Light of the Spirit Podcast

The first time I wrote to Mother Anandamayi, in her reply she referred to me as “my friend,” which she only did in relation to monastics. Others she called “father” or “mother.” To his disciples who had left everything to follow him, Jesus, too, had said: “I have called you friends.” The relationship of father and mother is not by (conscious) choice. A friend, however, is ours by choice. Everyone was related to Mother by nature, but only the monastics were hers by choice, therefore she called them “friend.” The most striking evidence of Mother’s attitude toward secular life was her absolute refusal to enter the home of any married persons–including those of her married devotees. Once my friend, Durgaprasad Sahai, asked Ma to visit his home. She explained that she never entered the homes of married people. So he asked if she would come up onto the veranda of his house? She told him No. She would go into a rented pandal, but not into the house or veranda of grihastas. How could a person deliberately take up a way of life that would bar Mataji from any part of their life? It was obvious to me that her behavior was related to something far more significant than a mere building. The objectionable thing was what it represented. It was the “thought form” that repelled her. In actuality, it was not that Mother refused to enter, but that the very nature of the structure closed her out. Physically Mother could enter the house, but spiritually she could not enter into the way of life conducted there. In English the Sanskrit term for married persons, grihasta, is usually translated “householder.” What an image that evokes! Whenever I hear it I “see” an adult clutching a little toy house and pressing it to himself in frantic fear of losing it, like a child infatuated with a toy. Poor man, he does not realize that though he may possess it, he cannot really live in it. There were married devotees who would ask Mother to come and stay in their newly-built houses before they moved in themselves, and she would do so. But this even more dramatically demonstrated that by their way of life they were turning Mother from their door–an act that could only be regarded as spiritually insane. Mataji was agreeing to stay in their new houses to get the message across to those who would heed. Only one did. Doctor Ghosh was a devotee of Mother in Ranchi. Upon pressure from his family he agreed to be married, and they made the arrangements, including the choice of the bride, as is traditional. At the juncture of two main streets, not far from his office, he built a veritable mansion for himself and his bride. Naturally he invited Mataji to come spend a week in the house prior to the marriage. Before the week was out he came to the realization of what he really was doing. After a token hospitality to Mother he was then going to ban her from his house forever! Then what about his life? Would that, too, be closed to her? Hastening to Mother, Doctor Ghosh begged her to accept the house as hers. When she asked if he would build another one for himself he told her that he would never build or live in a house where she could not come. But how could this be, Mother wanted to know, since after his marriage she would not come into any house in which he lived. That was just it, he countered, he would never marry so that wherever he might be Mataji could also enter there. And so it was. His house became the Anandamayi Ashram of Ranchi and the home of Goddess Kali. There is a footnote to this story that is not insignificant. Wherever Mother stayed in the various Anandamayi ashrams, those rooms were kept exclusively for her. They would be always locked in her absence. No bed or chair upon which she sat was ever used by another. Yet at Mother’s order, whenever Doctor Ghosh came to an ashram he stayed in her room and slept on her bed. Having given his house to Mother, all her houses became his.

I would like to share with you my reflections on monastic life as I approach the fifty-second anniversary of my taking sannyas. How does one know if he should lead the monastic life? The great twentieth-century Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi, had left home at the age of seventeen. After years of solitary life, he became the most renowned spiritual figure of India, his fame spreading widely into Europe and America, as well. One day a young man came to speak with him. “Should I leave home and become a monk?” the young man asked. “No!” was the Mararshi’s immediate answer. “Why not?…You did!” demanded the youth with more than a tinge of indignation. “Yes,” agreed the Maharshi quietly, “but I did not have to ask anyone if I should.” Sri Sarada Devi, the virgin wife of Sri Ramakrishna, who is worshipped as an incarnation of the Divine Mother, said the following: “Whether one calls on God or not, one is already half free if one does not marry. And one will rush ahead with great speed once one’s mind turns to God.” There is a qualification here, though, a very important element that can be found in the Bhagavad Gita That element is swadharma, which means someone’s own inherent disposition, fundamental nature, or potentiality; inherent state of mind; state of inner being. The Gita says: Better one’s own swadharma though deficient than the dharma of another well performed. Better is death in one’s own swadharma; the dharma of another invites danger. (Bhagavad Gita 3:35) Better one’s own swadharma, though imperfect, than the dharma of another well performed; performing the duty prescribed by one’s own swadharma, one does not incur evil. (Bhagavad Gita 18:47) There are people who are miserable because they are not monastics and there are monastics who are miserable because they are. Why is this? Unfulfilment of swadharma. Just being able to fit in and endure either secular or monastic life means nothing. More than once I have had to point out to people that they did not have the swadharma of a monk and should not live the monastic life. Otherwise they would end up old and embittered, feeling life had passed them by. And it would have, though it would be more correct to say that they had turned away from the life they should have led. It is also a fact that I have seen people who were miserable and struggling in frustration because they had the swadharma of a monastic but were leading another kind of life. How does a person determine their swadharma? I would like to tell you about how I knew my swadharma and began to follow it. I have two motives in doing this: helping those who should lead the monastic life and those who should not, but who might want to know what motivates a monk.

I would like to share with you my reflections on monastic life as I approach the fifty-second anniversary of my taking sannyas. How does one know if he should lead the monastic life? The great twentieth-century Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi, had left home at the age of seventeen. After years of solitary life, he became the most renowned spiritual figure of India, his fame spreading widely into Europe and America, as well. One day a young man came to speak with him. “Should I leave home and become a monk?” the young man asked. “No!” was the Mararshi’s immediate answer. “Why not?…You did!” demanded the youth with more than a tinge of indignation. “Yes,” agreed the Maharshi quietly, “but I did not have to ask anyone if I should.” Sri Sarada Devi, the virgin wife of Sri Ramakrishna, who is worshipped as an incarnation of the Divine Mother, said the following: “Whether one calls on God or not, one is already half free if one does not marry. And one will rush ahead with great speed once one’s mind turns to God.” There is a qualification here, though, a very important element that can be found in the Bhagavad Gita That element is swadharma, which means someone’s own inherent disposition, fundamental nature, or potentiality; inherent state of mind; state of inner being. The Gita says: Better one’s own swadharma though deficient than the dharma of another well performed. Better is death in one’s own swadharma; the dharma of another invites danger. (Bhagavad Gita 3:35) Better one’s own swadharma, though imperfect, than the dharma of another well performed; performing the duty prescribed by one’s own swadharma, one does not incur evil. (Bhagavad Gita 18:47) There are people who are miserable because they are not monastics and there are monastics who are miserable because they are. Why is this? Unfulfilment of swadharma. Just being able to fit in and endure either secular or monastic life means nothing. More than once I have had to point out to people that they did not have the swadharma of a monk and should not live the monastic life. Otherwise they would end up old and embittered, feeling life had passed them by. And it would have, though it would be more correct to say that they had turned away from the life they should have led. It is also a fact that I have seen people who were miserable and struggling in frustration because they had the swadharma of a monastic but were leading another kind of life. How does a person determine their swadharma? I would like to tell you about how I knew my swadharma and began to follow it. I have two motives in doing this: helping those who should lead the monastic life and those who should not, but who might want to know what motivates a monk.

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.

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.