Cave people and hermits

---

Nilratan Halder | Published: October 08, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

---

Human beings in the prehistoric period lived in caves because they did not know how to build a better shelter. If anyone volunteers to follow the lifestyle of his ancestors millions of years ago, the person might either be an eccentric or a yogi in search of truth or the Supreme Being. About one thing, though, there is no doubt that none of these two categories is a normal mortal.
Until recently, there was one known caveman in Argentina named Pedro Luca. The 80-year-old Argentinian treks for three hours across steep terrain back and forth from his cave. He has been living in the cave for the past 40 years without electricity and running water. If he prefers to lead a lonely life, there is a Chinese couple who has also been living in a cave for 54 years. After getting married for only three years, the couple under circumstantial compulsion had to move to their isolated natural abode.
For Pedro Luca, it was simply a living he made a conscious choice for. His is a very simple living without any modern gadgets except a radio which he has a tough time to tune because of weak signals at that height. Mostly he hunts animals for foods and drinks from a creek. Treated by nearby settlements and townspeople as a celebrity, he sometimes receives supplies of groceries and other essentials.
However the Chinese couples, Liang Zifu aged 81 and his 77-year-old wife Li Suying could not afford construction of a house or rent one after their marriage and therefore were looking for a suitable living quarters. The cave provided them with one. It has three bed rooms, a kitchen and even a living room -enough for raising a family. The couple grow their own food on farm they created on top of the cave and were prudent enough to have a pen for pigs. No less important is the power supply they have through an electric connection. They also boast a few modern home appliances.
Their children have left for towns and cities to raise their own families but the duo won't live the place maintaining the plus points of living in such a place where it is cool in summer and not so cold in winter. No amount of persuasion by local authorities could make them change their decision on staying where they are -not even the offer of a very attractive plot for their living.
Clearly, the Chinese couple is not living like hermits but Pedro does. Still he is not hermitic in the true sense of the term. After all, he gets old-age pensions from the local authorities and also people from nearby village treat him kindly. Moreover, he hunts animals or birds for food. Above everything else, neither of the parties is in quest of spirituality. They love their unpolluted surroundings far from the madding crowd. That is all.
However, there are others from the Indian subcontinent, who leave homes on a spiritual journey. Legend has it that theirs is the loneliest of living. Pedro has his goats and a dozen of roosters, the Chinese couple too rear pigs and most likely raise chickens. But the hermits, yogis or sadhus have a mission altogether different from the Argentinian and the Chinese. They have an avocation of life where they devote their lives to what they believe is the source of all creations on this planet and in the universe.             
Even in Kumbha Mela, the largest congregation of disciples and tourists in the world, there are naked sadus or others who are known to have followed the most rigorous of living imaginable. Some have stood on one leg and others have allowed their finger nails spiral like creepers for decades and the austerity, they believe will, take them closer to their creator. Whether this will happen or not is another matter but their single-mindedness is surely awe-striking.
Yet they are not the ones who are the ideal ones among the highest spiritual types. Those wise men avoid human contact and communication. They won't allow themselves to the lure of any trapping of this ephemeral life. This is exactly the ideal and moral foundation on which their earthly existence is built on. There are more things than the naked human eyes can meet.