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Inhaling spicy curls of cardamom incense, sitting cross-
legged on a satin cushion so blue it seemed to spark stars,
I tried to relax. Surrounding me were framed images of
Hindu deities, cosmic paintings of energy pathways and
sinuous Sanskrit letters.
Finally, garlanded with flowers on a raised altar, leaned a
commanding photograph of the late guru and ashram
founder, Sri Bramananda Sarasvati. The guru’s eyes
seemed to smolder directly at me, on the uncomfortable
edge of knowing too many things I didn’t and inwardly
laughing at a private joke.
It was my first night at Ananda Ashram in Monroe, New York, and I wasn’t sure
I belonged. Two weeks earlier, feeling overwhelmed by life, I’d received a call at
work from my mother.
“I just read about an ashram in New York magazine,” she’d said, and went on to
describe yoga classes, meditation and 85 acres of woodlands. I’d been interested in
the incense and lotus scene since I was young, and always regretted being born too
late to meet the Maharishi. I immediately called Ananda and placed my
reservation with an extraordinarily relaxed sounding man named Shiva.
But now that I was at the ashram, seated in the warm meditation room tucked
within the main house—a doll house of a building with impossibly skinny hallways
that angle off, Wonderland-like, into two-or six-person guest rooms—and now that
I faced a group of strangers blissfully chanting Sanskrit words, I felt wary.
I didn’t even know what the Sanskrit meant. Many of the other guests were in
their 50s and 60s, wearing long strands of “malas” or devotional bead garlands.
Their eyes were wise, bright, almost too joyful—like they “got” the guru’s joke. It is
important to note that all the events at Ananda are purely optional. I didn’t have
to be at this service. Yet I wanted to “get” it, though I wasn’t quite sure yet what
“it” was.
I was raised culturally Jewish; more specifically, New York Jewish. So while I
didn’t grow up attending temple or Hebrew school, I have always identified
strongly with my faith and the natural questioning that goes with it. “Vat’s dis,
“chakra”? I could almost hear my great-grandmother Rose, a Prussian immigrant,
asking.
And then there was the haunting fear that almost all Jews have, as a minority
that has fought to stay alive and persevere through the most oppressive of times:
What if I get sucked in—even brainwashed—into giving up my beliefs?
As enlightened as I wanted to be, a gut reaction was triggered as I watched
Vidya, a yoga teacher and ashram resident, kneel, light a small fire in a pan, and
begin the chant: om...brahmanandam... paramasukhadam... They’re kooks, I found
myself thinking, my half-closed eyes darting from one serene-faced meditator to the
next.
And as we began a gaping 20 minutes of silent meditation, I could only shuffle
from cross-legged to half-folded positions, concentrating more on my aching knees
than the cosmic mind.
Why was I here? Guruji’s photo seemed to smirk at me, asking, “Do you get it?”
The following morning, I took a scriptural study lesson with a woman in a white
saree named Bharati. Her eyes were so open, her French-German accent so
foreign, my defenses popped up again. Kook, I thought. But as she joyfully began
to decipher the Sanskrit, something changed for me. We were chanting to
acknowledge the part of God, within any religion—inside of us. We were praising
our “inner guru,” the teacher inside us, the divine spark. Something was beginning
to sound comfortably familiar.
“Tat-tvam-you are that,” she said. Through meditation, by quieting our “thinking
mind,” we discover that we each hold the same divine spark within us that fills the
universe-and—makes up God. We all contain pieces of The One, like jars filled with
God-energy. When our bodies die, the energy stays.
It’s eternal, for it is the ineffable, the unchangeable. This was more than
familiar. This was ain sof. “The Jewish mystics teach the same thing,” I couldn’t
help blurting. Ain Sof, according to Kabbalist teaching, is pure God energy. It
filters into us and the universe like a giant signal, a wave that fills everything. It
has no inside or outside, and it’s timeless.
After Bharati’s leson, I began to learn Sanskrit from a white-haired woman in an
orange robe named Ma-Bhaskarananda (Ma-Bha for short). Ma-Bha embraced my
questions and taught me the “Varna-mala,” or garland of letters, in the form of little
songs.
“Call and response is good for you,” she explained. “These ancient sounds
resonate with the soul.” Suddenly, I heard my cantor davening in the back of my
mind, and realized the Sanskrit wasn’t so foreign to me.
“Hebrew is chanted for the same reason,” Ma-Bha nodded. Amen, according to
some books, comes from the sound “om,” the sound of the universe itself. I
remembered how many young Israelis flock to India, feeling a sense of communion
with the Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishads, teachings that explore the idea that God
is within us and everywhere, taking infinite forms.
“I’d never encountered any of these ideas until I met Guruji,” Uma one of the
weekend guests told me. But I had, through the cosmic part of Judaism, Kabbalah.
“You are that,” Guruji’s photo seemed to tell me now, and I almost wanted to
laugh. Yes, Guruji, I got it. You and I have been talking about the same thing.
Later, I sat in the “cosmic temple,” Guruji’s former bedroom, and was shocked at
how easiliy I slipped into the deep, seductive pull of meditation. My mind cleared
and my body slid into a warm, dark place where I felt “Ananda”--bliss.
I finished my visit feeling full of joy. That Friday, sitting in temple, I chanted the
Hebrew prayers with reverence, feeling each word resonate. And when we paused
for a moment between prayers, something new made senses. I slipped quickly into
that same warm, dark place I’d found in the cosmic temple. My heart rate slowed:
my mind quieted and I let God in. Yes, the same God who vibrates “om”, the same
God who fills ain sof.