How an Accomplished yogi faces challenges of old age, sickness and death Part 1

This was one of the most inspiring aspects of my years living close to such an accomplished yogi.  I was able to observe him as he aged through the years of his very arduous and wholehearted dedication to the awakening of spiritual energy in tens of  thousands of people as he traveled  throughout a large part of the world and the tolls that work took on his physical body.   I witnessed the extraordinary ways in which he responded to physical illness and at the time was aware that this was one evident sign of his yogic power over his body and mind 

As I myself am aging and facing challenges of health, I am able to draw inspiration from his example and hope this helps to inspire others as well.

When you live close to a Guru there are many methods through  which he/she can teach, guide and inspire us.  Those include through the  discipline he may require as part of living near him; formal teachings and answering the questions put to him about the spiritual journey; and very personal situations where the Guru finds the opportunity to give very direct teaching, usually to fast-track our development in meditation and also to break through stubborn negative habits.   

All of these are valuable means.  But what I absorbed most directly living with Baba  were his own attitudes and behaviors in  living his life, day in and day out.  From those examples I came to understand his ability to bring his meditative and  yogic states  of transcendent consciousness into daily life.  The way he handled certain situations and many of the challenges that arose over  the period of  years I lived with him, clearly illustrated to me that his relationship with his physical body was not like that of most of us.  His yogic lifestyle and practices awarded him extraordinary equanimity that enabled him to overcome conditions that are generally debilitating and overwhelming for most of us as we age. 

When I met him in  San Francisco in l970 he was 60 years old.  He had an extraordinary amount of life force, joyful enthusiasm and seemed tireless in approaching his work. Through the l2 years I lived with him he faced multiple health challenges from being diabetic and having an enlarged heart, heart attacks, and  eventually he  succumbed to a heart attack in October l982. 

Initially when I went to India  in l971 he was celebrating his 62^nd birthday in the ashram.  During those celebrations with thousands of people visiting him he was indefatigable, it seemed to take several  young attendants through the day to keep up with him, assisting him in various activities. He was like a lion, filled with yogic vitality, joy and gusto meeting each person  and situation with direct dynamic  engagement.  He seemed to be much younger than his years.

I lived in the ashram  with him for three years from 1971-1973, prior to his second World Tour.  During the week days in the ashram life was relatively quiet, with the gentle  flow of the daily routine he had set for all residents.  There were between 20-30 westerners living there during those periods, and approximately the same amount of Indians , some young boys he was educating, retired Indians who came to spend their vanaprashtra[i] phase of life in the ashram,  and  Indian and foreign people who would come and stay for periods of school breaks or work holidays.

Ashram life  had a rhythm punctuated by the  unique characteristics of  the different seasons:  monsoon rains with the glorious fragrant  blossoms that came to life with the rains: the stultifying  heat of summer days where  the earth cracked open from dryness; and   cool winter mornings where a hot cup of chai helped to warm hand and tummy.   

Without fail  Baba rose early for his own meditations and visited the temple where he paid respects to his Guru by doing a full length prostration.    During  the morning Guru Gita chant he generally participated , often correcting the postures and inattentiveness of the chanters with flying objects, or sharp words. Nothing seemed to escape his attention, as throughout the day he oversaw work in the kitchen, in the  gardens, on-going construction projects,   fed and trained his elephant Viju and  played with his  dogs.

Then there was the greeting of  visitors who came in endless queues for his darshan – the Indians have a strong faith that just the sight or glance of  one of their great saints can  sanctify their lives, no matter how dismal their conditions.  The poor villagers, the powerful politicians,  the office clerks, the film stars-- all lined up  to see Baba.    Those exchanges were often very personal and engaging.  Each individual departed feeling blessed through their contact. Baba in no way filled any stereotype ideal one could have about how a saint behaved.  His language could at times be rough, harsh if the occasion called for it, often loving, lively and  humorous and his behavior always unpredictable and spontaneous. There was never a dull moment around him, it sometimes felt like a three-ring circus where multiple events were happening simultaneously and he was orchestrating them all.  He could take different roles as required--  one minute disciplining  an errant young boy with a stick; the next caressing and blessing a new-born brought by his parents; teasing   one of the local village women who  daily brought vegetables from her garden--to giving warm hearted words of encouragement and upliftment  to a man who  having lost his legs  came into the courtyard on a wooden platform with wheels.

On Saturday afternoons, the buses from Bombay would arrive, with devotees laden with baskets of food carried into the kitchen, and lining up to greet Baba  with  colorful flower garlands and offerings of fruit. 

At different times of the year daily life was enhanced with extraordinary activities: 7 day 24 hour chants,  sometimes with ecstatic dancing; celebrations of Guru Purnima and Baba’s Birthday and  Divya Diksha days, where thousands of people came by the busloads. They were accommodated on the roof tops of the buildings and even in large tents.  Huge bandharas – delicious  feasts- were prepared and distributed for  hours.   Brahmin priests came to perform yajnas, fire pujas  often for seven days.    For these occasions Baba manifested his kingly manner as he  officiated and orchestrated  each one of these activities,  with his extraordinary level of enthusiasm and vigour. Every participant was uplifted by his magnificent generosity of spirit and joyful nature. 

Life   as an ashramite with him in those years had several constant themes. First was  a mandatory and intense level of discipline which entailed participating in every chant throughout the day and doing our seva—assigned work chores.  Secondly,   being trained in various aspects of yogic life including an ayurvedic approach to diet and living with the seasons.  And individually  each ashramite received  very  personal on-going attention to their  progress in   meditation practice. 

He emphasized the discipline for seemingly different reasons: firstly it eliminated ambivalent visitors to the ashram, only the truly committed could bear the intense heat (tapasya as they call it in the Yoga Sutras ) of the rigorous lifestyle he demanded. He would occasionally roar through the courtyard with a stick in hand, shouting in a most terrifying  manner. We tended to call it his “Rudra Bhav” [ii][1] Later during the afternoon question and answer session which was translated for the westerners he would giggle  and say “Did you see, it worked, those hippies rolled up their sleeping bags and sneaked out the gate.”  Ganeshpuri ashram in those days  was not a place for spiritual dilatants or those just looking for a comfortable place to hang out.    

  He also told us that if a serious meditator  committed themselves  to a daily routine, as one went on into deeper states of meditation, that routine required much less mental effort,  one did not have to think about what to do.  It  was evident that he himself maintained an unvarying daily  routine of practices.

  Regarding diet and food, he also always emphasized the health benefits of eating only what and how much the body required according to the season and one’s ayurvedic  constitution  and again it was obvious that he himself followed a very strict dietary discipline in spite of the fact that visitors were always bringing food offerings to him. In every aspect of  his lifestyle Baba was an exemplary yogi – his example was truly inspiring and his energy levels were such that anyone observing him could only feel admiration and awe.

He also took great care in watching over the spiritual development of each individual who had made the commitment to live in his Guru Kula. This activity generally was centered in the meditation verandah adjacent to his room.  In the center of this verandah was the locked small room which was his original residence when the land was given to him by his Guru Bhagawan Nityananda.  He had lived and meditated in that room for many  years before the ashram developed and occasionally he would place a meditator  in that room for a very special initiation . (A very poignant point that cannot be overlooked is that ultimately   the earth below that one small room became the chamber for his samadhi shrine. Prior to his death  he emphasized that room  was his one sole property, everything else belonged to the trustees of the ashram.)

Ashramites and regular visitors would sit for meditation in that verandah, and Baba would come out of his room and observe people meditating.  He spontaneously gave shaktipat , a transmission of meditative experience,   in a very individual manner on those occasions. At other times, he would speak with someone in the darshan line, give them the mantra or a pat on the head or cheeks and tell them to go sit for meditation. The transmission of shaktipat, or awakening of meditation in his tradition was  informal and  unstructured, according to the individual.  The volumes of the GurudeVani Magazine edited by Amma (Swami Prajnananda) were filled with the accounts of the extraordinary experiences people had on such occasions. Baba had the remarkable capacity to transmit a direct experience of the highest consciousness to individuals who were ready for it. It  was then up to the student to honour and preserve that awakened energy   through leading a pure lifestyle and doing sadhana practices until such time as it could be stabilized through meditation.  He said that one was ready for spiritual awakening when one’s positive and negative energies had become equally balanced.  One can find a description of this experience given by  Krishna  to Arjuna in Chapter  12 of the Bhagavad Gita. 

He said that even sometimes this transmission would occur spontaneously, he would feel a certain vibration in his heart, look around and could see by the expression on some seeker’s face that they were experiencing an awakening of the powerful Kundalini  energy that had flowed from him into them.

He also observed our health  and lifestyle habits quite carefully. He was very opposed to us taking food from outside of the ashram or loading up on sweets when we visited Bombay for any reason as such food was likely to disturb our health.    If one approached him with any kind of ailment or injury one had to be brave and accept his favorite remedies, drinking cows urine or peeing on a wound.

 When I arrived in the ashram he wanted to know all  about my previous lifestyle.  I had been living a yogic lifestyle for about one year, being vegetarian and practicing the asanas and shatkarmas, cleansing practices of classical hatha yoga.  One day in conversation in Amma’s room he  pointed out, “You must have had many boyfriends, I can see you have lost your vital fluids, your cheeks are sunken and your skin pallid.”  This was quite embarrassing to say the least, but I was a product of the sexual revolution of the late sixties in California! 

“This girl has had 80 boyfriends,” he said, pointing to another American woman from New York who was working nearby. “ You will get your radiance back soon living here with this pure environment, pure food, maintaining celibacy  and chanting and meditating.”

 He seemed to be quite fascinated by the histories of the western girls who came there, as sexual freedom was not at all an acceptable behavior in India at that time.  Women’s purity was protected and preserved until the time of marriage.  At that time in India, unfortunately western women were portrayed in Indian films as being extremely promiscuous to the point of being depicted as sexual predators.  It’s no wonder that western women found themselves the target of sexual harassment when they travelled through India.  But then they themselves were not conscious to observe the modest dress codes that were observed by Indian women. In their hot pants  and halter tops men felt they were just asking for sex and were more than  eager to oblige.   This dichotomy between cultural attitudes towards sexual behavior provoked many misunderstandings in interactions between western women and men, including some of the spiritual teachers.  [2]

As part of the emphasis on discipline and health, Baba very much emphasized the preservation of sexual energy as being the fuel for spiritual practice.  It was not a question of morality generally in spite of the different cultural attitudes.  In the same way that he emphasized purity in vegetarian food for the effects if had on the energies of the body and mind, he emphasized preservation of sexual fluids as essential for developing  the subtle strength necessary for the  more refined practices of yoga and meditation. 

We were encouraged to read various texts that had been translated into English. One particularly interesting one was Devatma Shakti which described the subtle and intricate process whereby the sexual fluids of a meditator are refined through pure diet, yogic lifestyle, pranayama and meditation practices. In the case of the Siddha yogis such as Baba and his Guru who were described as urdvarehtas [3] that fluid became a conscious dynamic  force that was able to be controlled by concentration and will as a vehicle for the transmission of Kundalini energy, known as shaktipat.  That transmission could be given in the form of a physical touch; a word, usually a mantra whispered in the ear; or  a look, whereby the force of the energy radiated out of the eyes of the master into the eyes of the ready disciple. 

Baba  was invited to tour the world again in l974, invited by Werner Erhard to participate in a series of EST Presents seminars.  I left earlier from India to assist with preparations and met him and his party when he arrived in Oakland.  I had some trepidations about this tour, as I knew that Ganeshpuri ashram would never be the same pristine sanctuary of meditation once people met Baba and received the spiritual awakening that was so uniquely his work. I also wondered in my mind how people would understand what kind of yogi he was  and what he was doing when he gave shaktipat , with such vastly different cultural conditioning.

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[1] Rudra is the destroyer manifestation of the Trinity Brahma Vishnu Shiva, seen as the creator, sustainer and destroyer functions of the universe.

[2] See Alex Berzin, “how to have a healthy guru Disciple Relationship  the Berzin archives

[3] One in whom the sexual fluid flows upwards and is not emitted in any sexual encounter.

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[i] Forest-dweller fase according to the varnas, when one sees their childrens children, or their hair turning grey they should retire to the forest and contemplate the highest truths as laid out by the sages.

[ii] Rudra is the destroyer manifestation of Shiva in the trinity of Creator, Sustainer and destroyer. 

The Guru’s School – yogic curriculum

During the weekdays the ashram   was a classical traditional Guru-kula , school of training with the Guru.   Discipline was the primary requirement of residents.      There was  just  a small group of us living  there full time , mostly westerners,   several young Indian  men and women  who lived there and , a collection of retired older  Indian devotees doing their vanaprashta thing , and a handful of swamis and priests.  The Indian devotees used to say to us that we were extremely fortunate to be able to stay there for long periods, as mostly they could only come for brief holidays from school or work or family duties.

Baba  had his own unique way of weeding out any hippie-type  vagrant  visitors who wandered through seeking a  comfortable easy  life.  In those days .there were many such people, seeking a high through drugs or various practices, but not seriously interested in yoga or spiritual practices

If such visitors had come to the ashram, he  would occasionally stride through the kitchen or courtyards with a stick shouting loudly in Hindi appearing very wrathful and  terrifying.  Later in the question and answer session he would laugh about how his frightful  display had worked on the visitors--  they  rolled up their sleeping bags and sneaked out the front gate and went on looking for a more hospitable place.   

His anger was terrifying, but I could often see he used it skillfully.  On another occasion he was striding around with his stick shouting at people for not being present in the evening chant.  When he was in that mood, people dispersed very quickly.   He came up to the area where I was working .  “How was I?” he asked  as he giggled and  handed me a sweet from a bag he was carrying in his other hand. 

In this traditional setting he was teaching us all aspects of yogic life  through the  on-going ashram routine, by his own example, and through spontaneous individual interactions.

He  trained us to understand that meditation, samadhi was not some kind of trance,  spaced out state. Swadhyaya, recitation of the various scriptural texts in Sanskrit, sometimes for six hours in a day,   formed such a large part of the daily schedule.  He taught us that we didn’t need to chase after Samadhi, that if we chanted the beautiful Sanskrit texts with full attention and devotion, meditation would chase after us.  We had to sit attentively in the morning Guru Gita Chant, spine straight, holding the book high, concentrating intently as we chanted.  If we slouched, we would be targeted  with a small wooden block that he kept in a little tray on his table as missiles of mindfulness.

  That was training for our meditation practice.  In fact the careful recitation of the Sanskrit texts with  attention to pronunciation and meter, was a profound pranayama practice, deeply affecting the harmony of our internal life force.  And the resonance of the precise  sounds of Sanskrit were making deep impressions on our subtle nervous  channels, nadis.  To this day, when I hear Sanskrit being recited I feel as though my inner nadis are subtly vibrating  to the resonance.  The teaching on matrika shakti from the Kashmir Shaivite texts actually describes how each letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is embedded in our subtle nerves, thus the power of the mantras.

  He asked me to teach  hatha yoga to the young students who came for school holidays and would give me advice on what and how to teach them.  I taught Malti and her younger sister,  Rani, yoga asanas  on their holidays, under his clear instructions and learned about the application of principles of Ayurveda to hatha yoga.  At that time there were no books available in English on Ayurveda, but through our daily life in the ashram he taught us about aspects of seasonal food and health and different body types. If we had the courage to ask about any  personal health issue, we had to be willing to undertake traditional ayurvedic remedies.  These could include, chewing on a bitter haritaki nut for constipation,  drinking cows urine for an antibiotic , or peeing on an injury on our feet  for cleansing.   

He modelled and exposed us to the profound experiences of bhakti yoga through his devotion to this own Guru, known as Bhagawan  Nityananda, and through his love of the devotional poems of the poet saints he would sing so melodiously. On occasion we would see his profound devotion as he wept in remembrance of his Guru.

Amma told a story of how  one day she encountered Baba  sitting on the steps,  weeping.  She asked him what was the matter?  He replied that he missed his beloved Guru greatly.  Amma  being, of course, the good disciple  said something about the inner Guru, who was  eternally with his disciples.  Baba’s reply was,  “Yes, but sometimes you just fall in love.” 

Sometimes in the very early morning, after meditating on the veranda outside of Baba’s room, I would follow him as he walked through  to the temple.  Peeking through the bars of the windows outside,  I would watch as he paid his respects through a full length pranam, prostrating with his body  outstretched on the floor.  His humble devotion in those private moments, observed  only by  the priest (and myself or any others who were  observing  secretly ) was  profoundly moving and inspiring.  

Karma yoga,  selfless service,  was brought to life with the emphasis on Guru seva as such an important part of the ashram daily schedule. Learning to work for the sheer joy of it, rather than expecting a reward was a profound teaching  of the Bhagavad Gita and the Indian devotees applied themselves to it with great devotion.  I was continuously inspired by their example. They worked with such joy and humility always cheerful and generous spirited,  often chanting devotional songs while working. 

The contrast between the cultures brought opportunities for learning, and Baba made good use of them.  We western students  had no problems with doing physical work, cleaning toilets or gardening, and he would often admonish the Indian devotees about their own pride and caste consciousness in refusing to do menial work, which according to their culture was beneath  their caste status. .  In turn he would scold us for being so proud and arrogant, and lacking in the humble  devotion that the Indians would express in the ashram. 

He also taught us how to integrate and sustain levels of joy through the chanting and  dancing saptahs- 7 day chants that went for 24 hours.   He would raise the pitch and level of the chant to thrilling  ecstatic   levels and  signal the drummer and harmonium player to hold them,  showing us  how to quietly extend and sustain those levels of joy without crashing out into unconsciousness or getting wildly overexcited.   That was very helpful  training in sustaining states of bliss in meditation. 

  

On the weekend it was a totally different  picture of Indian life.   Saturday afternoon  the buses would arrive from Bombay which was about two-three hours away by bus or train.   People arrived  carrying in offerings of baskets of food and flowers, as  the regular  Bombay devotees came in and the atmosphere completely changed from one of quiet meditation to a festive environment.  Sunday morning Guru Gita was very lively with the devoted chanting of the Indians and  visiting guest musicians who wanted to play for Baba, often special songs they had composed for him.  

 During the morning there was an endless line of people bringing flower garlands and baskets as offering to meet and pay respects to Baba. Often guest musicians, famous flute players, devotional singers  or sitar players would play in the temple. At that time the courtyard took on the feel of a King’s court. Baba had an extraordinary regal quality and the ashram was his royal court rich with the artful  elegance, colour and rasa  of the beautiful rich  Indian culture. 

Also many visitors came for the day on Sunday, busloads would arrive and people would take tours through the gardens.  Often devotees would offer special feasts for weddings or other occasions, and the simple ashram fare would be replaced with very rich, spicy, but delicious Indian delicacies.  Sometimes I found the contrast of the quiet weekdays with their serene  gentle rhythm and the weekend chaos  overwhelming, and would hide myself in the meditation cave where there was quiet.

The years from 1971-74 were a unique time  in the ashram as the ashram was not very developed, it was clean and reasonably comfortable and Baba personally oversaw all activities.    There was sufficient time and peace in the environment  to really enter into deep meditation practice. Such a rarefied environment with all the features conducive to deep meditation is  something extremely rare.  To this day, I appreciate the precious  opportunity we had  for profound and deep meditation practice. 

After his second world tour from 1974-1976 the ashram became  a busy place, and more activities such as courses, intensives, yagnas,  and long chants  were started  to engage the many foreign visitors who came in specially chartered jumbo jets for short, intensive ashram experience.

In 1973  there was a terrible drought throughout India. India is  very dependent on the  rain fall  of its yearly monsoon.  If it is compromised in any way, lack of rain, the farmers would suffer terribly. One such year, the droughts drove people out of the rural areas and into the city looking for any possible work and food.  At that time the ashram was very short on water, and we became aware of how difficult and precarious life could be in India.  We were told that we could not use more than  ½ bucket of water per day to do all of our laundry, bathing, washing hair, etc.  

All I can say, is try to get by on that… but somehow we could manage and learned  to use water so sparingly, pouring a little onto the clothes or body, sudsing with soap and then rinsing with a minimal amount of water.

During that time the ashram offered  free food to hundreds of poor villagers and people who would congregate and come for lunch.  They would push and shove and file into the dining hall. I remember seeing them leave with their lungis, wrapped with rice that they were taking home with them. One time I walked through the dining hall after several serves of lunch had been served to these people.  I felt overcome by a huge cloud of a feeling of starvation, the feeling they had left there as they grabbed for food.  For that brief moment I knew what It felt to be starving, and it;s something I have never forgotten, making me very aware of not wasting food or other resources, knowing that somewhere in the world are people who do not have adequate food, water or other resources to meet their basic needs.

Ganeshpuri Ashram 1971-1974

Culture Shock:
On the most  basic levels it was an enormous adjustment to live in the Ashram in Ganeshpuri.  I lived   in a dormitory with l5-20  girls from all parts of the world.  Our only personal space was the top of our bed with  a basket  underneath for our belongings. We were asked to wear traditional Indian sarees, as the Indians could not cope with the western girls’ custom of  wearing no bras, revealing tops and figure hugging clothes.  Modesty was unquestionably  the valued  traditional Indian feminine trait,  and a huge learning curve for most of us.   Who had even heard of the word   “modesty”? We were  fresh out of the “bra burning” demonstrations and sexual revolution of the women’s liberation movement of the  late sixties in California.

 But like any zealous reformee,  I got right into it, and before long I was the one  smugly telling  the newly arrived girls , “You must wear a bra, and cover your breasts “ as I handed them a saree, petticoat and blouse from a chest of clothing  that had been left behind by some other departed visitor.  The salwar-kameez – a long wide top with loose panats  that girls wear these days were not even commonly worn except by school girls. 

Sarees are   six meters of cloth wrapped in a very elaborate and somewhat precarious  manner.   They are very difficult to wear  elegantly  without tripping  and pulling the whole thing down around your feet.   Wearing a saree forces you to mince and  sway slightly as the front pleats fan out, and the long tail thrown over the shoulder moves with your walk.  The Indian women always moved elegantly and delicately, whereas we tripped, were at the mercy of safety pins to hold slippery meters of cloth in place.   Then on top of having to walk with great care not to disgrace ourselves,  we had  no choice but  to use squat toilets, and managing the saree with squat toilets, and the water business, ( no  such thing as toilet paper existed in those days)  required elaborate yoga-like maneuvers for the most basic business of the day. 

We had to eat sitting cross legged on the floor  from dried leaves ,  unfamiliar spicey food with our fingers, without , of course,  wasting even one grain of rice!     Baba would walk amongst the rows and inspect that we were not wasting any food. 

 The daily schedule of   activities involved   sitting  cross legged  on a stone floor in the temple  for hours chanting  hymns and prayers in Sanskrit.  (Some English transliterations were provided and eventually some translation which only provoked more confusion and consternation!  The prayers we were chanting often were extremely foreign in their concepts – about devotion, surrender and to deities who we knew absolutely nothing about.  ) 

Every aspect of life in the ashram was a huge adjustment.  Indian protocols are very intricate, particularly around the handling of food, and what one did with ones’ feet.    I felt anxious much of the time afraid I was  doing something dreadfully inappropriate (which was frequently the case.)  I felt like I had  regressed  to the stage of  kid in kindergarten.   Most conversations around Baba took place  in Hindi so we never knew what was going on or being said.   The translator who translated Baba’s occasional question and answer sessions seemed to have a rather condescending attitude towards us westerners as though we were barbarians.   Within the ashram  men and women were segregated and  were not really allowed to be seen talking with one another.  

Early morning we did manage to escape across the road to the grotty  chai-wallah’s shop for dosas,  a flat rice pancake, or idlis, a rice cake with spicey sambhar and sweet  chai.  Along with the food provided in plates and glasses of most questionable cleanliness, we were able to  partake in a huge amount of  therapeutic debriefing.  It felt like these sessions helped to retain our sanity as our western civilized natures were being systematically obliterated  in such a completely strange environment.    

Our day began at  4 a.m.  in the morning when  a beautiful chant resounded across the entire ashram “Nityananda Mahan….”  We would roll out of our narrow cots, pull out the bundle of clothes that had been neatly folded the previous night so we could easily find what we needed in the dark.   We then made our way   down two floors into the courtyard, where the smell of the morning purifying incense and oil lamps greeted us.  We walked through the garden to the ladies bath house.  I loved that  early morning walk without any torch, appreciating the quiet, and the varying light according to the phases of the moon.  The quiet, the starlight  and moonlight, the  intoxicating smells of the flowers in the garden, incense, all contributed to a beautiful introduction to our day.

If we came down at this time there was water that had been heated with a fire under the big tank….that was our precious hot bath in a bucket.  We poured  the water over our body with a large cup, applied soap and then rinsed off.  After drying off and dressing in fresh clothes we made our way to the temple  for the morning arti,  standing prayer to the Guru in the temple followed by  sweet steamy chai  served in the dining hall.  Then back to sitting in the temple and   chanting Guru Gita and other chants  in Sanskrit for one and a half  hours.  It concluded with a rousing chant Shree Krishna Govinda, which was accompanied with drums, cymbals and a lot of joy.  What a wonderful way to start the day.  Then  out the doors of the temple into  morning, cool and crisp, raining, or already warm, depending on the season.  We crossed the street to the chai wallah, had our breakfast and furtive sharings about what we were feeling about everything we were adjusting to.  Then  back to our assigned seva, or  work, more chanting, lunch, rest,  more work,  more chanting, dropping into bed at 8.30 at night.   Through all of that  there  was not one second of familiar  activity. Except for the furtive  therapy  sessions over chai in the tea shop. 

 Not surprisingly,  I was undergoing  a huge identity crisis,  I did not know who I was any more. I felt civilization as I had known it receding.  I had been an independent career woman with my own car since teen age, travelling around the world.  Now here I was living under the domination of a dictator guru… a most kind and  benign one,  fortunately, but very strict. There was no room for individual free will.  I could, of course have chosen to leave and return home, but inside I knew that what was happening to me, as difficult as it was. as strange as it was-- was extremely precious. I could not even imagine what I would return to as I had quite consciously left behind a value system that I had found  untenable. 

Sometimes on weekend, when a lot of visitors came I would fanaticise about returning to the west to a civilized existence. (for me civilization was represented by things like pizza, cheese, ice cream, movies, going to the beach, swimming.)  These dominated my fantasies.    I would feel  that perhaps I would never leave India, and that civilization and freedom were  lost to me forever. At one point I went and offered my savings into the office as a donation, so that I would not even be tempted to leave.  That did leave me in a really restricted position, without money to buy extra food, medicine when I got sick and certainly a return ticket. 

On one trip to Mumbai for some visa business, I purchased two lovely china tea cups and saucers.  I had a small heating implement that boiled water, and I could make tea in my room with powdered milk.  That was my sole method of retaining some link with a civilized world that  seemed to be receeding further and further  away.  A refined cup of tea with a friend goes a long way in providing some level of comfort. 

Living with no spending money provided a valuable learning, though one in retrospect I would not subject myself to again.  When one has no money it’s pointless to have desires as they can’t be fulfilled, so it did have the effect of quietening my mind somewhat.  But then I came to learn certain lessens that come with poverty and complete lack of free will – and a kind of empathy for others who were in such condition, not by any choice or whim.

But in reality I was undergoing the  classical existential crisis whereby one begins to seek answers to  the most pertinent questions that are posed  in the beginning of the Upanishads  :  Who am I?  Why am I here?  What is my relationship to this world? 

Actually I had been asking these questions to myself since I was a teenager, and traversing  my way through American society.    Prior to this what I looked at and tried to pursue as a good  follower  of  the  “American Dream” had only come up with disappointment, growing disillusionment and  the other classical Vedantin response to self-enquiry,  “Neti, neti,-- not this, not this!  Surely there is something more to life. 

  Here at last there was a possibility of some intelligent and meaningful response by being utterly subsumed in the yogic lifestyle of the ashram with a most generous hearted and loving Guru. Here we were living in an environment that was focused on the pursuit of the highest ideals of life as conveyed in the  ancient hallowed Indian philosophies.

To try to fit in, I carefully observed  how the Indian girl  behaved.  They  were so feminine!  I had never seen such beautiful girls, in their colourful sarees, with silken black braids (made shiny and fluid  by doses of coconut hair oi)  swinging down their backs often wrapped with fragrant flower garlands.  

  I tried to imitate  how they wore their sarees,  how they walked up the stairs sighing “Oh  Babaji”  in rapturous tones,  how they  sat down to eat.  I desperately  attempted  to turn myself into a clone of  a demure  Indian  female devotee. But when I looked in the mirror I saw my unruly  blonde curly hair sticking out in all directions, the saree hanging very precariously  off my shoulder,  bunched around my waist and felt terribly out of place.  Gone was all my pride from years of having  been a fashion model and stylist always dressed in the most elegant  selections  from New York and European  designers. I had always felt confident when I entered  a room that people would look and appreciate what they saw.  Now  my  whole world seemed  to have turned  inside out and I felt foolish, diffident, and insecure. I feel fortunate that Baba took the role of a kind and patient father during that period.  I felt,  in fact, he  endeavored to support and help my spiritual growth recognizing that the situation was not easy for us westerners choosing to stay long term in a foreign culture and  adjust to a fairly rigorous  life in the ashram.

In Indian  culture, a woman travelling alone so far from family was simply unheard of.  The Indian women  seemed horrified when they  asked me, “Where is your husband? “  “Where are your parents?”  My parents in turn, back in Idaho in the U.S .were appalled  at what I was doing. My father was doing a lot of soul searching thinking they had gone terribly wrong in their parenting that I should have left my successful career, and was living with what I am sure they thought was some kind of religious cult.

Doing the recording and writing work put me into close  contact with Amma Trivedi,   Baba’s secretary  who recorded much of Baba’s life in various movies, publications and reports including the Gurudevani magazines.  She was a former Sanskrit professor in Bombay, and was  simple,  efficient, down to earth, and helped me a lot to adjust to life in the ashram.  She was another person that I could attempt to emulate in trying to mold myself into the acceptable disciple. 

  

Baba had an extraordinary capacity for direct personal relationship.  I am sure every person in the ashram had a similar experience – that he entered deeply into relationship with them,  wherever they were at.      He didn’t hold back, he met every person in an intensely personal way.

Such an intense personal relationship with a teacher  turns  one inside out.  There was no hiding  any of the most petty, primitive emotions.    He could always  read my mind and let me know he knew what I was thinking.   Baba seemed to enjoy playing with our childish jealousies, he would play little tricks on us, as he would also with the ashram dogs and even the elephant.   Then he would chuckle  about our reactions in a loving sweet way.  He seemed to find great humour and entertainment in the endless drama of our primitive reactions like jealousy  and pettiness, and in that way taught us to see ourselves clearly,  and  not to take our own melodramas so seriously. 

  One time  I had flounced up to him where he sat   on his perch in the courtyard .  He had just returned from a visit to Bombay to which I had not been  invited.  I was quite put out and said to him,  “ I’m leaving the ashram”.  “Jao”, he said,  gesturing  dismissively.  No satisfaction there to my petty display,  he just waved me off.    Later he came up to where I did my writing work and put his face very close to mine.  “That’s not love, that’s jealousy,”  he laughed very sweetly  and walked away.

 I was horrified to be so exposed, but later on I was  grateful that he had helped point my attention towards one of my biggest obstacles to having a peaceful mind and a genuine loving heart.  Only by him exposing the problems was I then   able to take responsibility and work at reducing that particular trait that has caused me a lot of unhappiness.  Ultimately what I am most grateful for are the times when he expressed his genuine concern for my development by pointing out my faults, as painful as it could be at the time.  It was never done with unkindness or judgement, just an encouragement to be  the best I could. By pointing out my faults in such a loving manner in retrospect I could see that he was a genuine loving father who was not afraid to take our  his “chotta guru”,  his stick after my blind spots.  It was also consoling when we began to study some classic texts, to   understand that negative emotions are the norm for all humans beings,  and that the whole purpose of sadhana,  spiritual practice  was to purify them and replace them with  uplifted positive qualities.

On one occasion I was in a rather black mood and went looking for Baba with the hope of being pulled out of it.     He happened to be sitting on his usual spot in the courtyard surrounded by a group of disciples.  There was no speaking, Baba seemed to be manifesting a state of sahaj-samadhi  (natural Samadhi).  As I came near, apparently my  black mental state emitted vibrations that  were disturbing as Baba looked at me and said “Nickalao ” – (get out) and waved me to leave.  I went into the garden feeling quite rejected, but as I observed my inner state, I could see that he had spoken directly to my inner negative state, as it was gone.  I felt he showed me a skilful means for dealing with such states.  He didn’t want to sit with them, why should I?  When they arose, rather than letting them hang about, I just told them, “ get out.”

Even with all of this inner turmoil and outer tapasya (friction created by challenging conditions)  I look back on that  period of my life l97l-l974 as the most profound and happy.   I was in a beautiful home with the perfect father.   I felt safe and protected and that I was living a meaningful life.

There was a rhythm of life at the ashram that flowed from one day to the next, one season after another.  The flow was predictable, the heat of the summer broken by the first rain, that brought everyone out dancing on the road in front of the gate of the ashram. Then there was  the ‘exraordinary fragrance of the mogra and other blossoms of the monsoon season, the bells and conches that marked the events of our  daily activities.  And of course the inward purifying effects  of the on- going chanting and meditation allowed the Kundalini to do  its purifying work,   I spent many hours meditating in the beautiful meditation verandah or the  cool, dark cave below,  and my mind and heart gradually stabilized into  peaceful  joy. 

The  conditions in the ashram of those years  were particularly conducive to deep spiritual practice and profound meditation.  Most of the time,  very few people were living there.  Our seva duties were not overly demanding, the many hours of Sanskrit recitation purified and stabilised the mind so that one could enter into deep states of meditation. Gradually the gross level of kriyas, movements of the inner Kundalini began to subside, physical movements became less disturbing, as the nadis were purified,  the inner pulsations  became subtle waves of bliss.

The inner confusion began to dawn as   clarity and vividness.  The limited I- sense  that had felt threatened by the tumultuous upheaval of emotions and loss of comfortable references  began to find refuge in   insight and stillness  that was becoming the inner environment of natural yogic awareness.  Qualities of devotion, bliss and serenity  replaced the previous negative feelings of contraction .  The expanded consciousness felt ancient and familiar. The experiences that manifested during that period  were below any level of  words  –  could not  really be described.   The  concept of a yoga-brashta  one who practices yoga in one lifetime and does not culminate his/her sadhana is again born in conditions to continue the practice was clearly  outlined in the Bhagavad Gita.  It  made complete sense to me.  This yogic life had eclipsed any other self identification and seemed ancient and familiar. 

The peaceful environment was only occasionally marred by minor sibling snits that arose out of jealousy between sister yoginis.  One woman described it 

thus, “My blissful samadhi  cannot seem to withstand the slightest interaction with another human being.”

 Even in a yogic paradise, our personal perversities prevailed.  I witnessed several such  altercations  that took place early morning in the ladies’ meditation room.  They unfolded  something like , “You are sitting in my meditation seat!”,  etc. etc. etc. --   grist for the mill of sadhana as Ram Dass had said in his book.   Also a good reminder that there was much refinement of our self-centred  emotions  still to be done, lest we interpreted our blissful meditations  as some greater level of meditative attainment. 

Baba  was uncompromisingly   strict about the ashram disciple.  Several times I found myself sitting on   the curb outside the front gates of the ashram because I had blatantly resisted  going to a chant when the ashram was filled with visitors.  I found it suffocating to stand in the hall crowded  with too many bodies   that  reeked of rancid coconut oil.  When  I was found in the garden or outside of the gates,  I received the message that Baba had told me to go live in Bombay, I was not fit for living in  the ashram.  Eventually as it got dark outside, some Indian devotee  would come out and tell me  kindly that  Baba had given me permission to return back inside.

There was a dramatic incident with a visiting sadhu who came to the ashram during that time.  The ashram policy was that visiting sadhus could stay for three days and received food and new clothes if required.  One particular sadhu came and it seemed that he made further demands on the ashram, and it came to Baba’s attention that he was asking for money.  Baba said to him in uncompromising terms:   “You just want money to buy ganja, I have given you what you need in food and clothes, we will not give you any money, now go.”

But this sadhu wanted to display to Baba that he was not  just an ordinary ascetic, and he would get  revenge for being treated what he thought was unfairly. He parked himself in front of the front gate of the ashram, and set up a kind of malefic  tantric shrine indicative of placing a curse on Baba that he would be carried out of  the ashram lifeless.  He sat there for a couple of days and everyone who came and went from the ashram or passed by was very aware of him and his malicious  intent.   After a couple of days, Baba came out of the front gate  and grabbed him by the arm and ushered him into the back garden area.  There were several boys there with Baba and they handed a shovel to the sadhu, and Baba said, “You dare to place a curse on me for your own wicked ends, now dig a pit that we will bury you in.” When the sadhu could see that Baba  had clearly overpowered him, he became terrified and began to weep and grovel at Baba’s feet  protesting his apologies and asking Baba;s forgiveness.   Baba finally relented  and the boys ushered the terrified man outside of the gate, and Baba told him to disappear and never dare to return to the ashram. 

Shaktipat

Shaktipat:

In our dormitory was a manuscript of a book that Baba had written about his relationship with his  Guru and his subsequent fulfillment of his meditation practice.  I started taking pages of the manuscript  and reading it.  It was narrated in a devotional voice as Baba had dictated it to one of his students.

  

This was so personal and it was a genuine manual to the relationship with a teacher, how Baba had practiced and what kind of extraordinary experiences unfolded in this mysterious process.

One day I read about how Baba used to sit in the temple of his Guru Nityananda in Ganeshpuri and practice Guru bhav , identifying his body and mind with his teacher.  He described how he touched each part of his body and imagined that Nityananda existed within him. It seemed like he was effacing himself and replacing his sense of self with his Guru’s consciousness.  That seemed to be his main meditation technique.

So I decided to try it.  I walked down the stairs and entered into the marble meditation veranda that was outside of Baba’s rooms, and surrounded the tiny little original hut that Nityananda had given him, and in which he had done much meditation practice.  I sat down close to the door of his room.  I sat up in a firm  lotus posture, and began to say to myself, “Muktananda is in my calves, my thighs, my arms are no different from him, my life force itself is none other than his consciousness.” It seemed a strange thing to do at first, but clearly this was a secret method he had revealed. The book had not even been  published yet, we had a copy of the English translation  and I was fortunate enough to receive this secret teaching...,”Muktananda is in my heart, my brain, “ I was getting into it.

Then I heard the door to Baba’s room open, he came striding  out.  He often had this habit of walking around the verandah and observing people’s meditation.  He came and stood close to me , I felt very nervous and excited at the same time.  I opened my eyes, and Baba took my chin and tipped my head back, looking into my eyes.  Suddenly there was a stream of light flowing from his eyes into mine.   That light dissolved any sense of individuality I could have held on to, my awareness expanded out into a vast universe.  It seemed like there were vast endless worlds, containing all the elements and creatures of the world, all composed of light.  Baba chuckled a bit and continued walking around the verandah.

 Some kind of strange sound  seemed to come from deep within me, like the sound of creation itself, a universal howl.  As it moved through me it took on the form of intense energy, every solid cell in my body became electrified and radiant.  I sat there for some time, then got up and walked out of the meditation room, and up the stairs to the roof of our dormitory.  Nothing looked familiar, everything had taken on the form of light and energy, and there seemed to be no boundaries of form, everything seemed translucent.  I went back to the  little space that defined my world, my  3 x 6 bed and lay there for a long time, with no trace of individual  identification. I seemed to have become the universe itself.  Slowly over the next couple of days, my consciousness began to shrink back into some kind of individuality. 

I continued reading Baba’s spiritual autobiography and began to understand this experience I had had was termed shaktipat, a kind of spiritual awakening that activated my own Kundalini energy which is undifferentiated from universal energy. 

And now  to complicate life in the ashram  even more, for the next  three  years  I had ongoing  bizarre  inner meditation experiences  that at times felt like hallucinations.  Reality was constantly blurring for me.  I wept continuously for a year.  At first the tears seemed to be connected to my own life disappointments around love;  then it seemed to be my mother’s suffering that I had witnessed and felt so much empathy for;  then it seemed to be for the suffering condition of all of humanity. Not only the poverty I was acutely aware of in India, but also the shallow lives of the people I had socialized and worked with in New York and Los Angeles, blindly searching for happiness in sex, drugs and rock and roll, which were the opiates of my generation.

  

Had this occurred to me in the west I am sure I would have been hospitalized for a  psychotic break, and given some mind-numbing medications to pacify me.  Fortunately I was in an ashram with a wise and kind guru who even though I had arrived a stranger on his doorstep looked after me with absolute kindness and generosity  for the l2 years that I was his student.  The Indian devotional philosophy encourages one to relate to a teacher as a divine father, utilizing ones basic  natural emotions.  Baba responded with tremendous kindness mixed with strict discipline.   His therapy  was one part absolute  unconditional love with two parts strict discipline and he set the bar  high. The result of reaching up to his standards, ultimately established valuable habits and ethics that replaced many  of my  previous neuroses.

   

Ultimately I didn’t know why I was weeping except  rather than sadness I began to be aware of a growing sense of  joy.   It just seemed like my heart was opening profoundly.  I no longer could define myself by any familiar boundaries, but the kind of tender and poignant emotions and feelings that were moving through me as a result of this life in the ashram seemed to be oddly familiar.  They were evoked at the sight of a beautiful monsoon sunset with extraordinary cloud formations; at the fragrance of the delicate  monsoon flowers, at the sounds of  beautiful classical Indian music  or devotional songs sung by one of the ashramites that often resounded from the temple during our morning work periods.  I began to appreciate that Indian culture evokes a rich variety of subtle feelings, in fact the various ragas of  classical  Indian music are specifically written to evoke those subtle  spiritual states . 

Throughout this time,  Baba was  like a warm  solicitous father. He watched and responded to my travails with kind, unconditional loving.   When I struggled with a low self esteem he reinforced a positive self identity within me. When I was terribly spaced out,   he guided  me to stop meditating, to do some garden work to ground me, and then gave me a job of writing down his words in the weekly question and answer sessions. That work  required concentration and attentiveness which was helpful  as I often felt overwhelmed by the energy  around him. 

Baba  assured me that the  experiences  I was having were due to the arising of previous karmas stored in  the unconscious  after the activation of the Kundalini the inner spiritual energy that is the result of yogic practices and contact with Gurus of his tradition.  He advised that I I should not pay too much attention to the content, just allow whatever feelings arose to just pass out.   That  process process of purification  had begun from  several  occasions  when he spontaneously gave me shaktipat, looking into my eyes, or touching me for a long time on the forehead  as I was meditating  in the meditation  verandah. 

That writing work kept me in touch with reality I think, as I wrote a report for the ashram newsletter published in English, and  transcribed  the question and answer sessions that he gave. My mother had insisted that I take shorthand and typing classes so I would always be able to get a good job.  Here in the ashram the shorthand came in very handy.  For years around Baba   I painstakingly wrote  everything down in  shorthand, typed  them out on an ancient  typewriter, and  went over the translations with Professor Jain.

These  transcribed teachings   ultimately were published as  the series of books “Satsang with Baba” volumes  1 thru 5 chronicling life in the ashram during  the period of l97l- l974.   We hardly edited Baba’s words,  and  also  retained the names of the questioners.   Those volumes with the particular questions the residents and guests asked, along with Baba’s answers really gave a good picture of   life in the ashram  for the residents during that period, prior to the arrival of huge numbers of western students which greatly changed the ashram environment.   

Arrival in India

Arrival in India 

We landed in India at the  Calcutta airport.  It was a very indecorous   entry into India , certainly would not have been allowed in post 2001 air travel.   I was dropped off on the tarmac with my bags   and my friends flew off on to their own destinations.   As I stepped out of the plane, a new level of olfactory sensation was evoked within me .  At  that time I could not identify  the content,  though as the years have gone by, I can list the ingredients that my brain identifies  as the smell of India:  I think it includes,  centuries of dust, cow manure, human feces, cumin, chillies, turmeric, coriander, and other spices  whose names I  had yet to learn, sandalwood  incense, unbelievably fragrant flowers, and a  generous mix of human spirit in the face of suffering.    India is an assault on one’s senses.  The moment I land in India  my senses became hyperactive and I feel extraordinarily alive.

 I made my way into the airport,  passed through immigrations and caught a taxi into the heart of Calcutta.  I found a cheap tourist guest house and then made my way down to the street.  This was the time of Bangladesh war, l970 and the streets of Calcutta were filled with refugees.   Raised in Boise Idaho sheltered  from any other culture than white middle class  American, I had never experienced poverty and squalor.  I was horrified when I saw how children lived, when I walked down the street children and hideously crippled beggars pulled at my clothes begging for money for food.  When the hands were held out, I put money into them, and the number of hands increased immediately, I was besieged by hungry, grasping urchins.  I felt dizzy.   All I could think of was how I had lived such a self indulgent life for years, concerned about this pair of designer shoes or buying designer scarves for hundreds of dollars. The contrast between my self indulgent  life and what I was inundated with here was so confronting, and distressing,  that I wanted to just give away all of my money and return to a place where I would be more comfortable and not have to confront my own value system in the face of such abject poverty and suffering.

Ones usual defenses are unreliable in India.  we can attempt to hide in the security of our materialism in 5 star hotels or up market restaurants, but still India’s seething life force with all its accompanying sounds, smells and images intrudes.  Intrusion is the issue, space between creatures and individuals  is precious in its scarcity.  Proximity brings comfort when there is a relationship and anxiety at its peak on the roads. India has its own energy in the ruthless interdependence, in its many languages, cultures, religious and social and class structures and religious tolerances, its unity in diversity gives choreography to its chaos.

Prior to leaving San Francisco, a woman had asked me to carry some nutritional supplements to a friend of hers in Delhi. I agreed to do so, and so after arriving in Calcutta, I thought I would go on to Delhi and deliver these items.  When I contacted the woman it turned out she was a devotee of Swami Muktananda and informed me that he was at that moment in Delhi.  I found the house and went there, Baba remembered meeting me and greeted me.  He was staying in the house of some devotees, and then travelling around the country before returning to his ashram. I decided to go on up to Hardwar and Rishikish to visit the headquarters of the swami who I had learned Hatha Yoga from, at the Sivananda Divine Life society.  I stayed there a few days, just settling into life in India. One evening some of the residents were going to visit a local saint, Ananda Mai Ma who was resident in Hardwar.  We went in to see her and she was quite curious about me as a western woman travelling on my own.  She seemed to not be in good health and was lying on a kind of cot covered in a quilt.  She asked me various questions, and then we just sat there with her quietly. I felt a profound energy envelop me, it had a distinctly female maternal quality to it.  I felt bathed in it , felt safe and loved.  It was a very moving experience.

 When I enquired with other westerners who were there and seemed to be her students they related how difficult it was to live around her as her people observed very strict caste rules and as foreigners they were seen as outcastes and not allowed to stay or eat in the ashram, but had to stay and arrange their own food outside.    

I made my way down  to Bombay and the ashram which was a train travel from Bombay.  When I arrived in the ashram I was given a guest room in the  garden.  I put my bags down, washed away the grime from the train and taxi ride  and strolled into the garden .  It was pristine, with beautiful exotic fruits and flowers that I had never seen before.  The vivid  meditational experience I had had while lying on the floor of our yoga studio in San Francisco flashed into my mind like some other dimension of consciousness. It wasn’t exactly memory – it had been completely real at the time, and here it was exactly as I had experienced it.   The  garden complete with mangoes hanging from the trees, and fragrant frangipani trees.

 How could it be that I had actually been present in this garden while lying on the floor of our yoga studio?  What  incomprehensible power could cause such an extraordinary thing to occur?  My very sense of self, and my reality itself  was being stretched  to incorporate things that had no logical explanation.   But, inexplicably  this  seemed to be more real than the previous 29 years of my life which were already fading away like a dream.

As I got my bearings I found   that  the environment  in the ashram seemed to be pervaded by a kind of energy that  was  bright and shiny.  Swami Muktananda or Baba (meaning dear father) as everyone called him remembered coming to our yoga studio in San Francisco and welcomed me to stay as long as I liked.   

Just after my arrival it was Baba’s sixty second  birthday celebrations.  And boy can the Indians celebrate!!  None of the accoutrements that we deem necessary for celebration:  champagne, beer, etc.  Think of a Bollywood extravaganza. Color, music, intoxicating  fragrances. And the Indians  turn on the food.  For these big events, devotees from Bombay loved to come and offer the food in what was called a bhandara, a feast for all to enjoy.  The Indians have a real belief in offering food, feeding people as a meritorious act.  And decorations!!  Beautiful garlands brought by people (in the Indian tradition, one never comes empty-handed to meet a holy man. Devotees came laden with  offerings of flower garlands and  fruit laden  straw baskets.   Those garlands began to  appear all around the central marble courtyard hanging from  a couple of trees below which were seats where the devotees sat awaiting their opportunity to pay respects to Baba.  In the corner was a  raised platform which lead into Baba’s quarters.  We would hear a click, and Baba would appear out the little trap door, take his seat, with a characteristic “Hung......”  and people would manifest from all corners, converging forward with their offerings of garlands, fruit, and money that was all put into the basket at Baba’s feet.   He greeted everyone with unconditional  warmth and affection.  His greeting,  “Sabka hridik swargat.” translated into  “I welcome you all with all my heart.””

And what a big heart it seemed to be!  So many people came, poor villagers,  some walking from nearby villages,  some coming in buses,  a community of devotees with all  the women wearing the same sari, and men wearing matching headdresses. Sometimes they would offer amazing chants in the temple,  each person resonating with deep pitched cymbals accentuating the rhythm along with sharp drums.    The Bombay wallah’s would arrive on Saturday evening by a bus, the ashram would fill with people, bustle and a frantic carrying of baskets of food, vegetables, sugar cane, bags of rice all taken into the kitchen.  Baba greeted each one with seeming familiarity,  asking personal  questions about their health, family.  His own family of devotees seemed to be huge, and that was most evident on weekends, but particularly on the celebration days.

 The highlight   of  Muktananda’s  birthday celebrations  was the placement of a statue of his Guru Swami Nityananda.  Nityananda was known as a naked avadhoot, one of the yogis who did not seem to care for convention, who was reputed to dwell always in a vast meditative state, rarely spoke, just grunted in recognition of people. He had lived in the village of Ganeshpuri nearby and had offered the small piece of land  to his student  Muktananda, that the original ashram had been built on.  The statue was larger than life size, cast in bronze, seated in a simple cross legged posture.  It was installed  into a newly constructed temple in the very front of the ashram, adjacent to the chanting hall where we chanted Sanskrit chants morning and evening. The temple was decorated with beautiful mandalas of colored cut glass. 

Hindu priests installed the statue with a very special ceremony called prana pratishta   which was to enliven the statue with the very life force (prana) of Bhagawan Nityananda himself.  That mysterious ritual was conducted, and the statue was then revealed so that we could see it for the first time.

I felt an indescribable thrill in my heart.....this was the very yogi I had “seen” in my mysterious experience in my yoga studio in San Francisco some months before.  The familiarity of the energy that seemed to emanate from this enlivened   statue  subjugated  any questions that threatened  to arise in my logical conscious mind.  This was someone that I knew and had been somehow touched by, yet I had never met nor even  seen a photo of  Bhagawan Nityananda  prior to coming to this ashram in Ganeshpuri.