Unprecedented suffering leads to unprecedented spiritual growth, unshakable foundation of the Truth’.

By M Rama Rao, India Editor, Asian Tribune

Meher Baba The first day in the month of April is April Fool’s Day in India and elsewhere in the world. The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish" – a day of pranks. In Andhra villages, where I was brought up, school children play with ‘ink’ - sprinkling ink, not face-to-face in which case there is no fun, but when one is not very attentive to the surroundings in and outside the class-room. No one is clear about the origins of the day. These are very obscure but there is no denying that April 1 is one of the lightest hearted days of the year. Romans, Jews and even Hindus have had their own light hearted festivals down the years. Interestingly, all these fall around the start of April. The Romans’s festival (March 25) is called Hilaria, rejoicing in the resurrection of Attis. For the Hindus it is Holi, the festival of colors and fun which sees no age barrier.
By M Rama Rao, India Editor, Asian Tribune

Bbaba Speaks – 10

New Delhi, 04 April (Asiantribune.com): The first day in theBaba in Guruprasad, Poona month of April is April Fool’s Day in India and elsewhere in the world. The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish" – a day of pranks. In Andhra villages, where I was brought up, school children play with ‘ink’ - sprinkling ink, not face-to-face in which case there is no fun, but when one is not very attentive to the surroundings in and outside the class-room.

No one is clear about the origins of the day. These are very obscure but there is no denying that April 1 is one of the lightest hearted days of the year. Romans, Jews and even Hindus have had their own light hearted festivals down the years. Interestingly, all these fall around the start of April. The Romans’s festival (March 25) is called Hilaria, rejoicing in the resurrection of Attis. For the Hindus it is Holi, the festival of colors and fun which sees no age barrier.

In Meher Baba’s calendar, April 1 has its own significance. Living with Baba was not at all a serious affair, according to old timers, who say, with Baba around, any day could end up as an April I with lots of fun, pranks and entertainment. He used to ask Mandali, as his close circles of disciples are known, to entertain him often with some jokes or a humorous skit. Such entertainment is said to be his way of relaxing at the end of a day-long work in seclusion. Baba spent long days in seclusion, often at a long stretch.

Amongst all his April firsts, one day turned out to be a day of great of spiritual significance. That was in the year 1928; Hazrat Babajan, the Afghan woman – saint, visited Meherabad to see ‘my child’.

Baba’s biographer, Bhau Kalchuri, describes the meeting as an event that was meant to be written in a mystical language – the language of wine.

“In that language things are not read, but felt. Words fail to describe such a unique occurrence, the true meaning of which can be grasped only by those Perfect Ones with divine consciousness”, he writes in ‘Lord Meher’- an eight-volume diary like chronicle of Meher Baba’s life and times.

Surprisingly, Meher Baba and Babajan did not meet in the conventional sense on the visit. They were face-to- face. Yet, Babajan did not come forward to embrace ‘my child’ as she did one spring morning in 1913 nor did she show any desire to kiss him again as she did on a January winter night a year later in 1914.

On his part, Baba showed no inclination to move closer to her. He did not greet her either, though he had come down the Meherabad hill hastily on hearing about her arrival. He was in such a hurry that he came barefooted.
Only their eyes had met as they stood about fifty yards apart.

One of the Mandali offered Babajan a little water to drink. A short while later, she returned to Pune, where she lived. This was her first ever visit outside the city of Peshwas as Pune is known to the students of Maratha history.

Funnily, Babajan had prepared for the visit for over a week. She was found to be constantly talking about Baba and remembering him very lovingly and wanting to visit ‘my child's place’. When she drove into Meherabad at eleven-thirty, her car stopped in front of the girls' school started by Meher Baba and named after her. On Baba’s directions, Mandali members bowed at her feet even as she was talking to herself, praising Meher Baba and addressing him as usual as ‘piara beta’.

‘She spoke with authority and unusual sweetness, and also mysteriously referred to many spiritual secrets which the Mandali could not follow’, says the biographer, who records that in their first meeting (1913) Babajan merged his ‘individual consciousness’ with the ‘Ocean of Bliss’ and in the second meeting (1914) gave him the infinite consciousness of being God.

According to recorded history, Meher Baba paid a return visit to Babajan in Pune, the very next day. Then too they spoke to each other through eyes – no physical contact. The ways of masters are difficult to decipher. Also the messages they convey to each other.

It was not always like this. On some April Fool’s Days, Baba himself played some joke on visiting disciples or a member of the Mandali. In those pre-television days, such occasions offered ‘live’ entertainment.

On one April 1, a rock was gift wrapped and presented to a visiting professor of philosophy from Nagpur. But Dr. C D. Deshmukh was not interested to open the packet. His attitude was ‘why I should a worry about a gift in a packet when I have my god in front of me’. The way he was coaxed to see the gift reads like a page from a comedy play.

And when he finally ‘opened’ it, Deshmukh surprised everyone by dancing in ecstasy., ‘Just think, if I had been given anything else, eventually it would have been used up, or decayed, or fallen to dust, but this, this is an eternal present. Baba has given me something which I can always keep, and this will be my most precious treasure from now on’, the professor reportedly told the Mandali, who expected him to be disappointed to see a rock.

By his actions, Deshmukh appeared to live true to Baba’s message – ‘Real peace and happiness will dawn spontaneously when there is a purging of selfishness. The peace and happiness which come from self-giving love are permanent….. Unprecedented suffering leads to unprecedented spiritual growth. It contributes to the construction of life on the unshakable foundation of the Truth’.

Post Script

I took a short break from writing the column in March as my father, Gopala Krishna Murthy, joined Baba. He was 82 on March 10, the day he left us to live in Baba permanently. Mother, Suseela Krishna, joined Baba nine years back. Both father and mother were progressives in an orthodox environment.

Father is not highly educated. In fact, he could not cross the high school. After three attempts he gave up school final examination but he wrote better English than me, my two brothers and two sisters, whom he made to walk through portals of high learning.

I owe my baptism in the ways of Meher Baba to father. In the year 1964, we moved to Narasaraopet (Andhra Pradesh) as he wanted to see in me the first graduate of the family and the town has a good college. It was a great sacrifice on his part. The new place was far removed from known mileu, his childhood friends, familiar colleagues and close relatives.

To ensure my college admission, he used to take me daily to a local notary, Nagasarapu Ramchandra Rao, whose father was a member of the college management committee. Rao’s greeting used to amuse me a great deal. Because, he appeared to know only two words: Jai Baba and Meher Baba.

The moment he sees you, he would say ‘Jai Baba’. As you take your seat, again a ‘Jai Baba’. And as you take leave of him after 10-15 minutes of quietly (silently…?) sitting in his office, another ‘Jai Baba’, and ‘Meher Baba’. He never spoke about my college admission. Nor did father raise it. Yet, day-after-day, father took me to his office around 11 in the morning.

For this meeting he daily took permission to leave his own office. Naturally, these meetings did not go down well with me. Nor is the fact that father had to cycle all the way home from his office, pick me up and take me to Ramchandra Rao’s place and drop me back. It was all quite a bother - cycling in all some ten kilometres in hot blazing sun.

Father told me years later that Rao had assured him of my admission in the normal course. It meant no need for his intervention. If that was the case, why did we make regular rounds of his office? I never asked. Nor did he tell me. May be there was some divine purpose for that daily grind.

You see, Rama Chandra Rao, whom we children started addressing Uncle, was secretary of the local Meher Baba Centre. Because of his association with Uncle, father started going to the gatherings of Meher Baba lovers. Because of him mother used to go there herself. And because of her, we, children, used to go also. Even organise such gatherings at home.

I don’t know how I developed faith in Meher Baba. Even today, if someone asks me ‘Are you a Meher Baba lover’, I hesitate to say an emphatic ‘yes’. What do I know of Meher Baba? What is my understanding of Baba? I have no answer to both the questions.

Whatever little I know of Meher Baba – frankly, I know very little - it was because of father. He made me speak at Baba gatherings. Encouraged me to start a Meher Youth Mobile Centre to cycle to nearby villages and talk to locals about Baba. He made mother start a local Baba Women Centre and my kid brother (He was around 7 or 8; he has since grown up to become an editor of Meher Baba magazine in Telugu) to run a Baba Balala Sangham (Children’s Centre) – all from our home.

We missed the 1965 darshan. Probably our time had not yet come. But for the Maha Darshan (1969) father sent every one of us; he remained at his work station, saying ‘Baba said duty is the first priority’. A consolation, if I may so, was Baba appeared to him in the dream on Jan 31-Feb 1.

1969 marked a turning point in my life – as I moved away from home in search of a new life as a journalist. And over the years I became a casual factor in his life. Whenever we met, we rarely exchanged pleasantries. We used to look at each other. Staring silently. I knew father expected me to speak. Brothers used to prompt me to speak. So did sisters. Even Vani, my wife. Yet I used to remain silent before him, tongue tied. Was father hurt? I don’t know. Fact of the matter is neither us knew how to break the silence and allowed the silence to speak.

It was because of father, in a manner of speaking, I had moved away from rituals and other Hindu Brahmin traditions. I appear to have, indeed, moved to the other extreme – not reciting even the daily prayers Baba has dictated so lovingly to pray to the God and to repent for the sins committed by us. The only concession I make is to observe or show respect to the rituals and traditions only when it is necessary in deference to other’s sentiments. Vani accuses me of noting showing this consideration when it comes to her.

I found a gradual change in father during his six-year stint at Mantralayam, the home for the Samadhi Swami Raghavendra on the banks of River Thungabhadra. He became a regular at the Samadhi and made it a point to take us all whenever we visited him. I resented these visits but could not help myself to accompany him. He did not tell me what made him to go to a saint after seeing the avatar. It remained a mystery. Now, as he moved to live in Baba, I am able to unravel the mystery.

According to Shyamala, my youngest sister, father was on the horns of a dilemma, as he landed in Mantralayam one day in the eighties. He was required to conduct visiting senior officers to the Mantralayam temple. As a Baba lover, he did not like going to the Raghavendra Swamy's Samadhi and temple. But duty demanded a visit to the place. Baba himself resolved his dilemma. He asked him not to worry. 'I am there too', he said in a dream. Swami Raghavendra also told him the same; thus with a clear consciousness, he started visiting the place. Till his end, he was a regular at Mantralayam and Raghavendra Swamy Mutts elsewhere. Now, at this distance of time, I think there is a message in his actions.

-Asian Tribune -