Yad Rakh Never Happened

After many years, when Baba departed, I was feeling so lonely. Still I feel lonely because I did not see Him speak from beginning to end.

Please note it down and know well that He did not speak, either in English or in Hindi. Only gestures.

— Bhau Kalchuri, Jan 7, 2012

This isn't the first blog to use that sensational title, Yad Rakh Never Happened. Although this is the first to remove the question mark that originally appeared with it. That title was not the original use of a brightly lit headline on the same topic, as anyone can discover by referring to Glow International, Spring 2012, page 3, where one will find an article titled, Meher Baba Never Broke His Silence; The words “Yaad Rakh” were expressed in gestures, In a Glow International Exclusive, Bhau Kalchuri, Chairman, Avatar Meher Baba Trust, clarifies his earlier remarks about Meher Baba’s Silence. Now that's flashy!

Bhau Kalchuri

Baba's beloved Bhau Kalchuri has, since all this hullabaloo, gone happily to his Beloved, and so I'll give some clarification of what I'm talking about to those who don't know. Baba died in 1969. One of his night watchmen, Bhau Kalchuri, was often near him through his final night. The next day Baba died silently at fifteen minutes after noon on January 31, 1969, in a moving scene, surrounded by only his most intimate close disciples, as he gave final orders and conditions with hand gestures to them, as he always had for over four decades of his famed and mysterious silence. Baba's silence, that began just three years after he started his life's mission, is the center of his mystical life, and its central mystical riddle. The very title of his most famous and important book God Speaks is a clear and direct allusion to its inner meaning, since Baba dictated the book on an alphabet board in total silence. As early as 1964, one of his earlier biographers wrote of Baba's mysterious silence, in an attempt to interpret it:

Why he ceased to speak and write Baba has explained only vaguely, though much natural curiosity is aroused; the first question asked when people come to know about him or to see him is why he does it. That both silence and nonwriting are of great significance is certain; not surprisingly Baba does not explain. Silence is the answer to silence. (The God-Man: The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an Interpretation of His Silence and Spiritual Teaching. C.B. Purdom, George Allen and Unwin, 1964, p. 407) 

When Baba died all agreed that his silence remained a mystery, as none came forward to announce ever witnessing him breaking it. And this became his biography. A man who spoke of breaking his life-long silence almost as soon as he began it, over and over in endless circumstances, yet never apparently did so. It became a sign of his imperfection to some who did not care much for him to begin with, and to those who did care, something to inwardly contemplate as of inner significance. In fact a scholarly paper was recently published by a professor of semiotics on the subject of the possible inner meaning of Baba's communicating without spoken words. You can view the article in the peer reviewed journal Signs and Society, Vol. 2, No. S1, Supplement 2014 – viewable here.

Now for the drama, and what this article is all about. Thirty years after Baba died, when most of the other witnesses were gone and could not comment, Baba's night watchman, by this late time the administrator of the Avatar Meher Baba Trust in India, Bhau Kalchuri, wrote that he had heard Baba speak a two-word sentence in Hindi (which interestingly was not Baba's first spoken language) in a very clear voice to him while he was with Baba alone on his final night, around midnight, just twelve hours before Baba's death. This of course went round the world creating a minor international sensation among those who cared about the life of Meher Baba. This naturally in-turn cast Bhau into the bright spotlight of the Baba-world, as the only person to whom Meher Baba broke his silence in any literal sense of uttered words, and Bhau is recorded on video and audio tape repeating it over and over around the world to amazed crowds of people. Such was the Baba-buzz for the first decade of the dawn of the third millennium.

In 2013 beloved Bhau Kalchuri dropped his suffering physical form and went to meet his beloved Baba.

But Bhau's passing happened only after, in the last few painful years of his life, he recanted his original remarks about Baba speaking to him. This thus obviously flashed around the world, as Baba lovers, so eager to trust Bhau, could hardly make head nor hair of such an odd reverse-revelation. Not once, but twice, Bhau (the administrator of Baba's nonprofit Trust) had asked the world of those who believe in Baba to stand their beliefs about Baba upside down. What to make of it? No one has ever seemed to be able to perfectly resolve it.

It is my opinion that future generations, more divested from their emotions, will see the truth quite easily. So, in lieu of that time, I simply provide what sources I have.

Thus I provide the events as described in the first printed edition of Lord Meher by Bhau Kalchuri, the second from the edition revised according to Bhau's remarks, and then Bhau's recanting remarks.

Lord Meher, 1986 original edition

(click to enlarge)

Lord Meher, 2014 revised edition
(click to enlarge)

Here now is Bhau's now famous 2012 retraction of his 2000 statement that Baba spoke to him.

Jan 7, 2012

My dearest Dr. Venkat,

I received your email dated 4 January, 2012. This is your dream, and you don’t remember your dream. Baba never broke His silence. “Yaad Rakh,” is the important thing, and that was in gestures that He told me. “Yaad Rakh.” In English, too, “Remember this.”

So what should I tell you? After many years, when Baba departed, I was feeling so lonely. Still I feel lonely because I did not see Him speak from beginning to end. I was waiting and waiting for this - that Baba would speak to me. But “Yaad rakh,” - this incident was in my heart, not in mind. Mind had no scope to reach me.

Please note it down and know well that He did not speak, either in English or in Hindi. Only gestures. Really speaking, Baba said in Hindi, “Yaad Rakh,” not in English. This much I know.

Jai Ho! Jai Ho!! Jai Ho!!! Jai Jai kar Ho yours in the world, my dearest Dr. Venkat, Jai Ho!

With all love and Jai Baba to you,

In His Love and Service,

Bhau

Here now, for anyone to examine, is the original full email correspondence, in which this retraction took place. It was in final email response to continual respectful questioning by a medical doctor in South India. The conversation is thus between this doctor and Bhau during several days between late 2011 and early 2012, the full exchange given here in PDF form for the first time.

   Click here to view online

   Click here to download to save to your computer

When asked if it was okay to publish this recanting statement by the publisher of Glow International, Bhau Kalchuri was very happy that it be put in print before his death. The doctor who wrote the original email too has given his permission for this publication of his part in the ordeal. No one involved that I am aware of has shown the slightest interest in any cover-up of these events, but instead has enthusiastically supported all efforts that this information be made broadly public.

Update 8-3-14:

Some readers have expressed being confused how Baba could convey through gestures a particular language, such as that Bhau could say he said such and such in Hindi with gestures. Baba gave up the alphabet board in 1954 and this message was given by gestures in 1969.

Bhau himself attempts to explain this, if one will click on one of the links to his full account above.

His gestures would be such that people would know that He knows the language of Andhra, Marathi, Hindi, Telegu, Russian! all the languages, through the board, and then through gestures, while keeping silence. (Bhau, by email, Dec 30, 2011)

I do not know anyone living who knew Meher Baba's hand gestures well enough to explain this statement more clearly. However, Bhau went on to say that Eruch could see the difference in signs for different languages and would convey messages as such as he traveled with Baba through various states in India. Different languages are spoken in different states in India.

I did, however, find an interesting corroboration of this claim by Baba in Bal Natu's book "Glimpses."

During this seclusion period, Baba also composed some couplets in Gujarati which Kaka gathered from Baba's gestures. In the last stanza, out of His sense of humor, in addition to Gujarati, Baba used Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Persian and even English words. (Glimpses of the God-Man, by Bal Natu, Vol. 2, pp. 36-37)

This occurred shortly before Baba gave up the alphabet board for good. However, the fact that this statement by Bal, where he refers to Baba communicating in different languages through gestures, does apparently refer to 'gestures' as it says, and is not simply a mis-statement, seems to be corroborated throughout Glimpses, where Bal is careful to distinguish between Baba communicating with alphabet board or gestures, or a combination of the two. Thus Bal does not appear to have made a mistake.