Sri M 2nd Interview

Summary

Sri M discusses how spiritual realization unfolds through both sudden breakthroughs and gradual maturation. He also explores the role of teachers, the power of initiation and mantra, past-life memories, and the importance of investigating spiritual claims without premature conclusions.

Questions This Interview Explores

• Does enlightenment happen suddenly, or can it unfold gradually over time?
• Does everyone need a spiritual teacher, and how can someone recognize the right guide?
• What is the purpose and significance of spiritual initiation and mantra?
• How can past-life memories be accessed and evaluated?
• Why is it important to investigate spiritual possibilities before rejecting them?

Key takeaways

• Spiritual realization may come in dramatic experiences followed by years of gradual integration.
• A genuine teacher guides the seeker without becoming more important than the teaching.
• The right guide often appears when the seeker’s longing and sincerity become deep and sustained.
• A mantra can carry transformative power when transmitted by someone who has fully realized its meaning.
• Past-life memories require focused practice and careful recording before details fade.
• Rejecting an idea without investigation creates a barrier to understanding.
• Spiritual growth may continue without a final endpoint within human life.

Transcript

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. I’ve done about 410 of them now, and if you haven’t seen any before and would like to see others, go to the Past Interviews menu on batgap.com, and you’ll find all the previous ones organized in various ways.

This show is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. If you appreciate it and feel like supporting it, there’s a donate button on every page of the website. We appreciate those who have been supporting it and those who haven’t. (Laughter.) It’s good to be able to provide it to people.

My guest today is Sri M. Sri M is a spiritual guide, social reformer, and educationist. I interviewed him last October and really enjoyed the conversation, as did thousands of viewers. He has just written a new book, which I just finished reading and enjoyed very much, and we decided to do a second interview. So, welcome, Sri M. Thank you for coming back.

Sri M: Thank you.

Rick: I’ll read an abbreviated version of his bio. You can read the full thing on the website, batgap.com, and probably many of you are already familiar with him, but here’s a synopsis.

At the age of nine, Sri M’s spiritual transformation was initiated by his future Master, Maheshwarnath Babaji, who miraculously appeared under a jackfruit tree in the compound of his home. This meeting set the stage for their future reunion in the Himalayas when Sri M was 19. For three and a half years, he lived and traveled extensively through the Himalayas with his Master, who guided him through his initiation, his Kundalini awakening, and the eventual meeting with Sri Mahavatar Babaji, who is the one discussed in Yogananda’s book, Autobiography of a Yogi.

The green signal to teach

A few years after his Master passed away, he received the spiritual go-ahead to commence his mission. I just want to ask you on that one point. I don’t remember reading this in your book, but did your Master, who had passed over, come to you in some kind of subtle form and say, “Start teaching,” or what was the nature of that go-ahead that you got?

Sri M: No. He didn’t do anything of that kind, but I rarely have vivid dreams, especially of the Master.

Rick: You rarely do?

Sri M: I rarely do.

Rick: Okay.

Sri M: So, I had this dream in which—oh, I must go back a little, a minute. You know, I had a friend in Bangalore who was part of the Theosophical Society, so he came to know about that. I used to wear jeans and a T-shirt, so it was difficult to figure out. This guy came to know through an old friend of mine that I had gone to the Himalayas. So he came to me and said, “Can you talk at the Theosophical Society in Bangalore?”

That was the first time. I said, “Give me two weeks. I need to think about it,” because I still thought I hadn’t gotten the green signal to talk, to be in public. So I came back to Madanapalle, where I live, which is about three hours from Bangalore, in Andhra Pradesh. That night, while I was seriously thinking about what to do, I had this very vivid dream.

It was a little bit of a funny dream, because I was at a railway station and there was a train standing there with a big banner saying “Satsang” in English. I got into this train, and I’m sitting there awaiting departure. Then the guard comes out from the gate holding a green light in his hand. You know, even now in India we have the guy waving green lights.

Rick: I guess the signalman, or something.

Sri M: Yeah, yeah. When it is red, it means don’t go; when it’s green, it means move. It’s like the green signal. So I saw this guard, and I burst out laughing, because he was Babaji wearing the white uniform of a railway guard. He had no footwear, his hair was still matted, and on top of that there was this P-cap. You know, I burst out laughing, and the train started off.

So I woke up in the morning, and when this man called me, I said, “Mohan, I think I’ll do it.”

Rick:(Laughter.) That’s very funny.

Sri M: That’s how it started. Then I went to the Theosophical Society on a Sunday. I was expecting 20 or 25 people. There were about 100 people sitting there, and this was my first exposure. I didn’t know what to do.

So I again closed my eyes and said, “This is what Babaji wants. Okay.” I started talking to the man sitting in front of me, just as I am talking to you, in a personal manner. I forgot the rest. At the end of it they said, “Oh, that was a very good talk. Can we repeat it?” This is how the circus—I am sorry, the whole thing—started, you know what I mean.

Rick: That’s great. That’s actually a technique that people who train others in public speaking advocate. They say, “Talk to just one person,” or perhaps another person, but put out of your mind that you might be talking to several hundred people. That makes it very personal, and the audience appreciates that.

Sri M: It happened to me automatically.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: I’m not a guy who read about how to talk.

Rick: Yeah, you just picked up on it.

✨ Sudden awakening and gradual growth

Okay, so one final bit of your bio that I didn’t read yet: Your message seeks to transcend the outer shell of all religions by exploring their mystical core to nurture the innate goodness in every human being. I just wanted to add that.

You know how we hear that the Buddha got enlightened under the Bodhi Tree, and there are other stories of saints and sages who had some kind of profound, sudden illumination at a certain point, and that was their enlightenment. Do you feel that that is the way it tends to be for everyone on the spiritual path?

In other words, is there a word in English like a “watershed moment,” which is a clear demarcation between this side and that side, the way the top of a mountain peak would be? Do you feel that there’s a profound, significant, clearly perceivable watershed moment of enlightenment for everybody on the spiritual path, as there was for the Buddha and was there for you, for instance? Or do you feel that for most people it’s a sudden, gradual, incremental, subtle thing that you might not notice so dramatically?

Sri M: Well, for this I would like to say that I did have a kind of explosive experience once, but it subsided. Then it was as if it was firing up in different contexts, in different ways, in small measure—not this huge thing.

But the turning point, you could say, was this kind of energy surging inside me, which I had in Badrinath when I was with Maheshwarnath Babaji, if you read the autobiography. That day there was definitely a remarkable change in my system.

But then I sometimes suspect Babaji wanted to keep it down and not allow me to go into it fully, because there was some work to be done. I felt that this was meaningless: “Now there is nothing to do. Sit in the Himalayas.” That changed after a while, and then I did get it back.

But it took a lot of what you just mentioned. You didn’t use the word, but there were little firings here and there—like tuk-tuk-tuk. It wasn’t one thing after that. Then one day, several years later, I got that thing back, but it was not an explosion. It was like a wave; it was like flowing.

It was like a wave; it was like flowing.

So these are two central points, with an interval of maybe ten years from each other. That’s it. That’s how it happened. But in this interval of ten years there was a process of growing.

How do I put it? It’s like somebody started an experiment, it was successful, and then they continued to do it until it reached its culmination. It’s similar to something like that.

Rick: So, the thing after ten years—the second significant, sudden experience—did you feel like there was some finality to that, like, “Now you’ve really arrived”? Or has there still been growth even after that?

Sri M: Yes, you are right. I felt that now I had the capacity to take off and I could book into any of those flights. But since then I have been flying. I’m not talking about my astral body, but I’ve been flying here and there, and it is growing. I don’t personally think that there is an end to it right now. It’s still going on.

Rick: Yeah, that is a topic that often comes up in these interviews. Most people say what you just said: They don’t feel like there’s any end to it. A few people whom I’ve interviewed say they feel like they have reached an end. I say, “Well, nothing more? Ten years from now, don’t you think there’ll be some greater maturation or unfoldment or something?” And they can’t relate to that notion.

This relates to something that there’s a kind of an age-old debate in spiritual circles between the so-called direct path and the progressive path. Have you heard of that debate?

Sri M: I think all are direct paths, but in some individuals it might have to be watered down and made progressive. Let’s put it this way.

Rick: Okay. On a similar note, some of the great Masters, like your Master Maheshwarnath Babaji and Mahavatar Babaji himself, and perhaps other great ascended beings, ascended Masters—Jesus or whoever—do you feel that even for them there is somehow continued evolution? Or does one eventually reach a point at which there’s no possibility of any further development?

Sri M: As far as Mahavatar Babaji—we call him Sri Guru Babaji; some people call him Mahamuni Babaji; it doesn’t matter—as far as that being is concerned, I cannot make any comment, because I don’t know how it is.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: As far as Maheshwarnath Babaji is concerned, I felt—personally, he didn’t say anything—that he had reached the height of spiritual evolution possible with this human body.

Rick: Ah…

Sri M: Which means maybe there is something else. As far as the human body is concerned, I think he had done it, because he said he didn’t have to come back.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: If there’s still something left, you come back and work it out.

Rick: Yeah. Well, in the Vedic literature, obviously, there are references to all sorts of beings who are not in human bodies, and somehow they got to that stage. Perhaps that’s where we go once the human body has reached its…

Sri M: I guess so, I guess so. I might have some hints.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: I think you’re right.

Rick: One time I was sitting with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and he sort of paused and sat back. He had been talking about immortality, and he said, “You know, if we want immortality, there must be much better bodies than these in which to do it.” (Laughter.)

Sri M: On the lighter side, somebody told me the other day—a sadhu—“All good souls are not coming back to India. Now they’re being born in the United States.”

I said, “But why?”

He said, “Well, I’ve been there twice. Somebody took me there, and they are more kind of sensitive to these things which we are saying.” He can’t speak a word of English; he can only speak Hindi, but he said somebody was translating for him.

So you never know where people are, and in what kind of system or body they are. There might be spiritually evolved beings everywhere.

Rick: Yeah, and everywhere should go far beyond the Earth. The recent discoveries by the Kepler telescope indicate that there are planets around most stars, and it’s estimated that there may be more Earth-like planets in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world. So, imagine how many forms of life there are and how many possibilities there are.

Sri M: Right. Also, if there is a planet or a heavenly body that doesn’t have the same conditions as the Earth, we can’t say that there is no life there, because the life there may be surviving under different conditions.

This is a kind of barrier we have. We think that this Earth is the only place where there can be life and human beings can live. I think it’s really very childish to think so. There are much more evolved beings on other planes. They may not be like Earth; they may be different.

Rick: Go ahead, continue.

Sri M: And if they are like Earth, it’s possible that there are some Earth-like beings there who have evolved. We can’t say this. This is called narrowing down. I call this what we call a scientific prejudice. There are unscientific and scientific prejudices.

So people say, “No, it’s not fashionable, it’s not science to think that there are…” But every day there are new discoveries.

Inquiry, science, and the human instrument

Rick: Yeah, there are some notes from your book later on. Let’s see if I can find it quickly. Here it is. Your guru said to you, “One who denies a statement without inquiry builds a mental obstruction that blocks all knowledge. How can one seek something which one has denied offhand?”

So it seems to me that anything that we can imagine, or that any religion has ever said, or anything else, can be taken as a working hypothesis that could be investigated.

Sri M: Absolutely. I believe that. What you said just now, what you read just now, is probably planted so deeply in my consciousness. My whole thought process has been this: You can’t say no unless you investigate. Investigation is not only the process of putting something in a test tube and keeping it in a laboratory. There are many other ways of investigation.

Rick: Yeah. I think we might have talked about this in the last interview, but I think that you would agree that the most sophisticated scientific instrument for investigation is the human nervous system. What an intricate, marvelous instrument it is, if we know how to use it properly.

Sri M: True. I was reading a beautiful book last time I came here called Buddha’s Brain. That was quite a nicely researched book on neurology, and it’s by a neurologist. I forget the name. It’s beautiful, and I think every human being is equipped with Buddha’s brain in some way, but it hasn’t been activated.

Every human being is equipped with Buddha’s brain in some way, but it hasn’t been activated.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: It’s latent.

Rick: Yeah. Quite a few questions have already come in, largely from Indians, and I’m sure there will be more during the interview. There are about 240 people watching right now on the live feed, but I’ll ask them. I have about four pages of notes of other things I want to ask you as we go along.

I’ll take a few of these. This is from a fellow named KP in Mumbai. He has several questions that I condensed down a little bit. The first part is: Does everyone need a guru? How do we recognize our guru?

Sri M: All right. Yes, I think every human being who wants to step onto the spiritual path, the journey, needs a guide. But the need may not be evident when you start off. That’s why there are lots of people who are interested but don’t have a teacher. The need may not be evident, but after a while you begin to understand that you are in unexplored territory, basically. So if someone has passed through it, it would be a good idea to have a guide.

Please don’t bring in people like Ramana Maharshi, who did not have a teacher. Everybody is not Ramana Maharshi.

Rick: He was exceptional.

Sri M: Exceptional. And I don’t believe he didn’t have a guru. I personally think he must have had one at some point in his life. I am a person who feels that there are many lives.

Rick: Oh, sure, yeah.

Sri M: So I personally think, yes, we need a teacher, we need a guru. But I’m not saying that the guru should become more important than what he’s teaching. These are two things.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: It’s not idol worship, as in, “Oh, this is…” It’s like having a guide, because we are largely walking through unexplored landscapes. You might fall into pits and then may not be able to come out. I think so.

Rick: What do you think about that saying, “When the disciple is ready, the Master will appear”?

Sri M: This is one thing I like about having this interview with you, because you have a graphic understanding of this thing. You know, when you ask, it’s not just a question; it has many things behind it.

You’re right. The guru comes, but only when one is really searching—not searching because it’s fashionable, because my friends have a guru, so I should have a guru. It’s not that.

Nowadays, at parties, when people meet, once upon a time it was, “Oh, I have a heart problem. What about you?” Now it’s like, “I have a guru. What about you? Do you have a guru?”

Rick: Yeah, chit-chat.

Sri M: Yeah. Not that way. But when one is so serious, when one has tried one’s best and is kind of beating one’s head against the wall, thinking, “I wish there was somebody to guide me in this,” and one is very serious, then I’m 100 percent sure that somebody appears.

The person who appears may not turn out to finally be your guru. This is also possible. The person might have come to help you along, and then you find somebody else.

Rick: Yeah. So could you say that there could be transitional gurus, just like in education we go through various grades? Each grade is important. You can’t necessarily skip it unless you’re really smart, but they all have their value.

Sri M: I believe that. There is an expression in Sanskrit literature regarding sadhana and spiritual practice. What you call the marga, the path, is that there are gurus and there are upa-gurus. When you say upa-guru, it means somebody who supports you.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: It need not necessarily mean the guru. In any case, ultimately, the Supreme Being is the guru.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: You know the sloka: “Brahmanandam parama sukhadam kevalam jnanamurtim.” So that is the guru, but it manifests in different people when one needs help.

Rick: Good. Yeah, and I think that one underlying point here is that the universe isn’t dumb. There’s some kind of divine orchestration, some kind of divine guidance. It’s not a cold, mechanistic, meaningless universe. It’s intelligent, and when the time comes, as you said earlier, when the need is really acute and sincere, then it will be fulfilled.

Sri M: It unfolds. Let’s put it that way: It unfolds.

Rick: Okay. Speaking of gurus, there was a story in your book where you were in a particular ashram. I forget the name of the master; you’ll remember this in a minute. You were chanting a particular mantra that was the main sort of spiritual practice for that ashram. It had Ram’s name in it.

Then you desired to take initiation into this mantra formally, so you went to the master in that ashram. He agreed to initiate you, and he brought out a tape recorder of his master chanting that mantra. That was your initiation.

After that initiation, you were chanting the same mantra that you had already been chanting, but there was some kind of formal initiation that took place that was very significant to you, and your experience was really profound after that. So what is the significance of initiation? This is actually one of KP’s questions. Can a person be initiated without even knowing it?

Sri M: It may be possible, but in my life I have no such experience. I was initiated with full knowledge of it. The instance that you talked about was with a great teacher called Papa Ramdas, who used to live in Anandashram in the northern part of Kerala, and his disciple was Swami Satchidananda.

I hadn’t met Papa Ramdas because he had passed away, so I went to Swami Satchidananda. I mention this because of his humility. He always said that Papa was the guru, not him.

When I asked him, “Can I get the mantra?” I knew the mantra, of course. It is, “Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram.” He said, “Well, Papa will initiate you.” So he had a tape of his guru chanting the mantra. He played it for me and said, “Now that’s your initiation.”

Believe me, it had a profound effect on me. It may not have been possible even if a human being had said it. This was a tape recorder, an old tape recorder.

Which means that when a person has touched the meaning of the mantra and experienced it himself or herself, then when it is passed on to another through any medium—it could be television—it has a certain effect.

The best thing, of course, would be to personally be with the person and receive it. Failing that, there are alternatives. But the person who gives the mantra should have attained the siddhi of the mantra, which means he should have used it and reached the ultimate aim of chanting the mantra.

The person who gives the mantra should have attained the siddhi of the mantra.

Then, when it comes from that source, immediately there is a change in consciousness and also in the energy levels inside. That’s what I meant.

Rick: Okay. So in other words, if it’s imparted properly by someone who’s qualified to impart it, then it’s imbued with some sort of shakti or potency that it wouldn’t have if you just read it in a book or something like that.

Sri M: Yes, I believe this.

Remembering past lives

Rick: Right. Okay. Now, in your second book in particular, you tell a lot of stories that are related to past lives—your own past lives. Some of them are extremely detailed, and I’m wondering how you came upon such detailed recollections of all these past lives. Was it intentional? Was it spontaneous? Did you use some technique to remember them, or what?

Sri M: It’s like this. Many years ago, when I was with Maheshwarnath Babaji, he taught me a way of retracing back into your past. But I was told not to do it immediately, except in one case.

So it was with me, and I hadn’t tried it. It was almost rusted, the way of doing it.

Rick: Almost?

Sri M: Rusted.

Rick: Rusted, like a rusty wheel or something? Because you were out of practice and hadn’t done it for so long.

Sri M: Right. I was not really interested. It didn’t matter what you were and so on. Then one day the thought occurred to me that people might benefit if I really figured this out, because usually these things are considered cock-and-bull stories.

So I went into this. I started practicing how to go back, and believe me, one doesn’t have only six or seven lives. One has hundreds of lives.

But I have put down on paper only those of which I have a clear recollection and which I had to work hard on, case by case, each case separately. It’s not as if one day everything is known.

So this is what has happened. I have put it down, and I have not put down anything of which I have no detailed recollection. You can’t maintain a diary of your past life, you know. Only where I felt satisfied and said, “Okay, this is right.”

Also, in some cases, I personally went and checked the localities that were mentioned to see if they matched what I was thinking, what was in my mind, what was coming into my mind.

The actual process takes about three or four days of complete darkness and rest, where you’re not going out, and where you’re in a trance-like state for at least six to eight hours. The memories come down, but immediately afterward, within about an hour or two, you should note them down, either on a tape recorder or in writing, because they tend to disappear from your head in about two hours, roughly.

After having written it down, if somebody asks me for details, I don’t know, because it has come, it has been written, and it has washed out.

Rick: I’ve had conversations bordering on debates with some people in these interviews who don’t believe in reincarnation. These are spiritual people. A lot of them seem to be Buddhist sometimes.

Personally, the reason I feel it’s worth discussing and hashing out is that I think, if we’re spiritual seekers, it behooves us to want to understand how the universe works. We don’t get to choose. If there is reincarnation, we don’t get to choose whether there is or not. It would be a universal principle.

If we really want to be knowers of reality, then we ought to sort it out in our understanding, because it changes your whole perspective on the significance of this life, morality, and all kinds of issues.

Sri M: I think we should keep clear of this tendency to not believe in it before we look into it. If you say “Buddhist,” the Buddha himself is said to have remembered a hundred lives.

Rick: Right. I don’t know why Buddhists tend to say this when that was the case in Buddhism, but…

Sri M: Yes, see the Jataka tales and various other stories. They are about the past lives of the Buddha.

Rick: One thing that this fellow KP found puzzling is that not all of your lives were very good, and they weren’t necessarily in progressive order. For instance, in very early lives you recounted having actually met Krishna way back, and then later the Buddha. Yet in subsequent lives you were a prostitute, in a couple of them. So I guess the question is, did you backslide, or why would you go from meeting Krishna and the Buddha to being a prostitute?

Sri M: I think there were some beings who were kind of charting out my course. It’s not just me. So if you have to come, for instance, and work with people who are like—I don’t like the word “prostitute”—you know, it’s kind of…

Rick: Courtesan, or…

Sri M: Whatever. Yeah, there are some people who are like that. You can’t put them on any low level.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: So if you have to work even there, then you need to see what they go through. So I personally feel that I was put through this—not put in it, kind of pushed into it, but I was told, “Now you do this, so that you can figure out what it’s like.” Do you understand?

Rick: It is a very good point. I’m going to be interviewing someone next month who was basically a drug addict, really badly involved in drugs, and then, when she hit rock bottom, had this profound awakening. She is now able to relate to people who are going through things like that in a way that she probably wouldn’t have if she hadn’t gone through it herself.

Sri M: Yes, absolutely. So I think that was part of the story in my case.

Rick: Okay. Just quickly, while we are around this subject of past lives, there is a question from Justin in Bangalore wondering if you remember any past lives as a Christian.

Sri M: The thing is, I haven’t put down all the hints that I have about many lives. People wonder why only in India. Why not? How can a soul only come back again and again in India, you know? The thing is, as I said, I have only put down what I can clearly remember, which doesn’t mean that there are no other lives.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: And I am kind of 50 percent sure that if I look carefully—and I’m going to; I’m not going to stop there—I might find a beautiful Christian life. I have some hints that I was a hermit somewhere in the desert, among the early Christians—not the organized Church, but the early Christians, even probably before the Bible was established.

Rick: Maybe one of the Gnostic guys. Yeah, yeah.

Sri M: I think even before it was organized into the Gnostic tradition. So I have hints, but I can’t write it down until I am perfectly sure. So I’m working on it. You may find many other wild stories in the future.

❤️ Meeting Nisargadatta Maharaj

Rick: Funnier material for future books. (Laughter) Here’s a question from Geeta in London. She wonders if you ever met Nisargadatta Maharaj of Mumbai.

Sri M: I have. I met Nisargadatta Maharaj. I can’t remember the year. It was about two years before he passed away. I had a very interesting meeting because, by that time, I don’t think he was running that shop. He was staying in a small room in the backstreets of Pune. So I went to meet him and I was talking to him. He was still smoking.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: He was very kind, and he said, “So, what’s your plan? Kya karoge?” First he spoke in Marathi. I said, “I speak in Hindi.” He said, “I don’t know…” Then, “Okay,” he said. And we had a very nice meeting. He ordered a cup of tea, and we had a cup of tea.

I was surprised because I thought there would be a huge crowd. There was nobody at that time. I mean, there were a few people. Then I said that somebody had written a book of his teachings, and the title of the book was I Am That. So he said, “Ah, somebody told me there is a book called I Am That.” But then he thought, “But I am this,” he said. (Laughter)

That’s my most touching experience with him. I had only 10 or 15 minutes with him, and the most touching thing was that he suddenly turned it around and put it upside down. The book says, “I am that”—Main woh hoon—and he said, “But main to yeh hoon,” meaning, “I am this.”

I am this.

This is the only experience I had with him. It must have been 10 or 15 minutes, but I can say that I was very profoundly influenced by those 10 or 15 minutes, because here I saw a person who was very transparent. He used to smoke, so he smoked. He didn’t say, “Oh, what will people think?”

Rick: Right.

Sri M: He was completely direct and very kind. I was young then. He was like an old uncle talking to you. Because of that, I forgot all the questions I had about him—whether he was from the Nath Sampradaya. I had many questions. When I saw him, I was completely disarmed. He was wearing a sleeveless cotton vest and a dhoti and sitting there. So that’s my only experience with Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Rick: Nice. On that point of “I am that—I am this,” in your own experience and understanding, would you say that both are true, and that we want to have an integration of both?

Sri M: Yeah. I personally feel that it’s only when I discover “I am this” that I know “I am that,” because when I say “I’m that,” it again separates “I” and “that.”

Integrity in ordinary life

Rick: Right. I think people understand what we mean by “that” in this context—all those Upanishadic sayings, Tat Tvam Asi and so on. Here’s a question from Punetta in Mexico. She wonders: The experience of being in the presence of a Guru is so profound, overwhelming, and transforming. How does one come to terms with being physically distant and knowing that one will not be able to relive that moment for another whole year? Is there a way to establish an inner connection so there is no feeling of distance and pain?

Sri M: I know this person. She’s very emotional in some ways. I think there’s no technique like that, except that if you keep thinking about the teacher, you might feel the presence in your mind. Beyond that, there is no technique.

However, if you take some time—maybe two or three months—for the mind to settle down after the physical presence is gone, you know, it’s like you suddenly feel that you are taken away from the magnet that was giving you some energy. So it’s painful, of course. I have also felt pain when, for some reason, I stayed away from the Master for some time. So it’s quite natural.

But we have to come to terms with that, because it’s not the physical presence that is very important. It’s the inner presence that is very important. So I have to say to this lady, this Puneet, that she should learn to come to terms with it. Otherwise, it might become another dependency, you know.

Rick: I would add—and I presume you would concur—that it’s very important to have some sort of spiritual practice that really enables you to absorb that presence or be in that presence, so that there’s a kind of self-sufficiency regardless of whether or not you’re in the Master’s physical presence.

Sri M: Exactly. Yeah. And in the ultimate sense, it’s like you become the Master after some time. You don’t have to have another two.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: I’m not talking about any physical union. I am talking about the inner union.

Rick: Of course. Okay, good. I’m just clearing through some questions that came in, and I’ll have more of my own. This is from a fellow named Atul Roy from Varanasi. He’s wondering: In our day-to-day life, which in the modern world is full of lies and deceit, how do we keep our spiritual integrity intact?

Sri M: It’s hard work. There’s no shortcut. Especially, I think, living in a place like Banaras, if he has to ask this, you can imagine the situation in the rest of the world.

So it is difficult, but we’ll have to draw a line and say, “I’m trying to improve myself. I will not fall into this.” It’s tough, but there is no shortcut to this. However, if you have a guide and a practice that has been given to you, that is a great solace, because with that you can fend off these influences.

You can’t expect everybody to be interested in the spiritual line, in the journey, even in Banaras.

Rick: Sure.

Sri M: Because 50 percent of the sadhus you see there are bhang addicts. They’re not really sadhus. So it’s not possible to do that. You can’t expect everybody to behave as you do and walk on the path. There is always a contradiction in these matters, but you have to work hard. I don’t think there is any other way out of this.

Rick: When I asked that question and read his question, I was reminded of that image that’s often used in India of the lotus growing out of the mud. It’s planted in the mud, and yet it somehow manages to retain its beauty and purity.

Sri M: Yeah. So you have to stay there and come out and bloom. There’s another beautiful example by Jalal ad-Din Rumi, the Sufi mystic who wrote the Masnavi. He says the sugarcane grows in this mud, but it changes everything into sweet sugarcane juice.

It’s not easy, I agree, because we tend to do what others are doing around us. So we need to have a corner where we are able to isolate ourselves, at least until we expand and grow.

Rick: There was a story of a saint that I read one time who was known for always seeing the positive in any situation—picking up on something positive in any situation. Some guy decided to test him and trick him, so he took him down the street where he knew there was a dead dog lying in the gutter.

As they went past the dog, the man said, “Oh, look at that disgusting sight—rotting, with maggots and everything.” The saint took a glance and said, “Yes, but did you notice the pearly white teeth? How they shone?” (Laughter)

Sri M: You need to learn how to live in the midst of all this, actually. In Banaras, you can take refuge in Kashi Vishwanath. Things can go however they happen outside; you can ignore the priest, but look at the shining in there, you know.

🕊️ Keeping the spiritual flame alive

Rick: Here’s a final question from this initial batch. This is from a student in Delhi named Pramod. He says, “I’m a student. I want to ask Sri M what a person like me, who has other priorities and aspirations, can do to progress on the spiritual path.”

Sri M: Well, he must stick to his priorities, but he should keep the flame still burning in his heart, so that at some point, when he can come out of it a bit, he can go back to this.

At the moment, he can only keep this flame of attention in his heart and say, “Okay, I am interested, but now I’m caught up with these matters, so let me…” But he shouldn’t allow the flame to be blown out.

Rick: Yeah. Wouldn’t you say that there isn’t any reason why a student couldn’t be meditating every day, even though he’s in college or something? There’s no conflict. It will help him.

Sri M: That’s okay. He probably is worried because of the setup in colleges these days. There are drugs, there is this whole… Yeah. So he might be wondering whether people will think he is a misfit.

But I have a solution for this: when you are with them, pretend to be like them. Don’t be like them, but pretend to be like them, so that you don’t invite criticism. Deep down in your heart, do what you want to do. Even I do this sometimes now, at this stage.

Rick: Sure.

Sri M: Sometimes I get into company because I don’t wear robes. There are people who say, “Oh, come have a drink with us in the bar.” So what do you do—run away? I go and sit there.

Rick: Have a ginger ale.

Sri M: Yeah, and I feel slowly these guys would wonder, “What is this guy now? We thought a man who is spiritual is sitting in a cave, and here he is sitting with us. There must be something.” See.

Rick: Yes. And, of course, Jesus was known for hanging out with, you know…

Sri M: Beautiful. I love that part. So-called lowlifes. I love that part of his life, you know. Yeah. I think if you come to the essence of everything, you don’t see this difference.

Ramakrishna Paramahansa—I don’t know if you have heard the story. There was a woman of ill repute living close by Dakshineshwar, and many rich people used to go there on Sundays and so on, but they wouldn’t acknowledge her in public.

So one day, when she was walking near the Dakshineshwar Temple, some of the people who frequented her place were there. But as soon as she walked by, they turned away from her and looked in the other direction. So Ramakrishna ran out of the room, fell at her feet, and said, “Oh, Mother, what kind of forms do you come in sometimes?”

Rick: Interesting…

Sri M: And then he came back, which was a great lesson to these guys who were sitting there. So we should not get caught up in it, of course. We should be ready to descend to any level; it makes no difference, if we can protect ourselves.

Siddhis and the laws of nature

Rick: Nice. Okay, so here we’re switching to a different topic now. There are quite a few examples in your book of siddhis. As you know, Patanjali devoted one chapter of a four-chapter book to siddhis, yet most teachers dismiss them as a distraction or an obstacle.

Here’s a quote from your teacher, Maheshwaranath Babaji. He said, “There are no miracles. Many laws of nature are still unknown to most of humanity. When someone who knows these laws operates them and does something, then those who don’t know think they are witnessing a miracle.”

So let’s talk about siddhis a little bit. Not that a lot of people are finding themselves able to practice them, but there is a certain fascination with them because there are so many examples of them in the spiritual literature. Then there are people like Sai Baba and others who were supposedly performing siddhis, so people have an interest in them.

Sri M: You’re right. There is a complete chapter in the Yoga Sutras called Vibhuti Yoga, the yoga of powers. Vibhuti means power.

Now, as Babaji said to me, there are many laws which we don’t know that operate. The danger in the siddhis lies in this: once you start doing it—I fully acknowledge that there are genuine siddhis—you have to separate the conjurers and the sleight-of-hand experts from the realities. That’s there, of course.

Once you’ve done that and there is something genuine going on out there, the problem is that if you start demonstrating it, people—it’s a consumer culture—will be more interested in the siddhis than in the deeper aspects of spiritual life.

So Masters and teachers usually control themselves. They don’t do it, as far as possible. But there may be less spectacular siddhis that are more effective. If a person is suddenly in a spiritual spot where he can’t rise above, the Master can quietly help him come up. That kind of siddhi is more important than producing a few trinkets, which even P. C. Sorcar can do on stage, at least.

So I don’t give much importance to that, but I do give importance to the fact that a person can be influenced and transformed, which is also a siddhi. I think that’s the most important siddhi.

The most important siddhi is that a person can be influenced and transformed.

When you say “the philosopher’s stone,” when the Sufi says somebody has the philosopher’s stone and is trying to change copper into gold, it’s not a physical phenomenon. Nobody can do that. But to get material—which means a disciple whose mind is like copper at the moment—and change and transform it into gold, now that is a very powerful siddhi. It’s not easy.

You can produce rings and rudrakshas, but I think they are important from the point of view of spiritual growth. The moment they become obstacles to it, I think we should discard them and get out of it.

Rick: One interesting thing about the principle of siddhis is that if someone can perform them—for example, if someone could levitate and people could really see him levitate and prove that it was happening—it would say some very interesting things about what consciousness is and what the relation of consciousness is to the laws of nature, such as gravity. It would kind of force physicists, I think, to reexamine it.

There’s this debate in Western science over whether consciousness is an epiphenomenon of brain functioning, just a chemical process that the brain somehow creates, or whether consciousness is fundamental and gives rise to the brain and everything else.

If a person could actually perform a siddhi in a verifiable way, I think it would either settle that question or really bring it into focus as something that can be seriously considered.

Sri M: I think that the average scientist is too closed. Even if he sees something like a siddhi performed, he may not accept it. Let us be clear about this.

Also, many of the claimants to superhuman powers have been tested by the Society for Psychical Research and so on. Unfortunately, most of the results that have come out have supported the scientists who think that it is not possible.

In fact, there is a nice, critical book by Martin Gardner. You know Martin Gardner, who was a mathematician? I forget what else he was doing, but he wrote a book called Science: Good, Bad and Bogus. It’s a beautiful book, in the sense that he’s not trying to refute anything. He’s saying that you have to be careful with these experiments.

When scientists say something is correct, they think that if the test tube labeled A and the test tube labeled B are in front of them, and they are pouring something from B into A, then they are actually doing that. This is what scientists think.

But there are people who pretend to pour A into B while actually pouring C into A. The scientist cannot handle this. It’s not possible for him to think that way because scientists are accustomed to sincere, truthful thinking. They may be biased; that’s a different matter.

So I think the first kind of siddhi may not be this physical phenomenon, but rather some way to change their minds so that they are able to examine physical phenomena without prejudice.

I am trying this in some way. I meet scientists, and I sit with them and talk to them. It’s only when that mindset is changed that you can actually do something and say, “Now look at this and examine this.”

Rick: Yes, any kind of experimentation would have to be done in a rigorous way, without some kind of trickery going on.

Sri M: Because then you fail if you disprove it.

Rick: Yeah, and you hurt the whole endeavor because it’s easy to dismiss it all as fraudulent.

There’s a fellow whom I’ll be interviewing in September named Dean Radin, who’s with the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He’s done a lot of serious research on—not mind over matter, exactly, but the influence that attention and mind can have on various physical phenomena. Anyway, that’s just an aside.

Sri M: When are you going to do that?

Rick: Sometime in September. I mean, you could look it up. I don’t know if we want to belabor this point. If you want to move on, we can, but here are a couple of examples of particular siddhis and some explanation in your book as to how they might work.

One is, for instance, the invisibility siddhi. I think your teacher might have explained this to you: “The powerful mind, tuned to the stillness of the Supreme Self, the core of our consciousness, can control the light rays, absorb them, and not let them reflect.”

Sri M: Right.

Rick: So that’s an example of a kind of influence of mind over a physical phenomenon which is ordinarily not thought to be able to be influenced.

Sri M: Right.

Rick: If someone could actually demonstrate that, it would really blow some minds.

Sri M: True. I think we should try something out like that. (Laughter.) Because I think it’s possible. Yeah. From my understanding, it’s possible to do that. At some point, I would like to do this for scientists.

Rick: Can you do it?

Sri M: I think so. Why not?

Rick: Have you ever tried?

Sri M: Well, I’ve tried in private, but not in public because of this danger. You know, then there will always be people seeking only this.

Rick: Then it would become a circus show kind of thing.

Sri M: Big—big. All I have to do is distribute vibhuti, and that’s it. You’ll have lines of people coming. (Laughter.)

In fact, I did do it once or twice. There’s something called Souljourns. I don’t know if you have heard of it.

Rick: Oh, yeah. It’s like a conference or something. Yeah, I have heard of it.

Sri M: So I did do something for Souljourns just to demonstrate, and I found that most people were responding to that, and then it was growing. I said, “Look, this was just something to do with the particular thing I was talking to him about. This is not my main profession.” I wish you could see that sometime on YouTube.

Rick: I’ll check it out. I think what you would really want, or what would be more ideal, is if there were quite a few people who could do such things. Otherwise, it’s easy to say, “Well, this guy’s a good magician,” or, “There’s something really special about him, and we’re not like him.” But if a bunch of people could do it, then it would kind of make people realize that it was an innate human capacity.

Sri M: These things have to be worked out at some point, certainly. I personally believe that it is required, but not in that way. It shouldn’t have any mumbo-jumbo about it. It should be clean and clear, like an experiment.

Nityananda and the clearing of the nadis

Rick: Yeah. Okay, a question just came in from Sheshu in Munich, but I think we’ve pretty much covered this. He was asking about how you’re able to see your past lives, but you kind of explained it already. So, Sheshu, you’ll hear that earlier in the interview.

Okay, so enough about siddhis. There are a few more examples we could talk about, but I think we’ve covered it. There are some interesting points from your book.

Well, this is actually sort of an example of a siddhi. You went to see Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, and I presume that was the same Nityananda who was Muktananda’s guru. You had this experience where he slapped you so hard that it knocked you over and made you cry. You were just a young boy. Elaborate on that story.

Sri M: Well, I think it’s quite elaborate, but I was about eight years old, eight or eight-and-a-half, and I had an uncle who was quite different from the rest of the people in the family. He was a bachelor, which is almost impossible in our setup, and he was interested in yoga. The first time I heard the word Kundalini was from him.

He was my father’s elder cousin, the oldest one. He was a retired headmaster of a school and a teacher. One day he came to me and said, “I want to take you somewhere, but don’t tell your parents where you’re going. They may not allow it, but because you’re coming with me there won’t be a problem. I will say that I am taking you to our native place, which is about 40 kilometers away, to train you in martial arts.” He was also an expert in jujitsu and things like that.

His favorite reading was Erle Stanley Gardner and Sherlock Holmes, apart from his interest in yoga. So he took me. I remember that we traveled by bus for two or three days, and I was very tired. We reached a remote place, Ganeshpuri. In those days it was really remote. We had to take two buses from Bombay.

I remember that we entered. I actually wanted to eat a meal and go to sleep, but he said, “Let’s go, let’s go,” so we went. There was an entrance which said “Kailash.” They said, “You can’t see him now. Come back at four o’clock.” I was relieved, actually. So we went to a hotel and had some food, and I took some rest.

At four o’clock, there was a queue of people going in—not a very long queue. First my uncle went, and then I followed behind. As soon as I entered, I looked at him and was really frightened. I was shocked, because this man looked huge, and he was dark, and he looked completely crazy. He was not talking to anybody in particular, just sitting in an armchair, wearing only a small piece of cloth. He was talking to himself and doing this and that, so I thought, “Where have I landed now? Why has this man brought me here?” When we would say “a saint,” you would think of something else.

We passed, and when my uncle passed, he said, “Okay, go,” or something like that. I don’t know exactly what he said. Then he went off, and I came forward. When I went in front of him, he suddenly leaned forward in his chair and gave me a tight slap. It was so strong that my whole body shivered, and I fell down. I started weeping loudly—actually yelling—so I had to be taken away. We went off.

The next day, my uncle wanted to go again. I said, “I’m not coming.” So then we went back to our native place and spent some time there with him because he wanted to prove that I had come there. Then we came back home.

This was forgotten after a while. I had kind of resolved at that age that the next time my uncle wanted me to go, I wasn’t going. I had completely forgotten about it.

Years later, when I was with Maheshwarnath Babaji, he told me that I had to practice a particular breathing exercise to clear my Ida Nadi, which is the left channel. I did it for six or seven days, and then he tested me and said, “Okay, you’re on. It’s fine.”

Like an intelligent young man, I had a question. I said, “What about the Pingala? You said Ida and Pingala?”

He said, “Many years ago, Nityananda cleared your Pingala with one slap.”

Many years ago, Nityananda cleared your Pingala with one slap.

So there are two things here. One is that somebody could do that at a certain age. The other is that this man, to whom I had not said anything about this incident—in fact, I myself had almost forgotten it—could connect with it and say, “This is what happened to you.” I think this is a great demonstration of the extraordinary capacities that people have.

Rick: Maybe if you had gone back the next day, he would have slapped your other cheek, and then Ida would have been cleared too.

Sri M: Quite possible, I don’t know. Or maybe he had to preserve it for this to happen. You never know with these people. It’s quite possible.

I have some good friends who have known me for many years, and they come back to me and say, “You know, something happened which we cannot explain in relationship to you.” I kind of pooh-pooh it, so that they don’t attach too much importance to it and keep walking. The journey has to continue. Don’t get stuck there.

Rick: Also, just on that point, doesn’t the Guru sort of function in a way as a kind of conduit? Things may happen as a result of him or association with him which he himself isn’t even conscious of or doesn’t consciously intend, but which happen. The Divine sort of does something by virtue of his ability to embody the Divine.

Sri M: Possible. Very much possible. I completely agree with this.

Rick: The reason I thought of that is that Maharishi told the story one time of how people would experience these great changes in their lives when they prayed to his Guru. He asked him about it one time. He said, “How does this happen? Are you even aware of it?” And he just said, “It’s the Department of the Absolute. He takes care of it.”

Sri M:(Laughter) It’s also a good way to slip out of this problem of people saying, “Oh, you’re doing this.” So it’s all part of the routine, you know. You’re free.

Destiny and free will

Rick: Right. Here’s a question that came in from Vidya in Texas. You mentioned in your second book that an enlightened personality whom you met in one of your previous births predicted your mistake in your birth as Madhu and that you would be reborn as Sri M. In our previous interview, we talked about that mistake, and in your first book you talked about it.

The question is: Are all of our actions responses to circumstances, including our mistakes, already predestined? Obviously, if this person predicted that you were going to do it, it seems like it’s predestined. If yes, if we are trying to follow the spiritual path, is that also predestined? Is there anything at all in our hands?

Sri M: The problem is, if you start thinking everything is predestined, and you don’t know about it, then you are likely to end up not doing anything at all. Then you’ll say that doing nothing is also predestined. So it’s a very fatalistic way of looking at your spiritual journey—at least with your spiritual journey.

When you are hungry for food, you don’t ask whether you are predestined to eat or not. You eat.

Rick: And you make efforts to eat.

Sri M: Yes. So I personally feel, from my experience, that while there is a blueprint, you are given freedom to experiment with it. You have a blueprint for what you need to do; otherwise, it is meaningless. The sadhana is meaningless, all of life is meaningless. It can’t be. I mean, it isn’t.

While there is a blueprint, you are given freedom to experiment with it.

There are blueprints. You can’t go beyond a certain limit, yes, but within this blueprint you have full freedom to work. It’s not as if everything is fixed. In my case, because I was being prepared for a particular work, at different points different people came in and said, “Do this, do that, you’ll become…” But it doesn’t apply to most people.

We need to first look after our spiritual progress. For that, we should let this idea of predestination rest for a while and try to see how urgent it is to change. Otherwise, it becomes an excuse for laziness. We need to change. We need to take it urgently if we are serious.

Therefore, I usually try to keep this idea out when people ask whether everything is predestined. I say, “Look, if everything is predestined, why are you living? Why are you working? That’s also predestined.” I mean, it’s very easy to say, “Everything is predestined, including our sitting here and talking.” It’s not like that.

There are certain blueprints, but within them you can always change, because the human mind has been given the capacity to do that. Otherwise, why would we have such a developed brain? Is it a waste? It’s not a vestigial organ.

Rick:(Laughter) Patanjali said, “Heyam Duhkham Anagatam”—“Avert the danger which has not yet come.” That implies that there could be some danger coming along, but you can take certain measures to avert it or ameliorate it.

Sri M: You should. All great yogis have done that in their lives.

Rick: Like that story at the beginning of the Srimad Bhagavatam, where the king, Parikshit, was cursed to be bitten by a snake in a week. He said, “Okay, if I’m going to be bitten by a snake, then I might as well focus on God for the next week,” and hopefully get liberated.

Sri M: That part was not destined. The snake biting him was destined.

Rick: That was. But then he chose to make good use of that week, and that’s how the whole Bhagavatam came about.

Sri M: Right. That’s how the story came up. If Parikshit had not thought that way, we wouldn’t have the Bhagavatam with us.

Rick: I mean, if he had just sat around and cried all week, then…

Sri M: “I am going to die. I am destined…” (Laughter)

The subtle body after death

Rick: Okay, here’s a statement that I excerpted from your book that I liked very much. I think this is also your Guru saying this: “Appreciate everyone’s point of view, for the truth is multidimensional.”

Sri M: Absolutely. So what shall I elaborate on? It’s there, clear.

Rick: Yes, that’s it, in a nutshell.

Sri M: It’s clear, because the moment you learn, you begin to say, “I’m always right, and that guy is wrong. There’s something wrong out there.” It can’t be, you know, because truth is completely multidimensional. You can’t say you can see only from this angle. There may be other angles from which to see it.

If you don’t think so, if one doesn’t think so, then the truth ceases to be infinite. It becomes finite. The truth is not a conglomeration of finites. It’s infinite, not made by us.

Rick: At one point in your book, you were talking about death, and you quoted—I don’t remember whether you were writing this or quoting your Guru: “For the yogi who has overcome his desires, the subtle body fades away and disintegrates when the physical body dies, and the Atman is henceforth clothed in a pure vehicle called the causal body. For others, the subtle body carries all its vasanas, or desires, in seed form, to occupy the new body, to indulge and enjoy the latent desires.” So my question is: Does the yogi still function in the causal body after death? Is that how we have Ascended Masters such as Ramana and Jesus, and people like that, appearing to people?

Sri M: True.

Rick: Functioning in their causal body?

Sri M: Yes, in the karana sharira, but it’s not like functioning in the physical body. It’s quite different, because there is no central ego out there which identifies itself with the physical body. So it’s totally different. There is an identity, which means, “I am there,” but I know that this is a temporary phase, and I’m doing something, and I don’t have the agency of doing it. It’s difficult to put it in better ways.

It’s like there is the awareness that I exist, but not as this or that, and the work that is done is usually through inspiration more than words. When I say inspiration, I mean at a different level, not at the verbal level.

So there is an identity, and that identity can be dissolved at any time. It’s left to the yogi to say, “Okay, done.” But yogis sometimes maintain a little shadow of an identity because they feel pain at what’s happening in the world, and they want to do something about it and bring more people to where they have reached. Otherwise, there is no intention of keeping this little shadow.

In the Buddhist Vajrayana teachings, it could be the teachings of the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva doesn’t have an identity of his own in any case, but there is a shadow of an identity which is there to bring other people back to where they stand. I don’t want to use the word “compassion” because it’s a big word. I would rather say “kindness.”

Rick: And I think in Vedanta there’s a term, lesha avidya, faint remains of ignorance, which is said, even when you’re in the body, to be necessary in order to function as a human being.

Sri M: Absolutely. Even Adi Shankara.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: I think he had touched it, but he had a kind of shadow of an ego, which is why he could do all the work that happened.

Rick: Yeah, I mean, if there were no shadow of an ego whatsoever, would one even be able to eat or function? You’d just be a corpse.

Sri M: No, absolutely—not even a corpse.

Rick: Comatose or something. So these people who say they’ve lost all sense of personal self, there must be some remnant of a personal self for them to function.

Sri M: Yes, that is the shadow, which is the karana sharira, the causal body. And please, we can’t compare people who are functioning otherwise in the physical body with them. It’s a completely different cup of tea.

Rick: Yeah, so here you’re contrasting someone who is, let’s say, enlightened but in a physical body, with someone who has dropped the physical body but is still functioning by virtue of the causal body.

Sri M: Yes, right. There are such beings.

Rick: And not only the great ones, such as Jesus or Ramana or whoever like that, but some people perceive all kinds of guardian angels or spirit guides, or whatever they are, functioning in the world and attending to people in various ways. It seems like there’s a whole host of nonphysical beings that are concerned with our welfare.

Sri M: Yes. At least for me, for myself, it would be very stupid for me to think that we’re having this interview and there are only two. (Laughter.) Do you understand?

Rick: We’ve got a celestial peanut gallery. (Laughter.)

Sri M: We have a gallery here, whether you see it or not. And it’s possible that when this is over and I go to meditate or sleep at night, I might be knocked and told, “Hey, where did you go wrong out there?”

Rick:(Laughter.) Yeah, call Archer and tell him to edit that part out. (Laughter.) Well, if I may ask you a personal question, do you perceive these subtle beings yourself sometimes, either in the waking state or in the dream state, or whatever?

Sri M: Now, this is why I’m so careful. I don’t know how I said this to you right now. Generally, I just keep quiet, because then people would think I’m some kind of freak.

Rick: There are so many far-out stories in your book. If they can read that, then they can hear this.

Sri M: Yeah. Actually, I don’t see them all the time, but if I feel—not see, but feel—the presence, then if I want, I can probably focus and see something.

Rick: It can be visual as well.

Sri M: Yes, but I can see the influence. Even now, I go to some places and there are some negative influences. They try to assault you; they don’t want positive things going on. So usually, I finish them off.

🕊️ Spiritual protection and the kavach

Rick: Does that relate to the question that Atul Roy asked earlier about the world being full of lies and deceit—how do we keep our spiritual energy intact? I know there’s that word in Sanskrit, kavach, right? Just like an armor. There’s the idea of spiritual armor in which the sattva is strong enough that it just kind of protects one against such things.

Sri M: Actually, every human being has a kavach. Every human being has a kavach. Because of activities which are not conducive to your mental and physical health—like drugs and alcohol, and too much of anything, excess of anything—it kind of develops cracks here and there.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: The armor, the kavach. So the moment it develops cracks, it’s easy for negative energies to come in and influence you. It’s not like possession or anything of that kind, but they can influence you. So one of the reasons why somebody sits down to meditate, for instance, is that a kind of kavach is created around oneself.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: At that point, you are free. And one of the best kavachas is the constant realization and understanding that, deep down, in the essence of your consciousness, there is the Divine. There is no more powerful kavach than this. If that is always in mind, nothing can affect you. No negative influence. Even if there is, by chance, a break, it cannot enter.

There is no more powerful kavach than the constant realization that, deep down, in the essence of your consciousness, there is the Divine.

Rick: Yeah, and I think you’re saying not just the belief in that, but the actual experience of that, in a real, grounded way—that you don’t even have to think about it.

Sri M: No. People may not experience it as if somebody’s coming in or anything, but it’s evident from the way their life changes.

Rick: Right. But I also meant in terms of that Divine essence that you just referred to. I think what you’re saying is that one should really be established in that experientially, and not just as a matter of faith, and then the kavach will be strong.

Sri M: Yes, of course. It may start with faith, of course. When I say “faith,” I think the definition of faith is to know that something is there even though you can’t see it with your sense organs.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: You know, which is a wider way of thinking than saying, “Oh, I would believe something only if I can see it with my sense organs,” which are very limited. So this is the beginning of faith. And when I say that I have this understanding—that deep down, in the core of my consciousness, there is a Divine energy which is all goodness, and partly ecstasy also, but more than that, a kind of all-embracing goodness and compassion in my heart—if it is in the essence of my being, it must also be in the essence of your being. It can’t be that I am an isolated individual.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: Whether somebody knows it or doesn’t know it at the moment, it’s still there. So when we affirm this understanding, nothing can affect us. Until then, there is a danger.

Kundalini and grounding

Rick: Yeah. Good. A question came in from a fellow named Raymond in Olympia, Washington, and I know Raymond. This is a very relevant question. We talked about it a little bit in the first interview, and Raymond, speaking from his own experience, said: “Awakened Kundalini can be a catastrophic experience. Is there any way to turn the Kundalini process off?”

Sri M: It usually doesn’t happen that way, but if it has happened, then there are ways and means to bring it down. One of the ways is to live a completely worldly life for a short while.

Rick: Worldly? Okay. In what respect? I mean, no meditation or anything?

Sri M: Stop everything for a while and come down, and then, from there, gradually go up when you’re ready for it.

Rick: Yeah, I’ve even heard people say, “Eat meat, smoke cigars, do tamasic stuff, and it will ground you.”

Sri M: Yes, tamasic stuff—but tamasic stuff need not include meat-eating. I mean, there are many people who are complete vegetarians who are very tamasic. It’s a character more than what you eat or drink. Hitler himself was a vegetarian.

Rick: That’s true.

Sri M: He was a complete vegetarian. I don’t think he even ate eggs, but you see what happened.

Rick: Sure.

Sri M: What a terrible person he was. So by worldly, I mean come back to your work, do things which attract you, indulge a little bit in your life until that vibration comes down. But please tell Raymond that when it comes down, he will regret it. He will think, “Oh my God, I need to go back.” So when that thought occurs, then you slowly start working. It would help if you have somebody who can guide you on this matter personally.

Rick: When you say worldly, how about physical exercise, massage, swimming—grounding things like that? Walking in the woods?

Sri M: Physical exercise, yes. Walking in the woods, cycling, strenuous exercise, good exercise. Eat food which you like to eat, which you have discarded for various reasons.

Rick: Something richer.

Sri M: Yes, things like that, so that you are grounded. When you’re grounded in this world, that automatically becomes less. There is no technique, no yogic technique, to bring it down, because yogic techniques are all to bring it up.

When that happens, I have seen cases of people who can’t bear it because it’s too much. The body and mind are not prepared for it. Then they let go of everything, and they descend to such depths of almost—not even human, but animal—life. But when this goes, they are really terrified because they want to go back there, because it was so wonderful. So that’s a good starting point after that.

Rick: Would you say that—I’ve heard from a number of people who have had this kind of experience, like Raymond, to varying degrees, some of them pretty catastrophic, that they can’t even function. In some cases, there was this one guy who said, “Hey, I just like to watch football and have a beer, and now I’m having this huge Kundalini thing. I didn’t even know what it was, and I can’t work.” It seems to me that the more one is able to purify the system and clear the nadis, and make sure the pathways are not obstructed, the less unpleasant this will be, and the more it will actually be a source of bliss. Would you agree with that?

Sri M: I agree with that. Yes. So what has happened here is that, before the nadis were cleared up, for some reason a little bit of energy was triggered. This guy doesn’t know what to do with it or how to come to terms with it. The best thing would be to live with the teacher for some time.

Rick: If possible.

Sri M: That would help, if possible—who knows about these matters?

Rick: Yeah, okay. Hopefully, Raymond, that answered your question. If you have a follow-up question, feel free to send it in. But it is something that concerns me because I hear from people who are going through this, and I would like to be able to help them, but I don’t always know what to say. There are a couple of people whom I’ve interviewed who kind of specialize in Kundalini situations, but there needs to be more help available, I think.

Sri M: Yeah, because this is rare, so people haven’t worked on it much.

Rick: Yeah, it’s getting less rare. I think there’s some kind of awakening happening in the world where it’s getting more common.

There was a whole section in your book where you talked about astral projection, and we don’t want this to be like the reincarnation topic, where people jump on it and want to start doing this necessarily. But I think we could fairly say, from what you wrote, that for certain people at a certain stage, this may become appropriate. It did for you at a certain stage, and under proper guidance you learned how to do it. You weren’t just experimenting blindly.

Sri M: No, no.

Rick: You had proper guidance. And so you went to various places and dimensions, and some of this is very interesting and kind of far out. Do you want to make a general comment on this before I refer to some specific things you wrote?

Sri M: Yeah, you said it right. Under certain circumstances, with proper guidance, it’s possible for, I think, 70 to 80 percent of human beings to come out.

Rick: To do it.

Sri M: Yeah. One thing that stops people from doing it is that they don’t believe it can be done, which is a good thing. You see, if everybody is bothering their astral bodies about it, it’s a safety catch that nature has built in: You don’t believe in it. Good. I always say that’s nice—don’t. But if you do believe in it, and if you are out of your body, it’s possible to move around.

In the beginning, you can’t go very far, but as you practice slowly, it’s like a child learning to stand up in this world. You fall, you get up. It’s a completely new dimension. In the beginning, you can only see things in this dimension. You can’t go anywhere outside this world. But as you train yourself, you might be able to go to what is beyond this Earth and see things and feel things.

One thing you should note is that you can see properly in the astral body—the subtle body. You can hear, you can smell, but you cannot touch. It’s not possible. So if one is thinking, “I’ll go in my astral body to a bank vault and bring all the money,” this doesn’t work because you can’t catch anything.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: Even a glass of water—your hand will just go through it. It doesn’t work; you can’t do that. But you can see that it’s there. So the perfect test for this, if it’s really working or you’re imagining it, is to go to a place and note down everything. Keep it in your mind, write it down the next day, and go after a couple of days to the same place and check. If it is the same, you see, it’s a very practical way of seeing if it is really working. But then there is the fear that you won’t be able to come back. I always tell people there is no such fear. Even if you want to, you cannot stay out for long. You will have to come back.

Rick: I think you mentioned that almost everybody astral travels in their sleep, you know.

Sri M: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: But I guess the question would be, why would this be a useful thing for a spiritual aspirant? Why would it be something that one would want to do intentionally?

Sri M: For me, I was taught to do it intentionally for a particular purpose. I don’t do it every day. Since then, I’ve not actually done it, except in some cases where I thought somebody might need help. Not beyond that.

For me, it was taught for a particular purpose, and also so that I could really feel that I’m not this body. These are the two reasons why I had to practice. I don’t think a spiritual aspirant needs to project his subtle body out and so on. As I said earlier, I was put through all these things so that when I come face-to-face with something like that, I know what’s going on. It’s not required. In fact, I think it’s a waste of time, personally.

Rick: Yeah. So you would probably agree that it’s something that one could go through the whole spiritual path and attain enlightenment without ever having shown any interest.

Sri M: No, no, but it might happen sometimes spontaneously. It can happen, but you don’t have to deliberately think that you have to go through this before you move forward. There’s nothing—no such thing. I’m making it very clear.

Extraterrestrial mysteries

Rick: Sure. Okay, just to dip into something really esoteric for a minute, just for fun: When you were in that part of your book talking about astral traveling, you mentioned that you went to, I believe it was, Mount Kailash.

Sri M: Near Mount Kailash.

Rick: And you met your Master there, who was conversing with some Tibetan yogi. When you showed up, he saw you, and the two of you—he left his body and astral traveled with you. You went to some cave up there, where you encountered the remains of some extraterrestrial visitors who came to Earth many thousands of years ago. They came from a planet in a constellation many light-years away, and they were deputed by still more advanced extraterrestrial beings to teach Earthlings certain yogic and scientific secrets.

Let me read just a little bit more from your book:

In a fairly big container were flat discs made of a white, shiny material. Something like Egyptian hieroglyphics was engraved on them. Babaji explained that these were codes which, when decoded with the help of special devices not yet perfected by mankind, would reveal information about outer-space realms and civilizations and the story of many previous visits by extraterrestrials. They would also describe those rare instances when specially developed humans were taken to these far-space realms and brought back after awakening special centers in their brains, which distinguish them from ordinary human beings in many ways.

So anyway, I thought that was interesting. In the spirit of not being closed-minded, I took it seriously. I think you’re a sincere man, and I just feel like there are all kinds of mysteries and interesting things that we, as a species, will yet discover.

Sri M: Yeah, I believe so, because we’re not yet ready for it.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: The greatest fear is that present-day science, if it becomes interested in it, and if a couple of people, like the Chinese, for instance, can get their hands on this kind of technology, it can become very dangerous in this world.

Rick: Turn it into weapons?

Sri M: Yes. So we might have to wait for some time before this is revealed. But the caves which I have mentioned are not caves in any ethereal realm. They are actual—

Rick: Actual, yeah. Physical things.

Sri M: Physical things. And they are on the border of Nepal, actually, on the way to Kailash.

Rick: I’m surprised that no one has found them after all this time. So many explorations have taken place.

Sri M: Some people have found part of the caves. They may not have gone to the interior. I’m sure some explorers have found some places, but it takes a lot of trekking and effort to get out there. The caves are kind of hewn out in the natural rock on the side, and they have many entrances. To get in, you need to pull yourself up like a mountain climber if you’re physically going up.

Rick: To even get in there.

Sri M: Yeah. So it’s there. I’m sure that, after some time, explorers may go and find these things out. But even if they find them, it will take quite some time to decipher what’s been put in the discs, for instance.

Rick: That’s true, because this is not a technology that we even have to be able to read such discs.

Sri M: I don’t think we have any such technology. My feeling is that it could be some kind of a record, like an LP or something—a disc which needs a proper technology to read it. I was not told anything more than this, that it is so. I don’t know anything more than that.

Rick: Even with the pyramids in Egypt, we’ve been exploring those for a long time now, and I’m sure that we don’t really understand everything—not even how they were made, much less whatever knowledge they’re supposed to contain.

Sri M: Yeah. The mummified bodies of the pharaohs were put there in imitation of extraterrestrials who were confined to the insides of pyramids.

Rick: An imitation of them?

Sri M: Yeah, like what I told you in the cave.

Rick: I see. So you mean the Egyptians got the inspiration for mummification from extraterrestrials—

Sri M: Yes, yes. Okay. I shouldn’t use the word extraterrestrial, because nowadays all kinds of people are talking—

Rick: Little green men.

(Laughter)

Sri M: So I would say—in India, we would say the Devas—for somebody who came from there in their flying vehicles or whatever. But there have been such interactions with humanity for thousands of years. I would not even say that they have completely stopped now. There must be—there are some interactions still going on, but they’re much less than what happened before. Yeah.

Rick: For those listening to this interview, you should listen to Sri M’s first interview and read his first book also. In that book, he talked about a Naga Being, a snake being, whom he met in a cave. It was quite a frightening experience, I guess, but very profound for you. It’s just one of those amazing things that are not generally known but could be experienced.

Sri M: Yeah.

Rick: Jumping back to the question about Kundalini and exercise and stuff: A fellow named Ganesh Kumar from Chennai is asking, “Is cycling and other extensive physical exercise detrimental to spiritual progress?” This question is based on your comment that strenuous physical exercise reduces the rise of Kundalini.

Sri M: No, this was specifically meant to divert the attention of people who have had some premature awakenings. Physical exercise does not in any way act as an obstacle when you are trying to work on it. It doesn’t. In fact, it is good to exercise.

Rick: Sure.

Sri M: More than physical exercise, if you can strenuously practice asanas—yoga asanas—because they affect your endocrine system more than ordinary exercise like cycling and so on. So there is no anti-awakening effect to do with any kind of exercise.

Rick: Okay, good. And yoga, of course, is very popular in the U.S. these days.

Sri M: Absolutely.

Rick: And a lot of people are doing all kinds of different yoga. Okay, good. In fact, I would just add that not getting enough physical exercise can be detrimental to your spiritual progress. I know people who just sit and meditate too much without enough physical exercise, and they don’t look healthy and they’re not healthy. In fact, a friend of mine just died a couple of days ago whom I think could have taken better care of his body. He was a long-term meditator.

Sri M: This is why the whole system of yoga is so systematized, with yama, niyama, asanas, and pranayama. You have to keep the body fit. A yogi is not an avadhoota, in the sense that he is not one who has abandoned everything. A yogi is one who leads a healthy life—not only a physically healthy life, but the mind also becomes healthy.

A healthy mind has more clarity than an unhealthy mind; it’s obvious. So it’s not the opposite of each other. Not doing exercise—in fact, you’re right, you should exercise. You should move, you must walk, you must go out, and then come back and meditate. Don’t sit all the time. It’s not possible, first of all. If one is doing that, then one is bringing about something very artificial. It’s not natural.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a saying these days that sitting is the new smoking. In other words, people sit too much in front of computers; they need to get up and move.

Sri M: Absolutely.

Rick: Okay, thank you for that. And here is an interesting question. I’m getting a lot of questions from Indians. This was from Rajan in Portland, Oregon, and he’s asking about the importance of prayer as part of one’s spiritual practice. Maybe in commenting on this, you could compare prayer with meditation. Someone else earlier—I didn’t ask this question—but he was asking about chanting the Lalita Sahasranama as a spiritual practice. So how would you distinguish the merits and importance of various things, various types of practices, including the ones I just mentioned?

Sri M: You know, there are two kinds of prayer. One is prayer for worldly things: “I want this, I want that. God, give me this.” That’s one kind of prayer. But I think Rajan is asking about the spiritual kind of prayer, which is when you pray because you want to move forward on your spiritual path: “Bring me a proper guide. Help me to meditate.” This is one kind of prayer.

Prayer helps to make your mind steady. Whether this prayer is being answered by somebody up there or somebody who’s in here, it doesn’t matter, but it does bring about a certain effect, especially if we are on the spiritual path. Prayer also means that now you have reduced yourself to a helpless person who is asking for help, and that gets rid of the ego for some time. Otherwise, we’re saying, “I’ll do this, I’ll do that,” including meditation.

In the mood of prayer, you have surrendered. You say, “I can do only this much. Please give me help.” That opens the mind to receive. So prayer is indeed an important part of this. But more than prayer, like the Lalita Sahasranama or Vishnu Sahasranama, which people chant, the thing is that in these verses there is one meaning, of course. But apart from the meaning, the words and the sound have been worked out in such a way that they affect certain subtle parts of your system, of your human system. So that, again, is conducive to going deep within spiritually.

I think the simplest and best thing is the chanting of Aum. Now, one shouldn’t think that Aum belongs to a religion or a philosophy. It’s a sound, more than anything else. It’s a primeval sound. So when you tune yourself to the chanting of Aum, it helps you more than any other prayer can help you in the spiritual field. Just chant Aum.

Prayer—“I want to reach the ultimate Reality”—is already there in your heart. You don’t have to register it every day. But when you chant Aum, the whole mind, body, everything, including the little cells in your body, gets tuned to that sound, and that takes us into the inner realms faster than any other kind of prayer.

Rick: Have you heard the notion that using Aum—chanting Aum, using it as a mantra—produces an influence that tends to turn you into a recluse, and that it shouldn’t be used by householders?

Sri M: No.

Rick: You haven’t heard that, or you don’t believe it?

Sri M: I have heard it, but we don’t believe in it. Even in my tradition, we don’t believe it. Everybody is given Aum to chant. Aum is a universal sound. It’s not confined just to recluses.

Rick: And you haven’t seen an effect where it makes people more reclusive, causing them to lose their belongings or something?

Sri M: No, no, no. I don’t believe this. You see, some people may lose their belongings; it may not be because of Aum. Maybe it’s something else.

Rick: Yeah, okay.

Sri M: Aum is energy, a source of energy. You can’t lose that.

Rick: Okay, good.

Sri M: You may lose what is not essential for you.

Rick: Right, good point. Some types of meditation, as you know, involve concentration, and some are effortless, and so on. One of the principles of effortless meditation, it is argued, is that the mind has a natural tendency to seek a field of greater happiness. Pure consciousness is a state of bliss, and if we can take the correct angle and just let go effortlessly, the mind will gravitate toward pure consciousness. Concentration, it is argued, would actually impede that process. But others seem to be successful using some form of concentration.

In your book, you say, “Concentration is not tension. On the contrary, it is possible only when the mind is relaxed but attentive,” so restful alertness. “Relaxed but attentive” implies that if it’s concentration, it’s a very gentle kind of thing rather than any kind of force.

Sri M: Absolutely. I fully agree with this. When you say concentration, it’s not using force.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: From the yogic point of view, concentration comes when the mind is completely at rest. In fact, the word “concentration” is used to translate the word dharana, which is the word used in the Yoga Sutras.

Dharana doesn’t have the same connotation as “concentrate.” When you say “concentrate,” it’s as if you’re doing something with great effort, forcefully. Dharana means being able to keep your mind moving in a particular stream without conditioning it in any way. It could be an object, but it could also be a sound or an idea. Effortlessly, when the mind goes in that direction, that is dharana.

Then it automatically gets converted, changed into dhyana, which means long-term attention. The culmination is samadhi, when one is not even aware of a meditator out there. There is only the meditation. That is the complete effortlessness we are talking about.

In the beginning, one needs to put in a little bit of effort to keep the mind steady, going in one line, and to allow it to go unimpeded along that path. So that’s where it starts. But as you progress, it should be more a letting go than a grabbing.

Rick: Yeah. So let’s say you’re sitting and meditating, and let’s say you have a mantra and you find yourself thinking, “I wonder what I’ll have for dinner.” I guess the difference here would be, “Let me work this out. I’ll cook some rice and I’ll make vegetables,” and going and indulging in that, as opposed to saying, “Think about that later,” and going back to the mantra.

Sri M: Exactly. I was just going to tell you the example of music, for instance. Suppose I love music and I’m completely involved in either playing an instrument or listening to beautiful music. It could be Indian, or it could be Western. I love Beethoven, for instance.

Rick: Beethoven—wonderful, yes.

Sri M: So when you listen to these, what happens is that your mind is effortlessly absorbed in them. It’s not thinking of anything else. The interest that you have is also part of this game.

People usually sit down to meditate, but really, they’re not seriously interested in it. Other things are there; you can add this also to your life. But when it becomes so interesting and arresting, then what we call concentration becomes an effortless absorption. That’s what we mean sometimes when we say it’s not so much the grabbing as the letting go.

Rick: Yeah. I guess you could say there are two ways of keeping a dog at your door. One is to chain it, and it might be pulling against the chain. Another is to put its favorite food there, and then the dog will just be there. The mind loves inner bliss, and if it can be given an opportunity to move that way, it won’t take a lot of strain or anything.

Sri M: Roughly, yes.

Rick: Any more comments on that whole topic, or have we covered it?

Sri M: By and large, I think, yes.

Avadhootas and the balance of yoga and Vedanta

Rick: Okay, good. You mentioned the word avadhoota a few minutes ago, and there’s a chapter in your book about Avadhoota Sadashiva Brahmendra. Maybe you should just explain a little bit what an avadhoota is for us.

Sri M: You know, an avadhoota is not a yogi who is practicing to get there. There’s a difference. An avadhoota is one who has got there, wherever or whatever the connotations, and leads a plentiful, clear life with no conditions attached to it. He doesn’t have to wear clothes because he doesn’t see the need for them—not because he’s putting on a pose, but because he doesn’t see the need for them.

So an avadhoota is one who has broken all social norms. You can’t imitate an avadhoota because you are not an avadhoota.

Rick: Do such people still exist in India, and they don’t get arrested? You couldn’t do that in the United States, you know.

Sri M: I know. I won’t put it past the United States that there are avadhootas here. You can’t say. They may be more careful because they don’t want to get arrested or caught, but it’s possible that there are many kinds of avadhootas. They need not necessarily fit the same picture as Sadashiva Brahmendra, for instance.

But what I’m saying is, look at Sadashiva Brahmendra. He walked naked; he had no rules or regulations, nothing. But what he did was very creative. In fact, many people are not aware that Sadashiva Brahmendra is one of the major contributors to classical music—Carnatic music.

Some of his lyrics are among the best in Carnatic music, South Indian classical music. One of them is Pibare Rama Rasam: “Oh, drink the blissful nectar of Rama.” So even though he behaved like a madman at times, there were other times when he was a very creative genius.

One of his very important works, which he wrote, is called the Yoga Sudhakara, which is one of the earliest attempts to bring Vedanta and yoga together, because at some point these two break off. The Vedantin says that there is no need for yoga: “Why are you standing on your head? The world is an illusion. You know that.”

Sadashiva Brahmendra is very important in this matter because he was a Vedantin and he was also a yogi. So an avadhoota does not necessarily mean somebody like a drug addict who is doing nothing. An avadhoota is a spiritually evolved person who has broken all rules because he sees that these rules don’t apply to him.

Rick: Yeah, I remember in Yogananda’s book there was a story of a female avadhoota. She was running around naked, and people were really shocked and trying to criticize her and everything. She said, “What’s the problem? I don’t see any men here.”

Sri M: So it is that state where you don’t see anybody else.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: But to imitate it is dangerous. Ramana Maharshi was one of a kind.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: You go to Tiruvannamalai, and you might find people wearing a kaupina, you know, the small little garment, and sitting down and pretending to be like him. You can’t be Ramana Maharshi.

Rick: This is an important point, and it also relates to what you just said about what Sadashiva Brahmendra was trying to do, which was integrate yoga and Vedanta. Even today, not only in India, I suppose, but in the West, there are Vedantins who say, “You don’t need practice. You’re just enlightened. Everything is Brahman. Just realize that and you’re done,” and yet it’s just a concept.

Sri M: I have to say this. Since we started with that subject, I want to mention that Sadashiva Brahmendra wrote the Yoga Sudhakara, a commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, where he integrates the experiences of Vedanta with the practice of yoga.

You see, the Bhagavad Gita is supposed to be the essence of the Upanishads. It says, iti śrīmad bhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyām. The Upanishads teach Brahmavidya, knowledge of the Supreme Being, but at the same time the Gita also says yoga shastre, which means that yoga is important to understand this fact.

You can theoretically say, “I am Brahman; the whole world is an illusion,” but you cannot find that out just by saying it. You need to make your mind subtle enough to understand this, and that is where yoga comes in.

Even a great Vedantin who was the foremost commentator on Advaita, such as Adi Shankaracharya, wrote works that emphasize this. In the first chapter of the Vivekachudamani, for instance, the Crest-Jewel of Wisdom, he says that it is fine to say that this world is an illusion and that the witness is the only true reality, and so on. But most people cannot touch it or find it.

He says this is because the nadis are very impure, and therefore one should practice pranayama to achieve nadi shuddhi, the cleansing of the nadis. You can grasp it only when the nadis are pure. You can theoretically say it and imagine that you are Brahman, but you cannot be that unless you know it. Yoga therefore plays a very important part in preparing a person to understand the truths of the Upanishads. It is a very ancient science.

Rick: Okay, well, I’m glad we touched on that point because it’s something I run into quite a lot. I don’t feel that people always appreciate the distinction between knowledge and experience. They often mistake an understanding for the actual experience that understanding represents.

It’s like the difference between standing on the sidewalk reading a restaurant menu and actually going into the restaurant and eating. There’s a big difference in terms of your nourishment.

Sri M: Absolutely. So this is where the Nath Sampradaya comes in. I’m not saying this because I belong to the Nath Sampradaya. Maheshwarnath Babaji was a Nath, beginning with Adinath and Matsyendranath, with the most famous being Gorakhnath.

Rick: “Nath,” for those who don’t know the word.

Sri M: Gorakhnath and so on. The most important textbooks on yoga that have survived today, in spite of the pure Vedantins saying that they are not required, are the textbooks of the Nath Sampradaya, except for the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which are much older—very ancient, of course.

Most of these are Gorakhnath’s works. Gorakhnath was one of those wandering saints. Anywhere you go, you can find people saying, “Gorakh came here.” One is the Goraksha Shataka, a thousand verses of Gorakhnath. The other is the Goraksha Samhita.

Then there is Gorakhnath’s magnum opus, called the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, which is used by yogis all over the world, if they know about these yogic sciences, as a reference book. It is big and a little complicated.

Then we have the Gheranda Samhita, the Yoga Samhita, and, of course, the famous Hatha Yoga Pradipika of Svatmarama. Svatmarama himself was a Nath from the Nath Sampradaya.

I think the Naths made a great contribution by saving yoga from being totally eclipsed by theoretical knowledge. Yoga is the practical aspect of purifying the mind and body and bringing the energy into harmony, so that you can understand this idea that Brahman is the reality.

Rick: Yes, I think Western science has a similar balance between theory and experimentation. For instance, when Einstein came up with his general theory of relativity, he predicted that gravity bends light. He said that if someone could go to where there was an eclipse, where the sunlight was blocked out, and see that starlight was bent by the gravity of the Sun, that would prove his theory.

Of course, someone also asked him what he would have done if the theory had been proven wrong. He said, “I would have been sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct.”

In any case, there’s this process in which you form a theory and then test it. So you have to have knowledge and experience.

Sri M: Yes, you need both. Yoga is where the practice comes in, and you see that all the highest Vedantins have been yogis in some way or another.

Rick: Good.

Sri M: You see.

Rick: Okay, here’s a question. I think this will be our final one—a nice, practical question. It’s from Saat in Oregon, and it’s related to being a householder in a spiritual life.

You were asked by Sri Babaji to live in the world to experience the problems of ordinary householders firsthand before you guided them spiritually. I’m interested in the wisdom you have to share about the life of a householder. What are the most important challenges for a householder, and what are their solutions? Choosing a profession, choosing a mate, bringing up children, keeping healthy, dealing with aging—pretty much everything is covered.

Sri M: Who is this person?

Rick: Saat from Oregon.

Sri M: Saat. Now, Saat, the most important element in leading a married life—if you want to lead a married life—is this: I never said that you can spiritually advance only if you live as a householder. Never. There are people who aren’t householders, and that’s okay.

For me, it was a purpose, because most people live ordinary daily lives. They are married, they have children, they have work and jobs, and they ask, “Can we spiritually progress? You are away in the Himalayas, but I am here with a family and children.”

I have lived with my children. Mainly, for me, it was proof that this is possible. I’m not denying that you need periods of solitude. I’m not denying that. You need them, but you don’t have to be there always. You can come back. In fact, when you come back, you may perform better in this world.

To answer his question, what is the most important ingredient in being a spiritual person while also leading a householder’s life? One thing is to watch your ego. That is the most important thing. The moment you say, “I am always right,” you cannot lead a householder’s life, because—

Rick: You’re not going to get along with your wife very well.

Sri M: No, it’s not going to work. Also, before you decide to live with somebody, do proper research and figure out whether that person is at least noninterfering with your spiritual path, if not interested in it. This is something you have to do from the beginning.

If you are already settled somewhere, then you have to work it out in your own way. The most important thing is understanding. I think that if you practice and move along the spiritual path, your understanding becomes better rather than worse.

You understand that people can have different views, because even truth is multidimensional. Ordinary things are certainly multidimensional. If you are staying with somebody, you should have some understanding of what they want as well. You shouldn’t have an ego that says, “I have read the Vedas. I know more; she doesn’t know.” It doesn’t work.

You might have read the Vedas, but she may know something else better than you. We need to understand this first. Then it is not such a difficult thing to lead a householder’s life.

If you have to survive in this world, you have to work. But, again, as I said before about marriage, you have to think carefully before you choose what you want to do. If your intention and your work are only to make a lot of money, then it is difficult to also be spiritual.

You should say, “I will try to do some work that does not affect me too much in my spiritual practice.” It’s not about the amount of time so much as it is about your intentions. I cannot be a smuggler or a drug dealer and be a yogi, so I have to choose what I do.

Once I have done that, I personally think that if you give enough attention to what you are doing—to your work and your family life—without recoiling from it or reacting to it, that gathers enough energy for you when you sit down to meditate.

Having said that, please have your own private time to meditate. Let there be no compromise on that. I’m saying this from my own experience.

Of course, I had an advantage. Before I got into so-called worldly life—everything is worldly anyway, even the cave is in this world—I had training and an experience that helped me understand things better. I had that advantage, but everybody doesn’t have it.

I’m saying that you can learn from my experience. If there is a fire and you see somebody putting a finger into it and burning it, you don’t have to try it yourself. You can learn from what other people are doing. Look at me and try to figure out if there is a balanced way of life.

Yes, there are ups and downs; there’s no denying that. But if you are on the spiritual path, you should learn how to maintain balance.

Rick: Yes, and we’ve never had kids or anything, so our life is fairly peaceful compared to what some people’s lives might be. I understand that a lot of people have challenges with so many things going on, but if there’s time to watch a little TV or do some other kind of recreation in a busy life, there must be time to allocate for meditation.

Sri M: Absolutely.

Rick: Some twenty minutes or half an hour.

Sri M: Sure. Why not? I’m sure there’s no problem with anybody. The problem begins when someone says, “I am meditating, so I will not come out with you to shop.” That is the problem.

“I’m meditating now, so can we go out shopping a little later?”

Rick: Just time it properly.

Sri M: Yes. And continually saying, “You’re wrong, you’re wrong, I’m right,” doesn’t work. Say, “This is how I think, and this is how you think. You may be right; I may be wrong. It’s okay. Let’s try to find out.”

Rick: Yes, a sense of humility and compromise and so on.

Sri M: Very important. If one doesn’t have humility, how is one walking on the spiritual path?

Rick: I think in that sense, a householder’s life can be very conducive to spiritual development because you have a mirror. You’re not able to be totally fixated in your own opinions and preferences. You have to be flexible.

Sri M: Absolutely. True. The wife is the best mirror.

Rick: I’ve been in monastic programs at certain times in my life, and people could become very obsessed and very idiosyncratic—totally hung up on some particular thing.

Sri M: I know what you mean. I have seen such people.

Rick: They didn’t have the balance. Okay, good. I don’t know if that’s the best of all possible notes to end on, but it’s a good one, I guess. We’ve covered a lot of ground. Is there any kind of final comment or anything you’d like to make?

Sri M: I just want to say that while the previous interview and what we did now with you are wonderful, and there is a lot of food for thought, the people who listen to them need not take what we are saying as gospel truth. They can think about it.

I think we have planted enough seeds for people to think about and figure out for themselves how it suits them, because people are in different situations.

People need not take what we are saying as gospel truth. They can think about it.

The other thing is that I hope this kind of interview, with Rick sitting in front of me, will continue.

Rick: Yes, good. Some other time. I’d like that.

Sri M: When I come back to the United States next time. Sure. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it myself.

Rick: Me too.

Sri M: It makes a great deal of difference when someone is aware of what one is asking.

Rick: Like you, I started in on this when I was in my late teens. I didn’t live in the Himalayas or anything, but it has been the central focus of my life all this time.

Sri M: I can see it. So, thank you very much.

Rick: Thank you, Sri M. Let me just make a couple of general concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with Sri M, as you know, and this interview is part of an ongoing series. I’ve been doing it for about seven years now and will continue to do it.

If you’d like to check out other interviews, go to batgap.com. You’ll see a number of things there, so just explore the menus. You can sign up to be notified by email of new ones. You can also do that on YouTube: you can subscribe to the YouTube channel that you’re watching, and YouTube will notify you of new ones. There’s also an audio podcast and a variety of other things. Just explore the menus and you will see what’s there.

Thank you for listening or watching, and once more, thank you very much, Sri M. It’s really been a delight talking to you.

Sri M: Pleasure. Thank you.

Rick: Have a nice tour in the United States and lots of success.

Sri M: Thank you.

Rick: And we’ll see you again someday.

Sri M: Thank you.

Rick: All right, and thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching. See you next week.

Sri M: Namaste.

Rick: Namaste.

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