Light of the Spirit Podcast

The next treasure I want to tell you about lived right in the midst of the bustle of Delhi, but beyond it all. One morning my friend Shyam Lal Sharma said he wanted me to meet a special person, a woman named Jugavati who was the sister of a famous Vaishnava guru of Brindaban. So off we went. Sharmaji was a man of very modest means, with whose family I always stayed when in Delhi, always sleeping in the living room. So I was surprised when we arrived at a three-story mansion in a new and prosperous neighborhood. The surprises were not ended. As we went up the two flights of stairs to the third floor, Sharmaji explained to me that Jugavati had been a very wealthy woman, but several years before had given everything she had to her daughter with the understanding that a house was to be built with a temple of Radha-Krishna on the top floor and that full temple worship should be offered there daily by a priest. All she asked for was a place to live in the temple room itself so she could see Sri Radha and Krishna all the rest of her life. The temple room was nothing less than opulent, though it very good and expensive taste. We saluted the deities who were being attended by the priest, and then turned to the left side of the room where Jugavati was sitting on a folding canvas cot of the type that soldiers and campers had been using for a century or more. A few things were under the cot–all that Jugavati possessed. I wish I could have photographs of all the saints I tell about in these podcasts, but my attempts at description will have to suffice. So let me try to tell you about the appearance of Jugavati. She did not look at all like her famous brother (I had seen his photo), but did look very much like Sri Ramakrishna’s great disciple Swami Shivananda also known as Mahapurusha who was the third head of the Ramakrishna Mission. Her face was strikingly noble, and her skin was golden in color and literally glowed with subtle light. (I had only seen this twice before.) We sat and she began speaking to us about the supremacy of spiritual practice and aspiration. Reaching into a small bag she brought out a japa mala. It was her brother’s mala. He had given it to her just before he left the body and told her to use two malas for her sadhana, that she should hold onto one bead and with the other use a second mala to count off one hundred thousand repetitions of her mantra before moving on to the next bead in his mala. When she completed his mala she had done ten million eight hundred thousand repetitions of her mantra. Well, it had worked. She was living proof. Sitting there was a visit to God dwelling in an illumined heart. I went away breathing blessing. In just a few weeks she left her body, frequently speaking about me and wishing we could meet once more. Surely God will grant her wish in a much higher world than this. Also on this podcast is the story of the Vishnupur train platform Swami.

Click here to listen to Swami Rama of Hardwar (Ram Kunj) if you do not see the player above. The podcast length is 11:06 minutes. Late one afternoon when I was staying for a while with Srimati Rani Bhan and her family in Delhi she told me that we (Rani, her son and I) would be going to see a Kashmiri saint in a nearby neighborhood. The length of the walk belied the description of “nearby” but I trusted Raniji’s respect for the saint who was simply named Swami Rama. He was not a Shankara swami but one who had taken what Ma Anandamayi in a conversation with me called “shukla sannyas,” white sannyas. In such a sannyas there are no formal rites of any kind. Rather, from deep within the impulse to declare oneself a sannyasi arises and the person does so spontaneously, adopting a name and henceforth leading the sadhu life. Some, such as Swami Paramananda the chief sannyasi of the Anandamayi Ashram, wore gerua clothing and others dressed in white. It all depended on their intuition. Rani had not told me which Swami Rama was. The swami was staying in a fairly large house, but it was filled with people. Because of the universal respect Rani had in Delhi both for her personal spiritual character and the fact that Prime Minister Nehru was her cousin, we were taken to the front row of the room where the swami would be when he appeared. It was a good bit of a wait, so I meditated until Rani touched my shoulder and said, “He is coming.” A fiery swami I stood up and turned around and knew that the radiant man in simple white with no trappings of religion whatsoever coming toward us was The One. He brought with him an atmosphere of inner spiritual fire. He smoldered. Looking at him I thought: “The Pope has to be dressed in great finery and carried into Saint Peter’s on a throne to let people know who he is, but this man needs none of that.” I was impressed and meant no disrespect to the Pope. But I was glad I was there instead of in Saint Peter’s. Swamiji spoke in Hindi, of which I knew little, but I can tell you from later conversations that he always spoke directly and simply yet profoundly. People came from all over India to spend time in spiritual study with him. The last time we met there were some pandits from Maharashtra staying with him in Hardwar for several weeks. Yet he adamantly refused to play the guru game. He gladly taught yoga of various sorts to aspirants, but would not pretend to empower them with some kind of initiation. Instead he assured them that by drawing on their own inner resources they could gain realization. There was personal motivation, too. “If I allow you to claim you are my disciples you will not do what I tell you, but you will tell people that I teach what I do not teach, and deny that I teach what I do teach. And you will try to control me at the same time.” Buddha said much the same. Swami Rama’s teacher Whether Swami Rama considered he had a guru, I do not know, but he definitely had a teacher. When he was only nine years old, playing in the streets of his village in Kashmir, an old yogi came walking through and said to him: “Boy! Come with me.” So he followed him out of the village. When they were out of anyone’s sight, the yogi taught him the japa and meditation of a mantra, telling him to say the mantra always. Then the sadhu walked on and disappeared. That was it. He had not even told the boy his name. Many years later in the Himalayas Swamiji was in great danger. The yogi suddenly appeared, saved his life and disappeared. These two times were his only contact with him. But I can tell you that the sadhana given him by the yogi certainly worked. Swami Rama was one of the greatest yogis I have met. When he quietly intoned Om everyone’s hair would stand on end.