Swami Kripalvanandaji
Swami Kripalvanada
My time with Swami Kripalvanandaji
I lived at the Kripalu Yoga Retreat in Summit Station, PA for four months during the summer of 1977. I had planned for almost a year to be there during this summer. When I got there I heard that Bapuji, as he was called by devotees, had arrived a few days before and had broken his 12 years of silence and emerged from seclusion. He would be teaching us every day. His book in two volumes: Premyatra: Pilgramage of Love contains the edited versions of these 1977 lectures. I learned from Bapuji’s speeches, but I received even more from his darshan — the immense love and energy he bestowed upon students in the room with him. See this page for a full biography.
Yogi Amrit Desai was the founder of the Kripalu Retreat and Kripalu Ashram where I visited for darshan for the next several years until Bapuji’s death in 1981. I also studied with his brother, Yogi Shanti Desai, who had ashrams in my home town of Glassoboro and in Ocean City, NJ. I was privileged to attend Bapuji’s darshans in all of these locations until he went back to India in 1981.
What did I learn from Bapuji?
I learned to receive the energy of love and shaktipat. I learned what is “professional love” and true well wishing for others. I had my first stirrings of personal experiences of kundalini. I learned so many things about spiritual practice and experiences from his book Science of Meditation and from the books of his disciples, the brothers Amrit and Shanti Desai.
While I was at Kripalu that summer I decided to take Kripalu’s newly developed Yoga Teacher’s Training course and after returning home, I taught several courses locally.
In my subsequent Kundalini awakening process, I was sustained by all I had learned from Bapuji and his disciples.
Comments»
No comments yet — be the first.