Selflessness is one of the prominent signs of a spiritual man. If this quality is missing in the character of one who is supposed to be spiritual, he is not really a spiritual person. There was a well-known master, Neem Karoli Baba, who befriended me when I was still quite young. He lived in Nanital, one of the hill resorts in the Himalayas. He was a man who lived “half here and half there.” When someone came to him he would say, “Okay, now I have seen you, you have seen me, ja, ja, ja, ja . . . ” which means, “go, go, go, go . . .” That was his habit.

Once we were sitting and talking when one of the richest men in India came to see him with quite a big bundle of Indian currency. The man said, “Sir, I have brought this for you.” Baba spread the notes out and sat on them. He said, “They are not very comfortable as a cushion, and I don’t have a fireplace, so I cannot burn them for heat. They are of no use to me; what shall I do with them?”
The man said, “Sir, it’s money!” Baba returned the money and asked him to get some fruit with it. The rich man said, “Sir, there is no market here.” “Then how can you say it is money?” asked Baba. “If it doesn’t buy fruit it isn’t money for me.”

 

Then Baba asked him, “What do you want from me?” The man said, “I have a headache.” Baba replied, “That you have created for yourself. What can I do for you?” He protested, “Sir, I have come for your help.” Baba relented. “All right: henceforth there will be no headache—but from now on you’ll be a headache to other people. You will be so miserably rich that you will be a headache to the whole of your community.” And he is indeed a headache to his whole community, even today.

It is true that some amount of money is one of the necessary means of making oneself comfortable in the world. But it is also true that having more than necessary can be a source of misery. Hoarding money is a sin, for we are depriving others and creating disparity in society.

Neem Karoli Baba loved Lord Rama, an incarnation of God, and was always muttering a mantra which no one understood. This sage was adored by many people in northern India. People did not give him rest. They traveled with him from one mountain and village to another. He was very mysterious in his ways. 

 

I had many more delightful and funny experiences with Neem Karoli Baba which you wouldn’t believe, but a few Americans who have met him will understand what I am talking about. If someone came to see him he would say, “You were talking against me with such and such a person under such and such a tree.” He would give the exact date and time of day. Then he would say, “Now you have seen me, go, go, go.” Then he would cover himself with a blanket.

 

One day a pharmacist was delivering some powder from Talital to Malital. He was a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba, so he stopped to see him on the way. I was also there. Baba said, “I’m hungry. What is that you are carrying?” The pharmacist said, “This is arsenic. Wait and I will bring some food for you.” But Baba snatched the powder from him and ate a handful. Then he asked for a glass of water. The pharmacist thought he would die from the poison, but the next day he was quite normal.

He was not aware of the external. If you asked him, “Have you eaten your food?” he would answer “No” or “Yes,” but it would have no meaning. If your mind is somewhere else, you can eat many times a day and still remain famished. I saw this with him. Five minutes after eating he would say, “I am hungry,” because he didn’t know that he had already eaten. I would say, “You have taken your food.” And he would answer, “All right, then I am not hungry.”

If I wouldn’t tell him, “You have now eaten,” he would not stop. One day I thought, “Let me see how many times he can eat.” That day he took forty meals at various houses. He was eating the whole day. We wanted to know about his powers, and he knew what we wanted. So when anyone brought food before him, he ate.

They would ask, “Will you eat?” And he would say, “Okay.” He went on eating all day. Finally I came and said, “You have eaten enough.” He said, “Oh, have I?” I said, “Yes!”  

 

In such a high state one becomes like a child. He is not fully aware of mundane things, but he is constantly aware of the Truth. 

​

​

​

This is an excerpt from Swami Rama's book "Living With the Himalayan Masters"