A Message For Our Friends

The most important thing that I’d like to share with those of you who are reading this blog is that everything that you ever dreamed of, aspired to, or wished for regarding spirituality and enlightenment is possible. Not only is it possible. It can definitely be attained in this lifetime.

If you’ve been on the spiritual path for many years and haven’t experienced what you expected, don’t be discouraged. You can, and will, experience enlightenment. If you were disappointed by teachers that you felt didn’t have integrity, or if you got turned off by the politics of spiritual organizations, don’t be dismayed. If you’ve been meditating for years, but wonder why you haven’t experienced what the guru’s described in the books that inspired you in your youth, don’t blame yourself. If you lost hope and got diverted along the way, please don’t settle for anything less than what you know in your heart is your true purpose in life. As all the saints and sages throughout the ages have said, “Human life is precious. Don’t waste it.”

Find an authentic enlightened teacher that suits you and apply yourself to practicing what they teach. A living Siddha master can speed up your process and make possible short cuts in what could otherwise take lifetimes. Our experience at Sri Sai Kaleshwar’s Soul University in Penukonda, India has demonstrated to us without a shadow of a doubt that we are all divine souls and have infinite potential.

Jesus Christ said, “Even the least among you will do greater wonders than these.” He was an incarnation of Pure Love and was telling the Truth. Believe him.

As Sri Sai Kaleshwar says, "Why can't you be a master like Jesus Christ, Buddha or Shirdi Sai Baba? You can."

Have the courage to throw off all obstacles that are hindering your spiritual development and are keeping you from achieving your purpose in life. As Buddha said, “You must desire enlightenment as intensely as someone who is trying to escape from a burning building.” Take a stand for your Self. Be courageous. Become fearless. Be a hero.

Once you have committed yourself and set your intention for enlightenment, the Divine will respond and support you. This is guaranteed. It’s a Divine law but first you must make the choice. Once you have whole-heartedly dedicated yourself to attaining Enlightenment, Self-realization, the Ultimate Reality, God-Realization, it is in the hands of the Divine and it will come to pass.

Don’t think that only special people become enlightened. This is one of the biggest obstacles to enlightenment. The spiritual history of the world is full of examples of ordinary people, and even the biggest sinners, who attained enlightened.

Milarepa, the most famous saint in Tibet, earlier in his life, was a black magician who was responsible for killing many people. After his family was murdered in a land dispute, Milarepa, in order to gain revenge, conjured up a hail storm to kill his enemies. Later, Milarepa became the disciple of Marpa, in the lineage of the Indian Siddhas Tilopa and Naropa, and attained enlightenment.

In Christianity, and throughout other religions, there are numerous examples of prostitutes attaining enlightenment and God-realization. Jesus stopped the crowd from stoning the prostitute Mary Magdelene, who then became his closest disciple. This is not rare. Many spiritual traditions speaks of prostitutes attaining great mastership and realization. Perhaps this is to make it clear that even those who are the most looked down upon by society can attain enlightenment?

Also, in the Christian tradition, the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus comes to mind. Paul was a fanatical persecutor of saints. He would provoke the saints to blaspheme and then he’d testify against them in court, resulting in them being put to death. He’d even travel to other cities to do this evil work. While traveling on the road to Damascus one day, Paul saw a light in the sky and fell down in fear before it. The light spoke to him and asked, “Why do you persecute me?” Paul asked the light who it was and the light replied, “I am Christ and when you persecute them, you persecute me.” Paul was instantly converted on the spot.

If the likes of black magicians, prostitutes and the murderers of saints can become enlightened, surely we can too. God’s grace, the Divine Light and Love, can descend to bless anyone, anywhere, at any time. In fact, it is always blessing us, but we are just too busy looking the other away. All that is required is for us to turn toward it and open our hearts to receive it. As Shirdi Sai Baba said, “Take one step toward me and I will take ten steps toward you.”

A Spiritual Turning Point For Humanity

For thousands of years, India has been home to saints and sages who have plummed the inner depths of the soul and attained the heights of human consciousness. The spiritual history of India contained in the Vedas, the oldest known record of human experience on earth, contains a wealth of information regarding the mechanics of spiritual development. The Vedic rishis turned their attention within and through meditation discovered in the inner silence a vast storehouse of wisdom.

In the 1800’s, India’s spiritual treasure began to become known in the West. This was largely due to the pioneering work of spiritual explorers like Madame Blavatsky, Nicholas and Helena Roerich, Alexandra David-Neel, Lama Anagarika Govinda and Evans-Wenz. These Europeans traveled throughout Asia, often enduring extreme hardship, in order to discover the Light of Asia and bring it back to a Europe that was just beginning to emerge from the ignorance and repression of the Dark Ages. We owe an extreme debt of gratitude to those who opened the door to the East and paved the way for what is now commonly referred to in the West as the New Age.


After being introduced to the spiritual teachings of the East by Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society, Nicholas and Helena Roerich traveled for three years through India, Nepal, Tibet, China and Mongolia. During this time Nicholas painted thousands of paintings of the Himalayas, visited numerous temples and met with spiritual teachers. One of their major interests was the discovery the the spiritual kingdom of Shambala. The Roerichs founded the Urusvati Institute in the Kulu Valley, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in order to conduct research on Asian culture, herbs and spiritual traditions. They also founded the Agni Yoga Society to bring the messages of the Masters of the East to the world.



One of Nicholas Roerich's greatest achievements was the crteation of the Roerich Peace Pact which was signed by the leaders of India, the Baltic states, and 22 nations of the Americas including the United States. These leaders pledged to protect cultural institutions in the case of war. This treaty, which was signed in 1935, is international law today.

Alexandra David-Neel is one of the most interesting women in the history of the world. She was born on October 24, 1868. Her birth name was Louise Eugenie Alexandrine Marie David. By the age of 18, she was already expressing her strong urge for freedom and exploration and had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own. A major turning point in her life, as well as the Roerich's, came when she began studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society.

Alexandra David-Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her extraordinary travels. Probably her most famous trip was to the Tibetan capital of Llasa, which was forbidden to Europeans, during which she posed as a Tibetan man on pilgrimage.

In 1911 Alexandra traveled to India for the second time, to continue her Buddhist studies. During this trip, she was invited to visit the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she became the close friend of the crown prince.

Alexandra also had the distinction of meeting the thirteenth Dalai Lama twice in 1912. During these meetings she had the opportunity to ask him many questions about Buddhism. While this does not seem so special today, when thousands of westerners have the opportunity to meet the Dalai lama, it was unprecedented for a European woman living then.

During the period 1914 to 1916, Alexandra lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border. She lived with the young Sikkimese monk named Aphur Yongden. Yongden became her lifelong traveling companion and Alexandra eventually adopted him. Yogden died in 19055. After his death Alexandra continued to study and write till her death at age 100.

Before the doorway to the East opened, the commonly accepted belief in western society was that Jesus Christ was the only Son of God and that humans, due to original sin, were fallen creatures. However, as westerners became aware of the rich spiritual heritage of Asia, they learned of an ancient tradition, stretching back thousands of years, in which God-realized saints demonstrated the same kinds of miracles that Jesus was reported to have performed.

The commonly accepted belief in eastern societies was that the state of consciousness attained by enlightened saints was not only possible for all humans to reach but that it was the ultimate purpose of every human being’s life. In addition, rather than there being only one God-man, India had records of numerous avatars, incarnations of God. The Eastern spiritual traditions had preserved for centuries detailed knowledge of highly developed systems and techniques for fully developing human consciousness in order to attain enlightenment and God-realization.

As the spiritual knowledge from the East became more widely known in the West, scholars began to speculate that Jesus may have traveled to India, during what are referred to as “the lost years of Jesus,” and that he may have studied the yogic sciences under masters there. Fueling interest in these theories were reports that records existed in ancient manuscripts, preserved in monasteries in Tibet and Ladahk, that described a great miracle master from the middle-east named Issa, and the many wonders that he performed during his travels in India and the Himalayas.

We are at a turning point in the history of spirituality on this planet. The spiritual pioneers of the 1800’s, who searched throughout Asia for the Wisdom of the East, brought back what they learned and planted those seeds in the soil of the West. For decades, westerners with the assistance of eastern masters have been cultivating those seeds. They are about to bear fruit. We are on the verge of a great harvest.

Books that Open Spiritual Doors

When I was a teenager in the early 1960’s, growing up in the American mid-West, I would go to my neighborhood bookstore and search for books containing the Wisdom of the East. At that time, all that I could find were three books; the “I-Ching,” “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones,” and “The Way of the Compassionate Buddha.” Today, a trip to a major bookstore reveals an entire section of literally hundreds of books on yoga, meditation, chakras, accupunture, Zen, Feng Shui, martial arts, Tibetan Buddhism, and more. A few years ago, I counted at a Borders bookstore in Eugene, Oregon literally 33 different books by the Dalai Lama alone. The European mystics and spiritual pioneers of the 1800’s opened the flood gate for the ancient wisdom of the East to penetrate and transform western civilization.

While western civilization has been familiar with the miracles that Christ performed, such as walking on water, turning water into wine and raising the dead, Indian history is rich with miracles that continue until today. A good introduction to this ancient miracle tradition can be found in “Autobiography of a Yogi,” by Paramahansa Yogananda and “Living With The Himalayan Masters,” by Swami Rama. Both of these highly accomplished yogis and God-realized masters recount vividly their meetings with advanced adepts and masters during their travels throughout India, Nepal and Tibet.

If you have never read these books, I highly recommend doing so. If it’s been a while since you read them, you may find re-reading them to be a deeply rewarding. I re-read both of them in the last few months and discovered within them profound information that was very inspirational. The chapters in Yogananda’s autobiography entitled, “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteshwar,” and “The Law of Miracles,” are two of the best chapters every written in any spiritual book.

If you’re looking for a truly wonderful spiritual book, I highly recommend, “At the Eleventh Hour,” by Pandit Ragmani Tigunait, Swami Rama’s successor. This has become one of my all time favorite spiritual books. I’ve read it several times since arriving in India. It’s full of great stories about yogis, sadhus and avadhuts that Swami Rama knew and learned from during his many years in the Himalayas. Furthermore, it has special relevance regarding darshan of the Divine Mother.

Finally, we can’t speak highly enough about Paramahansa Yogananda’s wonderful “The Second Coming of Christ - The Resurrection of the Christ Within You.” This was the final book written by Yogananda before he left the body and he asked that it not be published until after the year 2000. Obviously, upon completing it, he felt that the world was not ready for the information that it contains but that after 2000 a change would have occurred. You will discover within “The Second Coming of Christ - The Resurrection of the Christ Within You” important information that is highly relevant to our spiritual development today.

Here is a list of books that opened many spiritual doors for us.

1) “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda
2) “Living With The Himalayan Masters” by Swami Rama
3) “At The Eleventh Hour” by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait
4) “The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna” by M
5) “The Great Swan” Lex Hixon
6) “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones”
7) “The Bhagavad Gita
8) “The Crest Jewel of Discrimination” by Shankara
9) “The Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tsu
10) “The Life of Milarepa” by Evans Wentz
11) “The Way of the White Clouds” by Lama Anagarika Govinda
12) “Miracle of Love” by Ram Das
13) “Play of Consciousness” by Swami Muktananda
14) “The Buddha Path” by Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche
15) “Dancing On Rooftops With Dragons” by Yuan Miao
16) “Wings To Freedom” by Yogiraj Gurunath Siddhanath
17) “The Second Coming of Christ - The Resurrection of the Christ Within You” by Paramahansa Yogananda
18) “The Divine Mystery Fort Vol. 1” by Sri Sai Kaleshwar Swami

What makes these books so important is that they reveal the perennial philosophy, the ageless wisdom, attained through research conducted over thousands of years by great saints and sages in the laboratory of the soul. They are books written by soul scientists. Reading them opens our awareness to the eternal truths of life and shows us what our own true potential is as a divine soul.

The greatest crime in the world is the persistent lie, that is culturally perpetuated, that we are less than divine souls capable of unconditional love and possessing infinite abilities. Each of these authors broke through the wall of culturally accepted mediocrity and strove for the pinnacle of human evolution – enlightenment. Their books point the way, showing us where we came from, who we are, and where we are going.

An Angel Whispered

In the stillness of the morning,
Before the light of dawn,
An angel whispered:

“When your heart opens to the Divine Mother and Father’s Unconditional Love,
When the Light of a thousand suns dawns in your awareness,
When the keys to the Inner Kingdom unlock the doors to countless dimensions,
When the chains of the ego dissolve in the Clear Light of Eternity,
When the angels gather around you to assist you in your work,
When you find immeasurable joy in serving others,
You will abide forever in the Peace that passeth all understanding.”

Who was Shirdi Sai Baba and why is he so loved?

This is the short, very condensed version, of Shirdi Sai Baba’s life for those of you who may be unfamiliar with his life story. If you’d like to know more about the life of the greatest saint to have lived in India during the past several hundred years, see, “The Divine Mystery Fort, Vol. One,” which is available from Deva Publishing, or read the definitive biography of Shirdi Sai Baba’s life, the “Sri Sai Satcharitra.”

There is no doubt that Shirdi Sai Baba is the most well known and most highly revered spiritual master to have lived in India during the last several hundred years. There have been numerous enlightened gurus and advanced yogis such as Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, Meher Baba, Paramahansa Yogananda, Neem Karoli Baba, Upasani Baba, Baba Nityananda, and Baba Muktananda, to name just a few. However, traveling throughout India, one sees Shirdi Sai Baba’s picture everywhere.



It’s on billboards, storefronts, the inside of stores, the backs of cars and in ads in newspapers in every area of India.



No other guru in India, that has lived in the last 300 years, compares to the fame of Shirdi Sai Baba and yet he never created a spiritual organization and named no successor to carry on his work. In fact, he never even taught formally. When you examine Shirdi Baba’s lifestyle, you discover that he led the simplest life imaginable, as a beggar. What was it that made this beggar the most beloved saint in India? It’s worth an investigation. Let’s take a look at Shirdi Baba’s life in hopes of finding the answer to why a simple beggar continues to have such a profound impact throughout India and around the world.

Very little is known about Shirdi Sai Baba’s childhood but we do know that he was born to Brahmin parents in Maharastra in the year 1838. I his youth he had a guru named Venkusa and lived with him for twelve years between 1842 an 1854. Venkusa had around one thousand students but when Baba came to him, Venkusa immediately recognized him as an avatar and favored him. If Baba was an avatar, why would he need a guru? Even Rama and Krishna had gurus. No matter how advanced a soul is, when they incarnate, a veil covers their awareness of who they really are. It is the guru’s job to remove that veil. The other students were jealous of Baba because of the special treatment that his guru gave him. After they attacked him, Venkusa gave Baba a rock, told him to sleep with his head on it and to go to the town of Shirdi and live there for the rest of his life. What was the purpose of using the rock as a pillow? It was not an ordinary rock. It was a power object, given from master to student, through which Baba could access his teacher’s divine energy and communicate with him.



When Baba arrived in Shirdi in 1854, the town rejected him. Not only did they not recognize him as a saint but they persecuted him and even made a pact not to feed him, in hopes that he would leave and go somewhere else. However, one woman recognized his greatness. She secretly cooked for him and took the food to the edge of town each night. She and her son, Tatya, continued to care for Baba until the end of their lives. Baba left Shirdi in 1857 but returned in 1858 and lived there for the rest of his life.

The town’s people’s attitude began to change when Baba started performing miracles, such as healing people and ridding the town of a cholera epidemic. Gradually his reputation spread and thousands of people began to come from around India to receive his darshan and blessing. But, even as his fame spread, Baba continued to live the simplest life. He lived in the ruins of an abandoned mosque, called the Dwarkama, with a broken roof that allowed the rain to pour in. He wore rags and continued to beg for food, mixing whatever he received in a bowl, feeding it to stray dogs and then eating whatever remained. He kept no money and gave the donations he received from devotees to the needy.

The way that Baba died was quite unusual. Shortly before be passed away, a disciple, while cleaning his room, moved the stone that Baba used for a pillow and dropped it, accidentally breaking it. Baba said that it meant it was time for him to leave the body. Baba’s closest disciple, Tatya, was dying of cancer and the end seemed at hand. Lakshmibai, who was cooking for Baba, told him that a group of disciples had gone to be with Tatya and begged Baba to come visit Tatya. Baba refused and said that he didn’t need to go in person to bless Tatya. When Lakshmibai pressed Baba on why he wouldn’t go visit Baba, he said that it was because he was leaving the body that day. She thought he was joking and was irritated at him but then he began coughing up blood and appeared to be dying. At the same time, Tatya, who had previously appeared near death, began to recuperate. Baba was taking on his closest disciple’s illness and using it to leave this world. When Tatya heard what was happening, he begged Baba to give him back his illness and let him die because the world needed Baba more.

Shirdi Sai Baba's parting message was: “Try to see all religions as one. Whover has really surrendered their entire life to me. It is my responsibility to take care of them. Even from my samadhi, my bones will talk to them. I will send them the energy from my bones. Whover really comes to my samadhi, touches with an open heart, saying, “Please Baba help me,” my presence and my energy will be there to take care of them. Whoever has my picture in their home and chants “Om Sai Shri Sai Jay Jay Sai, they will receive my huge blessings and energy. From my samadhi I will talk to my students who really need my help. My bones will give an answer to them.”

What religion was Shirdi Sai Baba? Hindus considered him to be a Hindu and Muslims thought he was a Muslim. While he respected all religions, he was above them all and taught the universal religion of love. “All human beings are one. Our religion is humanity."

The Greatness of Seva

My new job at the ashram is Seva Manager. Seva is selfless service. It’s a tradition at ashrams that everyone performs seva. It’s how ashrams function.

I wasn’t appointed to the position of Seva Manager. I volunteered. A lot of people said it was the hardest job in the ashram and congratulated me for becoming the new Seva Manager. Somehow, I felt that they were relieved that now they wouldn’t be asked to do the job.

I volunteered to be Seva Manager because I love seva. I really love seva! An early teacher of mine said, “Selfless service is the greatest secret of life.” I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been doing seva for 34 years and I’d have to say that all the best things that have happened to me in life have been the result of seva. This isn’t about how great I am for doing seva. This is about how great seva has been to me.

I started doing seva when I learned Transcendental Meditation and immediately volunteered to help my TM teacher put up posters for his public lectures. I’ve been putting up posters ever since. Actually, the truth is that I’ve spent more time in this life putting up posters than any other single activity, except sleeping, and sleeping isn’t much activity at all. There’s no way of knowing. I never counted but I’m sure that I’ve put up well over 100,000 posters advertising spiritual events in my lifetime. Since you only get a poster up in one out of every three or four stores at best, it’s safe to say that I’ve walked into nearly half a million stores to ask if they’d let me put up a poster. It’s not always easy. Often the manager flatly refuses or is even angry that you’ve asked. It’s very common that people give you a condescending look as though to say, “Why is someone your age putting up posters.” Still, I love putting up posters. For me, it’s a sadhana, a spiritual practice, and I’ll probably continue doing it until I die. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to go.

A few years ago, I was putting up posters in Sausalito, California for a beautiful teacher of mine, Yuan Miao, when I heard a voice from the back of the store yell out, “I remember you from Amsterdam.” It was a young man who I’d met while I was putting up posters for a meditation center that I started with some friends in Amsterdam in the 1990’s. When I turned around to greet him, he said, “I can’t believe it. It’s been fifteen years sine I last saw you and you’re still putting up posters.” Sometimes, I can’t believe it either. It was a lot easier when I was in my twenties and thirties. Why, at this age, do I still do it so much? I do it because I love it. Why do I love walking city streets, sometimes in the heat of summer, or the cold of winter, sometimes when my feet hurt or when I don’t even have money for lunch? It’s the secret of seva. Seva is love. If it’s not done out of love, it’s not seva. I love the teachers. I love the teachings and I love the people who are suffering and need spiritual wisdom that can transform their life for the better.

When I put up a poster, I know that that single piece of paper has the power to change a person’s life. That poster is a doorway into Enlightenment. I’ve seen it happen thousands of times. An unsuspecting person happens across a poster while walking down the sidewalk doing their daily errands. The poster catches their eye and a connection is made. They attend a lecture and begin meditating. Now, they’ve stepped onto the Pathway to Enlightenment and their life has changed forever. It’s amazing. It’s such a beautiful process. A simple piece of paper can change the direction of a person’s life and transform it into something that their soul yearned for but that they never dreamed was possible. That’s why I love postering.

Postering is just one type of seva. Seva can take many forms. One can do karma yoga in the world by feeding hungry people, by visiting the elderly in nursing homes, or by caring for the sick and needy. We can be of service in many ways. Just offering a smile to those we pass in life is a form of selfless giving. All forms of seva are good but the scriptures say that the highest seva is guru seva, service to a spiritual teacher. I’ve definitely found this to be true. In my 34 years of doing seva, I’ve served six spiritual teachers, two of them for 14 years each. When you serve a spiritual teacher, it opens a channel through which the love that motivates their life flows through you. It doesn't just flow through you. It purifies and empowers you. It connects you with the spiritual hierarchy, the guru parampara, the tradition of masters. It’s called various names in different traditions but it’s the Universal Fellowship of Light, the ring of all enlightened beings, divine souls, the saints and sages who throughout the ages have been working for the spiritual upliftment of mankind. By engaging in guru seva, you become a member of that fellowship. You become a co-worker in it. The divine light and love that is the true reality of all enlightened beings functions through you and transforms your life into sometime unbelievably magical and beautiful beyond belief. That is the greatness of seva.

The inner secret of seva is that we end up benefiting the most from the seva we perform. What is the inner mechanism through which this works. It works by getting us out of our ego, by freeing us from focusing on our selfish interests. Instead of focusing on what we want or need to be happy, we discover that our own happiness comes from helping others. People who never help others are rarely happy themselves. I hand that is always grabbing and clinched isn’t open to receive. Give and you will receive. That is a divine law.

True seva can never be a means to strengthening one’s ego. If you’re doing seva with the motivation to demonstrate how great you are, it isn’t really seva. Seva is selfless giving. It develops humility, not an inflated ego.

No form of seva is better than any other. In my life, I’ve engaged in many types of seva, from extremely menial tasks to very glamorous projects. I’ve swept floor and washed dishes and been asked to start meditation centers in foreign countries. None is better that another. One teacher that I had for 14 years noticed how willing I was to be of service. After years of simple service, he asked me to accompany him on his Lear jet to private meetings with high Tibetan masters. No matter how important or glamorous the service may be, it’s important to stay humble and realize that anyone could be doing the same job. We thank God for the opportunity to be of service and attempt to do whatever is required to the best of our ability, free of attachment or pride.

Often a teacher will test the student to see how willing the student is to be of service and how humbly they do it. Often the teacher will give the student more responsibility when they see that the student is performing seva in the right spirit, joyfully and without ego. Actually, this is a form of spiritual training. Masters, the great adepts, serve humanity all the time. They are on the job 24/7, whether awake of sleeping, whether acting in the world, or performing dream yoga, to guide and assist humanity.

The sun gives constantly. It is the source of life. Without the sun giving light and heat, all life on this planet would cease. We must become like the sun. God and the spiritual masters give unconditional love and assistance all the time. To be given the opportunity to do any type of seva is a blessing. Selfless giving is indeed the greatest secret of life.

Medical Tourism

As you probably know, medical tourism has become quite popular. With the rising cost of health care in America and the availability of low-cost high-quality medical treatment in countries like India and Thailand, many Americans are combining tourism with medicine and enjoying the results.

We want to let you know about something we experienced that you might want to take advantage of. We discovered a super modern, antiseptically clean, dental clinic in Bangalore that is run by a doctor who had a clinic in the Los Angeles area for 15 years. The clinic looks like it’s in Beverly Hills and the staff all speaks perfect English. The doctors received their education in America and perform all the latest procedures using the most modern technology. And, best of all, the cost is on average, one tenth of what it would cost in America.

Before leaving for India, we met two beautiful students of Swami Kaleshwar who, when they heard of the guru seva we had done, offered to pay for all of Tara’s much needed dental work. Because we’d been working voluntarily for years, we couldn’t afford the nearly $10,000 worth of dental care that Tara had needed for years. When we traveled as Khenpo Choga’s attendants, he repeatedly asked people to help Tara fix her teeth but it never happened. Now, these two divine souls, Becca and Stephie, were inspired to help her, as long as the work was done in India, where it would be tremendously cheaper. If that wasn’t enough, knowing our financial situation, they offered to pay for all our transportation to and from the ashram, plus all our accommodations in Bangalore. It felt like we were on Oprah getting our wishes fulfilled.

Upon arriving at the ashram, we starting asking people for their recommendations of good dental clinics in Bangalore. The most highly recommended was Dental Lavelle and we agree. If you need extensive dental work and want to save a lot of money, come to India. The money you save can pay for your trip and probably more. You’ll also have a great adventure and, if you come visit us at the ashram, you just might have one of the most memorable experiences of your life.

The Beauty of Ashram Life

After making our visa jump to Thailand, we returned to the ashram excited about beginning the middle period of the University year. When we left for Thailand, we didn’t realize how accustomed we’d become to the peace and quiet of the ashram. After only three days in Bangkok, we’d had our fill of excitement, and hurried back to the safe haven of Penukonda. Soon after returning, I wrote the following.

An ashram is a special place, set apart from the hustle and bustle of worldly life. It is a place where men and women can focus on spiritual teachings and engage in spiritual practice free from the usual distractions of daily life in the world. The walls around an ashram are not meant to keep people inside but are there to keep the distractions of the world out. An ashram is a sacred place.

Life in an ashram is simple. In the outer world, we’re surrounded by constant change and complexity. Our awareness is impinged upon by constant stimulation. This barrage of mental and emotional stimulation keeps the ocean of our mind turbulent, thereby disallowing the mind to settle down so that we can be aware of our true inner nature, the divinity within. In an ashram we are protected from this over-stimulation, making it easier to experience the inner silence in which we become aware of satchitananda – truth, consciousness and bliss.

When one arrives at an ashram, they carry more baggage than the suitcases that they bring with them. They also carry the baggage of the world, discordant energies stored in their mental, emotional and physical bodies. Life in the ashram gives us a chance to abandon these mental and emotional habits as well as the physical tensions that we take for granted in the outer world. Continuing to watch television, read the newspaper and surf the internet only serves to slow down this mental, emotional and physical purification.

Our time at the ashram is precious. We will not be in the ashram forever. The world will still be there when we leave and return to the outside world. It’s important to use our time in the ashram wisely and to fully utilize it. Letting go of the distractions of the world will make it easier to get the full value of our time spent at the ashram.

An ashram is not a place for dating. It is not Club Med. We don’t go to an ashram to find a mate although deep soul connections can take place. It is inappropriate to bring the distraction of romantic flirtation into such a sacred environment. Practically everyone has experienced heartbreak. Often these emotional wounds have occurred in romantic relationships. An ashram is a place to heal and to renew oneself so it is wise to take a vacation from romantic involvement. An ashram is not a place to go to find the perfect person but rather to become a better person our self.

As our own process of purification proceeds, on some days we may feel more peaceful and on some days we may feel rough. When we do housecleaning, a lot of dust gets stirred up. In the end the house is cleaner but, in the process of cleaning, the house may feel temporarily dirtier. Likewise, while our mental, emotional and physical bodies are purifying, we may from time to time experience roughness, irritation and frustration. It is important to be patient with our self and with others and to allow these feelings to pass.

It is also important not to expose our friends at the ashram to the roughness we experience during purification. We have a duty to protect others from our garbage. When throwing out our garbage at home, we don’t take it to our neighbors to show them what we are throwing out. We simple wrap it and discard it. Exposing our friends to our own garbage just pollutes their awareness and destroys their inner peace.

Ashrams are not meant to be permanent residences but are rather places to stay for a limited time in order to grow spiritually. The lessons learned in the ashram are then taken back into the world to be applied in daily life. The ashram is not the goal. It is not an escape from the world. It is a protected spiritual laboratory where one can discover the inner mechanics of spiritual life in order to transform oneself and thereby the world.

Mai Kaidee's - The Best Vegetarian Restaurant in Bangkok

For us, probably our most memorable experience in Bangkok was dining at Mai Kaidee’s vegetarian restaurant. Seriously, we’ve come to the conclusion that Thai food is our number one favorite of all the food in the world. Thanks again to the Lonely Planet city guide to Bangkok, we discovered that Mai Kaidee’s was literally no more than a one-minute walk from our guesthouse. We slipped through an alley, crossed the street, ducked down another alley, turned the corner and there it was. Mai Kaidee’s has to be experienced to be believed. It’s not indoors. It’s an open-air restaurant in a narrow side street not much wider than an alley but the food is out of this world. Mai, a delightfully energetic and joyful Thai woman, has run the restaurant for years and offers cooking lessons as well.



Cooking Classes are offered by May on a personal basis. Average courses run for three days. The cost depends on the number of students, duration of classes, and on the dishes you wish to learn. Students may choose 10 dishes that they would like to learn to cook per day. All food supplies are included.

Tara and I found one of the few empty tables and started selecting dishes from the menu. When the food arrived, we’d never tasted Thai food this good. The more we ate, the better it tasted. The soup was the best I've ever tasted and the curries were out of this world. The better it tasted, the more we ate. I kept thinking that I wished all our friends back at home could taste this amazing Thai food.

Finally, unable to eat any more, we started talking with Mai, who is incredibly joyful and exuberiant. She showed us her photo album that included photos of her trip to Moscow where she gave a taught a workshop in learning to cook Thai food at a top hotel. If you ever want to hire an incredible Thai cook to come give you private lessons, contact Mai. She’s a sweetheart and you’ll love her cooking.



As we waited for the bill, I noticed P. Don, the famous rickshaw driver of Kho San Road, park his purple pimped out rickshaw right in front of Mai’s restaurant. We’d seen P. Don peddling his rickshaw around town for days, with the flags waving and boom box blaring cool Asian fusion music. I went over and asked him if he could give us a ride to the water taxi and he agreed.



After paying the bill, Tara and I mounted our trusty chariot and I announced to the crowd, “We’re off to India. It’s been wonderful dining with all of you beautiful people at Mai Kaidee’s, the best vegetarian restaurant in Bangkok. May you all experience health, happiness and fulfillment.” Mai exploded in glee, yelled,”Photo, photo,” and ran over to get in the picture. After a few snaps, our trusty charioteer maneuvered through the streets and dropped us off at the river taxi for our final afternoon of sightseeing before returning to India.



Here's a recommendation from someone who loves Mai's as much as we do.

"I'll never forget my first few hours in bangkok. our first stop, at andrew's recommendation, was may kaidee's lovely restaurant for the best vegetarian food in banglampu. every time i am in Bangkok i head straight for may's place for that delicious black sticky rice with coconut milk, mango, banana and sesame seeds. in the evening nothing beats the massaman curry. My last night in Bangkok, i was sitting having a delightful conversation about thai massage with a women from holland. we were laughing hysterically because everyone in the restaurant in that moment, including the two of us, was eating that incredible massaman with brown rice. and there is barely room to describe the spring rolls!! Throughout my travels in southeast asia, i ALWAYS recommended May's restaurant to anyone i knew to be visiting Bangkok six months later, i am still in touch with Catherine and just last night i had dinner in berkeley (yellow curry) with another wonderful man, named stephen, who i met sitting across from me at may kaidee's. extraordinary food in a wonderful setting (a Bangkok alley), great conversation and good friends to boot. honestly can't be beat!!

08-06-02 by Scott from san francisco

Mai's website address is http://www.maykaidee.com. We love Mai. Can you tell?

The Buddhist Temples of Bangkok

One of the best things about going to Bangkok is visiting the Buddhist temples. The word for “temple” in the Thai language is “wat.” The Thai temples are incredibly beautiful and there are hundreds of them. As you travel around the city, you see their gleaming gold pagodas shining above the surrounding walls. Some are so big they look like cities unto themselves. The largest and most famous temples are huge tourist attractions. We weren’t eager to be surrounded by crowds of tourists so we tried to find a temple that fewer people visited. Someone recommended that we go to the Temple of the Dawn, which isn’t exactly a small temple, but it is on the other side of the river from the main area of Bangkok so it’s slightly off the beaten track.



Going there gave us another opportunity to take the river taxi, which we soon realized was our favorite experience in Bangkok. Well, maybe second to eating. Once you’re out on the water, the energy of the city subsides, you feel much calmer and clearer, plus you get to see a lot of Bangkok without being snarled up in traffic. The water taxi is definitely the way to go whenever you can and it only costs 25 cents. What a bargain!



Gliding along the river, you have a great view of the beautiful buildings on the shore. It was an overcast day but, as the river taxi approached the Temple of the Dawn, the sun broke through the clouds casting dramatic rays of light down on the temple. It looked like the heavens had opened up and bestowed a blessing of divine light on the temple.

The Temple of the Dawn is an amazing place. From the river it looks like a huge missle launch pad. As soon as we arrived, we knew why we’d chosen this as the first temple we visited in Thailand. First of all, consider the name, the Temple of the Dawn. The name of our spiritual foundation is The Universal Fellowship of Light, and here we were appropriately at the Temple of the Dawn. The temple’s actual name is Wat Arun and it’s named after the Indian god of the Dawn, Aruna.

Entering the temple grounds, we first came to a very old banyan tree, wrapped with multi-colored cloth. We mediated under the tree, basking in the Inner Light. The main feature of the temple is an 82-meter tall spire that is decorated with colorful floral murals made of glazed porcelain. The temple is decorated with many beautiful statues and murals. Tara especially enjoyed the angels that surround the temple.

Our next stop was Wat Pho, the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok. It also has the distinction of housing the longest reclining Buddha and the largest collection of images of Buddha in Thailand. The temple dates from the 16th century and it was the earliest center of public education. That tradition is being kept alive today by the temple serving as the national headquarters for the preservation of traditional Thai medicine. Within the temple grounds are large massage pavilions for the public and a massage school across the street.

The Wat Pho grounds are really huge and the many buildings extremely beautiful but the main attraction is definitely the reclining Buddha that illustrates the Buddha’s passing into Nirvana. It is 46 meters long and 15 meters high.

Visiting Buddhist temples was one of the highlights of our trip to Bangkok. We only had time to visit two out of the hundreds of incredible temples that exist throughout the city but here’s a tip just in case you ever go to Thailand and are looking for a super special experience.

Friends of ours, who used to live in Thailand, told us about the ultimate temple trip, but it was way beyond our budget. It’s a three-day boat trip on the nautical equivalent of the Orient Express train. You travel up the river from Bangkok on the Manohra 2, a boat that has been transformed into a luxury cabin cruiser, complete with antiques and Persian carpets. The boat docks overnight next to a temple and then continues the next day to the ancient city of Ayuthaya.

Ayuthaya is located at the confluence of three rivers and was the ancient capital of the Siamese Kingdom. It ruled the area for 400 years until the Burmese, using battle trained elephants, conquered the city in 1767. There are several museums in Ayuthaya, including the outstanding Chantharakasem National Museum. One of the most photographed sites in Thailand is also located in Ayuthaya, the famous Buddha head surrounded by tree roots that you’ve probably seen on postcards.

If you’re looking for an exotic travel experience, the river trip to Ayuthaya is one to include on your to do list. The cost of the three-day boat trip is $850-1150, which was out of our range, but if you can afford it, it’s an experience you’ll never forget. For more information, see www.manohracruises.com.

The Amulet Market

Back at the ashram, when we were studying the Lonely Planet City Guide, looking for low-priced things to do in Bangkok, we learned about the Amulet Market. After enjoying our first, of several, delicious meals in Thailand, we decided to find the Amulet Market and check it out.

We took the water taxi, which only cost 25 cents, got off at the next stop, walked one block, and there we were at the Amulet Market. It's about three blocks of sidewalk vendors, plus a few stores that specializes in amulets. Amulets are very popular in Thailand. They are small metal medallions, usually with a picture of a famous Thai Buddhist master on one side and some writing on the other. They range in size from about a half inch to a few inches long and there are thousands of them. There are even entire magazines that specialize in the amulet market. Some amulets very old, rare and expensive but most are extremely inexpensive. The majority of amulets cost anywhere from 25 cents to a few dollars, so it fit our budget perfectly.



It’s a lot of fun shopping for amulets. Tara and I spent 3 hours making our way down the street, stopping at each vendor, examining their amulets, and ended up spending about five dollars. We picked through hundreds of amulets to find one or two special ones that caught our eye and then bargained like crazy. The vendor’s initial asking price is usually at least ten times what they’re willing to accept. If the vendor wouldn’t come down substantially, we’d move on in search of better bargains and then return later to often get the deal we wanted.

The street is full of amulet hunters. Many Buddhist monks are there as well, dressed in their saffron robes, They huddle around the vendor’s tables, inspecting the amulets with magnifying glasses.

Most of the amulets, commemorate masters of the Thai Forest Monk tradition. The forest monks of Thailand are an interesting spiritual tradition. They believe in living like Buddha did, so they tend to avoid monasteries, preferring to live a very simple life in the forest. They usually wander, living in caves, eating whatever is available. It’s a very challenging lifestyle, since the jungle is full of dangerous animals like tigers and snakes, so living like that requires overcoming all fear.



The most famous of these forest monks were great masters who led very pure lives and performed many miracles. For this reason they are greatly loved by the Thai people. Hence the amulets. It’s a way of remembering the purity of these masters, connecting with them and continuing to receive their blessings. As one man said, who walked up to me in the amulet market, wearing many amulets around his neck, “Buddhas have power.”

Tara and I were familiar with one of these Thai forest masters because of a Thai man that we knew in Portland, Oregon. He was the owner of a Thai restaurant and had been a forest monk earlier in his life. He told us that he was only going to run his restaurant for another few years and then, when he had enough money to take care of his family, he was going to go back to Thailand in order to spend the rest of his life as a forest monk. He was an incredibly joyful man who radiated incredible positive energy. He was also extremely generous and fed the poor children in the neighborhood each day. When Tara and I were serving our Tibetan teacher, Khenpo Choga Rimpoche, we often didn’t have money for food. While putting up posters in Portland, we’d stop by his restaurant to ask if we could put up a poster and he’d invariably offer to give us a free lunch or dinner. He’d always say that what really mattered was serving the spiritual masters and, because we were serving our master, he insisted on feeding us. We were incredibly grateful to him for his extremely kind heart and generous spirit.

The first time that we were in the restaurant, we noticed a striking three-foot tall photo of an elderly Buddhist monk, who was wrapped in a saffron cloth and carried only a staff and water pot. When we asked who it was, he said that it was his master and that he had traveled in the forest between Burma, Thailand and Cambodia but lived mostly in a cave in Burma. He said that his master had left the body years ago but had recently reincarnated. When Tara and I realized that we were going on our visa jump to Thailand, we tried contacting our Thai friend in Portland but there was no answer at the restaurant. It seems that, as he predicted, he may have returned to Thailand to resume his life as a forest monk. We send him blessings of light and love and our thanks for helping us when we needed assistance. If he is wandering in the forest now, may the Divine bless and care for him as he cared for us.

A Conversation of Mantras

Within a few hours of waking up, on our first morning in Bangkok, we had an experience that we’ll never forget. We woke up hungry, having skipped dinner the night before. Our first thought was to find one of the vegetarian restaurants that we’d seen recommended in The Lonely Planet City Guide to Bangkok. It wasn’t hard. Within minutes, we discovered in the guide a restaurant that was located just a short walk from the Wild Orchid Guest house. We took a quick shower, threw on our clothes and headed off in search of delicious vegetarian Thai food at economical prices.



Tara and I walked in the direction of the restaurant, cutting through neighborhoods via narrow streets and back alleys. One of the things we noticed right away was that there were pictures of the King of Thailand everywhere. The Thai people love their king tremendously and celebrate his birthday each year in a grand way.

After about an hour of exploring, we arrived at our destination, a modest restaurant called Awawy. When I say modest, I mean really modest. You’d never go to Awawy for the décor, and ambience is not a word that comes to mind, but the Lonely Planet said that it was one of Bangkok’s best vegetarian restaurants and they were right. The food was delicious but that wasn’t what we’ll remember most about our experience there.

Half-way through feasting on several delectable dishes, that cost a total of $4 for the both of us, Tara noticed an interesting man enter the restaurant and sit at the table behind me. He was a striking older Thai man with a long white ponytail and a radiant face. Around his neck he wore many amulets, Buddhist medallions that are popular in Thailand. As we were about to finish our meal, I turned and said hello to the stranger. He smiled warmly, pointed to our clothes, and asked, “India?” We nodded in agreement. What then commenced was something that we had never experienced before. For the next hour we enjoyed a conversation with this stranger that consisted totally of mantras and the names of spiritual masters, gods and goddesses. It went something like this…

the stranger: “India?”

Gonga: Om Nama Shivaya

the stranger: “Shiva, Parvati”

Gonga: “Shiva, Shakti”

the stranger: showing us an amulet of Buddha

Tara: Om Mani Padme Hum

the stranger: Padmasambhava

Gonga: Vajra Padma Siddhi Hung

the stranger: Siddhi, Siddha, Maha Siddha

Gonga: giving him a photo of Shirdi Sai Baba…
“Shirdi Sai Baba, Siddha, guru”

the stranger: “Ah guru, Guru Shiva.”

Gonga: “Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshvara”

the stranger: “Vishnu, Krishna, Mahesh, Shiva”

Gonga: Na Ma Si Va Ya

The conversation went on like this between people who shared no common language but the spiritual language of mantra and the names of divine souls. As we went back and forth, we felt a bond of recognition with this kindred spirit who we’ll probably never see again. We shared an awareness of spiritual realities and could tell by his familiarity with them that they were as important to him as they were to us. At the end of the conversation, we bowed to each other, smiled and went our separate ways. There was no need to exchange addresses. We knew where each of us lived.

Our Bangkok Adventure Begins

After receiving the money that we needed for our airplane tickets and some extra money for hotels, we booked the cheapest flight we could to Bangkok and made reservations for three nights at an inexpensive guesthouse in the Kho San Road area of Bangkok. Before we left the ashram, our friends who had gone to Thailand already had started to return, looking tanned and exhilarated from two weeks of lounging on beaches and scuba diving. Many of them warned us to stay only one night in Bangkok because of how over-crowded and polluted it was and recommended departing the next morning for the islands and beautiful beaches further south. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford the added expense of traveling to a tropical island so we decided to stay in Bangkok and make the best of it. We weren’t really there for a vacation. Our purpose was to make our visa jump and we were grateful to even have a few days in Bangkok. Our friends had also warned us that it was hard to find vegetarian food since most of the Thai restaurants cook with meat. Before leaving for Thailand, I obtained a Lonely Planet Guide and discovered several highly recommended low cost vegetarian restaurants. More on that later.



Arriving at the Bangkok airport is quite an eye-opener. You definitely know that you aren’t in India anymore. The airport is new, super modern and is the largest airport in South East Asia. We caught a cab to the Kho San Road area and checked into the Wild Orchid Guesthouse, a haven for young back-packers from around the world. We loved staying there. The room, which cost $12 a night, was clean with air conditioning and the bathroom was western-style with a shower. The Wild Orchid has an open-air lobby and was decorated in a Thai Buddhist motif. Backpackers poured in, at all hours of the day and night fresh … well, maybe not so fresh …from the airport. Over the next few days, while sitting in the lounge, sipping a Thai iced tea, I’d often fantasize that I could write a novel about the scene at the Wild Orchid.



The Kho San Road area sprung up at a time when there was a shortage of hotels in Bangkok. Enterprising Thai people opened up their houses to young backpackers and the guesthouse phenomenon was born. Now, there are hundreds of guesthouses in the Kho San Road area, ranging in size from a few rooms to moderate size hotels. We stayed at the Wild Orchid Guesthouse for the first two nights and then switched to the Shambara Guesthouse for our last night in Bangkok. The Shambara was highly recommended by friends who had just stayed there on their visa jump and was also $12 per night. The Shambara is a small family run guesthouse with only six bedrooms and a common bathroom. It was quiet and charming with beautiful fish pools that Tara loved butI preferred the Wild Orchid because of its large lounge and more social scene.



The main stretch of Kho San Road is packed with tourist traps, tricket shops, bars and massage salons but the area surrounding the main strip is much quieter. Another great thing about staying in the Kho San Road area is the abundance of excellent internet cafes.

If someone was traveling to Bangkok and didn’t want to stay in a super inexpensive guesthouse like we did, I’d recommend staying at the 124-year-old Oriental Hotel. The Oriental is one of Bangkok’s most luxurious hotels and it’s also one of the most famous hotels in Asia. Located on the edge of the river, it was frequented by famous authors like Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, John le Carre and James Michener. We didn’t stay there, although we would have loved to, but we did eat appetizers at the elegant riverside restaurant and it’s an experience not to miss. The Oriental operates another restaurant across the river so a ferry takes customers back and forth. A stay at the Oriental would be something you’d never forget.



We had an absolutely fantastic time in Bangkok and would highly recommend it to anyone. We especially loved the Buddhist influence on Thai culture. The people were very warm and polite. The following posts will be a series of our favorite experiences in Bangkok with some sightseeing recommendations in case you ever decide to go there. Oh, and by the way, the flowers in Thailand are amazing.



At this point, we have no idea how we’re going to solve our next visa jump challenge, which will be in the first two weeks of May, but another quick trip to Bangkok is a possibility, as is using our return tickets to the United States. If we return to the States for our visa jump during the first two weeks of May, we'll plan on teaching some workshops in order to start sharing what we've learned in India.

Visa Jump – The Power of Love

On the surface, this posting is about our making a visa jump to Thailand but really it’s about much more than that. It’s about the power of love.

One of the restrictions that the Indian government places on tourists is that they can not stay in India longer than 180 days. If you want to stay in India longer than this, you need to leave India, even if only for one day, and then return, thereby enabling you to stay for another 180 days. This is called making a visa jump. When the time approaches for us all to make our visa jumps, Swami Kaleshawar sets aside a few weeks for everyone to travel to wherever they need to go. Most people at the ashram go to nearby countries, but some return home to see their families and friends. Swami is extremely careful to protect everyone at the ashram so certain countries, like Sri Lanka and Nepal, are off-limits due to political unrest. That leaves only a few other options; Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Tara and I were faced with a huge problem that we had no idea how to solve. In order to complete the University year, we’d have to make two visa jumps, each after 180 days, but we had no money to travel anywhere. Forget the second visa jump. We’d deal with that when the time came. First we had to figure out how to make the first one or else we’d have to leave India at the end of our first 180 days.

There had been a flurry of donations via PayPal to our India fund when we first announced it on our website. We arrived in India with enough money to last four months, maybe five if we were extremely frugal. We’d economized in every way possible, reducing our expenditures down to the bare necessities.

There’s a laundry service at the ashram that only costs 14 rupees (30 cents) per item but to save money we washed all our laundry in a plastic bucket in our bathroom. As the months passed, the donations coming in had dwindled to a trickle and now we were down to less than $100 with six more months of the university to go and two visa jumps required. It didn’t look good.

Swami was going to England, Germany and the United States to teach during the visa break and many of our friends at the ashram were planning on flying to California to attend the events in Joshua Tree and Santa Cruz. We still had our return tickets to America but, if we used them for our visa jump, it was extremely doubtful that we’d be able to afford new round-trip tickets to return to India to complete the second half of the University. Acyually using our return tickets to the States for one of our required visa jumps would have been a good idea because our return ticket expires after one year and that year is up a month before the university year ends. Needless to say, the final month of the university would be very important due to exams, Guru Purnima, and Swami’s conclusion to our training. We checked to see if we could pay more to extend the ticket but the airline said it wasn’t possible. Plus, even if we used it, we had no way to get back to India. What to do?

If we didn’t make a visa jump to somewhere nearby and inexpensive, we’d have to drop out of the University and not complete our training. We had absolutely no idea how we were going to solve this problem, so we placed it at the feet of the Divine and prayed. If we were meant to complete our year of training in soul healing then somehow a solution would be provided.

When the visa break began, our friends began to leave. Day by day, the ashram became quieter. After about a week, almost all the students had left, leaving only a few of us along with the Indian staff. The apartment building we live in seemed vacant. We enjoyed the silence and spent our days reading spiritual books that we’d been too busy to read during the routine of daily classes.



As the days passed, Tara and I wondered how we were going to be able to somehow make our visa jumps to the nearest and cheapest country to travel to. We kept checking airfares and decided that Thailand was our best bet. Hong Kong was out of the question. It was too far away and too expensive. Singapore, where most of our friends went, was also too expensive. One of the advantages of Singapore is excellent shopping, which is very attractive when you’ve been living in a remote rural Indian village, but we had no money for shopping and hotels in Singapore are more expensive. Thailand, on the other hand, was the cheapest to fly to and hotels there were much cheaper.

We knew, regardless of how it happened, that we had to make a visa jump so we made reservations for the very end of the visa jump period, hoping that we’d somehow be able to pay for the tickets when the deadline came. We kept checking our PayPal balance, hoping that some new donations had come in. Nothing arrived. As the days clicked by, it looked more and more doubtful that it was going to come together. We prepared for the worst by telling ourselves that if we had to drop out of the University, at least we’d been blessed to have six beautiful months learning profound spiritual knowledge that we’d carry with us forever. We tried not to think about what we’d miss if we had to leave without completing the University.

Tara and I had been in similar situations before. During the years we traveled with our Tibetan master, Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche, we were frequently faced with apparently insurmountable obstacles. Serving as Khenpo Choga’s attendants and traveling with practically no money, while setting up hundreds of teaching events, was one of the most rewarding periods of our lives. The greatest gift that we received from this experience was that of gaining unshakable trust.

When you can’t eat because you only have enough money to buy gas to drive to the next town and you aren’t even sure about that, you can only rely on one thing. Trust.

Christ said,

“Take no heed for the body,
what ye shall eat,
what ye shall wear.
Bread, the men of the world seek after;
Seek ye the Kingdom of God,
And all these things will be added unto you.”

Throughout the years, Tara and I had discovered over and over again that when we were faced with a huge challenge, where no solution seemed possible, if we remained calm and trusted in the Divine, somehow what we needed was always provided. Khenpo Choga had told us that once you devote yourself to serving Buddha you will never go hungry. In all the time we served Khenpo Choga, we always had at least one meal a day. Now Tara and I saw our window of opportunity to make a visa jump slipping away. The day came when we had to pay for our tickets and we couldn’t pay for them so we lost those reservations. The prospects for making our visa jump and finishing the school year was looking pretty dismal. We began to think of packing up our belongings and making arrangements to return to the States.

It was a poignant time. We were the last students left at the ashram. We realized how much we would miss the ashram that we’d grown to love so much. We’d miss the beautiful mountain, where in ancient times thousands of rishis meditated in secret caves, the gardens full of blooming tropical flowers and the Shirdi Sai Baba and Jesus temples. Most of all, we’d miss the new friends from around the world with whom we had been blessed to learn divine knowledge from a living saint. We thought of all these things, stayed calm and held firm in our trust in the Divine.

Just as we reached the final deadline for buying our tickets, our dear friends in New York who had purchased our round-trip tickets to India, emailed to say that they had deposited $600 in our PayPal account, just the amount we needed for two tickets to Bangkok. Tara jumped for joy. We thanked God not only for the solution but also for the challenge. We’ve found that times like this test our faith and that repeated tests over time build up our trust to the point where it is unshakable. We also thanked God for true friends who are there when you most need them. These friends who paid not only for our round-trip to tickets to India but also now for our tickets to Thailand are people who during my years of teaching Transcendental Meditation were my dearest, closest friends. They were my spiritual brother and sister and I’m the godfather of their son. It has been 23 years since I left the TM organization and a lot has happened since then. Life has changed in many ways and far too long has passed since I last saw these dear friends but the love that binds us on the deepest level hasn’t changed. In addition, to this validation of the eternal nature of love and true friendship, I received a donation of $200 for our visa jump from my 11th grade English teacher who I hadn’t seen or talked to in 40 years. That was another lesson to never doubt the power of love.

When Sri Kaleshwar came to California and performed a fire puja on a mountaintop in Malibu shortly before we came to India, he said that he’d noticed in his travels that few westerners have many really good friends. Tara and I know without a shadow of a doubt that we are in India only because of our friends and the blessings of the Divine. We thank God for their friendship and pray that we can fully utilize this wonderful opportunity to become pure channels of divine love in order to heal souls and help to alleviate suffering in the world. What we’re learning in India is that all healing is accomplished through love. God is love. We do not do the healing. Our job is to purify our self so that God’s love can flow through us. God’s grace is always available. We only need to open our hearts to receive it.