercises… and God bestows His graces upon them for the sincerity of their desire, guiding and protecting them, as He does anyone who has the courage to trust their heart and follow His call. Many return to the human world in time, richer in valuable experience, but some endure the pressure of loneliness and become initiates of the greatest spiritual mysteries. They become mystics in the highest and purest sense of the word, they become holy men and women who have purified their hearts and souls from the powers of darkness and who have glimpsed the deepest Mysteries of God. They will write poems for their kith and kin, and people will seek them for advice and for words of wisdom and comfort, for no one understands the mysteries of life better than the one who has perfectly understood the Self. And the best school of self-knowledge is the life of a lonely hermit. It is a difficult path, but those who are drawn to it by God from deep within would not trade it for anything in the world. They will enjoy a simple life in harmony with the whole Universe. A small backpack with all their belongings in it will do just fine. They will work just enough to defend their position of independence. It is true that they will break the laws of this society, but only because they are governed by Higher Laws, and so they will light a fire in the forest and go freely off the road, and they will fall asleep quietly under the treetops and wake up under the dome of the caves. They will not fight the world, for the world is sufficiently illuminated by their mere existence. And they will be as innocent as butterflies and so kind that even their opponents, officials, gamekeepers and conservationists will end up liking them. A hermit in the forest will become a prestigious affair, as their presence in the forest will become an ecological indicator of a clean, intact and harmonious environment. For a hermit’s heart is extremely sensitive to any kind of pollution and therefore cannot live in just any place. And so all the gamekeepers will compete in offering the most attractive hermitage sites to attract hermits to their forests. And these will all be the most captivating and breathtaking places still left in the Czech lands: by waterfalls and mountain lakes, in the clouds among the mountain pine trees, in lost caves and at important prehistoric archaeological sites, so everyone will have their pick and everyone will get only the best…
© Swami Gyaneshwarpuri
E-mail: yoga@gyaneshwarpuri.cz
Web: www.hermityoga.cz
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SWAMI GYANESHWARPURI POUSTEVNÍK
