Light of the Spirit Podcast

Maitri Devi had been born in the wealthiest and most influential family in the area. Her grandfather was the guru of an entire spiritual community in Agra (home of the Taj Mahal). Since it is advised that gurus not initiate their relatives, when she was only nine years of age he took her to very famous guru in the Punjab and asked that he give his granddaughter initiation, which he did.

Swami Purnananda and surgery without anesthesia

A few years later, her father who was a military surgeon came home at the end of one day and told his wife and children that he faced a worrying dilemma. That day a wandering sannyasini (nun) had come to his clinic and asked him to examine her. He found that she desperately needed a very serious operation immediately, and offered to perform the surgery the very next morning. The nun agreed, but only if he would do the surgery without giving her an anesthetic! “You need only tell me how long it will take, and I will go into samadhi and you can operate. But be sure you tell me the right amount of time, because if I come to while you are still operating, the shock will kill me.” Dr. Dayal was afraid that without anesthetic the woman would die; but she would refuse the operation otherwise and would definitely die.

The next morning as he left for the clinic he had not found a solution. His wife and children awaited his return at midday. He came in smiling and told them that he had done as the sannyasini wanted and that not only had everything gone well, she did not heed any time to recuperate, but got off the operating table and went her way, promising to return over the new few days so he could feel assured. Of course the whole family wanted to meet such an an unusual person and and Swami Purnananda came to the Dayal home.

God alone

Questioning the yogini, they learned that she had never wanted to be married, but her parents had forced her to marry the man of their choice. (This is the Indian way and usually works very well.) When the two were finally alone together, Purnanandaji began to speak of the ideals of total renunciation and the search for God alone. She spoke all night long, and around dawn the two of them crept away and never returned home again. For a woman to travel alone in India was unheard us and dangerous, so they began the wandering life together. So obvious was their purity and resolve that they were given sannyas and accepted as ideal sadhus wherever they went. Papa Ramdas of Anandashram knew them well and sometimes spent time traveling with them.

Purnananda was a brilliant lecturer on Vedanta, as was her husband. As a consequence when she went to Varanasi she eclipsed the professional pandits who were not just jealous but murderous. They poisoned her, but by her yoga power she neutralized the poison. That frightened them and from then on they left her alone.

Maitri Devi becomes a nun

She frequently visited the Dayal family and especially spoke to Maitri Devi who from their first meeting had decided to become a nun. Purnananda told her that she should indeed become a nun and build a beautiful ashram in Delhi. “Many women will desire to live there, but you must only accept girls from the best and most devout families. If their families are not dharmic, refuse their request to live with you.” Purnananda emphasized this again and again. “I will not live to see your ashram, but when you dedicate it I will give it my shakti [spiritual power].”

When the ashram was built a large satsang hall was the central area. High up near the ceiling there was a special shrine in which a large photograph of Purnananda was placed. While the temple consecration was going on, someone came and urged Maitri Devi to go into the satsang hall which was next to the temple. When she did so, she saw that lightning was running all through the ceiling and gathering around Purnan...

I first saw Sri Yogeshwar Brahmachari at the birthday celebration of Anandamayi Ma in 1971. He was sitting on the speakers’ platform along with Ma and many spiritual figures of Northern India. While the others looked around and often made some overt response to what was being said over the microphone, Yogeshwarji sat totally unmoving for hours with closed eyes and holding his yoga danda upright without the slightest movement. Quiet and unassuming, he yet stood out in all situations.

One very marked trait was his eyes. Sri Ramakrishna said:

“The mind of the yogi is always fixed on God, always absorbed in the Self. You can recognize such a man by merely looking at him. His eyes are wide open, with an indrawn look, like the eyes of the mother bird hatching her eggs. Her entire mind is fixed on the eggs, and there is a in-turned look in her eyes.”

That is exactly the look I always saw in the Brahmachari’s eyes. He spoke very familiarly and cordially with all who approached him, yet with great dignity, wisdom and intelligence; and all the time centered within. Yogeshwar means Lord of the Yogis and is a title of Shiva. But it fits Yogeshwar Brahmachari perfectly.

The monk with 23 gurus

He was in the spiritual line of Sri Ramakrishna, being a disciple of Sri Kuladananda Brahmachari, a disciple of Vijay Krishna Goswami, who was a disciple of Ramakrishna. However, Vijay Krishna Goswami was also a disciple of Babaji Brahmananda who is written about in Autobiography of a Yogi as Mahavatar Babaji. You may be surprised and perhaps horrified to learn that Yogeshwar Brahmachari had twenty-three gurus! But it certainly sat well on him and I saw no reason for objection.

One of his gurus was Tincouri Lahiri, a son of Yogiraj Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya. However he told me that when he went with Tincouri Lahiri to his ashram in Jagganath Puri he met the head of the ashram just across the lane: Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda. “I spent every moment of every day with him,” he told me. “I was completely mad for him.” Whether Sri Yukteswar was one of his gurus he never told me.

Challenging Lenin

After the Russian Revolution the Communists did their utmost to seem legitimate and worthy of acceptation in the world community. One of their attempts was the calling of a World Students’ Congress in the new Soviet Union. Yogeshwar Brahmachari decided to attend so he could see what a militantly atheistic state could produce. He saw it.

And he went directly to Lenin (an aristocrat who had studied to be an Eastern Orthodox priest, and had put forth the possibility in the early days of the Soviet Union of establishing the Roman Catholic Church as the state religion) and challenged him on his atheistic ideas and the lack of freedom and morality they entailed.

He met with Lenin privately several times. Lenin’s secretary told him as he was leaving after the last session: “After you leave, he sits for hours staring at the wall of his office. I have no idea what you say to him, but it certainly affects him!”

One afternoon in India in a conversation my friend Rani Bhan told me about Raihana Tyabji, a Moslem saint, an associate of Gandhi, who lived in Delhi. She told me that when the saint became of marriageable age her parents already had decided what rich and powerful man she would marry. So she fervently prayed to God that something would happen to her–even death if necessary–so that she would never have to marry. Immediately the pigment began leaving her skin making her all blotchy and diseased looking. Fearing leprosy (it was really only vitiligo), the family she was to marry into declared that their son would not marry her, and all other families felt the same way. Once she was freed from the threat of marriage, her entire skin turned white and she appeared quite normal except for two brown splotches underneath her eyes (perhaps as a guarantee that no one would want to marry her in the future).

I had to meet that saint! At least she and I would have aversion to marriage in common. Rani called the house where she was living and made an appointment to see her in a few days.

Rani further told me that Raihana had refused all inheritance from her family and lived in a small room in the house of one of Gandhi’s secretaries, Sri Kaka Sahib Kallelkar. The house was down the street from Raj Ghat where Gandhi’s ashes were enshrined.

Raihana’s room was at the back of the house away from street noise. (By the way, her bathroom was nearly as big as her room.) Raihana was very welcoming to me, speaking perfect English and looking perfectly English as well since the pigment had left her skin. She could have just come off the streets of London. She also had a complete understanding of Western ways. As a result she was often visited by Western visitors to India and very frequently by members of the European embassies in Delhi. She not only spoke English she could communicate totally because she knew how Westerners thought. Yet she herself was one hundred percent Indian in all personal traits and once even said to me: “I would rather be a cockroach in India than a saint in the West,” referring to the advantageous spiritual atmosphere of India.

One time Raihanaji said to me: “You know, foreigners are often born in India for some reason, and they don’t like it at all. They are furious and disgusted that Delhi is not like Paris or New York. They are a real nuisance to us, and the moment they get the chance they are off to the West, and we are so glad to get rid of them. Then there are people like you, old Bharati’s who somehow ended up in the West. You can’t stand it there, those around you don’t understand you, and when you get here you find yourself right at home; which you are.” Many years later Swami Ishtananda of the San Diego Vedanta Society told me. “I have given a lot of thought to your situation and have decided that just as in baseball if something is not right in the batting, the ball goes sideways in a completely wrong direction, so when you were to be born you we tossed toward India, but something when awry and you ended up here.”

Although Raihana was from a prominent Moslem family and every Friday had a man come to her room and recite a chapter from the Koran, which she then kissed in reverence, she was a fervent devotee of Krishna, whose picture she kept on an altar where she could always see it. She had also written a remarkable book in 1924, The Heart of a Gopi, about the early life of Krishna based on her recall of a past life. Sri Aurobindo read the book and told the members of his ashram: “The author of this book was there in Brindaban with Krishna.” One afternoon at the Delhi ashram when people were sleeping after the noon meal, Mother Anandamayi came walking through the main hall where some of the women who travelled with her were sleeping. One of them had a copy of The Heart of a Gopi by her head.

I would like to tell you about the mother of Anandamayi Ma, Srimati Mokshada Sundari Devi Bhattacharya, who became Swami Muktananda Giri but was usually called Didima or Giriji.

My first darshan of Didima

In January of 1963 I went with my friend Rani Bhan and her adopted son Inder Jit to the town of Modinagar, about an hour’s drive northeast of Delhi. That morning of that day the huge Laksmi-Narayan temple was to be consecrated, and Anandamayi Ma had been invited to participate. It would be my first darshan of Ma. The town was jammed with cars and busses, and it was difficult to find a place to park.

As we spilled out of the car, someone clutched my arm and said, pointing to an auto several yards ahead: “Go quickly, Mother is in that car!” I ran. But when I reached there I saw immediately that Mother was not there at all. Instead, sitting in the front seat was a tiny woman swathed in the orange (gerua) clothing of a monastic. In retrospect I have no idea how I knew the little figure was a woman, for her hair was cut short–almost shaven–and she looked for all the world just like my great uncle Riley Maxey. But that is how I had my first darshan of Srimat Swami Muktananda Giri, the mother of Anandamayi Ma.

Didima’s background

I learned afterward that Giriji had been a great yogi even when young, and there are indications that even then she had disciples who did not make it public. She was married to a true saint, Sri Bipin Bihari Bhattacharya. Giriji was unique in that she had totally interiorized her illumination, concealing it completely from external manifestation. Mother Anandamayi said that such an accomplishment occurs only once in many, many centuries, and was a great wonder beyond any miracles that could possibly be worked, that such a one as Giriji rarely appeared upon the earth.

Although after her enlightenment Giriji, who was beforehand virtually illiterate, had written exquisite hymns in Sanskrit delineating spiritual experiences reaching far beyond the bounds of the yoga shastra, the classical texts on yoga, she had never “done” anything that could be taken as a miracle. Instead, she passed her days sitting quietly, rosary in hand, reciting the Name of God. When asked by others why she did this, since she had no more need for formal spiritual practice, she would answer: “I am doing it for my disciples who do not repeat their mantra.”

Didima as Guru

Speaking of disciples. Sri Ma Anandamayi did not take on the role of guru and did not give initiation. Instead, when anyone asked for initiation (diksha), she told them to receive initiation from Giriji. As a consequence Giriji gave initiation to a great many people who did not really care anything about her and who told people that they were Ma’s disciples, not even mentioning Giriji. One man bragged to me that when Ma told him to be initiated by Giriji he replied: “I will do what you say, Ma, but you must be present for the diksha and I will still consider you my guru.” So as I say, Giriji bestowed her tremendous grace and love upon a multitude of people who could not care less and never gave her a thought. But that made no difference to her: she loved and she cared; and she looked after them all.

Most people who came to see Anandamayi Ma had no idea who the frail elderly person dressed in gerua and usually sitting next to Ma even was. When Ma would leave, they would surge after her, and more than once I saw people push Giriji aside and nearly knock her down in their haste. She would look at them with total calmness without a flicker of annoyance. Her humility and patience were the humility and patience of God.

In this the seventh podcast on the Yoga Life, Abbot George gives tips for success in meditation.

You will hear about:

• how to deal with inner negativity

• “getting rid of the ego”?

• the importance of keeping your spiritual life inside

• advice about your place of meditation

• the use of holy imagery in your home and meditation place.

Today's podcast concerns how to gain a greater understanding of spiritual life through study of the Bhagavad Gita, and how to tell if you are making progress in meditation. Abbot George expands on list of seven indications of progress in meditation practice found in Journey to Self-Realization, a collection of talks by Paramhansa Yogananda, at the end of the talk entitled “The True Signs of Progress in Meditation.”

True signs of progress in meditation

An increasing peacefulness during meditation.

A conscious inner experience of calmness in meditation metamorphosing into increasing bliss.

A deepening of one’s understanding, and finding answers to one’s questions through the calm intuitive state of inner perception.

An increasing mental and physical efficiency in one’s daily life.

Love for meditation and the desire to hold on to the peace and joy of the meditative state in preference to attraction to anything in the world.

An expanding consciousness of loving all with the unconditional love that one feels toward his own dearest loved ones.

Actual contact with God, and worshipping Him as ever new Bliss felt in meditation and in His omnipresent manifestations within and beyond all creation.

This podcast is the last in the series of Abbot George's Reminiscences of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, focusing on incidents showing Swami Sivananda's humility.

In this talk you will hear about:

• The woman who cleaned her glasses on Swamiji's clothes,

• The awesome spiritual atmosphere during a pada puja of Swami Sivananda,

• Some parting advice to Abbot George, and

• Abbot George's final meeting with Swamiji.

The Story of Plain boiled rice

Rice had never been a favorite with me, perhaps because except for rice pudding it is unknown in the cuisine of the American Midwest. After a short while in India I had come to really dislike it. Nothing repulsed me more than plain boiled rice. The very smell of boiled Indian rice nauseated me. This was no small problem, because in Northern India rice comprises most of the diet. Poor people often have nothing but rice with a little salt, date sugar, or yogurt sprinkled on it.

One morning Swami Sivananda spoke to a visitor and asked him: “Will you have lunch with me tomorrow?” “Yes, Swamiji,” eagerly replied the fortunate man. “Just plain boiled rice. That’s all.” “Yes, Swamiji.”

My detestation of plain boiled rice in no way diminished my envy of that blessed man. I assumed that Sivananda was not well and that his diet was restricted to the horrid stuff. But who would care? I would eat dirt to spend time in his presence.

A second person was invited, and again the litany about plain boiled rice was repeated.

The third person who was invited said: “No, no! The doctor said that I can’t eat rice.” I was flabbergasted. Would someone really refuse the invitation of such a great soul for such a flimsy reason? Why not eat the (ugh) stuff, enjoy the Master’s company, and then get sick later at leisure?

In a moment my astonishment was replaced by even greater wonder as Sivananda looked at me and asked: “Gopaldas, will you have lunch with me tomorrow?” I said, “Oh, yes, Swamiji!” “Nothing but boiled rice, plain boiled rice. Is that all right with you?” “Oh, yes!” “Are you sure?” “Yes! Yes!” “You don’t mind plain boiled rice?” I said, “Oh, no! I will be very glad to eat it.” “All right. At eleven thirty. Be there; don’t be late” I could not believe it–I had been invited, too. Next to japa, my anticipation filled my thoughts for the rest of the day and the early morning hours of the next.

I was on time for the plain boiled rice, I can assure you. But the plain boiled rice turned out to be the most elaborate meal I have ever eaten. There were at least sixty different dishes! I never saw such an elaborate meal. Cautioning me to only take a little, since I must be sure to eat some of everything, Sivananda supervised my eating. “Just plain boiled rice,” he commented meaningfully, and I knew that he knew.

“One of the most memorable experiences of my life was hearing Swami Sivananda sing every day in the evening satsang:

O my Jesus,

O my Jesus,

Lord Jesus,

Come, come to me!

O my Mary,

Virgin Mary,

Mother Mary,

Come, come to me!

Sivananda with a cross“This was no token broadmindedness on Sivanandaji’s part. Every aspect of his being vibrated with his very real love and faith in Christ and his mother. Christmas was celebrated grandly every year in the ashram. Sivananda had written an entire book on life of Jesus which was available from the ashram press.”

In this podcast Abbot George shows from Swami Sivananda's writings what great reverence he had for Jesus. Among other citations, Abbot George quotes from Sivananda's book Lives of Saints:

“[Lord Jesus] disappeared at the ages of thirteen and reappeared in his thirty-first year. During this period, from his thirteenth to his thirty-first year, he came to India and practiced Yoga.…Jesus left Jerusalem and reached the land of Indus in the company of merchants. He visited Varanasi, Rajgriha and other places in India. He spent several years in Hindustan. Jesus lived like a Hindu or a Buddhist monk, a life of burning renunciation and dispassion. He assimilated the ideals, precepts and principles of Hinduism. Christianity is modified Hinduism only, which was suitable for those people who lived in the period of Christ. Really speaking, Jesus was a child of the soil of India only. That is the reason why there is so much of similarity between his teachings and the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism. During [this period] he travelled in India where he got initiation from sages and seers.”

Much of this parallels Abbot George's researches in The Christ of India, and Levi Dowling's writings in The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.

Abbot George also recounts instances he witnessed of the great love and mercy of Swami Sivananda, where he showed himself to be dina bandhu, the friend of the lowly.

Swami Sivananda’s joyful sense of humor are evident in today’s podcast. This includes the following incidents:

• Sivananda’s riddle and the over-serious student.

• The rare color film photos of Swamiji.

• Sivananda’s omniscience regarding what was going on in Sivanandashram.

• What it was like at satsangs with Sivanandaji.

• Two interviews with Sivananda, and Sivananda’s important advice for success in spiritual life.