Village Where God Lives Among Men
Along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is a small village built and occupied by Sat Guru Maharajji and his followers. Adeyeye Joseph, who visited the village last week, captures life in the village and the beliefs of men who worship Mohammed Dan Sahib Ibrahim, a man better known as Sat Guru Maharajji and one who claims to be God and the source of all creation.
August 30, 2003
http://www.thisdayonline.com/
In Maharajji Village, no clergyman speaks for deity. 'God' delivers his homily himself. But that was what Mohammed Sahib Dan Ibrahim, the man the inhabitants of this village sitting on a crest near the first toll-gate of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway worship as 'God', was doing, as I arrive the village for a second visit this sunny morning.
Here, nobody calls Sahib his name; everybody calls and sees him as God.
"Sat Guru Maharajji the living perfect master is the highest material manifestation of the supreme primordial kinetic energy that sustains man and the entire creation, called God, Elohim, Jehovah, Jah, El Shaddai Tetragramaton, Allah, Chineke, Eledumare, Oghene, Osanubua, Abasi, Gott etc. in the broken tongue after the collapse of the Atlantis civilisation at Babel," says Danladi Turaki, a balding old man, who welcomed me during my first visit, the previous day.
He had worn a common short sleeve shirt and trouser. A miniature portrait of Sat Gur
u was
affixed to the left side of his chest. He was barefooted.
In the parlance of the village, Turaki and its other 1000 inhabitants are called 'devotees'.
The devotees live in the village and seldom go out, either to nearby Ibadan or Lagos, which was about 45-minutes away.
Life in the camp begins officially at 6:30A.M when the inhabitants gather for the morning devotion called the Arti. For the devotees the Arti period is a most solemn period.
"They are singing the Arti," the devotee at the gate told us as we made to drive in. He was a scruffy looking fellow in shorts and a worn T-shirt.
"Until they finish singing the Arti you cannot go in," he says with an air of finality. But even if we had wanted to we could not.
A devotee who lives in town had arrived just at the nick of time in a 504 Saloon car, stopped and blocked our way.
While we waited I watch him lean on the car and mouth the words of the Arti.
From the outside I
took a
good look at the village. The perimeter of the village is not walled. Several multi-coloured balloons and ribbons fluttered on the trees and ropes that marked out the village's borders.
The village does not try to keep out any one.
I saw some of the devotees, young boys and girls mixing sand and cement.
"We are self sufficient here. We have many workshops, electrical, plumbing, tailoring, photography and farming. We are training to be saints, you do not expect saints to go out and work under those who are not saints," one of my hosts had interjected while Turaki and I talked.
Turaki nodded. He looked like a man on the young side of sixt.y, He looked his age.
I could not help but wonder about his family. Where are they? I asked him if he was married. "I am out of that. I have been out of it for a long time."he replied.
Even if he had not, his marital vows would have had to be set aside as soon as he entered the village. In this villa
ge there
are no husbands and wives.
"We are all Maharajji's children. As soon as a husband and wife get here they cease to be so until they are out of here."
How about sex?
"No sex is allowed here. We are all celibates."
And celibacy, as I found out, is not the only rule in Marahajji Village. As I came to learn, life in this village is powered by rules.
Within the village, the colour blue is not allowed. All visitors and residents must move around barefooted and some of the buildings are restricted to both devotees and visitors. And if you ever find yourself there never go by the time told by any of the clocks you see around.
"Here we operate with the Guru Marahajji Time (GMT) which is an hour above the normal time. So when it is one '0' clock outside, its two '0'clock here."
But stringent though they are, not even these rules are enough to keep out those who see in Maharajji, the totality of divinity.
"We are in our father's h
ome,"
said a dark-skinned woman, who's energetic and somewhat wild dancing I had spent the first thirty minutes of my visit watching.
"We have to praise and adore him, for the grace to be alive today. It is not easy. It is his grace."
The choir producing the sounds to which she danced was predominantly female.
A guy worked on a keyboard, his hands belting out tune after tune, his head moving to the temp of each song. The only other instrumentalist who stood out was a drummer whose furious beating of the Conga threatened the supremacy of the keyboardist once in a while.
The choir had all the marking of the choir of a small church.
Songs are a veritable part of worship here too, I discovered. Members of the congregation also sang and danced with gusto.
Generation has come, generation has gone
History is made one more time, a new dawn of time
A new dawn of life, Nigeria is the destination
Nigeria is the new holy life, t
he
journey of life has just begun
The largest spiritual centre of the universe
The female dancer's face had, by this time, become covered with sweat. Her white shirt clung to her bosom, it was soaked with drying perspiration.
The service, which I joined halfway, had just ended and its novelty was wearing off. But the dancer was a marvel to watch.
Running from one end of the open ended chapel to the other, she became the cynosure of all eyes in the long, half shed, half house chapel.
Posters with inscriptions extolling Maharajji's virtues hung on the wall.
'SAT GURU MAHARAJI JI. THE FATHER OF ALL CRATION, THE COMFORTER, THE GODMAN, THE CAMEL OF LIFE, THE GOOD SHEPHERD'.
The dancer is still dancing. She wriggles her waist like one possessed, turning her body in several impossible angles. Once in a while, she stops to take quick breathers.
'Kabiyesi Maharajji (The King Maharajji)
Maharaji Ose! (Maharajji I thank
You.)
Maharaji the object of worship had just departed the chapel. But his portraits sat on a row of tables at the front of the chapel.
Swirls of soft smoke danced out of an incense vase and disappeared into the air. I counted twelve tables. My eyes stopped counting where the row petered out close to the end of the building.
I saw a man, his face intent and filled with unspoken despair. He had a single flower in his hand. He walked to one of the portraits, dropped to his kneels and placed the flower, softly, at the foot of the table. He shut his eyes and his lips moved in a silent prayer.
While he prayed, my eyes strayed to the dome-like structure where his god had sat while receiving worship, when I came in.
Ordinarily the building would have qualified to be called a one storey building, but it was covered all round. On the side that faces the congregation, the only opening was an apple shaped balcony from which Maharajji could be viewed
sitting
on an intricately designed chair.
My eyes swept over the congregation. Mostly women, some sprinkling of men and lots of children.
Now, after Marahajji was long gone, a big red curtain covered the opening.
When I came in, it was uncovered and Maharajji was in the thick of a sermon.
"...Even though I am not saying I believe in it but you know that the book even says that it was Adam and Eve at the beginning he never said Adam and Adam..."
Maharajji's words carry a lot of weight, as I come to discover. His pronouncements are often welcomed with cries in a language had been told was Sanskrit.
"Boleshri Sat Guru, Dev Maharajji Jai (All Glories, All Honour, All Praises To Sat Guru Maharajji)
"Sanskrit is the original language spoken by humanity in the beginning of creation before the collapse of the Atlantis civilisation," Turaki had told me.
When Marahajji arose to take his leave, the assembly broke out in wild celebration.
The assembly gave a shout, the choir broke into a song and the trumpet blasted. The king was on his way back home. Home was a small bungalow separated from the main compound by a wall. We were ushered into the sitting room of this modest bungalow.
There we waited to have an informal chat with Guru.
I counted seventeen portraits encased within wooden frames and one inside a calendar hung on the wall.
While the majority of the devotees squatted or sat on the floor, we made do with plastic chairs. A section of the room was partitioned with wooden panels.
An Aluminium flush door opened to what I suspected to be Guru's private quarters. A grand seat sat regally at the end of the room. From its intricate design and grandeur, I knew it was meant for Guru.
A white box emblazoned with the word 'PLEDGE' sat beside the chair. A sculpted walking stick and a toy car were the two odd objects in the room. A group of singers waited, serenading the
place
with soulful numbers.
"Be a lover, live forever, be a lover embrace the Light
Please don't be like the Pharisees and the learned men of old
They covered the light,
They say he is not a Whiteman, he is a blackman,
He is not a Northerner, he is a Southerner...
While we awaited Guru my eye caught a notice on the wall.
"MAHARAJJI'S CAR IS OLD...CAN YOU?"
I asked an aide what it meant.
"It means that Marahajji's car is old and that anyone would feel touched enough should buy him one." Okay.
Then I remembered seeing a weather beaten green Volvo beside the bungalow when I was being ushered in.
The Guru's appearance was heralded by a blast of trumpet supported by an oddly fashioned horn.
Maharajji looked fit, though his steps were hesitant. His long goatee seems to have grown out of his large beard. His dark, luxuriant hair had a touch of grey.
His skin contrasted sharply with that of his
followers. Unlike most of them he looked fresh. He wore a long white robe and crowned his head with a simple turban. A garland of flowers hung round his neck.
He sits down meekly. His words came out plainly.
One of the devotees went on his knees.
"Boleshri Sat Guru, Dev Maharajji Jai.
Please Father Maharajji right here in our midst in the highest spiritual centre in the universe are journalists from the local and international media who are here to have an interactive discussion with the Father Sat Guru Maharajji In the Hall of Grace."
Sat Guru nodded and a microphone was handed to him.
After a brief preamble, he launched into a brief explanation of his divinity.
Guru's voice is barely above whisper level but it resounds round the room with the help of a small public address system.
"A time has come for all men, Japanese, Chinese etc to join hands together because our father is here. And who is this father? People ar
e
calling me so many names Yahweh, Chineke, Allah, fighting and killing themselves everyday."
As he talked his devotees listened with a raptness that bordered on worship.
I could detect no doubt on the face of any. They seem to enjoy basking in the glow of their god. Maharajji has no qualms about divinity being ascribed to him. In fact he takes such ascriptions in his strides.
But I could not help but voice out my concern; one, which I was sure, mirrored those of his other countrymen.
"When you say God are you talking about the God that allowed Ige to be killed or the one that allowed David Kelly to commit suicide," he replies. " I am not talking about Catholicism or Protestantism, those are beaten paths. I am saying I am the owner of creation," he says, to loud acclamations from his devotees.
While he talked, my eyes went to the portraits again, resting near the one closest to him were flowers dropped by devotees.
"Anyone who remember
s
Maharajji and present him with flowers with it carries a lot of true blessing. Be it natural or plastic flowers, positive things will happen to him," he says.
However as he admitted while narrating the story of his life, Maharajji started life as a mortal. He was born December 20, 1947 in Ibadan, he is a prince of the ancient city.
"I was born in Ibadan into a Moslem family. You wake up in the morning and say your prayers. Then something awoke in me that I should get an education so I went to London for marketing."
It was at London that the journey to 'godhood' began.
"That was the first time I met Maharajji. I met some people talking about the inner light. They did not bombard me with talks that I was a sinner. I was interested, not knowing that somebody had prophesised about me in Pennsylvania, that I would be the Sat Guru Maharajji (the true teacher)."
In London Guru met a man he called his predecessor, Sri Prenpal Singh Rawat. He said R
awat,
who was the Maharajji or Master before him handed the baton of power to him.
Soon after Guru came back to Nigeria in July 17 1983 and launched his movement immediately.
His devotees celebrate that day yearly as the year of his appearance.
"We have just celebrated 23 years of my appearance. We started with no homes, no shoes. My first set of converts, were my niece, two brothers and a man."
Now, according to him, the movement has grown. Even though the crowd I saw was not a teeming one.
Some of the residents have stayed for many years and within town in Ibadan those who venture out are called Omo Guru (the child of Guru).
"I came to Maharaji Kingdom when I was 12-years old," 27 years old Aromolaran Itsuokor, who does not mind being called, 'Omo Guru' says. He is the village coordinator and from the passion with which he described his god, a committed devotee.
Like the other residents he does not watch TV, listen to radio or re
ad much
of newspapers, though he quickly adds that the village purchases all 'Nigerian newspapers everyday'.
"There was a time that there was no TV and life was, but it was because of a spiritual experience by some people that TV came into being on the physical. I watch TV in the spirit because what we see in the physical is what has happened in the spirit." We were standing by a small kiosk where Maharajji's portraits were displayed. Itsuokor is also the Village photographer. He said his parents brought him to the village. His father, a retired principal and his mother, a schoolteacher.
The village seems never to be in short of youngsters.
"Life (here) is so beautiful and simple," Anyamean Oludare a young boy who admitted that he was not a student in any school in town, says.
"I am here in the University of Possibility. I came in when I was 11 although my parents are not here but they brought me here," he says with pride. Oludare is not alone in the cam
p one of
his brothers and a sister are also there with him. I asked him where he slept after a day's work.
"I sleep in the information centre. That is my service centre you sleep where you serve."
I asked him if he ever thinks about death.
As we took a group photograph which they insisted is a tradition. I asked Maharajji about death.
"I don't believe in death. Where is the grave of Adam? If you have knowledge you cannot die. I don't even think about it, if a man dies at 115 or 120 years, has he seen death?"
I kept looking at the yellow flowers used to make the garland that hung round his neck.
The flowers were dying.
