Aba Bo Min Gaung. Quite an interesting personal story.

The following is a brief description of how my father had twice met Aba Aung Min

Gaung in person. I heard the story from his touring clerk ( Tawlike Saye), a

Tawlike Saye who accompanied my father on his inspection tours as my father

was a District Inspector of Schools.

One month in 1942 after my father came back from an inspection tour of schools i

n the Katha, Htee Gyaint area and the towns along the Irrawady river, he

performed a ceremony to pay respects to Aba Aung Min Gaung called Aung Min

Gaung Pwe at our Mogok home. The master of this ceremony was Sayagyi U Ngwe

and he was a member of the Bodaw Aung Min Gaung Gaing.

After the ceremony, the Tawlike Saye told us the following story to our group. I

do not remember which members of the family or which of the guests were

among the group. Also at that time I was quite young to comprehend the

significane of the story, and only noted that it was a very strange story.

In that month my father was on a schools inspection tour in

Katha. One evening a head master came to the Guest House (Bo Tei) where my

father was staying and said, " Win Tauk Min, there is one Poke Ko Htoo ( a special

person) arriving at the Zayat (guest house for travellers) on the outskirts of the

town. Let us go and Hpu (pay respects) him. " My father, out of curiosity,

followed him.

There, on the bare floor of the zayat sat a man with one leg bending

over the knee of the other leg, wearing a coarse cotton jacket ( hpyin-

tike pone ingyi ) without a shirt underneath and a cotton

pasoe. He was of middle age.

The head master had a few words with that Poke Ko but he didn't

say a word to Hpay Hpay (father) but only acknowledged him with his eyes. My

father was later told that the Poke Ko Htu was Bodaw Aung Min Gaung.

If not for the following episode that Hpay Hpay experienced later, that kind of

story is nothing extraordinary.

The next day after my father met Bodaw Aung Min Gaung, he boarded a

Steamer (which plied once a week along the river) to Htee Gyaint, a small town

downstream of the Irrawady, to continue his inspection tour. He arrived there in

the evening. After the day's work of inspection was done, in the evening of the

next day , the local head master came to him and invited him to see and to pay

respects to a Poke Ko Htu who had arrived at the zayat at the town's outskirts.

Becoming more curious, he followed.

What he found at the zayat made him completely silent and he was in deep

thought every day of his journey back home to Mogok. In the

zayat of Htee Gyaint, he encountered the very same person, in exactly the

same posture of sitting and in exactly the same dress.

This time, though no words were exchanged, there was a distinct faint smile on

Bodaw Aung Min Gaung's face and their eyes met. The impression was vivid, as if

saying " Now you know ME "

The clerk recounted that the astounding and significant fact

was that the Irrawady Steamships Co. plied its steamer only once a week

to all the schedule towns along that stretch of the Irrawady. Bodaw Aung Min Gaung was definitely not on board, together with my

father. The fastest boat, rowing or sailing downstream, would take 3 days

to reach Htee Gyaint from Katha. ( At that time there was not a single

private motor boat of any kind.)

What kind of message he received in his second encounter with Bodaw Aung Min

Gaung or what kind of belief he embraced after this episode I do not know. I only

know that my father went to the length of having the initiation ceremony to

become a disciple of Bodaw Aung Min Gaung.

It is quite extraordinary for a person like my father who did not want to

ka-taw (pay respects) every monk. In my whole life I saw him shih koe a Sayadaw only once during his long illness before his demise.

During the Aung Min Gaung Pwe ceremony, I myself and my brother

were ceremonially inserted with small gold needles into the veins of our

inside forearms. ( I strongly believe that I escaped death many times

for this blessing )

When I look at this incident in the light of theoretical physics, I think it was a

demonstration of tele-transportation. The only explanation for this episode was

the power of mind over matter, space and time.

As I was typing this story, a strange and unusual thing happened. A very pleasant and

strong smell of flowers or herbs filled the room around me. It is not an artificial

scent of any kind I use to smell or am familiar with. It is not from the

flowers around us, because there are no flowers around our apartment. I called in

my elder daughter to witness it. She also got the same fragrant smell but could

not identify it.

Date: 20 January 2000.