Baba Jindanath: The Living Fireplace of Faith

Late March, 2026

About 250 years back, a boy was born in village Moi on the 14th day of the Chaitra lunar month. Born in a farmer family, he was named Jaspal.

The family kept cattle and buffaloes. It was normal for the boys to take the buffaloes and cows for grazing in the surrounding scrub forest and pastures around the village.

Boy Jaspal had a spiritual attitude to life right from the beginning.

One day Baba Mastanath met him while the boy was preparing to return to his village with his cattle. Baba Mastanath said to him that he wanted to eat kheer.

Being respectful towards ascetics, Jaspal said he would go back to his house and return with kheer because it could not be prepared in the forest, as there was no rice and no milk.

But the Baba said, “If you are a true devotee of God, you will prepare kheer here itself.”

Jaspal explained helplessly that none of the buffaloes was lactating at the time, and moreover there was no rice or sweet to make kheer.

Baba pointed to a buffalo that had never calved, had never given a calf.

“Go and milk that one,” the Baba said.

The Baba gave him his kamandal and asked Jaspal to milk the barren buffalo, which had never given a calf in its life.

Miraculously, milk came out of the udder of a buffalo that had never been pregnant even once in its life.

Baba Mastanath then asked Jaspal to prepare kheer.

Jaspal said he would have to go back to his village to get rice and gur, jaggery.

The Baba then picked a bone and dropped it in the milk, and as it was boiled on fire, kheer was prepared.

Baba Mastanath told him that he had come to make him enlightened, like Gopichand and Bharthari.

“Eat this kheer and turn immortal,” Baba said.

But Jaspal hesitates. He doesn't feel like eating the kheer because Baba Mastanath had dropped a bone in the milk to prepare it. For courtesy's sake, he says that he doesn't eat a sadhu's food; instead, we offer them something.

Despite repeated requests, Jaspal doesn't eat the kheer.

Lastly, the Baba himself served kheer on the leaves and ate it and left the place after some time.

Strangely Jaspal got terribly hungry after the Baba left and could not help eating. He licked the leaves on which the Baba had eaten, and it triggered disenchantment with worldliness in the boy.

He followed the Baba to his Math at Asthal Bohar. He repents and asks him to bestow liberation upon him.

Baba made him his disciple.

He asked him to do tapasya at the place where they had met.

“On the 14th of Asoj, Mother Earth will embrace you in her divine lap and you will take a living samadhi, a jinda samadhi. You will be famous as Baba Jindanath.”

Jaspal returned and performed tapasya at the place for many years.

The said day arrived.

On this occasion mother Earth parted and took him into her maternal lap for a living samadhi, jinda samadhi.

As he was entering Mother Earth, a Brahmin saw him. He ran to inform his family.

Jaspal's sister-in-law cared for him like she was a mother and he a son. When she came to know that her son-like brother-in-law was taking samadhi, she came running to the spot and requested him to come back to their house.

Jaspal asked her if she also wanted liberation, she was free to accompany him to the real home, the abode of God.

And without hesitating, without thinking twice, she also jumped into samadhi.

Both of them entered samadhi while completely alive and conscious.

Now, to commemorate this great spiritual event, a big fair is organized twice a year, on the 14th of Asoj and the 14th of Chaitra month.

Farmers offer jaggery and brooms at the samadhi temple to seek the Baba's blessings. On this occasion, about 20,000 quintals of jaggery and a big mound of brooms collect at the site, so that gives an indication of how many devotees throng the temple shrine on the holy occasion.

The temple is a Siddha Mandir, a samadhi memorial of Saint Baba Jindanath.

It has an open courtyard. The renovated temple has imposing carved pillars and domes and arches. The garbhagriha has Baba Jinda's samadhi. There is grand stonework in the interior.

From earlier brick and lime paste, now it is extensive stonework in russet brown on the outside and marble inside.

And as me and my brother stand in this grand monument of sacrifice and thirst for divine love, which drew Baba Jindanath into a living samadhi, driven by the divine unquenchable thirst, unless and until one meets with the cosmic Father of ultimate realization, it showers joy and blessings on us.

Standing here, sitting here, absorbed in the beautiful carved stones, recalling the great spiritual happening that occurred two and a half centuries ago, it's a wonderful feeling in this March, when the wheat crop around in the surrounding fields is acquiring ripening colours.

It's like being at any other holy place, the lofty spiritual places like Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri.

That is small-time India's charm, spiritually redolent with its local saints and sages who graced Earth and did tapasya for the beneficence of the local people, the farmers, the poor people in the countryside.

They guided them. They still keep inspiring millions.

On the days when the fair is held in commemoration of the great spiritual happening of Jaspal turning into Baba Jindanath by going into a living samadhi, the farmers and poor people come here with faith, open-heartedness, honesty and simplicity, and offer jaggery and brooms, the simple things that they can afford, and seek blessings for the welfare of their cattle and their family.

It's a living fireplace of faith and blessings that still spreads kindness, love and healing for the people around.