Gurudeva’s Spiritual Visions

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami

First EPUB Edition

Copyright (c) 2010 Himalayan Academy

Gurudeva’s Spiritual Visions is published by Himalayan Academy. All rights are reserved. The first print edition (2009) was released on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of Gurudeva’s mahasamadhi. This book may be used to share the Hindu Dharma with others on the spiritual path, but reproduced only with the publisher’s prior written consent. Designed, typeset and illustrated by the sannyasin swamis of the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order and published by Himalayan Academy, 107 Kaholalele Road, Kapaa, Hawaii 96746–9304 USA.

www.himalayanacademy.com

Published by Himalayan Academy
USA

ISBN 978-1-934145-06-7

Introduction

There are always on the Earth a few rare souls who from birth are open to the mysteries within life and consciousness more than the rest of us. They become the medicine men, the shamans, the mystic hermits, the spiritual visionaries and awakeners. From the day he was born in Oakland, California, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami was different. Oh, he went to school, played in the mountain snows where he was raised, near Lake Tahoe, danced his heart out and became the Premier Danseur of the San Francisco Ballet Company at nineteen. But those day-to-day exploits did not define him. He was defined by the inner experiences he had from the beginning to the end of his life. Amazingly, these visions began as he lay in a crib, a mere infant, as you will read in this booklet, which is drawn from the larger biography of our guru lineage, called Seven Mystic Gurus.

In this book we share fourteen of Gurudeva’s visions, and we let Gurudeva’s own words, when we have them, tell the tale. Each is different, with hardly anything to connect it to another, as though he were opening doors to complete worlds of knowledge, experience, divinity.

What is not in this book are the thousands of psychic moments we witnessed at his feet between the 1960s and his passage into a world of light on November 12, 2001, such as the many times he called upon his favorite finder of things, Detaza, to guide him to something that had been misplaced. What is not here are Gurudeva’s regular seances—which during certain periods were almost daily—in which he inwardly and boldly called to his table the tall, turban-headed Mohan, expert in astrology, who would answer questions stated aloud by the monk accompanying Gurudeva, who inwardly heard the answers and repeated the words aloud, slowly enough that the monk could accurately write it all down, by hand in those days, on a pad of paper, a back of a paper menu or whatever was available. He could resume the dictation at will if interrupted. These seances were spontaneous, in the flow of Gurudeva’s dramatic mission dance. But, as he explained to the monks privileged to sit with him those evenings, he could only knock on the inner door. Whether the call was answered was up to those on the other side. Sometimes no one responded to his subtle call, and he would just ask, aloud, “Is anyone here?” remaining open to communications from with the within, but always testing to be sure it was a spirit of the highest order, and not a demonic force, for he well understood the power of the negative and had a dozen ways to keep such forces at bay.

What is not here are the communications with Rishi Kalidas, an overlord who last lived on Earth as a Chinese aristocrat 10,000 years ago, who provided guidance, especially about the future, pointing out, when called upon, the best direction to be taken and speaking, in transcendental tones, of the importance of the work in which Gurudeva is engaged. Rishi’s messages were often the most profound and precious of all, scribbled on a napkin in some tea shop in Japan or at a coffee table in Chennai, or in a cozy corner of Gurudeva’s own office at the monastery. In those rare sessions, the knowledge shared was limited only by the quality and depth of the questions asked. It was not unusual, once a strong connection was made, for the devas to linger for an hour or more, and for Gurudeva to ask every now and again, “Any more questions?” Invariably, the queries focused on current events, issues, people, philosophical queries and problems of the day. Gurudeva received invaluable, practical guidance for every aspect of his mission in these sessions, and the monks with him experienced a rare glimpse into another world, a world so familiar to Gurudeva, just as real as this world, more, he might say.

What is not in this book are the three days he spent in Venice in 1967 with five young monks, successfully tracking down an opera house where he remembered being attacked, in a previous birth, after a singing performance, had his throat slit, and was thrown into a canal to die. What is not here are the past-life readings he blessed his monks with, sitting alone with them for hours, as the devas recounted in exquisite detail a series of lives the monk once lived, accomplishments once made, and how the monk would contribute to Gurudeva’s mission in this current incarnation.

Nor will you find here the things Gurudeva saw from afar, for he could travel astrally at will to a distant place and see who was there, hear what they spoke and tell the monks about it. Not here are his explorations into the chakras, which he saw vividly and heard, telling of the sounds they make, the colors they radiate and the states of consciousness they rule.

Not here are his talks with the garden devas, elemental beings who helped him to help the monks learn to grown their own food in the tropics, nor the flashes of business insight which made him one of the most effective CSOs (Chief Spiritual Officer) in any religious institution, nor the amazing way his writings echo the contents of the ancient Saiva Agamas without his ever studying them, a resonance that continues to confound the world’s greatest Agamic pundits, who have told us personally, during their Kauai visits, that his teachings express perfectly what the Agamas reveal, but more lucidly. Not here are his friendly conversations with the Deities of Hinduism and his frequent communications with his own satguru, Siva Yogaswami, who had left this Earth plane in 1964. While visions were mile markers throughout Gurudeva’s life, the clairvoyant and clairaudient communications began in the late 60s, and intensified many fold with the 1973 arrival on Kauai of the Kadavul Nataraja Deity, when Gurudeva’s third eye opened upon inner plane manuscripts and Saivite Hinduism was unleashed in full glory on this side of the planet.

Not here are his daily journeys into the clear white light, his diurnal plunge into the timeless, formless, spaceless Self, Parasiva. That, in truth, was his greatest achievement. He looked at everything else as just “the tools of my trade.” But the Self, that was something else, and he found there the essence of himself, the essence of your self, the essence of existence, the Absolute upon which existence itself depends.

Those visions and mystical communications shaped his inner landscape, brought a new language to the planet and became the grist for a thousand spiritual discourses he would give. Those visions guided his Saiva Siddhanta Church, gave form to the disciplines and routines that would sustain his monks through the decades, helped him know the deepest heart and karmas of thousands of devotees around the world. It did not hurt that he looked like Lord Siva walking on the Earth, but it was the unassailable authenticity of his spiritual encounters that brought seekers to his feet, and kept them there. Here, they marveled, was a man who knows God, directly and powerfully.

He did not want the monks to make much of this side of his life, partly because he saw it as normal and unexceptional, the way a great artist takes his virtuosity for granted, and partly because he knew that devotees would focus on all that magical stuff instead of on their own spiritual growth through sadhana to the Self within. So, these little events, the common coin within the walls of his monastery, never were published, never were reported on our websites. Each monk had the blessings of his encounters, to be kept sacred and secret.

Still, Gurudeva did talk of the few visions we present herein, knowing they would be a source of inspiration to others, lifting the veil a bit, revealing another quarter of human possibility that ordinary pilgrims on the path rarely get to visit. He would say these are the natural facilities of every human being, waiting deep inside to be unfolded. He would say such things are both our natural heritage and a troublesome distraction from the real work of Self Realization, a two-sided sword that can pull us inward if we accept it with tempered enthusiasm or push us farther from our goal if we become enchanted with the supernatural and the occult and take it on the ego. This balance was, for him, essential, for he was immersed in the supernatural from the beginning, and worked hard to not let it define him or his mission.

With amazement in our hearts that such a being lived in this age, and gratitude that we knew him and lived in his radiant presence, we offer this little booklet at Gurudeva’s feet during Chitra Pada Puja on November 13, 2009, marking the eight years that have passed since his Mahasamadhi.

163rd Jagadacharya of the Nandinatha

Sampradaya’s Kailasa Parampara

Guru Mahasannidhanam

Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami

Chapter 1

The Golden Visitor

The first mystical experience that I can remember was as a baby lying in my crib. It had little bars up so you couldn’t fall out. All of a sudden, I was conscious of a tall, full-grown man standing over me in a serene pale yellow robe. Then I became fully conscious of being this full-grown man looking down upon this little baby. Then I was conscious as the baby again, looking up into the face of this great soul. And then I was the tall person. Then I was the little baby looking at the tall person. It went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I realized that the tall man in the pale yellow robe was the body of my soul. I realized that as I continued maturing spiritually, the soul body would finally fully inhabit the physical body.

While still in his crib, the infant Gurudeva had a vision of his own spiritual future, seeing himself fully evolved, in a golden body of light.

The infant who had this vision, Robert Walter Hansen, was born at the Fabiola Hospital in Oakland, California, on January 5, 1927, to Walter and Alberta Nield Hansen and raised with his younger sister, Carol, in a cabin on the secluded, forested shores of Fallen Leaf Lake, near Lake Tahoe, California. Walter, a taciturn man, was a native Californian whose parents were both from Denmark and Alberta was born in Kansas of an English-born father. That Robert’s infancy began so remarkably becomes unremarkable as the life of this great being unfolds, filled as it was with profound experiences and life-transforming adventures.

Chapter 2

“Stop this Noise”

Having saved his funds by living a frugal, almost ascetic existence, the young mystic boarded a steamer in February of 1947, sailing from San Francisco under the Golden Gate Bridge and off to India as part of a five-member cultural mission to Sri Lanka. In sharing that departure with his monks 25 years later, he described it “as a dark, dreary day” and noted the Dutch merchant marine boat, the MS Mapia, “sailed with an English crew.”

He was alone for the first time in his life, but it was an aloneness that he savored. It was a month-long voyage aboard a working ship with rough accommodations. Robert’s berth was the cheapest available, a tiny, one-man chamber deep below deck right above the engine room. This was to provide an unexpected encounter with the supranormal. This experience impressed on him the power of the meditative mind, a power that was unleashed spontaneously that day on the ship.

The voyage to Ceylon took weeks, during which the 20-year-old seeker frequently sat for hours meditating alone in his tiny cabin above the engine room.

I took the first ship after the war leaving the port for Sri Lanka. It was a freighter. My cabin was right over the engine room, and that was very disturbing. I remember one time I was in deep meditation, really deep meditation, not really hearing anything. Then I came out of that silence and heard this roaring engine—rrrrrrr. I said to myself, “I wish this noise would just stop,” and it did.

Immediately, the whole ship stopped. We floated for three days, going off course a little bit. They couldn’t find out what was wrong. Finally, they found that two screws had come loose in the engine. They fixed the problem and the engine started up again. It was a lucky thing because we were going through mine fields. It was just after the war. The ship could have been blown up very easily, and only toward the end of the voyage did we know what the cargo was. It was munitions. That would have been a big bang for all of us—something you would want to miss.

Chapter 3

Sri Lanka’s Yogic Cave

After reaching Sri Lanka in 1947, Robert Hansen studied with Dayananda Priyadasi, a Singhalese Buddhist who was an acquaintance of the most influential teacher of Robert’s youth. Dayananda was a dynamic teacher of meditation and occultism and a great patriot of the island nation.

Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, was then in the final stages of a 21-year-long struggle for independence from Great Britain. Times were unsettled. The fiftyish Dayananda, both meditative mystic and charismatic politician, used the situation to train his new protégé in the art of getting positive things done in the world. Within months of his arrival, the American yogi helped found two schools for village children, assisted in reviving the dormant Kandyan dance and introduced the use of power saws to carpenters. These down-to-Earth projects were a part of his training.

All of this activity was beginning to weigh on Robert. He never forgot his real purpose in coming to Ceylon: to realize God.

He retreated to a remote cave, vowing to know the Truth. One day he sat so long and still that a python slithered over his legs, an encounter witnessed by his mystic mentor.

One day my training was completed. My teacher Dayananda flew off to attend a religious conference in Switzerland. I was alone in Ceylon. I thought about the cave again. One of my close Muslim friends, who had Hanuman as his mentor, took me to the caves of Jailani, Kurugala Balandha, Sri Lanka, secluded caves carved in solid rock in a mountainous valley deep in the central jungles of the island. There I met my fifth catalyst on the path of enlightenment.

The Jailani Caves are 100 miles south and east of Colombo, in remote jungles. It is to this day a holy site, and a gathering place for Sufi mystics. The journey of several days wended through the uninhabited central hills of Ceylon, with its tiny villages and dusty roads. Elephants bathing in the rivers and pulling logs on massive chains out of the forests.

Jailani caves, Sri Lanka

They say Mustan never took a bath, but he smelled as sweet as a flower. He was so old; he was so pure. We had a wonderful meeting. When he saw me he said, “I had a dream about you.” Then Mustan pulled a little notebook out of his pocket. He said, “I wrote it down here where I write down all of my dreams.” I said to him, through my friend who translated from Arabic into English, “I had a dream about you, too,” which I had just a few nights before. I had written it down also. I had been trained at that time to write down all my dreams. He said, “My dream was during the last full moon.” We compared dates. We had both written down the same dream at the same time about our meeting together on the inner planes at night while we slept.

He began giving to me a profound training centered on the conscious use of the third eye. He explained and projected with his mind force the intricate capabilities, development and unfoldment of the faculties of this chakra. Mustan lived in a small cave with a little door on it. One had to walk many steps up the side of a hill to get to it. I lived in a nearby mosque at the foot of the path to his cave.

At night he took me out and meditated with me on wind-swept hills where yogis used to meditate hundreds of years ago. He made me sit perfectly straight for hours at a time. The wind was blowing hard against my body. It was cold. There, in the dead of night, he would say through my translator, “Did you see this? Did you see that? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” He was revealing a form of mysticism taught in the Koran. He shared all of this with me. I learned some extremely intricate workings of the third eye and the psychic unfoldment of it through the faculties of the soul. This knowledge has become an extremely useful tool in my work today. I really appreciate my fifth catalyst on the path, Mustan.

He was an old, old soul, a rare being living a dynamic, spiritual life in that remote jungle. A Muslim saint named Abdul Cadar Duster lived in the caves of Jailani, meditated and had a school of mysticism, hundreds of years ago. These caves were on top of a mountain about a mile from where we lived in the mosque. When penetrating deep into the cave, one can see light in the crevice deep in the center of the mountain. In the mysticism of Islam, this is thought to be a direct route to the inner planes, to Mecca. The caves themselves are situated on a cliff that drops five hundred feet to a tropical jungle below, where wild elephants are often seen. I was taken there by my friend for a series of meditations. As I walked up the rugged dirt path, I realized that this was the cave in which I would one day realize the Self. For no particular reason, I felt it could be done here. It would be done here. That’s how it is before you realize, you think there is something to do or something to get or become.

We stayed for a few days together, my friend Anbakara and I, sleeping on the stones just outside the cave, since they stayed warm during the night. We meditated long hours, silently penetrating deep into the mind. It was so quiet there. He told me one afternoon that as I sat above the valley in the lotus posture I always use, a large python had crawled over my legs, across my lap and back into the rocks. As the days passed I felt more and more blissful, drawn to the absolute center of myself, as if by a powerful magnet.”

One morning I awoke and sensed we should leave the caves, that I should return alone to take the final steps. We returned to Colombo, where I completed several tasks for my former teacher, Dayananda, which inwardly freed me. When they were done, I returned by myself to the caves of Jailani. On the way back, I was determined. I vowed not to quit until I had the ultimate unfoldment of this lifetime. I had received outstanding training along the path up to this point. I had learned many things. Always the desire for the realization of the Self, imkaif, was paramount in my mind.

I was told by my teachers along the way that I had to get the foundation and the understanding of the various inner and outer areas of the mind in order to have strength enough to sustain the reaction to the realization of the Self. Each catalyst up to this point had helped me and introduced me in one way or another to my next teacher. This was not planned. I did not look for another teacher. I expected each teacher to be my last one. In fact, I didn’t even think about it. Our meetings all happened in an easy, natural sequence of events.

Each teacher had his part in developing the memory faculties, one-pointedness, concentration, stimulating the meditation faculties, the willpower and the cognitive faculties—teaching me to see everything from an inner perspective and looking at the world as if one were the center of the universe.

There was just one thing lacking, however—and I had to find that myself—the ultimate goal, realization of the Self, God. It was with joy and a burning desire that I walked the ten or twelve miles from the nearest road to the caves of Jailani. I had absolutely no possessions with me. I had given all of my clothing away. I had given all of my money to the villagers along the road. I had nothing. I just went there to be alone.

I took no food, again vowing to myself, “I am going to fast until I find this realization that I so want and have wanted for such a long time. Now is the time.” When I arrived late that afternoon, Mustan wasn’t there. He had gone away on a pilgrimage. No one was there. There were no pilgrims. I was alone. I walked up and into the cave and began to fast and meditate.

I went in and in and in and in and then in and in again, and finally I went in and in until awareness became totally aware of itself, kaif, and into the control of the breath until the breath breathed no more, and then in from kaif to ikaif—the most intense possible experience wherein the brink of the absolute is felt—and then into the Self, Parasiva.

I came out again into the mind. Villagers had seen me on the cliffs from the villages six hundred feet below. They thought I was some sort of holy man and brought food and drinks, all sorts of nice things. We had a big feast. I was hungry. They had come all the way up from the valley. They were so kind.

After several weeks, I returned to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, a hundred miles away, with another Muslim man who also had come on a pilgrimage from a foreign country. He taught me a wonderful Islamic chant along the way.

I never saw Mustan again. He had taught me everything I needed to know to complete my training for the realization of the Self during my first series of meetings with him. It was so intense. It was so strong.

Still immersed in the radiant aftermath of his cave revelations, Robert took to the trail that led back to civilization, back to the capital of Colombo, back to another and lesser reality. This time he settled into the local YMCA, where he got a job teaching hatha yoga to pay for his room. Between worlds, freed from Dayananda, no longer obliged to the dancing mission, he began a new exploration which led him to the temples of the city.

Part of his training from the Muslim mystics was the use of the third eye, how to see within and without, how to awaken the spiritual vision that all people have but few know how to use. They also connected Robert to inner-plane beings, especially the powerful genie Detaza, who worked with the American Hindu to assist in his mission throughout his life.

One night, just before sleep, he saw a vision of a tremendous peacock tail. It was fanned open in vivid colors, framing the screen before his eyes. In Hindu mysticism, Lord Murugan, God of spiritual unfoldment, rides on a peacock through the akasha, the inner plane of consciousness inhabited by beings of a very refined vibration.

Back in the city, nothing looked the same anymore. I was in another dimension. Everything was different. I had lost something: the desire for the realization of the Self. I felt complete. I felt alone. I spent several weeks in Colombo absorbing the darshan, the impact, of the cave experience. It was too vast to be understood, to be grasped by the intellect, so I enjoyed knowing that I knew something I could never adequately explain.

Chapter 4

Meeting My Guru

One day, I was invited to go to Yogaswami. Jnanaguru Yoganathan, affectionately known by the people of the area as Yogaswami, was a magnificent man. No one approached him unless they were in the right mood. Some were literally afraid of him.

When within the radius of him, one could feel the atmosphere scintillating. One felt electricity in the atmosphere. Devotees would prepare themselves on the inside so everything was all right before visiting this guru. Just to take him a little bit of fruit, they would sometimes prepare themselves for three or four days. If asked when they would be seeing the guru, they would say, “Well, I’m not quite ready yet to see Yogaswami today... maybe tomorrow.” Or, “I will go on a very auspicious day.” This was because they didn’t want him to look through them and point out something that they saw in themselves that they thought he might see. He always knew when people were coming to him before they arrived.

My meeting with him was unusual because I was introduced, and he said, “Come on in and sit down.” Everybody else prostrated before him. In the Orient, devotees prostrate in front of a guru, placing the entire body face down on the floor. He said to me, “You come in and sit down. You don’t have to do that. You and I are one.”

On the way to visit Yogaswami, Gurudeva and his hosts stopped to worship at Nallur Temple. There, in the inner sanctum, where a Vel is enshrined to invoke Murugan, he had a vision of the white-haired master.

Before going to Yogaswami at Columbuthurai, young Robert’s host, Kandiah Chettiar, took him to the Lord Subramaniya Temple at Nallur before dawn.

They proceeded to Yogaswami’s hut. As soon as they arrived, Yogaswami asked Robert in a loud voice, “Did you see me anywhere?” He replied, “Yes, at the Nallur Temple.”

“You are in me,” Yogaswami then said.

“You are in me,” the American mystic replied.

“I am in you,” said Yogaswami.

“I am in you,” Robert boldly answered.

Others wondered and spoke in whispers. How daring of the young American, to speak like this to the fiery sage. But no one else had seen Yogaswami at the temple. Only Robert had the inner sight to see the swami at the temple, silently blessing his arrival.

From Alaveddy, the American was taken by bullock cart to Yogaswami’s thatched hermitage. Yogaswami, age 77, called the youth to sit at his side, which was a rare gesture, and asked that grapes be squeezed into juice for his youthful guest.

That same day, during our first meeting, Yogaswami started asking me the deepest of philosophical questions. I must have given the right answer each time; he seemed very pleased. As soon as he had asked the question, without hesitation I spoke the answer. Then he gave me the name I hold today, Subramuniya. Subra means “the light than emanates out from the central source.” It just emanates out. Muni means a silent teacher, and ya means restraint. Subramuniya means a self-restrained soul who remains silent or speaks out from intuition, one who speaks out from the inner sky.

The scintillating sage showed me the book he had on Patanjali’s yoga aphorisms—I had studied Patanjali, too! We had just a wonderful, deep and inner meeting. He treated me more like a brother. This did not surprise me, though, because I was so far within and not in the consciousness of being surprised, but it surprised everybody else. He was my guru, my master.

He made me eat food with him, and we parted. Before leaving, I mentioned to my newfound guru that I had established an ashram in nearby Alaveddy and would like to have his blessings. He said, “Fine, good. It will one day become a three-story building. You are going around the world, and you will feed thousands of people. You are going to build palaces.”

Yogaswami began giving me many different kinds of instructions, such as “You will return to America, and you will roar. And when you come back here, nothing will be gained and nothing will be lost.” He said, “Now you go and teach the realizations that you have had.” I was used to being told what to do by my six teachers on the path, so I was happy to have this positive instruction. After I left my guru’s presence, everyone started relating to me differently.

On the second visit with my guru, we had a beautiful time together, just meditating and enjoying a beautiful flow. Many people came and he had grape juice made for me. On the third visit, we had a beautiful conversation about the path. Then, as I was leaving his ashram and he was seeing me out, he gave me the hardest slap on the back that I had ever felt from anybody. With all his might he reached out and cracked me on the spine between the shoulder blades. It was tremendous. I would have fallen on my face if I had not been so tall. Some of the Hindu devotees were startled, too, because that is one of the most powerful ordination initiations ever given. After this initiation, he gave me some powerful instructions.

One day, as the “American brahmin” was leaving the hut, Yogaswami snuck up to perform the “coronation,” slapping his disciple on the back with an initiatory blow that would be heard around the world.

There are four ways that a guru will initiate or ordain. One is through talking, a very mild way. Another is by a look, and another is through thought. The most powerful initiation is through touch combined with the actual inner power, for through this contact, with intent, he begins to feed and transmit all of his inner knowing and inner power to the disciple. In this way, Yogaswami gave to me all his knowledge of how to be a guru. It later began to unfold within me from him, then from his guru and then from his guru’s guru. This is how the spiritual power in a line of gurus is transferred and increased.

After receiving his final initiation from Chellappaswami in 1910, Yogaswami took up residence under an illupai tree in Columbuthurai village. In 1914 or so, he moved into a nearby hut, which is where, in 1949, he received his American visitor.

Gurudeva in 1949, after his return to America

Chapter 5

The Golden Body

With orders from his guru to start teaching only when he turned 30 years old, Subramuniya returned to America and enjoyed the mystical aftermath of his realization of the Self.

In 1956, Subramuniya migrated north into the pure mountains of Colorado that are today the refuge of seekers and modern-day mendicants. His meditations deepened. In Denver, he underwent a tremendous spiritual experience during deep contemplation, as the last of the outer self was displaced by the matured soul.

He would later describe this event as “the full actualization of the anandamaya kosha, in which the soul body displaces the outer self.” At that time, the golden body of the soul completely inhabited the physical body, concluding the long climb up the kundalini and the descent of the divine.

Returning to America, Gurudeva lived a mostly solitary life, pursuing the sadhanas and directions his guru had decreed. One day, in Colorado, the golden body of his soul overtook his outer being.

The golden body, svarnasharira, is a body made of golden light. After many experiences of Parasiva, it gradually descends from the seven chakras above the sahasrara into the ajna chakra, which then becomes the soul’s muladhara, then down into the vishuddha chakra, which then becomes its muladhara, and then down into the anahata, which then becomes its muladhara.

All seven chakras above the sahasrara slowly come down and down and down until the entire astral body is psychically seen, by mystics who have this sight, as a golden body. The astral body slowly, slowly, slowly dissolves into the golden body. That is what I have seen happen. That is what our parampara and our sampradaya know from experience. Experience is the only true knowing—a knowing that can be verified in books, through others who have the same knowing, but a knowing that no others know who have not had the same experience. To them it is only a concept, a nice one maybe, but just a concept or written off as an opinion.

When the golden body fully enters the physical, having taken over the astral, the knowing that is known comes unbidden. It is beyond reason but does not conflict with it. It is a living scripture but does not conflict with those written by seers of the past who have seen and their records have become scripture. So great is the Sanatana Dharma that it defies all who doubt it, all who disdain it, all who disregard it, all who degrade it, with personal realization of its Truth.

This golden body, which begins to build into a golden body after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, is connected to the sahasrara chakra. In other words, the sahasrara chakra is the home base in the physical body for the golden body. There are twelve basic unfoldments to this chakra as the golden body grows. When the realized sannyasin travels in high states of contemplation, he moves freely in his golden body and can help and serve mankind. Over time, he gains a conscious control of the sahasrara chakra as a force center which propels him into inner space.

It is this golden body, as it refines and refines and refines itself within the Sivaloka after moksha, that finally merges with Siva like a cup of water being poured into the ocean. That same water can never be found and put back into the cup. This truly is svarnasharira vishvagrasa, the final, final, final merging with Siva.

Chapter 6

The Superconscious Speaks

It was in Denver, the mile-high city in the Rocky Mountains, that the commentaries to one of my earliest works, Cognizantability, were written—seven years after the original aphorisms were revealed. My external mind was learning to fully accept superconscious knowing, and the deeper inner mind was actively making itself the knower of the known.

Oddly enough, one day the inner said to the outer mind to number each aphorism, which comprise today sections one and two of Cognizantability, and place them all face down on the floor. I obediently did this. Then, one after another, the commentaries were revealed, three words at a time with a significant pause between. The superconscious would dictate word by word to the conscious mind to be written down. Amazingly, it proceeded to dictate the commentary to number seven, then number fourteen, and so on. I was not aware of what each paper said on its other side. When all were done, the natural impulse urged me to turn over the aphorisms that were still face down on the floor with a number on the back to see if the commentary matched the aphorism. It did! They all did!

Truly, I became a more dedicated believer in the jnana marga, the aftermath of experiencing the beyond of the beyond of the beyond, which we call Parasiva, the fulfillment of the yoga marga.

As the years passed by, one after another, this procedure of bringing unrehearsed wisdom through from the higher mind to the external became a natural part of my daily life, “one of the tools of the trade,’’ I have often said. These psychic powers sometimes take years to develop. But under the right circumstances those carried over from a previous incarnation come immediately, of course, and are as much available as the ability to speak, listen and feel.

These pages, preserved in the archives at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, contain some of Gurudeva’s original, handwritten aphorisms of Cognizantability.

Chapter 7

The Inner Navigator

While I was waiting in Phoenix deciding whether to open my organization there, I had another experience one day while driving my small car. My inner elf told my outer self, “Look at that sign.” If any of you have been to Phoenix, you know it’s totally a flat area, absolutely flat. There I was, driving around this big flat area where there were lots of houses and homes. “Look at that sign. Remember the sign.” It was Spruce Street. I took note of the sign.

Then I said, “Okay, I’m just going to get into my inner Self.” Inner self said, “Drive twenty blocks forward, turn left and drive ten blocks, turn right and drive five blocks, turn left, two blocks, turn around, back up, go ten blocks,” and on and on like that for about two hours as I followed the instructions. Then it said, “Stop and look at the sign!” Spruce Street! I was a believer in myself, an absolute believer in myself.

Driving one day in the flatlands of Phoenix, Arizona, the youthful Gurudeva challenged his own inner voice, and was surprised with the results.

Chapter 8

Flying with Murugan

One early morning in his small chateau at the San Francisco Monastery on Sacramento Street, Subramuniyaswami had a vision that brought Lord Murugan strongly to the forefront of his order’s life. Suddenly, he found himself flying with a handsome, muscular being flying around the monastery room.

He later told the monks that he had asked the powerful being who he was, and received the reply, “If you don’t know, who does?” He knew, it was Murugan Himself. Master was so inspired by that encounter, he planned to write a book called Flying with Murugan. Though the book is yet to manifest from one of his successors, Muruga’s influence in the order is vast to this day. Subramuniyaswami always felt the first of all sannyasins, son of Siva, was the titular head of his monastic community, a personal guide and example of purity, detachment, willpower and speed of accomplishment.

Lord Murugan, the first renunciate, was there on the day he met Yogaswami and would be a major influence on his future yoga order. One day in the early 1970s Sri Subramuniya found himself flying with the son of Siva in his San Francisco monastery.

Chapter 9

Language of Meditation

In the summer of 1968, Himalayan Academy conducted an Innersearch Travel-Study Program to Ascona, Switzerland. I was working on a little book called The Advaitin. The book was about the refined states of experience deep within the inner realms of pure consciousness, just before one merges into the Self and after one comes out of that state. The little book was unfolding beautifully, but upon rereading what had been written, I thought, “This is very understandable to me, but would it be so to someone just beginning on the path? It’s going to be so complicated, so difficult to understand, for what I wish to portray in words, there are no words in the English language.” I then began to feel that what should be done was to begin using Sanskrit to provide the necessary, adequate words so that the inner and refined areas of the mind would have their own name in the same way emotions, physical things and so forth are named in English.

When we use the English language to describe inner realms, we are quite limited. It is difficult for the beginner to believe in the reality of the inner man unless he has had positive experiences himself, simply because there are not enough words to describe it.

Everything that is really “real” is named in English, and the intellectual mind begins to grasp, take hold of and believe in those areas of mind that have a proper name. Even before the individual experiences them, he can intuit the experience. At our Ascona summer retreat, this theory that unfolded from within was going ’round and ’round in my mind, and I began looking through several Sanskrit dictionaries to locate certain words that could be used in The Advaitin. But in three Sanskrit/English dictionaries, each translator had translated each of the words in a different way. I threw up my hands at this and said, “This is going to make it more confusing for my beginning students than if we didn’t use Sanskrit,” simply because of the differing translations.

In July of 1968 in Ascona, Switzerland, Gurudeva first taught Shum, his mystical language of meditation, a language that still guides the inner life of his monks and shishyas around the world.

The feeling began to come that what was really needed was another language, a new, fresh language, one giving me a vocabulary that we could use to accurately describe inner states of consciousness. Two or three days later we traveled to Venice for a few days’ excursion. This idea of a new language was still strong in my mind. It was in Venice that I decided to go deeply within and bring out a new esoteric language. So, I went deep within, and wrote down some instructions to my outer self as to how to go within, and where, to be able to unfold another language. My instructions were, “You go within the uda current of the simshumbisi.” That is the current of mind flow where language exists.

In following the instructions, my spine lit up in a beautiful, pale yellow and lavender light. The yellow and the lavender intermingled, one color coming in and out of the other. It was just beautiful! But I only found one end of the uda current, and did not have any results in Venice. Three days later, after returning to Ascona, Switzerland, while working within myself, I found both ends of the uda current. Then, in meditation, after coming out of nirvikalpa samadhi, I heard the tones of the svadishthana, the anahata and the ajna chakras. Within two hours, out of my inner mind came the script, the basic alphabet of eighteen sounds, the syntax as well as some of the basic vocabulary, like simshumbisi, vumtyeudi, karehana. The first word to be uttered was Shum.

After meditating for weeks in search of a language adequate to express some of the profound states he was experiencing, Gurudeva began to see, in his inner mind, the images of the Shum script. Here are the basic 18 images that form the core of the alphabet, and their colors.

Shum now names the mystical language of meditation. As fast as I could, I wrote it all down and ran downstairs to one of the monks, shouting, “I have it! I have it! Here is our language!”

Because of the immediate need for a vocabulary of fifty or a hundred words for me to work with during the Innersearch Travel-Study Program, I was eager to proceed in bringing through the new language.

Shum started out in a very simple way. I thought, “Fine. Now we will have ten or fifteen or twenty or maybe a hundred more words eventually to work with, and they will be marvelous inner teaching tools.” However, in the days to follow, this uda current became stronger and brighter and brighter. I didn’t tell anyone about it at the time except two or three of the Saivite monastics who were with me in Switzerland.

During the 1960s and 70s whenever a new vocabulary word came through Gurudeva grabbed a napkin or piece of paper and captured it. Each word, one per page usually, was documented. Here you see a portrait he wrote on May 25, 1969, during a United flight from Reno, near his monastery, to San Francisco, where his church was located.

I began working day and night, and the structure and script for the language began to refine itself, and vocabulary started coming through, right from the inner light. I would see light within my head and see little images or letters in the Shum script drop down one after another and line up. Then I would read the word, like “kanasimni,” and know what it meant, and then write the Shum word with the meaning in English. Vocabulary flowed out like this for two or three weeks. In Nice, in Southern France, the whole concept of liunasi, the psychic nerve system, and alikaiishum, the warmth and psychic heat of the body, came through. I saw how in a word of several images, the moving of the accent from one image to another changes the meaning slightly as far as going into the depth of the same area of the mind, the next deeper area and the next refined area.

During a 1969 Innersearch Travel-Study Program, Gurudeva writes out a display of Shum portraits.

Then, later in our Innersearch, in Paris, more of Shum came through. Upon returning to the United States, I had a vocabulary of about 300 words, and every day more were coming to Earth. Finally, the images stopped dropping out of the inner light, and I would hear the meaning of the word clairaudiently, almost as if someone were speaking. Sometimes they would come in reverse—English first, Shum second. The vocabulary and the structure of the language developed quickly.

Shum has had wide acceptance and grown into a marvelous teaching tool because within the structure of the language is contained the entire Saiva Siddhanta philosophy. It has within it the perspective man had to hold to make the Advaita Siddhanta philosophy of the ancient rishis alive and vibrant today.

This is an advanced meditation map, known as mambashum. The curving lines between the portraits represent the flow of awareness from one area of the mind to the next.

Chapter 10

The Snake at the Top

A sannyasin of attainment has had many, many lifetimes of accumulating this power of kundalini to break that seal at the door of Brahman. Here is a key factor. Once it is broken, it never mends. Once it is gone, it’s gone.

Then the kundalini will come back—and this gives you a choice between upadeshi and nirvani—and coil in the svadhishthana, manipura, anahata, wherever it finds a receptive chakra, where consciousness has been developed, wherever it is warm. A great intellect or a siddha who finds the Self might return to the center of cognition; another might return to the manipura chakra. The ultimate is to have the kundalini coiled in the sahasrara.

During the late 1960s Gurudeva had many psychic awakenings, including the experience of seeing, with his third eye, the kundalini coiled at the top of his head.

I personally didn’t manage that until 1968 or ’69 when I had a series of powerful experiences of kundalini in the sahasrara. It took twenty years of constant daily practice of tough sadhanas and tapas.

I was told early on that much of the beginning training was had in a previous life and that is why, with the realization in this life, I would be able to sustain all that has manifested around me and within me as the years passed by.

Results of sadhanas came to me with a lot of concentrated effort, to be sure, but it was not difficult—and that is what makes me think that previous results were being rekindled.

Gurudeva blesses devotees after an upadesha in a small shrine in Sri Lanka.

A spontaneous class at the ancient Parthenon, Athens, Greece, 1969.

Chapter 11

Siva Will Abide Here

At Mahasivaratri time in 1973, in the jungles of Kauai, our Kadavul Nataraja Deity, Lord of the Dance, arrived at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery and was placed in the gardens overlooking the sacred Wailua River, where it was spontaneously decorated, bathed and worshiped.

That night the exact location of the Deity’s installation was chosen by Lord Murugan Himself. He appeared to me in an early-morning vision, upturned His glistening vel, His scepter of spiritual discernment, and powerfully pounded its point three times on the cement steps at the monastery entrance, marking the precise spot to place the Deity.

Lord Murugan’s orders were obeyed. On March 12, the Deity was moved into place and worship began immediately.

Chapter 12

Books of Otherworldly Lore

Soon after we had placed the Nataraja Deity, my inner eye, within the ajna chakra, was opened upon an array of great manuscripts, and the inner library of Lord Subramaniam was seen. Upon each wish and fancy, the librarian, a tall, fine, elegantly robed, bearded man, would pull forth from one shelf or another great volumes and with firm hands open and turn the pages to the proper place to be read.

I read these volumes one after another to the monastics at our monastery after this siddhi was obtained. They asked questions. The books were placed within the inner ether of my mind, the pages turned, read, enjoyed and understood. Thus, Siva’s great diamond-dust-like darshan flooding out opened the inner door of our Lord Subramaniam’s private library, which contains the records accrued since His arrival on this planet. Lord Subramaniam, also known as Murugan, has always been near and dear to us.

The venue of this remarkable clairvoyant happening was the garden restaurant of Coco Palms Hotel on Kauai. These were the days when cigarette smoke billowed forth from elite hotel guests at neighboring tables, clouding the atmosphere and creating an ambiance in which the akashic manuscripts could be clearly seen. The backdrop of Hawaiian music, the hubbub of people talking and the lower vibration of worldly feelings, too, helped screen out the conscious mind to make this clairvoyant siddhi a working reality.

As the librarian presented each volume and turned page after page, I dictated slowly to a sincere monastic scribe, who patiently and accurately wrote down each word.

On some days reams of pages were turned and read; on other days nothing was seen. Vigilantly, morning after morning, week after week, month after month, we sat waiting, while enjoying fruit, yogurt and coffee, for my inner eye to open on the inner-plane library.

The restaurant was not in an ordinary location. Our table overlooked tropical ponds amid the island’s largest coconut grove near the ocean on the east side of Kauai, the oldest and northernmost of the Hawaiian archipelago. Each day’s writings, gleaned by my astral vision near the birthstone heiau, where royalty were birthed in olden times, were penned in letter-sized spiral notebooks. Before noon, we returned with them, following the sacred Wailua River four miles inland, to my ashram, now the site of Kadavul Hindu Temple.

What Subramuniyaswami returned with each day was a new chapter of the Lemurian and Dravidian Shastras, secret and sacred.

It was a revelation, a divine transmission that unfolded the early history of mankind in remarkable detail, how we came to this Earth two million years ago, the spiritual culture of early man, the mysteries of the kundalini and the Central Sun—focusing on the nature of life within ancient cloistered Saivite monasteries—how we lived in the ages now lost to human history. Much of what was revealed answered a need for traditional principles to effectively guide and govern our monasteries, provide a traditional pattern of Hindu ascetic life and catalyze his monks’ spiritual unfoldment.

These Shastras, along with the Saivite Shastras, an intimate revelation that a group of devas wrote exclusively for the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, became a spiritual guideline that strengthened their faith and informed every dimension of their existence. The monks thought it a privilege and blessing to be around Gurudeva in those days, as these superconscious revelations poured through him each day, as the wisdom of the ages revealed itself page by page by page. It was, they thought, much like being with the rishis of yore.

An inner-plane meeting between guru and disciples as described in the Lemurian Shastras. Art by Balinese master I Wayan Marya.

Now we are starting our inner work in 1974 and I don’t see a thing in front of me on the screen. The devas must be off someplace. They are finishing up their work with some of the students and devotees who visited our ashram on a Ganesha pilgrimage.

Now I’m beginning to see the glimmering light in the blue akasha, shimmering gold and silver lights reflecting off each other, dancing around in front of my forehead. This is seen with the third eye and I also see feelings, and entanglements, thoughts that have been blocking the vision due to the new guests and retreatants, who are fading into the distance as the shimmering lights take over.

I have been working for three days now to get into this state, which was wide open for many months in 1973 when the shastric books were seen.

The devas said in their writings that there were many more books to be read, but once the Saivite Shastras had been completed, Gurudeva found it much more difficult to access the library of Lord Subramaniam on the screen of his inner vision. He struggled, in the face of external distractions, to keep this inner world open to him.

While Gurudeva’s mystic explorations never stopped, they changed dramatically at this point. Rather than clairvoyantly reading akashic books, he communicated clairaudiently with three or four great devas to receive their advice and insights on current affairs that concerned him.

The devas’ communications to Gurudeva were vast and varied, from lofty dissertations on temple mysticism to earthy insights into the karmas of the newest monastic candidate.

Chapter 13

The Straight Path to God

In the early hours of February 15, 1975, lying on a tatami mat in his Ryokan—the simple, oriental room where he slept—Subramuniyaswami was deep asleep. He was in one of those profound states of slumber that are neither awake nor full of dreams, his conscious mind fully absent. In this clear space above physical consciousness, the 48-year-old satguru experienced a three-fold vision that would be the spiritual birth of the great Siva citadel called Iraivan Temple, and its surrounding San Marga Sanctuary.

Clockwise from upper left: Gurudeva hacks his way through the jungle, followed by a bulldozer, to find the self-formed Sivalingam; he stands between two completed pillars in 1995 after chipping the first stone of Iraivan Temple in 1990 at a grand ceremony at Kailash Ashram in Bengaluru; artist’s rendering of the completed temple; three vignettes below capture Gurudeva’s vision in three parts: Siva atop a Sivalingam; Siva revealing His face and Siva blessing devotees in a meadow.

I saw Lord Siva walking in the meadow near the Wailua River. His face was looking into mine. Then He was seated upon a great stone. I was seated on His left side. This was the vision. It became more vivid as the years passed. Upon reentering Earthly consciousness, I felt certain that the great stone was somewhere on our monastery land and set about to find it.

Guided from within by my satguru, I hired a bulldozer and instructed the driver to follow me as I walked to the north edge of the property that was then a tangle of buffalo grass and wild guava. I hacked my way through the jungle southward as the bulldozer cut a path behind me. After almost half a mile, I sat down to rest near a small tree. Though there was no wind, suddenly the tree’s leaves shimmered as if in the excitement of communication. I said to the tree, “What is your message?” In reply, my attention was directed to a spot just to the right of where I was sitting.

When I pulled back the tall grass, there was a large rock—the self-created Lingam on which Lord Siva had sat. A stunningly potent vibration was felt. The bulldozer’s trail now led exactly to the sacred stone, surrounded by five smaller boulders. San Marga, the “straight or pure path” to God, had been created. An inner voice proclaimed, “This is the place where the world will come to pray.”

Artist S. Rajam visits the future to show Gurudeva on the inner plane, with the gurus of our parampara behind him, blessing the mahakumbhabhishekam of the San Marga Iraivan Temple at his Kauai monastery.

Chapter 14

Protected by Lord Ganesha

In 1986 I had a powerful vision of Lord Ganesha while I was here in Mauritius looking for property for Saiva Siddhanta Church. Lord Ganesha was walking from His temple attended by two priests. He was about to take a bath in the beautiful Indian Ocean in the country of Mauritius where the river meets the sea. I was standing in the water with several sharks swimming around me. Lord Ganesha looked at me and said, “Just rub some oil on their noses and they will not harm you.”

The vision led me directly to this special land by the Rempart River and its lagoon. The Spiritual Park is a fulfillment of that vision. I see it combining environmental and architectural beauty that will give spiritual peace and mystical knowledge to visitors for many generations in the future. It is destined to become a pilgrimage site of great renown in the Indian Ocean area. Hindus from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Africa and India will come here.

Today thousands of Hindus attend the monthly homa at the Spiritual Park, burning their prayers in its magical fires. Outside the wooden, Kerala-style thatched pavilion, they crowd together in the shade of mango and sacred konrai trees to worship the nine-foot-tall, black granite murti of Lord Ganesha with five faces and ten arms.

After his vision of Ganesha and the shark, Gurudeva’s Spiritual Park was founded in Mauritius and flourishes to this day. He developed religion courses for the children, taught parents to raise kids without pain, blame or shame, imported stone murtis of the Deities from India and visited often to participate in festivals, parading through the grounds at his ashram, situated where the river meets the sea and filled with mango trees.

A Short Biography of Gurudeva

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001), addressed as “Gurudeva” by his followers, was born in Oakland, California, on January 5, 1927, and adopted Saivism as a young man. He traveled to India and Sri Lanka where he received initiation from Siva Yogaswami of Jaffna in 1949. He began teaching in 1957 in San Francisco, California, founding one of America’s early Hindu temples. In the 1970s he established a Hindu monastery in Kauai, Hawaii, and founded the magazine Hinduism Today. The author of many books on Hinduism and metaphysics, Subramuniyaswami was one of the most prominent faces of Hinduism during the last two decades of the 20th century.

Subramuniyaswami taught Hinduism to Hindus and seekers from all faiths. He was the 162nd Jagadacharya of the Nandinatha Sampradaya’s Kailasa Parampara and Guru Mahasannidhanam of Kauai Aadheenam, also known as Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, the 358-acre temple-monastery complex he established on Hawaii’s Garden Island. Striking in appearance, the tall, white-haired master was the hereditary guru of 2.5 million Sri Lankan Hindus. Observers judge him the most dynamic, influential and important Hindu spiritual teacher to be born in the West, recognized throughout the Hindu world as a leading proponent and articulator of Sanatana Dharma.

In 1975 a spiritual vision of Lord Siva led him to build Iraivan Temple, a hand-carved, white granite, Chola-style Siva temple at his monastery on Kauai. This jewel was the first traditional Agamic temple to be carved in India and erected in the West and though as yet unfinished is already a highly regarded Hindu spiritual pilgrimage site in America.

Subramuniyaswami was a mystical guru who emphasized the challenging spiritual path of Self Realization, sadhana, diksha and devotion. His life-long inner awakenings and superconscious visions guided his mission and his monks, while his pragmatic prowess both strengthened his Saiva lineage and reached out in a spirit of cooperation with all sampradayas or teaching lineages.

His Saiva Siddhanta Church, the first Hindu church in America, has members and local missions on five continents. Its congregation is a global fellowship of family initiates, monastics and students who follow the sadhana marga, the path of inner effort, yogic striving and personal transformation. His classic illustrated trilogy of Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva, each 1,000 pages long, are the definitive summary of his teachings. Hinduism Today is the award-winning, international monthly magazine he founded in 1979. It is a public service of his monastic order, created to strengthen all Hindu traditions by uplifting and informing followers of the Sanatana Dharma everywhere. Hindu Heritage Endowment is a public service trust founded by Gurudeva in 1994. It seeks to establish and maintain permanent sources of income for Hindu institutions worldwide.

Gurudeva promulgated the ancient monistic school of Saiva Siddhanta in the line of Tirumular, which differs from the pluralistic Saiva Siddhanta of Meykandar. Tirumular’s theology is called monistic theism, possessing a synthesis of devotional theism and uncompromising nondualism. It equally promotes temple worship and yogic revelation. It teaches that God is both within and outside of man, being the Creator and the creation, immanent and transcendent. In Gurudeva’s words: “God Siva is everywhere. There is no place where Siva is not. He is in you. He is in the temple. He is in the trees. He is in the sky, in the clouds, in the planets. He is the galaxies swirling in space and the space between galaxies, too. He is the universe. His cosmic dance of creation, preservation and dissolution is happening this very moment in every atom of the universe.”

At the core of his philosophy is his absolute perspective that the Reality of God comprises three perfections—Parasiva (Absolute, Transcendent Reality), Satchidananda (Immanent Love) and Paramesvara (Primal Soul)—and that man’s soul is already perfect in its undifferentiated identity with Parasiva and Satchidananda, although this identity is concealed from us, he explained, by our fascination with the world of form. Parasiva and Satchidananda are not aspects of the evolving soul, but its very nucleus—which does not change or evolve.

The evolution of the soul, according to Gurudeva, lies in the maturing of its intrinsic Godliness over the course of many lifetimes and beyond, so that it finally becomes indistinguishable from God Siva’s third perfection, the Primal Soul. The primary goal of Gurudeva monistic Saivism is attaining the life-transforming realization of one’s identity—in perfect nondifferentiation—with Parasiva. “We are That. We don’t become That.” This is termed Self-Realization (enlightenment), and may grant moksha, permanent liberation from the cycles of birth and death. A secondary goal is the realization of Satchidananda, a unitive experience within superconsciousness in which perfect Truth, knowledge and bliss are known. Therefore, the path of monistic Saivism leads the seeker to the realization of all three perfections of the Reality of God: Satchidananda first, then Parasiva, with the final goal of Parameshvara obtained long after moksha.

Gurudeva traveled extensively, visiting Hindu communities in virtually every major nation and befriending Hindu leaders wherever they had established Dharma. In August of 2001 Gurudeva took his final journey, leading 72 devotees on an incredible trek through Northern Europe, founding new Hindu temples along the way and visiting Tamil communities in a dozen nations. It was a fitting end to his remarkable life. Only weeks after returning from that dynamic odyssey, he was diagnosed with cancer, and unflinchingly undertook prayopavesha. After 32 days of fasting, he attained mahasamadhi, surrounded by his swamis, yogis and sadhakas. All of his work and mission, his amazing vision and all-encompassing projects now go forward under the able guidance of his successor, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami.

In 1999, Gurudeva sat in his office to create, with brush and holy ash, the sacred symbols used to illustrate this book.