• Table of Contents
  • First Initiation by Swami Veda Bharati
  • Something Swamiji Said by Four Sadhakas
  • This Journey by Lucia
  • A Spiritual Retreat in Thailand by Stoma Parker
  • The Birth of Swami Prashant Bharati by Joanne Sullivan
  • Kamadeva & Valentine by Lalita Arya
  • Dr. George Mann
  • SRSG Impressions by Ian Stenlund
  • Back to the Himalayas by Gustavo Plaza (Arjuna)
  • Anatomy in Clay by Mary Bowman-Cline
  • Reeny Rowny Cookies by Margaret Woods
  • 2011 Events and Beyond
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of our SRSG ashram
• AHYMSIN Newsletter Archive

Something Swamiji Said

by Four Sadhakas

(Click for larger photo)

Heart to Heart Talk

I was at the Meditation Center in Minneapolis one afternoon during the summer of 2011. Swamiji was upstairs seeing the children and just a few others the day of the Center's annual family gathering. I had not been invited upstairs. Swamiji had had a heart attack at the Amsterdam airport in June and was mostly keeping silence and seeing people as little as possible.

Many people were milling about on the main floor, enjoying the pot luck and catching up with one another's lives. I had not seen him much for many months. I went into the meditation room, thinking I would meditate a bit.

Instead, I found that I was overwhelmed with deep sadness and could not stop crying. Then a thought-voice (no sound) said to me "Don't you know that we are always in the same room together?"

With a teacher like this, how could one ever feel alone?

One of the first lectures I heard from Swami ji that was so fascinating back in the early 80’s to a group of Iyengar students was “I can read your mind, but it’s none of my business.” I loved that comment, and since then I realized that I am too keen on what someone is thinking.

-Maryon Maass

Every time I'd see Swami Veda (then Dr. Arya), in my early years of being his student, he'd say "calm your emotions."  At first I didn't have a clue how to do what he was saying.  Over time, as he kept repeating the advice, I became determined to work on doing what he was suggesting.  For years and years I strived and continue to do so.

After decades of work, there is still a long way to go.  Swamiji hasn't said that to me recently, and I am not sure what that means.

- Randall Krause

One cool, sunny afternoon in Boise, I was driving Swamiji, in his previous incarnation as Pandit Arya, to our next engagement. He turned to me and I heard him say, “So what!?”

I glanced at him quizzically and after a pause, he continued, “ ‘So what’ may be the most important question a teacher is ever required to answer and students are always within their rights to ask it. Actually, it is the duty of a student to determine the applicability of the material under consideration. If you can’t answer that question, you simply don’t know where you are going with the presentation. Consider empowering your students to ask, “So what?” at any time. It will serve to keep you alert and they may enjoy themselves.”

I followed Panditji’s advice at the next class at Boise State. From then on students would challenge me with, “So what?,” often quite unexpectedly, and we had great times together exploring why anything I said might matter. On a couple of occasions I had to admit that what I was saying probably didn’t matter, at least not very much, but I enjoyed the topic. The students were satisfied with the honesty of the reply and, good-humoredly, joined in with me.

On a little expanded scale, I find myself often asking, “So what?” in the widest variety of human activities. It has served as an unusually effective focus for self-witnessing of habitual response and deepening emotional stability as inappropriate reactions come to be seen clearly and fresh action taken - or not taken.

Of course, I still invite students to challenge me with “So what?” I never know what I’ll learn from their inquiry!

Thank, you, Swamiji.

- Salvatore Zambito

Editor’s Note:

For many years, Swami Veda has been teaching and speaking to/with us, and now we honor him by sharing some of what we have learned much through this service he has given each of us. What is the Something Swamiji Said that impacted your life?

There is no set length.  It can be short or it can be long.   It can be a sentence, a paragraph, an article.  It can have pictures and photos.  It can be prose and/or poetry.

Please write to us at http://www.ahymsin.org/main/index.php/Contact-Us/AHYMSIN-Office.html.