Baba Muktananda
My meeting with Baba Muktananda
by Lee Miller
I met Baba Muktananda shortly before his death when I received an invitation to go to Muktananda's ashram in Santa Monica, CA and hear him speak and to meet him. This invitation was given to me by Tammy Paris. Tammy was a devote of Baba and she and her husband Win Paris had a pair of rotweilers than were offspring of Muktananda's rotweiler guard dogs. I accepted Tammy's invitation and met her there.
Baba's ashram was located over an entire block along the main street going through downtown Santa Monica. The meetings were held in a large tent that is said to have held 800 people at a time. I met Tammy where we had agreed to meet. The tent was already starting to fill up, so we went inside and I was shown to an excellent place to sit. I sat on the floor within a few yards of where Baba spoke to a packed tent. Muktananda spoke in his native language with a pleasing rhythm and sound to his voice. The Swami who translated for the audience had a pleasing manner with wit and humor as he translated. The chanting and meditation was very powerful, what a feeling to be in a room with 800 people chanting and meditating together in the presence of a living Self Realized Master. I had never experience anything like this before. It ended way to soon for me I would have liked for it to have gone on for hours more.
At the end of Muktananda's talk it was time to get into a line and get bopped by the peacock feather from Muktananda. Tammy quickly found me and she moved us into the line. When we got to Baba, as she addressed him, she introduced me as a friend of hers. I greeted him and he spoke directly to me and then as I kneeled down to him he touched me with the peacock feather. I think it was once on the top of my head that he touched me with the feather and did a short chant. I thought, so that's what it's all about, I was somewhat under whelmed. I guess I expected instant magic.
I didn't notice anything different until the trip home. As I was driving I noticed that colors were much more intense and that trees and other objects seemed to be vibrating, things were shimmering with vibrations that made them more beautiful to see. I also had a feeling of being a part of everything at this molecular vibration level. It was a feeling that I am connected with everything, we are all one. That instant magic happened to me, it just took me a bit to notice it. Actually I didn't know what to expect, but this experience was fantastic.
I was not able to attend any more meetings with Muktananda at his ashram before his death. I want to give a thank you to Tammy Paris for this special meeting with a true guru.
Other sites with information about Muktananda
good Web sites on baba
Swami Muktananda and Kundalini Yoga
Swami Muktananda introduced the Siddha Yoga path all over the world, creating what he called a "meditation revolution." He is the author of Play of Consciousness, his spiritual autobiography.
Swami Muktananda (1908-1982) began living as a sadhu, a mendicant in search of spiritual fulfillment, at an unusually early age. Though as a young man he gained renown for his yogic attainments, Swami Muktananda often said that his spiritual journey didn't truly begin until 1947, when he received shaktipat, spiritual initiation, from the holy man Bhagawan Nityananda. It was then that his spiritual energy, kundalini, was awakened and he was drawn into profound states of meditation.
"Everything you seek in this world is within you. Supreme joy blazes inside. But it is not enough merely to have an intellectual understanding of this. You have to go deep inside. The heart is the true house of God. It is the seat of happiness, the abode of unending love. Go there."
In the 1970s, on his guru's behalf, he brought the venerable tradition of his master's lineage to the West, giving the previously little-known shaktipat initiation he himself had received to untold thousands of spiritual seekers. Before his death, in 1982, Swami wrote many books; sixteen are still in print. He also established more than six hundred meditation centers and several ashrams around the world http://www.syda.org/. His work, through the auspices of the Siddha Yoga Dham Associates Foundation, is carried on by his spiritual heir, Swami Chidvilasananda.
An obituary written by Neil T. Duddy
Swami Muktananda Paramahansa: 1909-1982
Swami Muktananda Paramahansa, one of India’s most serious teachers of Siddha Yoga and more recently a popular figure in the West, died this fall at his Ganeshpuri ashram near Bombay, India. Anticipating his death, the 73-year-old Swami (referred to as Baba by his 750,000 worldwide devotees) announced the names of his two youthful successors in May 1982. In the midst of funeral services and mourning, the transition of leadership for the 37 ashrams and 300 meditation centers around the world seems to be a smooth one.
Muktananda, whose own guru was the famous Swami Nityananda, taught the spiritual disciplines of Siddha and Kriya Yoga, both of which induce highly altered states of consciousness. Because Muktananda developed the Siddha Yoga power centers within the subtle, or spiritual, body, it was believed that he could deliver powerful blessings to his disciples through the Shaktipat. When Muktananda gave the Shaktipat (a touch with a black peacock feather), some devotees swooned, and all of them believed their bad karma had been removed. Several years ago, est founder Werner Erhard sponsored a worldwide tour for Muktananda which enabled the guru to establish international headquarters in the West (South Fallsberg, New York).
The teachings of Muktananda will be passed on through Swami Chidvilasananda, age 24, and Swami Nityananda, age 20, as they make a tour of the meditation centers to consolidate their leadership positions. Muktananda began grooming the sister and brother 15 years ago, supervising their spiritual discipline so they could become his successors. One distinguished Muktananda disciple, Dr. Eugene Callender, who is a Presbyterian minister and professor at the Columbia Business School in New York has said, “I think we’re going to be spreading Swami Muktananda’s message even faster now. To me it’s like what happened after Christ died, when his teachings spread like wildfire. I think we’re going to have a similar pattern with all of Baba’s trained disciples going out to spread his word” (India Today, 31 October 1982).
by Neil T. Duddy
Other Articles:
Carlos Castaneda meets Muktananda
Another dialogue with Baba Muktananda
Books by Swami Muktananda
http://www.amazon.com/Muktananda-Siddha-Guru/
Books and tapes on Muktananda
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