Icon Show: Interviews

Jitendra Photo by Gisele

Biography Jitendra, was born in the Midwest United States. He left home at the age of twenty, to go on a personal quest, declining a promising career in computer technology. He knew that he had to find the question, as well as the answer. Well-versed in the art of astrology, computers, math, and the laws of probability, Jitendra knew immediately upon meeting Swamiji in Vancouver in 1971, that he had found what he was seeking. Jitendra did not have any doubts, and so embraced Swamiji's teachings with an open heart and mind. Jitendra has been living in Kullu for approximately twenty years and is an excellent cook, astrologer, storyteller, carpenter, and gardener. Written by Gisele Beaupre

Interview

Gisele: Before meeting Swami Shyam, did you think that you needed direct contact with a guru?

Jitendra: I had no idea what a guru was.

Gisele:  Were you skeptical at all when you met him?

Jitendra: I've never questioned the direction to follow Swamiji and his teachings, and haven't questioned it since. I never had to go through, all the questioning and testing. I never had any of that. I just knew it right from the beginning. This is it!

Gisele:  How did this influence your relationship to Swamiji?

Jitendra: Well I guess he knew, that I knew who he was. We didn't have to spend any time with me being skeptical.

Gisele: Are you are getting there ... to a state of enlightenment?

Jitendra: Where's there to get? Here is more like it!

Gisele:  Well yes, this is the basic philosophy, that you are that already.

Jitendra: There is nothing but that! Who is there, that there is going to be something else? ...Who's the you? There's no you that is separate from anything, that can do anything, even if you think that is what is happening. A person has an understanding, that it is happening in one mind, through direct experience, and thinks that it is him, because it is the natural way. The ego mechanism does that to survive ... awareness appears to be localized in that body or mind, but when that awareness is no longer using that perspective of two eyes and limited viewing ... when the "I" is directly identifying with, or seeing from the perspective of the whole universe, it is different. The "I" is normally limited to it's experience, including your body, past lives or whatever. When that human "I" gets expanded in it's growth, sometimes it grows beyond the body, then it perceives from beyond the body…when you get to a more absolute state, or absolute way of looking at it, that you aren't even in the body, that this isn't even happening on a real physical level, like the human mind thinks of, then it gets into areas which are much more palatable.

In paraphrasing Kabir; people ask for a path to get to realization, and automatically a path presupposes separation to get somewhere else. As if God is somewhere else, or that state of realization is out there, so automatically as soon as you think of a path, there is separation, then you are on the wrong track.

Transcribed by Gisele Beaupre

Top of the page