A DREAM OF BABA JI
By: Dr. Regina Clarke (U.S.A.)

MY last memory of Baba Gurbachan Singh Ji was on a winter day at Grand Central Station in New York City. It was 1978 and he was about to return to India. Prof. J.S. Puri was handing him a cup of tea while Babaji sat on the bench waiting for the train to the airport. I have six or seven photographs of that day, taken by one of the party member and given to me, and on view-ing them, the im-ages co-me so quickly and clearly of the beauty and kindness of the man he was.

What I also remember is watching Babaji and feeling the stillness within him. While the rest of us went this way and that, checking schedules, conversing, wondering what we could do for him next, he remained quiet and so centered, detached. Yet, he missed nothing, and every so often that inimitable twinkle would come into his eyes at a word spoken or action taking place. Perhaps most of all, I remember that intense interest in life that he gave out.

But long before that day, before ever meeting or communicating with Babaji, I had been drawn to his eyes in a picture Tirlok Malik had offered me. Such an expression of in-credible tolerance and love and peace. I studied it for some months, wondering as I did what this new Sant Nirankari Mission was really all about. And the picture, those remarkable eyes, told me all I needed to know.

That same photograph is with me now, on a shelf above the wood stove in this living room where I write. Baba Gurbachan Singh was in his thirties, black beard and white turban, already deep into his total involvement with spreading the Sant Nirankari Mission worldwide. He reached out to me as an American, his features full of compassion and pure joy of being, with a message of welcome. And on that New York visit, he also reached out to my two-year old son, Elye, blessing him, placing his hand on my son's head in benediction. Later he wrote me a letter, that he signed himself, and even now it resonates with his positive spirit.

It intrigues me now, so many years later, that I can recall that winter day so well. But Babaji was not a man to meet in passing and forget.

Just as vividly another image comes to mind, one that occurred in a dream I had the day before I decided to take the Gyan (God-knowledge) in 1977, and over a year before I met Babaji in person. Most dreams are fragments, but this one was whole. In this dream, I was in a room panelled in wood. I know that I am not enlightened. In the room I see a face, and think it is the Baba, but somehow I know it is his son, who looks just like him in all ways, but is the son. Then beyond the wood-panelled door, penetrating through it, a rose and gold light emanates towards me. I realised the Nirankari Baba is on the other side, and what I have sought I have found, and the light is mine. A few moments later in the dream, I see Baba Gurbachan Singh sitting in a chair near the window of my kitchen in the daylight, white clothes and turban. Someone is asking me where to find the answer, and I tell him the answer is with the Baba�there lies enlightenment.

The next evening I asked for the Knowledge from my friend, Ashok Wahi. And then I felt as well as saw the sweeping ray of light�forever mine�gift of Babaji.