Spiritual Barter

Raja Rampaul was born on Lord Krishna’s birthday. When his mother Eela was pregnant with him, she had this recurring dream of a blue-skinned baby appearing on her bed, holding the Earth in his right palm, while rolling his head back and having a good laugh. It was as if the baby was the only creature in the world who knew the secrets of the universe.

The pregnancy itself wasn’t easy. Eela was robbed at gunpoint on one occasion and bitten by a stray dog on another occasion. She could feel evil forces at work trying to stop the baby from being born.

Eela and Rohit Rampaul, Raja’s father, were separated by the time Raja had been born. Eela didn’t have much money but always tried to give her son the best of everything. Even as a baby, Raja had a magical presence and there were strange occurrences in Eela’s house that could not be explained.

Every night, Eela would put Raja to bed in his cot and go for a nighttime walk. They lived in a small house by the forest in Northampton, Massachusetts. On these walks, there was a danger of getting attacked by Black Bears. Yet, after Raja was born, Eela had lost the ability to feel fear. Walking under the nighttime sky had a soothing effect on her nerves, and she forgot all her financial woes.

Eela would often return home from these walks to find Raja missing from the cot. In a state of panic, she looked around to see him rolling around on her queen-sized bed with milk splattered on his face. He was barely six months old at the time these incidents began, and she couldn’t figure out how he managed to climb out of the child-proof cot and onto the bed. The milk bottle always lay by his side.

When it came time to put Raja into kindergarten, even with child support from Raja’s father, Eela did not have enough money to pay the fees. A few days before Raja was old enough to start kindergarten, she rummaged through her bag looking for change and found a fat wad of one-hundred-dollar bills. She had no idea how and when it got there. She smiled to herself and jumped up and down with excitement. Much like Diego Maradona’s goal against the United Kingdom in the 1986 Football World Cup, she felt it was the hand of God that performed this miracle. Interestingly, when she ran out of the hundred-dollar bills, Raja’s father called and said he’d hit the jackpot with his herbal medicine business and would be paying all of Raja’s expenses going forward.

Rohit Rampaul was a maverick in the true sense of the word. He was a shaman and herbalist and helped many people find their life’s purpose through profound psychedelic experiences. He also cured many people of illnesses with his herbal remedies. He was polyamorous and Eela had no expectation of a long-term relationship with him. He had five children from three different women and helped financially as best he could.

Rohit seemed to receive his instruction on how to live directly from a higher power and had a strong connection with Mother Nature. He had told Eela during her pregnancy that God had a divine plan in place for Raja.

Rohit lived in Amherst, one town over from Northampton, in a cosy bungalow made of red bricks. The house was surrounded by corn fields and bordered Hampshire College. He had an open-door policy, and many college students would visit and find him smoking cannabis from a giant bong and working on new herbal remedies. Some would smoke with him, and others would try his herbal remedies.

While smoking, Rohit resembled Lord Shiva, the God of Destruction. He had long, reddish-brown hair knotted in dreadlocks, a well-sculpted jawline, and a broad, muscular physique. His face had a gentle expression, and his eyes brimmed with the intelligence of a spiritually evolved soul. Around his neck, he wore a necklace full of Rudraksha seeds. Rudraksha’s are seeds from a South-Asian tree named Elaeocarpus Ganitrus and are said to be the tears of Lord Shiva. The seeds have curative properties and are said to balance the physical self and the mind.

Rohit looked like a majestic being when he often roamed around bare-chested, wearing only a loincloth made of tiger skin. He received the loincloth as a hand-me-down from his Guru, Sohongji, in Kolkata, India.

Before turning to spirituality, Sohongji was known as the Tiger Swami, and he made a living by fighting and defeating tigers with his bare hands. People would come from far and wide to watch these fights and would pay a tidy sum.

What the audience didn’t know was that Sohongji had a kinship with the Royal Bengal Tigers he fought. He was in complete control of the fights, and the tigers would, after some sparring, happily surrender to him because they loved and respected him. Even the tiger skin Sohongji gave to Rohit was made from the skin of Rama Dev, his pet tiger, who died of old age. Sohongji had got the loincloth made as a symbol of love for Rama Dev.

One day, after a particularly violent fight, Sohongji was severely injured. The tiger he had fought had been tortured and starved by one of his enemies. While lying in bed, nursing his wounds, he heard a voice telling him that the tiger community would no longer support him, and he should retreat to the Himalayas and meditate. After his injuries healed, he left for the Himalayan Mountains. He spent seven years there, meditating and meeting spiritual saints.

One day, while walking near the caves of the Dunagiru Mountain, Sohongji met his Guru, Mahavatar Babaji. Mahavatar Babaji is an astral being who lives in the Himalayan Mountain range. He is a spiritually evolved soul and has circumvented the cycles of life and death. Babaji initiated Sohongji into his brotherhood and taught him a secret meditation technique called Kriya Yoga. He then instructed Sohongji to start an Ashram in the suburbs of Kolkata, India. The purpose of this ashram was to help city people gain enlightenment while still being involved with their worldly duties.

The legend of Mahavatar Babaji is interesting. He and his band of brothers are said to guide human beings from an evolutionary and spiritual perspective. Many spiritual masters such as Jesus Christ and Lahiri Mahasaya are said to be part of Babaji’s brotherhood, and together they nurture humanity.

Before moving to Amherst, Rohit spent five years in Sohongji’s Ashram, learning and practicing Babaji’s Kriya Yoga meditation. Sohongji had then asked Rohit to start a new life in America, practicing herbal medicine and spreading the message of Kriya Yoga.

One day, while sitting in his living room in Amherst, a young gentleman came knocking on Rohit’s door. Rohit was mixing herbal tonics and stopped what he was doing to answer the door. The man had long, brown hair that reached his hips, an angular, gender-neutral face and a tall, slender frame. His face was expressionless, and his skin glowed with the radiance of the rising Sun. Rohit immediately sensed that this man was a spiritual master and joined his palms to greet him. He then invited the man into the living room, and they took a seat on the couch.

“I have come to discuss the future of the son you share with Eela,” said the man.

“What about him?” replied Rohit.

“At the age of eighteen, send him to the Himalayas to live with me for one year. Here, he will receive his spiritual training. He will then move to Los Angeles where he will start a spiritual movement that will change the tenets of human society,” said the man.

“Are you Mahavatar Babaji,” asked Rohit.

“Yes, my child, I am Babaji. You should be proud to know that your son is an avatar of Lord Krishna. He has come down to Earth to start a movement that will balance good and bad karma. It’s a concept called spiritual barter. The Earth is going through a transitional phase right now. Nature has become imbalanced, and this is causing pandemics and severe natural calamities. This movement will help transition our planet and our species towards a more advanced level of existence,” replied Babaji.

 Rohit listened with utmost attention as Babaji went on to explain Raja’s mission.

“People come down to Earth in a soul packet which comprises souls that you are linked with from a karmic perspective. At the end of your life, you have a life review, where, with the help of souls in your soul packet, you evaluate your life and your choices. You then choose a path and a family for your next life. If a person has had too little of something, such as money in this life, it is likely they will be born wealthy in their next life and vice versa. This method is unfair because people are born with either too much or too little of things like health, wealth, intelligence or physical prowess,” said Babaji.

“That is true,” agreed Rohit.

“I will give Raja the power to use a technique called spiritual barter where he can initiate a life review in between lives and have people exchange things they have in excess for things they don’t have. So, you can exchange something like excess wealth for good health by donating your wealth or giving it to a poorer family member. It will make life more balanced for humanity as a whole,” continued Babaji.

“I’ve always been saddened at the level of inequality in this world. It makes me proud that you are choosing my son for this mission,” said Rohit beaming with joy.

“Yes, we are going through a transitional phase in human evolution and your son holds the key. He can stop suffering and help millions of people live enlightened lives. I must go now. If you ever need me, sit in Kriya meditation, ask for me and I will manifest.” Babaji said goodbye and disappeared into thin air. He had astrally transported himself back to his cave in the Himalayas.

As Raja grew older, Rohit prepped him for his trip to India and taught him various Kriya Yoga meditation techniques. At the age of eighteen, when most kids went to college, Raja got on an Air India flight to New Delhi. From Delhi, he took a bus to Ranikhet in the state of Uttarakhand. As Raja got off the bus, a sadhu in an orange garb met him and led him to a waiting taxi. As they sat in the car, the sadhu blindfolded Raja, and the taxi set off on the winding roads up the Himalayan Mountains. After what seemed like four hours, they stopped in front of a large, white bungalow with a garden in the front and a view of the Himalayan Mountain range at the back.

The sadhu led Raja to the front door, knocked four times and turned to leave.

“Are you not going to stay,” asked Raja.

“My job is done. Mataji will take care of you now. Babaji has given her instructions,” said the Sadhu and left.

A beautiful Indian woman of medium height with reddish-brown hair, a rosy-red complexion and a bubbly personality opened the door. She wore a white ‘salwar’ suit and had the aura of an angelic being. She greeted Raja and led him into the house. The woman was quick and nimble on her feet, and Raja had to speed walk to follow her down the hall past the living room into a large bedroom.

The bedroom was sparsely furnished and upholstered in off-white. The bed was a four-poster, Burma-teak bed with intricate carvings and a large, wooden cupboard was opposite the bed. Other than that, the room was empty.

The lady spoke for the first time.

“You can use that cupboard for your clothes which you will wash and dry yourself. The toilet is through that door. We have no geyser, so you will shower in cold water. It’s good for your immunity. Mealtimes are fixed, and a bell will ring signaling for you to come to the dining area. You can address me as Mataji. I am Babaji’s sister. I will do your meditation training for nine months, after which Babaji will take over for the last quarter. You will be with us for exactly one year and then you will go back to America.”

The first few months flew by. The meditations with Mataji were powerful. While sitting deep in meditation for hours, life and the universe started to make sense. Raja felt like he was watching a divine play where every living being played a predestined part. Material objects ceased to be real. He saw them as particles of energy bound together by a magnetic force. They were there because one perceived they were there.

Raja realized his vision was cloaked by what Hindus refer to as Maya. Maya is the illusion of the material world. In meditation, Mataji started to remove Maya from Raja’s perception of the Universe. He began to see a deeper meaning to the world. The concept of ‘I, me, my,’ did not make sense anymore, and Raja realized that the soul was just a vessel that allowed him and other living beings to experience the drama we call life. He realized that all souls here on Earth are part of a larger, more evolved being popularly referred to as God, and each soul would eventually merge with this being once their cycles of births and deaths are over. He saw time as a concept that is nonlinear and realized every action in our universe has already happened, is happening and is yet to happen depending on the soul experiencing it.

After nine months of rigorous training with Mataji, he found her one day sitting in deep meditation in the prayer room. There was a strong smell of burning incense sticks. Raja looked at her and saw she was in a trance-like state with her eyes half open and half closed and her eyeballs facing upwards. Suddenly, with a thunderous explosion, her physical form disappeared and was immediately replaced by a young-looking man who Raja recognized as Mahavatar Babaji.

Babaji smiled at Raja.

“Mataji tells me your training is going well. Your third eye has opened, and your kundalini has risen considerably. Now in the last stage of your training, I will teach you spiritual barter. It is a concept that will upset the natural balance of the universe, but it will give people much happier lives in the present moment. People who are destined to suffer health-wise or wealth-wise can make barters to improve their circumstances in this life. When people come to you for help, you will have the power to remove the cloak of Maya from their consciousness and instigate a life review. In the review, you will guide them to make barters or exchanges with other souls in their soul packet.”

“How will this work, exactly?” asked Raja.

“I will give you a siddhi (power) whereby when you touch a person’s head with your palm, he will instantly go into a life review. Then, you can guide him to make a spiritual barter (exchange) with other souls in his soul packet. The person will be able to exchange things they have in excess, like wealth, physical prowess, a particular talent, and business acumen for an increase in life span, health, a life partner, children, etc. People can even exchange material things like wealth for nonmaterial things like health. To gain this power, you must chant the ‘beech (secret) mantra’ given to you for ten hours a day for a period of two months,” instructed Babaji.

Raja did as he was told and after chanting, he would spend the nights listening to Babaji’s discourses about the universe and life. The mantra chanting energized his being so much that he did not need sleep. After the requisite two months were over, Babaji performed an initiation ceremony for Raja and put him into a trance and the siddhi was transferred into his being.

During the final month, Babaji taught Raja practical training and invited troubled people over to the house and made Raja perform spiritual barter on them. With every person Raja helped, he became more attuned to guiding the subject who was choosing the barter.

On the last day, Babaji brought home a wealthy Indian man with polio in both his legs. After Raja touched the man’s head and put him into a life review, he realized that the man had a sister who had been cheated out of her inheritance due to the old-fashioned, male-chauvinistic tradition in some Indian families in which the son receives the family money after the parent’s demise.

During the barter, Raja urged the man to transfer half his wealth to his poorer sister. The man did as he was told and initiated a money transfer. Miraculously, the man’s legs grew to a normal, healthy size. He rose from his wheelchair and walked for the first time in twenty years. The man screamed with joy. He then paid his respects to Babaji and Raja and left with a new lease on life.

After one year of living in India, with a heavy heart, Raja left Babaji and flew to Los Angeles, California. As instructed, he met Rob Carino, a wealthy businessman who was one of Babaji’s disciples, and together they set up an Ashram for healing through spiritual barter. Before leaving, Babaji had given Raja permission to transfer his siddhi (power) to certain trustworthy disciples. Babaji’s goal was to start a spiritual barter ashram in every country of the world.

Soon the Ashram in Los Angeles became so popular that sick, unhappy people from all over the world sought help there. Life reviews during one’s current life became a common phenomenon, and the cards dealt to humanity became more equitable. Through spiritual barter, millions of people led balanced and healthy lives. Many beggars and handicapped persons were transformed into regular, well-to-do, able-bodied individuals.

Raja, with Babaji’s blessings, opened a spiritual barter Ashram in forty-seven countries, helping millions of people become the best version of themselves. At the age of seventy-five, Raja’s soul left his physical body and he joined Babaji’s band of brothers in the Himalayas.