I call my Guru Ji as Maharaj Ji. It’s just more endearing for me. Although most devotees call him Baba Ji.
It was sometime around 2002-2004. One day, I suddenly got a phone call from Maharaj Ji saying that he was in Canada and asked me to visit Toronto for the three-day weekend.
This was the first time ever I had received a phone call from Maharaj Ji asking me to visit him. In fact, I had never received a call directly from him. A few times that I did talk to him was always due to a message he’d send through someone else to tell me to call Maharaj Ji.
I was totally surprised and thrilled to have the chance to have his darshan. I had no idea that he’d been visiting Canada. It’s only three-hour flight from where I am. I also had no idea that he had regularly visited Canada for many years prior to that. I was so surprised as to why he never invited me before and how come I never knew that he had been visiting Canada?
Nonetheless, I had only two days to buy plane ticket. Normally it would have been almost impossible for me take off to even a local place for even one day and that too considering the cost of a plane ticket at two-day notice! But I was amazed at how miraculously all travel plan worked out without a hitch and I got to fly to Canada for the first time.
Maharaj Ji was staying at one of his long time devotees in Toronto, Canada and that’s where I got to stay too.
I heard next day’s plan was for everyone to accompany Maharaj Ji to one of the temples around 9am. However, Maharaj Ji told me that I should take a bath following morning and sit for meditation in the open Living Room/Entrance room at 5:30am. Was, perhaps, I the only one asked to sit for meditation because there was no other devotee there? There was silent activity of all other house members and guests in the background downstairs and upstairs in plain view. Regardless I was thrilled beyond measure to have the invitation to sit for the first time by myself in front of my Guru. I expected the session to last maybe an hour.
Maharaj Ji was sitting on a chair cross legged as always in front of me and I closed my eyes for meditation.
I lost track of time and had some of most amazing experiences during meditation but the one I particularly want to mention is the following:
After some time of sitting there I suddenly noticed something dissolving just where the heart chakra is. It was dissolving like a mountain of sand would just dissolve and disappear in the ocean so smoothly and quickly. Suddenly after that I felt, my heart chakra felt completely weightless as if floating in air. I felt as if a ton of weight, like an 18 wheeler truck was sitting on my heart and it just ‘whoosh’ lifted away and dissolved away.
The most interesting fact for me even today is that I never realized that I was carrying that weight until it dissolved away. It’s the weightlessness, the lightness that made me realize the weight I had been carrying. I had tears of Joy and Love pouring out in streams down my face.
I had been sitting up straight and cross legged on the floor with hands folded in my lap which was my normal way of sitting for meditation. For a while internally I was floating and diving in Ocean of pure Love when suddenly and spontaneously on its own my whole body, hips up, just bent down forward like a weightless, boneless body. My forehead touched the floor and rested there for a few minutes. It was like my whole Being was prostrating before the Guru. I was still sitting cross legged and hands folded resting in my lap.
I can say it’s an impossibility if I try to bend over forward to touch my forehead to the floor! So this is a pose I cannot do willingly, my body has not been flexible enough to do it. And yet that time the Divine Cosmic Force that runs through us, the Kundalini Shakti, was able to do the impossible with my body in grateful bow to the Enlightened Guru. (Awakened Kundalini Shakti can perform impossible feats with the body- in the form of Mudras and Kriyas).
The meditation session continued on for some times with other experiences until I heard Maharaj Ji tell me that I could open my eyes.
I opened my eyes, still in a body and the Self disconnected haze, to see the whole Living Room+Dining room filled with a crowd of devotees standing around and watching. It’s was already past 9am. Everyone was late for the event at the Temple so many had waited and then come over to the house to see what the delay was.
I have many stories to tell of that and few other subsequent visits until 2012 but this one is one of the most important ones to relate to explain that by Guru’s infinite loving grace turned out to be like a heart transplant.
You see, prior to that blessed day I used to suddenly fall into causeless deep sadness in my heart. I’d be alone and happy, or even ecstatic, sometimes literally dancing with joy to some devotional songs, or energetic and then I’d, at some unexpected moments, feel some deep depression. It was very puzzling. I felt this confusing split between how the Spirit was felt, the mind and the heart. I’d painfully wonder about it because I could see no reason for me to feel that sadness, at least no immediate compelling reason. It made absolutely no sense. I had tried and tried every usual method – Self Reflection/Self Inquiry, meditation, Positive affirmations and few others.
(Now I understand the reasons why I felt that discord within and why others feel it too. Since I went through it I am able to relate to, empathize with and have been able to help many seeking help).
But since that fateful blessed day I have been apparently permanently absolved of the causeless sadness! I have not felt it since that day. I have watched myself closely to see any traces but never did it appear again. I have only felt extreme peace or bubbles of joy and lightness. If ever there is heaviness or sadness it is short-lived and for a solid immediate reason.
Even when someone has a heart transplant I’m sure they always remember their donor. I can never forget the new heart my Guru just gave me to me. No surgery, no discussions, no fee.
One more time I saw how a True Guru is always giving, giving and giving in ways we can’t even comprehend. He gives quietly and non-stop. He’s Love Incarnate. He knew what I needed even when I didn’t mention of word of it. He knows you inside out.
What if I hadn’t gone for his Darshan? What if I hadn’t shown up for the meditation? I would have missed out on a heart transplant he just so silently gave to me! I also learnt that day to show up, no matter what, when your Guru calls you…. because you can’t even fathom what’s he’s waiting to give to you if you’ll only be open to receiving it.
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti
Ritu
