BIRTHDAY ON THE ROCKS!

BIRTHDAY ON THE ROCKS!

4 February 2018 Off By Naginder Sehmi

BIRTHDAY ON THE ROCKS!

I will not apologize for returning to the Golden Rock in Myanmar (Burma) or the Bondo Rock in Kenya (https://bigbangyoga.org/buddhas-rock-in-kenya/) because I’m standing in front of another formidable stupa-like red rock. Here I remembered that it was my birthday with hand raised to swipe away flies!
Who could have constructed such a perfect stupa? Only perfect Buddha! Yet I have never heard of any relic of his hair or bone or eye brought to this arid centre of Australia. Being eighty-one year old Indian, naturally I felt some spiritual pride thinking of Buddha.

After reading its geological origin, I imagined that more than 500 million years ago Buddha started digging material high up in nearby mountains and deposited it below in the form of two long tongues some 10 kilometres deep. He did not realize that 50 million years later the sea will submerge nearly the entire continent and his handiwork would come to nothing. It took another million years for Buddha to push the sea back. He was surprised to discover that the tongues were covered with thick mud and sand compressing them into hard rocks. Finding it impossible to dig them out he shook the earth and at the same time pushed the first tongue – a little too much so that the horizontal layers became vertical.

Not happy with his work he turned it into a mega monolithic rock the biggest of this type exposed on this earth. Rain nor wind has succeeded in breaking it down yet. Not long ago an Englishman, the first white man to climb this sacred Uluru rock of the Aborigines, assigned it his own name: Ayers Rock. Recently the name was officially changed to  Uluru/Ayers Rock.

New Moses: parting mountains is more difficult than parting the sea!

Buddha had little force left to handle the second tongue now called Kata Tjuta about 40km  away. He just managed to tilt it a little causing cracks at several places. But he managed to sculpt beautiful stupas using rain and wind making it definitely more interesting to visit. 

He died of hard work and took the shape of the rock itself never to reincarnate.

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That was over 400 million years ago. Hindus and Buddhists cannot imagine that the red and yellow ochre colour of the rocks is the origin of their ochre togas. Scrutinizing more carefully and linking it to the tale my guide recounted l concluded that the cavernous smooth cave must be the womb that gave birth to Buddha. Next to it is his nursery school!

Then I saw his enormous cyclopean third eye and his broad smile.

Almost half a million pilgrims travel annually to offer their respects at considerable cost and will-power to this remote natural monument especially to witness the breath-taking sunrises and sunsets illuminating the rocks in a multitude of red and crimson. Yogis, Buddhist monks, rishis, or sadhus have not yet set up their temples here. Ignorance!

Under the skin of these rocky conglomerates is grey. Buddha ensured that there would not be any need to cover the domes and stupas with gold leaf as done in Myanmar. He ensured that the rusting of iron and other mineral content in the top layer would give the most beautiful ever-changing natural colours that no human, god or goddess could give.

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