INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

A Hindu woman suffering from severe migraine enters the consulting-room.
She respectfully bows down before Kuku ji sitting in the sofa, touches his feet, and
takes a seat on the floor in front of him. Holding a glass of water in one hand she
explains, almost inaudibly, her problem to him. Kuku ji takes the glass from her,
places it in his right hand and raises it close to his mouth. While keeping his eyes
closed he starts to recite a gurbani hymn over the fluid. In a little while he blows three
times in the glass, creating small ripples on the surface, and stirs the water with his
right forefinger. He returns the water, which now has transformed into a healing
amrit. Kuku ji then approaches the woman and puts both hands on her head, with the
thumbs pressing the temporal bones, and in a gentle manner starts to “pull out” the
headache by moving his fingers towards the thumbs. The act is repeated a few times
before Kuku ji releases the woman from his touch and tells her that she will be fine
after fifteen minutes. The woman salutes him respectfully and goes out. Less than ten
minutes, however, she returns to inform him that her headache has indeed disappeared.
Kuku ji turns to me, explaining that this is the power of gurbani and the blessing
of his respected mother ‒ clients are cured by drinking amrit and receiving his
touch.
For more than forty-five years Kukuji’s mother, Mata Narinder Kaur, was a
devotee and social servant of Dehra Sahib, 692 a temple located in the Una district of
Himachal Pradesh. At this site a descendant of the Sikh Gurus in the Sodhi lineage,
Vadbhag Singh Sodhi, performed religious practices and by reciting gurbani mastered
the ghost sovereign of kaliyug in the eighteenth century. The ghost-king, Nahar Singh
Bir, was converted to the Sikh religion and up to this date he is believed to come to
Dehra Sahib during the festival of Holi to help afflicted people. The site is believed to
hold the power of Vadbhag Singh and is nowadays a popular pilgrimage centre for
all those who seek a remedy for mental and physical afflictions caused by troubling
spirits. By devotion and service Mata ji received a blessing from Dehra Sahib and empowerment
to heal and exorcise spirits herself. At Paharia in Varanasi she established
a local practice to cure patients by reciting gurbani and distributing amrit. For several
decades she arranged annual pilgrimage tours to Dehra Sahib for people with severe
spirit afflictions.
Mata ji could foresee when her lifeline was reaching its end and five days before
her death in 1999 she presented her last will to Kukuji, who recalled her last words:
“After me you have to take care of the congregation. You should always be polite, not
aggressive. Listen to their problems and give them amrit.” When Kukuji, after some
hesitation, agreed to accede to the succession Mata ji immediately transferred her
power by giving him blessings, a mantra (the mulmantra) and instructions on how to
prepare amrit. Thirty minutes later Mata ji died.
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Dehra, meaning “shrine” or “temple”, is a commonly-used name for the temple complex
which consists of several important shrines and gurdwaras. The temple complex dedicated to
Baba Vadbhag Singh is sometimes called Mairhi Sahib (The Tribune 1999-01-16).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008