Your Teacher Is Always in Your Heart

Published: 4 June 2009 | Written by Michael Smith

In May, 2009, a beautiful message to the Himalayan community was conveyed by Kai, the 6¾ year-old child of Swamiji’s dear students, Jon and Veena.

After a Karate session, Veena was waiting to teach meditation to their instructor, when Kai sat down on her meditation cushion. His hands spontaneously formed a mudra, he looked as if off into a great distance, and these words came out of his mouth:

“Your Teacher is always in your heart.SVB and Kai walking hand-in-hand

You don’t need to write to Him.
You don’t need to see Him.
You don’t need to be by Him.
You don’t need to touch Him.
 
Your Teacher is always in your heart.
Your Teachers is always by you…even if He is on the moon.
            Always, right by you, in your heart.
 
Love, heart-to-heart, is the connection
Heart-to-heart, even if you don’t know each other yet.”
 
“It was something to be there to witness,” Veena said.  “There was a Karate class going on at the time – sweaty men working out hard, very focused, lots of noise.  Then Kai was moved to the cushion, his posture established itself, the mudra formed, and then these words formed in slow motion from his lips.  There was all of this…and then there was the energy behind the words . . . the feel in the space . . . that was really quite something.  I felt something was charged to me, that is, I was instructed to capture it . . . so paper and pen moved near me.  There was such energy to it that later when I met with the Karate master, he said he felt it, too – and I know this is true because, despite the activity of the Karate room on the other side of the glass, I had seen that the Karate Master had looked over and watched him as the poem flowed from him – from Her through him.”
Jon was initiated by Swami Veda in India, and Veena was initiated by Swami Veda in 1986 and stayed with Swami Rama for several  months in 1987 at the Himalayan Institute when Swamiji was having regular Kirtans. She completed teacher training in 1988 with the Minneapolis Teacher Training Graduates. The family has traveled to SRSG several times recently, and their service to the Himalayan Yoga Tradition over the past several years has been considerable.
Such revelations from their son are quite common. Veena said, “This is how life has always been with him, even from conception.” In the course of a week many such insights come from him “out of the blue.”
As we deepen our sadhanas, may we all come to know where that Place is and enter It as effortlessly as a child.