Bade Baba stories

Bade Baba stories

Soon after moving to the ashram (I was a new devotee, rare for living at the ashram), I volunteered to be an attendant in Bade Baba's (Bhagawan Nityananda's) temple once per week. I had heard that Bade Baba was very unpredictable. For example, a piece of fruit my friend was absent-mindedly coveting leapt from the platform at Bade Baba's feet and rolled across the floor to her feet. (Now that is prasad!)

Padukas (sandals) and the guru's feet
are worshiped as an immediate, very
personal and beloved means of contact
with the guru's divine darshan and grace

My first week in the temple without help, a very strange thing happened. Bade Baba's beautiful silver sandals, or padukas, which are a representation of his darshan and grace (a whole essay on the symbolism of the Guru's feet), are presented on a little dais in front of his murti for worshipers to touch when entering the temple. Well, there was suddenly a rain shower(!), inside the temple, from a window (that did not open) on the ceiling above the padukas, and which rained on the padukas without getting anything else at all wet! I looked up, and a ray of morning sun was shining obliquely onto the window, and the drops of rain were falling from this spot. 

This was all rather spectacular. The deluge lasted for a good 20 to 30 seconds and was noisy in the quiet temple. There was no mistaking what was happening, or what just happened when it finished. It had rained inside on Bade Baba's silver padukas. They were quite wet.

Another sevite carefully dried them off (I can hear Bade Baba laughing). I was too new to laugh yet, as I'm sure Bade Baba was doing! 

There's always an ego "burn" in any lesson, and mine was that someone told me I had to call the main temple sevite, and I was new, so I did as she suggested, awakening a clearly tired sevite with my phone call. She was very unhappy about being called about something that required no action or even knowledge. I apologized for disturbing her. I thought she must have duties to perform at night. 

Later I learned that she was up in the middle of the night giving abhishek. (Now that I think of it, maybe Bade Baba was after her, too. Ha ha.)



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It is funny, but I rarely thought of this event when I would visit the temple. I don't remember sharing about it to anyone. I thought of it as a sort of playful trick at the time, but now I know that nothing a siddha does is without layers of meaning, meaning which is entirely perfect for each person who is touched by an event.

I think Bade Baba was giving me a message. If others are so reverent towards my padukas, that doesn't mean you also have to be. My grace and my darshan are alive, as water is alive. Also, I don't need others to give me (or my sandals) abhishek. And do not mistake the murti used to love and honor and worship my presence as being here for me. I allow myself to be worshiped in this way as a gift of service to my devotees, to anyone who wants to become free.

This was a high spiritual lesson for me, a newcomer. I can only really begin to understand it now. I'll probably reflect on it for the rest of my life.

Only now am I realizing that I was given the gift of such a unique darshan of a perfect siddha (saint), beloved by so many, a gift that I treasure.

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Another Bade Baba story.

When I lived at the ashram, I worked in the "Bookstore," (the fulfillment of online and phone orders for meditation supplies, etc.) We occasionally ordered a special item for sale. Something new: a bunch of "cute" little one-piece brass lingams. I walked into the warehouse area, and just couldn't help myself. "That's a whole lotta lingams," I observed.

Okay while we're talking so-called funny stories about brass items, another time I picked up a bunch of small (about 3 inches tall) brass Bade Baba (Nityananda) murtis that had been created for us in Rhode Island. The metal craftsman, of course, were hardy East Coast sons-of-immigrants who watched The Sopranos on HBO (as did I). They were all laughing and I soon found out why. "Bada Bing!" they gestured to the little army of cross-legged Bade Babas ready for transport. 

They called the Bade Babas "Bada Bing!" I laughed heartily. I was sure Bade Baba was laughing too. The fact that the "Bada Bing" was a strip-club on The Sopranos only made it more funny.

PS I was just thinking they likely had some blissful, intoxicating darshan of Bade Baba while creating the beautiful murtis.