Month: July 2012

The following is an interview with Sadhana Journal, a yoga magazine published in Spanish in Ecuador, South America. The interview was given in preparation for Swami Veda Bharati’s visit to Ecuador (and Galapagos Islands) for a meditation retreat, 31st July to 11th August, 2012.

1. In your words what is yoga?

From Vyasa’s commentary on the very first yoga sutra: Yoga is Samadhi — the consciousness in which the union with divinity is experienced.

2. With today’s actual generalization of “yoga” as a physical exercise or stress release method, do you think people are misusing this discipline?

They are not necessarily misusing it even though over commercialization is certainly a misuse. They are only presenting a pebble as the entire mountain. The pebble however is from the mountain.

3. How did you get started with this study?

The newspapers in India in 1947 said that I had brought this knowledge from past life. It was my father’s wish that his son should be a rishi. My entire childhood education was in Sanskrit metaphysical texts and the practices of yoga and meditation.

4. You were a professor of oriental philosophy and Sanskrit, you have an MA [and D. Litt.] etc. How did you learn? Where did you study?

Although I hold the degrees from London and Holland, they do not reflect my true education as I have explained in the answer to question 3.

5. At what age did you decide to take vows and become a monk?

At the age of 6. But took the vows only in 1992 at the age of 59.

6. What is the Mahamandaleshara title you have in Hindu religion?

This title is conferred by the community of swamis upon those swamis they consider to be of exceptional knowledge, etc.

7. At what age is it possible to start learning meditation and yoga?

Three years before conception.  When parents, planning to invite a yogi soul into the womb, undertake intensive Gayatri mantra and other such practices.

8. Is it necessary to have a guide to learn meditation?

Is it necessary to have a guide to do experiments in physics in a research lab?

9. What is your opinion about the so called gurus that teach this discipline and try to become rich?

I better not express my opinion.  I neither call myself a guru nor allow my picture anywhere in my Ashram.

10. Is it negative to ask money for teaching yoga?

Money is essential so that one has the freedom to teach yoga instead of taking a bank job. It should not be a fixed price like a commodity being sold, it should be a love offering from grateful students.  That is the tradition by which I live.

11. We understand that you also direct a meditation research lab and that your master and yourself have done experiments and measures in the lab.  What are the psychological and physical benefits of this practice?

In our research lab we have a bibliography of 3,000 articles from medical and scientific journals detailing the beneficial psycho-neuro-physiological effects of meditation.  I cannot give a brief summary here.

12. Chemical reactions in the body?

Please see answer to question 11.

13. Can a Catholic or a Christian practice meditation?

There is a long tradition of meditation in Christianity. There are many books on the subject written by the Catholics and other Christians.  I may even give a brief summary of this history during our forthcoming seminars in Ecuador.

14. We understand you were in Ecuador many years ago. Can you share your experience of that time?

My memory is of the warmest hospitality, and very positive responses to the teachings. One of the major highlights of that visit was to meet the venerable Padre Davila.  After all these decades, that early meeting is bearing its fruits in my forthcoming visit.

15. Do you think there are qualified schools to learn meditation in this country?  Any suggestions?

I do not know enough about this country.

16. How do you see yourself?

As a small disciple of my Guru carrying on with his work.

17. What are your sources of inspiration? Books? Masters? Teachers?

Books? Vedas, all the ancient yoga texts, all the revealed scriptures of all religions in the world.
Masters? Ancient rishis, saints of all religions, my Master Swami Rama of the Himalayas.

18. Who do you admire?

I admire my Master the most.

19. What do you see as the principal virtue for a human being?

Selflessness and consequent non-violence.

20. Can yoga help us to change the destructive conduct of patrons?

If you practice the first yama, Ahimsa, the destructive behavior will automatically change.

21. How, as human beings, can we transform this planet and turn the negative situations like violence, fears, environmental problems?

If enough of us change, the planet will change.

22. Can a person seeking enlightenment by meditation forget society? What should be the offering of meditators for society?

I am totally dedicated to meditation and totally dedicated to serving the society. Meditation makes you a selfless servant.

23. What would be your reflections on world peace?

Begin with the peace in your own mind. Learn to integrate the various factions that are constantly at war in the continent of your skull. If enough people and the leaders can do that, there will be world peace.

24. What do you think of the Pope? Or any other famous name in religion or spirituality?

Mine is the standard Hindu answer: sab santan ki jaya. Glory to all saints. I bow to them all.

Occasionally this question is asked by curious seekers.

Please read the series At the Feet of a Himalayan Master. So far 2 volumes of memoirs by different disciples have been published by Swami Rama Centre at the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust in Dehradun. These are also available through Lotus Press in USA. The 3^rd volume is now in preparation, soon to be published.

These volumes give out numerous examples of the ways in which Gurudeva Swami Rama guided the sincere disciples. They also record numerous instances when he took many disciples’ illnesses upon himself and either absorbed them into his own physical systems or dissipated them.

I had numerous experiences of the same during my long periods of chronic conditions.

In 1980 he himself took gravely ill, with all his openings bleeding; the doctors diagnosed it as over-exhaustion. He called a few of his disciples to spend some time with him in silence, told us ‘my Master is calling me’ and I must go. He dictated the instructions for his several hundred organizations to his secretaries. He bade us good-bye and left guidance as to what to do with his body if he were to leave it. Then he left the USA to meet his Master.

This was sometime in September 1980. We heard nothing from him after he left the USA. We all wondered if we would ever see him again.

He had also commanded me to move my family from the USA to India and locate myself in his Ashram in Rishikesh. We were to fly out on 17th December 1980. He called on 16th December. I spoke to him excitedly; “Maharaj-ji, where are you calling from?”  He was calling from Hong Kong. With great concern I asked him how he was. He replied:

“I am very well, sonny. But my Gurudeva has left his body. At this time one of us three was destined to leave: he (grandmaster), I or yourself (referring to me). Gurudeva said: ‘My work is now complete but I still have 14 years left to this body. Your work is not yet complete. I transfer these 14 years of life to you so that you can complete your work’.”

Then, after a few weeks I saw him in Delhi. He looked hale and hearty, standing as usual tall and erect. He was ready to embark on his project to build the hospital, but first he chose to establish an ashram in Nepal. As soon as that ashram was established, he left from there, came back to the Rishikesh ashram and earnestly set about to establish the grand hospital for the service and benefit of the mountain people.

I was counting years. 14. Fourteen years passed and he was still in the body and I took a sigh of relief. However, his body had begun to weaken. He started saying, “My Gurudeva is calling me. Now no power can hold me back. My work is now complete. I must go.” We watched his body steadily in pain and looking emaciated, but still tall and erect with no sign of any sadness on him; always inspiring, guiding the final phases of the hospital construction.

The foundation stone for the hospital was laid in 1992. The well equipped hospital was already running in 1996. The Medical College and the Nursing College were already recognized by the Government of India.

There was no shortage of the teams of doctors and specialists around him. At the insistence of concerned disciples many other specialists were called. No definite diagnosis could be arrived at.

Here, permit me to digress.

Swami Vivekananda died of diabetes.

The Great Raman Maharshi died of cancer. When the doctors were trying to heal his cancer, he is reported to have said something like: “Here, I am trying to rid myself of the big disease called the body by using a small disease and you all are trying to rid of this small disease that is my instrument”.

The great yogi Totapuri (whose name is well known to the students of the life of Paramahamsa Ramakrishna), like many other yogis, changed his name several times. With his last name he left his body around 1958. He was reputed to do the same thing Swami Rama did throughout his life, taking on people’s illnesses upon himself and dissipating them. But he did not cure himself of the diabetes he took on from someone. He was asked why he is not healing himself. He replied, “At a certain time I have to leave my body. I am keeping this last arrow in my quiver to use at that time”.

So, back to Swami Rama. The surgeons at our hospital were happily surprised that when they asked for his blessing for a difficult surgery the surgery would go smoothly easy flowing.

Yes, at the insistence of concerned disciples, specialists were consulted from different parts of the world to look at Swami Rama’s ailing body. None of them could agree on a diagnosis. The liver specialist said it was liver disease. The cancer specialist said it was cancer of this organ or that.

I asked him why these specialists cannot agree on a diagnosis. He replied in disgust:

“Quacks, all!!”

Much earlier, I tried to organize a yajna (fire offerings ceremony) with mrityunjaya mantra for his health. He said “What will the japa of others do for me? I am the one who has given the mantra!”

I said, “But, then, Swamiji, you have healed so many in life. Why do you now not use that healing power to cure yourself?” He replied, “This kind of use of power for oneself is not permitted in the Tradition”.

I said, “Maharaj ji, then grant me the healing power and I will use it to heal you”. He laughed gently and said “but then, it is my power you are using for me. Not permitted by the Tradition.”

This was to us a lesson in what total selflessness of a yogi means.

To the last day of his life he was doing the rounds of his hospital.

Finally, on 13th November 1996 he left his body.

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Editor’s Note

The above is an excerpt from Swami Veda Bharati’s planned book about Gurudeva Swami Rama.

Many times seekers ask me questions about spiritual upbringing of children.

Often these questions are asked after a baby’s birth whereas the right time to ask the question is even before getting married.

I have answered these questions in some detail in lectures and writings. Gurudeva Swami Rama has written giving some necessary and inspiring messages.

However, the questions are still repeated. So, I shall repeat here what I have taught before but in a summary form. At whatever stage of the presence of your child you are at, you may start on these suggestions/instructions applicable to that stage.

First principle: children do not need to be trained. Parents need to be trained. All adults need to be trained. Children will pick up spirituality the way they pick up language without being taught. What is the level of spirituality in your joint life, dear parents?

2. A child’s education begins minimum three years before conception. You are responsible for the samskaras you are are creating in yourself during that period. Three years of intensive gayatri mantra practice, and your child will be so intelligent that he will never need to go to school. I have similarly taught appropriate Buddhist mantras to people from Buddhist communities as three-year preparation for conceiving a child.

3. In the ancient Vedic Indian society, of which a few rare fragments are struggling to survive today, there is a (a) special sacraments performed just before conception. There are (b) (c) two sacraments performed during pregnancy. In the absence of formal sacrament, or as an addition to it, keep your meditation practice with your diksha mantra (mantra received at yoga initiation).

4. As soon as you know you are pregnant (this is addressed to both parents), ask for gayatri mantra initiation and practice the same throughout pregrancy. People of different religion may ask their spiritual guides to do similar practices each according to his/her religion.

5. During pregnancy,

A. you are not only nourishing the child’s body through the umbilical chord. You are (a) creating his/her pranic body, (b) nourishing/creating his/her mind.
Whatever thoughts, feelings, emotions you carry in you, whatever impressions you give to your mind, are passed on in a subtle way to the child in you.

B. So, see what pictures you hang in your rooms at this time, what movies you watch, what books you read, what discourses you listen to. Do use this time to read the life stories of spiritually advanced beings.

C. It is the duty of the spouse, the whole family and society, that they provide a peaceful, calm, non-agitating environ for the pregnant one because you are doing this for the child, that is, for the future constitution of the entire society.

D. I wish that the world economic system was not so intentionally hostile to women, to mothers, to children. I wish it was not geared to destroy mothers and children. In some societies, like India, mothers have three months maternity leave. In some crass and over-exploitative economic systems they do not have a weak!

I wish that economically, and without harming their professional carriers, it was possible for mothers to take the entire nine months off to concentrate on the child, and for the fathers also to be able to take a long paternity leave as is happening in some societies.

E. Parents, family, meditate together at least during these 9 months.

F. Do remember that the major education of a child is during the nine months of pregnancy. It is during these months that you are creating the child, forming/shaping the child.

6.

A. The fourth sacrament of a child is soon after birth when (a) the parent or the family Guru first recites OM into the child’s ear (b) the mantra

Tvam vedo’si
Thou art Veda; thy name is Veda (Wisdom, Knowledge, divine inspiration)

Is recited into the child’s ear and (c) a bija-mantra is written on the baby’s tongue with a gold stick dipped in honey – that’s not easy but the thought counts.

B. Thereafter there are many sacraments the details of these may be studied elsewhere.

7. In many societies

A. it is felt that the child’s sub-conscious is still tuned to his/her past life. S/he is not yet yours. In these societies no one makes purchases of child’s clothes and things before birth; does not start pulling the child’s consciousness to us that early. They swathe the new born in some sheets and that is all. Till later.

B. No one in these societies chooses the child’s name beforehand for the same reason. The time of the child’s birth is immediately given to an astrologer. The astrologer matches the time with one of the 108 stations of the moon. The figure of 108 is arrived by the spaces between constellations each divided into four quarters. Depending on in which quarter between which two constellations the moon was at the time of the child’s birth, accordingly, a matching syllable is chosen as prescribed for that constellation-quarter. You may name the child beginning the name with that syllable. It is commonly called raashi-naama, constellation name, and is kept secret, like a mantra, except for ceremonial occasions. These days this rule of secrecy is not strictly followed and the same may also be the popular name.

8. Form the habit of relaxed, deep, diaphragmatic breathing. Every child is born breathing diaphragmatically. Later s/he sees that parents and other adults are chest breathers and s/he quits the in-born nature and picks up the bad adult habit. Then, later in life, s/he has to go looking for yoga classes of the Himalayan Tradition to re-learn diaphragmatic breathing.

If the parents have formed the habit of diaphragmatic breathing and then hug the child, his/her natural habit is re-enforced, confirmed as correct and s/he continues to breathe the way s/he did upon birth. Otherwise, many ailments like asthma may occur. My surmise, for which I have no scientific data, is that it is the chest-breathing adults who cause asthma i half the cases of that disease in children. So. Hug the child, breathing diaphragmatically. That is his/her first lesson in yoga.

9.

A. Spend some time daily this way: wrap your meditation shawl over the child, hugging the child while doing your relaxed deep breathing and mantra.

B. Here an aside: the women in India have the anchal – free-flowing corner of the sari, or a dupattaa or chunree over the shoulders. This serves as a source of emotional protection and feeling of security for a young child; it is like the continuity of the placenta outside the womb. It also solves teh problem of modesty when suckling the child in public.

Place the sari-anchal, dupatta or your meditation shawl over the child and do your mantra and relaxed breathing while suckling the child on the breast. Fathers, you, too, wrap the meditation shawl around the child and sit silent, doing relaxed breathing. The child will learn quietness of the mind. That is the most profound training in meditation.

C. Hum or sing sacred hymns and verses or mantras, or prayers of your own religion while holding the child. Recite these often.

D. Play the appropriate recordings of the above as well as softer kind of classical music even as a child is falling asleep.

10. Once the child begins to understand verbal thoughts,

A. Hold the child in your lap and hum, sing, recite from sacred books. A large number of children are still brought up in India listening to the mother reciting the Ramayana. Fathers need to do the same.

B. There are graphic art cartoon books of spiritual stories available by hundreds to show to the children and to read to them from those.

C. Tell the child the stories of the spiritual accomplished ‘heroes’ like the Buddha, St. Francis, the Sufi saints and so on.

D. You may devise games of enacting the episodes from these inspiring lives.

11. When the child is 3 years old, or may be a little older, it is time to put him to sleep for a siesta or a night’s rest by giving him/her a relaxation practice in a soft meditative voice. For this to succeed, the adult’s own mind needs to be calm.

12. Some cultures have lost the habit of the family praying together and eating together. If you have lost the habit, restore it; it is URGENT and important. There is nothing like meditating together and eating together — besides playing together — to create family bonding. Later, the child will not go looking for drugs.

If you follow the above, and add your own improvisations, by the age of five you have completed the child’s spirituality training. The rest is filling in the intellectual niches and continuing to the above practices as much as possible.

Some may ask: What to do with the effects of negative thoughts that may have arisen. For example, someone worries that she had thought aborting the child in the early stages of pregnancy but then changed her mind. What undesirable unconscious effect would it have on the child’s psychology and development. The answer is : do not worry about few moments of dark thoughts that occurred. Moonlight wipes off darkness. Follow the above guidelines, improvising on the basis of the principles implied. The human mind is very resilient. Do not sit there and flog yourself for some past negative thought. Rejoice in the current moonlight.

Above all, as I said in the beginning, it is the spiritual training of adults that is important; the children will pick it up the way they pick up your language.

Also important:

Do NOT

force the child; let him/her develop;
over-protect from undesirable company; simply explain. Children have good judgement if they have been given proper values.

DO

let the child experiment with alternatives and choose. If the foundation you have given is firm, the edifice will hold. TRUST in the child’s innate wisdom.

So, from before conception, through all these periods of ‘child training’, it is important that you learn your own Personality Orders like:

saumyataa: generating moon like calmness and pleasantness,

saumanasyam: beautiful-mindedness,

chitta-prasaadanam: making the mind a pleasant, thereby a clear, space.

As it develops in the adults, so it will impress itself upon the child’s mind.

This is not the end of the story but it is a good beginning.

Enjoy the peacefulness of your child’s mind.

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Editor’s Note

The article has been written based on (a) author’s own upbringing (b) experiments in rearing spiritually inclined children in USA.