Did Maha Yogi, Param Guru, Shri Shri Baba Lokenath Bramhachari meet God?

I have not seen God, but I have seen Baba Lokenath in his picture, and learned about His life and preaching. He is the one who had treaded through the dryness of the deserts, meanders of the mountains and wilderness of the oceans to travel through different parts of the World, seen many religions, customs and practices. He has spent many years in the harshness and extremities of the climate in the Himalayan Mountains practicing Yogic Meditation. He had experimented over His physical being, the ardent control of the physical senses, so that He can beat the odds of this Nature in His venture to see God.

Did He see God?

  

When Swami Vivekananda asked his master, “Do you believe in God, Sir?”

Thakur Ramakrishna replied, “Yes”.

Swamiji then asked him, “Can you prove it, Sir?”

Thakur replied, “Yes.”

Swamiji again asked him, “How?”

Thakur Shri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa replied, “Because I see Him just as I see you here, only in a much intenser sense.”

Swami Vivekananda in his lecture on the topic ‘My Master’ delivered at New York under the auspices of the Vedanta Society had expressed the above mentioned statements. He had further mentioned, “For the first time I had found a man who dared to say that he saw God, that religion was a reality, to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world.” [Excerpt from the book, “Speeches and Writings of Swami Vivekananda” Third Edition]

Thakur Ramakrishna Paramhamsa had seen God. Whosoever knows Thakur Ramakrishna knows the fact that Thakur had seen God. He used to see our divine mother “Maa Kali” as we can see the world; he used to talk to Her, feed Her and always communicate with Her.

There may be many saints in this whole world who might have seen God.

But our Baba, Shri Shri Lokenath Bramhachari did not see God. From His own holy mouth he had expressed, “Bahu bachhar pahaar parvat ghure ishwarer sange aamar dekha hoyni. Ami dekhechhi amake.”

What our Baba meant was, “For many years I had wandered hills and mountains, I did not meet God. I have seen Myself.”

Most of us would not even understand the gravity and depth of this statement. Such a great saint, a Param Yogi, an incarnation of Lord Shiva, Himself admitted that He had not seen God. How is that possible?

On one hand there is Thakur Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, an ordinary looking, uneducated and a married person from a remote village came to live in Kolkata as a Temple priest- who later claimed to have seen God.

And on the other hand there is a Param Yogi, a learned person of Gita, Puran and many other Shastras, who had spent more than one hunderd years in the mountains of Himalaya practicing Yogic meditation had no claim of seeing God. Instead, He said He had seen only Himself.

What a contradistinction in both of these great saints, the famous spiritual personalities the Bengalis have ever known. The spiritual scholars and researchers all over the world have accepted the fact that both of them are absolutely true in their individual virtue.

Why Baba Lokenath did not see God? Or, did He fail to see God? Were His Yogic Meditation and Prayer not intensive and true enough to cause the tryst with God?

To get the answer to these questions we will have to focus on the statement from His Holy mouth, “… I did not meet God. I have seen Myself.”

Therefore, it is evident enough that Baba Lokenath had neither said that there is ‘No God’, nor He had claimed anywhere about the non-existance of God. He had only said that ‘He had not met God’. This authenticates itself that Baba Lokenath had not seen anyone who is known or can be categorized as God.

But at the same time He had not denied the fact that God exists.

As an author, I would like to put forward a little of my opinion or understanding regarding this. When I was a teenager and just heard of Baba Lokenath, I came to know that He had not met God. But then He had said He had seen Himself. It was a strange assertion by Baba Lokenath that had haunted me until beyond the fourty years of my age with a question. If Baba Lokenath had not seen God then it is alright, but why did He say that He had seen only Himself.

Whereas, Thakur Shri Ramakrishna Pramhamsa had seen God, so it was affirmative enough for all the Bengalis to establish the fact that God exists and as He had seen our Divine Mother, ‘Maa Kali’ so she is there, for sure. I worshipped Thakur, Swamiji and ‘Maa Kali’ all the while and, I do even now.

However, as I grew more and more interest on Baba Lokenath, the more the above questions kept haunting me. I have always loved Swamiji and Thakur Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, so it became more difficult to accept the fact why Baba said that He did not meet God. Well, that is even acceptable.

But, the most important question that has been troubling me the most was why did Baba say, “I have seen Myself.” Does that mean that Baba Lokenath wants to claim that He is the God Himself?

This has been the very strange acclamation done by any Saint, at least in India. Does that acclamation mean that He is the God, Himself? But this is what He had never asserted it anywhere during His whole lifetime.

So far in my life, I have come across the biography of many saints and holy men who claimed that they had seen God or they have been the incarnations of God. Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed, both of them had said that they were the sons of their respective Gods.

Let us examine certain different phenomena that all of us are very well aware of in day-to-day affairs of our life. Whenever we pray our God, in fact most of us or perhaps all of us, in whatsoever religion we may believe in- close our eyes in meditation and pray Him. We the Hindus, even though we may be standing or sitting in front of the idol of our beloved God, we close our eyes while praying. A Christian fellow standing in front of an idol of Jesus Christ or a Sikh Person standing in front of the picture of Guru Nanak or a Buddhist fellow or even a Muslim, every one in every religion close his eyes while praying.

The question arises;

Why do we need to close our eyes when we are already standing in front of God we are praying?

What goes wrong if we keep on praying  God with our eyes open, or what do we miss if we don’t close our eyes?

We see the image or the idol of God first, and then in reverence we close our eyes, we establish the picture somewhere within our soul and then see God there. Thus the answer is therefore, established, that we see or want see our God in our soul itself. For Muslims, their God is Allah and He has no image. But then why does a Muslim person close his eyes. He closes his eyes with meditation, then establishes Allah within his soul and prays Him.

In our human body, the sanctum sanctorum of our God lies in the deepest and the purest place, that is our soul. And the soul is that we cannot see. So having seen the image or idol, we close our eyes to establish Him in the Sanctum Sanctorum and pray Him.

The soul is the Sanctum Sanctorum. The ‘soul’ in English, is ‘Ruhh’ in Urdu and ‘atman’ in Bengali are all the same.  According to the Hindu philosophy, a soul has no beginning and no end; it has always existed and will always exist, an infinite existence. Therefore, it is the only place where we can establish our God. It is where God lies. So Baba Lokenath did not see God, outside, anywhere else as a separate entity. He has seen God within Himself, within His very own Sanctum Sanctorum, that is the soul.

Baba Lokenath had elevated Himself to such a level of perfectness and absoluteness that He had found God within His very soul. He had reached the state of a Param Bramha, which is a state of absoluteness where the body, mind, soul and the infinity meet in all perfection. Param Bramha has no definite shape or size or colour, it is a state difficult to mention by all our mortal means.

This was the reason why He had said that He did not see God, but He had seen only Himself. In Himself, He had seen the Param Bramha, the God of all Gods- the Absolute Truth. He had Himself reached the state of that Godliness.

If this is the truth, then who did Thakur Ramakrishna Paramhamsa see? Whenever Thakur would see the God, our Holy Mother, “Maa Kali” no one else could see Her even though they might be present in the same room. Why so? Is the God, our Holy Mother invisible to others and only visible to Thakur, or it needed a special vision to see Her?

Whenever Thakur Ramakrishna Paramhamsa used to see Maa Kali no one else could see Her because Thakur would feel and see Her in his Soul. It is because our soul is the only sanctum sanctorum for the God. In whichever form we see our God, He appears in the same form in our sanctum.

Therefore, it is justified why our Baba Lokenath said that He had not seen God, but He had seen Himself. Our Param Guru, Mahayoi Shri Shri Baba Lokenath Bramhachari Himself is the Param Bramha. He had seen God within Himself and everywhere else, living or non-living, existing or non-existing. He is the God Himself. We know Him as the incarnation of Lord Shiva.

That is why Shri Shri Baba Lokenath had Himself said, “amar ki mrityu achhe re? Mrityu to kebal ghater binaash. Kintu aami to sarva bhute aachhi. Tai aamar binaash kothai bol dekhi?”

This means, “Do I have a death? Death is only the end of the body. But I am present in everything. So tell me where is my end?”

Dear Baba Lokenath, You are present everywhere in every living and non-living beings in this world and beyond.
May You give us the eyes to behold You in everything we see!

Jai Baba Mangalkari Lokenath Bramhachari !!!

Behind the rise of a great person, there is a tremendous role of a great teacher, a Guru!

Who was Baba Lokenath’s Guru and what role did he play in Baba Lokenath Bramhachari’s life?

----------------Will Continue--------------