Babajan

Babajan

I was in Poona , and my Russian friend Laxman told me about a holy site , a Samadhi (tomb) , of a woman saint called Babajan . She is said to have given Meher Baba some powerful initiation , or awakening by kissing him on the forehead . The following is some info I collected about her; "She grew up in Afghanistan , as a young girl was called Gulrukh which means ‘Rose face’. When her family wanted her to get married she refused and as an eighteen year old she left her family and travelled around north India which was not an easy undertaking .After some time she met a Hindu saint who initiated her , and she performed penance in a cave for seventeen months .At thirty seven years she had full awakening with a Muslim saint , a mazjoob (immersed in divinity) who ended her spiritual struggle with God realisation .She then travelled extensively through out the north and “It was at this time that she happened to utter in a moment of ecstasy words connoting her divine state. This was treated as blasphemy by orthodoxy, which, with the connivance of the church, got her buried alive. Gulrukh miraculously, survived this ordeal, and finding the country unsafe for her she bade good bye to the Punjab and Northern India forever. She travelled south to Bombay took up her abode in a locality know as Chuna Bhatti near Byculla. Bombay however, was not to be graced by her presence for long and the enviable honour of manifesting Gulrukh's spiritual greatness goes to Poona, that the sepoys of the Baluchi Regiment, which had only recently arrived from the North and who knew that Gulrukh was buried and dead, had a surprise of their life to find her all alive and seated underneath a neem (margosa) tree at a place called Malcolm Tank within Cantonment limits. The Baluchi sepoys looked upon this as a great miracle, and thus feeling convinced of her spiritual greatness, gave Gulrukh an ovation, by bowing to her reverently. After this incident her saintly fame spread far and wide, and she came to be universally known as Hazrat Babajan."

The next day we planed to visit the shrine and we rode of into the busy Pune traffic to reach the tomb . I could not go back into the ashram at this time as there was some regulation about visa’s , It had already been extended and they had a requirement that you had to leave the country to come back into the ashram . So I could'nt continue the ashram life, but had a need to be in a sattvic place such as Babajan's . Her samadhi , is tucked right next to a busy street of cars , bicycles , scooters buzzing by left and right and there at the end of this tee junction was this small marbled building with a keeper sitting on its entrance . The women come covered in there veils , some one is begging at the door . It is a very small space , but has enough room for you to sit on the very ground where she is rested. A large square rectangular marble tomb is intricately carved with sculptures of leaves . Garlands of flowers lay on

top of a sheet in dark green , a colour seen adorning many Muslim shrines. A picture is mounted on the wall as you come in through the left entrance , she is sitting on the ground sideways to the photographer , one leg

is raised to rest her forearm upon that knee and her hand is touching her chin and she is looking as if to be studying you . She has notable thick fuzzy white hair and looks gracefully old .She was said to be very old maybe 120 ,she used to sit here everyday under a neem tree . You can still see the stump that was there , someone cut it down ! This is where she greeted Meher Baba . The remains of this tree is painted gold and it presents an intimate corner for one to sit hiding from the noisy traffic that’s whizzing past just a few meters away . After all the distraction of people and noise I sat , in Her presence and it became richly infused with a feeling of HER ,and she spoke to me through a full dynamic Shakti (power) that slowly surrounded the tomb with an atmosphere of unspoken silence. Sitting in stillness the full power of her love comes through . Meanwhile I opened my eyes , and saw some women kneeling respecting the image of her picture as shown above , men also come in and pray with the Quran . Here is an unmistakeable divine power , if subtle , so beautiful to imbue .

After a while , I felt a feathery wishing brush against my head and a rude rough thump along my back as the keeper blessed me with a bunch of peacock feathers that lie on her tomb . I gave a donation and left with an amazing sense of elation , on the back of a scooter whizzing away from MG road looking up to the stars I cry and shout to the stars , feeling immersed in a state of mystical flavour tasting some exotic God intoxication , tears are flowing! I keep getting the strong impression of Sufi devotion flowing into me . Laxman’s friend is having a birthday and I wanted to buy flowers to drape around the pictures of Papaji in Laxman’s house . We stopped at the Pushpa wallah , a busy place with the workings of many people coming and going , I walk through the crowd to a chaputra (platform) to buy some flower garlands. Then in front of me gazed a benevolent old lady ,her daughter standing by her side ,and I could see pass her through the doorway people working (looked like her family) . But there was a lustrous attraction to her smiling gesture, brimming shinning eyes !! As I spoke in my little Hindi "Kitne kai hai ? "..... she smiles, I point and say ,"tin mala gulabh hai " her smile radiates into a glow . As she passes me the malas ,I smile back and slightly bow my head and pranam with folded hands in thanks.I turn and walk back through the hasty bustle and swing onto the bike , we race off. Her look brought me to an acute sense that this is someone who knows where I have just been and who knows who I am buying the flowers for with unspoken knowing , blessed me with a loving smile as I walked away with the flowers she had just given to me . She was sitting just like the photo in the Samadhi . Was it Babajan? she certainly had kind of bushy white hair !Later I thought about her and wondered if I have come across another mystic , or surely it was Babajan ! They say there is no difference , no separation , how could it have not been Babajan .