A little dirty money

Baba starts fasting

April. Word came today that Baba has begun a protest fast over the lack of inquiry into the attempt on His life in the jail by Indira 1 Gandhi’s government. At present He is taking only two small glasses of orange juice per day. 31

30 Samadhi means a state of complete absorption. There are many kinds of samadhi depending on the psycho-spiritual level of the person. In the higher for ms of samadhi, one feels oneness with the Cosmic M ind, or an all-consuming devotion for God or Guru.

31 In February of 1973 the prison doctor administered Baba a strong dose of poison which he had passed off as a special “medicine”. Baba temporarily lost consciousness and when He awoke, He was blind, His brain seared with pain. This condition lasted for several days, after which He partially regained His sight. Baba’s vision remained somewhat impaired until the end of His life. The doctor, who was certainly hired for this nasty work by higher officials of the Indira Gandhi government, soon afterwards gave up his profession, but this did not save him from becoming permanently para¬ lyzed in the same hand by which he gave the poison to Baba.

An orchestrated accident

Sydney, Australia. Fresh, young, curious, clean—all are qualities of this relatively new country and its people. I arrived two days ago in this world which seems open-minded to the ideas of yoga and Tantra.

Ananda Marga is a new and small group here. There are a handful of Margis in each of several cities.

I know I’m going to enjoy this country.

Today a letter arrived from Ramdas. He writes:

Something terrible has happened. A small accident happened in the car in which Dada Adveshananda was riding. The driver requested Dada to wait alone in the car for an hour while he assisted the passengers to go home by other means.

Shortly afterward, a man approached Dada and asked him to leave the car.

“What’s it to you if I sit here?” said Dada. The man walked away silently.

After a few minutes he again came back and said, “Really, sir, I think you should move.”

“You’re a nonsense fellow,” Dada said. “Leave me alone.”

And again a few minutes later he came and said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. but…”

“Get out of here!” Dada yelled. “If you’re sorry to disturb me, then don’t disturb me.” The man left.

A few minutes later a big construction truck smashed into the car. Dadaji was thrown out of the car, and dragged underneath the truck.

It was awful. The construction people together with the ambulance people pulled him out of the wreck. He was unconscious and his legs were smashed. At least he did not die, though even for him it was a shock.

In M arch, Baba dictated a number of letters to the governor of Bihar state complaining about the attempted murder and demanding a judicial inquiry. When Baba received no reply He took the further step of writing the governor and many other officials, and informing them that He would noteat until His poisoning was properly investigated and there was an improvement in His living conditions and those of the other M argis in the prison who were being detained under conditions far below the minimally acceptable standard for political prisoners.

He is still in the hospital but will probably be released in a wheelchair. The doctors say he may never be able to walk again, and he laughs at them. Yes, he’s already recovered his aplomb.

Most interesting, however, is Dada’s own self-analysis. He says, “Everyone was always telling me to slow down, and be a little systematic. But I wouldn’t listen. Baba Himself knew that even if He told me directly, I wouldn’t listen. This was the only way that I could leam my lesson. Ah. the grace of Guru is unfathomable.”

As to that man who tried to warn Dada, no one ever saw him again. Dadaji says, “It was surely Baba in another form, just trying one last time to constructively cure me of my egocentricity. In my case, however, there was no way except destruction.”

The dysentery is still with me. I’ve been following a fruits-only diet, and going to naturopaths, chiropractors, colon-therapists, and the like, but nothing works.

How I tolerate it, Lord only knows.

Psychic power attack

Brisbane. I’ve been invited to make a house-call tonight under peculiar circumstances. The residents are nine young men and women, a normal sort of communal living arrangement. It seems they are troubled by an “outside force.” They’ve already called upon a Christian priest and a Buddhist monk to help them but neither visit satisfied the group. The priest did an ineffective exorcism, and the Buddhist monk counseled them to “ignore the illusion.” Whatever the problem may be, it will at least be enjoyable to watch Baba solve it.

They were a normal group of kids in their late teens and early twenties, except that they all looked haggard and emotionally strained. Without exception, each had facial skin sag.

“Let’s come to the point,” I said. “Tell me the problem.”

They all started nervously speaking at once.

“Please, there’s nothing to get excited about. Every problem exists for a good reason.” I pointed to the boy who looked the least out of control, and asked him to explain.

“Dadaji, all of us in this house are so tired. Every night for the last two months a Psychic Power attacks us between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning.”

“It’s terrible!”

“I can’t take it another night.”

“You’ve got to help us!”

“What does the Psychic Power do?”

“I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but it seems to be more or less the same for all of us. We wake up with our minds racing, full of fear, imagining the worst things emerging from the shadows. Until now nothing much has happened externally, but our minds go nuts for about half an hour or an hour. Sometimes things fall off shelves, or the walls shake, or a door slams. Whether we sit down, lie down, talk or try to be silent, it doesn’t matter. We feel like we are going crazy. Then it stops. But who can sleep after that?”

After that they all chipped in little tidbits of experience, but the common nightly phenomena appeared to be approximately as the boy had described.

I closed my eyes, thought about Baba, and quickly understood what to do.

“I’m going to sleep in your house tonight,” I said. “When the Psychic Power hits, wake me up.”

“No need. It will wake you up before we get to you, Dadaji.”

“Perhaps. Anyway, we will do a meditation exercise together, and become one hundred percent positive. In that state of mind, no black force can have any effect. If your minds are weak, if you have fear, then bad people with a little bit of power can easily control you. But we will concentrate on the most beautiful and positive entity, the infinite entity: God.”

Then I explained the Baba Nam Kevalam mantra. We sang it together for a couple of minutes, and did one minute meditation.

“Tonight we will do it together as long as necessary.”

Soon after, we went to sleep—at least those of us who could sleep.

In the morning the rising sun woke me up. I went downstairs to the dining room, and found everyone there.

“What happened? Why didn’t you wake me up? Or didn’t the Psychic Power hit last night?”

“Oh, it hit all right,” one of them said. “But you were sleeping so nicely that we decided not to wake you up and to first try singing the mantra without you. And it worked, Dadaji!”

“Immediately!”

“Like a charm.”

“Yeah, the very moment we started singing, the Power disappeared. We were so happy that we continued singing for a long time, and then did meditation.”

“Very peaceful, beautiful.”

They were all smiling, the sun streaming in through an open window.

Suddenly there was a loud knocking on the door. We all jumped up and ran to see who it could be at such an early hour.

A lady was standing on the doorstep. She had long, uncombed black hair, deep shadows under her eyes, and a wrinkled black dress.

She pointed her finger at me, and said with spit coming out of her mouth, “I hate you!” Then she slammed the door shut as loud as she could.

Two of the boys opened the door and went after her. A minute later they came back. “She drove off in a car with no license plates.”

“Anyway, she won’t bother you anymore,” I said.

After the psychic power incident one month ago, I visited the house a couple times more. I explained our spiritual philosophy in a little detail so that they could understand the undefeatable power of God’s love. They all learned and regularly practiced meditation after that.

Today the boy who seemed least out of control entered our local full-timer training course.

I am convinced that the lady we saw was experimenting on this group of kids with some kind of psychic power, trying to take over their minds or something. At the moment that they all started singing Baba Nam Kevalam, her evil intentions probably reflected back on her with multiplied strength. She must have suffered badly that morning.