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
