(Photo: Swami Satchidananda visits Peter’s office in Chicago, late 1980s).
I’m sure that many of Swami Satchidananda’s (Gurudev’s) followers have had enlightening moments in his presence and their personal relationship. As I reflect on the 60 years since his arrival in New York, here are a few of mine.
On that auspicious day in 1966 when we first met Gurudev in Peter Max’s apartment we talked about spiritual awakening and tuning in to the real “reality.” One of us asked, “Okay, but where do we tune in?”
Gurudev replied: “Can you hear the radio playing? Of course not, but the waves are all around us. You need a radio to tune in. In life you need the practice of Yoga to tune in to yourself and a higher level of spiritual and human understandings.”
I’ve kept that thought in my mind for the past 60 years.
There was a moment when I was having a serious business conflict. I had a choice: To either continue on with the conflict, which would have been difficult or to step aside and give it up and lose a certain amount of equity. I called Gurudev and posed the question. After a brief discussion his reply was: “Close your eyes and imagine that you are holding a tasty bowl of milk in both hands. Now open your eyes and you see that it has spoiled. Now just open your hands and let it drop to the ground and move on. It’s as simple as that.” He ended his advice with: “Never do anything that disturbes your peace.”
Over the years I have kept that very simple teaching, “Never do anything that disturbs your peace” as a guiding principal for all of my actions and relationships. I’ve been able to turn it into a dynamic in which the positive vibe can overwhelm the negative vibe. In other words: ‘Do good.’
Another moment of enlightenment came a few years after Gurudev blessed me with a mantra. He explained that by repeating a mantra we tune in to a spiritual force that will deliver the prayer. So I thought, well, I’ll try to find the time to do it and see what happens. When asked what I wanted I replied “Focus.” Why I said that I will never know. Perhaps he put it in my mind. Was my request in relationship to life, photography, thinking, problem-solving. I don’t know. But now I had a mantra.
So I would find quiet moments to mediate on it. It got a little boring until one day I was faced with a creative problem that I had to resolve. Intuitively, I thought of Gurudev and my mantra and focused my mantra in my mind.
While repeating the mantra I had a form of visualization: I imagined that the top of my head opened up to receive the idea from above. Now when I ponder a creative or life question I repeat my mantra in my mind as my consciousness opens up to receive the answer.
Thank you Gurudev.
About the Author:
(Peter Petronio)
Peter Petronio studied journalism, design, art direction, photography, and the visual arts in New York, leading to a fruitful career as an art director in advertising before his work brought him to Geneva in 1969 and, later, to Paris, where he founded a creative consultancy specializing in integrated communications. He is also an accomplished photographer whose exhibitions and books reflect a lifelong devotion to seeing deeply and creatively. Peter was among the first circle of friends who gathered with Peter Max soon after Swami Satchidananda’s arrival in America in 1966 and helping found the first Integral Yoga Institute in New York. He also designed many of the book covers for books by Swami Satchidananda and he designed the branding for the Integral Yoga organization.
