“Everything can exist. When a man is ready to give away his body, to face a death, then only he becomes God. Until, unless, he don’t know anything (he remains) just man – feeling only his physical body.”

Swamy V.  Stone & Steel Pt. 1

“What does this mean?” Someone off camera asks regarding the gesture of the palms together in greeting.

“This means, as I feel myself to be God, as I feel You to be God. Namaste to you. Namaste to everybody. All are God. Everybody is His creation. You cannot escape. He brought you here. You are His creation. So I[1] created you. Good and bad is here,” He points to His own chest.

“I can put you into any corral, any place. If I desire, I will put you in any idea. I don’t know magic. I am not a magician. My teacher never teach magic. But he teach me some bullshit inside.”  He pats his head. “I know still, to say myself to be God and this and that.

See my destination, where I am, front of a camera. Possibly good, or bad – there is no idea. What it brings, I have no idea. If I have a idea, then only I have to think about this. Chelo. Kuchne wo jaiega. Kuchne wo jaeiga[2]. Anything can happen. Everything can happen. You have no desire of happenings. You cannot stop any happenings. Acha. You are not a source – what Krishna says. You are not authorized to think of any benefit. You have to kill.” He’s quoting the Bagavat Gita[3]. “For that purpose only you are here. That’s Krishna. I don’t know.”

 “Speaking to Arjuna,” Duncan interjects for the benefit of the group.

“That’s Krishna.” Babaji retorts, seeming exasperated. “It is enough. Everybody knows Gita. Particularly he knows much, I think.” The Master hails in the direction of ‘Mr. Raj’. “Looks to be very nice.

We have nothing to do with this world, Duncan. Nothing we are going to carry (back). Be happy whenever we have happy. And that status – you know the God. When you are sad, there don’t run to God. Sad and happiness, always existing everywhere. Everywhere there is sad. Everywhere there is happiness. Don’t feel happy much. Don’t feel sad much. If you put your body into that ideas, this body cannot be work to see the Self. Always do your work. Feel His grace.” Hands together, He raises them above his head in Namaste to the group.

 “Kaise hai? Thik hai kine[4].” He addresses Duncan in Hindi. “Tum yane kya me milega.” There is one more sentence, too, but my ear cannot grasp it.

“Everything is in this world. Acha. What we are not having in this world? According to the modern days, press the button, something going on.” He gestures to the cassette player.

“Or off.” Duncan offers as the cassette had stopped playing.

“It’s off?” Everyone laughs. “Acha. See that.”

“No problem. Nice timing.” Duncan switches the cassette.

“See that? We have all the systems in button? Eh?” There are giggles from the group. “We have all the systems in button.” He points above. “The One who have the system in man, He knows the channels. How to off a man, (and) how to put a light, in the man.”

“Does he control every single man and plant and everything?” Kip asks.

“Completely it is He. The world is He. Not you. You just an instrument to be here, that He want to do that something with you.”

“Why? Why am I here?”

“Hey. It is your Karma. The past – what you have done.”

“Past life?”

“Of course. This is possibly, there are some destinations, in person, where you have to be. The One who send you here, He only knows. If you want to know that, you be in your Self.”

 “I wanna know that.” Kip insists.

“Hey, otherwise, stay still. If you don’t know anything you stay still. No problem. No problem. No problem. Even you don’t pray, no problem. He never kick you away. Because in India, we are seeing on the platform, thousands of people, no kana. Good man, big rich man, he eat good food in his palace house. Good cars. He don’t know God. He never feel the God. The poor man who is on the platform, satisfied with two piece of roti – bread – saying, ‘acha, for this day I am okay, God. Bas[5].’ Thinking about God, even (just) two roti. The one who gets luxurious life and luxurious food never think about that. He only thinks ‘I’.

The two ‘I’ – the one I which is with proud, the physical feeling, feels, ‘I make my food’. The fool – that’s the ignorant status, (what) he says. Acha.

The one, the same one, after losing this luxurious life, when he have no food for him, he try to abuse the God, too, using harsh language. So the God, what He thinks, you know? ‘Ha, what a guy I have made, (that) I have sent there, man’. (The Lord gives) beautiful archanas, offerings (and) mantras[6]. He only knows that. He don’t know how to hate you. Nobody He hates. Nobody He hates. He never hate anybody! Even you kick Him away, He embrace you. He hug you. When you are sad, He comforts you. When you are much happy, He is with you.”

“Is He the Christian God, too?”  Kip asks. “The Jewish God?”

“I have no religion! Don’t put me into religion. I have no religion.” He pauses a long moment while pointing above. “Human beings – we are for the purpose. We are the weapons.” He quickly rephrases. “We are the instruments of Him. He can make us into weapon, too. He can create us in any idea. Any idea. That somebody says ‘luck’ and ‘unluck’. I don’t know. Luck (is) to be here. To feel His Grace. To be happy.”

“But to feel His grace,” Kip continues, “first you have to leave your body and get into…”

The Swamy cuts him off. “I don’t say that.”

“Well, I mean, you can’t do body…” Kip searches for the words to continue, but can’t find them before the Baba continues with a question.

“Why don’t you feel (Him) physically with you? When you are having a physical body and He is in you. Why don’t you feel Him in the physical body? There need time. There need time.”

“But there are certain things you can’t do with your body if you feel God, see? I’ve discovered that.”

Baba turns to Duncan. “What he says?”

Duncan interprets. “He’s wondering about correct behavior. Right and wrong. He’s back to right and wrong.”

“You need not to authorize to think about right and wrong. You are not a source. You just do your work. Stay still.”

Kip continues. “Yeah but if I discover something, then…”

“That is your feeling. Again you are there. That is your feeling. Kip’s feeling. Not God’s feeling. He is always there. Now also He is watching what you are doing. He knows everything.”

“So he says…” Duncan begins to explain to the Swamy, thinks twice, and decides to address Kip directly. “So you say this is right. This is right to do with my body. And this is wrong to do with my body.”

“No, it feels wrong.” Kip corrects.

“Acha. Whatever it feels like, where does the feeling come from? Does it come from God or does it come from this Kip body?”

“From here.” Kip gestures to his body.

“So how do you know?” Duncan asks him. “God doesn’t make that decision and He doesn’t invest you with the power to make that decision. Acha?”

“Well, I can’t go around killing people with my body.”

“It’s okay if you go around killing people with your body.” Duncan contends.

“It doesn’t feel good though.”

“It isn’t good. It isn’t good. But if that’s what you have to do, that’s what you’ll do. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.” Baba and others are now laughing at the flow of the conversation and a look of resolution slowly resolves over Kip’s face.

“I see. I see.”

Baba interjects. “You see, if you are not for that source – if you are not that instrument, you try again and again you cannot do anything.”

“I see.”

“You even cannot kill a fly, if it is not His desire.”

“So I have to play my role.” Kip confirms.

“You do stay still there, Kip. Be happy.” Everyone laughs. “That’s the ignorance what we have. I can stay without food. I cannot say to you the same. Can I say the same to you?”

“No.” Kip replies. “I can run farther than you.”

Baba laughs. “Then? We are having two different ideas. Ahh. You need food. I don’t need anything. You need good coat, good car. Me, don’t need anything. Even if there is a road from Tokyo to India, I possibly can walk. You cannot do that. You are in hurry.”

“Well, I’m playing a different role,” Kip offers with a sheepish grin.

“Good. Good. Good. Play that. Play that. Stay still. Just be there.”

Duncan interjects. “He doesn’t say to be him. Just do your thing.”

“Just stay still.” Baba confirms. “When you are not knowing anything stay still. Be there as you are. Be there as you are.”

“And after this life, I’ll have another role to play?”

The video cuts out in the middle of Kip’s continuing inquiry at the 34 minute mark. When it resumes, the conversation has moved on and the Swamy is addressing the group again.

“I’m very glad that I can speak, little. No well-educated person. Third standard[7] I know. Not an M.E. or B.A. or philosopher. I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you feel happy with me?”

Several nod their satisfaction. “Yeah, absolutely, man,” Kip offers.  “You’re the…you’re good.” Baba, his hands together, thanks everyone and everyone likewise, puts hands together and thanks him back. One man in the back of the group has a question. His name is Kim.

“You use the word grace.” Kim begins. “What is that, please?”

“The grace, of God – that’s your life. That’s your life. That’s your good life. Furthermore, all the things with you is His grace. It’s not you. Just you are a source, to work and bring. That’s the man feeling, too. That’s Kim feeling. I have to work. I must own a car. I must own a bungalow. I must own everything. This (is) Kim. And His grace – He has given to you, the Life. His grace is the Life. Without His grace, how you become man? His grace? He put you here, to be king. That’s His grace – the life.”

Kim hesitates to speak further but the Baba urges him on. “Mm hmm?” He encourages. “C’mon.” Then a little stronger. C’mon!”

“And to become Him?” Kim continues, his voice soft and halting.

“You want to become Him?” Baba asks.

“Yes.”

“Kill away all your body feelings. Stay in a room for three days, without anything, like a stone. 3 days. Just 3 days. 72 hours. Not more.” He pauses a moment to let the words take effect. “It can be done. Nothing feeling.” He stresses. “There should not be any desire – to go out, to have a cup of chai, to see your wife. Everything is closed. 72 hours. You can be He. That’s the self, merging with the Supreme Self and knowing everything. Acha, number one. Rest of it – the self, which is called atma:” He gestures at the group. “Many atmas, wandering all over the world, to reach the Paramatma[8]. Not in this life. Thousands of life. Cycles.” He makes giant circles with his arm. “Come back. Come back, until unless you realize. Somebody says mukti, and this and that. I am not educated person.”

 “Where were we before we came to the earth?” Kip again.

“Same man,” Babaji answers.

“Only two, three, four million years ago we came,” Kip argues.  “The human beings…”

 “The same man,” Babaji rebuts. “The same man, you was.”

“But before that?”

“Before?”

“Before there were men.” He attempts. “Where were we?”

“Before the man?”

“Yeah, before men.”

“There is no before the man.” The Master concludes. “What is before the man? You physically now a man. So you was a man. You know yourself, to know the past.”

“But on the Earth, on the planet Earth…”

“Ahhh, this is Earth. You are existed here.”

“Only two million years.”

“I don’t know what is the time and this and that. I don’t know the timings. Know yourself, you can know the ten past lives. If you are ignorant, stay still. Don’t try to move. You will lost nothing. The same man, the same idea, He never hate you. The same.”

The Master rests a moment, watching. “That’s somebody giving you worriness,” He continues to Kip. “If you don’t believe God, He will create you into like that, (or) He will put you into that. (Or) He will do this.” The Master binds his fingers intricately this way and that before reassuring. “He is having lots of mercy. Even His enemy is welcome near Him. He don’t know anything. Just a stone. If you can be a stone, then you become…” He lets it hang in the air a moment. “something. When you attain that status, you don’t need anything. Then maybe your question getting answer. What I was? Where we were?”

Kip is mollified and Duncan calls on the next young man, Craig, for the next question. His voice is clear and strong as he asks. “Do you ever doubt yourself?”

“I have no doubt on you, too. I am seeing Him only in you, Mr. Craig. You are also His creation. I feel that you are still lucky to listen something from here.” The Master gestures to his own mouth. “I don’t know further.” He watches the lad, encouraging him to speak more with gesture and smile. “Come on.”

“So, whatever you tell us…”

“Mm hmm?”

“You feel completely good about? You feel completely sure about?”

“Whatever I (believe?), I am very sure to see you to be (a?) God.”

At 40.05 the video cuts out again briefly. When it resumes, the Master is still talking to Craig who is deep in understanding.

“It’s the physical.” The Master continues. “It says, if I am God, how the man says the man to be God? Is it possible? Why not? Why not? Ahh. How Buddha becomes God? How he is in everywhere – in temples, in everyplace mind? In peoples mind he is – Buddha. Somebody says ‘Buddha-sama[9]?” He asks the Japanese sitting near him. “God? Acha. Somebody says ‘Christ’, like that? Huh? Why those men become God? In what idea they are God? Who is that man giving them a status ‘God’? Christ never say, ‘you are differentiated from me’. He embrace everybody. He goes very clear. He says, ‘I am the King.’ C’mon. Come, my friend. He embrace everyone. Somebody cannot understand that what they are doing. That’s Christ say when he was there.” He spreads his arms wide indicating the crucifixion. “He never feel about that. Ahh. He never feel it, to be there. He was very happy. Just saying, ‘They don’t know – innocent kids.’ That only he said. He never say, ‘I am dying’. Man never die. Just to change colors. This what is said in books, and this and that. It’s going on everywhere!” He flays his arms wildly as if it’s all just too much. “There are books. There are books. Believe. Believe His Grace. Always His grace is you and your life. Ahh. Be happy. Be happy. Be happy.”

“Okay.” Craig answers, content.

 “Now you’re gonna go out and do it, huh? Acha!” Duncan laughs aloud offering a single clap of his hands animated with good cheer. There is laughter all around while the Master brings his palms together before his brow.

“Don’t feel sorrow for anything. Sorrow for what? Sorrow for what? Where the sorrow is in you?” He’s looking at Kip who answers off camera with a gesture. ‘It’s here.’

Babaji watches him deeply. “Ahh. Why you do that? For your body. For your feeling, physically feelings; that’s the sorrows coming. Whenever sorrow comes, no meaning. It have to exist. When there was happiness, that existed (in) you. So too, the sorrow, too. The existence of the both things, is to know Him – to know the Self. When you are having pain, just saying the Name. And when you are happy, you are happy, as feeling ‘I am Kip. I brought all this happiness. Who gives me?’ You don’t know. Ahh. So that, different placements. Hey, when you are realize this… If you are able to realize this…” He lets it hang as if the entire universe were visible on the silent syllables.

“Sometimes, you know, I think that everything…” He trails off, clear his throat and rephrases. “I can see things happening.”

“This is now you are saying, ‘I think, I think.’ He don’t think. That you are saying, I think. Don’t have this ‘I’”

“I asked you a question.” Kip hurries to get in his point before Babaji overtakes him. “Are there no accidents in life?”

“Eh?” The Master turns to Duncan. “What he says?”

“I don’t know what he says. Is life accidental?” Duncan reiterates. “Does it happen by accident?”

“Are there accidents?” Kip repeats.

“This life?”

“Yeah, any part of life.” Duncan confirms.

“It’s your luck. It’s your luck to be here. That what you get.”

“Not luck, but what God gives me, right?” Kip is innocently curious.

“That’s your, what you call, the karma, the kriya[10] in the past.”

“So there’s no accidents?”

“What is that accident?” The Master’s tension rises. “Why you feel accident?!”

“I met you tonight. That’s no accident, is it, man? I know.”

“This is not accident.” Baba confirms. “If you feel accident, that is accident.”

“Hey no, man. No accident. This is definitely not an accident.”

“There is no accident. There is no accident at all. Why you feel accident? What is the meaning of accident while there is no accident? This is you feel. Who feels? Kip – Kip feels accidents. I have no accident.”

“No mistakes, no accidents…” Kip considers.

“Why you raise a question of mistake? Why you do that? This is you. This is you always. Not me. Hey this is also sometimes said by God, in books, and some great yogis writing those books, too. I have not written any book. I don’t know. Just playing like a comedy. Good to see you, too.” Everyone laughs. “You can say the same to me, too. Good to see you, Babaji.

A good advocate also. Any idea, whichever idea, whichever thing you want to roll me in, roll me in that. I Am in that. Why don’t you come to that idea? You have questions. You come to that idea – ‘Hey Lord, you have rolled me in Kip. Just let me be You. Please put me into that.’ Your physical body feelings are not allowing you to see that. Never allows. Never allows. Until unless it allows, you have to be here a thousand times.

Wander, wander, wander, wander, wander, wander, wandering!” Energy rising, the words pierce the air like a staccato laser. “Always man wandering, wandering! Bas!” The storm subsides; calm resumes. “Somebody wandering for paise, money. If there is no wandering for anything…?”  The Master lets the implication settle in Kip’s mind. “(Then) who is He, who never wander for anything? Tell me, hmm?” He watches the answer catch hold in Kip’s face. “So be He. Can you? That’s (why) we have to wander more. So wander. We are wanderers. Wandering, always wandering; always meeting different people. Different status of man, taking this body into different feelings, different happenings. Everything, everything, everything is existing in this body, as He exists in every idea. Is it correct? All the things are existed in this (body)! Completely.” The tension rises again. “If you are feeling, ‘He’ is existed! – The rest is not existed!” And the second wave crashes into the barricade of mind. “Then you become the strooooong one like Christ!! Otherwise you cannot!” His roar, like a dragon’s breath, practically lifts him off his seat “How you can be that? It’s very strong. You need very strong power.” Then He brings his palms together again as the last winds retreat. “I am sorry, to shout like that, but I feel very happy to see you again.”

“Well, I tell ya.” Kip rejoins. “You just said a really good thing, man. You’re really good. You’re not a fraud, man.  I meet so many frauds in my life. You’re saying just the right thing.”

“Bas. Bas. Enough, enough. If you are thinking that I am a crazy man? You can hold me in any idea.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy at all, man.”

“No, no, no, no, no. You can roll me in any idea and make me into pieces, if I am existing you in that idea. Whichever idea you apply, I welcome.”

“That’s exactly right, man.”

“Good actor. Say that only. Good actor. Leave away Swamy and Babaji,  everything.” He shoos away the epithets like so many flies at a chai stall and shrugs his shoulders. “Good actor, can act in any idea. Just acting. Poor man, big rich man – wherever you want to take me, I agree with you.”

Hands together, he bows his head to the group. “Okay, again.” To Kip, “Do you feel happy here?”

“Yeah, yeah good,” he answers in a rush to everyone laughter.

“Bas, that’s all. That’s all what I can give you. Somebody can say ‘I can give you anything.” He raises one palm to face his audience, a gesture of granting boons. “If my hands, like this, is giving you a lot, do you believe it? Do you believe?” When no answer is forthcoming he raises his voice and inflection a bit. “Do you believe that this blessing hand can give you any life!? Do you? Tell me. Do you?”

“No, not really.”

“No, non-existing. So whom you are doubting?” He points his finger at the incredulous Kip. “To whom you are doubting?” Baba points at himself and nods affirming.

“To you, yeah,” agrees Kip.

“When you are doubting here,” indicating himself once more, “the next who is doubted? Tell me.”

Kip gestures above.

“Ahh. How can you know anything about this world or about you, (when) you have doubt on there, which you are not seeing? You have doubt, here, which you are physically seeing. So where it can take you, always doubted man? Every creations are doubted, by you. This only my small answer, if it is existing in you. Sometime it never exist with you. Ahh. Don’t have any doubt. Losing faith on Him, if you doubt your friend, you are doubting God.” He shakes his finger admonishingly at Kip, and Craig next to him. “How you can doubt, Craig? You cannot. You cannot say, ‘He is bad. I am good’. You and he is the same. This is for the world I am speaking. Even the enemy is good. Always to embrace the enemy, too. Not to kick him away. This is the modern world. We have certain ideas. Quickly we get aggressive, putting the poor body into tamoguna.[11] Needs much patient. Need much patient.”

[1] A point of syntax: When Baba speaks, He does not often clearly differentiate between Himself and God, hence when he uses the pronoun ‘I’ the reader may want to occasionally confirm with a re-read.

[2] Literal translation:  Chelo – ‘let’s go’ or ‘let it be’. Kuch (formal – na hai – neg.) There is nothing. Jaeiga – lit. to happen.

[3] A Hindu scripture, part of the epic, Mahabarata, in which a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna is the main focus.

[4] Lit. How are you? You are fine, aren’t you?

[5] Lit. It’s enough.

[6] Archana literally means to honor or praise. It is a special, personal ceremony conducted at a temple. A mantra is a name, such as a God name, or group of words with significant meaning, chanted many times rhythmically, both to invoke the spirit and to aid in meditative contemplation.

[7] This is possibly a reference to Nidhyasana’ in the ‘Sravana’ stage of education of a Brahmin, in which students received ‘shrutis’, or knowledge. Although Babaji, as an ascetic monk, is removed from the caste system, he would tell me a story many years later of having been sold to a temple as a child. Such an education may have been acquired there.  Nidhyasana’ means complete comprehension of truth and its use in the life. On the other hand, this may be a straight reference to the third grade of primary school.

[8] Brahman, Bhagavan.

[9] Sama is a Japanese language honorific, a suffix denoting respect.

[10] Lit. effort or deed

[11] One of the three attributes (gunas) of physicality, tamoguna is characterized by extremes, lethargy, slothfulness, etc.