Swami G Interview

Swami G Transcript: Kundalini Awakening, Tantra & Non-Dual Liberation

 

Summary

Swami G discusses her lifelong spiritual search, including early challenges, kundalini awakening, and the difficulties and insights gained along her path. The conversation explores the realities of spiritual transformation, the importance of genuine practice, and the pitfalls of spiritual phenomena and misconceptions.

Questions This Interview Explores

• What is the role of personal history and suffering in spiritual awakening?
• How does a kundalini awakening affect daily life and spiritual progress?
• Are spiritual phenomena and powers important or distracting on the path?
• Can enlightenment be achieved without a teacher or guidance?
• What are the limitations of following only partial spiritual teachings?

Key takeaways

• Spiritual awakening often follows years of searching and personal hardship.
• Kundalini awakening can bring intense and sometimes difficult experiences.
• Spiritual phenomena and powers can be distractions and are not the goal.
• True transformation is reflected in the maturity and stability of students.
• Partial teachings may limit spiritual progress and understanding.
• A teacher's effectiveness is seen in the genuine growth of their students.

Transcript

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Swami G. And when you hear the name Swami G, if you are familiar with Indian names probably you think I am saying like Gandhi Ji or Maharshi Ji or something like that. You know they add this honorific Ji at the end of people’s names. But I looked on your website and the G stands for a rather long Sanskrit name that was bestowed upon you by your Guru. So I will have you pronounce that rather than me make an attempt at it if you don’t mind.

Swami G: Yeah, well we would be here all night. Actually the whole name would be Gangapurikali Udmanandagiri. So just yeah, Swami G for short.

Rick: Yeah, I can see why you adopted the G.

Swami G: That’s it. So much simpler.

Rick: Right, right. And also glancing at your website, it seems that you have had a very interesting and colorful history. You know your whole spiritual path has been a little bit out of the ordinary I would say and full of interesting stories I am sure. You kind of gave it in a nutshell on the website but perhaps we could elaborate on all of that tonight.

Swami G: You have about six days.

Rick: Sure, we will make it a series or a marathon, one or the other.

Swami G: It would be a marathon. It was about four lifetimes in one.

Rick: Yeah, yeah, definitely on the fast track. And I should mention to our listeners that I got connected with Swami Ji through her student Ron, who is an old friend of mine whom I have kind of known, not as a close friend, we never hung around together, but he was friends with my mother like thirty years ago and we have been in touch and kind of chatting on chat groups and what not. And even though I am not in close constant contact with Ron, I do seem to notice a rather profound transformation and maturity that has dawned in him over the last couple of years that he has been involved with you. And as you just said, “You shall know them by their fruits.” And I always feel like it is a good barometer of the quality of a teacher to see how their students are developing.

Swami G: Oh, absolutely. I always tell people, “If you want to know the teacher, then interview the students and see what they are getting, what they are not getting, what transformations have taken place or not, and if it is stable or if it is not.” So yeah, that is a good indicator of what is going on.

“If you want to know the teacher, then interview the students and see what transformations have taken place or not.”

Rick: Yeah, and how they behave, whether they seem to have a kind of maturity and open-mindedness or whether they are acting like jerks or whatever. I mean, there are exceptions to every generality and many teachers attract thousands of students and there is always going to be a few rotten apples and a few gems. But the general flavor of the people that are around the teacher I think are indicative of the efficacy of that teacher. And so far from what I have seen, I like what I have seen.

Swami G: Oh, well, I am glad to hear that. Yeah, when he came in, he was posting very long, long posts. And as he has gone along and the journey has unfolded, the posts have gotten shorter and shorter and shorter until they are like one line now.

Rick: Yeah, in fact he sent me an apology the other day. He said, “I am sorry for all those things I used to post.” And I said, “Don’t worry about it. We all go through changes and boy, if I had to apologize for all the crazy things I have done over the years, it again would be a six hour show.”

Swami G: Yeah, sometimes he is a little enthusiastic.

Rick: Yeah, that is a good quality. So let’s stop talking about Ron and get back to you. Where would you like to start? What seems to work well for these interviews, and we can do it differently if you like, but what seems to work well is that people just trace their history. They were a teenager or whatever and they picked up some book and they got all excited about spiritual development and then they did this, that and the other thing and one thing led to the next. So if you would like to do the story in that way, we could do it.

Swami G: Oh, I am not adverse to doing the story, but Lord only knows what is going to come out, because there is really no continuity of history any longer and it is difficult to go back and piece everything together in a chronological order.

Rick: It does not have to be chronological. I understand the thing, a lot of people say, “Well, I am really not that person anymore, so it seems a little bit like old news to talk about, ‘I did this and I did that,'” so we do not have to dwell on that too much. People do sometimes find it fascinating, they can relate personally to various phases of a person’s spiritual path that they might also have gone through, so that is interesting. It is an open book, however you would like to do this is fine with me.

Swami G: I think in one way the history is important and I understand a lot of Advaita teachers that say there is nothing to get and nowhere to go, and it was always here and they want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think that the history to some degree is important, if nothing else to show that there was wearing away of ego, there was a lot of search involved with it, it was not just waking up one morning and suddenly boom, it is there.

Rick: In fact, sometimes the Advaita teachers who say that are people who were on a path for 30 years doing all kinds of practices and then they wake up and say, “You don’t need to do all that.”

Swami G: Yes, because the reason is when everything falls away then it is just so blatantly apparent in your face and it has always been there, and so that is the immediate reaction when things fall away. But there is, enlightenment is instantaneous, but it can take years and lifetimes to get to that instant.

“Enlightenment is instantaneous, but it can take years and lifetimes to get to that instant.”

Rick: Right, that is well put. So we won’t go through all of your lifetimes, but let’s go through some of the years.

Swami G: Yes, we will dispense with a few of the lifetimes.

Rick: Unless you want to touch upon those too, if you happen to remember them, that is cool.

Swami G: Well, we may touch upon one of them, because it was instrumental in the journey as it was, such as it has been. I started really seeking at a very, very young age, due to the fact that what turned out, and what I saw later, was a left-handed blessing. Of course at the time I didn’t think it was a left-hand, that it was a blessing at all. I was in a home and there wasn’t much love there, there wasn’t much giving, it was kind of an abusive type of a household. And so there was really nothing there to cling to, when it came to parents and no stability with that to hold to. There wasn’t this loving atmosphere, “We love you,” and that was never heard, ever, in the lifetime, as a child. And so I started to go inward, because there was nothing outwardly.

I was not allowed to have friends, was not allowed to go out, was not allowed to do any of these things, so of course the natural inclination was to go within, to begin to go within.

👨‍👩‍👧 Early Spiritual Seeking and Family Influences

Rick: How did you do that? Did it happen spontaneously or did you have some method?

Swami G: Well, that was, in those young ages, it was not a methodology, but the internal search was more of looking for something and knowing there had to be something more, and wanting to know truth. Is there a God? What is God? What is truth? Just that longing. And so I began with that. I started reading more of things of the saints, and if I had been Catholic, maybe I would have wound up becoming a nun. So I used to start looking, and I didn’t come from a family, you know, so many of the sages and realized beings, when you are in India, they say, “Oh, they came from such a spiritual family.” Well, no, not in this case. I didn’t come from a spiritual background. My family didn’t go to church every week. I remember though, as a child, I went to visit my two grandmothers, and they were about as opposite in the spectrum of Christianity as you could get.

One of them was a Mennonite, and so when I went to visit her, the couple of times I went, I went with her to church and wore the little white hat and sat there very austerely. And then the other grandmother was a holy roller.

Rick: Kind of shouting and singing.

Swami G: Oh yeah, shouting, dancing down the aisles, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord!” They were going out and doing the baptisms in the lake, and so that was about as opposite extreme as you could get, as far as that’s concerned. And so, yeah, that was interesting. But as far as the family, no. My father would read a lot of Edgar Cayce, he was more into that type of thing.

Rick: So he was kind of spiritual then?

Swami G: Well, I don’t know if really spiritual, but he had a …

Rick: He was looking deeper, anyway.

Swami G: He was looking deeper, he was doing some things like past life regressions, he taught me to do that, and I was doing that type of work when I was 18 years old.

Rick: But nonetheless, he was sort of abusive, despite his seeking tendencies.

Swami G: Yes, unfortunately, yes, that was true. But I did see some interesting things with past life regressions, such as people that had allergies would come out of allergies if they had experienced something, but I never held to that it was such an important thing to be looking for. So that was fine. I left home, of course, when I was 18, and from that point went into an order, the Order of Man.

🛤️ Entering the Spiritual Path: The Order of Man

Rick: What’s that?

Swami G: It was kind of, they call it “Old Christian,” it was run by Father Blyton in San Francisco, and this was really in the end of ’68, ’69, when the Haight Ashbury was The Haight, and all the drugs and stuff, and rather than getting involved in all the drug community and that, I went into the order.

Rick: Was it a monastic order?

Swami G: Yes, it was like a monastic order where you learned to be a minister, but that was my real big opening.

Rick: So you were a nun of sorts at that point?

Swami G: In some sort of a manner you would say a nun, yes. But this is really what started the journey in earnest, because one night I was there, and we go down to prayers every evening, and during the prayers there was the laying on of the hands on the head and the blessing, and during one of the evening services this lightning bolt went through my body. It was like a gold lightning bolt, about four inches wide, and just went straight through the body and nailed me to the floor, and that started the kundalini, that was the beginning of the awakening.

Rick: Interesting, was that during the laying on of hands?

Swami G: Yes, and he knew immediately what had happened, Father Blighton knew.

Rick: So he had the juice himself?

Swami G: He definitely had the juice, yes. So that started the process. I looked up and was seeing auras and was shifted into a samadhi experience for a number of days, into that oneness experience of overwhelming bliss and you are one with everything. If I had died at that moment it wouldn’t have mattered, you are just at that point in that bliss. And so this started my journey, really, that was the beginning of the kundalini awakening. And I left the order, because there were some things I saw, there were some jealousies and other things going on that I didn’t feel I wanted to be a long-standing part of.

Rick: Did you leave shortly after that awakening?

Swami G: Yes.

Rick: Wouldn’t you say the awakening was probably instrumental in your impetus to leave? It was somehow having shifted, it’s like you no longer fit into that shoe anymore, you needed to move into something.

Swami G: Well yes, I think it was instrumental in that as well. But I was looking under every crevice, every rock, everything I could find. I was involved in so many things, the New Age movement and crystals and all of that stuff, and looking through that type of thing. And Scientology was in the Sea Org, I mean, you know, just everything you can think of I was involved in.

✨ Kundalini Awakening and Spiritual Phenomena

Rick: And was your awakening sustained at that point, the kundalini awakening, or did it kind of go dormant again?

Swami G: For a while it kind of laid low for a very short time, but then it really started bursting out in earnest, and it was very, very severe, it was very, very difficult.

Rick: Unpleasant?

Swami G: It was very difficult.

Rick: Unpleasant?

Swami G: Well, during part of the journey it felt like I was going to spontaneously combust, so yeah, I would say.

Rick: Did you know what was going on, or did you have anybody who could counsel you, or were you kind of like just on your own at this point?

Swami G: You know, at that point I was really on my own. I looked and looked for a teacher, for a guru, for somebody that knew what was going on. I had gotten a hold of the … and the only thing that was out during that period of time was Gopi Krishna’s book, and when I had read it I recognized, “Okay, this is what it is,” but of course it gave nothing.

Rick: Was that a book about kundalini?

Swami G: It was a book about kundalini and his journey and the difficulty he had, and he never transcended, I don’t think he ever reached realization, but I figured out, “This is what this is,” and I went to look throughout the years and just really was not finding anyone that knew much about this, and so it was difficult. I was having a lot of phenomena, a lot of phenomena, and city powers, some city powers came, was able to control weather. People will say it’s a lot of bunk, but no, those things came and they went, and they are not important in the long range of things. They can be very ego-stumbling blocks along the way if one gets into trying to develop those types of powers, etc.

“They can be very ego-stumbling blocks along the way if one gets into trying to develop those types of powers.”

Rick: When you say phenomena, do you mean perceptual things that were happening and stuff like that? And if so, is that worth elaborating on?

Swami G: There was a lot of phenomena, and so I can talk a little bit about some of the phenomena that went on through the years. People would take photos, regular photos of me, not Corellian photos, not aura photos, and there would be lights coming out of the head, lights coming out of the mouth, you would see a snake curled next to the shoulder that you would see, just phenomena, lots of things of that sort. One second you’re in the body, the next second you’re out of the body and the consciousness is above the trees, just so many things. One night I woke up, went out into the living room and it was just silver, the whole area was silver, and very vivid dreams, very lucid dreams. I went through the period of the dreams of fires and the dreams, a lot of dreams of snakes when it became very, very active, and just so, so many things that happened with that.

🛤️ Challenges and Trauma Along the Path

Rick: Were you needing to hold down a job during all this or did you have some form of support so you didn’t have to work in a cashier’s register or something while seeing snakes?

Swami G: Oh no, I had to hold down a job, I was a single parent raising my daughter by myself, it was very, very difficult. I had gone into the military, was in the military not for a really long time, had gone through abuse, like I said as a young girl, was molested by an uncle and then had gotten raped in the military and was dealing with PTSD as well as with a raging Kundalini.

Rick: Boy, what a mixture, huh?

Swami G: So it was really tough, it was really, really tough. I went into also the Krishna, Hare Krishna’s, and was with Prabhupada when he was alive, so I lived in that ashram life for a time as well, and I had a very interesting story with him when he was in LA.

I was standing there and had done this mala of the flowers, full of flowers for the deity statues, and he was coming in from his morning walk and he saw me standing there and he goes, “Come with me.” And this was a bit unusual because I hadn’t taken initiation there, I never took initiation although I did live there for a year, year and a half, and he took me up to his private quarters and had me put the malas on his deities, his Krishna and Radha, and looked at me point blank and said, “You will reach realization, you will enter realization in this lifetime.” So that was interesting but I knew that it wasn’t the place I was going to be for a long time.

📚 Insights on Teachers and Traditions

Rick: Did you feel that he was a realized man?

Swami G: I think he really possibly knew more than what he gave, but he always said, and this is the one thing that stuck with me, that mankind can only be attached to something, so let them be attached to Krishna.

Rick: Yeah, the reason I ask is that we started the conversation talking about students being reflectors of the teacher and having run into a number of Hare Krishnas in airports and all the controversies that have followed that movement, I’ve often wondered how substantial it really was, but that’s kind of a tangent we don’t need to get into really.

Swami G: Well no, I think like I said, he kept with letting people be attached to that and I think that they don’t go the whole way, they go and really study the Bhagavad Gita but they don’t go into Uddhava Gita, and the Uddhava Gita in the end goes more into non-duality and starts to cut through that. He didn’t give that, he only gave the Bhagavad Gita and so people only went a certain distance with that and no further, they didn’t go to the full falling away of everything.

Rick: Yeah, as a matter of fact his followers are kind of notorious for arguing against Shankara and non-duality teachers like that.

Swami G: Yeah, because they’ve only gotten half of the knowledge, they’ve only gotten half the knowledge, and so when I run into them I say, “Please read the Uddhava Gita. If you’re going to study Krishna then let’s look at all of the text and see what his final admonitions were before he left this planet in plane.”

Rick: So to continue your story, you were with Prabhupada and that’s where we left off and then what?

Swami G: Yes, I was with Prabhupada and had left there and another fun anecdote was I decided to hitchhike one time to Mexico. I thought this was a brilliant idea.

Rick: Yeah, I did a lot of that in those days.

Swami G: So I was hitchhiking to Mexico with this American Indian, we get down into Mexico and what does he do? We meet this Mexican guy and they go into this bar and they’re throwing him back, and I’m drunk as a skunk, they come out and I said, “I’m not getting in the car unless I’m driving,” and they weren’t having any of that, so I went on my way and wasn’t too far from this town. I went into this town and went in the evening to have my dinner and this policeman comes up to me and he goes, “What are you doing here?” I go, “Well, obviously I’m going to have my meal, my dinner, well you have to come with me.” Next thing you know he puts me in this Mexican jail and I’m there for three days and three nights, very prophetic.

I’m sitting there and going, “Okay, why am I here?” And it finally clicks, “Okay, you’re off the path, you’re off searching, you need to get back to your search.” And about 15 minutes later this policeman comes back and he goes, “Why are you here?” I said, “You tell me and we’ll both know.” He went up and nobody had a clue who I was, why I was there, nothing. And so they let me out and I went back to my path and left Mexico and back to the search in earnest.

Rick: That’s interesting, as soon as you had that realization, “Why am I here? I’m off my path,” fifteen minutes later the guy comes and lets you out. That’s pretty prompt timing. As a matter of fact your sense of timing is very good because just this week I had had a cancellation and I was sitting here thinking, “Who am I going to interview next Wednesday?” And just as I was thinking that, the email from Ron comes in saying, “How would you like to interview Swamiji?” I said, “Perfect, okay, let’s do that.”

Swami G: Well that’s the way the universe works, it’s got its own timing for everything. We just go with the flow, that’s it, we’re not in control of it, we just are along for the ride of it and enjoy that.

Rick: Okay, good, so you got out of jail and back to the search.

Swami G: Got out of jail and back to the search. And like I said, it was just a very, very long, difficult journey. I was one of those that, you know, I did learn a lot of lessons on my own sitting out in nature, but there’s only so much you can get. And I was under one of the ones, and I understand where they’re coming from, under the delusion I could do it on my own, because here’s Kundalini going. And one thing I was told when the Kundalini awakened was, “Well, you’re in the first stage of enlightenment.” Well I don’t believe that, I think that’s a wrong thing to tell somebody, because it’s not enlightenment whatsoever, it’s not even remotely close to it, you’re just beginning the journey at that point. So anyway, I worked for 20 years to get my benefits from the military, it took a long time, and when I got my benefits I decided I would go to India.

Rick: Now wait a minute, does that mean you stayed in the military for 20 years, or you had to do paperwork and hassle with bureaucracy for 20 years?

Swami G: Right, right, paperwork with the bureaucracy, and it took 20 years to get my benefits.

Rick: They finally decided to just shut you up and give you the benefits.

Swami G: Something like that, yes. And so at that point I said, “I’m leaving and I’m going to India,” and of course was in that, again, another erroneous mindset that I need to find the tantra, I need to find the tantra because I need to balance all this stuff out — the male, the female and all this other drama.

📚 Meeting the Tantric Master

Rick: And what did you understand “find the tantra” to mean at that point?

Swami G: Well of course, I didn’t really know a lot about tantra, I was under a lot of misconceptions as to what it is and what it’s not, and happened to meet an Indian guy online and he said, “Oh, he was tantric, his whole family is tantric,” and so I was going to go over there to meet with this person. But I’ll back up just a little bit from that.

Rick: Yeah, because if you’re saying “online,” you must be talking the 90s now or something.

Swami G: Yeah, we’re up to the 90s now.

Rick: Okay, well I’ll let you back up a little bit.

Swami G: So we’ll back up a little bit as well with that. When I was living in the Arizona area, I went into this bookstore and I saw this tape there, “Satsangs with Rajiv,” and I was looking at it and going, “Yeah, I wouldn’t go to this Yahoo if he was the last person on the face of the planet, you know? I don’t need a guru. I can do this on my own. I’ve got this Kundalini awakening.” At this point in time, things had progressed and I had that city, that basically anything you wanted to know intellectually would be there, and it would be there just either full force or line by line by line would unfold. So you think you know something, but you know nothing, you know? The fallacy of the intellectual drama.

Rick: Would that apply mainly to philosophical or spiritual insights or could it even apply to mundane things, like you’re driving your car and you need to know how to get to so-and-so, such-and-such location, and that mundane information would come?

Swami G: Well, I’d say it was more on the spiritual because that’s where my focal point was. I wasn’t so interested in the other, although I can get in the car and wind up where I’m going and don’t know how I got there and it just happens. I just wind up there. But yeah, it was more on the spiritual type because that’s where my focal point was, that’s what I was looking for. So I left, I got on the plane.

Rick: Wait a minute, now you mentioned this book. Is this the guy you ended up deciding to go to India to see?

Swami G: No.

Rick: Oh, okay. But what was the significance of that book that you mentioned, the Rajiv book?

Swami G: Oh, of seeing the tape? It will come in, I will explain that as we go.

Rick: Okay, the Satsang with Rajiv book I’m referring to, where you said, “I’d never connect with this bozo.” Okay, so you’re getting to that.

Swami G: I’m getting to that, we’re coming to that. You know, I was having along the journey, and again, once more back up, like I said, this is tough for me to do interviews because I don’t have a real chronological thing any longer. You lose that time and space and it’s difficult. But I’ll go back a little bit because one thing that took place, because you asked about phenomena and this and that, I was living in San Francisco and the first time that things started to get still and quiet in the mind, I was sitting in a little coffee place called Caffe Trieste and had ordered my latte and was sitting there and all of a sudden there was quiet. And things again went into another expanded state, and again, the heart opening was there and that oneness was there, and that’s when that started to happen in earnest. And that would come and go throughout the days and throughout the years.

The Dark Night and the Breakthrough

Rick: Silence would just come and descend upon you, so to speak.

Swami G: Right, the mind would get quiet, the mind would get quiet. There was a space of quiet, a space of silence there. Now I wouldn’t call it stillness yet because it was rising and falling, it would come in and go out like waves. So I don’t call it at that point stillness, at that point it was just getting some quiet that would come in.

Rick: Would it be more likely to happen when the circumstances were conducive to it, such as just sitting quietly, or could it even happen if you were riding a streetcar or something?

Swami G: Oh, it could happen any time, it could happen at any time. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason, nothing you could do to make it take place, it would just all of a sudden start happening. So anyway, the time progressed and then I decided I would go to India because the Kundalini was just raging and like I said, I was feeling like I was going to spontaneously combust and had gone through already the dark night of the soul, which I did pass through.

“I was praying for death. I said, ‘I can’t take anymore, God, I really can’t take anymore,’ it was just so painful.”

Rick: Is that worth talking about?

Swami G: Yeah, maybe it is.

Rick: Because people do go through that and it might be good for them to hear your experience.

Swami G: Yeah, it was really, really deep. Like I said, I was dealing with PTSD, I was dealing with depression, I was dealing with all of this as well as raging Kundalini. And I was praying, I mean literally I was praying for death. I said, “I can’t take anymore, God, I really can’t take anymore,” it was just so painful.

Rick: Did you have a feeling that the Kundalini was burning out the PTSD and the depression and stuff, as if the force of the Kundalini was incinerating that stuff and that’s why you were experiencing it so intensely?

Swami G: No, not really, I didn’t know why that was happening. I didn’t have any clue as to what was going on at that point, no, no. But I was just in a lot, a lot of pain. And I can see the difference in working with people, there’s a difference between the pain and the drama of the PTSD and the depression and that versus the Kundalini, what happens with that. They’re distinct and separate things.

Rick: It’s interesting that the two can coexist in one person like that, because one might think that you have to really have all that stuff cleared away before you can really have the spiritual awakenings, but you had a load of it still and yet the Kundalini is going on at the same time.

Swami G: Yeah, there was a load of it, there was a load of it. But maybe some of it with Kundalini brought some insights along the way as well, and I can give you some of those insights that were taking place in the midst of this as well. But right now we’re talking about the dark night of the soul and when that took place. And literally at one point of the journey I was feeling the weight of the world. This wasn’t just the normal depression, this just wasn’t the, “Oh, my life is not going well,” and all of that. I mean literally it was feeling the weight of the world and that identification with Christ and that just, you couldn’t even take a breath, the heaviness and just the torture and the feeling this across the board of humanity. It was just, I mean I can’t even describe what it was like. It was not like the normal depression and all of that.

That had been going on for years, but this was another spiritual type thing and it lasted for some time. It wasn’t an instant where it was within an hour or two. This was going on for some time.

Rick: Oh no, I’m sure. Your story reminds me of a friend of mine who was saying some of the very same things. Very profound spiritual awakenings and development, feeling the weight of the world and going through all this intense pain and everything, and unfortunately he did end up killing himself. He didn’t go through it all.

Swami G: Well I was fortunate. I had the insight and I had the wisdom enough to know that that wasn’t going to get me out of anything. I would have to come back and do it all over again. I had that much of an insight and wisdom to know that. But yes, I was literally praying for death.

Rick: But you hung on for dear life and made it through there.

Swami G: Oh yeah. It was for me, at that moment, it was just hour by hour trying to get through it. It was minute by minute trying to get through the next breath. And I was praying, I just went, “God, I can’t take anymore, take this from me.” And the next thing you know, then I went into an even more difficult state.

“On the altar of truth I lay myself and God’s either going to take me or pull me through, but this is it.”

…And at that point I knew in that part of my journey I had done everything that I could do. I had done everything that I could do at that point and there was nothing left that I could do. And I literally said within the mind at that point, “On the altar of truth I lay myself” and God’s either going to take me or pull me through, but this is it.

Rick: So you just sort of adopted an attitude of surrender to whatever would happen.

Swami G: Yes, total surrender. On the altar of truth I lay myself. And it was really terrifying because really you feel like this is the death, this is death or I’m going to totally cease to exist. And this is not in a blissful way.

Rick: Oh no, doesn’t sound like it.

Swami G: No, it’s absolutely terror filled at that moment.

Rick: But it sounds like you had the presence of mind to realize that this was something of spiritual significance, it wasn’t just some kind of trauma bubbling up from your military days or something.

Swami G: No, it wasn’t to do anything with that, absolutely not. This was just soul rocking terror.

Rick: But did you actually consciously realize that I am now at a sort of a watershed moment in my spiritual path and that’s why I’m experiencing this terror and I’ve just got to soldier on and go through it?

Swami G: You know, at that point it happens so quickly there is no time for that type of a thought process.

Rick: Okay, so you weren’t going through all kinds of…

Swami G: No, no, there is no time for that. It’s just do or die moment, that’s it, it hits you. And I just, like I said, went on the altar of truth, I lay myself, and the next second it was, there was no me, no world, it was all gone.

Rick: So this terror thing was brief, it only lasted a few moments?

Swami G: Yes, it only lasted a few moments and the world fell away and it was gone. And I cannot say if I was in that state, it could have been days, it could have been years, it could have been seconds, there is no time.

Rick: So did you just go into a samadhi state where you were no longer perceiving with your senses, it was just that sort of a state?

Swami G: Yeah, it was into a full nirvikalpa samadhi, and the only reality at that point is absolute, just that is.

“There is no me, there is no world, there is simply that, and that’s all that exists.”

Rick: No thoughts, no perceptions, no nothing?

Swami G: No, no thoughts, nobody there perceiving this, you know, no, no, there is no me, there is no world, there is simply that, and that’s all that exists.

Rick: So in terms of your story, we kind of left you there on the Ganges having had this awakening, but now obviously you’re in the United States and you’ve been teaching, and so how did that evolve, how did you go from that realization into whatever transpired afterwards?

Swami G: Well, what happened with that was when I had talked to my guru and he was thoroughly assured that this was realization and it was stable and it wasn’t going anywhere, there was no rerouting into persona at that point, then he just told me point blank, “Well, it’s time for you to go forward and to be a guru.” There were no ifs, ands or buts about it, this was his last admonition and so that’s what I did.

Rick: Did you feel any trepidation or did you feel like, “Yeah, he’s right, I’m ready to do this”?

Swami G: Well, no, at that point you really don’t want to do it, because you know what the journey entails. It’s not like when you’re in the ego and thinking, “Oh, it would be great to be a guru and I want to be a teacher and it would be so affirming,” and so all of that stuff, there’s no one there to have those types of things. It’s not a feather in the cap. So it was the last admonition of my teacher to bring that forward, and so that’s what I have done.

“All speech is duality, all speech comes from a dualistic, perceptual place.”

…It’s so difficult to use any speech to try to talk about that which is beyond speech, beyond mind. All speech is duality, all speech comes from a dualistic, perceptual place. All speech is dualistic in nature, and even when you say that there’s not something, first the mind constructs what’s there and then tries to erase it. So it’s really, really difficult. I had a writing that I had done that’s talking about being in the now, and if you’re reflecting on this then you’ve already lost the now because now you’re trying to reflect in the past, and you can’t do that.

Rick: And so in your experience, since you’re in the world experiencing things, having also transcended the world, do you feel like there is a refinement in terms of your appreciation of the world, your sensory perception, your emotions, your degree of love, or any of those relative qualities? Do they continue to unfold or deepen or refine?

Swami G: Well, I would say things shift. When you’re in the beginning stages of it, everything is love, bliss, love, bliss, love, bliss, but then one goes beyond that into stillness, into stillness and quietude. And that overwhelming love, bliss, love, bliss, love, bliss, gives way to this stillness. And so yeah, it’s different. You can’t say that it’s not loving, but it’s not this projection of passion that people are seeing with people bouncing off the wall in the oneness state and that first flush that happens.

Rick: No, I don’t mean it in that sense, I don’t mean in terms of some kind of flashy, tumultuous emotional sort of thing. I mean in terms of increasing subtlety, increasing subtlety of appreciation.

Swami G: Yes, there is an increasing subtlety of appreciation, and one goes back into life, you know, and it doesn’t mean the emotions have ended, there is pure emotion. But the difference in this, between realization and not realization, is when there is emotion, it’s pure emotion, and it’s there in the moment, and when that moment passes, there is no mind that’s cranking on it to keep it in place. So yes, one can still have anger, one can have all the normal emotions, you know, all of that still can be in place.

Rick: But they lose their grip.

Swami G: But there is no grip behind. It’s only during that moment when that event is actually taking place, and the minute it’s over, again, the water just stills, that’s it. There’s nothing to grasp onto or cling to or reject, it just is what it is.

Closing Thoughts

Rick: Well, do you feel like there’s anything that you would like to add that I haven’t thought to ask you or that you haven’t had a chance to say?

Swami G: No, if you don’t ask, then nothing comes up.

Rick: Yeah, that’s the old saying, and I could probably sit here and ask you questions all night, but we’re kind of approaching the two hour mark and it’s probably a good time to wrap it up. But this has been very enjoyable, and maybe in a year or so we can have another session and maybe I will have thought of new questions, although there’s nothing new under the sun, but it’s very enjoyable talking to you.

Swami G: Well, it’s very nice to speak with you too, and don’t be a stranger, don’t think that you need to just sit here and call me for an interview, pick up the phone, say hello any time.

Rick: Sure, I’d like to, and maybe sometimes I’ll have questions or experiences or something that I would appreciate your feedback on.

Swami G: Sure, any time, happy to do that.

Rick: So thank you very much Swamiji, and I guess when people are feeling especially respectful do they call you Swamiji-G? Because you have to add that G on there.

Swami G: No, just me, or the big O. Just me, just the big zero, nothing to get, nowhere to go. People strive to be something but you’ve got to come to be nothing and that’s all great.

Rick: It’s like that old joke about the rabbi and the cantor, you ever hear that one there?

Swami G: No.

Rick: They’re in the synagogue and the rabbi is saying, “Oh, I am nothing, I am nothing,” and then the cantor sort of gets into it and starts saying, “I am nothing, I am nothing,” and the janitor overhears him and he starts saying, “I am nothing, I am nothing,” and so the cantor says to the rabbi, “Look who thinks he’s nothing.”

Swami G: That’s a good one, that’s a good one.

Rick: I think it’s the cantor, maybe I’m using the wrong term, but anyway you get the point.

Swami G: Yeah, that’s a good one.

Rick: All right, well thanks. So I’ll wrap it up by just concluding and saying that you’ve been listening to another episode, if we call it that, of Buddha at the Gas Pump. The implication of that title, by the way, having been to … and I didn’t dream it up, a young friend of mine did, but the implication being the juxtaposition of enlightenment and ordinary life, people living in the ordinary world that we live in having spiritual awakenings and that’s becoming more and more common.

Swami G: It’s a great title and that’s what it is, you know, the path is not separate from life and that’s one thing that I give here. We don’t do practices that are separate from life, the practices are incorporated into life and life is the practice, absolutely. So I love that, yeah, Buddha is not something we don’t float ten feet off the ground and one is still within the normal flow of society. You know, the only thing that’s changed is the consciousness has made a radical change and the blinders are off, that’s all.

Rick: And next week, if the schedule sticks to what I think it’s going to be, I’m going to be interviewing a young man who is a musician and claims that he had AIDS and got over it as a result of his spiritual awakening, so that will be interesting.

Swami G: That sounds like a very interesting one and I wouldn’t discount it, I don’t discount anything.

Rick: Yeah, neither do I, and I haven’t had a chance to really talk to him yet but we’ll see what his story is. So thank you very much.

Swami G: Thank you, namaste.

Rick: Namaste, we’ll be in touch.

Swami G: Yes, absolutely, thank you.