‘I Am Always with You’ - Empire of the Soul - page 38

pipes reached a deafening pitch when Baba himself finally entered
the packed hall, accompanied by a procession of priests. He looked
different, somehow swollen and pained, the way an expectant mother
can. Taking his seat behind a little desk on the stage, he seemed
uncharacteristically withdrawn, preoccupied, as various students
from his colleges and sundry devotees delivered very boring
speeches. Finally, he rose and spoke in Telegu, pausing while Dr.
Bhagavantham, a dry and pompous old man who had been an
eminent nuclear physicist before retiring to the ashram, translated
what he was saying into what was just about English. The
translation was so tedious that Baba frequently interjected
straightforward little phrases to hurry along Bhagavantham's
rambling and ponderous paraphrases.
As usual, the speech summed up the significance of the holy day,
pointing out that the act of creation was the merging of the material
with the divine and that we should all try to do the same, blending
our lower natures into our higher ones. Be good, do good, see good -
the message was so ridiculously simple I wondered how Baba found
the patience to keep repeating it. Just as his speeches always seemed
to begin at no particular point, so did this one actually stop in the
middle of a sentence, as Baba suddenly began singing a bhajan . The
entire hall echoed his lead, repeating each phrase, the tempo growing
toward restrained frenzy until the bhajan abruptly stopped. The
chants had quite a rigid form when sung by devotees, but Baba,
who had composed them all, prolonged or curtailed them at will.
There was a plaintive and honeyed sweetness to his voice.
That night the mood was more subdued than it usually was, as if
all of us were less preoccupied with our egos and trying to out-sing
one another. After a mere three or four bhajans , Baba began one that
consisted entirely of the phrase Om Sivaiah, Om Sivaiah, Shambo
Shankara Om Sivaiah - a great booming hymn to Siva, Destroyer of
Worlds, Cosmic Dancer. Unlike the previous bhajans , this one
appeared to have no ending, and Baba sank into his chair and fell
silent, letting the chorus continue without his lead.
A sense that something immensely important was happening
descended. The crowd continued to repeat the one phrase in low
restrained voices. Baba conducted with his finger, his body