Bodhi means, ‘Pure Awareness’. Thus, in his words, “Bodhi is the natural state of every man and woman born on earth. The very purpose of this name is to remind oneself and others that we are all seekers of that which we already have. We just need to reconnect to the Bodhi in us.”
One day, soon after he returned from college, his mother said that a great saint by name Thakur Bhajan Brahmachari, who sang beautiful bhajans, was visiting the house of a neighbor. He instantly went to see the saint out of a strange pull, and for he loved the fact that the saint was a gifted singer. Standing at the threshold of the room where the saint sat singing on his harmonium, he witnessed divine ecstasy (samadhi) for the first time and when the saint’s eyes met his, he thought that he was seeing his own Beloved, his God, and that the purpose of his birth was to be eternally his.
At his Guru’s ashram, there used to be a picture of a Himalayan Yogi with magnetic presence that hung on the wall behind Thakur’s (that is how Gurudev was addressed by all) seat. One day, Bodhi asked his Guru simply, pointing to the picture, “Thakur, who is he?” Thakur replied, in Bengali “Baba Lokenath boro dayal Thakur, meaning Baba Lokenath is love and compassion”. These words from the Master penetrated his heart instantly, and he only saw for the rest of his life the manifestation of his Gurudev’s introductory words about Baba in gross reality. Indeed Baba Lokenath to him was one with his own Guru who too was the very embodiment of Pure Love, Pure Compassion.
Baba Lokenath appeared before Bodhi on 15 October, 1978 in a deep vision, at the time when Bodhi was deeply frustrated by the negativity amongst the ashram inmates at his Guru’s ashram. His Gurudev only wanted his naïve and innocent disciple to know about the negative side of life, about the power of the hostile forces and the path to go beyond it. Baba Lokenath’s vision, and his thundering command to Bodhi “Write, Spread out” (lekh, Chariye de) set the compass of his life once and for good. Baba Lokenath empowered Bodhi to spread his immortal message around the world.
In 1982 after the completion of the establishment of the ashram of his Guru, and the granite temple dedicated to Baba Lokenath at Mallikpur, South of Calcutta, he had the subtle inspiration and direction from within to leave the ashram and go to Himalayas, do the sadhana, and then fulfil the command of the great Grand Master Baba Lokenath and his Gurudev who in the realm of Divine Play were one and the same. According to Bodhi, he was the apple of his Guru’s eyes, and Gurudev wanted to offer his most devoted disciple to his Master, Baba Lokenath as Guru-dakshina to complete the incomplete work of his own life.