Sri Prahlad Chandra Brahmachari

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Sri Prahlad Chandra Brahmachari was born in the remote village of

Purushottampur in Orrisa province of India. The family was very poor

and had to endure much hardship. In his boyhood he had to go out and

beg, not just for himself but for the whole family. In his teens the

young Prahlad was sent by his father to work at the house of a

wealthy man as a servant. It was some distance from home. At that

place one day he was walking along the river with the children of

the house. Some sweets were with them. Prahlad gave sweets to the

children and ate some himself. The woman of the house saw this

incident and reported it to her husband, who then gave Prahlad a

severe beating. In despair he ran away from that place, traveling

without ticket, to the station at Waltair where the ticket taker

found him and threw him off the train.

After a while of begging for food in that town a kindly person told

him he whe would do much better to go up to up the nearby mountain

where he would find lots of fruits growing. And since it was a place

where many sadhus, or holy men, stayed he could collect wood for

them for their sacred fire ceremonies and they would share their

food with him. It was a holy place near a temple of Nri Singha, the

god who was half man, half lion.

 

Baba said: "You have to climb up the stones one by one. It was very

treacherous. If you fell down from there it was certain death. With

great struggle I went up and I saw a flat land. There were many

fruit trees and an image of Nrisingha. I had darshan."

 

Baba stayed in the forest near the temple of Nri Singha.

(Coincidentally, it was at this place in olden times where a boy

saint, also named "Prahlad," had done austerities for the

realization of God).

 

One night there in the deep jungle he had an encounter one night

with a mysterious personage whom he ever after referred to

simply "my guru." He had awakened in the night with a terrible

nightmare that his parents had died and he had not been able to be

there. He believed the dream to be the reality and was crying and

sobbing in sorrow and despair. Then the man appeared out of the

jungle.

 

He described the man as being huge, a giant of a man, incredibly

tall and wearing nothing but a loincloth and a bag over his shoulder

in the manner of a sadhu. The man asked Prahlad "Why are you crying?"

 

Prahlad replied "Because my mother and father have died and I could

not be with them before they died."

 

The great man comforted the boy and assured him that this had been

only a dream, and that he should go back to his parents and he would

find that they were alright. Baba relates what happened next in his

own words:

 

"There was an ordinary bag on his shoulder. From that bag he gave me

25 rupees. To me it seemed that I gotten a great amount of wealth! I

was very poor. I had never gotten any money. Twenty-five rupees!

Hari Baba! Getting that money I felt like a rich man.

 

"He said in Oriya: 'Get a ticket at Waltair station with this money

and go to Jajpur.'

 

"I was so happy. He turned to leave and had gone two or three steps

when I said, 'Thakur, Oh Thakur! Won't my life ever amount to

anything?'

 

"Then suddenly he stopped and turned around... his image... it is

beyond description! I cannot describe him in words. He came running

back and got some leaves from the forest. And pulling out my tongue,

he pressed the leaves and cut my tongue down the middle. When he was

pulling my tongue I felt like my life was going. 'Oh! I am dying! I

am dying!'

 

"Then when he gave the juice, as soon as he gave the juice it felt

as sweet as honey. If there is such honey in God's world I have

never found it. Getting that sweet honey my hairs stood on end. What

peace my body received!

 

"Then that great man put his hand on my head and said: 'Through you

a great work will be done. Go. Go back to your place. A lot of work

will be done through you.' He did not give me any mantra. No

mantras, only that juice on the tongue."

 

I have never heard of such an incredible initiation into the

mysteries. The sadhu searching the woods for some particular plant

leaves, making a juice, then taking the sharp thorny stem of some

leaf, pulling out the tongue and making a cut about two inches long.

The scar would be there for the rest of his life. And then into the

cut on the tongue, the juice. Instantly, Baba later would say,

everything was transformed by the juice on the tongue. He saw Guru

and he saw God. He said it was sweeter than the sweetest honey. To

this day we do not know what plant it was. Was it the possibly

fabled "soma" medicine the Rishis sang of in the ancient Vedas? Was

it a psychotropic substance, as it would seem from Baba's

description?

 

He was never to meet his guru again in the flesh after that night.

He remained in the forest for a while, wandering about looking for

this amazing giant man. He approached a number of sadhus asking if

they had seen such a huge man, hands this big, feet that big. They

answered in amazement: "You saw him? Why did you let him go?"

 

One day, still in that area, while sitting by a tree in a semi-doze

he had a clear vision of that man again, his Guru. The Guru told him

not to bother looking for him in the physical form. He said that he

would alway be with him and would come to him hereafter in visions

and in dreams. And so it happened. Whoever Prahlad's Guru really was

he would be able to make Baba to know things that were to happen in

the future. The story of this incident seems the stuff of myth and

legend.

 

After this he returned home there was a most joyous homecoming. The

parents, who had feared their son was dead, were beside themselves

to have him safely back in their arms. But Prahlad could not help

but suffer to see that his parents were in such dire poverty. After

some time left for Calcutta to try to earn some money and ease the

destitution of his family. There was little work there and he spent

years as a beggar, selling rice by the roadside, washing pots and

pans at a bread shop, and sending what few rupees he could to his

mother and father.

 

But he always remembered and was haunted by his encounter with the

sadhu (holy man) in the forest. He began to spend more of his nights

in meditation by the banks of the Ganges river, where many secrets

of yoga were gradually revealed to him. He became a sadhu himself

and a temple priest, first in a remote village called Kuldanga, and

later in another village called Ramanathpur where his ashram still

functions and his body is buried.

 

It is a matter of sad acceptance that so many wonderful and

miraculous stories of his life went unrecorded and known only to

those few involved. He never had the slightest inclination to

consider himself a great man or to gather a large flock of

disciples. He was instead the perfect disciple himself of that

mysterious being he called his Guru, and an ardent worshipper of

that majestic force and presence he called simply "Mother."

 

Baba made three visits to America, the first in 1976, where he lived

as simply as he did in India, doing his daily worship and meeting

with whomever showed up at the door. His holy company brought untold

joy and inspiration to all who met him. The many wonderful stories

of his life will gradually be published on this website, as well as

the reminiscences of friends and disciples.