As
can be seen in my earlier entries I have used some of these years to
study kundalini yoga with a western swami.
I meet this swami for the first time in 2005 at a lecture he held about "Trika Yoga". At the time I was running Moss Yoga School in my home town and was contacted by the swami wondering if I was intrested in teaching Hatha Yoga at a retreat he was going to hold. I would not get payed but get the retreat for free. I agreed.
I participated at a retreat but was not immediately impressed of his outline of Trika Yoga. Mostly he talked aout his guru, Swami Chetananda, and his guru's guru, Swami Rudrananda, or Rudi, but he himself seemed like a nice fellow.
I did not have any further contact for him for several years.
In early 2009 I was at a place where I felt exhausted by being a solitary yogi. I contemplated who I could work with and remembered the friendly swami that I shared the common interest for Trika Yoga with. I contacted him and started to study with him.
In the beginning many things started to happen with me which I felt was of great value. I hade some new and exiting experiences that inspired me to go all in with the swami and I soon became a close disciple, maybe also a friend.
The initiatory line the swami was part of goes back to Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, through the american maverick yogi, Swami Rudrananda, commonly known as "Rudi". Even though the line is independent of Muktananda of the Siddha Yoga group, it in many ways has let itself be influenced by it. Rudi himself only become a “swami” in order to get the necessary respect he needed in order to get the teachings he wanted. Rudi always showed great independence, free thinking and had his own peculiar ideas as to how a teacher-student relationship should be like.
Many of Rudi's students seems to have missed this and use a lot of energy becoming a “respectable lineage”. Even though Rudi broke with Muktananda his students has adopted much of Muktanandas flavour and guru worship.
Anyway, “giving it my all” I made the decition that I would play the teacher/student game he was outlining and for 3 years I put my own thinking on pause, adopting the teachings of the “lineage”. Since I was not a total neophyte I quicly became an intructor, center leader, and in january 2012, on a retreat in India, I was made an “Acharya” of the “Rudrananda Panth”.
During these 3 years (2009-2012) my attitude changed without me noticing it. It seems like the attitudes, thoughts and ideas of the swami sneaked into my mind and was adopted as my own. In time I felt great love for him, and I felt he was my closest friend, confidant, guru, and so on, so when I was initiated as an Acharya I felt that now my life's real purpose was abot to be fulfilled.
Then life came in and corrected my fantasy!
Shortly after coming back from India in 2012 I started to see things in the swami's behaviour that made me question his Level of realization and showed me that the so-called “unconditional love” that he had for me and the other students in reality was very conditioned. In the months after we became back from India I was approached by a femal student that complained to me about approaches made towards her by the swami. She was greatly distressed and I tried to mediate in situation. The response I got from the swami felt like a blow to the ribs and I certainly felt no “unconditional love” in the situation. I felt he was acting immaturily and egoistically, showing no concern for anybody else than for himself and his own needs.
The situation lasted for some months and I was in great distress, though acting outwardly that everything was “buissiness as ususal”. But the pleasant image of his persona and "wisdom" that I had projected on the swami started to crack and finally I made the decicion to leave the swami and his organisation. I felt I could not be part of his show and be a recruiter to his game so in mai 2012 I left.
In the years after I left the swami I have strugled with symptomes like those described by people that have been part of destructive cults. Even though I have never regretted my decicion to leave the swami I have emotionally struggled with it. So much of my life was had been related and connected with the swami that I felt I had to totally reorientate myself in my life.
In that reorientating process I traced my life backwards, quiestioned my history, my ideas, my practices, relationships, etc., trying to see how I could learn from my experience.
Some
of the things that I learned was the value of friendship, the healing
energy of nature, the impossibility of planning, the joyfulness of
existing, the unimaginable possibilities of life and much more...
In that retreacing process I also made some realizations that reconnected me with my nath past, but in a new way. Through the 3 years With the swami and during the 3 years that has passed after me leaving him I have learned some valuable lessons:
I have learned that:
Never again will I ignore the silent voice of my own conscience.
Never again I will let an idea go unchecked by my own intelligence
And I have realized this statements to be true:
Through
the Mind and Body of every Human Being
Through the Intellect, Feelings and Sense Expressions
The Creator Enjoys the World and Cosmos thus Created.
Through the Intellect, Feelings and Sense Expressions
The Creator Enjoys the World and Cosmos thus Created.
And
this I know without a doubt:
I
am closest to my own Self!I am the Creator of my own existence!
I am Svacchandanath!
6 years of chaos sadhana, 3 years in, 3 years out, has brought the result of nothing!
What a blessing!
Peace, Freedom and Happiness to All!
Love from Svacchandanath!
