PRATIBHA PATIL AND SPIRITUAL INDIA-1...

On the night of 25 June 2007, one Hindi television channel, Janmat, which is at the bottom of TRP ratings among Hindi television channels but gives occasionally most intelligent discussions in Hindi, anchored by a seasoned and brilliant Hindi journalist, Rahul Dev sprang a surprise on the listeners by saying that the UPA’s presidential nominee, Pratibha Patil has claimed that she had gone to the ashram of Brahma Kumaris at Mount Abu.

There the aged woman guru, known as Dadi Hriday Mohini, who was sitting there started speaking to her in a male voice which was that of her guru, Lekhraj, the founder of the Prajapati Brahma Kumaris Institution and was her guru who had taken his samadhi (died 35 years ago. Pratibha Patil was astounded. Lekhrajji had entered the body of Dadi Hriday Mohini !!

A male voice coming out of a female mouth !! This was the debating point. Was it a superstition ? The Congress participant talked of Atma and Paramatma which he said was in accordance with Hindu belief system. He escaped by saying that it could be explained best only by Pratibha Patil herself.

This incident was reported by Rajesh Asnani the correspondent of Janmat in Rajasthan. It happened on the same day on which Pratibha Patil was declared the presidential candidate for UPA which means on 14 June 2007.

Strangely, the BJP participant, the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Babulal Gaur, called it a superstition.

So the roles were reversed, the Congress participant defending it though he represents a party known for its hypocritical secularism and the BJP participant condemning it though he should have defended it as a representative of a staunch Hindu party,BJP !!

Another participant also called it a superstition. A male psychologist described it as a case of abnormal mind, as perhaps, he had to, because he has his mind stuffed with western attitudes and the superstition of “scientism”.

A woman psychologist said that it could be a hallucinatory experience though, she added, it could be prophetic sometimes and referred to the “racial unconscious” ( it is Jungian psychology which I studied deeply years ago).

The question was whether a candidate for the highest post of India should talk of this experience and spread superstition they asked in the discussion? 

This experience of Pratibha Patil must have been in the afternoon of 14 June 2007 and her candidature for the post of Indian president came in the evening. It proved lucky for her was a general verdict.

The television channel repeatedly showed Pratibha Patil saying that the Baba entered the body of Dadi Hriday Mohini and was surprised to hear him speak. She also said that it proved lucky for her. The participants were casting aspersions on Pratibha Patil saying that she was spreading superstition and if she became the president and made similar utterances, it would damage the “scientific temper” of the nation!!

MY EXPERIENCE

I also did not believe in it till in 1962 when I had first of many such experiences in Shillong. I was told about a nine year old daughter of a milkman who spoke strangely in bhajans sometimes and that if I was lucky I might have such an experience first hand.

I attended the bhajans and was lucky to see the nine year girl suddenly shiver suddenly, ( a symptom, I have seen many times, preceding a trance of this type) and begin to speak like an adult. She was speaking in Bengali in Sylhet dialect which made my understanding of it somewhat difficult. I took the help of some friends who translated it for me. I remember it so vividly even now because of the sequence of events next day, a Monday.

Next day, I was sitting in the office and in the evening at 4/45 pm when I was discussing a case with a subordinate of mine in my office room, I suddenly saw the wall clock shake and then the wall wave and heard rumbling sound below my chair. “ Sir, run out,” shouted the subordinate “it is an earthquake”. I was totally stunned. It is what the girl had said in her trance, like a very elderly woman in the bhajan the previous day, “to be careful as there would be two quakes next day a Monday” and had told even the time precisely !”

Back home, I found one Professor Dutta, who had come from Silchar greet me and ask me to come to his brother’s house and spend some time discussing national politics which he did most intelligently and analytically. While we were discussing it, suddenly Prof. Dutta asked me how could I get interested in bhajans and the strange happenings resembling superstition. I told Prof Dutta what had happened that day and how the earthquake of the evening had been predicted by the girl which seismologists can never do !! Prof. Dutta did not believe it. Then I told him that the girl had said that there would be another quake at nine in the night and it could be tested after half an hour as we were discussing it at 8/30 pm and, if it happened it would prove something !

Prof. Dutta could not believe me and thought that I had become mad. Right at 9 pm there was another tremor and Prof Dutta ran out of the house having experiences of earthquakes many times in his life. For me it was the first experience of earthquakes that day. But most stunning was the prophetic warning of the girl.

I had studied some parapsychology and wanted to probe into it with an open mind and not accept cheaply the explanation of Indian psychologists who have their minds stuffed what they learn from western psychologists. When Prof Dutta entered the house, he said “ You win and I lose”.

Later, he never questioned my beliefs and appreciated that I never accepted anything blindly and had the courage to test and retest such phenomena and also criticize the frauds courageously and create enemies.

In many bhajans later I had many more similar experiences when I saw someone get into trance, and begin to speak in strange voice, even utter something prophetic. I felt grateful to the television channel, Janmat, which showed it because it shows that we are likely to have a president who will tell the nation that there is something greater than their superstition of “scientism”.

To be born in India and not to have first hand experience of such phenomena is a misfortune and not to believe in the supernormal is a greater misfortune and superstition. Forget the irrational “rationalists” and scientism obsessed pretenders posing as intellectuals. I will write more on this subject.