Part 2: At the Feet of the Master🔗

master and enjoying ourselves, singing and dancing. This girl brought the camcorder and complained to Swamiji that she cannot tape any more. Swamiji took the camcorder battery and held it in his hand for a moment and handed it back to her. I know this is hard to believe that the charge shot up from 0% to almost 80%! I am a scientist by education and worked in research during the early years of my career. Every grain inside me would not believe this if it were told to me. But you have to excuse me for this, but I personally saw the battery level at zero and after Swamiji held the camera I personally saw the charge shoot up to 80%. And that is not all, whenever the charge came down, she would bring the camcorder to Swamiji and he would not even touch it, he would waive his hands and the battery would again be charged. This drama went on for a full eight hours when the battery was charged and we ended up shooting the footage on video tape.

The mystery of the connection of Swami Vivekananda & Josephine McLeod

Halfway through the teachers training when we were casually having a conversation with Swamiji, Sri Swabhavananda (Dr Kamalakar Rambhatla, a physician based in Los Angeles, an early devotee and Ananda Samaji) asked Swamiji, "Swamiji you should come and visit Swami Vivekananda's house in Los Angeles". The discussion then went on to Swami Vivekananda and some of the incidences in his life in USA and experiences of close devotees such as Josephine McLeod. Swamiji then turned to Swabavananda and said casually, "Fool, why do you want me to go there? I was already there much before you!" None of us knew what he meant by this, whether it was a past life incident or whether he meant that He and Swami Vivekananda were one and the same from the perspective of oneness of those living in a super conscious state. He was then ending the session and said casually, "And one among you forty was Josephine McLeod who served Swami Vivekananda" and burst out laughing and left the room!

After dropping this bombshell Swamiji would not elaborate more on this! He went out for a walk at this resort and I accompanied Him. I asked, "Swamiji, are there a lot of us who were connected with you in the past life?" He said, "Shiv, how can such a deep connection happen so quickly? It is not logically possible otherwise". That's all he said. In the early days we would all be quite fascinated with experiences, with talks about past life connections. Although He knew who we were, where we came from, Swamiji never encouraged delving into mysteries and mystical things since he told us this is an impediment to spiritual growth. In fact he would always say, "If I show you magic like materialization or teleporting, I will have a big group around me, my business will flourish, but you business (of spiritual growth) will not happen. It is best we keep these things away. Besides if I show all this magic, only idiots will gather around me and eat my head!"

Graduation Ceremony and the blessings showered by the Master

The eight days of the first teachers training passed very magically. Somehow with all the fun and games we got the job done. Most of the participants were ready to become teachers. Swamiji was extremely happy with the group. One of the central themes of the first teachers training was a (dirty) joke made by Sri Nithya Prabha (Doug MaKallor then) called the "Banana Joke" This joke was enacted during the pre-graduation dramas we had prior to the night of the graduation. I cannot write about this joke, but if you happen to see any of the participants from the first teachers training, take them to the side and ask them about the Banana joke! The reason I wanted to bring this up is all of us had a banana hat we used as the graduation gear and I wanted to give you the reason for this gear!

Swamiji handed out certificates to all acharyas and blessed them to spread His mission. When he started the blessing, he got quiet all of a sudden. There was absolute silence. He was here and yet not here. He then showered us with the following blessings. When this brief session was over all of us were spellbound. Words could not describe the moment. It is one of the rarest blessings given by a master and all of us felt so grateful for being there to be able to receive these blessings and to be able to serve our master, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM.

The following was the first teachers training blessings from Swamiji:

Swamiji's 2 minute blessings transcription here