At the age of six I had spontaneous experiences which neither I nor my family could understand. These experiences came to me again twice later on. I began to study books on yoga, on tantra, philosophy and all religions. I associated myself with the disciples of Swami Vivekananda and with Anandamayi Ma. I realized that it was my destiny to find out what that experience was and where it came from. That is how I spent my time: in searching and, at the same time, I was studying. Besides my subject, which was philosophy, I studied pathology, history and politics, privately of course. I was also imparted training for my family business, which consisted of sheep, oxen, horses, cows and goats, forests, rivers, big agricultural fields and dairies. I was trained to take care of all of those things, so I studied bacteriology and animal pathology.
At the age of 19, my father finally decided that I should leave home for my search. The reason was that my father was himself a spiritual seeker. Before he realized that he was a seeker, he was caught up in the net, and he realized it too late when the net surrounded him very tightly. Every now and then he used to tell me that he had discovered that he was a seeker very late, and that he himself had wanted to dedicate his life to the discovery of higher experience, for himself and also for others. For this purpose, he used to often go to saints, sadhus and gurus. He also had a lot of adventures in spiritual life, but he was a police officer during the British regime, he had a lot of responsibilities to both the Indians and to his boss, the British. The officers used to order him to shoot. At the same time, he had a responsibility to the people, who he knew would one day become independent and would take revenge on him, so he had a lot of difficulties.
The first difficulty he encountered was my mother. My mother was a staunch disciple and devotee of Mahatma Gandhi, and she used to take part in political movements, what you call satyagraha, non-violent resistance. She used to picket in front of the shops of imported goods. As a young girl of 13, she used to just lie down in front of the shops and stop customers from getting in. So what happened? A policeman had to come and that was my father. Many times she was hauled behind bars, and my father handcuffed her, and in the court of law he was the witness against her on behalf of the government. These were the difficulties which he encountered.
All of us brothers were left to God because our father was busy fulfilling his commitments to the British government, and mother was busy with her commitments towards Mahatma Gandhi. Both of them would stay out of the house all the time, and we had our own time. Finally, father decided that I should leave home and follow the path of sannyasa. I did not know where to go. I was barely 19 or 20.
I remembered one of my sisters who was interested in yoga. She was not my own sister; my sister, who was a doctor, had died. After graduating from medical studies, she joined the Catholic Church. She became a Christian and entered a nunnery and there she died. I don’t know under what circumstances, because I was too young to know these things. So I adopted another medical student in Rajasthan, a South Indian girl, as my sister; she was also interested in yoga and all these kinds of things. I remembered her and went to Rajasthan, the western part of India. She directed me to her tantric guru. She was a tantric worshipper of Sri Vidya; this is a special science in Indian tantra. It is not left hand tantra, it is right hand tantra. In Sri Vidya, they worship the Sri Chakra or Sri Yantra.
She guided me to her guru, who was a good man, about 80 years old, very soft, very knowledgeable, but he was searching for a successor to whom he could transfer his knowledge or experience, not for a disciple. I stayed there for some time. I liked him, I learned a lot about tantra from him: the academic side, the ritualistic side, the philosophical side. When I asked him about experiences, he said that he really did not know what experience I wanted and how he could give it to me, so I left him after six or seven months. I have great respect for him, even to this day, because he was the person who got me into the depths of knowledge, not the external one, not in the periphery, but at the centre.
Afterwards, I wandered aimlessly for a few days, about ten days. At this time, I lost contact with time I think. I am not able to explain it to you properly. I remember that I was at the railway station in Bareilly, which is in North India. That’s all I remember. After that I do not know where I went, how I boarded the train. The next incident that I remember was in Saharanpur, which is very near to Rishikesh. What happened between Bareilly and Saharanpur is not known to me: how I got onto the train and who purchased the ticket for me, nothing. At Saharanpur railway station, close to Haridwar and Rishikesh, a sadhu with matted locks got onto the train and he was smoking. I had not smoked for many days, so the aroma was very tempting. I asked him, ‘Can I have one?’ He seemed to be a very rough type of swami. Most of swamis are like that, aren’t they? He said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to Rishikesh.’ ‘What for?’ I said, ‘To become a swami.’ He said, ‘Then why you want to smoke?’ I said, ‘But you are also smoking.’ He said, ‘But I’m not going to become a swami. I’ve already become a swami.’
Anyway, he was a good man. He offered me a cigarette and he took me to Rishikesh and he deposited me in one of the public charities where I could get food. I stayed there barely 24 hours. The next day someone guided me to a learned swami in Rishikesh. I went to him and he asked me why I was there. I said, ‘I want sannyasa and to live my life here.’ He said, ‘I can’t give you sannyasa. It will be much better if you go to Swami Sivananda Saraswati because he is a man who can guide you in spiritual life. I can give you scriptural knowledge. I can teach you Sanskrit. I can teach you the six systems of Indian philosophy. I can teach you grammar. I can teach you astrology. I can teach you logic. But as far as spiritual experience is concerned, it is not my cult. You go to Swami Sivananda. He is a yogi.’
I went to Swami Sivananda and met him on 18th April 1943, and from that time I am a swami and I have been with him all the time. While he was alive, I was with him; now he is no more, but still he is with me.
6 February 1983, Manchester, England