Oh, the strength we get from Swamiji--and He seeems to have gotten His from Our Mother..my best to all of the other children here in this holy spot...--the new year is now well on it's way to being an old year...it goes faster with each heart beat....(let it go..). Mother Bless all of us through the days to come.
May be wrong but seem to remember reading In Christopher Isherwood's "My Guru and His Disciple" that they used to light a cigarette in the Shrine room at the Hollywood centre !
Rather like that..
Also read just the other day in "Saga of a Great Soul", Swami Shivananda reminiscing about one time at Baranagore:
"One night I had fallen asleep beside Swamiji. There were also Swami Ramakrishnananda and others sleeping nearby. In the dead of night I suddenly awoke and found the whole inside of the mosquito net flooded with light. Looking beside me for Swamiji I could not find him, but in his place were a number of little Sivas lying asleep, all of them seven or eight year old boys, beautiful, of white complexion and with matted locks on their heads. It was the light of their bodies that illumined the room..
..Rubbing my eyes well, I looked again, and saw the same little sleeping Sivas. I just sat there, not knowing what to do. Aside from not wishing to lie down, I was afraid that if I fell asleep my feet might touch the Sivas. The whole night I spent more or less in meditation. When morning came I found Swamiji sleeping there as in the beginning of the night. Later in the morning, when I had told him everything, he laughed a great deal.."
Thought that would be nice to share.
