With the quickening of sadhana that began in 1988, my life changed. I was a mom with two young boys and had a part-time job working as a psychologist at a state hospital. Needless to say, I was busy. But I was also being drawn into my sadhana, spending every moment I was not required to do something in meditation. My physical guru, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti Baba, left his body in October 1990, the same year I received my license. Before and during the time between these events, I began to experience a profound spiritual opening.
Light in My Palms & Feet During this period, a change began to occur in my inner communion with Baba, the dance of his expression shifting, weaving in my mind and heart the sweet flow of the Beloved. He began to open my heart to a depth of love previously unknown to me. The brittleness I had encountered in myself in my earlier experience began to soften. My inhibitions began to dissolve, my resistance to dissipate. In a bond of love so deep I cannot put it into words, the awakened Shakti energies moved upward into my heart.
Then one day, while I was lost in meditation, a pure white lotus began to form and bloom in my heart, filling me with a nectarean, sacred love. I saw light flowing from the magnificent heart lotus through subtle channels of my body, opening chakras in the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. My palms and soles began to glow with pure white radiance. I could feel the open chakras. The radiance felt holy, sacred. It was as if a wave of grace was moving from the lotus blooming in my heart, through my body, into my hands and feet, and then out into the world. I felt as if, should I touch someone, this great blessing would touch them as well.
The experience of this sacred white radiance in my heart, and in my palms and the soles of my feet, became constant for almost a year. Often in meditation, I saw golden channels stemming from the central column in my spine, flowing to my arms, legs, and other parts of my body. Beautiful lotus flowers bloomed within each chakra, and a Sanskrit letter would appear on each petal.
When all this began, doubt and uncertainty about following internal teachings tugged at me. With gentle compassion, Baba would carefully untie the knots in my mind, his words and explanations coming with their usual loving kindness and logic until I understood and could accept what he was showing me. I began to feel that every particle of the Universe is only the form of my Beloved and is my own form. I began to experience this body and mind as no longer mine, belonging instead to the Beloved of my heart, to the one eternal essence of being, dancing with me in the play of creation as my Baba.
I lie upon the couch. My head resting in Your lap. Immersed in the feel of you. Rain softly falls outside my window.
My heart is a radiant white light. I feel my palms and feet. Aglow and alive with shimmering light The force of this energy moves my hands. For its expression
Ecstatic flows move up and down my spine. Sensual sensations in rivers of light
Dreamily I enjoy Your companionship.
Sacred Marriage As the summer progressed, the focus of my meditation experience drew more to the depths. The allegory of the sacred marriage to the Divine began to find full enactment in my sadhana. In deep and extended meditations, as the play of divine consciousness unfolded, my inner guide began to manifest as the divine Beloved. Then one day, in a mystic ceremony in the depths of meditation, he united us in a sacred marriage of the small self to the Beloved.
I am sitting quietly alone in my meditation room. The house is empty. I am already in a blissful mood. Baba is there in a subtle form. Pure love emanates from him, a glow that has already unstrung my heart.
I sit before him in the depths of my inner vision. I am lost in love and grace. He draws upon my forehead a mark extending from Ajna Chakra to Sahasrara, the third eye to the top of my head. As he does this, an overpowering white radiance and a blessedness fill my mind. My heart melts. He tells me this is the marriage of my small self to the Infinite One and that I will never be the same. That this is forever.
On the soles of my feet, symbols appear, drawn in red, of mystic eyes. I melt into the pure white light that stuns the mind with intolerable love and am lost in union with the Beloved of my heart.
Melded with him, I feel every particle of my being is infused with my Beloved. The atoms and cells of my body, my mind, and the world around me become the form of my Baba, of my divine Beloved. There is nothing outside of this ecstatic love. I see the Beloved of my heart manifest in every particle of existence. Inner and outer lose distinction as I become lost in Cosmic love.
In this sacred dance, my Baba showered unreserved and profound love upon me, showing this small one the nature of real love, of which human love is only a reflection. I was touched beyond words, feeling deeply connected to my mystic Beloved and the dance that unfolded.
You stand before me. Husband of my heart The light of your essence Softly dissolving the Boundaries between us
Thou art within and without Formed and Formless Lover, love, and Beloved Thou art personal and tender Yet vast as an endless ocean
Your touch caresses me, Leaving me intoxicated with Your presence. Immersed in Your sweet radiance, I am fulfilled.
Thus, my experience unfolded, but it was not until years later in my readings that I came to understand that the mystical marriage has been a part of the experiences of those who love the Divine in spiritual traditions of various religions throughout history. The mystical marriage to the Goddess is part of Judaism. As part of esoteric Christianity, nuns and often mystics become the brides of Christ. In Hinduism, Radha and Krishna,Shiva and Parvati,Rama and Sita enact the soul’s journey to unity with the Divine. In all traditions, the mystic marriage denotes the state of a human soul living intimately united to God through grace and love.
Of course, I did not know of this at the time. I don’t know if my experiences were as profound as those described in the writings I have read, but the writings of saints, poets, and sages have helped me to understand that other people, deeply in love with the Divine, have also had this experience. I do know that this sacred union never comes from human striving but through giving of oneself to the Beloved and the shower of grace of that Divine One.
Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) expresses her experience beautifully in her writings in the Interior Castle:
“The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, only the intimate language of lovers describes the experience for us: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, changing the rules “for me,” nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and of course also, necessary suffering.”
Many explain this love in poetry, as it is so hard to put into words the love of the heart. St. John of the Cross writes in The Spiritual Canticles:
I lost myself. Forgot myself. I lay my face against the Beloved’s face. Everything fell away, and I left myself behind, Abandoning my cares among the lilies, forgotten.
Kabir also tells of this love in the One Hundred Poems of Kabir, translated by Rabindranath Tagore.
A sore pain troubles me day and night, and I cannot sleep. I long for the meeting with my Beloved, And my father’s house gives me pleasure no more. The gates of the sky are opened, the temple is revealed: I meet my husband and leave at His feet the offering of my body and my mind.
After this profound experience, I was curious to know what the symbols that I saw on my feet meant, so a few months later, I asked Baba Hari Dass, whom I knew to be very scholarly. I showed him a drawing of the mystic eyes, and he told me, like Om, it is the symbol of Shabda Brahman, the Brahma of sound. I later read in Yogapedia that Shabda Brahman is transcendental sound, as outlined in the Vedic scriptures. In Sanskrit, Shabda means “sound” or “word,” and Brahman is “Supreme Self” or “Absolute of the Universe.” Ancient scriptures centering on yogic philosophies state that sound and God are the same and that “Every substance is made up of vibrations (subtle sound).”
This explanation of the mystic eyes as symbols of Shabda Brahman made sense to me, as my Baba manifests through inner sound. His love emanates through the inner voice. Even his outer voice, when I am giving his talks or “Baba talks,” carries his vibrational presence in the sound of the words. So, with this explanation, I felt complete. It deepened my understanding of my experience.
As the months went by, I would find myself waking in the early morning before dawn, Baba immediately in my mind. I would spend several hours, blissful in his company, listening to his words. Then, on the days I did not work, I would sit for sadhana, my mind lost in Baba’s presence and bliss until noon. I only knew the passage of time because my body would become exhausted, and he would become practical. He would order me to attend to my body or to my worldly duties.
I find he still assists me with even the place and the time of my sadhana. He comes to me and leaves so as to fit my times with him in with my worldly life. Many times, I would not even know that I needed to attend to the external world, but he would insist, and I would find there was a practical reason. That he does this has always meant a great deal to me. I feel the completeness of his caring in that he bothers to aid me even in these worldly details.
In one such instance that I recall, he came before dawn, waking me from sleep. I was lost in his presence when he suddenly began to insist that I get up. I could not understand this, as it still appeared to be early, and everyone was asleep. I was filled with light and divine bliss and did not want to end my sadhana, but he insisted, so I got up, only to discover that my alarm had not gone off. We had all overslept, and my ride to work would be arriving in ten minutes.
Sadhana on Panther Meadows One day during this time in my journey, Liam and I decided to take a trip to Mt Shasta to camp on the upper Panther Meadow. While I was camping, I took the opportunity to meditate at the top of the sacred spring. The purest water you could ever imagine bubbles out of the ground and flows from this spring down the meadow amid wildflowers and alpine peaks. The spring has been sacred to the Indians for centuries. Anyway, I did a long meditation in that power spot that day in the summer of 1989, and in my meditation, I came to Baba in a deep, happy mood of love and spontaneously asked, “How can I serve you?” In my meditation, Baba answered, saying, “Take my hand.” My sadhana was very clear. Baba’s form, piercing eyes, and vibration were strong. I took his hand in mine. He said, “Place my hand on your heart.” I did so, covering it with both of mine in a feeling of love. Then he said that I was to repeat after him. “I swear to serve Guru as Mother to his spiritual children. I vow to give up all personal interest in this service. I swear this before Guru.” I repeated this, phrase by phrase, after him. Baba said afterward that this was a serious vow he took from me. He told me I should realize the seriousness of it.
Lahiri Mahasaya’s Message Shortly after my Mt. Shasta experience, during a deep meditation, Lahiri Mahasaya appeared clearly in my mind. He exuded divine joy. His joy was so intoxicating that I could barely refrain from external laughter. He looked at me with this joy, and somehow, I felt as if this joy was directed towards me. It was not exactly personal but an unreserved exquisite joy in the nature of human existence and unfoldment. I can’t quite put it into words. In my sadhana, I went to bow to him; over the years, he has helped me from time to time, but still emanating undaunted joy, he stopped me. He then waved behind him to Baba, who was giving the namaskar mudra, hands folded in prayer. Baba appeared like Krishna, with a thousand multiple images moving outward from both sides behind him. I knew Lahiri Mahasaya was indicating that it is only to Baba I should bow, that my fate is entrusted to him alone. To Baba, I bowed down.
Meditation on the Infinite a Duty In September and October, my Baba continued to manifest in the aspect of spiritual husband, his presence filling my mind with effulgent light and unconditioned love. He told me that this infinite presence is the nature of his being.
Then several weeks before his physical departure, in early October, he said, “My consciousness will grow within you now and bear fruit. You are spiritual wife to me, carrying within you my essential nature in seed form.” During these weeks, Baba was very close, spending long hours with me in subtle form, the room thick with his beautiful scent and his aura. I felt that my heart had melted open.
In the last few weeks before Baba’s passing, he also began to talk to me about duty. He said to me, “As Guru Deva, I give you a duty.” In twenty years, my inner Baba had never referred to himself as “Guru Deva” or talked to me about duty. He had never asked anything of me. This was new. He said, “I give you the duty of service to me. This is your only duty. To love me and to serve me. I give each a duty according to their disposition. As your bent is solely towards me, so I give you this duty.”
This, of course, delighted my heart, but then I would think, “How can this be real? Baba, I understand this in meditation, but on the physical plane, I am not near you or part of your inner circle; furthermore, I am a woman. How can this be my duty?” He would never answer this inquiry.
Very frequently, during these first few weeks in October, he would ask me, “What is your duty?” and have me repeat it to him. Still confused about this duty, I finally asked him, “Baba, I know that you care for all living beings. Why don’t you give me a duty that is serving humanity?” He said to me, “The greatest service you can give to humanity is to focus on the Supreme. This is humanity’s greatest need. Be one with the Supreme, and the service is automatic.” Longing to See My Physical Guru A deep source of unhappiness for me over the years has been my lack of contact with my physical guru, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti. I was busy raising my family, and he was far away in India. There was one opportunity that arose in 1989 when Anandamurti Baba scheduled a trip to see Western devotees in Jamaica. I wanted to go to see him, but I was reluctant to travel, and my Baba discouraged me. Then mentally, he held me close in his presence while I cried for days that I could not go to be near the guru’s physical manifestation. It feels as if there has been an invisible barrier over the years preventing me from returning to him as a physical guru. For some time in the spring of 1990, my inner Baba indicated a desire to come to America in the physical form of Guru. He asked that I and others send him invitations, but something shifted before I could do so. He said nothing, but he no longer wished for an invitation. I could feel in him that something had changed. He would not be coming. It was too late. I knew he would be leaving this world instead, but I did not know when.
During the last year of his life, I wanted to see my physical guru. But I could not go without Baba’s internal permission, and this I could not get. He put me off. He said it would not work to see me in India. This led me to hope and dream that Baba might come here, and I might see him. He would tell me, “To know the Satguru is a rare and great gift. To be in his physical presence is a great blessing, but that, when it can be done, it is even better to know him internally.” He said he would cultivate internal dependence in me, not external reliance.
It is true that when I was with him as a physical guru, I was extremely attached to him. Then he was in prison, the years passed, and the invisible barrier arose. All he would have had to do as an inner guru was to say to come to him. But instead, this year, to my inquiries, he was reluctant, putting me off and denying permission for me to go to India.
In the last months before his departure, I felt a real need to see the guru in his physical form. To my inquiries, he would say that the feeling was mutual. He desired to see me also, but he could not see me in India. He would show me a room, which, when I later went to India, I discovered was the darshan hall in his quarters in Calcutta. In the vision, he would be surrounded by orange-robed monks and nuns, and I would be far away, lost in the crowd. I would feel hurt by this vision of distance and would cry in response. He would then say, “To be a mere face in the crowd would break your tender heart; you are too close to me, and I cannot bring you near me.” In this way, he refused me until the news of his physical death. Knowing Baba’s Departure In the months before Baba’s leaving, I felt concerned for his physical health. In my sadhana, I begged him to leave India and care for his health. But I was deflected with vague promises that he would see me again. During the summer, I had difficult dreams that I could never get to where he was, and when I got there, he had just left. I dreamed that he was in danger.
In September of 1990, about a month before Baba’s departure, during one meditation, I felt around the edges of his being that his physical death was imminent. My mind became rebellious, and I began to think, “Even without his permission, I must go immediately to see him. The time is very short.” But again, when I requested to see him, he deflected me. He said, “It is true you should see me one more time, but wait a little longer, then you can come.” Thus, I knew I would be going to India shortly, but I assumed he meant before his departure, so I was surprised to find out the news when it came. It was clear to me that Anandamurti Baba knew of his departure at this time and, I believe, had known about it since late spring to early summer. But my assumption that he meant he would see me before his physical death proved wrong.
The night of his death, there was no warning for me. In the morning, just before the call came, I was with Baba in meditation, in a blissful mood. He asked me my duty again and had me repeat it to him. To my inquiries about how this could be my duty, there was only mental silence. He would not address it. He did not warn me. The fateful phone call from another devotee was like a dream that I had lived in fear of for many months. I had imagined this call from her over and over in my mind. When it actually happened, it felt like walking through a dream, enacting what had already occurred in my mind’s eye.
I immediately went back to my Baba, who was patiently unshaken. He simply said, “I have opened your heart, and now I will break it, and in the crack, real divinity will bloom.” He said to me, “I am always with you. I will always be with you. You have lost nothing but an unfulfilled desire (for his physical darshan) that you will have to give up.” I knew he would always be with me, but my heart was broken regardless. I would never have his physical touch, never be able to touch his feet, to sit in his presence physically. To remain alive without him physically on the planet, I didn’t know if I wanted to, or could bear to. Even though I had not seen the physical guru in years, the loss was excruciating. I knew that I, of all people, had lost nothing. I had not been with him physically for eighteen years. Everything had come to me from the inner level. But I still felt the loss of the closest person in the world to me, as though I had lost my reason for being here. In Sadhana, the evening after I heard of Baba’s leaving, I sent my mind to him in India. I saw that Baba was laid out in a room with people around him. His body had a special glow and was very cold. In his subtle body, he sat beside his physical body, and joy emanated from him. He threw flowers to everyone as they sat with their eyes closed in deep meditation. I understood this as a shower of blessings. I was happy to know of his joy at this event, that no sorrow was in him. I was glad for him, though pained in myself.