Krishna Das had instructed me to return to my uncle and Siddhi Ma in the summer of 2004 and try as I did I could not make the necessary travel arrangements. There were no return tickets to London in time for my children’s school term, so that was that.

The next school term break was in October and I made arrangements to travel to Haldwani and Kainchi. I had no idea that the October school break in London coincided with Navratri celebrations in the ashram at Kainchi.

Those were the only dates on which I could make the journey and did so but as the whole plan had been worked by Maharajji the dates were just the perfect dates to make the journey back home.

Leela after leela unfolded as Maharajji welcomed his grand daughter home! I was ecstatic to learn that Baba Ram Dass was in the ashram when I arrived there. I was told later that Baba Ram Dass had extended his stay in Kainchi by a day and thats how we met! I wonder what made Baba Ram Dass make those last minute changes in his schedule?

Is it too far fetched to guess Maharajji wanted me to convey my thanks to Baba Ram Dass in person, for having been the guru who opened my heart to Him? I got my chance at 8 ish am in the morning as Baba Ram Dass opened his doors and appeared white gleaming shoes first from his room! How perfect to meet a guru feet first (padarshanam)!

I wonder if he remembers my rushed attempt at condensing 5 years of Maharajji’s leelas and grace in my life to him….I think I forgot to thank him eventually….hugs, kisses and THANK YOU Baba Ram Dass!! Pranaam.

From Rachna Jhala, London, UK

Original post from Maharajji.com

Original Article

I was introduced to Siddhi Ma by my aunt and was given permission to stay at the ashram even though I had made no prior arrangements for staying.

I didn’t even realise what a huge priviledge this was and that not many are given it.

Siddhi Ma placed me in a room which I shared with Marilyn Miira Pranno who has become a dear satsangh friend.

My days at the ashram were euphoric and I was so consumed by the meeting of so many satsanghis who shared my love for Maharajji that the temple routine went by me quite unnoticed.

I had not realised that a maha arti had been scheduled to close the Navratri celebrations at Kainchi.

On my last night at Kainchi I went to retire into my room around 10 pm but try as I did I could not work the combination lock to open.

I had been having trouble with the lock and decided to seek Miira’s help with it as she seemed to know how to work the lock better. I found her sitting at the havan and singing. I went and joined her in the arti singing deciding to leave when she was ready to retire.

I expected she would leave in another 15-20 minutes as Miira liked to be up early for Siddhi Ma’s morning darshan. However, an hour later I found that Miira was showing no signs of leaving. That’s when she told me about the overnight maha arti which she wanted to participate in! Then it dawned on me that that was what Maharajji had planned for me. He wanted me at the havan singing the maha arti and I had foolishly thought of going to bed early!

We stayed up all night singing our hearts out….breaking for spicy, sweet, milky tea under the starry night sky in Kainchi….sheer magic. Maharajji’s parties are like no other!!!! By 5 am my throat had packed up and I could stay up no longer. Miira obligingly opened the room lock for me and I crept into bed to sleep and Miira returned to the maha arti. I found myself wide awake and completely refreshed with just an hours sleep and made my way back to the arti but found myself getting a little restless and distracted by 10 am.

I was to leave for Nainital that morning and the pragmatics of that began to occupy my mind. I was getting impatient and wishing the arti would get over when suddenly the conch shell ( shankha ) was sounded and something within me collapsed and I broke down weeping uncontrollably. I managed to control myself for a few seconds while I did arti to Maharajji and then broke down weeping again and had to be escorted out of the havan.

Just as suddenly as I was in the grips of this hysteria I was suddenly out of it and rapidly found myself composed and quite calm. I have no idea what happened or why it happened. I left Kainchi very high and very confused.

From Rachna Jhala, London, UK

Original post from Maharajji.com

Original Article

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In the last six years Ram Dass has shifted his models of communication. It is now through digital media and the internet that he spends most of his time teaching and sharing.

At the beginning of his journey when “Be Here Now” was published, radio was a big part of how people discovered Ram Dass. I was the program director of a free-form rock radio station in Montreal Quebec when I met Ram Dass and was transformed by his story, his honesty, his wisdom and his humor. After interviewing him at the station we began to broadcast his recorded lectures alongside Dylan, Hendrix and The Dead.

This podcast is a product of that time – when we were mixing Ram Dass’ story of transformation with music and DJ interludes. It’s also a reflection of my journey to the East- my tracking Ram Dass down in India and following him to the foothills of the Himalayas which lead to my encounter with Neem Karoli Baba.

When Ram Dass came back after first meeting his Guru he was told not to mention him at all when he got back to America. But that’s all Ram Dass did when he came back home. The models may have shifted for Ram Dass, but his desire to share the wisdom he has gathered over the years has remained.

Raghu Markus, Host of Ram Dass Here and Now

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Question:  How can I judge myself less harshly and appreciate myself more?

Ram Dass:  I think that part of it is observing oneself more impersonally.  I often use this image, which I think I have used already, but let me say it again.  That when you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees.  And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever.  And you look at the tree and you allow it.  You appreciate it.  You see why it is the way it is.  You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way.  And you don’t get all emotional about it.  You just allow it.  You appreciate the tree.  The minute you get near humans, you lose all that.  And you are constantly saying “You’re too this, or I’m too this.”  That judging mind comes in.  And so I practice turning people into trees.  Which means appreciating them just the way they are.  And, there was a period of time where I used to have a picture of myself on my puja table.  Later I had Caspar Weinberger, but earlier on I had me.  And people would come and say “My God, what an ego this guy has got.  He has got his own picture on his puja table.”   But really, what it was, was a chance for me to practice opening my heart to myself.  And to appreciate the predicament I am in.  I mean I could see the whole incarnation.  If I am quiet enough, I can see his story line.   I mean history is his story.  Or herstory.  And herstory is just the story line of our predicament.   And it’s finding a place from in yourself where you see the unfolding of law.  Dad did this; Mother did this; economics did this; education did this; opportunity did this; drugs did this; Maharajji did this.

All of this cause and effect, previous incarnations.  All of this is just an unfolding of a story line.  A drama.  The Ram Dass story.  There he is.  How will it come out?  How did it come out?  And you are just sort of watching this story unfold.  It has nothing to do with me.  Because I’m not that.  That’s just a set of phenomena happening.  And when you look at yourself as a set of phenomena, what is to judge?   I mean is that flower less than that?  It’s just different than that.  And you begin to appreciate your uniqueness without it being better or worse.  It’s just different.  And cultivating an appreciation of uniqueness, rather than preference, is a very good one.  It’s just when you get inside identification with your personality that you get into the judging mode, because then you are part of that lawful unfolding.  You are not stepping outside of it at all.  The witness or the spacious awareness is outside of it.  It is another contextual framework.

As you are more quiet inside so that you notice and you can see your own thoughts a little more clearly, you will see your father’s voice and your mother’s voice and all your education principles voices inside your head constantly saying things to you.  And you will see that — what Freud calls  the Super Ego.  You will see that that judge is inside.  And you keep giving it power by identifying with it.  And you feel yourself at war with yourself.  That there is a part of you that is doing it, and there is a part of you that is judging what you are doing.  And as you are quieter, you see the dynamics between the Super Ego, the Id, the ego.  And you see it all as just phenomena.  Because they are phenomena.   As a psychologist, I can study those phenomena in another person; why not study it in myself?   And part of what drugs did for me, and then mediation did for me, and all the spiritual things is it helps me stand back and get outside of it.  To see it for what it is.   As just stuff — phenomena.

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So I started out on the New York thruway. I was just galumphing along in such a high state that I was hanging out with various forms of the Divine. I was doing my mantra, which I usually am doing one way or another, to remember that this isn’t the only game in town. So I’m holding onto the steering wheel and I’m keeping enough consciousness to keep the car on the road. At another part I’m singing to Krishna, who is blue, is radiant, plays the flute, is the seducer of the Beloved, all of whom we are, back into the merging with God, back into the formless. I am in ecstasy hanging out with blue Krishna, driving along the New York freeway, when I noticed in my rear view mirror a blue flashing light.

Now, there is enough of me down, so I knew it was a state trooper. I pulled over the car, and this man got out of the car and he came up to the window. I opened the window and he said, “may I see your license and registration?” I was in such a state that when I looked at him, I saw that it was Krishna who had come to give me darshan. How would Krishna come in 1970? Why not as a state trooper? Christ came as a carpenter.

So Krishna comes up and asks for my license. He can have anything, he can have my life. All he wants is my license and registration. So I give him my license and registration, and it’s like throwing flowers at the feet of God. I am looking at him with absolute love.

So he goes back to the car and he calls home. Then he comes back and he walks around the car and he says, “what’s in that box on the seat?” I said, “they’re mints, would you like one?” He said, “well the problem is you were driving too slow on the freeway, and you’ll have to drive off the freeway if you’re going to drive this slowly.” I said, “yes, absolutely.”  I’m just looking at him with such love.

Now, if you put yourself in the role of a state trooper, how often do you suppose they are looked at with unconditional love? Especially when they’re in their uniform. So after he had finished all the deliberations, he didn’t want to leave. But he had run out of state trooper-ness. So he stood there a minute, and then he said, “great car you’ve got here!” That allowed me to get out. And we could kick and spit and hit the fenders and say, they don’t make `em now like they used to, and tell old car stories. Then we ran out of that. I could feel he still didn’t want to leave. I mean, why would you want to leave if you’re being unconditionally loved? Where are you going to go? You’ve already got what you wanted. What are you going to do? That takes care of your power needs, all of it.

So finally he runs out, he knows he’s got to come clean that he’s Krishna, so he says, “be gone with you,” which isn’t state trooper talk, but what the hell. As I get into the car and I start to drive away, he’s standing by his cruiser and I look in the mirror and he’s waving at me. Now you tell me, do you think that was a state trooper, or was that Krishna? I don’t know.

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Babaji at first called me by my name, Sudhir, or just “Profes­sor.” It was in 1961 that one day he started calling me Dada [elder brother]. Others followed, but not my Ma and Maushi Ma. He asked them why they called me by name and not Dada. When they said that a son is not addressed so, he said, “When he is my Dada, he is your Dada also.”

One day I was alone with him and he asked me, “Your friends are not coming now. They must be warning you about the danger of coming under the influence of a baba and being close with him. They love you and therefore they warn you for your own good. Am I wrong?” I had no reply to give. He was right.

I was rather an outsider at the beginning, and I was not psychologically or mentally prepared for the difficulties and disturbances his coming created. I was quite interested in social and cultural life, going to the pictures, making friends, addressing various kinds of cultural gatherings, meetings, debates, and I had a very large circle of friends. They would come and gather together just like members of the family. Now when Babaji began coming, there was no place for them to come and sit. Also, many of my friends did not like the idea. “Oh, you have become the victim of some baba!” When his visits contin­ued, they would say I was wasting my time. In spite of all their solicitations, I could not change my new way of living. I was losing my interest in my old life, but I could not think that Babaji had anything to do with it. For me it was just like dry leaves falling from the tree, without anybody’s hand behind it.

Maushi Ma had already apprised Babaji about the agreement with the contractor and said it was all done by Baba. “I do nothing. It is God who does everything. Thank God for his grace.”

Ma said, “Baba, we do not know God, but we know you. So we are saying that you have done it.” Babaji changed the topic of talk.

[caption id=”attachment_311” align=”alignright” width=”400” caption=”Maharaji with Dada and Dada’s nephew”][/caption]

A few days after he left, the construction of the house started. It was ready within four months and we shifted to it in the middle of July 1958. Some minor finishing work was being done when Babaji arrived four days later. He was accompanied by three old devotees. He showed them around the whole building and explained all about the house and how it was built. “Red house, red house. Very well- built.” We had never before seen him behave like an innocent little one displaying his excitement.

One day my auntie said to Babaji, “Baba, you love Dada so much. You have built such a beautiful house for him.”

Babaji replied, “Dada’s house? This is my house! Dada is my guest.”

More than two years passed and there were several visits that he made during that period, but his stay never exceeded three or four days at a time. Whenever he came, someone accompanied him. There were no bags to be carried or any work to be done for him. The only clothes he wore were the dhoti and a blanket, or a white sheet to wrap around his body. That was all he used to have with him whether he was staying with a devotee or travelling. Whenever a devotee would make him change his clothes, he would leave the clothes he had come wearing. His food was also very simple and it was easy for his devotees with modest means to feed him. He was not a burden to his devotees; this we could see from the very beginning. It was much later I realized that, although he was never any burden to his devo­tees, he himself was carrying so much of their burden.

After that time, Maharajji would come to Allahabad for the winter months, and many devotees would come—Siddhi Didi, her husband Tularam, Jivanti Ma, and many devotees from Nainital, Lucknow, Kanpur and other places. Sometimes Babaji would go out for a few days to Benares or Vrindaban or Jagganath Puri. I couldn’t go with him because there were so many people coming to the house and I had to look after them. Very seldom would he take me along. When he wanted to go on a long journey he would ask Didi’s brother, who was posted in Kanpur, to send his car and driver, Brijlal, who was an expert driver and also a great devotee.

Much later in 1964, he went to Jagganath Puri with Siddhi Didi and a few others for a week. One day the car came and the driver opened the gate and shouted at me, “Dada, Maharajji took us to Dakshineshwar, to the Shiva temple, and he said, ‘I gave mantra to your Dada in this temple.’” Then Siddhi Didi and others who were also there narrated the whole thing in detail to us.

Now all this shows that you do not go to him, he comes to you. This was all his grace, I had done nothing to deserve it. I did not know him. I did not seek mantra from him. He caught hold of me and gave me that. Then he came to that house and said, “Henceforth I shall be staying with you.”

-Dada Mukerjee from By His Grace

Original Article