On Monday, 23 March at 1 p. m. Yog Mata Keiko Aikawa (called Kela Devi in Hindi) was buried at Pilot Baba's camp on Nildhara. In general a yogi turns her attention away from sense objects to come to know the inner self. The goal of this practice is samadhi, a kind of unitive trance state. Keiko Aikawa's burial was called bhumigat samadhi. She would remain in this state underground. After seventy-two hours, at exactly 1 p. m. on 27 March, she was unearthed, apparently unharmed.
KEIKO AIKAWA AFTER HER EMERGENCE
Then Keiko Aikawa was hustled down a walkway jammed with the devout and the curious to the large tent where Pilot Baba gives darshan, making himself available to be seen by his followers. For more than an hour she sat there, where a crush of photographers took pictures of her, and then a long queue of people came to bow before her, including the district judge. Among the devotees there were a surprising number of westerners--at least a hundred I would guess, out of a crowd of more than a thousand.
AIKAWA, PILOT BABA, AND A DEVOTEE
After an hour of darshan, Pilot Baba preached a sermon. He spoke for perhaps fifteen minutes in Hindi and then for another half an hour in English. His talk was about yoga. He emphasized that it is important to come to know the self and that the way to do that is through meditation. About Aikawa Pilot Baba said that she had studied yoga for thirty years. And he talked of bringing her to his own guru for initiation so that she could advance in her yogic practice. After Pilot Baba, Aikawa spoke for maybe fifteen minutes. She started off by saying that she had undertaken this samadhi "to share love and peace." She spoke of yoga as a powerful physical and spiritual "science."
Source: My own observations at Pilot Baba's camp.
Copyright J. E. Llewellyn 2001. Updated 4 September 2002.