105. God part Nine

 

             7. A writer (Rasheed Amjad )narrated his encounter with Shahab (blog 65-6) in the book “ Zikar-a- Shahab”.

“There were several volumes of a classic on Iqbal (blog 56). I thought, ‘how nice if I had these volumes’. After a while Shahab got up and took down those volumes from the shelf and said, “now that you have asked for these books, have them.” I said, but, I never asked for them. A mysterious smile appeared on his face. He said, “Have them anyway”

               8. Shahab writes (blog 66. I am repeating it for people who have not read Part 2) that his hidden and invisible guide was ‘Ninety’, whom he never met in person. “I received written instructions from him for almost next 25 years. The instructions would come as letters, which I would sometime find under my pillow, in a shelf, or sometime they would materialize out of thin air, in the room, or outside walking. I had the orders to destroy them as soon as possible. One time I thought of saving a little piece as a holy relic. As soon as I thought of it, a letter came. It stated that in a few minutes lights will go off, and my hands will be tied with live snakes for half an hour. I was terrified. I asked for forgiveness, and said I won’t do it in future. Within minutes reply came. It said “ Ha Ha . So you are afraid of just two snakes. Have you ever thought of countless worms which will be in your grave, etc………….”

               How did ‘Ninety’ know what Shahab was thinking!

               9. I have already narrated the incident of Dilip Kumar Roy and the lamp (blog 86. I am repeating it for people who have not read Part 2). He had a piece of art in the form of Figures of Lord Krishna and Mira in his prayer room. It had a three pronged plug. The figures would light up when the plug was inserted in the socket on the wall. Every night before going to bed, Dilip would diligently remove the plug.

               As he was praying, he heard a clear voice saying, “go and see, He has lit the bulb”

He at once went to the prayer room. Lord’s figure was alive with light! The plug was back in the wall.

After a while doubts start assailing him again. What if he had not taken out the plug in the first place?

He carefully let the figures stay luminous by keeping the plug in the socket and started praying again for Lord to show him the miracle again by removing the plug.

A voice said; “doubting still; go, the plug has been taken out.”

He went to the prayer room. The plug was out. The figures were in darkness!

               10. Dilip Kumar Roy writes about his meeting with Baroda Babu (blog 97).  Dilip had at that time thought (mistakenly) that Sri Aurobindo did not want him as disciple. The Yogi said he will find out, and went into meditation and smadhi right there. He came out after about half an hour, and told Dilip emphatically that Sri Aurobindo has already accepted him as disciple, and will call him when he (Dilip ) is ready. He said Sri Aurobindo had just told him. Dilip was thoroughly confused.  He thought, he was either day dreaming or this was an elaborate hoax.

               Dilip writes, “The Yogi smiled at my discomfiture”. He said, “You disbelieve me. Have you got a chronic pain in your right abdomen?”

               “I have,” I said, startled, “it is a hernia”

“I know. Now tell me: didn’t Sri Aurobindo tell you to undergo an operation before you enter the path of yoga?”

               I was dumbfounded, for Sri Aurobindo had written to me identical words.

 

               11. For dozens of times the fragrance of sandalwood had come from the hand and feet of Indra Devi. Sometimes when she was in God-intoxicated state, whosoever she touched, also started smelling of fragrance

               12. By mistake, the surgeon left a piece of gauze in the abdomen of Indra Devi’s sister. The patient had high fever with rigors. About 2 inches of gauze piece could be seen protruding. Indra Devi entered the room and held her sister’s hand for 4 hours. The patient felt peace permeating. The doctor came to examine her, prior to surgery... The gauze had vanished. Fever and pain subsided. Strangely Indra had fever for 3 days.

               13. A highly spiritual devotee, that I know, was watching a film on the life of Krishna (or Ram). He did not complete the film, and went upstairs, to his bedroom, to sleep. He had a TV in his bedroom. He made sure the TV was off and tried to go to sleep. He found glow of light in the room. He turned, and saw TV on, and the same film showing. He at once exclaimed, “Oh this is a miracle”     

               14. St Teresa of Avila writes about her levitation. (See blog76. I am repeating it for people who have not read Part 2) “Once when we were together in choir and I was on my knees and about to communicate, my body was raised from the ground. It caused me the greatest distress. It seemed to me the most extraordinary thing, and I thought there would be a great deal of talk about it, so I ordered the nuns not to speak of it.”

               15 and 16. (Blog 78. I am repeating it for people who have not read Part 2)) St Teresa was earnestly begging Jesus to restore vision to a totally blind man. The Lord appeared and talked to her. Then He said that He would always grant her anything she asked, because she won’t ask Him anything which did not tend to His glory. The vision was restored within a week.

A man was gravely ill. His sufferings, for two months, were intolerable, and he was in such torture that he would lacerate his own body. She was moved to such pity for him that she begged earnestly to Jesus to cure him. On the very next day he was free from that pain

 

To be continued

103. God part seven

               4. Sri Yogananda writes: My Master and I were visiting Kashmir for the first time “ English strawberries for sale!”, an old woman said. Master was curious about this new fruit. He bought some. As soon as I tasted one, I spat out. “Sir, what a sour fruit! I could never like strawberries”

               My Master said, “You will like them. One day, in America, your hostess will serve them with sugar and cream…she will mash them with a fork. You will taste them and say ‘ what delicious strawberries’. Then you will remember this day in Simla”

               Once I was a guest of Alice T. Hasey in West Somerville MA. My hostess mashed some strawberries with a fork, and served them with cream and sugar. “ The fruit is rather tart, you will like it this way” I took a mouthful and exclaimed “ what delicious strawberries”

At once, my Master’s prediction, which had faded from memory, came back to me.   

               5.  Swami Yogananda writes: “My sister’s husband was not in the best of health. The thought came to me that he was not going to live long. My sister surmised my thoughts, and said “my husband is sick while I am healthy, but I want you to know that I am to die first. It won’t be long”. My sister died eighteen months after her prediction.

On her last day, she wore her bridal dress.

What is the occasion? Her husband asked.

“This is my last day of service to you on earth” she had a heart attack that day and died.

               6. Swami Yogananda writes. “In 1918, the great yogi Swami Pranabananda (the disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya) visited my Ranchi school. A boy asked him “Sir, shall I be a monk?” The saint replied, “No, a bride is waiting for you.” The boy eventually married.

               7. Swami Yogananda writes. “During the same visit, I accompanied my father to see the great yogi where he was temporarily staying. His prediction, which he had given in 1905, came rushing back to me. “Your life belongs to the path of renunciation and yoga. I shall see you again, with your father, later on.”

               8. Swami Yogananda writes. “One day in my Ranchi school, a boy named Kashi, a brilliant youth of twelve, asked me “Sir, what will be my fate?”

‘You shall soon be dead’. An irresistible power forced the answer from me.

The boy died the same year.

There is a very interesting saga of Kashi. I am not giving the details because they are not necessary for this discussion... You can read them yourselves. Suffice is to say that Kashi was reborn, and Swami Yogananda helped him, in finding, a master.

               9. Field Marshal Ayub Khan was the president of Pakistan, in sixties. He developed a plan of Basic Democracy (in contrast to adult franchise). In order to popularize the plan in the masses, money was allocated for its publicity and praise. A cash prize was announced for the winner of the contest of writing the best book on this subject. A great mystic by the name of Mr. Qudsi lived in Bhaun, Pakistan(1). One of his disciples, a teacher, happened to visit Mr. Qudsi. The teacher had a dream that night, that he was putting a garland of flowers around the president’s neck, and the president giving him a check. The dream came months in advance of the announcement of the book and a prize for the winner. The teacher writes in his book about Mr. Qudsi, that when he woke up he thought, that he, a hundred and fifty rupees per month, middle school teacher, putting flowers on the neck of the president!

               Once the contest for the book was announced, he thought of participating. He spent a lot of time in the library. His book won the first prize. One day he was summoned by the divisional commissioner. The commissioner told him that the president was stopping at their division. The teacher was chosen to welcome the president at the dais and garland him, and the president was going to give him the check for the first prize.

               After reading this incident in the book, this mote contacted the author, who was now a professor in an Islamabad university. I wanted to hear it from his own lips. He verified it, and gave some more detail.

               Mr Qudsi was a qalander. This mote once, briefly, met Mr. Qudsi

               10. Dilip Kumar Roy writes. In 1925, I was groping in the dark. I did not know which way to turn. There was no end to my vacillation. A friend suggested to meet a mighty yogi, Baroda Babu. I am not going to tell the details of the meeting here, because I want to pick this incident again, in my next topic of ‘ miracles’.

               He met Baroda Babu by accident, twelve years later, in 1937. He had been in Sri Aurobindo’s ashram for 9 years. He thanked the yogi for giving him the right advice, and how happy and blessed he felt at his guru’s feet in Pondicherry. Mr Babu said “ that is  all as it should be. Only I want to tell you that you won’t realize Krishna in Pondicherry. For that you will have to await the advent of a highly evolved lady. When she will come to assist you as your disciple, then only you will get your heart’s desire”. He accepted her(Indra Devi) as his disciple in 1949.

I have already narrated his first supernatural incident, in 1951, of lighting up the figures of Lord Krishna and Mira( blog 86 ). It boggles the mind, that Baroda Babu could see the events 12 years in advance.

               11.  Dilip Kumar Roy writes. One year ago, a neighbor in Belgaum asked Indra Devi what she thought of the proposal of a Bomber pilot asking the hand of his daughter. Indra told them that she had a vision of the pilot dying in an air crash. The parents, declined the marriage. One year later on 1^st June 1959, the young pilot died in an air crash.

               12 Brother Lawrence predicted on Friday, that he will die on Monday (blog 15-7). That is how it happened.

               13. In blog 91, I have narrated the incident of Paul Brunton meeting Chandi Das. Chandi Das , reluctantly, narrated some incidents of Brunton’s future. Some of them came true, by the time book was published. We don’t know about the rest, since Brunton did not mention them in his subsequent books
.........................................................................................................

(1) Qalandar-a-Zaman Shahzada Assad-ul-Rehman Qudsi by Doctor Mehmoud-ul-Rehman

                                                                                                  ‘ 

88. Indra Devi. Part 2

She entered Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s ashram in 1949, at the age of 29. She had multiple smadhi experiences. Generally, they were two types:

1. She would feel being drawn inwards. She would feel complete absorption, but consciousness was not completely lost. She would experience ecstasy or yearning. Sometimes she felt viraha (pangs of separation).  She would, occasionally, dance in rapture. Such state is called bhava smadhi

2. She would experience an electric current, starting from the base of spine and shooting upwards to the crown of head. Then she would feel like head opening up, and setting her free, floating in the space. There would be peace, waves of ecstasy, thoughtlessness, and freedom from time and space. Yet she would remain conscious of her personality, her I-ness. Such state is called savikalpa smadhi.

3. Three times she was blessed with the experience of nirvikalpa smadhi ( the highest form of smadhi )                                   It started with waves traversing from the base of spine to the head, feeling of opening of the head, and  floating in space. But, additionally, she completely lost her identity. I-ness was gone. There was nobody to experience. No God, no devotee. She had lost all consciousness to become consciousness. There was just bliss and one vast Reality……………………………………………………………………………..

Miracles. She displaced many psychic feats. She could, at times, see events hundreds of mile away and predict future happenings. However she once showed this powerful miracle:

Her guru sang a song which put her in deep smadhi. As soon as she came out of smadhi, she asked the others whether she should get some prasad (consecrated candy). None was available. She walked down the steps and got some sandy earth. She took it in her folded hands and went into smadhi. It turned into granulated prasad. It was distributed to the three persons encircling her. Then she folded her empty hands and went again into smadhi. When she opened her hands there was some more prasad. Dilip put the remaining prasad in an envelope. He also stored the sandy soil, which was originally been given to Indra, in a separate envelope. They went for dinner. After dinner, Indra, told Dilip that the soil has also partially turned into prasad. Dilip rushed to his room. Envelope was opened. Part of the mud was still mud, the rest had turned into prasad.

Mirabai. Mirabai is one of the most famous saints of India. Her songs of love and yearning for Lord  Krishna have been sung by devotees for the last five centuries. Her spirit started communicating with Indra. Indra became a ward of Saint Mira. Mira sang her songs in original Hindi of that time to Indra, who would then dictate them to Dilip, who would then sing them back to Indra. She eventually dictated more than eight hundred of such songs. The songs were in a language that Indra did not even know!( her folks spoke Punjabi and Urdu, although Urdu is similar to Hindi ).

Some thoughts. 1.:  "If one has read all the scriptures in the world………………….learned all the postures, killed all desires, learned to sit still for hours…………..yet his bigotry is intact……………………he feels other religions, other prophets, other modes of worship are wrong and only his way is right, then one may be anything but he is not a yogi."

2. Her love for her Beloved is the reality of her life. It is like air to her. Whether or where she shall arrive is not very important because all she needs is to love Him and seek Him. There is no urge to become anything at journey’s end.

Her prayer is to give herself completely to Him. It is not her aim to help or better the world. Everything which comes from God is a blessing: joy or pain, love or rejection.  “Only reveal to me Your will and the way to do it……………………………………………………………………….good or bad, whatever I am, belongs to You………………………………………that You draw me closer to You is all I ask”

 

87. Indra Devi . Part one

Indra Devi was seven years old, when she picked up the fallen walking stick of a fakir ( a Muslim mystic ), and handed it back to him in Ziarat ( Baluchistan, Pakistan ). The fakir said that this was not their first meeting and it won’t be the last, and that he will come to her in her hour of need.

She was fifteen years old when she was bitten by a dog and developed rabies (a universally fatal disease at that time) and hydrophobia (fear of water). As she was near death, her brother happened to meet the same fakir, who came to her bedside at once, and cured her. His name was Rajib Sain, and Indra saw him later, a few times, in her inner vision.

In May 1935, at 3 am, a female voice woke her up from sleep and told her to get up and leave the house at once. Voice came repeatedly. She left the bed and ran outside, and told some relatives to do the same also. An earthquake came and house collapsed. Thirty people from that house died.

Soon she realized that she was different. She had a deep aversion to sex. In 1945, when her son was five years old, things began to happen rapidly. She realized that she could read other person’s thoughts, unconsciously. But she could not read any one’s thoughts, deliberately. Twice she saw a skeleton, instead of her face, in the mirror. Then a voice stated telling her; “Why have you come? Have you come for this?..........”

She had a vision of Jesus Christ:………………………………………..A few men with heavy clumsy clothes………..there was someone bent double, dragging on his back a roughly hewn tree shaped like a cross. It was too heavy for him……………….She pushed her way through the crowd, and drawing near the person, dragging, cried out: “Oh Lord, why do you allow them to do this to you?” she went down on her knees and wept. He who looked so frail and weary looked up at her, and she saw that His eyes were not sad……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….”

Her friend told her that she was psychic

She met her guru, Dilip Kumar Roy ( see blog 86) in 1946. When she first saw him an electric current shot up from the base of her spine to her neck. He refused to take her as his disciple and advised her to come and visit Sri Aurobindo’s (guru of Dilip) ashram and take him as her guru. She had no idea of an ashram, and dreaded ashram life. She was a rich, modern, , vivacious, cultured, educated woman who loved to dance.

In February 1949, when her second son was one year old, she finally went to visit Pondicherry and had the darshan( seeing a holy person or place ) of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Her whole body went cool and numb.

Dada ( elder brother, Dilip Kumar Roy ) told her that she was ‘called’, but she had to choose to be chosen. She decided that she should go back to her home and see if the ‘call’ was real.

She went back to her family and was very happy to see everybody, but next day she felt desolate.

Next day she sat down for meditation, for the first time in her life. An electric current rose from the base of her spine to her head.  Peace like a block of ice descended on her. Her body became numb. There was no thought, no prayer, and no ecstasy. Next he felt somebody shaking her. Five and a half hour had passed. She soon became God-intoxicated. That state lasted for three months. She would also have period of intense sadness and despair.

One day, as she was meditating, an electric current shot up from the base of her spine and went up to her head. Her head opened, as it seemed to her, and she found herself floating in the air. She could see her body seated on the floor (compare with St Teressa of Avilla, blog 76). There was no thought, just peace and bliss. This was savikalpa smadhi

She started feeling the presence of God around her all the time.

She had the most amazing experience of black magic in August 1949. A sadhu (monk) of extremely beautiful features came to her and asked her to be her associate. He said that, jointly, they could achieve great things. Indra refused. He threatened her. His voice, blood -shot eyes would come in her vision. She became dangerously sick. It turned out that the magician, through her maid, was poisoning her. Dilip Kumar Roy and Sri Aurobindo were contacted. Sri Aurobindo wrote back that she should immediately come to his and Mother’s ashram for protection, and that she was in mortal danger and would otherwise die. She left her house on a stretcher. The magician did not leave her even in the ashram. He tried to choke her. She found bruises and fingerprints on her throat. The magician appeared in her bathroom in the form of Dada. She cried out loudly for her guru. Immediately the spell was broken and she saw that the form was of the magician. He shoved her into the bathtub.

Next day she was told during meditation that the magician’s hold on her will cease by the next full moon.

Within a month the magician had a paralytic stroke and died in great agony.

To be continued