Maharaj Ji

Few days ago youtube recommendations got me hooked to Krishna Das, his music is just divine. It seems that he has been doing weekly online satsangs since the pandemic started and I was listening to a few of those. What I loved about them is the stories about his guru Neem Karoli Baba ( he was lovingly called Maharaj Ji by devotees). Steve Jobs famously went to India to visit Maharaj Ji but he left his body a few months before Steve Jobs arrived in India. 

Another thing I find amazing is that if one looks at his pictures, he looks just like another elderly person. He seems to have a blanket around him most of the time and just a white dhoti. I don’t know if we would recognize him as a saint if we were to come across him today.

Maharaj Ji passed away in 1973 and here is one of his devotees roughly 50 years later paying tribute to his master, singing his glories, sharing his stories and his leela. The remarkable transformation in a person that comes with Guru’s grace is just indescribable. Another famous devotee of Maharaj Ji is Baba Ram Dass ( born Richard Alpert) who passed away in Dec 2019. Some of his youtube videos describe his experience of meeting Maharaj Ji for the first time and being around him. There are so many stories and I found it difficult to stop listening to them!

 I know Swami Ji has shared a few stories about Maharaj Ji on a few occasions as well. The story I remember is that one of Maharaj Ji’s devotees gave an interview and shared something remarkable he experienced in his presence. “Everyone knew and saw that Maharaj Ji loved everyone. But the remarkable thing was that even I loved everyone when I was in the presence of Maharaj Ji.”

If you haven’t checked out Krishna Das music, it might string a chord with your soul . Here is a song “Mere Gurudev”.