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.
