Fearless Living (Yoga and Faith)

About the book

For so many of us today, trusting in a higher power isn't easy. We read about miracles that happened many years ago, but today most of the miracles we hear about are produced by science: miraculous new cures, new technologies, and new breakthroughs. And scientists seem united in insisting there is no higher power, no ultimate meaning in life, but the random reshuffling of DNA and atoms. This book, a collection of anecdotes from the astonishing life of the late Swami Rama, helps us understand that there is a way to move beyond mere faith and into the realm of personal revelation. Through the spiritual practice of meditation and yoga we can aspire to enter the world of spirit ourselves. Swami Rama became an ambassador for the great souls who still live isolated in Himalayan caves and forests, and yet irradiate the entire world with their luminous blessing power. These elders of our race invite us to learn to live without fear to trust in a higher power, a divine purpose, and the ceaseless flow of grace that pours from the very heart of the universe. But what can the stories of sages and saints contained within these pages really do for readers like us men and women struggling to live our busy 21 century lives? The answer is simple. They can show us what is possible knowledge is found not in knowing, but rather in being.

About the Author

One of the greatest adepts, teachers, writers, and humanitarians of the 20^th century, Swami Rama is the founder of the Himalayan institute. Born in northern India, he was raised from early childhood by a Himalayan sage, Bengali baba. Under the guidance of his master he traveled from monastery to monastery and studied with a variety of Himalayan saints and sages, including his grandmaster that was living in a remote region of Tibet. In addition to this intense spiritual training, Swami Rama received higher education in both India and Europe. From 1949 to 1952, he held the prestigious position of Shankaracharya of karvirpitham in South India. Thereafter, he returned to his master to receive further training at his cave monastery, and finally in 1969, came to the United States where he founded the Himalayan institute. His best known work, living with the Himalayan institute. His best known work, living with the Himalayan masters, reveals the many facets of this singular adept and demonstrates his embodiment of the living tradition of the east.

Introduction

Swami Rama's entire life was an adventure in faith. He left India with only $6 in his pocket when his guru, India's legendary Bengali Baba, sent him to the West to introduce the world to the immense benefits of yoga. Within just a few years, his work at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, radically transformed our ideas about how the mind affects the body, while his books and lectures on yogic diet and exercise helped spark the Holistic Health movement. Today many of the stress-reduction techniques he pioneered are routinely taught in hospitals across Europe and the Americas, and foods he helped introduce (such as basmati rice) are staples in Western health-food stores. Meditation classes are now offered from coast to coast, since dozens of scientific studies have verified the astonishing therapeutic effect of simply sitting quietly, focusing on a mantra.

Where did this remarkable man come from? Swami Rama was born in northern India in 1925, but lost both parents at an early age. He was adopted by the yogi-saint people called Bengali Baba, a living legend in India. Raised in the cave monasteries of the Himalayan Mountains, Swamiji was initiated in advanced techniques of yoga and meditation. (Years later in a lab in Topeka, he would demonstrate his complete mastery of his physiological and mental states, amazing researchers who till that time had not believed such total control of internal states was humanly possible.) In his early twenties Swamiji was named Shankaracharya of Karvirpitham, one of the most prestigious spiritual posts in all of India. He was destined, however, to teach not just in India but throughout the world. He renounced his position and returned to his spiritual master for further training in the ancient techniques of yoga. In the late 1960s Bengali Baba sent this head-strong yogi to the West not merely to teach but also to personally demonstrate how spiritual practice can unveil higher, hidden dimensions in our nature.

For those of us who studied with Swami Rama, the best times were when he'd sit back and tell us about his experiences as a wandering ascetic in India, hiking in the Himalayan foothills or camping along the bank of the Armada River. The tales of the saints and sages he'd met were so incredible we could hardly believe them, having been so conditioned by our scientific culture to turn our backs on the miraculous. He pointed us toward a truth beyond belief, a higher science that anyone of us could verify for ourselves, as he had done. We needed only to diligently practice the techniques for expanding the boundaries of human awareness developed by spiritual masters thousands of years ago, and reverently handed down from guru to disciple over the millennia. Swamiji's own phenomenal abilities, called siddhis or supernatural powers, convinced us that his tales were true. These, he insisted, were trite gifts of the ancient tradition. The real value of our practice was health, tranquility, and enlightened awareness. If we supplemented our burgeoning faith with spiritual disciplines, we would no longer simply believe in a higher reality, we would experience it directly.

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