In Meherazad one day, the men were observing silence sitting before Baba in the hall. Through hand signs and gestures, “silent conversations” took place. An amusing incident occurred the previous night. Bhau was on watch. When Baba asked him something, Bhau was unable to make himself understood. Baba was amused at His expressive finger signs and facial expressions, and for fun kept asking him one thing after another. Bhau was a total failure at hand signs and Baba asked, “What would you do if I were to keep you on silence for a long time?”Bhau wondered about the line’s meaning. Soon he would understand. This was one of the last lines Baba ever gave Bhau. The hearts and minds of the mandali were focused completely on Baba, but all were helpless before His supreme will.
To mark the 38th anniversary of Baba’s silence, all His devotees and lovers throughout the world observed silence from midnight of the 9th of July to midnight of 10 July 1963. Those who could not keep silence, due to unavoidable circumstances, fasted for twelve hours, from 8:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. on the 10th. Not even water was allowed during this twelve-hour fast.
Bhau did not know which gestures or signs he should make to respond properly.
Bhau tried his best to “say” something with his hands, and Baba enjoyed his predicament. At last, Baba remarked, “I would go mad trying to understand your signs! Are you gesturing to speak or performing some sort of charade?”
As mentioned, Baba did not like any breeze in His room when He slept. Besides all the windows, doors and ventilators being tightly shut, Baba put cotton in his ears before resting at night, at both Meherazad and Guruprasad, to block out any noise. When Baba would nibble on something during the night, He would often give Bhau a little of whatever He was eating — chocolates, cake, cookies or cheese, for example. One night He sat up and gestured, “I am hungry. Give Me something to eat.” Bhau brought the chocolate tin, put it on His bed, and went to open the window. Meanwhile, while his back was turned, Baba took out the cotton from His ears. When Bhau came back to the bed, Baba handed it to him. Thinking it was a piece of chocolate; Bhau popped it into his mouth and started chewing. Seeing him do this, Baba laughed and laughed.
It was a scorching summer that year in Poona, and even at night it was hot. On one occasion, while Bhau was on night watch, he was sitting in a corner of Baba’s room perspiring profusely; Baba was also perspiring as he lay on the bed. After some time, Baba sat up and asked him, “What are you thinking?”
Bhau replied, “Nothing, Baba,” though he had been thinking that it was unbearably hot outside and even more so inside Baba’s room. “Why does Baba wish all the doors, windows and ventilators closed as soon as he retires for the night?” Bhau wondered.
Baba looked at him and commented, “I am feeling very cold tonight.”
Bhau was taken aback and immediately replied, “No, Baba, it is terribly hot in here!” “I am telling you I am cold,” Baba insisted. “It’s very cold tonight!” and He repeated this several times.
Bhau argued, “Baba, it is hot. Ask anyone. I am feeling so hot and uncomfortable.” Baba kept insisting how cold it was.
Finally, Baba got fed up and asked Bhau, “What do you take Me to be?”
Bhau replied, “You are God.”
“You take Me to be God, and yet you do not believe what I say! If I am God, I am the Truth! The Truth can never speak a lie. Truth always speaks the truth.
“If you have this conviction, then you will feel cold, because I say it is cold! I always speak the truth.”
And Bhau realized that he had been wrong to argue.
Thereafter, Baba would send the men out of the hall, except for Bhau, who was to write down Baba’s dictations. From 21 July 1967, Baba began dictating material to Bhau for a new book, which Baba titled The Nothing and The Everything. Baba told him, “I am giving you ten percent of the book which I wrote in Meherabad during 1955–56… The other 90 percent is in God Speaks.” (Lord Meher-p- 5279-1967)
One night during his watch, Baba asked Bhau, “Who is your best friend?”
Bhau replied, “Nana,” since he had known Nana Kher since his college days in Nagpur.
“Do you feel lonely here without him?” Bhau said yes.
“Should I call him here?”
“Baba, how can you call him during your seclusion?”
“Never mind that,” Baba replied.
The next day in the hall, Baba instructed Eruch to send Nana Kher a telegram, informing him to come and stay at Meherazad. Pendu and Eruch objected, but Baba did not give any further explanation.
Nana Kher arrived on the morning of 28 August, and remained for almost a month. He would keep watch near Baba at night for three hours, and was then relieved by Aloba. It was the first time Nana had been given this duty, and it was Aloba’s first time as well. (Aloba continued doing it until February 1968, at which time Baba stopped it.)
Putting His two forefingers together, Baba had told Bhau, “When Nana comes, you two do everything together. Take walks together, eat together, be with each other at all times.” Bhau followed Baba’s instructions and became Nana’s constant companion, but after some time Bhau became fed up because he had other work to attend to and Nana was always by his side. Soon, Bhau was sorry he had ever mentioned Nana’s name to Baba!
Baba also sent Chhagan to two other “Meher Melas” in Uttar Pradesh, one at Bagda and another at Khandarka, and later Baba sent him to Kanpur for Baba’s birthday celebration. Each time, before Chhagan left, Baba would call him to Meherazad to read out the Hindi speeches prepared by Bhau. Chhagan would read them in the hall, before both the men and women mandali. It was a pastime for Baba, but for Bhau it was one more additional duty. He had to do night watch, the Hindi correspondence, be present with Baba in the day, write speeches for Sarosh and Amar Singh Saigal and then Chhagan, besides working on other writings.
One day in mid-November, Baba asked Bhau to write ghazals. Bhau replied, “Baba, it is not possible to write ghazals in Hindi. They can only be written in Urdu or Persian.”
Baba said, “What do you take Me to be? I am Ustad (the Master)! I taught Ghani to write ghazals, and I will also teach you. But first, try.”
So, Bhau tried and wrote almost 200 songs in ghazal form (which were later printed as Meher Geetika). Baba liked them, but noted, “These are songs, not ghazals. I will teach you when we’re in Guruprasad next summer.” Meanwhile, Baba instructed Bhau to translate Don’s The Wayfarers into Hindi, and Bhau began this work.
Baba had actually paved the way for Bhau to write ghazals seven years before when he dictated two ghazals in Hindi to him in 1960, but at that time Bhau never thought Baba would ask him to compose them.
At Meherazad, Baba had instructed Bhau to translate Don’s book The Wayfarers into Hindi, but as he had little or no time to do it there, once they arrived at Guruprasad he began this work. Baba did not wish him to translate the book literally, as He felt it was too matter-of-fact an account, but He wanted a complete written account filled in with more details, of His mast work. After discussing it with the mandali, however, it was decided to translate the book as it was and then to write a supplement of Baba’s contacts with masts and the poor after 1948, updating the book to the last mast contacts during the 1950s and 1960s.
One day in April 1968, at 3:00 P.M. Bhau went to Baba’s room as usual to keep watch near him until 8:00 P.M. Baba’s room was suffocatingly hot. Stepping into it was like walking into an oven or sauna.
Every ventilator, window and door was tightly shut, as Baba had instructed. Baba sat on His bed in His underwear; His chest was bare, perspiration dripping from His forehead and arms.
Baba was in a splendid mood. As He had previously hinted in Meherazad, He informed Bhau, “Today, I will teach you how to write ghazals.”
Bhau stood before Him sweating profusely and did not say a word. He had protested against writing ghazals before when the subject had first come up, and he was still working to complete the “ghazal-like” songs he had written.
Baba complimented him, “You have written with all your heart and the songs are good, but I want you to write ghazals and today I will teach you. I am going to give you one line and I want you to repeat it to the rhythm I will beat on My thighs.”
So saying, Baba dictated this line in Hindi: “Now My heart is terrified even to hear the name of love.”
Bhau began repeating it aloud as Baba played a rhythm with His fists, pounding His thighs like a tabla. Standing before Baba, Bhau repeated the line over and over again in Hindi. “Now my heart is terrified even to hear the name of love … Now my heart is terrified even to hear the name of love …” Half an hour passed, but Bhau did not understand what Baba meant.
Bhau was perspiring; Baba was also perspiring. Still Bhau had no idea what Baba was trying to make him comprehend. So he said, “Baba, I don’t follow, please don’t take this trouble for me. You are already burdened with seclusion work.”
Not once stopping his constant rhythmic pounding, Baba only gestured, “Continue.”
Bhau repeated the line again for another half hour, but he still had no notion of the poetic meter Baba was trying to convey. Again he pleaded, “Baba, it is too hot in here! Now, please stop!”
Baba again gestured, “Continue.” And once again for another fifteen minutes, the sound of Baba slapping His thigh to Bhau’s repetition of the same Hindi line went on.
Finding it monotonous, Bhau became more and more exasperated during this final fifteen minutes. He found it hard to concentrate because of the oppressive heat. Baba, too, was wringing with perspiration from the exertion. It had now been going on for an hour and fifteen minutes.
Bhau could not contain himself any longer and blurted out, “Baba, please stop now; I cannot follow anything!”
This time Baba looked at him in disgust and stated, “You are useless! Go sit down.” And he lay back down on his bed and continued to pound his thighs with his fists, as if he were playing a tabla.
Bhau sat in the chair feeling both foolish and sorry for having failed and for having displeased Baba. Then something wonderful happened. As he was sitting in the chair, all of a sudden it was as if a breeze of understanding blew across his mind — instantly he knew what Baba wanted! He understood how to write ghazals — the meters and style.
Immediately, without saying a word, Baba sat up in His bed, and snapping His fingers said, “Compose, compose!”
Within half an hour, Bhau composed the first ghazal of what was to become the book of ghazals titled by Baba, Meher Sarod.
He read it out, and Baba was quite pleased. He embraced Bhau and assured him, “Yes, this is what I want. Now, I will continue giving you one line or so every day, and you should continue composing in this way.”
Every day for two months, Baba would give Bhau one, sometimes two, sometimes many couplets from which to compose ghazals. Sometimes when Baba was in the mood, He Himself would compose the entire ghazal. At times, He would describe a story, such as about Sar Mast, Majnun & Laila, or Farhad & Shirin, or give Bhau points which He wanted him to versify. And each day when Bhau would go to Baba in the afternoon, Baba would inquire, “How many ghazals did you write today? Read them out.”
Some of the ghazals were composed in Baba’s room itself. At times, Bhau would be so absorbed in his thoughts after Baba had given a line that when Baba would gesture for water, Bhau would walk over to get it, but then forget what Baba wanted. He would stand there and look at Baba, thinking of the ghazal, and Baba would laugh and gesture again to bring the water.
Baba would sometimes ask Bhau to repeat a certain line, or sometimes the entire poem. Often Baba would embrace and kiss him, and gesture, “Do you know, have you any idea what you have written? How touching it is?
You have no idea how sublime it is — how high, how deep! You have no idea what you have written! Your writing flows; it flows like a river!”
Once, Bhau was with Baba during night watch, Baba would ask about the letters received. One day Bhau answered, “All of the letters seek just one thing — your darshan, and you do not give it!”
Explaining, Baba replied, “My work is different. It is not My work to travel continuously and hold darshan programs simply to allow people to bow down at My feet. It is not My work to give long discourses, to perform miracles, or to attract crowds to Me. I do not come for this. I come for all; I come to awaken all!
“Never before in any age have I given as much darshan to people as I have given during this advent. And still you and others complain! My darshan is something quite distinct.”
He continued to explain, “You have no idea what I am really doing. The more you stretch a bow, the greater the distance the arrow will fly and the harder it will hit the target. I am in seclusion now, yes, but I am drawing back My bow farther and farther so that when I release the arrow of My love, it will strike deep and wound the hearts of all. The wounds will make them have My darshan continuously. They will have that longing for Me, and that is My real darshan.”
Baba concluded, “I am working in seclusion to give the world My darshan. It is this darshan that will have meaning for those who love and know Me.”
Still, as His lovers went from place to place spreading His message, a greater and greater number of letters were received from people asking for darshan. Baba would hear these letters as they were read aloud in mandali hall, those in English and Gujarati by Eruch, and the Hindi ones by Bhau. Those in Persian were read by Aloba.
An entire week passed by, during which Bhau had no opportunity to read aloud those letters forwarded to him. On the morning of the eighth day, Bhau took the considerable stack of letters with him into the hall, thinking that that day Baba would hear them and dictate suitable replies.
Baba looked at him and gestured, “Today, I have got a headache; you reply to them.”
As soon as he conveyed this, a thought came into Bhau’s mind: “What sort of God is he? His lovers are really great.
Bhau pleaded, “Baba, don’t say anything now. You are in terrible pain. Wait and tell me when you are better.”January 24th was also Francis’ birthday and he received an embrace from Baba. During Bhau’s watch on the night of the 24th, Baba gestured to him, “Listen carefully to what I say. I am giving you very important work. I want you to write My biography in verse.” As He was gesturing, Baba would get frequent sharp jolts, and Bhau’s heart broke at seeing His suffering while He was straining to communicate.
But Baba went on giving him instructions. When he got the jolts, He would stop and lie quiet for a few moments; then He began again. Seeing his Beloved suffer so was the most painful sight of Bhau’s life.
Baba instructed: “Write 800 pages. Write in a simple and engaging way. Make it interesting. Make it instructive. Use four types of meters. Include the lives of the five Perfect Masters at the beginning, and also My father’s life.
“Save 100 pages for My manifestation. I will give you the meters and also tell you about my manifestation later. Don’t worry. I will explain everything to you.”
Bhau listened and did not interrupt. To ask Baba anything at such a crucial moment would only have added to His suffering. Besides, Bhau thought, he would ask Baba for clarification when Baba improved.
It took nearly one hour for Baba to convey what He wished Bhau to write, and in the end Baba added, referring to Bhau’s writing in Hindi, “Always remember that I like your writing very much. Even if the world finds fault with it, you should not mind. I tell you honestly, remember it, I like your writing very much. And when I like it, what more do you want?”
This scene in Baba’s room on the night of 24th January 1969, will always was before Bhau’s eyes; he alone knows this story of tears. Meher Darshan (the biography in Hindi verse) and Meher Prabhu (the biography in Hindi prose) are the results of Baba’s final instructions given then. As Bhau later recollected: “It was His wish that I write it, and by doing so, I have fulfilled his last orders to me.”
Baba repeated this to Bhau on several occasions during these last days. While Bhau was on watch, Baba explained, “John was the youngest of Christ’s disciples. Christ used to kiss and loved him dearly. Similarly, I love you. I love all, but this is My personal love.”
On the afternoon of 30th January 1969, Baba did His Universal work as usual. Bhau was with him in his room, and had to beat Baba’s chest with his fists as he had been instructed. After this final day of working, tears flowed down Baba’s cheeks. Baba looked up at Bhau and then drew Bhau to himself and embraced him. Baba looked completely exhausted and in anguish. His body had been broken into pieces, crushed after being ground in the mill of the forces of creation’s universal suffering.
On the 30th January 1969, Baba dictated four prescient lines to Bhau, which Bhau often quoted in the months after Baba dropped His body:
Sab ke sab khamosh the
Aur mae uchal ke kood gaya
Kuch nahi ke madhyam se
Sab kuch nikal ke reh gaya
(All were silent.
And I jumped up and leapt away.
From the Nothing
Everything went away.)
Later, Baba began moving His fingers to give Bhau another line for a ghazal, and was overtaken by a terrible spasm. Bhau pleaded with Him, “Baba, please do not dictate anything now. You are in too much pain. Give me when you are feeling better.” And Baba stopped.
After a short while, Baba sent for Eruch and gestured, “My condition is serious.”
Eruch said, “We feel that also, Baba, but we are helpless against your will.”
Bhau was feeling bad that he had not been able to strike Baba’s chest that afternoon as forcefully as Baba wished. To console him, Baba asked Eruch, “How do you find Bhau?”
“Bhau is matchless,” Eruch replied. Baba gestured for him to leave.
Bhau Kalchuri was a relative latecomer to Meher Baba’s circle, meeting Meher Baba in 1952 and joining him permanently in 1953 at the age of 27. He served Meher Baba in various capacities including as his night watchman. Meher Baba gave Bhau several writing assignments, many of which he completed only after Meher Baba died in 1969. In 1973 Bhau became a trustee of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust. Today he is its chairman and oversees all operations at the trust office in Ahmednagar and the trust mandated developments at Meherabad, India.
Kalchuri is best known for his exhaustive biography of Meher Baba, Lord Meher (also known as Meher Prabhu), a twenty volume 6,472 page chronicle based on diaries kept by Baba’s followers from as early as 1922, as well as recorded interviews. He is also author of Avatar Meher Baba Manifesting and The Nothing and The Everything, a book on spiritual mechanics based on notes given to him by Meher Baba. He has also written several plays and books of verse. Bhau writes in Hindi and English.
Bhau Kalchuri was one of the most publicly accessible figure in his life time. Kalchuri had given talks all around the world on the life and teachings of Avatar Meher Baba, and published online periodical Awakenings. Starting in 1985, he had made extensive speaking tours both inside and outside of India, predominantly the United States, but also many trips to Europe and Australia. He had been interviewed in both press and radio.
He published following English books
>Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher, the Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba. Bhau Kalchuri, Manifestation, Inc. 1986, a 20-volume biography was published by him taken from numerous diaries and personal interviews conducted by him.
>Meher Baba’s New Life
>Avatar of the Age Meher Baba Manifesting
>While the World Slept (>The Nothing and the Everything
>Let’s Go To Meherabad)
>Mastery in Servitude
>Meher Geetika
>Meher Roshani
>Meher Sarod
>Ocean Waves, Volume I and II)
>Sun Rays
Hindi books published by him are as under.
>Divya Leela (play)
>Jai Meher (play)
>Meher Darshan
>Meher Jyoti (Flame) (songs)
>Meher Leela (biography of Meher Baba up until 1965 in verse)
>Prem Mahima (The Glory of Love) (play)
>Vishvas (Faith) (play)
>You Alone Exist (prayer)
(Source: ambprasarkendra)
Bhau Kalchuri – obituary Telegraph.co.uk
Bhau Kalchuri was an Indian disciple of the ‘incarnation of God’, Meher Baba, who captured the mute guru’s life in Hindi verse
Bhau Kalchuri, who has died aged 86, was an Indian writer and poet, and the biographer and close disciple of Meher Baba (1894-1969), an Indian guru famous for, among other things, not uttering a word during the last 44 years of his life.
Meher Baba, also known as “The Compassionate One”, claimed to be the Avatar — the most recent incarnation of God, following in the footsteps of such figures as Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed.
Attaching no importance to “creed, dogma, caste systems or religious ceremonies and rites”, he boiled down his teaching into a list of “realities” that included love of God, self-sacrifice, respect for others, self-discipline and calm in adversity. He taught that true self-realisation comes about over millions of reincarnations — a process he called “involution”. For the last silent 44 years of his life, he communicated with an alphabet board and eventually only with hand gestures.
Baba’s teachings caught on in the West, where he became something of a celebrity. In the 1930s he travelled to America and hobnobbed with Hollywood stars such as Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, Tallulah Bankhead, Boris Karloff, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks junior He also travelled to Britain on the same ship as Mahatma Gandhi. The pair were reported to have had several meetings at which (according to his followers) Baba advised Gandhi to abandon politics, provoking a sharp response from an aide to the Mahatma: “You may say emphatically that Gandhi never asked Meher Baba for help or for spiritual or other advice.”
In the 1950s Baba established a spiritual centre in South Carolina, and in the 1960s was one of several Indian gurus whose teachings caught on with hippies and pop stars of the era. He provided the inspiration for Pete Townshend’s pop opera character Tommy — the deaf, dumb and blind boy who “sure played a mean pinball” — while his slogan, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy’’ inspired a notably irritating song by Bobby McFerrin in 1988 (it was subsequently used to savagely ironic effect in war movies).
Baba’s travels enabled him to fulfil a prophecy that he would shed his blood in both East and West in his mission to bring the world together. His “Cross” was the motor car: he was injured in two road accidents, one in the United States in 1952, the other in India in 1956.
In the jargon of his followers, Baba “dropped his body” in 1969. For the last 16 years of his life Kalchuri had been one of his closest disciples (or mandala), serving as his nightwatchman, secretary and translator. Among other things, Baba encouraged “Bhau” (“Brother” in Hindi) Kalchuri to write songs, poetry and Hindi forms of Persian ghazals (love poems to God). Before he died Baba also asked him to write his biography — also in Hindi verse, tapping out the metre he wanted him to employ.
Kalchuri prepared the ground by writing a prose version in English — a massive 6,472-page chronicle in 20 volumes, finishing the work in eight months in 1971, writing 18 hours a day. His physical endurance was extraordinary: food and the call of nature were secondary to his work for his master.
Vir Singh Kalchuri was born on January 13 1927 into a prosperous Rajput family in Katangi, Madhya Pradesh. After a degree in public administration, law and science at Nagpur University, he took graduate studies.
In 1952, however, the course of his life was changed by a chance meeting with Meher Baba at a public gathering. “From a distance, I saw him. He was so radiant, so glorious,” Kalchuri recalled. When Kalchuri pleaded to become his disciple, Baba asked: “Will you obey my instructions? If I ask you to become naked and go begging, will you?” Kalchuri assented and began to undress, but Baba stopped him. In 1953, after completing his studies, Kalchuri became, at 27, the youngest resident mandala of Meher Baba’s ashram.
After Baba’s death, Kalchuri devoted himself to keeping his flame alive, publishing several more books, serving as chairman of the Avatar Meher Baba Trust in India and travelling round the world to spread his teachings. He was meticulous in answering every card, letter or email sent to him, and held weekly sessions on Skype.
“God alone exists,” he proclaimed. “Whatever we see existing, exists in non-existence.”
Bhau Kalchuri, born January 13 1927, died October 23 2013
[Telegraph.co.uk : 7:35PM GMT 22 Jan 2014]
Publications
English published
The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba. Bhau Kalchuri, Manifestation, Inc. 1986. 20-volume biography taken from numerous diaries and personal interviews conducted by Mr. Kalchuri.
Hindi
TAGS: BHAU KALCHURI | MEHER BABA’S TRUST CHAIRMAN AMBPPCT | BIOGRAPHER OF MEHER BABA |
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