But before she could be hurried along, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, in a beseeching voice, said: ‘Baba, the boy is very ill – he has had asthma since he was a child. Now that you have touched him –’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the old wraith. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
‘Baba, will he be cured?’
The Baba pointed upwards to the sky with the finger that he had used to bless Pran with.
‘And Baba, what about his work? I am so worried –’
The Baba leaned forward. The escort tried to plead with Mrs Mahesh Kapoor to give way.
‘Work?’ The voice was very soft. ‘God’s work?’
‘No, Baba, he is looking for a position. Will he get it?’
‘It will depend. Death will make all the difference.’ It was almost as if the lips were opening and some other spirit speaking through the skeletal chest.
‘A death? Whose, Baba, whose?’ asked Mrs Mahesh Kapoor in sudden fear.
‘The Lord – your Lord – the Lord of us all – he was – he thought he was –’
The strange, ambiguous words chilled her blood. If it should be her husband! In a panic-stricken voice, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor implored: ‘Tell me, Baba, I pray you – will it be a death close to me?’
The Baba seemed to register the terror in the woman’s voice; something that may have been compassion passed over the skin-stretched mask of his face. ‘Even if so, it would not make a difference to you…’ he said. The words appeared to cost him immense effort.
He was talking of her own death. That was what he must mean. She felt it in her bones. Her trembling lips could barely form the next question: ‘Are you talking of my death?’
‘No…’ Ramjap Baba closed his eyes. Relief and agitation struggled in Mrs Mahesh Kapoor’s heart, and she moved forward. Behind her she could hear the voice whispering, ‘Thank you, thank you.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ it continued to whisper more and more faintly as she, her son, his sister, her husband, and his mother – a chain of love and, consequently, of fear – moved slowly out of the crush onto the open sands.
11.16
SANAKI BABA, his eyes closed, was speaking.
‘Om. Om. Om.
‘Lord is ocean of the bliss, and I am his drop.
‘Lord is ocean of love, and I am part and parcel of it.
‘I am part and parcel of Lord.
‘Inhale the bivrations through the nostrils.
‘Inhale and exhale.
‘Om alokam, Om anandam.
‘The Lord is in you and you are part of Lord.
‘Inhale the environment and divine master.
‘Exhale the bad feelings.
‘Feel, do not think.
‘Do not feel or think.
‘This body is not yours… this mind is not yours… this intellect is not yours.
‘Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, Rama, Krishna, Shiva: mantra is anjapa jaap, the Lord is no any name.
‘Music is unheard bivrations. Let music open the centres like lovely lotus flower.
‘You must not swim, you must flow.
‘Or float like lotus flower. `
‘OK.’
It was over. Sanaki Baba closed his mouth and opened his eyes. Slowly and reluctantly the meditators returned to the world they had left. Outside, the rain poured down. For twenty minutes, they had found peace and oneness in a world far from strife and striving. Dipankar felt that everyone who had shared in the meditation must feel a warmth, an affection for all the others. He was all the more shocked by what followed.
The session was barely over when the Professor said: ‘Can I ask a question?’
‘Why not?’ said Sanaki Baba dreamily.
The Professor cleared his throat. ‘This question is addressed to Madam,’ he said, stressing the word ‘Madam’ in a manner that implied an open challenge. ‘In the inhalation and exhalation that you talked about, is the effect due to oxidation or meditation?’
Someone at the back said: ‘Speak in Hindi.’
The Professor repeated his question in Hindi.
But it was a curious question, which was either unamenable to any answer – or which could only be answered by a bewildered, ‘Both.’ For there was no either/or, no necessary contradiction in the two possibilities of oxidation and meditation, whatever they might mean. Clearly the Professor believed that the woman who had usurped too much power and closeness to Babaji needed to be put in her place, and that a question like this would show up both her ignorance and her pretensions.
Pushpa went and stood to the right of Sanaki Baba. He had closed his eyes again, and was smiling beatifically. Indeed, he continued to smile beatifically through the entire exchange that followed.
Everyone’s eyes other than Baba’s were on Pushpa. She reverted to English and spoke with spirit, and with cold anger: ‘Let me make it quite clear that quastions here are not addrassed to “Madam” or anyone else but to the Master. If we give teachings here it is in his voice, and we translate or speak because of his vibrations speaking through us. The “Madam” knows nothing. So quastions should be addrassed to the Master. That is all.’