Autobiography of Jinendra Swami

Jinendra Swami

One can never predict when the seed of `vairagya' takes root and when one turns towards `sanyas'. It All Happens.

Sri Jinendra Swami (pronounced Shree Gee-nen-dra Swa-me) blends into his environment as an ordinary householder, but quietly moves amidst devotee families mostly in Pune and Mumbai. His teachings flower in the daily living situation, whenever visitors are around. He never talks to large groups but responds completely and appropriately to a genuine seeker's question.

He reveals the process of "Tri-Ratna" and "Waking Meditation". He urges seekers to dispel through the power of one's own Awareness the illusion of one-self as a separate Ego, and discover that "All there is, is Divine Awareness".

The meaningfulness and the suggestiveness of his utterances impress your mind. Whether the seeker is a novice or a Sadhaka he jolts you out of your isolated sensation of limited self. His approach cuts through all your prejudices, ideas, beliefs, and concepts. He simply urges you to let-go and be open to "THAT". His simple acts and thoughts brings out the immense Love locked inside you.

He does not preach any philosophy but makes it amply clear that our Ego has the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed - "You cannot teach Ego to be anything but egoistic."

Biography

Childhood: Born on 20th October 1948, in Mumbai, western Maharashtra, India, Jinendra Swami is one of the 10 children born to a middle-class family. From his very childhood, he was creative but a perfectionist. Quiet and shy, he was always quick to help others. As a student he excelled academically, always topping the class. He enjoyed sports, dramatics and mischief.

Education: At the age of 20, he came to USA on a merit scholarship and completed his B.S. degree with honors in Manufacturing Engineering and a Master's degree in Industrial Designing. He became the first Indian engineer to receive an Industrial Scholar Award from Society of Mfg. Engineers, USA.

Family: In 1973 he got married to Shakuntala and this was the turning point in his life. She introduced him to the spiritual side of life. Today their son Alok, now 24 years, is working in the computer field after having graduated from University of Pennsylvania, and Kalpak, now 19, is a junior at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The 'Person': At this point in time of the phenomenal world, as we travel back Jinendra Swami - The 'Person' in time through memory lanes looking back at Jinendra Swami the `person', we see that during his youth he did not refuse the infatuation and desires, nor did he turn his back on what life offered. As he moved on, in his journey of life, living life fully, he found that his mind, his thoughts, and his behavior kept shifting towards wholeness of life. He was never into any organized religion and rituals. He did not think about Soul, Karma, or Reincarnation either, but he had a very acute sense of intuitive power, which he always relied on in his day-to-day life. He hardly ever went to temples or spiritual talks. He did not seek a spiritual guru or make any specific efforts in the direction of spiritual growth. But as far as his friends can remember, he always had this great feeling of some special relationship with the cosmos and had faith in LIFE-The Universal Energy.

An Incidence: While on a camping trip in March 1974, he had a vision - the death of an aspect of himself that vanished into the universe, and in its place something totally new being born. He knew then, that there is more to life than presently perceived.

Profession: In 1976, after having spent 10 years in USA, he returned to India and started an industry manufacturing LCD Animated Displays. This and other products received prestigious Parkhe Awards and were being exported all over the world. By 1985, the industry was well established and had a monopoly in the whole of Asia. Business took him around the world. Over the years, the company had several patented products and he conceived, designed, and developed over 200 products for government, public and private industries. In 1988, he promoted Pune's first dedicated Indoor Exhibition & Convention Center.

The Spiritual Beginning: As if by divine providence, in 1979 his wife, Shakuntala, first introduced him to a formal technique of "Vipassana Meditation". Thereafter any field of activity to him became a natural form of self-expression. Be it architectural or interior designing, video production or still photography, manufacturing or marketing, gardening or cooking, it all came effortlessly.

Over the next 10 years, while he was totally involved in his industrial ventures, once in a while his wife would drag him to religious and spiritual talks, expose him to philosophical books, and take him to several pilgrimage centers. But his mind was never into these activities.

Then, in spite of all that he was, and all that there was, on January the 20th,1994, his mind had an effortless somersault. He was sitting in silence at the Virupaksha cave atop the Arunachala hill, Tiruvannmalai. As the silence deepened and as if it was Sri Ramana's grace that without his volition, spontaneously... "It" happened.

He experienced an incredible lightness, a limitlessness, a sense of total freedom. A feeling of Oneness that is both blissful and sublime. He discovered the "Changeless", and later revealed that while being in the waking state he
realized "the Bliss" of not being a "Person".

When asked about his experiences, he would simply smile and say, "That which cannot be Said can be Showed. Now I see miracles happening all the time. The `Inner Peace' continues to exist even after returning to the phenomenal world. This `Inner Peace' brought about `Perceptional Changes'. My attitudes changed without my conscious efforts. My relationship with the world and events in and around my life had a dramatic metamorphosis. I lost my ability to worry. I lost interest in judging self or others. I lost interest in interpreting actions of others and my own. Conflict failed to grab my attention. I experienced lack of fear and a strong tendency to act spontaneously. Somehow the old ways of analyzing, evaluating, and thinking before taking action seemed to have evaporated. "

During the period that followed, all business and professional activities simply dissolved, no more social visits to friends and relatives, dietary habits suddenly changed and watching TV or reading newspaper ceased. There was a serene aloofness and a silent detachment which most people could not comprehend. On questioning, no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to translate his state of being into thoughts.

The story behind "Pilgrimage To Self": At times when Jinendra Swami was in some sort of ecstasy, he would not be aware of the mundane world, nor would he eat any food, sometimes for a few days and sometimes weeks, simply living on water. He could be seen blissfully roaming in the Sahyadri Hills in and around Pune. If he was questioned, "Where do you live?", his answer would be, "Myself."

On one such occasion, for 18 days one after another, each day he would express his experiences in a poem. He would scribble it down in a matter of 20-30 minutes. Normally he wrote in the early morning soon after dawn, but sometimes in the evening too, as people met him in the hills. But throughout these 18 days, he ate no food and was always in Silence. So 18 poems were written in 18 days of his ecstatic mood. Then, a week later... again... he went into Silence... no food... just water...and it was then that the 4 poems 'Samwad', 'Failure of Wisdom', 'Silence', and 'Farewell' were written. Later, when visitors with faith in different masters would come to him for clarification, he would ask them to just open and read a page from the books people brought to him. These 'POINTERS' from different saints, gurus and masters were compiled in sequence as "Elixir of Wisdom", and when the WHOLE collection of "Pilgrimage to Self" was ready, he suggested to put this "Elixir of Wisdom" itself as the foreword. Thus came into existence, in book form, "PILGRIMAGE TO SELF".... on September the 20th, 1996.

His poetry is universal in expression but individual in style. He does not seek to communicate any philosophy through his poems. He questions you, "Can 'thought' liberate you from 'thought'?" and then reminds you,"We can prove anything by Reason, Logic, and Statistics, but Not TRUTH", and "Faith is the Springboard to Unknown".

Sometime in June 1996, he met his living Master in Swami Harish Madhukar, reverently called "Babaji". With him was the beginning of a journey from Enlightenment to the point of no return. Babaji reconfirmed, " You are the endless, bottomless, ocean of Consciousness that is Life within and beyond."

The poem titled "Pilgrimage to Self" may help many seekers of Truth to take their own journey. Jinendra Swami cautions and reminds you to move away from all ideas and concepts and boldly declares that only that Truth which you discover yourself will be of any use to you, on your pilgrimage to self.