One of my teacher's teachers was Swami Venkatesanada. Swami Venkatesanada was an amazing yogi and scholar. he travelled the world sharing his wisdom and inspired and touched many people from all walks of life. My teacher Alan Finger got to hang out with Venkatesananda while he was growing up in his father's ashram in South Africa. Alan always calls himself a cowboy yogi, he used to lie around half asleep when the babas and gurus like Venkatesananda were giving satsang. He says he spent half his time playing in his darkroom or fixing his motorbike. I am sure he took in more then he let on as he certainly shares a deep wisdom from those early years of yoga practice with his current students. I have spent the last few years on Venkatesanada's trail soaking up as many books and talks as I can find as I am fascinated by the lineage that Alan and his father were initiated into. I am currently reading his talks on his experience of hanging out with his Guru Swami Sivananda. One of the most beautiful stories in there is of the Maha Mrityunjaya mantra. This is a mantra for healing and wellbeing. What's beautiful about this mantra is that chanting it is a totally selfless act. When you chant for your self, to relieve your own suffering, or remove an obstacle there is some part of the ego involved, but when you chant for someone else ,you get out of the way, you forget about yourself... Alan taught me the maha mrityunjaya mantra years ago in New York. I was working with some private clients and noticed a warm feeling coming from the palms of my hands when I taught or put my hands on the students to adjust them. I asked him " what should I do" should I be focussing this energy in some way , directing it? He replied that there was nothing to DO, just to let it happen and let love flow through me and when chanting the mantra , just to sense the students opening to their own profound healing energy.Healing has nothing to do with the healer...it is love moving through ... all we need to do is get out of our own way ... the mantra does this...
last night Nyck and I chanted this mantra over and over I chanted for peace and for all those friends and strangers that are unwell or suffering in someway...
Om Tryambakam Yajamahe
Sugandhim Pushtivardhanam
Urvarukamiva Bandhanan
Mrityor Mukshiya Maamritat
photo of Swami Venkatesanada from www.swamivenkatesananda.com
1 comment:
so so true, rachel, we just have to get out of the way. My guru is paramahansa satyananda saraswati, also his guru being swami sivananda. I am very honoured to be initiated as a sannyassin from this lineage. Maha mritanjaya mantra is so awesome that chanting it only 11 times daily, along with the gayatri mantra for energy and then if you like the 32 names of durga, well you have a full package then and this has the power to change and raise our level of consciousness easily. Imagine if we all did that daily, that is everyone, would we disappear into the next dimension, a quantum leap maybe????
layananda x
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