A Visit to a Prophet

Yesterday I went to see an old man they call Baba. He lives in a small village called Sopoore very near the line of control on the Pakistani border with Kashmir.

Hundreds come to see him each day. He is about 77 years old, and frail. He takes no food, or water nor does he often speak.
People are healed, obstacles are lifted from their lives etc. All of this is done in prayer and in the mind, as he speaks to none of the people who come. He must work exclusively with telepathy, many highly enlightened people do.

Baba disappeared many years ago into the Himalayas. Twelve years passed before he re-appeared naked, which is how he usually appears unless it is too cold. The morning I saw him he was in a long wool flannel robe called a pheran.

It was a 2 hour drive so we left Srinigar at 7am. Fayaz and Raj, my friends who took me, have been visiting Baba for more than 20 years. Fayaz and his good friend Raj, who is visiting from New York City, attended the same English school in Srinigar. Their lives went in vastly different directions, until they met again at Baba's. One Kashmiri Muslim, one Kashmiri Hindu, both in search of understanding and peace in their lives.

Fayaz is in the "inner circle" I am told, which is why when we arrive he goes up and sits on the raised bed Baba sits, leans, and sleeps on while people come and go all day long. Raj and I join him.
As I entered the small room he allows visitors to gather in I felt an unbelievable rush of love. Was it him or was it the collective energy of all the visitors? Who can tell.
Soon after I joined them on the dias, sitting on his blankets, I was overwhelmed with emotion and tears came to my eyes. I looked up and my friend Raj was weeping as well.

The guys rub his stooped shoulders, his scarred feet with holes, comb his beard and trim his nails. He allows all of this without saying a word. He bends and rubs his balding white head against another man's knee like a kitten wanting to be stroked. It is all extremely tender attention. He then indicates he wants to rest so he puts his head on a pillow that was at my feet and they cover him with a blanket.
At one point Baba had glanced at me, and then again. The guys ask me later if Baba had looked at me and I said yes he did. I have a feeling this was something special.

I decided to go into a deep meditation and see what transpired. I saw an old man standing in my mind's eye, and he looked very like the old man sleeping at my feet.
That, or I have gone completely bonkers.
I decided to ask him to remove the anger in my heart and I soon felt extremely light.
I asked about the book my friend Tessa and I are writing with the help of Babaji.
He confirms that what we are doing is genuine and beneficial.
Then he says to me you don't need to eat as much food as you do to live. Didn't expect such frank comments. I sat a long time in meditation,it felt extremely peaceful.

People toss bags of dried fruit, sweets, bottles of water, letters, key rings, hair clips, you name it, and it appears on the bed. He picks them up and tosses them into the laps of Raj and Fayaz's and they re-distribute them to their owners. I am told these things will be taken home and shared with family members.
People stretch in and touch his feet, his robe and even the blankets I am sitting on. They take the energy they gather and touch their hearts, lips, or run the hand down their faces. Such a display of devotion is awesome to witness.

In an ajoining room Baba's daughter-in-law has put out bowls of cookies, biscuits, snack mix, cakes etc. and offers tea to anyone who sits. Raj translated my experience to her and she said she would answer any questions I had about Baba.
Her husband, Baba's son, is a doctor. He has taken blood samples to be tested and for all intents and purpose he should be dead with what the readings indicate.
He eats only a flat crisp bread, drinks salty tea, and has taken no water for the past 1 1/2 years.
I ask about the deeply scarred holes in his feet. She says no one knows how he got them, but at times they fester and fill with worms as the one on his back also does. I have heard the same thing she tells me of many highly enlightened people. He takes on the woes of the world and this is what happens to his body because of that.
We decide to enter the room again and Baba is sitting up now. More people have gathered in the room and we sit for awhile longer.
As we are leaving the house a woman is cooking food that I am told feeds the people who come. A lunch and then a dinner. All of this is free.
The wire fence around the house is tied with strings of hope and prayers.
As we leave the police who guard the compound allow us out and more are arriving.

So does he hang onto his body so there is something tangable for people to relate to? I am sure it is more powerful than a picture hanging on a wall.
I feel blessed to have witnessed this old man they call Baba. On the way home there is a promise to return before I leave Kashmir. What great pals!

P.S. Shortly after my return to South Africa in July Baba passed on quietly in a hospital in Srinigar. They say millions of people arrived for days to his humble home in Sapoor to pay their respects and feel the energy that remains.