Are There Still Saints in India? Part 2

Oh, my God, this man is a true saint !

I was quite surprised because the next morning when I went to his room, I saw the shivaling, symbolising the cosmic creation of the universe, which is on the mantelpiece in his room, and I had a feeling that somehow Mahatma Hans Rajji had been able to stop my mind and give me an answer to the second question I had asked the day before, within my own mind. So I stayed at the ashram for three days. I wanted to stay longer but then Mahatma Hans Rajji told me later on that I should go back to Delhi and then he would answer my first question regarding the existence of saints in India nowadays.

I went back to Delhi, and within a week, on a Sunday afternoon after having lunch, I lay down for a snooze - an afternoon siesta. Suddenly, I saw that my own consciousness had been drawn back into Mahatma Hans Rajji’s room in Rishikeskh. I saw Mahatma Hans Rajji sitting on his bed as usual and his entire body became light. And in that light I saw Guru Nanak there. I was shocked. Suddenly I opened my eyes in my afternoon siesta, and I woke up. And I said, “Oh my God! This man is a true saint! How can he catch my consciousness in Delhi and bring it to his room in Rishikesh?”

So as soon as I could, after two or three days I caught a bus and came back to Rishikesh and I told Mahatma Hans Rajji that I wanted to be initiated. He replied that he would do so, but he first had to go to Dehradun. As promised, I was initiated by Mahatma Hans Rajji when he came back. He gave me a particular mantra, as well as specific recommendations concerning this mantra. (Continued in Part 3)

Are There Still Saints in India? Part 1

The mysterious attraction

My name is Premi. In 1993 I had come down to Rishikesh and I went and sat at Mastram Baba’s place on the left bank of the Ganges. I was doing some japa (reciting a mantra) and meditation on this rock where Mastram Baba’s small mud hut is, and when I saw the tree near the platform on the other side of the riverbank, there was an attraction. It was a sort of magnetic attraction. So in the evening I walked along the Ganges from Mastram Baba’s place up to the Laxman Jhulla bridge which I crossed, and I came to the place where the people have their baths.
When I came up to the spot I was looking for, there was a swami (one who dedicates his life to God) called Midhaji drying his clothes on the clothes line. He saw me, and I saw him, and I asked him,
“What is this place?”
“This is Sacha Baba’s place,” he replied.
So I asked him who Sacha Baba was. He then invited me to his room to have a cup of tea, and said he would show me Sacha Baba. So he took me to the temple after tea, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, and I pranammed (bowed) to the statue of Sacha Baba in the temple. But I was still not satisfied, and I told him that I wanted to meet the real Baba. (Baba means a sage, a saint)
“There is one real Baba here,” he explained. “His name is Mahatma Hans Rajji. He is in his room, and he will open his door at about five o’clock. Then you can have his darshan.” (meeting a Master)

The two questions

So at five o’clock he took me to Mahatma Hans Rajji’s room. He had opened his door so Swami Midhaji went in and told him that someone had come for information. So he sent me in, and when I saw Mahatma Hans Raj Baba, I felt that I had met him previously, maybe from a previous life, but it was very difficult to say at that time.
When I sat down, I looked at him and kept looking at him, and I still felt there was some sort of connection which I was unable to explain. The first thing the Mahatma (Mahatma literally means a great soul, a saint ) asked me was where I had come from, so I told him I had come from Delhi. I told him I liked his place very much and that I wanted to stay there. I also said I wanted to ask him one or two questions.
He replied,
“Yes, you ask me.”
“I was reading about Guru Nanak (great Indian Saint born in the 15th century and who founded the religion of Sikhs), and he said that if you meet a true saint it is a great blessing. But how can it be possible to find a true saint in our time? There are no true saints in this country anymore!”
“Acha!” (Ah yes !)
Then I asked him how this world had come about, because according to science, there is this “big bang” theory, whereas when we read the Upanishads and the Indian Shastras (Upanishads and Shastras are holy Texts), they talk about something else.
“That’s so !” he replied. Then he added, “Listen, first of all go and sit on that particular platform where Sacha Baba used to sit. Then stay here at the ashram for two or three days.”

And the “big bang” ?

I accepted and went and sat on the platform. And when I was sitting there, at about six o’clock, I found that suddenly my thoughts had stopped. No thoughts were coming anymore. But I could still see the Ganges, all that was around me, and I was aware of everything. And suddenly, in that awareness, a word came. The word was sankalpa ( a sankalpa is a thought-force, a decree, directed will power used to materialise something or a new situation or event). So I immediately realised that I was reading something that might have happened sometime in the past, that this entire world is a “notion” or a “thought” which takes form in the great cosmic world. It is known as sankalpa. (Continued in Part 2)

A Reservation for Five (Amrit, India)

Some years ago I learned that Maharajji was ill, so I decided to pay him a visit. As I lived in Punjab more than 300 kilometres away, I had to organise a trip for this, and my two daughters accepted to go with me to see him. However the day before we left, I thought of inviting my neighbour to come with us. When I spoke to him, he hesitated, and said he would let me know the following morning if he was coming, the very day we were leaving.
When the day came, he informed me that not only would he come, but so would his own daughter. In the end, five of us were going on this trip to Rishikesh. Neither my neighbour and his daughter, nor my daughters and I had told Maharajji about our visit. We were going to give him a nice surprise! We left very early, because Rishikesh was quite far.
When we arrived, we were received by Maharajji and while we were speaking to him, Swami Baldev came into the room. Maharajji then told him,
“Baldev, here are the five people for whom I told you to reserve rooms this morning !”
We were completely dumbfounded. And how we had been looking forward to giving Maharajji a surprise!
We then learnt that in the morning, here at the ashram in Rishikesh, Maharajji had called Swami Baldev and given him precise instructions to reserve rooms for five people who were going to come. He had insisted that on no account should the rooms be given to anybody else. It must be said that at the time, the ashram could loge very few people.

He Listens to Our Hearts (Liloue, France)

On the last day of one of my stays at the ashram, I told my husband how disappointed I was to be going back without the peace of mind which I had hoped to find on coming here. My heart was still not at ease, for I was still worried about certain things. I was not completely happy.
We went to say goodbye to our Master before taking the taxi for Delhi, and without our having expressed any request or the least regret in front of him, Maharajji spoke to us and during the conversation, he told us that our hearts would surely find peace, but little by little. I was very astonished, because our Master had read my thoughts and seen the trouble in my heart, and had just given the answer I needed to put an end to my sadness.

Your Light Has Lit Mine (Keshav, India)

My wife used to suffer from a heart problem and the lady doctor had forbidden her to go upstairs. She could only stay on the ground floor of our house. In this house, we had a special room reserved for our Guru Maharajji Shri.
One day, my son and daughter who live with us came here to Rishikesh, and since I too was absent, my wife was alone at home. In the evening time, at about 6:30 p.m. she thought, “There is no light in Maharajji Shri’s room. I should go and switch it on.” But she was much too weak and she remembered the doctor’s interdiction as that room was upstairs. So she was extremely worried about this situation and thought all the time “How can I switch on this light ?” So thinking, she fell half asleep for about two or three minutes. When she woke up, she was surprised to discover that the light in Maharajji Shri’s room had been switched on !
After this event, when we came to the ashram a few days later, my wife spoke to the Master about what had happened, and he replied,
“You should not disclose these things to anyone! As in special circumstances, when there is no other solution, I have to do such work exceptionally.”
Then he added,
“Don’t worry! I am always with you !”
Later on, my wife’s heart problem was healed.

Selective Rain (Gandhi, India)

Some time in the past, Maharajji used to come regularly to Punjab where he gave satsangs. One evening, one of the satsangs took place at one of my brothers’ house, which was far away.
But unfortunately it started to rain very heavily in the town during the satsang. My wife and I were at a complete loss because we had left the wheat to dry outside in the yard. My wife asked me to go and put this wheat away because not only was it going to get wet, but the water running through the yard would wash it away if we did nothing. But I found the atmosphere at the satsang so captivating that I did not want to miss one word of what Maharajji was saying. I therefore retorted that it was raining so hard, and the house was so far away that however hard I tried, I would still arrive too late; and not only was the wheat already spoilt, but I would also lose the spiritual manna that the Guru was giving out. I had carefully weighed up the situation and had chosen to lose the wheat and keep the Master’s spiritual food. So I stayed until the end of Maharajji’s talk.
Then we went back home to see what damage had been done. And, to our surprise, the wheat was still there, perfectly dry and not a grain was missing. It had rained all around it and the ground was drenched, but some mysterious force had protected just the spot where the wheat was ! So we hurried and put it away - the wheat which had caused us so much worry. And as soon as we had finished, heavy rain poured down again, but this time it no longer spared the place where the wheat had been drying a few seconds before!
Later on, when I was alone with Maharajji I reported these strange happenings and the miracle which had taken place. He touched me on my head and added,
“Hush! It’s a secret and make sure you tell no one about it. When you were at the satsang you were doing my work - work for the Sacha Mission and work for God Almighty. It was therefore my duty to do something for you !”

The Dutch Nun (From a Dutch disciple)

I am from Holland and am a disciple of Maharajji. I have an aunt who is a nun in the Catholic Church. She has a very understanding nature, but when I announced to her one day that I was about to leave for India and spend six months with my Master Maharajji, she did not appreciate it at all. “How is that? A Guru? While we ourselves have a religion!” Those were her remarks.
Nevertheless, I left for India and once I was with Maharajji, I kept up regular correspondence with her. I related to her in detail all that was happening to me and in general in the ashram. In this way the habits and the life in the ashram became familiar to her and interested her deeply. After all, she said to me, she did not see much difference between life there and life in her own Catholic monastery.
After the six months, I returned to Holland and visited her. On this occasion, I showed her pictures of Maharajji, Sacha Dham ashram, the people who were living there and the Ganga, etc. One of the pictures of Maharajji in particular, pleased her.
“Could you give me this one?” she asked.
“Of course, it is yours!” I answered.
And she put this picture near Jesus, on her altar.
After having worked for five months in Holland, I returned to India for six months. In her first letter, my aunt explained to me that even though she didn’t write often, she thought of me every day, especially because the picture of my Master was on her altar. And, she added, she was very grateful to Maharajji that he took very good care of me.
One afternoon a few months later, I was sitting on the verandah in front of Maharajji’s room, when Swami Midhaji brought me a letter from my aunt (I received all my mail at the address of the ashram). After the news, she wrote,
“Oh yes, I forgot to tell you before, but your Guru has become my spiritual guide. I ask him everything and he always answers me in my heart.”
I was so touched that I couldn’t hold back my tears. At that moment Maharajji opened his door. He looked at me with a big mocking smile so I stood up and started to speak to him about my aunt, but he did not listen and continued his way. Just before he disappeared around the corner of the verandah, I called out loudly,
“Maharajji!”
“Yes,” he answered and turned to me.
“Maharajji, you have many Western disciples, don’t you?”
“Yes, many!” he said with emphasis.
I understood that Maharajji took care of all of those who were in the hearts of his disciples. This story is all the more remarkable since Maharajji left his room that day at a time when he never usually went out. He certainly knew of my aunt’s letter from the beginning.