Prem Baad II

[I posted about Prem Baad before here]

I saw this writing on a wall in the tiny riverside town of Jayaram in Khotang:



Antim lakshya sabko swarg jaanu e
Yasartha nai swargik maarg ughaariyo re!

                                        - Suprim Mastar Gadenjel
Prembad


"To enter heaven is every person's final aim
And thus is the opening of the heavenly path proclaim"

                                       - Supreme Master Godangel
Lovism




Prem Baad graffiti is everywhere in Nepal, and I have yet to find somehow willing to explain to me what's going on there. I have the vague notion that it is a religious movement, but beyond that people just tell me that they don't know very much about it.

I thought maybe translating this little poem would yield some insights. My translation is approximate 'cause I wanted to be all clever and make it rhyme like it does in Nepali. The attribution is written entirely in English: Supreme Master Godangel. Actually I didn't recognize the Devanagari characters for Gadenjal as English words, but when I typed that into Google just now I came across the Heavenly Path Wiki:

"Heavenly Path has been founded to promote and spread the thoughts, spiritual philosophy and teachings of Supreme Master Godangel.


Brilliant and heavenly music enveloped the hutment inhabited by a humble family of a remote village Maina Maini, District Udaipur in eastern Nepal on a fateful day in 1982 where the Supreme Master Godangel, destined to be a messenger of the Almighty was born. Since early childhood he displayed supernatural powers in predicting future events and exhibited grave concern for the future of mankind which he feels is nearing total annihilation owing to mindless exhaustion of life giving natural resources, meaningless wars and all pervasive fanaticism. He believes the ultimate truth, spiritual awareness and attainment of heaven are the underlying, universal commonalities at the roof of various religions. Mankind today need to analysis and understand these elements in the contemporary context. Planet Earth is going through a challenging phase in human history and a holistic approach is required to meet the challenge."


There's also a Heavenly Path website with a page specifically about the philosophy of Prem Baad (only in Nepali, sadly). So basically I have the impression of a uniquely Nepali version of "The Secret" with a massive following and a wildly successful guerrilla marketing campaign.