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He taught us that vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, was one of India’s most ancient techniques of meditation.
In this state, I recalled fatherly Kailash Baba and how he taught me the proper consciousness around snakes and scorpions.
The nature of the mind is to interpret nonessentials essential. The mind creates artificial needs, believing it cannot live without them. In this way we carry a great burden of attachments throughout our life. Attachment is itself a great burden on our minds. We
may never understand the extent of the burden till, like my books or the earwax, we’re free of it. But if we find joy within, we can live a simple life, free of endless complications.
“The stick of a devotee’s mercy can save one from the greatest dangers.”
When I asked him why he wore only burlap, he replied that the coarse, itching texture of burlap kept him always in an uncomfortable condition. This, he said, helped him to always seek comfort in remembering Rama.
I once asked Baba, “Why do you follow such difficult vows?” Meekly, he replied, “It helps me to be focused on my spiritual practices. But I am happy.” And amazingly, he really was.
Saying nothing, a sadhu stared up into my eyes as if he had been waiting for me. Rising to his feet, he broke the silence. “This is Mathura, Lord Krishna’s birthplace. And today is Janmastami, Krishna’s birthday.”
Taking my hand, he led me into a sunny courtyard where a round man beaming a beatific smile sat cross-legged on a wooden bed, a faded checkered blanket wrapped around his body. I drew closer. His face, framed by white stubble, glowed with an otherworldly joy. His squinting eyes seemed to penetrate through the windows of mine and into the mysteries of my life. This was Neem Karoli Baba.
“Love everyone, serve everyone, and feed everyone. Serve like Hanuman without selfishness and greed. This is the key to realizing God.”
For the next few weeks, I spent an hour or so each day sitting at Maharaji’s feet.
“The teacher slapped their faces and scolded them.” Her body and voice now trembled. “The poor little boy was shocked; he couldn’t understand what he had done wrong. He wondered why he should continue studying if his teacher, who had mastered all of the very subjects he sought to learn, still did not know how to love. At that moment he renounced both school and home to search for God.” Turning a skeleton key to open the door of her brick hut, she glanced at us over her shoulder. “Eventually, he became the disciple of a saint in Vrindavan.”
Yoga meant, simply, to be absorbed in the Supreme. It struck me how many ways there were to be absorbed.
Srila Prabhupada was born Abhay Charan to a deeply religious family in Calcutta in 1896. I had read while in Bombay that, in 1922, the young Abhay met his guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. At the time of their first interaction, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta told him, “You are an educated young man. Why don’t you teach the message of Lord Chaitanya throughout the world?”
“At the age of sixty-nine, in 1965, he left his home in Vrindavan to fulfill his life’s mission.
He sailed over rough seas, suffering two heart attacks and his seventieth birthday on the voyage, before arriving alone,
docking first in Boston and then sailing on to New York City.”
He struggled alone, living on the Bowery and the Lower East Side until gradually, his loveable qualities and vast knowledge attracted sincere seekers of the counterculture.
In 1967, I became his disciple in San Francisco.
Perhaps, I thought, the miracle of being an instrument of kindness is the most powerful of all.
Haight-Ashbury,
“Swami,” Gary said, “our lives are totally opposite. What do we have in common? I’m a physical trainer and convince people that they’ll be happy with a healthy, handsome body. But you’re a swami and convince them that they’ll be happy if they realize that they’re not the body at all, but an eternal soul.”
