Meeting Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta Maharaj's "I am That" is perhaps the most selling

Advaita book in the West.

 

Due to the increasing curiousty in this modern Jnani, I asked a

member at the Nisargadatta group to share her experience of meeting

Nisargadatta Maharaj in 1978.

 

The following is the first installment of her emails. She has

submitted eight so far.

 

I hope you'll find her story as interesting as I did.

 

Hur

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

In 1976 or 1977 ( I believe) a book review of I Am That appeared in

the Mountain Path Magazine. The Mountain Path is the in house

magazine of

Sri Ramanasramam in South India. It was a very positive and

because Maurice Frydman had been associated with Sri Ramana Maharshi ,

it carried some weight.

This was the first time I found out that there could be a living

Jnani,

a realized Sage of the caliber of Sri Ramana Maharshi. I sent for the

book, read it and was blown away. I wrote to Maurice Frydman and he

began to correspond with me. At some point he asked me to find a

publisher for I Am That in the United States. So I began sharing I Am

that with various spiritual publishing houses. I specifically sent it

to

Shambhala, Rainbow Bridge and Unity Press. They didn't feel it was

good fit for their publishing houses. Then I got a letter from Mr.,

Dikshit, publisher of Chetana Press (which is the publisher of I AM

That) informing me that Maurice Frydman had died and my letter had

been found on his desk. So I began to correspond with Mr. Dikshit. I

decided that I really wanted to visit Nisargadatta and started a

correspondence with

Mr. Hate (who was Maharaj's son-in-law). Which brings me to January

1978 when I flew Air India to Bombay with the intention of meeting Sri

Nisargadatta Maharaj.

 

We arrived ( my friend Rick and I) around 3 in the morning and sped at

break neck speed from the airport to our hotel. The town looked like

it

was littered with corpses because so many people sleep in the streets.

We got to our hotel room by stepping over the sleeping hotel staff and

settled in for a little sleep. At promptly at six our phone rang, the

management requiring our passports. The din outside our room turned on

almost automatically, traffic racing up from Marine Drive. Across the

street was the gray shiny Arabian sea.

I wasn't sure I could stand our hotel room when we first arrived but

after some sleep and meditation we agreed that it was a good place to

stay. Mr. Hate called and said that he would take us to see Maharaj

later that day. Mr. Hate, who was thin, and wiry with a big smile said

that we should bring an offering when we see Maharaj. So we drifted

through the neighborhood marketplace and settled on some bananas. The

street where Maharaj lived was round the corner from the Alfred

Cinema.

The noise in the streets was cacophonous. We came to his home and

stepped in. There was no formal satsang going on. In fact, Maharaj was

getting a shave from a roving barber. My first look at Maharaj was

very

intense, especially because his whole face was covered with lather and

his eyes burned with an intensity that I could not fathom.

Was this love, anger or just total Awareness? I kind of wondered to

myself if this was all a big mistake. Maharaj was about my height,

around 5'3'' give a few inches. So he looked directly into my eyes. He

was so intense. Mr. Hate explained who we were, were we came from,

etc.

So much intensity flowed through his eyes, through his whole being. We

were invited to return the next morning for Satsang.

 

Satsangs with Maharaj were predominately for western devotees and his

Indian ones who had a discerning, discriminating mind. Maharaj also

gave

discourses for his Indian devotees and performed pujas.

 

The Satsang room was a loft above the family living area. When I had

read I Am That, I got the picture of

Nisargadatta Maharaj building a little room, probably not tall enough

to

stand upright in. However, in reality, the room was spacious at least

10'x20' ( my guestimate.) One had to

climb a narrow and sharply inclined staircase to get to it, but once

in,

 

there was quite abit of room. Of course, when you filled it with 10-20

visitors it would crowded. The room was ringed with photos and

drawings

of various gurus. Some I did not recognized, some were familiar. There

was a large photo of Ramana Maharshi which was up above Maharaj's

cushion, Maharaj sat directly below a mirror and on the opposite wall

was another mirror. To the side of Maharaj was an his portrait. The

room

 

had pictures of the nine Gurus of his lineage and a huge silver altar

with a large photo of Sri Siddharameshwar. On many of the framed and

glassed pictures was a dot of kumkum. Maharaj would replace the flower

garlands and refresh the kumkum. If you arrived early you could see

him

engaged in this devotional activity. Those who think that Maharaj was

not devotional would find out that he was very serious in this.

 

I think I will send this now and if you have any questions we can

discuss them.

Cathy

 

Reposted from Nisargadatta

 

Cathy's meetings are under the subject line "Meeting Maharaj"

or "Meetings with Maharaj". You don't have to join the list to

search and read the messages in the archieves. This list also has

the most extensive quotes from Nisargadatta Maharaj books "I am That"

and "Consciousness and the Absolute."