A mahatma named Chaitanya Baba who lived in the forests of Odisha entered maha samadhi recently just after Makara Sankranti. This short video shows the placing of his body in the ground and burial. For many years he had been staying in the forests of Ratna Giri mountain.

One month ago when he came to the Tiger Cave ashram I asked if he was planning to stay there from now on. He replied, “I won’t be leaving this place. I will enter Samadhi at Tiger Cave.”

Every year he holds a three day festival there on Makara Sankranti where thousands of villagers come. This year he attended for the three days as normal, and on the 4th morning at 3am he left his body.

Any time he would hear people singing Bhagavan’s name tears would come to his eyes. I have personally seen it many times. He was a very unique sadhu.

One of the first times I went to see him, I asked him why he chose this place to have his ashram. He called me aside and said I will show you a secret and then you will know. He took me a bit into the forest at the base of the mountain where there was a perfectly formed natural staircase running up to the top of the mountain, looking as though carved in black stone. I asked him what it was, and he smiled and said no one knows what it is, but it has been here from time immemorial. Then he showed a footprint melted into the side of the mountain at the start of the staircase, and said this is Devi’s footprint, and this is the Deva’s staircase. (I will try to do another article on this topic later.) He clearly knew many secrets about this holy place, but kept most inside.

Several times he showed me special caves, which he said were gateways to other dimensions. And once he showed me the root of a banyan tree coming into a cave from the ceiling and told me this root was the most important place here and was where Ma comes and reveals her self.

He created several small cave rooms for sadhus to stay, himself doing the mason work. He would get some cement and bricks donated by local devotees, and do all the masonry work himself.

I had the good fortune to be around him for the last 10 years, but he never asked me for anything. I would often find him wandering the hillside or visiting one of the other babas who have ashrams on the hill.

I request the readers to take advantage of the the presence of these saints and sadhus and try to meet them before they leave us. In the last 10 years I have seen more than a dozen saints and siddhas enter samadhi in various places in Odisha and Tamil Nadu, without most being known to the public. When they leave us, humanity loses an ocean of spiritual knowledge earned from their decades of sadhana and penance. Try to meet them and get even one drop of the amrita they have captured. Saints still exist in this world, but you have to search for them. They will not be famous or advertising themselves on the TV. They will be staying alone in remote places like the forest, focusing on their sadhana to God.

Once a visitor asked Chaitanya Baba if he could tell his future. He replied, “Wait a few years and every person in the street will be able to tell your future.” The implication was that in the future there would only be sadhus left in the world and who ever remained would be of a special quality with special abilities.

On the 28th of January there will be annadanam held in his village, to mark the 11th day after his passing, as is their custom. Later this year we will try to construct a small memorial above his samadhi site.