The Library
The Dawn Horse Library, established by Adi Da Samraj, is one of the world’s great libraries. Adi Da manifested a unique siddhi with books. He seemed to perfectly understand their contents by picking them up, feeling them and looking at a few pages. He knew what stage of spiritual development they communicated and where in the stream of a particular religious or spiritual tradition they originated. He continually arranged and rearranged his library accordingly. The sequential order he created reveals a most profound and comprehensive understanding and teaching relative to every type and kind of communication as it relates to human development, from conception and birth, through the highest forms of human realization, to death and beyond. His library contains thousands of publications, selected from the huge number of books and magazines regularly presented for his review. In addition to its magnificent collection, the library also represents an incomparable evolutionary transformation of book classification systems. Library catalogs generally adhere to one of a few systems of classification, the dewey decimal system (in the case of smaller libraries) and the Library of Congress system (for larger libraries, universities etc.) are perhaps the most popular. There are a few other systems employed to classify more specialized collections, such as the union seminary system for Christian libraries, the Schiller system for law, and so on. These classification systems are based on subject matter and are all somewhat arbitrary and archaic. The classification system developed by Adi Da, however, is based on his teaching about the progressive stages of human development. Each book is given its place in the catalog according to the developmental orientation it most clearly represents. For example if a book details the birth process and how to become responsible for conception, it is placed near the beginning of the list. A traditional text covering the most advanced aspects of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual practice and realization appears toward the end of the list. Although the guiding concept is easy to understand, the finer points demand an exercise of discriminative intelligence of the highest order. To contemplate the catalog of Adi Da’s library is to be profoundly instructed. And this instruction is not limited to a few topics. It is so comprehensive and intelligently selected that it suggests divine provenance upon first inspection.
It was to this library that I was invited. The senior devotees who put me forward for the job thought my experience at the bookstore and in the editorial department of the Dawn Horse Press adequately prepared me for the responsibility. In some ways this was true, but from a spiritual perspective I was in way over my head (again). I had great success in obtaining books for Adi Da Samraj to review. Time spent in the bookstore had sensitized me to the kinds of books he chose for inclusion in his library. I scoured every available source of books, libraries, used bookstores, mailing lists, publishers, and sent piles of material for his review on a regular basis. In this effort I received invaluable guidance from one of Adi Da’s former librarians and one of his most respected devotees. James Steinberg made countless efforts to help me understand what it meant to truly serve Adi Da as his librarian (or in any capacity). James is the embodiment of guru devotion. He never failed to be a living demonstration of authentic spiritual surrender, and I loved him for it. All I could offer in return were a few meager suggestions regarding his health, which he (perhaps) too freely sacrificed in performing guru seva.
After several months in my new position, it became necessary for me to enter Adi Da’s library in order to reshelve some books and make minor changes in the arrangement of the books on the shelves. Adi Da’s small office and its adjoining library were considered very sacred sites and were off limits to all except his immediate family (and then only under special circumstances), a few senior devotees and James Steinberg. I approached James with the task and we made preparations to enter the library on the following day. James stressed to me the necessity of adhering to our carefully prepared “to do” list (these were so simple to accomplish I thought he was being excessively methodical and unnecessarily deliberate). He told me that the office and library were filled with spiritual force and that we must act accordingly. In my mind I discounted much of what he was saying; we were just going into a couple of rooms for a short time to perform very simple tasks. How mistaken I was!
Our arms filled with books and imagining ourselves prepared, we entered the simple room where Adi Da had written, by hand, the most sublime spiritual literature ever revealed to humankind . After a brief moment spent in worship we set about shelving the new additions. This required a minor rearrangement of some books. We were also to remove a few volumes for additional review. James Steinberg is one of the brightest people I know. I had spent years shelving books, and took pride in tenaciously adhering to my duties. After 20 minutes both of us realized that we simply could not accomplish what we had intended to do. Our minds were so undone we could no longer function. In mutual comprehension, we gathered the remaining books and left. Nothing could have prepared me for that experience. It was as though I had an entirely new organ of perception suddenly implanted into my consciousness, and the influx it generated overwhelmed my remaining faculties. So much siddhi flooded my brain, it simply stopped working. As we closed the door, James’ face revealed his disappointment, we didn’t discuss it, but I felt that he had hoped to be able to conduct the spiritual force present in the library sufficient to enable him to function effectively. This was a test of spiritual maturity we failed completely.
It is difficult to describe in words what happened to me in that room. A materialist will suggest that chemicals from the paint, printers ink, mold, plastic, flickering fluorescent lights, subsonic sound waves, the meal I had recently eaten, or an infinite variety of other knowable causes were responsible. But I am absolutely certain this is not true. I worked for countless hours in the same building, not a hundred feet from my Guru’s library and office, and never noticed anything unusual. Scientists will propose that the presumption of spiritual force to a suggestible mind will produce an experience that validates the presumption. If this is true, the entire history of mysticism and spirituality may be confined to psychology’s casebooks, and the very fact that we are conscious beings shall be proved false. No, I was acutely aware of myself and my surroundings the entire time I was in that room. I could feel that force pressing down upon me, something like standing under a waterfall of weightless infinitely bright water, which entered me, yet continued to fall on me, magnifying a sensitivity previously presented to my consciousness in only very primitive ways. As Adi Da’s devotee for many years, I had known his spiritual transmission and authenticity, but had never imagined that it could be so overwhelmingly potent. Like an interplanetary tourist warned not to stop at the sun, I casually set foot there and am radiated to smithereens.
Aarti
The aarti puja in Fiji, performed every evening by the Kanyas (a group of four of Adi Da Samraj’s long-time female devotees), was one of the most remarkable events of ashram life. Everyone attended and the energy of the occasion was extraordinary. The waving of the lights and the accompanying din of music and noise formed the physical basis for a ritual ceremony the esoteric nature of which I was graced to directly witness many times. Directly, because although having discussed the nature of my observations with many devotees, the only person to validate my testimony was Kanya Tripura, Adi Da Samraj’s principal devotee.
When giving energy to the Guru (loving-energy which was what the aarti ritual elicited from devotees) reached a certain threshold, that energy, the room and it’s source then spontaneously passed into a realm of collective selves-transcendence and thereby initiated a miraculous spiritual process that I call “worlds purification”. At this point I would pass into a state of heightened sensitivity to subtle realms and the suffering of beings who inhabited those realms. I could see and hear (subtly, but with true clarity) the tormented, howling, screaming, innumerable masses of subtly embodied suffering beings passing through this temple, much like particles of dust being whisked into a bright sky, to be relieved by the succor of infinite Life. This was not the everyday round of suffering to which we are all accustomed., not the boredom, doubt, and discomfort of office workers and housewives, It was the pain of tortured loved ones, the pain of being eaten, dying in random and cruel ways, the lives of hell’s denizens, which was being relieved, its components dissolved and forever extinguished in perfect consciousness. As the energy (and devotional expression) of the ceremony increased, the sheer volume of suffering beings became overwhelming, and I would become exhausted by the witnessing of it. I saw it with excruciating clarity. My heart swears to it. The incomprehensible loving compassion of Adi Da Samraj for all beings was operating on an infinite scale to relieve the suffering of everyone and everything. In the absence of such esoteric understanding and experience, the world’s negative or doubtful response to Adi Da Samraj is understandable. But I can never deny this experience (or many others which I hope to recount). When this is seen and heard, what force can conventional criticism achieve?
A particularly memorable aarti puja took place one auspicious afternoon in Adi Da Samraj’s bedroom, but before I recount it some background is necessary. A year or so prior to this occasion, I had been asked to facilitate the creation of a painted white marble murti (statue or icon) of the Hindu Goddess Durga in Jaipur, India. Adi Da Samraj wanted the statue to be made by the same sculptor who had carved an example in India he had seen (and been so moved by) near Swami Nityananda’s mahasamadhi site (final resting place), and which now sits in a small shrine located close to the entrance of Swami Muktananda’s ashram in Ganeshpuri. The sculpting was carried by the requested artisan but when he completed the work it did not really look “right” to me. Subsequently I took it to a family of renowned Brahmin sculptors in Jaipur. The head of the family criticized it mightily and offered to fix it as best he could (the iconography of Hindu gods is very precisely detailed in ancient texts and exists intact in the minds of a small number of Brahmin iconographers who are the inheritors of a vast body of knowledge from their gurus, both transmitted orally and by example). I received instructions from Adi Da Samraj that no matter what was done it had to be “She”. Upon completion this statue was given to Adi Da Samraj and He approved of it enthusiastically.
Sometime later I was asked to have the sculptor from Jaipur make a second Durga image for a new temple adjoining Adi Da Samraj’s residence in Fiji. I was to take the completed sculpture to the various holy sites associated with Swami Nityananda and Swami Muktananda to afford it Darshan of these places, to perform pujas on the statue and have local Brahmin priests perform pujas as well.
Now this multi-armed Durga was a seventy or eighty-pound statue of painted white marble, a very delicate piece and difficult to maneuver, always in danger of breaking off a finger or iconographic implement at the slightest jolt. I transported the Durga image from Jaipur to Ganeshpuri by car (an ordeal, only made possible by an Indian friend and devotee of Adi Da who resided in Jaipur). In the tiny village of Geneshpuri my accommodations were limited to a pilgrims rest house because it was felt that our relations with Swami Muktananda’s ashram (where the facilities and hygiene were of western standard) would not be sufficiently congenial; there were no alternatives.
Arising early in the morning on the day Sri Durga arrived in Ganeshpuri, I found myself covered with the characteristic red lines of bedbug bites, courtesy the local dharmsala, and with a fulminating case of intestinal rebellion. We unpacked the Durga from her wooden case and took her to the shakti temple along a dirt path which at that time fronted Swami Muktananda’s ashram in Ganeshpuri. Here we performed puja for a long time and then invited some local village Brahmin priests to perform their pujas.
I was instructed to preserve all the prasad (offerings consisting primarily of fresh coconut and marigold flowers) from the pujas very carefully in order to return these sacred items to Fiji with the Durga statue. The day was very hot and humid, my condition was rapidly declining, and my energy waned with each passing hour. Next, according to instructions from Adi Da Samraj, my Indian friend and I took the statue to a nearby riverbank for Darshan, (the Durga image was being blessed by the river view). Like every piece of sand and dirt away from a village center in India at that time, the riverbank was contaminated by vast amounts human feces. Shit was literally everywhere. There on the riverbank I carefully placed the Durga image down in a relatively clean spot and began to sit in meditation while holding Her with one outstretched hand. Imagine, if you will, sitting alone (my assistant having left hours ago), in the sweltering mid-afternoon heat, at the village shithole, alongside this so-called river (which contained very little water), smelling the ripening contents of a thousand bowel movements, trying to meditate, struggling to hold this statue upright (it was constantly tending to fall over due to its iconographically inspired top-heaviness), hundreds of bedbug bites covering my body, and becoming seriously dehydrated by the minute. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a villager approaching, no doubt on his way to relieve himself, and I think, oh great, this will make a fine contribution to the afternoon. I watch him. He watches me. He leaves. I am momentarily relieved, as I thought he had probably sought a more auspicious location for his needs.
I was determined to remain for the extended period of darshan, come what may (though at this point I genuinely thought I would probably pass out before concluding the duties for the day). About 10 minutes passed, during which time I could not relax beyond any of the physical discomfort I was feeling. Suddenly here comes the same villager I had seen earlier. He is carrying a black umbrella (there is a cloudless sky – suddenly it seemed odd). He approaches and opens it over my head to give me shade, and just kneels next to me without saying anything. I submit to a moments shade and then realize he must hold the umbrella for Her. By gestures I manage to communicate this to him, but he resists the idea. After some more demonstrative gesticulation I convince him to hold the umbrella for Sri Durga, and we just fall together, this stranger who was obviously born into the Dharma, and myself, who was not, we fall into the Bliss of Her Embrace. I cannot describe it, other than I simply stopped noticing the endless obstructions rampant in this time and place and was returned, despite myself, to Happiness.
All during this particular visit to India, I frequently answered phone calls from my dear friend, mentor and senior devotee, James Steinberg, with instructions (which in fact were Blessings) from Adi Da Samraj. During these conversations, I provided reports about the project’s progress and the upcoming travel schedule. These calls always occurred during the middle of the night, such that I never got any rest. The day following the riverbank visit my friend and I carried the Durga to the top of a nearby temple, which necessitated lifting the statue in its wooden crate up several hundred stone steps, for a blessing ceremony.
Again, there arose the quality of an ordeal which seemed to increasingly characterize everything with each passing moment. I was now truly sick and weak. The bedbug bites were infected, diarrhea was unchecked, and my mind was wandering.
The time to transport the Durga to the remote island Hermitage of Adi Da Samraj in Fiji had arrived. I tried to preserve the prasad from all the pujas, (including coconut pieces, flowers, etc.) in the heat and humidity of my Mumbai hotel as best I could, but soon realized that it was not going to be pretty. There were suitcases full of partially dried plant material with me on the plane from Bombay to Fiji via New Zealand. Sri Durga was safely secured in Her strong wooden crate in the cargo hold.
I deplaned in Auckland in a state of delirium, went through customs, only to discover that the bags had been placed on an earlier flight. Enquiring about them, I was told that their contents had been destroyed according to New Zealand Customs regulations. Upon receiving this news, I just came undone. I am, by tendency, extremely uncomfortable with failure, and this just threw me beyond my tolerance for it altogether. I went straight to the top (in New Zealand this is not far from the bottom) and demanded my prasad be returned to me immediately. I was told that it had been immediately incinerated upon its discovery. Incinerated! Lifetimes of penance awaited me, all because some Kiwi did not like the smell of rotting coconuts and flowers in my suitcases.
Somehow, I found my way to the plane bound for Nandi. Then to Suva, then an interim stop, and finally onboard the boat to Naituba. It is not an easy trip by any means, and eviscerated, emaciated and dumbstruck I arrived on the pristine and sublimely beautiful island where my Beloved Guru was in Residence.
Soon after arrival I was informed that Adi Da Samraj would shortly be installing the Durga in Her temple and that He would like to receive the prasad immediately. I happened to have a little in my carry-on bag which saved the day, but later still had to explain the loss of the majority of the prasad in New Zealand. The Kanyas and a few senior devotees went to Adi Da’s residence. I and two other men removed Sri Durga from Her wooden shipping case and carried Her into the Durga Temple. Adi Da Samraj was standing inside and directed the three of us in precisely placing the statue. I remember that He uttered not a word when doing this. I also remember how we were barefoot, the three of us, and that we had to carry this statue over slippery rocks which were used as steppingstones into the temple, and how afraid I was that one of us (probably myself due to exhaustion) might lose our footing. After placing the Durga we left the Temple and were asked to participate in an aarti puja in Adi Da Samraj’s bedroom, which was adjacent to the Durga Temple. James Steinberg, the Kanyas and a few other devotees were there. We performed the puja while Adi Da was welcoming Sri Durga to Her new home. After about an hour and a half, Adi Da came out of the temple and stood on the lawn opposite His bedroom. Everyone left His residence and gathered around. I recall vividly that He looked me in the eye for what seemed like 10 minutes before returning to his residence. That sighting of Adi Da Samraj is as fresh to me now as it was so many years ago. Nothing but Love! Nothing! Nothing but the purest communication of Love! Indescribable Divine Love freely given! No separation, no otherness. I so dearly wish I could give that moment to others in its exact form without these useless words, in a manner directly and completely!
The next day during a meeting with Kanya Tripura and a number of senior men devotees I received notes from Adi Da Samraj to the effect that I was a very (by character) weak man, and maybe should not be permitted to do such service! My mind labored under this accusation until the next day, when, during the now regular daily meetings, I received notes to the effect that I was quite a strong man and should be given more to do! By this stage in the sacred relationship to my Beloved Guru I had become accustomed to such back and forth battering and recognized them to be the Blessings that they were.
At this point there was little left of “me” anyway, so naturally I was given a mass of impossible work, such as raising money, creating a stone lingam on the highest point of the Hermitage Island of Naituba so that when rain fell it would bathe the Lingam, be collected in its accompanying Yoni, and then flow in a conduit carrying it to the village almost a mile distant, and numerous other tasks.
In summary, my undoing and destruction as an egoic personality was well underway. This was what I had signed up for. I was afloat on a raft of bliss and set adrift on a storm-driven sea of love. That Sacred Sea was littered with the flotsam and jetsam of countless souls. Yet I failed to notice. Had I noticed it was something that might have served me well.
Initiation into Service and Guru Bhakti Yoga
From the early days of my involvement with Beloved Master Adi Da Samraj there were many things I was tasked to do by Him for which I thought myself not qualified. The first of these major or seemingly more important tasks was to create a new version of the Surya Namaskar or sun salutation which formed part of devotees daily hatha yoga routine. Although I was a former yoga instructor and had spent countless hours practicing and studying with various teachers, my feeling of being less than up to this task was later to be confirmed by Adi Da Samraj through a series of written communications. I worked on this project with another devotee who was also adept at hatha yoga. It was my idea to incorporate a more comprehensive series of movements into the routine, since surya namaskar is an exclusively forward and backward flow of movements. It stimulates the “sun” of the body, makes the heart rate increase and is much like a warmup for sports which increases body heat. To create something new from this ancient practice for Beloved’s approval was what I imagined should be done.
To make the flow of movement more inclusive of both the sun (stimulating) and the moon (calming) aspects of the body, it seemed a promising idea to add side bends and twists to the sequence of movements. This made the routine more lengthy, challenging, and complicated as well as a whole bodily routine sufficient in and of itself for the practice of a daily hatha yoga routine, when accompanied by inverted asanas such as the headstand and shoulder stand. After about a month of practice and alterations we came up with the final routine which was then videorecorded and sent to the Master for his review.
We were informed that upon receiving it Beloved yelled and screamed and asked if we knew anything about yoga at all. We were given to understand that the entire effort was to be scrapped and devotees should just continue doing the sun salutation. Knowing that I had failed so completely and totally, which goes against my tendencies to do everything possible to get something right the first time, threw me into a maelstrom of incredulous frustration. But miraculously during the night of no sleep and begging for Beloved’s Help, something changed. The next day after several involuntary but very brief naps, it occurred that as devotees we worship Da (Consciousness Itself), not the sun. Upon realizing this I immediately sent Beloved a reply to his notes which demolished “me”: We worship Da, not the sun, so let us salute Da and invoke Da with “Da Namaskar”. His reply was to add the folded hands and whole bodily contraction at the beginning of the sun salutation with instructions as to when and how to direct the breath.
In hindsight I am certain He knew all of this from the very moment He asked to have this particular service performed. This was to be my initiation into the fire of service that was bhakti yoga in the tradition of what we now call Adidam.
The First Time I Knew Something Was Really Wrong
After a stint of serving in the editorial department, I was asked to become Gurudev’s librarian. Naturally I felt totally unqualified to perform this service, especially because it was such an important and demanding one. Thanks to the kind and patient mentorship of my great friend James Steinberg, I felt as though if I went astray, as surely I would, he would be able to right my ship of one fool so to speak. My service became at once a joy and a delight. I got a feeling of what Beloved was looking for in a book. This was truly a direct feeling and not an intellectual exercise. Sometimes I selected a book to send to Him with only a brief flip through the pages and an intuitive certainty that it was “right”. I often traveled to buy books for the Master, sometimes even journeying to India and Thailand in search of rare books or images.
One day while working in my office at the Mountain of Attention Sanctuary, James dropped by and said we should enter Beloved’s Library to do some cataloging and arranging work. Although being Beloved’s librarian for a long time I had never been invited to enter His Library which was considered a most sacred environment.
James and I prepared for the task and I was advised that this was a very powerful and sacred place we were about to enter and to try to remain focused while inside. Little did I know. After a few minutes of service, I noticed difficulty in understanding what James would half-whisper to me. A few more minutes passed, and I realized that I simply could not function in a normal way any longer. I asked James about it and he said it was time to leave the Library.
This was my true initiation into the force and profundity of Beloved’s Presence. But, again, little did I know about the implications of this event.
There followed many incidences of suddenly falling into various samadhis while on the Sanctuary grounds. They seemed to occur with greatest frequency while seated outdoors, often while looking up at the old, tall oak trees outlined against a dry expansive California sky. I performed guard duty during the late hours at night once or twice a week and this also occasioned contemplation of Beloved in the silence and solitude.
Kriyas and Intensity of Reception
The next major event in life as a devotee was going on retreat at Naitauba, Adi Da Samraj’s Hermitage Sanctuary in Fiji. I arrived with a group of devotees after a prolonged period without retreats being held on the Island. During retreat we practiced meditation about 5 hours a day and it was in meditation that my sense of inadequacy became magnified like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of OZ, yet I also began to lose my stuffing like the Scarecrow character in the same story. As soon as I sat down for meditation and gained a stable, relaxed asana, a force slammed down into my body from above causing violent movements of my upper body, head and neck. I moved around like there was a tornado inside and it was forcefully undoing all the knots in my body. Sometimes loud sounds would spontaneously be generated. Since we meditated during daylight hours as well as in the evening what I was doing could be seen and heard by others in the hall.
After a few days of this other devotees began to experience the same sort of movements and some made sounds as well. I simply could not stop this process and it was intensifying. Then after a week or so it would continue for a while with extreme violence and then stop of its own accord and I would fall into a kind of oblivion of stillness. At such times it seemed that I was receding from the others and the space of the meditation hall into a remote point far removed. The others present seemed like ephemeral ghosts, their sounds and movements like the distant echoes from another realm, of no consequence and not disturbing at all.
I remember being asked after a Darshan occasion how I felt. My immediate and unhesitating reply was that I had been stripped of all self-consciousness by the Blessing of Adi Da Samraj.
Something was wrong
Returning to California I resumed service as librarian. Then, unexpectedly, I was invited to serve as head priest and ashram manager at Adi Da Samraj’s Hermitage Retreat at the Island of Naitauba. If I thought I was lacking the “right stuff” previously, this was surely to become Murphy’s law in spades. But since I was asked, how could the Cowardly Lion refuse? I promptly dove right in. The service of being ashram manager was described by Beloved to require the qualities of a cow. Be “cow-like” he advised. He was absolutely on the mark with that tiny bit of advice, and it served me well, primarily in preventing unnecessary emotional reactivity with wayward devotees. It was my job to keep devotees in line, so to speak, a task akin to herding cats in the rain it often seemed to me.
But it was the duty as head priest which saw my complete destruction as a personality. The disintegration continues to this day, and it is only now that I truly recognize what was happening then and have begun to learn live more courageously with it now.
The head priest at that time performed puja many times a day. I was first tasked to convert Gurudev’s temporary office, a tiny wooden building, into a sacred site where aarti pujas were to be performed daily. This tiny building was situated on a bit of a rise above the level of the main cluster of devotee occupied buildings and the kitchen – food storage facility. It was a tiny and windowless structure, rather precariously situated. Beloved asked me to plan the floor layout of the temple. Since the interior was so small and rectangular in shape, I thought it would be better to orient the focal point along the long wall so more people could participate in the puja. Beloved, in His characteristically Righteous Shout, asked through His daily notes whether I knew anything whatsoever about sacred principles and then explained exactly how the building was to be laid out.
I conducted many pujas, sometimes in the company of senior devotees and the Kanyas. The problem was that I would regularly and inevitable lose my mind when in any of the sacred spaces where I was tasked with performing puja. While I could clearly remember every aspect of a puja outside of these sacred environments, once I commenced performing puja I could not remember anything and often repeated elements of the puja and skipped around erratically. I could not gain my bearings and lost my memory. Inevitably and uncontrollably. Devotees would ask me afterward if I knew the mistakes I was making, sometimes they would get up and leave, sometimes they would get angry with me and sometimes they would kindly offer their help. I think this was in part due to the fact that the head priest was supposed to have some kind of status. Often the word brahmin was used to describe that status in the polite discourse of devotees. I eventually understood that I was considered a brahmin in that circumstance. Yet I felt more like a dalit, an untouchable. A priest who could not do a puja and an outsider who benefitted from adopting a cow-like demeanor amongst the others he was tasked with managing.
The one thing I was becoming increasingly certain of was that I was losing my mind, and that it was an uncontrollable loss. I remembered reading about devotees in the past who had resorted to the practice of mantra in order to cool their troubled minds. I took up the continuous practice of Guru Mantra whenever I was not speaking, writing or performing Puja. It seemed to cool my hyperactive and often painful mental activity but was effective only while practiced. Whenever I set foot into a temple to perform a puja my mind would flee in haste. During daily practice of meditation spontaneous kriyas (medically termed myoclonic distonia) would acquire my body completely. Darshan occasions with Beloved Adi Da Samraj would catalyze the most violent kriyas, primarily movements of my head and neck, which seemed about to fly off into space.
Devotees were allowed to take part at their convenience in the aarti pujas in the new temple that was Beloved’s converted office. As the head priest I was there every day to prepare for and begin the ceremony. It was an extremely hot and energetic event and when concluded everyone who participated was inevitably bathed in sweat.
There was an intense rainstorm which passed over the Island one night. The next morning, upon inspecting the various Holy Sites, I discovered that the building I had converted into a temple has been washed down the slope and was irredeemably destroyed by the rain. Despite the fact that rain was considered in the tradition of Adidam to be a Blessing, I somehow managed to feel personally responsible to the point of guilt for the loss of a what was a most potent Holy Site.
Learning to live with it
At the time I did not realize I was becoming a mast, someone who could not coexist with others in the normal way and be a devotee at the same time. I was losing the ability to control my mind. I lacked the strength to progress in the process of the total loss of my self as it was manifesting. I realized that it was going to require becoming totally crazy and possibly for the rest of a lifetime or many lifetimes. It frightened me to the core. It was the very same primordial fear that overwhelmed me as a 10-year-old when going to sleep at night and having the “shrinking body” experience.
Eventually the cowardly lion and the scarecrow all rolled up into one so much that I decided to opt for self-survival, ungodly fool that I am. Now, 35 years later, I am still accommodating the process, still pretending not to be crazy. What I do know is that to undergo this process completely now requires the solitary quietude that I have embraced these past many years. You see, I laugh at all my thoughts, sometimes out loud. They are, without exception, very amusing. In fact, everything is amusing – fun and sad at the same time. We call that crazy don’t we?
It is only during the last 5 years when I have lived alone and almost entirely undisturbed that a modicum of accommodation to the spiritual process has developed. It is becoming more possible to live while the process unfolds and not feel so totally overwhelmed by the attendant fear. I have begun to gain a recognition of it and with that recognition has come the ability to allow it to manifest more completely. It is a kind of dying. Allowing it to occur is a form of Blessing-Understanding given by Grace.
I have become like the Eskimos and the snow. Every kind of snow is known to the Eskimo. All snow carries with it the same feeling of cold and is uniquely beautiful. But every Eskimo also knows that if you stand naked long enough in the snow you will freeze to death. One wonders how many do in a generation.
1Before a Curly Hair Grew and Screwed Up Everything
Prior to the unfortunate imposition of adolescence my childhood was a bit unusual. For one thing, I had a photographic memory. I could recall any and every aspect of my experience at will and in perfect detail. I could remember the location of a sentence in any book that I had opened and every word it contained. I spent many hours roaming the forests near our home, and, in my mind’s eye, could view all the places I had explored exactly as if I had just left them. When I lay in bed at night, before falling asleep, I often had experiences which seemed so out of the ordinary that I was never to mention them. I had a firm, almost instinctive reticence to divulge anything about this even, and especially, to my parents. Just so, no one was to learn of my memory.
I was ten years old and slept alone in a second-floor room. There were half a dozen leaded glass windows offering a fine view of the forest canopy to the rear of our family’s 1920’s Cotswold style home in rural New York State, USA. My room was noticeably quiet (as was possible in the 1950’s) and here I felt completely secure. Soon after climbing into bed at night a feeling of pressure and compression would slowly acquire my sensation. It felt as though my body were being reduced to a single point while my awareness expanded to fill, first the room, and then the infinite space beyond. I could literally touch the old cast iron steam radiator under the windows with my feeling and even sense the snow weighing down the branches of the fir trees outside.
At first it was barely noticeable and infrequent. Gradually, over a period of months, it intensified and happened almost every night. I cooperated with this process from the beginning, though I am not sure why. From submerged layers of my being a permission and impulse arose which allowed this process to continue. As my consciousness began to pass with ease beyond the confines of my bedroom and with ever increasing velocity further into the space outside, and as my bodily self-awareness shrank to an infinitely tiny point, a powerful fear would suddenly spring from the depths of my being and I would fall with an subtly audible whoosh back into the ordinariness of lying in a child’s bed, awake in the darkness. I was completely aware of the entire experience. It never took on the qualities of a dream and was just as immediate and real as riding the bus to school. The characteristic bodily feeling of pressure from without and a kind of increased fleshy viscosity or rubberiness always preceded the experience and I never lost this sense of my body, and as the experience deepened the feeling of pressure became my primary bodily sensation.
At this point in my life there was only this one, singular fear which I experienced. Otherwise, life was a total open-ended adventure conducted by me, alone and without parental interference, throughout all my days. It was extremely happy, so much so that I did not have any conception of what was coming. I normally went into a kind of trance when at school and it seemed like a period of sleep with only slight and inconsequential interruptions, which I intuited were meaningless and no cause for concern. I was aware that only a small percentage of my attention was required by most experience such that I existed in a kind of outwardly dull somnolence that did not reveal the internal nature of the state I was in.
Then I discovered the opposite sex. My family employed a live-in maid from Sweden. I liked her because she was kind and taught me how to juggle, but I had no other thoughts of her. Sex was an abstract concept applying to older people wholly unknown to me. Like many young women who obtained work visas in order to enrich their prospects our maid was looking for love. By marrying an American citizen, she could remain in the United States thereby obtaining what she felt was a much greater opportunity than what she might otherwise enjoy if she remained in Sweden. Her rooms were located somewhat adjacent to my bedroom and one night while looking out my windows I happened to see her standing naked getting ready to shower. Blond, blue eyed, 22, not merely beautiful but representing an outstandingly mesmerizing vision (at least from a 10-year-old boy’s perspective) she was a man eater and devoured me in an instant. Though not realizing what had occurred, a tumultuous wave of change swept through me. I waited at my window almost every night afterward, obsessed with an irresistible desire to see her body. I had been initiated by nature, her conspiratorial circumstances and a torrent of newly secreted hormones into the tortured (and heretofore blessedly secret) society of those who were made sexually aware.
The “shrinking body” experience disappeared soon thereafter and was rapidly followed by radical alterations to my mental and emotional state. I no longer possessed a “photographic” memory, and what was a very happy childhood soon became tormented unhappy adolescence.
Sivananda Yoga Farm
After looking for a teacher for a couple of months I finally decided to move to the Sivananda Yoga Farm, a rural ashram circumstance located on a farm in Northern California operated by Swami Vishnudevananda. The decision was undertaken by my customary mind-based evaluation of the practicalities of the ashram and the qualifications of the ashram’s founder, Swami Vishnudevananda. He had written a book on hatha yoga, was a long-time devotee of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, India and was conversant with western culture. The ashram offered a work-study program which suited my meager means and provided a full schedule of yoga classes, meditation, study and service. I took up residence there for about six months and eventually decided to join the staff. I taught rudimentary yoga lessons, participated in meditation morning and evening, was a cook and baker, milked the cows and spent my spare time studying Vedanta texts and books authored by Swami Sivananda. This routine was a great blessing. The wholesome and simple vegetarian food, twice daily meditation and chanting, and the daily hatha yoga routine was an immensely benign and beneficial circumstance. The ashram provided a framework of discipline amongst like-minded souls in a rural atmosphere. Swami Sivananda Saraswati Swami Vishnudevananda traveled to the Yoga Farm from his headquarters in Quebec. I had been a member of staff there for more than 6 months and was looking forward to his visit. A principal devotee of Swami Sivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh, the first thing I noticed about Swami Vishnudevananda was that he was completely devoted to his guru and spoke about him frequently and with obvious affection.
The Swami began a series of lectures and conducted initiations on auspicious days for those staff members who were interested. To receive this spiritual gift from a representative of an authentic Indian lineage rooted in both Vedanta philosophy and the practice of Raja Yoga seemed to be quite auspicious to me. I was told that I could receive initiation on a certain day and time and was told to prepare myself accordingly. When the appointed time arrived, I discovered that the Swami had determined what was appropriate through a process of observing me ever since his arrival. I made an offering to him and was initiated into the practice of mantra yoga. He chose the sacred symbol and sound OM and performed the initiation by whispering OM into my ear and encouraged me to practice it constantly.
Swami Sivananda Saraswati and Swami Vishnudevananda, River Ganges, Rishikesh, India
Swami Sivananda had prepared Swami Vishnudevananda to go to the West and upon his
arrival in America he had quickly embodied the Indian enthusiasm for westernization. Curiously enough, Swami Sivananda in later life, had taken up the habit of wearing a long English styled overcoat for which he received much criticism from the orthodox Hindus in the traditional holy region of Rishikesh. He refused to change his attire however, and it seemed to me this was a kind of anticipatory gesture which would herald the spread of his lineage in the West. Swami Vishnudevananda was a licensed pilot, flew his own plane, and cultivated a decidedly western manner. His lectures to the crowd who came to the ashram to hear him were full of energy, very much in the style of Tony Robbins. Many people seemed to enjoy them and there was always a kind of low-key buzz about him. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy his lectures and initially thought it merely a matter of personal distaste. But there were a number of things he said which really had me scratching my head in disbelief and when he left, I was glad there would be peace and quiet once again at the ashram.
Swami Vishnudevananda seated on the wing of his Peter Max styled Peace Plane
After studying Vedanta philosophy, primarily the works of Shankaracharya and the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad every day for more than a year while serving as staff at the Yoga Farm, a central focal point began to occupy my consideration such that I returned to it again and again in many contexts throughout the day. I did not truly understand the meaning of transcendence. I was aware of the dictionary definition and its usage in language. But I only possessed a mental comprehension and knew that that understanding did not correspond to the truth as it had been revealed to me through earlier life experience. Here, I am reminded of Adi Da Samraj’s wonderful statement, “No being, from the mosquito to man, is denied the vision of God.” There was a deep impulse which drew me to this consideration of a matter which I did not understand at all. Approximately two thousand years old, The Yoga-Sutra of Patañjali is the landmark scripture on
classical yoga. BKS Iyengar often referred to it, and many years later my friend and colleague, the late renowned Yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein would write “The Yoga-Sutra of Patañjali: A New Translation and Commentary”, now considered a standard reference work on the subject.
In it Patanjali describes a process called samyama, or the combined practice of Dhāraṇā
(concentration), Dhyāna (meditation) and Samādhi (union). In less technical language samyama means to consider every aspect of a subject using all one’s faculties. By applying not merely logic and mental exercise, but through feeling into the matter wholeheartedly it was said that true understanding could arise. I began to approach the matter of transcendence in this fashion and pondered its meaning and implications almost constantly.
During this period a visitor from India arrived to take up residence at the ashram. Swami Nada Brahamananda was a devotee of the late Swami Sivananda Saraswati and was invited to stay at the ashram by Swami Vishnudevananda. This was 1976, and yoga was still rather new and relatively unaccepted in the United States. The Yoga Farm, established in 1971, was essentially at that time an old farmhouse with a beautiful traditional American style barn, gardens, and a small pond. Located in the rural Northern California foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the neighbors were highly suspicious of our presumed cult and its strange residents.
They were never to realize that in their midst lived one of the most remarkable yogis of the 20th century. The locals had no occasion to see him however, which was probably a good thing.
Swami Nada Brahmananda was a master of Thaan, the yogic science of sound and its practice in Indian Classical music, a pranayama master and one of the great musical geniuses of 20th century India. He had studied for 11 arduous years in the traditional manner of sisya and guru under the guidance of the great masters of Thaan, Sri Sadasiva Bua of Karnataka, Ustad Ali Khan of Kohalpur and Tata Bua of Banaras. Formerly the court musician of Mysore State, he renounced secular life and took renunciate vows as a sannyasin under the guidance of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh.
“The secret of Nada Brahmanandaji’s genius may be said to lie in his control over the rate of sound vibration and its location in any part of the body at will. By this technique it is claimed that various diseases affecting different parts of the body can be cured as well as prevented through this internal vibration. The impulse of vocal vibration is diverted along any limb or the trunk to any part of the anatomy even as a current of electricity is directed along the circuit to any desired place or object. The peculiar feature here is that the vocal vibration thus directed is of
the same rate of the corresponding Thaan that is being produced by the singer at a particular
moment. Swami Nada Brahmanandaji is himself a living testimony to this claim and he has not
known a single day of illness.” – Swami Chidananda
He was a highly respected classical Indian music teacher and when he arrived at the yoga farm
several of his students and devotees accompanied him. Oher more occasional students often
came for instruction at various intervals. Swami Nada Brahmananda was a living repository of
Vedic hymns and nada yoga. He was the first true yogi I had met, and I was immediately
impressed by the extraordinary combination of humility and seriousness he embodied. One of
his students reported to me that Swami Nada Brahmananda could hold his breath for 30
minutes while playing the most intricate rhythms on tablas and that his memory for music was
encyclopedic in its scope.
Every evening there was a period of satsang which preceded meditation. This consisted of
recitations from Swami Sivananda’s books and singing hymns from the Indian spiritual tradition.
From the day of his arrival until he left many months later, Swami Nada Brahmananda lead
satsang and taught music. One of the great privileges of my life was to attend satsang with this
extraordinary yogi. He taught music on the harmonium and although I did not take lessons,
when there was time I sat in the back of the satsang hall and observed. He instructed as many
as 6 or 8 students simultaneously a very advanced series of notes and rhythms which, in the
beginning, I could not even parse in my mind because they were so intricate, fast and subtly
varied. He would play a long sequence of notes and his students were expected to repeat them
at first hearing. If there was even the slightest error among any student, he would look up at
them and they immediately knew of their mistake. This classical teaching pattern went on for an
hour continuously, everyone sitting cross legged on the floor with only the briefest of
explanatory interruptions.
Swami Nada Brahmananda had two interests other than those of a strictly spiritual kind. He
loved cows and enjoyed eating spicy fried peanuts. His principal devotee made the peanuts for
him and I was lucky enough to assist him in visiting the cows. He was so kind and gentle with
our cows, in fact they fared much better than an errant music student, despite the fact that his
harshest rebuke was an expressionless piercing glance in their direction in the instant of
missing a beat or a properly executed note. I rarely spoke with him unless he asked for
something. Yet I gave him my undivided attention. One can learn a great deal in such silence,
and it was my great good fortune to be with such an advanced and genuinely wise yogi.
Yogi Hari
At this time, I began a strict practice of pranayama for an hour each day. It became my habit to
sit alone on a wooden deck by the farm’s pond each day to do this. One day a new visitor came
and sat near me to practice in much the same way. His name was Hari and he was invited by
Swami Vishnudevananda to live with his family at the ashram. Hari, (later well known as Yogi
Hari), was an advanced hatha yogi and musician who had studied for a time with Swami Nada
Brahmananda. I often practiced hatha yoga and pranayama in proximity to Hari at the
unfrequented spot by the pond, but we seldom spoke.
Swami Nada Brahmananda and Yogi Hari
After Swami Nada Brahmananda and his disciples left the ashram, a new development arose.
There was a marked change in the quality of the evening meditations. Although I will not try to
describe the exact nature of what transpired, suffice it to say that what was ordinarily a simple
period of silent sitting meditation became pervaded by a tangible decent of shakti, or energy.
This caused people to begin all sorts of unexpected behaviors, mostly spontaneous purifying
movements and sounds. I did not experience any resulting disturbances but could feel the force
in the room. The upshot of this was that all of the people present with few exceptions became
fascinated with endless kinds of mystical experiences. I soon learned the virtues of earplugs
and installed them prior to every meditation from that day forward.
Around this time, I began a strict practice of pranayama for an hour each day. I sat alone on a
wooden deck by the farm’s pond to do this. One day a new visitor came and sat near me to
practice in the same way. His name was Hari and he was invited by Swami Vishnudevananda
to live with his family at the ashram. Hari, (later well known as Yogi Hari), was an advanced
hatha yogi and musician who had studied for a time with Swami Nada Brahmananda. I often
practiced hatha yoga and pranayama in proximity to Hari but we seldom spoke.
One of my duties was to attend to a small shrine on the hillside above the farm which had a tiny
pond fed by a natural spring. It was my custom to walk there daily, do some cleaning and sit
quietly in contemplation. I rarely saw anyone else. Two notable things happened during this
time. Once while cleaning, I turned over a box that served as a stand for the murti of Swami
Sivananda, a water bowl and a censor. Underneath, in the normally dark open space of the box,
there was a mass of daddy long-legs spiders arranged in a seething pulsating group. I had
never seen anything like it. They all moved their thin long legs in a slow but clearly consciously
coordinated rhythm. Upon seeing this I gently returned the box to its original position, setting
the puja items back in place. https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/content/news/WATCH-Manrecords-thousands-of-arachnids-in-cringe-worthy-Alaska-video-495295211.html
Daddy Long-Legs spider
The next day when I returned alone to the shrine for Swami Sivananda’s birthday celebration,
there was a single lotus flower blooming in the center of the tiny pond. None had ever been
observed there before.
One of my friends who resided at the farm was a middle-aged man named Robert. He was
there, he told me, to struggle with his powerful tendencies to smoke and drink. Yoga and
spirituality were distant and irrelevant to his purpose. I liked Robert. He was two decades older,
and we got along well.
One day Robert came to me and asked if I could help him go to Grover Hot Springs which was
located near a tiny settlement called Markleeville in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I asked him
why he wanted to go there. He said his plan was to hike into the mountains above the hot
springs and live in isolation for a while. I understood and arranged to drive him there and pick
him up ten days later at the state park entrance. I dropped him off with some camping
equipment and a case of Valencia oranges, his only food for the trip.
When I returned to pick Robert up, he looked marvelously healthy and seemed quite happy. It
must have been an ordeal hiking up the trail into the higher elevations of the Sierras, but he did
not mention it. We returned to the ashram, and he settled into the routine for a few days as if
nothing happened. Then one day he did not show up for evening meditation. Everyone
presumed he probably went into town to buy some cigarettes which had been his habit. The
next evening, we became a bit concerned and by the following morning a search party was
organized. A full day of looking produced no results. It just did not make any sense. All his
things were still in his room. Where could he have gone?
The following day I decided to conduct my own search. It was possible to walk at least 20 miles
from the ashram in some directions and not see any habitation so that is what I did. Returning
to the farm at dusk I stopped at the unused outhouse behind our vegetable garden. When I
opened the door there sat Robert; cold, stiff, and dead.
We called the sheriff and the coroner. The necessities were taken care of, and we continued
with the daily routine. That evening I could sense Robert’s presence during meditation and
prayed that he leaves to follow the light above rather than linger in this place looking for the
consolation of companionship when none was to be had.
Very shortly thereafter I returned to Hawaii to take up life in true solitude. I carried with me
Swami Sivananda’s large hardback volume called Sadhana. It was to become my best friend
for some time to come.