Evolution of love

Miracle of Love

I had purchased a mohair blanket for Maharajji in Australia and was very excited about giving it to Him. When the day for the presentation came, a group of us were ushered into the small room we humorously called His “office” and we knelt before Him. Somewhat pride-fully I placed the blanket on the tucket next to Him, and we all waited for whatever lila would follow. It would be fun to watch Him put it on and maybe He’d give us His old blanket, or . . . There were a thousand maybes. But none of our speculations prepared us for His actions. First He ignored the blanket, then reached down and with three fingers picked it up as if it were a dead animal. He brought the blanket across in front of Him and gave it to a woman in our group who had come to meet Maharajji for the first time. Then He turned to me and said, “WAS THAT THE RIGHT THING TO DO?” We were all stunned. It took me a moment to reorient, to appreciate what he had just done. Then I said, “Perfect.”


Maharajji started saying, “LSD CAUSES ONE TO BECOME NAKED AND DANCE AROUND.” And he called us all together in the back of the Kainchi ashram. We were all sitting around in a big circle; there were perhaps thirty five Westerners there. Maharajji went around to each person, naming them by name and asking, “HAVE YOU EVER HAD LSD?” And everyone said, “Yes, Maharajji.” Every person. (There was in fact only one of the group who hadn't had LSD—a Frenchman who had lived in Israel for some time.) Maharajji thought about it for a while. He was just sitting there, meditating on it.

Later that day four young men came to the ashram. They'd just come. Maharajji said, “DOCTOR!” I went into the office and He said, “FOUR YOUNG MEN HAVE COME. GO TO THE GATE AND EVICT THEM FROM THE ASHRAM, BECAUSE THEY HAVE TAKEN LSD.” I went to the gate of the ashram and I said, “Um, hello. Have you guys, by any chance, taken LSD?”

The four of them said, “No, we've never taken LSD.”

And I said, “Excuse me. Let me go check.” I kept them at the gate and went to see Maharajji. “Maharajji, they've never taken LSD.”

He said, “GO KICK THEM OUT OF THE ASHRAM. THEY'VE TAKEN LSD.”

I went back and asked them again. I said, ‘Maharajji says you can't come in. You have to leave the ashram. You've taken LSD.” They argued very vigorously. They said they'd never taken LSD. I went back to Maharajji and pleaded for them. I said, “Maharajji, all of us have taken a lot of L SD and, really, I've taken quite a bit! We've all had quite a bit of LSD.”

And he said, “THOSE FOUR BOYS HAVE TAKEN LSD. GO KICK THEM OUT OF THE ASHRAM. THAT'S AN ORDER!” So I went out and kicked them out of the ashram. They never came back. I don't understand anything about that incident!

KK once had the desire to try LSD but felt it only proper first to ask Maharajji’s permission. When he put the question to Maharajji, Maharajji replied, “WHAT? IS SOMETHING THE MATTER WITH YOUR MIND?”

One time He called me into his “office” in Kainchi and had me sit up on the bed with Him. I was under the impression in those days that meditation was “something,” and here I was with the guru. It was, I thought, time to meditate, to really “tune in.” Not with words, but with, well, non-reaction, Maharajji kept breaking down these false concepts of meditation. Each would fall away until finally there was nothing left and I was just sitting there, feeling nothing transcendental, only emptiness. At that point, as soon as I got it, He jao’ed me.

Maharajji often foiled our attempts at meditation. Many times when we'd be sitting there, someone would start meditating and Maharajji would send over his two “meditation spoilers." One was his driver and the other a little boy who was the driver's friend. He would send them over to shake people out of meditation. One time we were all sitting there and he said, “Okay, meditate," and after about a minute He started telling jokes and making everyone stop. Another time Maharajji called us into his office and told us to start singing. We started singing but no one was really into it so after a while it died down, and then He yelled from the other room, “KEEP SINGING." We picked it up again
and it died down again, and he yelled, “KEEP SINGING.." And finally after about three hours the singing caught on and got really great. When it ended everyone just naturally fell into meditation, and as soon as that happened we heard from the other room, “TAKE DINNER," and we were all ushered into the other room. We were never able to cling to that meditation space.

A man who had served Maharajji became arrogant and humiliated some of Maharajji’s devotees. Maharajji was so angry he just sat there huffing and making growling sounds like a monkey. He called the man into His office, and the next thing people saw was this large man being thrown out the door, landing five feet away on a stone. The devotee failed to appear to do aarti, as he had done previously.

The next day, Maharajji was out on the road when a car passed with the man and wife inside. She pranammed but he wouldn’t look. It is said that Maharajji commented sadly, “He will never come back to me.’’ Later the man took to drink.

Once I became worried about my visa and started to press Maharajji. He was in the “office" and Dada and I were talking to him through the window. I kept asking, “Where shall I go? It's almost expired. Where shall I go? What shall I do?" Maharajji wouldn't tell me anything, but while I was pressing Him, He just put His head in His hands. Dada could see what was happening and he whispered to me, “Get out of here. Leave right now or he may send you back to America. Get away from the window."

Later, of course, it all worked out—one of those miracle stories of just catching the train as it was pulling out on the last day of my visa; being told at the visa office it was impossible to renew; my bursting into tears; and the officer saying, “There's one thing I can do." I stayed on in India for two years. As the TAO TE CHING says, “In action, watch the timing."

Dwarka Sah asked me if I had been in Kainchi for the last darshan, and as I hadn't, he told me some of his personal experience that day. After Maharajji had gone into the “office” for rest, Dwarka, feeling very heavy with sleep, had fallen asleep outside the door. He was suddenly awakened by Maharajji bursting out the door. Maharajji called to him, “Dwarka! Stand up!” Maharajji took his hand, and another devotee, Ravi, took Maharajji's other hand. Together the three of them walked to Hanuman ji's temple, where Maharajji stood in silence, hands folded in pranam, for a full two minutes. During this time his blanket fell off, and Dwarka picked it up and rewrapped it around Maharajji. Maharajji then went before Lakshmi-Narayan, and then before Shiva, standing again in silence for a long time before each temple. Then he began walking swiftly out of the temple grounds, and as he was crossing the bridge his blanket again fell off. This time he would not allow it to be put around him. He got into a waiting car and took Ravi with him, leaving Dwarka behind.