California Dreaming
An earlier Indian saint, Yogananda, had already made a big impact in America. His Foundation was headquartered in LA, where many other Eastern teachers had also taught. Hence there was already a receptive community in place. An audience of people with a special interest in healing was arranged to greet a new young saint who spoke very little English. Kaleshwar began by manifesting a rose in his palm. Next he caused it to burst into flames that burned without consuming its source. Eventually he let it burn to ash. He then passed through the hall, anointing all present with it. Amongst these was one man who would become a senior student and another, his friend, who had received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Everyone who received Kaleshwar’s blessing reported healing benefits, including the friend, who recovered completely. Word spread rapidly, even reaching Oprah Winfrey, who wanted the young saint for her next show. He declined, saying that he wanted to attract a small number of dedicated students who would join him in India rather than thousands of casual seekers. More meetings were arranged, a group was assembled and from 1997 the first Western students began arriving in Penukonda, where Kaleshwar’s ashram was in the early stages of construction.
Apparently he didn’t expect to live very long as he explained repeatedly that he would be a million times more effective working outside a body. First he needed to train a pioneering generation of Westerners who would be able to transmit his teachings without distortion. This was important because of chaos levels he discerned in the modern world and a disturbing inertia that he found in traditional Indian spiritual practice. What were yogis really accomplishing, he asked, if they just spent their time just sitting in bliss? This was a necessary but not sufficient Enlightenment practice. A healing engagement with the world was also required, including the qualitative West. Western students were best suited for this, both for their dynamic attitude and because they carried the modern chaos within. He would train them hard to wash out blockages and engender a shared culture of Dharma and Truth. This apparently took much longer than he first imagined. He began formally by teaching the Five Elements, a foundational programme that purifies our relationship with Earth, Fire, Sky, Water and Air as the basic pillars of Creation. This was followed by the Sri Chakra, which he didn’t associate explicitly with Mother’s Holy Womb until years later. The reason for this circumspect approach was that he didn’t want his mission or students exposed to potentially debilitating levels of Illusion before they were able to manage them.
There is a vast backstory here that needs to be unfolded carefully, in stages (see Part III of Remembering Spirit). A key factor is that Consciousness in existence tends to develop attachments to given forms and so resists transformation. In humans a major aspect of this tendency is the elaboration of ego stories that reinforce the hold of illusion by consolidating a sense of our separateness from each other and All That Is. This compounds our estrangement from Truth even as we aim to overcome it. Mother lets this tendency run by way of testing insight, resilience and sincerity before granting further inspiration. Kaleshwar thus had to be careful during these early years. His use of miracles, he explained, was initially to draw attention and, beyond that, to shatter conditioned belief systems so that hungry souls might awaken past then to the radical spirituality he had come to promote. Even now, it takes considerable manoeuvring to establish the significance of this in regard to a ‘post-Truth’ intellectual culture where Awareness of the Sat Yuga (of Truth) has been all but erased from consciousness levels that our defensive ego selves are now capable of.
On the face of it, Kaleshwar had little to say about such matters. He did however arrange darshans – fully physical, open-eyed manifestations – for his students, including with Jesus and Mother Divine. He also spoke a colloquial English to which they adapted gratefully as it always occurred in contexts of direct transmission where its impact was supported by the depth and energy of his teaching. For people without knowldge of context and access to such mesmerizing transmissions, his written words may seem trite or void of intellectual substance. Nothing could be further from (the) Truth. Indeed, it was an intuition of poetic depth that motivated me to look deeper and find in his work a key to resolve issues that had perplexed me across years of writing and research. A trip to Penukonda in 2024 confirmed a sense that I needed to explore his teachings further.
During that time I managed to establish soul communion and offered to give up my writing if he had some other path in mind. He told me to keep going. The consequences of this are still unfolding. During his lifetime, Kaleshwar’s primary focus was to train healers, drawn initially from America, Germany and Japan. Students from other countries soon followed. Lacking a clear vocation, I can’t count myself among their number but am resolved to support their necessary and invaluable work by other means. I also hold myself open to whatever the future may require.
2025
