Nature is very kind to me; in fact, as my friend Faram used to say, Nature is cockeyed to me. And that is because of my mentors. My mentors were very good. That’s all I can say; my mentors were very good. Maybe it’s true I was meant by Nature to succeed at all my sadhanas, but my mentors triggered me up and made me succeed. They were too good.
MY THREE MENTORS
You know, I met my Senior Guru Maharaj after I left Benares where I had been doing sadhana of Mahakala on Manikarnika Ghat. I had heard that in Girnar (a mountain in the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat), Dattatreya (an immortal ascetic) was still living, and that if you tried hard enough and were destined for it you could meet him. I had to go and find out if it could be true.
I went to Junagadh by train, and when I arrived at the foot of the mountain I decided to stay at the Nawab’s guest house. At that time the Nawab of Junagadh had jurisdiction over Girnar. I would go out on the mountain during the day and return for my food and rest to the guest house. That is the sort of luxury I was used to; after all, I am a billionaire’s son.
Then I decided that I should move out onto the mountain itself since I had not come to Girnar for a holiday but to do sadhana. I located an old deserted Shiva temple and moved in there. It was situated in such a way that by sitting in front of it no animal could surprise me from behind. In front of me I would build my dhuni (the sadhu’s fire) so I was protected all round, because animals won’t come near a fire.
I started eating only what the sadhus ate at the Sadavarats. These are places established by rich merchants to feed whoever comes by, as a sort of service. I took off all my clothes and walked around without a stitch. At first I covered myself with my hands, but after a while I lost all my shame.
Eventually I quit eating with the other sadhus and started eating nothing but fruit from trees in the jungle. Before long I realized that I was harming the trees by plucking their fruit, so I ate only what fell. Then, I ate the leaves from the wood I would cut for my dhuni; then only fallen leaves, then only water, and finally I was living on nothing but air until afterward an ethereal being told me to start eating again.
Just as I had been doing in Bombay and Benares I spent most of my time in the smashan. One day, a funeral party had brought the body of a young man to be burnt. While I was watching the tearful relatives arranging the pyre, I noticed a thin fakir standing nearby. Very thin; just like a skeleton. As I watched he walked over to the boy’s parents and said, “What do you people think you are doing? This boy is not dead, he is just asleep.”
The boy’s father looked at him and said, “Why are you trying to interfere? Are you God or something that you can bring the dead back to life? Get out of here before I have you thrown out.” But the fakir insisted that the boy was not dead, and I suppose that he insisted a little too much because then the boy’s father hit him across the side of the head and a few drops of blood trickled down.
The old fakir wiped his forehead, saw the blood, looked at the man, and said, “So, you’ve made me red. Now I’ll make this a red-letter day for you!” He walked over to the corpse and said, “Get up!” He gave it a nice kick. The corpse sat up.
Well, you should have seen the condition of the members of that funeral party. They ran as if they were being pursued by ghosts. I said to myself, “Oh, this fellow has something.” The old man came over to me and took out his chillum and filled it with ganja (marijuana flowers). He offered it to me first, but I requested him to ignite it. When he inhaled, a flame a foot high leapt from the chillum.
When you are wandering as a sadhu you run into all types of people. Many criminals masquerade as sadhus or fakirs in order to escape the police, and the police in order to catch such criminals masquerade in the same way. Then there are men who run away from nagging wives or heavy debts or some other responsibility. There are magicians, and men who cheat barren couples with promises of children, and the whole flotsam and jetsam of society. When you become a sadhu, you must be able to know who is genuine and who is not. And the best way to do that is with a chillum of charas or ganja, because most sadhus are forbidden to drink.
Be sure to let that fellow light the chillum and take the first puff. You will be benefited in so many ways. First, he will get the fire going for you so that you don’t have to inhale too hard. Second, by his technique of holding the chillum and inhaling you will know whether he is an old crony, or a beginner, or just what. And as soon as he starts to get into his intoxication everything will come out: who he is, why he is moving about as a sadhu, where he is going.
I’ll give you an example. Once I was out in Girnar and I happened to meet a strange sadhu. As usual we sat down to smoke, and before long I began to collect information from him. When he told me he was from Rajasthan I immediately suspected something because people from that state are well known as misers instead of sadhus.
I shifted the conversation slightly and came up with the information that he hated to beg. Another clue: Would someone who had plenty of money and position in society ever stoop to beg? So he must have been a prosperous merchant, since people from Rajasthan are good at business.
My last bit of data was obtained when he told me, “This ganja has made me hungry; let’s go down and get something to eat.” I was convinced; here was a businessman who had left his family, perhaps because he lost his money, though that was not certain. I decided to rid Girnar of one more false sadhu and told him, “Swamiji, I am so pleased to have met you. I want to give you something in return. Take this number and bet on it.”
He did, and he won a packet. He left Girnar and returned to his family and business. Would a real sadhu ever think of gambling? Never.
Anyway, when a foot-high flame rose from this sadhu’s chillum I knew he was a veteran. He said to me, “So, you have come from Bombay,” and then he went on to tell me about my family, my life, and most everything else, and then asked, “Do you know who I am?”
Now someone, some ethereal being, had told me who he was. And when I told the old man who he was, he was so amazed that he had to keep quiet. I became his disciple.
He eats sometimes, but only when he feels like it; he does love to drink tea, though. His eyes, which never blink, are the only things which would give him away; they are much sharper than an eagle’s. Otherwise he looks completely nondescript. And he is the shrewdest old man possible. If he wants to trick you he’ll do it in such a way that he’ll have you admiring him for it. And if he wants to make you rich nothing can stand in his way.
There was a friend of mine who owned three cars and was a well-to-do businessman. As his destiny would have it he fell on hard times and had to hock all three of his automobiles. My Senior Guru Maharaj had come to Bombay then, and one fine day decided he wanted to go for a drive. I immediately thought of my friend and told him, “This is your golden opportunity. Take my Senior Guru Maharaj out for a drive and then he’ll do anything for you.”
My friend laughed and said, “I don’t have a car anymore.” I told him, “Beg, borrow, or steal, but locate one.” Somehow he was able to redeem one of his cars, and we got it onto the road — without any fuel in it. He told me, “Look, I’ve come to the end of my money; how can we drive without any gas?” We considered the possibilities, then got in touch with someone we knew who had an account at a filling station. We drove over there and filled the tank on credit. Ready to go!
After his ride, my old man was feeling expansive, as I knew he would be, and he looked over to my friend and asked him, “How much money do you need?” He replied, “300,000 rupees.” My Senior Guru Maharaj twirled his mustache for a moment, and then pulled off one of the rings on his fingers. He said to my friend, “This ring is for Saturn. Put it on and go to sleep for an hour, and then let me know what you see or hear.” My friend and I had a low opinion of the whole drama, but he went off to sleep in the next room.
Meanwhile the old man and I were having a discussion. He was telling me, “I want you to go out and borrow as much money as you can at any rate of interest, even 1,000 percent per day.” I thought he was up to his old tricks again. One of his peculiarities is that you can give him any amount of money, even 10 million rupees, and within half an hour he’ll come back to you and tell you he has spent all of it and needs more. The last time he was in Bombay, I warned a certain Maharani about him. I told her, “Give him anything he wants to eat — meat, fish, anything he wants. If he wants clothes, give him clothes. Give him perfume, give him flowers, give him anything you please, but don’t give him any money.” I had to leave Bombay for some time, and when I returned she told me, “I lost 10,000 rupees.” I told her, “Look, I even took an oath from you that you wouldn’t give him a paise.” She said, “I don’t know what came over me.” I know what came over her — but that’s a different story.
So, I thought he just wanted some money and was going to leave me in the lurch again. You have no idea how I pacified the Maharani and eventually arranged to have her reimbursed; and I had no intention of doing it all over again. I told him as much, and he told me there was nothing to worry about, and while we were arguing in this fashion my friend came back from his sleep and announced, “I’ve seen two numbers.”
At that time people used to bet on the opening and closing quotations of the New York Cotton Exchange. They would bet on the two numbers to the right of the decimal point, so we knew what the two numbers stood for. They happened to be the same double-digit number. My friend was impressed, because someone had told him the number over and over until he couldn’t forget it. I was still doubtful.
My Guru Maharaj told me to go out and not to return until I had borrowed at least 10,000 rupees. I went to a moneylender, who explained all the interest rates and what-have-you to me, and I walked out of his shop with 9,000 rupees. That’s the way they do things: They keep 10 percent as the first payment while they’re charging you interest on the whole amount. When I got back to him my Senior Guru Maharaj told me to put all of it on the numbers. I flatly refused. Wasn’t it enough to have contracted a debt of 10,000 rupees? If I was to lose all the money, I would be in a truly pitiable plight. My old man told me, “All right, I know you have no faith. Do one thing: bet 5,000 rupees, and 1,000 rupees more for me.” “You?” I asked. “What is the guaranty I’ll ever be paid again? I know all about you.”
He looked at me and twirled his mustache, and said, “I still have this, don’t I?” My Senior Guru Maharaj was an emperor at one time, in this same body, long, long ago. I’ve seen his sword; I’ve seen coins with the imprint of his face stamped on them. And in this part of the world, a king’s mustache or beard is equivalent to his honor; so to swear to me on his mustache that he would repay me showed the seriousness of the whole thing.
Still, I warned him: “Listen, if you are just going to mess everything up again I am going to cut your throat from ear to ear; this time I’ve had enough.” He told me, “My child, I will cut my own throat if I fail to deliver for you.”
There was nothing else left to say. I bet 6,000 rupees at 90 to 1. We sat around waiting for the results. I had lost all hope until the news came: The first number had come correct. I felt relieved and immediately said, “Let’s cancel the bet,” because you could get paid 7 to 1 or something like that if the first number alone came. The old man told me, “No, we’ve done it, now we’re going to see it through to the end.”
When the second number came my astonishment knew no bounds: more than half a million rupees! Immediately my Senior Guru Maharaj said, “Repay your loan.” After that, and after giving my friend what he needed and pocketing my share because I was also broke at the time, I tried to give him his part of the winnings. “Now do you believe I kept my word?” he taunted me. “Take the 1,000 rupees which were in question and hire a musician so I can enjoy a nice night. That’s all I want.” We had beautiful music all night long, and the next day my friend, who had been impressed with the old man’s power, told him, “My sister has been in bed between sandbags for the past six months with a broken spine. Can you do anything about it?” The old man went to see her and gave her a hard slap — and in that instant she became well, perfectly healed.
After finishing all the work my Senior Guru Maharaj took his ring back from my friend — he is very careful about such useful objects — and then he told him, “I’ll see that you get heaps and heaps of wealth, more than you can even dream of, but you must stop your whoring and wining.” My friend looked at him and said, “What would I do with heaps and heaps of money? How would I spend it? No thanks; I prefer to enjoy.” And then it was the old man’s turn to be astonished at how perverse human beings can be!
Once he and my foster daughter and I and a few others were all sitting talking together. My foster daughter had been pestering him for days to show her his true form; and when she would ask, he would tell her, “I know who has been putting such things into your head,” with a pointed glance at me. “Don’t pay any attention to him; are such things possible? My real form is the one you see right here.” But a woman never gives up once she has set her mind to something, and this girl pestered him and pestered him until finally he said to her, “How big was your father?” Now, her father was a very hefty man and fairly tall as well. When she told him all this he said, “Bring me one of your father’s coats.” She did, and he put it on. It fit him terribly, or rather we thought it would because he is so thin, but then we saw he had filled up the entire coat until it was bursting at the seams and he had become so tall his head was near the ceiling. Then he caught himself and said to her, “If I show you fully, your ceiling will break, and you will not be able to exist,” and he became his normal size again. But she had had her glimpse. Then he told her, “By seeing this have you been helped in any way? Ask me for something that is of some use to you.”
Usually, however, you cannot convince him to do anything. Even if you throw the filthiest language at him he will say, “Those are all old words; why not try to think of some new ones?” He loves to play about and can be really jolly sometimes, but look out when he means business. For giving spiritual knowledge, there is no one to beat him anywhere in the world; even my Junior Guru Maharaj admits it. And if you ask him for spiritual knowledge, he will ask you in return, “Are you ready to be flayed alive?” meaning, are you ready for all your karmas to be ripped from you? If you say yes, you will suffer more terribly than you could ever dream you could suffer, but when you come through it you will be ready. Put through the fire, gold becomes impervious to everything, and so will you.
No one can fool him unless they play music for him. People have made millions out of him just as they have from me simply by making him hear music. When he is overwhelmed by emotion he might even give you the results of thousands of years of his penance; then later he will realize what he has done and beg some favor from you in return. He’s really very sweet that way. He should be generous, having been a king. Even now some of that regality, that kingliness remains, despite the fact that when he left his throne for his sadhana he renounced everything. Nowadays, you can’t even meet him if you want to; no one knows where he has gone, except me. He is by himself, and he is no longer in his normal senses. He has gone mad with love for Krishna.
He was the one to tell me that I would have to go to a guru from the south, my Junior Guru Maharaj. I call him my Junior Guru Maharaj because he is a disciple of my Senior Guru Maharaj. So I am not only his disciple, I am his gurubhai (co-disciple) also. He says frankly that when he was young my Senior Guru Maharaj used to feed him and look after him. So imagine how old my Senior Guru Maharaj must be.
No one knows how old either of them are, but if you look in my Junior Guru Maharaj’s mouth you will see two full sets of teeth, one row right behind the other. They say you grow a new tooth after every 100 years; I don’t know. If I tell you his origin you won’t believe me. When Lord Curzon was Viceroy of India at the turn of the century, archaeological excavations were going on in the state of Orissa, and in a cave in one hill they discovered the perfectly preserved body of an old sadhu. Someone thought to call a man from the Jagannath temple in Puri who knew about samadhi and such things, and after massage, and oil rubs, and I don’t know what else he was able to bring the sadhu down from his samadhi and back into consciousness of the world. That sadhu is my Junior Guru Maharaj. I have met people who have known him ever since then and they say his looks have not changed in the least up to the present day, except that in some places his hair has grayed.
How I met him is a story in itself. I have always been fond of Maharajas, Emirs, and other rulers, and they have always been fond of me; there must be some link. I was trying to help a certain prince succeed his father as Maharaja, and one day I happened to ask an acquaintance if he knew of any sadhu who could help us out with his spiritual powers. He brought this sadhu to us.
At first glance he didn’t look like much to me. Driving home from the railway station this prince was telling the old sadhu about how his father was ruining the administration of the state, and how well he would be able to rule if given an opportunity. Finally, the old man spoke: “So you want your father to die, eh?” And as soon as we got down from the car and crossed the threshold into the house, word arrived from Delhi that the prince’s father had died very suddenly. I thought to myself, “Yes, this man has some power!”
I was broke at the time, and desperate, and there were races that day. I had decided to go and bet on the horses and sink or swim. When I told this to the sadhu he took my wallet from me and put a pinch of ash into it, and said to me, “Keep this with you and bet on whatever you see and hear.” I laughed in his face and told him, “Maharaj, this is Bombay, people are not such fools here to believe such nonsense.” See and hear, indeed! Still, I kept the envelope in my pocket and left for the races.
Because he had insisted on sitting and chatting with me, I was late to arrive and missed the first three races. I started cursing him because my choices had won two of those races. Unnecessarily I had wasted my opportunity to make money just because of some old fool and his ash! I decided to go back to him in the evening and beat him black and blue.
While I was mired in this depression, I was standing under a tree near the bookies’ enclosure, and I suddenly heard something telling me to bet on a certain horse. At first I didn’t believe I was hearing it, but once I believed, I decided to see what sort of a horse it was. Well, on the racing form it was hopeless; besides that, the jockey, Ghumman Singh, had never won a race in his life. I thought, “When he doesn’t know what he’s doing, why should the old man try to show off? How can I waste money on his guesswork?” I decided to bet on another horse, my own choice, and told the number, which was seven, to the clerk in the betting window. He accidentally gave me six fifty-rupee tickets on the horse whose number I had heard; his number was eight. When I realized this mistake I bellowed to change the tickets but it was too late; the race had started and the shutters on the betting windows had slammed down.
I started cursing the old man more vehemently than before: “My last 300 rupees, which I’ve been saving for an emergency, and I’ve wasted it! What did I do to be introduced to such an unlucky old man?” Running this thought over and over in my mind, I sat and watched the horse win. I couldn’t believe it; I was rich! He paid 70 to 1. Incidentally, that was the one and only race Ghumman Singh ever won in his entire life.
I had to admit my mistake, and I started listening to the voice much more seriously. Over the whole day I made 59,000 rupees, and after the last race I went to a bar on Charni Road and had a few more than my quota of drinks. I had made up my mind: “I must keep a tight grip on this sadhui he can make millions for me!”
It sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? But I was desperate for money. Of course I could have gone to the smashan and collected millions without working up a sweat, but I will never ask money from a spirit. Here was an old man, though, who seemed ready to provide me with winners just for the asking, and he would bear the karma! It seemed too good to be true.
When I got back to the sadhu he became wild with me the moment I stepped through the door: “Ha, how dare you drink, what do you think of yourself?” and so on. I coolly took the money I had made, laid it at his feet, and told him, “Maharaj, please take as much as you like; just agree to help me again next week.”
This only made him wilder. He told my friends, “Go make him vomit and give him an enema.” They worked me over so well that by midnight I was almost sober again. When I went back into the sadhu’s presence he was still so infuriated that he took his fire tongs and gave me two whacks squarely across the right temple: ptak! ptak! And then he told me, “Did you take birth for things like this?”
I had to tell him no, because those two blows gave me partial memory of my previous births, and I understood why I had been born where I was and what was expected of me in this life. This is why I respect him as my guru: not because he initiated me into a mantra, but because he helped me remember who l am.
Maybe I should explain one thing here. Gambling has a catastrophic effect on the mind. Meat, alcohol, sex: these all cause temporary ruination of the consciousness, but the effects of gambling are permanent. If a man earns money at gambling what does he spend it on? Rich food, alcohol and other intoxications, and women. If he loses money what happens? Envy, hatred: “That fellow cheated me, he was out to get me, now I’ll show him, I’ll ruin him.” The man becomes a cutthroat, literally, if he is of the lower class of men, because he kills to regain his losses. Or, if he is more refined he kills his enemy economically. Gambling is one of the three karmas which cannot be obliterated in the same lifetime. The other two are murder of the guru and rape.
This being the case, how can both my Junior and Senior Guru Maharajs have helped me through gambling? First of all, they never encouraged me to gamble, and they have always done their best to prevent me from doing so. But in both these instances they knew I was out of money and this was the most convenient way for them to help me; and they wanted to convince me of their abilities as well. And don’t forget: this was really nothing like gambling. They knew ahead of time what was going to happen, and they just handed that information over to me. It’s more like collecting interest on an investment than gambling. They do have to suffer for using their powers for such trivial things, of course, because no one is exempt from the Law of Karma. But they know how to minimize the penalty, and they don’t bother about such minor troubles. And besides, they are not in the habit of doing it daily; once only, to serve their purposes. And very strange indeed are their purposes.
By doing this they saved me from an evil fate. I just told you that gambling is a permanent disease, and it was as true for me as for anyone else. But they cured me of it. Not that I gave it up altogether; I still bet whenever I see a good thing, or when one of my own horses is running, and I enjoy directing how my horses work and deciding which races to run them in. It’s a wonderful sport — horse racing.
But I was an inveterate gambler, uncontrollable; and my Junior Guru Maharaj brought me under control. I gamble now, but gambling doesn’t control me like it once did; I control it. This does not mean you should gamble. I have known only a handful of people to enter the racecourse and then leave it again before losing their money, character, or balance of mind. I was exceedingly lucky, because my Guru Maharaj was willing to take my evil karmas on himself. He knew exactly how to deal with them. Truly, my mentors are wonderful, and they have always been so gentle and kind to me, I don’t know why.
My Junior Guru Maharaj can also be extremely strict when necessary; no mistake about it. There was one Behari Das who lived near him several years ago. Behari Das was a good Aghori, but something of a bully: he would trouble all the other sadhus in the area. They would come down with diseases, and Guru Maharaj would cure them. Behari Das came to know what Guru Maharaj was doing and his ego was hurt: “Who is this fellow trying to undo what I do? I must kill him.” But how to kill him? Guru Maharaj doesn’t eat or drink, so there was no possibility of poisoning him that way. Does he smoke ganja? Yes.
So, one day Behari Das came to meet Guru Maharaj and told him, “Maharaj, I have decided that I must make you smoke this chillum of ganja as a token of my respect for you.” I happened to be there at the time and I immediately knew what Behari Das had in mind. I said, “Why should Guru Maharaj take anything from you? I will smoke it.”
Behari Das got wild: “Who are you to interfere? My desire is to see Maharaj smoke this chillum.” Guru Maharaj said to me, “Don’t worry, Babuji, I’ll smoke it.” The chillum was lit, and in two puffs — only two — Guru Maharaj finished the whole thing and then put it big end down on the ground.
Then Guru Maharaj said to Behari Das, “Behari Das, I know why you wanted me to smoke that chillum; I know what sort of love you have for me. Unfortunately for you your time is up. You have only five minutes left. Now get out of this ashram.” And in five minutes he was dead. As for Guru Maharaj, he had to suffer terribly for six months: boils on his body, dimness of vision, and so on.
I have also been troubled by such people. There is a fellow in Bombay who has tried to poison me three times with ganja mixed with arsenic, aconite, and so on, and each time he lands himself in the hospital and then begs me to cure him. But I also have to suffer for some time; that is just the way things work.
My Junior Guru Maharaj is really an unusual old man. He has roamed all over the world, but no one knows how he does it. When one fellow asked if he had been to London he replied, “Yes, they have a railway there that goes under the ground; I’ve seen all those things.” And when this fellow asked him how long ago he was there he told him, “Four hundred years.” What can you say about that?
He is a type entirely different from my Senior Guru Maharaj: a miser. He will not let anything out; he is just like a stone. In fact, he will advise you, “Become just like a Shiva Linga.” What he means is, don’t let anything affect you. No happiness, no sorrow, nothing: absolutely firm. When he goes anywhere he will sit in one room only, never going out or moving around. Sometimes he stays in one place for twelve years at a time. He never eats or drinks; at the most he takes cow’s milk if you really force him to. And once he leaves a place he will never go back there. He is still very old-fashioned and believes strongly in purity and impurity, because he is still doing his sadhana every day. You see, he has done terrific sadhana all his life. He has done such penances that even my Senior Guru Maharaj has admitted that there is no one in India, and that means in the world, to beat him at doing penances.
He is very strict, but he loves to play about in his own way. His play is of a different age. He believes in sacrifice and he expects everyone else to also, so he will frequently cause trouble for someone in order to pull that person out of some entanglement. Of course, he doesn’t actually cause the trouble. He just causes certain karmas to come out of that person’s causal body and be projected. Since he always causes the bad karmas to be projected, to purge the causal body of all its evil influences, this will always lead to misery.
No one wants to accept responsibility. They want to enjoy all their good karmas and avoid all the bad ones. One day a man had a nice dinner of very spicy food full of chilies, followed by ice cream. Next morning when he squatted to defecate, he screamed, “Ice cream first! Ice cream first!” Only when you are miserable will you remember God; you will never think of Him otherwise, unless you are a true saint. Guru Maharaj is here to make people remember God, not to make them rich or famous. I will give you a written guaranty, if you like, to the effect that after you meet Guru Maharaj everything will start going wrong in your life. That’s just the way he works, the old, crude way. But that’s the way he is.
Once a friend of mine came and asked me to take him to Guru Maharaj. I knew what sort of person this fellow was. He was called Bala Yogi (“Child Yogi”) or Kaviraj (“King of Poets”) and he used to sing devotional songs in praise of the Divine Mother: “Jaya Ambe, Jaya Ambe” and so on. He liked most to have plenty of female disciples: you know what I’m getting at. His brother was dead, and he made a big show out of taking care of his brother’s wife. Actually, he developed an illicit relationship with her. I thought it only fair to warn him: “Watch out — Guru Maharaj may do something.” He told me, “Ha, you only want to keep him for yourself; why not let other people get the benefit of his powers? I’m sure he’ll give me something.” I had warned him; my job was over.
You know, when I visit my Guru Maharaj I don’t say anything. I sit in one comer. When I feel like it I get up and walk out. Everyone else thinks that I am very rude and insolent and very foolish for not sitting with him. Only he and I know what is going on. When he was last in Bombay he would make everyone go to sleep and then we would exchange the notes in our own way, a way in which words are not required.
I am most shameless; I fight with my Guru Maharaj. I tell him, “What is the use of an ashram? The whole world should be your ashram.” Then he gets wild on me. It is only in the past few years that he has had an ashram, and only now his hair is starting to tum grey. It was always jet black before.
So, this friend and I went to Guru Maharaj, who was in Bombay at the time, in 1959. Now, you don’t need to tell anything to Guru Maharaj: all he has to do is look at you and he knows every bit. And this fellow made another mistake; he started to recite Sanskrit verses to Guru Maharaj, trying to show off his wisdom. Guru Maharaj is a man who after being dug out of that cave spent twelve years on the branch of a tree doing japa, never touching the ground even once; could this man teach him anything?
Suddenly Guru Maharaj smiled, scribbled something down on a piece of paper, and handed it to my friend, telling him, “Keep this with you always. Wave incense before it daily, when you sit for worship, sit on top of it, then put it under your pillow when you sleep.” As we left, my friend smiled knowingly at me and said, “So Guru Maharaj did something good for me after all.” But I knew better. I could see that Guru Maharaj was going to have this man’s hide.
What happened? Kaviraj went directly to his sister-in-law’s house to celebrate with a little sex. But as soon as she saw him she shouted, “How dare you drink bhang and come here? Get out!”
He looked at her and said, “But I never drank any bhang today.” She screamed, “Don’t say anything to me, just get out. I never want to see you here again!” and she gave him a beautiful pair of slaps, and shut him out of the house. He spent the night on the front steps and had to do without his morning tea as well.
The next morning he came crying to me: “Look what that Guru Maharaj of yours has done to me!”
I told him, “What did I tell you before?”
He replied, “You must take me back to Guru Maharaj so he can free me from this.”
We went back to Guru Maharaj, who heard all the complaints and then said to Kaviraj, “I did it to clean out your karmas.” Kaviraj said, “But I never asked to have my karmas cleaned out!” Then Guru Maharaj told him, “If you are tired now, take that piece of paper and throw it into the sea.” He did, and afterward he was reconciled with his sister-in-law and continued with his life as before. And whenever anyone would ask him about Guru Maharaj, he would say, “Please, he really put me in the soup. I don’t want to hear about him.”
After Kaviraj left the room, I asked Guru Maharaj, “When you know these people can’t take it, why do you do such things?”
Guru Maharaj laughed and said to me. “No, Babuji, that was a Yantra I gave him. If he had kept it he would have broken off from that lady for good and would have quit all his evil ways. Then he would have had to turn to God. He knew so many verses and sang such nice songs, he should have been made a saint.”
It’s useless trying to argue with Guru Maharaj. He thinks he is still living in a previous era, and he expects everyone else to act accordingly. It is true that when your plans go wrong you have to turn to God, but that is the old, crude methodi no one will put up with it today. Nowadays only those people who can’t be successful at anything else turn to God: “Asamartho bhavet sadhuh” (A man fit for nothing else becomes a sadhu), but what is the use of that? Still, Guru Maharaj goes on feeding bitter medicine to whoever comes to him. People curse him, but he never bothers about it. Very few will ever be able to understand his play.
In spite of all this, I still fight with my Guru Maharaj. Once when I went to meet Guru Maharaj, he was talking to a businessman from Bombay. The businessman was sitting there with his mistress, ignoring the fact that Guru Maharaj is very strict about those things. His morality is of another age. Why, when he came to Bombay and saw a woman driving a car, he was so shocked that he told me, “Babuji, now I know Kali Yuga is really here.” I don’t know what he would do if he ever saw a woman flying an airplane.
As I was about to enter I saw a lady crying on the steps outside the room. I have done sadhana of Ma all my life, and I just cannot bear to see a woman cry; it is as if my own Mother is crying. So I asked her, “Ma, why are you crying?” She told me, “Sadhugaru (meaning Guru Maharaj) will not allow me to enter his presence today.” It was because she was in her periods.
Then I lost my temper. I stormed into the room and asked Guru Maharaj what he meant by forcing the lady to sit outside like that. I told him, “She is only menstruating. I am an Aghori. I worship menstrual fluid because it has the power to create. Though you have performed Aghora sadhanas you seem to have forgotten all that. A woman cannot conceive before her periods commence or after they cease, so the power of creation lies in that only. Can you create?
“Not only that, you are sitting here with a woman who is no better than a prostitute, and you have the nerve to tell this poor lady who has come so many miles to see you that she may not enter the room. Who do you think you are?’’
The fellow whose mistress I had insulted tried to protest, but Guru Maharaj told him to be quiet and said to me, “Wah, Babuji, you have really become a true Aghori now. Your Aghora has become perfect. I only told her to wait outside because I am doing a certain ritual for which I needed to observe purity, that is the only reason. Please don’t misunderstand.” He just smiled at me and shook his head, and then I lost all my anger also. He is really a wonderful old man.
I can afford to argue with my Senior Guru Maharaj as well as with my Junior Guru Maharaj because they are something different from all the saints and sadhus that you will ever find in India. But even they have to respect my real mentor. I won’t tell you His name; I will just call Him “my Mahapurusha,” because I love Him as my own. Even though I have treated those two as my gurus, they have never given me a Guru Mantra. My Mahapurusha is my real guru.
You know, I have seen all the big so-called saints, but none of them interests me after knowing Him. If you ask my Junior Guru Maharaj about my Mahapurusha, Guru Maharaj will say, “He is God Himself.” If you ask my Senior Guru Maharaj about Him, tears will come from his eyes and he will say, “If you can give me only a glimpse of Him, I will make you the richest man in the world” — and he can do it, too. My Mahapurusha is thirty feet tall — yes, thirty feet. His eyes are the size of your hand. His head is as wide as your chest. I used to sit in the palm of His hand very comfortably, as if I were a pygmy, and we would play together — at a time when I weighed 210 pounds. Once He said to me, “I want to sit on your lap.” My God, what a fright I got; I was afraid my bones would break! But when He sat down He did not have the weight of even a rose petal; it was just as if a feather was there.
My Mahapurusha believes in gratification, satisfaction, so that no stain of desire is left. Sometimes we would be sitting in Girnar and He would say, “Let’s have lunch at Maxim’s. Close your eyes.” I would close my eyes, and when I would open them we would be at a good table in Maxim’s in Paris appropriately dressed, He reduced to ordinary human size. We would have a delicious twelve-course lunch there, and then — back to Girnar.
One day I had just finished a tough ritual, and I was sitting around kind of bored when He came up and said to me, “What are you doing, moping around like that? Come on! Let us have our worldly enjoyments!”
I asked, “Where are we going?” He said, “You be quiet and close your eyes.” I did, and when I opened them we were in Spain. I got the shock of my lifetime. We were both dressed like Spaniards, and we went to a night club. So many beautiful senoritas were there. We danced the tango with them all night long. All the men gathered at the sides of the club and glared at us! So jealous they were! And La Paloma was playing. After tangoing for some time, my Mahapurusha looked at me warningly, and then we went outside and zip! Back to Girnar. Worldly enjoyments along with sadhanas; what a guru!
He is far, far ahead. I used to smoke twenty pounds of ganja a day, because I know the mantra which nullifies the bad effects. But He has no need of mantras. No one can know Him. Don’t even talk about it. When He would sit with the sadhus in Girnar, He would take His pipe — an elephant’s tusk — and fill it full of ganja. He would light it and finish the whole pipefull in one puff, throw the pipe high into the air, shout “Jai Girnari!” and vanish. He has no limits at all.
Once we were sitting together in a circle, and one old fakir began to complain that there was no one around who could do miracles like the great saints of the old days could, especially the art of creating gold.
My Mahapurusha didn’t say anything to him, but pointed at the Nandi of a nearby Shiva temple and said, “Get up!” The bull, which was made of stone, stood up. My Mahapurusha told him, “You’ve been hungry for so many ages. Now eat!” And the bull ate some of the green grass growing near him. Then, “Drink!” The bull took a long drink of water. Finally the bull was told, “Go over to that old fakir and give him what he wants!” The bull ambled over to the fakir, who had opened his mouth wide in amazement in the first place. He turned his behind to that astonished old man and defecated — pure gold. When he had finished he was told, “Now go back and wait,” and he went back to his pedestal, sat, and became completely stone again, waiting for the next time he would be awakened.
The old fakir had tears in his eyes, but my Mahapurusha was gone. His method of teaching is something else also; something quite different. First He makes you sit down, tells you to close your eyes and then gives you a good slap with His left hand. You go into a trance and when you wake up, after a few hours or a few days, He is gone, but you have learned everything about the subject He was teaching you. Don’t ask me how. Of course He never eats or drinks; His only enjoyment in life is to smoke ganja. Once a poor girl came to Him. Her parents had been beating her because she was hungry and had been stealing food from them. He told her, “Ma, why do you worry? Take this, and you will never have to eat or drink again.” He gave her a pinch of ash from His bag, and what He had said happened. When I was in Girnar, I met her, and she had never eaten or drunk anything from that day onward.
But my Mahapurusha has left Girnar, and no one knows where to find Him, except me. He belongs to me, and I belong to Him; we are pals.
It is thanks to my Mahapurusha that I have achieved whatever I have achieved in this lifetime. He has looked after me well since I was born, through the medium of Haranath Thakur, my parents’ guru. Years before he ever met my parents or became a guru, Haranath was traveling in a one-horse shay through Kashmir when at a stop along the way he suddenly fell down. He knew he was dying, and he did die.
When he was dead my Mahapurusha came to him. He never knew who my Mahapurusha was; I was told the whole story later by my “Big Daddy.” My Mahapurusha said to him, “Do you know you are dead?’’
He said, “Yes.”
“Do you have any desires left?”
“Yes, I want to meet my Mother.”
Then my Mahapurusha cut his body into sixty-four pieces and threw three pieces away. Can you guess which three pieces were thrown away? The Three Gunas: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. He put the other sixty-one pieces together again and suddenly the man came back to life, and was given instructions by my Mahapurusha. Eventually he became my parents’ guru, and in that way my Mahapurusha could look after me while I was growing up. Haranath always used to tell my parents, “My boy,” meaning me, “will move about in fine suits of clothes and no one will ever know him.’’
It is only thanks to my Mahapurusha that I have survived for so long here in the world. It was He who sent me back here from Girnar, otherwise I would never have left. And now, whenever I hear “La Paloma” I am reminded of Him. People have made millions of rupees out of me just by playing “La Paloma,” because whenever I hear it I am overcome with love for my Mahapurusha, and in that outpouring of longing for Him somehow the work gets done. I could not bear living for even a moment in the world if it were not for Him supporting me. If you had ever lived the free life of a sadhu you would know what I mean. To have lived free and then to be caged up is enough to kill most wild animals; it would have killed me, had not my Mahapurusha had some work He wanted me to do. Let any other being in the universe come to me and I don’t bother with them; for me, only my Mahapurusha exists.
DEVOTION TO THE GURU
Do you know the story of Meera, the great devotee of Krishna? When Krishna stood before her in all his bewitching beauty, as a result of the method she had been taught by her guru Raidas, she composed a lovely Hindi couplet on the spot: “My guru and my beloved deity Govinda both stand before me; to whom shall I first prostrate myself? I must pay my first respects to my guru, because it was he who showed me Govinda.” Such devotion always pays dividends. Meera understood how important it is to have a guru; how much the disciple owes the guru. Most knowledge you can pick up from somewhere, but until you put it into practice it remains as a mere intellectual understanding. The guru forces you to learn it, he rubs your face into the ground until you learn it, if he is a real guru. That is why I say that none of the people you have in America can be classified as gurus. They teach a little to the students who come to them, and they collect money for it.
If you are interested in making money out of someone you can’t afford to offend them or else they’ll immediately run away to someone else. A real guru doesn’t care for money: he wants a disciple he can be proud of. And he will tear that disciple to pieces if necessary in order to make sure that certain lessons get learned. Then when that disciple gets an opportunity to meet a deity, or a Siddha, or some other Mahapurusha, there is no question of the disciple making the wrong choice. The disciple’s own personality has been so effaced by the guru, the false e-y-e (eye) consciousness has been so thoroughly crushed, that the disciple must make the right choice, and then he or she is made; there is no question of a doubt.
Eknath Maharaj was one of the greatest saints Maharashtra has ever produced. His guru’s name was Janardan Swami, and in fact today people only know the name of Janardan Swami because he was Eknath’s guru. This is the play of guru and disciple.
Eknath literally means “one master,” and that fit Eknath perfectly. He was totally devoted to Janardan Swami. While still a boy Eknath had heard a voice from the sky telling him to go to Janardan Swami, so he walked the 200 miles from his hometown to Deogarh where Janardan Swami was the ruler of the fort. For a number of years Eknath served Janardan Swami faithfully without being taught anything at all about spirituality. He never objected, never complained.
After some time Janardan Swami put Eknath in charge of the treasury. One night Eknath had some trouble balancing the books. His accounts were off by a single pie (a fraction of a cent). Late into the night he sat, trying his best to locate his error. When he suddenly discovered the elusive pie his joy was so great he shouted. This woke up Janardan Swami who came in and demanded to know what the boy was doing up so late at night. When he was told the story Janardan Swami said to Eknath, “My son, if the discovery of a single pie which has been lost can cause you such great joy, can you imagine what your joy would be if you discovered God?”
Eknath replied humbly, “Maharaj, I don’t know how to go about looking for God. Will you teach me?”
A few days later Janardan Swami told Eknath to accompany him on a trip outside Deogarh. The Swami was riding a horse, and Eknath had to run along behind it for fifty-five miles, during which time he did not get the opportunity to drink even a drop of water. Eknath did not complain.
Late that night as Janardan Swami and his disciple sat quietly together in a lonely place, an unkempt man trailed by a dog came up to them. Handing a bowl to Eknath he hold him to milk the bitch and bring him the milk to drink. Even though Eknath had had nothing to quench his thirst all day long he was not tempted and brought the bowl back to the man, who drank it down. He then made Eknath milk the bitch again, and this milk he gave to Janardan Swami. When the bowl was empty he told Eknath to go and wash it in a nearby stream.
Eknath had not been told anything, but he was convinced that the man was none other than Guru Dattatreya, the guru of the Naths, because Dattatreya is always accompanied by a dog and always affects a wild appearance, to scare away ordinary mortals. So Eknath poured a little water into the bowl to wash all the remaining drops of milk into the bottom and then drank down the mixture. Immediately he could see the man in his true form, and yes: it was Dattatreya himself. Dattatreya was pleased with Eknath’s cleverness and blessed him. That was enough; Dattatreya’s blessing was precious to Lord Shiva Himself, so what effect must it have had on Eknath? And this was all thanks to his unflinching devotion to his guru.
If you are out to locate a guru it is best to look for a real one instead of all the fakes that are around nowadays, but it is not essential. If your desire is strong enough and your heart is pure enough Nature will teach you Herself if need be. Remember the story of Ekalavya from the Mahabharata (the great Indian epic poem)? Dronacharya refused to teach him archery so Ekalavya went out and made a statue of Dronacharya and worshipped it as his guru. He worshipped it so hard and so well that the statue began to teach him, and he actually became a better archer than any of the direct pupils of Dronacharya. Dattatreya himself had twenty-four gurus: birds, animals, beings who didn’t know they were teaching him. By observation alone he learned what they had to teach.
However, it is much easier to have a human guru. You must test your guru thoroughly to make sure he can teach you, but once you accept him as your teacher you must stick with him. There is no use in running from guru to guru; you will end up falling between two stools. Find one and stick to him. Don’t be like the swan, who when her pond dries up flies off to find another one. Be like the moss, which dries up along with the stone which it covers. The moss sticks to the stone in good times and in bad times, without trying to calculate whether it is profitable or not.
Remember that when you love a guru you are not loving his external personality; you have to love his perennial personality, the Shiva-consciousness which he is trying to instill into you. That means that you are actually loving yourself; the Self is loving the Self. Instead of attempting to love the entire universe you try to learn to love one person properly, because the Atma is the same in every being. And remember that no matter how much you love, or think you love, your guru, he loves you much, much more because he has already learned how to love the Infinite. He is trying to make you into his own guru: the One.
Once a moth, circling around a lamp about to make the fatal plunge, spoke to the flame: “What do you know of love? All you do is stand there as I whirl about you until I can no longer bear to remain separated from you and I embrace you. And in the moment I embrace you I am consumed, burned into nothingness.’’
The flame smiled and replied, “You fool! Do you call that love? Look at me; I am burning. You bum only when you embrace me, but in my longing for you the pain of my separation from you has transmuted me into fire itself.”
This is what should happen in real life. A disciple may think he really loves his guru and has done a lot for him, but the disciple is too stupid to realize that his guru is absolutely burning to give something to him, to give his essence to the disciple. At first a disciple is nothing better than a prostitute; he flits from object to object, teaching to teaching, guru to guru, like a fly who enjoys sweets and filth equally. Little by little the “child” loses his taste for other things and slowly develops devotion to his mentor. Only then does he realize that his guru is his all-in-one, one-in-all. Only then can the “child” merge with the mentor and receive what the mentor wants so intensely to give.
How many people can understand the play of guru and disciple? Almost no one. If the disciple himself can’t understand it, how will some outsider be able to? And this is true of all disciples, even those who may be great saints on their own, like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. The first time Ramakrishna Paramahamsa visited Benaras he exclaimed that he saw heaps of gold in the city. He did not mean metallic gold, of course; he meant the gold of minds filled with the power of discrimination. When he visited Telang Swami, Ramakrishna was overcome with spiritual bliss and said openly, “I see before me the incarnation of Shiva,” meaning that Telang Swami had so perfected himself that there was no false personality remaining; all had become Shiva-consciousness.
Then he tried to speak with Telang Swami, but Telang Swami was observing complete silence, though he did deign to answer Ramakrishna’s questions by means of gestures alone. Ramakrishna repeated, “I see before me the incarnation of Shiva, but this is a selfish Shiva,” meaning that he was unwilling to part with any of his knowledge, to teach it to others. Ramakrishna was blind to say this. Can God ever be selfish? God is always magnanimous; if He isn’t, he isn’t God. That’s all there is to it. Telang Swami did not bat an eyelid, but decided to teach Ramakrishna Paramahamsa a lesson. After Ramakrishna returned to his home in Dakshineshwar, a village near Calcutta, he began to become restless. Now, Ramakrishna was one of the greatest saints the world has ever produced. He achieved success at sadhanas of Jesus, of Mohammed, of so many forms of God, but his success started with sadhana of a form of Kali called Bhavatarini.
He became very restless, so he asked Bhavatarini Ma, “Ma, You have showed me so many sadhanas of God with form, and also of God without form, but You have never showed me anything of Tantra. I want to learn about Tantra. Send me someone to teach me about Tantra.” And thereafter, one day, a woman called the Bhairavi Brahmani arrived in Dakshineshwar and proceeded to teach Ramakrishna a bit about Tantra. And who was she? A little disciple of Telang Swami.
When all of Ramakrishna’s Tantric sadhanas were over he had occasion to go back to Benaras. Telang Swami dragged him without his knowing it. Ramakrishna had one of his devotees cook up an immense quantity of rice pudding, about ten gallons, and with his own hands Ramakrishna fed the entire amount to Telang Swami in thanksgiving. Telang Swami, who was a true Siddha, had no difficulty in consuming the whole cauldronful, but did not bother to look at Ramakrishna. And that was the last sadhana Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ever did; Tantra was the culmination of his sadhana. He did have to suffer for calling Telang Swami selfish, though; he developed cancer of the throat eventually, and died. It is never wise to insult Shiva, as that priest of Benaras learned about Telang Swami so many years before. So Telang Swami taught Ramakrishna a good lesson, didn’t he? Just because he did not move his lips did not mean he was not teaching Ramakrishna; he did it with his fingers. Then he caused Ramakrishna to develop the desire to learn Tantra. There was no need for Ramakrishna to have such a desire otherwise. It was all the play of Telang Swami, who contacted him from a distance and disturbed his mind to demonstrate what child’s play it was to direct his consciousness. It was all the magnanimity of Telang Swami; otherwise Ramakrishna would never have had the opportunity to learn Tantra.
GURU AND DISCIPLE
You know, getting a good disciple is a real boon. To get a good guru is the best blessing, no doubt, but to get a good disciple is really rare. The Rishis of course bring their own with them when they come, just as Krishna and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa did.
Once Matsyendra Nath, the direct disciple of Adi Nath, who is Lord Shiva, wanted to test his pet disciple Gorakh. You know, for a sadhu his dhuni (fire) is his TV. He looks into it and can know anything that is going on anywhere in the world. One night as Gorakh was sitting on his dhuni he saw his Guru Maharaj in Assam in the company of dancing girls and thought, “Oh my God! Guru Maharaj has become entangled in the samsara! He is in danger of losing everything that he has gained through his penances! I must go and save him. Matsyendra is mine, he belongs to our tribe of Naths. He is not meant for these things.” Gorakh had intense possessive love for his Guru Maharaj.
So Gorakh journeyed to Assam, disguised as a minstrel. When he located his guru, Matsyendra, he was drinking wine and had two girls in his lap, one on each thigh, with a hand on one breast of each. Gorakh, still in disguise, began singing a song: “Look, Matsyendra, Gorakh has come; remember who you are and forget this Maya.”
But Matsyendra did not want to leave. Gorakh literally had to force him to start the long journey back to Girnar. Along the way, Matsyendra went off for a bath, leaving his shoulder bag with Gorakh for safekeeping. Gorakh thought that it felt quite heavy, and when he opened it two gold bars fell out. He became wild and thought to himself, “What is wrong with my Guru Maharaj? He is a Nath; he can piss on a rock and tum it into gold. I will not allow him to become entangled in Maya,” and he threw both bars as far as he could into the jungle.
Finally they arrived in Girnar and Gorakh said, “Now Guru Maharaj, do you remember who you are?” He was feeling very proud of having walked 3,000 miles to save his Guru Maharaj from the clutches of the world.
Suddenly Matsyendra Nath passed his hand over Gorakh’s head, and Gorakh Nath realized that all that he thought had happened had been an illusion, and that in fact neither of them had even left Girnar. And then Gorakh Nath realized how foolish he had been to imagine that his Guru Maharaj could ever become enmeshed in Maya. But Matsyendra loved his disciple all the more, seeing that Gorakh loved his guru enough to search him out and force him back to his senses.
Of course you can’t expect ordinary people to play about like Aghoris do. Only Aghoris really know how to play about — and Naths are Aghoris, nothing else. But to understand their play is extremely difficult. The ordinary seeker feels revulsion when he hears about using wine in rituals or seating a naked girl on the left thigh with a hand on her left breast and her hand on his penis. That is how Dattatreya got rid of all his so-called disciples except one, who became the Adi Nath. Dattatreya was the guru of Lord Shiva himself, the Lord of Aghoris.
Of course Dattatreya is too good, but other Indian gurus have learned from his example and have made use of it to test their own disciples. I know of a case which happened in Girnar. There was a Muslim fakir who had 1,000 disciples. When he was about to die, his disciples all began to pretend to love him a lot. So he said to himself, “Is that so? I’d better teach these buggers a lesson.”
So, the next day he announced, “I have decided to leave this world, but before doing so I have a desire to have sex with a female donkey. Then I’ll be ready to die.”
Of the 1,000 disciples, 990 said, “Guruji has gone crack,” and left him. Only ten remained, thinking it was some sort of joke. The next day the fakir said to them, “Now, please collect the money necessary to buy the donkey.” Then those ten realized he was serious, and seven of them left saying, “What can this man know when he is entangled in such worldly desires?”
Three remained, and the next day the fakir said to the three, “By my astrological calculations I have determined a good day. Now, be prepared with the donkey.” Another departed after this speech, leaving two. After the donkey was brought one of the two boys realized that the old fellow was going to go through with it, and he too got fed up and left. The fakir looked at the sole survivor and said, “What are you waiting for? Better go now.”
The boy said, “Oh no, my Lord, I want to see how you do it with this donkey.’’
“All right,” said the old man. “Bind her legs nicely so that she doesn’t kick me.” After this was done he said, “Now, lift her tail so that I can have a clear passage.”
As soon as the boy touched her tail the donkey turned into a beautiful Shakti, a Yakshini, who went and sat on the fakir’s left thigh. The old man said, “Now, take this Shakti, and she will teach you what you want to know.” When the Shakti had passed from the fakir to the boy, the old man died.
There is also the story of the head of a Hindu monastery who was getting old and nearing his end. As usual, many of the sadhus in the monastery were anxious to become mahant (abbot) to get their hands on the lands and money that belonged to the monastery. So the old mahant was not sure who should succeed him.
Finally one day he stood up in the middle of his assembly hall and said, “How many of you would like to become mahant?” When almost all the sadhus there indicated that they would, he turned to his throne and said, “I curse this chair that whoever sits in it will be a pauper and will be eternally ill, but will achieve all the Riddhis and Siddhis (supernatural powers).”
Well, suddenly, none of the sadhus were willing to sit on that seat. Only one person in the whole hall, the young boy who swept the floors and who had become a disciple of the old man only a few days before said, “I will,” because he said to himself, ‘’If I need to I can use the Riddhis and the Siddhis to produce wealth.” And when he sat on the throne he immediately received the old mahant’s Shakti, which astounded all the old cronies of the monastery. So, the ways of these Indian gurus are not very straight.
You know, actually even though that disciple who was ready to help his guru have sex with a donkey achieved something, he was still not a really good disciple. If he had been a good disciple he would have told his teacher, “No, I won’t let you go. Stay with me. If you’ve created one Shakti you can create more. I don’t want to possess Shakti, I want to learn how to create Shaktis.” But the guru was far more clever than the disciple. He didn’t want the boy to know that he could produce these Shaktis and so he manifested one in the form of a Yakshini. Then the boy thought that the Guru had merely gained the Yakshini instead of having used his own Shakti to produce her.
At least this guru permitted his disciple to pass the test. Once there was a disciple who thought he could do anything his guru could do. So naturally his guru decided to teach him a lesson. They were traveling one day and the guru saw to it that they had nothing to eat all day long. The disciple started to forget the mantra he was supposed to be repeating and began to listen to the rumblings of his stomach instead.
At length they passed a fish seller’s stall. The fish seller offered them some fish. The guru took some and swallowed them whole. The disciple did the same, even though he was supposed to be a vegetarian, and because of his hunger began to appreciate their taste. Then the guru calmly vomited up all the fish — alive. He turned to his disciple and said, “Can you do that? If not you have no right to eat. Get away from me, I have no use for fools like you.”
Sometimes when a guru wants to test his disciple he can be very devious. Once there was a guru who had a disciple who had been with him for twelve years. The disciple felt that the guru was not teaching him anything, and the guru felt that the disciple was being taught nicely. One day the guru decided to teach the fellow a good lesson and make him permanently forget about complaining.
In the course of their wanderings the two came to a certain town and camped on the banks of the local river. The guru decided to have a bath before his midday meal and, accordingly sent his disciple into town to find some food. As the boy was walking about shouting, “Bhiksham dehi! Bhiksham dehi! Give alms!” he heard a parrot calling, “Come here, Maharaj, come here.” The boy followed the parrot’s voice to the place where he was caged and found a nice home. The lady of the house invited him in and insisted he eat while she prepared food for his guru. Of course a sincere disciple will never eat before his guru does, but this one was rather hungry, and he decided that it wouldn’t matter much. When he had finished his meal and the lady had packed the guru’s lunch in a box, the disciple started back for the riverbank. Suddenly the parrot called out to him: “So, you are a sadhu!”
“Yes,” the disciple replied rather proudly, “I and my Guru Maharaj are enjoying the hospitality of this town today. I am just taking food to my mentor.”
“Please ask your Guru Maharaj one question,” said the parrot. “When will I be free of this cage?”
“Since you are the reason that we obtained this delicious food,” said the disciple, “I will certainly ask him.” So saying, he returned to his guru. The guru was served his food and, on inquiring about his disciple’s food and learning that he had eaten already, shook his head in a knowing way and finished his meal. Afterward while enjoying a pleasant smoke from his chillum, he asked his disciple what had happened in the town that morning.
“Well,” said the boy, “as I was strolling about, shouting ‘Give alms,’ I heard a parrot calling, ‘Come, Maharaj, come!’ and when I went to investigate, the lady there gave me the wonderful food which Your Lordship has just consumed. And as I was leaving, the parrot called me over and asked me to ask you when he would be free of his cage.”
As soon as the guru heard these last words his eyes rolled back in his head, he gasped for breath, he clutched at his chest, and he toppled over on the ground. The disciple thought to him self: “Now what is happening? Just when 1 asked that stupid parrot’s question my Guru Maharaj collapsed. If I ever want to get any of his knowledge I’d better try to save him somehow.” After several splashes of river water the guru regained consciousness and continued with his smoke.
Next day the boy was again sent to town to beg food, and as he passed along that certain lane he again heard the parrot’s call: “Come, Maharaj, come.” The disciple entered and collected the food after eating as he had done the previous day, and as he was leaving the parrot asked him, “What did your Guru Maharaj have to say in answer to my question?”
The disciple replied, “You fool! When I asked that idiotic question of yours to my Guru Maharaj he turned pale and fainted, and I thought I would never be able to revive him.”
As soon as the parrot heard these words his tail feathers went limp, he paled, and he fell off his perch into the dust at the bottom of the cage with a loud squawk.
His mistress, hearing the commotion, rushed outside and with a little shriek opened the cage and took the prostrate parrot into her hands to try to gauge the seriousness of the disorder. Whereupon the wily bird flew from her hands onto the branch of a nearby tree and said to the bewildered student, “Dunce! You have been with your guru for twelve years and learned nothing, while it took only one lesson for me.”
Puzzled, chagrined, and insulted, the disciple returned to his master, only then wondering how the parrot could have known how long he had been with his guru. After the Guru Maharaj had eaten his dinner, the disciple related the whole story to him while the master was having his smoke. At the end the Guru Maharaj retorted, “Stupid donkey! Don’t you understand yet? I have been teaching you for the past twelve years, and you haven’t even been aware of my teaching, much less tried to learn anything. And that parrot, who was my disciple in a previous birth, got the idea right away. Do you think that you deserve to be taught anything further?”
That disciple who had become a parrot must have made some mistake in order to be reborn as a parrot, right? He must have failed some exam his guru had set for him in their previous encounter. The guru had no choice but to locate him and save him, though he took his own sweet time about it, to let the disciple stew and realize the gravity of his failure so that he would not fail again.
That progression is always there. A “child” may truly love his guru, serve him faithfully in so many ways, and generally endear himself to the old man, but when the time for examination comes around the guru will forget all the “child” has done for him. You may call him ungrateful, or hard-hearted, or whatever, but that will not make any difference to him. He wants to make his disciple firm and for that there can be no wavering. Does a surgeon waver when he operates?
Let us take the simplest possible example so that you will understand what I am trying to get at. Suppose we are sitting quietly together after lunch and I say to you, “Come along, let’s go see my Guru Maharaj.”
Now, if you say, “No, not today, today I am rather busy with some other work, I will meet him later,” what have I learned about you? I learn that you are not too interested in progressing. If you wanted to make progress you would have said, “Yes, come on, get dressed, let my other work go to hell, I want to meet your mentor.”
Whatever your answer may be I will keep quiet because I will have what I want: the result of my test. Actually, as I said before, there is no such thing as a test. This is a simple measure of the causal body. If there are still too many karmas stored in the causal body then a “child” will not get the desire to achieve, or will only get that desire off and on, not continuously. ln either case more sadhana is necessary to wean the “child” from desire completely. Other gurus may work in different ways. Namdev thought that he was quite somebody, because Lord Vishnu in the form of Vitthala (“He who stands on the brick”) came in person to eat lunch with him every day. One day an assembly of all the great saints of Maharashtra took place. Tukaram, Jnaneshvara and many others were there, and so was Gora Kumbhar, the potter-saint. When everyone was seated, Jnaneshvara’s sister Muktabai said, “Gora, why don’t you use your stick and test all of us to see if we’re well-done?” She was referring to the stick which a potter uses to determine whether or not the pots are fully fired. Gora Kumbhar smiled and began to test. He pronounced everyone passed except Namdev, about whom he said, “This one will have to go back into the oven for some time more.”
Naturally Namdev was angry, because he had been considering himself God’s greatest devotee, and he went to Vitthala to complain. But Vitthala told him, “Namdev, Gora was right, and if you don’t believe him I will also test you. I will come to you before sunset today, and you must recognize me; otherwise, you fail.” Namdev agreed.
In the evening, as Namdev was out walking he saw a Chandala (scavenger) and his wife — who were really Vitthala and his wife Rukmini, in disguise — cooking their evening meal. Namdev was feeling tired and sat down to rest nearby, where he could watch what was going on. The Chandala said to his wife, “The pot is not full. Cut up the chickens and put them in.” There were twenty-five chickens, representing the twenty-five Tattvas, or essential principles of the universe. But Namdev did not realize this, and he thought to himself, “Oh, my heavens, how violent. However, it must be God’s will.”
After some time, the Chandala said to his wife, “Still the pot is not full. Cut up the dogs and put them in.” There were four dogs — the four Vedas. Namdev should have realized this, but didn’t. He thought, “Well, the Chandalas will have to endure the burden of their karmas eventually.” What Vishnu was trying to teach Namdev is that when all the Tattvas and the Vedas have been killed, butchered and cooked, only the absolute, undifferentiated reality remains. That was the last lesson that Namdev had to learn. He had achieved success in worshipping Vitthala, but such worship is limited by duality, and now he would have to go beyond duality. Because of the play of Vishnu, though, he didn’t realize any of this at that moment.
Suddenly, the Chandala said to his wife, “Still the pot is not full. Now let’s cut up that man over there and put him in!” Namdev jumped up and forgot all about God and everything else and, remembering only self-preservation, ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Vitthala wanted to initiate him into the undifferentiated reality, by killing, butchering, and cooking: Sadguru, Karnaguru, and Upaguru.
Have you ever heard of the Sadguru, Karnaguru, and Upaguru? The Sadguru kills the aspirant — separating him from his mundane existence. The Karnaguru flays the carcass: the ego. All the accretions of untold births, the false personality, is chopped into tiny pieces. When my Mahapurusha cut Haranath Thakur, my parents’ guru, into tiny pieces and removed Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas from the pile of sixty-four, this is what He was doing.
The Upaguru cooks the ego in the fire of Shakti, and the result is a tasty dish: an enlightened being.
The best guru, of course, combines the Sadguru, Karnaguru, and Upaguru into one, like my Mahapurusha. This is what Vishnu wanted to do for Namdev — but Namdev was still not ready. Namdev stopped running after reaching the nearby village, and seeing a Shiva temple decided to go there to rest. When he went inside he saw an old man with his feet resting on top of the Shiva Linga. Namdev said to him very sententiously, “Do you know, my good man, that you are defiling the sanctity of this temple?”
The old man looked at him and said, “My son, I am very old and infirm and cannot move my legs. Will you help me so that I can avoid angering Shiva?”
At first Namdev felt revulsion because he would have to dirty himself by taking hold of the old man’s feet. But finally he overcame the revulsion, picked up the offending feet, and laid them down a short distance away.
“Nam,” said the old man, “I still feel there is something under my feet. Would you just look and see?” The old man called him “Nam.” He didn’t call him Namdev because Namdev literally means “name of God,” and the old man was insinuating that Namdev had not yet reached that state, but was still only a common name. In fact, being addressed as “Nam” irritated Namdev, but he forgot then there was no way the old man could have possibly known what his name was. It was all part of Vishnu’s play.
Again Namdev unwillingly lifted the old man’s legs, and saw another Shiva Linga. When he placed them down again, another Shiva Linga spring up from where the feet touched the ground. Then Namdev realized there was something more to the old man than met the eye. “Nam,” he said, “tell me where Lord Shiva isn’t, and there I will put my feet.” Namdev embraced his feet and took him as his guru, and the old man, whose name was Vishoba Kechar, taught Namdev that though he had known one limited aspect of God he had still to learn of the universality of God.
After Namdev finished his lesson, and Vishoba Kechar sent him back to the assembly, Gora Kumbhar hit him with his stick and said, “Now this one is done, too.”
No matter how your guru works, if he is a real guru he will push you to the limits of your endurance and then further. He will test you until you think you can no longer bear it, but it will be worth it because once he is finished with you, you will be ready for real sadhanas — like Aghora, for instance.