Articles on Swamiji

Article 14
The Courier Mail 10 Oct 2007
How to get happy
By Graham Readfearn

Article 13
The Independent
Meditate on faith
Article on the opening of the new meditation hall at the Shiva School of Meditation and Yoga.

Article 12
Mornington Peninsula Leader
School’s joyful start
Article on the opening of the new meditation hall at the Shiva School of Meditation and Yoga.

Article 11
Australian Yoga Life Article
Growing with the Guru
Nancy Jackson talks to Swamiji about how to connect with the inner Self.

Article 10
Book Review
CONSCIOUSNESS IS EVERYTHING
Reviewed by Georg Feuerstein

Article 9:
Hinduism Today Article
Confessions of A Western Hindu
October 2005
By Swami Shankarananda

Article 8:
Book review
Consciousness is Everything
Reviewed by Dennis Waterman

Article 7:
Woman’s Day
November 3, 2003
Garry McDonald’s Secret Weapon
With Caron James

Article 6:
Radio National - The Spirit of Things
November 5, 2000
GARRY & THE GURU
With Rachel Kohn

Article 5:
The Australian
December 28, 2000
FAITHFULLY YOURS
By Adam Duff

Article 4:
The Weekend Australian
November 4-5, 2000
WORK IN PROGRESS
By Chris Beck

Article 3:
Australian Yoga Life
Spring, 2000
WEST MEETS EAST in a Unique Australian Setting
By Nancy Jackson

Article 2:
My DOMAIN - The Age
29 September, 1999
SWAMIJI’s SPIRITUAL PATH
By Pollyanna Sutton

Article 1:
The AGE
14 July, 1999
ME AND MY SWAMI
By Steve Waldon

Article 9
Hinduism Today (unedited)
By Swami Shankarananda

Confessions of a Western Hindu

Thousands of non-Indians follow the practices and philosophies. Why don’t they call themselves Hindus?

One of my students is the Australian icon, comedian Garry McDonald. He is well loved in Australia and it is widely known that meditation has helped him overcome depression. Recently, someone showed me an interview he gave to a Melbourne newspaper. This was the question that caught my eye:

• Do you take any personal items of special significance with you when you travel?

• Yes, my statue of the God, Shiva. I am a Shaivite yogi. It’s one of the oldest forms of worship and pre-dates Hinduism. I take a meditation shawl and a kitchen timer for meditating and a couple of books on yoga.
• (Sunday Herald Sun, Feb 6, 2005)

Clever, I thought. And immediately I decided to write this article that had been bubbling in my mind for a number of years.

Here is the question I want to raise: are we Westerners who practise yoga and meditation, in fact, Hindus? Asking this question immediately highlights an odd feature of Hinduism. While Western Buddhist practitioners easily admit to being Buddhists, Western yogis have a much more difficult time admitting to being Hindus. Garry’s highly intelligent sidestep is fairly typical.

I am going to suggest that those of us who are deeply immersed in yogic practice, those who seek the highest truth, are in fact, Hindus, and it is important that we acknowledge it.

I am director and founder of the Shiva Ashram near Melbourne, Australia. Like many seekers of my generation, I left the West (in 1970) seeking spirituality in India. I essayed various paths, both Buddhist and Hindu, until I found my Guru, Swami Muktananda. After that I considered myself a yogi, a meditator, a spiritual seeker, a devotee of the Guru and the great beings, but not specifically a Hindu. However, in 1977 at my Guru’s request, I was inducted into the Saraswati order of monks by Mahamandaleshwar Brahmananda Giri.

Certainly, I love the Hindu scriptures, rituals and even the so called ‘feel’ of Hinduism. In my ashram, we chant and do puja, and the tone of it is Hindu (i.e. incense, shoes off, waving of lights, sitting on the floor, vegetarian food, sitar music and Sanskrit texts), even though most, but not all, of the participants are Western. We enjoy making mini-pilgrimages to the local Hindu temple, where the Brahmin priests are good friends. They have done yagnas in the ashram and I have done programs with them elsewhere.

It wasn’t until the time came for us to incorporate as a religious institution here in Australia, that the issue of Hinduism arose. At that time, it became obvious that the most truthful path was to incorporate as a Hindu institution. That was plateau one.

Plateau two happened when I began to receive invitations to interfaith conferences as a representative of Hinduism. Soon, I was generally regarded as the leading spokesperson for Hinduism in the Melbourne area. This was curious because I still noticed within myself some reluctance to call myself a Hindu. Even in the midst of writing this piece, I was invited by a Catholic priest to represent Hinduism at a conference with Christians, Moslems and Buddhists on the issue of prayer.

About twenty-five people live in our ashram and many more are householders in the area. I began to ask them whether they considered themselves Hindus. I asked them what they put down on government and hospital forms in the box under religion. A remarkably small percentage write down ‘Hindu’—perhaps one in fifty. Most of them, like Garry, write ‘Shaivite’, or ‘Shiva Yoga’, or ‘Kashmir Shaivism’, or ‘yogi’, or ‘meditator’, or ‘none’ in the box. Some fall back on the religion of their childhood like Catholic or Presbyterian. Many are reduced to citing ‘other’. 

I have friends and colleagues who are leaders of the Buddhist community here in Melbourne and, as I have said, they and Western Buddhist practitioners in general have not the slightest problem with writing ‘Buddhist’ in that box. Whence the difference?

Before I go on, let me say that I am well aware that the revered Swami Subramuniya, founder of Hinduism Today, wrote a book, How to Become a Hindu. In fact, I wrote an appreciative blurb at the back of that book. Gurudev Subramuniya took a hard-line. He felt that every Western yogi and meditator in an Indian tradition was, in fact, a Hindu, and should formally resign from their old religion and also formally convert to Hinduism, including taking a Hindu name. I find this view stimulating and provocative, but not one that realistically reflects the actual situation. It seems to me that only a small minority of ‘candidate Hindus’ would be interested in taking such a step. I’m not speaking here of casual meditators or hatha yogis, but of serious, deeply involved practitioners.

Why is it easier for Westerners to call themselves Buddhists rather than Hindus? This is not simply because Buddhism is more fashionable at the moment, being apparently more rational (fewer gods) and having the charisma and leadership of the Dalai Lama. Why should a person who practices yoga and meditation, who believes in karma and reincarnation, who participates in an Indian tradition, who repeats a Hindu mantra and who may indeed venerate Hindu deities, still be reluctant to call himself a Hindu? If it looks like it, smells like it, tastes like it, why isn’t it IT?

We might say, irascibly, ‘What’s the problem? They are all Hindus, they should admit it’. But what I am saying is that such a position is unrealistic. People resist calling themselves Hindu and their reasons are worthy of consideration.

Caste and Ethnicity

Buddhism has taken root in many cultures, so we have a Thai Buddhism, a Tibetan Buddhism, a Korean Buddhism, etc. This makes an American Buddhism or an English or Australian Buddhism more palatable. Buddhism is not the possession of any particular ethnicity, while Hinduism is overwhelmingly Indian. Many Westerners feel that the caste system is a major stumbling block. Indeed, many low-caste Hindus have had recourse to Buddhism and Christianity and even Islam, to escape it. Where would Western yogis fit into that system? Why would we Westerners voluntarily enter a world in which we have a low status?

Further, there is a negative view of Hinduism that may have come out of the British Raj. In this view, Hinduism is a ‘heathen’ religion given to idol worship, the worship of many gods and strange excesses like the Kali cults. When a Hindu influence began to be felt in the West, it steered away from the H-word in favour of terms like ‘theosophy’, ‘Vedic religion’ and even ‘Vedanta’. It was considered ‘transcendental’ rather than Hindu, and even when New Age philosophy incorporated many Hindu ideas, like reincarnation and karma, it did so with almost no awareness of their source.

While Hinduism is marked by the most extraordinary kind of tolerance and universality, it is also true—and I’ve experienced this myself—Westerners are sometimes not accepted and are barred from entry into certain temples. I have had discussions with Indian Hindu leaders in which some of them said that Westerners could never really become Hindus, while others said the opposite.

More important than whether Indians accept Western Hindus, is whether Western candidates accept Hinduism. Along with the caste problem, comes the status of women, sati (self-immolation of widows), and related issues, which can be explained away, but still act as deterrents for Westerners to announce themselves as Hindus.

Western Hinduism

In summary, we have two facts here: a great many Western practitioners love the core beliefs and practices of Hinduism, but they are, at the same time, reluctant to say they are Hindus. The first step is to acknowledge that Western Hinduism, while having its roots in Indian Hinduism, is something different.

Someone might say, ‘What’s the difference? Hindu or yogi, it amounts to the same thing. What’s in a name? All religions are part of the same one revelation called Sanatana Dharma (universal religion). Why call it anything?’ First of all, the concept of Sanatana Dharma is found only in Hinduism. Second, while you can get to the top floor of a building equally by stairs, elevator or escalator, you have to decide on one of them to actually get there. While to know ‘I am the Self’ is perhaps the highest truth, it is also necessary to have clarity at the social and religious level as well.

The Children and Self-Empowerment

There are at least two main reasons for considering these questions seriously: the first is the children. In our community, many children come to Satsang. They enjoy the atmosphere and the chanting and the puja. And then, during the talk and meditation, they go off to the children’s program, which they equally enjoy. Many of the parents ask me what they should tell their children about their religion. What should the children say in school when other children say they are Christians or Jews? Are they yogis or former Presbyterians? Isn’t it important for the children to feel the security of a recognised tradition?

The second reason for thinking about calling ourselves Hindus is self-empowerment. If all the Western Hindu groups remain small and separate, they lose their voice vis-à-vis the government and society. The Buddhists have a strong voice because they are able to unite and say, ‘We are Buddhists and our rights should be respected’. In fact, we ‘Hindus’ often reap the fruits of the Buddhists’ good work. I am not saying that we should become a lobby, but where Christians, Jews and Moslems and their institutions are afforded certain rights, privileges and immunities, why should we be deprived of them?

A New Kind of Hindu

I am a situational Hindu. Clearly, I am a swami, a concept and title in the Hindu tradition. If the government asks me my religion, I tell them I am a Hindu because, in fact, that is the tradition in which I was ordained and which I practise. Amidst priests and teachers of other traditions, I am a Hindu. My mind is not a religious mind, and ‘Hindu’ is not a major identification that it makes. However, if a religious mind asks me what I am, the only correct answer is ‘Hindu’. Or, perhaps more accurately, the dialogue could go like this:

• Question: What tradition do you belong to?

• Myself: I am a yogi in the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism.

• Question: Isn’t that a form of Hinduism?

• Myself: Well, yes, it is a Hindu tradition.

• Question: Why didn’t you admit that you were a Hindu from the beginning?

• Myself: Well, I guess I can’t say it without qualification. I have to say that I am a yogi, a meditator, a disciple of Muktananda, a Kashmir Shaivite first, and only then, will I say I am a Hindu.

• Question: You Western Hindus are a curious bunch.

• Myself: No doubt about it!

I have been using the term ‘Western Hindu’ in this essay. In the past, I have also used ‘Philosophical Hindu’, which suggests that being a Hindu is not only a matter of birth but of attitude. My final take on the situation is this: we are in fact Hindus. But when asked, we are likely to be more comfortable saying something else like, ‘Shaivite yogi’ or ‘Vaishnava bhakta’ or ‘TM meditator’, only admitting to being a Hindu after some more dialogue. But in this, we are not unlike the Indian devotee whose first line answer is likely to be Vaishnava or Shaivite. Perhaps it’s a Hindu characteristic not to want to say things too bluntly!

The concept of Hinduism was invented by Westerners trying to make some sense of the richness of spiritual traditions in the sub-continent, while the Indians themselves prefer to use more specific terms, as I have said. Still, whatever its origins, the term does have contemporary meaning.

And so I throw this discussion up to the readership of Hinduism Today, to both Westerners and Indians. My experience has made me want to confess that I am a Hindu. But I am a new kind of Hindu and I cannot be the old kind of Hindu. Hinduism is a living entity that is only now transcending ethnicity. Yoga is not Buddhism, not Christianity, not New Age. It is Hinduism of some kind.

In my own ashram, I value both independence and connection to traditional sources. We make use of Brahmin priests, but at the same time have simplified the rites of passage and pujas into forms more suitable for our cultural context. We live in a time of unprecedented interchange between cultures. What Swami Vivekananda began in 1893 in Chicago has become an important cultural phenomenon. The East has come to the West and it is my belief that Western practitioners must find their unique identity and expression.

As ‘Western Hindus’ we are pioneers writing on a clean slate. We are on the cutting edge of a cultural and spiritual evolutionary process. Some Western Gurus and their students no longer have any organisational affiliation with Eastern groups and truly stand on their own. One of the remarkable features of Hinduism is its lack of a central authority, each Guru and lineage being essentially independent. Now that this tradition has translated to the West, we have reached an important moment of self-definition. A new chapter in the evolution of Hinduism has arisen and we should know it and embrace it.

Postscript

While working on this article, I had a very clear insight which I want to share. Risking the possibility that it may seem transparently obvious to some and politically incorrect to others, it is this:

Westerners, with regard to Indian culture, are, and will always be, outsiders. We may love Indian culture, we might acknowledge that it is a culture of great hospitality, with a welcoming spirit, but as Westerners, we are always, and properly, outsiders. However, from the point of view of Hinduism as philosophy, as yoga and as Sanatana Dharma, we can be insiders. Sanatana Dharma belongs to all human beings, not just Indians, and the powerful ideas of Hinduism will spread simply because they are true.

Now, for the first time in history, the philosophic and yogic aspect of Hinduism is spilling across the borders of India, thus creating a new kind of ‘Hinduism’. It is important for our own self-awareness to acknowledge ourselves as Western Hindus and separate this from ethnic considerations, while still paying great honour to the ancient traditions from which we have come, and from which we continue to learn.

Our new form of Hinduism will have a lot of freshness and vitality, and surely some Indians who are culturally situated in certain ways will be drawn to it. So, even though I am calling it here ‘Western Hinduism’ it should be understood that this form of Hinduism is open to all.

Article 8
Book Review
CONSCIOUSNESS IS EVERYTHING
Reviewed by Dennis Waterman
(www.jeremysilman.com)

Readers rating (1-10 scale): 10

Rarely does a work come along that I regard as an instant classic. This is likely one and will take some to be recognized as such because of weak distribution and a subject that relatively few are familiar with. I only say likely because I like to chew my food for a while before swallowing and although I have quickly gone through this book, the material in it will take many months for me to digest. I could call this a pre-review because I intend to write a much longer one at a later date but thought it was too selfish to not share this treasure with any interested readers. Even if you regard yourself as a beginner on the path of pursuing awareness I encourage you to buy this one and put it on your bookshelf as a reference book. I regarded Shankarananda’s previous book (HAPPY FOR NO GOOD REASON, which I have reviewed) as quite good, but this one is a cut above.

In CONSCIOUSNESS IS EVERYTHING Shankarananda produces an incredible effort to make the most complex subjects of an advanced “philosophy” understandable. He does this as a human being, as a scholar, and as a practitioner and draws upon his background within the framework of all three to present Kashmir Shaivism to us. If you are reading these words, you have enough of an interest to try to understand this gift. Read it without worrying about what you do not understand, just open yourself to the richness of the distant past and its correctness and usefulness right now! You can come back to the subjects presented here when you feel the time is “right”.

PS: Full disclosure leads me to mention that without knowing Jeremy Silman I would not have heard of Shankarananda and his work (I had politely nodded my head when he was mentioned over the years, which partially stems from the fact that I did not share his views on certain critical items that seemed important to me…), nor would I likely have looked beyond the cover of HAPPY FOR NO GOOD REASON. Now I might have cracked this one open when I eventually saw it because of the reference to Kashmir Shaivism on the cover, who knows? In all cases I have not yet met the author but hope to, he has made a magnificent effort to illuminate what I regard as the most important texts that we (humankind) have available to us.
 

Copyright © 2004 Dennis Waterman

Article 7:
Woman’s Day
November 3, 2003
Garry McDonald’s Secret Weapon
With Caron James

It’s hard to believe the smiling, chatting Garry McDonald was on the brink of a nervous breakdown this year. But the iconic funnyman knows the symptoms all too well – he suffered a breakdown 10 years ago.

But as Garry explains to Woman’s Day, he now has a secret weapon that keeps him from ending up back on medication and struggling to function.

“Meditation saved me,” declares Garry, 53. Loved for his portrayal of Norman Gunston and long-running TV comedy series Mother and Son, among others, Garry has been meditating for 22 years, and he says it is a simple practice that has often meant the difference between keeping going and collapsing.

Garry reveals his most recent bout of debilitating depression meant he had to pull out of a Sydney season of the play Howard Katz on June 23, after only a couple of rehearsals. The trouble was – he was playing a middle-aged actor suffering from depression.

Did the subject matter lead him into depression? “Oh God, yes,” he says with a laugh. “Especially since I have a tendency towards it anyway.”

Garry had not suffered a major bout of depression since he had to withdraw from a reprise of The Norman Gunston Show in 1993 after only two episodes. He was determined not to let the illness get hold of him again. “This time, I felt it coming on for probably a year and a half beforehand, and doing the play was too much,” he says.

“I caught myself in time. That’s why I didn’t go in to work the next day – I knew I couldn’t. But I didn’t need to take [anti-depressant] medication this time.”

Garry spoke to Woman’s Day during a recent four-day retreat at the Shiva School of Meditation in Mt Eliza, not far from Melbourne, under the guidance of its founder, the revered meditation teacher Swami Shankarananda. Garry will welcome this Swamiji and two other world leaders in the field, Swami Nityananda of India and Master Charles Cannon from the US, at two meditation programs, The Power of Three to be held in Melbourne in November.

But Garry wasn’t always convinced about meditation and yoga. He recalls the first conference he attended more than 20 years ago. “The group chanted and talked about meditation with Swamiji. He was this white American with a shaved head and wearing Indian robes – I thought, ‘What a wally!’”

But suddenly something clicked. “ It was like a bolt of lightning had gone up my spine. I knew what it was – the coiled serpent that rises up the spine like electricity. Then I just burst into tears!”

He’s been meditating ever since, twice a day for half an hour, giving up only during his darkest hours in 1993. “I can’t imagine life without it now,” he explains. “It helps, definitely. It takes the edge off my depression.”

Garry considers himself semi-retired now and he’s enjoying life with his wife of 32 years, actress Diane Graig, spending most of his days relaxing at their property or with his grandchildren, Cooper, four, Declan, one, and Jack, now aged six months.

He’ll next work in the David Williamson play Amigos. “It’s about the Australian rowing four from the Mexican Olympics. Three are still alive – two are hugely successful and the other is a drop-out.”

So which is Garry’s role? “Which one do you think? I’m the drop-out of course!”

Article 6:
Radio National - The Spirit of Things
November 5, 2000
“GARRY & THE GURU”
With Rachel Kohn

To view this article, click here

Article 5:
The Australian
December 28, 2000
FAITHFULLY YOURS
By Adam Duff

In 1996, Sarah Hudson graduated from Monash University with an arts-law degree. She had a loving family, a supportive network of friends; she went to the movies and ate chocolate regularly.

Yet there was a piece of the puzzle missing. At times she felt she had everything - and nothing.

Her father had a possible answer for her. Several years earlier, a doctor had suggested meditation to him as a way of dealing with severe dyslexia.

The recommendation led him to the Shiva School of Meditation in Mount Eliza - about an hour from Melbourne - headed by Hindu spiritual leader Swami Shankarananda, an American who first travelled to India in 1970.

Sarah's father is an atheist and his wife is an Anglican, but he found the meditation classes helpful. He knew Sarah, 21, would get something out of it.

Sarah believed there was something greater among us, but without knowledge of it things made less sense. Her father's instinct was right and Sarah began to find solace in meditation, starting in 1994.

In 1997 she moved into the Ashram and asked Shankarananda to give her a new name. She became Vani, named after the Hindu Goddess of speech and wisdom.

"Before I came here I had involved myself intensely in student politics," she says. "I was interested in feminism, conservation and all those different things because I think I was really looking for something in society, but I didn't find the answers there... nobody taught me that there was another part to me that really existed in the world."

Vani doesn't call herself a Hindu. She cannot put a label on her spiritual path, except to say she thinks it is a universally acceptable spiritual process based on meditation.

"My teacher comes from the tradition of Hinduism and he is a Western Hindu, but the truth is that the spirituality he teaches is universal. It's got the traditions and the practices of Hinduism, but the essence of it is meditation and anybody can meditate - whether they be Hindu, Christian or Muslim.

"I started practising meditation regularly because I realised I had found something that really resonated inside.
"So I started more regularly going to the program. Meditation basically enabled me to finish my law degree, it gave me the focus to do it.

"It was like there was only one world, which was the outer world, and I didn't really know what was going on inside, and as I meditated I really learned how to listen to the inner world. I thought I should go and do some work on my inner world, and that's when I decided I wanted to move in."

Vani intended to find an outside job but "the work just came to me, and now my main job is [as] Swamiji's personal assistant and I administer some of the courses."
Vani says she loves her job and gets so much out of it for two reasons.

"One is that I get to see people come through here and learn to meditate and learn about themselves - and, hopefully, transform their lives. The other part of it is that I get to work on myself as well.

"I've never had a job outside before, but I'd imagine the difference here is that there is always a higher principle, there is something to work towards. Being at harmony with yourself and others is a greater principle."

Unlike in most mainstream religions, Vani's beliefs do not impose any moral restrictions in terms of, say, alcohol or sex before marriage.

Vani has a boyfriend, whom she met at the ashram; she is a vegetarian, doesn't smoke and drinks only occasionally.

"Nothing's prohibited but you learn through experience what's good for you and what's not, and do what brings you closer to God.

"My aim isn't to cut the evils out of my life but just be self-aware. For instance, if I go out to dinner and have a glass of wine, that's fine - but I have to be aware of that and I have to be able to choose that is what I want to do. The more I meditate, the more self-aware I am and the more something like having a glass of wine affects me.

"People can choose to live in misery, but why not choose to live in bliss or at least work towards it? If you've got that choice, why not do it? I think it's everybody's birthright."

Article 4:
The Weekend Australian
November 4-5, 2000
WORK IN PROGRESS
By Chris Beck

1969, aged 27
I was living in Chicago working as a lecturer at Indiana University.

What was in your mind?
I was undergoing a spiritual awakening that had began a few years before. I had been very idealistic about the academic life. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the reality. There wasn't a real spirit of scholarship and tradition, it was more like every man for himself, and ambition and so on. I've often told the story of how I had a gun put in my face (by a stranger looking for another man) which caused me to re-evaluate my life and try to figure out what it's all about. There wasn't fear but there was a complete awareness - "It's over, what a waste of so much education." It transformed me, I started investigating spiritual matters. I was on the path that led me to meet Ramdas (a noted American spiritual teacher) at a dinner party in Chicago in 1969, and he told me about India and yoga and so on. Then I became keen to go to India and meet a living master.

Why does it seem to always take a shock or disaster for people to get involved in spirituality outside organised religion?
It can be caused in many ways - by an encounter with a great being, or by an accident, or by a near-death experience. We've been taught to think about mundane matters all the time. Yet there is a higher part of our soul, but we are usually not in touch with it. We all get shocked in life but some of us turn it into a quest for an answer. So that in classical stories every spiritual awakening is about some shock. Like the Buddha got shocked from his complacency by discovering the problems of old age, disease and death. Ramana Maharshi, a modern Indian sage, was awakened when he was 16 years old because he underwent a huge fear of death.

Did you find what you were looking for in India?
I met many great teachers there but the one that really impressed me was Swami Muktananda, who was one of the three major gurus of the early 70s. I loved his ashram, which had military discipline. I knew if I stayed I would be transformed. I was there for three years and a student of his until he died nine years later.

Did you see yourself as nobly sacrificing Western ways?
Never. Look, I lived in the 60s. I had enough of sex, intoxicants, I had been very well entertained. Any more would have been more of the same. What I didn't have enough of was understanding and truth and peace.

Who were your heroes?
I adored Samuel Beckett.

2000, aged 58

Who are your heroes now?
I still admire my teacher Muktananda.

Have you had enough understanding and truth and peace by now?
When you start exploring the self, it's an infinite and tremendous joy. But you enjoy externals too, you know - I play in a blues band.

Much of your teaching is happiness through meditation. But meditation is also about truth. Can't truth get in the way of happiness?
People believe that ignorance is bliss. That can be true. There are some things that at certain stages of development it's better not to know. But in the state of enlightenment there is full truth and full happiness at the same time. There is a divine part of us and when we get in touch with that we become who we really are. The question is: why are nasty rotten people that way? And the answer is because of their minds and their tendencies and life experiences that turn them negative. But these are only tendencies of their mind which can be overcome through meditation and inner work...Can it turn an axe murderer into a Buddha? It may take a few lifetimes for that.

You believe that the soul is immortal. So are you excited about death?
I think when the time for death comes, I will really be excited about it, because it's the biggest journey. The first time I made love to a woman, there was a part of me witnessing it three feet behind me and saying "This is what you've been thinking about and wanting so much, you are actually doing it now." When I thought about that, I realised that one day I am going to come to the moment when I die and I'm going to say: "This is it, this is death"... When we are terrified we resist that experience. I've had out of body experiences with meditation. The body is the source of all kinds of pain and so on, and if you expand beyond the personal into a vastness and go with it, it's ecstasy.

What's the logic in understanding God?
I've explored all the ideas about god. The philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism seems to have the best idea; it says that God is universal consciousness and awareness, and that when that universal consciousness contracts itself, it becomes the world and human beings, and when we inwardly expand through meditation and other means, we become one with God again. Seems logical to me... To me spirituality is a very simple thing and it's relevant to everyone's life. The thing that stops us from it is our minds. Our minds move down to negative states like fear and anger, or upwards like love and joy and peace. We have the choice of moving higher or lower. This is so simple and very obvious to me. Why is it that the world doesn't know it? I believe that religion in the name of God has hidden God from man more than any other factor. It's a crime to think that in the name of religion you have people butchering each other everywhere.

You were US chess master and you enjoy competitive sports, including boxing. Why is a man of inner peace into boxing?
My father taught me to box as a kid. We used to watch the Friday night fights on television. I remain a fan. However, it's true in recent years I have noticed that when the fist hits the head, it's not pretty. I know what those punches do. I have contradictory emotions about it. I still admire the beauty and art and primal quality of boxing. I have a real feeling for that, and yet it's horrific destruction. [But] I don't think boxing should leave the universe yet.

Where is another time and place for you?
I would like to have a quick look in at the great spiritual figures in history: Buddha, Jesus, Rama Krishna and my teacher's teacher, Bhagavan Nityananda. Then zoom to the future and be around when the great spiritual awakening that we see the beginnings of now is in full flower, with wisdom and love and great souls who teach the truth in the most powerful way.

Article 3:
Australian Yoga Life
Spring, 2000
WEST MEETS EAST in a Unique Australian Setting
By Nancy Jackson

The clanging of morning bells, the call of conches and the recitation of Sanskrit is straight out of India. But the rustic setting 40 kilometres from Melbourne is pure Australia. The Shiva Ashram in Mt Eliza is a working spiritual centre of nearly two dozen live-in ashramites and a community of several hundred active participants from many walks of life.

Even more extraordinary than an Indian-style ashram in the suburbs is having a master yogi in residence. A native New Yorker, Swami Shankarananda first came to Australia in 1974 and returned several times as the director of an ashram in Melbourne. Ten years ago, he was invited by a group of Australians to create a permanent ashram specifically to bring yoga into everyday life. Swamiji says, ‘To me, yoga is far more than a series of practices or studies. It is a way of life that centers on awareness, being present and having insight into yourself and the people around you. Everything we teach here is based on that, whether it’s body awareness in yoga postures, thought awareness in self-inquiry or feeling awareness in responding to circumstances in life. Shiva Yoga is designed to positively affect what I consider the four basic areas of life: health, career, relationships and spiritual well-being’.

In looking back to his own motivations for pursuing yoga, Swamiji recounts an incident in the late 1960s. He was in New York at a friend’s house when he answered a knock on the door. ‘I opened the door to a gun in my face’, he says. ‘I instantly became present. I looked down the gun barrel and could clearly see the bullets in the chambers. I felt no fear but two powerful thoughts came into my mind. The first was, this is it. I’m going to die, what a waste of all that education. The second thought was, what’s it all about if it can end so abruptly?’

A few years later he was at a small dinner gathering with Ram Dass, the author of Be Here Now, a book that influenced a generation to look into the teachings of the great yogis. Within a few months he was in a VW bus, travelling across Europe and overland to India. There he met and studied with a number of yogis. In Hardwar he stayed with Hari Dass, a hatha yogi who had been silent for 20 years. Swamiji practiced physical postures, breath exercises and yogic esoterica such as swallowing a 24-foot-long cloth and then pulling it up to help digestion.

In his journey he met other prominent yogis including Neemkaroli Baba, Nisargadatta Maharaj and the woman sage, Anandamayi Ma. He was most impressed by his first meeting with and subsequent 12-year discipleship to Swami Muktananda, known as Baba.

‘The intense ashtanga yoga I practiced with Hari Dass was designed to awaken the kundalini, the dormant spiritual potential inside each of us’, Swamiji says. ‘Baba’s approach was different. First he awakened the kundalini through shaktipat, the instant transmission of shakti, or spiritual energy. Then we practiced hatha yoga and pranayama (breathing) for balance, flexibility and to unblock knots’.

Swamiji has the ability to transform the complex teachings of yoga to today’s Western life. One method he developed is a unique self-inquiry called the Shiva Process. He says, ‘The Shiva Process is the hatha yoga of the subtle body. We carry around with us emotional baggage and block the prana, or spiritual life force. These blocks manifest in the physical body and can be accessed both through hatha yoga postures and through the chakras, or energy centers in the body. The inner Self knows the problem and knows the solution. The wisdom we carry within is all-pervasive, limitless and always the truth. It’s our job to let go of negative thoughts and use our own inner knowledge to uplift us and tap into our own joy’.

Devi Angell, co-director of the Shiva Meditation Centres, has worked with Swamiji for many years in building the ashram and refining the Shiva Process. She says, ‘Swamiji points over and over to the innate transforming power of our own consciousness. He encourages us to turn the light of awareness, which we share generously with others, within and reflect on the inner Self. This simple yet crucial doing frees us from the fickle and unreliable mind’.

In his book, Happy for No Good Reason, Swami Shankarananda discusses the negative thoughts that tear into self-esteem and confidence. He says, ‘Thought and feeling are connected. Self-talk goes on in our minds all the time. The mind ceaselessly thinks and comments about everything that happens. Self-talk can expand us and make us feel joy or it can contract us and make us feel as though we are living in hell. The essence of yoga, spirituality and Self-inquiry is to become the master of our self-talk. The methods by which we can understand and transform our self-talk are meditation and self-inquiry’.

He places great importance on meditation, and recognizes it’s a practice that takes time to develop. Through the years he’s created methods designed to help newcomers understand the principles of meditation and establish a practice. He says, ‘Meditation is a method of quieting the mind and experiencing our deepest nature, the Self. The value of experiencing the Self is incalculable. It is an awakening, an upwelling of energy, joy and wisdom’.

According to Swamiji, this awakening can occur several ways. He says, ‘It can take place through meditation techniques that have been passed down in a strong tradition of great souls from teacher to student. The awakening can also happen in the presence of a self-realised being, as it did for me in the presence of my teacher, and as it did for him in the presence of his teacher. In my case I felt energy rushing through me and I had a series of experiences of higher Consciousness’.

To help mediators boost their experience of meditation and to help new participants, Swamiji conducts ‘Intensives’, where he gives the shaktipat awakening in the tradition of his lineage. Although many participants have extraordinary spiritual experiences, the focus is on getting deep inside and accepting whatever comes up.

Known for his humour and ability to translate ancient teachings into contemporary language, Swamiji draws on the teachings of the Vedas, Patanjali, Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna, among others. He emphasizes Kashmir Shaivism, a philosophy that says everything is Consciousness, represented by one of the names of God, Shiva.

‘Kashmir Shaivism says that everything is linked to everything else by supreme intelligence’, he says. ‘Nothing is separate or alone because the same Consciousness underlies everything. There are links and correspondences everywhere. When we evolve spiritually, we move towards oneness’.

By combining the wisdom of the East with the enthusiasm and vitality of the West, Swami Shankarananda has created a dynamic and fluid community based on self-empowerment and connection to the divine Consciousness within. He acknowledges the help he receives from the many associates who offer their services in building and operating the ashram and creating the events and programmes that bring the teachings to the public.

‘Yoga is the practice of natural happiness’, he says. ‘You do not need to go to India or Tibet, to a cave or a monastery. Your normal life is a perfect arena of spirituality. Divinize and energize your life. A life lived with attention to the inner world gradually triumphs over suffering’.

FROM HAPPY FOR NO GOOD REASON

BY SWAMI SHANKARANANDA