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CHAPTER
SIX
The first time I saw Babaji, in February, 1981, was not at His ashram in
Herakhan, but instead in one of the temples devoted to Him in the city of
Vrindaban, the reputed birthplace of Lord Krishna and the place where He
was married. Louis
and I had already been in India for almost ten days, waiting to learn
where we could find Babaji. While waiting, we had gone to the city of Shrinagar to see
Lake Dal and then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.
We had even taken a few days to fly up to Kathmandu in Nepal. Between
each trip, we returned to Anjali House in New Delhi where ten other
Rebirthers, including Leonard, were all waiting to hear word of where
exactly Babaji was. We knew
only that He was not up at Herakhan, but was instead traveling around
India, visiting His various ashrams and temples. But it wasn’t until only four days remained of our
scheduled stay in India that Louis and I learned that He had left Bombay
and would be found in a city called Vrindaban, a few hours’ drive from
New Delhi. When
Leonard told me that we could go to see Babaji in Vrindaban the next
morning, I joked and said, “Listen, the way things are going, the minute
I go to Vrindaban, we’ll learn that He’s gone from there to Calcutta
or some such.”
Leonard looked at me very seriously and said, “Oh no, I promise
you by this time tomorrow you will be with Babaji.” I
told him he sounded extremely biblical, very much like Jesus talking to
the thief being crucified with Him when He said, “I promise you by this
time tomorrow you will be with your Father in paradise.” In
any case, we spent the evening discussing how we were going to travel to
Vrindaban. It was finally
decided that two cars with drivers would be ordered, and that all the
Rebirthers who were there at Anjali House would be distributed between the
two cars! There was a lot of
bickering and arguing about who would be in which car.
I
wasn’t especially thrilled by the arrangements.
Unlike most of the others who had spent all their time in Delhi, I
had already experienced the mixed pleasure of driving in taxis on
India’s bumpy roads. I knew
them as not only bumpy but frightening, simply because of the immense
amount of traffic everywhere and its diversity—elephants, camels,
horses, bicycles, and two-wheeled carts—as well as the absence of any
observable pattern to the flow of traffic, anyhow, so people were on both
sides of the road going in both directions simultaneously.
I knew that it was awfully common in India for people to be packed
closely together in buses and trains, but I really didn’t think it was
safe, and it certainly wouldn’t be comfortable to be so tightly packed
into automobiles. But
finally, we all agreed that we would leave in just the two cars early the
next morning. At 6:00 A.M.
everyone was up and waiting for Leonard, who was in the bathtub Rebirthing
himself. 7:00 passed, then
8:00 and 9:00. By this time,
I was beginning to be beside myself with frustration, especially when two
more people arrived! One of
them, Hans, was someone I knew from Los Angeles, and he was there with his
son. They had tickets for the
train to go down to Vrindaban, but when they learned we were all driving,
the two together wanted to drive with us.
Now, suddenly we were going to be not five in a car with a driver,
but seven in a car with the driver! I
was almost beside myself with annoyance over such an arrangement! As
I went to the bathroom, I suddenly had a moment of clarity; I realized
that renting taxis in India only costs the equivalent of $35 a day for the
cab and driver, plus the gasoline cost.
We had already survived taxi trips from Delhi to Agra and other
cities. I could easily afford
an entire taxicab for me and Louis! So
I ran back out into the living room where people were glowering and
bickering, and said, “Listen, don’t worry about it at all.
I’m going to order another taxi, and Louis and I are going to
leave now, because I don’t want to fritter away the last of my three
days here in India waiting for Leonard to finish Rebirthing himself.
And I certainly don’t want to be stuck in a cab with so many of
you, as much as I love you.” So
it was arranged that we would take one cab and leave right then and there.
The Indian man who had previously accompanied Leonard around on his
trips in India, Vinay Shukla, came up to me just as I was getting into the
taxi, and said, “But Mama, my suitcase is in the boot of this taxi.
Are you willing to take it with you down to Vrindaban?
When we get there, I will take it from you.”
Half
jokingly, I snapped back at him, “Only if you promise to love me
forever!” At
that point, Vinay fell on his knees and pranammed to me, putting his head
to the ground in front of my shoes, and said, “Oh Mama, I promise you I
will love you forever!” So,
after all, we left on a happy note. (Since
that time, Vinay and his wife and their three daughters have become very
dear to me and to Louis, and we visited them each time we went to India.
In 1993, their first Thanksgiving as a family after they moved to
the United States, we even spent Thanksgiving with them in their new home
near San Jose.) When
we got to Vrindaban after six hours of breathtaking travel on India’s
“best” road, we went to the Hare Krishna Retreat Home to find a place
to stay there. When
we got there, we were given our choice: we could be on the fourth floor in
a large room where we would sleep in our sleeping bags on the floor with
perhaps another dozen people and we’d pay about a dollar a night, or we
could have a room on the first floor of the hotel, with windows on both
sides, two separate beds, and, wonder of wonder in India, its own
almost-Western-style bathroom, for about $10 a night for Louis and me. Needless
to say, I decided that I could, of course, afford the first floor room,
and so we moved into that. Then
I hastily put on a sari, and picked from my luggage the presents that we
had brought to give to Babaji, and Louis and I went out to the taxi where
our driver waited, having found out directions to the temple where Babaji
was. Outside
the temple was a flower cart from which Louis and I each bought a garland
of marigolds, a mala, to present to Babaji. I
left my shoes with the pile of shoes at the front door and hastened into
the temple, but saw absolutely no one around.
I seemed to be in a courtyard, so I went through that into another
building and there saw two people standing. The
one looked like a brown version of my father!
He was about as big and as thick through and wide and stocky as my
father had been. He had an
amazing similarity of looks, in both posture and features, to my
father’s. He was standing
next to a man with grey hair and a long drooping grey moustache. I
suddenly recognized the one who resembled my father.
I exclaimed out loud, “Oh my God, it’s Babaji!” Then
I went walking across the otherwise empty room to Him, the mala still over
my arm. I was holding out my
hand to shake His hand and introduce myself.
As I came close to Him I said, “Hello.
My name is Eve Jones and I’m from Los Angeles.
I’m really glad to meet you.” He
extended His arm and I thought He was about to take my hand and shake it.
But instead His hand went past mine and He took the mala off of my
arm and put it around His neck. He
said something to His friend, and then asked me in English, “Where you
from? How you know me?” I
told Him that I had heard of Him from Leonard Orr through Rebirthing, and
He said, “Ah yes, Leonard, where? He
come see me?” I
told Him that I had left Leonard back in New Delhi, but that probably he
would be there that afternoon or the next day. I
looked around for Louis who had been right behind me until I entered the
Temple, but couldn’t see him. Suddenly, just at that juncture, Louis stumbled over the
threshold into the temple, explaining, “I couldn’t get my shoes
untied.” Then
he looked past me and said, “Oh my God, it’s Babaji!”
Just
like me, Louis walked across the room with his hand out, the mala over his
arm, ready to shake Babaji’s hand, saying, “Hello.
My name is Louis Ortiz, and I’m traveling with Eve here and I’m
so happy to meet you.” Babaji
did the same thing with him. He
put His hand out as if He were going to shake Louis’ hand, then instead
took the mala off of Louis’ forearm, put it around His arm, and then
introduced Louis to Shastraji, His friend. We
had no idea of how people approached Babaji.
I had never seen Him before. There
was no one else around except Shastraji, and both of them were standing
talking to each other. I
thought I was being polite in my behavior and that Louis was, too.
We didn’t see that either Babaji or Shastraji took any offense in
the way we behaved. And I
still think it’s lovely symbolism—if I make Babaji, God—that I went
up to Him so forthrightly and looked Him in the eye and met Him.
And I feel good that Louis also had that level of self-esteem.
Looking back on it, I think it was a marvelous metaphor. Right
after Babaji introduced Louis to Shastraji, He said, “But have you eaten
yet?” It
was then that I realized that Babaji’s voice was extremely high, much
higher even than my usual speaking voice.
It was almost feminine and it was sweet.
It had no coarseness or harshness to it.
In fact, Babaji’s voice reminded me of the sound of my mother’s
voice, as total as His body had reminded me of my father.
I had those thoughts in my mind even at that instant when I was
meeting Him and hearing Him talk for the first time. I
thought back to my old psychoanalytic training.
Sigmund Freud, in his late books on religion and psychoanalysis,
Moses and Monotheism, Civilization and Its Discontents, and The Future of
an Illusion, commented that man creates God in the image of his father and
his mother, that God is a projection of his parents.
And I thought to myself, “Well, the old boy was absolutely right. Here, this man so many people call God looks like my father
and sounds and acts like my mother! I’ve
done a perfect job of creating my perfect God.” Anyhow,
Babaji told us that we should go eat, that it was lunchtime, and we could
come back later and see Him again. I
was dismayed, not only because I usually don’t eat breakfast or lunch,
but because the thought of getting into the taxi and looking around for a
place to eat was more than I wanted to deal with.
But at that moment, Babaji put His arm around my shoulders and
moved me toward some stairs, saying, “Go, go.
You eat upstairs, you eat upstairs.” So
Louis and I went upstairs. We saw a large room with row after row of people sitting
cross-legged on the floor with what looked like large leaves on the ground
in front of them. There was
food on those leaves. The
people were eating with their right hands, no utensils. We
looked around and there were two places at the very front of the room,
places, that is, set with leaves. When we were told that we should sit there, I realized that
we were facing everybody else. It
was as if we had two special seats. They
couldn’t have been seats for Babaji and Shastraji because Babaji
didn’t eat in front of His devotees.
I still wonder who they were really for, but at that instant, they
were for us, obviously. So
we sat down, and when I looked out across the group of people in front of
us, I saw many familiar faces (though still not the people that I’d been
with in New Delhi off and on through the past two weeks—they hadn’t
yet arrived). But there were
a few people in that group that I knew because they were people I had
Rebirthed at various trainings around in the United States, and others
were people who had been at Campbell Hot Springs during times when I had
been there. I
was excited and waved first to Margaret Gold, a woman I knew who came from
Washington, D.C., and then to another woman and then to a man I knew. Just
then I realized someone was there putting a helping of food on my leaves
and pouring me some water into a cup.
I didn’t especially want to eat, because my habit is not to eat
during the daytime. So at
first, when the person who was serving from this very large galvanized
zinc bucket started to serve me, I said, “No, no.”
But he said, “Oh, yes, yes, Babaji wants you to eat.” So
I started to occupy myself with eating the food.
Physically, it was extremely hot to my fingers, so I had a hard
time picking up even small pieces of the vegetables or rice and getting
them to my mouth. Although
the food was delicious, I took only a few bites and I only drank one
swallow of the water. That
was really all I wanted, so I left the rest of it. Louis,
on the other hand, ate all of the food and had several glasses of water.
After
everyone had finished their food, we were told that there would be Darshan
with Babaji later that afternoon and that we should now go and rest. As
Louis and I were filing out of the room, we met up with Margaret, and it
turned out that she was staying at the same hotel we were staying at, the
Hare Krishna Retreat Home. So
we all went back to the hotel together in my taxi, with my driver.
We didn’t nap. Instead, we had a marvelous time finding out from Margaret
what it was like when she first went to Herakhan, as well as catching up
on her news about other mutual acquaintances.
In
a few hours, it was time to go back to see Babaji.
This
time, things were totally different!
When we got to the temple, we found hundreds of people already
crowded into the temple, all chanting a bhajan, that is, a holy song.
The men were on one side and the women were on the other; and they
were crowded close, sitting cross-legged with knees against backs of the
people in front of them and knees against knees of the people on each
side. Louis went off to the
men’s side, and I stayed with Margaret on the women’s side. Then
Babaji came in. And I, for
the first time in my life, actually saw real people bowing and kneeling.
Remember, Jews don’t bow or kneel—I’d only seen that in
movies. Moreover, there in
real life, men and women were actually throwing themselves on the ground
in front of Babaji or kissing the ground where He had walked! After
He seated Himself on His throne, an immensely long line formed of people,
standing up, each holding some gift to give to Babaji.
I
got in line with one of my gifts, and after a considerable wait, reached
Babaji and gave Him my present, nodding my head and curtsying slightly in
lieu of falling on the floor. As
I started to walk away, the people near him grabbed hold of my sari,
pointed to space down at the feet of Babaji, and said, “No, no, Babaji
wants you to stay. Sit,
sit.” And
so I sat there as people in the line came by and pranammed, that is, as
they kneeled with hands clasped. Some
put their heads on the ground or stretched out full length in front of
Him. Many times He kept
talking to me and didn’t even look at the people who were giving Him
presents. I felt bad for
them, but was deeply grateful not to be being ignored as they were.
As they passed by and gave Him their presents, Babaji asked such
questions of me as where I was born, what religion I was, had I been in
India before—and then He gave me a handful of candy! Now,
at that time, I was trying to avoid all refined carbohydrates, so my
reaction to the handful of chocolate that He gave me was the same as my
reaction had been at lunchtime. I
said, “No thank You, I don’t eat candy.” And
He made a frown, as if jokingly threatening me with His displeasure, and
said, “Oh, yes, you eat.” So,
I did unwrap one of the chocolates and put it in my mouth.
It was superb! It was
the first chocolate I had eaten in many, many, many months, well over a
year, and it was one of the best chocolates I have ever eaten in my life!
He
smiled and seemed very pleased that I enjoyed it so much—and I certainly
was enjoying myself. A
little later, He offered a big box of spices to me and told me to take
one. I selected one, thinking
that I would keep it as a souvenir, but, no, He wanted me to put it in my
mouth. So I was stuck
mouthing a cardamom pod that must have been at least an inch long, the
biggest one I’d ever seen in my life.
It was so hard and dry that I found I couldn’t crack it in my
teeth, strong as they are, so I finally took it out surreptitiously and
wrapped it in a Kleenex and then put it in my little purse that I was
carrying. I still wonder what
else I was supposed to do with it and also if there was any significance
to my selecting cardamom rather than one of the other spices. After
a while, the chanting moved from bhajana into the Aarati, the worship
service, and I was sent back to sit with the women.
I tried to follow the service with my written transliteration of
the Hindu and Sanskrit words, but the chanting went way too fast for me to
keep track and also follow the meaning. After
Aarati, another long line formed of people going to pranam to Babaji.
We were told that if we wanted to receive chundun from Him in the
morning, we needed to get into that line and ask for permission.
Chundun is the ritual where sandalwood paste is used to mark the
person’s forehead to show that that person is a devotee.
The
different orientations of Hindus toward their different gurus and lords, I
think, are revealed by how the chundun markings go.
Devotees of Babaji, who are all Shiva followers, seem to have three
yellow stripes going from left to right across their forehead; with a red
mark beneath them and sometimes some rice grains put into that red mark.
Anyhow,
I got into the line and asked permission to receive chundun in the
morning, and was told that that would be all right, even though I wasn’t
a devotee. The
chanting broke up close to midnight, and I went back to the Hare Krishna
Retreat with Louis. Both of
us were exhilarated and feeling immense surges of energy, which made it
difficult to go to sleep, but eventually we did. Four
o’clock arrived soon. Louis said that he hadn’t had enough sleep and that he
didn’t feel well and didn’t want to come.
For a moment I was diverted with annoyance toward him, but then
decided I wasn’t going to miss my chance to be on time in order to argue
with him. I rushed to get
washed and dressed to go out to the taxi to go back to the temple for
chundun, then silent meditation, and the first Aarati of the day. When
I arrived at the temple, there was a line, but much shorter this time,
because the line was especially for Westerners who wanted to receive
chundun and had gotten permission the night before.
So I stood in line.
When I got to Babaji, I sank down in front of Him in a cross-legged
position, a half-lotus, and looked up at His face as His hand came forward
and He put something cool on my forehead.
As
I started to get up, my knee, which occasionally locks or unlocks all on
its own, decided to give way, and I almost pitched forward into Babaji’s
lap. His left arm came
forward and He gave me a giant whack with His arm on the top of my right
arm, sending me flying through the air, probably five or six feet, still
in my half-cross-legged condition. I
landed falling on Joanne Hongslo who had been standing in line ahead of
me. Joanne turned around with
her fists at the ready as if she were going to start a fight with me, and
said, “What the—!”
I said, “I’m really sorry, I don’t know what—Babaji just
hit me!” By
this time, I was crying, not from pain, but from a feeling of confused
despair and shock over being struck.
My husbands had hit me, lovers had hit me, my father had even hit
me once or twice in my childhood; and now here was this male personage who
was supposed to be God, hitting me! All
of the procession had stopped during these few little seconds that I was
falling on Joanne and righting myself and getting onto my feet.
Then I thought, well, I have to do something about this.
And I turned to Babaji and said, “Why?”
And
He pointed His right forefinger forward, waving His arm, and said, “Move
more quickly!” I
thought, “Well, here we go, again.
Here’s another metaphor. That’s
exactly the truth. I must
move more quickly. I’ve got
to get on with life. I’ve
been doing the same things, the same way, for too long, and it’s time to
make some changes. I must
move more quickly. I must get
off of my old negatives more quickly, and change.” The
symbology still strikes me. But
I still wonder about the actuality. How
could a person sitting on the floor be hit with enough force to be lifted
off of the ground and sent flying through the air, yet not be hurt?
I didn’t have any bruising on my upper arm, my arm didn’t hurt. It’s as if I had been a feather-light floating object and
Babaji had just come and lofted me through the air farther on my path
going forward. Later
that morning, after Aarati, during another long procession, I was once
again invited to sit at Babaji’s feet while people pranammed by.
I realized that I was being treated like a queen.
Little tidbits, other candies, pieces of fruit, were occasionally
offered to me by Babaji. Babaji
took a beautiful marigold mala that someone going in the procession before
me had presented to Him and placed it around my neck when I first came up
to pranam to Him. I was
absolutely shocked by how cool the flowers felt against my neck and was
bewildered by the honor of receiving the mala from Him.
I really didn’t know how to behave, sitting there at His feet.
It
was interesting to see the many faces coming by, to notice how many of the
people—especially the Indians, it seemed to me, more even than the
Westerners—seemed to be wanting something from Babaji, begging for
something from Him. They were
not there only to adore Him and to sing His praises, but rather to get
some help from Him. (On
another trip to India, Louis and I went to see Sai Baba at His ashram down
near Bangalor. There, too, my
overwhelming, pervasive feeling was that everyone was pulling at Him,
trying to get something from Him. It seemed to me that this poor man, who was no taller than I
am, was being grabbed at and taken from to such a degree that His energies
would soon be depleted. I
felt sorry for Him.) I
had much less of that feeling with Babaji, but there was something of that
sort, after all, anyhow.) I
found myself wondering about that attitude of begging and needing to
get—I felt that I was an extremely lucky person in that my attitude was
one of interest and pleasure, not adoration, not belief, not awe, and not
need. I was more like
somebody watching a very interesting ritual, not necessarily even knowing
exactly what was going on. The
afternoon before, I had asked Babaji if I might be permitted to take
pictures of Him, and He had replied, “Why not?”
Then He laughed and said, “Wait.
Tomorrow. Bring camera
tomorrow.” That
was fine with me since I didn’t have my camera with me anyhow, and hated
to think of driving back through Vrindaban to the Hare Krishna Retreat to
get the camera to come back to the temple. Now
it was the next day and I had
brought my camera. So,
following the morning Aarati and darshan, I went up to Babaji to ask if I
could please take pictures of Him then, and He agreed that I could.
Just then, one of the Westerners who seemed to be part of the
entourage surrounding Babaji spoke in English to the large group, saying
that Babaji had appointed a particular person, Dr. So-and-such, as His
representative and that now that Doctor could heal all body ailments.
So people who had anything wrong with them could get in line in the
open room next to the part of the Temple where Babaji sat on His throne
and Dr. So-and-such would help them heal.
Since
my knee was still hurting, I got in line, holding my camera, expecting to
take pictures of Babaji when I had an opportunity to.
As I stood in line, I watched the Doctor sweep some peacock
feathers over the person who lay on the floor face up in front of him.
After a minute or so, that patient rose and the next person in line
lay down for the treatment. I
also took a picture of Margaret Gold who, through coincidence, happened to
be standing in line ahead of me with the man I know now as Radhe Shyam. I
had my camera all ready when Babaji walked by with Shastraji and went out
to the outer courtyard through which I had first entered the temple the
previous day. He went into a
corner near a fountain and looked at me, laughing and lifting His chin as
if He were posing and signaling me. I
lifted the camera to look through the viewfinder to take the picture of
Babaji, but, in total contrast to how things had been up to that instant,
I could not see clearly through my camera! As
I looked into the viewfinder, all I could see was dark swirling smoke, as
if I were actually looking into thick smoke coming from a big bonfire!
I
couldn’t understand what could be wrong.
I took the camera away from my eye and looked it over carefully.
The camera seemed to be fine.
Nothing was burning. The
lens was clear and clean. What
could be wrong? When I looked
up, I caught Babaji’s eye and saw that He was laughing even harder at
me. I tried once again to
take a picture of Him, but this time, it looked as if my camera viewfinder
were filled with smoke so dense that I couldn’t even see through it
anymore. The smoke no longer
seemed to be swirling; it was beginning to be compacted.
In
part, I actually was afraid that I might have ruined the camera.
It was an OM-1, a single lens reflex Olympus that I had bought for
my youngest daughter on a trip to Argentina a few years earlier when I’d
gone down there to ski during my summer vacation from school. It wasn’t a camera that I was very well-acquainted with, so
somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought that I might have done
something wrong and really screwed it up, and that I was going to end up
having to buy her another expensive camera.
I
turned to Margaret and Radhe Shyam and said, “What could be wrong with
my camera?” I
explained that I couldn’t see through the viewfinder, and Margaret said,
“Oh, Babaji is just playing a trick on you, that’s all.” Radhe
Shyam took the camera from my hands, looked it over, and held it up to his
eye, then asked, “Is there a lens cap cover?”
I
said, “Yes, it’s here in my hand.”
I
always automatically removed it and kept it in my right hand whenever I
opened my camera for a shot. After
he saw that the cover really was off, he said, “Well, I don’t know.
There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it.”
He
shot a couple of pictures with the camera aimed down toward the floor of
the temple, saw that the film advance and the shutter were working, and
then handed it back and said, “Margaret’s right.
Babaji’s just playing a game with you.” Margaret
told me that Babaji often played games with people and their cameras, and
that I shouldn’t worry about it. In
a strange way, I felt honored that He wanted to tease me.
And so I thought, all right, I guess I can’t take any pictures,
at least not now. When
it was my turn to lie down and have my aura swept by the doctor with his
magic peacock feathers, I explained to him that my knee was very sore and
that I would like him to heal that. I wasn’t doing that with any feeling of conviction that he
would indeed heal my knee, but I was willing to find out if it could be
done. I certainly did not lie
down with any great expectations that his chanting was going to make a
difference to how my knee felt. He
asked me to repeat the phrase, Om Namaha Shivaya (I surrender to the Will
of God), over and over while he swept the feathers over me.
At some point, he asked me to sit up and gave me some sacred ash.
He told me to put it in my mouth and also to rub some on my knee. While
he was doing that, I heard everybody in the part of the Temple where
Babaji had been sitting on His throne give a great big yell of “Bhole
Baba Ki Jai,” which means “Praises to the simple Father!” I
thought they yelled that whenever Babaji appeared or left the room.
Immediately afterwards, it became extremely quiet, no chanting or
noise and commotion. So I
assumed that, much as had happened the day before, Babaji had left the
temple and the devotees had left for an afternoon rest.
When I sat up, my back was to the part of the temple where Babaji
usually sat on His throne. I
assumed that the entire temple behind me was empty except for the few
people left in the part where I was who were still waiting in line to be
treated. The doctor looked at
me and said, coaxingly, “I want you to go over and really pranam to
Baba.” Now,
the several times that I had already joined the procession and walked in
front of Babaji, I had bowed my head and sort of curtsied, but I hadn’t
knelt, I hadn’t put my head to his feet, and I hadn’t stretched out on
the ground. I hadn’t done
any of those things because I’d never in my life done any of those
things. Jewish people don’t
kneel at religious services, and, in fact, like Quakers, Jews are supposed
to kneel only to their God. (Parenthetically,
that’s why Jews were traditionally excused from having to kneel in front
of secular rulers of particular countries.
It’s also one of the reasons why citizens of those countries
disliked Jews since it looked as if Jews were being given special
permission not to even have to bow to the reigning monarch, whereas other
citizens had to.) When
the doctor said that, I felt fear run through me over the idea that I was
going to have to kneel, but then I recalled that everyone had yelled
before, when I had assumed Babaji had left, so I immediately felt relief
and said, “Oh, but He’s not there.
He already left.” But
when I turned around, I found much to my surprise that the entire temple
was still completely filled with devotees, just as it had been when I
first lay down, and that Babaji was still up on his throne, as He had
been. But everyone was
absolutely quiet and He was looking toward me.
It
seemed as if the doctor wanted me to do more than just dip my head.
I would have to bow more than I had been bowing!
Yet I didn’t want to be a hypocrite—since I didn’t feel any
special awe in the presence of Babaji, I thought it would be wrong for me
to pretend to be worshiping Him when I didn’t.
So, as I stood up and walked across from where the doctor was to
where Babaji’s throne was, I was in total turmoil. Anyhow
I walked across the room I was in, then I put my camera down on the floor
next to a Rebirther I knew and asked him to keep an eye on it.
As I straightened up from doing that to walk the last few feet over
toward Babaji, suddenly His face broke into a smile, and He lifted His
feet up straight forward from Him so that they were exactly at the level
of my lips while I was standing up in front of His throne! In
that instant, I felt a great inpouring of love, as if I were seeing a
brand-new baby of mine for the first time.
I thought, “He wants me to love Him, He wants me to adore Him,
He’s just like a giant baby!” I
rushed those last few feet and threw myself on Him and laughed and kissed
His feet as they stayed up there in the air in front of me.
And then I was pulled down to sit down on the ground next to His
throne chair again and the procession and loud chanting started up again.
I felt an immense relief and joy. Later,
during the morning break, one of Babaji’s attendants came up and asked
if I had a hundred dollar bill. He
explained that a person who was traveling for Babaji didn’t want to
carry a large number of small bills, but rather wanted a small number of
large bills. I
said that I had a $100 bill out in the taxi and I went out, found my purse
in the taxi where I had left it, and came back to give the bill to the
person who was asking for it. As
he started to give me in exchange a handful of bills in small
denominations of rupees, I said, “No, no, no, forget it.
I was going to give Babaji more presents anyhow, so let the hundred
dollar bill be my present to Him for right now.” So
he took the hundred dollar bill and that was fine with me, although I
wondered in passing how I would ever know that the money actually got to
Babaji. I
was glad I had been treated so well by Babaji before I gave Him the
money—I wouldn’t want to have worried He was being nice to me just
because I gave Him more than a few books and dried fruit. Soon
after, we were told it was time for us to all leave for another break.
We could come back at a certain time later on for lunch, and then
there would be Aarati late in the afternoon once again. When
I got back to the Hare Krishna Retreat, Louis was lying in bed, groaning.
He told me that in the seven hours that I had been gone, he had
been extremely sick to his stomach, vomiting many times.
He said he couldn’t understand why he was so sick.
I pointed out that he’d eaten a lot of the ashram food the day
before and that he’d drunk many glasses of its water, and he said,
“Yes, but all of that was blessed by Babaji, so I couldn’t have gotten
anything from that.” And
I thought, “That’s really interesting.
Here he has the innocent belief that whatever Babaji blesses is
fine and can’t hurt him, yet he’s sick, while I, who have had no such
belief at all, am healthy and receiving such splendid, marvelous treatment
from Babaji.” I
told Louis that, and told him in great detail about everything that had
happened in that eventful morning. I
started with the very first thing in the morning, the whole business of
being sent flying through the air. Louis
knows that if he grabs me to hurry me across the street, for example,
sometimes I bruise so easily I’m left with “fingerprints” on my
arms. But, looking as
carefully as he could at my upper arm, he couldn’t see any sign of
redness or bruising. Yet
obviously Babaji must have used a great deal of power in order to send me
through the air such a distance, especially since I started from a
complete stop down on the ground. Louis
repeatedly shook his head and said, “I can’t believe it.” Then
I told him about what had happened with the camera.
And again he refused to believe it.
He grabbed the camera, looked through it, and couldn’t see
anything. It was absolutely,
completely black. There was
no distinction whatsoever, no definition, nothing could be seen through
it. Neither of us could
figure out what could have happened.
We both sat there, shaking our heads, occasionally saying, “I
can’t believe it.” We
put it back on the sill of the window there in the hotel room, and about
ten minutes later, Louis said, “Let me look at that again.” As
I looked through it before handing it back to him, I saw that it was more
like what it had looked like when I first looked through it, trying to
take my first picture of Babaji: The rectangular viewfinder in the center
of the field was now a field of swirling black smoke.
But the rest of the screen around it was still completely solid
black, totally opaque. Louis
looked too, and confirmed that it was “smokey.”
What could the smoke be from?
Nothing could be burning. Neither
one of us knew; I was afraid to open the camera, so I just put it back on
the window sill. Every
twenty minutes or so over the next couple of hours, we looked through the
camera and aimed it out the window to see what we could see through it.
We tripped the shutter button as if we were taking pictures. Each
time that I looked through it, I saw a gradual lessening of the darkness
and smoke. At
first the viewfinder rectangle emerged from the total blackness as a
rectangle filled with swirling black smoke with a solid black screen
around it. Then
the viewfinder turned to swirling dark grey smoke with the screen around
it being swirling black smoke. The
next time I looked through it, the viewfinder was filled with swirling
medium grey smoke, and the border was filled with dark grey smoke.
An
hour later, the viewfinder was light grey smoke, with the border around it
medium grey smoke. After
another twenty minutes, the viewfinder was filled with white smoke and the
border was filled with light grey smoke.
After
almost two hours, the viewfinder was clear!
I could once again see what was in front of the camera, though the
rest of the field was still filled with white smoke. In
another half hour, the camera was perfectly “normal,” back to the way
it had always been before I had first aimed it at Babaji! It
remained perfectly normal from then on.
Two months later, when I got that roll developed, the frames that
were shot in the temple, of Margaret and of the temple floor, were
absolutely fine. Her face was
there, the marble of the floor was there. And the pictures of the window and the grill in front of the
window there in the bedroom at the Hare Krishna Retreat also came out,
even though they were taken while the camera was still “smokey.”
But, none of the pictures
that were aimed toward Babaji came out.
All
right! All
I could conclude was that Babaji wanted to impress me, he wanted me to
love him, he wanted to blow my mind, he wanted to show me some trick he
could do that would mystify me and amaze me and awaken in me warm feelings
for him. And
he succeeded. My knee
wasn’t healed, but my heart was. I
spent the remainder of that day back at the temple, sitting at Babaji’s
feet, eating candies when they were pressed on me, watching the devotees
pranam to Babaji, loving them as they loved this Babaji I now loved, too. By
evening Aarati, Louis was recovered enough to come to the temple.
He later told me that he had the same reactions I had had when he
first saw hundreds of people literally throwing themselves down on the
ground where Babaji walked, kissing His footprints in the dust, and making
such abject genuflections to Him. He
said he hoped we hadn’t offended Babaji by just walking straight up to
Him, holding our arms out to shake His hand.
I didn’t think Babaji had taken offense and reassured Louis that
that was so. After
Aarati, we lined up again to pass in front of Babaji.
I was deeply touched when I saw Louis first kneel before Babaji,
who put His hands on Louis’ head for several minutes.
I could see all the reverence and devotion that had probably
characterized Louis when he was a young altar boy.
I wished he could once again become that pure and good. The
evening passed in chanting and listening to Babaji talk.
Then we went back to our beds. We
needed to leave the following morning if we were to return to New Delhi to
catch the plane on which we were scheduled to leave India the next day.
So, after morning Aarati and darshan, we needed to go back to the
Hare Krishna Retreat, get our luggage and start the 5-hour taxi ride back
to New Delhi. I
went up to Babaji to say goodbye and to ask Babaji if we had His
permission to come see Him again, and He replied, “Why not.” I
left Him to go to find Louis and go out to the car.
As I threaded my way through the people seated on the Temple floor,
I suddenly felt someone grab my ankle, and I looked down.
There at my feet was Hans. He
said that he wanted to tell me how much he loved me and that he apologized
to me for the way he had been treating me! I
still believe that the struggle between Hans and me back in Los Angeles
the first year that I was involved with Rebirthing was a major reason why
a One-Year Seminar didn’t get organized immediately after Leonard’s
first training in Los Angeles. So
I would like to think Hans was referring to that.
But even if he only meant the way he had fought and argued about
getting us all into one car to drive down from New Delhi, that was quite
acceptable to me. As
we drove away from the temple, I felt requited.
I was sad to be leaving Babaji after such a short time, but there
was also an element of relief. Most of the time, I hadn’t understood what was happening,
and I didn’t seem to share the same feelings that other people seemed to
have. I found that I loved
Babaji, that I enjoyed just sitting and looking at Him, just as I had
enjoyed looking at my little babies when they were brand new (or, in fact,
still do now that they’re grown). I
felt that same kind of unconditionally-loving maternal reaction to Him,
but it was very difficult for me to see Him as God, incarnate. I
don’t even understand the whole idea.
How would I know if so-and-such is God?
How would I know if somebody were enlightened, if I were
enlightened, if anybody were? It calls for a kind of judgment which I think mitigates
against the very experience of being enlightened. In
any case, as we were driving along, about halfway between the temple and
the Hare Krishna Retreat, I saw a taxi going in the opposite direction.
The drivers called out to each other, and both cabs stopped in the
middle of the intersection. Just
then, I saw Leonard Orr and Jeanne Carr in the other taxi!
For the three days that I had been in Vrindaban, Leonard had not
gone to the Temple. Instead,
he had been up on the fourth floor of the Hare Krishna Retreat, being
extremely sick in that one big room, with ten other Rebirthers. How
wonderful it was that Louis and I had decided to leave New Delhi when we
did! Otherwise, I’m sure
Leonard would have gotten the first floor room and we would have been up
on the fourth floor of the Hare Krishna Retreat, crowded into a room with
ten other Rebirthers, several having the digestive problems that often
beset people in India. By
contrast, merely by arriving earlier, we had a beautiful garden bedroom
with its own bathroom and running water! When
the two cars came to a stop, I got out.
Jeanne got out and came up to me just before Leonard also got out
of their taxi. She came over
and said, “Well, you certainly have been treated like royalty by
Babaji.” I
said, “Yes,” and added, “If that’s any indication of my basic
self-esteem, then it’s a lot higher than I thought it was.”
And she agreed.
As we met in the middle of the road, Leonard asked me, “Well, how
did you find Babaji?” I
proceeded to tell him about everything that had happened from the moment
that I first walked into the temple until that very moment when I ran into
him and Jeanne at the intersection. I
told him every detail that I could recall, and Leonard stood there,
listening and listening and listening. I
talked for almost 45 minutes, smack in the middle of the intersection.
I thought it was a strange place for me to be giving such an
extended report. The entire
happening made me think of the title of Sheldon Kopp’s book, If You See
the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him. Fortunately,
I didn’t think Leonard was the Buddha, and, anyhow, I certainly am not
given to violence. Finally,
Leonard and Jeanne went on their way to the temple, and Louis and I left
to pick up our things and then drive back to New Delhi. At
the entrance to the Hare Krishna hotel, we spoke with the Indian man who
ran the hotel’s restaurant. He
had seemed to be a fussy, unemotional person, but in less than five
minutes, he was telling me of the deaths of his wife and son, and we were
both weeping and embracing. I
felt filled with compassion, thankful I had been there for him and that he
had shown me he was human. We
parted with reassurances that we would meet again on my next trip. When
I finally got to our room, I found Joanne Hongslo weeping on Louis’ bed.
After a quick flicker of jealousy, I asked her what was wrong. She said she was unhappy because Babaji had never once looked
at her when she pranammed to Him. He
had been talking to other people, instead, and He hadn’t even looked at
her gifts when He accepted them and then He had handed them over to other
people. So He never actually
saw them. I felt afraid she
was jealous of me for all the times Babaji talked to me or gave me gifts. And I was jealous because Louis was patting her back in
sympathy as she cried. Why
was this happening? The
thought flashed through me that Joanne must have been ignored at birth.
When I told her that, she was amazed.
It was true! The
birthing personnel had believed she was a stillbirth and they had put her
over on a counter while they worked on saving her mother.
No one paid any attention to her until a half hour later when she
made a cry as she was being removed to the morgue. Babaji
had given her the opportunity, finally, to feel and let go that old
grievance!! Babaji
also had given me another opportunity to let go my jealousy as well as to
deflect it from others. Anyhow,
that’s the story of my first meeting with Babaji.
What
does it all mean? I continue
to be puzzled over how He could have struck me so hard and yet left no
bruise. And I certainly
don’t understand what He did with the camera, or putting it more
objectively, what happened with the camera.
I myself prefer to believe that Babaji in some magical way created
conditions that resulted in my camera doing what it did. I’ve
spoken with my son who’s a very well-known photographer, who knows
cameras backwards and forwards, and he keeps insisting there’s no way
that what I describe as having been what I saw when I looked through the
viewfinder could possibly have been happening. And
yet, the fact is that I saw it and Louis saw it.
So did Margaret and Radhe Shyam. I
am not yet ready to believe that the evidence of my senses can’t be
trusted. I much prefer to
believe that the limits of my logical understanding of reality are such
that things can be happening that I don’t understand at all and that no
one else, as yet, can understand. Magic,
that’s what I see. Magic or miracles. I
do know with great clarity that while I was with Babaji and for months
afterwards, I truly felt a restoration of soul.
I felt that I could simply pour my love into Babaji without any
resistance on His part. For
the first time in many, many years, ever since my youngest child started
going to nursery school, I felt myself feeling unconditional love. I
also believed that feeling such love and showing it to Babaji was as
important to Him as it was to me. I felt that He loved me, that He enjoyed me, that He had a
good time rubbing my hair or pinching my cheek or patting me on the back
or feeding me candy. I felt
that in some way, He and I were playing some interesting, childlike,
innocent game with each other, and that both of us were refreshed and
restored by it.
Bhole Baba Ki Jai! Three
days after Louis and I returned to Los Angeles, having completed the rest
of our trip through Western Europe and the United Kingdom, we had a huge
party to which almost 100 Rebirthers came.
Evelyn Freedman, the Rebirther who worked every morning
transcribing my dictation of my book on Physiological Psychology and then
worked every afternoon for Phil Laut in his book business, had phoned
people to tell them I’d be showing my pictures of Babaji.
Almost everyone coming through the door rushed up to me or Louis,
inquiring, “Well—is Babaji God?” Invariably,
I was surprised by the question, however many times it was asked.
I kept replying with my
question: “How would I know if
anyone’s God?” When
Phil came in and asked the same question, he seemed equally surprised by
my reply. It dawned on me
that somehow he thought I might have an answer Yes or No.
I was very moved by his trust and faith. After
we’d all circulated and refreshed ourselves with assorted sweets and
liquids, the time for the slide show came. I
explained that we met Babaji in Vrindaban, so we had no pictures of the
ashram in Herakhan and that none of my pictures of Babaji had turned out,
but that I had hundreds of slides of beautiful India, including ones of
other saints and holy men. Everyone
was disappointed but quickly adjusted and I started to show my slides on
my brand-new Kodak projector. To
provide more clear viewing for all the people crowded into my living room,
I had moved the projector into a corner of the sofa facing the screen in
front of the fireplace. After
a few minutes, I smelled a burnt odor, and just then the projector blew
its bulb and stopped. I
had failed to provide enough clear space behind it for the blower to keep
the bulb cooled!! So
I never got a chance to show my slides to that bunch of friends. A
few weeks later, when I was about to show my slides to a group of Psych
faculty from my college, the projector once again stopped working because
of some other problem that eventually required its replacement on
warranty. So
that group didn’t see my slides! I’m
still not sure what all this camera and projector failure means.
Perhaps it was meant to call my attention to what I was seeing.
Was Babaji God? Isn’t
He? Isn’t everyone?
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Stories About Babaji and Other Modern Miracles Current chapter:
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