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12. Radhasoami

The Healing Offer

sudhir kakar

This essay was previously published as “The Healing Offer,” in Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors: A
Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982), 128–40.

I attended my first Satsang immediately after my arrival in Beas on a cold Decem-
ber morning. The Satsang was to be held in the large open space behind the Satsang
Ghar, the imposing congregation hall built during the early part of this century that
dominates the township and the plains around it. With its hundred-foot-high ceil-
ing, marble floors inlaid with mosaic designs, and profusion of arches, columns, and
towers, the Satsang Ghar is a medley of architectural styles. In fact, at first glance,
before the aesthetic eye can become clouded over by the film of faith, the Satsang
Ghar looks like a Punjabi petty official’s fantasy of a building that combines both
Victorian imperial grandeur and Mughal oriental splendor. On this particular day,
the bhandara of Babaji, the congregation was especially large, numbering well over
fifty thousand. Swaddled in rough woolen blankets and huddling close together for
warmth against the chilly wind blowing down from the distant Shivalik hills, barely
visible through their shroud of steel-gray haze, the crowd was impressive in its
silent orderliness. The noise, the bustle, and the confusion that are an inherent qual-
ity of a large Punjabi or, for that matter, any Indian gathering were remarkable by
their absence.
As I made my way through the patiently squatting men—the women were sit-