HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013547.jpg

the early studies by Professor Seymore Kety of Harvard and Dr. Harold Himwich of the Thudicum Laboratory in Galesberg, Illinois, using measures of whole brain oxygen and glucose utilization as indices of energy generation and utilization by the brain, surprised many of us. They indicated that energy use by the whole brain was relatively constant when states of relaxed awakeness, mathematical cognition and deep sleep were compared. Of course, modern studies have indicated that relative regional brain energy utilization is state dependent and may vary quite widely. More spiritual aspects of energies and their transformations were made clearer during several month visits to Baba Muktananda’s, now Gurumayi Chidvilasananda’s, Sidha Yoga Ashrams. Baba Muktananda loved and worshipped his Hindu Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda. Baba had been a restlessly wandering, guru-hunting, young man. Nityananda said he had “wheels for feet.” After many years of devoted meditation, chanting and service, sadhanna, all the while being prohibited from eating mangos, his favorite food, his passive, taciturn, ecstatic guru, Nityananda, presented voluble, energetic, joyful Baba with the guru’s rather aromatic and worn sandals. This symbolically acknowledged Baba’s successful absorption of the guru’s transforming spiritual energy, shaktipat, the power of his enlightenment. At Nityananda death, Baba, using world tours, spiritual fellowship meetings, satsangs (public conversations) and spiritual training sessions called “intensives’”, organized Ashrams in West Coast sites such as Oakland and Venice, and on the East Coast, in South Fallsburg, New York, buying several old residence hotels in the Borscht Belt. Baba was introduced to America by one of his first advance men, Be Here Now Baba Ram Das, Timothy Leary’s co-investigator in the Harvard Student LSD project when his name was Richard Alpert. ESTs Werner Erhard was another of Baba’s advance men. Baba discipled and disciplined a sister and brother who, when 18 and 11 respectively, were sent to live in his Ashram in Ganeshpuri India by their parents. The girl was known as Malti when she served as a translator for Baba and Gurumayi Chidvilasananda after receiving the energy of her enlightenment. The younger brother was given the name of Baba’s guru, Nityananda. When Baba took 47 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013547