Wandering as a sadhu
through the hills, I arrived at Kainchi ashram from Shivananda ashram,
Rishikesh, and had the darshan of Baba Nibkarori.
When he saw me, he said, "Are you coming from Rishikesh?"
I answered yes and he said, "What is a guru?"
Automatically I said, "Guru is Brahma; Guru is Vishnu; Guru is
Maheshwar [Shiva]; Guru is Eternal Spirit; Salutation to the Guru." At
this, Baba said, "There is no purpose in merely
reproducing this sloka [a stanza
in Sanskrit verse], you go back right now."
I could not understand the significance of his command then. Perhaps at
that moment Baba's vision was concentrated on my guru, Swami
Shivananda, who had suffered an attack of paralysis, and whose
condition was worsening.
Baba asked one of his attendants to take me to the Hanuman temple,
which was under construction, and give me prasad.
He brought me a plate full of vegetables and puris,
some of which I ate, the rest of which I put in my begging bowl. When I
went to return the plate, I again met Baba. He said, "You
have kept food for the journey also?" I was surprised,
for he had not seen me eating my meal. A devotee had offered Baba a
kilogram of laddus made from gram flour, which he
also put in my hands for the journey. He then told me to go sit on a
rock under the tree.
Sitting
there on that rock, the vision of the Himalayas, the Ganges, and of my
ashram in Rishikesh suddenly flashed before my eyes. I saw my gurudev,
Swami Shivananda, coming towards me, supported by two people. The scene
changed, and it was Baba Nibkarori himself who was coming towards me. I
was back in Kainchi ashram. He gave me my guru's darshan
through himself and asked, "Does your Shivananda walk in
this way?"
After
this, devotees gathered around Baba again. One of them was an army
officer who asked me to tell them something about Saint Tukaram. As I
am from South India, I expressed my inability, saying I could not speak
Hindi well. Then Baba asked me to give a discourse, and by his power, I
spoke well. Baba then asked me, "Have you seen any other
place like Kainchi ashram?" I mentioned Kandy, a place
in Sri Lanka. Baba said, "There are betel nut and
coconut trees there and elephants come there to bathe."
I was surprised to hear this because it was exactly what I had seen.
Among
the gathering there was also a Christian from South India. Baba took
twenty one-rupee notes from one of his disciples and gave half of them
to the Christian and the other half to me. I said, "I have money." Baba
said, "I know. Still, you keep it." (That
money is still in my purse as his prasad,
and since that day, my purse has never been empty.) He then instructed
the army officer to take me to Haldwani in his car and put me on a
train. Baba himself came out with me and said, "Go, sit
in the car. Go back directly now."
I wanted to stay in Kainchi for some time, but Baba would not permit
it. At the station in Haldwani, the army officer asked me which train
he should buy the ticket for. I told him that I would stay in Haldwani.
He gave me thirty rupees, saying that Baba had asked him to buy my
ticket. I stayed at Haldwani, Bareilly, and Izatnagar for seven days.
In
Izatnagar I went to the house of a devotee of Swami Shivananda, where I
had left my suitcase containing my money. The mistress of the house
appeared very sad. When I asked her what was wrong, she asked me if I
had not heard about Gurudev. She could not say more but showed me the
daily paper. There was news of the critical condition of Swami
Shivananda. Baba Nibkarori's words immediately came into my mind. He
had already told me all about it, but I did not understand. When I
realised this, I cried. I told the mistress of the house that Baba had
asked me to go to Guru Maharaj at the time of my departure from
Kainchi. He had shown me a glimpse of him, and even then I had wasted a
week. I left for Rishikesh by train that same night and arrived in the
ashram on 1 July. Two weeks later Guru Maharaj took Mahasamadhi.
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