Nirmal Baba-Kripa Kaise ayegi??

One lazy afternoon, I was watching television and surfing through various channels and suddenly I saw a certain Nirmal baba show. It is telecasted in the afternoon between 2-4 pm and I think the target audience is the housewives who can watch the show after they are done with their household chores. Although I had seen it before, but I just changed the channel when the show was being telecasted as I have always tried to debunk the notion of self proclaimed God-men claiming to solve the problems of humankind through their ability to act as an interface between the commons and the super-soul.
Recently, many cases were filed against him accusing him of being a charlatan who deceives people in the name of faith.

Nirmal baba charges a fee of INR 5 thousand for attending the ‘samagam’ which is a gathering of his devotees presided over by baba himself. The modus-operandi of Nirmal baba is simple and based on the elementary concept of probability .If 100 people go to him with a wish that has a negligible chance of being fulfilled and by chance, the wishes of 5 people are fulfilled, then they will tell another 100 people and those whose wish is not granted keep quiet and accept it as their destiny. They don’t go on complaining that their wishes are not granted. The success of Nirmal baba is a result of strategic of word of mouth publicity. This chain continues and the edited versions of the meetings are telecasted on various channels in which people mostly praise Nirmal baba and thank him for ‘fulfilling’ their wishes.Obviously,there would be people who pay again to visit a ‘samagam’ whose wishes are not granted but as mentioned earlier,the footage shown in the show is an edited version showing the people thanking baba for making their wishes come true.

When I saw it for the first time,I was astounded that people were actually paying 4-5thousand rupees for attending the meetings with baba.The solutions prescribed by baba are also ludicrous.When a devotee comes and tells baba about the problem he faces,baba offers simplistic and absurd solutions like eating noodles, buying a black purse, buying a new pair of slippers or clichéd ones like visiting a religious place nearby the location of the devotee or donating more in the donation boxes of the temples.People are attracted by these simplistic solutions because we Indians, being superstitious people try all sorts of occultisms to please gods to grant our wishes.These occultist practices are complex in nature and when they fail us,we are dejected. Then arrives a spiritualist who claims to solve problems of mankind by offering such simplistic solutions. People seeking solutions are immediately attracted towards him however farcical he may seem.

Despite the aforementioned facts I still don’t think that he must be prosecuted or his shows must be stopped.I have an ambivalent stand on Nirmal Baba.You might wonder that after lampooning him in a derisive tone throughout this article how can I take such a stand?
This happened on the same lazy afternoon I tuned in to the show some days back. It is not that some miracle happened with the blessings of nirmal baba and I started praising him. Actually I do need some miracles in my otherwise monotonous life but that is a different case and I hope Nirmal baba will take suo moto notice of that. :)

So, that day a lady was crying and thanking nirmal baba with tears in her eyes for the wish he had granted her and there were some others who followed suite and most of them were very emotional while thanking him.It appeared that they were grateful to baba from the core of their hearts.This scene moved me.I thought that if they are willing to shell out some money and they find solace in Nirmal baba then buying peace for 5000 rupees is certainly a takeaway deal if we see it in business parlance. And why does a person works hard to earn money in the first place? It is just to buy peace and security. If he gets it through Nirmal baba,it is a win-win situation for baba and his followers alike.Then it struck me that who are we to challenge faith? It is the power of faith that invigorates divinity in an object or a person and accrues a status worth worshipping to it. It is the faith and faith only which makes an icon worthy of our reverence.If the suffering of some people are ending because of eating a pizza without sauce,then who are we to judge it? It is a matter of personal faith.But at the same time we must also be wise and judicious about trusting such people who may exploit our faith for their own narrow benefits because the same god in whom we instate our faiths has also given us the ability to think rationally and act in accordance with the innate wisdom.

I would like to conclude by citing a reference from Bhagavad gita Ch 9 v.23 in which states that Those who are devotees of other gods and who worship them with faith actually worship the super soul(Krishn in that case). So let us not argue about how or to whom we pray.What matters is that we must internalize the fact that our prayers are reaching wherever we intend them to reach irrespective of the path we take.This is also the essence of ‘Secularism’ which is one of the most prostituted word in the current socio-political situation of India.
“Ekam Sat,Vipra Bahudha Vadanti”
Truth is one but the wise interpret in different ways.

May the force be with you
I hope Krupa reaches you without having the Samosa :)