We rode through the night on the narrow-gauge train to Haldwani, at the edge of the plains where the foothills of the Himalayas begin to rise. Pedal rickshaws carried us, two by two, with baggage behind, through busy shopping streets to the modest shop of Trilok Singh, a grain and vegetable dealer and strong devotee of Babaji, from which place most of the last 'legs' of people's trips to Haidakhan depart. On this occasion, there was a jeep to take Swamiji and some of his party to the end of the road up the river valley, to what is known as "the dam site."
As the jeep wound its way through the hills overlooking the river, I was amazed at the beauty of the area. Most of the hills are covered with trees - lots of pine - and, here and there, families had cleared, over the years, terraces along the hillside which were, at that season, richly green with corn, wheat, or vegetables. On the edges of some of the fields were stone houses with red tin roofs and barns, outside of which oxen and buffaloes stood or lay. Overhead, eagles flew; a family of monkeys fled through the trees as the jeep rolled by. Down in the wide, stony valley a chastened river flowed quietly in one or more channels down a largely dry bed; the river's time to howl is from July through September, when the monsoon turns the quiet stream into a raging demon and cuts off easy access between the Haidakhan valley and the plains.
In the mid-70's, the Indian Government decided to build a dam near the mouth of 'Babaji's' Gautam Ganga (the river which flows through Babaji's ashram at Haidakhan) in order to supply water to plains cities and farms. A road was built to the dam site, which greatly benefited the farmers of the valley. But despite work crews at the site every year and a dedication speech by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the dam has never gotten under way. Nor is it likely to, since engineers note that the rock at the site is too crumbly, too likely to shift, to support a dam; and the monsoon erosion would fill the reservoir with mud within ten or fifteen years, anyway. But the project has supplied needed jobs in the valley, brought buses to the mouth of the valley, and created tea shops where travelers to and from Haidakhan and other villages can sit while they wait for the infrequent buses.
Our jeep stopped at the dam site and we got out to walk the remaining three or four miles up the riverbed to Haidakhan. Village men carried our baggage for ten rupees (about one dollar) - a price then set and enforced by Babaji to provide villagers with a fair income and to keep villagers from gouging naive foreigners who would pay almost anything asked. On our hike up the river on that trip, I counted twenty-one river crossings, some ankle-deep, some knee-deep. As our party walked, we met valley dwellers going to the bus, dogs barked at us from their hillside stations, and as we neared the houses on the hillsides, children came out to shout "Bhole Baba ki jai!" - "Hail to the Simple Father!" - one of Shri Babaji's many names. There was a strong sense of coming home, despite the strangeness of the whole scene and culture.
Within sight of the ashram, about a quarter mile downstream, there is an island in the riverbed on which a tree grows. Legend has it that Lord Shiva brought His consort to the mount known locally as Mount Kailash, which rises above the island, and that Sati used to bathe in the river by the island. The crown of this Mount Kailash and the cave at its feet are associated with Lord Shiva's doing thousands of years of tapas (meditation and other spiritual practices) here for the benefit of humankind. There is now an orange-painted statue of Shri Hanuman - a god9 with the form of a monkey, who came to earth to serve Lord Ram and His consort, Sita - stationed on this island to greet and bless travelers and pilgrims.
I was confused by the numbers of gods and holy figures I was being 'introduced to' in the Hindu culture and I asked what to make of Hanuman. I learned then (and over and over in later experience) that despite the hundreds of identifiable, storied gods, goddesses, and demons in the Hindu culture and religion, the scriptures and thoughtful Hindus firmly declare that "The Lord is One, without a second."10 The multiplicity of gods and goddesses arises from human efforts to demonstrate and give form to the many aspects of the One, Formless God, to illustrate and personalize the laws which make the universe operate in harmony and the principles which underlie the creation, maintenance and 'destruction' (or purification) of the universe. Adherents worship that form - or those forms - of The Divine which are most attractive to them, or whose qualities they wish to attain. And, if one gives credence to statements from past and present, The Divine appears to sincere devotees in the forms that they worship and expect to encounter. Hanuman, noted for his strength and his wholehearted devotion and service to God (as Lord Ram), is a great favorite all over India. Hanuman is also a great favorite of Shri Babaji and His devotees.
Our journey up the valley ended with a climb up what is called "The 108 Steps." (There are actually a few more than 108 steps from the riverbed to the ashram's temple garden, but 108 has a spiritual and numerological significance.) Near the top of the steps is a one-story building housing an office and tiny bedroom for Swami Fakiranand, facing the steps, and, facing the other direction, a small room in which Babaji slept and received visitors. Outside Babaji's room was a concrete terrace which contained an ancient pipal tree and a sacred fire pit, at which Babaji performed a dawn fire ceremony every day He was in Haidakhan. The terrace, shaded by the sacred pipal tree, looks out over the valley and the little village of Haidakhan. Margaret and I spent ten days in the Haidakhan ashram, living very simply and following the schedule which Babaji had established. We got up at 4 a.m. and went to the river to bathe, in predawn temperatures hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. There was an hour or so for meditation and a hot cup of chai before the hour-long aarati service at sun-up. The ashram did not serve breakfast. The concept was that one meal a day, at noon, is sufficient for simple living, but Babaji also provided an evening supper and frequently distributed fruits, nuts and candies, or gave tea parties, so no one felt hunger. But Western devotees, used to breakfast, found cereals and buffalo milk or cheese and biscuits and chai at the village tea shops. Then we went to work.
Shri Babaji taught that work done without selfish, personal motive, dedicated to The Divine as service performed in harmony with all of Creation, is the highest form of worship. It is also a means of purification for a devotee, transforming inner negativity and hostility and opening the individual to spiritual growth. This is karma yoga. So there were work sessions both morning and afternoon. Our work at that time was enlarging the terrace on the right bank of the Gautam Ganga, where four small temples had been built and two more were under construction. Both men and women tackled the slopes of the hillside with pickaxes and shovels, carrying the dirt away in wheelbarrows and (mostly) in metal pans which Indian laborers carry on their heads. "Moving the mountain" seemed an impossible task with those simple tools, but progress was noticeable week by week, if not day by day. Patience was one of the virtues which Babaji taught through experiences.
At noon, we stopped and washed in the river and sat in the warm sun on the cemented terrace outside the ashram kitchen to eat. There was half an hour or so to rest, then back to work until just before sundown. We washed or bathed and went to the evening aarati service. After the service, the kitchen crew served supper, generally left-overs from the noon prasad, but occasionally something freshly cooked. The ashram rule was that lights go out at 10 p.m., but there were many conversations held after supper until weariness put an end to them.
Margaret had come to my house in Washington shortly after the sudden death, from a bee sting, of my wife Jackie at the end of October 1978. Margaret was a teacher of Transcendental Meditation, looking for a job and a place to stay. I was then part of a State Department team negotiating the contract for construction of the new American Embassy compound in Moscow and I needed someone to house-and-cat-sit while I traveled back and forth before and after Christmas, 1978. By the time my travels were over, I found Margaret so charming and supportive that I had asked her to marry me. She didn't say "yes," but she stayed on in the house. Margaret, like Jackie and me, had read Paramahansa Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi" and had been fascinated by the tales of Mahavatar Babaji. When she learned, in the summer of 1979, of Babaji's presence in Haidakhan, Margaret had decided to travel with Leonard Orr and a group of Rebirthers to meet Babaji in January 1980. I had helped her make the trip and Margaret was to have joined me on a post-retirement business trip through Europe and Israel to test the possibilities of establishing an international consulting
