It is not unusual for a gifted musician or artist to be aware of his gift at an early age. A person born with spiritual or psychic gifts also shows his talent during youth. Although I grew up in a traditional Jewish section of New York City, from the age of seven on I was exposed to Buddhist, Hindu, and Western mysticism. At eight and nine years of age I was reading palms and going into semi-trance states for people interested in having their fortunes told. It was only the innocence of a child which allowed for this wanton display of gifts, for I did not feel these were unusual talents. I had attracted a few amazing teachers and had given work to do within myself. This was not the work of a mature person, but as a child I did not have the understanding process that requires development. The earlier the process begins the deeper the roots it sinks in a person.


When I was about 28 (around 1957), I was having dinner with an Indian couple. They were deeply interested in spiritual work and whenever teachers came here from India they would sit with them. They read many books on the subject. (I have never believed that reading was an aid to spiritual growth. If you are open to your growth potential, you will attract that for which you are willing to be responsible.) After I had known this couple for a few weeks they asked me about my spiritual gifts. I told them of my belief that each of us contains everything that ever was or will be, within ourselves. We have only to learn, I continued, how to open to this omniscient area within us to obtain this information.


They showed me letters and photos of people and I would tell them my impressions of them by looking at the handwriting or into the eyes in the photographs. They would give me objects and I would tell them where they came from, who made them, etc. I do not like tests of this nature nor do I feel they serve a useful purpose, but as I respected these older people, I performed as they requested.


One day when I came to their home upon invitation, a dozen Indian men were already gathered there. I was asked to perform for them. I said I would. They placed in my hand a perfectly shaped sphere of brass without any distinguishing marks. It seemed to be a semi-abstract animal and it could have been made anywhere, anytime, anyplace. I had seen Chinese animals with a vaguely similar shape but I immediately put that possibility out of my mind. I wished to surrender and begin a pure psychic flow. I completely relaxed my mind and body and absorbed the feeling of the metal in my hand. It felt like a living person to me. I tried to contact the man who made it through the feeling transmitted by the metal. It did not seem Oriental to me. As I went through the experience, I spoke my thoughts. It did not seem to be from Russia or the Near East. The feeling it inspired was more European.


There was a sharpness and a pointedness in the quality of the transmission, not from the metal itself but from something inside it. I felt it could not be English or it would have more of a flat vibration. A French object would have more surface vibrations. This brought me to German. That seemed to fit the sensation of sharpness but not that of pointedness. I settled on Austrian as answering both conditions. I was correct! I felt like a blind man who had groped his way home. It was not a process of mind but a process of higher mind. As this gift was not yet fully developed in me I had to go through the groping game until the facts took form.


This is a good example of how psychic gifts can be used. The elements must be pieced together until a whole picture is formed. I use my gifts every day to bring me closer to my fulfillment as a human being and to help me understand the direction my life should take. We are all so guided but we are not sensitive to the directives. Becoming certain within our minds that we know the direction in which we should go takes doing. I feel that the only consistent thing in my life is change and I am always open to any event or person I may meet as a guide to that change. I find there are hundreds of clues to point the way to each significant turn in a man’s life. Nobody has as much awareness as a man who has experienced a tragedy. He looks back and sees all the patterns and signs (he could not see before) that pointed the way to his experience.


A deepening spirituality allows you to avert potentially negative situations. As you work to surrender spiritually you become more sensitive to your karma, your life patterns. The word karma could be loosely translated as fate, the effects of past actions. By being sensitive to our fate, we can recognize the danger of a potential situation and not enter into it. A man who is wise enough or evolved and sensitive enough to see the buildup of an event can avoid or minimize its negative aspects. My present ability to recognize and dismiss situations without involvement represents years of suffering. One of the main reasons for inner work is to gain enlightenment so you can forestall unnecessary problems. Most people get caught in revolutions and wars even though they take years to gather their full momentum. People cannot detach themselves from patterns.


One Sunday in 1958 my Indian friends invited me for dinner. They suggested an early meal and, afterward, a ride to the airport. The ride was suggested in a casual way. A friend of theirs would be stopping off for a few hours between planes, they said, on his way to California. The airport waiting room was full, as usual. The only unusual circumstance I noted was that several clusters of people cared garlands of flowers strung in the Indian fashion for placement over the head. I assumed that the friend my friends were waiting to meet was arriving with other Indians. I realized that if my friends were coming to meet this individual, others had the same objective.


The plane’s arrival was announced at last. The door opened and an Indian gentleman in a wheelchair was rolled down the ramp. A sickly looking man standing next in line to the old invalid walked out. I could barely make out the figure of the old gentleman as a brilliant radiance of white and yellow light emanated from his body for a distance of a foot in all directions. I felt strange emotions welling up in me. In the depths of my being I felt I was the servant of this saintly man. I was transfixed. The thought crossed my head that if someone were to raise a gun to him I would rush before the old man so the bullet would strike me. The wonder of my love for him flooded me. I felt I had waited my whole life for this meeting. I had the remarkable feeling that this saint was my grandfather - not my father but an old and loving grandfather.


THE ONLY consistent thing in my life is change.


As people began to mill around him, my friends told me that he was the Jagadguru Sri Shankaracharya, of Puri. [The late Sri Shankaracharya Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha (his full name), was one of the four Jagadgurus (world teachers) that serve as heads of the Swami Order of Shankaracharya (founded c.800 A.D.) and who have spiritual authority for Hindus much as the Pope has for Catholics.] I watched as the gathered devotees presented themselves to him. After a while, he noted and greeted my friends. They bowed to him, drew me forward, and said, "Holiness, here is the special friend we have brought to meet you." As they introduced me, I felt I was being given to this sweet old grandfather. Everything within me seemed to leave my body and flow into his. I had no other wish than to serve this man. It was as if I had just recovered from amnesia and was suddenly overwhelmingly conscious of the fact that I was this man’s servant.


People were talking and taking pictures of Sri Shankaracharya. Ten minutes passed and I remained in a state of shock. Suddenly, deep within me I was aware that the old man was extremely tired and that he had to go to the toilet to relieve himself. It seemed inconsiderate in the extreme that he should be surrounded by noisy people. I edged near to him. He looked up. I whispered low, "Holiness, do you wish to wash your hands and face?" Something in him seemed to open and exude a great radiance which filled me. He gave me his arm. I guided him to the men’s room and locked the door.


He finished his needs, washed himself, yet seemed still more tired than before. I told him I would get a bed for him to rest on. He approved. I led him back to his audience and then went out to fetch blankets and a pillow from the airlines people. I pushed a couch from the lounge into a small, deserted waiting room and brought Sri Shankaracharya to rest there. I turned out the lights and remained alone with him while he slept. He rested for one and a half hours. Afterward I felt his gratitude for my considerations. It had nothing to do with me. It came through me. I could have done nothing else.


When I roused him to wash before taking leave of those who came to see him, I asked him if he would like me to go to California with him to serve him. He said no, that he had many followers there. After five weeks, however, he would return to New York and stay three months. I could serve him then. I spent the next five weeks surrendering within myself so that which existed as my relationship with the old saint could grow in me.


The Shankaracharya of Puri returned to New York. I lived with him for over three months. It was my inner work of surrender and the absorption of spiritual force from the Shankaracharya which began the process of breaking down the coarse matter in myself.


I had worked on my own for several years before meeting this remarkable man. The accumulation of debris thrown up by my inner spade work was choking me. The enormous backlog of unearthed coarse matter had grown so large by this time that it was inundating me. I no longer had a perspective. My inner being felt as if it had been through as much as it could bear.


The purity of Sri Shankaracharya, his great spiritual strength and love, seemed to be restoring my emotional balance and purifying me. As days passed, I felt an increase in my body temperature, as if I were carrying a fever. In the course of time I realized this fever increased when I was in his presence.


One morning I went to pay my respects to the saint, as usual. He had already prayed and breakfasted. The heat rising in me was beyond the point I could bear. As I started into his room, my body halted. I could not get it to move. I actually had to put my hands on the doorjamb and push myself through. That morning the heat within me reached such an intensity that it started a fire - a fire that burned in me for two years. I believe that this experience with the Shankaracharya of Puri started my real spiritual growth. The process which began in his presence has not stopped to this day. My love for the old saint was the catalyst which started the process. Love is complete trust and surrender. My love allowed all of the saint’s forces to enter me. His forces broke down my coarser matter during the two years of burning. Only by letting go deeply can we take into ourselves the highest ingredients necessary for our evolvement.


LOVE is complete trust and surrender. Only by letting go deeply can we take into ourselves the highest ingridients necessary for our evolvement.


My first meeting, in India, in 1958, with the great Indian saint, Bhagwan Nityananda, was of such depth that it changed the course of my life. By the time I got to India again, he had reached samadhi, the state of high spiritual attainment in which the body dies but the soul remains alive. The saint is then buried in a tomb where one can sit and experience the same qualities of the living man. Soon after my arrival I went to his temple, which is near the Ganeshpuri ashram of Baba, my teacher at that time.


I meditated morning and night in the samadhi hall, as the tomb is called. I also spent much time with Baba’s disciples. There was a strange nebulous quality to this visit, mostly due to the psychic forces in both the living and late saint. For me it was an act of faith, as the balance of spiritual intensity had not manifested itself fully insofar as my ability to benefit from either of these great beings in a vital way was concerned. I felt committed to the being of Bhagwan Nityananda and to the physical presence of Baba, my living swami.


Upon my return to the United States, I kept in correspondence with Baba, and in my prayers and meditation and spiritual exercises kept an open surrender to those men for whom I felt a great spiritual allegiance. As the weeks passed I did feel increasingly nourished during my periods of spiritual work by the presence of one and the other.


About three months after my return I was quietly watching a television program when I looked down upon my hand and saw that it was not mine but the hand of Swami Nityananda. It was a great shock to me, but through years of working with forces of a higher nature I knew how to receive maximum benefit. I tried to surrender deeply within myself, and as I did the full physical manifestation of Swami Nityananda appeared before me. The conflict within me was enormous. It was a frightening and deeply challenging occurrence. Everything within me wished to close off and blot out this apparition from another world. I struggled to stay open and in a state of surrender. All my life I had worked for this kind of experience and at this moment all the training and all the wish to grow within me was needed for me to stay open. Slowly Swami Nityananda came toward me and entered Into my physical body. For three hours I felt nothing of myself but that the saint had possessed me. It was a terrifying experience and it required all of my faith not to fight it.


For one week afterward I was filled more with the presence of the saint than with my own. It was a strange sensation. I was also running my oriental art business and conducting my yoga classes during this period. Theattempt to live simultaneously on many different levels is truly the test of one’s ability to encompass other forces and have them fit into a functioning part of life. They are made strong by the challenges of everyday life, higher and lower. One of the great mistakes is to take these ratified experiences and keep them in a ratified condition. It only succeeds in weakening them. By putting these fine experiences of great sensitivity into the context of practical conditions, we force them to grow strong in order to survive. They also become part of your life and can function along with everything else.


On my next visit to India I discussed this occurrence with Baba and told him of the daily communication I had with his teacher, Swami Nityananda, and with him. This was really the beginning of a great change of spiritual level for me. My acceptance by the physical swami while being filled with the spiritual swami, and the lack of any type of competitiveness, opened within me a great sense of trust.


My visits to the ashram were for one to two weeks, once or twice a year. I found a greater inner capacity within me, which was being fulfilled by the atmosphere and spirituality of the ashram. I began to have increasingly clairvoyant experiences. I could go within myself whenever there was a great need for me to understand my inner direction. My visits to the village and time spent with Baba began an active period of clairvoyance. Every day while doing my spiritual exercises I would feel Swami Nityananda outside me instructing and bringing stronger spiritual force into me.


On one visit to Ganeshpuri, on the anniversary of Swami Nityananda’s achieving samadhi, I was watching some of his disciples performing a dance around his tomb. Some were beating small cymbals. One man stepped out of line, handed me a cymbal, and pushed me into the circle of dancers. I struck the cymbal, lifted my leg to move, and disappeared completely for some three hours. When I again came in contact with myself I was dancing in complete harmony with both body and spirit and continued to do so, feeling the love from the group toward Swami Nityananda and his blessings pouring forth upon the dancers. It was a harmony between two dimensions.


On another occasion I was bathing in the river which flows near the temple and has many sacred hot springs. As I submerged myself in the water I looked up to see Swami Nityananda standing on the bank. He spoke to me and said, "Bathe yourself thoroughly, dry, and follow me." After I had dried I went with him into the small samadhi hall and walked around his tomb for several minutes. Each time I would complete a circle I would place my head upon the edge of the tomb and feel the shakti, the spiritual force, flood through my head and enter my depth.


These are some of the many hundreds of experiences which have occurred for me each year. I do not try to understand them, but I am grateful for them as they have brought me increasing peace and the capacity to find values of a higher nature. If the spiritual result is positive, any method by which it is attained is justified. I can understand people’s skepticism, as these are experiences which must be encountered personally. I also live in the world of nature and logic and find, after many years of spiritual experience, that it is more beneficial simply to accept the results of these experiences than to try to explain them intellectually. None of us understands how we were created, except for the initial physical act between our parents. This lack of information does not stop man from enjoying life. I feel that the everincreasing results of my life allow for greater surrender and less concern with logic. I am only filled with gratitude that such a possibility exists for me.


In 1965, while I was in India, I realized that a cycle of my spiritual work was reaching completion. This completion I felt was significant to the assimilation of my basic Hindu studies. There was no doubt within me that if I worked extremely hard for the next several months, by the time I went back to India for the usual period of time I spent with my teacher in his ashram, I would attain the level of a swami. Though the title, in itself, is meaningless to me, (it indicates the taking of sannyas and is associated with the order established by the Shankaracharya), I felt acceptance of me by my teacher and other Hindu saints would open the way to my first solid inner level. It was important for me to have this recognition as a place from which I could reevaluate my inner work. I could thereby clarify and attain a strengthened consciousness.


I spoke with many Indian friends about this because it was welling up within me. At Baba’s ashram was a young man named Chakrapani Ullal with great psychic powers who had helped clarify much of my direction. He was able, with his vision and friendship, to strengthen my abilities and to realize the direction immediately before me. With his help I did talk to Baba and psychically strengthened my position.


On this particular trip, prior to my being made a swami, I felt many rising qualities within me and was reluctant to express them as it seemed in bad taste. I spoke with Mr. Ullal and told him I felt many of the greater qualities for which Baba’s teacher, Bhagwan Nityananda, was known, manifesting themselves within me. As Swami Nityananda was such a holy man, one for whom I had extraordinary respect, I found it impossible to tell Baba of my feelings. My friend agreed with me about my attaining these powers and advised me not to say anything to anybody about it.


Several days later, while we were in the garden with Baba, Mr. Ullal suddenly told him all the things I had expressed. My teacher laughed and struck me on the top of my head -my head seemingly opened and I felt something like a fountain Of water spray into the air. Baba said that many times he had tapped me on the head to raise this psychic force, which was similar to that of his teacher. It was beyond any hope I could have had to have him express so generously the quality in me which was so powerfully a part of Swami Nityananda.


The psychic forces which this pat on the head brought about produced manifestations and brought energy of a continually higher level. When I went to India again in January of 1966 it was with the firm belief that this force had brought me to the level of swami.


I realized that I was very young to receive such a rank, besides which I had not been brought up in the Hindu religion or culture. My reasons for attaining this recognition, I felt, had to be uncovered before l could clarify the direction of my spiritual study and growth. When I entered the ashram there was nothing within me which would accept less than this. I expressed these feelings to Mr. Ullal and we discussed several of these points of my growth during the next few days with our teacher.


Baba was asked if I could perform certain miracles and if I were capable of a particular inner spiritual work significant for the rank of swami. He curtly agreed on these points put forth day by day. Within myself I felt the psychic battle between me and my teacher. It was never expressed in words. It was imperative never to withdraw from the stand I had taken, which was that I would not accept anything less than full recognition of the work I had done up to this point.


The week passed strangely as more of me was in another dimension. There was a great deal of excitement in the ashram about an experiment which was to take place shortly. Several medical doctors interested in ancientHindu scriptures had constructed a mud and rush building following an ancient formula. Within it was another building and within that building was a small room, into which they were going to place a man of seventy. By feeding him a diet set down in the ancient scriptures, the doctors expected that after two or three months the old man would emerge as a man of about thirty five. Much of the discussion in the ashram was about this experiment.


I have never been interested in such experiments and would not enter into the general conversation. One day Baba asked me if I had heard about the experiment. I simply answered yes, but did not elaborate. Three days later he asked if I had seen the building in which the experiment was taking place. I replied that I had. He then asked what I thought about it.


I explained that in Japan I had seen many ancient trees which were dwarfed so that they never attained a size beyond several inches. The root systems of these trees were cut back when the trees were just a few months old. The work on the trees was continuous and, although the trees attain great age, their height was controlled. I felt that it was possible at an early stage of growth, through great work, to produce almost any end result. I did not believe it was possible to start any work on an ancient tree and affect it so that it had the appearance of youth.


Baba just nodded his head. It is not important to me whether or not such experiments work, as I feel they are basically diversions from the essential pattern of spiritual growth. Whether my insight was correct or not does not matter to me. The basic idea of such experiments is not essential to my growth and is therefore extraneous, not worth discussing.


On the last full day I was to be in the ashram I awoke determined to face my teacher and ask for his help that evening in solidifying my position spiritually as a swami. After breakfast I sat in the hall awaiting his entrance. One of the women disciples sitting there told me that Babaji [meaning "father" in Hindu, an affectionate term often used in referring to one’s teacher] had awakened with a fever, which had been a trial to him many times. This left him in a very shaken and weakened condition.


Shortly thereafter he appeared, and when he sat in his chair facing us it was obvious that he was not well. He seemed out of sorts and tired. I felt it was not the appropriate time to discuss my situation. The day was most difficult, as I was under the apprehension of what I felt was an imminent realization. My teacher’s condition threatened the possibility of this realization. Nothing within me would yield regarding what I believed was to be.


At eight o’clock each evening when the temple doors closed, those of us who stayed within for the night were sometimes allowed to sit with the swami. My major spiritual breakthroughs were always attained during these special evenings. One evening, at seven o’clock, while sitting in the hall with Baba, I finally expressed my wish to be with him after the temple closed. He smiled and said that he was my father and knew I would not wish to disturb him in his condition. I said that I loved him as my father and would not in any way wish to add to his discomfort in his present state. But I felt my condition was urgent and asked him if he would, upon retiring, leave his door open so that when he was asleep I could come into his room and sit near him so that his shakti would enable me to finish my work.


The swami stood up, laughed, pointed to everybody in the room, and then pointed to me and said, "He is dumb like I am dumb. " Taking me by the shoulder he said, "Come. " I immediately felt within me a surge of great spiritual force which hurled me against the stone walls and allowed a great electric shock to send a spasm of contortions through my body. Movements similar to an epileptic fit controlled my body for about an hour. Many strange visions appeared and I felt things opening within me that had never been opened before. In the midst of this I heard a motion picture camera and saw flash bulbs, as if people were photographing my experience. For a split second something in me wanted to jump up and smack whoever was doing this, but this urge was surrendered instantaneously as I realized this was just my personality. I knew that I must do nothing to interrupt the flow of the experience.


Much later, quite exhausted, I was taken to my room and immediately fell into a deep sleep. I awoke at four thirty in the morning and two of the disciples of the temple brought some tea and fruit and excitedly spoke of my test. They told me to wash and to go to my teacher’s presence. A great saint named Rang Abdoud was visiting with him. As I entered the hall Baba motioned with his hand toward the saint. I thrust my head into Rang Abdoud’s feet and received a force through the top of my head. Baba then told him that I was a swami and declared my name to be Rudrananda, which, he said, is a very wild aspect of Shiva. He also said I would continually have extraordinary experiences and become more and more independent.


Later, Mr. Ullal told me that the period following my return to America would be extremely painful because I was leaving one dimension and entering another. Since people form the chain of a dimension, I would find my closest relationships torn from me and would thereby be tested to see if I retained the honor conferred upon me. The special agony that became a nine-month test period completely destroyed my previous patterns of life and produced a strength and freedom beyond any I could ever have wished for.


The day following my being made a swami I was at the ashram recovering from the physical ordeal involved. Some people were asking me about my return to India and what I would be doing next. I always try, whenever I speak, to let the spiritual force speak through me. It requires a conscious effort but also teaches me simultaneously. Something within me could not commit itself, as a new level of insight was opening which I did not fully understand.


Many years before, while I was staying with the Shankaracharya of Puri, he told me that my shakti would flow in such profusion that I would never have to express verbally that which was within me. Somehow I felt this time had arrived and that there must be a drastic change in my life. It would necessitate a complete death and rebirth, because the person who could contain these forces must be someone other than myself.


As I spoke to people about my future I felt that this transformation was imminent. Certainly I had no wish to suffer the sensations that are necessary for the death of one’s personality and the psychological transformation accompanying it. I only knew that to the best of my ability I had to live up to the trust, love and teaching which had been placed within me by these saints. I have always felt that a man is only that which other people give him. Past teachers have always been a guiding light for me. I felt that, having taken from someone on a higher spiritual level, it was my responsibility to carry the spiritual gift to a still higher level. To take soul force from a man requires enormous conscious effort; one fulfills the psychic quantity and then raises it to a higher level, thereby freeing himself from any debt.


During my conversation with the people at the ashram I could feel my past teachers within me. They were helping me to reach for a dimension beyond my own understanding whereby they would be freed and I would be fulfilled. I could then be free to take on a still more distant aim. I felt that the need for freedom was essential in raising my level so that I could fulfill my psychic responsibility. The only way I could express myself to the people I was talking to was by allowing the words to flow from me.


Several days before this Baba had asked me what I wished to do in the future and I said that I wished for paradise. I felt that fulfillment in Hinduism was like a sixty foot tree which upon maturity bore one flower. This flower signified realization. It was a great and lofty attainment, but the symbol of a single flower left much to be desired as far as I was concerned. In Islam the aspiration was not as high. It was more like a two-foot rosebush but the bush was covered with hundreds of flowers in bloom, which was the difference between this "lesser" realization and the Hindu paradise. I said I would try to graft the two-foot rosebush onto the sixty - foot tree and have a sixty - foot rosebush.


I reflected on this during my conversation after attaining the rank of swami and in my heart of hearts knew I could not come back to India again. I left rather than study with saints and more great souls. I needed to stop and digest that which I had within me.


A change would be necessary if I were to complete the work I had undertaken. I felt like a man with thousands of pages written but never edited or put into book form. I have no respect for accumulation because that by itself is a sloppy pattern. Nothing concrete had shown itself, but in my wanderings within myself I felt a great need for fortifying my position and reaching a peace I had never known. I tried to convey my feelings to my friends and left India for America shortly thereafter.

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Index

CHAPTER ONE

Teachers:

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