Recently, a news channel raised an intriguing and interesting question about a self-proclaimed guru and metaphysical healer known as Nirmal baba. The channel asked if he is a healer or a ‘Thug’.

Well, in simplest terms, a thug is a person who deceives someone and robs him of his money and possessions by making false claims.

The channel said that this miracle guru earns almost 1 crore rupees from one Samagam.

Samagam is a mass gathering, where people gather in a large space, like an auditorium, to ask Nirmal baba about what is blocking their progress in terms of employment, livelihood, marriage, foreign travel etc. The fee for attending a samagam is 2000/- per person. Children above 2 years of age are also need to be registered.

The channel further questioned, why he is charging money for giving people advice and suggesting remedies to remove obstacles from their life paths? (Apparently, he has his third eye open, through which he can see the cause of one’s misfortune)

The channel aired bytes of some people who take pride in calling themselves saints (self proclaimed people just like Nirmal baba)

Those people said that anyone charging money for giving advice to make people’s lives better is not a saint but a thug.

Ok! My question to that news channel, those (so called) saints, and you, is…

Why are people attending Nirmal baba’s samagams in the first place?

People go in theses samagams for either material gain or peace of mind. They have their vested interests. They are seeking his advice to get rid of blockages in their life flow, and prosper personally and professionally.

If people are really getting benefit from Nirmal baba’s advice, then I see nothing wrong in him charging money for giving advice.

Don’t you visit your doctor for checkups, seek advice for your health related issues and pay him?

Yes you do. Everyone does. And you don’t expect him to treat you for free. Right?

The problem with the Indian mind is, that we are conditioned to take spiritual and metaphysical phenomenon for granted.

We seek spiritual and metaphysical healing to help us get more money, bigger car(s), better career, more power or good luck, but we don’t want to pay for it. (Isn’t that funny?)

Agreed, that serving people without charging money has been an Indian tradition since ages, but then who will decide if Nirmal baba or any other healer, for that matter, should charge or shouldn’t charge, and also if he is a real healer or just another thug…

A news channel, which, at most of the times, does nothing except sensationalize things up to gain higher TRPs?

People who call themselves saints? (And you know what kind of saints they are)

People who call themselves rational thinkers and disregard every supernatural or miraculous phenomenon they are incapable to understand, simply because they lack the kind of intelligence needed to understand such phenomenon?

These people with so called scientific outlook take great pride in calling people who believe in miracles superstitious. Now before we move any further, let’s talk about superstition also a bit.

I love Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma’s definition of superstition when he said in the promo of his movie based on black magic- ‘Phoonk’ – ‘Everything is superstition until it happens to you.’

If someone is seeing spirits around his house, believes in miracles, or say that one shouldn’t do bad karmas because they will come back to you, he is superstitious. Right?

Anything that doesn’t fit with your belief system or so called scientific and rational way of life is superstition.

And what is that, when you, wearing a suit and tie, sitting in your office or a pub or a five star hotel tell someone about your promotion or good fortune and then you look for a piece of wood, touch it with a grin, and say TOUCH WOOD. Isn’t that superstition?

Superstition is believing in something that you know nothing about.

And you don’t have any right to typecast a person, phenomenon or trend as superstition just because you don’t know anything about it yet.

Back to Nirmal baba. The faces of people who were calling Nirmal baba a thug, clearly showed that they were nothing but jealous.

. Jealous of the fact that in a small period of time, an ordinary man rose above them, and became a guru overnight (and allegedly earning crores of rupees a year)

. Jealous of the fact that now they don’t have access to him easily. They need to take prior appointments to meet him (clearly a blow to their egos)

As I see it, these people too, just like Nirmal baba, wants to make lots of money, but, since they lack the skills to attract huge crowds and money, they can’t do anything but complain.

Why don’t these people talk about hundreds of crores of public money looted in so many scams. Scams that took place in the name of development of the country. People’s hard earned money (including yours) was looted shamelessly and still nothing significant has been done to bring those responsible to justice.

Why don’t these people call those daylight robbers, thugs?

I feel that this guy (Nirmal baba) has all the right to charge for his advice as long as he doesn’t make fool of the people in the name of faith.

And the people, who are not as capable as him, may continue to massage their egos by calling him thug.

(Interesting point: It seems that Nirmal baba is being projected as thug because he’s charging money. I wonder if he’ll still be projected as thug if he start giving advice for free)