The following condensed article was written by Dr. Lalit Pandit, who is a prominent, respected, and highly educated scientist. An atomic particle physicist, he is associated with the Tata Institute of Applied Physics.
Dr. Pandit's story is important for this Age, since his experiences with Dadaji and Truth come from the mental perspective of one who is highly trained scientifically. The complete text of the article which relates numerous manifestations, transformations and healings, is
highly recommended as published in the book ON DADAJI: PART IV, available from
the addresses in the front of the book.
Experience In Truth - Dr. Lalit Pandit
I met Dadaji on August 15, 1975. Since then I have had many occasions of meeting and talking intimately with him. My experiences associated with him have led me to an inner certitude of the existence of Truth (Supreme Being or Satyanarayan) that, however defies any mental or intellectual description.
As a scientist, a researcher in theoretical high energy physics, I am well versed in the presently accepted basic laws of physics. My working '"' life in this world is thus entirely tied up with the world of mental concepts, expressed in mathematical form, framed for the purpose of achieving an orderly description of the phenomena of nature perceived via our
senses suitably extended through complex instruments.
Experiences with Dadaji have NOT led me to give up or deny this world as seen and described by us - it too after all is the creation of the Supreme Being. What has happened is that an awareness has developed in me of the immanent and all engulfing Truth beyond the grasp of the intellect.
0nly an open minded (rather an open hearted) reader is likely to grasp what is sought to be communicated here. This shall be, for once, no occasion for merely intellectual discussions. Words, after all, can not describe w hat the intellect cannot grasp or formulate. However, where the affinity of love exists, all lovers know, words can still be enjoyable even though they are thoroughly inadequate as vehicles for the feelings enjoyed in communion.
THE SPACE-TIME COMPLEX: RELATIVITY AND COMPLEMENTARITY
As soon as we appear in this world of nature (the kingdom of Time), consciousness emerges in the garb of mind attempting constantly a separation of subject and object. An effort at continuous coordination in moments of time and locations in space attends the experiencing of the world within and without. A fragmented vision of events in time and space ensues.
Desire to control the course of events takes hold. An attempt to describe the world, that may lead to practical ends being achieved, is inaugurated. Most magical rights and religious rituals of old as well as scientific research and technology of today are based on this basic desire. The result, of dominating importance today, is the dazzling edifice of science.
Recent developments in the fundamental science of physics have thrown up a few general lessons of great importance. As a background to offset the experiences with Dadaji to be related here, it will be worthwhile to briefly indicate these lessons.
Prior to the year 1900, the laws of physics, based on the study of large scale motions of commonly familiar objects, permitted a clean spearation of an objective physical world, independent of the observer, having spatial extension and evolving in an independently flowing time according to deterministic causal laws.
This mechanistic world desc,ription has come in for revolutionary changes in thelight of discoveries made in our present century.
The first major revolution, still however permitting a deterministic causal description of natural phenomena, occurred in 1905 with the emergence of the special theory of relativity of Einstein. As a result it became clear that the hitherto employed concept of time flowing
independently of space, whereby simultaneity of events widely separated in space had an absolute meaning, was only of approximate validity and was natural to us only in the context of familiar experiences in which the speeds involved were negligible compared to the enormous speed of light in vacuum.
The physical space-time complex is actually inseparable, and simultaneity is a relative concept depending on the motion of the observer. Furthermore, no physical signals (or actions) can travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum - the latter being independent of the state of the source and is as such a universal limiting physical speed.
The second major revolution, and philosophically in many ways the more jolting one, was inaugurated already in the year 1900 by Planck"s discovery of another universal limiting constant, called Planck's quantum of action, and properly rna tured only after another quarter century had elapsed with the discovery of quantum mechanics needed for a proper description of atomic phenomena. It rung the death knell on all attempts at a deterministic
causal space-time description of physical phenomena at the atomic -and subatomic level.
There must always be present an undetermined disturbance of the observed system in each act of observation. The observer and the observed can no longer be neatly separated. The description must thus perforce be only probabilistic or statistical. The limitation of our
language based on the, for all practical purposes valid, deterministic space-time description of the familiar large scale experience, for which the limiting constant of Planck is negligible, forces us to make use of mutually exclusive (complementary) physical pictures in describing one and the same physical system at the atomic level.
This was revolution indeed. Its lesson has been formulated as the principle of complementarity by Niels Bohr, one of the most revered founding Fathers of atomic physics. Emboldened by this lesson from atomic physics, Bohr has even attempted carrying over the spirit of the principle of complementary to other areas were the intellectual activity of concept and theory building is carried on, such as in psychology and biology.
It may be in the very nature of the intellect that concepts that are mutually contradictory in terms of the language pertaining to one level of experience must, nevertheless, be used together in a complementary manner when used to describe newer and subtler levels of experience.
The methods of science have proved eminently successful. As a result, in all areas of human activity, one attempts now the methods of scientific model building. The open-ended evolutionary as well as revolutionary nature of the development of science is clear by the above examples.
Today the focus of attention in fundamental research in physics is on the sub nuclear high energy particle phenomena.
Many new and totally unforeseen phenomena have been observed with the use of very high energy machines and complex detector systems. This research involving huge outlays of money and manpower, is seeking the ultimate theory of matter. This hope appears to us very naive, for no matter how high the energy attained, by marshalling perhaps the budgets of the whole world, it will still be negligibly small compared with infinite energy.
The open-ended game of scientific research remains of course, certainly interesting and possibly technologically useful at every step. Such openhandedness is not peculiar to experimental science.
In fact incompleteness always remains in the intellectual game of abstract mathematics. Many are the other important games of deep importance, such as the play of human imagination in the arts.
The creative impulse is presumably from one and the same source, be it in art or in science. For the intellect, the world pictures from these two directions may appear contradictory; but both sides are somehow important in the sense of the extended principle of complementarity.
Certitude might well be impossible for the intellect and yet be immediate to the heart. To a general reader the foregoing paragraphs might seem too terse and hardly connected with our main theme. But, the essential point is that science is devoted to constructing a mental, intellectual, description of the world in the space-time framework. The resulting picture is
open-ended and no claims to absolute finality can be made for it at any stage of its development.
In contrast, the Truth that Dadaji refers to as the Absolute, is well beyond the pale of mind and intellect. Thus no logically consistent description of Truth is possible in human language. The baffling Dadaji experiences I will relate serve to point to this BEYOND.
Dadaji exhorts us all the same to fully enjoy the familiar world as the creation and play of the Supreme Being, while developing an inner awareness of the Lord through loving devotion.
FIRST ENCOUNTER: MAHANAM REVELATION
In June 1973, I was participating in a Summer School at Dalhousie. During one of the evening strolls, a distinguished colleague happened to mention a book, then recently published, relating miracles attributed to a well-known "miracle maker" of south India. I became very curious. I had also read cursorily about such doings in a weekly magazine. All with utter disbelief. After all, as a physicist, I was well aware of the present basic physical laws, including those of conservation of energy and matter, which make physical means unavailable certainly for large scale materialization or even transformations of physical objects.
However, on my return to Bombay, I did buy a copy of that book and read it through. All the incidents were to me quite beyond acceptance. Even though unbelieving, I could not easily dismiss the testimonies of so many good and able people. Were they all gullible fools?0 r was it perhaps possible that, with all the numerous camouflaging hoaxes abounding in the world, there is, in fact, an incomprehensible divine power, to which our laws do not apply, shooting forth baffling manifestations for some divine purpose?
It was not difficult to dismiss such thoughts and get involved with my worldly affairs. I had furthermore, another absorbing pastime made available to me just then. My eldest brother, Sri C.S. Pandit, had moved from Delhi to Bombay to take on the editorial responsibilities of a local daily paper. Our entertaining talks were indeed absorbing. One evening, quite unexpectedly, he told me that he had been contacted by Abhi Bhattacharya requesting him to come and meet Sri Amiya Roy Chowdhury, who was referred to as "Dadaji" (Elder Brother).
"You will accompany me for this meeting?" he asked. I told him point blank, that I did not believe in going and meeting so-called holy persons, and the invitation was clearly to him because of his public importance as an Editor. So, he went to the meeting alone, and in fact went three or four times after.
Each time he would come back with astounding experiences of breathtaking miraculous phenomena, thoroughly enchanted with the loving personality of Dadaji. I listened to him in disbelief, and yet with a mind kept open, albeit with some effort, since I know him well to be a man not easily fooled and trained to watch the crooked by-ways of the political world, and besides, it was the nearest possible first hand reporting.
My suppressed curiosity finally surfaced. I agreed to accompany him to visit Dadaji, on August 15. We started out from my flat, for the fifteen mile drive. It was the monsoon season, and it was literally pouring and the going became rougher as we proceeded.
My brother asked me in mocking dismay, "Are you in luck or not?" As soon as he said this the lashing rain stopped and did not reappear for the remaining thirteen miles.
On the way, my brother ran out of his cigarettes. We stopped and he bought a pack of the expensive, imported State Express 555 brand cigarettes. He hardly had time to enjoy a few puffs, when we arrived at our destination, Abhi Bhattacharya's flat. He threw away his cigarette and we entered the flat.
My brother and I were called into the private bedroom, adjoining the main gathering room, by D adaji. I had vaguely expected to see an awe-inspiring old man with gorgeous saffron clothes, or some other appurtenances of ostensible holiness.
Instead, I saw a rather ordinary looking man, appearing to be about fifty five, with somewhat loose, long cut, mostly black hair, reclining on the bed in a most informal manner of any average elderly Indian household on a Sunday morning. He was clad in the common summer attire of a lungi and a sleeveless vest. Could it really be the one I had come to meet, all this way, I wondered. I greeted him from a distance, abstaining from the traditional Indian touching of the feet when meeting an elder, and then squatted in front of him like the others. The casual informal conversation in progress when we entered, continued. I felt somewhat out of it all, except when a- couple of times, Dadaji shot me a glance with a peculiar smile. Those glances and that smile are vivid even today. They had a quality that is impossible to describe.
All of a sudden with an impetuous spontaneous gesture with his hand he called me closer to him. He touched my chest with his and and I was engulfed all through my body and clothes with an incredible fragrance, which remained after many washings. As he touched my chest he told me, "You take 'Diksha' from your inside, yes?" I vaguely nodded my head, and shuffled back to my original spot.
My brother asked D adaji, "Why do you want publicity?" Dadaji laughed and told him, "He does not want any publicity. But who can stop His work. Truth has ways to get His work done." All very laconic.
All of a sudden Dadaji said, "Oh, Mr. Pandit has a great desire for a cigarette.
Go on smoke if you wish.'' I .. saw my eldest brother looking like an embarassed youngster, an amusing sight indeed. And then Dadaji asked, "Oh, you will smoke my cigarettes? Here •••. " and he flicked his hand and out fell in front of us with incredible suddenness a large carton of two hundred State Express 555 cigarettes which no hand could have hidden! He shot me a glance, inscrutable, from a face somewhat flushed and radiant. And then he took a small piece from his own packet of a cheap brand of cigarettes and casually lit it.
That stub was to me a liberating experience. It seemed to say, "Taboos are man made. Of no importance to Him." My suppressed curiosity for a materialization miracle had been taken care of in a way leaving no room for any quibbling. And this while I was still suffused by the Divine aroma Dadaji had touched off my chest.
While I sat somewhat stunned and yet strangely elated by what I had just witnessed, my brother regained his composure. He asked how these things could happen, speaking in my behalf, that I was a scientist and could hardly accept such happenings. "Dadaji does not know, does not want to know and has no part in them. They happen at His will. That is all. Only a scientist knows the boundaries and so what lies outside them.
Just wait, our scientist will be straightened out in a minute." He asked the others to leave the room, then asked me to hold firmly in my hand a small piece of paper.
Dadaji asked me to bow down to a picture of Sri Sri Satyanarayan, and as I did that he started muttering, "Jai Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Ram" and touched my back.
In a moment, I was living through the grandest miracle of all. While fully conscious I was somehow aware of a deep inner subtle vibration, almost disembodied, and from deep within I heard the Mahanam, two names of Lord Krishna in a voice strangely familiar, just like hearing myself in a tape recording. Dadaji asked me to look at the piece of paper I was holding. I found written on it in beautiful red calligraphy the two names, M ahanam, in Hindi. A gain I bowed, and when I looked at the paper again, the two names had disappeared, leaving a mere fragrant oily smudge.
Dadaji explained, "You have seen your within, Lord Govinda. For a fleeting moment, the veil had been parted for you by His Grace. Back again you are in the mundane world of Maya. Your Mahanam is for your loving remembrance while you sojourn in this world, His Creation. It is not for a mere ritualistic repetiton.
Tell me scientist, did I utter it in your ear to collect some fees? You have got what was and is yours from your within."
And so I was raised by His Grace to the level of a Drashta, a Seer. I had no reluctance to touching his feet now, the feet that were fragrant with Divine aroma. Before we parted, Dadaji gave me a small picture of Sri Sri Satyanarayan for my wallet, and a large one for my home. The basic message of love and devotion to Mahanam, with complete surrender, having been received, I left happily.
On my second visit to Dadaji, again with my brother, D daji thundered, "All bluff! How can a mortal be a Guru of another mortal? The Lord alone is our Guru." This attack on Gurudom and priestcraft is a common refrain with him, much to the annoyance of traditional beliefs (or superstitions) and powerful vested interests. I thought I was being clever when I bowled him quietly a googly: "And D adaji, who is this person in the picture
of Sri Sri Sa tyanarayan?" Straightaway he batted me for a six: "Nobody! He is no body. The symbol of Truth." Every rna them a tician, I remembered, Knows the profound meenings attached to innocuous looking symbols, e.g. of unity (1), zero (0), and infinity (co). That took care of me beautifully.
Dadaji asked me to bring along my wife, Neeraja, and assured me most lovingly that I could meet him anytime whatever. As tangible expression of his love he gave me and invitation card for Neeraja, in the form of a volume of ON DADAJI, inscribed to her and signed Dadaji and the date.
All this was done by merely moving his bare finger on the title page, the inscription in the same beautiful red colored writing. My wife was already to meet Dadaji, having been drawn to him already, when I brought home the picture of Satyanarayan.
That picture had reminded her of a vision she had had some six months earlier, when whe had dosed off one afternoon. A Divine personality appeared to her intimating of his relationship to the family for thousands of years. The appearance, she said, was of Satyanarayan, minus the beard! To her it is a most unforgettably vivid beatific experience, a Sakshatkar, and not a dream as D adaji later told her even without her having said anything about it to him.
As we left to visit D adaji, the monsoon began its furious display with torrential rain. Neeraja instinctively wanted to turn back to pick up an umbrella. But such was im intoxication with the recent experiences with Dadaji that I spontaneously blurted out, "What? Forget it, do you realise where you are going?" She was struck by my confident vehemence and quietly acquiesced to following me without any more ado. We walked along the covered corridors of two buildings, while outside it continued to pour.
Then nonchalantly, I stepped out at the end of the covered corridor on to the road. Promptly the rain stopped, and it never rained a drop throughout our fifteen mile trip.
Many people were assembled to meet Dadaji, but when we arrived he said, "Oh, my daughter has come." He touched her chest and her whole body and clothes were filled with his divine aroma. He took her in for the grandest of all experiences, the receiving of Mahanam.
Dadaji explained to her that, "The Lord is immediately available to you through love. Remember Mahanam with love and complete self surrender. That is the only way. He is far, far out of the reach of the clever and the merely learned. By no means can you get to Him through rituals."
THE SUPREME SCIENCE
My family and I continued to have many astounding experiences of manifestation, transformation and healing, and to read and hear of the experiences of our brothers and sisters with Dadaji. It slowly dawned upon me that I had been receiving hints about the Incomprehensible Truth beyond the reach of our intellectual pursuits, science included. How ever, it simultaneously dawned upon me that there was N0 denial of our mundane activities implied at all.
To give us a glimpse of That in Whom all space-time, causality, good, bad, the whole universe (evolving, exploding, pulsating or steady), all knowledge (scientific or otherwise), have their seat is the proclaimed purpose of Dadaji. To our science domina ted world he has thus appeared as a knower of the "Supreme Science." His subject containing as it does, science and all else.
Months later, I asked Dadaji, "It appears to me that what we study is only the manifested world, with its presumably definite laws; and surely by powers of intuition, imagination, and reason again manifested by Him. Is it not?" Dadaji beamed at me and said, "Ah! Fine, you are through, you are through!"
Yet, within our own family discussions, my brother's eldest son took us to task for believing in such nonsense, telling us in effect that we too were being led to join the large ranks of gullible fools.
It was most natural from one who had not yet been destined to receive or understand the experiences we had gone through. For these experiences cannot be asked for or ordered; as Dadaji repeatedly says, they happen at His Will alone.
WHO IS DADAJI?
What man is there who can really claim to 'know' him! To his large number of brothers and sisters, he appears as the most beloved ever loving eldest brother.
To many outside, he appears as a mighty menace to their age old game of exploitation of the simple minded people in the form of "Gurudom."
There are, of course, people, who unable to take in the impact of the events that take place in his presence through Divine Will, want an easy escape by dubing them as mere tricks of magic. Yes, magic indeed it is, the same magic from which came forth the sun, the stars, the galaxies, the entire universe!
Dadaji, as knower of Brahma, appears in our science dominated world as the knower of the "Supreme Science." He is the knower of Truth, in which all that is perceived and all that is not perceived have their seat. He says, "To separate propitious from the pernicious the capacity for the worship fo the Divine Being has to be acquired in order to . negate both."
It is to establish that Truth in our feeble minds that the grand drama seems to have been initiated. Both the pernicious and the propitious have a clashing role therein, before both are wiped out and Truth becomes manifest in His Divine splendor as Sri Sri Satyanarayan!
I vividly recall Dadaji saying, "All is Absolute, everyone, everything. Only by our fragmented vision we see parts. Truth is outside the reach of the mind. This whole life is His Vraja-Leela (Divine Play). We have come to enjoy His play.
Remember Him with love and remain in Swabhava (natural state). Good and bad in mind only, you follow Him. Divine name is the only path."
