Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba

by Ram Dass

share all this with you in order to explain the way in which the stories and quotes included in this volume are a part of the process of a practice. It is known in the East as Guru-kripa,

The Guru is like a doorway beyond which one catches hold of a view of the Truth that draws you to it; or the Guru is like a mirror in which you see where you aren’t.

WE CAME TO Maharajji’s feet, impelled by our yearning for the living spirit and drawn by his light. We came from Europe and Great Britain, the United States and Canada, Australia and South America. As Herman Hesse said of the fellow travelers in his Journey to the East, each had his or her own special reason for making the journey but all also shared a common goal. We came with our varying hues of cynicism and faith, open or closed heartedness, sensuality or asceticism, intellectual arrogance or humility. To each, Maharajji responded uniquely: now fiercely, now tenderly; now through ignoring us or sending us away, now through making much over us; now through reading the mind and heart; now through playing dumb. He did what was necessary to quiet the mind and open the heart so that the thirst that had drawn us all to him could be slaked.

But through that constant repetition, we came to appreciate how a ritual can take on a life of its own and generate a spiritual power independent of the specific reason for which it is being performed at any one time.

alluding to, I knew that if he gave me those powers I would indeed get lost in them. Now and

He reminded us to be unattached to things, to people, to our work, and even to righteousness.

was sometimes busy tending to the orchard. One day Maharajji said, “Well, that orchard belongs to me. You work like a manager. It is my property. A manager has no attachment. The moment he is turned out from a place, he will just go. So you live like a manager.”

It is easy to pray to a murti but hard when the murti speaks back.”

If one is still rooted only in intellect or emotion, any act of surrender is but another act of ego and can, based on misjudgment, lead to horrendous consequences.

“How do I know if a person is my guru?” a devotee asked Maharajji. “Do you feel he (guru) can fulfill you in every way spiritually? Do you feel he can free you from all desires, attachments, and so forth? Do you feel he can lead you to final liberation?”