Everything can be done in silence: My journey with Yogiraj SatGurunath Siddhanath

“Everything can be done in silence, can’t it?”

He looked at me as I sat down to join the others on a Goan sandy beach one March night in 2022. It was the first day of a spiritual retreat with Yogiraj SatGurunath Siddhanath, a Himalayan Kriya Yogi whose ashram can be found in Pune.

I felt lucky to be there, having arrived at the accommodation just after 10pm, following a long taxi ride with a well-meaning driver who was confident he knew where to go, only to force me to break out my bumbling, broken Hindi to direct him at some crucial junctures. When we also lost signal at the same time, I could almost hear the cosmic laughter erupt in the ether. I suppose the Divine needs to have a laugh with someone too!

This little escapade, followed by his words to me that evening, essentially sums up my entire relationship with the Guru and the Divine, for which the Guru acts as a pure conduit.

In essence, don’t take life too seriously and learn to listen. These may sound like pop psychology instagram quotes, but in my sincere efforts to do just as was required of me, I have experienced whirlwinds of inner transformation over the past 6 years. The journey has been both ecstatically blissful and devastatingly painful at times. The primary quality that remained steady throughout any turbulence was my love.

Unconditional love, but not blind. Attuned, but not attached. This was the way it had to be.

2019: Meeting the Guru

At 26 years old, I had already known for quite a long time that my deeper purpose in life was to seek the Divine. To be frank, I was madly in love and at various periods of time my devotional fervour had reached such a zenith that I couldn’t operate as normal in day to day activities. A true spiritual satguru is able to work with and regulate each disciple’s energies as necessary for their own evolution.

There is so much more that can be said on how a disciple recognises such a guru, on exercising discernment and free will in this two-way bond. However, that is beyond the remit of this article so I will focus only on my own experience.

Prior to meeting Gurunath, my immediate family and I were members of the Self-Realisation Fellowship (SRF) for a few years, having received the books, lessons and visited Babaji’s cave in Uttarakhand, India. I have always adored Paramahansa Yogananda. He is one of the few spiritual masters whose original voice feels like a potent echo from within my being, rather than some external authoritative power looking down.

His books were my guides and companions during some of the most isolating times of my life. Incidentally, some years prior when I was reading his autobiography, I was very drawn to the ways of his own guru, Sri Yukteswar, and mused how wonderful it would be to have a guru like that!

In January 2019, I was staring beseechingly at Yogananda’s photo above our altar. At this point I had realised that it might be a long time before I could be initiated into Kriya yoga via the SRF and inwardly protested whether I would ever get the opportunity in this lifetime or have I been forgotten about. A prompt response came through the faculty of intuition - I would know him by the end of that month!

As promised, I stumbled across Gurunath’s youtube channel at the end of January and the recognition was instant. To confirm my instincts, I had an extremely vivid dream experience of the Guru shortly after this. It didn’t make much sense to me then, and I don’t feel permitted to share the details, but it was enough for me to know.

I wasted no time in contacting the UK organisers and attended my first retreat in June 2019 along with my family. The 4 of us were initiated into the ancient science of Kriya yoga over the course of the weekend.

A tea time connection

There was no gift that was deemed good enough to give him. What can we give the Divine, other than freely offering our love? This was all well and good, but it was unacceptable to me to show up for the first time without any tangible gift. Eventually, I settled on offering a poem I’d written for him called “ An Ode to the Sun”, in honour of him being a Solar Master and a rustic brass mirror, inspired by these love intoxicated words by the poet-saint, Rumi:

“You have no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean? Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”Rumi

During the lunch break on the first day of the retreat, Gurunath graciously received my gifts and read my poem out to disciples standing nearby before blessing me.

Whilst packing for the weekend, I also decided to take a box of instant Indian chai tea. When I handed this over to a senior teacher and organiser, he expressed surprise at my intuition on this matter, explaining that the guru had just recently started taking instant chai packets with him when travelling abroad.

This was the first of many such incidents which proved to me over the following years that physical proximity does not necessarily equate to the deepest connection and attunement with the Guru, and equally neither does apparent distance reflect a weaker relationship.

Of course, this grand old realisation didn’t come to me so easily at the time. I was yearning to be closer in a very human way, like a little child desperately clinging to its mother as the primary source of love, comfort and safety. It felt strangely like meeting a long-lost friend after eons but unable to have a true reunion with them. Always a little far away, a little out of reach - at least it felt that way on the surface.

Once I started realising that this too was part of the training, the agonising pain of separation I brought upon myself started to ease slowly. Instead arose a keener sense of listening.

Attunement with the Guru

It was paramount that disciples become so one-pointed in their concentration that they become perfectly attuned to the Satguru, and therefore Divine Will. Even more challenging is knowing and trusting in what is truly Divine Will versus external influences of a myriad of ego-led voices. It is simply the mixed nature of all groups and communities, whether spiritual or not.

To be attuned means to really listen. Listen to the message whispered in the silence. Listen between the lines. Listen to Spirit, no matter what vehicle it chooses to use.

Over the past 6 years, I can count on my fingers how many conversations I have directly had with Gurunath. My contributions, for a time, were mainly in digital work such as designing brochures, filming and creating videos for social media. This involved collaborating with a small handful of disciples who were also engaged in similar work. These tasks were a wonderful outlet for creativity and were done joyfully in service.

Even when I was made a Hamsacharya by Gurunath in 2023, I did not see myself as anything greater because of the title, nor did I take up any teaching role like many of the others. In my naïveté, I was still loosely holding onto the hope that this unexpected initiation would lead to more interaction with him and I cared about little else. Yet, that was not what my path needed.

Instead, I had to train myself to focus not on just the guru’s human form, but the higher manifestation as the inner guru within each of us. The ego holds the veil of separateness, but in reality there is no such thing. In his own words, at the level of consciousness, we are all One.

For me personally, this became a realised truth. With time, despite the usual silence between us, I started experiencing numerous synchronicities that reaffirmed my journey.

Simple examples would be mentally hearing quotes, songs or explanations that would be the immediate next words he would speak. This happened a fair amount of times.

There were instances in the ashram when during meditation, I started seeing his movements by my inner vision. I once sensed the exact moment his car was being driven back into the ashram grounds, and on another occasion I saw him walking behind me. The latter I had chalked up to an active imagination, only to open my eyes and see that he was in fact passing by the exact same spot in that moment.

Another trivial but still fascinating incident was when I had a spontaneous urge to purchase a new puffy coat for him. I’ve seen him wear those in colder weather and for some reason, I had a feeling that this need would be coming up soon. Within a week or so, I heard that he had in fact accidentally torn this very jacket.

The Guru is always listening

There was a deeper teaching going on here.  As a realised master, he could easily pick up any single thought any of us had, whenever he chose. This of course means he’s always listening!

I was happily open to this recourse as it’s the only way for us to truly shine a light on our cobwebs of delusion. However, if you wish to really learn, you’d better be willing to be taught.

On the last evening of the Goa retreat, we all enjoyed a meal at a local restaurant. Gurunath sat in the middle and chatted casually with everyone. The tables were divided into vegetarian and non-vegetarian in order to make serving easier. Despite being a vegetarian, I chose to sit with some friends at the non-veg table and thought nothing of it. At one point, he remarked that even if the guru gives you meat (as a vegetarian), that could be a test. I brazenly thought to myself that this is no big deal, of course I would accept what the guru gives me. And of course, this innocent thought blip did not get past him.

The very next morning at breakfast, I helped myself to some fruit and a couple of mini pancakes. Or at least I thought they were pancakes. After the first bite of “pancake”, it was quite evident that I had eaten some chicken. The 2 ladies at my table kindly tried to reassure me that don’t worry about it, it’s okay just spit it out etc. I immediately remembered the conversation the previous night, laughed, finished that mouthful of chicken and told them that in fact, it didn’t taste too bad!

Thankfully, I wasn’t tricked into eating meat on a regular basis. This was just making a funny point, albeit at my expense. Again, I relate back to the first lesson which was to not take life too seriously.

Whether I was in his presence, or in my own home, whether in work or in my personal life, the inner voice was always there ready to guide, provided I listened carefully. Even though I haven’t been associated with the organisation for the past couple of years for personal reasons, Divine communion continues inwardly in the safe haven of my heart.

People often seek a spiritual guru in order to reach God, Consciousness, Reality or be enlightened in some way or another. They will learn the techniques and work hard to master them with diligent practice. Some may develop gifts, siddhis or “powers” and attain a very advanced meditation level. However, for such love to emerge that is a reflection of the Divine, each must undergo their own rigorous purification process. In this, everything has to be let go, including old emotional and mental programming that doesn’t serve us and desires of any sort, even ones that we consider innocent or purer desires like friendship, ambitiously wanting to save the world and even getting reciprocal love from the Divine! Do not expect quick outcomes, or even any outcomes at all other than to be saturated in loving service of the whole. The path to the Divine is truly one for the spiritual warriors.

This may sound as if we are left as nothing but an empty husk. However, the result is not at all bleak and unfulfilling. It’s a beautiful place to be. Free from our own self-imposed shackles of present or past incarnations, we can take our rightful place as a child of the Divine, as well as harmoniously playing our role in the fabric of creation.

And all of this can be done in silence…can’t it? :)

Kiruthika Rajeswaran