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Rishikesh, May 21, 2025

Rishikesh is the “yoga capital” of the world. It is beautiful, and I spent part of my time here reading. I read about Neem Karoli Baba (also known as “Maharajji”), whose ashram some famous tech personalities have visited in the past. Ram Ram Dass’s book “Miracle of Love” seemed like a great start, and another book on Siddhi Ma, whom Maharajji seems to have passed on the mantle to. I picked up both, and read them cover to cover on Sunday and Monday morning. I was very disappointed.

The first book was filled with anecdotes of apparent “miracles” that the Baba has performed, collected from accounts shared by his followers. What I don’t understand about these devotees that spend so much time with influential people is, why don’t they ask the basic, fundamental question? What do you see? What makes you different from me? All I gathered from Ram Dass’s accounts is that Maharajji seems to have been very popular, possessed an unusually strong intuition and unpredictable personally, but little is known about his belief systems. He was a devotee of Hanuman, who is a venerable deity in the Hindu pantheon and himself an incarnation of the Lord Shiva, and one who spent his life in devotion to the lord Rama.

Then I read the book on Siddhi Ma, written by Jaya Prasad, herself the successor and the one that currently resides at the Ashram. She writes well, but I see the same sense of suppression of the skeptic in her approach to life. She seems to have been very skeptical and even unwilling to meet the Ma, until she was *chosen* by the Ma upon her first adult visit. It seems to be the case for all of us. We all want to be chosen. We can suppress our skepticism completely when it comes to events that flatter the ego.

Just last evening, I was at dinner with two girls who were reading long astrology reports on themselves, downloaded from an app. It was excruciating to watch them discard any predictions or histories that didn't play out and just look for confirming evidence, periodically saying “this is soooo crazy, it is soooo accurate”. 1 of every 3 “predictions” seemed to hit, and they were very happy to lap it up. And then one of them suggested she would do a tarot reading for me. I said, sure. Very soon, I was listening in rapt attention as she read my tarot cards for me. Apparently I do not like authority figures, and I am to expect a great change coming up in life. I should be prepared for my identity to disintegrate so that the new can form. It’s soooo uncannily accurate for where I am in life.