An
old Nepali laborer named Khantia lived in a hut near Kainchi ashram.
His two cows were his only property. He had nobody to call his own and
was living through his old age alone. He was unhappy because he had not
been able to get rid of poverty all through his life and believed he
would not get salvation even after death since there was no one to
perform his last rights.
He used to watch the crowd that
gathered around Baba at Kainchi. One day he thought that he could offer
milk from his cows to Baba. The next morning he filled a bottle with
milk and went to the temple. He wanted to pour milk on Baba's head as
is done over a Shivling (a stone symbolising Lord
Shiva).
However, seeing Baba surrounded by many people, he hesitated and gave
up the idea. He poured the milk into the river on his way out of the
temple and returned to his hut.
He tried to do the same thing
again on another day. He came to the bridge with the bottle in his hand
and from a distance saw Baba surrounded by people as before. Baba at
once told Bhuvan Chandra Tewari to escort the old man carefully over
the bridge. As Tewari approached, the old man trembled with fear. Still
supporting his bottle in his hand, Tewari helped him over the bridge
and brought him to Baba. As soon as they approached, Baba snatched the
bottle from the old man's hand and poured all the milk over his own
head. The old man's eyes became wet with tears of love. Dumbfounded, he
stared into Baba's face. Baba asked him, "What do you
want?" He asked for salvation. Baba said, "I
will get your last rites performed and salvation will be given."
To assure him of his words Baba asked him to shake hands, but he
hesitated. Baba instantly took his hand in his own and confirmed his
words.
As Lord Krishna was moved by the poverty of Sudama
[Sudama, a childhood playmate of Lord Krishna, suffered from poverty
until he went to have the Lord's darshan], Baba's
eyes filled with tears as he told the devotees about the old man's
poverty. "Rain
water drips in his hut. He has a dented plate and a broken tumbler. He
has no clothes to wear, no bedding to spread for a comfortable night's
rest." After that Baba sent clothes, bedding, utensils,
and
other things to the old man's hut from the ashram and instructed that
food be sent to him from the temple daily. In the end, when the old man
became ill, Baba sent him to Ramsay Hospital in Nainital by car and
bore all the costs of his treatment. Baba left Haridas Baba at the
hospital to take care of him, and when Khantia died, Baba sent thirteen
people to get his last rites performed. He also had the twelfth day
rites performed at the ashram according to the custom in the hills.
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