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SHAKTIPAT I. Arriving in India is like entering a carnival that has been going on, uninterrupted, for five thousand years. Within minutes of stepping out of the airport, I felt over-saturated with sensations. I had been before, years ago, when I was eighteen. But back then, I had gone only to get away from America, my family, my sheltered, suburban past. I had been drawn by India’s reputation for magic and miracles but had spent all my time partying and travelling the freak circuit, drifting from Goa to Pushkar to Mahabalipuram. This time I was thirty, with a very definite purpose. I had come to see a guru, an enlightened master, a woman named Swami Chidvilasananda. I had first heard about her while I was living in Milan. A stranger in a café struck up a conversation with me and mentioned her name. The moment I heard it I felt strangely drawn, wanting to find out more about her. Over the next few weeks I read every book on her I could find, made regular visits to her yoga center in Milan, and one evening, while watching a video of her, I inexplicably broke down in tears. Another evening, while sitting at home, I could have sworn I heard her voice chanting mantras in my head. It lasted at least an hour and the whole time I ran around the apartment checking the radio, Walkman, TV set, to see if I had left something on. In the end, nothing was on. But I continued to grasp for some normal explanation, because the alternative seemed too unsettling to imagine. Even though I had gone to India to see a guru I can’t say I believed in God. After all, I had been a skeptic and hostile atheist my entire life. With this trip, I was following contradictory impulses: one part of me wanted to believe the woman was genuine while another part hoped to prove she was a fake. From Mumbai, I traveled by private car three hours east, passing through dense jungle, and arrived in the village of Ganeshpuri. The car let me off at the gates of the ashram—a sprawling complex, bleached white, topped with domes and spires. In the distance, a tall ridge of mountains circled the valley. Inside, it was surprisingly cool. There were great marble columns, marble floors, a large courtyard. Exotic birds flew through the halls. No one seemed to speak above a whisper. The only sound was chanting, piped through a speaker system, and the slapping of bare feet. I checked in and was led to a huge tent where at least a hundred cots were lined up one beside another. I dropped my bags and was then shown the ashram’s daily schedule: 3 AM - 4 AM: Arati (Chant) 4 AM - 5 AM: Meditation 5 AM - 6:30 AM: Guru Gita (Chant) 6:30 AM - 7:30 AM: Breakfast 7:30 AM - 11 AM: Seva (Selfless Service) 11 AM - 12 AM: Rudram (Chant) 11 AM - 12 AM: Darshan (Audience with Guru) 12 AM - 1 PM: Noon Chant 12 AM - 1:30 PM: Lunch 1:30 PM - 5:30 PM: Seva (Selfless Service) 5:30 PM - 6: 30 PM: Hatha Yoga 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM: Dinner 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM: Evening Chant 8:30 PM - 10 PM: Meditation 10 PM: Lights out
Clearly, for everyone, the highlight of the day was darshan—an opportunity to spend a one-on-one moment with the guru. I was surprised at how everyone I talked to was so devoted to the guru. She was all they could speak of. Her disciples seemed drunk with love for her, ready to surrender to her will at a moment’s notice. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this concept, the idea of offering one’s self to the authority of another. It offended my basic belief of what constitutes character, independence, strength. The first time I met her I was nervous and tongue-tied, captivated by her beauty, her deep voice, the way she sat before me like a mountain, the movement of her long, elegant fingers as she gestured. She was in her mid thirties, dressed in orange robes, with short, glistening black hair, severe cheekbones, large elongated eyes, and a glance that seemed to turn on a dime from tender to terrifying. I remember she was playful, laughed easily, and recommended that I work in the garden. Over the next days, sleep-deprived, I followed the schedule as best as I could. On one hand, I was functioning in a state of exhaustion; on the other hand, I felt charged with a surprising, unusual sort of energy, which the ashramites referred to as shakti. I remember spending hours, alone, working in the garden, in unimaginable heat, wondering why I was doing it and who I was doing it for. Some moments I found myself full of rage, other moments I felt as if I was being cleansed from the inside out. My favorite seva (selfless service) was picking flowers in the early morning and delivering them to the priests at the temple. Often the priests were chanting when I arrived and as I entered the temple I would feel suddenly overcome with a delicious sort of sleepiness. I never wanted to leave. Eventually, one of the priests would take the flowers from me in a reverential way and then place them at the feet of the murti (a statue of a saint or deity that is believed to be alive) and then I would have to go. About a week into my stay at the ashram, I got in line and slowly made my way up for darshan. One by one, people in front of me got down on their knees and bowed before the feet of the guru, while the guru took a long peacock feather and brushed each one over the top of the head with it. The whole last week I had bowed before the guru in a perfunctory way, feeling a bit awkward, doing it out of respect for the custom, but feeling none of the passion others seemed to bring to the moment. This time, however, as I knelt down to bow and the guru touched her peacock feather to the crown of my head, I felt something change within me, a subtle shift in my awareness. When I stood up again, I felt light-headed and enormously relieved—of what I couldn’t say—and then, with unimaginable force, wave after wave of some pure, all-encompassing bliss started to surge up inside me. I felt almost too intoxicated to move, but managed to walk a few steps before sitting down on the floor of the courtyard. I stared at the guru, transfixed, wondering if she were somehow responsible for these feelings of unconditional love washing over me for no good reason. As tears began rolling down my cheeks, my face broke into a smile, and I started to giggle involuntarily. I remember looking around, surrounded by Indian men, feeling vaguely embarrassed. I found that the more I focussed my awareness on the guru, the more intense were the waves of feeling. So I narrowed my attention more and more, concentrating on her form and, with no real sense of what was happening, found myself overcome with genuine devotion. I felt little fluttery, serpentine movements rise up my spine, which increased in intensity until my entire body was shaking violently. And the top of my head, where she had touched it with the peacock feather, grew as hot as a griddle. My chest inflated beyond its normal size and I began to spontaneously breathe in a strange, frenetic rhythmic pattern. I was more frightened at this point than anything. I felt as if I had lost all control of my body. But, although my body seemed to be under assault, I recognized that deep down my consciousness was unmoved. I was sure that the guru was somehow responsible for my state and realized that she wanted me to surrender completely. At once, it became clear that only my ego, my sense of individuality, was holding me back from merging with the Absolute. With this understanding, the guru suddenly turned for me into a body of scintillating white light. The next instant, she was in her normal form; then, once again, she dissolved into light. Back and forth she went, as if she were teaching me, so that there could be no doubt, that her body was not solid but made of divine light. My body was still shaking uncontrollably but it seemed to be happening elsewhere, to have no connection to me. My eyes turned back into my head and I plunged into meditation and experienced my own body dissolving into white light, the same light that had emanated from the guru. For some moments then, there was no “me,” only the light, which I understood to be the essence of all things. When I opened my eyes again, the tremors and frenetic breathing had stopped. I was utterly still and as I looked around I had a glimpse of how I imagine saints must see the world. I saw everything as interconnected, as a single, vast body of light, as God manifest in the world, in me, in every last thing. There was no separation, no duality, because God was not only in the world, He/She was the world. It was as if someone had simply corrected my lenses, tweaked them a degree or two. It seemed so obvious. How had I missed it before? I remember witnessing this magnificent play of energy moving about the courtyard. Essentially, I was watching God—which in some way, far beyond the reach of my intellect, included me—entertain Him/Herself. And I saw how there could be no moment without God’s presence or grace. But then, for no apparent reason, my awareness shifted and all at once the world returned to the way it had been before. II. As I write this ten years later, I am struck by how far away my words are from expressing the actual experience. It was much more than this and, at the same time, altogether simpler. And with the memory comes a degree of sadness, for I have never fully realized the intensity of that state again. Sometimes, my mind tries to discount what happened, explain it away. And, on a daily basis, the world around me conspires against my faith that such a reality actually exists. But I continue to cling to the understanding drawn from that morning and guard it as something sacred—a gift. Over the next few weeks at the ashram, I found myself melting—there’s really no other word for it—with love. It was as if my heart had been cracked open and was now expanding like an accordion. Whenever I came into the presence of the guru, the atmosphere changed dramatically. She might be simply walking past and I would suddenly feel everything charged with a powerful stillness. I would find myself, at the same time, feeling giddy with love and enormously sleepy. Only I discovered it wasn’t precisely sleepiness I was feeling but the pull of meditation. In the past, when I tried to meditate, nothing really happened—thoughts continued to flood my mind. But now, whenever I sat down, even for a few minutes, I found myself plunging into a deep, serene pool of thoughtlessness. During this time, I also experienced great emotional upheaval. I found myself re-visiting my father’s death and the collapse of my first marriage. Both events took place ages ago and yet I experienced them as if they had just happened. It was like undergoing years of psychoanalysis in a few days. And by no means was I alone in experiencing this. It was not uncommon to see people weeping or laughing or shaking uncontrollably. Within the ashram, it all fell under the heading of a kriya—the purifying effect of kundalini. By this point, I was convinced the guru was the genuine article. I had read, before meeting her, that the only way to determine if a guru is authentic is if she awakens your longing for God. And she had certainly done that for me. In fact, I couldn’t even recall why, only days before, I had been an atheist. Every morning, during darshan, I would sit in the courtyard and watch her, study her like a sacred text. In my mind, her every gesture held profound meaning. Every moment with her was an opportunity for transcendence. I was beginning to grasp what a fellow devotee meant when he said, “I don’t go to the guru just for what she says, but simply to watch her tie her shoes.” One particular morning, during darshan, I noticed a very old Indian man, dressed in white, with a massive chest and spindly legs. Ignoring the line, he walked straight up to the side of the guru’s chair, placed a rose on top of her head and left it balanced there. The guru, meanwhile, never acknowledged him. She continued on as before, passing her peacock feather over each person’s head, occasionally speaking. Then the old man bent over, formed his hands into a cup, and, as if he were washing himself, dipped his hands into the guru’s lap and passed them over his head and chest. It was as if the guru’s lap formed a pool of some invisible substance that only the old man could see. He did this over and over again, scooping up what was essentially air and tossing it over himself. And all along, the guru never looked at him once. Finally, when he seemed to have finished, he lifted the rose from her head and walked away. Over the next week, he was there every day, performing the same ritual, and I became fascinated by his every movement. I discovered that he was one of the oldest, most revered Brahmin priests in all of India. And I came to realize that he went to the guru, like all of us, because she was a rare storehouse of spiritual energy. It was not just air he was scooping up from her lap and dousing himself with, but a concentration of what the Hindus call shakti—the feminine, transformative power of God. Every Thursday night I had dishwashing seva and, even when I tried to think of it as an offering, it was still tedious. Usually there was a team of five or six of us in the dish room, but one day I walked in and found myself all alone. Before me stood the wreckage from lunch, a huge pile of dirty dishes, pans, cooking trays, great pots coated with dried dhal. Particularly disheartening were the pots. Stacked one on top of the other, they nearly reached the ceiling. I realized I would never be able to finish by dinnertime, but I decided I would do what I could. Now and then, as I was scrubbing, I would lose heart, but then I would remember to focus on the present and not be concerned with the outcome. And with each pot, I tried to hold the awareness that I was doing this not to please me or anyone else, necessarily, but as if I were the hand of God. Then, all at once, the guru was standing there beside me. “I realized you needed my help,” she said. “So I came.” She put on an apron and a pair of rubber gloves and started cleaning one of the pans. I looked at her in utter amazement. Not knowing what else to say, I whispered, “Thank you.” Within moments, a half dozen people, who had been following her, joined in, embarrassed to find her working while they looked on. She turned to me with a sly smile, as if this were all a private joke between us. And then it came to me: I was now her disciple. In that moment, I realized that she had taken me under her wing and, from now on, she would always be there for me, to help me, guide me. Somehow, wherever I was, I had the sense we would always be linked, and my eyes welled up with gratitude. She hadn’t awakened this spiritual fire raging inside me just to let it die. She had made a commitment to nurture it, watch over it, until nothing was left but my own divinity. The day before I left the ashram I fell into a terrible depression. I didn’t want to leave. My life back home, all my old priorities, seemed meaningless now. But I had already extended my stay. I had canceled jobs, stood up clients, let months-worth of bills go unpaid. When I went up for darshan that day I said goodbye to the guru and told her how I felt, that I couldn’t bear this sadness any longer. She took from around her neck a garland of jasmine (the flower of Lord Ganesh) and draped it around my neck. She said, “Whenever you need to, breathe this and you will feel better.” I held the garland up beneath my nose and inhaled deeply. In a flash, the sweet blossoms washed my consciousness clean. I had never experienced such an instantaneous swing of emotions: I felt immediately refreshed, buoyant, joyful. My God, I thought, someone should bottle this, sell it, and relieve the misery of the world! But, of course, it wasn’t the flowers that uplifted my spirits but her grace. On my last morning there, I picked flowers, as usual, and delivered them to the temple. I said goodbye to the priests, who each pressed their hands together, as if in prayer, and called out, “Namaskar”— I bow to the Lord who exists within you. A few minutes later, I was standing with my bags outside the gates of the ashram, waiting for my bus to Mumbai. Along the ridge of the mountains I could see rain clouds gathering. In India, rain, especially the first rain of the season, is seen as a blessing. And within moments, a light shower began, turning the dirt road into red mud. As the bus appeared, I waved my arms and it skidded to a stop. Loud music blared from its windows. Passengers were sitting on the roof. As I hesitated for a moment before the entrance, I could see God’s myriad forms and staring faces pressed side by side. Then I drew my bags close to my body and merged with the crowd.
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