Chapter XVI: BEYOND MAYA


It was drizzling when I left the Roundhouse the next morning. At darshan I opened an umbrella and received a reprimand for having done so. Suddenly I became aware that I was a foreigner who didn’t understand the ashram rules.

Seeing Baba’s orange robe emerge from the Mandir veranda I felt my heart beginning to pound away. This time he passed by. Then he returned and I looked straight at him. For a third time he passed by and I could feel a golden ray of love shoot out to connect my heart to his.

“He’s teaching us to be patient,” I said, turning to Charles.

“Perhaps we ought to have a special Scottish scarf made,” he replied. Forgetting that Swami had assured us that this was unnecessary I agreed. The idea of a Scots scarf seemed quite exciting and I watched as Charles walked away into the village to have them made.

At morning bhajans, Baba looked at us again and again I felt that warm ray of love. “This is surely the One for whom I have searched so long,” I thought.

That afternoon, Swami came out much later than normal. As usual, the eagle sat perched like a sentinel on the Mandir dome. After talking to some westerners he called an Australian group for interview. Many others jumped up with letters and he took some, throwing others back. The Seva Dal volunteers told the more eager devotees to sit down.

Again he passed me by and I looked directly at him. He seemed to look straight through me with a distant gaze. Was it possible that he too had his introverted moments when he switched off from the hundreds around him to travel elsewhere to other souls in need?

Today, he appeared to be such a distant figure. Almost as if he gave darshan out of a sense of kindness and duty to his devotees. But then I remembered that Baba has said that every darshan the Lord gave was in service to his devotees.

“If you are in a group it is as well to stand up as he comes by. Tell him who you are and where you are from,” we had been advised. I decided to try doing this.

“But surely he already knows?” I asked myself.

Charles had got our Scots scarves — royal blue with a small, white St Andrew’s Cross. We talked more about his plans to sail around the world on their return to Australia. He told me of his experiences prior to his first trip to Prashanti when a snake had bitten him and he was saved from the poison through Swami’s grace.

Within me I could already feel the venom of negativity and anger begin to raise its ugly head. I watched it warily, telling myself to be careful not to get sucked into such emotions. Was it the darker half fighting and kicking against all the light that the Lord was pouring into me? Or was it my ego becoming resentful that Swami had not kept his promise to give us the second interview?

I knew that it was simply unrealistic to expect that sort of constant attention. There were thousands of others who clamoured for his blessing. I had been very fortunate to have been interviewed on the first morning. What else did I need?

Feeling these strange emotions inside me I prayed to Swami, asking him to take it away from me as well as to take my love. It was an oft noted fact that he acknowledges such telepathic communications in one way or another. Now, with a gentle gesture of his hand, he appeared to answer my silent prayer. I became aware once more of a psychic connection, through a light cord of pure love, to his small form. How loving and gracious the Lord was in every way!

At bhajans that evening I felt especially happy. The sky was illuminated with pink and the lights of the ashram and the Mandir itself highlighted the blue-and-gold rococo of the temple. Though most of the sanskrit bhajans were unfamiliar I knew how to sing one at least. It was a blessed experience to sit there in the Lord’s presence and again I saw him looking, lovingly, in our direction.

At morning darshan the next day Swami walked past us again. He had promised to interview us “tomorrow” and “tomorrow” had now become yesterday. It seemed that his “tomorrow” did not necessarily mean the day after! This was confirmed by older devotees.

“He will shower you with favours and then just ignore you. That’s his way of testing your faith. First he brings you close to him and then keeps you at a distance.”

I met Al Drucker — the pilot who Swami had guided out of a thunderstorm in the USA some years ago. Al had become an Economics lecturer at Swami’s college.

“Even though some of us have been here a long while,” he assured me, “we still get upset if Swami ignores us!”

I began to watch the changes that had begun to take place within me over the last few days. At first, all I had wanted was to get to the Lord’s feet and to kiss them in padanamaskar. This he had granted me along with the lovely golden ring. Now I was becoming a spoilt brat who expected far more and got easily upset when things didn’t go his way.

“Hope but don’t expect,” I had told myself so often before travelling to India. Now my heart had begun to beat too wildly when Swami approached.

“It’s pointless to expect so much and then to get hurt so easily,” I argued with myself. “What did it matter if he did ignore me?” Just to be in his presence was an incredible blessing in itself.

In the three years I had known of Swami, I had never expected to encounter him on the physical dimension. Yet, I had always sensed the intimacy of his presence.

“So why get upset, now, because he hasn’t called the group for another interview?”

I had begun to feel possessive towards Swami, feeling envy when I saw others receiving his attentions. Another part began to feel deeply hurt and, to protect itself, began to distance itself from him. I became impatient with what I began to perceive in myself and others as servility in the way we all clamoured for his favours.

“Why bother?” I told myself. “Was the world any different now to how it was before?” I felt I had deluded myself willingly entering into some sort of illusory dream where Swami knew everything about me and was my constant companion. Now I could see that the reality was very different.

“The world hasn’t changed after all. Still there are grey skies and still there’s my depression.”

After darshan that morning, I returned to my room to write up my diary. I felt I should have been out there singing but instead I had succumbed to clouds of depression which left me feeling that I wanted to get away from the whole world. I had expected the stay at Prashanti to be an experience of complete bliss. What I felt now was something very different and I began to ask myself if I had wasted my meagre savings on the journey.

The ring, it was true, had been an unexpected gift. I had never attached any importance to the manifestation of such material objects. What I had hoped for was something far greater: to find the purpose of this life which had too often felt to be no more than an endless struggle for survival.


Baba kept walking by with no apparent sign of recognition. Despite everything I had been told by others it was so difficult not to sense dismay. The unconditional love he asked of us did not come easy. However much I had tried to change, it seemed my love for Baba was still conditional. My rational mind constantly admonished my silly desire to be acknowledged amongst so many. How could he acknowledge everyone!

But slowly, insidiously, my dismay turned into annoyance. Then into anger. All the poison was coming out. How exasperating to sense the double bind of anger when the Avathar was near. How could I have possibly travelled halfway across the world just to be angry at Baba?

Once more I prayed, asking him to take it all, the anger and the love. He always seemed to acknowledge the prayer with the characteristic gesture of his hand. When he did this he seemed to take away the anger and to dispel or transmute it with the gentle gesture that meant ‘I Am with you.’ And always there remained the golden thread of pure love which linked me to him.

I watched his figure walk away, the shoulders so humble, the head slightly bowed almost as if it was too much a task to carry such a large crown of hair as well as all the troubles of the world.

I could see that he was teaching me patience and humility. But the ego kept retaliating stubbornly.

“So what if he is teaching you? You’re becoming trapped in the snare you have set for yourself. The more you yearn for him the more he ignores you. More fool you! Why do you bother?”

Even when I tried to take a picture of him at bhajans he would turn away from my viewfinder.

That evening, I walked to the tamarind tree and made a wish that the farmhouse would soon be ours so that we could begin the work of transforming it into a place of holistic healing. The walk up to the kalpavriksham was a pleasant one and it was good to be outside the busy ashram and streets of Puttaparthi.

I sat in the quiet, cool breeze of the coming dusk, absorbing the evening peace of Prashanti valley. After all, it was a pleasant holiday to be here and an opportunity to meet unusual and interesting people from all over the world. Often they seemed to be fulfilling the role of Swami’s messengers, conveying to me the very information and blessings I most needed.


On Monday, the storm broke.

Following afternoon darshan, Lucas Ralli — then President of the UK Sathya Sai Organization — strode over to me with a telegram. In it there was a message to ring my neighbour immediately.

Before leaving I had asked my neighbour to contact me only if it was very urgent. Not otherwise. Immediately, great waves of anxiety and concern began to overwhelm me. I had left my son, for two weeks, in the care of a friend who had agreed to look after Woodend. Something had gone wrong. All my guilt for having left him in Scotland began to surface.

I had, after all, given him the option of travelling with us and he had chosen not to. And yet. Until a child grows up into adulthood it is connected to its parents’ auras by invisible threads. Now I could feel those threads tighten up in fear around my solar plexus. Was he alright?

Trying to make an international satellite call from Puttaparthi is not easy. Hours of waiting by the telephone in the vain hope of getting a connection with the international operator proved useless.

Late that evening I walked back to the Roundhouse with Jenny. It was half an hour after lights-out and, though the gates were unlocked, a night watchman approached me, demanding money. This was against the ashram rules but — in a moment of despair and helplessness brought on by the day’s events — I succumbed to his predatory instincts. Feelings of paranoia began to stir. Suddenly the world had turned into a threatening place.

Between interminable periods of waiting to contact the international operator Jenny and I had gone over to the Murphys. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach with anxiety. The long arm of Ahriman seemed to be stretching over six thousand miles into Prashanti. Even here I was not to be allowed a brief respite from worldly troubles.

As I sat down inside their room I began to sense a strong feeling of déja vu. I remembered the dream I had had at Woodend just before leaving, of a desert place, a flag and the Star of David. In that dream God had asked me whether I would leave everything behind and come with him. Perhaps this had been a premonition of my present troubles?

At Prashanti, Baba was apparently distancing himself from me and this had caused an inner spiritual crisis. Now the outside world had come crashing in on me. Perhaps it was all a test to see if I could remain unattached, to ride joyfully over the waves of the storm to heaven? While sitting with our friends in the dimly lit room I began to think of the dream.

In it there had been two flagpoles. On the right hand pole flew a six pointed star, the symbol of God. Outside the Mandir there were six flagpoles of which the one on the farther right was next to Baba’s interview rooms. The meaning of the dream began to filter into my conscious mind.

The orange six pointed star that I had seen emanate in our bedroom window at Woodend had been succeeded by the flag flying in a desert place. Both symbolized the seal of ultimate divine authority — the symbol given to the House of David by the same God who had spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai and who had given to him the laws of Light1. Perhaps it was Swami who had manifested the orange star and who had given me the dream?

I felt myself approaching the threshold of an even greater mystery. Could these events have been Baba’s way of telling me that if I were willing to detach myself from all worldly desires then I would find the Lord?

But the pressures of the outside world kept on at me relentlessly. Too often I failed to see beyond the Maya. The problems seemed all too real. Even within the gates of the Heavenly Abode of Peace.

Maybe I had fooled myself to have become hooked on an image of Swami as the superstar. So many travelled thousands of miles to this little village in the semi-desert of Andhra Pradesh. What did they find when they got there? For each person the experience was unique. I had read somewhere that what one found there was what one had sought. So why hadn’t I attained the peace for which I craved?

Here was the irony: my relationship with Baba had been stronger when I had been thousands of miles away from Prashanti Nilayam. Now I was physically so close to him but spiritually light years away!

Had I created a wishful image of Sai Baba to compensate for the great distance that had existed between him and me? Was the truth about Baba perhaps totally an illusion of my own creation? Had I been fooling myself all along?

Yet, I had vowed that I would not leave the ashram until after Christmas. Wild horses nor Ahriman himself would drag me away until then! I had dreamt of being with the Lord at Prashanti at Christmas and I would not allow anything to take that dream away.

The ashram had begun to resemble a circus rather than a place of spirituality. Even Baba, I was told, has referred to it as ‘the mental asylum’ at times. Since receiving the fatal telegram twenty four hours before I found myself struggling within a mire of anxieties and questions. The vagaries of local telecommunications kept me constantly on edge.

“The international operator will connect your call in two hours. Come back at two o’clock,” I was told. Then, on returning at two o’clock I was told to come back four hours later. Four hours later the promise was that things would be different the next day. Already I had waited fourteen hours to no avail.

“Come back at ten o’clock tomorrow!” I was assured. And so it went on day after day. Scotland felt to be beyond the edge of the universe in another dimension of time and space with the door tightly shut between the two.

If Baba was omniscient then he surely knew what I was being put through. Why didn’t he help? It seemed a merciless game of torment in which I had become the victim. Had I come all this way for this? I wrote Baba a desperate note. Why did he ignore the desperate prayers of a parent in an advanced state of anxiety? Why did he walk by so unheedingly without the merest look or word of comfort?

In anger I had removed the ring he had materialized for me. It seemed to have been the cause of all my problems which had started since that first, fateful interview. Baba’s favours had led me to want and expect more and more. Then he had dropped me into a chasm of disillusion and despair. Perhaps it would have been better if the interview had never happened, if I had only ever got to see him from afar. Perhaps I should have stayed at home, believing in Baba as I had?

Instead, I had chosen to go beyond belief to seek him on the material plane. Now I faced all the chaos my making this journey had brought upon me. There seemed to be no respite or redemption. If Baba could perform miracles in his omniscience then would he not perform one for me now? Or was he punishing me?

Up until then I had not disobeyed his request never to remove the ring. But now I began to feel that it didn’t matter what I did. I was no longer sure what I felt towards Baba. Maybe he was a truly humble being, full of love and devotion to his fellows, who, like the Christ, had chosen a life of sacrifice for others.

The fault lay with me. In a frightening and desperate world I had been grasping for straws believing that Baba was the Messiah for whom humanity had waited so long. Now I had to face up to the fact that I had been deluding myself. I had fallen for all the hype when I should have known better. I had been a willing accomplice in helping to further a myth!

Decades ago I had believed that what the world needed was another Christ ... not gurus who became rich at the expense of their followers and rode around in Rolls Royce cars supplied by gullible believers. Baba never exploited his devotees and for that reason too I had mistaken him for the long awaited Christ Messiah. Now I had to be honest with myself and to face the truth. I would have to forget everything I had come to believe and return to the only true God ... the incorporeal Being beyond all form.

That God did not need to rely on manifestations of rings or necklaces. I recalled my own regression experiences during which I had seen and felt the immense aura of Jesus the Christ. All through this present lifetime I had sensed the Christ’s love, standing by and protecting me from my errors.

In my room I finished writing an irate letter informing Baba that ever since he had materialized the ring things had gone from bad to worse and I no longer knew what, where or why. I was being tormented as would a mouse by a cat. I had come to Prashanti seeking the Lord in Heaven. Instead my life was becoming increasingly hellish. I had watched in tears as Swami had walked past me with never the slightest sign of recognition or compassion, not even a sign of anger or displeasure.

I was no longer sure whether he was the Mother-Father God I sought. Was I deluding myself? I wasn’t asking for proof but I had to tell him how I felt. If he were the Divine he would surely answer my prayers. Only the future would tell. At darshan that afternoon, I offered him the letter but he walked past waving down several requests, including my own- saying, “Keep it, keep it.”

I sat down at dinner to talk with Glyn, a New Zealander who I had come to admire deeply for his courage and determination in coming to India despite severe physical disabilities.

“How’re you?” he asked me.

I told him what had been going on inside me during the last twenty four hours and that, though I had asked Baba for an answer, he had declined my letter.

“I guess that all my difficulties come from my continued attachment to the physical form of Baba. During other lives it seems I have had the same problem.” Glyn looked at me, questioningly.

I told him that in other lives I had been blindly attached to the form of Jesus in a spiritual love affair. I could never understand the promise he had made his disciples that he would enter into their hearts and would remain with the world even to the end.

Glyn finished his meal and stared through the canteen window with a faraway expression. I continued.

“When I came to Baba it was to return to the Christ who had left his followers to struggle on in the dark materialism of the world for two thousand years. Having made physical contact with Baba all I have experienced is one crisis after another. Since walking into the ashram a week ago I have been besieged with doubts! It’s weird.”

Glyn still had a faraway look in his eyes. I joined him to gaze out on the evening crowds strolling outside in the thoroughfare. It was a pleasant, warm evening.

“Now I can see that all my frustrations have arisen because I felt I have had to vie for his attention with so many others when the Inner Sai has always been within me.”

“I am sure that Baba will answer your prayers,” Glyn replied in an almost trance-like voice.

That night I felt free to let go the physical image of Baba and the glamour that surrounded him at Prashanti Nilayam. To return to the Cosmic One who is everywhere and in everything. No longer did I feel the need to hang onto Baba’s personality and to get emotional about my relationship with him.

Everything had fallen apart. All I could do was to let go of all my fears and just be there in the moment. After all, wasn’t it what God had asked me to do, to leave it all and go with him? I recalled Baba, during the interview, telling devotees, “I am not this body.”

I had accepted the principle and then, almost immediately afterwards, found myself ensnared in Maya, craving for the physical presence of being with him! Now I simply had to let all the cravings and desires alone, just accepting the fact that divinity resided in all things.


My first thought, on hearing the alarm bleeping the next morning, was whether or not to go for morning darshan. I felt I had resolved my problems by persuading myself that God was omnipresent and so it was not necessary to seek his darshan in competition with all the crowds. But, deep down, I could still detect a feeling of hurt and a little voice saying, “Why risk being ignored by him, yet again?”

Despite my mixed emotions I decided to go. After all, I had travelled all the way here to be with Baba. Even if he were not the Avathar at least I could see in him a Mahapurusha (‘great person’). What a fool I would feel if he called the others today and I had missed the opportunity by sleeping late!

It was already late. There was no time for morning coffee. “Which line should I pick? Let the inner Christ guide me,” I thought. “Wherever it is I shall be in the right place.”

I found myself in the third row on the darshan line again. Everything was quiet and the eagle sat sentinel as always above the Mandir. Swami walked out onto the sand and I crossed myself as I always did when I saw him. My heart began beating fast and I had to inhale deeply to calm myself down.

His feet moved with such careful deliberation as he walked across the compound. His orange kafni billowed slightly in the morning breeze. He walked first to the women’s section and then the men’s. Before I knew it he was walking towards me. I held out the photos of Woodend and he accepted them.

He’d taken them! My mission was accomplished. This was why I had come to Prashanti. Not to write him letters of complaint. Now he had allowed me to fulfil my purpose. He had blessed the vision, it seemed, by taking the photos. I had hoped that he might touch them. But no ... he had kept them! It surely meant that he had accepted my dedicating the farmhouse in his name and my vision of turning it into a Sai healing centre in the far north of Scotland.

“Where are you from?” he asked me once more.

“Scotland,” I replied.

“Come,” he commanded and again I was walking towards the Mandir veranda. From the corner of my eye I could see the the small Scots group follow, Charles as well. Soon, we were inside the general interview room, sitting on the floor with Swami’s three clocks ticking away by the window.

As usual he followed, shut the door, switched on the lights and the electric fan which began to whirr away at top speed. Already, the day was getting hot. He circled his hand and produced white vibhuti which he gave the women. Then he began to talk with a group of Indians, discussing a blueprint of some works project.

He dealt with the plans in great detail and with much animation. “Maybe today is a day for dealing with plans and projects,” I thought, gazing at the pile of letters he had collected which now lay on a silver tray on the window sill. On top of the letters I could see the yellow envelope containing the pictures of Woodend that I had held out on the darshan line.

A feeling of success had begun to glow inside me. All along, I had felt that it had been Swami who had guided me to the farmhouse, who had given me the idea of a healing place and who had manifested the star of orange light and the dream of the flag.

He pointed at Charles and said, “Scotland!” We entered the private interview room through a small doorway. Swami walked in, chucked me on the cheek and said, “Bangaroo!” (‘golden one’). I felt so happy to hear him say this with such affection. Once more he was Krishna playing with his gopas.

He sat in his chair and teased us all. “You're always arguing!” he said, half jesting, but as always so caringly. He turned to Syd Chaden, from California, asking him what he wanted.

Syd remained tongue-tied and Swami put the question to us all. Charles found the courage to tell Baba about his plans for their sailing voyage and he blessed them, promising to give their boat a name on Christmas Day. We were all so excited. Baba turned to Jenny and told us that we too always argued. That gave me the courage to speak up.

“Swami, you guided me to Scotland, to this farmhouse. I would like to start a healing centre there …”

“Healing Centre! Very good. Yes, yes. You have my blessings!” he exclaimed. “Would you like me to give you a lingam2 for your Centre?”

“Please! Yes please, Swami!” I replied, hardly believing my good fortune. Then I tried to tell him how much the project would cost.

“But, Swami, it will cost six million Rupees...”

He waved me aside saying, “Details! Details!”. I wanted to take a picture of him to record the animated gestures, the smiles and the dark, flashing eyes as he spoke with us. But I didn’t have the courage to interrupt and ask permission. Every word was so precious to hear.

Soon, we were in the outer room again and, as Baba handed out the little sealed plastic vibhuti packs, I dared to take two photographs of him. Later, when the pictures were developed, I found them to be in perfect focus though I had no time to adjust the camera. Around his crown of hair was a blue aura.

My Krishna!

I sat in the corner, diagonally opposite Swami. He scolded us, waving his finger, saying, “Swami knows. You are not husband and wife. Just friends.” Then Baba reprimanded me for playing ‘musical chairs’ and I wondered what he meant.

“Swami, I am in the middle of divorce proceedings.”

“I know, I know,” he replied. “All that’s in the past now.” Then he called me over and I tripped over others in a half daze to get to him. As usual, my left brain wasn’t functioning very well. It was all right brain, intuitive. I stooped to kiss his feet again. While I did so Baba materialized a lingam and handed it to me.

I looked into Baba’s deep, kind eyes as he spoke to me so lovingly. The Parent showered blessings on his lost child. Speaking softly, he promised me a long, healthy spiritual life and advised me to build that life on a foundation of self-confidence and self-discipline. I couldn’t retain all his words in a brain that almost refused to function in the Lord’s presence.

Then he ushered us all out and once more,I walked towards the compound gates in a daze. Within a week he had given me another interview. I sat under the compound arches all aglow with the bliss he had showered upon me. Its soft light travelled in waves through every atom of my being. Bhajans followed and I sat there, not daring to move in case I lost the experience. I forgot I was on an empty stomach.

Returning to the ashram Post Office, I met Zdenka who asked to see the lingam. “Can I take it to a friend who is not very well?” she asked.

Another test. I had only recently been given the lingam. I felt possessive of Swami’s gift and knew that I would have to vanquish this feeling and entrust her with the healing stone. Again, it felt like some kind of test that Swami had sent my way immediately after the interview.

After more futile attempts to ring Scotland I made my way back to the Roundhouse. Zdenka was already on her way back with the precious lingam.

For the rest of that day I basked in a great glow of well-being. Despite all the problems at home I had unexpectedly received so much of his love. I kept seeing those gentle, dark eyes looking into mine. They had appeared to be strangely aglow. Perhaps he was infusing my being with a new light, preparing me for the future? What grace!

That night, I took a walk into the village to enjoy the lights and life of the street outside. The air was balmy and blew pleasantly. The glow that was inside me was everywhere. In one of the shops I bought a little sandalwood box with an elephant carved on its lid. The box would hold the precious lingam. At the village tailor’s where I had had my kurtas made I was given a small piece of pink silk on which the translucent, green agate stone would rest.


A friend had travelled to Bangalore and managed to call my home to find out why my neighbour had cabled me. It had turned out to be nothing more serious than a disagreement between my son and the housekeeper I had left to look after him and Woodend. But the dispute had led to her abandoning the house. My son had travelled south to spend Christmas with his mother and it was clear that I would have to curtail my visit and return a month earlier than planned.

I would have to change my air ticket to return early. This presented more problems. Egyptair flew from Bombay to London only once or twice a week. This limited my chances of getting a return flight in time but I would have to try. In the event the process was to take another fortnight of nail biting.

In the meantime I decided to ask Swami for a private interview. There were so many questions I needed to ask him. Would we find the money to buy Woodend? What had he meant by, “Details! Details!” when I had put it to him that we needed something in the region of six million Rupees? And there were other questions.

I wanted to know more about the planetary changes and the meaning of my extraordinary visions. Were there extraterrestrials and would they come down to help us at some future time of crisis? Was the inner guidance that seemed to come from Swami really from him? Would he help me with my book and in my work as a healer? Would he help me in my relationship with my son? And would he guide me to my destined partner, my true soulmate? I had no way of knowing if I would ever get to visit Baba again in this life so I felt I had to ask him everything!

“Somehow, please answer these questions, Bhagavan, so that I may always follow the path you have prepared,” I ended.

I was still dogged by worries about my financial dependence on state welfare. Since leaving training college it seemed that the dice of fortune had been loaded against me. I had done all kinds of work just to stay alive, to look after my family and step-children and to pay the bills. I had prayed to Swami to show me my true path in life and he had provided me with visions of flying saucers!

The mandala effect of these phenomena had begun to open up my consciousness to other dimensions. And it was clear to me now that our civilization was in its last days ... to be replaced by something inconceivably greater. Everything that humanity had always dreamt of but which materialists had dismissed as Utopian was soon to become the new reality.

But how were we to shift from one reality into another, from this wicked old world of fear, doubt, insecurity, ignorance, acquisitiveness and violence to the age of love and peace which was already upon us? How would those, whose eyes were now opening to the coming reality shift, keep surviving in the old world? So many of us still depended on a system from which we felt totally alienated. Caesar demanded and received our allegiance, however reluctantly given.

In the depths of this materialistic age we had sold our souls to Ahriman, it seemed. How did the Lord expect us to keep our little spirit flames burning in all this dark chaos?

It had been Human Rights Day. What rights did any of us have in a world so crazily out of balance? Millions starved in the vassal states of the immensely rich First World nations, ruled by multinational interests which were a law unto themselves. In the rich countries, millions languished in poverty and unemployment without much hope of a future. We were all hopelessly caught inside some kind of machine which was racing on to its own destruction. I had been a peace activist and political campaigner too long to believe in miracles.

Politics is a dirty game and I had decided to leave it alone. We had marched, we had sung, we had reasoned with all those who lived in fear of the dreaded day. But what good had any of it done? It was a brave gesture to show the world that the flame of human decency and love was not yet quite extinguished. The dark forces might claim our bodies but they could never take our souls.

I tossed and turned trying to get some sleep. Ahriman’s ghosts had followed me all the way to the ashram. The righteous indignation of the old idealist sprang up to defend against its grey spell. I had struggled all my life to find and then maintain an individualistic perspective on this strange world. A perspective of truth. Deep down, I still felt as if I were a sannyasi walking through this life, a stranger to this world who had chosen to enter the dream of Maya to descend into its depths in order to find the inner strength to rise again, free of its downward, gravitational pull. Why, then, did I feel so lost and abandoned at this most crucial hour?

“Lord,” I prayed, “do not desert me now. I have come a long way to return to you.”

I saw another who had carried the pain of the world on his frail shoulders and who had died alone on a cross so that the world might live through his resurrection. Now it was happening to me, to each of us, as we too followed the path that he had taken two thousand years before.

Drifting off into a fitful sleep I was rudely awakened at five-fifteen AM by the alarm. Strange emotions had left me tired and depressed and I didn’t feel ready for darshan. But Jenny coaxed me into getting washed and dressed and I hurried off almost at the eleventh hour realizing that I had left my ring behind in the room. What would happen if Swami called us again and noticed the ring was missing? “Don’t remove it,” he had instructed but I was in a habit of removing rings before sleeping.

I craved to be with him again but did I dare to face him without the ring? Ours was one of the last lines to enter. I noticed that Swami had summoned a group from London who wore turquoise scarves. I had nothing to do with this group but I knew someone who kept three scarves, one American, one Australian and one Yugoslav, just in case any of these groups were called for interview. She went in every chance she got, even though Swami would reprimand her. She didn’t care. She was totally in love with the Lord.

She and I felt that we were old friends from many lives before and, like her, I shared a deep love of Baba. So what did it matter if I should risk his displeasure now? Was it not to be close to him that I had come all this way? I jumped up and, feeling like an impostor, followed the London group.

Inside the Mandir veranda we sat down. I looked, desperately, for a spot which was out of the way hoping that Swami might not notice me. There was none and I found myself sitting on the very outside row where he was bound to see me when he returned to the interview rooms. Maybe he would scold me in public for sneaking in with this group of strangers? Maybe he would send me back? How awful that would be! Could I bear it or would I break down?

Baba entered the Mandir and saw me out of the corner of his eye. There was no sign of disapproval. Just a feeling that he was quietly saying something like, “So, it’s you again!”

He called us into the outer room and talked and joked with us. I sat right in the very back with my head down, almost afraid to look at him for fear of having taken such a liberty. But as he shut the door his big toe touched my foot and I felt a blessed wave of light and pleasure travel throughout my being. Once more the Lord had granted me sparshan.

He turned to Paul, our companion from Aberdeen, to ask why he had come again.

“Swami, my children missed the previous interview so I have brought them with me this time.” Swami nodded in approval, suffering the little children to come unto him, showering them with endless love.

The two boys, Ravi and Krishna, stood wide-eyed before Baba ... souls who had chosen this very moment, as we all had, to be pulled back to Mother Earth by the impulse of the Avathar to be here now, in this dreamtime, with him guiding our lives.

And then he looked over the group behind which I was hiding.

“How are you, Sir?” he asked, his voice almost mischievous, his eyes widening in exaggeration as he tossed the question across to me.

Me?

He was speaking to me! Like a dormouse in hibernation I was rudely awakened and brought into the limelight. No chance of escaping now. He was speaking to me!

“Very happy to be in Swami’s presence again,” I replied sheepishly, holding my hands in namaskar before him.

He beckoned me over. I couldn’t believe this was happening but somehow I managed to stagger over to Baba’s chair. He gave me a look which meant I could kiss his Lotus feet once more. I happily kissed them for the third time in eight days. Then he commanded me to sit right next to his chair and I looked hopelessly for a space. Seeing a small space between Paul and Baba’s chair I squeezed into it, embarrassed at all the intimate attention I was suddenly receiving. I hoped that Paul would not be upset by my apparent leap-frogging of the queue.

I sat right by Baba and stared up at him, feeling happy as a toddler. I became Arjuna with his Krishna, Hanuman with his Rama, a disciple at the Master’s feet. He patted me on the head and chucked me playfully on the chin, just like a loving father might. I knew it was a very special blessing, all this, having one’s karma removed or modified in this way. Once again, I became the primeval lump of clay through which the Cosmic Sculptor fed his light, changing the very atoms within. I revelled in this rebirth.

All the while he continued to talk with the London devotees and I struggled with my rational mind to follow and log his words in a memory bank that reeled somewhere out in space. I was like a new planet being born. Then he spoke.

“The greatest thing is Truth, Devotion, and love of God,” he reminded us. I was far from the person I wanted to be but I felt that I had tried my best to adhere to those three guidelines. He advised us on our personal relationships and warned us not to be fickle with our spouses.

“Sometimes 36, sometimes 63. I know. I am in the bedroom too!” he observed of one lady. I blushed for her. He knew the deepest, most intimate things about his children. Before him we are naked, transparent souls. All one before our Maker.

“Fidelity of thought and behaviour towards your spouse is important. Not all this experimenting with relationships. That is not why you have come here!” Suddenly he turned, smiled and punched me gently on the middle eye.

“Beast!”

He seemed to be knocking all my animal desires out in public. What could I do but grin and bear it, knowing that he must know more about me than I, myself, did? “Beast I may be,” I thought, “but I love you all the same!”

Again he spoke to the others and I returned, once more, to my reveries. All I could do was to stare and stare at him, trying to absorb even a few words.

“Go inside, Sir!” I heard him say. I awoke, startled to hear that it was I to whom he spoke.

“Me, Swami?” I asked lamely.

“Yes, go inside!” he repeated, pointing to the inner room. So, without any more hesitation, I walked in. Alone.

I walked in, forgetting my letter for a private interview. All I could think of were the pressures which continued to impinge upon me from the outside world, the problems at home which were drawing me back from the Lord. I stood there, my shoulders sagging, like an overgrown school boy waiting to face the head teacher.

In almost no time he was standing before me. I felt so embarrassed because I noticed that I was at least a foot taller than he. I wondered if I should get down on my knees.

“You are worried, depressed,” I heard him say, softly in a concerned tone.

“Yes, Swami. There are many problems at home.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassured me as would a concerned mother. “You worry about the future, as well. Don’t worry,” he repeated gently as if I were a nervous animal who needed coaxing.

I forgot all my questions: the changes, the UFOs, soulmates, everything. Without thinking, I hugged and embraced him, the dear, dear One from whom I had been physically torn away for so very long. The separation was immeasurable, even in many human lifetimes.

I collapsed into the dear Lord’s arms. I was at the end of my lone journey through the illusion of time. Now, I felt myself bereft of all further life-force. I lay my head on his shoulder, my head full of all the things I wanted to tell of, dizzy with all the mental overload.

“Lord, Lord, I love you so much,” I blurted as if from afar, my voice cracking with the strain of trying to emerge from mental aridity into the flow of living in that moment.

“Yes, yes,” he replied, soothingly, holding my right arm firmly in his hand, recharging me with his deep, dark eyes.

“Know that You are Me!” I seemed to hear his voice speak within me.

(Even now I can hear it, returning to that eternal moment when I felt myself merging with the Lord like a small planet lost in the greatness of the sun. The sun from which the impulse of planetary life emanates).

Then he put his hand in mine.

There he was. The greatest life force, the Lord who had descended from the Mountain Top around which all the the universes spun their dreams.

Vishnu.

The Mahapurusha held my hand.

The interview ended and I began to walk out, forgetting to ask any of my questions, forgetting even that I had asked for a private interview just a few hours before!

On the way out I bumped my head against Paul’s.

“Careful, careful!” I heard Baba call out as I emerged once more, dazed, aglow by all that had happened. I sat down and closed my eyes, feeling the bliss of the Lord transform every miniscule part of me, its Light rushing around every atom, bringing a new being into the world for the very first time.

Part of me was embarrassed at my apparent impetuosity. Was it the done thing to embrace the Avathar? Yet what else could I have possibly have done in that moment? I had to look God directly in the face, never to fear the consequences of facing his greatness.

For between each of us and the Mother-Father there is a covenant which is much older than the beginning of beginnings. It is the promise which the Creator has given and has always kept but from which we have strayed.

In my weakness I had forgotten. Then he seemed to have reminded me of it once more.

“Know that You are Me. That I am You. Neither in this world nor any other do you walk alone. See yourself in diversity and, in that many-coloured dream, wake up to see that All is One. That One is You ... everywhere! Will you dare to awake from the dream to see it? Or, having glimpsed it, will you fall back into the illusion of duality?”

These words were never physically spoken to me that day. Yet they ring in my mind as I write this.

For that timeless time at least I dwelt in the White Light of All-there-Is. It didn’t matter about manners. When you see God, go for God. Do not stop to think because, in that moment, you might forget your purpose and fall back into an eternity of Maya. To dare to dive deeply is to risk dying many times over. Yet how many times we die is a matter which we alone must choose. And what lies beyond the many dyings but eternal life!


I sat there with my eyes closed, just feeling and being in that deep inner peace that Swami had bestowed upon me. I was determined to keep it for as long as possible. I would not let anything or anyone distract me and so lose it. I found myself floating rather than walking outside the Mandir. I sat down for bhajans, heeding Baba’s advice not to talk to anyone for at least an hour or so after touching the Lord in sparshan.

‘Shantih! Shantih! Shantih!’ is what the Lord gave me. The greatest gift I could possibly hope for. ‘Shantih’ is what the thunder said at the end of Eliot’s wasteland, ending the long Grail search.

‘Peace,’ said the thunder, its deep voice rolling across the the arid wastes. The peace that passeth all understanding.

‘Da, Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata,’ the Lord whispered across the ocean of time and Maya, saying, ‘Give, sympathize, control.’

Not like the thunder now but gently. Yet, in that gentleness lay the unseen powers of Creation itself. The Lord gives, the Lord offers compassion. The Lord controls and makes anew.

‘Shantih! Shantih! Shantih!’ he whispers across the cosmic winds of our galaxy.

Everything seemed to float and merge into everything else in a gorgeous psychedelic play of light and colour. Somewhere there was sound and even farther away the planet’s pull of gravity. But, as I sat listening to the sanskrit bhajans, all I could feel was the eternal reality of the Lord’s ananda.3

Beyond the river of rainbows, beyond the swirl of sounds, beyond the movements of finite moment ... beyond all of that was ananda.

In that moment I approached samadhi. I sat there outside of time. Reborn that day, never again to return to the old. Floating on Prashanti’s morning hymns of praise, I sang, watching the eagles spiral high up over Himavant, calling the Glory of His Name. I was lost. Happily lost in this one’s dream. Forever and forever and forever. Higher and higher.


© RW 1989