Letters from Anandashram - 1993 to 1994

6. More Swami Chidananda and Visa Adventures - March 1994

More Swami Chidananda and Visa Adventures

March 1, 1994 Anandashram

Dear Parents,

Divya conveys her namaskars. All is perfect here. I hope all are OK there also.

I am writing this on a train speeding to Anantapur, where I must do visa work. But that’s getting ahead of the story!

Even in quiet Anandashram, life is not devoid of adventures! God must be constantly at work – if not in matter, then in spirit!

On February 20th we returned to the ashram (from outside house). At 6 PM Homa Mandir arathi, an Indian approached me and started pushing me saying, “Go, go to the rooftop of ‘Ram Nivas’ building! All the foreigners are there: go, go quick!”

I was mystified, but went, thinking maybe Swami Satchidananda wanted the foreigners for something.

I went to the said rooftop – a very strange place for a meeting, I thought! What did I find? Three was Swami Chidananda in a chair and a small circle of devotees around him – maybe only 20 people and only two other foreigners! It was an informal talk or “interview.”

Later I found out that it was mainly for his close devotees. But, of course all is free and open at Anandashram, no rules, so no one stopped me and in fact, they happily motioned me to a carpet seat!

It was a nice time for an hour. Swami Chidananda had an aura of energy and delight, and it was very uplifting! But as usual, he didn’t talk spiritual things but instead rambled on about train schedules and car journeys. This seemed funny to me and I had to control my mirth! Or maybe it was just the Divine aura around that made me mirthful.

Afterward, he chanted “Om Sri Ram” and began to meditate, and we all followed suit. But, some lady in front row went into a coughing fit so soon Swami Chidananda was laughing and talking of cough medicines – the meeting obviously wasn’t destined to be one of meditation!

Then Swami Chidananda gave out little sweets to everyone, after each one did his Namaskar (not touching his feet, but just bowing at the ground before him).

I bowed, as usual mentally making an appeal for moksha, and when I came up Swami Chidananda was leaning towards me, squinting his eyes in the descending darkness and looking at my hand saying, “Did I give you the right thing?!”

I thought, “No! I asked for moksha and you gave a sweet!” Of course, I did not say this outwardly! I also looked at my hand and saw that there was a little pink piece of paper on top of the sweet. I held it up and said, “One piece of paper is there.” Swami Chidananda seeing the sweet, nodded and was satisfied. In the meantime, Swami Chidananda’s helper who is always by his side (a healthy, young bouncing sort) loudly said, “The bill! The bill!” and suddenly swished the paper out of my hand and away! Anyway, I was satisfied with Swami Chidananda saying, “Did I give you the right thing?”!

Keeping with the unorthodox meeting, during distribution of the sweets a man was loudly saying, “I bought those at Mysore bazaar!” I guess wanting everyone to know that he was the person who presented the sweets to Swami Chidananda. Swami Chidananda went along with the drama saying, “Didn’t you buy it at a different city?” And the man, delighted at a chance to continue his announcement, was saying, “No, no! It was definitely Mysore city!”

On February 22nd Swami Chidananda came to satsang (3-4:30 PM) and first announced, “I will not talk. Why talk? No one follows the advice. No one listens.” Then, he rambled on for nearly an hour on Swami Sivananda’s writing habits. No – nothing about the topics he wrote on! No, no! He talked of how Swami Sivananda used a green pen, wrote on thick paper folded and made into crude notebooks, how he wrote ½ hour every day as part of his daily routine, and other details.