Introduction to blog 7 – My Personal Journey in Om Divine Grace Yoga.

Blog seven is about my continued journey in Om Divine Grace Yoga, which is spread over 58 years. Blog one to five contain the introduction, overview and contents of this yogic pathway. Then in blog six I move on to personal spiritual journey over 58 years, (not the broad autobiography). I have written about the spiritual content in different places my previous books. I have written about the autobiographical content in different places my previous books. I have revised all that material with commentary and guidance. Om Divine Grace Yoga is designed to enable practical use by a spiritual practitioner interested in this pathway. Of course anything here can be approached as just reading matter of interest.

Historically, this pathway is approached via a Guru for initiation and guidance. In our modern world this might not be feasible or practical, given the nature of this dark era (Kali Yuga). It may not be possible to get a guru who can assist you in this area.

It is necessary now to offer this spiritual pathway and process as an option for any practitioner, desiring spiritual progress. I have therefore taken excepts from my autobiography as relating to my spiritual “progress” only, & added additional sources to chronicle or map my own spiritual advances over the years, which has culminated in this  material which is to become a book of guidance into Om Divine Grace Yoga.

Part one, (starting at blog 6), is about my spiritual development in India with my first guru, spread over four years. Then this is continued with my years of pilgrimage wandering around mainly South India. The modified autobiographical excerpts are from my book English Man, Beggar-Man, Holy-Man. You can also read this book here on this site, under “Books”.

A lot of my guidance came from the Inner Guru, which can be accessed to get “initiation” and awakening. This component is an important part of my Om Divine Grace Yoga experience, and can be understood with the explanation of how it worked for me.  If inner Divine Guidance is received, there will be appropriate clarity. (This guidance can also be accessed via surrender to ones chosen Deity). Good intent and practice is required for good results.

My Indian Journey towards Om Divine Grace Yoga

Part one continued – the pilgrimage years

Thus I set off once more into the unknown, by catching the night train to Delhi, which arrived in the early hours. I then immediately purchased a ticket to Vijayawada near Madras, for fifty rupees, third class. A thousand mile, three day train journey for the equivalent of then three pounds sterling

On recommendation from a person on the train I went to a temple where very senior monk was staying, He gave me the address and telephone number of a high caste Brahmin family in Madras. He explained that this family had looked after an English sadhu before and would be keen to meet me. In Madras, (now Chennai), I was given a warm welcome by Balu and his family.

Balu gave me lots of advice about temples and yogis to visit in all of South India. Balu prepared a lengthy itinerary of pilgrimage for me on paper, and gave me also one hundred rupees to help me on my way. I kept the idea of returning to England at some stage, if life became too difficult.

My first stop would be at Tiruvanamalai to visit a well-known ashram where Ramana Maharshi had spent the last thirty years of his life (until 1950). He was a yogi of few words who reclined motionless for hours on a simple couch, at the foot of which devotees sat and bathed in the tranquility that he emanated. He told his followers to find the Inner Self within and to ask “Who am I?”

I stayed three days and spent most of my time meditating in the room where the Master’s couch is preserved; where visitors sit as they did in the days when he was alive. In that simple, wooden floored room there was an atmosphere of indescribable calmness. It was like a heavy haze of tranquility permeated every corner. There were always people entering and leaving the room, touching the couch, standing in silence, or sitting for a while. Yet to me the peace seemed undisturbed by any comings and goings. That was also how it was described as being when Ramana Maharshi was alive to sit or recline on his couch in that room.

            My travels to many pilgrimage places is the enumerated in my book. As I her focus on my spiritual journey I describe meetings with significant sages, gurus & Enlightened being.

I reached Cape Comorin by bus, and had darshan of the temple of Kanya Kumari Goddess, who is the young virgin form. I had this devotion then of seeing God as the Goddess, so this seemed to be a major turning point, as indeed I was at the place where I could go no further, (South).

I felt embarrassed and confused that this could also be my divine deity. I made my obeisance to the small idol in the temple after joining the throng, but rather than staying and feeling “at home”, I felt impelled to get away fast and move a long way away! I was puzzled about this but could not understand what was going on for me in a psychological sense. (It did take another thirty years to understand the dynamics of my human and spiritual conflicts)

So far, to that day, I had met a variety of swamis and holy men. Some of them were very learned and pious, but all had only an intellectual grasp of the state of self-realization. They had all seemed to me to be lacking in any strong outward or external signs of being perfected souls.

After some months I returned to Madras. Firstly I went by bus to a small village to see a holy man who had built up a reputation both in local villages and in Madras itself. This sage had devotees and visitors from all levels of society; farmers; teachers; politicians; and film stars. I found his abode quite easily as he lived on the open verandah of a simple house that faced a narrow main street of a village. Inside the tiny verandah he sat on a small platform at one end, with enough space for two or three people at the other. The regular flow of visitors had to queue in the street and shuffle forward to reach the verandah, where they could be within arms’ reach of the holy man. A bus service ran right past the place and would stop outside to let some people off and to allow other passengers to make their obeisance with folded palms. Opposite the verandah, facing across the one lane street, was an open tent like construction where I sat down amongst other devotees and visitors to watch the proceedings.

The sadhu was dressed in a single dhoti and sat cross-legged on his platform, occasionally bending his head down to talk quietly to somebody in the queue. He looked very old, had matted hair that reached below his waist, and possessed very, very long nails. They curved in arcs and were each about a foot long: He sat with his hands resting on his knees, palms facing upward. Into these palms, visitors were placing offerings of rupee notes, pieces of fruit, or sweets. Two or three helpers who stood on the verandah were removing the offerings as they accumulated, and in the case of money, putting it into a square steel box. The fruit was pushed through a gap in the window which appeared to open onto a small room. Fruit was piled up high against the window and seemed to be filling up a large area of the room.

This I thought most peculiar as fruit rots easily in a hot climate. Even more fascinating, I found, were the cats. There were half a dozen of them wandering around, sitting on the swami’s lap, and sometimes perching on his shoulder. There were several large bowls in front of him, and some of the visitors were bringing offerings of milk to tip into the bowls. Obviously the way to this guru’s heart, in order to get his blessings, was to please his cats: The cats could also pop in and out of the gap in the window of the “fruit room” and I guessed that they at least kept the mice away.

The helpers on the verandah were obviously disciples as they regulated the queue, dealt with the offerings, (and the milk bowls), and, as became apparent, fed their guru by hand. They also put lighted cigarettes in his mouth and these were being proffered frequently by visitors. The swami would suck on each cigarette in one long continuous inhalation until it was half burned down. Then he would gulp before continuing with the rest of his smoke. Hardly any smoke would emerge from his mouth or nose, and I do not know what he did with it.

I found out more, because I spent a few days living in the open air structure across the road. Their guru had gone into samadhi trance over five years before and since then had only eaten what people fed him. Moreover, he sat in padmasan – lotus posture permanently and did not wash himself, clean his teeth or clean anything. His body carried on while his mind went elsewhere. He defecated where he sat and, according to his disciples, had built up quite a “pile” around himself before people started looking after his physical cleanliness.

In the early days of his samadhi he was not recognized as a holy man and the local villagers would just give him a bit of food from time to time. Quickly however, he attracted devotees who began to wash, bath and feed him on a regular basis. Those helpers had moved him to his present spot and now, with all the money collected from donations, were beginning to build a small ashram. According to his loyal servers, the swami ate very little and his feces were never smelly, always giving off a pleasant odor.

I noticed myself, whenever I went near him, that his body seemed to give off a somewhat sweet and sickly smell, not a disagreeable one however. The swami spoke rarely and then only in a quiet whisper. The devotees in the queue would ask him things and he would lean over and whisper something back. According to all that the visitors told me, he spoke in a very intelligent manner, in a soft voice. Even if he did not answer a question, he would listen intently and nod, or just flicker his eyelids. I went up to him several times and said that I was traveling round trying to improve my self-knowledge by meeting gurus and holy men. He always smiled at me and appeared to understand my English, (which I was told he knew). Apparently he gave instructions to his helpers that I was to be looked after while I stayed, as indeed I did for three days.

I learnt that because the swami had been permanently in a cross-legged pose for several years, he was unable to unfold his legs. He did not seem inclined to move any way. Several times a day a curtain would be pulled across the tiny verandah and the disciples would take in water, towels and a fresh dhoti in order to perform their puja, by service of their guru. I also discovered that the accumulation of fruit in the small room did not rot, but dried out slowly. I presumed that the dry air and the enclosed space were preventing any decomposition. Most gifts of fruit and sweets in ashrams are redistributed as prasad to visitors.

Prasad is any food that has been offered to a holy person or to a deity in a temple, and thus has been consecrated. However, this particular swami’s philosophy was that the donations of fruit contained the sins of the givers, which they were symbolically passing on. He did not want the sins to be redistributed and had ordered that all the fruit be deposited in that small room.

Several visitors from Madras spoke to me in English and told me that some very well-known and influential people would come here to try and receive the holy man’s blessings. Usually they wanted to succeed in work, marriage, money, or some other materialistic area. At that time I thought that his sort of spirituality seemed to be a pointless but genuine realm, and I did not feel that his experience was the sort I was seeking. It just stirred up doubts in my mind about some spiritual goals.

I visited another intriguing and fascinating character. He had built a small ashram around a temple, which was situated on top of a hillock right next to the Madras/Bangalore road. A year before I went there, this hill top temple was a tiny, neglected shrine, with only the odd passer by bothering to climb up for darshan. It had a small, stone image depicting a form of Vishnu worshipped locally, and was reached by walking up a rough path to the hill top, which was about three hundred feet above the road. One of the local Brahmin caste villagers, who happened to be an electrician by trade, used to visit this temple from time to time on his way to or from work. He did not arrive home one night, and by next day all were out looking for him. Some of the villagers found him sitting in a trance state in the temple

The electrician could not be shaken from the trance state depths for several days, even though his wife, mother and family arrived quickly on the scene. He was left sitting in the temple. When he came out of his samadhi, he seemed transformed. For a start, he was unable to speak, and began to write what he had to say on paper, and later on a slate. He wrote down that he had seen the deity in person, and had been transfixed by the experience. Furthermore he said that he was staying at the temple, possibly forever:

Over the next few weeks this, by now ex electrician drifted in and out of deep trance states, hardly eating or sleeping. He used to have periods of deep breathing sounding like bellows, so powerful that people could hear him from the bottom of the hill.

Villagers started to gather around the temple to see what was happening and in the following months, people from nearby began to regard this once family minded man as a holy soul. People brought him food at first and then helped him with his new found interest in the temple’s renovation. The new guru announced that he was in direct communication with the temple god and had been ordered to make the place into a most beautiful and resplendent shrine. When I visited, the place was indeed being transformed into a palace.

The simple stone idol was now clothed in gold and silver armor and festooned with jewels. Buildings had been erected around the temple to provide for visitors’ needs and at the bottom of the hill large constructions were underway to accommodate kitchens and various living areas. I found the man who had started all this, sitting in the temple staring with sparkling eyes at the deity. A queue of visitors had lined up ready to meet him when he came out of the temple, and they were seated on a large carpet at the front. The yogi emerged, sat outside, and on his slate began to scribble answers and responses to his visitors’ questions and requests. Often when asked a question, he would gaze in the deity’s direction for a while before he “received” his answer, which he then passed back to the questioner. He explained that he received any power or ability through the temple god only. Powers indeed as the ever increasing flow of visitors proclaimed:

Most of the people coming to see him would ask for a specific blessing, such as promotion, wealth or fertility. The yogi “priced” each wish and put a figure in rupees on the slate! That was what the boon seekers had to give to the temple if they wanted the yogi’s blessings. The money inflow was pretty high judging by the pace of development around the place. There were even, so I was told, plans afoot to build a school and orphanage after the temple works were finished. I thought that some of the devotees and visitors must have had their wishes granted by the yogi, otherwise his fame would not have spread so much. He was attracting a fairly large number of middle and upper class intelligent people, so he must have proved his powers or skills at some time.

This yogi in his schooldays had learnt quite good English, so I was able to communicate with him personally. I managed to get quite a bit of information from him as I spent several days on the hill top, by his invitation, as a guest. I said that I was intrigued by the “cash for blessings” system he operated, and that I thought it most unusual and perhaps not very spiritual. His (written) answer was that he only wanted to sit in the temple and serve his god, as instructed. The temple was to be made a beautiful haven for Hindu worshipers, and for that money was needed.  He did not want the money for himself. Indeed he slept on the ground in front of the temple and lived a very spartan life by any standards.

I was rather impressed by the yogi, and his continuing deep meditation periods, which he now regulated to hourly sessions twice a day. He seemed quite genuine in his devotion to the deity and he emanated joy and energy. He would bound up and down the hill during the day supervising the construction activities, using his chalk and slate to communicate. I was told that he used to be a skinny, weak person, but I saw that now he was well built and extremely fit. This was probably because he was engaged in manual building jobs. He appeared to have both physical strength and mental power as he leapt around the hill. Everyone followed him around as if he were a royal personage. I found myself feeling amazed at the circumstances of his divine awakening and subsequent change of personality, after all, he had been only an unknown electrician!

I was interested in seeing if the yogi could impart anything in the way of spiritual knowledge or advice to me. He did not, however, seem interested in making disciples or being a guru in that sense and told me that he was unable to offer any advice or guidance. I felt that my contact with him was a valuable experience, but that I was not going to be able to emulate him in any respect. I decided that my search was not over and returned to Madras, to an ashram nearby..

I spent a peaceful month or so in the ashram, which was known as the Vaishnavi shrine. The head of the place was a sannyasin who had been a distinguished lawyer in Madras. He spoke good English and was fairly unorthodox in his attitude to the spiritual life, by Brahmin standards.

I discussed my situation with the ashram guru, Swami Parthasarathy, who gave me, without any ceremony, a set of orange cloths. Whether I was officially ordained or not, I would always come up against the criticism of followers of differing paths or gurus. What I actually found was that I could move freely between different sects and their temples and ashrams, simply because I was not particularly affiliated to any sect or guru. I got into the habit of belonging temporarily to various groups of devotees and followers without hampering my non allegiance to any particular cause.

After my six month or so In South India I started to move gradually north & continued wandering here & there as described n my book, English-Man, Beggar-Man, Holy-Man.. While on this section of my travels, I reflected on my lifestyle and tried to evaluate what I was doing. For a start I was living very simply. I was barefoot, possessed a few orange cloths, a towel, and a cotton shoulder bag. I had no watch and could not remember when I last had one. I did not worry about the lack of a timepiece, as in India it was not a necessity. Unless I had a train to catch, it was quite sufficient to go by the sun, and by dawn and dusk. My spiritual quest was proceeding apace in terms of searching out the answers in the exterior world of gurus, holy men and temples.

However, my inner quest had lapsed. I no longer sat in meditation, turned my beads, or even read much in the way of scriptural material. I could sit quietly for long periods at a time doing nothing, but often I was bored and waiting for the next meal or cup of tea. The boredom I felt impelled me to keep wandering in the search for the elusive Sat Guru. I was unable to settle down to the practice of proper spiritual practice or sadhana. It was a vicious circle because my wandering only increased my restlessness and in reality pushed me farther from the spiritual path. I wanted at times to abandon the whole quest and return to the West. However, I had sunk even deeper into the sannyasin role, and did not wish at that stage to suddenly admit failure.

Apart from the recurrent wish to leave India, I did not know how I could change things practically. I had no means of raising the money for my fare out, and to ask to be repatriated by the British High Commission would have been a humiliating mental defeat. I had not contacted my parents since my arrival in India and I was unwilling to have to face them after ignoring them for so many years. On reflection I understand that people continue in roles that they do not fully want to be in for years, before they suddenly make the change, prompted by a nagging subconscious. Then one day something snaps and he or she takes off into the blue. That point for me was some years away still.

Although I continued my travels and spiritual search, I was developing a, growing feeling that there was perhaps nothing to look for in the first place. Without the continuing travels though, I would not have gained the experiences and insights that brought me gradually to my final conclusions.