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BABASITTINGonTEmplestepsdattas_birthday_trip_248_crppd1Barely a year ago, in India, I asked Dr. Pillai to help me with what I called “my ignorance,” because I knew from my spiritual studies that some layers in our personalities can block our true understanding. And, I didn’t want to waste time in illusions and false knowledge.

He simply looked at me and did not reply. But when he left a few moments after my request, I noticed two small pigs playing with each other on the red dust in the front yard of the country ashram that we were visiting and belonging to a Karuppa Samy channel.

Less than a minute later, a dog appeared – seemingly out of nowhere – and furiously barked at the two little pigs, who became frightened, took off as fast as they could and went hiding behind some bushes far away from the house. Then they disappeared from my sight.

The dog had remained, but he also disappeared, and I could not locate him anywhere in the yard.

It’s hard not to notice the symbolism of what happened. Though from a compassionate stand towards all animals I want to disagree, pigs have been traditionally used as a metaphor for ignorance. And, in his teachings, Dr. Pillai often brings up Kala Bhairava as the ever-powerful archetype of time, often depicted as a fierce-looking God walking side by side with his dog.

What I understood then was – through the intervention of Kala Bhairava, who cuts time and eliminates the stumbling block of long waiting, my ignorance would be eliminated.

The scene that I witnessed that day was just a small episode of many other life-changing experiences on that trip. My fellow students and friends told me similar and even more astonishing stories of unpredictable turnarounds, lucky breaks and overall transformation they had experienced in the presence of Dr. Pillai. And I could believe their stories through my own daily experience in his presence.

This was my very first trip with my teacher and until then, I had only met him several times during some seminars in New York.

I have no words to describe what can happen when we are in the presence of a teacher with whom our soul truly resonates. These sublime episodes of joy and miracles cannot be entirely described through words.

I know from my yogic path, that there are many names for energy transmission from a spiritual teacher to the student: shaktipat, diksha, empowerment, initiation – to mention a few.

During that trip in the presence of Dr. Pillai, I could hardly recognize myself and my life as I knew it. I was witnessing miracles everyday and often several times a day.

While still in India, I received several text messages and an email from the U.S. about some roadblocks in my life that had been in place for years, and that were being lifted. Miracles were happening there too.

But the most astonishing transformation was what I was experiencing in my mind. I was not the same person. New ideas and solutions for different areas of my life kept coming to me and I tried to write them down on my cellphone. But they were too many and the traveling was intense. I gave up taking notes. But I was able to implement with good results some of those ideas, when I returned home at the end of the trip.

It was as though I was running inside an airplane, and all the while, feeling deeply peaceful all day. I rarely slept more than three hours per night, but felt energized. And every moment, I was reaching new levels of understanding about reality.

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