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Miracles
True to his name, Bhagwan had an overwhelming spiritual quest ever since his infancy. Many believe he was not an ordinary soul because miracles kept happened around him throughout his childhood. He had a definite, perceptible healing ability that sometimes cured a sick villager, sometimes a buffalo having difficulty in birthing its calf. On many occasions baby Bhagwan would disappear from between his mother and grandmother in and would be discovered elsewhere long. There is an especially interesting story of an event that happened on the sixth day after his Bath. In the afternoon at around twelve or one o’clock, a strong dust storm began to blow everything around the family courtyard. Lakshraji Bagman’s mother got up and went out to pick up the clothes that were drying out in the sun lest they be blown away. When she came back with the clothes in her arms she saw that the door to go into her room had slammed shut in the strong wind. She tried to open the door but it did not budge. It seemed as if someone had latched it shut from the inside. She peeked through the crack in the door and saw that her baby was not on the bed. Instead she saw a boy of about ten or twelve years sitting on the floor in the lotus position, meditating. She panicked with the thought that someone had stolen her baby and began to scream. But no sounds came from her mouth. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the door opened with a bang and she rushed inside. That meditating boy said to her, ‘‘I am the very same, mother, don’t worry’’. She blinked and looked again; she saw he was again her newborn baby.
For those who took care of him, such stories of unusual sightings and visions were common throughout Bhagwan’s childhood. There use to happen many true miracle for the villagers and they began to have a special respect for Babu Bajinath Singh’s little son Bhagwan .Bhagwan lost his father when he was just five years old. He was raised by his mother and his maternal grandparents, all of whom began to be neglected by their extended family and the larger community, especially since some members of the family may have had their eye on their landed property. All this made no difference to little Bhagwan, who spiritual quest not only began to manifest will full force but also began to break the bounds of acceptable family life. The first evidence of this was his absolute reluctance to study or attend school.
He would regularly run away from school and sit in a mango grove to meditate or play at performing rituals. Often, he would gather his little classmates under a huge banyan tree to sing bhajans devotional songs in praise of the gods. The second was his characteristic tendency not to live at home. He would walk out of his family’s house and spend the night under a tree in a grove, or in a field on the out skirts of the village, and not return home for days. While other children were afraid of the dark and of ghosts little Bhagwan knew no fear. In this time, he once lived for several days under a huge banyan tree in a grove that the village thought to be hunted. It made no difference to Bhagwan, but his mother got very upset and he was forcibly brought back home only to run away again. During religious festivals, especially during the nine day long sacred period called Navaratri; he would fast and seek the company of ascetics and monks who came though the village. Such a regimen of physical abstinence and devotion was not only unusual; it was decidedly difficult for a boy of his age.
Another story mentions an incident that happened with his mother. In quest for solitude, Bhagwan has made his home in a guava grove, under the afore mentioned haunted banyan tree. He began to conduct his worship there without food and water. When his mother heard of this, she found it intolerable. If her son would not eat, then neither would she; but on the third day, when his mother could not stand the pangs of hunger any longer, she made a pot of halwa (an Indian sweet made usually with flour, sugar and milk), put it in a plate, covered it with a cloth, and look it to him in the garden. She asked him to eat but Bhagwan refused, insisting that she should eat it herself. His mother explained to him that she had not performed her daily worship yet, and that she would eat after she had finished her worship. With that thought, she served out most of the halwa for Bhagwan onto another plate, saving a little for herself as Prasad (holy food) and covered it with the same cloth under which she had brought out the food for her son. He asked her to take her share away but when she picked up the plate she felt something crawing on her hand; she again removed the cloth from the plate and found a cobra sitting there. There are small incidents with cobras, but later in his life there were other snake filled incidents which, together with his recognized spiritual powers, made people know Bhagwan to be Shiva incarnated. In the Hindu imagination, Shiva lives as an ascetic wanders in cremation grounds and is friendly to every creature, whether poisonous or not. In fact, one would almost certainly expect to see such dangerous creatures in places associated with Shiva, for they are, in a sense, his companions.
True to his name, Bhagwan had an overwhelming spiritual quest ever since his infancy. Many believe he was not an ordinary soul because miracles kept happened around him throughout his childhood. He had a definite, perceptible healing ability that sometimes cured a sick villager, sometimes a buffalo having difficulty in birthing its calf. On many occasions baby Bhagwan would disappear from between his mother and grandmother in and would be discovered elsewhere long. There is an especially interesting story of an event that happened on the sixth day after his Bath. In the afternoon at around twelve or one o’clock, a strong dust storm began to blow everything around the family courtyard. Lakshraji Bagman’s mother got up and went out to pick up the clothes that were drying out in the sun lest they be blown away. When she came back with the clothes in her arms she saw that the door to go into her room had slammed shut in the strong wind. She tried to open the door but it did not budge. It seemed as if someone had latched it shut from the inside. She peeked through the crack in the door and saw that her baby was not on the bed. Instead she saw a boy of about ten or twelve years sitting on the floor in the lotus position, meditating. She panicked with the thought that someone had stolen her baby and began to scream. But no sounds came from her mouth. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the door opened with a bang and she rushed inside. That meditating boy said to her, ‘‘I am the very same, mother, don’t worry’’. She blinked and looked again; she saw he was again her newborn baby.
For those who took care of him, such stories of unusual sightings and visions were common throughout Bhagwan’s childhood. There use to happen many true miracle for the villagers and they began to have a special respect for Babu Bajinath Singh’s little son Bhagwan .Bhagwan lost his father when he was just five years old. He was raised by his mother and his maternal grandparents, all of whom began to be neglected by their extended family and the larger community, especially since some members of the family may have had their eye on their landed property. All this made no difference to little Bhagwan, who spiritual quest not only began to manifest will full force but also began to break the bounds of acceptable family life. The first evidence of this was his absolute reluctance to study or attend school.
He would regularly run away from school and sit in a mango grove to meditate or play at performing rituals. Often, he would gather his little classmates under a huge banyan tree to sing bhajans devotional songs in praise of the gods. The second was his characteristic tendency not to live at home. He would walk out of his family’s house and spend the night under a tree in a grove, or in a field on the out skirts of the village, and not return home for days. While other children were afraid of the dark and of ghosts little Bhagwan knew no fear. In this time, he once lived for several days under a huge banyan tree in a grove that the village thought to be hunted. It made no difference to Bhagwan, but his mother got very upset and he was forcibly brought back home only to run away again. During religious festivals, especially during the nine day long sacred period called Navaratri; he would fast and seek the company of ascetics and monks who came though the village. Such a regimen of physical abstinence and devotion was not only unusual; it was decidedly difficult for a boy of his age.
Another story mentions an incident that happened with his mother. In quest for solitude, Bhagwan has made his home in a guava grove, under the afore mentioned haunted banyan tree. He began to conduct his worship there without food and water. When his mother heard of this, she found it intolerable. If her son would not eat, then neither would she; but on the third day, when his mother could not stand the pangs of hunger any longer, she made a pot of halwa (an Indian sweet made usually with flour, sugar and milk), put it in a plate, covered it with a cloth, and look it to him in the garden. She asked him to eat but Bhagwan refused, insisting that she should eat it herself. His mother explained to him that she had not performed her daily worship yet, and that she would eat after she had finished her worship. With that thought, she served out most of the halwa for Bhagwan onto another plate, saving a little for herself as Prasad (holy food) and covered it with the same cloth under which she had brought out the food for her son. He asked her to take her share away but when she picked up the plate she felt something crawing on her hand; she again removed the cloth from the plate and found a cobra sitting there. There are small incidents with cobras, but later in his life there were other snake filled incidents which, together with his recognized spiritual powers, made people know Bhagwan to be Shiva incarnated. In the Hindu imagination, Shiva lives as an ascetic wanders in cremation grounds and is friendly to every creature, whether poisonous or not. In fact, one would almost certainly expect to see such dangerous creatures in places associated with Shiva, for they are, in a sense, his companions.
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