I am Harmony. Radhe Shyam

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 firm. But when I got to London to meet Margaret on her return from Haidakhan, I found two letters from her saying that all she wanted to do was to spend the rest of her life in Babaji's presence; and thanks for everything. After a night of pondering what to do, I extended my airline ticket from Tel Aviv to New Delhi and cabled for an interview in the Ministry of External Affairs. It was in this way that I met Babaji somewhat earlier than my Capricornian schedule had contemplated.

      In New Delhi, in Vrindaban, and during the ten days in Haidakhan, I tried to talk Margaret into returning to the United States and marriage, but she was firm in her desire to stay with Babaji. I grew more and more concerned with my need to pursue my consulting business proposal and, finally, headed back to the U.S.A. Margaret went with me to Delhi to see me off, but she would not go back to the United States with me.

      In Washington, D.C., I sat at my desk to prepare a report to my prospective clients on my findings on the business trip, but nothing came. Day after day I went to my desk, then wandered off, stymied and bewildered. I read through the Haidakhan aarati service morning and evening and almost always ended up teary and in confusion. I could not understand what had happened to me. After about ten days of this, words began to flow from my pen and in another ten days I had a good report in the mail to my prospective clients. I had a contractual obligation to my former office and I sat to complete work on that project and went through the same process of "nothingness," followed by a burst of work.

      Margaret called from India to tell me that when Babaji re­turned to Haidakhan, His first question to her was, "Why did your friend leave without My permission?" A few days later, Babaji sent Margaret out of the ashram (for the third time in her three-month stay) and told her to "go to your home." She considered her home was with Babaji, so she went to another of His ashrams.

      I was so upset, so 'incomplete' in my relationships with both Margaret and Babaji, that six weeks after my return from India I was back on a plane, bound for New Delhi and Haidakhan.

      When I reached the top of the "108 Steps" at the Haidakhan Ashram, Margaret was standing in the door of Swami Fakiranand's office, cleaning a rug. I had left Washington so precipitously that I had not sent a telegram. Margaret almost fainted from surprise, but she recovered quickly and told me that Babaji was giving darshan by the temple and that I should wash before going to see Him.

      Shri Babaji was sitting on His dais in the kirtan hall, the three-walled room whose open side faced the temple which housed the marble statue of 'Old Haidakhan Baba.' Babaji was talking