He expressed his pleasure at the newly built grass hut, the repairs done to the cottage and the pitching of a tent for the companions.
The next day, Baba sent Keki Desai back to Delhi and Nalavala to Dehra Dun. After their arrival in Motichur, Baba and the companions began eating only one meal a day. Baba and Gustadji would have rice and dal, and the other companions would have dal and chapatis. Also, Baba began doing his own menial work of sweeping his hut, cleaning his utensils, plate and commode, washing his clothes, and so forth.
After his bath on the 4th, Baba sat in his grass hut alone in seclusion for fifteen minutes, and thereafter informed the companions that he had again "confirmed his oath and the conditions of the New Life."
Baba instructed the companions to make exhaustive inquiries about the names and locations of ashrams, hermitages or camps of all saints, sadhus and mahatmas who would be coming for the Kumbha Mela — the greatest celebration of holy men for the past many years in Hardwar.1
On Tuesday evening, 7 March 1950, Pendu brought news of a good sadhu near the spring where the companions filled their water jugs. Baba immediately went to the sadhu, bowed his head at the sadhu's feet and brought him back to the hut to feed him. Baba spoke with him for about an hour via the alphabet board before the sadhu left.
At one o'clock in the afternoon of the 9th, Baba with Eruch, Pendu, Baidul and Gustadji, took a bus to Rishikesh, where in the Himalayan foothills he contacted a number of saints, sadhus and mahatmas, and paid homage to those in the Kailash and Mangal Ashrams.2 Baba would lay his head on their feet or, at times, touch their feet with his hands. Before the New Life began he would offer such obeisance privately, out of sight of the mandali, but in the New Life he did it in front of his companions.
"I bow down to sadhus, saints and masts in the New Life," he stated, "but it is quite different from the mast work I used to do before."
On the first day of visiting ashrams, huts and caves, Baba made 91 contacts with different saints, sadhus and mahatmas. Pendu was told to keep a record of the number of contacts. Trekking a long distance beyond Swarg Ashram and the Bhagirathi River bridge, Baba completed the contacts in five hours.
Footnotes
- 1.In Hardwar and Rishikesh, all saints, sadhus, ascetics, anchorites — whether they be real or false, ordinary or saintly — were addressed as mahatmas (great souls or holy men).
- 2.Symbolically, Kailash is the highest mountain in the Himalayas where Shiva resides. (In Vedanta, Kailash actually means the highest spiritual plane.) Mangala is another name for a "Buddha."