Their eyes were clear like the water of a mountain spring. No judgement, no hint of doubt or fear. Not the slightest separation.
In it this kind of spark that can only come from the joy of service, the joy to give without expecting anything. Free from all desires, from all resistance.
Pure trust. Pure love. Pure light.
I’ve seen enlightened beings. Yes I’ve seen them. Not here in Nepal. They weren’t monks or yogis. Not even a sadhu in a hidden Himalayan cave. No.
They were former drug addicts, survivors of HIV, Hepatitis, cancer. Prisoners, murderers, thieves. You name it.
I met them six years ago in a rehabilitation centre in Siberia, Eastern Russia, where the summers are home to mosquitos and the icy winters cover the land in a thick white blanket.
They had lost everything and found everything. They had faced death. They had looked death in the eye. They surrendered to death and came back to life.
Since I am in Nepal, the country of spirituality, I think of them a lot. I have never seen such eyes again. I’ve never felt this love again. It was impersonal, unconditional. It was all encompassing. It was too much to bear.
Their bodies bent, twisted and wrinkled. Some skinny as skeletons. Their heads almost bald, their lips scabbed. Some of them covered with scars and badly done tattoos. They were 40 years old but looked like 50 or 60.
Not their eyes, though. Their eyes were shining. It was as if someone had put the eyes of a small innocent child onto an old body.
They were in no rush. They were just there. So there. So okay with anything.
When I entered the wooden buliding with the afternoon sun peaking through the cracks, I was shocked. It was nothing like a rehab center.
I felt welcome, truly welcome. I felt their happiness of living together, of having a roof over their head, of sharing a bite to eat. Of being there for each other.
They were so grateful for my visit. They were so happy to see me. I was confused, I was so scared. I was so mistrustful of their warm and kind welcome. I couldn’t receive their love.
Andrei hugged me and I was worried I would catch some disease.
Vladimir smiled at me and I was thinking he expected my pity.
Igor passed me a green military hat. Try it on, he said. But I felt paralyzed.
Try it on, he said.
Slowly I put it on my head.
A souvenir, he said, I wore it during the war in Chechnya. The war that had left him shot, crippled and with 20 years of heroin addiction.
Now it’s yours, he said.
Just like that.
I felt so small, so full of judgement and fear. I felt so unworthy.
When I came back to my hotel room I cried for hours. I’ve never cried like this again. Maybe once. Their love had broken my shell. Pinched the core of my being and revealed all my prejudices.
In the years after this encounter I noticed a shift in myself. I started to be less focused on how people appeared, how they showed themselves to the world, on their status and story but more on how I felt in their presence.
I started to see people more for who they really are. And myself as well. That was the scary part.
It was only many years later that I could make some sense of this encounter and my reaction. And it’s now after I’ve witnessed someone die, now that I’m in Nepal studying buddhism and other acient wisdoms, that the memory of this encounter keeps coming back.
And that I felt a need to share this experience from a new perspective.
They were former drug addicts, criminals, survivors. They were light. And no darkness can resist this light.
I will remember them forever.
I don’t need to look for any guru. I just remember their eyes.
And I know all is good.
All is right.
Photos by Oksana Yushko
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