On the Other Side of the Law–Encounter with God

Michael McCarty, guest speaker at the Sathya Sai Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Region, had gone through a lot of varied experiences by the time he came to Sathya Sai Baba. He grew up in a neighborhood “that makes South Central Los Angeles seem like Beverly Hills.” He was in the Black Panther party (a militant black organization in the 60s) and was a drug dealer for eight years. He had people put a gun to his head and pull the trigger and somebody snatch it away at the last minute. He managed to survive. His life finally made sense after he name to Baba. Now a professional storyteller and more, Michael held the conference audience spellbound with his extraordinary story of transformation by Baba.

People come to Baba in many different ways. Many already are on the spiritual path, seeking God. And there are others such as Michael who, he said, “were goofing off and Baba just hooked us and reeled us in.”

In 1932 when he was on his way to Sri Lanka to take an acupuncture course, a friend said, “You’re going to India, you’ve got to read this book,” and gave him a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi. He read the book and thought he would look into “some of these guru guys.” He knew he was looking for something on this trip but had no idea what it was or where he would find it.

One day in Sri Lanka, walking by a Swedish woman’s room, he saw a picture of Baba on an altar and thought, Yo. What’s up? Who is this brother and why is she praying to him? She told him a bit about Baba and gave him directions to the ashram. Finding himself inexplicably drawn to India, he figured he’d “stop off and check out this Baba guy.” By the time he got to Bangalore, Michael said he “had Baba on the brain.” Where’s Sai Baba! Where is He? was all he could think about. His intentions in going to India were, he confessed, decidedly non-spiritual. He had heard about its ganja and hash. “I didn’t know I was there for an ultimate high,” he said.

Having read nothing about Sai Baba, Michael went to the hotel bookstore, simply looking through books because he was, in his own words, “a bookaholic.” Following an urgent feeling that he was supposed to find something, he started searching vigorously and pulled out the only book there on Sai Baba. As soon as he read Sai Baba and His Message, Michael was on his way to Prashanti Nilayam. The more he read, the more he thought, Whoa, this dude is heabvy! When he saw the Sarva Dharma (all religions) symbol at the ashram, he knew this was the place he was looking for.

It was Friday the 13th. On his way to his first darshan (being in the presence of a holy being) Michael was not thinking of interviews, but “eyeballs.” I’m an eye contact kind of guy,” he said. Experiencing the powerful stillness that pervades the atmosphere there, he was thinking, this is deep, when Baba came out, walked over and looked right into his eyes. Michael gasped. He knew then that Baba was whoever He said He was. Michael went and bought almost everything in the bookstore.

On Michael’s way to darshan the next morning, a Sai devotee said to him, “If you get a chance, you should kiss His feet.” Whoa, he thought, now this could he God Almighty, I ain’t kissing no dude’s feet. At darshan Baba came up and asked him where he was from and said, “Go.” “Go where?” asked the rookie Michael. And somebody said, “Interview.” Cool, he thought. I’ll get to ask Him some questions, maybe He’ll read my palm! In the interview room Baba asked him, “What do you want?” Michael recalled a speech from the only book he’d read, where Baba said, “People come to me and ask for petty cures and tinsel and trash. Few come for what I have come to give, which is liberation.” So, he said, “Well, I want liberation.” Within himself he said, I don’t know what it is, but if you’ve come to give it, I’ve come to get it. Swami waved His hand and materialized a medallion for him.

Next came a humbling moment for Michael when Baba asked him, “‘What is your profession?” “I’m an acupuncturist,” he replied. “What is your success rate?” Baba asked. He had this magic figure ready that sounded good, and he gave it to Baba: “70 percent.” Michael said that he has “never since heard or seen Baba laugh as hard as He did then.” “No, no, no,” Baba said, almost choking. “That’s just your imagination.” Michael stopped giving that answer to anyone.

Baba took Michael in for a private interview and said, “Too much lust. Sometimes you want to be with Mary and sometimes you want to be with all those other women.” Uh oh! thought Michael. He’s all up in my business. That was only warm-up time though. Baba started telling him about things he had never told anybody and wanted to forget.

Michael always considered himself a loquacious person. But at one-point Baba asked him his name and he found himself whispering, I can answer this. I can answer this. The only question he asked Baba was, “Can I kiss your feet?”

In six days, Michael had three interviews. “Needless to say, I was blown away,” he told the audience. People would tell him that he was very blessed. He looked at it differently. He recounted an analogy that Baba had made about the world being a hospital with all the countries as wards and Prashanti Nilayam as the intensive care unit. An Australian doctor added that twice a day, the head surgeon made his rounds. He came out to see who needed a little sand time or concrete time, who needed a little medication or vibhuti, and who needed surgery, which was the interview room. Michael felt he needed emergency surgery.

Another time Baba asked him, “What do you want?” and Michael told Him that he wanted to be a good healer. Swami said, “Do good, be good, see good. You’ll be a good healer.” But Michael got the impression that he hadn’t given the correct answer. As everybody was getting up to leave, Baba turned to him and said, ‘WHAT D0 YOU WANT!” This is big test time, Michael told himself. As everybody stood watching him, he thought, What do I want? Baba looked at him again, “What do you WANT?!” And Michael said; “Love” “Yes, Yes, yes,” said Baba, and Michael thought, Whew, if l never pass another test in life, I passed that one.

After Man Meets God

After leaving the ashram that time, at a hotel in Bangalore, Michael said he “proceeded to go nuts.” His mind went, What is the protocol when you meet God? Moses talked to God. Mohammed talked to God. Mike talked to God!?l OK. I’ve got to chill out. He decided to put on some music and get his mind “off this Baba stuff.” For months he had been listening to a tape by a reggae group called Third World, but he had never paid attention to the words. Now he played the tape and the words hit him like a ton of bricks:

“A lonely soul was I without direction. I didn’t know which way l had to go. I sought the clues to life’s unanswered questions, my mind’s heart had to know. I heard your call while wandering through the darkness. I’d walk a million miles to find that endless voice that speaks to me when I am in temptation, echoing my choice. Those who will seek, they will find. I’ve been with you through all time. If you’re thirsty l will quench you with my love. If you hunger l will feed you with my word and all l ask is that you love as l do. If you lose your way l will lead you to my love. From a sinful life, I’ll cleanse you with my love, for creation bears the witness of my love.”

Really “freaked” now, he thought he’d smoke a joint to calm him down. So, he went to the balcony and as he sat there rolling, he glanced up to suddenly find, filling the sky, an image of Baba from the ground to beyond the clouds. “And I’m not talking any faint outline you can see if you squint your eyes, put one finger in your nose, the other finger in your ear and stand on one foot!” he said. “I’m talking orange robe, humongous Afro, huge eyeballs looking at me.” It was the kind of thing that would stop traffic, Michael felt. So, he looked around, but nobody else was paying attention. In the clouds were also images of Christ and other beings looking at Baba.The image of Baba lasted for several minutes. The images of Christ lasted for three days. He saw them everywhere. Like people have wallpaper with little flowers, Michael had little Christs.

At that time, He had been carrying publications from New York, “the porn and smut capital of the world,” he said. He came off that balcony and tore them into tiny pieces. “Let me tell you something,” Michael told the audience. “Parting the Red Sea was a piece of cake. Creation? Ho hum. Me tearing up my smut—THAT was a miracle!”

He returned to the U.S. a different person. His friends would say, “Who the heck are you and where is Mike?” Speaking of our natural enthusiasm when we first get close to Baba, Michael recalled how he wanted to “tell everybody and their mother about Baba.” And Baba has said He doesn’t need our public relations. We need to work on ourselves. “Sometimes,” Michael said, “you’ve got to butt your head up against a few walls to figure those things out.” He tried to tell people, “Oh, man…  I met God!” and they’d say, “Mike, man, what were you smoking over there?”

Michael was simultaneously a drug dealer and an acupuncturist whose specialty was detoxing people from drugs, and so he realized he had things to work on. ‘”I tried to stop everything on my own, from an ego space. It didn’t work,” he remembered. He’d read about a man who wanted to stop drinking and Baba had told him to continue drinking, but every time he took a drink, to dedicate it to Him. Michael started dedicating to Baba every joint he smoked, every package of drugs he sold. And it worked.

“Mom” versus “Dad”

He reminisced about another trip in 1983. “My first trip to Baba had been pure mother, when the mother hasn’t seen the son in a while.” On His second trip, “Dad was home. And dad has a little different attitude about things.” In a private interview Baba asked him, “How are you doing?” Emboldened by his “buddy” relationship on the earlier trip, Michael put his arm around Baba and said, “I’m doing great, Baba!” Baba then put on “that Shiva look” and said, “Not great.” And He started getting on Michael’s case about things he needed to work on.

The same year, Baba said to Michael, “I will give you some prasad (blessed food) before you leave.” Michael didn’t know what prasad was, but he didn’t let it bother him. He had wanted two things: amrit [nectar) and Baba dreams. Very soon he had Baba dreams. One day, when he was chatting with an acupuncture client, her roommate, who had been meditating, suddenly came over and said almost apologetically, “Excuse me, but would you like some amrit?”

“Taste it,” she said. “I could feel the odor,” remembered Michael. “And then I could feel this vibration radiating through the room and out, permeating the room, the air in the room, then the people and objects in the room and then the very walls themselves. Bliss. The ultimate high. “When he came down to earth about 30 minutes later, his usual hyper self was calm and peaceful. “You know how Baba walks?” He asked. “Well, I had the walk.”

Back in the U.5., Michael started losing money heavily, until in January 1984 it hit him that he had to quit what he was doing. He realized that he had to have faith because Baba had told him, “You worry about money, you worry about health, you worry about your career, don’t worry, I will take care.” He was in enormous debt. He called the person to whom he owed the most money and said, “Look, I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to pay you this money, but I’ve got to get out of this business.” And the man simply said, “Ok, forget about it.” This was not a typical ending to such situations. Michael was free. It became apparent to him that as long as he did not worry about money, everything was taken care of.

The Highs and the Lows

Many have experienced the ride with Baba as a roller coaster. In 1985, Michael was broke and his life was falling apart. There were days he couldn’t afford to go from one side of Chicago to the other, and all of a sudden, he got the urge to go to India. He mentally asked Baba if he could come. Out of the blue he got a letter from a woman in Los Angeles that said she hoped he was going to Baba’s 60th birthday and the World Conference and that it was something he had earned over many lives. “Don’t worry about money,” she had written. “You take care of the arrangements and the money will come.” And she had even included the number of a travel agent. This certainly seemed like a cue for Michael. “It doesn’t cost anything but a phone call to make reservations,” said Michael. So, he did just that. Next, he needed a visa. Walking down the street one day, completely broke, he found money lying there—enough for his visa.

“Part of the surrender trip, in my experience, is that Baba gives you opportunities to do things; you do what you can, and then you just let it go. Let Him take care of the rest,” Michael said. So, he asked himself, “What else can I do?” As a war veteran he was entitled to some money for studies. So, he signed up for school. Then wonderful things started happening to him. Friends, who were not Baba devotees, started calling. They were “ex-customers from my `other’ businesses who were happy with the change that was taking place in my life because I was doing something, I was happy with,” Michael said. “Mike, aren’t you trying to go to India? Don’t you need some money? Here, let me give you this.” “Mike, you helped me at that time, let me help you.” “Mike, I owe you money from a year or two ago. I’ll have it by the end of the month so you can go to India.” He arrived at Prashanti Nilayam with $30, spent three months in India, a month in Taiwan, and got back to Los Angeles with $18. “I never lacked a thing,” he said.

On the other end of the spectrum was this experience. Walking in the ashram one day when Swami was not there, Michael saw an Australian woman working on a garden. She had to transport cow-dung, and since he felt that carrying cow-dung didn’t seem to be something ladies should be doing, he volunteered to do it. “She loaded up the choicest cow-dung and I carried the buckets,” he recalled. Then he noticed Kutumbrao standing at a distance, giving him an extremely grim look. Kutumbrao called Al Drucker over, who came to Michael and said, “You’re consorting with women.” Michael replied, “Al, I’m carrying cow-dung. This is not my idea of a date.” To the audience Michael said, “I had used a variety of lines in my life, but ‘Yo baby, let me carry your cow-dung’ was not one of them!”

He left and tried from then on “to hide, to be good.” But Baba really seemed to be testing him. One day he’d found a nice, quiet place where he could read and meditate, and a lady started walking toward him. Suddenly seva dal(volunteers) came up with sticks and started ranting at him, “What are you doing? This is not allowed. You’re consorting with women.” Respectfully calling them ‘the Puttaparthi Goon Squad,” Michael said, “It seemed like they’d been assigned to watch me!”

The next day when he walked into the ashram, he was converged upon by seva dal from everywhere and banned from the ashram. By this point, Michael said, he had developed a rather analytical attitude to the things that were happening. So, he asked himself, What’s the message here? Then he asked another person the same question, who told him, “I think this means that you’re supposed to go to Whitefield and get Baba’s darshan before you go.” Next morning, he was on his way. Although Baba had not arrived yet, Michael was given a room right away. And when Baba showed up that evening, Michael said he “got wonderful darshan!” Baba thus taught him to listen to messages within and also showed him how they come to us in various ways. “Baba is the greatest set-up sting master in creation,” he said.

One morning, Michael was sitting in his room in the ashram, when suddenly he got up and started gathering his stuff as if he was going for darshan. But it was hours before that time. So, he thought, where am I going? I don’t know. He locked the door and walked along without knowing why.

“I call this chauffeured limousine consciousness” he said. “We know who the chauffeur is and He is in control. You might think you’re in control. Every now and then you say, ‘Well, chauffeur, I want to go here.’ And it just happens to be some place He’s taking you anyway. On other occasions you say, ‘Chauffeur you should have made a left there.’ And He just keeps on driving and you start to raise a ruckus. He pushes a button, that window comes up, He pops in a tape, and goes on about His business.”

The chauffeur was in control on this day. Ok, maybe I’m going to this place, Michael would think. But he walked past that place. He found himself walking through a restaurant, thinking, Why am I going here? He opened the door and there were three people sitting at the table: a Baba devotee from Santa Fe, a Japanese man, and an Israeli woman, travelers in the area. These two were trying to understand why everybody was there to see this guy with the fuzzy hair, and the devotee had just said to them, “Michael should be here to tell you stories,” when Michael opened the door. He now routinely finds that he simply cannot be in the wrong place, even though it sometimes seems that way.

Being “On Ice”

In 1988 Michael visited ‘dad’ again. A group was going to see Baba from Los Angales and despite all his efforts to avoid being involved with a group, he ended up with them. When Swami called the group for an interview, Michael also moved to go. But there was Baba standing over him, not looking too happy. “You! Sit DOWN!” Baba said to him. He didn’t mean me. He couldn’t mean me, Michael’s mind started racing. Meanwhile, Baba was talking to somebody further away. Michael got up. “`YOU! SIT DOWN!” The others went in for the interview and came out with vibhuti for “poor Mike.” That was just the beginning. Baba had put Michael “on ice.” This was that “period with sub-zero temperatures,” he explained, “when Baba walks around you like you’re not there.” But during that period, he had tremendous insights.

A week later, in Whitefield, a Singapore gentleman who was new to Baba expressed his appreciation for Michael’s guidance and said to him, “Oh, Baba is so lucky to have a devotee like you.” No, no, no, no, Michael thought. We don’t want to hear stuff like this. He sat down for darshan in the front row, “prime real estate” as he called it, when somebody asked him if he would give Baba letters. Baba had always taken letters from him. He thought Baba and he were “still tight.” Baba came over, turned to a seva dal (volunteer) and said, “That man in the blue sweater, very bad man. Always with ladies. Don’t let him on the compound.” It had been a tight squeeze until then, but suddenly Michael found a lot of space around him. From that morning, he started getting so sick he couldn’t attend darshan.

“There is one thing that you do not ever have to worry about having a shortage of when you are on a spiritual path and that is advice,” laughed Michael. “Folks are always ready to give it to you whether you want it or need it or not. Here I was so sick I couldn’t talk, which for me means close to death, and people would come in and say things like “Baba doesn’t want to see you’; ‘You should go to the Himalayas’; ‘hide under a rock, go to a cave or something’; ‘go away’.” But Michael’s heart told him to go back to Prashanti Nilayam. Upon his return, his mind started churning up all that he had been told. So, he thought that maybe he wouldn’t go inside the temple area for darshan but would stand behind a wall. Oh man, He might turn me into a pile of vibhuti or something, he thought to himself. The last thing he wanted on this particular day was front row darshan. Of course, he got the front row. He started looking around to find an alternative.

“Usually, you can get killed in a stampede for front-row darshan,” Michael said. But this time a volunteer moved a young boy off the front row, looked at Michael and said, “YOU! SIT HERE!” “No, no. Sai Ram, but thank you, just…. ” “YOU! Sit HERE!” So, he sat down and must have done about ten billion SAI BABAs, he said, when Baba came out. He walked by Michael, looking over to him as if saying, Humph. Made you sweat, didn’t I? From that day until this, Michael said he didn’t care where he sat as long as he could have darshan.

Some More Tests

Baba has given Michael a variety of what he calls “wonderful tests.” Some he felt that he had failed and others he knew he passed. On a trip to Whitefield in 1989, Baba was about to give a talk, Michael had sat down, and a man came in and set up a video camera in front of him. Michael tapped him on the leg and said, “Excuse me.” The man turned to him and said, “I don’t speak English.” As Michael started to lose his temper, it occurred to him that it was not good to lose one’s temper while waiting for the Avatar. So, he told himself, OK. I’ll maintain my composure. If this son of …God is going to be standing here in front of me, it’s OK. The next thing he knew, someone had taken the man away.

People kept on coming, so he stood against the wall. Another guy came and forced himself into the tight group, grunting “Sai Ram.” Initially Michael maintained his calm. But soon he turned to the other guy and an argument ensued. Until then Michael hadn’t heard any of the speech being given by the boy on stage who was preceding Swami. Suddenly he heard the words, “…and the reason that there is so much trouble on the planet now is that man cannot get along with his fellowman…!”

Sick one day, Michael was sitting on the verandah when Baba came up to him and said, “Are you tired?” Since Baba had not talked to Michael for quite a while and His last words were rather rough, Michael was so taken aback, he said, “Who me? Tired? That’s right, I’m sick, yes, yes, I am tired.” Swami walked away and Michael felt he blew that encounter. But Swami came back later and looked right into Michael’s eyes. “I felt this pilot light go on in my chest and there was this radiation that went through my body and I was healed,” he said.

Another time he was working with a group at Kodaikanal, taking dirt from one section and filling a hole in front of Baba’s place. One morning, the college boys who usually led them in bhajans were absent, so Michael led a bhajan that he would have liked to sing for Swami. “I just happened to be dumping the dirt and leading that bhajan, dumping and singing, when I looked up and saw Baba come down the steps, turn, and look right into my eyes. He gave me the sweetest smile. My eyes locked into Baba’s.” Then Michael said that as he started really rocking and singing, Baba gave him this look that seemed to say, What’re you doing boy? “Later He came up and said to me, ‘Good singer. Sometimes sinner. I know.” No argument from me!” Michael grinned.

“When ice breaks with Baba, it’s sweetness after sweetness,” he continued. One day, Baba was tossing out ladoos(Indian sweet). Everybody was on the left side and Michael was on the wrong side. Something gave him “a little cosmic shove” and he found himself walking toward Baba, holding out his hands. All of a sudden Baba turned and tossed Michael a ladoo. “And His smile was so sweet!” he recollected.

The Power of Love

This was a test Michael passed. ‘While Baba was at Madras, Michael and two friends found themselves in Pondicherry. The friends went directly to the Aurobindo ashram guest house, and Michael went to take care of some business. When he walked into the guest house an hour later, an elderly Indian woman gave him “a real dirty look” and said something to the man behind the desk. As Michael approached the desk, the man asked him, “Can I help you?” Michael said, “I’d like a room, please.” “We don’t have any rooms,” the man responded immediately. There were keys all over the board. Upon asking he found that his friends, who happened to be white, had checked in. “Well, when will you have some rooms,” he asked. “Maybe in a few days,” the man replied. Michael said to the audience, “I was picking up on something, but I didn’t want to believe what it was because I was at an ashram.” He checked into another hotel and returned the next day for breakfast in the guest house restaurant with his friends. He found that another friend had checked into the hotel after he had been turned down. OK, so some rooms must have suddenly become available, he told himself. When he went to the lobby, the same woman looked at him and said, “What do you want?” “I’d like to see if you have any rooms,” Michael replied. “No,” she said sharply, “we don’t have any rooms. And this isn’t just some hotel. This is for people who are coming for the Aurobindo ashram.”

Now he was   He made arrangements to leave the following evening. The next morning, as he walked toward the guest house, he was physically barred from entering and told to get the woman’s permission. “I was starting to lose it but was still trying to maintain my spiritual equanimity,” he reported. Going up to the lobby, he said, “Excuse me madam, is there some problem? I’m just going to have some breakfast with my friends. May I go in?” And she said, “No! You wait in the lobby.” As Michael started working himself “into a frenzy,” a voice inside him said, “This is a test. It’s easy to love those that love you. The test is to love those that hate you.” He figured this woman qualified!

“Love was not uppermost in my mind,” admitted Michael. “I would have loved to have told her some places to go. I would have loved to have helped her get to some of those places! But I had to send her love. So, with gritted teeth, saying LOVE beneath my breath, I started working up a sweat. Finally, I enveloped her in a bubble of pink—the color of Divine Love—and I just started to pump her with pink light. Pink. Pink. Pink. I said to Baba, This is the closest we can get to love right now. Suddenly the woman came over to Michael with a totally different tone of voice and demeanor and said, “Excuse me but are your friends there?” Suspiciously he said, “I don’t know. You wouldn’t let me go see.” She said, “Oh please go.” And she personally escorted Michael to the restaurant. “As I walked into that restaurant,” said Michael, “I realized that I had experienced the Power of Love.”

Baba as Employment Agent

Returning to Los Angeles, Michael stayed with a friend, who had let it be known that she could only tolerate people around for four to seven days. ln southern California there are apartments where everything goes through the bedroom. In this case, that meant access to kitchen and bathroom were through her bedroom. Michael stayed on the couch in the living room for three weeks. “Have you ever tried to keep out of somebody‘s way in a situation like that?” he asked.

One day he went to a bhajan at the Hollywood Center. Afterward he tried to catch a bus home, but public transportation in Los Angeles is poor. He said, “I was staying some place where I wasn’t wanted; I had no money and no transportation. I got the blues. My head was literally hanging down.” A piece of paper blew through the air and landed at his feet; it said, “Smile. God loves you.” Michael looked at it, started laughing, and said, OK Baba. Here’s the deal. If You want me out here in LA, You have to hook me up. I need a place to stay, I could use a job or give me the lottery or something, and I could use some transportation. I’m giving it all up. I’ve done everything I could. I’m going to the beach, You let me know.” Within three weeks, he had a place to stay, a job, and a car that cost him one dollar and gave him a 100,00 miles. “In fact,” he laughed, “when this woman sold me this car for a $1, I found a $1.40 in the car, so I even made 40 cents on the deal! And ever since that time, Baba’s had me running all over the place.”

Talking about his current work, Michael said, “Baba is the best employment agent on the planet, I recommend Him very highly.” A couple of years ago, he didn’t know that professional storytellers existed. He happened to meet some of them and since he had been telling stories all his life, he started asking, “How do you get paid to do this?” Driving along one day, wondering what to do with his life, he asked himself what he would choose as a profession if he were independently wealthy. Storytelling! So, the next day he had business cards with ‘Storyteller’ printed up. “In LA you have to have two things: sunglasses and a business card,” he said. “Homeless people have business cards; you know they’re homeless because their cards have no address!”

Realizing that a storyteller should have stories, he went to the library and started gathering them. One day the librarian came up and asked him why he was getting all these books. On hearing that Michael was a storyteller, he said, “You are? Let’s talk.” His first paying job as a professional storyteller was teaching storytelling. He is now a resource for the LA library system, the Orange County library system, the cultural affairs department and several other agencies. “Baba had told me not to worry about my career and that He would take care. Well, He’s done good!” Michael said happily.

“There is a quote from Goethe to the effect that when you make a commitment to something, providence—in my case the “fuzzy-haired fella”—will come and support whatever you’re doing. If you have a dream, go for it because we have the dream-maker in our corner.”