Babaji - The Unfathomable

Next day I had my hair cut - all of it. Someone said to my wife: "Have you seen your husband this morning? He has had his head shaved and he is smiling!"

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Through an acquaintance I got hold of the Fischer pocketbook "Botschaft vom Himalaya". I looked upon it as divine guidance to be properly put to use.

For decades I had searched for a path to bring me closer to God and the information contained in this book might well have been my saving grace. It soon even became possible for me to travel to India.

Many people had warned me against undertaking such a journey at the age of seventy and with difficulty in walking as well. The trek to the ashram was hazardous and no physical comforts were available there. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be deterred and anyhow, an easy path didn't fit my expectation of achieving the high goal of meeting Babaji.

Indeed, the journey turned out to be demanding and exhausting, though I was fortunate to be able to ride on horseback for the most difficult stretch up river. At last I saw the 108 stairs leading to the main ashram. How was I supposed to get up there?

Before attempting the climb, I bathed in the Gautama River and rested on the stony riverside. Then I set off, taking it slowly, and leaning heavily on my stick. I had barely managed a few steps before I needed to pause and rest ... and again ... and then again. So the climb continued on.

While resting on one of the steps, I took a look down over the valley and saw how the river flowed in various streams, meandering about the beautiful mountains. I inhaled the clear air and took in the quiet and the peace. It was then I thought I heard a noise somewhere behind me. I turned round and saw someone running lightly down the stairs ... it must be Babaji!

Straightening myself up and thrusting the stick forward, I managed to move up two steps and prostrated myself at His Feet. I felt His hands on my head and a wave of energy, of an intensity I had never felt before, tingled through my entire body. What rapture! Taking hold of my arm, Babaji pulled me up and passed a mala from around His neck to mine. Never will I forget His shining eyes, oceans of love, disclosing His Being to me.

*********

The yearning to meet a great Master has been awakened in me, both from reading a variety of literature and through meditation. Two high beings were of special interest to me - Babaji and Sai Baba. Sai Baba was known to openly perform miracles. I had read about both of them, but which one should I seek out?

Then I learnt that there was a Babaji ashram nearby (in Germany), so I paid a visit and heard many stories from people who had often made pilgrimages to Haidakhan.

Happy, but still in somewhat of a dilemma, I returned home. So where should I go? To Babaji or Sai Baba, whose miracles still fascinated me?

The following night. Babaji put an end to the dilemma. I dreamt I was in Haidakhan. Babaji was waiting for me, His arms stretched out to receive me. Astonishingly, He had hair like Sai Baba. He embraced me. So much love. I felt profoundly happy to be "home". I was with my Father.

When I awoke, I was peaceful. I knew now who my Master was. This dream was evidence that Babaji, too, worked miracles.

*********

One day I experienced Babaji full of mirth and frolic. As I bowed down before Him, He clapped a plastic bag over my head, bent over and exclaimed twice into my ear: "Buh ... buh", then leaned back and shook with laugher.

I remembered that "buh" was a Sanskrit word meaning "earth". It occurred to me that Babaji was referring to being caught up solely in the perspective of the material plane - the earth. He was reminding me of His point of view, where the earth was merely an amusing theatre, the one we take so seriously.

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During my first visit to Haidakhan I took special delight in watching Baba, escorted by a small band of devotees, going down to the river to bathe. Each evening I would proceed to a vantage point -- a bench in the upper ashram area -- and eagerly await the scene to be enacted. From this position I overlooked the whole valley stretching across to the other side where the nine temples basked in the glow of sunset and in front of them flowed the far-reaching streams of the Gautama Ganga River.

As the sun was setting, the small party appeared descending the stairs and moving towards the river. Babaji was holding His long staff. This picturesque sight of the little group passing over the stones, clad in bright and colourful robes, each time evoked the vision: "There goes Christ with His young ones".

In my childhood I had seen just such a picture in a religious book and now it was coming alive before my eyes.

One day at darshan a devotee presented Babaji with some photographs. Full of love, He looked at them one by one and then gave them away as gifts. To my great joy, I received one too. It happened to be a photo of Babaji with a small group of devotees, moving across the valley in the glow of sunset. Precisely the scene I so loved.

With the joy came also deep shock. "How is this possible? Who is he?" I asked myself for the first time at this level. because the power of His omniscience hit me more deeply than ever.

As time went on. this realisation taught me that Babaji embodies absolute omniscience and love and through Him, we will come to know divine love and unity with God.

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"Love me more and more -- as I love you beyond all bounds, as I have always loved you and will always love you. Never doubt my love, not even when I send you challenges and tests. both inside you and in the outside world because everything is for your highest good and for your inner growth.

Always, whenever you call me inwardly, I am already there with open arms and am waiting for you to draw you into my heart. Be always ready for anything and my blessing will have no end ... "

There was something I wanted to say to Babaji, but whatever English I had learnt at school, I had by now forgotten. So I held the thought in my mind and fixed my gaze on Him.

Raising His head, He looked at me with luminous eyes and made a gesture with His hand. I understood His answer. There have been times when, with a gentle smile, Babaji has spoken the odd German word.

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Countless gifts have been offered to Babaji. Some He gave away more or less immediately, others he kept for a longer period of time. Perhaps it had to do with the motivation or devotion which lay behind the offering.

Once I put considerable effort into making a rug and sent it off with my daughter to India. We thought this rug must have gone the way of most of the gifts because it wasn't seen again.

Two years later, on a visit to Babaji's Chilianaula ashram (situated higher in the Himalayan range), I was watching an asana (seat) being prepared for Babaji. I could hardly believe my eyes. There, lying on the top, was the little rug. I was overjoyed.

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While we were singing the evening Aarati, I noticed Babaji's eyes were concentrated on something outside in the darkness. I followed His line of vision but couldn't at first discern anything. Soon though, on the roof of the building housing the kitchen, a dog's head became visible. Yes, now more of its body appeared and it wasn't long before the old dog was sauntering down some stairs, sprinting past the temple and trampling over the seated people till it. came to a halt at Babaji's seat. The dog gazed up at Babaji. who ran His fingers through its fur and tenderly stroked its back. Then. upon a gesture from Babaji, the dog took off again.

It wasn't the first time, I had noticed Babaji communicate telepathically with animals.

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On my second visit to Haidakhan, one day I sat alone with Babaji on the other side of the valley. He had crouched down on one of the steps leading to the nine temples and indicated to me to sit at His Feet. It was my first time totally alone with Him. The peace and stillness which surrounded Him, the whole atmosphere of the temples and the beauty of the valley all lifted me up to another sphere of consciousness.

Inwardly, I said to Babaji, quite spontaneously: "I have trust in you". Scarcely had I formulated the thought when He turned his elegantly proportioned, beauteous countenance and looked at me out of unfathomable eyes.

"Yes", I repeated, "Unshakable trust have I in you".

Without any arousal from Him, I gradually came to and suddenly noticed, to my horror, that all this time I had unwittingly been sitting on His foot! Hardly had this realisation struck like lightning, when I felt Babaji's toes wriggling beneath me.

Through this incident, Babaji let me realise, to my utter amazement, how He perceives not only the immediate surroundings but at the same time also the entire world, all levels of it. and He is at one with it all.

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The greatest transformation in my life was worked by Babaji in that He opened my heart chakra and let me experience divine, all-encompassing love. It happened spontaneously, out of the blue.

We were on tour. It was that time of day for resting. Sharing my room was an elderly woman who was rather weak due to a digestive disorder. She was also crying because she had just received a lesson Babaji which had upset her. I embraced her in sympathy and then it happened .... Love in all its expansiveness, beyond all words. flowed through me. My self was dissolved in it; I was no longer present; the feeling of happiness was indescribable, infinite. "I" didn't exist as such anymore. Love was all there was. Everything was contained in it ...

Then the first fleeting thought came into awareness. "What are you doing?" Slowly and steadily, I became conscious of my body .... "I drank from you", said the elderly woman, who up till then had remained motionless and peaceful in my arms. Intuitively, she knew what had occurred.

*********

"Whosoever comes to me with love, then l will show him,' her love beyond anything imaginable".

Babaji loved to play with children. One day, in the garden, He jokingly said to a five-year-old boy: "See that dog over there -- she's your wife. What do you say to that?"

I don't want the dog for a wife".

"Well then, why not?"

"I don't like a woman with a tail and four legs".

*********

We were sitting in the kirtan hall one evening, chanting. The room was illuminated by a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling. Babaji had arrived to give darshan. One of those present in the crowd was a sick young Indian boy who had earlier visited the clinic where I worked.

Somehow I felt a strong sympathy for him and was glad to hear that Babaji had earlier that afternoon dressed him in new clothes and given him permission to stay at the ashram.

When I went to pranam to Babaji, I asked inwardly for His blessing for this sick boy. Not long after, I noticed the boy making pranam. Babaji showed him much love and placed His hand on the boy, thereby bestowing shakti (energy). For me, it was like witnessing the Divine Mother.

Darshan was over and Babaji walked over to the sick boy and again blessed him. This caring so touched me that I impulsively ran to Babaji and bowed down, thanking Him for His love and saying internally: "You are truly the Divine Mother". As I stood up again, the burning kerosene lamp above began to swing. Babaji pointed to the burning flame and said: "No fire, no fire, fire". Then He gave me a friendly look and left.

I understood intuitively that Babaji wasn't referring to fire as such, but rather to the divine energy within everything material and ethereal, which Babaji Himself embodies.

From this I now understand Babaji's presence is constantly everywhere -- within all humans, animals and plants and within all feelings, words, deeds and events.

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One can only wonder at Babaji's play on words. The following story is not only humorous but teaches me also that after death. the human body is a useless leftover and shouldn't warrant any fuss made over it.

Down by the river at a spot just below the ashram in Haidakhan, the inhabitants of the little village, according to Indian custom. cremate their dead. While the wooden logs are being properly stacked, the corpse is left to lie on a cloth just beside the pile in readiness for the offering to the purifying fire.

On this particular day of the cremation, an ashram work project happened to be taking place nearby and involved carrying big rocks over to a site where a stone rampart was being built against the anticipated monsoon floods. It seemed to me like a lack of piety to have all this industrious work going on around a dead body and it disturbed me enough to make me go to Babaji.

"Babaji, there is a corpse down there and yet work continues on in the immediate vicinity. I think the dead man should be left in peace". Babaji: "Yes ... yes ... peace, peace ... Go and chop him to pieces!"

Taken aback, I ran down the 108 stairs to the riverbed. Was I really supposed to chop up the body as is the custom in Tibet? No. Babaji was only joking...!

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If a devotee wished to receive chandan from Babaji in His little room in the early morning, he/ she had to ask for permission the evening before. So I approached Babaji and asked: "May I please come to chandan tomorrow?"

Now my English is not the best and a thought flashed through my mind: "to" sounds like "two".

Babaji smiled and nodded saying. "Three-morrow". in other words, "Yes, for three continuous mornings".

*********

It's our last darshan. Tomorrow we leave Haidakhan. So much has happened in three days. I don't want to leave yet. This place has taken such a hold of my heart. But there is no time to be gloomy over the departure.

We have just finished the day's karma yoga - work in the ashram - and are getting ready for the evening Aarati, prayer chanting. I have been asked to assist in the preparation of a puja ceremony. Fresh fruit and flowers are being beautifully arranged on a shiny platter and other items are being brought together. We feel happy to be given the privilege to participate in honouring Babaji in this way. Now it's time to take the things over to the temple.

Everyone has already assembled there. The bells are ringing. Babaji arrives. Out of Him radiates such enormous power, yet He moves nimbly and lightly, like the wind. His beauty is overwhelming; each time one sees Him, it is like a new delight. He sits on His asana and His power, love and acute concentration are evident.

Immediately, as if drawn to a magnet. a stream of devotees queue for His darshan. His attraction is irresistible. A mere smile or movement of the hand suffices to fill the heart and soul totally.

The chanting grows louder; the vibrations intensify. The first puja commences where light is offered to the great Light. Music fills the air and all mind chatter is extinguished. The offered fruit, now blessed, is served out as prasad. Sounds upon sounds (instrumental music, bells, conches, drums, damaru) pervade the clear night.

Now another puja; this time performed by a couple whose marriage ceremony took place this morning. The atmosphere becomes even more intense and high and brings everyone into a sense of oneness.

Babaji beckons one of His close, long-term devotees to say a few words. He, too, is filled with the effects of divine energy and extols in Hindi the greatness of the divine presence of Babaji in human form. How inadequate is our comprehension of a Mahavatar! Even when Rama. the hero of the Mahabharatas was on earth, little did the people recognise His greatness.

At the high point of this event, Babaji stood up. It was the most powerful experience I've ever had in my life -- ­the revelation of Babaji as the almighty energy pervading all of creation, the original energy.

The sense of unity became obvious when the speaker symbolically put out his arms, embracing some of the devotees standing beside Babaji. I was also drawn to them, as if from an inner impulse, and thereby received my farewell embrace. I didn't realise then that this was also to be my farewell, on the earth plane, to Babaji, the Avatar of the Kali Yuga.

The next morning Babaji, seemingly unmoved, performed the sacred fire ceremony: Shiva beyond time and space. A farewell with joyful heart; I shall be returning.

Five weeks later came the news of Babaji's Mahasamadhi. I was stunned. "I dwell in everything, in nature and in your heart". This was His message to me during that wonderful, intense time in Haidakhan, which totally changed my life. The time has come to put into practise the imparted knowledge: Truth. Simplicity and Love.

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