THE HIJARA

 
One time Baba told us a story about a Perfect Master who was neither male nor female.

The story concerned a Perfect Master who lived in Lucknow, in Northern India. I have forgotten his name, but he was a hijara. I am not sure exactly how to translate that term. I guess "eunuch" probably comes closest. In India there are tribes of such people. They are men, but they have long hair and they dress themselves in women's garments, in saris, skirts, bangles, and necklaces and so on. And they have the gait and characteristics of women, so if you saw one, you would think it was a woman you were seeing.

As I said, there are tribes of these people who live together, and their position in society is very low. They are outcasts. No community will accept them; they are looked down upon. They are almost excluded from society entirely, and yet, not completely. For these people traditionally are good musicians.

They tend to walk through the streets while their leader drums, and the rest of them clap their hands and dance and keep time with bells and tinkling anklets. And at the time of a wedding or a funeral, these people are paid to come and create a certain atmosphere. At a wedding they sing and laugh and entertain. At a funeral they march through the streets and cry and wail and beat their breasts. They are paid to do this, and so they earn their livelihood that way, and yet they are not respected.

If a mother sees her children watching them as they pass by, for children are always attracted to anything colorful and out of the ordinary, she will quickly run and pull her children away. In short, we can say that they are considered the lowest of the low.

Baba told us that in such a community in the city of Lucknow, there was a Perfect Master. In order to uphold this utterly rejected section of humanity, it was ordained that one from that tribe should become a Perfect Master. And so it was. One of this tribe became Perfect and so, naturally, all of his disciples were also of the tribe. This Perfect Master became the leader of the tribe. Although he did not play the drum, he simply walked at the head of the tribe as they marched through the streets.

One day as they were walking through the streets they saw a crowd approaching them from the other direction. It was a group of wrestlers returning from a title fight, surrounded by the fans. Now, wrestling in India is very popular. And in that group was the winner of the match, the champion, so there was a large crowd following him. When the champion saw the small group of the despised hijaras walking towards them, he started to ridicule them. He was full of his victory and very arrogant, and the knowledge that he was surrounded by hundreds of people only inflated his sense of self-worth, so he began sneering at the hijaras and making fun of them.

As they passed by, the wrestler pointed to their leader, who was calmly walking at the head of the group, and remarked, "Look at him! He thinks he is someone great. Just see the way he is walking as though he were the leader of all, although we all know he is only a hijara."

The Perfect Master did not say anything but continued to walk by. When the group had passed, he turned back to the wrestler, who was still standing there pointing at him. "Yes, you have pointed me out already," the Master called to the champion. "But I have passed now, so why don't you put your finger down?"

But the champion was unable to lower his arm. He continued to stand there pointing, but no matter how he tried he could not move his arm. The Perfect Master called out to him, "You are so strong, yet you do not have even enough strength to lower your arm."

As the crowd watched in amazement, they saw that the champion could not lower his arm, and they realized that the leader of the hijaras must have done something to the champion. They realized for the first time then that the leader of the hijaras was not an ordinary person. Word went around town, and soon everyone knew of what had happened in the streets that day.

Still, most of the community continued to look down on the hijaras. It was the youth in the city who were drawn to the Perfect Master. Maybe they came at first out of curiosity, to see this man who had made a laughingstock of the champion wrestler, but they stayed because there is always a special atmosphere around one of the Perfect ones. As Ramakrishna once said, when the flower is ripe, the bees come of their own accord. And so it was. The youth began to flock to the Perfect Master.

The elders in the community were upset. To them the Master was only a hijara, and as such, only fit to be ridiculed and despised. They couldn't tolerate the fact that their children were spending time with such a one, neglecting their studies to be with him. What was the world coming to, what would happen to society if the youth was polluted by listening to that man's ideas and philosophy? The situation was intolerable to the elders, and they decided they had to do something to expose the Master as a fraud.

Because they thought of him as a hijara, a certain idea came to them. They decided they would get two young men and dress one of them up as a woman. Then they would present them as a bride and groom to the Master and ask for his blessings for a child. The Master would naturally give his blessings, and then they would expose him as someone who was not all-knowing and they would drive him out of town and then their young would return to their studies. It seemed to them like a good plan.

Accordingly they selected two young men, one of whom was particularly slight and feminine-looking. They dressed them up in the traditional garments of a bride and groom and tutored them on what to say to the Master. When the young couple was ready, they sent to the Master, who was sitting on the roadside with his disciples as usual. The couple approached the Master.

"Yes, what is it?" the Master asked.

"We have just been married," the couple replied.

"Yes?"

"We would like your blessings for a son."

"A son?"

"Yes, we would like to be blessed with a bonny boy. That is our longing, please bless us."

The Master looked pointedly at the boy who was playing the part of the bride and asked, "Are you sure you want a son?"

The "bride" shyly repeated, "Yes, we really want that."

The Master told the couple to think about it. He pointed out that it is a big responsibility to raise children and they were only newly married. They could afford to wait. But the couple insisted that they knew what they were doing and they wanted a son and they wanted the Master's blessings, so finally the Master said, "So be it. You are blessed."

When the elders heard this, they were full of glee. "Now we have him," they thought. So they called a meeting of all the leading people in town and then questioned the couple before everyone. "You are a man but you dressed as a woman?" they asked the boy who played the part of the bride.

"Yes."

"And you asked the leader of the tribe to bless you to have a son?"

"Yes."

"And did he?"

"Yes."

"Were there witnesses to this?"

"Yes."

And so the interrogation went. At the end the elders turned to the congregation and announced, "See! It is confirmed that the man is an imposter. It is impossible for a man to conceive and have a son. The man cannot be all-knowing to give such a blessing. He is a fraud and he is duping others into believing that he is of high spiritual status. But we have proved that this is not so!"

Over time, word of the Master's blessing spread through the town, and everywhere it was proclaimed, "The man is a fraud!" But meanwhile the boy who had been the bride started to feel strange. He began having stomach pains, a strange bloated sensation in his stomach. When the sensation didn't go away they took him to a doctor, but the medicines given had no effect.

As time passed, the boy grew more and more uncomfortable, more and more miserable, dull and disturbed. So the parents took the boy to one who was regarded as the best doctor in town, one trained in Greek medicine. The doctor examined the boy and was astonished. How could it be? There were unmistakable signs of pregnancy.

The doctor was confounded; it was not possible for a male to conceive and carry a child, and yet it was happening. But the parents were shocked. They knew what had happened. So they went to the elders and denounced them. "See what you have done!" they exclaimed. "You have led this boy astray. You have put him in this terrible situation. Now you must take full responsibility. He should not have to suffer this shame by himself."

The elders couldn't believe it. They went to the doctor, but there was no mistake in the diagnosis. And each week that went by made it clearer that he was indeed pregnant. The elders knew now that there was only one way out — they must repent and seek the Master's forgiveness.

So the elders set out to find the Master to ask his forgiveness, but instead of sitting by the roadside, the Master was walking with his disciples and the tribe of hijaras. Baba, when He was telling the story, gave a delightful picture of the Master leading all the elders, with their long beards and dignified, pompous manner, a merry dance through the streets of Lucknow as the elders sought to contact him and he managed to evade them. Baba seemed to enjoy telling the story; I still have that picture in my mind of Him.

Finally, after much undignified scurrying and haste, the elders, together with the young couple, parents, and onlookers, managed to catch up with the Master on the corner of the main street in town. All settled down and the parents pushed the young "bride and groom" forward to seek the Master's forgiveness. But the couple protested, "Why should we do so?" they said. "It was all the elders' idea, they should be the ones to seek his forgiveness!"

So it was the elders who were pushed forward. They approached the Master and said, "You remember this couple came for your blessings, and you blessed this one that he might have a child?"

"No," the Master replied, "I blessed a woman, not a man. I asked her a number of times whether she really wanted the blessing. I brought home to her the responsibility involved in asking for such a boon. Now what can I do? My word has passed my lips; I cannot take it back."

The elders began to plead, "Please withdraw your blessing. Can't you see what calamity has befallen this youth?"

"I cannot," said the Master. "It is not in my power. Once I have blessed someone, I cannot take it back. I am indeed sorry for the youth, but there is nothing I can do."

At this, all began to weep, especially the "bride," and they all fell at the feet of the Master begging his forgiveness and pleading with him to do something. Finally the Master spoke, "There is one way out. I cannot retract my blessing, so there is nothing I can do, but my friends, my colleagues, these hijaras, they may be able to help."

"Help? How?"

"Ask them to pray to God to have the blessing removed. Beg them to pray to the Lord and maybe He will hear their prayers and He may do something for you."

So the elders, the parents, the youngsters, everyone, turned to the tribe which they had always despised and rejected, and they begged them to intercede on their behalf, to help them, please, please, help. The Master turned to his people and said, "Yes, pray to the Lord that the youngster be relieved of his condition." So the hijaras prayed in accordance with the Master's wish and the pleadings of the community, and it came to pass that the boy's pregnancy gradually disappeared and he became normal.

This is a story that Baba Himself told us, and one of the main reasons for His doing so was to remind us to treat the friends of God with respect. Of course, we do not know if this one or that one is a friend of God. It is just that others say so. But because we do not know, and yet people say of these ones that they are great, Baba told us to just salute them from a distance. Have no ill feelings towards them, Baba told us, but do not go too close. To go close is to get involved — favorably or unfavorably.