Foreword
Swami Rama was a citizen of the world. He was a master of meditation who lectured, wrote books, established numerous teaching centers, and founded a hospital and medical school in the Himalayan foothills. With his unique abilities, he helped change the way science viewed the mind-body relationship, opening the door to the more holistic approach of modern medicine. The stories of his life are well known; his autobiography Living with the Himalayan Masters is a classic, and numerous biographies have been written about him.
Perhaps less is known about Swami Rama as a personal guide and mentor. He was a self-realized master who touched the lives of everyone he met. He trained thousands of students—including me—in the tradition of the Himalayan masters and the practice of meditation.
Swami Rama came into my life in May 1972. Several years prior to meeting Swamiji, I had become interested in meditation. I was an Army veteran and a returning student at a large Jesuit university. Although the university offered both undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology, it did not offer courses in meditation. I soon found a TM (transcendental meditation) teacher in a nearby city and started the practice. When my TM trainer suggested I learn yoga to deepen my meditation, I started looking for a good teacher. In class one day, a fellow student suggested a course taught by Nina Johnson, a local yoga teacher who had met Swami Rama a month earlier and couldn’t stop talking about him. When he returned to the U.S. the following spring, I made an appointment to see him. That meeting not only gave new life to my meditation but also changed my life.
This book, the fifth in a continuing series, contains the firsthand recollections of six people who, like me, came to Swami Rama as students and disciples, and whose lives were transformed. In these short narratives my fellow seekers write eloquently about their personal relationships and experiences with Swami Rama, generously sharing stories about their lives and aspirations, their struggles and inspirations.
These fortunate students knew Swami Rama, sat with him and walked with him. They studied closely and were guided by him. Their firsthand accounts offer intimate perspectives of this most personal of relationships and are not dulled by time or filtered by political correctness. Swami Rama’s work in the world serves as a backdrop to these portraits of how he worked one-to-one with those who were close to him. We see a teacher devoted to each of his students, a kind, disciplined and loving master who quietly helped them in all areas of their lives. To a person, each speaks of an unimaginable presence whose ability to teach more through silence than through words, guided them on the path of self-realization.
Through these memoirs we learn not only how Swami Rama individually guided these students but also how we all can live better lives. We learn that yoga meditation is not just a physical practice or an abstract philosophical tradition but a living, breathing, practical path that influences everything we do.
For readers who personally knew Swami Rama, these stories will spark their own precious memories. They fan that familiar flame in our hearts and strengthen our commitment to self-transformation. For readers who did not know Swami Rama, these stories will help them begin to understand what it was like to experience the love and guidance of a self-realized master.
We thank each of these writers for sharing their memories with such devotion and honesty. Their stories inspire us to live better lives and remind us that our potential as human beings is infinite. Through personal memoirs such as these, Swami Rama’s life and teachings are preserved, providing continued guidance for generations to come.
Wesley Van Linda
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
August 1, 2014
