Nani Mai
A young lady of twenty-two years came from England to India in search of Sadguru who could help her realise God. She was helped by the Panditji of Kankhal to pay a visit to Baba Shri Mastramji in 1971. After seeing Babaji, she did not feel like being away from his presence and with the permission of Babaji she stayed at Hanuman Shila.
In the beginning she was addressed as Gomati, a name that had been given her in a temple at Bageshwara. Later Babaji gave her the appellation ‘Nani’.
Since then, until now she is known as Nani Mai. When she was 29 years old she suffered from Tropical Sprue in the month of Shravana (August, 1977). The disease was so debilitating that she was reduced to a skeleton. With the whole body covered with wrinkles, she looked about ninety years old. A doctor visiting the Ashram saw her in that state and proposed to hospitalise her for the treatment of the disease. But Naniji flatly refused to be removed from the benign presence of Babaji. Her refusal to be hospitalised in such a precarious state of health shows her spiritual predilection and indifference to worldly affairs. One day Naniji told Babaji that she had dreamt that she had been given milk in a golden bowl to drink. Upon this Babaji said that she would be cured of the disease by taking only fresh milk of cow. By taking the fresh milk of cow she was cured of the disease by Holi, falling on 24th March, 1978. When she was free from Tropical Sprue, she again devoted herself wholeheartedly to contemplation on the nature of Self under the guidance of Babaji.
Babaji used to help her whenever she encountered any problem relating to spiritual practices. In 1986 Babaji asked Naniji to translate Atmacintanam (Contemplation on the Self) into English. While translating Atmacintanam, she asked Babaji about difficult expressions occurring in it. Babaji explained the knotty points of the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. In this way her translation, with notes, proved to be a great help in understanding the purport of Atmacintanam.
When Babaji left his physical form and attained Nirvana, Naniji had to leave the Ashram because of adverse circumstances. She then went to Gangotri and after sometime she moved from there to Uttarakashi. After the devastating floods had washed away the Ashram in Uttarakashi in 2013, she came to Rishikesh and settled in Gauhari Maphi village where she devoted herself to the construction of Hospice for the care of terminally ill cancer patients. This was a huge project for public welfare in which she was selflessly engaged (see Shankara on Shrimad Bhagavadgita 3.20).
In an interview with the speaking tree, she explains how Babaji guided her- “When I came to him, I was a clean book. First there was seva or service. I was already reading the Bhagavadgita. Along with that, he gave me the Tulsi Ramayana in English, and I loved it.
He saw I liked to read. After one or two years, I was asking him why it says this in one book and another thing in another. He said, ‘You’ll have to learn Sanskrit. Only if you read the original will you know what is said’, which I did.
Ashram
HANUMANSHILA, SWARG ASHRAM, RISHIKESH,
UTTARAKHAND.
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