“How I Came to the West”: Sri Swami Satchidananda in His Own Words

Editor’s note: On July 31, 1966, Sri Swami Satchidananda arrived in New York City for what was expected to be a brief visit.

Sixty years later, and as we also mark the 40th anniversary of the Light Of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS), we revisit Sri Gurudev’s own account of the unexpected way Providence brought him to the West—and how the interfaith vision that later blossomed as the LOTUS began to take form.

The following has been excerpted and lightly edited from a satsang given on April 11, 1987, nine months after the dedication of the LOTUS.

Someone has asked me to speak about my background. My background, hmm? I don’t know whether I have any ground at all! I can just say that I am fortunate, in a way, to have been born into a family of pious parents. Father and mother—or mother-father—they were my first teachers. They instilled faith in God in my heart. And, somehow, from then on, I never worried about anything. Everything just fell into the proper places. Even while I was a little student, I always felt that God was guiding me.

From school, I went into business. There, again, one after the other, I got my hands into everything—jack of all trades and, even today, master of none. Automobile engineering, electronic engineering, cinematography, temple management, agriculture—a little bit of everything. Then everything just naturally dropped away, one after the other.

Luckily, our home was a place where almost all the sages and saints who walked that way used to come and stay. That was another great benefit that I got. Any time someone walked into my childhood house, that person would always see some saintly person staying there. We were able to serve these people, and they, in turn, were able to bless us and instill in us a little more of God’s knowledge. So, naturally, when all my worldly jobs were over, I went to the places of these saints and sages. I sat at their feet and learned a lot. For five years, I stayed in various places, at the feet of many sages and saints.

Ultimately, I heard of another great saint in the Himalayas. I went there to see him, and that was, more or less, the culmination of my search: Sri Swami Sivananda, well-known all over the world. He was a great universalist. People of all religions used to go to his ashram.

Even after that, I had no idea of going out to do anything—preaching, reaching. No. It just simply happened. Some devotees who came to Rishikesh saw me. I don’t know what they saw in me. But they wanted me to come to their country, Sri Lanka. Maybe they thought that I could speak their Tamil language well. For some reason, they called me to come for a few months. I went there and got stuck for thirteen years!

And from there, I was invited to Japan, Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, and other places. I went only by invitation. I went and came back.

After I had been in Sri Lanka for thirteen years, a filmmaker from America came to the area. You see how Providence works? The filmmaker, Conrad Rooks, happened to be staying in a nearby hotel, and he had been casually asking the hotel owner, “Is there anybody who can teach me a little Yoga?” The hotel owner was the mayor of the city of Kandy, and he said, “Why, yes; I do know of someone. I practice Yoga with him, and I can introduce you.” And that’s how Conrad Rooks came to know me. He was sort of a skeptical and naughty boy. You know, 1960s hippie. He called me and said, “I’m not going to take much of your time; fifteen minutes is enough. I have just one or two questions about kundalini and this and that.” I said, “Well, fine; come. After ten o’clock everyone at the ashram goes to bed, and I can give you a little time.”

So, he punctually arrived at ten o’clock. For fifteen minutes, I thought. And we started talking and talking and talking. All of a sudden, he looked at his watch; it was four o’clock in the morning. Something had happened. He wanted to stay with me; he didn’t want to go back. Then his lawyers, who had business in Paris, sent telegrams asking him to come back because there were some problems there.

He went back, and after three or four weeks, without even asking me, he sent me a ticket to Paris. British Airways phoned me and said, “There is a ticket waiting for you to go to Paris. When are you going?” I said, “I don’t know; who sent the ticket?” The man told me the name, and I said, “All right. But I can’t just leave everything and come right away. Give me two weeks.”

So, after two weeks, I came, thinking that maybe I would spend a month in Paris. But then Conrad wanted me to visit other places, to meet all his friends. The artist Peter Max, who met me in Paris, wanted me to go to New York. I was to come to New York for two days. But the two days became five months. Still, I couldn’t stay continuously, even though they insisted, because my ticket was to expire. I couldn’t stay any longer; the time for my departure was nearing. Everyone agreed that I had to go, but they said that they would see to it that I would return.

I flew to Colombo, and who was there to receive me? The American Ambassador to Sri Lanka, himself, who was a close friend of mine. He said, “I don’t know what you have done to our people in America. They have sent me letters and telegrams asking me to pack you up and send you back there.” And that’s how I came to America. It was not anything that I did. Something—Providence—pushed me, pushed me.

Even after I returned to America, the students, as sponsors, could have easily gotten me a visa. But they went crazy, saying, “No, no. You should be here as a minister, on your own merit.” So, they applied for a special category, that of religious minister. The American government had never before opened that channel to anybody.

After a few months, the Immigration Department finally replied: “According to our understanding, Yoga is not a religion, so he cannot be considered a religious minister, and we cannot issue the visa.” Immediately, everyone, including some rabbis, Protestant ministers, and Catholic priests, started writing to the Immigration Department. They all became close to me. There must have been about six hundred letters sent—a very big pile. As a result, the director of the department felt that he should at least see me in person, so he called me for an interview, and I went.

At the interview, the first question asked was: “Why do you want to live in this country?”
I answered, “Sir, to be honest, I am not very keen about that.” Exactly those words.
The director responded, “What? Am I hearing right? Are you speaking correct English?”
“Yes, Sir,” I said.
“Then why did you apply?”
I explained, “Sir, it’s not me. All these people filled out the form. They wanted me to sign it, so I signed it. It’s because of their pressure that I signed and requested to live here. It’s not that I want to come and stay here or do anything. I am nothing.”

The director said, “Do you know that in the history of American immigration, we have never come across a man like you, applying to come yet saying that you are not keen in having this visa?”

Then, of course, we had a longer conversation, during which time he said, “I have a little difficulty, because, thus far, we have been sending missionaries to other parts of the world. We have never gotten any missionaries here. We don’t need that. And if I say yes to you, I will have to answer to many of the people here, and I don’t want to do that.”

I said, “Then, sir, if you don’t want to say yes, then say no. I will not be at all unhappy. You are not saying no to me. You are saying no to the others. There are other people who are looking for me to come to their countries.”

The director felt so bad about that that he said, “Well, I will send the pile of letters, the whole file, to the federal government. Let them decide, because I don’t want to open a new channel.”

Probably, by that time, the federal government knew about my work here, so as soon as the file went to their offices, someone called the director of the Immigration Department and said, “Please ask the Swami to stay here; we are processing his visa.”

I’m not telling you this to brag about my greatness or anything like that. I’m simply telling you about my background and how I came here. What brought me here? You, God, Providence. Sincerely; I am nothing. In fact, compared to many people, I am not even a great scholar or a big man or even a thinker. All I know is that some unseen power is just making me do things and I am doing. I’m comfortable that way. That way, I never have any room for anxiety, worry, or depression, or even the other side of that, excitement.

Now, you might say, “Oh, here is this big community, Yogaville, with this big hall, filled with lots of people.” Do you think that I’m excited about that? I still have the old suitcase that I came with. Who knows? At any moment, they can say, “Hey, get out; we don’t need you anymore!” For me, it’s whatever God wants. Even all these organizations—I never go out to start something. Even the LOTUS.

The one thing that I can say is that wherever I went, even to Sri Lanka, I became a very close friend of many other religious people, clergy. We used to gather now and then. I always felt terribly bad to see the world fighting in the name of God and religion. Is that what we want? Is that why we look for God and religion? No. If there is anything that could save the world, it is God and religion. But unfortunately, it is God and religion that are destroying the world. Why this insanity? Because we don’t understand what religion is.

It is religion that should help us to understand the spiritual oneness, to make us feel more at home as one family. If there is anyone who separates another individual, saying to that person, “You are different from me,” using religion to make that claim, then he or she is not a religious person at all. Thinking about these kinds of situations has made me pray, “God, use me in any way you want. I would like to see that in Your name we become one family.”

Luckily, as soon as I came to America, within the very first week, I became good friends with a rabbi, Rabbi Gelberman. Then Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, also became a great brother. And then I became close to many members of the clergy, and we used to gather and talk. During one of the retreats that we attended, we even organized an ecumenical service, which we called the Yoga Ecumenical Service, now known as the Light Of Truth Universal Service. We arranged an altar, and right in the middle of the altar, we placed a candle, one light as a symbol of God for everybody. All the various clergymen and clergy women sat around, offering service to that one light.

We held these services for several years. Then, at some point, we wanted to have a permanent place, a sort of symbol; and somehow the idea came that this place should be in the form of a lotus. Soon, someone asked me, “Why in the form of a lotus?” I had thought that a flower is something beautiful and that the lotus flower is accepted as a symbol by many religions. So, the idea came: Why not make the lotus into an acronym and say LOTUS? And then I started calling it Light Of Truth Universal Shrine. And that’s how the idea of LOTUS came to be.

Even then, there was something celestial happening. Searching for a site, we located various places. We tried Santa Barbara, California, but it didn’t work out there. Then we started to work on a LOTUS at the Ashram in Pomfret, Connecticut. That didn’t work out. We looked at various locations in the Southeast, but we weren’t happy with any of them.

On the way home, I was taken by a small plane to the location in Buckingham, Virginia, that is now Yogaville. As we flew over this place, I saw the river and said, “Hey, this river seems to be attracting me. Is there any place like this close to the river?” The realtor, who was also in the plane, replied, “Swami, this very land will be coming on the market within a week.” Immediately, we landed there, somewhere on the farm. We searched to find the owner before he put the property on the market. “We’ll buy it,” we said. Somehow, Virginia had become the place. God brought us here.

And then there was LOTUS. Without even a cent in our hands, we began digging the lake. Some of you might think that when I dug the lake, I found some treasure. True. As we were digging the lake, I was digging into the hearts of many people. Many people simply heard about LOTUS and appreciated it without even knowing me. They said, “This is what we want!”

What does it all mean? If you start something that is dear to God and beneficial to humanity, it is God’s business to take care of it. That’s all I can say. Otherwise, who am I to build such a beautiful monument as this?

So, every minute, I see the Glory of God. Look what He can do with a simple, ordinary individual like me. That is God’s Glory. If God had picked up an M.A., a Ph.D., a big scholar of theology, this and that, then it would have been nothing unusual. He just picked up an ordinary dry leaf to show His Glory. Even at this minute, I’m not expecting anything. “God, guide me. Make me do; I am doing; that’s all. If You don’t want me to do anything, I’ll be happy to sit and sleep.”

So, my entire life is guided by that. Just give yourself in the hands of God; you don’t have to worry about anything. The more you give yourself to God, the more you are free, the more you are peaceful, the more you are happy. And God can do beautiful, beautiful things through you.

Just don’t put your ego forward: “I can do something. God, I will do this. You will do that.” No. It’s either all you or all God. Better that way. And I am for all God. That’s my ground—whether it’s background or foreground or middle ground, I don’t know.

By Sri Swami Satchidananda