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The written provenance of these stories is correspondence during 1998 with fellow subscribers to the Prodigy online service. I offer these stories with only slight edits from the originals.

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Nice observations and question. My Wife and I have always had a humorously peptic and not un-ascerbic view of Swami. I’ve been meaning to write the story of our first meeting with Him, separately a continent apart but about the same time. Soon.

She sees Narasimha. Drew a picture of Him following a lion with His Hands behind His Back and a lion tail wagging cheerily from under His robe. Nadine Clegern of your area and not a few in California were outraged at the sacrilege.

Lila Youngs said she could understand it — but didn’t like it — but others couldn’t understand it, much less like it. The picture was of Narasimha done humorously. Both Narasimha and humor with regard to the Divine are unpopular topics for mantra and especially yantra. The children loved it. Still do. Children consider God near and dear and fun and funny, which is the truth, as we all know. So My Wife draws.

Sandweiss used to talk about Swami as a cookie giver. I riposted that He is The Boss. Sam didn’t like that. Not attractive (of new devotees). He was right … and so was I.

I guess I’ll have to tell the First Meet story now to make sense of this. Here goes.

He first showed Himself to me in the PPY form in the early fall of 1971 in a creaky movie in an appalling loft on the Lower East Side during one of Hilda Charleton’s meets. Hilda was then Den Mother to a sordid assortment of missing links from the reaches of the boroughs, and I was then, and no doubt still am, not without certification necessary for that particular designation.

In fact I had just a few months previous forsook, on my own, a stellar career for much the same reasons that de Bergerac refused to join the entourage of the Comte de Guiche — or any other, for that matter. I was then 28 years of age, the time, I found later, Schweitzer says that a man either becomes his own or is kept. The price for this indiscretion was a bereft-ment of career, companionship, social status, money and ability to earn a living (so far as I knew) and a bereavement I cannot begin to describe.

I had hitch-hiked back to NYC from Phoenix, where I had been living rather high, penniless and planning to ask relatives at Time-Life for employment as a custodian. That was my plan.

This by a guy who in recent days had addressed the Board of Union Theological Seminary on the coming wide use of computers (a la Clarke’s 2001), and led a futurist conference for the Young Presidents’ Organization at Key Largo (my only time in FL, Michael), who had turned down job offers at NIH and a cushy life on the foundation circuit and was welcome to play the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Now I was hoping, hungrily and with utter bewilderment, to work as a custodian for Time-Life.

I was offered temporary lodging — I had no money for that or food — by a cleric pal of earlier days and used this to foray for employment.

My first call, however, was to a fellow Union grad, a lady on the governing board of Broadway Congregational United Church of Christ, where I had been a member and counsellor while a student at Union. She worked at a bank. After lunch, which I had said she would have to pay for, I got the urge to ask if I could stay with her — east off Park in the 60s — rather than with the cleric pal in Brooklyn while job hunting midtown. She warmly said Yes. And it was she who took me to Hilda’s gathering of missing links. In her own way, she was one, too. So were we all, all missing links in various degrees of disrepair and sordidness. Hilda, too.

We taxied down to the loft — a place I never would have considered entering much less contemplating — and I listened stand-offishly while Hilda read mail from Ram Das — I still cannot respect the bloke — and answered questions from the white-clad, beaded addicts and worse. Then she led a “meditation,” which sounded to me like auto-suggestion and a bit of a gig, and during this she interrupted her patter to declare harshly that all had to participate or the full effect couldn’t be had … she was referring to me, wide-eyed and alert in the midst, noting exit routes and preparing to ward off reefers and needles.

I wasn’t intimidated by her threats and she knew that I wasn’t. We Christians have 4000 years of genuine spirituality and mere crap behind us — and a huge, dynamic mixture in between — and it had been my job for 28 years to learn the differences. And I had.

Then Hilda announced that we would see a movie of Sathya Sai Baba. The lady I had come with had brought me — and herself — here for this purpose. It was a low-quality film, probably Super 8, but the effect on me was instant and simple. I was aware immediately I saw the Face and Form Who this is. I was aware that this is God in Human Form, the Supreme Absolute Divinity and Ruler of All right there putzing about like the rest of us mortals, playing at a party.

The element of play is perhaps foremost in my mind’s-eye view or grasp of Swami. Play such as no one here even dreams about being able to do, such wild dancing and insouciance as cannot even be conceived from our pedestrian, banal, bourgeois habits of thought and custom.

The recognition was immediate and plenary. From that moment to this I have never had any thought otherwise about this phenomenon than that He is what I later learned is meant by the word Avathar. Furthermore, I was aware immediately and fully that this was extremely more than the Incarnation Christians call Jesus. Jesus was never negated or questioned for me. This was just the More. Swami later supplied the language: The Father Who sent Jesus. Same light different intensity relative to different mission.

Swami never made me doubt Jesus but only always intensified my devotion to Jesus. I am actually a genuine Christian in that the mantra repeating constantly in my mind employs the Name, Jesus. I never felt or saw a conflict. Not to this day. All of one piece.

There was never any question about the position of Jesus or the position of Swami. For some reason the whole thing was intuitively grasped immediately the moment He came on the screen. I don’t know how else to say it. I have never felt the doubts others have, the wondering who this is, the hope of being convinced. I had no need to be convinced because the reality of the phenomenon was apparent to me from the first instant it was seen.

I did have to rescan and reorganize Christian theological articulation in light of this phenomenon — and that has been a lot of fun, also time-consuming — but I never felt any need to “coordinate” or “explain” what Swami is vis-a-vis Christianity. God is God. There ain’t more than one of Him. Somehow I have always understood this. I have always detested the Christian denominations, of any stripe. And I have always corrected the imprecise when they disparage Christianity when really they mean to deplore the denominations.

Who Swami is was clear to me immediately and I have never thought otherwise. Hislop and others trying to “explain” Swami has always appealed to me as not only arrogant but much more so an exhibition of their own confusion and doubt. Only doubters feel a need to explain.

Now when the meeting broke up and we got back into a taxi, I said to the lady that the “miracles” we had seen on film were silly parlor games and unnecessary. She was incensed. She said it confirmed people’s belief in Swami. I thought that if they had to have their belief confirmed they hadn’t yet gotten the picture, hadn’t yet grasped Who this really is. She didn’t follow this line of thought and I dropped the discussion.

What did I mean? That the miracles were unreal or actual tricks, as in sleight of hand? Not hardly. I was well aware that they are real. What I meant was that they are meant for doubters, to bolster faith, and that they are common, garden variety occurrences, parlor games such as one would expect in that sort of a Parlor.

With the exception of My Wife, I have rarely found this attitude grasped by others. Most think these miracles are big stupendous happenings, even if unobtrusive. I have never thought so. I expect them and would be startled if they weren’t around the Personality. They’re part of the territory, so to speak. Their absence would be remarkable, not their presence.

(I remember feeling gratified reading Kasturi reporting that Swami turned furiously on a group of devotees coveting a “miracle” and shot, “Miracle, miracle, you want miracle. You are My miracle!”)

Michael might call this a “top-down” approach. He doesn’t think I have that approach but actually I do. More so than seems recognizable.

So when I received the Hand-Up and saw the flash of light from the Eye at PPY that first evening I did not consider either of these things remarkable. This is why I didn’t ever feel a desire for interview, and still don’t. If He wants, fine, if not, so what? Interview, miracles, blessings, etc — none of this changes a thing. Makes one feel good or bad — both of which experiences as Chuck so ably points out are redemptive — but doesn’t say anything one way or another about the Source. The Source is there whether one wants to acknowledge or not, whether one is aware or not. It’s constant and immutable. I guess I’ve always understood that implicitly. No one ever had to teach me that, no convincing had to be done. I knew it whether Swami was there or not.

Three months in an iron lung (1949) probably helped to instill this attitude or deepen it. Even as a 6-year-old you can tell when the difference between seeing and not is an electric plug in a wall. You know Whose Hands you are in. You don’t ever think otherwise. It never occurs to you to think, as so many so stupidly do, that you are anything other than dependent absolutely on that Divine God who is all in all.

Luther said once that he is the freest of men because he is the most bound of men (to God). There is supreme wisdom in that remark. It’s ineffable.

The next morning after this gathering with Den Mother Hilda and her missing links, I was lying in bed at the lady’s chalet. She was fixing breakfast. Imperceptibly but with great effect, a gentle sweetness came through and over me and the bed seemed to wave with it, which was waving gently. The phenomenon lasted for maybe two minutes then easily subsided and was gone, not to return since. I smiled a whole lot, aware of Who it was, and rose and walked to the kitchen. “_,” I said, “we’re going to see Sai Baba.” She was ecstatic. “When?” she said. I told her I didn’t know that but that it would be soon.

A couple of days later we were traveling with another clan of oddities — her orbit was that way — to another gathering but of different missing links and someone mentioned that Sai Baba’s birthday was November 23. I turned and told the lady that we would travel to PPY for that occasion. And we did.

I have told a story of that time, around 11/23/71.

Now, My Wife also recognized Swami instantly and fully but in San Diego at a gathering called by Indra Devi ostensibly to learn yoga but actually to show Swami Flicks. So she and I are alike in this fundamental of instant, plenary recognition. It appears to be an unusual occurrence, but not unprecedented. Bharadwaja appears not to have had any trouble recognizing Rama. However, Arjuna did of Krishna. This is important. Arjuna is an Everyman in part because he doesn’t see what (Who!) is standing right in front of him.

Uddhava, however, didn’t have any trouble recognizing Krishna and this no doubt explains in part why Pittard considered him Arjuna’s superior, especially when it comes to writing Krishna Commentaries. Drupadi had less trouble recognizing Krishna than her husbands did. Kausalya had less trouble seeing Rama than Dasaratha did. The sathwic nature is more able easily to see God: “blessed are the humble and meek ….”

I hope this illustrates an aetiology of some apparently unorthodox views and attitudes we have of Swami. We have a wide lattitude in talking about Him.

Years ago a Michelle Ferrari came to the hermitage and brought some vibbhuthi she claimed was from Bozzanis, her buddies she said, and just from Swami’s hand. She acted as if it were some super sacred substance entrusted to her stewardship. She hesitantly offered us some, thinking we might be barbarians who could hurt the vibbhuthi or be hurt by it. We gladly accepted because we could see that at least it was vibbhuthi, though the genuineness of the bearer was not clear.

The children were young then. This was early 80s. My Wife took the container, licked her finger, stuck it in the vibbhuthi and had the children lick it off her finger. I did the same for myself, but I noticed that Michelle was stewing big time. In fact she was frying.

She finally got the container back after My Wife had dosed each of the children and couldn’t contain herself. She launched into a tirade about sacrilegious handling of vibbhuthi, that it must be taken in water, never touched, etc., etc., etc. We’re not org members and never knew that. If we had, we wouldn’t have thought a thing of it. Swami is our buddy, the stuff appeared genuine — it was — and we took it like we did any common food in the absence of utensils — we were in the prayer room. Utterly informal, as with Friend. Utterly common. Nothing important or unusual about the vibbhuthi, just common stuff. “Tinsel and trash” is language He uses. But we actually feel it as such. He wants to feed us, we eat. It passes through and is eliminated. That’s life. That’s Swami. Natural and precise, just like a child.

So we listened to Michelle’s tirade and smiled and dismissed her. We weren’t surprised to learn that she reported us exquisite barbarians and a positive threat to humanity, not to mention the Sai Organization and devotees of Seattle, whom Michelle seemed ambitious to organize. Seattle then was considered a flake area by the Hislop cabal down south. I think Grahams didn’t do anything to allay that fear and did much to confirm it.

But it all is illustration of a point you are making: that Swami appears differently to different folks. It has been our lot to have a radically less formal and emphatically more humorous — because ineffably more plenary — view of Swami than appears to be customary among the majority of those attracted to Him.

Life’s a blast. I’ve always been numbered among the missing links — no doubt with unimpeachable justification. And somehow this affects the seeing of Him. I think it’s not without charm.

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The date these stories is the same: on or a day or two either side of 11/23/71:

First Story

We arrived PPY by cab from Bangalore late in the afternoon a day or two before 11/23/71. Few Americans or Europeans were there. We stood out much, both tall, dressed natively for us, self in western clothes, including boots.

Facilities then were nothing like what now. Eating was in impromptu cafes. Showers a gang unisex bamboo affair with water in oil drum heated by buffalo dung, poured by bucket: one had two buckets, one hot and one cold. Sleeping on the ground or, for us, assigned to a place. Ours was stoop of the infirmary. Urinal was gang unisex open plot of ground between bungalows, not enclosed. Hillside above Mandir / infirmary was for gang unisex defecation, again, not enclosed.

Mandir was smallish prayer hall and smaller-ish quarters upstairs for Swami. A metal shed with open spaces around was for speeches. Pundits spoke frequently, under Swami’s gaze.

Only one machine in the area, excepting autos. That was what I took for a diesel running a generator. It came on periodically. Electric light was possible but not constant except around the Mandir. When this engine came on it was music to the ears — mine and Jani’s a fellow traveler musician, philosopher I met there. She’s still there, according to Pittard, the only “Westerner” (I abhor that term) allowed to remain. Anyhow, Jani and I were constant pals, well-met and hung together.

At arrival by cab, numerous Indians accosted us, mostly with insistence that Darshan was to begin forthwith and we should get sat and ready. Knowing nothing of procedures, we dutifully obeyed, she taken to female side, in front of Mandir door, and I to male side, on the West of Mandir.

Plunked down about 8 rows back from His walking area. Maybe 100 men in the area, numerous Indians with pillows to sit on — so don’t feel badly. I remember fondly a Mr. Bhat, who had a bungalow (i.e., wealthy) and took it upon himself to teach me Vedas.

I was all agog, clueless. Within minutes, my attention was suddenly taken to a door on the men’s side of the Mandir. As eyes hit the door, it opened and there was Swami. On the instant, He looked directly at me eyeball-to-eyeball, raised His Right Palm / Hand in what I later learned was the standard Blessing and I saw a flash to purest white light coming from His Eyes, both of them, which for an instant formed the entire field of my vision, all I could see, and then was receded so I saw normally, Very rapid, immediate, total, then over. He now walked slowly, talking calmly, vibhutthi-ing here and there, carrying on private business with sitters.

The flash of light, eye-to-eye, was done in an instant. But I mention this to confirm Chuck’s observation that this happens and appears to be “’nuff said” for whomever has the experience. Chuck is right about that!!!

I don’t know if the Indians around me saw the light, but they saw the attention directed to me and were all over me with wonderment after Swami passed by. I considered it all natural. They were astonished and in awe.

Not before and not since have I craved an interview. I was called in (“hauled in” is language I have usually used to indicate the moment) on the second visit, which was not for me but to retrieve her. The interview was in March 1972 and was long and wide-ranging. Mostly the three of us and then just Swami and me, after He excused her. But I never craved an interview and still do not. There’s no distance.

Story Two

Back to around 11/23/71. 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 folks. 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 this chap wouldn’t know about.

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” head-shake. 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 didn’t 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 ashrams for devotees, presumably wealthy superannuated widows whose guilt needed 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 and 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 they severally were doing.

I, however, started getting a strange feeling. I felt that this wasn’t 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 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 didn’t do 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.

Story Three (bonus)

The second day there, I was accosted south of the Mandir by a young lad who wanted money and made signs of hunger. I wondered for a moment and then took him for Swami in disguise and gave him 10 rupees. An adult Indian immediately berated me hotly for appeasing beggars, breaking a major rule of the ashram. I replied that the lad wanted the money. The Indian was adamantly condemnatory of myself. But the lad appeared again in the dark of morning a few days later, out of the blue (or black), twice, to help me with critical matters that would have meant trouble if they were not attended to in the manner obviously only he knew about. How he knew? From where he came? I’ve never doubted it was Swami. Perfectly natural. Nothing extraordinary.

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I was introduced to Jeanne Guyon at Puttaparthi by a young but broken down professional violinist and then-nutty American girl whose given name I never knew but who went by Jani or Yani or Jnani. I lost track of her in 1974 except hearing that she had tried to commit suicide with hashish upon being told by Swami to live in Hawaii and later I heard that she was with some yogi somewhere and poor and drinking her own urine. All hearsay. She was very brilliant if distraught in 1971 when I was with her at Parthi and she alone with Swami welcomed me at Whitefield when I came back to India briefly in 72. Do you know this girl? Have you news of her? She had been with Stokowski at Philadelphia with his American Symphony until she had a shoulder muscle separation. At least, this was her story. She introduced me to Jeanne and especially to the litany of my life for the next 5 years:

“Quit this world.
Quit the next world.
And quit quitting.”

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From the 46 maxims of conduct: 26) Greed yields only sorrow; contentment is best. There is no happiness greater than contentment. 27) The mischief-mongering tendency should be plucked out by the roots and thrown off. If allowed to exist, it will undermine life itself. 28) Bear both loss and grief with fortitude; try to find plans to achieve joy and gain. 29) When you are invaded by anger, practice silence or remember the name of the Lord. Do not remind yourself of things that will inflame the anger more. That will do incalculable harm. 30) From this moment, avoid all bad habits. Do not delay or postpone. They do not contribute the slightest joy. 31) Try, as far as possible within your means, to satisfy the needs of the poor, who are really daridra narayana (forms of God). Share with them whatever food you have and make them happy at least at that moment.