A Devotee Realises that Papaji Was Always Aloof and Unchanged

I have watched Papaji very closely for many years. Sometimes he was austere and silent, sometimes gregarious and outgoing, sometimes he would ignore everyone and everything that was going on around him. Over this period I gradually came to realise that all these changes of behaviour and mood were just a divine lila, and that through them all the fundamental nature of Papaji remained aloof and unchanged.

This was brought home to me very clearly about three years ago when I was sitting in Papaji’s front room. A few foreigners were also there: Sergio and Radha, Patrick and Shaila. A woman had written a long letter to Papaji, about twenty-five pages if I remember correctly. This woman was giving a graphic account of all her marriages. Papaji was making fun of her, saying that she had had twenty-five marriages, one for each page, and that she was devoting one page to each of her twenty-five husbands. I can’t remember if there really were that many marriages, but she certainly gave an incredibly long list of all the relationships she had had and how each one had ended. Papaji was laughing and joking and making crude jokes about the marital life of this woman. All the foreigners in the room were laughing along with him. His attention was not on me. It was wholly on the sexual saga of this woman and the laughing and joking that was going on around him. I was just sitting silently, not participating in any way. Then, while he was looking in a different direction and laughing, I felt some force emanate from his forehead and penetrate my Heart. In that moment I experienced an unbelievable beauty, a peace, a stillness and a joy that I had never experienced before. I looked at Papaji and suddenly realised that he too must be in this state, and in it all the time, and that even if he appeared to be making crude and vulgar jokes to the people around him, he was still established in and identified with this beautiful peace and joy that he was, at that moment, revealing to me as well.

When I came to see Papaji the following day, I found him sitting alone.

I prostrated and said to him, ‘Yesterday I listened to you read out this letter from the woman who had had all those husbands. It seemed to me that you were very involved in the story. You were making fun of her and everyone around you was laughing at your jokes. Then, at the height of this laughter, you gave me this experience of peace and joy and happiness. I knew at that moment that this was what you yourself were really experiencing. Is this your secret? Is this your experience all the time, even when you appear to be actively involved with other people and with other things?’

He replied, ‘This is the secret, Om Prakash. No one is worthy to have this secret bestowed on him.”

I learned a valuable lesson from this. When I see Papaji nowadays, there are so many people around him, and he seems to be involved in innumerable activities and decisions. And yet I know now that he is not involved at all.

It is just an appearance that will deceive anyone who is not also in that state.

Excerpt From Nothing Ever Happened Volume Three, pages
By David Godman