Shambhavi talks about the adventure of having a Guru, the adventure of being on a direct realization path, and how these prepare you for the constant adventure and surprise of life. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
Podcast First Words
So I asked somebody what I should talk about tonight and they said—adventure. It’s a great topic. It reminded me of when I was much, much younger and read an autobiography of a Canadian woman, Swami Sivananda Radha.
When she was in her mid-40s and living in Canada, she started having dreams about Swami Sivananda from Rishikesh. You may have seen pictures of him or know who he is. He’s the founder of the Divine Life Society in India. His activity gave rise to many other teachers and many other lineages. Swami Radha went to India to meet Swami Sivananda, and he confirmed her dreams. She only spent 6 months with him, and then he told her, as he really did quite often, “Okay, now go do something. Go spread the teachings.”
So she went back to Canada and founded a Tantrik teaching lineage in the sort of synthetic, somewhat watered-down style of the Sivananda lineage. And she wrote a book about her 6 months with Swami Sivananda. It’s a really wonderful book about meeting guru, devotion to guru, and kind of having your life blown apart. She says on the very first page something that always impressed me: “Having a guru is a great adventure. Having a great guru is the greatest adventure any human being could possibly have.”
When I read that I knew instantly that it was true. What’s so adventurous about it? Well, first of all, you never really know what’s going to happen.
