Fwd: saints, Teachers, and Seekers in the Indian Tradition

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SAMBAVI <jay_sambavi wrote:srividya

SAMBAVI

Wed, 12 Feb 2003 17:16:38 -0800 (PST)

[sri Rajarajeswari Peetam, RUSH, N.Y.] Saints, Teachers, and Seekers in

the Indian Tradition

 

 

Prahlad Chandra

Devotee of Kali who Learned Yoga in Dreams

 

 

Photograph by William Morgan © Prahlad Foundation

Prahlad Chandra Brahmachari

 

 

Prahlad Chandra Brahmachari was a renunciant devotee of the goddess Kali, who

was subject to trance states and visions throughout his life. He spent his later

years as a Kali priest in Ramnathpur, West Bengal, having large goddess worship

celebrations which attracted thousands of visitors.

He was born into a poor Brahman family in Orissa, somewhere between 1900 and

1910 (the date is uncertain). He was one of five brothers, none of whom ever

attended school. His father would spend time in meditation, and sing to Rama.

The family lived on land which could grow rice only for four or five months

during the year, and the rest of the year was a time of semi-starvation for the

family. Occasionally his father might act as a priest, and receive a small

amount of money. The children had rickets and malnutrition, subsisting during

the lean months on one meal a day of bread made from grass roots.

One day, Prahlad stole some green mangos from a neighbor's tree, and brought

them to his mother as food for the family. When his father found out later, he

was furious, and started hitting the child with an axe. Prahlad ran away

bleeding, covering the wounds with grass.

He ran off into the woods, and travelled at random until he passed out from

weakness. He awoke to see a sannyasi (monk) before him, smiling and

compassionate. The sannyasi gave him some flat bread to eat, and touched his

wounds with a log of wood. After that touch, the pain disappeared. Prahlad kept

that log with him throughout his life. Then the sannyasi searched for a kind of

leaf with a tough stem, and grabbed Prahlad's tongue and wrote lines on it with

the leaf. He etched the lines so hard that Prahlad's tongue bled, and his

"senses were lost," as Prahlad went into a state of trance.

He regained consciousness at sunrise, and the sannyasi was gone. He could only

see the remnants of a ritual fire (dhuni) and some coins. He considered his

survival of his father's beating to be a new chance at life. He rode the train

in rags to Howrah station, and lived in Calcutta on the banks of the Ganges for

several years, sleeping on burlap sacks. He survived in a variety of ways, first

by begging, and then by acting as a wandering Kali priest with a picture of the

goddess hung around his neck. He would visit shopkeepers and bless them with the

goddess' image, and they would give him a few pennies.

Sometimes he would work as a servant, a dishwasher, or a sweeper, ignoring the

caste of the people for whom he worked. He was unhappy at these jobs, but at

night he received instructions on yoga in his dreams from the goddess Kali.

During the day, he would contemplate these dreams and fall into trance states.

This made him a poor worker, and he was often condemned by his employers.

However, he did save some money, and decided to visit his parents after a gap of

several years. His youngest brother had died, and his father took the money to

renovate the family worship room. He continued to have visits from the goddess

in his dreams, and she gave him instructions in meditation and hatha yoga. She

told him to leave the household again, and he did so.

He returned to Calcutta, and first took a job as a servant, and then as a

wandering priest. The goddess continued her yogic dream instructions, and he

perfected his yoga postures, staying in one position for the whole night.

Accompanying these practices were states of bliss. He had kept the sannyasi's

log of wood, and the goddess told him in a dream command to chew it. He would

scrape off small pieces of the log to chew, and he would start having visions.

He could hear verses from the sacred books of India, and see pages written in

gold letters. When a person stood before him, Prahlad could "read his heart,"

and know the person's innermost secrets. He gained an ability to tell the

future, and took up a new career as an astrologer. While people had looked down

upon him previously for being ignorant, now they would call him anxiously to

tell their futures, and his predictions were generally accurate.

He continued his nightly yogic exercises, seeing himself as a tool in the

goddess' hands. He continued chewing splinters from the log, and he lost track

of time, with "tidal waves" of Sanskrit coming out of his mouth without

forethought, in the form of hymns from the Hindu holy books (Vedas and Puranas).

He would see visions of light before him, and lose track of his surroundings.

At the age of twenty-four years he attended a funeral ceremony (shraddha) in

Hooghly district, where his abilities to predict the future made him a valued

guest. His hosts insisted that he continue his visit. He did a large number of

predictions, and many people with diseases and legal problems came to speak with

him. He underwent mood swings and would often enter into depressions, but he

felt that he was following Kali's will. He acted briefly as priest in a small

Kali temple nearby, but upset the villagers there by offering the goddess cooked

food. They came en masse to threaten his host, and Prahlad was forced out of the

house in which he was staying.

He wandered out and eventually sat beneath a large tamarind tree, in an open

space with bushes and thorns. The goddess came to him in a vision, and told him

that he should not spend his life with householders, but should create his own

space. She said that he would have the barren land on which he sat. The next

day, the owner of that land gave him permission to build a small ashram there,

and he determined to settle there in Ramnathpur. He spent the next four years in

meditation, often at a nearby burning ground. He found it frightening, but went

there because it was the Mother's command.

When he had extra money, he mailed it to his parents, and they sent back a

demand: Prahlad must marry. His father had chosen a girl, and told his son to

marry her. Prahlad returned to Orissa to argue with them, but they were

unwilling to listen to him. He went into a single yogic position (asana) and

trance state for four days and nights, and returned to normal consciousness with

indifference towards his potential bride and his family. He explained again his

unwillingness to marry, and his view of all women as only embodiments of the

Divine Mother. He then left the house silently, and disappeared off into the

woods. He took a formal vow of renunciation, and put on the clothes of a

sannyasi.

He returned to Ramnathpur, and again started doing yogic practice at night.

During the day, he would do ritual worship for the villagers and foretell the

future. Every new moon, he worshiped the goddess at the burning ground. On one

new moon in February, the villagers insisted upon following Prahlad to witness

his ritual offering to Ratanty Kali. About fifteen people came, bearing lights

and long sticks (lathis). Prahlad took a sharp knife and cut his arm, to offer

his blood at the Mother's feet. The wind whistled, and a storm came up, blowing

out the lights and frightening the villagers so that they ran away. Outside the

burning ghat the weather was quiet, and the villagers then returned. They found

the altar blown over, and Prahlad unconscious and lying in a pit. They sprinkled

his face with Ganges water to awaken him. During the storm he had had a vision

of the goddess as infinite light, and he had been absorbed into the Mother's

spirit.

About three years after his sudden exit from the wedding, another message came

from his parents: Prahlad must return, because his father was dying. He went to

his parent's house, and fulfilled his father's last wishes, and he gained his

father's blessings. Among other requests, his father told him that he must not

neglect the worship of the family deity Rama, even if Kali was his special

goddess. After his father's death, Prahlad was grief-stricken, and roamed

through South India as a beggar for a month. He then returned to Ramnathpur.

When he came back to the village, two men asked for initiation from him as their

guru. He also became the guru for their families. He then initiated many other

people. When he entered a house, the villagers would offer him fruits and

sweets, and wash his feet. However, the villagers would go through periods of

doubt, and once they condemned Prahlad as a false monk, saying that they would

only believe him if he could stay in his room without food or water for seven

days. He went into the dark room, and knelt down before the statue of Kali, who

filled the room with light. She came in visionary form and took Prahlad onto her

lap, and he felt that their souls merged for seven days. He did not eat, drink,

or leave the room during that week, until the trance ended at the appropriate

time. It was his last trial by the villagers at Ramnathpur.

He had a variety of places where he would meditate. Often he would spend time in

contemplation within a hollowed-out tree. He also had a meditation hut on a

raised area between some rice and pan fields. Buried under the floor of this hut

were five skulls, and he would sit over these skulls. The room also had a

trident and an omkar (Sanskrit letter OM) painted on the wall. Later there were

pictures of deities, and stick figures on the wall, and a large altar with a

picture of a blue Kali. He warned others that this room had great power, and

that it would be dangerous for others to live there. Apparently one person

stayed in this hut while Prahlad was on a pilgrimage, and this visitor died

after a few days there of snakebite. It is still said that the goddess Kali

speaks to people who enter the hut.

Prahlad called himself a kite in the hands of Kali, which she keeps whirling.

She is infinite light, showing herself as a candle, or as the soothing morning

sun, or the violent and scorching sun at noon. He followed her will in

practicing yoga and meditation at Ramnathpur ashram for over fifty years. He

would offer Kali blood on new-moon night, when he would slit his wrists, and his

disciples would hear him moan and gasp. He was often asked for boons by his

disciples, especially for healing and for children, and for predicting the

future. He had a coconut marked with red sindur powder and a long tongue, which

he called Old Mother or Ancestress (Budi Ma). He performed rituals to Old Mother

each day, when he chanted mantras and did his ritual fire sacrifice. When

visitors would ask him to do things for them, he would ask Old Mother's opinion.

He would put a flower on top of the coconut, and if it remained there, he would

agree to the request. If it fell, he would not accede to the request.

Prahlad gained disciples outside of West Bengal in his later life, including

ones from the USA. In India he had a core group of about forty disciples, though

he initiated large numbers of people (he looked for various physical signs, such

as a sharply pointed tongue, which was the sign of a Kali devotee). Some Western

disciples came to India and brought him to Brooklyn on several occasions. He

would fall into trance states frequently there, becoming the child Krishna, the

goddess, and the warrior Arjuna (among other roles), and he would perform fire

sacrifices (homa fires) and pujas (ritual worship). He knew no English, and

refused to touch money, living the life of a renunciant Kali priest as well as

he could in a New York brownstone building.

He spoke to his Bengali devotees about prayer to the Mother: You must always

pray to the Mother. It is Mother who takes you on her lap. She is my god,

Mahamaya, the great Kundalini Shakti. You have to wake Her first, and pray to

Her first. That is why our worship of the Mother must come first. Because who is

he who is my Father? Only the Mother knows. She will take me to him in her arms.

If you can wake up Mahamaya, that great power in the sushumna, in the thousand

petalled lotus, then you will drink nectar.. this is why I perform the Homa fire

before her... Mother is the provider; without the mother, there is no father.

When the Mother takes me in her lap, she will merge me with brahman. Mother

knows my father's name, and my caste, and she knows the path to infinity.

Without Mother, one cannot find that impossible path. The goddess is reflected

in human women, and also in statues: You must first pray to the outer mother,

only then can you gain the Mother within. It is like seeing your face in mirror.

You must see the outer image, so that you can know what you look like... Ma is

in many places. Once when I was defecating, I was digging with a stick, and a

small statue appeared. The goddess within it spoke to me, and she said, "I am

Anandamayi." I took it back and cleaned it very well, and it shone like gold.

Some robbers saw it and thought it was real gold, and they took it away. I began

to cry, and the Mother came and said to me, "Let the statue go. Have no fear.

They have only taken my outer form. The statue which is established inside you

is still there, the robbers have not been able to take it."

According to his disciples and to people who knew him, he had a variety of

psychic powers, especially the abilities to induce visions and to communicate at

a distance. As one informant stated: When Baba (Prahlad) was doing his homa

fire, I saw a vision of the goddess, Ma Kali. She was dancing in a river of

blood, like a waterfall, but she was beautiful and laughing. She had blue skin

and six arms, with weapons and other things in her hands. She laughed with

bliss. His devotees spoke of his having a "cosmic telephone." He would put his

finger on the ground, as if pressing a button, and say that he was in touch with

someone at a distance. He was said to be particularly adept at entering the

dreams of his devotees. As an American informant stated, I once had a dream of

Baba before I met him, in which I was playing a guitar and singing spiritual

songs. He appeared in a loincloth, dancing with one arm up in the air, his legs

moving rapidly, stomping to the rhythm of the song. Suddenly, the scene changed,

and he was staring at me, six inches from my face, his eyes focused intently on

me. A strange power radiated from his eyes. I felt myself expand inwardly, and

my heart was full of a bliss that spread through my body. Later I learned that

one of his devotees had given him a picture of me. When I met him months later,

as soon as I walked into the room his translator told me that Baba wanted to

know if I remembered him, that he had visited me. He did not say this to any of

the other thirty people in the room. I think he had used the picture as a means

of contacting me.

His American devotees were worried about his active practices: Once during

kirtan of the Hare Krishna mantra, I remember that Baba became more and more

agitated. During the chanting, he suddenly jumped to his feet and started

dancing faster and faster, jumping and shouting. He looked as if he were losing

control of his body. His oldest devotee became worried that he would have a

heart attack (he was in his seventies), that his health would not sustain such

activity. She jumped up and tried to quiet him, putting her arms around him and

lowering him to a sitting position. She asked people not to encourage such

kirtan. It seemed that he had done such active kirtan often, in his younger

days, and used it as a means of entering an altered state.

One disciple, who said that she had seen Baba in a dream over a year before she

met him, spoke of her love and dedication to her guru. She said that he knew

things about her at a distance; he had warned her not to cover her altar at home

with a cloth (she had done so before going to see him, but had not told him

about it), and not to perform the homa fire outside the ashram (which she had

done). She said that when she felt his spiritual presence, it energized her

body, and made her feel "out of this world," seeing a deep purple-blue light and

feeling love for all living things. This occurred when he would go into a

special state of blessing, with one hand on her head, and one hand in the air,

reaching towards the Mother.

Prahlad Chandra Brahmachari visited the West several times, gained small groups

of disciples, and died in 1982.

 

This biography is more detailed than other biographies in this selection because

there are no books available in English on Prahlad Chandra.

 

 

For more information on Prahlad Chandra, visit:

 

 

The Prahlad Foundation Website

 

 

 

 

 

 

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srividya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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