The Near and the Dear
by Dada Mukerjee, Dada Mukerjee
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dada MukerjeeEditor: Hanuman Foundation
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Published: 2000-05
ISBN: 1887474021
Number of pages: 294
Publisher: Hanuman Foundation
Book Reviews of The Near and the Dear
Book Review: Balm for the World Weary Soul
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book every night at bedtime and it feels like someone pours lotion over my mind. This is basically a sequel to "Miracle of Love" which is really a classic book of stories about the Indian saint known as Neem Karoli Baba.
Neem Karoli Baba was a lifelong spiritual renunciate who apparently did a twelve-year retreat in a cave in his younger days and posessed mind-boggling spiritual powers. He was very ordinary looking and is unique in his loveableness. He was what, in India, they call a "Great Siddha." I always find myself even staring at his picture in a way that is unique to me. I find his appearance fascinating which is odd because he looks normal other than he had the eccentric habit of wearing a blanket over his regular Indian garments wherever he went.
He attained fame in the west in the following way:
Remember Timothy Leery, the "LSD guru" who was really a Harvard professor who dropped out in the early (or mid) nineteen sixties and then urged others to "tune in, turn on, drop out!" Another professor dropped out with him whose name was Richard Alpert. Alpert suspected LSD wasn't the answer and went to India. There he met an american who looked like a hippie but was in fact a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba.
Many months before the trip to India, Alpert's mother had died of cancer, her abdomen swelling painfully before she passed. One night in India, drinking beer, alpert went outside to relieve himself and while doing so looked up at the stars and thought of his mother. Then he went back inside and forgot it. He told no one about it.
A few days later Alpert's hippie friend ushered him into the presence of neem karoli baba (who didn't even speak english)and who was (naturally) wearing his blanket. Alpert was an extremely analytical Jewish guy who was thoroughly trained in the western, materialistic mind-set (mired in it in all likelihood) and had no reason to change that way of looking at things until given some kind of evidence convincing him to abandon it. After all, materialism is a carefully constructed edifice it has taken western thinkers/scientists centuries to build and it really works--we have vaccines, for instance.
So Alpert approaches Neem Karoli Baba, a man who looks like your bald-headed uncle wearing a blanket and who apparently sees no reason to shave every day.
Through an interpreter Neem Karoli Baba then says roughly the following to Alpert, "The other night you sat drinking beer. You went outside to urinate and looked up at the stars. You thought of your mother who died last year. Before she died her stomach got very big." He then illustrated by moving his hands as if over a round, distended stomach.
Needless to say, alpert the harvard trained psychologist, is taken aback. He says something like, "How did you know that?"
To which the uncle in the blanket says, "I was with you already."
At this point alpert goes and sits down. Smoke emanates from his ears. He starts crying and can't stop. You can't blame him, I mean the entire edifice of western materialism has just crumbled. All that work, not really down the drain, but revealing large (and I mean LARGE) gaps that must be accounted for (the amazing randi would have probably claimed Neem Karoli Baba had a radio set in his blanket he used to cheat with). Just think about it, the mere clean up time for such a huge edifice now lying in a heap is going to take weeks, maybe months. I'd cry too.
Alpert became a devotee, changed his name to Ram Dass, and spent the rest of his life (so far) trying to further the work of the guy in the blanket.
As i said at the start of this--these are stories about the uncle in the blanket. Reading Richard Alpert's mind is far from the only miracle he did. That isn't even close to being the most amazing. But, if you are drawn to him or this kind of story you might like this. Like I already mentioned, another book called "Miracle of Love" is the definitive one and there's a prequel to this one called "By His Grace." The hippie who took Alpert to the master wrote a funny, crazy, at times inspiring book called "It's Here Now, Are You," and he now calls himself "Bhagavan Das." It's not nearly as pure as the others but I enjoyed it thoroughly (having once been a hippie of sorts myself; (or at least a Paul McCartney impersonator).
Best of luck in your spiritual life, whatever it is.
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