Guruji Yogi Satyam

Guruji.

My mother was warned. It was the year 2000. Her cardiologist couldn't guarantee that her next heart attack could still spare her. We have been camping time and again at the ICU in the past years.

"If this will truly be your last, what is your last wish in life?" I asked my mother a tough question after coming back from the hospital.

Without any qualms, she emptied all her savings from the last twenty years or so, and we hopped on the plane looking for a guru in flesh to teach her, what she believed was worth dying and living for - Kriya Yoga.

Never been to India, my mother and I, complete strangers in this familiar land, stood still at the Delhi airport not knowing how to find this village and person who could fulfil my mother's last wish. She had nothing to bank on her return. No more savings, no pension. It felt like a one way ticket.

All she wanted was a kriya diksha, to bring to the afterlife...

Eighteen years later, now in her seventies, my mother is still earning a living and enjoying her grandchildren. Weekly, she shares about kriya yoga for free to anyone who would be interested.

That year my mother went home with energy,enthusiasm and great conviction. It was enough for my father to empty his pocket, and take his first flight to India the very next year to meet the guru - Yogi Satyam, that my mother surrendered her life to meet.

Off I packed my second suitcase to bring my father to that remote village in Jhunsi at the bank of the Ganges in Allahabad, where the very Banyan tree where the Mahavatar Babaji appeared to Sri Swami Yukteswargiri is found. Guruji built his ashram around that tree.

All I knew was that my job was to bring my parents there and back safely. Until..

I went along with it. The Kriya meditations were several times a day and during Mela it extended for long periods several times a day, and even starting before sunrise. It was intensive. Everything I have ever read about started becoming a reality in my experience. Before long, I felt like I was falling in love with every single thing - even a rock by the road! I felt like my body was going to physically explode into this bliss. Even the inner silence seemed to have a sweet taste. I felt unshakable and completely fearless. It lasted even for months after that. Guruji discourages talking about experiences and simply prods everyone along to keep practicing until the goal is reached.

Guruji to me is incomprehensible and was the practice with the ultimate goal in mind himself. He has a lot of emphasis on kriya practice and not reading or talking about it. I could not have a grasp on his personality. He seemed like a hologram to me even if I could see him with my mortal eyes. Even when he talks to me, I can hear his voice but I cannot sense that he is there. It is as if I could walk right through him. My husband shared the same experience when he met him. The banyan tree was the same too. Strange it was, but we never felt puzzled. If void had a form, that would be Guruji.

It was not until recently in one of my longest and deepest meditation, that I suddenly felt his presence and I burst into tears of gratitude and joy. I was not even in India nor was I thinking of him. I wasn't thinking of anything at all.

Up until today, Guruji to me is a void who could speak and show his form. I feel that the only way I could express my gratitude to everything that he has done to my family and I is to keep practicing the kriyas. As if, it's all that he ever wants from everyone he has called to come to his ashram.

Growing up, the only energy we refer to as guruji is Paramahansa Yogananda whose ashram I felt blessed to visit in Encinitas, California and the YSS in Calcutta. But when we met Yogi Satyam in Allahabad, it did not feel strange at all to call him our guruji as well.

We hardly fail to visit the ashram every time we are in North India. My husband and daughter have spent a Christmas there and have enjoyed walking through the banks of the Ganges during the magh mela just like old times.

Photo credit: Kriya Yoga research institute