The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
all we can describe is their appearance.
- Tao Te Ching, 15th Lesson
A few weeks back, my wife Maria and I chanced upon a documentary about the American kirtan singer Jeffrey Kagel (better known as Krishna Das) — One Track Heart. His tremendous following is mainly westerners who have either embraced or are, at least, exploring eastern philosophies. You see few Indians in the mix, though those numbers seem to be growing. I think I know why Indians are less interested. It is really the same reason that I have steered clear of American ‘teachers’ and ‘guides’ of eastern mysticism — a half-baked impression that being an Indian seeker born in and familiar with India I have access to the ‘source’ so why do I need westerners to reinterpret it for me. The documentary, and our subsequent participation in an exuberant Krishna Das kirtan, did away with that specious argument. The heart of Eastern mysticism is truly wide open and Indians have no special claim to it — only a responsibility to be stewards of something infinitely more immense. But this piece isn’t about that realization, it’s about another story that revealed itself to me through Krishna Das — the story of an underlying finger, or should I say heart, print.
It’s a story of four American disciples both ja-oed (‘ja’ in hindi means ‘go’; ja-od meaning ‘go away’ — expressed endearingly in this case) by one master after the four had spent considerable time in his presence in the 60s.
The bard, Krishna Das, returned to become the greatest eastern devotional singer (kirtwanwallah) this society has ever known. The philosopher, Daniel Goleman, returned to United States and went on to write the landmark book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ and decisively show to the western world that analytical intelligence (IQ being the best known) was only one thread of intelligence. The changemaker, Larry Brilliant, was instrumental in eradicating polio in India and returned to the US to found an institution that has given eyesight to 3.5 million people in Asia. The window, Ram Dass (formerly Harvard professor Richard Alpert), wrote the pathbreaking book ‘Be Here Now’ in 1973 and continued to follow his master’s instructions to teach Eastern spiritualism to the hippies and post-hippies and alter the landscape of spiritualism particularly on the west coast.
I was astonished at the impact of this master. I suspect it’s only a tiny slice of his complete legacy — if the word legacy applies at all, for as the Te Ching says ‘all we can describe is their appearance’.
The master was Neem Karoli Baba, an Indian mystic who died in 1973. I had heard of Neem Karoli Baba before, but that evening — after watching One Track Heart — I pulled up his best known image and stared long and hard.
With his top-heavy body, shawl-blanket, large bald head, peppered-beard, and tendency to recline all-day on a charpai, he reminded me of a wise and friendly village or neighborhood elder. The kind who is the community ‘tau-ji’.
But there was more, much more. I was reminded of Richard Lannoy’s experience photographing, over many months, Bengali mystic Anandamayi-ma, where he said:
“The eyes of a sage are, of course, the focus of immense interest. Anandamayi’s eyes were, as might be expected, most unusual and strange. It was actually quite difficult to settle your gaze on them, regardless or not of whether she happened to be looking at you.”
There is much more in Lannoy’s account of Anandamayi-ma that you should read but I mention this here because there was something about the gaze, and that face, of Neem Karoli Baba that went straight past the force-fields of my judgments and interpretations to my heart.
There was a sense of immensity.
Living masters rarely comment on other spiritual masters, but in Midnights with the Mystic, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev says this to author Cheryl Simone in response to her question about Ram Dass:
“Ram Dass, as you know, went to Neem Karoli Baba. Neem Karoli Baba was a phenomenal being of immense capabilities. He was a mystic, one who did not have the burden of education […..] Out of his love for Ram Dass a certain dimension descended upon him [….] Ram Dass has become Ram Dass because in his life he did one sensible thing: He sat with a man like Neem Karoli Baba. Neem Karoli Baba wanted many windows to open, so he created one window and sent it to America.” (Complete text here)
There is much to be said about Neem Karoli Baba , and many other leading Eastern mystics — since Vivekananda — who seeded, through various channels, the many forms of eastern mysticism into American consciousness. But forget that yet-to-be-written book — what do we know and acknowledge about the fingerprints of the masters on India itself?
For now — we bow down.
Related reads:
The Miracle of Love — Neem Karoli Baba Click here
The eternal love story of a Guru and a disciple — the story of Neem Karoli Baba and Dada Mukherjee. Click here
This article has been written by Sachin Malhan who can be reached at @sachinmalhan on twitter.
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