82- Pain In Shoulder

Lahiri attended a holy festival and as he wandered amidst the throng of monks and hermits he noticed a hermit holding out his begging bowl and the thought arose in his mind that the man was hypocritical, wearing the outward symbols without a corresponding inward grace. After a while he was astounded to see Babaji kneeling in front of a matted-haired hermit. Lahiri asked Babaji, "Sir, what are you doing here?" Babaji answered, "I am washing the feet of this renunciate, and then I shall clean his cooking utensils." 

Lahiri understood it as a lesson for not to criticize anyone. Babaji added, "By serving wise and ignorant hermits I am learning the greatest virtues, pleasing to God above all virtues, humility."

The reaction of that incident in my life appeared as follows. While I was a teacher in the Navy College I was appointed with another major to watch over the cadets during the exams. One day, before coming to the college to do the job I passed by a shop and bought a bottle of white Planko for my white shoes. I entered the section of the exam with my fellow major and we distributed the papers on the cadets and we permitted them to start.

My fellow noticed the little paper bag with me, and asked what it was. I told him, Planko.  He took it in his hands and knelt before me, "Let's try it on your shoes." He didn't feel any embarrassment in smearing my shoes in front of the cadets and didn't consider what they might think of it or say of it. It was astounding deed I couldn't forget because in the military life there is no humility. Later on, I could know the source of that action and was sure that my fellow was the reincarnation of the hermit whom Lahiri saw Babaji washes his legs.

   

Babaji was among his bands in the Himalaya; they were sitting around fire. Suddenly Babaji took a burning log from the fire and touched the shoulder of one of his disciples.   The disciple cried and Lahiri said, "This is cruel, sir." Babaji said to him, "Would you like him to be wholly in fire. The law of Karma was satisfied with what I did and he was saved."

The memory of that action came to me in three times. Before the marriage of my sister she fell on fire in the bathroom and she came out of that incident with a mark on her shoulder. After about twenty years I got severe pain in the joint of my shoulder. I went to the doctor and he prescribed natural medication. I asked him when I would get rid of that disorder, he replied, three years. He was true and I restored the joint free from pain after three years. It taught me later that what Jesus did in the redemption rendered him to have his new birth in hell to suffer instead of his followers.