“Connect with the guiding principle in a proper way, because it always knows if it is good, or not good. Why depend on the external when we have the inner source? Realise this through yoga practice and through your daily life activity.”
These were the last sentences Swamiji ever said to me as we were leaving the kuti in late 2019. I had just arranged to return for a 2 week retreat in a couple of months. Yet, as I slid my feet into my shoes and bowed my head in a final farewell, then raised it again to catch sight of Swamiji sitting cross legged on his table and Angelika in a chair to his right, with piercing clarity part of me knew I would never see either of them alive again. Something gnawed inside me about changing plans and staying for longer. I ignored it.
Yet, this same sense of piercing insight happened in exactly the same place the first time I met Swamiji. In that era the footpath in front of the kuti was still lined by cow dung that slowly washed away in the relentless monsoon rains. I filed along the path, one afternoon as part of a yoga tour. The waist high gates stood open wide in welcome. I was towards the back of the group, and as I waited near the gate to remove my shoes, a very clear voice inside my head told me that the person I was about to meet would be important to me for the rest of my life. Strangely, it was accepted as truth by my usually arguing mind.
That first trip to India was full of insights, lessons and hilarity capped off by Swamiji orchestrating a whirlwind trip through Rajasthan for a small group of us. It was a trip full of wish fulfilment. We were open to all possibility and it seemed as if India had opened its doors to hold us in one giant hug. Or as Swamiji put it: “God proposes; man disposes”. We accepted it all – the highs and the lows.
Acceptance was less forthcoming with the passage of time, and my mind was unwilling to listen to the ill news ringing in my head the last time I left the kuti. On reflection, it has been one of the best (and hardest) reminders for me to “connect with the guiding principle in a proper way…”