Today, August 8th, is a very special holy day for me. It is the anniversary of the death (the Punyatithi) of a great being, whose Grace has deeply impacted my life for many years. Today is 8-8, the day that Bhagawan Nityananda died in Ganeshpuri, India in 1961. I am happy to share this essential part of my heart with everyone.

Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1979, I read a small book entitled, Swami Muktananda: American Tour 1970. The Introduction was by Baba Ram Dass, who had written, Be Here Now, which I had read a couple of years earlier and which greatly expanded my mind and heart. Ram Dass was the liaison for Swami Muktananda to visit America on his first world tour in 1970. The American Tour book is a remarkable compilation and synthesis of Baba Muktananda’s lectures in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York City. One of the first chapters in the book is called ‘The Nature of the Guru’, and in it Baba tells about meeting his Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda and receiving Shaktipat (a powerful spiritual initiation) from him.

Baba, who was an amazingly ardent yoga student, traveled all around India studying with over 60 great yogis. One of the yogis, Zipruanna, who Baba said was the strangest of all the saints that he encountered in his extensive travels, was very skinny and toothless, often lived naked in a garbage dump, smoked cigarettes, and even once when Baba was present, smeared himself with his own feces. Yet, Zipruanna always smelled like gorgeous, sweetly fragrant flowers, and was fully clairvoyant and precognitive! The first thing that Zipruanna told Baba was to stop wandering and go straight to Ganeshpuri. However, Baba was so enchanted with Zipruanna that he stayed with him for the next three days. Then heeding the strange yogi’s command, Baba went to Ganeshpuri where he finally met his sadguru, Bhagawan Nityananda.

The stories that Baba told of Bhagawan’s miraculous powers and spiritual greatness impressed me greatly, but when I saw my first picture of Bhagawan I was shocked. All the images of saints and great yogis that I knew of since I was a young boy were ones depicting beautiful faces and angelic eyes, long, shiny hair, and a luster of purity. Yet, Bhagawan was a big, fat, bald, and really out-of-shape, dark-skinned Indian guy reclining on his side wearing only a diaper. In ’79 I was 20 years old, full of fire and testosterone, and practicing hatha yoga at least 3 hours a day. Born in Chicago and growing up in the blue-collar steel city Youngstown, Ohio, this was not my image of a saint! I thought, “This guy has totally let himself go!” I couldn’t reconcile Bhagawan’s outer appearance with his inner attainment. It was difficult for me to see the attractive beauty in his physical form as a Guru, one who I would be deeply devotional toward.

In the next year, in 1980, I began teaching hatha yoga in Houston, Texas, where my family had moved a couple of years earlier in order to find work since my father had become unemployed like thousands of others in Youngstown. Within the yoga circles of Houston I heard of Swami Muktananda touring the United States again, and I heard first hand accounts of Baba giving Shaktipat. One friend told me that he saw Baba touch a wand of peacock feathers to a picture of Bhagawan Nityananda hung on a wall. An aura of blue light emanated from the picture and then engulfed the peacock feathers until they were glowing. Baba then walked around the room of meditating students and bopped them each on the head with the peacock feathers. Most everyone in the room had incredible experiences of wild Kundalini arousal to the extent that many were spontaneously bending into strange positions and having intense involuntarily pranayama manifestations.

One of my closest friends, “Samadhi” Sam Dillon of The Woodlands, who I have now practiced yoga with for over 30 years, told me that once he received Shaktipat from Baba in a room in Houston with only a few devotees present. Sam told me that Baba touched his face and head and that he then had spectacular Kundalini experiences including intense shaking, seeing celestial lights, and a profound expansion of consciousness. It was a defining experience in Sam’s life. Tens of thousands of people were lit up spiritually by Baba Muktananda in the 1970’s, and all the while Baba would give Bhagawan Nityananda all the credit. Even after hearing all these astounding stories, I did not think that Bhagawan was my Guru. I was more drawn to Paramhansa Yogananda and other great yogis and masters who I felt more personified a teacher I could intimately relate to.

For the next few years I continued my regular yoga sadhana, while following the drama of Siddha Yoga from a distance. Baba Muktananda died in October of 1982 and the succession of his lineage went to Swami Chidvilasananda ‘Gurumayi’ (Malti Shetty) and her brother, Swami Nityanand (Subhash Shetty). I never met Baba unfortunately, but I continued to read his books after his Mahasamadhi (death) and was ever inspired by the depth of his love for his Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda. Although I was not drawn to get outwardly involved with the Siddha Yoga organization through most of the ’80’s, I continued to have my yoga practices inspired by Baba’s books, which I found full of Shakti, divine love, and the highest wisdom.

Then in 1989 Samadhi Sam and I were invited to attend a special Intensive with B.K.S. Iyengar in Pune, India at his Institute with a very select group of American yogis, lead by the legendary Mary Dunn. (Mary passed away September 4, 2008 from stomach cancer.) In late October, after the 3-week Intensive with Mr. Iyengar and his daughter, Geeta, I traveled to Goa with Ray Long (Canadian author of the Scientific Keys - The Key Muscles of Hatha Yoga). There in Goa I became very ill probably from the food and water. I knew that to take care of myself I needed to get some western-style food and a restful place to convalesce as soon as possible. I remembered hearing that Gurumayi’s ashram in Ganeshpuri, 50 miles north of Mumbai (Bombay), served delicious food prepared by European chefs, and that the ashram was paradisiacal and healing. So, that is where I headed.

After a magically mind-blowing day of Grace traveling 400 miles from the island off the coast of Goa where Ray and I were staying (a whole enthralling story in itself which I will write about later), I arrived at the gates of Gurudev Siddha Peeth (Gurumayi’s ashram). Just as I pulled up to the ashram in the airport taxi, my intense fever broke. A gorgeous, long-haired, blonde woman dressed in a very fine sari adorned with sparkling jewelry, greeted me at the ashram’s welcome center. After being in India for a month, I thought that I died unknowingly in my journey to the ashram and the woman was an angel welcoming me to Heaven! She inquired whether I had written Gurumayi to gain permission to stay in the ashram, and I told her that I had not and that I was not affiliated with Siddha Yoga at all. I was simply interested in knowing where the cafeteria was and where I could sleep for a few days to recover from my illness. Although the angel was flabbergasted by my response, she kindly and perhaps reluctantly directed me to the large dormitory for men inside the ashram.

The next day, after sleeping-in through 60 men snoring, temple bells ringing and conchs blowing at 3:30 in the morning, I ventured outside the ashram. I started walking down the single lane, dirt road toward the village of Ganeshpuri, where Bhagawan Nityananda lived and died. Almost immediately outside the ashram gates I met a middle-aged, American woman dressed in a Punjabi, who was also walking toward the village. We struck up a conversation in which she revealed that she was a long-time devotee of Baba Muktananda and Gurumayi, and who had visited Gurudev Siddha Peeth (GSP) for many years. As we approached the center of the small village of Ganeshpuri, without explanation the woman veered off the road and silently walked through a small gate near a 2-story, white washed, plain, utilitarian building. Without questioning I slowly followed the woman through a small doorway, removing our shoes, we walked up a flight of stairs to an open, rectangular room. The room was empty except for a monk napping at the far end of the room, and a small canopied bed at the near end of the room. The woman pranamed (bowed) toward the empty bed and then sat cross-legged on the cool floor facing the bed and went into meditation. I followed. The room was perfectly still and quiet, and a lovely breeze moved through the open windows on the long walls of the room on either side of us. I quickly dropped deep into meditation and it was a sublime feeling. As I bathed in my heart I was suddenly overtaken by a swelling wave of pure love. I stayed centered into the profound feeling while tear droplets ran singular streams down my face. This was completely bizarre for me since I considered myself a spiritual warrior who had trained for years to be poised and powerfully centered under the toughest circumstances. I did not often cry, especially sitting in front of an empty bed in an unknown building in a foreign country! After a few minutes of me being immersed in this confusing, yet utterly love-filled state, the woman again bowed toward the bed, then arose and walked out of the room. Again, I followed in silence. Downstairs, in the small courtyard outside the building, I gathered myself and then began questioning the woman about what the heck we just experienced. With sweet compassion she told me that it was the bed in which the great saint, Bhagawan Nityananda died in 1961. Seeing my befuddlement and the transformation of light in my face, she began to tell me the whole story….



Bhagawan Nityananda was one of the greatest saints that ever lived. Around 1897 a woman gathering firewood in the jungle in North Kerala (near the bottom of India) was drawn to a spot on the path by an unusually loud cawing of crows. There the woman came upon a little baby boy abandoned by his mother. According to the woman the baby was being guarded by a nearby cobra. Having a family of her own she took the baby to her village and gave him to a friend’s daughter, who was barren. The woman was a servant of a lawyer named Mr. Ishwar Iyer. The mysterious boy was named Ram by the servant woman. When Ram was around 6 years old his foster mother died, and so the religiously devout Mr. and Mrs. Iyer adopted him and took good care of him. Everyone around Ram, particularly his adopted parents recognized that the boy was a very extraordinary being as he began to reveal esoteric metaphysical knowledge and supernatural powers. Sometime after he was 10 years old Ram left the Iyers to wander around northern India and into the Himalayan Mountains. There are sources today that indicate the appearance of a great teenage Kundalini yogi in the Himalayas fitting Bhagawan’s description at that time.

As a very interesting aside, when Bhagawan Nityananda was just an infant he was afflicted with a strange illness. Walking near her home, Ram’s foster mother crossed the path of a stranger who said that he could help cure the child with the contents of a bag that he was carrying, mixed with the blood of a crow. Just at that time another stranger appeared with a dead crow. The mother followed the peculiar instructions and rubbed the treated crow’s blood all over Ram’s body. Within days Ram wonderously  regained his full health, however his skin had permanently turned a very swarthy color, almost a bluish dark brown. In later years, whenever anyone ever asked Bhagawan for details of his birth and early childhood, he only said cryptically, “a crow came and a crow left.”

Around 1912, when Ram was approximately 16 years old, he returned to the Iyers in the south of India to be with Mr. Iyer near the end of his life. When seeing Ram return, Mr. Iyer reportedly shouted with joy, “Nityananda, Nityananda!” Nityananda translates as the “Bliss of the eternal,” or “One who is in a constant state of ecstasy.” Ram was renamed from that moment.



By 1923, Nityananda made his way north to the Tansa Valley in the state of Maharastra (just north of Bombay). Each year more and more people heard about Nityananda’s tremendous altruism, miracles, and magnificent spiritual presence, and so his devotees grew into great numbers. The stories of his miracles and his spiritual magnificence fill several fantastic books including, Play of Consciousness; Nityananda: the Divine Presence; and Sadguru Nityananda Bhagavan: The Eternal Entity, so I encourage everyone to read as many of the awe-inspiring tales of Nityananda as you can.

Then in 1936, presumably seeking relief from his chronic arthritis, he went to the hot springs in the tiny village of Ganeshpuri. In those days the region was a jungle filled with snakes and wild animals, including tigers. In just a short time of Bhagawan’s presence there in Ganeshpuri, the whole area was transformed in a livable village by the arrival of hundreds and then thousands of people who would journey to be near him.

On the auspicious day, August 15, 1947 (India’s independence day from British rule, and which would become Anusara’s birthday in 1997) Bhagawan Nityananda gave Swami Muktananda his sandals as a gift in the Ganeshpuri temple. Baba wrapped the precious sandals in his shawl, put them on his head and then walked the few miles down the little road from the temple to his hut where he was living. During that walk Baba had a profound Shaktipat experience which completely transformed him spiritually and which bonded Nityananda in his heart forever as his Gurudev. To fast forward from that day, about 9 years later, Bhagawan gave Baba a small piece of land about a mile from the center of Ganeshpuri in order to build the Gurudev Siddha Ashram there. After Bhagawan’s Mahasamadhi in 1961 Baba’s GSP ashram grew considerably, especially after his first world tour in 1970. And it was from that tour that I first heard about Baba and his Guru. So, this brings it all full circle to my connection to Bhagawan Nityananda and his lineage in Baba Muktananda.

The day after my profound experience at Nityananda’s Mahasamadhi bed, I met Gurumayi. That was November 3, 1989, which became my divya diksha day, my spiritual initiation day. That is another amazing story for some other day, but suffice it to say that after that day sitting in front of Bhagawan’s bed, tremendous blessings of Grace have filled my life more and more. I know now, after countless wondrous experiences over the years, especially around Gurumayi, that Bhagawan Nityananda’s Shakti pervades the very essence of Anusara yoga. Looking back I feel that Grace led me to all the great teachers that have guided me on my path. It is clear to me that all of my insights and understanding into the Universal Principles of Alignment have come from Kundalini-enlivened revelations ignited by Bhagawan’s Grace.

Now I look at pictures of Bhagawan Nityananda and I see the Supreme pulsing with boundless love, creative power, and Self-knowing. Even on a physical level, the basis of the universal principles for the shoulders came from me meditating for hours on Bhagawan’s form. In fact, in all photos of him throughout the years you can see that his torso is so filled with Prana that he looks buoyant and radiant. His side body (from the waistline to the armpits) is always long and lifted and so his shoulders are always square. So, when our shoulders are in optimal alignment we emulate the upper body of Bhagawan Nityananda!

What I once saw as fat on Bhagawan before is now seen as the swell of Shakti’s ever-expanding delight! The more that I study his form through many photos I realize that his skin was generally more taut and smooth, and not so flabby. His dark color now looks like polished dark gold to me. Just meditating on his gaze takes me to celestial realms. His is the incredibly dense, compact embodiment of Kundalini Shakti. If you study a chronological gallery of photos of his form, you will notice that every single day his outer form and appearance would change dramatically. He would eat only a few vegetables and some fruit at the most every day (and some strong coffee!), and yet his physical form would radically morph day to day. This phenomenon was reported by all those around him each day. Now when I look on Bhagawan’s form I just see Shiva-Shakti clothed in human form. It is so beyond the mind’s full comprehension.

At this juncture of my story, it is also important to note a reason why Bhagawan took such a physical appearance. Bhagawan was an Avadhut, one who has ‘shaken off the attachments of material existence.’ He was a great being who was functioning more in the absolute realm of Spirit than even in the physical realm. On one level he appeared like he did not give much attention to his earthly existence. People had to implore him to wear a loincloth; devotees would many times have to hand-feed him since he would go without eating otherwise; fruit would be given to him as offerings everyday but it would just pile up in mounds sometimes several feet high as he would appear to not even notice it; he rarely spoke; most of the time he would sit or lie around and seemingly be disinterested in everything around him; and he would many times exhibit completely bizarre and antisocial behavior. Yet at the same time, he would exude such supernal love and divine energy that the simplest glance, grunt, word, touch, smack, or thought directed toward someone who change their lives forever through miraculous healing or extraordinary expansions of consciousness and awakenings of the heart. Also, he seemed to know everything that was going on in everyone’s lives everywhere. His Shakti was so great that just being in the vicinity of his energetic field would re-calibrate one’s entire subtle energy system and mind/body, and transform them spiritually forever. So, people would regularly travel for hours just to sit in his presence for a few minutes and watch him sleep. Today someone so antimonial and civilly disconnected (more extreme than most of modern societies’ homeless) would be probably be socially shunned, arrested or admitted to an asylum as a ward of the State!

In my house, my library / meditation room is the most important room, the spiritual focal point of my home. In the meditation room, my altar (puja table) is the most important piece, and in the center of the altar is a murthi (statue) of Bhagawan Nityananda. The altar in my meditation room is the receptacle of Anusara’s power, and the source of that power comes through the gateway of Bhagawan Nityananda’s Grace. Each time time I sit at my puja before his murth I remember Bhagawan’s immortal teaching: “The Heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam.” May the Grace of the Supreme guide you to your Heart. Jay Bhagwan! Sadgurunath Maharaj ki Jai!

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