by Karen Jonson
In July, Roy went on a weekend hiking trip to the Cascade Mountains with his friends. On Saturday morning, lying alone in our apartment reading the newspaper, I read an article about a Hindu preacher who was in town to give a three-night lecture series at the University of Washington. That night was the final talk. With nothing else to do, I decided to attend the talk.
I knew almost nothing about Hinduism, and had no idea what to expect. As I sat in the small auditorium, a woman took the stage to introduce the speaker who she said was a guru. He walked onstage dressed from head to toe in orange. In his talk, he described the many reasons why God exists, reciting verse after verse from Hindu scriptures as proof.
Enchanted by the profound discussion, I left the lecture feeling buoyant and longing to hear more about this religion—one that I had never studied.
A couple of months later, I opened the local New Age newspaper to find the beatific photograph of another Indian man dressed in orange. His head was slightly cocked to one side, and his white, wavy hair fell on his shoulders. His white beard was short and shaped smoothly around his face. His plump lips were curled up in a sweet smile. His dark eyes looked wise. The accompanying article talked about the spiritual message he preached around the world, and mentioned a series of lectures being given in the Seattle area over the following two weeks.
Excited by the chance to hear another Hindu guru speak, I called the contact number. A woman answered. She told me: “The guru is not coming to Seattle. One of his preachers is.”
“Ok, never mind,” I said. I wanted to hear the man himself speak, not his preacher.
“But you must come,” the woman implored. “Priya Dasi (later renamed Prabhakari) has been taught by the guru himself. She’s a gifted speaker. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her lectures.”
Still unsure, I wrote down the dates and times of the lectures, scribbling in the margins of the newspaper as I balanced the receiver to my ear. As I wrote, I noticed a small advertisement about the lectures. It included a photo of a Western woman who looked to be in her early twenties with long, wavy, dirty-blonde hair.
Nothing in the woman inspired in me the desire to hear her speak about Hinduism.
2
Desperately Seeking God
Fateful Attraction
I DECIDED AT THE LAST MINUTE to attend the lecture while eating dinner with Roy at a Mexican restaurant.
It sounded better than sitting around the apartment doing nothing. I dropped Roy off at our place in Fremont and drove to the bookstore in Wallingford.
It was the smallest bookstore I’d ever seen. The back right-hand corner had been walled off to make a tiny, windowless meeting room. Twenty or so folding chairs were positioned in two semi-circles pointing toward a slightly raised platform supporting a large, fabric-covered ottoman-type bench. But there were only a couple of people sitting there. Two middle-aged Western women dressed in prim midcalf-length skirts and blazers were walking back and forth between the shop and the meeting room.
As I waited for the speaker, a few more people entered and sat down. Several minutes passed. Then I overhead one of the organizers ask the other: “Where is she?”
The second woman rolled her eyes and said in a low tone, “She’s in the car praying.”
They exchanged frustrated glances.
About five minutes later, one of the women stepped up and welcomed us to the meeting: “We are pleased to present a preacher from a religious organization called the International Society for Divine Love, (later renamed Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat) here tonight to talk about the path of divine-love-consciousness. Priya Dasi is one of the few Western women to have taken the order of sanyasi, which means a renounced person who has dedicated his or her life to God. You can think of her as a Hindu nun. The program will include a few minutes of chanting the divine names of God in Sanskrit, a short lecture, then a few more minutes of chanting.”
The woman took a seat and we sat in complete silence for a minute.
Suddenly, the woman from the ad entered the room dressed in a bright orange sari with an orange shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. I noticed a red mark in the shape of an exclamation point in the middle of her forehead, just like the one I had seen in the photo of the guru. She paused before the platform for a second to slip off her orange Birkenstock sandals.
She sat on the ottoman, pulled her legs up into a relaxed yoga lotus pose, clipped a small microphone to the edge of her shawl, and began to speak. “I’ll start with a prayer. Then we’ll sing a simple chant for a few minutes. You can either sing the responsive line after me or listen silently. Then I’ll give a short talk about God realization and end with a few more minutes of chanting.”
She instructed us to close our eyes, and began reciting a prayer in a language I’d never heard. The acoustic two-minute prayer was enchanting, with several dramatic flourishes. Then she began to chant in Hindi, singing one line and waiting for the audience to repeat it. Only the two female event organizers and a man in the audience seemed to be familiar with the ritual, and sang along with every verse. I just listened, since I couldn’t understand the foreign words.
After a few minutes, I found the chanting tedious. Restless, I opened my eyes and tried to gauge the possibility of a quiet exit. But there was no graceful way out without disturbing the proceedings, so I sat with growing impatience, waiting for the chanting to end.
After a few minutes, Prabhakari started to speak and I perked up. Her spiritual message immediately captured my attention. It was simple, but profound.
“There are only three places a human soul can hope to go: to hell, back to this world in a reincarnated physical form, or to the divine world to live in bliss with God forever. Hell is not even worth talking about, and this world is the realm of pain and suffering. This leaves the divine world as the only worthwhile goal for a soul.”
She added that every soul longs for complete and permanent happiness, which is only available with God. She explained that to gain entrance into God’s divine world was easy, and required only three things: “a human body, desire, and a qualified teacher.” I already had a body and the desire, but I had never heard until that moment that I also needed a teacher.
The spiritual philosophy she described seemed magical, and resonated with my spiritual desires more than anything else I’d ever heard. Like precision missiles entering the gaping wounds of my heart, her words and simple speech brought hope to my troubled mind. For years I had felt a pressing need to find God. And now, with renewed hope, I believed this woman was opening a door to a path that would finally lead me there.
Halfway through her speech I had a profound experience. I felt the information she was delivering was the “inner circle” spiritual teaching I’d been hoping to find for years. I had once read in an esoteric book that Jesus had delivered a secret inner-circle message to his disciples who were “qualified to hear” it. At that time, I hoped to one day receive my own secret divine lessons that would accelerate my spiritual advancement.
Now, sitting in this tiny bookstore, listening to this young sanyasi in the company of a few lucky people, I felt God had finally sent me my inner-circle message.
3
Irresistible
Did I Ever Have a Prayer?
CAPTIVATED BY HER FIRST LECTURE, I attended Prabhakari’s next lecture a few days later at another bookstore in my neighborhood.
After that second presentation, people lined up to ask her questions. I got in line, too. When it was my turn, I had two questions. I asked about Buddhism as a way to God. “Buddhists don’t believe in God,” she replied dismissively.
I then asked what specifically I could do to speed up my progress toward reaching God. Glancing at the line of people still waiting, she said, “Why don’t you call me to talk further?” I was surprised, but honored, by her offer.
The next day, I was nervous about speaking one-on-one to this uber-religious person. I was self-conscious about my mundane life. But I called her anywa
y. She invited me to meet with her at the organization’s Seattle center, located across Lake Washington in Bellevue in the home of a married couple, both followers of this spiritual path. The wife was the woman who had originally encouraged me to attend the lectures. We planned a time to meet the next afternoon.
Sitting in the quiet, orderly kitchen talking with her, I was enthralled by her spiritual appearance, authoritative demeanor, and self-assured answers to my questions. She was tall and extremely thin. I could see her flat stomach in the inch or so of space between her hip-hugging orange sari and small midriff-baring blouse. Despite her young age (she looked to be about twenty-four), she seemed uncommonly confident with herself and her scriptural knowledge.
For several minutes, we talked casually about our lives and spiritual longings. Then we moved onto my questions
“Why are there so many gods in Hinduism?” I asked.
“Why not?” she quickly retorted.
I was surprised and impressed by the simplicity of her answer. Why not indeed? After all, it is God. This was an “aha” moment for me.
I also asked her about Jesus: “Was he a true spiritual guide?”
Without any hesitation, she responded, “He was a good teacher, but you need a living saint to find God.” Her emphasis was so specific I can still hear her uttering the words.
In eleven years of intense spiritual searching, I had never heard or read that I needed a spiritual teacher to find God, let alone a “living saint.” I’d already tried and rejected Western organized religion, and had concluded that connecting to the divine must be a solo journey. I believed if I tried hard enough, God would eventually impart to me the critical missing link in my spiritual evolution. I believed once I had the mysterious missing information, spiritual awareness would wash over me in an instant.
Yet, for some reason still not entirely clear to me, I believed this young, thin, Western woman dressed in orange. Perhaps I was desperate to settle down into a spiritual path I could call my own, after having dabbled in so many that just had not fit. Or perhaps I was intrigued by the unique persona of this woman who oozed spiritual confidence. Prabhakari had the kind of attitude you encounter with the most popular person in high school. It’s that intangible “I-don’t-care-if-you-like-me-or-not-because-I’m-the-center-of-the-universe-and-I-have-all-the-answers” attitude.
I could not resist the allure of a spiritual path that had created such a confident young spokesperson.
4
Hear No Evil
The Guru’s Gospel
FROM THE FIRST VIDEOTAPED LECTURE I ever heard of Swami Prakashanand Saraswati (called “Swamiji,” meaning respected spiritual teacher), I was riveted.
I couldn’t wait to get to the twice-weekly prayer meetings at the Seattle center to hear him give his views on God, souls, and divine love. His lectures were much more detailed than the two I’d heard from his preacher. Every Wednesday and Sunday night, I joined six to twelve others to stare at a tiny TV screen to hear him speak. He radiated an uncommon self-assuredness and superiority. His deep, authoritative voice, with only a modest Indian accent and near-perfect diction, was reassuring. His immense confidence was calming. Listening to him, I felt safe and secure, like a child hearing his or her father deliver sage wisdom. Swamiji seemed as dedicated to God and to spiritual knowledge as his orange clothing and tilak on his forehead indicated.
The program periodically cut away from Swamiji to shots of his audience, a group of serious, mostly Western people, sitting cross-legged on the floor in perfect rows facing him. They would occasionally smile or laugh at something he said, but otherwise were quietly, but intently, focused on him.
At every prayer meeting (called satsang), I basked in his spiritual discourse like a leaf steeping in sunshine. His teachings seemed to crystallize many of the ideas I already believed to be true, and brought additional insight to many of my nagging spiritual questions, filling in the blank spots in my understanding of God. His basic philosophy was that we are here on this Earth to learn about God’s love, because that’s what all souls long for. We do not actually long for material love, which makes us both happy and unhappy. We long for love that is everlasting. And that can only come from God. We are never truly content in the world. In every thirty-minute speech, Swamiji made profound statements that resonated deeply, such as: “God is just waiting to grace his selfless devotees,” and “God’s grace is easily attainable through love and faithful surrender to a God-realized saint.”
As much as I was addicted to Swamiji’s speeches, the ninty-minute prayer meetings were far from perfect experiences. Much to my distress, I had little affinity for the chanting sessions that bookended the videotaped lectures. In each chant, either live or on video, a lead singer played the harmonium (a small combination piano and accordion) and sang a spiritual chant while a drummer marked the beat.
The lead singer would sing one line of the chant. Then the audience would repeat it, such as “Jai Shree Krishna, Jai Shree Radhey, Jai Shree Vrindavan.” The first line was often repeated several times before the hymn moved on. All the chants were in Hindi, and we used chanting sheets or booklets to read the translations as we sang.
The chants typically started out slowly, picking up steam about two-thirds of the way through. Then, as the chanter and drummer became more animated, the devotees would begin to clap and sing more loudly. After fifteen minutes, everyone would calm down and the chant would end withwith several slow stanzas. I often thought I would go mad waiting for the repetitive chanting to stop.
To make things worse, only a few of the singers had decent voices, and the guru was not one of them. In contrast to his pleasant speaking voice, Swamiji’s singing was nearly intolerable. Because Swamiji stressed that chanting God’s name was one of the most essential components of “purifying your heart for God realization,” I considered my lack of affinity a serious defect. Other devotees seemed to love the chanting. Many swooned with their eyes closed. Others would softly cry. I assumed I was at a lower devotional level than the others, and hoped my aversion to chanting was temporary. I wanted to be as enraptured as most of the other devotees appeared to be.
In the meantime, I decided to just grit my teeth and tolerate it.
5
A Spiritual Seduction
A Fork in the Road
I CAN’T REMEMBER A TIME in my life when I was not longing for God.
Even as young as five, I realized life was difficult and potentially sorrow inducing. But I always counted on there being a final destination, someplace free from pain, where each day was as idyllic as the day I rode in a convertible with my best friend and her family to pick strawberries at a farm in the warm Vermont sunshine.
My childhood was rough—a dysfunctional family, family illnesses, and money problems. By the time I was a teenager I had witnessed the cruelty of the world in multiple ways. My family seemed to suffer one financial hardship after the other—shortages of food and clothing, mother worrying about paying the monthly bills, and parents fighting over endless money issues.
Being a highly sensitive child didn’t help. For example, one of my aunts was severely deformed by rheumatoid arthritis. This made an enormous impression on my young mind. She was one of the nicest people on Earth. I wondered why she had to suffer when so many horrible people were not in chronic pain.
I would often sit and stare at a picture of Jesus my grandmother had given us. My parents were not religious at all, but no matter where we lived during our many moves around the country, that picture hung on our living room wall. Affixed to an oval piece of wood with tree bark along the edges, the image was Jesus sitting on a large boulder at twilight with a small village lit up in the background. Despite being alone, he seemed content. My young mind concluded his apparent solitary contentment must be because he possessed the love of God. I longed to be as peaceful as Jesus appeared to be in that image.
During my teen years I worried about typical issues, like why are we here? The traditi
onal Christian notion of spending our brief earthly lives earning either an eternity in heaven or hell never sounded reasonable to me. Life was too random, with some people born into poverty and pain, and others into wealth and luxury. There had to be another answer.
At twenty-five, after taking a two-year Bible study course, I rejected Christianity outright. I came away from the course with a deep respect for Jesus as a spiritual teacher, but came to the conclusion that, the way it was practiced, Christianity was greatly flawed. The final blow for me was the expulsion of a truly Christian minister from a Presbyterian church I had been attending while living in Atlanta. He was forced out because, according to his conservative parishioners, his beliefs were too avant-garde and not in keeping with their comfortable status quo. I walked away disgusted with the entire belief system.
At my first job out of college, I was given a book by a co-worker called There is a River: The Life of Edgar Cayce, about the life and revelations of a twentieth-century mystic reputed to have channeled knowledge from multiple sources, including many of the world’s religions.
“Here. Read this book. It might answer some of your questions,” she said, after I had quizzed her extensively the previous day about her non-traditional spiritual beliefs. She was the first person I’d ever met who did not think Christianity was the only option.
I was mesmerized by the life story of this man and by the spiritual knowledge he revealed in his trance-like states. But it was Cayce’s explanation of reincarnation that changed the course of my spiritual journey. He described how we are repeatedly reborn in this world based on our karmas from past lives, and how the cycle continues until we advance high enough spiritually. Then we leave the cycle of rebirth forever, and reach God for eternity. What a revelation!