The Fallen Swami

Which are the enlightened?

We called him Swami or Sir.

His full name was a lengthy journey that went on for some six utterances.

We shall call him Swami Guru for this piece. This is a piece about broken trust. Grudging disbelief. A period of silence, absorption, acceptance and rising. Most odd of all was the unexpected appearance of that old character called forgiveness. In this case, forgiveness ‘with’ honors, which perhaps was the most surprising of all.

There’s nothing new about this true story. Sixties ‘love children’ in high school studying Hindu books. A couple years later, a chance meeting on a main street and before we knew it, we were initiated into what he called Mantra Yoga Meditation, (or close to that).

For good enough reason, I will not name our teacher’s organization, nor his full name. Amongst the reasons for not divulging is that it is not my desire to cause any practitioner pain or doubt.

Or to malign the teacher we found.

Maharishi was all the rage what with the Beatles letting the world know they’d stumbled upon ‘the light’, upon freedom and true happiness. The fab four, well not all of them, introduced the white robed, cherub like, full bearded, long-haired meditation teacher. His lessons were all about something called Transcendental Meditation.

My first wife and I ran into our teacher, almost literally, on Sixth Calle, Main Street in downtown Guatemala City. This would’ve been 1971. The teacher looked like Maharishis twin! It was uncanny in a way of speaking. We were walking rather briskly down the busy sidewalk of Guatemala’s busiest boulevard attempting to put the city’s hustle and bustle behind us.

‘Ellen, do you see what I see just ahead of us?’ There, at the entrance of one of the city’s oldest hotels, stood a short man in white silk robes. His thin, dark legs protruded comically from the loose white sheets from the mid calve down to his sandaled feet. One hand was wistfully pulling and grooming a long, full beard, the other nestled somewhere in the white folds.

Long graying shoulder length hair gave a glowing effect. Some might already suggest that we saw him this way, larger than life, vibrating, because we chose to. I would say that they might be right. We hoped for three years to find a teacher. In those days, we called them Gurus. One’s soul teacher. Guide through this life into the ones following.

To misuse an already overly used cliché at my own risk is to say that finding a genuine, Hindu Guru in of all places Guatemala in those days was even less likely than finding the very scarce hens tooth!

We could not be blamed then in thinking at least to some degree it was fate.

As we approached where he was standing, we couldn’t help noticing how active he seemed to be, though he was just standing in place. His head turned with every passing car of the very busy Main Street. He was watching, it seemed, every soul in each car.

We reached him and passed him!

‘Jesus, Ellen, what are we doing? Are we really going to walk past him?’

‘I know, I know geez, shouldn’t we stop Paul? I mean, he looks like the real thing, you know.’ Our combined knowledge had come from a pile of Hindu books, which we’d devoured in high school. We’d never encountered a genuine teacher before this.

‘When you two passed me on the side walk I was saddened. I wondered if you’d turn back…’ Swami Guru told us this much later, maybe a couple years later.

Our chagrin must have been apparent. We’d walked past the teacher for thirty feet or so when we turned around.

‘Hello sir, my name is Paul, and this is my wife Ellen, it’s nice to meet you.’ Ellen and I both offered hands to shake. Swami Guru was quite funny as his hidden hand wrestled to come out from the comforting folds of his silk attire, more like a body sized security blanket. Clearly his white silk sheet was a barrier between him and the world all about him. Years later, we read something about the purity of these robes.

Worth noting too that as we were soon to discover, Swami Guru did not respond to every passersby desire to shake his hand. Many times over in the years to come did Ellen and I see him hesitate and then refuse to take a strangers proffered hand. We understood it to be something about the curiosity seekers’ sincerity or lack of. Something the Swami could pick up on.

Not such a stretch. After all, most people I know will tell me they can sense insincerity when either an unknown or an acquaintance approaches with an overly exuberant greeting. My guess is that it might be rather liberating to simply stand down when face to face with someone who displays a disproportionate show of glee at seeing you. Happens all the time.

Swami Guru initiated us into the Mantra Yoga Mediation, gave us each our personal mantras. For many years, it was believed that these mantras were unique to the practitioners, no two alike, like snow crystals. Give it some thought. Just how many one and only mantras or holy words can one come up with for crying out loud.

So it was with a sense of relief when years later we discovered in fact the mantras dealt out by the many teachers were in fact established sounds, used and reused millions of times. So what’s wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. Nowadays you can buy books that contain all these ‘seed mantras’, time honored chants, hand mudras, mandalas, all when practiced with faith and dedication result in a certain degree of tranquility.

This, too, is easily understood. What practice is most likely to bring about daily stability, peace, maybe even a measure of joy? Drinking until one is slobbering and cross-eyed every day or sitting still for an hour, two times a day. It’s really quite simple. The mystery exists because we in western society choose to glaze over the viability of meditation practices in this way.

Today most of the taboos tied to sitting cross legged chanting weird sounds, bells and candles and incense are mostly gone. How many million in the US practice some form of meditation? In the sixties we were pioneers, the butt of jokes, looked down upon. Many were called hippies. In fact, the serious ones who took up meditation back in those early days were the furthest thing from hippies and that whole confused flower child world. I include here myself as one of ‘the confused’.

‘Paul, you need to not force the mantra, allow it to surface, to be there in your awareness.’ His nonstop, gentle teaching never ending. Though not in a chattering way. The Swamis way was one of example, of silence. I learned to sit near him out in our yard and for hours simply take in the present. I can say that after these ‘sits’ I came away relaxed, and yet energized.

In Illinois, driving home from town, we’d gone to the supermarket, and the Swami showed me and Ellen how to carefully select nutritious and not enriched or processed foods. For countless years since off and on, I’ve enjoyed having a refreshing glass of apple vinegar, two soup spoons, a soup spoon of honey and half full glass of water. Felt cleaner after taking it in. He taught us how to properly cook rice, how to prepare salads.

He absolutely loved olives and cottage cheese. Yoghurts he’d make by the bucket.

One time during one of those drives home, I recalled a dream I’d had years before, even before we were in Illinois of my introducing the Swami to a room full of university students.

He smiled, rocked his head back and forth a couple of times as though considering a response. ‘Yes, well Paul, these are just dreams, nothing more, better to simply accept that you dreamed this. Best to not apply too much to these things.’

‘Yes sir, I guess I’m just pointing out that the odds of me dreaming such a thing are almost impossible. Surely there’s a connect of some kind right?’ The rich green, tall corn stalks in the fields flowed by as the wind whipped in the car cooling us off.

‘Yes, yes Paul. It’s okay to be aware of that. The mind is something we cannot understand. Sometimes it’s best to just let things be, do you see?’

Ellen and I would nod our understanding, though not really getting it. The Swami assured us that we weren’t supposed to ‘always get it’.

Not overly surprising, three days later, I was introducing the Swami in a huge Illinois State University amphitheater. The audience was made up mostly of history and philosophy post grads, not bad for a guy that never graduated.

At some point, I saw that it was a relatively easy thing to teach how to live this life. It was quite another to in fact, live that life! Our Swami certainly seemed to fulfill the requirements. The space for this post is way too short to adequately allow a full telling, just goes on and on it seems.

In fact, every moment spent with this teacher was a learning opportunity, every single time. There was never a neutral, dead in the water moment, even sitting in perfect silence in the yard the learning went on.

Once home during that long summer, Swami would begin preparing dinner. It was like having our very own Hindu Prince in our small country home. A tireless whirlwind of activity. His energy was astounding. Easily out working both me and Ellen. Our long walks seemed to not faze him at all.

The Swami stayed at our house during this summer. Ellen and I took it as a rare opportunity.

Swami spoke with an accent, a Carib island accent. His birth place was one of the big Caribbean islands that had a large Hindu population. He told us how at an early age, still not ten, he found his Guru in India. Years later, when Internet started, we were of course able to look up his teachers. They were all there, all great and revered. He’d become a disciple at this early age and after what seemed a lifetime, he emerged as a full Swami.

In those early days, we used to think that gurus were one step removed from being divine figures. We believed they possessed vistas, knowledge, abilities far beyond what we could imagine. This was simply accepted. This was where the Hindu Meditation world was for almost every western devotee. We just believed this. Of course, this was not the case.

That final summer in Illinois capped several happy years of following his teachings, mostly from long distances. Even a year went by one time that we didn’t see each other. He visited us in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and he spoke in the large meeting hall of the hotel both I and Ellen worked in. After Honduras, we spent time together once again in El Salvador. Again he gave talks and gave initiations in the hotel we worked in.

He’d spend long days at our house. In El Salvador, he chose not to stay with us. ‘Guests cease to be guests after five days children, remember this.’ His eyes would sparkle sometimes when sharing such simple, though solid nuggets with us. ‘Paul, you must take your work very seriously. Realize the opportunity you have been given. Do not waste this, do you understand?’

‘Paul’, he said as we were sitting on our deck one late afternoon a day before he was to leave for New York. ‘Paul, you must take care of yourself, watch carefully your behavior, just cultivate the good habits, yes?’ I swear there were times in hind sight the man could see where I was headed.

His eyes seemed to hold the ancient passage of time. He was of an advanced age and yet fully vital. His eyes, when I’d observe them, had those little, white halo like circles. No, they weren’t halos. It was an age thing and are not too uncommon. Though he never shared his age with us, ‘it doesn’t matter’ I think he’d once said after one of us asked him.

In hammocks, I’d have moments of incredible clarity. A clarity that allowed me to ‘see’ the long distance, to see that it all has a certain sense, a logic, a simplicity. ‘Sir, I get it! Yes, I get it! It’s so clear right now, so simple, of course I can do this, I know this!’ This of course spoken in reference to the time honored search for that dreamed of, hoped for awakening, the moment when the veils finally are swept aside and the light of understanding comes pouring in.

His chuckle was infectious. ‘Yes Paul, you see this like this in this moment. But it’s the long practice that takes one there, you see?’ Chuckles some more, his small paunch hidden in his sheet bounces merrily. ’So this takes long and patient work, so much to do on the path, so much. It is best, Paul, for you not to read so much now. You have read enough. Now best to practice, practice, practice.’

Of course, he had a point and soon my youthful exuberance would find its proper niche. Until the next time.

We learned that when we sat meditating, which of course was every day, he would remain stone still until either Ellen or I decided we’d had enough. One sitting session I recall in special clearness I began to fidget. The master softly opened his eyes, two hours had passed in what seemed like minutes. In other words, he was there for us, not the other way around. My guess is that if we had been able to sit for twelve hours, he would have been right there with us.

During a conversation, we asked him how much he slept at night. ‘That’s not so important children.’ With a flap of his hidden hand, the flying sheet signaled to move on to another topic. He would do these gestures in such a way that one understood immediately how devotees came to regard their teachers in a tender or endearing light. Sometimes very comical. His sense of humor is something that to this day I try to emulate.

I can still hear his laughter.

He would regale to us about the importance of good daily habits such as bathing, brushing teeth, removal of garbage, home cleaning, proper storage of food stores. There were no stones left unturned.

&&&

A half year had gone by and Ellen told me the Swami was going on one of his yearly pilgrimages to India. She wanted to go. We saved the pennies, excited that one of us would finally get to set eyes upon the Ganges in the late, golden, Indian sun set. The group of twenty or so set out from La Guardia for nearly a month of sightseeing, pilgrimage, and meditation.

Ellen returned. Her skin glowed as I’d never seen. There was something.

Several days after cooking us her new Indian vegetarian wonders, she said she wanted to tell me something. I already knew what was coming.

He’d asked her to sit next to him on his bed. He said he wanted to teach her something. Ellen immediately sensed something off, something not right. It was near the end of the trip to India. Thankfully, she’d be flying home sooner than later. Her strong faith in him compelled her to sit next to him, holding onto the hope she was wrong.

She wasn’t. He may have attempted to place a hand on her thigh. My listening and my sight seemed to blur as she blurted out the story. I knew she had to get it out, so I held on as long as I could.

The Swami, after all, was just a man.

I could end it there, but that’s be just half of the story.

Oddly, Ellen in those early days was more willing to forgive. I wasn’t. My reaction was typical. I might have done something to him in those days.

Time works magic, is amazing how it can reshape reality. The swamis teachings were fine, were solid, not to be ripped out of my being. That he made a big mistake was clear. Ellen and I learned as the years passed and the Hindu practices, and then the following growing Buddhist movements brought with them never seen information about these practices.

One of those previously hidden things was that swamis were just people. Yes, they had reached a certain level of learning in order to be given the title of Swami. But this, by no stretch of the imagination, awarded these guys with any sort of spiritual authority. They are teachers, period. Not gods, saints, illumined ones, or in any way have a higher hold on things spiritual over the rest of us.

As an example: it could be said they are just like a minister in the protestant church. Just human. But, they are in a position to teach. But they make huge mistakes, they cross the line and cause great damage.

&&&

Some fifty years later.

Ellen has passed away. She took with her whatever it was she determined about the swami. For me it’s been a thing of being pragmatic, perhaps. I have taken the good teachings and to this day continue to apply them, simply because they are the good common sense teachings that any good mentor would teach.

Forgiveness is a liberating thing and I highly recommend it. I’m getting there.

Like a best friend who made some big mistakes. How often does it happen?

Every couple of years, I will bring out some of his old pictures, wipe them down, sit and see how my mind reacts. After reminiscing a short while down that old road, the pictures go back, deep, into my files.

On my altar, where I do my daily meditations, now for many years, there is no evidence of the swami.

Does this mean that he didn’t make the cut?

Could be. In many ways… Could be.