The Author Comes to Meet a Master

The year was 1978, the place Calcutta. The author was looking out to rent a decent flat at a suitable and affordable location. He zeroed in on a small house across the Ganges. The house was owned by an old Brahmin couple. Both the daughters of the family were married and the couple lived alone. It was agreed that the owners would construct a two-room set on the second floor for themselves out of the deposit advanced by the author and rent out the first floor to him on a kind of permanent basis.

After the deal was inked, the author questioned the landlady about the large photograph of a holy man which was prominently hung on one of the walls. She explained that the photograph was of Behara Baba, their guru, who lived in Bihar and visited Calcutta from time to time. The Baba was a powerful yogi, according to the couple, and they had to be very careful in everything they did; if they made any mistake, Baba had the habit of appearing in a dream to the disciples to admonish them. The author felt interested and drawn to the personality of Behara Baba.

He could accompany the Ganguli family twice over the next two months to meet Baba when he was visiting Calcutta and he was rewarded with rich experiences. The group travelled on three cycle rickshaws to meet him on the first occasion. On the way, however, when negotiating a turn, the rickshaw in which Mr. Ganguli sat with his elder daughter got overturned and was badly damaged. The occupants, though, were miraculously unhurt and were able to find and board a substitute. As the party arrived in Baba’s presence, while welcoming the Ganguli family, to our surprise, he directly began to narrate their ordeal to other disciples and their family members who were present, while lamenting that despite his illness, he had to rush himself to cushion their unfortunate fall, to save them from nasty injuries. “Hadn’t the rim of the wheel become twisted like this?” he asked Mr. Ganguli, showing it with a gesture of his two hands, as actually was the case.

After being introduced and being allowed to bow at his feet, the author requested him for blessings. He was asked to take out a coin. Taking the coin from him, Baba continued to hold it between his thumb and forefinger, and then dropped it back into the author’s cupped hands. The author was now asked to close his palms and repeat a little prayer after the Master, “Holy Mother, please accept.” Instantly, as he did so, the coin disappeared from the folded palms of the author. Later, it was explained by other disciples that the coin had gone and had got deposited in a particular temple of the Great Mother at a far-off place in Bihar, where Baba worshipped, at the feet of her idol. When the author called on Baba the second time, he got cured of a nasty complication that was bothering him for several years in a miraculous way.

A Real Jam or Predicament

As the promised date for the hand-over of the flat drew close, the Gangulis continued to ask for more money to finish the work. The author came to pay them not only the remainder of the deposit money due on possession but also additional amounts as advances to cover the rent for around four years. Yet even after six months of the first payment, the work was unfinished and the elderly couple was unable to vacate the first floor for the author’s family. They needed still more money to complete. It transpired that in place of the two rooms planned by them originally, they were constructing four; thanks to the interference and enthusiasm of their two sons-in-law.

Encounter with a Miracle

On that particular Sunday, after a futile meeting with the Gangulis in early 1979, and as the full implications of the situation came to be impressed on his mind, the author thought out of a week-long course of action.

The next morning, in place of the usual meditation, the author meditated on a mental picture of Behara Baba and for ten minutes he made an ardent prayer to him on the lines, “Baba, I have not done anything wrong. I just do not deserve to suffer in this manner at the hands of your disciples.” The author repeated his morning prayer to Baba for exactly seven days, as he had planned.

On the 8th day, which was a Monday, the author bunked the morning meditation altogether. It was around 11.30 in the morning that day, that he got a call from the office receptionist, “Sir, can you kindly come to the reception?” The author was surprised to see his prospective landlord and landlady waiting. He greeted them but, to his horror, the elderly Ganguli tried to bend down to touch his feet, with the words, “Please forgive us, Vigyan Babu. We have made a very big mistake.”

The author held the old man, who was shaking out of shame and emotions, in his arms, preventing him from bending down. He was stunned to hear his narrative. The night before, Behara Baba had appeared in a dream to the Ganguli couple, separately to both husband and wife, and was seemingly in a rage. To Mr. Ganguli, he had charged, “You have caused great hurt to Vigyan. He is devoted to me. You should return his money immediately and both you and your wife should go and touch his feet and ask for his forgiveness. Otherwise, the Lord will never return into your lives again.”

Mr. Ganguli handed over to the author the bulk of the money on spot. He said he would pay the balance in ten monthly instalments. Later, he came to know that immediately after getting up in the morning, after the dreams they had, the couple had exchanged notes, had summoned an urgent family meeting with their daughters and sons-in-law, and working on a war footing, they had been able to arrange with a local businessman to provide the money needed to settle author’s account and to complete the construction. In the bargain, however, the family had lost possession of the new four-bedroom flat to the businessman, who would not be interested otherwise to hire the premises.

The Masters Do Not Leave a Business Unfinished

After the above incident, the author’s reverence for Baba was increased manifold. He had now made up his mind to put up to Baba a set of questions when Baba came to Calcutta next. Then one night, he saw Baba in a dream for the first time. In the dream, the author finds himself entering a walled premises, climbing the stairs of a very large well-constructed building. Arriving on the first floor, he crosses a long corridor with a row of rooms on his right and enters the only front-facing room which was at the end of the corridor.

As he enters the room, he sees that Behara Baba was there, sitting on a mat on the floor, facing the door. Baba may have taken a vow of ‘silence’. There were a black slate and chalk at hand for the Baba to write any instructions. The author puts up his first question to Baba to which he nods his head in agreement. Baba shook his head twice in response to the author’s second question, indicating a ‘no’. In answering his third question, Baba shows the author by a gesture with his two hands, a key turning motion on the palm of one hand with the help of the other, that there was a lock in-place at the moment and that he will know the answer at the right time. The author was awakened from his sleep, as he bowed to Baba to take his leave. Later, the author came to know that Baba had passed away on the same day. He had appeared to him in a dream to complete the unfinished business between them.

A Proof and a Justification

Incidentally, the building with a long corridor and the room in which Baba sat in the author’s dream were both identical to a building that was got constructed by him for his employers near Delhi in the NCR, about 14 years later. The factory-cum-office building was constructed according to a layout received from the German collaborators of a company newly formed by the employers. The whole of the ground floor and much of the first floor were earmarked for manufacturing activity.

The office block was located on the first floor to the right of a long and very wide corridor running from north to south. There was a row of rooms on the right exactly as the author had seen in the dream and the only front-facing room was at the end of the 100 feet corridor. This was the room he had seen in his dream where Behara Baba was sitting, and this the author was to occupy for more than 12 years as the Chief Executive of the new company. On account of a ‘Vaastu’ angle introduced by a consultant invited by the employers, original building plans were altered to make the entrance to the building from North and the ‘head’ was required to sit in the south end, facing the north.

Needless to say, that Behara Baba was not just able to answer the author’s questions in a dream but was also able to provide him with a peep into the future so that one day he should be able to sit down, connect and feel ever more grateful. Further, the author was wanting to change his job, but he also wanted to understand the wish of God. One way was to ask Baba when he met him next. And that accordingly was his second question to him. The turning of that glimpse into a precise reality for him was a justification for Baba’s strong negative response to a job change. The author was able to go as high as one can expect to go within an organization from a humble beginning.

(The above are excerpts from chapter 13 of the principal book under the heading “THE MASTERS ARE ALWAYS AROUND”)