to a chariot. If the charioteer (the individual soul) cannot tame and control his team, he is off for a wild ride through life; but if he can exercise control over his team, he controls great power and speed in action. One's religion or philosophy- whatever shapes one's way of living -is the most important factor in life; but that factor is useless if it leads to no practical end or output. Babaji looked not only to one's inner spirit but to the results, the products, of people's lives. He looked for beneficial action performed in harmony with the Divine Will and all of Creation.
We human beings tend to become like those we choose as role models; we become what we focus on, or like the people with whom we most associate. Babaji, like most Teachers, urged His followers to "go to the wise and learn." The Katha Upanishad, another early and inspired Indian scriptural work, helps in the definition of "the wise" whom we should seek out.
"The good is one thing; the pleasant is another. These two, differing in their ends, both prompt to action. Blessed are they that choose the good; they that choose the pleasant miss the goal.
"Both the good and the pleasant present themselves to man. The wise, having examined both, distinguish the one from the other. The wise prefer the good to the pleasant; the foolish, driven by fleshly desires, prefer the pleasant to the good."4
Babaji taught by His own example and by guiding people into experiences they needed for growth. He showed people how to live in harmony with The Divine and Its Creation. He put people into situations where they could experience The Divine, however briefly. He sought practical results from His followers - even as they struggled toward purification and enlightenment. On one day, Babaji admonished: "You monkeys and bears! Only wagging your tails won't be enough! You will have to do something practical, something useful. Babaji says you must work hard and put [the teachings] into practice. First, be inspired yourselves; then inspire others with this message of karma yoga [work]."5 He urged His followers to spend some time in His ashrams, with their monastic schedule and style, to experience and practice a pure, focused life in harmony with The Divine and all of Nature. Then go out to serve, as "householders" living in the real world, or to create ashrams "as islands in a sea of materialism" to serve in whatever capacities our countries need.
Babaji lived and taught squarely against the Western quip of "you only live once." He taught from the position that the human soul, like its Source and Goal, is eternal and that the experience of millions of lifetimes in various forms of the soul proceeds in a continuum from life to life. Each life in human form is an opportunity and challenge to build toward perfection of the soul, which returns again and again (through reincarnation) until the soul attains perfection. The soul's goal is to return to a state of unity with the Divine Perfection from which it came and from whence it has strayed in its experiencing itself and life's pleasures through constantly expanding senses and the concept of itself as an individual body, rather than as a manifestation of the Supreme Soul. Each lifetime can take the soul and its temporary human body closer to the goal of reunion, or we can throw away a lifetime's opportunity through ignorance or willfulness.
In His teaching and life, Babaji used miraculous powers, but indicated (as have other Masters} that they are attainable by anyone who can exercise the discipline to focus his or her mind and follow their Path to unity with The Divine. The powers come from thinking, working, living in harmony with the Creative Energy of the Universe. Babaji, for example, knew - even before they arrived or spoke to Him - who was coming to His ashram, whether they were ready for the experience of Haidakhan, whether they should stay or go. He read people's minds, healed their ailments, guided them into experiences they needed. And it has been people's experience that He comes and goes in human form, at will, through the course of human history.
His Message is not sectarian, but for all human beings of whatever religious or philosophical leaning. Hindus, Moslems, Christians, Parsis, agnostics, animists, atheists, and others came to live and learn in His presence. His teachings and actions express the best in all religions and can challenge, enrich and expand spiritual knowledge, wisdom and experience within the framework of any of them. Krishna, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, all stated that their highest and best followers can be identified by how they live - how they put into practice the religion they profess. Jesus, when asked "Which is the first commandment of all?", answered, "...thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Babaji s teachings are focused on living in harmony with The Divine, and loving the whole of Creation as thyself, more than on worshiping The Divine by any particular ritual or belief. He would surely agree with a statement attributed to His old friend, Neemkaroli Baba, "It is better to see God in everything than to try to figure it out."
When He had given His message, through example, experience and teaching, Babaji left, in order that people might absorb the Message and learn to live in Truth, Simplicity and Love, rather than to blindly follow His charming and beautiful Presence like so many sheep.
This book is a collection of people's experiences of Babaji; it is something of a biography of Babaji based on personal stories and recollections of people in whose veracity I have reason to believe. No one person and no one book can possibly "capture" this Being in print: The Divine in Its manifest forms is beyond human capacity to understand or to relate. Still, I invite you to read this book about Babaji as I and others have experienced Him. He does not come to create a new religion or to establish a "new God"; He comes to remind and teach humankind of a harmonious way of life. Whether you experience Babaji as divine or as a stimulating, challenging, unusual human being, His life and message (which are really the same thing) have much to offer to people in this era of change and possible growth.
"I surrender to Thee, O Lord; Thou alone art my refuge; Thou alone art my mother, my father, my kin, my all; Thou art my Lord in the world and in the scriptures. Hail, hail, O King of Sages, Remover of the pain of Thy devotees! From the Haidakhan Aarati (worship service)
CHAPTER I
WE MEET HAIDAKHAN BABA
Margaret met me in New Delhi on February 21, 1980, and insisted we go the very next morning to meet Babaji, despite an unconfirmed business meeting I had requested at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. We arranged for a car and driver and rode for two and a half hours south, to Vrindaban, where there is a Babaji ashram.
We rode across the flat plains of central India, sharing the sometimes divided highway with forms of transportation that reflected thousands of years of human existence - cars, smoke-belching trucks, crowded buses, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carts, four-wheeled, rubber-tired ox carts, a few camels, one or two laden elephants, and hundreds of people walking along the side, carrying everything from children to bundles of firewood and jugs of water. It was a lovely scene (and a slow ride), similar to what I had experienced in other third-world countries during my just-completed career in the Department of State in Washington, D.C.
What was more unusual, in my experience, was the peaceful repose of a sari-clad Margaret sitting beside me as we drove to meet Babaji. In the United States, Margaret Gold was a lawyer and teacher of law, a dynamo of energy directed at relieving the problems of all who came into her sphere. For much of the time as we drove, she was content to sit quietly, repeating a mantra6 as she moved the beads of her mala (rosary) through her fingers, and occasionally pointing out to me the timeless beauties of the Indian landscape. It was clear that the seven weeks she had spent in Babaji's presence in India had made a profound change in Margaret.
When we reached Vrindaban, our driver slowly and carefully threaded his way through the crowded, narrow streets of the ancient town, famed as the childhood home of the great
