The Problem Is Not Chamatkar

These days, we have some Babas going viral all over social media.

Someone knows your name without asking. Someone knows your past. Someone writes your problem on a parchi. Someone claims to heal an illness. A coconut catches fire. Something happens that appears impossible.

And immediately, the debate begins:

Is it scientifically possible?

Then come the videos explaining the trick. This chemical can ignite a coconut. This technique can reveal someone’s name. This is how the information could have been collected beforehand.

But I think we are fighting the wrong battle - Astikas and Nastikas, both.

First, Chamatkar is not necessarily impossible

Ours, and many other traditions, speak extensively about siddhis, mantra, tapas and extraordinary capacities. Whether every individual claiming such powers actually possesses them is a completely different question.

But these so-called powers were never the ultimate test of spiritual awakening.

Siddhis may arise through certain forms of sādhanā, but if someone begins to believe that acquiring and displaying them is the ultimate goal of spirituality - and his disciples begin believing the same - then the path itself may have been lost to Māyā once again.

Think of it this way:

Someone is trying to free himself from an addiction. As part of his treatment, he starts taking certain medicines. But eventually, he becomes addicted to the medicines themselves.

He started the journey to become free.

He simply found a new thing to be bound by.

A siddhi can become something similar.

Secondly, Chamatkar cannot be the test of a Guru

Our own traditions make this remarkably obvious.

Ravana possessed extraordinary powers. Maricha could assume extraordinary forms. Asuras performed tapas, obtained boons and acquired abilities completely beyond those of ordinary human beings.

Krishna performed extraordinary acts too. So did rishis, yogis and saints.

If Ravana could do extraordinary things and Krishna could do extraordinary things, then the ability to do extraordinary things cannot possibly be our primary test for deciding whom to follow or whom to accept as Guru.

Even if everything you witnessed was completely genuine - so what?

The question is not merely what a person can do.

The question is what that person knows, embodies and leads you towards.

Finally, Siddhi and Satya are not the same pursuit

This distinction is perhaps the most important one.

A person possessing some siddhi does not automatically mean that the person has realized the Absolute.

Within Bharatiya traditions, extraordinary capacities can themselves be pursued. A person may undertake a particular sādhanā, worship a particular devatā or higher being, follow particular disciplines and seek particular results.

There can therefore be a transactional dimension to some such practices:

a particular sādhanā → a particular siddhi or result.

But acquiring an extraordinary capacity and realizing Satya are not synonymous.

Bhakti goes far beyond chamatkar.

Dharma goes far beyond chamatkar.

And the Bharatiya pursuit of Moksha goes infinitely beyond chamatkar.

We are therefore asking the wrong question

This is why I don’t think the most important response to every popular Baba is another twenty-minute video scientifically dismantling his miracles.

The educated person watches the debunking video and perhaps already understands the mechanism.

The person whose entire faith rests upon the Baba may simply reject your explanation and continue believing him.

And then another Baba appears.

We keep fighting individual manifestations while leaving the cultural vacuum untouched.

Perhaps the more important project is not to make people less interested in spirituality.

It is to make them interested in what lies further along the path of spirituality.

Imagine if Dharma, Artha, Kāma and Moksha were once again part of popular conversation.

Imagine discussions about what the Gita means by action, what the Upanishads mean by the Self, and what our traditions have to say about wealth, desire, responsibility, family, statecraft, suffering, death and liberation.

Imagine Bharatiya philosophy becoming pop culture again.

Then someone knowing your name without asking might still fascinate you.

A parchi might still surprise you.

A chamatkar might still leave you wondering how it happened.

But it would no longer answer the question of whom you should accept as your Guru.

And perhaps, instead of endlessly asking whether someone’s chamatkar is real, we would begin asking better questions.

And once society begins asking better questions, perhaps the Gurus who actually know their answers will begin receiving the recognition they deserve - or rather, the recognition that society itself deserves.