The Importance of the Guru — How Dr. Lewis Met Yogananda

Nayaswami Maria shares this inspiring story during her Sunday service talk at Ananda Village, February 20th 2022. You can find the complete talk here.

Video Transcript

We are lucky to have the account of Dr. Lewis's first meeting with Yogananda—Dr. Lewis, a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda's.

And when Dr. Lewis came to visit, to meet Yogananda for the first time in person, this was already a big step for him, because he had been raised in an environment and with the teaching that: Beware—beware of false prophets. You know, don't just open yourself to anybody and anyone, especially if they look like... wearing orange robes and a turban and whatnot. But Dr. Lewis, you know, he demonstrated a great courage there to step outside of the pervading material consciousness and to welcome the divine reality.

And he came with a lot of questions, which he asked Yogananda, and one of these was, "I read in the Bible—and he studied the Bible a lot—I read there the words of Christ, 'If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be filled with light.' Can you tell me what that means? So many times, I have asked this question, and no one has been able to give me an answer."

And Yogananda said, "I think so." And then he asked Dr. Lewis to sit before him. And he said, "Will you give me your unconditional love as I have given you mine?" And Dr. Lewis said, "Yes." And then he said... then Yogananda said, "I will take charge of your life."

And he touched Dr. Lewis at the forehead. And Dr. Lewis—in that instance, in that meeting with Yogananda—he saw the tunnel of blue light, the white five-pointed star of the spiritual eye; and he saw the thousand-petaled lotus at the crown chakra, the sahasrara.

And afterwards, Yogananda said to him... so he went into that blissful reality for some time, and then Yogananda said to him, "Promise me that you will never avoid me." Very interesting.

As resonates with me, I suppose naturally so... I mean, if we weren't avoiding the Guru and avoiding God, we wouldn't be birthing and re-birthing again and again and again. But on some level, you know, there's that little part that resists the divine sight, the divine vision, and just says, "I'm happy with what I have. I'm happy with this consciousness, such as it is."

"Promise me you'll never avoid me." And this is really the most important thing, because Yogananda is talking about being close to the Guru—being close to the consciousness of the Guru. And that's what enables us to exercise divine sight: nothing else. Everything else we do—the yoga, the devotion, the meditation, all of that—is to come to a place where we are poised.

"If I'm ready, Lord, reveal this to me," Arjuna said. And Arjuna did, and Yukteswar did, and Yogananda did.

Swami Kriyananda said whenever he was with in Yogananda's presence... he said to be in Yogananda's presence, to be in His presence: It's like you could just reach out with your finger right there and touch God.

It cannot be overstated: Being close to the guru; close to that consciousness; near Master; near our line of Gurus—it's just like God is right there. We can see that.