To Guru or Not to Guru?

As I hiked towards the Ashram meditation hall, the unusual sound of a motor vehicle rumbled through the woods.  Into the clearing, a tiny aqua blue Suzuki sidekick sputtered down the dirt road. A russet grandfather’s face turned towards me through the rolled down window.  His enormous palm lifted near his long, gray beard, his slender fingers extraordinarily long. He waved at me enthusiastically and smiled, then honked the little horn, beep beep. It was…the Guru, His Holiness Sri Swami Satchidanada. 

In my early twenties, I loved Yoga with a youthful, unbridled passion.  But I had not thought too much about this Guru business.  Literally a “Dispeller of Darkness,” the Guru shines a kind of spiritual flashlight into the darkness of your emotional world. All I knew was that he was a bearded Indian guy who wore orange robes and had led the people at Woodstock to chant “OM” (which was pretty cool to me at 23). However, it was apparent he was a very powerful and highly venerated figure. Every room had portraits of him, his face wise and serious.  The teachers spoke of him constantly, their face aglow whenever his name was invoked. 

Gurus often came from places of immense poverty in India during the 60s and 70s, with less than a few dollars in their pockets.  Almost overnight, many became spiritual sensations.  Droves of hippie followers began kissing their feet and bowing to them, looking to them as eastern celestial beings of mystic perfection. Too often, the pendulum swing of extreme poverty to complete adoration resulted in corruption and a plummet head first into drug and alcohol abuse and sex scandals, the same kind of tragic fall has happened more times than one can count with spiritual leaders. Was I naïve to think I could just do my Yoga and bypass all the Guru giddiness? Was he a genuine spiritual teacher or was he a charismatic charlatan I needed to be wary of?

A few days later, after cleaning the hall from ceiling to floor, we gathered for our first meeting with Satchidananda. He walked slowly into the room clad in his signature orange robes and long beard and sat on a throne-like wicker chair at the front of the room as our Hatha teacher, Satya, gave him a small glass of tea.  He gave a brief talk, his voice calm, steady, speaking of meditation and how we must see ourselves clearly if we are going to have peace.  After his talk, he bowed in Namaste (hands together in prayer position in front of the body) and left a room full of beaming smiles.  I didn’t know if it was all the smiling, the Guru’s presence, or the fact that the space was so darn clean, but I had to admit, the room felt really good, “charged” as my Pagan friend would say.  We all took our time standing up, wanting to absorb this feeling as long as we could.  I thought, Well, that wasn’t so bad after all.

Then Satya turned to us, “If you’d like to take Prasad, line up over here.”  She held up his half empty tea glass towards the ceiling, then carried the glass gingerly, as if in a procession, back to where a line (now full of about 20 or so people) was eagerly forming.  One by one, Satya poured the tea from the glass into their open, cupped palms.  I watched with a mix of fascination as they slurped up the liquid with fervor. 

I looked around and saw Tori, a snarky New Yorker, whom I had already made friends with earlier in the week.  We shared a common interest in Shiva Rea, travel and sarcasm.  We both stood back, still as statues, watching the tea train in front of us.  She rolled her eyes at me, which made me smile.  At least I wasn’t the only one who was perplexed.

We had several other encounters with the Guru, each more confusing to me than the last.  I still wasn’t sold on the Guru veneration.  During our graduation ceremony, we received our diplomas and each of us had a moment to bow or kneel in front of Swami.  With mixed emotions, I made my way onto the stage, accepting my certificate.  I bowed towards him and thought simply, Thank you for your teachings.  As I stood back up, we locked eyes for a moment and I felt a rush of energy shoot up my spine into my head.  A little dizzy, I made my way off the stage, feeling like I had just been zapped. 

Almost exactly a year after my Ashram stay and teacher certification, Swami Satchidananda “dropped his body” and went into mahasamadhi. In my mind, I could see the Ashram devotees walking around, tears streaming down their faces, hugging each other in solace, having prayer and meditation circles for his journey to the other side.  I felt guilty for not feeling more than I did.

I continued to practice yoga religiously for the next several years.  One afternoon in a spring cleaning feng shui attack, I came across a slim copy of Kailash Journal, a diary Satchidananda kept of his pilgrimage to the sacred Mt. Kailash in Tibet.  I picked it up and read it ferociously, immersing myself in his treacherous eight hundred mile journey (on foot!) into this sacred site, revered by Hindus and Buddhists pilgrims.  Reading his reflections of his extraordinary pilgrimage, the tremendous physical exertion, his vulnerability and strength against the elements, and the sacred experience that was both his journey and destination - this was my first real connection with him, through our mutual love of travel and pilgrimage.

I began bringing this book to my class, sharing it during our section on Pilgrimage and Hindu ritual.  I read passages to my students, finding myself excited to share his journey to Kailash with them.  They would ask questions about him and I would become excited to tell them.  I began reading more and more about him, curious about his life and his yoga practice.   Then I went to India and made a pilgrimage to the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh, where Satchidananda studied in his youth. 

A few years later, there was a very dark time when my spouse was going through his own treacherous journey which would eventually (thank God) bring him to sobriety. One particularly hopeless night, I had a dream that I was sitting on a rock ledge over a waterfall.  Hundreds of huge boulders filtered the rushing stream.  As I sat on the ledge, I was overcome with feelings of sadness and helplessness.  In frustration, I began sobbing uncontrollably.  Then, I felt a leathered hand on mine and long fingers gently curled around my own.  I looked up and Satchidananda was sitting next to me, his orange robes flapping in the wind and mist. He smiled at me sweetly, so beatifically and genuinely, it made me giggle in the middle of my sobs.  He bobbled his head Indian style, “Let’s jump” and then looked down at the rocky water.  I looked at him, eyes wide, “What?  We can’t jump down there!”  He smiled again, “Trust me.”  He pointed at my heart, “Trust yourself.”   He squeezed my hand.  I closed my eyes and then felt the sensation of falling, his hand still wrapped around my own. I awoke before we landed.

I was surprised at how moved I was by his presence in my dream.  How real it felt.  How real the feelings of comfort and solace I felt, in a time when I needed it desperately.  Was it really him?  Or perhaps he symbolized the sat guru – the guru within us all – that we have the wisdom and strength ourselves to overcome any obstacles.  Either way, this dream was a game changer in my Yoga practice.  Towards the end of our training at the Ashram, Tori (the New Yorker) had said to me, “You know, I’ve struggled so much with this Guru stuff.  I can’t drink that damn tea.  But, I’ll tell you what…”  She paused and shook her head, “I’ll be damned if I can do yoga without facing his picture.  I just can’t bring myself to do my Sun Salutations with my back to him.” 

Over a decade later, I’ve come to find those words ringing true for me as well.  I cannot turn my back on him.  On my Yoga altar, he stands along with many other images, including Ganesh, Jesus, Buddha, Shiva Rea, Kwan Yin, my great-grandmother, etc.  This picture is not the ubiquitous Integral Yoga head shot that was hung in every room of the Ashram. Instead, I chose the black and white image of him on his Kailash pilgrimage.  In it, he stands at ease, holding a long walking stick that mirrors his lean, lanky, stretched body.  His beard is unruly and still dark in its youth, his turban is wrapped snugly around the crown of his head and his hip sunglasses shield him from the bright sun high in the Himalayas.  He stands with an ease and satisfaction, his face content, looking out over the beauty of the trail. 

It is my absolute favorite picture of him (not only because Gurus just look funny in sunglasses) but because it reminds me that like him, I am a pilgrim too.  I may not drink his tea or cry at the utterance of his name, but I lovingly respect him and what he has done for Yoga. For my Yoga.  I may not agree with all of his ideas, which are steeped in a particular culture, time and perception, but that doesn’t mean I cannot hold his teachings as sacred. 

Much like our own grandparents, our youth comes at the most inopportune time – it is often only years later that many of us appreciate what these story keepers have to offer, their libraries of history and family tradition.  Though Satchidananda is “gone,” he is more present to me now than he was 13 years ago at the Ashram when he was in body, just a few feet from me.

The Guru who rattles around in my head and heart now is not the Guru of the Ashram, not the Guru of leftover tea, not the Guru who may or may not have slept his own devotees (allegations he denied consistently), not the Guru of pomp and accolades.   Instead, my guru is the one who takes my hand when I need it, the one whose voice I hear when I chant, the one who explains the Yoga Sutras to me in a way that I understand and can relate to my own students, the one who spent a childhood eating chapatti in Southern India, running around on knotty knees and bony feet.  My guru is the rugged backpacker, the Woodstock guru, the “Om” leader, the adorable Suzuki sidekick driver and the one who opened the door to my Sadhana.

Satchidananda taught me that the guru is within.   And maybe, just maybe, this guru is as real and powerful as any “living” one.