My mind was forced to reconsider the nature of reality. Seriously. This was in 1986. My business partner and I were invited to go see Maharishi in New Delhi, India. While visiting Maharishi, we heard about a Vedic pundit named Shastraji that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had endorsed as completely enlightened.
Apparently his predictions were specific and never, ever wrong. What you would do is write down six questions and put them in your pocket before you went to go see him. He would then tell you your questions in sequence, and answer them. It’s hard to believe, but a good magician can “read” your writing by watching the eraser end of your pencil. Because we wrote the questions down before we arrived, this wasn’t happening here.
An Example of Shastraji’s predictions
My friends who lived in Maharishi’s compound were full of stories about Shatraji’s amazing and never wrong predictions. For example, at that time Maharishi was making occasional secretive trips. After his western staff would go to bed, Maharishi would fly off to parts of India to build up the TM movement in India.
Maharishi’s staff would wake up and Maharishi would be gone. He would have secretly flown out during the night. The staff wanted to know when Maharishi would be coming back, but nobody knew. The staff would go see this pundit in New Delhi, and he would tell them the time, date and flight number when Maharishi would return so they could greet him at the airport. He was never wrong – even with flight numbers. How is this possible?
And what does this mean about free will?
My Questions
I wrote down my questions and made my first question very obscure. The wife of a friend of mine had a throat condition. All the women in her family for several generations had to have their thyroids removed. My first question was about her health. Shastraji said “Your friend’s wife has a problem with her neck. Don’t worry about it – I will take care of it.” He would take care of it? I thought he just told the future. I didn’t say a thing about this to my friend at the time.
A number of years later I spoke to my friend and asked how his wife’s health was. All her sisters had to have their thyroids removed, but his wife just managed to find the right combination of drugs and hormones, and she never had her thyroid removed. What can you make of that?
My Financial Question
I don’t remember all my questions, but I did ask about my financial future. He assured me great wealth was coming my way. Great wealth is a subjective thing, especially from an impoverished pundit who only accepted donations.
There was a property tax collector there at Shastraji’s home, respectfully pressings Shastraji for a payment on his property taxes. Shastraji was shrugging his shoulders, as if to say “What can I do? I don’t have the money.” My business partner at the time was Ed Beckley, the infomercial star. We owned The Beckley Group. Along with a competitor, we pretty much introduced infomercials to America. Ed actually was the one who coined the term “infomercial.”
Ed had dropped a $100 bill in the donation basket. When the tax collector saw that he lit up and asked if he could have it. Of course he could, and he left happily.
So from a pundit who lived in such simplicity and poverty, what does it mean when he predicted vast wealth for me? I don’t know, but I have been blessed financially through my businesses, just as he predicted.
My Question about Enlightenment
My last question was: When would I get enlightened? He said age 56 or 57. He explained that in India they have a different way of calculating birthdays than we do in the West, so his prediction depended on that difference. That put my awakening at about 2009 – a long, long way off for an impatient seeker.
At this time I had just made $5 million dollars (today’s dollars) and I was just a bit full of myself. “No way it will take that long” I scoffed, and ignored his reading. LOL – my enlightenment happened exactly when he said it would.
Please note that Shastraji was predicting my shift into Unity Consciousness. He apparently did not care so much about the preliminary stage of enlightenment called Cosmic Consciousness that I experienced in December of 2000.
When I blog about shifting into Unity Consciousness I will describe the difference between these two states of Consciousness.
A second Vedic pundit predicted both my shifting into Cosmic Consciousness and then into Unity Consciousness nine years later. He got very specific about what it would eventually look like – touching millions of people, and miracles happening around me.
This second reading shook me to my core, but that’s for the next blog on this track.
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