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Shivpuri, the erstwhile summer capital of Scindia dynasty, is a staid and dozy town of northwest M.P some hundred kilometres away from Gwaliorand Jhansi. Why did sybarite Scindias choose this town in boonies to be the summer capital of theirs? Was it because of its eerie peace?Was it because of its craggy demography? Was it because of its multifarious culture or unusual bonhomie? Or was it because of its lush green surroundings, viridity, natural idyll, thick dense forest, vibrant ecology or rich flora and fauna? It may be anybody's conjecture or it may be asked form the Scindias pushing up daisies over there. But today we are remembering Shivpuri not because of the fact that it happened to be the summer capital of this or that dynasty. We are remembering it for the reason juxtaposed the material or mundane one. We simply take you back to some half a century ago. It was Behata a small sleepy hamlet of our town of consideration Shivpuri. There lived a family of regent known as Thakur Badam Singh Saheb in the village. It was a deep dark night of no moon but gravid with epoch-making possibility. The wife of Thakur Saheb was confined and about to deliver a baby. The denizens of the hamlet were about to doss down after completing their domestic chores when there came a flash. Suddenly the village that had no oomph otherwise converted into vigour and vivacity. Amid the hustle and bustle of the Haveli of Thakur Saheb there descended the news that Thakur Saheb was blessed with a son. The entire village suddenly shed its slumber, people left their hovels and hutches and made beeline for Thakur Saheb's place. It looked as if it were not the night of no moon but of the thousand full-blown moons or as if thousands of suns dazzled past. The epoch making phenomenon got the shape and size and came to known as Raghuvir. The people of the hamlet knew it intuitively that the hamlet was simply enveloped by some history defining moments and someone extra-ordinary had knocked the portals of their village.
Raghuvir, as the boy came to be known, started growing up with all the childish pranks and prattle. He was the cosseted child of Thakur Saheb, blue-eyed lad of the village courtyard and the common friend of the rustic hobbledehoys. Right from the beginning the parents of the child knew that the boy was having some extra-ordinary aura and certainly had got some super natural capacity which time would unfold albeit only at the right moment.Then came the schooling and the boy was given the school bag. Raghuvir started attending a local school. Here too, owing to his captivating capacity he became the cynosure of all eyes and in no time he became the heartthrob of the teachers, administration and the schoolmates all alike. Once, while prancing in the school Raghuvir found that one of his girl schoolmates was weeping in one corner or the other of the classroom. She was all alone sobbing inconsolably and no one was interested in her. Raghuvir went up to her, patted her shoulders and asked what was wrong with her. Amid sobs the girl replied, " Brother! I'm not in a position to continue my studies because I'm in a financial straighijacket. So I have to leave the school and studies as well" The little dove Raghuvir was deeply moved and assured her assumed sister to shed the ripples of anxiety and stay relaxed, he'd arrange all the money and financial help required for the purpose. And to fulfil his promise the innocent little boy Raghuvir, unbeknownst to his parents and elders, worked hard, earned money and arranged the fee of the poor girl.
The racehorses are discerned in the paddock itself - goes a wisecrack. The primary teacher of the boy Raghuvir Mr Shaligram Sharma knew his spiritual prowess much before anybody else could whiff it off. The boy Raghuvir was in class 4. But even at that time his teacher became his first spiritual disciple taking Deeksha from him. And then there came some more teachers in the row namely Bateshwar Dayal Shrivastav and Thakur Ramrakchcha Pal Singh - both principals.
At the tender age of 7 Raghuvir surrendered himself into the feet of a god-realised saint Pujyapad Swami Ramgiri Ji Maharaj and from here begins his rigorous spiritual training that lasted for many more years to come. At the age of 14 he went into a complete incommunicado, left his parental abode and moved to mystic and mighty Himalayas for more stringent and biting spiritual training. Spent some good amount of time in the proximity of the Lamas of Tibet and learnt the intricacies of highly esoteric science of Tantra. Then he came under the tutelage of Swami Ji Maharaj of Datia and on his behest devoted his time at Pitambara Peeth-Datia, Kamakhya Peeth-Assam, and under the benevolent shade of enlightened souls like Paramhans Baba Bajrangdas Mahatyagi, Samade Wale Paramhans, Om Sarkar and Mahayogini Ma Paramsidha to reinvigorate his spiritual energy.
Now the boy Raghuvir is a young colt. The study is over and so is the marriage. He is now Dr. Raghuvir Singh Gaur - attaining doctorate in Law. But his real battlefield was neither the academics nor the day-to-day affair of a commoner. It lay somewhere else. It was in the spiritual Armageddon where he had to shape the destiny of humankind. The life defining moment in the life of Dr. Gaur was just inches ahead. On one fine occasion he found himself on the Samadhi of the present era's incarnation of the God Avatar Meher Baba at Ahmednagar. He was standing like everyone other in the long serpentine queue with a rose in his hand to offer his regards or tribute to the feet of Avatar. Then came his turn. He entered the tomb. But before he could offer rose to Baba, Baba emerged from his grave and gave him a tight clench. Such was the impact of the Avataric embrace of Baba that the petals of the rose were pestled to powder and the sap reddened the side pocket of his long Kurta. It all happened in the divine consciousness and in a timeless dimension. Nobody around the tomb knew what happened and in which way? When Dr. Gaur returned to his worldly consciousness he found that the other persons in the queue were getting restive and asking him to leave the place for others. Dr. Gaur was in ecstatic delirium. When he told about this divine embrace to the fellow devotees standing hither and thither around the tomb and even in side the tomb nobody could believe it. Then he showed the crushed petals of the rose, the incarnadine smear of the sap of rose on the side pocket of his Kurta. But even then it was hard to stomach. But then much to the bewilderment of everybody the same ruddy splotch was seen on the side of the cloak of Baba's portrait which is perched behind his grave in the tomb. Seeing this people around there went berserk and took away even the last residue of the crushed rose.
The hug of Baba was supposed to be his silent approval to kick-start the pivotal worldwide task of permeating the message of love and spiritual consciousness amongst us the lost and deviated souls. Dr. Gaur blasted the irrevocable and invincible bugle to conquer the world spiritually. He founded the World Spiritual Foundation with its Head Office at Shivpuri.
That was why we remembered Shivpuri at the beginning of the essay and maintained that it was pregnant with the epoch making phenomenon.
Now, we will peek through a large hall in Shivpuri. Hundreds of devotees are sitting in the hall. The notes of music and mellifluous Bhajans are taking the hall into the magical loop. The entire atmosphere transcends from real to ethereal. A lady sitting in the hall suddenly yells and falls on the ground; she is dithering and wallowing. From the other corner of the room there appears a white Kurta-payjama clad middle aged oustached man on the scene with some innocuous, electrifying and pious smile on his glowing face. He touches the dithering lady from his fingers and the lady returns to normal. At the same time on the other corner of the room a man starts jumping and bumping, flinging his hands or thumping his chest and then bursting into a loud guffaw. This time the man in white even does not move because some of the semiconscious devotees are coiled around his legs and some little ones - not in there senses - are agglutinated on his shoulders. But without moving an inch he dribbles his fingers as if somebody were zapping a remote towards the leapfrogging man and the man calms down. And bingo! What happens over there? A dog sitting in the corner of the hall suddenly starts gnarling its body its eyes are mysteriously closed and it too looks into a deep trans. There is an infant in the hall too. It is in deep sleep. So what is new in it? The strange is that the infant is not in sleep but in trans as its fingers are in meditative gesture (chinmayi mudra). In the mean while another woman yowls and completely aloof of the atmosphere started dancing in delirium. Because of her asymmetrical steps and outre gesticulations she is about to fall on the ground but suddenly she stops and remains where she is. It looked as if she were a lump of iron stopped by some magnetic rays of a powerful magnet. The magnet indeed is the bright hued man - dabbing, wiggling and pointing his fingers and hands in such a fashion as if some invisible strings were tied up on his fingers and he is regulating, fashioning and guiding us marionettes from distance. This majestic, effulgent and coruscating Kurta-payjama clad middle-aged moustached man is none other than our own Dr. Raghuvir Singh Gaur who has got the power to make the lion behave like a poodle or make the hawk sing like a dove.
Now a pause is needed to delve deep into the bizarre going on the hall. What the hell broke loose in the hall? Why people like us, who are otherwise perfectly normal, are behaving like this. Are they crazy? Are they moonstruck? Is something driving them bonkers? The Doubting Thomases may carve the explanation suitable to their choice. They may call it hypnotism and Dr. Gaur a wizard. They may subscribe it mesmerism and Dr. Gaur a prestidigitator. By stretching the same kind of logic some naysayer would call it autosuggestion. But the reality lies somewhere else.
Before espousing the reality let us shred apart these arguments first. The votaries of hypnotism and mesmerism should know that mesmerism and hypnotism should be applied to the entire audience or gentry in one simple go. After hypnotising or mesmerising the audience when a magician converts a football into a pigeon the entire audience sees it a pigeon. It is not the case that some in the audience see it a pigeon whereas some other find it a rabbit or something else. But the case of Dr. Gaur and his fellow devotees is altogether different. Here each devotee has a different idea ,opinion and action . so in no terms can this phenomenon be described as mesmerism or hypnotism. The supporters of the autosuggestion should note this fact. Only the conscious and developed mind can autosuggest itself. But is it possible for an infant of three four months to autosuggest itself or is it possible for an animal to autosuggest itself. The answer is a big negative. But in case of Dr. Gaur even infants and animals transcend the state of worldly consciousness and reach the unknown spheres of the mind. So the theory of autosuggestion also does not hold water.
So what is that goes on irresistibly with the followers of Dr. Gaur? In one plain simple word it is real meditation. In spiritual parlance there is a place in human body somewhere near the starting point of the spinal chord called Kundalini. It is supposed that the vital life power (pran-shakti) of a human being resides there and that too in a deep dogmatic slumber. A spiritual Master with the help of Shaktipaat (release of his spiritual potency ) vibrates the the equilibrium of kundalini. The pran-shakti awakens and starts moving upwards. Its ultimate destination is Brahma-randhra or Sahasrar where the ultimate consciousness or the Brahma or the God or whatever you may call it resides. When the individual soul (jeeva) reaches here there is a reunion and the part consumes in the whole; the drop mixes in the ocean shedding all its individuality (boond samani samund mein so kat heri jay) . The spiritual journey of the individual consciousness (Jeeva ) comes to an end . The task of the Spiritual Master is to help the ignorant individual being slough off his ignorance and attain this ultimate reunion. Being a Spiritual Master (Sadguru) Dr. Gaur does the same thing by his sheer proximity and the spiritual rays that emanate from his body the kundalini of the follower gets vibrated. The pran shakti starts moving upwards and the devotee starts doing awkward actions (kriyayen) which are not easily fathomable. the devotee does all these antics according to the sanskar (impressions) of the innumerable past births. And when these action (Kriyayen) takes place the sadguru evaporates, obliterates, effaces, and consumes them so that so the devotee become devoid of these sanskaras and love of God can replace the emptied place . The crux is that the extroversion of consciousness gets an inward turn and the internal journey gets a kick-start.
This is the real raison d'etre of what is happening in the said hall or why the devotees are making such tantrums. Neither is this mesmerism nor hypnotism nor for that matter autosuggestion. It's a real meditation which Dr.Gaur likes to call SUPRA MENTAL MEDITATION (MANATEET DHYAN).
There is one towering personality named Dr. G.S.N Moorthi. He is a disciple of Avatar Meher Saba and Saba called him the Vivekanand of the modem Age. Once he visited Shivpuri and spent some time with Dr. Gaur. He was so moved by the deep and compassionate persona of Dr. Gaur and so hooked on with the meditation method of Dr. Gaur that he could hardly resist and made a vociferous announcement before the local media men that Dr. Gaur was the first original founder of the Supra Mental Meditation. There is a famous nonagenarian INA soldier Colonel Gurubaksha Singh Dhillon who spends his life in the peaceful environs of Shivpuri. Once a question was asked from him how he felt in the proximity of Dr. Gaur. He took a pause, pondered a while and answered, " It is indeed difficult to give words to the feeling that I have being here with Dr. Gaur. Sut yes, there certainly is a magnetic force in Dr. Gaur which attracts me like anything. It looks as if there were some invisible strings which lasso me around and bring me here." Famous journalists Supriya Roy and Alok Indoria also possess same sort of feelings and experience.
Such is the irresistible charm of Dr. Gaur who lives in Shivpuri with Dr. Sirothia at his bungalow Lord Meher. From here he runs his World Spiritual Foundation whose sole belief is in Meher Saba's motto - 'Mastery in Servitude' (sewakai mein prabhutai). The foundation is busy serving the mankind head over heals. It is preparing the website of its own and also planning to come up with the world wide literature. The aim is to reach the poorest of the poor, the commoner and the mighty one without any discrimination and enhance them spiritually; the goal is to make people awake right from hoi-polloi to the king from their ignorance and torpor.
Dr. Gaur has a clarion call- 0 man, 0 lost man, 0 bereaved man! Come on, shed your ignorance, leave your suspicions, douse your doubts and come to my world. I'm right there stretching my arms and opening my chest and welcoming you. Come on, consume in me, and let your individuality perish. I will take you to the world where Avatar dwells with all his consciousness, bliss and ecstasy. Just come on, come on, come on!
Avatar Meher Saba ki Jai.
In His service,
[S. K. Shrivastav]
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