Sri Siddhi Ma: The Story of Neem Karoli Baba's Spiritual Legacy: Interview with Author Jaya Prasada

[Music] me [Music] hi i'm nina rao welcome to my podcast on be here now network this is a very special episode that i recorded when i was in india in may this year 2022 right after it felt safe to travel during this pandemic time i left for india and the first person who i went to see there is jaya prasada my elder guru sister who is the author of this book sri siddhima the subtitle is the story of neem karoli baba spiritual legacy i met jaya um in 1998 the very first time that i had my first darshan vichri siddima and i have always felt a kindred sisterhood with her and it was really beautiful to spend time with her and to talk to her about the book and also outside the book now because we hadn't really planned this recording we did it with iphones my daughter uma helped me and we were sitting out on the patio where ma used to sit so though it seems very serene for us when we're sitting out there um actually you will get to hear a lot of familiar sounds of an indian household in the hills everything from crows to the pressure cooker people walking on the street a car driving by with music so i hope you will forgive those sounds we've done our best to you know try to remove those sounds as much as possible but also to make it more audible what it is that jaya and i are talking about if you are listening to this in audio only please know that we do have this on video with captions on the be here now network podcast page so you're welcome to come and take a look over there okay i hope you'll enjoy and thank you so much for listening and for being with us jay sitaram jaima namaskar this is nina rao from be here now network and i am so overjoyed and honored to be coming to you from the beautiful retreat home of sri sudhi which she named i am here with her companion devoted companion of 37 years who took care of sri satyaman and immersed herself in her divine presence and was with her when ma took her last birth in this home my dear guru sister my elder guru sister prasada thank you for being here today and we're here of course to talk about her much awaited book i know all of you have been asking me to hear more about sri siddhima and what better place to find it but in general's debut book entitled sri siddhima the story of neem karoli baba's spiritual legacy so much of the book in the beginning is about ma and maharaj and also ma's early life and her association with shri jivantima and also her life as a householder for a few years after that jaya goes on to talk about mars ashram activities and the time that they spent on yatra or spiritual pilgrimage thereafter she talks to us about this retreat home this beautiful home where ma actually would give darshan on this very porch that we're sitting on and we would be sitting out there in this view of the kumar hills and the town in the valley below called and at the very end we get a glimpse of the revelation of the divinity of sri siddhima i won't say more because you're going to have to read the rest so dale when i saw you a couple of years ago or more than kogit i don't know where the time has gone but after ma left i asked when would you share your stories with her with us and you said to me i'm waiting for the right time and waiting for the sun so what was that sign for you samina i would put it this way you and most of the devotees the people that came to mind saw my life with ma once she was there her divine presence was physically present it was minute to minute i was in a second second and i had no time no eyes for anything else it was after mars mahasamadiya suddenly after many many years i found time on my hands and i felt that many who came to ma could not really see the her depth why because ma always stayed back never chose to reveal herself so it was hard for everyone to you know get a deeper insight into her what i was waiting for i was waiting for a spring to burst forth in my heart and if you ask me why i wrote this book it's a deep desire within me to share with everyone that gave my way the endless love that i received from can you share with us how the change occurred you made me laugh the other day by self proclaiming yourself as an angry how did this transition occur from that jail to the one who avoids traditional dedication to a saint so let me tell you about the angry bit of influence perhaps it was we as i've written in the book we were a traditional hindu family but we had a very westernized outlook my education was in english schools there was i was exposed more to western culture it was just the indian culture at home that i knew of and how from one life to the other it's it was no marked change it was not intended it was not pre-planned it's not a commitment not a result it was just a slow smooth transition and from the joys of my youth the enthusiasm of my younger days into a life of serenity and peace and that too at the feet of living saint so it was like moving away from the mundane into a new cosmos which i did not know even existed so i would say the whatever came [Music] in my life it was pre-ordained call it disney if you like jaya mummy was very important to you mommy your mother who we affectionately called mommy as well how was she a support for you how did she encourage you on this path she mommy was perhaps the biggest interest i suppose everyone's mother is but when you talk about mommy mommy was the biggest influence in my life but the spiritual aspect of me certainly she was the source she was being a very spiritual person herself right i just give an example that for a morning pooja she would recite the subsidy and i as a child maybe i was in bed or maybe i was playing in the room but the sounds permeated my brain and by the time i was say 13 14 i knew that the gush subsidies almost by heart so that is how it all started then my early schooling i was sent to uh my grandfather and i lived in this house and my grandfather again was a very spiritually and kind person who owned a personal library of just spiritual books and there were about three to 500 books and was just he and me in the house and that is how i started you know reading all kinds of books you know not so much the scripture but you know by difference of states lives of saints quotes and sayings things like that so that all that built up now the change in my life of course it's very natural see there's a child in the family with a very promising future full of life full of enthusiasm and uh very fond of things like photography and driving and going up the mountains and spores and friends and all that suddenly taking a turn for the life i would not say renunciation but yes giving up this world for another it was a bit strange for the family which was mainly my mother and my two elder brothers they were apparently disturbed but as always it never hurt my feelings i was the youngest spoiled and pampered so so that was it it was my mother it was my mother who spoke of at last and she told my brothers she said look there's something i firmly want to say watch her don't stop see how she goes ahead and if she's happy and if she finds the life fulfilling do not deter her do not stop her because there's no life better than this and as we all know later mommy too came to ma and lived with ma and you share in the book about when that happened when you saw mark and you're being drawn towards kenji yes yes it was the moment yeah it's not a process it's not a transition it was a moment in my life and it was clear it was clear there was no thinking there was no looking back there were no doubts but no pros and cons this was it it was her okay she stole my heart [Music] sujaya when i first came to kenji i came looking for feeling the presence of maharaji that i had felt back in the united states when i first heard krishna sing and i was so disappointed when i learned that maharaji had left the body you know so i thought i'm going to come to country and at least be in the place where these people have this it was at that time well you're going then you must meet satan and i didn't really know what to expect i arrived there in my first darshan with her my vision was of her in the room but in the presence of maharaja but then over the years i developed a different relationship with her such that i called her my guru and in all the time though that i was with her she never once said i say this i think this it was always she referred everything back to maharaja every single time so much so that there was a time when actually you were walking her across the courtyard and it was raining and she was just holding her saree up just a little bit and she did the end and yeah i looked at her feet and i looked at her feet and there were maharaja's feet so many have done this the way you you did one yeah yeah so can you share a little bit more about the the way in which she her relationship with maharaja we all know she took care of him for many many years and there are stories told about how maharaja viewed more but from your perspective what what kind of a relationship do you think there see nina this is a bit hard to answer i had maharaja jesus as a child so i am through the eyes of a child of course the blessing started pouring then only but it was not in my awareness then a whole say a couple of decades passed when i went through the grind in the world studies so on and so forth and and then when ma appeared in my life so connecting the two physical presences is not so easy but i would say where does the question of the relationship between the two arrives when two have merged one they have beautifully blended into one so where's the relationship it is like 12 ma starts maharaj stops and then mara stops masters so thousands of people came to they they wanted to feel maharajji's presence and they came in mars presence and mars words mars constant repetition of maharaja maharaja maharaja said she reincarnated maharaja in their hearts in their eyes and in kenji keji was was i was infused with the presence of the being of maharaja so nobody felt the vacuum once they were with her well many devotees have actually said this to me yes you know that after maharaji left the body yes when and when my mom left the body they said who will hold mahaji in the way that she did okay many devotees have suffered so something beautiful is happening the way uh ma held maharaja after his mahasamadhi after ma's mahal samadhi it is my strong feeling that maharaja is holding mom and holding her up so many people we experienced two aspects of mom one aspect of her as a fully surrendered devotee and then at other times she would appear as the one divine supreme being as if they're two separate things did you have that type of experience and if you did how would you reconcile them well she carried forth maharaja's mission on earth which is perhaps amazing to redeem mankind that is what maharaji had come for and that was what maha did moment to moment you saw everybody sorry now maharaja was always bowing to maharaja complete surrender complete surrender comes with total self-realization and ma was a self-realized soul it was there but yes you are right sometimes our perspective shifted and from the devoted disciple of maharaja she emerged as the all-powerful mother and that is perfectly in line because as we read at the end of the book maharaj [Music] all proclaimed her as the mother universe the yoga challenge and then that is what she presented herself as at those moments that's how you suffer and that's important you guys so jaya when you say that maharaja came about next year to redeem mankind can you describe a little bit of what their activities were like how were they helping the devotees and people who came to them who sought refuge in them how was that say ah nina much was on the same level and much much more than the unseen if they did it it happened without claiming that they did it and without saying that it had happened so again it's very hard to give precise examples but as you know i was with ma when she was in audience when she was being [Music] day in and day out i saw the suffering of the people the misery that they were being subjected to not deserving it yet getting the worse there's hardly a eye that had no tears there's hardly a heart that had no pain and it was amazing it was amazing just being in the presence or a few words of guidance from mom you know there would be a a magical i would say transformation you know a magical healing so when i say redeem i would say that ma and maharaja incarnated on earth to remove the negativity the painful negativity of the effects of the age people were saying darkness ma and maharaja came as rays of life rays of hope and abundance of love with every heart received and that love worked amazing [Music] one of the things i've seen in common from what maharaji shared with people and ma then she accentuated it even more in my time was that in this age yes the practice that was going to help us the most was repetition so can you share some instances of ma you know instructed people in this game well you know you do this you do that as a regimen you have to follow nothing she looks softly suggest and the sweetness entered your heart and you wanted to do it [Music] is very powerful has the power to change destiny ramana has the power to alleviate suffering so chant the name of ram then as we know maharaja was and maharaja himself and then onwards laid great emphasis on the recitation of the child and ma would say is the veda [Music] next to hanuman chalisa was the sunder card that is the story of him [Music] he searched [Music] [Music] one day talking to me said she said yes that is very bad but when ma tells somebody it becomes a powerful mantra which is empowered and i felt that when ma told you to do something you did it [Music] you had it so i need to say more i'm sure there are many who are with us just now absolutely would share this with us [Music] i hear her words in my ears and the sound of the voice and the way she very sweetly but firmly sometimes also sharing yeah family yeah foreign [Music] it was very interesting uh you know when i first came tomorrow i mean [Music] [Music] eleven times would be good in the morning and i would do for now and get up and uh that you would say why 11 times 108 oh yes my yes i'll do it and i'm walking backwards you know and on tuesdays or maybe every day during the sunday yes so that's how that's how my day was planned as i was backing out the room right right we thought we were fortunate you of course spent so much time with one see one minute yes time does not matter it may be a second it may be a lifetime so time is not amazing just remember that i agree i agree because i had very short moments of time almost every year but it was enough to carry me through the rest of the year that i wasn't with her and then when she left her physical body i felt like i still entered into her home through the practice she gave us that she gave us that refuge by creating this space for us [Music] you know many many after mother living a physical body many felt her presence more close to them more enveloping it was a constant thing in their lifetime and there was no effort required to reach out to her because she was there all the time right if she was there she was there all the time i think for me because i knew i had just a little bit of time with her that the rest of the time i was without her i had to be in that space anyway there were times you mean i don't know if you remember this but there was a time when she decided that we were not going to go back to delhi the way that we had planned she had a different plan for us so of course we listened but as a result of that she packed had some food packed first and this still moves me so much because when i opened the basket you told me ma has packed this way she oversaw it and in there was a little of salt and that just touched me so much that she should even think that we would want this so this kind of care and consideration for every detail for everything everything yeah nina for everyone yeah in in my group there's a chapter i could just mention a few who were really disregarded by society who were really not looked upon in a very acceptable way you know so their presence for the bother to them mom loved them mark cared for them more cared for their needs in the darshan room all kinds of people came they reached the poor the wealthy and everything but ma was so institute intuitive to the pride of each one to the pain of each one at the prestige of each one she honored the high ups but she loved the others as well and kept everybody somehow on the same level so what were you saying how she cared for everyone yeah well nina for me the perhaps the best thing in the creation of god is the mother we start with the mother that gives us birth you know ask anybody your mother oh i love my mother when the divine incarnates in the form of a mother the love and the compassion that that divine mother gives just multiplies a thousand folds it just envelops love you are in the cocoon of our love you feel the warmth of this i'm sure each one has had it in our lives and you talk about personal care uh there's a little that are written uh on the chapter on the night of 14th june her mother was awake the whole night even sensitive to the cries of babies in the courtyard and she would be you know immediately up wanting to find out if the baby was cold she would send a baby blanket if the baby needed milk she ensured that there was wrong way for the child you know these little things people still shed tears over them and she did that for us us old people also she treated us in the same way with so much fun for every little thing well alina for 37 years i was a six-year-old child for her as long as mother was there in a physical presence my childhood had not ended during that time though also jail in your association with her and the way in which you cared for her you spent such close time yes i did and my understanding is that you were her driver you took her everywhere oh yes oh yes and you also helped with just even her day-to-day yes whatever her needs were yes whether it was her food in prasad and every little thing yes and don't you think that all your skills from your your prior life came into effect here what yes yeah i would say yes yeah two very important skills one was my driving and one with my camera so i started my driving you know initially i knew very little about mother in the beginning how she travels how she goes from one place to the other and i felt that people didn't want to share this aspect of her so i really didn't know where to go now so we had my mother and i drove to bunyad we knew the kumar was there i had come to know from somewhere that mom would be moving that day from bhumyadha to kg so i spent the whole night cleaning it was a november night i cleaned my car new footpaths so on so forth my child like mine whatever i could do we drove to mumiada so it was a little prasad morning then we sat with mother then there was some tea and but there was no sign that ma is going to leave after lunch prasad ma called me she said i will be going to catch you this afternoon so you better go home before it gets dark so i said oh this is the opportunity i said the car is there for you may i please drive you to kenji this is the first time you know i dared to say this so she said no no you go home today uh there's a uh driver govardhana he's a bhakta and i've told him to stop his bus here and i would be going to kg in his bus so i still remember how my heart just dipped my muscles sunk yes but i didn't show you know and um i did pronounce it but as i turn my back towards mom i couldn't hold my tears so there was this dip dip dip dip and i walked out as i stepped out of the temple veranda and i was going to step onto the road i looked back and ma was blaming actually flew off her head and you know the bars in the temple she held onto the bars and her words were [Music] and so it happened so i had the honor the privilege the joy the everything of being a driver for 37 years and it was not just and the most beautiful memories of driving her in the mountains and the scenic beauty and mother would enjoy and we would feel like little monkeys with us you know so that was nothing the second was my photography i was it was my hobbies i think my first camera came at the age of eight i gave a birthday present from my grandfather and that's how it started but that came into use again this is my book ma permitted me which never allowed anyone to take photographs of her yes you know usually not in the ocean but when she was on a retreat on her travels so luckily we have these thousands of memories and we can revive we can relive those times through these photographs and as i speak to you it is my deep wish to share each of these moments with the world moments i mean photographs yes but i'll take them out slowly so that we can have a little at a time and we we live those moments with us and also my i know that you have saved precious items of your time with her and she shared with you that you've held close to your heart and then are blessed by her so simple right here is a beautiful photograph he's taken off mark's feet and what did you do well i think now tree and her two feet one was here and the other was there on this stone and beautiful storm so i couldn't take my eyes off mars feet and i stood there after a little while i got up to go up as soon as the back was done i picked up the stone and ran by the back way here is the stone here's the stone and i put it under the seat in my car and so this is the precious stone one foot here and the other one here and we get to bow to this stone we get to bow to the store similarly nina we would go out for a walk so i loved walking in the woods in the hills in the mountains early in the morning and i would really trail behind her and keep her company and she chose to take her so that was something very very i was saying very blessed and she would surely helped and she loved flowers she would pick wild flowers and show me the petals see how god has made them see we forget god we forget his creation and you'll give the flower to me and nina i saved each one of them each fern that you break each pebble that you picked and showed me hanuman's face or ram on it i saved them all and they are here with me so we call it the archive mars archive of mars relics it is here with me in mars housing it has almost everything that she ever touched or blessed or wore or was a part of us so i tell you uh we were in emporiani acanthos and ma it was right the house was right in the interior can you explain just what economist was it's like after uh i was in my book uh ma would go take off for a retreat into the mountains after she had had her aft after the big pandra june pandara many reasons for this the the staff needed rest the ashram needed cleaning up and all and it must stayed on the the people would keep pouring and there was no stopping to it and then the mothers were also tired and we were with her we deserved a a change so so we loved it we waited all the year for this so the website you were telling me about ikantha's body yes so mars trained her ankle now there was no medical aid or anything no doctors around and we had no bandages also somehow nothing was ever later yes we did carry our first aid kit but then we were what we were so somebody some local man suggested that you take i think just open ash and apply warm ash on the the strain of the injury and wrap it at night and removed in the morning so we really burned some wood and we got that ash filter and applied it on nice and clean and put it back in and she slept at night so there were five six of us and i don't remember who but they opened the bandage next morning and they were going to throw the ash so i'll put my hands full that's give it to me so that ash that was on a part of her body for almost 12 hours is here with me as well as the bandage for me it's something very very very precious and it is here with us so similarly we have not lost anything of hers it's all there some of maharajji's things collected by ma given to me over the years like ma collected us from maharaja said on a leaf of sand and bin laden and so when maharaji got up ma collected the the sand in her paloo and she saved it and brenda one and later and she gave it to me to take care of it so that sand from being marathi's field is here dust from our mataji's faith which i collected over time are the banks of ganga and other peace is here so we have a huge big treasure here it's such an expression of reverence and devotion something that is very unique actually to i think here in the east contains it was it was anything that i did uh nina it was inspired by her i was an instrument don't think worthy in any way but yes she chose me so jaya you know in my time with ma and i think many people have felt this actually you know often we would go for darshan and we want to prepare something good and appropriate to ask her and and whatnot and many a time we would ask a question and she may not even actually really answer it and say something completely different why because she saw what actually was going on she could see into our hearts and she would answer the question that we hadn't even thought to ask and only when we heard what she had to say did we realize that that's really what we were looking to know so this feels to me like an expression of her divine intuition and insight into us and do you have some stories like that to share yeah there were there were thousands of happenings like this so we really you know it was like an accepted thing for us that mother knows and mother's intuition is beyond beyond beyond everything and so many people would come to ma and receive whatever they had probably thought of nothing you wished for without having to ask for it this is happening all the time a very small memory comes to my mind there is a picture of hanumani embracing each other it's a beautiful picture and it is uh one of these photographs are framed in mars couti in which he lived in ketchi and i love that picture and i wanted to get a small one for my own personal puja older so it happened that i was going to priya and uh and mahi told me to go to priyank and chitra that time ma was not gonna accompany me though she said she'd meet me there so that was the biggest job of my going there but um there was i with this photograph in my mind this photo in my mind so i went from shop to shop there were huts by the bank of ganga they were selling these pictures and it's a common one so i must have gone for 25 of these uh little happenings where the pictures were being sold but i couldn't find that photo eventually we went to recruit and a month later perhaps i came to catching and ma was standing besides maharaja stuck it on the veranda as i came in i always ran and i never walked in tomorrow so i ran and there was she's standing outside which was absolutely wonderful and i climbed with the steps to do pranam to her and i noticed that she has something in her hand which is holding on close to her heart and as i bow at her feet and i get up and she hands me the picture and she says take is this what you were looking for and it was that picture of hanuman and ramji embracing each other so it's a small example yet it's a big thing and this is not me this is this is happening day and night yeah yeah for sure so you explained son you described something to me once that happened in the middle of the night yes that also was all was policing here audition something you know [Music] i would sleep on the floor in the center between two of them so like the baby of the family some sleep there so and normally the mothers were quiet once they were in the kudi and they wouldn't take long to really fall asleep so i suddenly mad that he gets [Music] [Music] such a big catastrophe such a big calamity so many have died such destruction all over many children have died they say big earthquake is a big earthquake so to my human mind i said no no mom everything is fine there's no earthquake here everything is fine enough my thought process inside is that ma is having a nightmare you know so i said nothing everything is she sat for a while but she was very disturbed then after a while she chose to lie down i lay down too but she didn't sleep and other to die so back in the 80s there were no phones there were no wires or any communication means like that in the morning perhaps the bus the first buses coming wire catching and people getting off they came they brought them they brought the news that there was a massive earthquake in uttarakhand and the entire civilization civilization there had been reduced to japan and you didn't have that experience the earthquake hadn't reached where you were no there were no tremors no nothing no indications whatsoever whatsoever nothing so ma was sometimes her mood was changed you know and we couldn't fathom the reason why this is happening even the look on her face would change and that would worry but obviously she was somewhere else she was not with us she was she was redeeming mankind somewhere else no that's it every time that we went to see one and you know maharaja bhaktas would also say that when they stand there he would throw fruit at them constantly so when we would come to the ashram same thing we would go to see mom and she would share stories about maharaji she would ask us about ourselves and then the prasad would come and we would have loads of fruit and whatever was just past what was brought in was passed along to us and over the years you know we have um felt that generosity that blessing that we received from the prasad that was given to us and i just it always felt like there was enough for everybody how how was that experience for me started [Music] emphasize the sanctity of prasad saying that consecrated food has the power to transform the heart the sad say hi how is food consecrated for people to understand so we call it so whatever is whatever food comes it is first placed in front of the deity yes and you you pray to them you invoke them to partake of it and thereby sanctify it and receive it as their grace in the form of food yes so in fact i remember reading somewhere that ma sharda would say that some energy comes and permeates the prasad in the process of poke and therefore the prasad is is now just it's like powered forward yes so that way so in this time or we in mars time the number of visitors increased many food so it was really organized and now but ma no matter what it was what prasad would be there for everyone and one of the attributes of divine advocate especially of i think the goddess it's shri that is abundance auspiciousness was buried in plenty and that was always so you were on this side of the curtain we were behind the garden there was nothing that was ordered the sweets one ordered the fruit wasn't ordered it just poured it people brought them somebody was inspired to offer whatever and that came into a room which is called the prasada and that was brought forth and mars hailed rizzo was always giving giving giving the whole day long she was giving at the end of the day she would walk back when she was done with everyone and there were there were big containers which was we would store the fruit that came say apples and plums and apricots and salt [Music] if you don't empty it how will you feel it and there was always abundance i have spoken about jivanti mataki she would intuitively order the amount of prasad for the visitors that would arrive the next day to feed them but to feed them how do i know tomorrow one thousand come out tomorrow two thousand cow but there's always enough and also which is poorly is mainly for reason a little would be left over which mother would keep in the those couches i call it and in the evening all the little children need the asham would come my book i'm hungry and so ma would send out that bucket of puris for the children so much full thought so much for thought so much love such a personal touch from such a high soul you know she never she never you know maintained a level she was with us all the time that was mom i think we could keep talking about endlessly as we have but um i'm so happy that you shared some of these times you know um with us in the book so we look forward to all of you reading these stories in the book one last question jim what would you say is the greatest gift that might be oh nina the thing is this what was it that she didn't give me if you want another line to it it was the life that she gave me for if you say it will be when it's ordered many lives that would culminate in this to live and love mother she was my guru she was my guide she was my son she was also my best friend so thank you all for joining us uh in this journey with jaya prasada and her time with ma and i'm so honored that you shared this with us jaya i had the honor of being with ma off and on for short periods of time but somewhat regularly from 1998 to 2017 and we've all longed to hear more about ma that we couldn't see and i'm so grateful that we've been able to have a peek into the depth and the expansiveness of the life you know we couldn't put our finger on it but her mere presence made it very clear to us that she is the source she is the mother she is juggerton that's my feeling and i'm sure many are for many of you this resonates thank you so much for joining us the um details about where you can find the book will be in the text for this podcast but they are going to be able to be ordered from amazon.com in the digital format and also the print version will be available very soon so please stay tuned for that thank you nina thank you you

Channel: Nina Rao

Views: 22,415

Keywords:

Id: ZflFRmqnvu8

Length: 52min 50sec (3170 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 08 2022