Lesson of Love

Hare Krishna! Take a deep breath!

Ram Dass was born as Richard Alpert in 1931 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States in a relatively well-off family. He went off to have degrees from Stanford University and finally became a professor at Harvard University. The book – “Miracle of Love” is one of the lesser known books written by him. It contains various anecdotes of Neem Karoli Baba collected from various sources & devotees. I have earlier written about Saints of Uttarakhand. 

Some excerpts from the book:

1. Not only was Maharaj-ji watching over us, but he could easily see within us as well. (95)
2. Maharaj-ji said that mothers were next to God, and he made them in this form in order to share himself, because only God and mother can forgive all faults. (266)
3. If one is still rooted only in intellect or emotion, any act of surrender is but another act of ego and can, based on misjudgment, lead to horrendous consequences. (293)
4. PEOPLE ARE QUICK TO TAKE A CHAPATTI BUT SLOW TO TAKE THE NAME OF GOD. (331)
5. On the Saturday before he left, he told me, “This is a ghost plane. Everyone has to die. People weep for their selfishness. Even the dying person weeps for his family. These are nothing, this is foolishness.” (375)

The book is dedicated to Neem Karoli Baba (popularly called Maharaj-ji) mentioning that His presence revealed how subtle is the path of love.

The book is an easy read overall. It has short stories (most <half a page) about Maharaj-ji, his miracles and how devotees flogged around him to get his blessings. The book is interspersed with Maharaj-ji’s wisdom, see the point 4 above written in CAPITAL LETTERS. Besides this the books has “राम” written in Hindi exactly 786 times!

There are a total of ~25 chapters in 400 pages. The book also has several photographs of Maharaj-ji and His devotees, including Ram Dass, KK Sah, Dada Mukherjee (from Allahabad, now called Prayagraj in UP, North India).