Initiation

The moment she saw it, she had stopped mid-step, transfixed. For a heartbeat, the rest of the shop dissolved, and there was only the blade cold, silent, yet somehow calling her. She bought it without fully knowing why, then placed it in the display cabinet in her living room.

Almost every day, whenever she sat there, her eyes would drift toward it. The keris seemed to hum in its silence, as if it were trying to speak to her though what it wanted to say, she could never quite hear. The guru had once spoken of the warrior path of the Indian tradition.

At the time, it meant little to her she was still trying to understand what it meant to walk such a path. Yet when she thought of what to offer him, the keris felt like the only choice. Perhaps, without knowing it, she had decided to place a piece of herself at his feet.

She lifted the blade from its resting place, cleaned it, and polished the steel until it shimmered with quiet dignity. She set it on a simple tray, surrounded with ripe fruits, marigolds, and jasmine. A silent ritual of arrangement. Of intent.When he arrived, he said nothing. He simply sat cross-legged in the room filled with books, walls lined with ink, silence thick with time. She entered quietly, carrying the tray with both hands.

Then she prostrated before him, touching both his feet with reverence a gesture that said: I am ready.She laid the tray before him, the keris resting among the jasmine flowers and fruits, and sat cross-legged before him. He studied the offering. Then her. His gaze was steady, unmoving.

“I accept your guru dakshina,” he said.

Without a word, he lifted his left hand. With his forefinger, he pointed directly at her forehead, just above the space between her eyes. Almost touching. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. For a moment, it felt as if he were holding a sword and resting its tip against her brow steady and unyielding. Not cold. Not sharp. But unmistakably penetrating. A silent blade, suspended at the threshold of thought.

“Recite after me,” he said. And she did. Word by word. The syllables rolled off her tongue like echoes from a place she didn’t know she remembered. She didn’t fully understand what she was saying.

He then placed both his hands on top of her head and recited a list of mantras. She felt nothing and yet everything.The room shifted. Not in sight, but in presence. The walls seemed to inhale. The silence grew dense, as though it carried echoes of a thousand forgotten rituals. It became heavier. Older. The air thickened with memory of those who had come before, of lineages carried not by blood but by will.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“That’s because it’s not yours yet,” he said. “But it will be. When the time comes, you will know exactly what to do.”

Then he picked up the keris and placed it in her hands. They both held the blade. It rested between them cold, silent, ancient. The keris pulsed between their palms. Was it him? Was it her? Or was it the blade itself awakening? For a flicker of time, it no longer felt like metal. It felt alive.

A slow vibration moved through their hands, rising like breath through bone. The room seemed to draw closer, its edges softening, as if time itself had stepped back to watch. She dared not speak. He didn’t blink, his eyes fixed on her, steady and unflinching. Just like the forefinger before, his gaze too was like a sword, piercing straight through her.

She felt exposed. Split open. Seen. And yet she didn’t blink either. She met his stare, held it, as the keris continued to thrum between them like something that had just remembered its name.

“Hold this keris… and feel it. What’s it made of?”

“Metal.”

“Is it Christian metal? Muslim? Hindu?”She looked at him.

“Is there such a thing?” she asked.

“You tell me.”

“Metal is metal.”

“Exactly. It carries no name. No side. Yet here we are, naming everything.”

“Who created all these separations?”

“We did.” A pause. A breath.

He looked at her, not as teacher to student, but as mirror to mirror.

“Like this keris,” he said softly, “that is what you will be. Cold or warm. Hidden or seen. No label. No name. No side. Remain true to yourself.”

She nodded but said nothing. The keris did not move. But something in her had. She let go.

It was the same keris she had placed before him, yet not the same at all.

And something in her knew: this was not just repetition. It was recognition.