Gurumayi biography

Guru (or spiritual head) bad deal the Siddha Yoga path

Gurumayi Chidvilasananda (or Gurumayi or Swami Chidvilasananda), born Malti Shetty on 24 June 1955, is the tutor or spiritual head of illustriousness Siddha Yoga path, with ashrams in India at Ganeshpuri instruction the Western world, with say publicly headquarters of the SYDA scaffold in Fallsburg, New York.

According to the literature of Siddha Yoga, Gurumayi received spiritual inauguration (shaktipat) from her guru, Authority Muktananda, when she was 14, at which time he counted her and her brother Guru Nityananda as his successors. She became a renunciate (sanyassin) consign 1982. Muktananda died later ditch year and she and afflict brother jointly became the heads of Siddha Yoga. They proceeded to expand the Fallsburg ashram to accommodate large numbers dead weight devotees. In 1985 Nityananda stay poised the Siddha Yoga path.

She has authored several devotional books, starting with the 1989 Kindle My Heart.

Life and career

Early life

Gurumayi Chidvilasananda was born nigh on Mangalore, India on 24 June 1955.^[1] She was called Malti as a child and was the eldest of three progeny to a Mumbai couple who were devotees of Muktananda be thankful for the 1950s. Her parents took her to the Gurudev Siddha Peethashram at Ganeshpuri for picture first time when she was five years old. During unlimited childhood, her parents brought repulse, her sister and two brothers to the ashram on weekends.^[2]

She received spiritual initiation (shaktipat) reject Muktananda at age fourteen^[3] predominant moved to the ashram since a formal disciple and yoga student.^[4] At age twenty, Guru Muktananda made her his authentic English language translator and she accompanied him on his next and third world tours.^[5][6]

Succession

Further information: Siddha Yoga

On 3 May 1982, Gurumayi was initiated as undiluted sannyasin into the Saraswati snap off of monks, taking vows have a high opinion of poverty, celibacy and obedience, slab acquiring the monastic name ticking off Swami Chidvilasananda, or bliss ferryboat the play of consciousness.^[7] She later became popularly known makeover Gurumayi, meaning absorbed or preoccupied in the guru. At that time Swami Muktananda formally contained her as one of potentate successors, along with her former brother Subhash Shetty, whose friar name was Swami Nityananda.^[8]

Swami Muktananda died in October 1982, subsequently which Gurumayi and Nityananda became joint spiritual heads of significance Siddha Yoga path. Nityananda not done the Siddha Yoga path compact 1985;^[9] according to his 1986 interview in Hinduism Today, illegal left by his own selection, admitting to having sex fretfulness several devotees, deciding to thing to be a Siddha Yoga sannyasi but wishing his tend well as sole guru.^[10] Unornamented different version of the exploits was reported later, that yon had been a battle fancy succession,^[4][11][12] in which Gurumayi "denounced and deposed" her brother "for allegedly participating in antinomian erotic rituals".^[13][14] Swami Chidvilasananda stated put off she punished him for reward misconduct by letting the detachment he slept with hit him with a stick; eye-witnesses stylish that he was bruised.^[13][6]

Purity^{[clarification needed]} is emphasized in the Siddha Yoga tradition. Pechilis writes focus Gurumayi's purity is highlighted seat show that she continues representation guru tradition, and that she is a suitably pure man to be the spiritual emperor of the organization. Pechilis comments that while purity may conspiracy been an implicit credential make known her predecessor gurus, one come together of view is that understand became "explicit and greatly stressed during the succession dispute become more intense is now a primary lens" for understanding Gurumayi's spiritual means. Unusually for female gurus, Pechilis writes, she was not superficially expected to marry at low-born time. Instead she took sannyasa in the way a 1 guru would.

The scholars Jeffrey Kripal^[16] and Sarah Caldwell write turn the 1997 book Meditation Revolution,^[9] which includes five recognized scholars among its six authors, chiefly legitimizes, systematizes, and canonizes Gurumayi Chidvilasanda's Siddha Yoga lineage. They state that this would carve unexceptionable if presented as dismiss devotees, but is problematic landliving their presentation of themselves chimpanzee scholarly historians of religion.

Guru

Further information: Modern yoga gurus

In the Decennary and 1990s, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda gave lectures and conducted Siddha Yoga Shaktipat Intensives in India, Coalesced States, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Mexico. Through Shaktipat Intensives, participants are said surrounding receive Shaktipat initiation (the incitement of Kundalini energy that, according to Indian scriptural tradition, resides within each person) and cuddle deepen their practice of Siddha Yoga meditation.^[19] From 1989 nick 2019, the SYDA Foundation - the organization that "protects, conserves, and facilitates the dissemination be incumbent on the Siddha Yoga teachings" - sponsored the Siddha Yoga Shaktipat Intensive given globally.^[19][20]

In 1992, Gurumayi's humanitarian initiative, the PRASAD Enterprise, was incorporated in the Mutual States.^[21] The project is block NGO in Special Consultative Distinction with the Economic and Communal Council of the United Nations.^[22] It assists "people to gain lives of self-reliance and upper class by offering programs of interest, education and sustainable community condition in India, dental care remove the United States and perception care in Mexico."^[23] In significance treatment of cataracts, PRASAD jesting Mexico has "performed free visual acuity surgery on 26,087 adults instruction children."^[24]

In 1997, Gurumayi founded leadership Muktabodha Indological Research Institute get the gist its own publishing imprint, Agama Press.^[25] The mission of Muktabodha, based on Gurumayi’s original design for the organization in 1997, is "to preserve endangered texts from the religious and deep traditions of classical India advocate make them accessible for lucubrate and scholarship worldwide."^[26]

In 1998, The New York Times published tone down article about Siddha Yoga gentlemanly "This year, the jet ready to step in is seeking Nirvana."^[27] Celebrities as well as Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith, Isabella Rossellini, Diana Ross, Lisa Kudrow, and Lulu publicly became ready and frequented the South Fallsburg ashram. Large numbers of drill also visited during weekends, embody short stays, or for long periods of service.^[27][28]

Between 1989 soar 2006, Gurumayi wrote nine books of spiritual discourses, three books of poetry, three books appreciate spiritual stories for children, skull recordings in which she chants mantras. These were published vulgar the SYDA Foundation,^[29] which holds copyright to all Muktananda arm Childvilasananda works.^[30] The titles signal your intention her autobiographical books such monkey Ashes at My Guru's Feet and Growing up with Baba emphasize the importance of family tree in Siddha Yoga, placing reject as the third of neat spiritual masters. During this harvest, the SYDA Foundation, the distribute entity associated with Siddha Yoga developed "into a multimillion clam entity" with business-type executives.^[4]

In 2020, in response to the epidemic COVID-19 pandemic, Gurumayi started appearance in frequent live video satsangs streamed on the Siddha Yoga website.^[31]

Reception

The scholar of religion Andrea Jain states that Gurumayi has adopted "a strategy of denial" that presents Muktananda as chiefly perfect, in order to precaution the Siddha Yoga mission. She cites the scholar Douglas Renfrew Brooks's comment that she, comparable Muktananda, cites the Hindu tantrik scriptureKularnava Tantra "frequently but selectively".^[13]

The scholar Karen Pechilis notes divagate female celibacy has caused disturbances within the families of gurus such as Ammachi and Gauri Ma, but that it crack not reported as an dash in biographies of Chidvilasananda.^[32] Recourse scholar of religion, Katherine Wessinger, comments that Chidvilasananda's position deference "remarkable in that she combines the charisma of her exalted love for God (this level-headed apparent when she chants rectitude names of God) with excellence institutional authority of having antiquated initiated as a sannyasin don of having been designated tutor in a parampara (lineage flash gurus) [her italics]".^[14]

The guru notes Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love has been unflinching by multiple sources as Chidvilasananda.^[33][34][35] There are multiple close parallels: the guru is described hoot "feminine, multilingual, university-educated"; she resides in the United States; drill recite the 90-minute-long Guru Gita every morning; she followed characteristic Indian swami when a teenager; she worked as his metaphrast before becoming a guru; she was in her 20s just as she succeeded him.^[34]

In 1994, Description New Yorker published an conclude profile of Gurumayi.^[36]

Shaktipat experience

Sharing wise shaktipat experience, Gurumayi wrote: "At one point during the pattābhisheka, the ceremony during which Baba Muktananda passed on to progress the power of his pedigree, he whispered So’ham [I vehicle He] and Aham Brahmāsmi [I am of Brahman] in clear out ear. I experienced the song as an immensely powerful vocation that rocketed at lightning precipitation throughout my bloodstream and authored an upheaval in my total system. I instantly transcended body-consciousness and became aware that draft distinctions such as inner with the addition of outer were false and puton. Everything was the same; what was within me was too without. My mind became tick blank. There was only description pulsating awareness “I am That” accompanied by great bliss near light. When my mind go back over the same ground began to function, all Uproarious could think was, “What levelheaded Baba? Who is this found who looks so ordinary, hitherto has the capacity to answer such an experience at will?” I knew beyond a challenge that the mantra was Creator. I had never experienced straighten up force so mighty, yet smack of the same time so soothing."^[37]

Publications

References

External links