Part 2 of chap. 2

Guru no. 2

After two years at ^–Dehra Dun, my role had gradually changed from that of student on the spiritual path to that of useful full time worker, in the temples, the gardens, and in swamiji’s quarters as his personal helper. I did not really want to drift into this role, as I much preferred to sit with books, meditate, or do yoga exercises. I had lived an extremely simple life, but then gave up most of my austere practices after my second year at Dehra Dun, and went almost in the opposite direction. I say almost, because there was a limit to the availability of comforts and luxuries in the ashram. I wore good quality dhotis, ate two proper meals a day and had tea and milk with snacks – a luxurious lifestyle: When I had the run of the place to myself, I had an even freer hand with my eating and sleeping habits. I began to have meals cooked for me by devotees, and had access to make myself a snack or drink whenever I felt like it. Gradually I created comfortable quarters for myself in one of the side buildings and eventually even had the use of an indoor toilet!

At this time, I also became more and more interested in Shakti worship.

Shakti is the female aspect of divine power and consciousness. The goddess whose image is most well-known and popular in India is Durga, a many armed figure seated on a tiger. The power of Shakti is also recognised as ^–the body dwelling as Kundalini, & I did try out various mantras used in Shakti worship.

I had been initiated by swamiji into various mantras associated with Vishnu and Shiva, but nothing had been taught to me about Shakti. I realized that swamiji himself performed a lot of Durga puja and this was his favorite deity. However he would not initiate me into any mantras in this line and told me that the ones I had were sufficient. It was after this that I began to use my own initiative as far as choice of sadhana and deities were concerned. I started to study the relevant scriptural treatises (in Hindi and Sanskrit) and chose my own mantras, discarding the ones given to me by swamiji. I did not tell him of my new interests because at this time, three and a half years after my arrival, I was tending to go my own way in many other respects. Without making things too obvious, I avoided as much contact with him as possible. I had almost been convinced by him at one time that I should seek Indian citizenship.

I did feel bad for a while, because of harboring ideas about “deserting” swamiji, but I became increasingly resentful about the pressures put on me to try and make me stay. I began to plan my departure in more detail and retrieved my passport from swamiji’s safe, saying that I had to send it to the High Commission for some changes. In fact I only wanted to keep it because I felt that some people were going to try very hard to keep me in Dehra Dun. After all, I knew that it would be a great loss of face for swamiji and the ashram if I were to depart to seek a new guru.

Looking back over my years in the Dehra Dun ashram, I feel that in many ways I had arrived there as an extremely susceptible person. To a degree, I allowed myself to be brain washed. On arrival I had been traveling in an impoverished manner for nearly a year. I was young, at eighteen, and had smoked a lot of cannabis, which had dulled my mind to extent than I had not realized. Later in India I met other Europeans who became involved with a variety of sects, cults, and guru, often when the drugs proved unfulfilling.

When I came to leave Dehra Dun for good nearly four and a half years had passed since my arrival. I left surreptitiously at night, running away from this home as I had done before in England when aged seventeen. I intended at that stage to return to England and resume life there where I had left off. However, once I had departed from Dehra Dun and begun to feel “free” again, I found that a sadhu’s lifestyle still had a lot to offer. I decided to see a bit more of India and the incredible variety of people and places that were awaiting me. I wished also to seek out some other gurus and holy men, as I was dissatisfied with what I had achieved spiritually so far. Then I had several years of wandering India as a sadhu holy-man. (See previous books). Then I had my next major spiritual change of direction.

Just before the major change of direction spiritually,  I visited had a place north of Bombay at Tryambak. This is a village, overlooked by surrounding mountains and containing an important Shiva temple. To one side of the village was a hill called Nila Giri (Blue Mountain), where there was a long flight of concrete and stone steps leading to a plateau. Up there were small temples, a few wooden buildings and the home of Mahant Swami Siva Giri Maharaja with his small band of sadhu disciples. Shiva Giri, (literally Shiva Mountain), was a jovial, plumpish witty and talkative character. Although not a well-educated person, he was knowledgeable in the path of yoga. He was a sannyasin with ochre robes, although his real affiliation was to the Naga sect , (usually “wild” semi-naked sadhus). The sect of Giri sadhus, who all have this “surname”, have an offshoot called Goswamis who are married. I noticed that getting married from that particular brand of sannyasins was not all that unusual.

Shiva Giri gave me the nickname “London Giri” and began to call me that at all times. As I stayed at his akarda over the rainy season, this name came to be the one I was known by in Tryambak. Informally at least I was an honorary initiate into a Naga sect. I was able to learn a lot more about the traditions and practice of the sadhu’s life in India. Shiva Giri was an encyclopedia of such knowledge and was always eager to talk at length on such a subject to any interested audience. One of the pieces of information I gleaned concerned an ashram near Bombay. I was told that this particular place was massive both in building and garden space. It had been designed and constructed on most modern lines by a very interesting swami who had filled the place with foreign disciples. I resolved to visit this ashram and see if I could sample some of its modern amenities. I was getting too accustomed to bathing by a spring and using the woods for a toilet, and I wanted to remind myself of how Western people lived, spoke, and thought.

Up until now, since leaving my first guru, I had been searching^– for the teacher and path that would seem right for me. I wanted to feel that I had arrived on a spiritual plateau where I had full access to the inner guiding light. I had become half aware in terms of self-knowledge, but I felt unable to live my life as effectively as I wished. The next step was to return towards Bombay in order to visit the ashram of Swami Muktananda at Ganesh Puri. I had been hearing a lot about this place and of the wealthy guru and large contingent of overseas followers living there.

Right from the start I could tell that this ashram was going to be unlike anything I had experienced so far in India. I got off the bus outside a long, ornate, concrete and marble building which had impressive temple domes at each end. It was surrounded by a high wall, and stretched alongside a narrow country lane that led only to the village called Ganesh Puri. A sparse, barren and hilly landscape spread out in all directions, giving the place the effect of being an oasis in the desert. The scene was lent more impact by the fair skinned people milling about outside. The men were wearing sadhu type dhotis in bright orange, red and maroon hues, topped with day-glo colored shirts. The women had equally bright saris or robes of similar colors. Many sported silk or wool hats, and quite a few of the men had shaved heads. The whole initial effect of this ashram and its inmates was somewhat surreal. To me it was like arriving at the gates of heaven after traveling through the wilderness. The place was made more impressive by the lush gardens and orchards, which spread out into the distance behind the other ashram buildings of which I had seen only a part during my approach by bus.

Set into the middle of the high wall was a large, ornate archway. There were devotee helpers in attendance at the gate, directing the regular flow of visitors to one end of the courtyard where there was a many tiered rack for shoes, which was supervised by another ashram resident. From the marbled courtyard one could walk barefoot into the large, central prayer hall which contained, at one end, the shrine and life size marble statue of the deceased guru, Swami Nityananda. Everything here was of the best materials and looked both sparklingly modern and pleasing in design. The whole ashram, as well as the village of Ganesh Puri, had developed around Swami Nityananda, who had been the guru of Swami Muktananda.

Having received spiritual powers and abilities from his master, Swami Muktananda had dedicated both the temple and his yoga method to him. Swami Nityananda had been acknowledged as a Siddha, a perfect soul – by the thousands of pilgrims who had poured into Ganesh Puri for his darshan when he was alive. They still came in droves both to visit his rooms at Ganesh Puri, and his now more widely known disciple, Swami Muktananda and his new ashram.

Swami Nityananda had possessed a huge, corpulent figure and spent his time reclining on a couch dressed only in a loincloth. He was considered to be a Jivan Mukta. (Enlightened saint). Devotees and pilgrims would file past him quietly paying their obeisance’s to receive his touch, which alone was reputed to be capable of bestowing great spiritual awakening. One such visitor who arrived to stay and serve his new found master was the forty year old Swami Muktananda. He had been wandering the length and breadth of India for years, searching for a perfect guru who would guide him to true self-knowledge. Swami Muktananda received a powerful blessing from Swami Nityananda, and was then told by him to go away, meditate, and achieve final perfection through Siddha Yoga. Siddha Yoga is the way to self-realization through worship of, and adherence to, the teachings of the perfect, or Siddha Guru. It requires the follower to depend upon the process called shaktipaat, where the guru bestows the necessary grace. Shaktipaat awakens the disciple’s kundalini shakti; the sleeping “serpent power” coiled at the base of the spine.

After ten or so years of vigorous sadhana, Swami Muktananda returned to Ganesh Puri, acknowledged to have become a Siddha. On the death of Swami Nityananda he took up his guru’s mantle of spiritual power. Although his sty1e was very different from that of his master, he began to attract a large following from all over the world. In his mid-fifties, he took to wearing- bright, silky clothes, multi colored hats, and a variety of sunglasses. He traveled to Australia, Britain and America opening or creating Siddha Yoga centers wherever he went. He did not speak English or teach anything other than that concerning Siddha Yoga, the path to self-knowledge and connected aspects of the Hindu tradition. All his teachings and speeches were translated from Hindi. As the disciples and devotees from all over the world began flocking, so Swami Muktananda started giving out the brightly colored hats and shirts that were his own trademark. The ashram and its facilities grew at a rapid pace to accommodate the American and European disciples who wished to stay a few weeks or months. It became very popular also with the growing number of Bombay and Maharastran devotees. They inundated the ashram at weekends, arriving in the special buses that had been laid on from Bombay.

          In spite of my skepticism, I was interested in Swami Muktananda’s teachings as, to date, I had not come across a mahatma who was so clear in his advocacy of the Siddha Yoga path to awaken the Kundalini Shakti. When awakened, this serpent power eventually reaches the center or chakra situated at the crown of the head. The result is supposedly mukti, a freedom or liberation which is the same as nirvana, Zen awakening, or self realisation. I knew that the awakening of Kundalini could be accompanied by various physical effects, resulting in aspirants going into different trance states, or breaking into bouts of spontaneous dance like movements, (like the whirling and twisting of dervishes). I had read that other effects could occur, like the seeing of bright lights or the hearing of inner music. Personally I was doubtful, not only of Kundalini, but also of Swami Muktananda’s professed power to awaken it in all and sundry. I was told I could stay at the ashram as long as I liked by Swami Muktananda’s ashram manager, an ex-businessman who had wide control over everyday matters.

I decided to stay and accept whatever tasks were put my way. I also wanted to know why Babaji had so many followers who displayed such intense devotion. I wished to find out what his powers were and what his attraction was. Swami Muktananda had already made his first world tour before my arrival and had established centers in Australia, America and Britain. Owing to this recent tour there was, at the time of my stay, an expanding number of more than a hundred foreign devotees of both sexes living in the ashram. There were dormitory type facilities for both men and women. There were also a dozen or so permanent Indian disciples in residence, all holding the more major supervisory type jobs in the temple, the gardens, the office, or in Babaji’s personal service. Everyone, including the weekend guests, participated in the same basic daily programme. This meant a few hours work, bhajans for two hours, and an evening session of half an hour or so in the prayer hall. People were also encouraged to use the underground meditation rooms, which had plush satin cushions and upholstery, and to attend Babaii’s afternoon lectures. One was, however, free after attending the evening and morning prayers and doing a few hours work.

I found out very quickly that Swami Muktananda was a very powerful guru. He sat cross legged on his seat, sometimes jovial, sometimes fierce looking, but always emanating a kind of radiance. He looked at people with a penetrating gaze that seemed to be searching out unfathomable depths. I saw why he attracted so many. His presence and gaze were hypnotic. For all the outwardly playful, bubbling personality, one got the feeling that he was the wielder of some power and that he had been to a place where few had trodden. I found his aura almost frightening at times. I felt that he must have some of the same sort of power that creates presidents, dictators, popes, saints, and military giants like Napoleon or Alexander. I found it unnerving how his personal Shakti would draw devotees to stand around him all day, just staring and taking in his presence.

I was given plant watering as my job at first, but as I had knowledge of Indian languages, I soon became a helper at the main entrance, and began to guide groups of Indian visitors around the ashram. I quite enjoyed my role and found that I had quite a coveted post. I could take a group of, say, Maharastran villagers, around and show them the gardens, the plush meditation chambers, the temple and Babaji’s courtyard and platform seat where he gave darshan. I had plenty of contact with ordinary day visitors and was thus able to remain somewhat aloof from the mass of disciples whom I still felt were over entranced by Swami Muktananda. They seemed so dependent on him, right down to their very reason for existence. This was in spite of the fact that Swami Muktananda preached repeatedly that the true self within is unique – find it and you yourself will be a Siddha and your own guru. In this respect Babaji was always very self-effacing, pointing out that as the Sat Guru is within each individual, the external guru is only needed to guide one to this source. I wondered why, if his disciples were truly following his teachings, they were so subservient to his person, like faithful pets.

In spite of my feelings about many of Babaji’s devotees, I too began to experience trance like states during my meditation and bhajan sessions in the ashram. I began to sway about and then get up and dance in an introspective, blissful mood. I found that I began to lose a lot of the lethargy that had been building up since I stopped doing sadhana and started traveling. I started going, to sleep at 9 p.m. and getting up at 2.a.m. in order to meditate for three hours before the morning communal session. I could go into meditation very easily whilst in the special underground rooms, and I attained there a deep and profound stillness of my mind. At the same time I felt that generally I had more mental clarity than I had known before. In spite of the dramatic and positive effect the ashram was having on me, I still felt that I had little in common with the majority of disciples and followers of Babaji. I believed that I was getting somewhere spiritually without having to wander around and behave like one of the flock.

Although I was not a worshipper of the physical Muktananda, or a disciple follower, I began to feel that he was a Siddha and a Sat Guru. I stayed at the ashram or ten months and only on three occasions went up to Babaji and asked for some advice. The first time was due to finding that various mantras kept popping up in my mind and turning themselves over and over in seemingly automatic repetition. When I approached Babaji about this he said that the inner Shakti contained all mantras, and the awakening of this as Kundalini was causing the up rise and outflow of them all. Siddhas, he said, had knowledge spontaneously of all mantras and their uses. He recommended that if I was in any doubt about any japa (repetition) of a mantra, then I should repeat Om Guru Om. Om (or Aum) is the sacred word of Hinduism and is a mantra itself.

As well as giving me a mantra, Babaji gave me a new name. He had heard that I had been named London Giri by Mahant Shiva Giri sometime before and he told me that he knew Shiva Giri well. However, he said he thought the use of London with Giri was not very appropriate and suggested that I have a proper all Indian name. He told me that I should call myself Ganesh Giri, after Ganesh Puri, the name of the local village. Ganesh is actually the elephant form god in Hinduism, and is worshipped as the “remover of all obstacles”. From then on, Ganesh Giri was my name in India. Babaji told me that I was English and I would always be an Englishman whatever I decided to do. He felt that there would be no problem if I wanted to return to England and resume whatever life I chose, as my spiritual status would be unaffected, as it was unnecessary for me to be either a sadhu or a Hindu. He said that I would probably tire of being an Indian sadhu after a while. I was not at this stage thinking about returning to the West, but now I began to consider seriously again the pros and cons of it. I had been in India six years and, although I had not quite done all that I wanted to, I knew then in the back of my mind that I was going back “home” at some not too distant moment.

In l autumn 1972 I set off on my travels once more. Eventually I ended up living in a hut in a village in the middle of “nowhere”. I spent the spring and summer of 1973 wandering all over a large area to the north of the Narmada. I was getting to know a lot of people in that region, with the consequence that some “devotees” were looking around their own village localities in order to find a suitable spot for me to settle down.

I decided to spend a few days again as the guest of a very friendly goldsmith family in a village near Godhra in Gujarat state. That afternoon two men arrived to see me. They had traveled some ten miles by track, from an isolated village in an area inhabited mainly by farmers of a tribal caste. They had been sent as “envoys” to request me to come and stay in their village, which had on its outskirts a nice plot of temple land on a hill. There was a large “room” there built of mud and bricks, for the use of any sadhu who wished to stop off at ^–the village. They said it was an ideal spot for me to stay and I would find the outlook and tranquility most congenial.

I discovered that the two men were emissaries for the group of upper caste Hindus who lived and worked in their village. This group was somewhat isolated amongst the non vegetarian tribal castes who populated the area, who lived in thatch huts and worshiped nature spirits rather than Hindu gods. They were also promising to look after my basic food and other needs if I decided to reside in their village. My goldsmith host and some of his neighbors had told me that -the area to which I had been invited was inhabited by semi savage people who were only on the fringe of Hinduism. Most of them neither worshiped the Hindu gods, nor were interested in sadhus and holy men. My host tried to put me off going there. However, it felt to me that destiny was calling and I made arrangements to move to the village, which was called Kanod, later that week.

It turned out that I had a large welcoming party waiting to receive me, and garland me. Also present was a rather damp and bedraggled local band, of the village that was mostly used for wedding processions. I was ceremoniously paraded into the village to my temporary quarters. Just above the stream of water, on the village side, was a fifty foot bank and perched above it were the temple and the little kutir or hut I would be staying in. Several people were working there in the rain at that very moment, putting in a cement floor and generally making the place habitable for me. For the present time I was to have a room in the village hall, and there I was to spend the next week nursing a heavy cold, while the skies poured torrents outside. Kanod may have been considered to be a backwater place, but there were friendly people keen to see that I became established there. (Again my stay ther has been documented in some detail in several previous books).

During the two thirds of the year that I was at home in Kanod, I spent much of my day time in a state of inactivity, coming to life only in the cool of the mornings and evenings. The tin roof of my home produced unbearable heat during the hot days, so villagers had constructed a tile roofed open verandah with a raised platform on the side that faced the slight breezes. There I often sat and passed my time in a deck chair. Days, weeks, and months rushed by without really registering themselves. I had no need of a timepiece. Christmas and birthdays did not exist for me, and only the big Hindu festivities brought some change into my routine. I read no newspapers, I had no radio, or even books., and I was not interested in village gossip. I was quite content for long periods to let my Prarabdha take its course.

Prarabdha is a Sanskrit term frequently seen in Vedanta texts. It means literally “the fruits of previous actions”. A sannyasin is not supposed to do any activity (karma), which would create fresh Prarabdha to be experienced in the next or after life. The ultimate, (and proper), state for such a person is to let the fruits or consequences of previous actions, (in this or earlier lives), spend themselves naturally with the passage of time. According to Vedanta theory, Moksha or liberation from the cycle of birth and re-birth is obtained in this manner, i.e. when all Prarabdha is exhausted. Prarabdha is thus the passing of time and events that occur quite spontaneously without push or interference. To passively enjoy or suffer ones Prarabdha might seem to be an extremely negative attitude to life in terms of Western ideals and culture. In the West, the more one does or achieves, (especially materially), the more one is honored or respected. In Hindu philosophy the reverse can be true (In real life this can be sometimes true). In India the person who renounces worldly striving and accomplishments is often revered by many as a holy sage, a guru, and an altogether superior type of person.

My stay at Kanod was marked and dominated by the vast amount of space that I had purely to myself. I did not initially become bored because as I found even the most silent passage of time to be full of fascination. I sometimes thought that it would be interesting to be back in England, to use libraries, watch television and be entertained in numerous ways. When I did eventually return to England, I found that I quickly tired of the seemingly endless facilities for the occupation of leisure time.

Had I attained a state of self-knowledge and thus achieved Moksha? Furthermore, after all those years in India, had I found my own true religion and philosophy’: If I had, did my beliefs prove to be lasting? I developed a clearly defined philosophic outlook on life, which was not to change with the passage of time. I gained a deep mental satisfaction from my spiritual knowledge, and I find to this day that it guides me towards a calmness and equipoise, which alleviate the ups and downs of everyday life. My practice of yoga brought me to a stage where I had, if I wished, a strong degree of control over my life. For me, the sense of control over circumstances was, and is, mellowed by my acceptance by the doctrines of karma and Prarabdha. (Which means some surrender to the inevitability of fate).

I gained optimism and a belief that life’s events are enacted by an ordained force, which works for our ultimate benefit. From this point of view the opposites of pain and pleasure, gain and loss, become equally acceptable. I had discovered that Mukti or Moksha is not a trance like state but simply the ability to accept the world as it is, and ourselves as we are. This does not preclude room for change, or personal endeavor, providing, that is, that one is able to be unaffected by success or failure. Also, that any objective or goal is itself not the only end. The journey, the effort, is also a goal. In terms of self-realization, what we seek to be or achieve is already within, already available.

Goodbye India

I began to recognize again that my destiny was not, perhaps, after all the sadhu life, either spent in my little kutir or in wandering around India. I knew that if I was patient and built up my following over say ten years, then I could develop my base into an ashram that resembled something like that of my ambitions. However, quite suddenly I began to dream and think of England and. English things regularly. I had a peculiar feeling as if a veil had suddenly been lifted, allowing my previous identity as Raymond to intermingle with my Indian role as Ganesh Giri. I sensed that my life in India was reaching the point of maturity, and that I could achieve no more in my endeavors to fathom the depths of Hinduism and yogic lore.. Something was pulling me in a radical new direction, not for the first time in my life. I think that the desire to be an explorer and traveler is really deeply ingrained within me, and it was this that eventually took me such a long way from home and into years of adventure. (That then continued as I wanted more different life experiences). I left India & arrived in 1976 at Heathrow, London, nearly eleven years after leaving England. Somewhat bewildered at first & staying with my parents, I then felt almost as if I had been away on some tour for a short while! Within a weeks I quickly took to wearing shirts, trousers, etc. and hardly felt that I had been a Hindu sadhu for ten years.

Soon I was accepted to do three years training as a student psychiatric nurse and moved to live in nurses’ quarters. It was a new phase of my life that was to prove very interesting. After qualifying I moved to New Zealand. I thus have been a Mental Health Practitioner since 1980.

Wherever I went, however, I took with me the simple philosophy that I had gained from my years in India, What I had been looking for was already part of me – if not all of me.