Babas, sadhus, and monks

While traveling through India and Laos, I met many holymen, some legitimate and many not.

Hindu holymen are called babas or sadhus and are devoted to a life of meditation and spiritual reflection devoid of pleasure, power, or wealth. They may have had nothing, but many of the "sadhus" I encountered sure wanted more of the latter! No worse than our televangelists and roadside preachers I suppose.

Baba showing a picture of his mentor.




I'd often see the babas carrying around a trident, and no they're not used to expediete funding for their religious pursuits. The three points are supposed to represent love, action and wisdom.


I was actually initially excited to meet these 3 babas. They claimed to be able to perform magic and would do some for me. Woo-hoo, Hindu magic!


But then they pulled out a tiny statue and did the equivalent of the shell game that you see on the streets of NY. I had a good laugh and walked away before the hit me up for $. Yep, holymen Indian style!

But I would also meet some legitimate sadhus who really wanted to share their spiritual beliefs. They were intense and definitely had a certain aura around them.



In Buddhist Laos and Sikkim, there were many monks. This 4 year old boy is thought to be the reincarnation of a Lama in Sikkim. I talked with his Dad, who claimed to witness many miracles of the boy including being born at 6 months of age but fully developed. He took the boy to see some monks and they came to the conclusion that he was indeed a long awaited reincarnation of a lama. So the father quit his job, moved 80 kilometers to the monastery so the monks could teach the boy.
Of course he was acting like any 4 year old kid would, running around screaming, banging on sacred drums, chasing cats. Our tour guide just shook his head and said "they're so hard to control when they're that young," hah!

Among the Buddhists populations, it's really common to see mini-monks. Boys often join the monkhood so that they can get an education, and they're free to leave at any time. It really is a no pressure religion. Even the King of Thailand is expected to become a monk at some point in his life. Of course the mini-monks are still kids at heart.




And they loved to talk with tourists too. This monk would sit outside his temple day and night (he was even out at 2am!) waiting to speak with passerbys to improve his English. It took him around a year of doing this to become fluent!