Chapter 4: Early Days of the USA Mission
When Swamiji left Oklahoma He told us, 'Spread this mission everywhere and I will come back to Oklahoma very soon". The moment He left we sprang into action. Somehow, somewhere the spark was lit and we felt the deep desire to spread this message and experience to everyone we knew. In our case we are very lucky – the complete family was totally in sync with the Master. So there was no resistance or push back. All we felt was we now need to dedicate all of our time and energy to spread the message.
The mission starts in Oklahoma City
We needed to first strengthen and solidify the mission in Oklahoma. We started meeting every weekend in one of our homes. Soon we realized that meeting in someone's home had the risk of turning into a social gathering and also people wanted to hang on for several hours after the satsang. In Oklahoma City, Bala Vikas, the childrens' weekend programs took place in the Hindu Temple every Sunday morning and the programs ended at 2:30 pm. Oklahoma City Hindu temple allowed us to conduct satsangs in the temple between 4 pm and 6 pm so that parents attending Bala Vikas could stay back and attend Swamiji's satsang.
Word of the satsangs spread across Oklahoma city and we were steadily seeing increased audience. We started satsangs with a video discourse of Swamiji. In those days we did not have many recorded discourses. The topics He spoke during His first tour of the United States were recorded and the video files were processed. In addition we had some tapes and CDs from Swamiji's discourses given in Bangalore in 2003. After 30 minutes of Swamiji's discourse we then had a 30-minute meditation session. In the early days we practiced the Mahamantra technique. This was followed by arati, a devotional ceremony of waving lit lamps to the divine accompanied by kirtan – devotional music.
Swamiji's satsangs now happen in 1000s of centers all over the world and have the same format. Discourse for the intellect, meditation for digesting and experiencing the teachings and finally arati for the bhakti or devotion dimension, which I now know is one of the very important techniques/paths for spiritual growth. Swamiji knows the human need and the essence of our being. This is why whoever comes to our satsangs or programs, leave completely fulfilled in all dimensions of experience – intellect, experience and devotion.
Soon, news of Swamiji's satsangs spread to other communities of seekers in Oklahoma City, and adjoining towns of Norman and Stillwater. We started seeing an influx of American devotees/seekers who have been practicing their spiritual path. Several of them quickly jumped in, for they realized the true value of being connected with the rarest of rare beings – a living, enlightened Master.
We now started preparing for spreading the mission outside Oklahoma. We got in touch with devotees who were managing satsangs in the west coast. There were active satsang centers forming in San Jose and Los Angeles. With Swamiji's blessings, we took on the responsibility of coordinating mission activities all over USA. All of us got on periodic conference calls to start the process of planning for the next visit of our beloved Master.
Our weekday routine at home was something along these lines. The previous evening we agreed and developed a plan of action for the day ahead. I must say I was able to spend only part of my time spreading the mission. It was only after-work hours. But Ma Sachitananda was relentless. She spent all day and evenings working on the mission. She literally picked up the phone and called every one we knew and also those we did not. She made thousands of phone calls talking to people who were associated with Hindu Temples. We started calling people in Seattle, New Jersey, St Louis, New York, Dallas, and Houston. Some people were interested, and some said no thank you, we do not believe in these Swamis! And in some cases, one phone call lead to another and this in turn lead to another contact who finally expressed interest. All we had to share was our excitement and conviction.
My work with the mission started at 6 pm every evening. During my days as 'Mr. Corporate', I would typically leave for home well after 7 pm. Now with the new found understanding, I realised that I really did not require working so many hours to get the job done. I found I was able to complete all my work ahead of time and ahead of schedule by spending lesser time at work. I found that I no longer procrastinated. Decisions that I made in the company were quicker and sharper. Another strange phenomenon was happening – I did not need so much of analysis and modeling of business plans to get to the same end point. It almost seemed that there was a significant shift in my intuitive skills and efficiency.
For all my corporate friends reading this book, I have taken so many feel-good courses, courses on negotiation, team building, productivity, etc. However I found that the output I am now able to deliver as a result of my own spiritual journey and personal transformation was far higher than any of these courses. Please do not take this comment as an arrogant remark or as a remark to put down the wonderful programs of human development that exist today. However, for me, as a corporate executive, I found that the journey of my own personal transformation through understanding of various emotions gave me a step change improvement in my productivity. Please refer to the Appendix 1 where I shed light on Swamiji's teachings and rationale behind my own experience of enhanced productivity.
We desperately needed materials in terms of books and video discourses in order to spread Swamiji's mission. We had a few books that Swamiji's crew brought with them and left in our home. The most popular book those days was 'Six Days to Total Transformation'.
In the early days of the mission, Swamiji conducted the ASP program over a period of six days in Bharat. Swamiji conducts meditation camps over a more extended period in Bharat. This provides an ambience for people to settle down, chill out and allow the experience happen. However, in USA, Swamiji jokingly tells us that even if god were to come down, people would say, "Please come on a weekend!" These days Swamiji encourages devotees to come to the Bidadi ashram, our spiritual headquarters, for advanced level courses such as Nithyanandam and Living Enlightenment, so they may stay for over an extended period and receive the full benefit.
In order to produce more products for our Ananda Galleria store, I would grab a quick dinner at home by 6 pm and drive to Stillwater, a University town, 80 miles away. There we set up a small DVD production facility at a devotee's store in the backroom. Here we would process video files of the discourses, produce audio CDs, DVDs and start managing shipments to various satsang centers and new centers that had started coming up. There was not much time left. We wanted Him to come to USA in early 2004. But this required us to work feverishly and identify places where we can start spreading awareness of this young enlightened master.
Most evenings when I was in Oklahoma and not traveling on business, I would drive the 80 odd miles to Stillwater, reach there around 8 pm and we would work for another 4 hours preparing video content, printing audio CD and DVD labels, producing stocks and packing books, CDs, and malas for shipment to various locations. I would then drive back to Oklahoma City around midnight and reach home by 2 pm. The next day, I would be up by about 5 am so that I could leave for work by 6 am – the same old routine – eat a bagel and coffee in the car to save time so that I could start work bright and early by 6:30 am! The reason I would reach work by 6:30 am is, it would give me a good hour and a half to reflect on the day ahead and this always tended to be the most productive part of the day. Once it was 8 am, it almost seemed that I moved from one meeting to another or some of the members of my group would barge into my office for guidance or clarification.
I often wondered if this so-called musical chairs of moving from one meeting to another that most senior managers do in all corporations is required. There are a lot of times I felt that I was not required in certain meetings, but was invited. I was especially aware of this when I started traveling with the Master and saw how effortlessly He was managing a diverse mission globally from the most intricate detail of decorating a deity at one of our temples to solving problems of a devotee to working with the publications group to healing to managing construction projects at the ashram and the most important work of all, the work of a Master to his disciples. His multi-tasking capabilities are truly mind boggling. He is an epitome of hyper-efficiency, but seeing Him in action, you see all of these aspects are being done effortlessly, in a playful manner with no stress or anxiety. I realized that this is the true state of an enlightened master.
When He talks to close disciples, Swamiji tells us about 'karma phala tyaga'. He tells us to work intensely in the most efficient manner to generate the fruit of your activity. But then once the fruits of your actions are delivered, it simply needs to be given back to the society. He goes on to tell us not to be so fixated on the goal. He teaches us to live the path with utter intensity and passion, and not to continuously worry about the goal. Set the goal aside and enjoy the path, is His message. This is also after all, Krishna's teachings to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM has beautifully shown us how to live these teachings and this has inspired so many of us to also start to explore this world. Unfortunately for people like me, it has taken longer than others due to the deep (corporate) conditionings. Now I see it is truly liberating to be able to work intensely without any stress about the final result, not to constantly worry about the result. The result of not worrying has actually improved the bottom-line result. This was a difficult concept for me to fully appreciate and grasp. As a senior executive it is quite fulfilling to the ego to be working extremely hard and long hours, constantly thinking and worrying about the next quarter results. You start to believe you are delivering the results just by thinking about it. Instead, I can assure you that if you create an atmosphere based on intensity in a corporation where people are enjoying the journey and living intensely in the present moment, we will see a step change in the organization's performance. We have seen this in action in the Nithyananda Mission, where, with a few hands and a few huts in the middle of a forest (the ashram is really a forest), this young enlightened master is running a global mission spread over many centers in many countries.