Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wZnq7S3LPg

Albert Schweitzer said that by age 28 a man or woman has an experience which make them an adult or, if not, he or she remains a permanent adolescent.  I turned 28 years of age on 23 September 1971.

In November of 1971, I was given the privilege and honor of visiting Sathya Sai Baba, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, my Swami, at Prasanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, some ways north of Bangalore, India.  I had nothing, was nobody.  Swami made that trip possible.  The occasion was the annual celebration His Birthday, 23 November 1971.  Word on the grounds of the Nilayam was that 25K people were present.

I stayed less than a week, but in that time I became an adult, thanks to Swami, though a child-like one.

Thinking today about doings among what Angelo Codevilla calls our ruling class, and having it come to me that human life and history is a drama enacted by genuine and counterfeit human personalities, I recalled, vividly, again, the following experience from my time drawn to Swami, by Swami, at Prasanthi Nilayam in 1971.  I have written of it several times through the years because I think this experience carried me over into adulthood or confirmed that I had been carried over the day or two before, moments after I arrived at the Nilayam.

Of a morning on the second or third day after I arrived at the Nilayam, I was sitting on a cement surface next the front door of the Mandir, watching comings and goings, ostensibly waiting for darshan, which was scheduled for a couple of hours hence.  Outside the main gate, which was an arch, not a doored gate, a small caravan of cars came up.  Maybe three vehicles or four.  Out of the lead vehicle pops an American. obviously a chief-of-staff (secretary) of some dignitary.  Retainers emerge, gather about, and then the dignitary comes forth.  Very tall, silver haired, thin, American, dressed in Indian whites, love beads (Japamala), jewlery, bossy.  Walks through the arch and looks around, entourage behind and on the sides.  Much like a Mafia Don from Godfather series.  Same bearing.

He spots me, who, light skinned and tall and languid like himself, stands out in these seas of short, brown-skinned kinetic people.  Motions to his secretary to approach me.  The secretary comes over under the impression that I am knowledgeable and perhaps a dignitary.  I am, of course, a little of the former and none of the latter except in a manner about which this chap would not know.

The secretary said that Sri Subramanyam, the dignitary he represents, wants an interview with Sathya Sai Baba and wants to arrange same through Baba’s secretary.  Am I Baba’s secretary or do I know who that dignitary is?  I told him he wants to speak with Mr. Kasturi and pointed that worthy out in the group doing this and that nearby.

The secretary went over to Kasturi who listened and then shook his head politely, not the Indian yes head shake but the Indian no headshake. The secretary insisted and I could see Kasturi, the soul of graciousness, say that he would consult Baba.  The secretary made it clear that Subramanyam did not have a lot of time to take with this and wanted the interview now.

I thought the guy a petulant puppy and wondered who he was.  Later I discovered that he was an American based on one of the Hawaiian islands running an ashram for devotees, presumably wealthy superannuated widows whose guilt needs release in the form of donations to a Swami’s coffers.

The guy had a decent gig going.  He had the bearing of Cabot Lodge or Galbraith and the height to match.  Easy to lord it over these little brown brothers, to use the language of Taft — and Galbraith did just that as JFK’s man in Delhi as well as in econ seminars packed with Indians at Harvard.

Kasturi left for the upper rooms.  I left for the little gaggle of Americans, mostly drug-crazed hippies, just west and south of the Mandir. Shortly, an Americans came up breathless to announce that Swami had just OK’d an interview for Subramanyam.  He was disgusted.  I was amused.  He said Subramanyam was just another guy on a power trip, a common phrase of the day among the hippie crowd.  The Americans went back to what severally they were doing.

I, however, started getting a strange feeling.  I felt that this was not right.  Without really thinking about it, I walked over to the west side of the Mandir — people were all around — looked up at the second story window I presumed to be of Swami’s quarters and said with considerable strength but no heat, No!

Then I walked back to the gaggle of Americans and asked Jani — American, a child prodigy who had played violin with Stokowski — if she would like some ice cream.  We were in the habit of obtaining some of the pleasant stuff — the only pleasant food in the neighborhood — whenever possible.  She was penniless and I had an abundance and was eager to feed her, which she did not do herself for lack of means.  She jumped up and we bounced off to the parlor, which was across the street from the arch that was the main gate of the compound.

Subramanyam’s caravan of vehicles was right in front of us, across the road.  We got some cold stuff and seats and started relishing.  Presently, another American came running up, breathless, saying that Swami had just cancelled the interview for Subramanyam and that the latter was loudly and bitterly denouncing Swami as a cheat and a fraud, etc., etc., sparing nothing.

Jani and I sort of giggled.  Then out of the arch comes S and his entourage.  They make gesture of shaking the dust from their skirts and pile into the cars.  S takes his seat in the rear of the lead vehicle and motions his driver to start off.  The driver, however, popped the clutch and Jani and I watched with rolling laughter as Subramanyam Swami was thrown first violently backward and then forward as the physics of misapplied technology took its course.  It was one of the funniest sights we ever saw, we agreed: the arrogant ass being thrown to and fro by his incompetent lackey.

25K people were living for days in the most uncomfortable conditions hoping to see Swami and hear His voice, thinking that private interview with Him was most unlikely given the throngs, yet this jerk arrives and demands the same immediately, like a Mafia Don.  A Capo di tutt’i capi, no less!

Later I learned that Subramanyam Swami (aka Sivaya Subramuniyaswami and Gurudeva) was Robert Hansen, born Oakland, CA 1927.  He ran an ashram at Kapaa on Kauaʻi, Hawaii.  He was given to world tours and retreats on cruise ships.  He took sanyasi to mean be a happy tour guide, always moving about in eminent circles who pay well.  Sanyasi means solitude while never sleeping in the same place twice.

Subramanyam Swami was a counterfeit.  There are genuine Swamis and there are counterfeit swamis.  The number of the latter far exceeds the number of the former.  I think I was given a test that day when his chief-of-staff approached me at the Mandir.  I think I passed it.  I followed proper procedure, having no authority over Swami’s schedule, referring the demander to Swami’s, effectively, Chief-of-Staff, Mr, Kasturi, to whom I had been introduced and who had warmly welcomed me some time before, and whose status I noted as I observed lines of authority operating inside the Nilayam among devotees.  When I felt proper procedure was leading to an improper result, I did what I could to avert it.  And I noted that it was effective.

God acted upon my direct request.  This made an impression on me that I cannot fathom but very much feel.  Ruminations on subsequent events, through the years, strengthened that feeling and deepened that mystery.

Animal history is about predation and evolution.
Human history is about religion and liberation.

Humans have animal qualities and heritage and much, much more.  Animals do not have to deal with imposters, counterfeits.  Everything for animals is straightforward, friend or foe.  Even animals which ambush other animals for a living by camouflaging themselves do not go among their prey acting as if they are one with them.  Humans should have it so easy.  Humans have to deal with imposters, counterfeits, phonies.  Everything for humans is discernment because humans are attacked by predators who appear to be human.  Humans are ambushed by creatures who look like humans but are in fact counterfeit humans.  Animals do not have to deal with that baleful phenomenology.  But humans do, constantly, from conception to death.

This is going on in Washington D.C. right now.  Counterfeit politicians, wise guys (aka NGOs) and bureaucrats (The Deep State) are trying to wrest authority from genuine politicians and bureaucrats, whose authority derives from the electorate and whose numbers at the moment appear to be small, as they should be in any case.  Adults can spot counterfeits and move to neutralize them.  Permanent adolescents can do neither.  Past the age of 28 years they are counterfeits, and their intelligence — and powers it bestows — deteriorates as their years increase in number.

Duty Is God
Work Is Worship

Dharma Protects Those Who Protect Dharma

Watch your back, Jack means school yourself as to who in your orbit is genuine American and who is counterfeit American, who is genuine human and who is counterfeit human.  Many, if not most, will be the latter.  But it is not a numbers game.  It is a discernment game.  Trust yourself and you will know how to live.

Update 1: Glenn Reynolds: Well, leftism was made in mockery of Christianity, as the orcs were made in mockery of the elves.

Update 2: The Rise of Jack D. Ripper, Democrat

Update 3: Ron Dreher: Trump Can’t Save American Christianity

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA