Monday, 2 September 2013
During the summer of 1973 I was staying at my father’s farm in New Hampshire, and was there in September when the telegram arrived. My father and my stepmother, looking rather concerned, met me when I returned from shopping at the village. Dad said, “This telegram just came from India, don’t understand it, but I copied it down word for word as the operator gave it to me.”
At 1:15, September 11, Babaji left his bojhay (sic) in Vrindaban…” The telegram went on with further details. My father asked, “What does it mean?”
“It means,” I said, “that Maharajji died.”
They immediately tried to console or at least commiserate with me, but their words seemed strangely irrelevant, for I felt absolutely nothing – neither sad nor happy. There was no sense of loss. Perhaps I was just numb. A couple with marital difficulties were waiting for me, so I went and sat with them and helped them unwind the tangle of thread of their loves and hatreds. Every now and then in the midst of the discussion, my mind would wander and I’d think, “Maharajji isn’t in his body. Isn’t that strange,” or “I wonder what will happen now?” But I pushed such thoughts aside and forced my consciousness back to the task at hand, for, whatever was to come, there was no sense in stopping service to others.
Throughout that day and many times thereafter I remembered the words of the great Ramana Maharshi. He was dying of cancer and in the past had shown power to heal others, and his devotees were now begging him to heal himself. He kept refusing, and they cried, “Don’t leave us, don’t leave us,” to which he replied, “Don’t be silly. Where could I go?”
After all, where could Maharajji go? I had him in my heart. I had been living with him moment by moment and yet not with his physical presence – so did it really make any difference? I wasn’t sure.
When the couple left I started calling other devotees in the United States and Canada and asked them to call others. It was agreed that those within a radius of three or four hundred miles would join me in New Hampshire. By the next noon some twenty of us were gathered. It was a peculiar meeting. We were all somewhat dumbfounded by the news and many were crying, but at the same time we were happy to be together and felt Maharaji’s presence very strongly with us. We cooked a big meal, which we ate around the fire. But before the food we went up to my room to sit before the puja table and meditate and do arti.
While all of us sang the ancient Sanskrit prayer, we took turns offering the light (in the form of a candle flame) by waving it before Maharaji’s picture. After my turn I went to the back of the group and watched. In the reflection of the candlelight I looked at the faces of my guru brothers and sisters and saw their expressions of love and the purity of their hearts. And finally I was able to cry – not out of sadness at the loss, but rather because of the presence of pure and perfect love that is Maharaji and which I felt in this gathering of hearts.
- Ram Dass, excerpt from Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
Baba Neeb Karori
Baba Neeb Karori :
An
old Nepali laborer named Khantia lived in a hut near Kainchi ashram.
His two cows were his only property. He had nobody to call his own and
was living through his old age alone.He was unhappy because he had not
been able to get rid of poverty all
through his life and believed he would not get salvation even after
death since there was no one to perform his last rights.
He used to watch the crowd that gathered around Baba at Kainchi.
One day he thought that he could offer milk from his cows to Baba. The next morning he filled a bottle with milk and went to the temple. He wanted to pour milk on Baba's head as is done over a Shivling (a stone symbolising Lord Shiva). However, seeing Baba surrounded by many people, he hesitated and gave up the idea.
He poured the milk into the river on his way out of the temple and returned to his hut.
He tried to do the same thing again on another day. He came to the bridge with the bottle in his hand and from a distance saw Baba surrounded by people as before.
Baba at once told Bhuvan Chandra Tewari to escort the old man carefully over the bridge. As Tewari approached, the old man trembled with fear. Still supporting his bottle in his hand, Tewari helped him over the bridge and brought him to Baba.
As soon as they approached, Baba snatched the bottle from the old man's hand and poured all the milk over his own head. The old man's eyes became wet with tears of love. Dumbfounded, he stared into Baba's face.
Baba asked him, "What do you want?" He asked for salvation. Baba said, "I will get your last rites performed and salvation will be given."
To assure him of his words Baba asked him to shake hands, but he hesitated. Baba instantly took his hand in his own and confirmed his words.
As Lord Krishna was moved by the poverty of Sudama [Sudama, a childhood playmate of Lord Krishna, suffered from poverty until he went to have the Lord's darshan], Baba's eyes filled with tears as he told the devotees about the old man's poverty. "Rain water drips in his hut. He has a dented plate and a broken tumbler. He has no clothes to wear, no bedding to spread for a comfortable night's rest."
After that Baba sent clothes, bedding, utensils, and other things to the old man's hut from the ashram and instructed that food be sent to him from the temple daily.
In the end, when the old man became ill, Baba sent him to Ramsay Hospital in Nainital by car and bore all the costs of his treatment. Baba left Haridas Baba at the hospital to take care of him, and when Khantia died, Baba sent thirteen people to get his last rites performed. He also had the twelfth day rites performed at the ashram according to the custom in the hills.
He used to watch the crowd that gathered around Baba at Kainchi.
One day he thought that he could offer milk from his cows to Baba. The next morning he filled a bottle with milk and went to the temple. He wanted to pour milk on Baba's head as is done over a Shivling (a stone symbolising Lord Shiva). However, seeing Baba surrounded by many people, he hesitated and gave up the idea.
He poured the milk into the river on his way out of the temple and returned to his hut.
He tried to do the same thing again on another day. He came to the bridge with the bottle in his hand and from a distance saw Baba surrounded by people as before.
Baba at once told Bhuvan Chandra Tewari to escort the old man carefully over the bridge. As Tewari approached, the old man trembled with fear. Still supporting his bottle in his hand, Tewari helped him over the bridge and brought him to Baba.
As soon as they approached, Baba snatched the bottle from the old man's hand and poured all the milk over his own head. The old man's eyes became wet with tears of love. Dumbfounded, he stared into Baba's face.
Baba asked him, "What do you want?" He asked for salvation. Baba said, "I will get your last rites performed and salvation will be given."
To assure him of his words Baba asked him to shake hands, but he hesitated. Baba instantly took his hand in his own and confirmed his words.
As Lord Krishna was moved by the poverty of Sudama [Sudama, a childhood playmate of Lord Krishna, suffered from poverty until he went to have the Lord's darshan], Baba's eyes filled with tears as he told the devotees about the old man's poverty. "Rain water drips in his hut. He has a dented plate and a broken tumbler. He has no clothes to wear, no bedding to spread for a comfortable night's rest."
After that Baba sent clothes, bedding, utensils, and other things to the old man's hut from the ashram and instructed that food be sent to him from the temple daily.
In the end, when the old man became ill, Baba sent him to Ramsay Hospital in Nainital by car and bore all the costs of his treatment. Baba left Haridas Baba at the hospital to take care of him, and when Khantia died, Baba sent thirteen people to get his last rites performed. He also had the twelfth day rites performed at the ashram according to the custom in the hills.
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