Chapter 5: Forming of LA Ashram and Nithyananda Mission in USA🔗

After this incredible trip Swamiji went back to spend a few months in India. Every time we travel to a new destination Swamiji gets excited. During the last 30 minutes of the journey he is always excited to get off the plane and see the devotees/disciples. It is almost like a child visiting a new city. He always says, "So many of my people are waiting for me. I can't wait to see them". He would always say before getting down, "now the drama moves to India!" When he is on the plane heading to USA, the same story is true. The beauty is wherever He is; He lives intensely, in the moment, with utter passion.

Whenever we return back to India, Swamiji flies back to Bangalore where the plane lands late in the night. By the time we reach the ashram, it is normally 2 am. The ashram is instantly transformed, there is a buzz in the air, and there is electricity. The first thing he does is to go to the banyan tree. He then proceeds directly to the Ananda Sabha where the entire ashram is anxiously awaiting for his arrival. He then spends 3-4 hours talking to all the disciples. The session typically ends with energy darshan at 5 am or 6 am. The ashram now springs back to life. Everyone is running helter-skelter getting everything ready for the upcoming programs. As Swamiji says, "The drama has shifted to India!" Normally after a tour to India, Ma Sachitananda and I would get relieved, a new crew joins and the Indian ashramites and disciples are excited to have the Master back in India. We take a break, but Master's work is 24x7x365!

The morning after the Master lands in India, He immediately gets back into administrative matters to ensure in all departments, work is progressing. He typically calls for a meeting of all department heads and asks them about what is going on. In the early days of the mission, the ashramites would hear from the master through telephone calls and e-mails. But as time has gone by, Swamiji has become very "tech savvy" and he is constantly on chat over the internet or through a video conference. In fact these days, ashramites sometimes say that they get more work from Him when He is away from India than when He is in India. Swamiji purposely keeps us fully occupied. He says working intensely and achieving the impossible is spirituality. We noticed that when we are around Him we are constantly engaged. It is a technique he uses to tire the mind and the logic that constantly plagues us and gives us un-necessary problems. This does not mean he does not want us to use our intellect and intelligence. In fact he very much wants us to use it, but he does not want us waste our time in gossiping, and in useless activities. Also, when the mind rests, the master's work can happen very easily.

Swamiji has already seen the LA Ashram in his vision back in 2002 when one fine day in Erode, he suddenly told Ayya and Amma, Swamiji's first disciples and ashramites, "Ayya, we will have our eastern headquarters in Bangalore and Western hemisphere headquarters in Los Angeles. Ayya, where is Los Angeles?" Ayya, who did not understand what Swamiji said, and asked him, "Swamiji Los Angeles is in America. We don't know anybody there. How can this be?" Swamiji said there are so many of my people who are already in various parts of the world waiting for him and this will simply happen. Little did we know He is playing His Lila. The script of his mission and what He has come down for has long been written. He is simply enacting this drama called life.

Swamiji had already started getting deities carved for the temples that will be built all over the world. The carving work already began in 2004. By 2005 the carving work of various deities was in full swing at various carving centers. The artisans have been working tirelessly and by late 2007 we have shipped over 300 deity statues to USA. Little did we know temples in USA will be starting in Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver, Phoenix, Columbus St Louis, Oklahoma, Houston, New York, Florida and Toronto all at once in 2007! He knew about all of this and had started the work three years ago.

After touring various cities in Tamil Nadu, Swamiji was getting items ready for the LA Ashram inauguration. Several container loads of shipments were being planned to be shipped to Los Angeles. We did not know where the ashram was going to happen and how. He told us it will simply happen.

Bhaktananda came to Los Angeles a month before Swamiji's arrival. The plan was for Swamiji to arrive in Los Angeles after gurupoornima. Bhaktananda and Sri Ananda Jyothi, who lived in San Diego at that time, came to Los Angeles in June. They started searching for various properties and parcels of land for the LA Ashram. They stayed at a Days Inn in Duarte, California which was located close to some of our close devotees' homes.

During his trip back to India, Swamiji toured various parts of Tamil Nadu where 30,000 – 50,000 people often gather for His satsangs. This tour was titled 'Ananda Ula' where Swamiji toured Thiruvannamalai, Salem, Vellore and Chennai. After these satsangs and gurupoornima, Swamiji came back to America. He was quite excited to be back in USA. There were a lot of preparations in terms of items for the temple, vessels for homas and ceremonies, decoration items, stone deities that Swamiji gave instructions to pack up and ship to Los Angeles.

Swamiji landed in Los Angeles in the end of July 2005. All ashramites came to Los Angeles a couple of days before Swamiji landed. We really did not have a clue where the ashram would be and how we would get started. Once thing was clear – we were all really excited to be together in LA, and looking forward to be with our Master. We rented 5 or 6 rooms at the Days Inn in Duarte, California. All our Los Angeles area devotees were very happy that Swamiji came to LA and that they would see a lot more of Swamiji in their city. We spent a spectacular month with Swamiji in Los Angeles.

All of us would wake up every morning at 5 am, take our showers and assembled near Swamiji's room. We played suprabhatham to wake up Swamiji. All of us huddled around his bed in his hotel room. Swamiji brought Anandeshwara (Shiva) utsava murthi (a smaller version of the main deity used for performing daily rituals). We started the day with guru pooja and offered our gratitude to the Master. Believe me most of us were corporate types who did not know Sanskrit chanting. Swamiji had to unfortunately put up with our mistakes in chanting the guru pooja mantra. After guru pooja, we would all proceed in 2 or 3 cars to a nearby park and lake. It was called Santa Fe dam. Every morning we would go for a walk at the Santa Fe dam. Then we would assemble near the park benches where we would sit around Swamiji and wait for him to deliver His Pearls of Wisdom. A lot of time was spent without saying a word. But this was the time the actual work of the master was getting done. Sometimes Swamiji would deliver completely fresh perspectives and new insights into a topic which we never imagined could be expressed with such clarity. We would spend 2-3 hours with Swamiji in this park every morning. We would then go back to the Days Inn Hotel around 11 am where we would get back into our routines. Some of us would be engaged in looking at lands and real estate for the first Ashram. Others worked on various mission coordination activities.

As the hunt for the ashram lands was going on we came across a beautiful piece of property being developed by one of our close devotees in Los Angeles, This seemed to be ideally suited for the ashramites that came together to form the mission. There were 12 apartments, a home (which could serve as the reception area) and frontage consisting of retail stores which could be converted into a meditation hall. We approached the devotee with the possibility of using this facility as the temporary ashram to start the mission in earnest. She was quite happy that we could use this place as the ashram and felt that it was a blessing to have Swamiji set His foot into this property. The place was in the center of the city of Duarte, near Pasadena with one acre of land. Duarte ashram fit our needs like a glove, with a lot of privacy for and infrastructure that was just what Swmaiji needed to start the mission. The apartment complex was almost ready by the time we approached the devotee. The scheduled time for completion was end of August. It was just the right size, the costs were manageable for us and it also had facilities in the property to be able to provide some basic services for visitors.

Swamiji had declared to us that the Los Angeles Ashram would happen before October 2005 – we were now targeting the inauguration of the Los Angeles Ashram on September 3, 2005, almost a full month ahead of October 2005. Preparations for the ashram inaugurations started in full swing. Swamiji ordered a lot of items for the inauguration ceremonies from India. A lot of items had to be airlifted since we did not have much time. Now the clock started ticking and there was the buzz and excitement as a lot of work needed to get done in a timely manner.

The layout of the ashram at Duarte

The inauguration day, September 3, 2005 was a beautiful day. We started the activities early in the morning. Swamiji performed a beautiful homa in the morning. A few close devotees attended this ceremony. After the ceremony, we performed gurupooja to our master, to respect him and to thank him for coming into our lives and for showering his grace on us. Swamiji then handed over the keys to each of the apartments ceremoniously. We gave each apartment a name including names such as Bidadi, Omkareshwar, Shambala, Arunachala etc, each name was an important place during Swamiji's wandering days and to his mission. After early morning ceremonies, the public program to officially inaugurate the ashram was held at 10 am. The inauguration proclamation was followed by a beautiful discourse Swamiji delivered on what it means to live in an ashram. He went on to describe the great social system and joint family system that existed in Indian villages where there is so much of help and social support. Swamiji then went on to say that the current ashram system he is creating will allow us to re-live the rich Vedic system that was created by our ancestors and how this can help everyone live with a sense of belonging and community.

Swamiji with the first group of ashramites at the ashram in Los Angeles. A few ashramites and their children were not present for this photograph

After the ceremony, Swamiji gave energy darshan to all devotees. This was followed by a grand dinner that Swamiji served personally to all attendees. We had various cultural programs followed by dancing and kirtans that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. Thus, the Los Angeles Ashram started, with 12 ashramites who moved from all over the country and came together to help start the Nithyananda Mission in USA. It is from these beginnings that we are now forming ashrams all over USA and other parts of the world.

Immediately after the Los Angeles Ashram started, we requested Swamiji to start satsangs in the area. Swamiji agreed to deliver 18 days of Bhagavad Gita discourse, one day for each chapter. We could not wait for the discourses to start since we knew that His commentary would be alive, vibrant and would shed light and bring Gita to life in the modern context. Gita discourses were to be held in the auditorium hall of Malibu Temple which was about an hour away from Duarte. The discourses started in late September and this was a fantastic treat for all who attended these discourses.

Swamiji on starting day of the 18 days of Bhagavad Gita discourses

Swamiji's discourse each day was approximately three hours in duration. The discourses would start at 6:00 pm and end by about 10:00 pm. He would speak for 1 ½ hours and then give a 15 minute break. Our Los Angeles devotees got together and made sure food and refreshments were served to all participants freely every day. Swamiji always insists on anna dhaan (giving food freely) at all our ashrams. He tells us that feeding food through our anna mandirs (food temples) is a great spiritual practice. At all our ashrams all over the world, the kitchen is open to anyone and everyone who visits Nithyananda ashrams.

Swamiji spoke very beautifully on all chapters of Bhagavad Gita. In each chapter, he provided a new and unique perspectives. The discourses were refreshing, fun, in a language everyone could understand and more importantly take something away that could be directly implemented in our lives. Every evening we would leave Duarte Ashram around 3:30 pm due to uncertainty in Los Angeles traffic and reach the temple by 5:30 pm. It was only in the car that Swamiji would ask, "What is the title of today's discourse?" And then he would say "Alright" and close his eyes. It is quite fascinating to see this. The master never prepares for any discourse. Once when I asked Swamiji how all this wisdom is delivered so eloquently, he just smiled and said, "I simply download it and the wisdom is delivered". He then went on to say that every thought in the universe is recorded. These records, called akashik records are available for enlightened masters to simply download. He also went on to say that every enlightened master simply adds his experience to the truth and sheds a new light and perspective in the present context.

This great system allows continuous updating so that the truth can be explained effectively to the people. This is why Swmaiji’s discourses are so interesting. For example when Swamiji spoke of why samskaras (engraved memories) cause us to be stressful and slow in making decisions, he gave us an example that everyone, especially the younger generation could understand at once. He told us that samskaras are like high resolution photographs. It takes long time to open these files. However when we cleanse our mind of samskaras through meditation, it is like a Microsoft word file which can be opened instantly! Now this kind of an example can resonate with everyone, especially those being exposed to spirituality for the first time. This is the genius of my Master. Swamiji goes on to say, it is like a new version/release of the software – every enlightened master sheds more light on the truth with additional dimensions so that it to be easily understood by the current population. He told us the truth is one and the same – each enlightened master expresses the truth and updates the truth based on His experience and what the society at large at the time He is living in the body can digest, understand and internalize.

Swamiji’s topics in Bhagavad Gita were quite fascinating, contemporary and what he calls in software lingo “user friendly”! The following were the titles for each of the eighteen discourses:

Every topic he spoke on is a masterpiece. The clarity he shed on topics such as the basis of the Indian caste system, the basis of karma yoga where he talked about the beauty of purposelessness, about death and life. All of these discourses have now been converted into DVDs and books on each chapter are now being released.

Bhagavad Gita discourse series launched our mission in Los Angeles area. A large group of core devotees and volunteers came together during this discourse series. Within a few days of commencing Bhagavad Gita discourses we filled up the satsang hall. Thousands of people were benefited through this refreshing new commentary of this age old scripture.

We now started having a steady stream of devotees coming to the ashram. Every evening Swamiji spent time with the devotees. We never know when the master’s pearls of wisdom would come and all of a sudden he picks up a topic or an issue and sheds light on it in a whole new dimension. After the Bhagavad Gita, Swamiji spent a few more weeks in LA Ashram and left for India.