When my head touched the ground of the sheltered doorway of a shop in Madras (Chennai), I felt like I had been embodied there for a thousand years, overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling that after a very long arduous journey I had arrived home. The year was 1971.

What was it that brought this young Jewish man to India, having been born in Brooklyn, NY and raised in East Los Angeles during the 1940’s and 50’s in an ethnically diverse Jewish, Japanese, Armenian and Mexican American community? What was the history and lived experience that eventually shepherded me to the feet of Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati?

To begin, perhaps on a more humorous note, it may have simply been an expression of my essence and elan vital with its multitudinous, innate propensities of this current incarnation. Thus, as a breech birth, my first breath was in the yoga pose of paschimottanasana, the seated forward bend, where my feet and hands were last to leave that water-filled womb of creation. My arrival into this world was statistically at the low birth weight of 5lbs. 8oz. I’m sure that gave my mother pause and a thank you very much to the goddesses that be. As Guru spells out in the Brhadaranyaka 1.3.19 commentary,

            The vital energy has been maintaining life in all its variegated forms with a biological history that runs into millennia. No form of life is outside the scheme of the world order. Nature’s maintenance shows the omnipresence of a caring benevolence which supplies the vital energy required in the right quantum…...This explains nature’s insight into the need of all.

Hence, the moment my head touched Indian soil, I had a felt sense that I was psychically opening to that unsullied, unified wisdom of the rishis as exemplified by that profound oral tradition and written texts of Advaita Vedanta. As I enter into that pranic pulse on the 100th anniversary of Guru Nitya’s birth, I am tasting, as if for the first time, that imperishable Absolute embodied by the lives and teaching of Narayana Guru, Nataraja Guru and Guru Nitya and their profound influence upon this, my individual life, and its current expression. With that awareness, I once again have the opportunity to further ponder the unfathomable questions of “Who am I?” and “What is this world?”

Though this is a global centenary celebration of Guru’s birth, it is also an acknowledgement of his mahasamadhi. My relationship with the light of the Guru now spans a period of more than 50 years. It was and continues be a beautifully rich, multidimensional, “mind-altering,” life changing relationship that embraces a creative expression that is all-inclusive along with what it means to be fully alive in this mysterious vast world of being and becoming.

Over the months of our contemplative study of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, I have been indescribably moved by the multitudinous systems and functions interpreted by the Upanisadic rishis and its continuous dissemination by Guru through his spoken and written word elegantly extolling that one unitive vision that transcends death, time-space, self-other and the triphasic knower, known, and knowledge. That being so, last week during the early morning, the ‘light’ was just right to see my reflection in the bay window, a mirror image looking back. It was as if the transient self was seen in light of the one Self, the unconditioned Absolute inherent in all. And yet, alongside of that embodied projection bound to that all-affirming and constructive aspect of that mysterious source of consciousness, there resides an obstructive and fatalistic aspect which can all too easily disturb and blot out those light-giving ruminations enmeshing me in darkness. With this ongoing process of becoming, how does one penetrate beyond the cloud of our seeming knowing and its plethora of projected shadows. What is one awakening to?

In Atmopadesa Satakam Verse 52, Narayana Guru eloquently states that:

            The sky will glow as radiant sound -

            on that day, all visible configurations will become extinct in that;

            thereafter, the sound that completes the three-petalled awareness

            becomes silent and self-luminous.

My first meeting with Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati occurred in 1970 while he was teaching a course on the Bhagavad Gita at Portland State University, which eventually led my then wife Penelope, my 3 month-old son Ramana, and I to travel with him and other Gurukula friends to India via San Francisco, Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, Singapore, and eventually India. However, when Guru Nitya received word that Nataraja Guru had a stroke, we were in a kind of retreat house in Fiji. Having to cancel housing with friends and a full itinerary of talks in Sydney on The Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction and the Bhagavad Gita, Guru and Peter Oppenheimer flew straight away from Fiji to India. The rest of us were left to fend for ourselves. Penelope’s sister Lila Higgins returned to the US and Rene Anderson flew to Australia ahead of us. Though traveling on a shoe-string budget, we had that unshakable faith that everything would work out. Fortunately, we had enough funds for Penelope and Ramana, then about 4 months-old, to fly from Sydney to India, where they eventually stayed at the Narayana Gurukula, in Varkala, Kerala.

I remained in Australia where I had initially intended to work to earn enough funds to continue our journey to India and then eventually travel back to our home in Bridal Veil Falls, Oregon. It was fortunate that Rene’s employment as an au pair in Sydney resulted in my securing a job in an extended care and hospice facility which was owned by her employers. Another blessing was that I was hired to work not only a regular daily schedule but to also be on call in emergencies. As a result, I was provided with my own room including sleeping quarters in the rear of the facility. Since it was important to get to India as soon as possible so as to continue sharing the parenting responsibilities of Ramana’s care, I often worked two shifts of 18 hour days. My shift work primarily consisted of being a nurse’s aide providing direct patient care in addition to carrying out a variety of housekeeping chores including building maintenance. A normal day was spent changing dirty sheets, washing soiled bodies, turning and repositioning bed-bound patients in an effort to alleviate pressure pain and prevent bed sores as well as assisting with full baths or showers and feeding those who did not have the mobility to do it for themselves. All in all, it was an eye-opening experience of compassionate care amidst bearing witness to the lightness of laughter alongside significant pain, suffering and death.

This brings to mind a very bizarre experience I had with an elderly patient who—after his discharge from a state mental institution—was committed to this extended care and hospice facility. Even with medication, he was a highly frenetic, disheveled, and vulnerable individual; he was like a ghost haunting the halls and community rooms at all hours of the night, often during times when I was tasked with extra-care duty. One morning, he took a shower, shaved, polished his shoes and dressed himself in a clean white dress shirt and a light weight, grey, tweed suit. To my consternation, he then proceeded out of the front door and left. I informed the nurse on duty that I would watch after him. After he walked half way down the sidewalk, he just keeled over like a sack of grain hitting the pavement. I ran to help him, but found him completely motionless with no pulse. He had artlessly died on that spot. In the time it took to get to him, his face immediately turned from his normal skin tone to an ashy gray resembling someone who could have been entombed in a morgue for weeks. Only later did I discover that his ashy grey pallor was an indicator of end stage kidney disease and renal failure. In that moment of stark stillness, I saw his crumpled figure, and was profoundly struck and acutely aware of the transience of all this and the frailty of the human body as it succumbs to illness or in this case to the moment of death.

On an evening following that tragedy, I was sharing some quiet after-hours time with a mute patient with whom I had a very special non-verbal relationship. We hung out occasionally in the community room watching late night movies on TV. On one such occasion, there was a showing of a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, The Razor’s Edge. It tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of a transcendent meaning to his life. According to Guru Nitya, the Guru that Darrell meets represented a loose depiction based on Somerset Maugham’s meeting with Narayana Guru in South India in the early part of the last century. In the midst of watching that film unfold, I was aware that I had just received a clear sign that a terminus had been reached and that it was now time to leave for India. Following a discussion with my employers, they unenthusiastically accepted my lack of adequate notice, understanding my need to be with my wife and infant child. After that meeting, without further forethought, I immediately booked a flight the following day, prepared my small backpack and said my goodbyes to Rene and the few new-found friends.

When my flight from Sydney via stop-overs in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur arrived at around midnight, the money exchanges at the airport were all closed, so I could have no rupees until the banks in town opened in the morning. Though I had no prior knowledge of how to negotiate this new environment, its language and culture, I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed. But, I was aware of a number of ambivalent emotions including a certain degree of apprehension and caution along with feeling optimistic, adventurous, and self-assured. Although I was conscious of these conflicted feelings, there was an overarching faith that I would somehow be guided to where I needed to be. Therefore, I simply allowed my sense-experience to flow with ‘what is’. Having been turned away from hotel after hotel, I wandered around Madras’s (Chennai’s) main streets and back alleyways, visiting temples and various sites throughout the city. Given the long flight and the hours of surveying the landscape, I was suddenly too exhausted to continue, my legs barely able to hold me upright. Seeing so many homeless curled up in sheltered shop doorways, I decided to do the same.

After so many years, I only have fuzzy glimpses of how I managed to find my way to the Naturopathic Clinic where Nataraja Guru was being treated for post-stroke. However, upon my arrival, I was almost immediately inducted by Guru Nitya into helping to provide for Nataraja Guru’s daily physical needs and general care beyond his scheduled naturopathic treatments and consultations. The hand of grace, along with a blessed benevolence and synchronicity, provided me this opportunity to establish an intimate relationship with Nataraja Guru. Having just completed months of direct experience at the extended care and hospice facility in Sidney, I was substantially prepared to assist and support Nataraja Guru with his physical needs and care for him during the period of time he resided at the Clinic prior to his being transferred to what I believe was the Medical College Hospital in Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) for further medical care for his stroke. It was there at the hospital in Trivandrum that I was reunited with Ramana and Penelope following their extended stay in Ooty after leaving Varkala.

The Naturopathic Clinic provided Nataraja Guru and Guru Nitya with comfortable twin beds resting perpendicularly on each side of a large framed window which provided fresh air and comfortable light while also opening onto a small yet beautiful garden of lush native flowers, and trees common to Karnataka. It was in this room that I unobtrusively sat on the cement floor in awe of the daily diversity of characters that made up a steady stream of visiting devotees looking in on Nataraja Guru, providing kind words, flowers and dakshina. In principle the monetary offerings given to Nataraja Guru were provided in support of his continued medical care and in recognition and honor of the Guru’s grace and teachings. Families with children and individuals of all ages provided a colorful backdrop as counterpoints to each and every unique melody of soulful tender moments. Throughout the day Nataraja Guru would place the gifted money into a colorful, woven bamboo basket that sat on the end table to the right of his bed where he lay or sat propped up by pillows. All day long the basket would fill. Then a person in need of funds, say for the education of a child, would ask Nataraja Guru what he should do. The basket would empty. This filling and emptying would go on day in and day out. It was here that I received my first lessons in “One-World Economics,” where abundance becomes the normative ground as an absolute value basic to all human life.

When evening came, I would sleep on this same cement floor at the foot of Nataraja Guru’s bed with a blanket under me and a shawl or blanket over me depending on the degree of cold and/or dampness. A lamp sat on an end table to the right of his bed and was pointed in the direction of where I slept on the floor. If Nataraja Guru had a need for assistance during the late night or early morning hours, he would flash the bedside lamp on and off into my eyes in order to wake me. The first occasion that the night light flashed into my eyes, I woke, stood up a little shaky and drowsy with sleep, wrapped the shawl over my shoulders and preceded toward his bed to attend to his need for assistance. Nataraja Guru looked at me, shook his head and said “You’re dazed; go back to sleep!” This dance-drama choreographed by the Guru persisted night after night. I would be awakened out of a deep sleep by the flashing light, get up to attend to his call and Nataraja Guru would, say, “You’re dazed; go back to sleep!”

I don’t recall how long this nightly ritual continued. Nonetheless, I was regularly awakened at 3:00AM to his call and unrelentingly sent back to bed. Then one evening when I woke to that flash of light in my eyes, he smiled and said, “You’re awake, come, sit with me.” Nataraja Guru then proceeded to discuss over a number of nights in a condensed and simplified form Henri Bergson’s thoughts on physics and metaphysics, elan vital and creative evolution, then moved on to Cartesian schematics, the figure of eight, Schrodinger’s wave mechanics, scalar counterparts, Husserl’s phenomenology, the actual and virtual, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant’s Being, Deussen and Muller’s philosophy of the Upanisads, Einstein, Unified Field Theory, quantum physics, time-like space, space-like time, Heisenberg’s uncertainties, Russell and Eddington’s methodology, axiology and epistemology, Fichte’s bipolarity of Self and non-Self, Hegel, Sartre’s existential notions, Sankara’s normative Absolute and value factors, Socrates and Plato’s dialectics and oral dialogue, and Kalidasa’s expressive dramas through the subtlety of word, semantics and meaning, Emerson, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Blake, Shakespeare, relative and absolute, existence and subsistence, methods of reduction, reciprocity, cancellation and on and on. In the midst of his elucidations, he clearly spelled out the vastness of Narayana Guru’s Garland of Visions, through the composition of his mystic poetry in the Darsana Mala. Nataraja Guru also exemplified that those visions were fully verifiable by modern science as expounded upon in his own commentaries in An Integrated Science of the Absolute. To say the least, the vastness of Nataraja Guru’s unified vision and comprehensive knowledge of Eastern and Western philosophy and science literally threw me into a destabilized state of bewilderment. Even now after all these years, I still find it difficult to put this experience to words, except to say that at that youthful juncture of my life, I was completely overwhelmed and hopelessly inundated by the Guru’s eternal flow of holistic understanding and embodied wisdom. I don’t know how else to describe such a protracted experience except to say that there were moments where I seemed to be thrown into a kind of altered state of consciousness, my mind literally blown away, floating in that vast akasa.

Guru Nitya mentions in That Alone that Nataraja Guru wrote in his biography of Narayana Guru and in his own autobiography, that whenever the Guru and the disciples were together, Narayana Guru would always call their attention to some basic problem of philosophical or contemplative interest. In that same way Nataraja Guru woke me from my slumber and dazed state to bring my attention to the import of delving wholeheartedly into the unitive wisdom and contemplative principles that bring one to absolute certitude and freedom.

With that, where does one turn? Guru Nitya states that,

“This is the point where we need to transcend the triple states of deep sleep, dream and wakefulness.” When this occurs –“There comes a new clarity in the form of a transparency of vision where you see through the past, present, and future….it is a frontierless vision. It is not confined to name and form. It does not come under the category of cause and effect. We cannot say it has a beginning or an end. In fact, words that we use and thoughts that we cerebrate are all of no use. This is the realm of infinite Silence into which we can merge, where the present faculties which are very useful to use become of no use.”

And yet in that magical process of becoming, these very faculties become the ground for a contemplative process which is the manas that nurtures us and can be a harbinger of our own unique intuitive unfolding and transcendence.

From early on, Guru cautioned me to not get trapped by the phenomenal world of the paranormal, in which he had studied extensively with yogis of every stripe. When I began the practice of meditation and hatha yoga, I did so with a disciplined zeal. Though I’m unsure whether there was any causal relationship, I was having a lot of ineffable, mystical-type experiences throughout my mid-twenties to well into my forties. At those times, I just accepted the truth of those unusual perceptions as an expression of this magical world without consciously courting them. At some point they ceased to have such a strong impact on my fragile psyche and the intensity eventually dissipated to some degree over time. However, they did provide for an interesting set of telepathic experiences coupled with an alluring intimacy in my social life along with intriguing past-life connections, which further equipped me with a window into the nature and texture of synergy along with a heart-felt awareness of auspicious guiding principles. Though I recognize the need as a householder to maintain a balanced ground, I do however miss the glitter of that particular magic.

In Guru’s commentary on Verse 27 of the Atmopadesa Satakam in That Alone, I was able to see the wisdom of that caution in a more complete and balanced way; yet, these dialectical perceptions had a great inherent beauty and value in their own place. Here, Guru clearly elucidates upon this idea:

The self-luminous atman itself is not known, but its effect – all the pluralities of the phenomenal transformations and modifications that come into being – is all we see. What is, is not known, while what is not, is known. Hence it is called the grand magic….Spiritual seekers are struggling to demolish all this magic and find the Magician. But when the magic is demolished you still do not see the Magician. The Magician is. That’s a certainty; but you don’t know him as a Magician when he is not playing his role. Thus, we take away the possibility of knowing the source by merely denying the phenomenal. The being is to be known in the becoming, and the becoming is known because of its beingness.

Accompanying my bumpy journey through those instances of life/death, gain/loss and pain/pleasure dualities that arise out of my deep seated vasanas and epigenetic traumas, I often feel the touch of that unknown hand of providence guiding me through many seeming missteps to an awareness of that ever-present mystery in the process of becoming within the ever-unfolding of my svadharma.

Even though one could say I had been blessed with excellent professional opportunities and a settled life with very clear aspirations, I nevertheless felt a gnawing unmet inner calling, which in my youth I could not entirely grasp. Yet I fully surrendered to its rushing current, sometimes muddied and on other occasions clear and untainted. When I began this long journey, there was an unfailing trust in and reliance on the unknown, and yet, in this deep remote place there also existed a hint of a benevolent knowing which continues to animate that wondrous, progressive unfolding of my becoming—though Zen Roshi Charlotte Joko Beck would have described this as Nothing Special. However, at the time I did not conceive of my intuitions, subsequent decisions and actions as such. And, in many ways to the outside observer they could very well be perceived as naive and irrational or just “plain crazy.” I left behind a prestigious research job in molecular genetics and environmental science in Boca Raton, Florida, while also abandoning a rare opportunity to complete a Masters/Doctoral program in the burgeoning field of molecular genetics, prior to the discovery of DNA. Along with my solitary good bye to the security and comfort of the quaint Spanish style, stucco house a few blocks from the ocean in Delray Beach, I was actively taking a deep plunge into that all-pervasive unknown in my search for that one truth without a second.

It was 1969, when Penelope and I arrived in East Los Angeles to visit with my mother following a circuitous cross-country journey leaving behind our small farm in Pine Bank, Pennsylvania near the border of Blacksville, West Virginia. Though a lot of work went into repairing this farm house from the 1920’s, the land, location and community did not allow for the hoped for fruition of the dreams we had sought. Now on the opposite side of the country, we were again adamant about pursuing our dream of “going back to the land,” of having a small farm and living a spiritual life of meditation and study, cultivating greater intimacy with the seasons and eternal verities of the earth, while growing our own food, baking bread, pickling, fermenting and cultivating wild berries, and tending to a modest apple orchard. And yet, in order to do so, I would again have to leave behind another research job as I had done in Boca Raton, Florida. While in Southern California, I worked at the Veterans Hospital in Long Beach, tasked with doing thin film plating of tumors using a microtome, staining and mounting the tissue on slides for high-contrast microscopic analysis by a team of doctors who sought to find a cure for cancerous melanomas. Though I loved the scholarly rigor and intensity of plunging into the world of research biology and molecular genetics, I was caught by a youthful, enduring optimism of a future which would provide a less complicated and demanding life style while making it possible to meticulously cultivate and nurture a life of contemplation.

With those tender sentiments, I spent the morning discussing with Penelope our potential options, while enjoying a special Saturday morning breakfast of Eggs Benedict, at a neighborhood restaurant in Belmont Shore near our art deco apartment on Ocean Avenue across from the beach. We sat at a chrome and red formica-topped table next to the front window in order to feel the warmth of the early morning sun. With breakfast finished and two cups of tea cooling, we were satiated. From across the table, I moved to sit next to Penelope. We spread the large Rand McNally US Road Map on the table-top so we could both clearly see it in its full glory. We snuggled up close to one another, feeling more warmth. I put my right hand over her left like one would do when using an Ouija board planchette. We asked in unison, "Where do we go now?" Our hands went to Bridal Veil Falls, Oregon. Being in a restaurant full of early morning patrons, we simultaneously expressed a modulated, low "wow" when we realized Bridal Veil Falls was located in a forested area along the Columbia River Gorge, east of Portland on the Scenic Highway toward The Dalles. Though my mother said we "were out of our minds," we left three days later amidst hugs and kisses in our light green 1963 Chevy station-wagon, anticipating a leisurely, safe journey, while providing enough comfort to mitigate some of the intense nausea of Penelope's pregnancy.

I am now at the kitchen table. A tall glass of hot chai with a little half and half and stevia is resting on a mosaic coaster brought from Granada's Albayzin Moorish community below Alhambra adjacent to the former Sephardic Jewish neighborhood in Andalusia, Spain at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Lush, green woods of tall pines and hardwoods embrace my current home with my wife Petriana. We live in Leverett which lies just north of Amherst, Massachusetts in a small town of 1800 people, which incorporated in 1764. Though more populated and less isolated, I love this place because it provides a very familiar bodily sensation and quietude, which was felt in 1970 when Penelope and I were living in a 3-room house adjacent to a hillside meadow above the Columbia River in Bridal Veil Falls. During one of Oregon’s frequent rains, one could easily hear the rush of the 25' waterfall tumbling into the volcanic pool not 200' from our front porch. Potable water was fed to us via a hillside spring through an above-ground plastic hose that in winter needed to trickle into the claw-foot bathtub in order to avoid freezing. There was no electricity, so kerosene lamps provided light in the evening or during frequent dark rainy or overcast days. And a two-holer outhouse provided an ideal site for composting vegetable leavings, with rich soil mixed with fall leaves. Even on cold days, looking out the open outhouse door at the meadow with its garden and apple trees brought immense peace, joy and sense of physical and aesthetic accomplishment. The simplicity of a futon, kitchen table with three chairs, a rocker and one upholstered chair, along with a beautiful Wedgewood wood cook stove, a long porcelain kitchen sink with a Monarch butterfly I had painted over the backsplash and an Ashley wood heater was all we needed, coupled with a modest assortment of clothing, a small shelf of books, meditation pillows and an assortment of hand tools and the obligatory Stihl chain saw.

I didn't realize when we met Johnny Stallings, better than 50 years ago in Portland, that I was to enter a crossroads with far-reaching consequences that would forever change my life and my world while ultimately nurturing a grounded directionality to that “rushing current.” The portent of our meeting as we enjoyed the company of others over a lunch at The Stomach, the vegetarian restaurant where Johnny worked, had yet to unfold. In any event, the presence of the enormous 2 ½ gallon pot of flavorful mixed vegetable or lentil soup kept ever-warming along with a full basket of the most wonderful sourdough wheat bread with the requisite sunflower seeds and sprouted whole wheat berries was available for anyone in need of food or respite.

It was through Johnny that the stars aligned, providing the auspicious occasion to meet Guru. Johnny had come for a visit to just hang out and to see the significant repairs we had made on our modest home coupled with back-breaking work on the landscaping and gardens. It was on our front porch that he mentioned that a Swami Nitya was teaching a course on the Bhagavad Gita at Portland State University. Filled with curiosity, we decided to meet this unknown Swami and attend his class.

My youthful beginning was a far cry from the unimaginable impact Guru Nitya had on my fortuitous life. I may have just turned 29 years old, when I went to Guru's first class of the semester. By that time, my seeking to further align my inner and outer life had already begun. While in college in 1964, a meeting with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi further quickened my search, which resulted in my initiation into Transcendental Meditation at his center near UCLA. With an unquenchable thirst, I plunged into a sustained meditation and yoga practice. In 1969, Penelope and I ended up staying for a brief yet transformative time at the Integral Yoga Institute in Greenwich Village with Swami Satchidananda in order to further refine our hatha yoga practice and subsequently under his guidance began an introduction to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. In many ways, our minds were filled with passion and curiosity and a firm desire to explore areas of thought that were far outside our family of origin where our upbringing and schooling did not expose us to a less parochial range of knowledge. Because of Penelope’s interest in astrology and mine in the Jewish mysticism of Kabbala, we were drawn to Theosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the writings of Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and spiritualist and Henry Steel Olcott who was in close communication with Max Muller, who championed both ancient Sanskrit literature and the wisdom traditions of India. These interests further broadened our thinking into the areas of comparative religions and various esoteric teachings drawn from a variety of sources, including Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Platonic thought and the works of Alice Bailey, Rudolf Steiner, Annie Besant and of course the writings of Krishnamurti who established a center in Ojai, California in 1969. We very much resonated with theosophy’s primary goal of achieving enlightenment, which the Society defined as “the realization that one is an integral part of the Absolute, and is no longer polarized between consciousness and matter, or self and other.” 

Upon leaving New York City, with the guidance we received from Swami Satchidananda, we traveled another circuitous route, which eventually landed us in an Integral Yoga Institute in Boulder, Colorado. We stayed for a few months, continuing our studies of Ashtanga Yoga while spending the early mornings helping to bake bread that the ashram sold for additional income. And, out of necessity, I took on a number of other jobs in order to earn enough money to repair our ailing Volkswagen bus and further our ability to continue our travels toward California. Though somewhat moderated by my youthful vigor, my work schedule as a dish washer at a Mexican restaurant and a laborer for a construction company often brought me to a state of exhaustion. While living there, we also participated in a Charles Berner Enlightenment Intensive, a retreat with the residents of the ashram along with a select group of yoga students. For three, exhaustive 12-hours days, we entered into a kind of mind bending dialogical experience, which provided the ground for an intense inner exploration of that eternal question, "Who am I?" I can't speak for the other rotating dyads of 24 participants, but for me it was unprecedented. Though the experience was short lived, I was emptied out of words and concepts, falling into a deep all-embracing Silence.

Following the gamut of life experiences and our limited forays into esoterics, comparative religion, philosophy, and mysticism, we now found ourselves standing at the open doorway into Guru Nitya’s class. I was a prototypical “hippy” in my denim bib-overalls with blue and white vertical stripes in the guise of an old-time railroad worker, with flowing long brown hair, a long beard, and hand-dyed peach canvas deck shoes. Taking in the classroom and all the students milling around, I felt both awkwardly uneasy and buoyantly curious as to who this teacher was and to the depth of his knowledge of Indian spirituality, philosophy, psychology and yoga. We walked in and took seats close to the front of the class. He was wearing his traditional saffron colored dhoti and long Indian style shirt. Though he moved with a kind of ease and grace, he seemed a little portly and his physicality didn’t quite fit my “ideal” vision of a yogi. At that time, my mind was seriously clouded by and drawn to that which I thought was mystical and ascetic, and by those teachers or gurus that embodied a kind of charismatic magnetism which was further confounded by the writings of Yogananda and his lineage; my limited understanding of Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way and his disciple P.D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous, as well as the experiences and writings of Alexandra David-Neels, My Journey to Lhasa. Though I was attentive to Guru’s talk, I was unaware that I was unconsciously carrying a kind of mental weight, lacking an openness that was colored by a set of predisposed biases. As a result, I was not feeling drawn to Guru, even though his presentation of the Gita was clearly insightful, given the manner in which he outlined its historical underpinning and its far-reaching revaluation through its foundations in Advaita Vedanta.

Even in my somewhat resistant state of mind, his words, without fanfare, drew me into a fervent identification with Arjuna’s profound quandary on the seeming “Battlefield” of life and his mooring to Krishna. Also, the guru-sishya relationship presented by Vyasa and elaborated upon by Guru captured my attention and called upon the class to more closely examine and nourish those principles of illumination, the Sruti, that distinguish the real from the unreal. As portrayed by Vyasa’s first chapter of the Gita, my contemplative character was aroused as a purvapaksha unequivocally identified with Arjuna’s dialectical conflict as the prototypical anterior sceptic. And though all this was felt, I was still left closed off from a heart-felt connection with Guru.

With a level of ambivalence, we decided to return to our own routines and daily spiritual practices and not continue with the Gita class. On the evening prior to Guru’s next class, Penelope was about two hours into our three hour meditation and couldn’t sit any longer. Her fecund, full, upright belly needed to be supine and in a state of rest. She went off to bed and I continued to sit. At some point during my meditation, I was jarred out of a deep quietude by a ball of white light. Simultaneously as this full moon appeared before me, I heard a crystal clear voice emanating from it, asserting, “I want to see you and your wife in class tomorrow.” I came out of meditation with a start. I woke Penelope, explained to her what had happened and that I was either having a hallucination or that Swami was asking us to come to class.

So, we returned to his class the next day. I was again in my denim bib-overalls and denim shirt. Guru was standing to the side of the door near the front of the classroom and as students entered, he greeted them with a nod and a smile. Without hesitation I approached him and asked straight away, “Did you come to me last night in my meditation?” He tilted his head, slyly looked me over and with a widening grin said quietly, “I didn’t think you heard me.” I sat through his talk in rapt attention. My body felt like it was shimmering, bathed in a kind of iridescence. After the lecture, he invited us back to the Overton Street Gurukula for dinner. Following a scrumptious vegetarian meal collaboratively prepared by the household, Guru asked us to his room. Once we were comfortably seated, he began to pointedly ask us open-ended, probing questions about our lives and our spiritual practices. This exchange went on for what seemed like hours. And though we were initially at ease, there was a growing intensity. Then as if out of nowhere, he pointedly asked, “What is the goal of your search?” I responded, “I want to be Self-Realized.” With a swift motion, he poked me in the nose with his index finger, insisting without preamble, “Absolute realization is right here, right now, this very moment.” In the shock of that assertion, it was as if every mental construct that I had held dear about mysticism, spirituality, yoga and Indian philosophy fell like a house of cards onto the floor of his room; offering them up as a ritualized udgitha into the sacrificial fire of the agnihotram. Everything was ashes and I was in tears. It felt as if all the buried samskaras and vasanas that bind were laid bare to me.

            AUM, agne tava yat tejas tad brahmam “Oh fire, this brilliance of yours belongs to the Absolute.”

            atastvam pratyaksam brahmasi “When you shine forth and are perceptual we see you as the omnipresent.”

From that moment on I entered wholeheartedly without ambivalence into our guru-sishya relationship.

Reflecting on so many places I spent with Guru is a jumble of images, climes and times, thoughts and feelings. First there's the solidity of place: Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, Mill Valley and Palo Alto, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Nadi, Lautoka, Ba, and a meandering river bordering the Blue Hills on the Island of Vita Levu, in the Republic of Fiji; Northampton, Colrain and Amherst, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois and Gary, Indiana, and numerous places throughout India. Thus the parking lot at the Art Institute of Chicago is no less hallowed ground than the old growth forest of Douglas Fir in Oregon or the Redwoods in Mill Valley or the Jain Temple at Vindhyagiri Hill in Karnataka. In that acknowledgement, I become flooded with images and memories that are difficult to fully grasp and hold still and yet they inhabit a kind of metaphysical moment, a presence beyond space and time.

And thus, I become.

Regardless of place, whenever I spent time with Guru, especially when I was in a confused and difficult emotional place or embroiled in some paradox or other, his presence, lightness of step and deep silence always seemed to bring an irrefutable calm where I felt gently held in a light that inhabited a profound inexplicable place. The economy of words in haiku is an attempt to describe such a moment:

            far beyond the field

            sitting in a confusion of thought

            sunshine amidst shadows

However, this was not the only presentation of my relation with Guru. For example, when I attended Renzai Zen Buddhist sesshins, it was not uncommon for the Ino, the meditation hall monitor, to walk between the aisles of meditators tasked with welding the kyosaku, a flat, split bamboo stick, 3 feet in length. This stick symbolizes the sword of wisdom of the bodhisattva Manjushri, which cuts through all delusion. Accordingly, the Ino moves through the hall gripping the kyosaku vertically in both hands at the level of the heart chakra. After many hours of daily sitting, the Ino will on occasion notice that a participant has slipped into a kind of stupor or has completely dozed off, head falling forward from his or her erect meditation posture—no longer maintaining a firm asana. In a situation like this, at the Ino’s discretion or at the request of a meditator, one may receive the jarring strike of the kyosaku. On one particular sitting, I put forward an action-based request by raising my eyes to face the Ino. In essence I was silently calling out for his attention. In mutual acknowledgement, we both bowed in gassho, palms together. I then leaned my head to the left to receive a firm blow from the stick on the exposed nape of my neck and upper trapezius muscle and then I leaned my head to the right to receive the second blow to awaken to that unblemished moment. As a sishya, a similar contract was established with Guru Nitya. While Guru’s words at times felt like a jarring strike of the kyosaku, it could also as mentioned be like a soft gentle breeze passing over me. I have come to realize that the softness or seeming harshness of his words or that of a look are born out of a profound benevolence, ushered forth from that clear light of wisdom illuminating those traps that have caught me in some dualistic notion, unreasoned conditioning, short sighted belief, unrecognized bias or dysfunctional or destabilized behavior. His response to moments like these often came with a quick compassionate correction that would either immediately wake me up to my deluded self-centeredness or self-righteousness or would provide me an opportunity to gain clarity over time through a contemplative process that prepared the ground for intuitive insight or a “full moon awareness,” bringing forth a gradual shift from habitual modes of thinking or action.

As I begin one of my daily rituals, it is still early morning. The sun is just peaking over the tall pines behind my home. There’s a breathless clarity to the finality of the night sky. Though the first snows have melted following warming rains, the icy whisper from the light wind reflects the 10o temperature. The dew on the lawn sparkles like diamonds in the early morning light. This beauty regardless of the bone chilling temperature is like a melody of nature’s ragas; each bird that has wintered over and weathered cold freezing temperature sings their plaintive or exuberant bhajans as a testament to their avian community and the appearance of the light. My habitual morning meditation is either a wall sitting in the tradition of Soto Zen Buddhist practice, beginning with traditional gongs on a Daitokuji Singing Bowl with accompanying Buddhist chants or Sanskrit chants from the Upanisads I learned in Ooty and Varkala. Outward circumstances or mood dictates what ritualized process I may slip into.

Adjacent to a colorful cabinet strewn with greenery, there is a small make-shift altar on a low table where one of Guru's ever present pictures sits along with my great grandmother, a negative of her in a house dress and apron wrapped around a 6” steel cylindrical bar, made by my daughter Aruna as part of her final Division III project at Hampshire College, picturing a stalwart, full bodied Ukrainian women from a bygone, agrarian generation; a porcelain yellow rose on a stand from China, an item I took from my mother's treasures after her death; and a feather from a pink flamingo, which the Greeks associated with life, death, rebirth and transformation. Nearby, on the top of well-crafted, upright table made by my youngest son while in high school, sits a very old Bronze Buddha along with a candle, fresh flowers and a small ceramic bowl filled with water. Like so many photographs taken by friends across the globe that frequently touches the heart, this one of Guru is hanging out with my great, grandmother, my mother and the flamingos. Though I wasn’t physically present, I believe this photo may have been taken long ago by Sraddha Durand. The following tanka, a Japanese poetic form, in a more playful meter, is my attempt to capture that sublime moment, an essence I have hugged close all these years.

                        stillness - his wool cap

                        pointed like a gnome’s, he sits

                        on a bag of rice

                        surrounded by the bustling marketplace

                        a knowing glint in his eyes

Though I have had a glorious full life, it has been challenging to be in that ever swinging pendulum between vidya and avidya, and yet, it is of utmost importance to clearly know how this polarity operates without negation, resistance, and guardedness while actualizing a steady and comfortable asana throughout my daily life. In verse 68 of the Atmopadesa Satakam as expounded upon in That Alone, Guru reminds us of Narayana Guru’s clear revaluation where he categorically states how paramount and critical it is to bring our penetrating knowledge and understanding of how these seeming contradictory fields or tendencies present themselves to the mind and intellect; to be on the side of the Self without leaving or ignoring the call of the body, “to be in this body and to live this life.” Thus, the verse commentary states:

When the spiritual insight predominates, we should see that is how the supreme ground of everything lends its light, power, energy, sense of wonder, and truthfulness to infuse everything. These come again and again as a kind of pulsation. Like the alternation of light and dark, vidya and avidya always operate, but one who knows the secret of both rises above them. One who holds a central position, watching with an evenness of mind, can accept both.

The process of settling the mind with intention in order to cultivate the ability to remember dreams prior to falling asleep is not an area I’ve placed much emphasis upon for many, many years. Carl Jung would be appalled. However, one morning during a recent contemplative group study of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, I woke up quite early, around 3 AM, remembering a dream. Perhaps it was due to all the electromagnetic activity from solar flares and the visible Aurora Borealis that gave the pranic functions a bit of a shake, activating the udana; or it was in fact a synergy caused by the depth of ruminations as we explored each mantra activating the collective unconscious. In any event, in this “waking” dream, the expansive surface of an iridescent blue ocean appeared in juxtaposition to a clear blue cloudless sky. An imperceptible oscillation on the surface of the water produced ripples sparkling in the afternoon sun. I was swimming with ease across this sparkling expanse, taking even, practiced strokes; I turned to my right and saw Narayana Guru swimming alongside of me, not more than 4 feet away, his shaved scalp and cheeks with his short, grey beard were cresting just above the warm surface. Then he lifted his head out of the sunlit waters, all aglow, and turned toward me; when our eyes met, I woke with a start, pulsing with a heightened sense of wonder, realizing with greater assurance, that in the words of Nagarjuna, “samsara and nirvana are one.”

Following this Dream and its insights, I found myself more cognizant of my devotion to the contemplative process and the importance of its steadfast cultivation and value; its roots intimately nourished by a lineage of wisdom teachers whose mysteries have been expounded upon by the rishis for millennia. As I’ve delved more fully into the hidden depths of each commentary by Guru Nitya, irrespective of text, I am not only washed by the waters of his inspiration, benefited by his years of tapasya and sacrifice, I am also learning to further weather and root out my dysfunctional samskaras and ego factors to fix more wholeheartedly on “self-luminous principles” and their underlying ultimate truth. Guru again provides great solace when he further validates the value of contemplation required of an aspirant:

When one is a bhakta in continuous contemplation of one’s real Self, one is no longer a seeker, but a knower (jnani). All the dismembered parts are conjoined (yoga arudha). The many are replaced by the one (kavalam)….One transcends the modalities of nature (gunatita) and is no longer caught in the orbital cycle of birth and death.

As with the cosmic person, viraj, Guru Nitya eloquently states that “our infinitude in time and space and mass and all the intertwined laws governing the most gross and subtle become a field where continuous sacrifices are going on and ceaseless resurrections are happening.” And thus, through our activities within our community of involvement “we are propitiating the shining ones that account for the very reality of our lives.”

With a mind filled with many thoughts and ideas to discuss, and conundrums to solve, I went on many a walk with Guru Nitya, either alone or with differing members of our Gurukula family. There were many such places throughout India, including Ernakulam, Kochi, Bangalore (Bengaluru), Trivandrum, Varkala, Mettupalayam, Coonoor, Cochin, Coimbatore, and Udhagamandalam, where we walked the streets, back alleyways and dirt paths. One such evening walk brought us down a path overlooking the valley below Fernhill where we stopped to appreciate the setting sun. It was so embracingly beautiful. At that time, I had no idea this would be my last physical contact with Guru. As the day flowed toward night, the sky changed from a cobalt blue mixed with pinkish hues to a darker rose, gradually spreading out across the horizon in a vast cloudless sky, Guru took both my hands in his and chanted:

then Silence.