THE LONG PILGRIMAGE:
The Shivapuri Baba
A year before Baba Bharati and Rama arrived in the US, we were visited by another Indian Baba who was on a very long pilgrimage ... in fact, he was circumambulating the Earth. Born into a devout and wealthy Brahmin family in Kerala in 1826, his grandfather, Achyutam–and stop me if you’ve heard this before–was a famous astrologer, who took one look at the smiling infant and pronounced his destiny as a great ascetic. The child grew up in an unusually liberal environment for the time: the women in his family were all well-educated, rare for the day, and the servants reputedly spoke Sanskrit. By the age of 12 (or 9 according to one source) the boy had mastered the four Vedas, and by 18 had decided to abandon the world and follow Achyutam, then entering the traditional fourth and last stage of his life as a hermit, into the forest.
When Achyutam was nearing death, he instructed his grandson that, upon his self-realization, he should make a pilgrimage “around the world,” a custom begun by the ascetic Shankara hundreds of years earlier. Usually though, the “around the world” implied only “around India,” but in the grandson’s case it was meant literally. He would be bankrolled by a large fortune Achyutam had squirreled away
After his grandfather’s death, and after being officially initiated as a sannyasin, the newly named Govindananda Bharati returned to the forest to continue his spiritual practice. He lived out there–in solitude it’s said–for nearly 25 years before he achieved, “in a flash,” self-realization. In 1875, now almost 50, a time when most of us are slowing down, if not coming to an arthritic grinding halt, Govinda headed west across India to start his grandfather-ordained and sponsored pilgrimage. The record of his travels reminds me of that old 1946 road song, “Route 66,” which catalogs all the towns motorists would pass through while motoring from St Louis to California. Govinda wound from Afghanistan to Iran (Persia), to Mecca and Jerusalem city, which must have looked oh-so-pretty, then got his kicks through Turkey, Greece, and much of continental Europe. Along the way he met heads of state, taught Leo Tolstoy’s housekeeper how to cook Indian food, and corrected the common mistake, in a chat with a young math student by the name of Albert Einstein, that 1 + 1 equals 2. He told the slightly puzzled Albert that, “Absolutely speaking, only God exists, so the question of adding one thing to another cannot be entertained. Relatively speaking, no two things or beings are exactly alike. So to say 1 + 1 = 2 is convenient but not correct.” [Singh 9]
Between 1896 and 1901 he took a well deserved break in England where, according to accounts, he became quite chummy with Queen Victoria. But not with George Bernard Shaw, who sneered at him, “You Indian saints are the most useless of men; you have no respect for time.” Unruffled, Govinda replied, “It is you who are slaves of time. I live in Eternity.” [bennett 26] When the Queen died in 1901, he hit the figurative road again, crossed the Atlantic, spent three years in the US (where he reportedly met Theodore Roosevelt), before heading south in 1904 to Mexico and South America. By 1913 he was in Japan, after stops in New Zealand and Australia, and made it back to India in 1915, now almost 90 years old. His around-the-world “pilgrimage” had covered tens of thousands of miles and taken 40 years.
Around 1926, when he was 100 years old, Govinda retired to the Shivapuri Forest in Nepal. This time though he didn’t want to be left completely alone, and gladly received devoted visitors, earning himself the nickname by which he’ll go down in history, Shivapuri Baba. He died in 1963, at age 137, the last 15 minutes recounted by a devotee who was present: [Bennett 36-7]
He gave his last message. These are the exact words he spoke. “Live Right Life, Worship God. That is all. Nothing more.” At 6.15 he got up from his bed, sat down on the bed, asked for a drink, said “I’m gone” (in Hindi “Gaya”) and laid himself down ... and left this mortal coil. Wonderful!
If you want to read more about Shivapuri Baba, look for John G. Bennett, Long Pilgrimage: The Life and Teaching of the Shivapuri Baba (1965), and Renu Lal Singh, Right Life: Teachings of the Shivapuri Baba (1975, 1984).
A year before Baba Bharati and Rama arrived in the US, we were visited by another Indian Baba who was on a very long pilgrimage ... in fact, he was circumambulating the Earth. Born into a devout and wealthy Brahmin family in Kerala in 1826, his grandfather, Achyutam–and stop me if you’ve heard this before–was a famous astrologer, who took one look at the smiling infant and pronounced his destiny as a great ascetic. The child grew up in an unusually liberal environment for the time: the women in his family were all well-educated, rare for the day, and the servants reputedly spoke Sanskrit. By the age of 12 (or 9 according to one source) the boy had mastered the four Vedas, and by 18 had decided to abandon the world and follow Achyutam, then entering the traditional fourth and last stage of his life as a hermit, into the forest.
When Achyutam was nearing death, he instructed his grandson that, upon his self-realization, he should make a pilgrimage “around the world,” a custom begun by the ascetic Shankara hundreds of years earlier. Usually though, the “around the world” implied only “around India,” but in the grandson’s case it was meant literally. He would be bankrolled by a large fortune Achyutam had squirreled away
After his grandfather’s death, and after being officially initiated as a sannyasin, the newly named Govindananda Bharati returned to the forest to continue his spiritual practice. He lived out there–in solitude it’s said–for nearly 25 years before he achieved, “in a flash,” self-realization. In 1875, now almost 50, a time when most of us are slowing down, if not coming to an arthritic grinding halt, Govinda headed west across India to start his grandfather-ordained and sponsored pilgrimage. The record of his travels reminds me of that old 1946 road song, “Route 66,” which catalogs all the towns motorists would pass through while motoring from St Louis to California. Govinda wound from Afghanistan to Iran (Persia), to Mecca and Jerusalem city, which must have looked oh-so-pretty, then got his kicks through Turkey, Greece, and much of continental Europe. Along the way he met heads of state, taught Leo Tolstoy’s housekeeper how to cook Indian food, and corrected the common mistake, in a chat with a young math student by the name of Albert Einstein, that 1 + 1 equals 2. He told the slightly puzzled Albert that, “Absolutely speaking, only God exists, so the question of adding one thing to another cannot be entertained. Relatively speaking, no two things or beings are exactly alike. So to say 1 + 1 = 2 is convenient but not correct.” [Singh 9]
Between 1896 and 1901 he took a well deserved break in England where, according to accounts, he became quite chummy with Queen Victoria. But not with George Bernard Shaw, who sneered at him, “You Indian saints are the most useless of men; you have no respect for time.” Unruffled, Govinda replied, “It is you who are slaves of time. I live in Eternity.” [bennett 26] When the Queen died in 1901, he hit the figurative road again, crossed the Atlantic, spent three years in the US (where he reportedly met Theodore Roosevelt), before heading south in 1904 to Mexico and South America. By 1913 he was in Japan, after stops in New Zealand and Australia, and made it back to India in 1915, now almost 90 years old. His around-the-world “pilgrimage” had covered tens of thousands of miles and taken 40 years.
Around 1926, when he was 100 years old, Govinda retired to the Shivapuri Forest in Nepal. This time though he didn’t want to be left completely alone, and gladly received devoted visitors, earning himself the nickname by which he’ll go down in history, Shivapuri Baba. He died in 1963, at age 137, the last 15 minutes recounted by a devotee who was present: [Bennett 36-7]
He gave his last message. These are the exact words he spoke. “Live Right Life, Worship God. That is all. Nothing more.” At 6.15 he got up from his bed, sat down on the bed, asked for a drink, said “I’m gone” (in Hindi “Gaya”) and laid himself down ... and left this mortal coil. Wonderful!
If you want to read more about Shivapuri Baba, look for John G. Bennett, Long Pilgrimage: The Life and Teaching of the Shivapuri Baba (1965), and Renu Lal Singh, Right Life: Teachings of the Shivapuri Baba (1975, 1984).
