Doctor Sahib lived in a peaceful middle-class area of Bombay. He had trained as a doctor and spoke good English. He was completely off the spiritual radar and I was extremely fortunate to have been tipped off about him.
He lived in a very small bungalow. You could visit him for an hour in the morning and evening. He would sit on the sofa in the living room and there was just enough space on the floor for a handful of Indians who never missed a session. I was one of the very few foreigners to ever join them.
He struck me on a deep and unfathomable level – I felt an instant connection. He was friendly, warm and easy going. What he emanated or what I received I can’t put into words, but whatever it was had a deep effect on me.
He liked to chat about local events or the news more than about spirituality. He didn’t advise studying spirituality or meditating: “It’s a matter of decreasing, not of increasing knowledge”, and “People meditate because they are not in meditation. The question is: how to stop meditating?”.
Doctor Sahib rarely talked about his past, but on one occasion he told me: “Until the ‘I’ has gone – nothing!” and added quietly “I am dead already”. like Nisargadat, the Sense of Self had uninstalled in him too.
I spent the last two weeks of my years travel with Doctor Sahib then flew back to London. I worked in London for a year and in 1983 returned to Bombay to visit Doctor Sahib again, this time for a whole year…
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