Meeting Babaji
In 1989 I spent eight months in India. Most of the time with Sai Baba and at Ramana Ashram in Southern India. One day Sai Baba glanced at me and after I recovered from the shaktipa I got the message, "Go to the mountains, the Himalayas." The next day I left my wife and five year old son with Baba and took a bus and plane to Delhi, and another day's bus ride to Rishikesh.
I was just getting over dysentery and stayed there for about two weeks to build my strength. I and a new friend then took a bus to the village of Kedranath, at 6000 feet, with the intention of going to the high temple of Kedra when the path opened in a few days. It was the spring opening.
On that day we, along with dozens of other Shiva devotees, trekked the 5000 feet,13 km to the temple. By the time I reached the last mile I was exhausted. When the temple appeared over the horizon I received a bolt of energy and almost sprinted the last half mile.
We entered the small stone temple. Inside was a large monolithic rock, a Shiva lingum about 10 feet high and 5 feet across. It was worn and black with the oil from centuries of devotees hands. As I placed my hands on the lingum a column of white light came down through my crown into the Earth and I heard the words, "Your enlightenment is assured."
I knew its source. By the time we returned to our rooms that night I was sick again, but decided to move on anyway. India appears to be the place where one surrenders the body and then realizes that perfect health is less important than enlightenment.
On our way to Badrinath, another high temple, my friend and I spent the night at Tungnath. It's a small way-stop open only for a few weeks in the spring and again after the monsoons. There were only about half a dozen people at Tungnath, sellers of fruit and soft drinks to travelers. We decided to spend the night. There were no "real" lodgings and it was suggested that we could stay in a small stone hut with no doors or windows, and straw on the ground. This was great.
The next morning we were eating some of the staples from our backpacks when a young man walked out of the woods. He was about 20, in ragged clothing and no shoes. He went over to the locals and just stood in front of them saying nothing but not begging. They shooed him away and he come over to us and did the same. My first thought was to offer him money and I presented a few rupees. He motioned with his hand that he did not want them. We then realized that he was retarded, or at least suffering from some severe mental disability. We were stuck as to why he was there. He then made some motion, I don't remember exactly what, which indicated that he wanted clothing. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a spare pair of pants and a rather used shirt and handed them to him. He nodded, turned and walked back into the woods.
I had been fascinated by Babaji the Immortal from the "Autobiography" for years. In fact it was in my mind when I left Sai Baba that I would look for him, but the Shiva temple seemed to be the priority. I felt at the time that it may have been that Babaji. In the ensuing years my suspicions have grown stronger, along with my intuition and now I truly believe that it was him. I still ponder over the meaning of our meeting.
We never got to Badranath and later that day climbed another 1000 feet to the Tungnath Temple where we spent a week in similar lodgings, doing yoga in an open field of flowers surrounded at times by hummingbirds the size of bumble bees. This place is far enough North that the temple looks like a blending of India and Tibet. The mountains there are riddled with foot thick veins of quartz crystal and there is an ancient 15 foot wide stone road which apparently connects all of the four Indian high temples and spans over a hundred miles of the Himalayas. We climbed another several hundred feet and stood on a knoll covered with stacks of rocks honoring Shiva which had been left by previous pilgrims. From that place there is a 180 degree panorama of the Himalayas of India and into Tibet.
Returning to Delhi, and eventually to Sai Baba, was returning from a place that really defies complete description.
Robin Irelan
