I am Harmony. Radhe Shyam

in the battle at Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata epic], because people said Babaji had some wounds dating back to the Mahabharata war. The young man thought that maybe Babaji wore such a cap to hide the head wound that Ashwatthama received after the battle at Kurukshetra. The young man went to the Khurpatal Ashram to check into this.

      "As soon as the young man reached the ash­ram, Shri Babaji told him that he wanted to have a bath, because it was so hot. Hearing this, the young man pressed to be allowed to bring water from the lake for Babaji's bath. He thought that Babaji would take off his cap to have his bath, which would give an opportunity to see the wound.

      "Babaji asked the young man to carry his lunghoti and towel and go to the lake for the bath. The young man was very happy, thinking that at the lake he would have enough time to check for the wound.

      "When they reached the lake, Babaji told the man to take off his (Babaji's) kurta (shirt) and cap and give him a bath. Strangely enough, before removing Babaji's cap, the young man forgot his desire to check on Babaji's wound. After removing Babaji's kurta and cap, the young man gave Babaji his bath with much faith, and dried his body. He dressed Babaji again with lunghoti, kurta and cap.

      "The whole process took almost half an hour, but the thought of checking Babaji's wounds did not come to the young man's mind until Babaji was completely dressed again; only then did he remember and regretted having forgotten to check.

      "Shri Babaji then said to the young man, with great love: 'When one goes to a great soul, one should go with faith, compassion and love; and if one has some doubts, one should pray to God Him­self to remove them. By the Lord's Grace only, the knowledge of a saint's greatness comes. Only a saint can test a saint - or one on whom the saint's grace falls, whose heart is simple and who is without ego. When a human being does not even know himself, how can he test a great saint? A saint is a form of God, and to judge a saint is as difficult as judging God 'Himself'."³¹

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      Yogi Jalendar Nath, a third-generation Babaji devotee, relates the following experiences of his grandfather, Shri Birshan Singh Gusain, with Shri Babaji. Yogiji heard these stories from his grand­mother as a child, and from his 90-year-old uncle, who was a child when some of these incidents occurred. Most of these stories are well known throughout the area where Birshan Singh lived.

      Near the village of Barrechina in the Almora District of Uttar Pradesh is a locally famous temple called Shakteshwar Mahadev Temple. It and its predecessors are believed to have existed on this spot for three thousand years or more. Shri Babaji used to visit the ancient ashram here quite frequently. Babaji used a very old dhuni (sacred fire pit) and stayed in a hut with an open side from which He could talk to people who came to see Him.

      Birshan Singh Gusain met Shri Babaji there in the 1890's. Birshan Singh was then in his mid-60's, a widower with a mostly-grown-up family. Babaji told Birshan Singh that he should marry again, and Birshan was married to a thirty-year-old woman. After the marriage, the bride declared she wanted nothing to do with this old man and she refused to leave her father's house. Several times Birshan Singh went to the bride's father's house to ask her to come to his home, but he was rudely rebuffed.

      The old man was a great devotee of Shri Babaji and he decided to live and travel with Babaji, serving Him in any possible way. Leaving family matters in the hands of his mature eldest son, Birshan Singh stayed with Babaji for seven years, walking through the Himalayas - to Nepal, Tibet, and China - and here and there in northern India.

      At the end of those seven years, when Birshan was about 74, he and Shri Babaji were in Haldwani. Babaji told Birshan it was time for him 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.

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