Baba Rajnath of Rohat

There is a beauty in observing Baba Rajnath evolve from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from consciousness that is normal consciousness towards superconsciousness.

And as a writer-observer, when I see him evolving—first from a seed, then into a plant, then into a tree, a majestic tree in full blossom, coming home—this is the process that I call a saint in the making.

Because the mythical ascetics and enlightened sages of the ancient past are presented to us as finished products, with an already established divinity. We have no other means of feeling their significance apart from putting our full faith in them.

But they too must have undergone their own process of making.

Because in this cosmos, whenever there is a particular reaching home in any domain of life, before that there is always a long journey—an arduous journey of making. And making is very challenging, very testing. One has to cross many hurdles.

Just look at a seed.

A delicate sapling sprouts from the potential contained within the little seed’s womb. First, it has to tear through the covering soil with the sheer force of its potential, and then it has to sprout forth. It has to catch every ounce of supporting energy—from sunlight to nutrition—to grab its chances of survival.

Then it has to bear the competition of fellow saplings on the surrounding ground. It has to face birds nibbling at its very soft sprouts, and later cattle, goats and sheep nibbling at it.

Still, it has to continue growing.

Then come the harsh elements of weather—the dry months, the excessively wet months when there is extra rain or even flooding, extreme heat and extreme cold.

It has to continue growing.

And one fine day, it becomes a majestic tree.

In between, it must also bear the human onslaught that is trying to clear away each and every part of Mother Earth.

So, just as the journey from a seed to a big tree has so many milestones, so many hurdles, so many challenges and so many tests, similarly, when it comes to the evolution of consciousness into superconsciousness—the seed being ordinary consciousness and superconsciousness being the fully grown tree—the entire journey goes through a similarly hard process.

It becomes a kind of pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage full of fears, doubts, hardships, physical ailments, skepticism from people and staying unprotected on the path.

It is such an arduous journey that observing it and watching it can itself become as significant as taking blessings from the finished product—an enlightened sage, somebody having superconsciousness, somebody having a plug into the universal and, therefore, being able to see life from a larger perspective and through bigger dimensions.

So when I watch Baba Rajnath’s journey on the path, I can see the blossoming of a seed towards the stature of a big tree.

I see an ordinary consciousness that started just like that of any other normal human being around us, and then, through sheer karma and the investment of mind, body and soul in one particular path—the path of devotion to his Guru, Baba Kudenath—began its long transformation.

It is a wonderful experience to observe.

Then something normally sanctified only on the mystical plane becomes visible on the physical plane, because you begin to peel away the hiding layers of mysticism.

When we hear stories about mythological sages and saints, there is always an element of skepticism: Could it really have happened like this?

But the basic significance of observing the journey of somebody like Baba Rajnath—somebody changing from ordinary into extraordinary, somebody evolving his consciousness towards superconsciousness—is that you begin to get tangible proofs, logical steps and reasonable validations.

You begin to understand: that’s how it is possible. That’s how it is done. That’s how things happen on the normal plane. That’s how a human being turns divine.

There is nothing miraculous about it.

It is a natural process, provided one puts an ample amount of mind, body and soul, in totality, on the path.

I have been observing Baba Rajnath closely for the last two decades, and even before that we had been hearing many stories about him in our village. So earlier, my understanding came through hearsay and observing him from a distance. But for the last twenty years, it has been close observation—spending time with him, holding very long discourses about his path and his life, and talking about almost every aspect of a human being’s life.

And through all this, it has become very clear to me that it is a beautiful process—the path of tapasya, of making himself, of forging his destiny.

And when I see him taking the long cut into the wilderness, into the unknown, to reach home—not taking any help at all, not taking any shortcut—it becomes even more fascinating to me.

Because I have been acquainted with, and have personal experience of studying, so many different types of spiritual streams in the modern day. Obviously, there are scientific techniques that modern spiritualists have evolved using ancient techniques as well as recent findings regarding the functioning of the brain.

There are now so many hybrid models of awakening the higher self, and these are effective as well. I accept that.

Through vibration, through music, through modern avatars of channelizing pranic energy, through different breathing exercises and through the latest inputs in the domain of knowledge, people can work upon themselves in ways that were perhaps not available earlier.

Because when you have an understanding of the way one’s brain functions, you have a better sense of channelizing the brain in a particular direction.

So there is a vast dimension in modern spirituality where scientific knowledge, scientific techniques and the latest so-called spirituality-boosting exercises can take a person onto a platform that, in earlier times, a yogi in the hills or mountains might have taken decades to reach.

That too is an accepted fact for me, because I have seen the effects of these techniques in people who are following them.

But when it comes to the journey of people like Baba Rajnath, they stand in a beautiful contrast.

They take the long cut.

There is a leap of blind faith into the unknown abyss.

That shows a certain fearlessness—a quitting of all safety guards.

I think this type of experience is possible only through taking a path such as Baba Rajnath has taken: abandoning the mainstream, not taking any support, having no supportive ecosystem and no guiding light apart from his complete faith in his Guru.

And I think the takeaway lies in the infinite number of experiences that one comes across on such an unknown path.

They are far, far more significant than the modern-day spiritual shortcuts.

And that makes the journey so beautiful that the journey itself becomes a lesson—with its pitfalls, its agonies, its fears, its great ecstatic moments and its uncertainty.

That element of uncertainty while moving towards the ultimate certainty is, for me, the fundamental factor that separates or differentiates his journey from modern-day spiritual techniques that can provide an effective shortcut towards realizing a higher state.

So when I observe his journey, I find it something very natural.

It is very close to Mother Nature.

And the fire of the furnace, the dark night of the soul that has lasted for so many decades, will obviously give rise to a product of great spiritual value.

And it will glitter like a lighthouse to guide others on the path.

 

A sanyasi calendar -- date scrawled on an earthen mound