[continued from previous message]   
      
   A few days after first meeting Him my initial confidence evaporated, and I   
   started wondering whether He was hypnotizing me. For nearly six months, I   
   remained skeptical. Yet each day that I was with Him, He astonished me with   
   His apparently unending    
   knowledge. His profound ideas filled my mind. To every question I asked, Baba   
   gave beautiful answers that baffled me for hours. When I reminisce about Him,   
   again He baffles me!   
      
   Once I asked about the meaning of mudras.[2] He replied, "They are the   
   physical expression of mental feelings." I pondered this beautiful reply for   
   hours. Another time I commented that a certain person was "carefully   
   careless". Baba immediately quipped    
   back, "Is he carelessly careful, too?"   
      
   His personality was so charming and sweet that we used to feel  that our   
   burdens and responsibilities dissolved in an ocean of peace and tranquillity.   
   He made us feel safe and secure, and when He smiled, we felt like children who   
   love to laugh and play    
   without any reason. In those days it was a common sight to see devotees   
   heavily intoxicated with the "wine" of spiritual love.   
      
   I had the opportunity to watch Baba closely for nearly 28 years. I never   
   observed any distasteful expression. He was the epitome of humility. He gave   
   more than 40 social norms to be followed, but He Himself always did more than   
   He asked of others.   
      
   He had a very modest way of conversing, yet He also made us laugh by acting   
   out charming dramas. In this way He illustrated political and social problems,   
   then gave their solutions.   
      
   He brought out in us the most profound feelings and emotions with His   
   different moods. In His reporting sessions[3], He would make everyone roar   
   with hearty laughter, cry tears of happiness or parting sorrow. He sometimes   
   delivered brilliant discourses,    
   then displayed a mystic aura when He cured someone of a terminal illness.   
   Occasionally He burst into moods of feigned anger. Then I felt especially   
   blessed and remembered the words of a mystic song:   
      
   Kitni sheeri hei tere lab ke rakiib! galian kha ke be maza na hua.   
   How sweet is thy tongue, O my beloved, That even after abuse I don't feel   
   unhappy.   
      
   Hey rudro, hey priyatamo tumar shashan piiyush shamo (Prabhat Samgiita)   
   Oh Rudra (the entity who moves you to tears), Your disciplining is like nectar.   
      
   His half-closed eyes, always hidden under thick framed glasses, seemed to   
   betray His stance in the plane of relative consciousness, with one foot   
   standing in the created Universe, and the other standing simultaneously in the   
   formless state of pure    
   Consciousness. I was very curious to watch His eyes. I had read that the eyes   
   of some realized saints were also usually half-closed.   
      
   During my early twenties I used to do many silly things when I was alone with   
   Him. Once I removed His glasses and forced His eyes open with my fingers. Two   
   blue sapphires, as deep and unfathomable as two oceans, gazed back at me. I   
   wanted to contain them    
   but was helpless. I still feel helpless like a baby in its mother's arms when   
   I recollect that sight.   
      
   A few times I observed a ray of golden light, like a small torch light,   
   emanating from His eyes when He surveyed the body of a disciple who had some   
   ailment. He would heal them by a touch or a look or with some caning, but only   
   after taking an assurance    
   that they would henceforth work for the good of humanity.   
      
   A spiritual brother of mine, Kishan Kumar (who is now an advocate in Jammu),   
   told me a story that illustrates Baba's perfect control over facial   
   expressions. Kishan was massaging Baba when He inquired if Kishan had eaten.   
   Kishan replied that he had,    
   which was a lie because he did not want to leave. With a unique combination of   
   smile and anger, Baba instructed him to go and take food. Kishan said to me   
   that even after thirty years he can never forget how Baba perfectly combined   
   an angry face with    
   such an affectionate and loving smile. I read in a scientific article that it   
   takes 17 muscles of the face to look angry but just a few to express   
   happiness. Baba did both simultaneously!   
      
   He walked majestically, like the king of kings. His presence inspired various   
   feelings among the .assembled people, but most of all we felt a reverential   
   awe. When He paused during His walks, with walking stick in hand, to explain a   
   particular point, His    
   voice was musical yet distinctly manly.   
      
   Even while feigning anger, He remained perfectly composed and always expressed   
   karuna bha’va (compassionate tenderness) for suffering humanity. His inner   
   attitude was that of a loving father towards His universal progeny. The   
   outward nonchalant    
   expressions were a facade, like a coconut shell full of sweet water. Only   
   those who knew Him well appreciated this. So when rebuked, they would feel   
   internally happy and tried hard to suppress their laughter in keeping with the   
   drama He was staging, for    
   He never liked that the seriousness of the situation should evaporate.   
      
   Many of the public "exposes" of Baba and Ananda Marga, made by those who did   
   not understand Him or were inimical to His ideology, centred around the   
   assumption that His devotees believed Him to be God. It is certainly true that   
   the relationship between    
   Gum and disciple is of paramount importance in Tantra, which is not the case   
   in other disciplines.   
      
   Bulleshaw, a well known Sufi saint from Punjab, clearly expresses this Tantric   
   ideal[4]:   
      
   Rab miliya tu na miliya.   
   Rab terei varga nai. [Punjabi]   
   Oh Preceptor, I found God, but I did not find You.   
   God is not as perfect as You.   
      
   The mystical Tantric poet Kabir wrote:   
      
   Guru Gobind dou khade   
   Kake lage pamv   
   Balihari Guru apno jin Gobind diyo batai. [Bhojpuri]   
   If Guru and Govinda [the Supreme Consciousness] appear simultaneously, you   
   have to pay your obeisance to Guru only, because the Guru made you realize   
   Govinda.   
      
   A very famous mystic, Charandas, said, in a long poem: Let me forget Hari [the   
   Supreme Consciousness], but not the Guru. Hari put me in bondage, but Guru   
   alone liberated me from it.   
      
   From my first days in Ananda Marga I heard many stories from Margiis which   
   attributed Baba with super-human qualities. I became very curious about this.   
   Finally I told Him, "Baba, some people say that you are God, but I don't   
   believe it." Baba replied, "   
   I have never said that I am God. My philosophy does not accept the avatar   
   theory of God incarnation[5]."   
      
   Now, while writing this many years later, I appreciate the difficulty Baba   
   must have felt in answering my child-like question. If He was in fact Parama   
   Purus 'a (the Supreme Consciousness) and said so, I would certainly have asked   
   for some stupid proof    
   This universe was created systematically, with certain laws for every   
   expression to follow. He usually never broke them, even though He was capable   
   of it. From experience I found later that even God-realized souls, though they   
   possess these faculties,    
   never interfere with the cosmological order. For example, if I had asked Him   
   to change day into night and He agreed, such an action might have caused the   
   total destruction of our solar system.   
      
   Each small incident in an individual's life is intermeshed with the   
   functioning of the entire universe. To change one small aspect requires   
   adjusting everything else to maintain cosmological equipoise.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)