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.
Next Chapter (2)
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