THE HIMALAYAS WERE CALLING AND I longed to answer. The next day I sat on the grimy concrete floor of a railway platform waiting for the next third-class ride toward the north. I settled in to read the book Srila Prabhupada had given me and was surprised to see that it had an introduction by George Harrison of the Beatles, who wrote:
“Everybody is looking for Krishna.
Some don’t realize that they are, but they are.
Krishna is God. The Source of all that exists, the Cause of all that is, was or ever will be.
As God is unlimited, He has many names
Allah-Buddha-Jehova-Rama: All are Krishna, all are One…”
I had been studying world religions, and felt I had so much more to learn. This ecumenical sentiment both pleased and surprised me, and I tucked the book into my bag for further examination in the future.
At the station, I met a man in his forties who was neatly dressed in white cotton pants and shirt, wore a white Nehru cap, and had a dark complexion with scars on his cheeks from a childhood bout with small pox. His name was Madhava and he worked as a supervisor for the railways. He persuaded me to join him on a trip to visit his guru. So, from Bombay we traveled a few hours east by bus to the holy site of Ganesh Puri. Upon arriving, he directed me, “Before meeting Guruji, you must be purified by bathing in the nearby hot sulfur springs.” We approached three small ponds simmering with dark opaque water. Dozens of locals scrambled about shouting to one another while dozens more took their daily baths. Slowly, I submerged myself into smoking gray liquid that clung to my skin like oil, gradually adjusting to the burning heat and sour smell. Submerging myself up to my neck, the heat penetrated and revitalized my body and mind. Madhava then yelled out that I was now prepared to visit his guru.
After I dressed, he led me to a small brick temple. Passing through the arched entrance, I found myself face to face with a large, black and white photograph of a slightly heavy man with a shaved head who wore only a loincloth. He had a round face, prominent cheekbones, penetrating eyes, and white stubble covering his jaw. There Madhava informed me that this was his guru, Nityananda Baba, who had given up his mortal body ten years before. Here in his sacred tomb, or Samadhi, his spirit could be felt with vibrancy more real than life.
All around the Samadhi, which was lit with oil lamps, perfumed with mogra incense, and decorated with yellow and orange marigolds, Nityananda Baba’s followers sang God’s names in unison. To my surprise, they were chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, the very one the river Ganges had revealed to me in the Himalayas and which Srila Prabhupada had sung in Bombay. Chills ran through me.
Nityananda Baba is worshipped by millions of followers in the states of Maharastra and Karnataka. Madhava explained the details of his life, teachings, and miracles. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, while collecting wood in the jungle, a poor woman was attracted by the unusually loud cawing of crows in a densely wooded area. There she found an infant boy lying alone in the leaves. She entrusted the child to a barren woman who worked as a maidservant to a wealthy Brahmin. Even as a tiny boy, he was detached from the world, leaving his adoptive family at the age of ten to become a spiritual renunciant. Nityananda Baba traveled far and wide by foot, always eager to serve those in need and enlighten the hearts of whomever he met. In his latter years, he had settled here, at Ganesh Puri. While meditating at his samadhi, the chant in the background, I felt the overpowering presence of Nityananda Baba, as if to assure me that his blessings were upon me.
Several days later, I was led to a disciple of Nityananda Baba who was building an ashram nearby. Small but rapidly growing, the hall of worship was located just off the roadside. As the door opened, the mantra to Shiva, Om Namah Shivaya, reverberated in a slow hypnotic chant. Inside, a couple dozen disciples, both from India and the west, were chanting in unison. Stringed drones called tambouras made from hollow gourd vibrated intensely. As the chanting faded into silence everyone spilled out into a courtyard. I watched and waited. Then, as his disciples bowed down, their guru entered. He was sixty-three years old with dark complexion, deep brown eyes, short untrimmed hair and beard, and clothed in saffron robes. In his presence, his followers lit up with joy. I asked who he was. “Swami Muktananda,” I was told.
Peering at me through his spectacles, the Swami addressed us through a translator. “When I was fifteen,” he began, “I renounced my wealthy home for the life of a sadhu. I wandered to every holy place and at last met my gurudeva, Nityananda Baba.” Smashing his right fist into his left palm, he exclaimed. “Baba crushed my pride like no one else could do.” Here he was describing the very thing I had been wondering and worrying about, which path or guru to choose and why. The audience, myself included, clung to his every word. “Shakti pat initiation awakens a cosmic energy called kundalini from the base of the spine. The kundalini rises up the spine through the seven energy chakras to the top of the head where it merges into the supreme. The surest means of awakening the Kundalini,” Swami Muktananda said, “is when a siddha guru, or perfected teacher, gives a mantra and transmits his or her shakti directly to a disciple.” He concluded, “Become addicted to your mantra even more than an alcoholic toward his liquor. Never forget it.”
On one occasion, as I stood with Swami Muktananda on the roadside, a vicious dog, howling insanely, baring its threatening fangs, came charging toward us. People shrieked and scattered. With a mere stare Swami tamed the creature and it meekly bowed its head. Blessing the dog, he turned to me and spoke through a translator. “I have noted you to be a sincere sadhu. If you wish, I will initiate you into shakti pat.”
Images of Tat Walla Baba, the Naga Guru, and others who extended themselves in this way flashed through my mind. “Thank you, Swamiji,” I replied, both startled and honored, “but I’ve vowed not to accept formal initiation from a guru until I’m convinced I will never leave his shelter.” Nervously, I petted the dog. How part of me wished I could easily accept his generous offer. “I don’t deserve your kindness, but I haven’t yet made that decision.”
“I appreciate your sincerity,” he said, gazing into my eyes. “God will guide you.” Then, like a confirmation to his blessing, the once vicious dog licked my hand again and again.
Madhava insisted that I travel to Goa, where the climate, he said, would be excellent for my health. He even offered to buy me a ticket by ship. It seemed like the arrangement of destiny so I accompanied him to the docks in Bombay and boarded a crowded boat that carried me 250 miles south along the coast of the Arabian Sea. After plying smoothly for the better part of a day, I reached my destination, a tropical paradise with endless beaches of soft sand and balmy air scented with sea salt. Starting in the sixteenth century, Goa had been the headquarters of Portugal’s Asian empire. At that time, St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit priest, converted tens of thousands of locals to Christianity. In 1961, Indian troops invaded Goa, defeating the Portuguese forces.
Arriving at the beachfront, I saw stretches of white sands, crystal seas, and scores of coconut trees. To pass the time, I traveled to Calangute Beach, a haven for Westerners who rented inexpensive houses there. Walking the beach, I passed men and women kissing and groping each other, heard rock and roll blaring, and saw drugs openly consumed. It was the same old scene I had left behind in Europe but it now seemed so alien, like something from a past life. Uninterested, I walked through the sand along the sea. I caught myself mentally criticizing them as if I were superior. I didn’t want these thoughts, which exposed my own arrogance. I prayed to be purified from my own pollution of fault finding. But it was so hard. Living with the animals in the jungles was so much easier as they didn’t so thoroughly expose my own shortcomings.
About a kilometer farther, I came upon drug addicts, all from the West, scattered along the seashore sticking needles in their arms. They had come so far, to one of the most beautiful places on earth, only to suffer the miseries of addiction. Quickening my pace, I arrived at a small mountain at the end of the beach. I climbed over its boulders, panting in exhaustion until I reached the other side. There, a tropical paradise lay before me. The plush white sands of the beach extended hundreds of yards. Groves of coconut trees swayed in the wind and not a single human being could be seen. This would be my home for the next week.
For seven days, I sat under a coconut tree absorbed in study, meditation, and prayer. With the exception of a few poor fishermen rowing their boats into the sea each morning, the place was deserted. For my daily meal, I climbed a sloping coconut tree, shook down a fruit and, to open it, repeatedly smashed it against a rock. For my daily hygiene, I bathed in the sea, and for my bed, I stretched out on the sand under the starry sky.
One day, I took a walk inland. There, nestled in countless coconut trees, I found a few scattered huts made of mud and dry coconut leaves, all built on the sand. The inhabitants, most of whom had converted to Christianity, followed the tradition of their ancestors as fishermen with no assets but a rowboat, two oars, and a net. From sunrise to sunset the men labored in the sea under the burning sun, which blotched many of their faces with what looked like skin cancer, but hard work left them no time to dwell on such details. I thought how Jesus had made his first disciples from among fishermen and then ordered them to be the fishers of men.
On another day, as I was walking along the coastline, I found a tiny fish flapping desperately in the sand. A wave had washed it ashore. The fish’s fear and desperation evoked my sympathy. He and I were not so different, after all, and I resolved to return him to his home in the sea. But each time I picked him up, he frantically flapped right out of my hand, so fearful he couldn’t recognize me as a friend. Finally, I trapped him in my cupped hands and hurled him back into the water. Still, my sense of satisfaction was short-lived. The next wave washed onto the shore then receded back into the sea, leaving the same little fish once again flapping in the sand. Again I cast him into the water and again the next wave left him in the sand to die. The next time, with much difficulty, I held him inside my cupped palms, tread into the ocean up to my neck, and then hurled him in as far as I could. I returned to the shore and observed wave after wave washing in and out until I was satisfied that the little fish was safe.
Walking some distance, I came upon a group of fishermen dragging a net from their boat onto the sand. The net was filled with hundreds of such little fish flapping for life and doomed to the frying pan. What could I do? I stared soberly into the sea and walked by immersed in thought.
We are all like fish that have separated from the sea of divine consciousness. For a person to be happy outside his or her natural relation with God is like a fish trying to enjoy life outside of the water, on the dry sand. Holy people go to great extremes to help even one person to return to his or her natural spiritual consciousness, to the sea of true joy. But the net of maya, or illusion, snatches away the minds of the masses, diverting us from our true self-interest.
When I had first set out on my spiritual journey, my idea had been to learn as much as possible from various paths and teachers and then take from each path the practice that was most effective for me. This was a popular idea in the 1960s, but in India, I began to realize the superficiality of it. I had seen many spiritualists with this idea, but the depth of their realizations seemed vague. Those who impressed me as advanced had committed themselves to a particular path. I had come to understand that my traveling from place to place and teacher to teacher had its limitations. Part of my hesitation to accept initiation into one religion, I realized, had to do with a fear of division from others. Still, I knew I would need to choose in order to progress. Not doing so was becoming painful. But which path and which teacher were mine? How would I ever know for sure?
Already many great teachers have enlightened me with knowledge of different paths and experiences I didn’t deserve. I see spiritual beauty in all of them. Which direction should I go at this crossroads in my life?
That night, I prayed for guidance and drifted into sleep. In the middle of the night, I awoke to a crescent moon that shone in the dark sky. Within the embrace of this crescent, a single star sparkled. It was the symbol of Islam, a sign of submission to God. I stared in wonder. My heart reassured, I accepted this as a sign that the mystery I had been contemplating would be revealed to me in due time.