level 9: peace

The rest of the transition from level eight to level nine is quite challenging. From the point I reached in the last episode, one has to pad up some more smooth water-worn rocks. And it's really just at the limit of where the feet and hands can grip. I feel when I'm coming up it, I'm moving like a langur. There are some beautiful big monkeys in these parts – Indian languors – and when they're moving on the ground, they have such a natural, confident rhythm. And when I'm padding up those rocks there from level eight to level nine, I feel like I'm one of them.

But that doesn't finish the transition. I've just come up the rest of it and reached the beginning of level nine. But the rest of that transition is curious. For many years, I was trying to come up the watercourse. And the first time I came up here, there were some extra rocks in place that made it quite easy to finish off the transition. But after one or two seasons of coming up this far, those rocks disappeared, and it became almost impossible. I did manage once, in the watercourse, by traversing in, kind of lying down on my back in the water, with the waterfall coming down on top of me. It felt like a do-it-yourself waterboarding torture. It really felt like I was drowning – very difficult to get breaths of air.

And many times trying to come up that way, I just slithered down the steep smooth rock into a big pool. It's like a bathtub anyway, so it's quite nice to plunge into it. Then one day, I did manage, with some really obscure and not very obvious moves, to climb it, in the water, in that way. But since then, again, I found another way, which I had looked at many times and thought, no, it's too risky, it's too difficult, and I'd never be able to get back down. And that's a dry route, climbing with some tenuous handholds, and nothing much for the feet, and then having to down-climb, also a rather awkward little section. So combining that as the way up, with the slide into the bathtub on the way down, it does make it a little bit more feasible to come up here to level nine. I'll just move a little bit further on in this level, before saying some more.

I've come to the top of level nine now. And I'd actually forgotten this little spot. There's another beautiful cascade of water, and off slightly to one side, a small tree, and underneath it, a shady place with mosses. I can see some little flowers there this time, and also some little trickles of water. It's a magical little spot.

I wanted to say a little bit about peace. I've used the term peace for this level nine because this is the overwhelming feeling that comes to me when I reach this place. It's partly because of the difficulty of getting here, that transition from the eighth level: very challenging, life threatening. And I don't know if you've ever been in a life-threatening situation, and come through it, but afterwards, there is a tremendous peace. It's as if the danger has passed, at least for the moment, one has survived. And that challenge alone gives one a different perspective on life. All the little things in daily life that we normally worry about and fret about, get worked up about, suddenly seem rather inconsequential. I'm alive, is the feeling, and it's beautiful to be alive. This is a beautiful life. And with that comes this sense of peace, being at peace in the world. Not fighting it, at least for the meantime.

That is helped in this level nine because the gradient of the valley eases off – the scrambling is pleasant, not too taxing – and as usual, there are beautiful rock forms, and forms of water, wherever one looks.

So, I love to sit for a few moments in this feeling of peace; just as I do in my spiritual life when, during an ordinary day, suddenly, for a moment, the stresses of life disappear, I relax into my being, and find a deep sense of peace.