Tat Wala Baba

what do you think about him? IF somebody is his devotee?

For those who are oblivion of Tatwala Babaji, below are two instances quoted by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who passed away earlier this year at Holland.

Tat Wala Baba

During the Teacher Training Course with Maharishi in the Academy of

Meditation Shankaracharya Nagar in Rishikesh at the end of 1969, a

course that included many of the greatest luminaries of the Movement,

the course participants asked Maharishi if the famous recluse saint

Tat Wala Baba could come to visit the course, as had happened in

previous courses. Tat Wala Baba was living in a cave about three miles

up in the hills behind our Academy. It was his custom to only come out

once a day for one hour to let visitors enjoy his darshan. There was a

lean-to just below his cave for this purpose.

He was a very powerful man, very muscular like a wrestler, with

matted hair that fell all the way to the ground. Maharishi said of him

that he seemed to be in a good state of Unity Consciousness.

Maharishi agreed to invite Tat Wala Baba to come to speak to the

course, and sent Brahmachari Shankerlalji, a very elderly and blissful

Brahmachari, who had been Maharishi's Guru Bhai when Maharishi was

Guru Dev's Brahmachari, and who lived out all his final years in

Maharishi's Academy of Meditation in Rishikesh (except for one time in

1970 when Maharishi sent him to Japan for a trip to see the Movement

there). Maharishi also sent Bevan to accompany Shankerlalji to go to

the cave and invite Tat Wala Babaji.

They drove as far as the could into the forest down a narrow track,

and then climbed the final section up the hill. They found Tat Wala

Baba had just come out for his daily Darshan and was sitting listening

to a Pandit who was chanting slokas from a big book that was open in

front of him.

Shankerlalji and Bevan respectfully greeted Tat Wala Babaji, and then

Shankerlalji conveyed Maharishi's invitation to come to speak to the

course. Tat Wala Babaji immediately stood up, saying to the Pandit and

the others who had come to see him: "Maharishiji is calling I have to

go," and put on his sandals and started walking down the hill.

He came in the car through the forest to the Academy, pulling up

outside the lecture hall where the course was meeting with Maharishi.

The lecture hall was approached from the back down a ramp, and as Tat

Wala Babaji entered the ramp the course participants could see him

coming, and indicated to Maharishi that he had arrived. Maharishi came

immediately from his seat, and as he turned the corner up the ramp, at

the moment he first saw Tat Wala Babaji, Maharishi's face lit up like

the sun from the joy.

There followed a beautiful session of questions and answers with the

course with Maharishi and Tat Wala Babaji sitting hand in hand - an

experience that no one there will ever forget.

* * *

On another occasion a visitor to the Academy went up to see Tat Wala

Babaji. When he arrived, he found another visitor there, a businessman

from Delhi, who asked where our meditator was coming from. He said he

came from Maharishi. The businessman scoffed, saying he should study

some Indian philosopher from Oxford instead. So our meditator said,

"Why not ask Tat Wala Babaji his opinion of Maharishi," to which the

businessman agreed.

Tat Wala Babaji responded to the question, speaking very rapidly in

Hindi, going on for about 15-20 minutes. As he continued, the

businessman looked increasingly crestfallen. At the end our meditator

asked, "What did Tat Wala Babaji say?" The businessman replied, "He

said, 'Maharishi knows everything.'"