Sri M Interview

Summary

Sri M discusses spiritual maturity, the responsibilities of teaching, and the dangers of ego, worship, and inflated claims in guru-disciple relationships. He also explores humility, religious identity, the limits of human knowledge, and how sincere practice can remain valuable even when teachers are imperfect.

Questions This Interview Explores

• How can spiritual seekers choose a trustworthy teacher?
• What makes someone ready and qualified to teach spiritual practices?
• How should seekers respond when a teacher behaves badly or loses their way?
• Are enlightened teachers omniscient or free from all human limitations?
• Can spiritual practice help even when the teacher is not genuine?

Key takeaways

• Spiritual attainment does not automatically remove arrogance or inflate-proof the ego.
• Choose a teacher slowly and judge progress by the teaching, not appearances or reputation.
• Teachers should speak from experience and clearly admit what they do not know.
• Powerful practices should be taught only by people who understand them through experience.
• No person with a human body is omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent.
• A realized person may know what is needed without knowing everything.
• Sincere faith and practice can still benefit a seeker even when a teacher proves imperfect.

Transcript

Welcome and introduction

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. There have been over 360 of them now, and if this is new to you and you want to check out previous ones, go to batgap.com and look under the Past Interviews menu. You will find all the previous ones organized in four or five different ways.

This show is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you feel like supporting it, there is a donate button on the right-hand side of every page on the site.

I am really honored to have as my guest today Sri M. I have just read his entire autobiography and found it fascinating. Many of you listening and watching will have read Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, and Sri M’s autobiography is somewhat reminiscent of that. He has had an amazing life and all sorts of amazing experiences trekking around the Himalayas with his Master. We are going to talk about some of those during this interview.

Well, first of all, let me just welcome you. Thank you, Sri M.

Sri M: Thank you very much.

Rick: We had some technical problems before getting started here, so I appreciate your patience while we ironed those out. Let me read a brief biography of you.

Sri M was born in Kerala, South India. At the age of 19 and a half, attracted by a strange and irresistible urge to go to the Himalayas, he left home. At the Vyasa Cave beyond the Himalayan shrine of Badrinath, he met his Master and lived with him for three and a half years, wandering freely the length and breadth of the snow-clad Himalayan region.

What he learned from his Master, Maheshwarnath Babaji, transformed his consciousness totally. Back in the plains, he, as instructed by his Master, lived a normal life, working for a living, fulfilling his social commitments, and at the same time preparing himself to teach all that he had learned and experienced. At a signal from his Master, he entered the teaching phase of his life.

Today, he travels all over the world to share his experiences and knowledge. Equally at home in the religious teachings of most major religions, Sri M, born as Mumtaz Ali Khan, often says, Go to the core. Theories are of no use. Sri M is married and has two children, and he also just told me he has two cocker spaniels.

(Laughter)

He leads a simple life, teaching and heading the Satsang Foundation, a charitable concern promoting excellence in education. At present, he lives in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, just three hours from Bangalore. He also just completed a 7,500-and-something-mile walk from Kanyakumari, which is the southernmost tip of India, to Kashmir, which is way in the north. We are going to talk about that, too. So, I am really glad we are doing this.

📚 Babaji, the Sufi, and the lesson of humility

I am wondering if it might be good to start with the story that you tell in your autobiography, where a young yogi in the Himalayas, doing tapas, is approached by an old Muslim man and rejects him. You could take the story from there.

Sri M: I have started with the story without mentioning who these people actually are.

Rick: But you learn that as you go along in the book. You can kind of figure it out.

Sri M: Yes, I have left it to be figured out, because I did not want to say from the beginning itself that I was this or I was that, and so on. Actually, the characters in the story—the young yogi to whom the Muslim, the Sufi man, comes—is me in some past life.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: And the great yogi who was the guru is none other than Sri Guru Babaji, who, for hundreds and thousands of years, has been known to exist in the Himalayas. Yogananda Paramahansa, in his autobiography, calls him Mahavatar, but that was a word—Mahavatar was a term coined by Yogananda Paramahansa to show that avatars have come and gone, and there is somebody who is still there.

Rick: But he is not really an avatar?

Sri M: Well, we call him Sri Guru Babaji. To be very frank with you, we really do not know much about this person, except that we know that he exists and was not born in the normal way, from somebody’s womb. I would prefer to call him a being with human form. Let us put it that way.

So, I have, in my past life, been associated with him for some time.

Rick: And in this life, you met him several times?

Sri M: Only twice.

Rick: Twice?

Sri M: Twice, not more than that. In fact, my coming and being born in a Muslim family, and then being found out or discovered again by Maheshwarnath Babaji, who was Sri Guru Babaji’s senior-most disciple, as far as I know, is part of that story. I had to learn how it feels to belong to one community and not be accepted by another, even though you are most sincere.

Rick: Yes.

Sri M: So, I had to go through this. But because of one’s own practical, spiritual, and personal experience, today I have no such problem of being accepted by the community that is the majority community in India, for instance.

Rick: But in the context of this story, you, in your previous life, were a young yogi and perhaps a little arrogant or something. This Sufi man came to you, asking you to take him on as a student, and you brushed him off and rejected him. He said, Okay, then I am going to jump in this river, and you said, Do whatever you want. He jumped in the river and drowned. Then Babaji came to you and said, Bad move.

Sri M: Absolutely. He said, Bad move. Who do you think you are? Because from the point of view of somebody who has had high spiritual experience, there is no difference between people—I mean, external differences. One has to see how mature a person is spiritually, and if he needs guidance, it is our duty to guide him, not ask questions.

One has to see how mature a person is spiritually, and if he needs guidance, it is our duty to guide him.

So, that was a big lesson to me, plus the fact that you can also go quite high in your meditation and so on and still be left with an ego—an arrogant ego that is so difficult to cut out. I see that sometimes, especially when you are somewhat different from others and you have some qualities that may be more than human in some way. People start worshipping you and looking up to you.

Now, one thing that you have to be very careful about is how your own ego begins to expand when this happens. So, this was a great lesson to me. In this life, I have been extremely careful about watching myself carefully. If somebody praises me too much, I try to just cut it off and say, No.

Rick: Yes.

Sri M: You must have read the Gita and so on, I am sure, because I roughly know your background.

Rick: Ah.

Sri M: I think that one of the things in the Gita that has really affected me is tulya ninda stutir mauni, which means that the yogi considers praise and blame to be the same. Neither does he get flattered, nor does he go down when somebody says, Oh, he is a stupid idiot. So, this is something very, very important.

Rick: I really think it is, and I have given a lot of thought to it and talked about it with a lot of people, because there are so many teachers, some of whom are really impressive. You sit in their presence and feel a very profound darshan. They do wonderful and beneficial things, and yet you find they have these scandals and problems and issues that happen over and over again. There are a few exceptions, but it seems to be generally the rule more than the exception. It really confuses and disillusions people when this happens.

Sri M: Do you want me to respond?

Rick: Yes, please.

Sri M: I would like to say this: before you choose a person as your teacher, give it a lot of time. I think one should not accept somebody based on external appearances. Somebody might look very nice and holy, but that does not mean anything.

The other thing is that disciples raise you up and take you right up, and then suddenly, when something happens to them that they do not like, they drop you down like hot coals, like a hot brick. So, the less dependent you are on these so-called followers, at least inside, internally, the better off you are. One has to be careful on this point.

Very often, some of the scandals are created by people who have had a personal problem. That is possible. Sometimes it may be genuine; I cannot say that it is not. Sometimes they may also be there to test you. This is also possible. So, there are so many angles to this.

My understanding is that when you go to a spiritual teacher, you just need to ask how you are progressing rather than look at other things. When I first went to the Ramakrishna Mission, Babaji had told me to spend some time with the Ramakrishna Mission. You know, the Ramakrishna Mission is a very big organization.

When I went to Belur Math, to the headquarters, there was this Swami Ranganathananda, who was a well-known person. He had lectured and written on the Upanishads. He was, at one time, the President of the Ramakrishna Mission, although he was not at that time. He was heading the Ramakrishna Institute of Culture.

When I went as a young man, he called me aside and said, Look, you have come to an ashram. Do not think that you have come to the holiest place on Earth, because this place is also built up of human beings. When there are many human beings, there are these small caucuses and circles, and so on, but do not get caught up in this. Do not think everybody is a saint. Many of them are here for sadhana; they are not saints.

So, you stay free of these little groups and try to understand the teachings. If you want to understand the teachings, there are books and senior monks. Talk to them and figure it out, but do not get caught up in this.

Now, this can happen in any ashram, because an ashram is a small place where so many kinds of people come together, and different people come for different reasons. Some come to become successors to the guru, so there is some politics involved. I mean, it is normal, because we are human beings.

Therefore, in this situation, it is difficult to avoid it, so be careful. That is all you can do.

Rick: Some gurus—I think Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi, uses this expression—say that sometimes an ashram is like rocks in a tumbler. You put all these rough rocks in a tumbler, and it tumbles and tumbles and tumbles. The rocks are getting all their rough edges smoothed out, but they all come out nice and smooth in the end.

(Laughter)

Sri M: Yes, maybe not all, but at least some.

Rick: Some, yes. So, it seems like there are a couple of cautionary notes here. One would be for teachers themselves to somehow be cautious of, and somehow rise above, the possibility of having their ego inflated by the attention that comes to them. Maybe we can talk about that one a little bit more before we go on to the second point I was about to make.

I guess it brings up the question of when one actually becomes qualified to become a teacher. I have heard that in Zen circles it is said that after your awakening you should wait at least ten years. Who determines this? I know you waited a long time and went through all kinds of ordinary life circumstances before you took on any kind of teaching role. How does one know one is ready, and how does one avoid prematurely jumping into that role?

Sri M: Yeah, I can give you a few guidelines. This is from my experience. When you teach, when one starts talking to people—I did it very hesitantly in the beginning—you have to see the words that you use. Are they really coming from your personal experience, or are you imagining them to be your personal experience? Maybe you have read about them somewhere, so this is one thing that can help us to watch out for.

The other is that some of the teachings are not meant for everybody. When you say the same thing to 100 people, there is a possibility that some people take it in one way and some people take it in another. So, we should have the capacity to judge what is to be said here and what is not to be said here, or what is to be said there and what is not to be said there.

See, this is an extreme way of doing it—I mean, expressing it. When Jesus Christ, or whoever the great yogi was, walked at Jerusalem, he said, Give not that which is good unto dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they cast them down and trample them and turn again and rend you. I mean, I would not say that. I would not call anybody a dog or a swine; it is an extreme way of saying it. So, we have to watch this very carefully. Is this person ready to take it?

Now, the problem is that when you go into a large gathering and speak, you cannot really choose whom you are talking to. So, the only thing is, you have to say, Okay, I will talk. Let us see who can take it up and who does not.

The other criterion is, don’t give too much importance to certain powers that may develop in the yogi. Try as much as possible to keep away from all this business of healing and things like that. If you want to have spiritual teaching, it is better to stick to it as the central part of your life.

That is the other thing. So, these are some of the criteria which I took. The most important, of course, is that unless you have experience, it is better not to teach, because if something goes wrong, you would not be able to put it back in order.

This is especially so when you come to the yogic teachings. The teachings of Kundalini Yoga or the teachings of Kriya Yoga—you can’t just teach somebody if you do not know and if you haven’t experienced it yourself, because tomorrow, if something goes wrong, you won’t be able to set it right. We are dealing with powerful energies.

Rick: What about teachers who are maybe partway there? Can they help people up to a point? For instance, one might be qualified to teach grammar school, or one might be qualified to teach high school or college or on the graduate level, and you could be very useful as a grammar school teacher even if you would not be qualified to teach at the college level. So, in the spiritual sense, do you also see that with spiritual teachers?

Sri M: I think so. This is possible, provided they are transparent, sincere, and clear and say, Look, this I have not experienced. This is very important.

Rick: So, honesty and humility.

Sri M: Yes, be very honest about it and say, This is what it is said. In fact, even in the Upanishads, when the great rishis taught certain things, they said, I do not understand how to put this to you. Then what about us—ordinary people?

So, we have to say, Look, this is how it is in the scriptures. This is the sign. This is how much I have practiced. You can also practice it, but beyond that, I do not know.

Rick: I remember a line from the Upanishad. I bet you can pinpoint it, where there is some saying about ultimate reality and then the saying is, Perhaps he knows, and if he does not know, then maybe nobody knows.

Sri M: Exactly. It does not say nobody knows; perhaps he knows, or he knows not.

Rick: Right, right…

Sri M: So, this is from the Rig Veda.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: It is about the creation hymn, which says, in the beginning, what existed? Did this exist, or did only the gods exist, or was there nothing around? And then it says, Who knows? Perhaps he knows who is the chief of the gods, or perhaps he knows not.

Perhaps he knows, or he knows not.

This attitude should be something to be kept fresh in our minds. It should not be, This is Rig Veda from 2,000 years ago. Let’s not forget it. No, no, this is so important.

Rick: So, even the rishis who cognized the Rig Veda are admitting that they have their limitations.

Sri M: Absolutely. Everybody. I think as long as you have a human body, there are some restrictions; there are some limitations, especially because you are talking about something which is beyond description.

Kenopanishad, one of the most important principal Upanishads, says, Yad vāchā nabhyuditam yena vāg abhyudyate—That which words cannot express, that alone is the Supreme Being; nothing that you worship here.

Now, this is a very sweeping statement. One has to be very careful with this. I am saying the key is to say, Look, this much I know. Beyond that, I do not know. But these are the teachings; practice them and find out for yourself.

📚 Teachers, lineages, and impossible expectations

Rick: Yeah. On a related note, here is something you said in your book. You said, No human being with a physical brain can ever be omniscient. And actually, one thing related to what you just said is that a teacher should say, This much I know and that much I do not know. I sort of find it healthy, in the case of most teachers, if they have some kind of connection with a lineage or tradition, if they give homage to a teacher and are not taking upon themselves the whole authorship of the knowledge.

Sri M: That helps. That helps. I belong to the Nath Sampradaya, because Maheshwarnath Babaji was a Nath, and before him his guru was Babaji, who has no sampradaya. I mean, we cannot say he belongs to this tradition or that, but I still feel I belong to that tradition of theirs.

So, when I teach, I usually say, This is what the teaching says, you know, and it is a deliberate attempt not to protect myself more than the teaching. It is deliberate. I might have had the experience, and when I said in my book, which you mentioned just now, that nobody is omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent, this connects to your previous question in some way.

Many disciples or followers have begun to consider a great teacher, or someone who has become famous, as omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Then, when they discover in life, due to certain experiences, that it is not so, they get completely disillusioned.

Rick: I have seen that. In fact, there was a woman I was arguing with at one point who felt that her teacher was omniscient. I said, Oh, really? Your teacher knows what we are emailing about right now?

Oh yes, he is totally tuned in. Then the woman ended up getting breast cancer, and she got very disillusioned because she felt that her teacher should have known it and should have said something, and so on. I hated to say, I told you so, but there was that sort of feeling.

Sri M: If you have a minute, can I tell you something?

Rick: Sure.

Sri M: This is an old happening that occurred in Tiruvannamalai, at Ramana Maharshi’s ashram. There was a young man who came to the ashram and spent three days without food. He was also in mauna, like Maharshi; he did not speak. After three days, he sent a note to the Maharshi. He was also in mauna; Ramana Maharshi hardly spoke.

He sent him a note saying, Look, I have been here for three days. Nobody asked me if I was hungry, and nobody gave me food. And you—I have seen you every day, and you did not ask me either. You are feeding monkeys, but what about me?

There is a beautiful answer given by Maharshi. He broke his silence to speak to this man. He said, If you didn’t ask, how would I know?

If you didn’t ask, how would I know?

Rick: That’s great!

Sri M: And there are people who think that Ramana Maharshi was omniscient. I think he did not think so himself.

Rick: And yet, on the other hand, there were some instances where he knew something that obviously took some deep ability to know.

For instance, there was this man who was a painter, and he was painting the cave up above—Virupaksha Cave, or whatever it was called. Ramana was down in his ashram, and he was standing at the back of the hall during some ceremony that was being held to commemorate a renovation that had taken place in the ashram.

The painter was feeling so bad that Ramana could not appreciate the work he had done in this other place. There was this whole story where Ramana was not supposed to go anywhere because his health was bad, and some attendants found him basically crawling up the mountain on his hands and knees, getting cuts and so on, to get up to that cave to see this man’s work and appreciate it.

He had just picked up on the man’s thought and felt compelled to go and give him that blessing.

Sri M: There are two points in this. One is the compassion of this person, which is so important. The second is that it does not mean that one always knows.

Rick: Right, right—specifically.

Sri M: One may, or one may not. It’s natural; it’s not as if it is built in.

The other is that, somewhere along the line, I think Babaji used to say this to me: People have misunderstood the Vedantic dictum, which says, That which, when once known, nothing more remains to be known. What it means is not that you are omniscient. Of course, you may be better than somebody else, because the yogi has certain faculties, but it means that you have complete satisfaction.

You have no more desires to be fulfilled, and therefore you do not need to know anything. It means you do not need to know anything, not that you know everything.

Rick: Yeah, the way Maharishi Mahesh Yogi used to put it, he said, You gain the benefit that you would have were you to know everything, but you do not know everything. You gain what he used to call the home of all knowledge.

Sri M: Absolutely. I think that is a nice description.

Rick: There is another point related to what we have been talking about with gurus. Some people feel like they should hang in there with a particular guru through thick and thin, no matter what happens. Even if the guru seems to be going off the track, they just hang in there because he must be perfect, he must be wiser than me, and he must know what he is doing. It seems crazy, but they say, I will hang in there.

Other people sort of cut and run, or maybe they move from one teacher to another throughout their life, and so gurus for them are somewhat transitory figures.

In your case, you had one primary guru, but you also took instruction and guidance and so on from a variety of other teachers. What would you say about that point?

Sri M: I think that should be left to the aspirant. Different people are made differently. I stuck with one teacher, but this teacher himself instructed me to go and see other people. So, there are such teachers.

In Sufism, for instance, among the Sufis, there is no compulsion to stick to one teacher. In fact, after a while, the Sufi teacher tells his disciple, Now, this is all that I can give you. Go to this other guy. You see, so there is no such thing.

But there are some people who would like to stick on and hang on, and if they are not disillusioned, probably they are doing the right thing.

Rick: Aha, yeah.

Sri M: What you have to watch is, do they get disillusioned at the end? And even there is another good thing here: Even if the guru turns out to be a fake, all the faith that you have put in him and the practice you have done sincerely may help you, even if it does not help him.

Even if the guru turns out to be a fake, all the faith that you have put in him and the practice you have done sincerely may help you, even if it does not help him.

Rick: That’s a good point. Who was it—a drover who kind of became a master archer just by worshipping a statue, and then this teacher came along and told him to cut off his thumb eventually, but…

Sri M: And we have in Kerala a beautiful story. The Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala are supposed to be experts in mantras, snake charming, snake poison, and so on. The story is about a man who belonged to a very low social scale. He came to one of them and wanted to learn how to revive a person who had been bitten by a snake.

This Nambudiri was very upset with him. He was standing outside, and he said, Eh, matha kushmanda, in Malayalam, which means, Oh, rotten pumpkin, he does not know what he is asking for. You know, that kind of a thing. This guy, in his innocence, thought that it was a mantra. So, he went away into the forest and sat somewhere near the river and chanted it for a number of years.

One day, a man was bitten by a snake, and he was brought to this big Nambudiri Brahmin. He looked at him and said, No chance now. Take him away to the crematorium. So, they were taking him to the crematorium. They had to pass along the side of the river, and this guy was sitting there and chanting, Rotten pumpkin, rotten pumpkin.

(Laughter)

He got up and said, What is wrong? They said, There is a man we are taking to the crematorium. He said, How can that be? Bring him here. And he said, Rotten pumpkin, and the guy got up.

Rick: That’s great.

(Laughter)

Sri M: You see, faith…

Rick: Yeah, just faith…

Sri M: Energy, complete…

Rick: Devotion, dedication…

Sri M: So, let us get back to your story. We will pick it up in the autobiography. You were the yogi in the Himalayas. Babaji said you had made a big mistake rejecting this guy. You did the yogic kriya to leave your body, and you would be reborn. You were reborn in Kerala in a Muslim family, and at the age of 12 or something, you saw this impressive man standing under a tree in the backyard.

Rick: Nine years.

Sri M: Nine years, so there was this man who turned out later to be Maheshwarnath Babaji. Not Sri Guru Babaji, but your teacher and Sri Guru Babaji’s student.

Yes.

Rick: He spoke to you briefly. What happened in that conversation?

Sri M: You mean when he met me at the age of nine?

Rick: Yes.

Sri M: Yes. It was in the backyard of our house, under a big jackfruit tree. The first thing he asked me—you know, I was very frightened in a way. He was a stranger, a very tall, big man standing there with matted hair. I had never seen anything like that, and I was very nervous.

So, the first thing he asked me was, Do you remember anything? In Hindi, Kuch Yaad Aaya? We all speak Urdu at home, even though I was born and brought up in Kerala, because of our background.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: So, I said, I do not remember a thing. I don’t remember anything. I was wondering, What do you mean, remember what? He touched my head with his hand and said, Over time, you will get to know. This was the only experience I had at that point. Then he told me to go back home.

I was walking across, and when I tried to turn, I could not bring myself to turn. There was something that was stopping me from looking back.

Rick: To see if he was there…

Sri M: Yes. Then I reached the kitchen and turned around, and he was gone. I still think he went out. There was a small gate near the compound wall, so probably he did. But the thing was, from that day, especially in the middle of the night, I used to be kind of woken up from sleep.

It’s not as if there was a presence, but something woke me up. I would then lie down and keep looking at my navel, in the nabhi area, and there would be some kind of light coming from there. It would spread over my body, and it was very blissful.

So, I had many such experiences every night. I think that was my spiritual preparation, and that was a spontaneous meditation, because I had not studied anything about meditation until that age. This went on until I finished school and college. I had several experiences.

Meanwhile, if you have read the autobiography, I met many holy people around—saints and yogis. Then I got this compulsion to get out. I felt like a bird in a cage, kind of caged in. I wanted to just break out and fly, and the Himalayas were beckoning me, of course.

I did not even know I was going to meet Maheshwarnath Babaji. I only knew that something was going on and something was there, and I had to go. I had to get out of the situation.

Rick: And you had the sense that maybe you were not looking for someone specific to meet, but you had the sense that there must be these great beings in the Himalayas. You had heard the stories, and you just had to go and find out.

Sri M: Right. That’s right. I had heard and I had read. By the time I had also read Autobiography of a Yogi, and I thought there must be some yogis up there in the Himalayas. I did not expect to meet Babaji, but somebody must be there, and so I went.

I went to many ashrams. You know the story: I met many people, but I was not fully satisfied. I kept going. In fact, Swami Chidananda was the head of the Divine Life Society at that point in Rishikesh, and he told me one day, I do not think you will stay here. I do not think this is enough. You are looking for somebody high up there, in the upper reaches. And he warned me, But be careful. There are lots of fakes around.

Rick: Yeah. I remember even one very respected person said, Oh, don’t believe all those stories. There are just a bunch of hashish-smoking sadhus. You are not going to find anybody remarkable up here. You were getting pretty discouraged. In fact, I think you said in your book that you were about to throw yourself in a river and just give up the ghost. Then, at that final moment that evening, you met Babaji.

Sri M: I was contemplating suicide. I thought, You have burnt your boats, burnt your bridges, or whatever the expression is, and then you come here and find nothing. I mean, what will you do? I thought maybe this body was not suitable this time.

Especially, the person who discouraged me was a high-ranking priest in the Badrinath temple, so I thought he must know. He must be speaking the truth. That is when I met Babaji again.

Rick: Can you recount that experience of when you first met Babaji again?

Keep in mind, people listening, that we are not referring to Sri Guru Babaji, whom Yogananda talked about in his book. We are talking about his student, but we are going to keep using the name Babaji because that is how you referred to him.

Sri M: Maheshwarnath Babaji. But when I say Babaji, I mean him, generally.

So, it so happened that it was evening, and I had passed Vyas Gupha and gone up, so I was coming back. I was looking down at the Alaknanda. The river there is called the Alaknanda, biting down on the rocks. I said to myself, Half a minute is enough to take your life here if you just jump in.

Then it occurred to me, Let me go back to Vyas Gupha, which is a little further down.

Rick: That is Vyasa’s Cave.

Sri M: Yes, and now it has become terrible. The other day, somebody went and said there are hundreds of people there, and there is a priest who has set himself up. There is no way you can sit there. In those days, there was nothing. It was just a small cave.

So, I went back and said, Let me meditate for a while before I decide. Something may happen, who knows? I went back, and as soon as I reached there, I saw a fire in the mouth of the cave.

Now, generally, sadhus, especially those in the Nath Sampradaya, always have a fire called a dhuni. So, I thought there must be somebody inside. There was a fire there, because when I went this way, there had been nothing.

I slowly edged myself into the cave, and Babaji stood up. The moment he stood up, an image flashed in my mind from when I was nine years old: the same tall person with just a small cloth, matted hair, and that big rudraksha that was on his neck. It was the same.

Then he stood up, and the first words he said were, Oh, so you have gone around window-shopping and come back?

(Laughter)

I mean, he did not use these words.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: But he said, Accha Ghum Phirkar Phir Hamare Paas Pahuch Gaye. So, I said to him, Babaji, I do not think I am going to leave you forever, believe me. And he laughed and said, We will think about it. In Hindi, he said, Dekha Jayega.We will see.

🎵 Writing the autobiography from memory

Rick: You know, one thing that amazed me about your book: Did you keep a diary while you were going through all these adventures?

Sri M: No. I have not kept a single diary about anything in my life.

Rick: This was 30 or 40 years ago. You were traveling all around, and you are actually able to remember what you ate for lunch at a particular place. I could not possibly do that.

Sri M: No, I couldn’t do it myself. The thing is, when I wrote this book, every time I sat down and wrote a chapter, all the memories would come back to me. The moment I finished, there would be nothing left.

Now, if you suddenly ask me about something in the book, I might have forgotten it. I might probably refer back and then tell you, Yes, I did say that. It used to come in a flow, and when it was over, I had to put my pen down and shut it up for the day. Sometimes, for several days, I couldn’t write. But when it came, I had to stay up the whole night because it was like a possession, kind of. Please don’t mistake me—I was not possessed.

Rick: No, I understand. It was just the creative surge that you had.

Sri M: And then all the details, which shocked me, myself. I was shocked that I could remember, because I am very bad at remembering things. My memory is terrible even today.

(Laughter)

Rick: Did you feel like you were being guided by Babaji, or the idea of a muse speaking through you or something?

Sri M: No, it was not as if he was speaking through me, but somewhere, somebody was kind of switching on something, and the whole thing came out. It was like that.

Rick: Nice. One thing is that, in your book, you went around and saw many teachers. You were often being initiated into this kriya or that practice, receiving a lot of different instructions and initiations. I can imagine that you would not actually be able to practice all these things on a regular basis, because there were so many of them. Were you just getting a little taste of this and a taste of that, and then did you have your main practice that you stuck to?

Sri M: Yes. But whenever I took something—Sri Vidya was given to me by somebody on instructions from Babaji—during that period when I was supposed to practice it, I did it fully.

Rick: I see.

Sri M: I did not do anything else. I was only doing that. Of course, I had a little bit of my Kriya Yoga for 10 or 15 minutes, and then I did this.

So, Babaji’s instruction was: When you get something, practice it fully, with complete attention. Don’t divert your mind. When you have touched something, you will probably understand what has happened. Then you stop and shift.

So, when I did one thing, I was only doing that. I was not drifting around.

✨ Awakening is not a final achievement

Rick: Yeah. I want to get into some stories of things you encountered in the Himalayas. Some of them are pretty amazing.

Sri M: Unbelievable?

Rick: Yeah, some people might be incredulous, and we are going into a few of those. But before we get into that, I just want to bring up a general question for you. I do not know how tuned in you are to contemporary spiritual teachers and the whole scene, but there are a lot of people coming on who claim to have had an awakening. Personally, I think there are probably many degrees of awakening, and sometimes these proclamations seem kind of ultimate, like, I am awakened, and I always feel like there is going to be more.

There are even people—there is a whole category of people—who say you are already enlightened, everybody is already enlightened, all you have to do is accept that and you are done. Whereas I have a much more progressive, incremental understanding of things: that there is a vast range of potential spiritual development, and virtually nobody is done because there is always something more.

So, I am kind of interested in the idea of a road map of higher consciousness and what the range of possibilities is. I think it would be valuable for people to understand that in general, firstly because it is inspiring. If you realize what is possible, it is like, Wow, that could be my experience in life. Secondly, because it perhaps might safeguard the path and prevent people from getting sidetracked by things that really do not have that much relevance to higher states of consciousness but would seem interesting or flashy, and so on. And, just as a final point, it would safeguard people from feeling like they are done when, relatively speaking, in terms of what is possible, they might just be getting started.

Sri M: Right. True.

Rick: What do you have to say about all that?

Sri M: I think so myself, in some way. The great thing about the spiritual field is that it is actually unending. It is not as if you do something and say, Oh, this is over. It is never over. It is vast. It is like the Milky Way.

So, when somebody says, I am done with it and it is over, I feel a little not so happy with that situation. Maybe he is done with something—yes, okay—but there is something more, you understand?

The important point is about not being sidetracked. You may have some visions, you may have some colors, you may hear some sounds, and then if you think you have done everything possible, you have not. I always tell people, Do you have as many visions as somebody who has had LSD?

Rick: No. And even if you do, so what?

Sri M: So what? They also have it.

Well, this is apart from the fact that when talking about Samadhi and different ways of getting into Samadhi, Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, says that a chemical process is also possible.

Rick: He does. He says herbs, mantras, gems, and something else.

Sri M: It is very interesting, because in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, in the Samadhi path—how to attain Samadhi—there are different ways described. One of the things said is Ishvarapranidhana, which means also by surrendering to Ishwara, or God. And the next sentence is Aushadhani: it is also possible through chemicals or medicines. So, God and chemicals have been put just one foot below each other.

Rick: Oh. In fact, you had an experience with the soma plant. We are going to talk about that in a little while. That will be interesting.

Here is a question that came in from Vijay Mukherjee in Dallas. You will probably meet him when you go to Dallas. This is related to what we have been saying here, and I have a feeling of how you are going to answer this, but he says, Is your present state on par with, say, Sri Guru Babaji? If not, what makes one being so evolved and another less evolved?

Sri M: Well, Sri Guru Babaji is in a category with which normal human beings who are born in a womb cannot compare. Such beings are here for a special purpose. So, I can definitely not compare with that.

Yes, I have had some spiritual experiences, and I believe that everyone has the potential to touch that. It requires a great deal of hard work. There are no shortcuts possible in this matter. So, this is my answer to the question.

Rick: Do you feel that if spiritual evolution is never-ending, as you just said, eventually, somehow, all souls will end up being exalted souls like Sri Guru Babaji? Eventually—big E.

Sri M: Certainly, I think, but it may take ages before we touch that. It may take ages, but ultimately evolution is toward perfection. Before perfection, it has to go through a grind. So, we are going through the grind, coming out, and then gradually going higher and higher. Every soul’s destiny, ultimately, I think, would be to reach the higher stage, but it will take ages.

It will take time. And therefore, every human being has a potential.

Recently, when I was on this long walk, this marathon walk, a Catholic bishop from Kerala called me and asked, Is it possible for you to meet the Pope? I said, Listen, I am on a walk. If you think I can break it for a few days and go, because after all… So he said, Okay. So, I went and met the Pope.

Rick: You went to Rome?

Sri M: Yes, I went to Rome, and I had ten minutes—little more than ten minutes—of personal audience with the Pope. Interestingly, I went because he is the head of a vast, large church which is hopefully keeping the teachings of Jesus Christ intact. Hopefully.

Anyway, he is a person whom so many people worship and regard highly, so I thought it was a good thing to meet him. I also thought the new Pope was a new person, so I went to see him. With great respect, I did namaskar, as we do to all holy men, and he did as well, and we had a chat.

One thing he said struck me. He said, Look, every saint has a past and every sinner, therefore, has a future. This is one of the things he said that really affected me. So, I am saying that any great saint—even if it is Sri Guru Babaji—at one time must have come from where the ordinary human being is. Therefore, the ordinary being has all the potential to go there at some point.

Every saint has a past and every sinner, therefore, has a future.

Rick: That is a good point.

Sri M: It may not be today or tomorrow, but you see…

Rick: There is that verse in the Gita: even if you are the greatest of all sinners, you should cross over all by the raft of knowledge alone.

Sri M: Prarabdhas before you reach there. In fact, Krishna also says to Arjuna in the Gita—it is very interesting—You know, Arjuna, you and I have both been born millions of times. The difference is that I know, and you do not. That is all.

One reality or many souls?

Rick: Yeah. I have a question about that, actually, since you mentioned it. There is that verse which says:

Never was a time when I was not, nor you, nor these rulers of men. Nor will there ever be a time when all of us shall cease to be.

That could be read two ways. It could be read in terms of, you know, we are Brahman; we are the Self, and the unreal has no being, while the real never ceases to be. Or it can be read as individual souls who have always been and will never cease to be, with some flavor of individuality. Which way do you read it, or both?

Sri M: There has been a whole tradition in India around this. It is a kind of controversy, really, because if you go the Vedantic way, there is only Brahman, and everything is just temporary, coming and going. Now, there are other streams of philosophy which are as ancient, or even more ancient, than that.

There is the Samkhya philosophy of Kapila, and the Jains. Jainism is a very old system. Rishabhadeva’s image was found in Mohenjo-daro. He was the first Tirthankara of the Jains.

The Jains are atheists; they do not believe in God or a creator God, but they believe that each soul is immortal and that discovering this is the aim of life. When you are free of all distractions and everything else, the pure soul shines.

Now, the only controversy is this: when that pure soul shines in itself, is it the whole Brahman, or is it an individual thing? This is something which we have to experience. From my understanding, it takes a very long time to discover, probably, that there is only one and that these things do not exist.

In your spiritual evolution, for quite a length of time, you still retain a little bit of identity. In fact, if somebody asks me to become Brahman, I might refuse, because, like Guru Nanak said, I would rather be the ant that tastes the sugar than become the sugar. If I become the sugar, I do not taste anything.

So, it is a great thing to retain even a little bit of individuality while accepting the fact that perhaps there is something where there is nothing at all—no individuality.

Rick: I do not know if one has a choice anyway, right?

Sri M: One does not have a choice.

Rick: It just happens when it happens. I interviewed a Vaishnava, a Krishna bhakta, a couple of weeks ago, and they have this whole controversy between themselves and the Mayavadis, as they call them.

Sri M: Absolutely.

Rick: I tried to draw him into that conversation, but we did not really get into it.

Sri M: Oh, yes. In fact, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the founder of this whole system, which has become Gaudiya Math, ISKCON, and so on, said that if you listen to the lecture of a Mayavadi once, you would probably go to hell a hundred times.

Rick: It is a little extreme.

Sri M: Yes, exactly. So, I think one should not go to that kind of an extreme. Adi Shankaracharya preached the Advaita philosophy of Vedanta, but there are many kinds of Vedanta. There is Vishishtadvaita, there is Dvaita; all that is Vedanta.

But I personally would think, as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa said, you start with duality, then you go to the merger state, and then, probably, at the last, you do not exist; only Brahman exists.

Rick: Quoting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi again, he made a good point on this matter. He said this whole issue of whether you merge with God or stay separate from God in order to worship God is not your problem. It is something you will consider when you actually get to the point where you could do that. In the meanwhile, do not worry about it.

Sri M: Yes. In fact, there is another point which Babaji, Maheshwarnath Babaji, said to a man who was a complete Vaishnavite. Vaishnavites draw this—vertical lines—on the forehead, and Shaivites do this—horizontal lines—with ash.

He was talking to him and said, Look, at the moment, you can only see the feet of the Lord, so stay with this. When you reach the head, then you decide whether you draw this way or this way.

Extraordinary encounters in the Himalayas

Rick: There are some good questions coming in from people, mostly from India or Indians in the United States, but I want to get back to your personal story here for a bit, and we will get to these questions.

There are a number of stories in your book which—I do not mean to make people skeptical of your whole story—but for those who could suspend their disbelief for a moment and just listen to so many things, I think they will find them fascinating. I have just picked a few that jumped out at me.

For instance, there was one where you had a fever and were lying in a cave or something. Some might attribute this to delirium from the fever, but you actually had the experience of apparently a yeti—the so-called abominable snowman—coming into the cave and offering you some kind of cure for the fever. Can you touch on that one?

Sri M: Yes, now the thing is, I did not say or think that it was a yeti until later, when Babaji suggested that it was so. I did not have any such idea. I was sick, and I had a high fever. I actually saw it; this was not delirium, because the Nepalese guide who was with me also saw it. It is not only that I saw it. He just screamed and ran out of the tent.

There was this thing which was huge, whitish, and hairy. This much I can remember, and it did look like an orangutan or something like that. It came close and made a peculiar, nasal, whiny kind of noise. I thought it was trying to say something. I was scared, but I was not scared enough to run, and anyway, I was too sick to get up.

It put something very, very sweet into my mouth. It pushed it in, and then the Nepalese guy started screaming and just went away. But the point is that the thing which was in my mouth was there for quite some time. It was not an illusion. That thing was in my mouth, and my fever came down from the next day onward. These things are facts.

Then I had no idea what this was or who this was. Later on, when we were going back, I told Babaji. He said, Look, don’t discuss it with people, because nobody will believe this. Just leave it alone. So I said, What do you think it could be?

He said there are still species which are neither human nor ape. They are forgotten species. Rarely, in some areas, they still do exist, and people call them yeti and various things—abominable snowman. The names are not important. He said there are species that still exist. They are almost gone, but there are a few, and they are wise and intelligent. It is not that they are unintelligent. This guy was trying to help you.

Rick: Oh! They must be very intelligent if they knew that you were sick in the tent and had some kind of medicine that they could actually give you. They must be a very evolved species.

Sri M: So, I don’t know. When people ask me, Oh, did you see a yeti? I say, I don’t know. This is my experience. You call it a yeti; you call it what you want. From Babaji’s description, I believe that there must be some species. Darwin has a lot of things about evolution, but the missing link has still not been properly solved. It is possible.

Rick: Yeah, okay. Here is another interesting chapter in your book. There was a chapter called Kedarnath: Opening the Channels, and perhaps you could discuss a little bit of what happened in that chapter.

Sri M: Babaji wanted me to speed up my cleaning up of the inner channels a little bit. He said, The work that you have to do, I think we cannot wait for another two lives to get it cleared. So there are other ways of doing it, but they have their pluses and minuses. I am taking the risk. Are you ready for it?

I said, Babaji, I have completely surrendered myself into your hands. Whatever you say, I am ready to do.

So he sent me into that little cave. You know that cave which I am talking about still exists in Kedarnath. There is a little kutir-like thing built over it. When you are walking down and crossing the bridge to go to the Kedar shrine, if you look up on the left, you will see a little kutir up there on the mountain. Nobody stays there now.

Recently, I sent some people to go and look at what is happening there. They came back and said there is still a little garden-like area. It looks like somebody is coming and going, but anyway.

So I went there, and Babaji left me in the cave and went away. I was alone to fend for myself. Three people came. I don’t know whether they were people or what, but again, this was not a hallucination. They had those cloths tied like the Jain sadhus wear, or like what they use in an operating theater.

Rick: Like a face mask.

Sri M: Like surgeons, yes. They were wearing some kind of white dress. They were tall. I couldn’t see anything except this because it was also hooded. They came and asked me to close my eyes, and then all I know is that I was moving, but I don’t know where I was moving.

They brought me down. It was as if you were going down a tunnel through the stones. Then I came into a small room, where they removed the blindfold they had tied. I saw that there was nothing in the room. It was an old room.

First, they gave me a liquid to drink. They made me lie down on a slab, then sit up and have something to drink. It was a very bitter kind of liquid. It was very greenish and probably herbal. I drank it, and then they made me lie down.

When I drank it, my whole body started kind of convulsing. It was a little painful. They made me lie down, and there was a round kind of thing—I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a big helmet with a round bottom to it, and there were some electric, cable-like things coming out of it. They fitted it on my head, front and behind. There was no injury. It was fitted on the top.

Then I lay down, and I had some experiences. For the first time, I experienced being outside my body and looking down at myself. Then, from there, I was taken somewhere and given some instructions, and then I was brought back.

I can’t give you the time, because it seemed that time was in a different dimension. When I came back, it was like jet lag: I was back. Then they took this out, blindfolded me again, and got me out of there.

So I went in front of the kutir where Babaji lived. I bowed down to Babaji and said, It is done. He called me and checked me. You are there. Okay, you go and do your Kriya in the evening, he said. We will see.

After that time, for a long time, whenever I did Kriya, at the end of it I felt like lying down in shavasana. I would slowly get out of the body and look down. It went on for some time, and then it slowly subsided.

Rick: I think you said that after that procedure there was also a kind of deep, clear unity to your experience—everything was unified.

Sri M: Yes, that’s true. There were certain facts and certain experiences which I could not bring together in one piece. After this, it was as if they were all together, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I saw everything clearly, and I thought that it might probably have taken me many lives to get there if they had not done some kind of procedure.

Rick: Do you have any idea who these beings were, where they were from, or anything like that?

Sri M: Babaji never said anything about this except to say that they were not from the Earth.

Rick: Meaning, they might be from someplace physically distant, or from a more subtle realm—a celestial realm or something?

Sri M: I have never followed this up, but from my experiences later on in life, and having understood various things, I think they could have been from another realm.

Rick: I hope you don’t mind my asking you questions about these particular stories. I don’t want people to brush you off as a kook, but I think those who are open to the possibility that there is more to life than meets the eye might find these things interesting. I certainly did.

Sri M: Yes, true, I agree, because it is so funny to think that you are the only living being in this universe. It is so ridiculous. If you come to think of it, we are smaller than the smallest speck of sand when you compare us with the whole Milky Way.

It is so funny to think that you are the only living being in this universe. It is so ridiculous.

Rick: Oh, yeah…

Sri M: And yet we think that anything that has to be there should be here.

Rick: Yeah. Actually, I heard recently that there are more stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world—just trillions of stars. You know… I forgot the name of the telescope.

Sri M: Hubble.

Rick: There is Hubble, and there is another one that starts with K and is specifically designed to find whether there are planets around other stars. Kepler, maybe. They are beginning to find that planets seem to be the norm.

Sri M: Yes, many.

Rick: It’s like most stars have planets.

Sri M: Absolutely. So what is the condition that there is no life up there? Maybe some of them are superior to us.

Rick: Certainly.

Sri M: In ancient times, they always talked about the devas coming and going, and so on. So maybe, at some period, it was cut off. Now it is very rare.

The fireball and the Naga world

Rick: That leads us right into the next story. You have a chapter called The Fireball from the Sky. Can we talk about that one?

Sri M: Sure. Why not?

(Laughter)

I have nothing to hide. The only thing is, people might think I am not okay here.

Rick: They might, but so what?

Sri M: This thing about the fireball is also something which I saw when I was neither sleeping nor dreaming nor in any kind of—anyway, I hardly ever took any narcotics or anything like that.

Rick: Right, right…

Sri M: Except when I went to the Naga sadhus for a short period and stayed with them. Babaji said, Find out. Go. So I was perfectly okay. I had a meal and I was sleeping when this happened.

It was like—if you go to the Arundhati Cave, if you have been to Rishikesh, you know there is Vashistha Cave. It is about 22 kilometers from Rishikesh toward Badrinath. If you go down from Vashistha Cave, then you come to the Ganga, the river. You walk along, and then up there is a little cave. No more than two or three people can stay there. It is called the Arundhati Cave.

Now, I was sleeping in the last part of it, inside, and Babaji never slept. I have never seen him sleep. The only thing I have seen him do sometimes is lean and sit, that’s all. He always had a dhuni, a fire.

Rick: I should add that he never wore anything more than a cloth around his waist, even when you were hiking up 18,000 feet in the snow.

Sri M: And barefoot.

Rick: And barefoot, yeah…

Sri M: Barefoot, even in Gomukh, the Gangotri Glacier.

Anyway, I heard kind of a thunder, like distant thunder, so I woke up. I didn’t get up. I was watching. From the cave, first comes the river. The cave is up here, and on the other side you have a horizon with a lot of trees.

From there, I saw something coming. It looked to me like a moon, like a moon that had become slightly large. It came, and there was this light, kind of a thunder-like sound, and it came straight down and sat near the fire which Babaji had. When it landed, there was a very loud thunderclap.

When it came near, I found out that it was a sphere, almost big enough for me to sit in, for instance.

Rick: Big sphere…

Sri M: It was a big sphere, and then it opened. By that time, I was really, very, very scared. Then it opened, and that made me even more scared, because inside I saw some kind of bluish-colored serpent, like a snake.

It was as if the snake was made of blue glass, deep blue glass, but it was a living thing. There was something going on between that and Babaji, because it seemed to be some sort of conversation. I could not grasp anything.

Rick: They were hissing.

Sri M: They were kind of hissing and making noises, and I was so scared. For some time, I thought maybe I had finally become deranged.

(Laughter)

Sri M: Seriously, but I thought it couldn’t be. I could see it. So Babaji said, Come here. I went near him and held onto him because I did not know what was happening. Then he said, Bow down, so I bowed down, and I think the snake put its head on my head for some time. Then I got up, and it went in and vanished.

So, what do you make of it? I mean, I couldn’t make anything out of it at that point. Later on, I asked Babaji, and he gave me a fairly long description about the Naga Loka and how there are many worlds. This is the snake world, and the one who came was Nagaraj, who is the prince of the Naga World.

So, I said, But why did he come here to you? He said that there was some problem in the Naga Loka, something was going on, and he came to ask my advice on how to sort it out.

So, I said, Babaji, you are an earth person. You live on this earth, and somebody comes from Naga Loka to ask your advice to solve a problem. Is this possible? He said, You know, there are people in this world with human bodies who are more evolved than all the nagas in the Naga Loka. Beyond that, I don’t know a thing.

Rick: I once heard a story that I didn’t know what to make of. I thought maybe somebody had made it up, but it was a story about when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—I used to be a student of his—first opened his ashram in Rishikesh. Someone came into the room and saw him and Tat Wale Baba, whom you know, talking to a large snake.

Apparently, the discussion was about making some agreement whereby the cobras and snakes in the area would never bite any of the ashramites. Apparently, that never happened; nobody ever got bitten by a snake. It was one of those far-out stories. I thought, Well, who knows? I don’t know.

Sri M: Well, I would say it is possible. It is possible, because I also know that there are a lot of cobras in Rishikesh. Apart from these serious scorpions, there are also lots of cobras. There used to be black cobras; I don’t know how many there are now.

To live in that place where Mahesh Yogi built his cave would have been difficult if there had not been some kind of an agreement with the snakes, because that place was very well known for this. It is actually the way to Neelkanth. From behind, you go right up, and you can reach Neelkanth.

Rick: What is Neelkanth?

Sri M: Neelkanth is a Shiva temple on top of the hill. It is right behind that. You go where the cave used to be, cut across, and then keep climbing. You come to Neelkanth after an hour or an hour and a half.

It is famous because Neelkanth is again associated with Shiva and snakes, the cobras. That area is cobra-infested. Halfway to Neelkanth, there is a cave called Mauni Baba’s Cave, which has three underground caves. If you do not know about them, they would not show you, but once you go in, there is one down, and then there is another one down. There are three of them.

That place also used to be swarming with cobras, the hooded serpents. So, I tend to believe, rather than disbelieve, the story about this.

Rick: There are about four questions that have come in that I want to ask you. I’m going to start asking you pretty soon, from people who are watching live, but I thought it might be nice for you to tell us the story of when you finally did meet Sri Guru Babaji.

Sri M: Twice.

Rick: Twice.

Sri M: One was again in the same place we were discussing just now, the road behind the caves that goes to Neelkanth.

It happened like this. Babaji and I—Maheshwarnath Babaji—we were having a discussion on the teaching of Kriya Yoga. Babaji gave me a lot of conditions for teaching Kriya. Looking at the conditions, I said, Babaji, I don’t think we can ever teach Kriya to anybody with these conditions. It’s not possible.

He said, One has to be a celibate. I said, Look, there are many householders, people who are married, who would like to have Kriya. You cannot say that. I said, What about Lahiri Mahasaya? He said, Oh, that’s a different story.

Anyway, we were having various discussions about this. Then we were walking along the Ganga and came to that quiet spot where it turns. I saw somebody coming. It is difficult to describe him; I have never seen anybody like that, maybe in my past, but not in this life.

He was a very beautiful-looking person with long hair, again bare-bodied just like Babaji, with only a white cloth, and barefoot. As soon as he appeared, Babaji prostrated before him. I had never seen Babaji prostrate before anybody—never. I had seen people touching his feet, but I had never seen him do it.

So, I thought, This must be his guru. Then it struck me: his guru is Babaji. So, I also prostrated myself, and he lifted me up. I can never forget the touch. It was completely out of this world. He put his hand on my shoulders and told Babaji, Maybe you should listen to the young man. Cut down these requirements.

(Laughter)

Then he just abruptly took his hands off and walked away. I wanted to run behind him and follow him. Babaji held me by my hand and said, You cannot find him. It’s over. Finished. Leave it.

So, I saw him turning the corner, and I could not see what happened afterward. That was one instance when I saw him for the first time in this life.

The second was when Maheshwarnath Babaji attained samadhi—Mahasamadhi, when he was passing away. Again, something like what I saw in the Arundhati Cave came. This time, it was larger.

Rick: In other words, a glowing sphere?

Sri M: From inside, Babaji stepped out, and along with him, a young man stepped out who looked very handsome. Babaji said that this was Nagaraj.

I said, But I saw him in the Arundhati Cave. He was like a snake. He said, This is his form this way and that way—both ways.

He came because he wanted me to take over some of the aspects of Maheshwarnath Babaji into myself for the work. So, he put my hand onto Maheshwarnath Babaji’s hand, and he put his hand on top of that and held it for a while. Then I actually felt something coming up. He released it and said to Babaji, Yes, now you can go.

Rick: So, in other words, there was like a download or a transmission from him to you.

Sri M: There was something happening, yes. There was a download, and I became completely mad. I mean, I don’t know how to put this.

Rick: Mad with bliss or mad with…?

Sri M: Everything changed. I felt completely different. It was as if some part of Babaji had also gotten into me. I won’t say possessed. It was not like that.

Then they went off, and Babaji attained samadhi. The very moving thing was that he did nothing but just turned around in all four directions, sat down, breathed hard, and was gone.

So, I had to fill it up. I wanted at least a stone to be put there. I asked him beforehand at least to identify the place, and he said no. So, I know the place even now, but you can’t locate exactly where it is. It is near Mauni Baba’s Cave.

When I go to the Himalayas and take people with me, we usually sit around the place, but nobody knows the exact location.

Rick: Do you have any idea physically how old your guru was? I know he was very old and did not look it. He looked like he was about 30, but did you ever get an idea?

Sri M: Yes. This much is clear: he said he was a young man when he met Sri Guru Babaji, and that he was there when Shyama Charan Lahiri went to meet Sri Guru Babaji in the cave. That is 100 years, and now another 35 or 40 years have passed.

So, I think easily he could have been, from my understanding, about 150 years or so old. But he looked like he was 30 or 35, quite young, and he hardly ate anything. He would drink very little water also. I somehow felt that he did not need food, but he sometimes ate when people offered it. It seemed like that.

Beginner’s mind and openness

Rick: Nice. I find all this very inspiring and interesting. Some people might accuse me, or us, or anybody who finds this interesting of just being fascinated with flashy stuff that does not have concrete relevance to one’s personal awakening.

But I think, in my opinion, it does, because I think, as we have said earlier, the range of possibilities and the extent of potential that dwells within us is really vast. If we dumb it down to say, Well, it’s just this, or It’s just that, or You’re already enlightened, or whatever, then we’re doing ourselves a disservice.

That is not to say, as you said earlier, that people should get caught up in all kinds of fanciful, imaginary things that are not going to help them. But there should be a respect for the possibility that there is a vast range of potential unfoldment, and that there have been great beings, and there are great beings now, who are living that way.

Sri M: If that much is understood, then I think we have gone a long way.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: I always tell people, You don’t have to believe the stories. Okay, fine. But there are many other chapters that don’t have these stories, so don’t neglect them. Go through them.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: The other thing is, as long as you understand that there are things which are beyond your understanding as of now, then my job is done. I mean, at least if the mind is open to say, There are other possibilities, it is good enough.

Suspend your judgment. Don’t accept it; don’t reject it.

Rick: They have a thing called beginner’s mind. I think one way of interpreting that is that one should have—as Amma always says—an attitude of a beginner. That is not to say that you haven’t made progress, but that one should just keep humility and an open mind.

Who was it? You were telling the story about Confucius or somebody who was pouring tea for someone, and he just kept pouring and pouring, and it kept spilling over. Go ahead and finish the story.

Sri M: Yes, the Zen master. It is about a very learned professor who was so full—he gave lectures, maybe even on Zen—who went to a Zen master and wanted to learn Zen and experience satori.

The Zen master made tea for him and started pouring it. The cup was overflowing, and then the professor said, Sir, the cup is overflowing.

The Zen master said, So how can I give you Zen? Your cup is overflowing.

Sometimes, by our attitude, we shut the door to understanding. All I am saying is, suspend your judgment. It does not matter. Don’t accept it; don’t reject it. Suspend your judgment and say, There may be other things which we do not know, or there may be other things that can be known through modes which we do not follow. There may be other modes of finding them out.

So, if this much is there, I think my purpose is served. In fact, people should do serious research on these matters. Even scientists should start looking at it, especially neurologists and psychiatrists. They should start looking at these things. I am sure they have kind of started this already.

That brings me to the fact that I am writing another book now. This is not the exact title, but the subject matter is the neurological basis of mystical or spiritual experience.

Rick: Great.

Sri M: What is the connection between the brain and these experiences? I am working on it. I have done about three chapters. I have them with me, but I don’t think… I put them away somewhere.

Rick: That’s okay.

Sri M: So, I am working on that. We have come to the fourth chapter. I have just been working on it today, and it is interesting. It is called Avadhutas. You must have heard about avadhutas.

Rick: Sure.

Sri M: Those crazy people.

Rick: The naked sadhus.

Sri M: Completely crazy people, whom one would think have gone off the rocker. I think in this country they would be put inside an asylum. And they are extraordinary people. Something has happened to their brain, but you cannot say that it is negative.

Rick: Yes. I was thinking about this. This interests me. And this whole idea of the neurophysiology of enlightenment really interests me. In fact, I can introduce you, if you like, to a researcher who has been studying it for decades. He does very sophisticated EEG research, and I can put you in touch with him. He might like to study you.

Sri M: I would be happy if you can do that.

Rick: I will do that.

Sri M: Because I need to. I am working on this book, and I am trying to get as many neurologists interested in it.

Rick: I will definitely put you in touch. His name is Dr. Fred Travis, and he lives here in my town. He has been doing this EEG research for a decade.

Sri M: Where is this? Where does he stay?

Rick: Iowa. Fairfield, Iowa.

Sri M: Iowa, okay.

Rick: The thing about Avadhutas: Do you think, in your opinion, that they are in a very high state of consciousness and yet some of the circuitry has been fried, and so they behave so strangely? Or do you think that their behavior and the way they are is a completely legitimate expression for them of higher consciousness, and is just part of the variety of life—that there should be these sorts of strange expressions?

Sri M: I think these people have broken into this suddenly, not step-by-step.

Rick: Without the proper integration.

Sri M: They have just broken into it, and they have come across something so extraordinary that the ordinary brain is not able to come to terms with it completely. However, since they have touched that energy, it is possible that they might be able to bring it about in other people—not deliberately, but because they are dynamos. You touch a wire and get something out of it.

But none of these people we know of did any teaching in this kind of step-by-step way, instructed people, or had disciples. No. But people who have been following other disciplines, when they go and sit with them, do get something out of them.

So, I feel that they burst upon the truth so suddenly—I don’t know for what reason—that it kind of shocked some parts of their system, and they are not integrated with it.

Rick: Yeah. So, theoretically, there could be people who appeared very normal and could be running a business or raising a family or something, who could actually be in as high, if not higher, a state than some of these Avadhutas, but it was integrated and balanced.

Sri M: Yes. Integrated. I would almost agree with what you said: somewhere, some circuit has been… (laughter) Because these energies are tremendous. Even I feel sometimes that a little bit somewhere in my circuit might have gotten… (laughter)

Kundalini emergencies and integration

Rick: Oh! You know, on this note, several people contact me from time to time, and lately I have been corresponding with a young woman in Spain who may be listening to this interview. She is going through an extreme Kundalini emergency, or so she interprets it, and it sounds like that’s what it is, to the point where she is paralyzed for many hours a day, going through all kinds of contortions.

She said she feels this volcanic energy trying to rise up in her system, and it is stuck. It is not moving. Her life is just a total mess.

It is kind of like—maybe, and I have read Gopi Krishna’s book, but I understand he went through a lot of similar stuff. So, are you ever in contact with such people? Do you have ways of helping people who are going through what we might call a spiritual emergency like that?

Sri M: I can say that only case by case. I can’t make a general statement on this, but I have met people sometimes. When I go to Breitenbush, we have workshops in Breitenbush.

Rick: Where is that?

Sri M: Oregon. It’s near the Cascades. There is a retreat center called Breitenbush Hot Springs. Ram Dass used to go there before. You know Ram Dass—Hawaii.

Rick: Sure. Neem Karoli Baba’s disciple.

Sri M: Yeah. I have been going there for the last eleven years. Every year I have been doing a retreat there. I just came back from there. So, I haven’t met too many, but a couple of people have had this problem.

Rick: Really bad?

Sri M: One was quite bad, and I think she has now got adjusted to normal. So, I don’t have a technique to do that, but it is a person-to-person thing. Maybe if you meet this person, it is possible that something could be worked out. I don’t know for sure, but it depends on the individual.

Rick: My sense is that it would be good if somehow there were some kind of clinic or some place—there are some people who specialize in Kundalini care. There is a lady named Joan Shivarpita Harrigan, who has a Kundalini Care Clinic in Tennessee, whom I have interviewed. But apparently, she does not take cases where people are in spiritual emergency. She just takes cases where people are doing okay and want to redirect. But there are these cases, and doctors don’t know how to deal with them.

Sri M: They don’t know, because it is something to do with centers of the brain which have not been explored.

Rick: And doctors are just going to give drugs, and that is not going to help. So, hopefully, as we grow as a culture and as a society, we will understand this better and give relief to such people.

Sri M: I think we need centers like this. They can come.

Rick: I am going to ask you a bunch of questions. People have been sending in nice questions, and I don’t want to ignore them. So, we will jump around a little bit, because the questions are on different topics. Here is one from Srinivasan in Chennai.

He asks, Arjuna continues to fight a war despite self-realization because his swadharma is to be a warrior. This is a nuance often missed in the spiritual world, which advances the narrow idea of an enlightened individual only existing as a social worker or a compassionate guru. Could you elaborate on the concept of swadharma and the means to discover our personal swadharma, as well as that of others?

Sri M: Swadharma is a very loaded word. Talking to Mr. Srinivasan, you know, people interpret swadharma as doing one’s duties and so on. I think there is only one swadharma. Swadharma is dharma for oneself, one’s own dharma.

One important swadharma is to truly find yourself first: who you are, where you are, what you are, and what your essential being is. To figure that out would be your swadharma. Because unless you figure out who you are or where you stand, what can you do for somebody else? You might be thinking you are helping somebody, but you actually might be taking them to distraction.

So, when I say swadharma, while it is a good idea to work on helping others and to be compassionate and so on, swadharma actually is to find out who you really are and what your source is, and then, having done that, to act from that plane, from that point.

Rick: Yeah, which is just what Krishna said in the Gita. He said, Established in yoga, perform action.

Sri M: Yes. Now, that action would be action without leaving any blot on yourself, where the action would be purely from a completely altruistic point of view, with nothing to do for yourself. But for that, I think one has to first discover one’s own dharma. And to understand one’s own dharma, one has to understand oneself first.

Rick: Yeah.

Sri M: So, I think that is the first step to take.

Rick: And you might actually be a warrior. You might not be a social worker. You might have a role to play that does not look very ahimsa, but is actually a role…

Sri M: Ahimsa has more to do with your state of mind than with anything else. You can be a completely nonviolent guy outwardly and be so violent inside.

Rick: Or vice versa, maybe.

Sri M: Vice versa also. You could look like quite a passive and peace-loving guy, but you might be filled with a lot of violence. This is also possible. It could be the other way, too. So, I am saying, first find out about swa. Swa means self, and then start working out from that.

Rick: Yeah. Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all else should be added.

Here is a question from Paul in Asheville, North Carolina: Sri M says it requires a great deal of hard work. In practical terms, what work does Sri M recommend on a daily basis for those seeking self-realization?

Sri M: One has to set apart a certain period of your day for your spiritual practice. Now, this should be inviolable, and it is hard work to do that, even to think that way. So, when you say, At this particular time in the day I am going to do my spiritual practices, stick to that. That is the first thing I would ask people to do.

Because it is very easy to get this illusion: All I know is that I can be throughout the day, be there and there at the same time, and so on. But it is very fuzzy, you know; it is not clear-cut. So, it is good to have a period set up when you say, This time I will only do my spiritual practice.

Now, that practice may be different for different people. So, I think that is the first step, and that is not easy. That is hard work. When I say hard work, that’s one of the things I mean. When everybody is going in one direction, somebody turns around and is swimming against the stream. It is hard work.

You may not be appreciated. People may criticize you. If not openly, at least they would say, What is wrong with this guy? So, if you can put up with all that and still continue with your spiritual practice, that is what I mean by daily hard work. It has to be that way; there are no shortcuts.

Rick: When I first learned to meditate as a teenager, basically I had to drop all my friends, because my friends were just taking drugs and I did not want to hang around with them anymore. Eventually, I got new friends. There is an old Bengali saying, which is, If no one comes when you call, then go ahead alone.

Sri M: Absolutely. You can’t depend upon public opinion in this field. That is why I say it is hard work. And the other thing, as you said, is so relevant: people drop off. People who think in one way would definitely drop off because you are thinking in a different way. Sometimes you lose what you might have thought were your great friends and old friends. It’s inevitable. You have a new set of friends.

Rick: You know, when you use the phrase hard work, I will bet you—well, you have done a lot of arduous things—but I bet you that most of the time when you have sat to meditate, it has been blissful. It is not like you think to yourself, Oh, I have got to go meditate. It’s such hard work. It is more like, Oh boy, I am looking forward to this, because it is so enjoyable.

Sri M: In the beginning, no. In the beginning, it is difficult. When you start, you have to bring your mind, which is normally distracted, so that is difficult. But once you start, and once you have brought your mind back, you are no longer a complete extrovert; you can introvert yourself.

Then, as you become more perfected, you can introvert yourself at the press of a button, kind of. Then it is not so difficult.

Witnessing without dissociation

Rick: Aha. Here is a question from Sagar in Toronto, Canada, which relates to what you are just saying. He says, I keep moving between two states: one where I am not there, just presence, but then the mind comes up with a stream of thought, and there is a sense of identification with it. Would you please address this type of experience?

Sri M: Yes, this happens to many people who meditate. There are times when you are just aware and not involved, and there are times when your mind gets involved. So, in yogic philosophy itself, the mind, the chitta, as it is called, is full of thoughts and distractions. It is in the nature of the chitta to be full of thoughts and distractions.

Now, the witness, which is aware of it, is not the chitta but the Purusha, the Self. Somewhere along the line, you should sit continuously with the awareness that what is aware of the distractions is not the chitta, but the Purusha, so much so that after a while you are no longer associated with the distraction. The distraction is there; it is the nature of the mind, but you are not associated with it when you realize that you are the witness to it and not the one who is involved in it. So, it has to come by and by.

Rick: It gets more stabilized over time, right?

Sri M: Stabilized and deeper…

Rick: Right, right…

Sri M: Let’s put it that way. So, it comes through constantly trying. First of all, it is not as if you are trying to make the chitta totally silent. It is like you are understanding that the chitta, by its very nature, has vrittis.

Rick: Fluctuations…

Sri M: Fluctuations, but you are not that. You are aware of it, but you are not that. It is like now you can have a lot of fluctuations of electricity, sound, weather, everything, but I am not part of it; I am watching it. So, when this is stabilized, the wonderful thing is that the chitta also becomes silent.

Rick: Now, there is a subtle point here, which is that it is a description-prescription kind of issue. People describe the state of being a witness and just sort of watching the activities of the mind, and that could be a description of the way one naturally functions at a certain state. But it could also be either offered as, or mistaken to be, a prescription where you are telling people, Watch your mind, try to be the witness, while you are doing other things, try to maintain presence. Are you advocating that, or would you consider that it would divide the mind?

Sri M: I think that would divide the mind. It is not a prescription. I mean, I am not saying there is a method. I am only saying that while this is happening, try and disassociate yourself from it; I mean, just be silent.

Rick: What I am a little bit cautious about is that people have gotten themselves into dissociative states. They have gotten disintegrated, and people lose jobs, lose relationships, and become kind of impractical in the world when they approach this in what I would consider to be a mistaken way, not quite what the original teachings were intending.

Sri M: Yeah, you are right. While we certainly require periods of isolation in this practice, isolation is not a prescription for your life. You do require periods of isolation, but when you come out of the isolation, you are not cut off from the world; you are integrated with it. You don’t come out with the feeling that this is different and I am different. No, no, this is not what I am talking about, please. In fact, once you are stabilized in your inner self, it becomes much easier to function in this world.

Rick: Yeah. Naturally…

Sri M: Because the mind is calm. It does not get agitated. It does what it has to do quietly, and there is no distraction. Therefore, when you want to do something, you know how to put your complete attention on it.

Rick: Yes, and that is an important phrase, complete attention. If you are flying in an airplane, you would not want your pilot to be sort of putting half his attention on flying the airplane and the other half on, Oh, I am only the witness…

Sri M: Exactly. In fact, I keep telling people about the description of yoga, the eight-limb yoga. One of the limbs is pratyahara, which is like yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara. Some people say pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses. I say, look, this is a wrong translation of pratyahara. Pratyahara is that, as you said, when the pilot is sitting in the cockpit and flying, he is only flying; he is not thinking of meditation. That he can do it one-pointedly, without distraction, by itself is meditation.

Rick: Yeah, hopefully, he is not thinking about what he had for dinner last night or where he is going to go on vacation. He is focused on flying.

Sri M: So that is meditation. It is not as if you should sit there and meditate on the Buddha. When I mean Buddha, I am talking about bodha, inner consciousness. When you are doing that, then you are not flying in an airplane; you are not thinking, Tomorrow, which is my flight? This is what I mean.

Rick: Good. Here is a question from Elizabeth in Colorado. She asks, Is the final enlightenment or awakening something that happens within time, or does it transcend time?

I think I will just add to her question. Some people say if you think that enlightenment is something that is going to happen to you sometime in the future, then you will always be chasing it like a donkey chasing a dangling carrot. In fact, the only time enlightenment ever happens is now. What would you say to that?

Sri M: She also asked about the time span, whether it is in time.

Rick: Yeah, is it time, or does it transcend time?

Sri M: Yes, when the experience actually happens, it transcends time, but it is not as if it is there and you are going toward it. The Upanishads have a beautiful description of the truth. It says, Tad dure tad vad antike, which means it is far and yet so near.

If you look at it in an ordinary time pattern, it is far, but if you look at it from the inner point of view, it is right here. So, it is not as if it is a linear progress from here to there. Here is a situation where it is everywhere and here, and then where are you traveling? Where do you go? You sit.

So, it is more to do with not grasping, trying to grasp, and when all grasping ceases, perhaps it is right here. You can’t say it is going to come. When you say it is going to come, you are actually putting it away.

Rick: Yeah, it is kind of a conundrum in a way, because if we say, Okay, it is right here now, then by that token everybody in the world is enlightened. In some respect, perhaps they are, but it is not a living reality for them, and it will become a living reality for them, as far as I can say, sometime in the future. Yet it is right here, and yet they don’t see it. Perhaps that is the best way to put it.

Sri M: Yeah, that is why it is a conundrum. That is why they say it is far and yet so near, because there is no other way that our so-called limited brain can grasp this concept. There is nothing more.

Rick: Isn’t there some saying in the Bible or someplace, maybe in the Vedic literature: The truth is spread all around, but man does not see it? Some such phrase, you know? Have you heard that one?

Sri M: From the Bible, I haven’t seen this.

Rick: I forget.

Sri M: There is a verse in the Quran which says, Wherever you turn your face, there I am. There is a phrase like that, which would be completely contradictory because then you have to pray turning your face toward Mecca, so…

Anyway, the answer to the question this lady asked just now is that, while from our ordinary point of view we are still here and have not become enlightened, therefore it is far in time. However, when we understand that enlightenment is not a thing to be pursued into the future, but is understood now, then it touches the timeless factor. And if it has happened, it is certainly timeless.

✨ Spiritual awakening and the world

Rick: Okay, good. This next question from Mark Peters in Santa Clara, California, I think might possibly relate to the walk that you took from Southern to Northern India. If not, you can answer the question anyway. Do you feel that spiritual awakening has a practical value for world problems? For instance, if enough people were to become spiritually awakened, could it help to solve the problem of global warming and so on? Or do you feel that the fate of the planet and human life upon it is ultimately uncorrelated with the deepening of consciousness?

Sri M: No. I completely understand that if we are spiritually awakened, whatever that means, then our actions certainly reflect it, and our actions will certainly be to integrate rather than to disintegrate. So, bringing peace and not war, being environmentally conscious, and seeing that all living beings are as important as we are, including the plants, which are living beings—I think these are all expressions of one’s spiritual understanding.

So, I personally believe that if more people become spiritual in the real sense of the term, then it becomes a solution to the world’s problems. Please, let me clarify: I am not saying that if we all sit together and meditate on peace, we are going to get peace. No, I mean, that’s a good thing to do; it can change minds. But a person with spiritual understanding and realization, his actions would always reflect integrity and integration rather than disintegration—when I say disintegration, I mean it in the bad sense of the term.

Rick: Yes.

Sri M: So, therefore, my walk—I didn’t have an agenda except that I wanted people to come, meet, and talk to me and see how I think about this whole situation of life. So, we went from village to village, city to city, and met all kinds of people. I am convinced that we have planted at least the seeds of harmony in some way.

It takes time to grow. If you plant a seed, tomorrow it does not become a big tree. It takes time; it needs to be nurtured; various factors are involved. So, I think that if more and more people are spiritually inclined, in the real sense of the term—not considering spiritual life as some kind of a runaway from society, or hiding from society, or an excuse for laziness or things like that—then the mind becomes good, kind, and better, and it reflects on everybody else.

Rick: I hope you wore shoes on this walk and did not go barefoot.

Sri M: I had shoes… (laughter)

Rick: Good. Hopefully, good shoes, and not just little rubber flip-flops, but…

Sri M: I did try the rubber flip-flops in the beginning, but they gave me a lot of trouble, so I wore proper walking shoes.

Rick: Good.

Sri M: You know, you have to be practical in these matters. The Arabs have a saying: You trust in God, but tie your camel.

Rick: I would love to have been on that walk with you. It must have been a wonderful adventure. I will go on the next one.

Sri M: Next walk…

Rick: My wife wants to know if they allow dogs on the walk…

(Laughter)

Sri M: Dogs are allowed.

Rick: No, apparently not. Oh, you said yes or no on the dogs?

Sri M: Yes.

Rick: Yes, dogs are allowed. So next time we are coming and bringing our dogs…

Just a note on what we are just discussing, I would say—and would you agree?—that everything we see on a global scale—world problems, health problems, economic problems, environmental problems, and so on and so forth—is kind of just a manifestation on the more surface level of the conglomeration of human consciousness? Seven billion people, each of them having a certain makeup, certain state of mind, and certain state of consciousness. Taken collectively, while in their own individual lives they produce an influence—which you could see in their family, for instance, but then in the community, in the nation, and in the world—all the quality of life that we see on the surface is just a reflection of the quality of the consciousness of all the individuals making up society.

Just as a forest which is all gray and brown might be gray and brown because each individual tree is gray and brown, if we want the forest to be green, we have to water each individual tree. So, conversely, if you want the whole society to really be free of all these huge problems, something needs to be done to elevate the consciousness of each individual that makes up society. That is a rather long-winded statement, but do you see it that way?

Sri M: I believe so. You see, when you say society, there is no society without us.

Rick: Right, we are it.

Sri M: Society is human beings, right? Also, I defer a little on these colors. They need not be all green.

Rick: Well, it is just a metaphor.

Sri M: Yeah, yeah. The whole of nature lives in its different multiplicity. Even though there is an essential unity, outwardly it is all multiple. In fact, Prakriti, which is the word used in Samkhya philosophy for the earth and for the universe, is the very definition of Prakriti: Prakriti is that which differentiates.

Differences are bound to be there. There is an essential unity somewhere behind. So, I personally believe that if we human beings, who form society, can change, then these things can change. Reformation from outside is not going to do much. It is necessary, of course, sometimes, but you cannot hope to get the change that we seek by just social reformation; it has to come from inside.

Rick: Yeah, and along the lines of what you are just saying, if we were to eventually have an enlightened society, everybody would not be the same. In fact, there could even be greater variety. If you water a forest, then look at the Amazon rainforest—the variety and diversity there, where you have a really thriving ecosystem.

Sri M: Right. So, our attempt should not be to grow only lotuses or grow only roses. We should have a garden where everything is, and everything grows equally well. The thing is, you cannot turn roses into lotuses and lotuses into roses. They have their own nature, but to have a good lotus and a good rose—that is the aim.

Rick: I guess we could say that if the innermost Self, or spirit, is the ultimate nourishment, the fuel that animates our life, then if that fuel starts to be more abundant, each life is going to flourish in its diversity as well as be more harmonious.

Sri M: Absolutely—without clashing.

Rick: Yeah, without clashing, right.

Studying the Upanishads

Here is a question from someone you probably know. It is Priyam in Madanapalle, your town in India.

Sri M: Oh, she is a dentist.

Rick: Oh, she is a dentist? Okay. Well, this question has nothing to do with dentistry. She says, For someone who needs to start reading the Upanishads, which would you recommend they start with? And which English translation, by which author, would you recommend?

And, of course, you have a book commenting on several of the Upanishads. I was reading it last night.

Sri M: I think one of the best Upanishads to start with is the Katha Upanishad. The Katha Upanishad is a very beautiful Upanishad. It is a dialogue between the Lord of Death, the King of Death, Yama, and this young boy, Nachiketas, who goes to his court. It is beautiful. He is asking him to tell him the meaning of death and what life is, and so on.

A very good translation—you know, there are many translations nowadays of the Upanishads—but my recommendation would be to go back to the rather impartial, simple translation of Dr. Radhakrishnan. Dr. Radhakrishnan was one of the presidents of India at one time, but he was a great scholar. Although it tends a little more toward the Advaita Vedanta of Shankara because he was more of a Shankarite, it does not matter. Because he did not belong to a certain cult or anything, it is absolutely nondenominational, clear, and very simply written.

Rick: How do you spell that?

Sri M: Katha Upanishad. I think that is a very good start. The next would be the Isavasya Upanishad because it is the smallest of the Upanishads.

Rick: And you did commentary on that one, didn’t you?

Sri M: I have. I love it. It is beautiful.

Rick: Is that the one Purnamadah Purnamidam is in?

Sri M:Purnamadah Purnamidam is the beginning of the shloka before you start the Upanishad.

Rick: Right. Oh! All of them, or just that particular one?

Sri M: Different Upanishads have different… They are called the Shanti Pathas, the first, beginning verses. Purnamadah talks about everything being complete, and the Isavasya Upanishad talks about the all-pervading reality, so it links it together.

Kaivalya, moksha, and nirvana

Rick: Beautiful. Let me see here. There are a few more questions. Here is a good one. Oh, Srinivasan again—he is prolific—in Chennai.

He says, The concept of kaivalya: how does it compare with the Buddhist enlightenment ideals, such as arhatship and Buddhahood?

Sri M: This is a technical question, but let me put it this way. There are different schools of thought that describe enlightenment. Kaivalya is a word that is picked up from the Yoga Sutras; it is from Samkhya and Yoga Darshan. Kaivalya simply means complete, pure awareness without anything else: kaivalya.

Rick: Alone? Does it mean alone?

Sri M: Alone. When you realize that you are alone, there is nothing else but you—not in the sense of Srinivas or M, but you in the true essence of the term. It would be dangerous to think that only M exists.

Rick: Sort of one without a second, kind of a thing.

Sri M: So, when this happens, this is called kaivalya. Now, the Vedantic term used is moksha. Moksha also means the same, but it adds the other dimension, one more dimension, which is freedom. I personally say kaivalya is not different from freedom. Kaivalya also means to be free. When there is nothing but that, there is nothing to be entangled or conditioned by. Moksha means freedom from rebirth, freedom from conditioning, and being free forever. I mean, this is moksha.

Now, when the Buddhist says nirvana—not only the Buddhist; even the Jains call it nirvana, the ultimate state—you know, somewhere along the line there is a misunderstanding that nirvana actually means that everything is gone, like the blowing out of a candle.

I have had several discussions with Buddhist monks, unknown and known, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama. What has emerged from my understanding is that nirvana means basically the snuffing out of all the agitating, distracting, and negative impulses from the mind. Not total annihilation. There is a wrong idea, which is why people ask whether this is the same as that. It is not annihilation; it is the annihilation of all that holds you down, all that is heavy, dark, and negative, like your greed and your lust. When that is cleansed, then the mind attains a state called nirvana.

Rick: Did the Dalai Lama agree with that when you offered it?

Sri M: Yes. I did not offer it. You see, it started like this. In fact, I thought he must be busy because so many people were waiting for him. He said, Sit, don’t worry.

The thing was about the Kena Upanishad, which comes from the Samaveda. It says:

Yan manasa na manute yenahur mano matam.

That means, That which even the mind cannot reach, but because of which the mind has its capacity to think, that alone is the truth, nothing that you worship. This is the Kena Upanishad.

So, His Holiness the Dalai Lama stopped me. He said, Just a minute. If the mind also cannot reach it, then what have we to do with it? We have nothing to do with it. If even the mind cannot reach it, what do we do? Nothing.

So, I said, What it means is that the ordinary mind cannot reach it. He said, Yeah, that is right—the ordinary mind. So, what kind of a mind can reach it?

A mind that is clear of its temptations, its lust, its anger, and its greed. Such a mind can understand it, right?

Yes, he said. That is nirvana. This is how the conversation came about.

Rick: I would also say perhaps that this—Yogas chitta-vritti-nirodhah—when the mind reaches that, it is like getting out of a boat. You have reached the shore, so the boat has served its purpose. The mind is transcended, at least momentarily, or that is beyond the active mind. It is more fundamental than the active mind.

Sri M: So, therefore, when people ask this question, like Mr. Srinivas, somewhere along the line the idea is, Well, Buddhism does not believe in a creator God, in Ishwara, so can it be the same nirvana as, for instance, moksha?

But I would say that in all these there is no mention of a creator God at all, including Samkhya. Yoga believes in it, of course—the theory of yoga—but the state of kaivalya, moksha, and nirvana, by definition and in essence, are the same.

Rick: It seems to me that all these different religions and schools of thought, including the systems of Indian philosophy, are not competing or combating one another. It is more like they just have different angles on the truth and different specialties. One of them may specialize in focusing on this and not the other things because those things are taken care of. There may seem to be contradictions between them, but in the larger picture, they are all just pieces of a larger puzzle, like the blind man feeling the elephant, you know.

Sri M: Yes, and that story of the elephant actually comes from ancient Jain sources, which was elaborated upon and made into a fable by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, Rumi, in his Masnavi. So, it comes from Jain sources. The source is not important; the thing is more important.

You know, the Jains have something that is so interesting. It is called Anekavada, or Anekantavada. That means something could be what I think, and it could also be what somebody else thinks.

Rick: It is a good attitude.

Sri M: Yeah, yeah. Anekantavada, it is called, which means, Oh well, it may be this; it may be that. The elephant story comes from that tradition.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: Because ultimately, the whole thing is that nobody knows.

Ultimately, the whole thing is that nobody knows.

Rick: And both are right, even though they are experiencing something completely different. They could argue with each other: You are wrong. You are wrong. No, they are actually both right. It is just part of the larger picture.

Sri M: It is like Vedanta Vada. They call it Anekantavada. That means, Well, that may be what you think. Okay, you are right, but maybe somebody else—that may be right too.

Rick: Yeah. So, you are traveling around. People will be watching this for years, but right now you are in the United States, and you are on the West Coast. You will be going to Dallas pretty soon and then Long Island, and you have a website, satsang-foundation.org, is it? Or .com?

Sri M: Yes, satsang-foundation.org.

Rick: Satsang-foundation.org, which I will be linking to from BatGap, is where people can check out your schedule, your various activities, and everything. Is there something set up whereby somebody who is interested, wherever they live, can learn something to practice as a spiritual practice? For instance, someone asked another Srinivasan from a different place in India—must be a common name—Gurgaon, India, asks, Kriya Yoga—are you teaching what Yogananda taught? You have used the word Kriya. Do you have a practice that you advocate, or that people can learn, in order to get into the routine of a daily practice?

Sri M: I do, but it cannot be done…

Rick: Remotely…

Sri M: Yeah.

Rick: Right.

Sri M: People come and meet me, and then they sit down and discuss. The Kriya which I teach has come from the same tradition as Yogananda Paramahansa. There is no doubt about that, because Yogananda Paramahansa was taught by Yukteshwar Maharaj, who was Lahiri Mahasaya’s disciple, who was Babaji’s disciple, one of the prominent disciples in this time. So, it is the same tradition.

Therefore, the Kriya Yoga practice—the basic Kriya Yoga practice—is the same. It cannot be different. I have met people and talked to the SRF and the YSS people, and it is the same. However, there are certain practices which are not commonly taught to everybody. It depends on the teacher and the student. So, when you are in touch with the student, you might feel that this can be added or that can be subtracted.

Now, there are such elements which may be a little different, but the basic theory of Kriya Yoga—which means that the energies in your body have to be concentrated and your awareness has to travel from your Sushumna Nadi, which is in the center, from Muladhara to Sahasrara along with the Prana—is common to both Yogananda’s teachings and our teachings. The technique to do that may differ here and there a little bit, depending on, you know…

Rick: Does it involve pranayama?

Sri M: It does. It is very, very closely linked to pranayama.

Rick: And some mantra meditation or…

Sri M: It has some bijaksharas to be chanted along with the centers, the chakras, but there are many disciplines of a similar kind.

Rick: And so, let’s say somebody is watching this and they are in Australia, and you are not going to go to Australia, and they can’t travel. What would you recommend for them?

Sri M: I would say that they should start with a preliminary practice, which can be given to all.

Rick: And how do they get that?

Sri M: It does not cause any harm because you are not dealing directly with energies. It is a simple method which, in some traditions, they also don’t teach unless you are initiated. But I think we have evolved, and it is time to come out, you know, and not keep things in the dark and hide them somewhere and make them look so mysterious. So Babaji has given me permission to give the first part. We call it the Hamsa technique.

Well, the Bengalis say Haunsa, but it is Hamsa. Basically, you first do the Guru Mantra, which is to place your hand—nowadays I have been broadcasting the Guru Mantra. In our tradition, Sri Guru Babaji is considered to be the Guru. So, the mantra applicable to him we practice by visualizing a white lotus in the heart center here, Anahata, inside, and two little feet on that—not feet, footwear; padukas, we call them—footwear on that. Consider them to be Sri Guru Babaji’s padukas, and hold them with your hands and chant, Om Hrim Sri Gurubhyo Namah.Om Hrim Sri Gurubhyo Namah, quietly. There is no counting, five to ten minutes depending upon your time, and we believe that if that is done, you are kind of establishing a link with Sri Guru Babaji.

Rick: Do you say that out loud or mentally?

Sri M: Mentally. Let me make it clear—which does not mean, I have to make it very clear, that when you start doing it, Babaji is going to come and stand near your bedroom. That is not what it means. You know, people have various…

So, the link is established, and when it is established, we believe that somehow or the other the Kriya will come your way because it comes from that source. Okay, so after doing the Guru Mantra, then we do the Hamsa.

Now, Hamsa is to sit quietly in any comfortable posture with your head and spine erect, cross-legged if possible. Your hands can be held this way—chin mudra—or just like this or on the knees; it doesn’t matter. Then, instead of controlling your breath, you just watch your breath passively as it goes in and out. When the breathing goes in, which means when you inhale, in your mind you chant the sound Hum. And when you exhale, you chant the sound Sau. So, it is Hum, Sau; Hum, Sau.

You are not controlling your breath in any way. You are just watching your breath, and when you inhale you are saying Hum to yourself and Sau when you exhale. Remain doing this for a long time, watching your breath. You can hold your breath if you like, but this is not part of the technique. So, just do this.

Now, when you start doing it, the first thing you would notice is that at some point you feel like giving a deep sigh automatically, spontaneously. When the sigh happens, then it is a sign that your mind is settling down, and you do nothing. You don’t expect anything to happen; you are not going anywhere. You are just saying Hamsa in your mind, watching your breath, just that, with no expectations.

But when you do that after doing Om Hrim Sri Gurubhyo Namah, the Guru Mantra, I have found that it works better. Then, after watching Hamsa for a while, let go of even that and just sit quietly and be a witness. Then bow down before you leave and say thank you.

You don’t expect anything to happen; you are not going anywhere.

This is a simple thing anybody can do. It doesn’t matter what denomination you belong to, whether you are a Buddhist or a Christian, or whether you believe in God with form or without form, or whether you believe in this saint. It doesn’t matter; anybody can do it.

Rick: And while you are doing this, if you find that you are getting sleepy or your mind is wandering or something, what should you do?

Sri M: If your mind is wandering, the only way is to bring it back to the Hamsa…

Rick: Gently…

Sri M: Again and again, gently. And if you are feeling sleepy, the reason is that the mind is relaxed, and if a relaxed mind cannot go into higher states of consciousness, it usually goes into sleep. So, you have to get up and wash your face. There is no way out. Sit down and do it again.

Rick: What if you have a backlog of fatigue and maybe what you really need is a nap, and then after your nap you will have a fresher experience?

Sri M: Then you should take a nap, come back, and do it.

Rick: Yeah…

Sri M: Better. Better to do that.

Closing remarks

Rick: I am glad that we were able to take the time to have you give people a little something like that. Thank you so much for this conversation. I feel it’s such a joy to talk to you.

Sri M: Thank you very much, thank you very much, and I am glad that I am talking to you, because sometimes it is difficult to talk when people don’t have the ABC, so it is easier.

Rick: Well, maybe I am up to D now…

(Laughter)

Sri M: What I mean is, when you know this…

Rick: Yeah, I know. I have been doing this. In fact, you and I almost share our birthday. We were both born in 1949.

Sri M: Really?

Rick: I was born in October and you in November.

Sri M: Okay…

Rick: So, we both have birthdays coming up.

Sri M: Thank you very much, then.

Rick: Thank you.

Sri M: It was very nice meeting you, too.

Rick: Let me just make a couple of general concluding remarks before we disconnect. Those of you who have been watching have been watching part of an ongoing series. I have been doing this every week for over six years now, and if you would like to check our previous ones, go to BatGap.com and explore the menus. There is an audio podcast you can sign up for, and you can sign up to be notified by email each time a new one is posted, along with a variety of other things.

Recently, we put up a glossary of Sanskrit terms and also a glossary of nondual terms. Over time, we will keep developing and adding things like that which people might find helpful.

So, thank you for listening and watching, and thank you again, Sri M. It has really been a delight. Enjoy your stay in the United States.

Sri M: Thank you.

Rick: Hope to meet you in person sometime.

Sri M: Sure. Thank you.

Rick: Namaste.

Sri M: Namaste.