"Was Baba Glowing?"

Baba Hariharananda NYC photo

One day, I took the overnight Amtrak train to Washington, DC to return with Baba Hariharananda the next day by train to New York City.

It was a half day journey and for him to travel alone in his advanced age, would have been challenging, so he asked me to assist him.

The next day when we arrived at Penn Station in New York City, one of the New York City Kriyabans, Elizabeth Ma, was waiting with flowers for Baba.

She drove an old "VW" van, which Baba enjoyed traveling in, when he was in NYC.

After we reached Virginia Ma's apartment on 47th street, Baba started to unpack a few things while sitting on the bed in the room. 

Baba had safely made the journey and he was starting to settle in comfortably in the room.

I had to briefly leave the room for errand and when I came back in the room, I found a spot on the floor in front of him to meditate. 

Immediately, I started to perceive "blissful waves of sound, light and vibration" emanating from his body, as he talked to Elizabeth Ma and myself. 

This continued for what seemed like a long period of time and I quietly tried to absorb as much as I could, not wanting to do anything that might make the "waves of bliss" stop emanating from Baba. 

Inwardly, I took it as a sign he was happy, that he made the journey safely and was expressing his joy for my service.

After a while Elizabeth Ma and I left the apartment, and when we were about to go our separate ways, she stopped me on the street corner and asked if she could ask me a question about Baba:

"Don Baba, was Baba 'Glowing' when we sat with him just now?"  

"Oh, so you perceived it", I replied, not knowing if she also experience his brilliant radiant energy, when we just sat with him in the room.

A few years later, I told this story at a public lecture in NYC and I described the "blissful wave" of energy being similar to a "cat purring":

"Baba was like a joyfully purring Cat"

Elizabeth Ma, hearing me describe the experience in that way, told us that just before I returned to the room, she had said to Baba: 

"Baba, you look like a Fat Cat, sitting on the Bed."

It was astonishingly beautiful and blissful. 

It was also amazing to me that Elizabeth Ma perceived it, validating my experience of Baba's extra-ordinary divine love and affection.