I WAS IN MY junior year of high school. I had been just barely getting by before my mother got sick. Now dragging myself to school was hard enough. Most days I didn’t even go. I either hung out in the student lounge or got high with my friends at nearby Lake View Cemetery.
I dreaded the idea of writing college application essays, visiting schools, and being subjected to interviews. Picturing the slew of rejection letters that was sure to follow filled me with anxiety. But what frightened me even more was the realization that even if I somehow did get in somewhere, I would be forced to leave home and live in a place where I didn’t know anyone. I would be all alone and would have to fend for myself. Here in Ithaca I was depressed and miserable, but at least I was depressed and miserable in my own home. I also had Melanie to take care of me.
Melanie was eleven years older than me, and ever since my father died she had been like a second mother to Lucy and me. When we were little, before her daughters Leah and Nicole were born, Melanie showered us with attention. She read to us, helped us with our homework, and took us swimming, boating, hiking, and camping every chance she could find. Now, with my mother gone, she was as determined as ever to not let me fall behind or succumb to depression.
One evening when Herb wasn’t around, I summoned the courage to tell Melanie I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I found her cleaning up in the kitchen. She assured me that it would eventually come to me, but in the meantime I should focus on finishing high school and getting accepted to college. “Where do you think I could get in?” I asked her, preparing myself for disappointment.
Melanie started the dishwasher and turned around to look me squarely in the eye. “You’re going to Cornell.”
“Cornell? You must be joking.”
“You’re very bright, Dougie. And you were getting decent grades before Mommy got sick.”
I shook my head ruefully. “I don’t have a prayer.”
“Your GPA is not that impressive, but your SAT scores are high enough. Anyway, there are extenuating circumstances—the admissions department is going to take them into consideration.”
I looked down at the kitchen floor. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t forget, you’re also a legacy. I went to Cornell. And so did Jeremy.” Melanie had gotten both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cornell School of Agriculture. Now she owned and operated a wholesale shrub nursery on a fifty-acre farm she had purchased during her last year of graduate school, with a lot of help from my mother.
Technically, I wasn’t a legacy. I would have been if one of our parents had attended, but I didn’t bother to point this out to her. The conversation was making me uncomfortable. Even if by some miracle I did get in, I didn’t want to go to Cornell, or any other college. I didn’t want to do anything.
Eventually Melanie convinced me to apply to Cornell’s pomology department, only because practically no one wanted to study fruit. She was also “old friends” with the head of the department, which “couldn’t hurt.”
“With the right application essay, you’ll be a shoo-in!” she had said.
I had zero interest in agriculture, and had to look up the word “pomology” in the dictionary after Melanie suggested it to me. “All you have to do is convince them that you’re passionate about fruit trees,” she had said. I had no idea where to begin. If I was passionate about anything in my junior year of high school, it was masturbation and my vinyl record collection. Fruit trees, or any aspect of agriculture, for that matter, was probably the last thing I wanted to study. But Melanie convinced me it didn’t matter. “What matters is getting a diploma from an Ivy league university,” she said.
Despite my skepticism, I managed to write a compelling essay, with a lot of help from Melanie. I invented a story about how, driven by my love of horticulture, I had spent every summer since the age of twelve helping my sister in her shrub nursery and vegetable garden. “But my dream,” I wrote, “is to one day cultivate my own apple orchard.”
It was complete bullshit: I hated working outside and refused to work in the garden or nursery almost every time my help was requested. On the rare occasions Melanie managed to talk me into working, I purposefully did an incompetent job in the hopes of never being asked again. As for apples, I was so uninterested in them I didn’t even know the difference between a Red Delicious and a Granny Smith.
But a few months later, somehow, I did get into Cornell. I would be attending the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in the fall of 1983. And for a few weeks after receiving the acceptance letter, I didn’t feel like killing myself.
*
AT THE END OF June, Melanie dropped a bombshell: she had put our mother’s house up for sale. I was terrified when I found out. Terrified and furious. One morning, as she was getting ready to leave the house to take the girls to day camp, I confronted her.
“Where are Lucy and I supposed to live?”
“The market is soft now,” Melanie said, slathering sunscreen on Nicole’s little arms and legs. “The house might not sell for months, or even years.”
“Okay, but what if it does sell soon?”
“You can live on campus.”
“Oh really. What about Lucy?”
“She’s only got one more year of high school. If the house sells before she goes away to college, she can always come live with the girls and me on the farm.”
When Melanie and Herb returned home later that evening, I begged my sister to take the house off the market.
“You can’t sell mom’s house! It hasn’t even been a year since she died!”
“We know you’re scared, Doug,” Herb said. “But the only way to overcome your fears is by facing them.”
“No one cares what you think! Get out, asshole!” I shouted, pointing to the door.
“For God’s sake, Doug,” Melanie said, kneading the back of her neck with her hand. “Herb’s just trying to help. You’re impossible! I don’t know how Mommy put up with you!”
I felt a wrenching pain in my chest. “Go ahead and say it,” I shouted. “Say it!”
Melanie’s face turned white and she looked confused. “Say what?”
“You know!”
Melanie shook her head. “No, Doug I don’t.”
“It’s my fault she’s dead! I’m the one who made her sick!”
Melanie brought a hand to her mouth. “That’s not true, Doug. How could you say such a thing?”
Crying now, I ran for the door to the basement. As I stormed down the stairs I heard Melanie call out to me: “Doug! Please come back!”
She followed me into my lair, Herb on her heels.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I squealed.
“Be reasonable, Doug. Even if the house sells soon and you have to leave, it’s not like you’re going to be out on the street. You’ll live in a dorm on campus, and you’ll be on a meal plan.”
“You’ll probably find the experience empowering,” Herb added.
I shot him a black look and he remained silent for the rest of the discussion.
“But this is my house too! What right do you have to sell it if I don’t agree?”
“I have every right,” Melanie answered. “It says so in Mommy’s will.”
Clearly, I wasn’t getting anywhere with my sister. Nothing I said mattered.
A few days later I changed tactics, trying to turn Lucy and Jeremy against her by pointing out that she had made the decision to sell without consulting them. But much to my dismay, neither of them cared. As long as they eventually got their fair share of the proceeds, they were fine with it.
Melanie went ahead with putting the house on the market. But when a real estate agent came by to show the property, I hid in my room and shouted, “Get the fuck out of my house!” at the top of my lungs when they walked in on me. Melanie promised the broker that I would never be in the house during future visits.
At the end of August, when it was time for me to register for classes, I put up more resistance. I advised Melanie that I had changed my mind, and that I no longer wanted to go to college.
“Okay, fine,” my sister said. “So you’d better start looking for a job to support yourself.”
“A job? What about my inheritance?”
“Luckily for you, Doug, Mommy’s money is locked away in a trust fund. It can only be used to pay for tuition and room and board while you and Lucy are in college.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” I whined. “It’s my money. When do I get it?”
“Whatever’s left of the trust when Lucy turns twenty-one will be divided between the two of you. Before then, neither of you can touch it.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, and fuck! They had me cornered. Even from beyond the grave my mother was in cahoots with Melanie to stop me from doing anything.
*
THE WEEK OF REGISTRATION also coincided with a visit from Jeremy and Carrie. My brother was interviewing for internships at hospitals in New York City, and Melanie asked him to stop off in Ithaca on his way back to Boston. She wanted him to talk some sense into me and help me figure out what to take my first semester at Cornell.
I was home alone in the basement listening to The Clash and getting stoned when Jeremy and Carrie arrived. I hid my stash, and then invited them to hang out with me in the playroom while we waited for the others to get home. I was sure they could smell the pot and knew I was high. But my brother was cool; he wouldn’t mention it to our older sister.
Jeremy pulled a big, fat paperback book out of his briefcase and presented it to me. “Here, Doug,” he said, “this is for you.”
The title of the book was Divine Dance of Consciousness. On the cover was a picture of a bearded, coffee-colored man in orange silk robes. He had a red dot centered just above the bridge of his nose, and three broad white stripes across his forehead. I was immediately struck by the serenity in the man’s smiling face and the kindness in his eyes. I tried to think of something sarcastic to say about him, but nothing came to mind.
“Who’s this guy?” I asked.
“That’s Baba!” Carrie exclaimed.
“It’s Swami Rudrananda. He’s a fully Self-realized being,” Jeremy said.
I picked up the book and looked more closely at the photo. There was something about the swami’s eyes that intrigued me—they seemed to be gazing back at me.
“He has the power to awaken others and guide them all the way to enlightenment,” Carrie said, her eyes getting wider as she spoke. “He’s like a modern-day Christ.”
My brother’s gentile wife apparently thought that his being Jesus-like would be a big selling point for me.
I put the book down on the card table. “Why do you call him ‘Baba’?”
“Baba means father,” Jeremy said, his voice cracking a little. A momentary sadness spread across his face, and he broke eye contact with me.
In an attempt to steer the conversation away from my brother’s new religion and back to me, I told Jeremy about my misgivings regarding college and how I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. His answer was not what I expected.
“You should understand that whatever worldly knowledge you acquire in this life will be lost to you when you die. But what Baba can teach you will stay with you forever.” Carrie nodded her head up and down in agreement. There was a zealous gleam in my brother’s eyes that I found unsettling.
I cleared my throat. “So, I guess what you’re saying is since we’re all eventually going to die, college is useless. Do you regret going to medical school?”
“No, of course not,” Jeremy said, turning to Carrie for support. She took his hand in hers and stroked it reassuringly.
“What your brother means is that worldly knowledge—a career, money—is not enough to truly be happy. You, me, Jeremy—we all have tremendous spiritual potential sleeping inside of us. The guru can awaken it with just one touch.”
“Far out,” I answered, trying not to yawn.
Carrie smiled at me patiently. “Your brother was skeptical at first, too.”
“That’s right,” Jeremy said, nodding. “I was.” My brother turned to his wife and they grinned at each other.
Jeremy picked up the book again and put it back in my hands. “Here, just read it,” he said. “Your life will change forever.”
Jeremy and Carrie returned to Boston the next morning. Before they drove off, I thanked them for the book and promised to read it. Later, when I was back in my room, I tossed Divine Dance of Consciousness in my closet and promptly forgot about it.
*
THE SEMESTER STARTED. My biggest challenge was finding my classes, especially the ones that had anything to do with my major. When I did finally locate them, I thought I’d die of boredom. So I didn’t return. A couple of weeks into the term, I was in the kitchen with Melanie and Lucy when they asked me how school was going. I admitted I had only been to a couple of classes so far, and was having difficulty finding my way around campus.
Melanie shook her head in disbelief. “Doug, you’re joking, right?”
Frustrated and embarrassed, I lashed out at her. “How am I supposed to find Goldwin-fucking-Smith Hall?”
“Maybe if you actually wanted to find your classes, you’d make more of an effort,” she scolded.
Lucy, who was setting the table, rolled her eyes at me. “Hey genius, did you ever think of looking at a map? Or asking for directions?”
“Mind your own business, jerk!”
Lucy slammed the silverware drawer closed and stormed out of the kitchen. “Screw you, loser! You set the table for a once, you lazy asshole!”
“You’d better get your ass in gear,” Melanie said, putting the finishing touches on the table. “If you don’t show up for your classes, they’ll automatically flunk you.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew Melanie was right. I wouldn’t be able to blow off my classes for much longer. I asked Mike McFadden for help locating them, and it turned out we were both registered for the same required freshman writing seminar. The writing course bored me stupid. I went to a few classes, never did a single assignment, and then stopped attending it, along with all the others. Flunking out of college became a foregone conclusion.
Since I had no intention of returning to any of my classes, the wisest course of action would have been to officially withdraw and ask the university for a deferment. I could have avoided flunking out and would have retained the option of returning to Cornell someday when I was ready. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I did nothing. I dreaded the inevitable confrontation with Melanie, but hoped that if I ignored the problem long enough, it would eventually go away.
If I had stayed in the house all day, as I had during the summer, Melanie would have figured out what was going on and forced me to go back to school. Instead, I divided my time between Willard Straight Hall (the student union building) and Collegetown Bagels, where I whiled away my time reading science fiction novels and drawing elaborate maps of dungeons on graph paper to use later for Dungeons and Dragons.
But I didn’t seek out Mike’s company. Nor did I try to make any new friends. My peers at Cornell appeared to be so full of purpose, and seemed to know the “meaning of life,” which for me couldn’t have been more obscure. Sometimes I eavesdropped on their conversations or observed them from afar. I was envious of the easy manner with which they related to each other and I wished I could be one of them—smart, happy, self-confident. They were all winners and would enjoy successful careers one day. I was a loser. I felt like a fraud just being in the same room with them. I might as well have been a visitor from another planet; even though I could understand the words they were saying, I was unable to decipher the unspoken communications of their body language and the chummy looks they gave each other. I fantasized about the co-eds, and even about some of the prettier boys. In my mind’s eye they were all pleasuring me. Doing whatever I told them, regardless of how degrading or humiliating. In my fantasy life, I was not a loser. I was an irresistible, all-powerful god.
On my way home one chilly day, I rode my bike over Cascadilla Gorge, which separated the university campus from the rest of the town. The deep, spectacularly beautiful ravine called out to me, inviting me to jump: Now! Do it! You can end it all and finally be free! How easy it would be to throw myself over the bridge into the abyss. All my problems would be solved and the guilty feelings that tormented me would be gone in an instant. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Back home in my room, I wondered how much longer I could hide what was really going on from Melanie. When she found out, she would be furious. But that would be the least of my problems. She would force me to find a job and get a place of my own. I would be poor. How would I manage? The thought of it made me afraid.
The phone rang, and a minute later Lucy knocked on my door. “Jeremy’s on the phone. He wants to say hello to you.” Great, now I’ll have to lie to my brother too, I
thought.
I picked up the receiver in the hall outside my room. He asked me about school. I told him everything was going “swimmingly.”
Then he asked, “Did you start Baba’s book?” I heard someone pick up another extension on his end. I was sure it was Carrie. I admitted I hadn’t. I blamed it on my “heavy workload” at school.
Next it was Carrie who spoke: “You should read it. Baba’s teachings will help you with college.”
“Let me ask you something about this Baba. How is he different from all the other crazy cult leaders who make their followers sell flowers at airports?”
My brother and his wife laughed. “Baba is a perfected master of Raja Yoga from an authentic lineage,” Jeremy answered. “Not some kind of New Age snake oil salesman.”
“You said last time you visited that Baba was like Jesus. What did you mean?”
Carrie giggled. “Baba’s more like Buddha than Jesus. He wasn’t born enlightened. Like Buddha, he had to make a spiritual journey.” She was splitting hairs, as far as I was concerned. But Jeremy wasn’t exactly an idiot, and neither was his wife, and they believed in Baba. Maybe this guru could help me.
“So what happens when he touches you? I asked.
“He gives you shaktipat!” Carrie answered.
“This will awaken the kundalini energy dormant inside of you,” Jeremy said, “ultimately leading to complete enlightenment, within three lifetimes.”
“Kind of like a jump start?” I asked, thinking that three lifetimes was definitely too long to wait for anything.
“That’s actually an excellent analogy,” Jeremy said.
I took a good look at the cover of the book they had given me, and tried to see the swami with fresh eyes. He was quite handsome for an old man. He had a gentle face, and the way he seemed to be looking back at me made me feel close to him. After getting off the phone, I opened the book and turned to the preface:
Dear One,
Over countless lifetimes you have wandered in the arid desert of mundane existence, looking for love and contentment in the world. You seek this happiness because it is your true nature. It is not wrong to yearn for it. The error, however, is to seek it outside of yourself. There you will find only suffering and pain. True, everlasting happiness, and the ocean of infinite bliss, can only be found within you.
I already knew it would be impossible for me to find happiness in the world. What had never occurred to me, however, was that other people might be incapable of finding it too. Some of them sure looked happy. Maybe they were just fooling themselves.
Mired in delusion, you believe that you are your body and that your ego is the center of the universe. Through the grace of God, in the form of the compassionate Guru, you can become free from that delusion and discover your true nature—the blissful, eternal Inner-Self of all.
My mother had always told me I wasn’t the “center of the universe,” even if it felt that way at times. I got that—at least intellectually. But that my “true nature” was the “Inner-Self” of everybody? What did that even mean? Was Baba saying that Hitler and I were really the same person and that I just didn’t realize it? How could I share the same “Inner-Self” with Melanie, Herb, Ronald Reagan, and Michael Jackson? It didn’t make any sense.
I closed the book and again looked at the guru’s picture on the cover. Baba really did have compassionate eyes. Again it was as if I were looking at a real person, and not just a photograph. The guru was staring right back at me. He cared. He wanted me to be truly happy. And I wanted to know more about this thing called shaktipat that Jeremy and Carrie had spoken of, and how I could get it. I’m going to read this book, I decided. Tomorrow, cover to cover. It just might have some answers.
I was in high spirits the next morning. I had a new sense of purpose: I was going to read Divine Dance of Consciousness and learn all about Baba. I even hummed to myself as I prepared breakfast.
“You’re in a good mood this morning,” Melanie remarked.
“I guess.”
“Interesting class today?”
“Um-hum.”
“Which one?”
I had to think fast. “The freshman writing seminar?”
“Right, the one you’re taking with Mike. What’s the theme?”
“The theme?” I couldn’t for the life of me think of it. Then I remembered a title from the course catalogue: “The evolution of fairy tales,” I answered. Before the conversation could continue, I quickly finished the last bites of my bagel and cleared my plate from the table.
Eager to get started on the book, I took off on my bike at top speed in the direction of campus and narrowly missed hitting Mike McFadden. He was riding a unicycle in front of his house, and almost fell off when I skidded to a stop a few inches from him.
“Greetings and salutations, Greenbaum!” he said, hopping off his new toy and landing on his feet. “Did you, by any chance, withdraw from the writing seminar?” he asked.
“Um, no. Not exactly…”
A confused expression came over my friend’s face. “C’est ça. I haven’t seen you in class for a few weeks now—”
“Well, yeah, actually, I did drop it. Too boring,” I answered, eager to be on my way.
Mike squished his eyebrows together and frowned. “But isn’t it required?”
The conversation was becoming irritating. I got interrogated enough at home. Anxious to change the subject, I reached into my knapsack and pulled out Baba’s book. “Take a look at this,” I said, handing it to him.
“Dance of Divine Consciousness by Swami Rudrananda.” Mike pronounced Rudrananda just the way Jeremy had.
“You’ve heard of him?”
“No, but judging by his orange frock and the dot between his eyes, I surmise he must be a Hindu holy man of sorts.” Mike furrowed his brow and his tongue protruded slightly from his mouth as he continued to study Baba’s picture. “From the three stripes of ash on his forehead, I can also tell you that he is a devotee of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.”
“How do you know so much about Indian religion?”
“I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda when I was thirteen,” Mike said with a grin that conveyed superior knowledge. “And my big brother had a brief stint with the Hare Krishnas.”
“This Rudrananda guy is my brother’s guru. Do you think Jeremy might have joined a cult?”
“Of course he has!” Mike chuckled. “All religions are cults!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If they were founded centuries ago we call them religions, if they started up ten years ago we call them cults.”
“Yeah, but what do you think?”
“How could I possibly offer a valid opinion by glancing at a book for a few seconds?” Mike said, tossing it back to me.
“Okay, whatever.”
I crammed the book back into my knapsack, and then climbed on my bike to leave. Before I rode off Mike invited me to play Dungeons & Dragons with Eddie Rubenfeld and Stuart Campbell at his house on Friday. I told him I’d be there, but was pretty sure I’d change my mind by the weekend.
*
Making myself comfortable in the International Lounge at Willard Straight, I opened Baba’s book to the foreword by Professor P.J. Mehta.
In India there have been many ecstatic beings venerated for their total surrender to God and the unbridled freedom born of such surrender. Holy men and women such as these have passed beyond all worldly attachments and concerns. Shree Gurudev Brahmananda was one such extraordinary being and is revered as one of the greatest saints of modern India. Before leaving his physical body to merge with the absolute in 1961, Gurudev passed the mantle of the Raja Yoga lineage to his chief disciple, the author of this book, Swami Rudrananda. Baba, as he is lovingly called by his devotees, has touched and transformed the lives of thousands of people all over the globe, awakening them to the Supreme Truth of their own beings.
I flipped ahead to the first chapter. Rudrananda wrote that he was born into a wealthy and devout family in the village of Surajkot on the Northwest coast of India, in the state of Gujarat, in 1909. Given the name Gopal Rana, he wanted for nothing as a child, and was destined to take his place in the family business. Then one day he encountered a wandering holy man who was passing through his village, and his life changed forever.
I was just a young boy at school when I first encountered my beloved Gurudev. Clad in only a loincloth, his arms outstretched in blessing, he was strolling through my village when my classmates and I first laid eyes on him. His face exuded serenity and wisdom. He moved so gracefully, he appeared not to be walking upon the earth, but upon a cloud in heaven.
The other children and I all loved Gurudev and ran to greet him whenever he appeared outside of our school. At these times, he offered us sweet candy, which he produced out of thin air with a wave of his hand.
On the last day I saw Gurudev as a child, something extraordinary happened. As usual, I waited my turn to receive his blessing, but when I went before him, our eyes met and a beneficent smile played upon his lips. He knelt down in front of me, placed his large powerful hands upon my shoulders, and gazed deeply into my eyes. His stare was so penetrating, I felt he could see into the deepest recesses of my soul.
Taking me by the hand, he led me to a quiet place on the outskirts of our village. When we were alone, he stopped, turned to me, and lovingly stroked my face. “We will meet again one day when you are ready,” he said. With that, Gurudev touched his head to my head and a ray of blue light emanated from his eyes and entered my own, filling my entire being with its luminance. Surges of blissful energy shot up my spine. My sense of individual self dissolved and I was no longer confined to my body. The illusory distinctions of inner and outer were lifted like a veil. I was one with the Guru, one with the entire cosmos, and one with God.
The future Swami Rudrananda was so transformed by his first encounter with Brahmananda that he abandoned the comfortable life that awaited him. At the tender age of sixteen, he left his family and his village behind and began a twenty-year spiritual quest that would eventually lead him back to Brahmananda.
During his wanderings, Baba studied yoga and meditation, and all branches of Hindu philosophy. He also met and received the teachings and blessings of many renowned sages and seers, and spent three years in silent retreat in an ashram on the banks of the sacred Ganges. There he took the vows of a renunciant, was given the title swami, and the spiritual name Rudrananda, after the god Rudra, “The Roarer,” “Mightiest of the Mighty,” sometimes also called “the Wild One” or “the Fierce God.”
In 1950, when Rudrananda was forty-one, Brahmananda’s prediction came true. Rudrananda met his guru again when his wanderings led him at last to Brahmananda’s ashram in the village of Ravipur, in the state of Maharashtra in Western India, where the holy man had settled a decade earlier. Rudrananda wrote:
When I was finally reunited with my Guru, I had a burning desire for God-realization. Gurudev arranged for me to stay in a secluded hut in the forest where I could live and meditate without disruption.
During my sadhana I had wondrous visions of radiant lights and celestial beings and would sometimes journey to higher realms in my astral body. There I would seek the counsel of divine beings, some of whom once walked the earth as great saints and sadhus. At these times, I felt waves of rapture, love, and ecstasy. My eyes would turn upwards and I would be unable to open them. At other times, I was afraid I was going insane. I encountered corpse-eating demons and had terrifying visions of hell. Images of tortured beings running wildly about screaming, seeking, but never finding refuge from burning ground haunted me. My entire body would ache and burn and I felt that I too was being engulfed by flames. I became obsessed with the most impure and sinful cravings, and my body would begin to move of its own accord. This horrible, confused state of mind would persist for hours, sometimes days at a time.
As I progressed in my meditation, however, the horrifying thoughts and visions subsided. My breathing changed and I was able to hold my breath for long periods of time, remaining in a completely thought-free state of samadhi. All of these experiences were a necessary part of my spiritual journey and happened spontaneously, thanks to the great yogic force that my Guru had awakened within me.
For nine years I remained in the hut in the forest and traveled this path, which culminated in my attainment of enlightenment—the ultimate goal of human existence. I became one with the Godhead, was liberated from all forms of suffering, and was permanently established in a state of absolute bliss. On that fateful day, I went before Gurudev. When he saw me, he knew immediately what had occurred. He sang and danced for joy, declaring that his disciple had become one with the Supreme Being.
Even after attaining the goal of God-realization, Rudrananda wanted nothing but to remain at the feet of his beloved guru as a humble disciple. Despite this wish, Brahmananda gave Rudrananda a small piece of land, which eventually became the site of his own ashram.
In 1961 Gurudev Brahmananda “left his physical body” to attain mahasamadhi. According to Rudrananda, when enlightened beings like his guru died, they weren’t reborn in another physical body like ordinary people. Instead, they became one with the Godhead and were liberated forever from the vicious cycle of birth and death.
After Brahmananda’s passing, devotees began to gather around his successor. Within a few short years, his fame spread and his ashram grew in size, drawing pilgrims from every part of India and seekers from the all over the globe. Strangely, as I read I felt a strong desire to go to this ashram.
I kept reading throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Rudrananda’s book was not only a spiritual autobiography, but also contained a wealth of information about the path of Raja Yoga, the “royal” yoga. According to the book, kundalini energy was a latent power in the subtle body. When awakened, it travels upward to pierce the six chakras, or subtle energy centers in the body, and purifies them. According to Rudrananda, there were only two ways to awaken the kundalini: the slow way, through many years of tremendous self-effort and austerities; or the fast way, through the grace of a shaktipat guru. A shaktipat guru could awaken a seeker’s kundalini with merely a look, thought, or touch. The awakening happened spontaneously and required no effort on the part of the disciple. The idea of “no effort” appealed to me immediately.
Rudrananda, like his own guru, was a perfected master of Raja Yoga: he possessed the rare ability to give shaktipat and awaken the evolutionary energy dormant in his disciples.
Rudrananda wrote:
Dear one, beware: the attempt to awaken the serpent power through your own efforts is fraught with great danger! The supernatural powers you may develop as a result can deceive you into believing that you have already attained the ultimate goal. Moreover, the temptation to misuse these occult powers can become irresistible without the protection of the Guru’s grace. Without a genuine Shaktipat Guru to guide you and to control the ascent of the divine energy, you may go completely insane.
I was utterly fascinated, eager to learn more about the ways one could “misuse” these “occult powers.” But Rudrananda didn’t go into any details. He did say, however, that when the kundalini was awakened and guided by a shaktipat guru, many people reported mystical experiences almost immediately, and they could expect to reach full enlightenment within only a few years, if they dedicated their lives to spiritual practice.
When I finished the book, I was convinced that having a shaktipat guru awaken my kundalini and getting on the fast track to God-realization was the way to go.
Up until then, I had never given a thought to religion or spirituality. Both my parents were Jewish, but I was raised as an atheist. Whatever I had gleaned about Judaism from the little I had read didn’t appeal to me. It sounded like a lot of meaningless rules to follow. And Christianity seemed even worse, from what I knew about it. The whole crucifixion thing revolted me. And I certainly didn’t need anyone to tell me I was a sinner—I already knew it.
The path of Raja Yoga, however, made sense: God was not somewhere up in the sky or outside of me. He dwelled within me as me! The story of Rudrananda’s personal journey of enlightenment had captured my imagination and I wondered if I might make a similar journey. I was almost eighteen—not much older than Rudrananda when he first met Brahmananda and received the guru’s touch. I would have to learn to meditate as soon as possible. The way I saw it, I had wasted countless lifetimes already. I didn’t have any time to lose!
That I didn’t fit in at Cornell and was clueless about what to do with my life was perhaps not such a bad thing after all. Maybe it was a sign from God that the life of a renunciant was my true calling.
When I arrived home, I went in through the garage entrance so I could avoid Melanie. I needed to call my brother immediately, before dinner. I didn’t want to talk about school, or be asked to set the table. I had to find out how I could meet Rudrananda and get shaktipat as soon as possible.
I called Jeremy and didn’t waste any time on small talk. I told him I had read Rudrananda’s book and was blown away.
“Good, good!” my brother said, his voice brimming with approval.
“Jai Gurudev!” Carrie said. She had also picked up the line.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Glory to the eternal guru,” Jeremy answered. “You’ll learn!”
I asked them how I could meet Rudrananda and receive shaktipat. They explained that the guru was back in India now, and wouldn’t be visiting the States again until the spring. I was disappointed that I’d have to wait to meet the guru, but excited to learn that his main ashram and world headquarters was located right here in New York State, only a few hours from Ithaca.
“Baba will be in residence there for a few months next year,” Jeremy said. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities to see him.”
“But in the meantime, how can I learn to meditate?” I asked.
“You can meet with other devotees at the Raja Yoga center in Ithaca,” Jeremy said. “They have satsang every Wednesday evening.”
When I got off the phone with Jeremy and Carrie, I joined the others upstairs for dinner.
“What are you so happy about?” Lucy asked, eyeing me with suspicion.
“Oh, nothing,” I answered, unable to wipe the smile off my face.
I knew my life had changed forever.