Modern Rishi

By Hilda Soon

This is a story of why a banker left her job to seek something but she did not know what. She met a swami and lived in an ashram for three months. The Indian Swami is Paramahamsa Nithyananda. It is not Eat,Love,Pray. It is more like how a novice spiritual seeker learn some lessons from an unusual modern guru. Great book for readers who want a taste of ashram life without having to live in one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hilda Soon
• Release date: Nov 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310158261

Hilda Soon

I am a seeker. I seek God in everything. I am only beginning to see and hear God. One day, I shall declare I have found God. That day is near. It is chasing me as I run towards it.

Book preview

The following is an account of how I met a spiritual guru in the year 2009 and then followed the calling to go to India to experience this guru’s teachings. I took a three month course called Life Bliss Engineering. The opportunity to stay at his ashram and learn his teachings was so overwhelming that I left work, family and friends. I embarked on a journey of first self discovery. I immediately wrote the story of my experiences after I returned home to Canada. From Chapter One to Chapter Thirty Five, these chapters contain my words from that specific time period right after India in the year 2010. Much has happened with my life since then and I am sure more will eventually unfold over the course of time.

There is a vast difference in my mindset of that period and this present moment time. Present moment time is year 2013. I looked back on my experiences from year 2009 to 2010 and I know that something has changed tremendously within me. India represented the beginning in my search for the ultimate truth. During that time, I thought I found the answer. I was new and inexperienced to the world of spirituality. All things spiritual were like thrilling discoveries for me. I was very much like a child on a beach collecting all kinds of different shells for my shell collage. The shells of spiritual information were placed into my knowledge bucket for a closer examination later. I have since overturned my bucket of shells and looked intensely at all I have collected. To my surprise, in the middle of my collection, I discovered a modern rishi for myself.

Chapter One: How it began

In the year 2008, I left my long standing career of ten years at the bank to start my own business as an independent mortgage broker. When I left the bank, I had recently achieved a prestigious annual Best of the Best award for surpassing my bank sales goals. It came with a hefty monetary bonus. Colleagues and friends were surprised at my decision to leave what many would consider a great steady career. I actually felt the same but something in me pushed me to make this blind leap. It was exciting but scary at the same time. As I pondered logically on what made me do such a thing, I would say that it was FEAR and GREED. These two simple factors drove me out of my ideal working situation. Fear that I was going to end up living a boring life in the bank doing the same thing over and over again. Greed in striving for more than what I really need in reality. Then there was the other side of the coin where I conceded it might be something else. Here’s where I turned over in my mind and asked myself if perhaps there was something MORE. Can this be true?

MORE came fast and hard. I was onto a new subject. MEDITATION. The spirituality books expounded the benefits of meditation and reaching your higher conscious self. The repeating message was that meditation was the ultimate key to reaching a state of bliss. I started searching the internet for an appropriate method. I did go back and forth between spiritual subjects, types of meditation, and spiritual gurus. I don’t remember exactly how I discovered an interesting YouTube presentation of a young guru by the name of Paramahamsa Nithyananda (or Swami Nithyananda). I only remembered that I came upon one of his discourses on a Sunday. I started watching and could not keep away from the computer. Here was a good looking Indian swami speaking in a powerful but heavily Indian-accented voice teaching some concepts of spirituality. I watched as many as I could that day. Then I got onto the website, lifeblissfoundation.org. It advertised that my city, Calgary Alberta have satsang on Wednesdays. I don’t really know what a satsang was but I called the organizer and she said that she was going to have the first one with meditation on the upcoming Wednesday. I was told a satsang is a gathering of people to meet and discuss spirituality topics. This was new in my city. It seemed like great timing discovering this Swami and there was free meditation to boot. Great, I will be actually learning how to meditate. I told myself. I started envisioning what the meditation was going to be like. I was going to sit quietly and learn to hold still the mind for a set amount of time. I was also hoping to meet some experienced meditators to guide me. Let’s just say that I was ready for meditation.

Big Buzzer sounding!!! BBBBZZZZZ! Wrong!!!

When I attended this satsang, I was introduced to a meditation method called Nithya Dhyaan. It involved chaotic breathing, intense humming, chakra focus, be unclutched and Sanskrit mantra chanting. After the chaotic breathing section of the meditation, I told myself I am never coming back to this group.

What a bunch of hoo-hoos! Loonies, nutcases, weirdos and mad people came to mind. Those nouns literally came into my head as fast they were breathing in an erratic fashion. I observed around me and made a quick note of where the door was again. That way I can make a speedy exit when the chance produced itself. I concluded two things quickly. One, I have to find out more about meditation before I go to any group. Two, I may have to drop meditation if the people I meet in the future are like this group heaving about in a very stupid fashion breathing heavily. The music on the CD player was soothing though after the intense humming section. Then the word, unclutch was introduced to the group. What is that? I asked myself. This is where I thought that I must have entered into my own twilight zone in this 21st century and I waited for the ironic twist that accompanied this famous zone.

I was absolutely relieved when the meditation ended. My inglorious exit was about to materialize. A sandy haired Caucasian woman sitting beside me, I am gauging to be slightly older than I was, initiated eye contact. She smiled softly and started to speak. Oh no! I thought. Someone was going to start a conversation with me. My exit was going to be delayed. Can’t she see that I was most uncomfortable in this space? Another thought popped into my head, These people must have a strategy for catching newbies. They must want to suck you into their group as soon as they sensed new blood.

Woman: Hi, my name is Terry. How did you find out about this?

After the formalities of two people sharing who they were and what they were doing in this meeting, I found that she was nothing like what I was feeling and thinking. Terry turned out to be a very nice normal person. She is someone grounded and also in search for a right path for herself. I relaxed. We talked about spirituality and the different types of meditation methods. I believed that she sensed my uneasiness and wanted to help me get comfortable. I made a new friend.

Hey, she can be a new referral source for my business, I thought noting that my time spent at the satsang was not a lost cause as I had seized an opportunity for a possible new contact for my mortgage business.

Jane, the city coordinator of the satsang, addressed us and advised what the group was going to do for the rest of the meeting. At the end of the address, she excitedly exclaimed that Swamiji is coming to our city in September. Two months away and we will have to prepare and get ready for his arrival.

What! My interest heightened again. Did my ears deceive me? The young swami whom I was recently watching on YouTube was coming to town. Maybe, I will get to see him in person and ask him a few questions. Well, I am in the right place and at the right time. But, wait a minute. Hold on. I don’t like the meditation. I don’t care how eloquent and knowledgeable this young guru was on YouTube, this type of meditation was just crazy stuff I started to dismiss myself. But these people like this, I said to myself again noting a serious contradiction between the YouTube lectures and the meditation. So there must be something here that I am not getting. What was I missing or am I really missing something at all?

I came to my first spiritual cross road then. Just when I thought I was never going to come back to this satsang, a big carrot appeared and dangled before me in the form of Swami Nithyananda visiting my city in person. Do I proceed further or just walk away now? The idea of actually meeting this enigmatic Indian guru was so enticing that I chose to come back to the next Satsang and help this group prepare for his visit. I also decided that I would perform the meditation accurately as prescribed in the next group meeting.

Next Wednesday arrived soon enough. The venue was changed to a community hall instead of Jane’s home. The number of attendees were greater than before. The group was growing quickly within a span of a week. Word of mouth was spreading like wild fire. I was introduced to a middle aged Caucasian man, named Dheera Nithyananda. White man with Indian name. Mmmm. Sharing the Swami’s name. Mmmm. I will have to find out more why this person have an Indian name, I thought cheekily to myself.

Dheera facilitated the meditation and gave a talk with a question-and-answer period after. Jane said that he is an ashramite from Swami’s organization and is like a monk. Like a monk? Can anyone be like a monk? Aren’t you either one or not? What is an ashramite, anyways? Well, it is simply a person who belongs to an ashram. An ashram is where you find a guru who lives and teaches spiritual truth. Also, Dheera’s name is really his spiritual name. Most ashramites in Dheera’s organization have adopted a spiritual name to further themselves in their spiritual path much like leaving their worldly identities behind. Boy, I am learning lots I exclaimed to someone sitting beside me. However, I did not know I was only chipping the tip of an iceberg.

Dheera gave the group a brief summary of the dynamic meditation as blindfolds were handed out to help close our eyes. The blindfolds would aid us better while we meditated. The CD player played and thus began the guided meditation program. Blindfolded with hands on my hips, I breathed chaotically and erratically. The thought Crazy came to mind again, I quickly pushed it away and continued intensely onto the next segment of the meditation. Remember, I was going to do this meditation properly as prescribed. Then after the intense humming segment, we were into chakra awareness and unclutching.

It was around this part of the meditation I felt something on my right cheek and below my right eye just under the blindfold. Something must have gotten under the blindfold. I moved my hand to where this feeling was and made a slight brushing motion to brush away whatever that was bothering me while at the same time attempting not to disturb the blindfold. Surprise. Wet and fluid. Liquid. My right eye was tearing I thought to myself still sitting silently in my chair. Then the left eye was doing the same. Tears are flowing down my face I was crying, no, leaking as I did not feel any emotion aside from the confusion, Nope, none, zip, nada emoting that can result in crying I continued sitting silently listening until the end of the meditation.

I asked Dheera at the question-and-answer period about my experience and he nonchalantly answered, you had a connection with your being and he quickly moved onto someone else’s question like this was nothing new. Huh! Stunned by his lack of profundity of my experience, I promptly locked up my verbal depth of inquiry on the matter. I did not want to appear stupid in front of this group but I wanted to learn more. Innocent like Forrest Gump, I was in my spiritual search. The words Run, Forest, Run came into my mind. And so I started running spiritually.

A committee was formed for the preparation of the Swami’s visit. Dheera headed the activities. Rightly so as he knew what Swami’s needs were. I was slotted into flyer distribution. Not a glamour position but something that I could do, My spiritual running continued. The buzz was on The committee discussed details of what to do. What hall to rent, how many people will attend, what food to have, how to have the day scheduled and which Hindu temple in the city will support our endeavours. There were so many things to take care of and there was not enough time. Jane also spearheaded many activities in support of this event including continuing fervently with the satsangs.

As I got to know the people who attended the meetings, I found much diversity in the group. People from all walks of life attended the satsangs and that is no cliché. One member even brought her two young children as she felt that they can benefit from meditating at a young age. Such confidence and enthusiasm, I thought. I felt that I entered the game late.

Just before September rolled around, Dheera apologetically advised us that Swamiji is not coming to our city. Swamiji is the term of endearment that ashramites used for Swami Nithyananda. The wave of disappointment could be felt in the group. Jane, who had met Swamiji once before, even loudly exclaimed she was terribly upset and had cried the whole day. Me, on the other hand was just thinking to myself that my flyer routing efforts were a bust. What a waste of time I laughed to myself. I was also amazed