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Stories of 'Old Haidakhan Baba'

The manifestation of Shri Babaji in the 19^th century and into the 20^th century is well documented and remembered by living per­sons. There are several books in print (mostly in Hindi) which relate the stories of people's experiences of this incarnation, which, for the sake of easy differentiation, Babaji's present devotees call 'Old Haidakhan Baba.'

Mahendra Baba and Baba Hari Das wrote that this incarnation of Babaji, in the Kumaon Hills area, began around the year 1890²³ in an unnamed village in the hills east of Nainital. The residents of this village saw, on several consecutive days, a bright light (jyoti) which appeared on a nearby hill, stayed for some time, and then vanished. The villagers concluded this was a divine sign and assembled one day, before the usual time of this appearance, and began to sing bhajans - devotional songs. This time, when the light appeared, a divine youth emerged from it. The people begged him to come to their village. He stayed in the house of the forest guard, Shri Dhansingh. Dhansingh, afraid that this divine youth might leave, locked him in his room ev­ery day when he (Dhansingh) went off to his work. One day during Dhansingh's absence, the curious and enchanted villagers broke open the lock and discovered that Babaji had disappeared.

Some time later, Shri Babaji appeared in the village of Haida-khan (closer to Nainital), on the banks of the Gautam Ganga. (In its lower stretches, above and below Haldwani, this river is known as the Gola River.) He stayed in Haidakhan for some time and returned there often when He traveled around northern India and through the Himalayas. This gave Him the name - among many other names - of Haidakhan Baba. He built a small ashram in Haidakhan and in the mid-1890's He designed and helped construct a unique octagonal temple in the ashram.²⁴ An interesting feature of this temple is that the stone slabs used in this small temple are not available anywhere near the locality. Elders of Haidakhan village in the 1970' s recalled their parents telling them that Babaji took workers to a hill and, after putting a mark on the rocks, asked them to take out the slabs. These rocks changed into entirely different nature.²⁵

Babaji was well known throughout the Kumaon area and the Himalayas, which He covered on foot many times, traveling with a small band of devotees. His miracles and His more 'normal' routine of living were unusual even in this area where miracle-working saints were numerous. His food habits were also unusual. It is said that He never ate cereal foods. Occasionally, when a devotee insisted, He would eat fruits or milk. Shri Shiromani Pathak, of Sheetlakhet in the Almora District, where the Siddhashram was built for Babaji, stayed with Babaji for a period of six months and did not see Him take food or water during that time. Neither was Babaji ever found asleep.²⁶

"One day in February some saints who had heard of the fame of Shri Munindra Baba [one of Haidakhan Baba's names] went to see him. During their conversation with him, they began to talk about kaphal fruit. Some local people noted that kaphal was available in the hills only in May and June, and never in the winter. The desire arose in them that Babaji would give them kaphal as prasad. Responding to their thoughts, Shri Babaji went a little distance away and brought back - from who knows where - some ripe kaphal fruits still on the branch, and distributed the fruits to them as prasad."²⁷

Babaji daily used to perform yagya, or hawan, a religious fire ceremony in which offerings of Earth's bounty are made to the fire which is viewed as a symbol of the mouth of the Divine. When ghee (purified butter), which is used as an oil, was not available, Babaji used water, instead. Once, in Ranikhet, the son of Shri Ram Datt told the Christian principal of his college about this practice of Babaji. The principal was curious and went to see Babaji, who was doing hawan on the flat roof of a devotee's house. Whenever Babaji poured water into the hawan pit, the fire flared up to a height of eight to ten meters. The principal became an ardent devotee of Shri Babaji.²⁸

Another of the widely-observed miracles of Babaji was to sit in the center of four or five fires, for hours at a time. Elderly people in Haidakhan still tell their grandchildren of seeing Babaji sit in the midst of fire - or of gathering wood for these fires. Giridhari Lal Mishra wrote of this practice.

"Nobody has ever seen another incarnation or saint who has such a complete and clear control over the five fires as Munindra Bhagwan had. Wonderful was his tapasya with five fires; it gave evidence that he was the form of Lord Sadashiv.

"Shri Moti Singh, who is about 100 years old and lives near Devguru, described with moving words in his hill dialect the fire tapasya of Prabhu [God]. When he was a child, Moti Singh used to go with his mother to see the fire tapasya of the Lord.

"In the summer, Shri Babaji would collect heaps of wood and cow dung, each heap being only a short distance from the others. He would sit in the middle of the heaps and the fires would ignite themselves by his yogic powers. At that time, Babaji used to wear just a sheet of light cloth. Intense fires burned all around him. He would sit in the middle of the fires for many days. When the fires burned low, more wood was added.

"The people who saw this used to fear that his body would burn to ashes. Shri Moti Singh used to tell his mother, with tears flowing from his eyes: 'Mother, look! The yogi must have been burned by now.'

"After the intensity of the fire subsided, the great Yogi's body used to shine like the rising sun; it was almost impossible to look at him. When he stood up and removed the sheet from his body, water dripped from the cloth.

"Once he sat amid the fires continuously for 45 days. He came out of it only because of the intense prayers of his devotees.

"Wonderful is the Lord and limitless are his yogic powers."²⁹

* * * * * * * *

"Shri Jwaladatt Joshi was a great devotee of Shri Babaji. He was a high-ranking officer in the service of the rajah (king) of Gwalior. The king of Gwalior was a great devotee of God and habitually served saints.

"Once at the court, Shri Jwaladatt described the divine leelas of Shri Babaji and from that day on, the king had a great desire to have Babaji's darshan. As Shri Bhagwan did not have a fixed place to stay, Jwaladattji said he was unable to help the king meet Babaji.

"After some time, Shri Babaji unexpectedly came to Jwaladattji's house. Jwaladattji was very pleased to have Babaji's darshan, and he immediately sent word to the king.

"The king went immediately to Jwaladattji's house and requested Babaji to go to the palace and give his darshan. Touched by the king's feelings, Babaji consented and went to the palace in the evening. There the queen and the rest of the royal company had their lives blessed by having Shri Babaji's darshan.

"After Babaji had left the palace, the king asked the queen, 'How old do you think Shri Munindra Maharaj is?' The queen answered, 'He is not less than 80 years old.'

The king was astonished by her answer, be­cause he had seen Babaji as an eleven-year-old boy."³⁰

* * * * * * * *

One summer, Shri Munindra Bhagwan [Babaji] was in the Khurpatal Ashram in Nainital. One day an educated young man heard about Babaji's leelas from people who had seen him. He also learned that Babaji wore a cap which covered his ears, and from this the young man guessed that maybe Babaji was Ashvatthama [one of the immortal warriors who fought in the battle at Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata epic], because people said Babaji had some wounds dating back to the Mahabharata war. The young man thought that maybe Babaji wore such a cap to hide the head wound that Ashwatthama received after the battle at Kurukshetra. The young man went to the Khurpatal Ashram to check into this.

"As soon as the young man reached the ash­ram, Shri Babaji told him that he wanted to have a bath, because it was so hot. Hearing this, the young man pressed to be allowed to bring water from the lake for Babaji's bath. He thought that Babaji would take off his cap to have his bath, which would give an opportunity to see the wound.

"Babaji asked the young man to carry his lunghoti and towel and go to the lake for the bath. The young man was very happy, thinking that at the lake he would have enough time to check for the wound.

"When they reached the lake, Babaji told the man to take off his (Babaji's) kurta (shirt) and cap and give him a bath. Strangely enough, before removing Babaji's cap, the young man forgot his desire to check on Babaji's wound. After removing Babaji's kurta and cap, the young man gave Babaji his bath with much faith, and dried his body. He dressed Babaji again with lunghoti, kurta and cap.

"The whole process took almost half an hour, but the thought of checking Babaji's wounds did not come to the young man's mind until Babaji was completely dressed again; only then did he remember and regretted having forgotten to check.

"Shri Babaji then said to the young man, with great love: 'When one goes to a great soul, one should go with faith, compassion and love; and if one has some doubts, one should pray to God Him­self to remove them. By the Lord's Grace only, the knowledge of a saint's greatness comes. Only a saint can test a saint - or one on whom the saint's grace falls, whose heart is simple and who is without ego. When a human being does not even know himself, how can he test a great saint? A saint is a form of God, and to judge a saint is as difficult as judging God 'Himself'."³¹

* * * * * * * *

Yogi Jalendar Nath, a third-generation Babaji devotee, relates the following experiences of his grandfather, Shri Birshan Singh Gusain, with Shri Babaji. Yogiji heard these stories from his grand­mother as a child, and from his 90-year-old uncle, who was a child when some of these incidents occurred. Most of these stories are well known throughout the area where Birshan Singh lived.

Near the village of Barrechina in the Almora District of Uttar Pradesh is a locally famous temple called Shakteshwar Mahadev Temple. It and its predecessors are believed to have existed on this spot for three thousand years or more. Shri Babaji used to visit the ancient ashram here quite frequently. Babaji used a very old dhuni (sacred fire pit) and stayed in a hut with an open side from which He could talk to people who came to see Him.

Birshan Singh Gusain met Shri Babaji there in the 1890's. Birshan Singh was then in his mid-60's, a widower with a mostly-grown-up family. Babaji told Birshan Singh that he should marry again, and Birshan was married to a thirty-year-old woman. After the marriage, the bride declared she wanted nothing to do with this old man and she refused to leave her father's house. Several times Birshan Singh went to the bride's father's house to ask her to come to his home, but he was rudely rebuffed.

The old man was a great devotee of Shri Babaji and he decided to live and travel with Babaji, serving Him in any possible way. Leaving family matters in the hands of his mature eldest son, Birshan Singh stayed with Babaji for seven years, walking through the Himalayas - to Nepal, Tibet, and China - and here and there in northern India.

At the end of those seven years, when Birshan was about 74, he and Shri Babaji were in Haldwani. Babaji told Birshan it was time for him to establish a home again and raise more children. The old man protested that he had tried several times to set up his marriage but he had always been harassed and refused. Babaji told him to try again. Birshan walked for four or five days to reach his village of Chhani, beyond Almora. As he entered the town, friends greeted him with the news that his wife had been washing and cleaning her belongings for the past three days, getting ready to move into her husband's house. Birshan was warmly welcomed by his wife and her family, and he took her to live with him. When Birshan Singh was 75, a daughter was born. Yogij's father was born the next year, and another son fol­lowed. Birshan's wife, who also became a great devotee of Shri Babaji, always considered these children as gifts of God.

Even with a new young family, old Birshan used to spend a great deal of time with Shri Babaji, serving Him when He was at Shakteshwar Mahadev Temple or occasionally traveling with Him. One summer Birshan had been around home enough to plow his rice fields and plant the paddy, but he had not been there when the hill­side streams were directed into the fields to irrigate the young rice; the neighbors' fields had been irrigated, but Birshan's had not, and his rice crop was threatened with ruin. The critical neighbors began to whisper, "Let us see what Birshan's children will eat this winter."

Babaji came to visit at Shakteshwar Mahadev Temple. He asked Birshan what his neighbors were saying, and Birshan tried to pass it off by saying, "It is nothing." But Babaji made Birshan Singh tell Him that the neighbors were saying Birshan spent so much time with Babaji that his children would have nothing to eat that winter. Babaji told Birshan not to worry.

As they sat and talked, Birshan noted that it was getting cloudy. Soon it began to rain heavily all around them. Babaji commented that it was "a nice rain" After thirty minutes or so, when the rain stopped, Babaji sent Birshan out to check the fields and see how much it had rained. As Birshan walked past his neighbors' fields, he was amazed to see no evidence of rain; but when he came to his fields, they were knee-deep in water.

The rice crop that year from Birshan's fields was many times greater than normal. The family had so much rice that they ate from that harvest for more than two years; Birshan did not even plant rice in the second year.

Once Birshan singh suffered a fall from a great height. The fall broke his back and left him unconscious and bleeding from cuts in many places. Villagers carried his unconscious form to his home. Everyone thought he was either dead or dying; his wife started to weep and mourn.

All night Birshan lay unconscious and unmoving. The next morning, his wife, restless and upset, arose at 3 a.m. and went to open the big, front, double doors of the house. Babaji was standing outside. Birshan's wife burst into tears and made pranam to Babaji. Babaji asked why she was crying and she replied that Birshan was almost dead. She led Babaji to Birshan's side.

Babaji told her not to worry. He sent her out to the fields to find a special herb. When she returned with the herb, Babaji made a paste of it and told Birshan's wife to apply the paste to the place where the back was broken. Some time after this had been done, Babaji put His hand under Birshan Singh's back and lifted the unconscious body to a sitting position.

As he was propped up, Birshan Singh regained consciousness. He was delighted to see his guru and Lord sitting beside him and Birshan got up and knelt and made his pranam to Shri Babaji, with no expression of or comment about pain: he was completely healed. He asked what had happened, then sent his wife to the barn to get cow's milk for Babaji to drink.

Babaji said He would not take anything; He had just come from Jaganath, where he was about to perform a yagya (fire ceremony), and He must return quickly to the people who were waiting. (There is a Jaganath temple about eighteen kilometers from Shakteshwar Mahadev Temple; not quite close enough for a walk back for an early morning ceremony.) Birshan's wife came in from her kitchen with a plate of flour, rice, sugar, and other things traditionally offered to saints in the Kumaon Hills, and Babaji took just a pinch of each and put them into His shoulder bag. The wife then ran to the barn to get the milk for Babaji.

Babaji told Birshan Singh that He really must go quickly, but that He would stop at the temple to make a morning offering. Birshan made his pranam and Babaji hurried out. Birshan's wife came running from the barn with a container of milk for Babaji. He was two or three hundred yards ahead of her, crossing the fields toward the temple. She lost sight of Babaji, but she heard a conch blown and the temple bells rung. When she ran into the temple, the lingam (symbol of Lord Shiva) had been watered (water is one of the traditional offerings to God), but there was no Babaji in the temple or anywhere in sight.

* * * * * * * *

Dr. Hem Chand Joshi was a widely known language scholar who reportedly was able to read, write, speak and teach in fifty-two languages. He was also a great devotee of Shri Babaji. During his lifetime, he collected stories about Haidakhan Baba and wrote the manuscript of a book about Him. The book was not published during his lifetime but was set aside to be published when Babaji would return. The book was found and published by Dr. Joshi's widow at Shri Haidakhan Baba's instruction after His return in 1970. The fol­lowing is a story from this book.

"Dr. Joshi's father-in-law, Shri G.N. Joshi, had been suffering from tuberculosis for three or four years and had on this day succumbed to the dreaded dis­ease. A pall of gloom descended on the family and the household, and heart-rending cries rent the skies. The dead body was brought outside the house and placed under a lemon tree.

"People from the village came to join the family in lamenting the loss, and preparations were under way to make the cortege to carry the body to the cremation grounds. As the last holy bath was being given to the body, Babaji suddenly appeared on the scene

"Shri G.N. Joshi's mother fell at Baba's feet and prayed thus: 'My Lord, now that You have come to me in my time of crisis, please give me Your Grace and somehow grant another lease of life to my dead son. I am worried to death regarding my young daughter-in-law (G.N. Joshi's wife). How will she bear this irreparable loss and go through her life all by herself? I have three other sons, but my heart weeps for this young, 24-year-old girl. Please, Lord, please...'

"The Lord smiled and said, 'Don't worry; your son will be all right.'

"Everyone who was present got a very sly look about him and a murmur broke out, as if to ask how can anything be done to a dead body at this stage, when all was over bar the shouting? But, obviously, Babaji had other ideas.

"Suddenly Babaji became seriousness personified and broke a branch from the very tree under which the dead body lay, and He started to do the now-familiar 'jhara'.³² Barely a minute had passed when He told the lamenting mother, 'Don't worry; warmth seems to be returning to the body.' One more minute and He said, 'I can even feel his pulse returning.'

"The entire crowd stood bewildered: what was Bhagwan Haidakhandi up to? G.N. Joshi is dead and how and from where is He calling him back? It seemed that everybody who heard Babaji s proclamations had lost his power of comprehension. But anybody would do so, seeing this kind of spectacle.

"A little later, Shri Babaji asked if it was possible to get some milk from a woman's breast. It was possible and a cup or so was brought to Babaji. Sip by sip, He fed this milk to G.N. Joshi and then, with His hands, He opened Joshi's eyes.

"Everyone saw that Shri G.N. Joshi had come alive and was looking around in total surprise. Practically everyone had heard that Baba Haidakhan was God incarnate, but now they had actually witnessed it.

"Now Babaji ordered them to take Joshiji into the house; but superstitions are hard to get over and even now everyone was afraid to lift the body back into the house, for fear that this ghostly spirit might take possession of them should they touch the body.

"Babaji once again smiled and said, 'Don't worry. This man is alive and not dead, as you think. Take him inside; nothing will go wrong.'

"Shri G.N. Joshi was subsequently taken to his bed in the house where slowly but surely he began to recover. By and by he started drinking milk and taking food, etc.

"Babaji left thereafter, but came back to the house after eight days and told the family members to take Shri G.N . Joshi to the nearby river (Ramganga). There the Lord took a few dips in the river Himself and asked people to give a few dips to Shri G.N. Joshi, also. After that, He asked them to lay him on his stomach and cover him with a blanket. After half an hour or so, people saw that a lot of filthy, foul-smelling water ran out of Joshi's nose.

"The Lord then asked Joshi to accompany Him and, to and behold!, Joshiji got up and walked up the hill for a distance of two and a half miles, quite comfortably, back to the house.

"This happened in 1910 or 1911 and after being given this fresh lease on life he eventually died in 1950 or 1951, a 40-year lease renewal."³³

* * * * * * * *

There are many stories of Shri Babaji raising people from the dead. There are even a few examples of the following variant of the resurrection story. This story is written by Shri Giridhari Lal Mishra.

"Once Haidakhan Baba was traveling with a devotee (Jeevanchand Joshi) to Badrinath [a religious pilgrim center in the Indian Himalayas]. En route, the devotee was struck by cholera. After a violent but short period of vomiting and profuse dysentery, he was very close to breathing his last.

"Babaji, compassionate as ever, felt sorry for him and said, 'I shall leave My body instead of you, as there is no one to mourn My loss.' The attack of cholera subsided immediately, as far as the devotee was concerned, but Babaji, on the other hand, was hit by the same disease very quickly and He told the devotee, 'When I leave My body, consign the lifeless form to the flames and the ashes to the Gan­ga.' Shortly afterwards, He left the human body. The devotee, grief-stricken though he was, did as he had been instructed by Babaji.

"Shortly thereafter, the devotee returned to his home town of Almora. On arrival at his house, he was informed that Shri Babaji was staying, for the last few days, at another devotee's house. It was impossible to believe that this could be true, as he had himself done the last rites. Nevertheless, he hastened to this devotee's house. Lo and behold! Babaji was sitting there in person! He did not even believe his eyes until he had felt Babaji's body.

"The entire episode so shocked the devotee that he was practically insane for about six months."³⁴

* * * * * * * *

Shri Mahendra Baba spent many years looking for Babaji. Just before he found Babaji, Mahendra Baba met an old man named Shiromani Pathak in a small village named Sheetlakhet, in the Almora District of Uttar Pradesh. Shiromani had known 'Old Haidakhan Baba' (Babaji had left the scene over twenty-five years before Mahendra Baba met Shiromani) and had helped create the Siddhashram for Babaji, just outside of Sheetlakhet. The old man took a great liking to Mahendra Baba and the two sat and talked for hours through the night about Babaji. Whenever Mahendra Baba asked Shiromani about Babaji, Shiromani would burst into tears and Mahendra Baba would wait for him to get quiet again. Mahendra finally got this story of Babaji from Shiromani.

"An hour before my uncle died, he said, 'Just see how gracious He is! Give Him something to sit on. Worship Him!' Those present around him thought he was delirious, but, actually, Shri Sadashiv was giving him liberation by showing Himself to him in His glorious body. From that very moment [Shiromani] said, he, too, felt a great desire to obtain a sight of Him. It be­came an over-whelming wish, but how to meet Him? He had heard tales of His wonderful appearance, but had never been blessed by a sight of His form.

"One day, unexpectedly, 200 to 250 men came to his house, and with them were some palanquins. In one beautiful palanquin, ceremoniously surrounded by many rich and respectful people with folded hands, was a great and merciful Sage, wearing a shirt and cap, and with a loving smile on His face, shedding grace on all animate and inanimate things around Him. Shiromanji, at that time, was suffering from a very septic wound. As soon as he heard of Shri Bhagwan's arrival, he ran toward Him with joy. He slipped on the wooden steps and a splinter of wood pricked his foot, and he fell down in a faint. The people surrounding him were anxious about him, but Shiromanji was lying with his head resting on the merciful Master's lap in a trance which would put to shame the trance of great Brahma Rishis, and was experiencing a nectar-like peace, fully gratified.

"After resting at this place for some time, Shri Maharaj, with all His worshippers, whose number had swelled to thousands within a short time, left to proceed onwards.

"There was no fixed programme for Shri Maharaj; wherever He went, there, without any effort or call, thousands of men and women collected. Hearing of His coming, there was seldom anyone who could stay at home. There were no questions and answers, but people experienced peace at the mere sight of His presence.

"Many learned Sanskrit scholars, ministers, social reformers and social workers, and rajas and nawabs came to see Him. In the presence of this Great One - the final goal of all teachings, the solution of the existence of the Self - the natural practice of mutual intercourse and the tranquility of those who realized Brahman was available to all in equal measure.

"Always of sweet countenance, compassion­ate eyes, benevolent behaviour, slender of body, with child-like gestures, dressed only in shirt (kurta) and cap - these physical features were a source of super­natural attraction for all. Of food, He took very little; He drank a lot of buttermilk. When He opened His palms, the group of devotees around Him got intoxicated with their divine fragrance. His hair never grew longer. He never slept. Shiromanji lived with Him for six months but he never saw Him sleep. If someone clothed Him, He allowed Himself to be clothed, but He never asked for clothes and, even if there were clothes available, He never used them. His devotees presented Him with costly clothes, gold coins and many precious things, but He did not even glance at these uninteresting things. Yes, to entertain His devotees, He some­times used to play with the things, like a child, for ten or fifteen minutes; then anything could happen - any­one could take the things; He made no arrangements about their disposal. To Him, dust and precious things were all alike. To Him, friend and foe, detractor and admirer, sinner and saint, in His compassionate sight, all had rights to His mercy.

"[Shiromani] recounted to me great, wonderful, and unheard-of stories of His supernatural acts, seen by himself. Due to my doubtful nature, sometimes I used to wonder at his stories and then Shiromanji used to swear on his faith, his own self, his son, and on everything, that whatever he told me was perfectly true.

"At that time, even though my heart had not much faith, I was forced to believe in these supernatural happenings. We talked together for hours. At that time I also thought to myself that though I had no inclination for prayers, repetitions of religious verses, and discourses on religious subjects, yet how interesting I found these talks! They drew me forcibly. The whole purport of [Shiromani's] talk was that Shri Haidakhan Baba was Ishwara Himself! This personification of God was extraordinary!

"[Shiromani] had seen many instances with his own eyes when the dead were made alive, when the illiterate were given instant eloquence to compose, the childless were given sons, those with financial troubles were given the boon of patrons. Devotees in search of divine qualities had all their desires fulfilled and gained power over occult phenomena. Those in search of salvation, not only from India but from Europe, and the holy men from Tibet, by taking refuge under His fearless and generous protection, gained illumination. People of diverse views and religions and great devotees had their hopes fulfilled by coming to the feet of the Lord. The long and the short of Shiromanji's good company and talk was to prove this. He swore repeatedly under oath, and greatly agitated, about these phenomena."³⁵

* * * * * * * *

In 1921 or 1922, Shri Babaji made some preparations for ending the incarnation. Gangotri Baba, who became a widely-known saint, was then about fifty years old; he had retired from his profession as a school teacher. On his return from a pilgrimage to the Tibetan Mount Kailash, Gangotri Baba met Sombhari Baba in the town of Haldwani. Sombhari Baba (a great siddha yogi) told Gangotri Baba that Haidakhan Baba wanted to see him in His ashram at Kathgharia, about three miles outside of Haldwani.

Gangotri Baba went straight to the Kathgharia Ashram and sat with Haidakhan Baba. Haidakhan Baba said that He was about to leave the material world and go to the astral plane to do other work. He told Gangotri Baba to take up the work He was leaving behind. Haidakhan Baba instructed Gangotri Baba to go to live near the mountain village of Gangotri, from which he later received his name. Babaji also instructed Gangotri Baba to take special care of Dr. Hem Chand Joshi, the linguist, and his wife, Durga Devi. Then Babaji handed to Gangotri Baba a tulsi mala (a necklace or rosary made of tulsi wood beads) in a cotton mala bag and told him to keep it safely, saying, "I will take it back when I come next time."³⁶