Acharya, My Dear Paramacharya🔗

It has been a roller coaster ride for me the past 100 days. It is difficult to comprehend that it has been just about 100 days since I first set eyes on Nithyananda.

This has been a roller coaster ride with a difference. I didn't need to shut my eyes, scream as loud as I could and wave my hands to overcome my uncertainty, settle my heaving stomach and enjoy the ride. I needed to be just silent and be a witness. The joy followed. Again, it was a ride all the way up without a downside.

If my ASP experience was fun, the Healing initiation that followed was sheer joy and the NSP there after a deep personal search. The real personal transformation, at least in my case, started with the Acharya training.

The English Acharya group spent first two days of the training in watching Swami conduct his last English ASP over a mid February week end (12/ 13 February

2005) at the Ananda Sabha; the Tamil Acharya group spent these two days watching ASP videos. Monday the 14ᵗʰ started ominously for the participant Acharyas-to-be. The first question from Swami was: How many of you have read the ASP book Six Days to Transformation or heard the cassettes at least 5 times and are ready to take an ASP class from beginning to end? The short answer was none, amongst the 63 that had gathered at the Ananda Nilayam that morning.

The tongue lashing that followed was fluent and vivid. We were described as the laziest souls alive and compared unfavorably with the first batch of Acharya trainees in USA who had all come thoroughly prepared and all that Swami had to do was to lounge on the swing and be entertained. We were all told to stay awake the next three nights to read up on the ASP material and start presenting to Swami on the fourth and fifth days, Thursday and Friday, before we dispersed from session one. Ananda Amrit, my favorite Ganesa was appointed the ‘mahacharya’ or Master Trainer for the Tamil group, and poor I for the English group. Over time the two ‘mahacharyas’ started being referred to as ‘makku’ Acharyas or morons by Swami. That we felt the same way did not make us feel any better.

The group of 20 odd English course Acharyas-to-be that I inherited comprised 15 women, who could have all come from community schools in Harlem. I was bullied, threatened and occasionally, very occasionally cajoled into letting them do what they wanted, most of which was to go to bed at eleven. My job was to prepare summarized briefs for them from the Six Days to Transformation book and cassettes which they could memorize and regurgitate. This was my first phase transformation from a corporate machine that could without a thought make hour long power point presentations to hundreds, into a bumbling idiot who was told by his trainees to speak from his human heart instead of his corporate head.

Tuesday dawned even worse. Instead of being ready with the Introduction as well as the Anahata and Manipuraka chakras as per the schedule given by Swami, most were still struggling with the Zen Master and the overflowing cup, mixing metaphors fluently and in blissful confusion between footwear, teacups and minds. Swami would make sudden appearances, sometimes peeping through windows, always unexpectedly and silently even as we struggled gamely. He found us clearly wanting and sent us packing to start practicing in front of the walls, the cowshed and the trees! Poor Lakshmi, the ashram cow; I am sure she stopped giving milk for a few days.

Sometime during the second evening even as I was struggling to develop summarized material for all the chakras, we were all summoned to Swami's quarters. We sat there for the next three or four hours as he flew on the swing in the verandah, alternatively telling us with great relish what he thought of all of us, which wasn't much, and keeping us entertained with tit bits of philosophical inputs. The first few days he used a stick for effect; the fourth day he switched to a trident for greater emphasis. Few of us understood what was happening.

Sometime late that night as we all sat up well past midnight, Swami came around and told our group in the Laughing Temple that there was a ten footer cobra behind the Temple. After he assured us that it had started moving away and that we were in no danger, we carried on well past two in the morning struggling with the six chapters that we were scheduled to finish that night, out of the total of eight chapters. For each chapter I would first prepare the script which was then handed over to Amrit for translation into Tamil. I would then present my script to the group amidst cat calls and demands to smile and show some heart. After this the group would split into four to make individual presentations within the sub groups to the four sub group leaders who in addition to me were Maneesha, Divoja and Vishal. The process took quite long as each presentation took about an hour, and even with the division of about 5 in each group each section took over 5 hours.

Everyone was struggling and tense. No one seemed to be getting anywhere.

Early on Wednesday morning it dawned on me that it was all a huge cosmic joke that was being played on all of us. When Ma Priyananda, who had almost said yes when Swami had asked the first day for those who wished to drop out, started speaking, I sat transfixed. Her voice was so soft as to be almost inaudible; but then the communion that happened was from within her far deeper than her heart and was received at a point far deeper than the hearts of the listeners. We had the same experience with Gilda who had come from St Louis. Hearing these two was a turning point. It was no longer about how hard one struggled to memorize the script but about how well one internalized the message and spoke from the Being to the Being. If someone had said this to me a day earlier I would have laughed out loud.

I still continued to prepare the script, the group still continued to rehearse; but there was a difference; there was no longer any tension to finish on schedule; it was a process of active relaxation in understanding the substance of each section and doing as best as we could. That night Chandra came around at eleven saying that his mind was a blank; I told him to go home and sleep, and assured him that he would remember all that he had read the next morning, which he mercifully did. Swami called all those who had completed all the chakras for a walk at midnight on Wednesday; the entire English group followed. It was clear by then that it was the energy of the Master that mattered, not just the struggle of the disciple. When we returned around one in the morning from the walk, all of us went to bed without a trace of guilt.

By Thursday we were almost there and it was fun. For the first time the bullying women approved of my delivery and declared me fit for purpose. The last two days moved swiftly, too swiftly. The hours spent in front of the swing increased, the trishul (trident) replaced the stick, and advice given on how to face stones and rotten eggs when we conducted our obligatory ASP classes over the next ten days before we returned to the Ashram on the 4ᵗʰ of March. Swami blessed us and we left.

During the two weekends that we had before we reassembled on 4ᵗʰ March 2005 each one of the group of 63 had conducted at least one ASP class, the smallest class being 4 and the largest 45. Some had conducted three. I did one in Bangalore since I attended the NSP on the weekend following the first training session. My class of 20 included my parents and my wife. It was smooth sailing meriting praise from my father, who is himself a serious scholar of Hindu philosophy. Friday the 4ᵗʰ of March till Monday the 7ᵗʰ Amrit and I spent in evaluating the entire group with short 10 minute presentations. To make things more interesting Swami decided to add eight more new trainees to my group. Ten Acharyas-to-be conducted mass free ASP classes at Dhyanapeetam for a group of nearly ninety people who had come mostly from rural Tamilnadu on 5ᵗʰ and 6ᵗʰ March. At the feedback session after Swami's energy darshan that Amrit and I took, the mass ASP participants were ecstatic both on the content and delivery from their Acharyas and the unexpected presence of the Master (we had warned them that there would be no energy darshan!).

On March 8ᵗʰ Sivaratri night, 22 of the group of Acharya trainees were ordained as the first batch of Acharyas by Swami in India. We were given ashramite status with new names that had both 'Nithya' and ‘Ananda’ in them, most of which Swami had used during his tapas. I became Nithya Advaith Ananda and Amrit became Nithya Amrit Ananda. After an energy darshan with the Paramacharya when he energized our tongues, he sat us down on the Nataraja platform in Ananda Sabha and happily dunked us with cold water at three in the morning. The next couple of hours we dried ourselves dancing to the kirtans, while the 500 strong audience sought Swami’s energy darshan.

True I was happy to be ordained; however I was quite prepared if I wasn't as many of us were. The process of transformation had already set in. there was no comparison with another in the group. I was happy with each one who spoke so well. Would I ever match the intense vigor of Atma, the whirling dervish, he with the flowing beard and the gentle smile; or the mischievous gleam of Maneesha, bully-in-chief; or the creative twists of Nitya Charan; or the deep belly laughs of Amrit; or the gentle voice of silence of Priya; or the sheer presence of peace of Priya Mai. Each one of them is so supremely unique that thinking about how good they are brings a lump to my throat and joy in my heart. The fact that they are so much better than I am is my bliss. This transformation through the grace of my Paramacharya is more important to my evolution than my Acharyaship. My transformation has just started. The next bar that Maneesha and Priya Mai have set is that I smile all the time. I am sure that will happen; sooner than we all think, thanks to them; thanks to a family that I have inherited in the last 100 days, a family as close as I was born with and created through wedlock; a family with no distinction of age, gender and status that has been bestowed upon me by the grace of my Paramacharya, Swami Nithyananda Paramahamsa. I salute him. So do all Acharyas.

Uncommon happenings seemingly happen commonly at Dhyanapeetam.

Long crowds gather for Swami Nithyananda Paramahamsa's healing touch. Sivaratri night discourses, which till 2003 attracted a few dozen hardcore devotees, now pack the Ananda Sabha in hundreds with more having to be turned away.

Dhyanapeetam which can comfortably accommodate fifty people is being called upon to house and feed three hundred or more that throng the Ananda Healing Initiation and other programs. We are going through a phase in the Dhyanapeetam movement that is as exhilarating as it is energizing, as challenging as it is heartwarming. When Swami is around the ashram is heaven on earth; when he is away it is still the hub of a committed movement that fires on all cylinders.

A few days into the Acharya training program, where I had the dubious distinction of being one of the Trainers, the only perquisite of which seemed to be being bullied by over eager lady trainees who seemed more eager to train me than being trained, the laptop that I was using crashed. The laptop was borrowed from Ramya and I was using it to prepare canned material culled from Swami’s earlier discourses that could be used by Acharya Trainees for their ASP classes. At the time the laptop crashed I had put in at least three days of hard work of about 50 pages. After a tea break when I got back to the Laughing Temple Ramya was looking crest fallen; knowing her penchant for practical jokes I wasn’t too worried when she reported that her machine had stopped working; I insisted on rebooting it a few times till I was convinced that Ramya wasn’t bluffing and it was beyond my technical capabilities to get it to work again. I was more or less resigned to rebuilding the Training material from start, when I saw the gleam in Ramya’s eyes.

“Let’s take it to Swami to get it fixed”, Ramya said. To me, it didn’t for some reason seem a goofy idea, especially coming from Ramya. I said, “let’s go” and walked across with her to a hut across, where Swami was holding court happily disrupting the rigorous schedule that I had set for some of the lady trainee bullies who now had the excuse of his presence not to do any work. Ramya gave the laptop to Swami and said, "Swami, it is not working." Swami took it in his hands, turned it around a few times, slapped it a couple of times, gave it back to Ramya saying, "It'll work now."

Ramya and I walked back to the Laughing Temple across the dirt track. I told Ramya," as soon as you start the laptop make a CD of all my stuff." Wide eyed she responded, "How selfish you are, what about all my stuff! I have all my jokes and transcriptions in it too." "Ok, that too", I had no doubt that the laptop would restart, and it did, and Ramya backed up all important folders onto CDs in case the energizing did not last too long. It is a different matter that the laptop is chugging along merrily after several months now.

A few minutes later I was summoned to Swami's court. The audience there wanted to know my reaction to the laptop restarting; they had assumed that my intellectual and analytical background would not accept this strange computer repair. They seemed very surprised when I said that I had no doubt at all when Ramya took the laptop back from Swami's hands that it would work; my only concern was for how long; hence my eagerness to back up.

People ask me whether I could feel Swami's energy from the first time I met him. The truthful answer is in the negative. Even the energy darshan at the ASP course that Swami conducted, while emotionally very comforting, was not any kind of a spiritual experience. I started feeling the power of Swami's presence after my Ananda Gandha initiation following the Healing Initiation program. Surprisingly for me, who usually waits till almost the end for my darshan, I rushed to be amongst the first few for the initiation. After the initiation I went to a corner of the noisy hall full of dancing dervishes, sat down and closed my eyes. It must have been close to forty minutes before I opened them again. The experience was the most powerful that I had had in over thirty years of various esoteric and often exotic meditative practices. From the moment I focused on my Ananda Gandha spot and visualized Swami’s smiling face my entire body was suffused with an over powering energy field. Having practiced Reiki and other energy healing techniques I was very familiar with energy flow from and to the body, but this was a very different experience. If Reiki was a shallow pond this was a roaring ocean; the best energy flow that I had ever had in the past with Reiki and other healing practices was a tingling flow from the palms, and that is what even my teachers of these techniques had experienced at best. Now, my entire body was a radiating energy field, and for quite some time I had no consciousness of anything external.

From that point my senses seemed more refined to feel Swami's energy. In later energy darshans my body felt a very strong force that pushed and pulled me, swayed me till I was in Swami's arms being blessed by him. Praveen, a far more evolved adept who was visiting the ashram, taught me how to focus upon the energy and capture it. Even from a corner of the Ananda Sabha I could focus on Swami's energy and feel its impact. In fact it probably was happening even before without my awareness. I needed far less sleep in the ashram, just a few hours; at home nothing less than eight hours would help me feel fresh and again an hour long nap in the afternoon. Now, four hours of sleep between two and six, to be in time for Guru Puja after a shower and with no nap during the day, was comfortable. I understood what Swami meant when he said that while staying in the ashram healers do not really need to practice the obligatory Shakti Dharana meditation before going to bed. Dhyanapeetam, at least when Swami was in residence, was an energy center that one was constantly plugged into.

The same phenomenon was in evidence as we Acharya Trainees sat in front of him, as Swami flew on the swing in his verandah. Much of what he did in the guise of training the Acharya Trainees had nothing tangible to do with any known form of training. As Priya and others said, he kept throwing energy at us. The process was one of refining base metal. The transformation was an alchemic energy transfer.

During the Acharya Training, one midnight as we were still struggling at the Laughing Temple Swami suddenly sprang up from no where. He first told us that there was a big snake behind the Temple but was moving away and we had nothing to fear from it. He then invited those of us who had covered our schedule for the day to join him on a moon light walk. He soon had a gaggle of twenty behind him. Trailing him, I heard him say that he wanted to go up to the Dakshinamurthy Temple under the Banyan Tree; he then muttered something about that it will be scary, and walked to the block of rooms across the ashram gate outside. We sat there for a while and around one when he got up and started walking back towards the ashram, I asked, "Swami, aren't we going the Banyan Tree?". He turned to look at me and said," Better not now. He will be walking there and the snakes will be out. We would be disturbing the snakes if we go there now."

Just about two weeks before, a few days before the Acharya Training started, Swami had been lecturing on the Siva Sutras. Siva

Sutras are teachings imparted by Siva to Parvati on Self Realization and are a collection of complex and concise epigrams. I was able to attend only two of these. The second discourse that I attended went on for over four hours with Swami explaining the unreality of life expressed as a doubt by Parvati. That evening there was a fire in the adjoining land in front of the Office area and after the fire was put out I left.

Two days later on the 28ᵗʰ of January 2005, Siva walked in Dhyanapeetam.

Swami says: "It was early morning, about half past five. I had come out and was standing on the threshold of my room with one hand on the door lintel. I saw some one walking past close to the verandah in front of me. Since normally no one comes into this area I was surprised and shouted out in Tamil, "who is it?" The person turned, and I recognized him as Siva. For a moment I was confused. As an enlightened person I can not see visions as normal people do. If I saw Siva, He must be real. The only way to check this out was to see if His feet touched the ground. In a vision the feet do not touch the ground.

I rushed out, fell at His feet and grasped the left one with my right hand; with the tips of my fingers resting on His sandal and the base of my hand touching the soil. It was real. His feet were touching ground. I looked at His other foot. I could see the grass being crushed under His feet by his footwear.

I looked up. Siva was smiling at me, obviously amused at what I was doing to check out if He was real. I sprang back to look at Him. I had nothing to say. He continued to smile at me for a few seconds, then turned and walked way. Suddenly He disappeared from my sight."

Five other people glimpsed or felt Siva that morning. Anand and Dr. Chanthiran from Salem had stepped out of their rooms inside the ashram and saw a form moving past them. Anand drew a picture based on what he saw which matched Swami’s description. Priyamai, Maneesha and Bandhu were on their way to the Banyan Tree when they felt someone brushing past them.

Swami’s description of Siva was vivid. In a video that I saw where he talked to ashramites on his experience on the same day he said:

“Siva was very much like what we see in His pictures, except that He did not have a cobra around his neck. He was golden in color, dazzling, with long hair. He had a short garment wrapped around His waist and hip that came above His knees and had a tiger skin wrapped over it. He was wearing wooden sandals. He had many rudraksha necklaces on His neck. He had a hunter's horn tucked in His waistband, carried a small drum on one hand and a trident on the other. His trident was a lot smarter than mine; I noted the design and will get one made similar to that!"

A day after this incident Swami went into Samadhi for a whole day. He says that this was the first time that he recovered consciousness without external help from out of a Samadhi. When he came out of Samadhi that evening he asked the ashramites and others who had come to hear him on Siva Sutra, just to sit in front of him at the Ananda Nilayam and meditate. Most of them went into deep meditation that lasted for over two hours.

The place where Swami saw Siva in front of his room is now marked with a few stones so that people do not walk over this spot. Other than that there is nothing to indicate that Siva walks at Dhyanapeetam. Swami says that the Banyan tree is the abode of Siva in the form of Banashankara, the consort of Banshankari, who is the guardian mother of the city of Bangalore.

Banashankara, Dakshinamurthy, Siva or Nithyananda, God does walk in Dhyanapeetam, and with a little effort one can feel His energy. As I write this in March 2005 when Dhyanapeetam hosts only a few hundred at a time, I can see soon, very soon, the numbers growing into hundreds of thousands.

Who can keep man away from where God walks!