Babaji said that the guru has two hands, one to slap and the other to support. Babaji used both of these hands to teach and guide us away from our worldly egos towards a better understanding and towards Bhagwan.
When I had been with Babaji for about one year a family who had been there when I first arrived came to visit Babaji. I felt very important that I had been a whole year with Babaji and inside me the ugly inclination to show my importance raised itself.
I thought I had found an ideal opportunity in the evening when one of Babaji’s sadhvi disciples brought a cup of milk to him. Before giving him the milk she would usually give him some chyavanprash, an ayurvedic tonic. As I was sitting near to the place where the jar of chyavanprash was kept and as the little cave was full of devotees, she asked me to pass it to her. Instead of doing so as I usually would, I quickly opened the jar and took out a small amount of the tonic and rolled it into a ball as I had seen Ganga Mai do. Leaning forward I put the ball near to Babaji’s mouth for him to eat. However, much to my chagrin, instead of leaning forward and eating the tonic from my outstretched hand as I had expected him to do, Babaji leant backwards with an expression of absolute disgust on his face and asked, “Should I eat from her hand?” “Of course not,” everyone chorused and the jar was quickly taken out of my hand leaving me holding the sticky lump of rejected chyavanprash.
I was seething with anger. Far from my making the impression that I had hoped for, it seemed to me that Babaji had deliberately humiliated me in front of everyone. My mind was furious, saying “How dare he do this to me!” and without understanding my own mistake, I left the cave as soon as I got a chance. I was so angry I could not sleep at night and decided that I would not speak to Babaji the next day. I tried to be outwardly polite to everyone in the morning but tried to indicate to Babaji how angry I was.
My anger, however, was gradually turning into misery and like a child who tries to be cross with its mother, by afternoon I was really missing Babaji. After lunch Babaji went over to the math and sat on the beach. Although there was no one else there, I sat a little way away from him still trying to show my anger. Babaji sat quietly not looking at me. Although I was trying to pretend that I did not want to sit by him, I kept wishing he would call me but he didn’t.
After a while a visitor came and placing a small bag near Babaji as an offering he sat down and spoke with Babaji for a while before he left. When he had gone Babaji gently called me, “Nani ji.” I rushed over to him and sat down my eyes brimming with tears. Babaji asked me “What’s in the bag?” I looked and replied, “Oranges, Babaji.” Babaji said ever so gently, “Peel one and feed it to me.” “But you don’t eat from my hands,” I burst out, with tears running down my face and filled with the pain of stupidity. Babaji looked at me with his big compassionate eyes and said “I can’t eat (something offered) from pride, but I can eat (something offered) from love”.
Nani Mai
Reflection by Kanshi Ram
Because of our identification with the psycho-physical organism, we remain under the sway of our dispositional traits and behave accordingly. We feel good when we hear our praise and feel offended when we are disregarded and censured. Our mind is disturbed and we feel weakened in our persistence towards the spiritual growth. It is our guru who helps us overcome the traits which are detrimental to spiritual progress. Babaji had the capacity to identify the weaknesses of his disciples and seized the right opportunity to help the disciple be free from those attitudes and traits which generally hinder spiritual progress of the seeker disciple. This fact has been beautifully illustrated by the anecdote presented by Nani Ma.
Indeed without guru one cannot identify and overcome one’s defects and weak points.