فصل 22

22

Shaktipat

We had so many things to take care of if we were going to host a visit from Baba. None of us had done anything like this before, so we had to learn things as we went along. First, we found a summer camp in the Ocala National Forest that could easily handle a large weekend retreat during its off-season. Next, we put the word out that we needed a very large house for Baba’s twenty-person staff and the weekday meditation sessions. As a college town, Gainesville is not known for its large mansions, but someone contacted me and offered us the perfect house for the entire month of January. Things were definitely falling into place.

The weekend retreat was going to be the clincher. If we couldn’t get enough people signed up, Baba would never come. Donna and I had to make hundreds of individual phone calls and send mailings all over the state to attract enough people. It took real surrender for me to hook up a phone at my house and use that as the contact number on all flyers and phone messages. We were passionate about getting the word out, and we had a tremendous response from all over the state.

For years I had thought that a spiritual life was about spending every day in silence and solitude. I was now running around getting all this work done. Yet somehow I felt more open and more connected to the energy flow than ever before. I kept my morning and evening meditations, but the hours in between were devoted to my classes and bringing Baba to Gainesville. I had surrendered just enough to where the flow of life was no longer something I chose to give in to—the flow had taken over my life. It had gone from subtly guiding me to running me. My mind kept telling me that after this was over I would go back to my solitary lifestyle. As usual, my mind was wrong.

Before Baba came to Gainesville, we received an invitation to attend his December retreat just outside of Atlanta. I was anxious to meet him, plus it seemed like a good idea to know what to expect when he came to Gainesville the next month. About six of us packed into my van, and we made the trip north. When we arrived at the retreat site, we were ushered into a large hall with fifty to sixty other people. So began four of the most intense days of my life.

I remember the first meditation session with Baba. We were told he would walk around among us while we were meditating. It was so dark in the room that I couldn’t see anything, yet at some point I felt a strong presence behind me. It got stronger and stronger until I realized that Baba was standing right beside me. He touched the point between my eyebrows, exactly where I always felt the energy flow. He then moved on.

We had two of these meditation sessions each day. Each time I could definitely feel strong energy as Baba walked around behind me, but that was about it. It was hard to sit in that room all day. I would try to meditate just to get some privacy, but I was unable to get inside myself. Instead of my meditations getting deeper, I was locked out altogether. That was pretty much how I felt all the time—closed down. I was too spacey to think, my body hurt, and that voice in my head was driving me crazy. I was determined to sit it out, but I couldn’t wait until it was over.

It went on like that until the final day, and I was very confused to say the least. On the final morning, I decided perhaps I wasn’t being open enough in how I was relating to Baba. I had come to pay my respects to a great spiritual teacher, but he wasn’t my teacher—Yogananda was my teacher. I decided that for this last day I would even let go of that concept and just surrender completely to the experience in front of me.

While the program was going on at the front of the hall, I sat in my seat and started to do Baba’s mantra. I repeated Om Namah Shivaya over and over again. Before I knew it, I was very deep in meditation. All outer sounds had ceased, as had my mental chatter. I was in a place I had never been before, deep inside my heart. I felt like my heart was a giant cave that was protecting me and loving me. I was completely entranced and at peace.

It soon became time for the evening meditation session where Baba walked around tapping people. I found myself being pulled back into that very quiet place within my heart. While I was meditating, I felt Baba walk up behind me. The power emanating from him was very strong. Even though my eyes were closed and I was facing forward, I could feel the energy of his hand reaching out toward my head. The moment the palm of his hand reached above the crown of my head, what felt like ten thousand volts of electricity jumped from the base of my spine to meet his hand. It happened as fast as a bolt of lightning. In an instant, I was no longer in my body. Me, the one who lives in here, the one who looks out through the eyes and hears through the ears, the center of conscious awareness that notices the thoughts and emotions—I was no longer sitting inside doing those things. I was in a state of absolute panic trying to hold on with all my might to my connection with the body. The upward rush of that much energy had dislodged me from where I normally sat within myself. I was experiencing tornado force winds trying to blow me out of my body, and I was struggling to hold on for dear life.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not pull myself back into the body. It was one of those survival moments when pure fear opens you up to superhuman strength. It didn’t matter—I could not even begin to pull against that force. I have no idea how long the experience lasted, but when Baba felt I’d had enough, he simply rubbed his hand across my back. The moment his hand physically touched my midback—everything stopped. I immediately fell back into my body and began to get somewhat oriented. The first thing I noticed was my heart—it wasn’t beating; it was fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. My first thought was, This is not good. Hearts don’t last very long like this. The moment that thought formed in my mind, Baba reached in front of me and rubbed his hand over my heart. Instantly, my heart began beating normally.

I was stunned by the experience and the power of this man. Who was he? How could he possibly have such control over my energy and my metabolic functions? I felt so humbled to be in his presence. I have never felt so completely unburdened in my life. What had I been doing—fasting, meditating, and struggling with myself for so many years? With a single touch, this man could bring about such transformation. At that moment I understood what was meant by a Siddha master. Baba did not belong in this world; he was from somewhere else altogether.