http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/tickled-pink-by-indias-giggling-guru-470713.html
Victoria Mary Clarke gets healed by the swami who spent three years in a cave.
IN A rather incongruous airport hotel, on a Thursday evening in Dublin, a small group of mainly middle-aged women have gathered. We have paid our money and we wait expectantly for the swami to arrive.
On schedule, an exotic creature in a vivid orange silk robe glides up to the stage, sits down and fiddles with the mic stand. Like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's , he wears the robe as though Givenchy had designed it. With his slender form, long, delicate fingers, slim arms, perfectly geometrical cheekbones, saucy black eyes and wide, wide grin he beams at us. I am dazzled by a beauty that is physically present but which seems to emanate from some other source.
IN A rather incongruous airport hotel, on a Thursday evening in Dublin, a small group of mainly middle-aged women have gathered. We have paid our money and we wait expectantly for the swami to arrive.
On schedule, an exotic creature in a vivid orange silk robe glides up to the stage, sits down and fiddles with the mic stand. Like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's , he wears the robe as though Givenchy had designed it. With his slender form, long, delicate fingers, slim arms, perfectly geometrical cheekbones, saucy black eyes and wide, wide grin he beams at us. I am dazzled by a beauty that is physically present but which seems to emanate from some other source.
Your average man in his 20s should be having the time of his life. For the first time (in Ireland , at least) there are no longer excuses for not being on the property ladder, not driving a new car, not having abs like Brad Pitt's and not having a chick like Angelina. Men, nature's trophy hunters, now have more prizes to compete for than ever before. And yet strangely, young Irish men are committing suicide more than they ever did before.
Swami Sri Balendu is 33, but he's no ordinary young man. He may be a big hit with the girls, but he is resolutely celibate and you won't catch him drinking pints or watching football. At the age of 25, when most men's thoughts are driven by their hormones, Swami Balendu, or Swamiji, entered an underground cave, where he would remain bricked up in the darkness for three and a half years with no telly, no play-station, not even a mobile phone. Fruit and milk would be passed to him in silence, through a small hole.And he left strict instructions that even if a member of his family died, he was not to be interrupted. The purpose of the experiment was simply to get closer to God. To hear God's voice uninterrupted by outward distractions.
To be imprisoned in darkness without human contact is most people's idea of torture. Even mass murderers get exercised in a yard; they get books to read and they get to talk to other prisoners. Swamiji is a hard core guy. And yet strangely, when his time was up and the wall was smashed down, all he wanted to do was go back into his cave. This is why we have come: to hear about what we might be missing, out here in the world of mass-consumerism. To find out what hides in the dark recesses of the silence that we never have time for.
Swamiji, who comes from Vrindivan, began preaching when he was nine.
"I started preaching with my father, who is also my master," he tells us, in perfect, heavily accented English. "Then I did my own programme when I was 12 or 13."
"Like Jesus?" I ask.
"Yes," he says, simply.
The swami comes from a long line of Hindu spiritual teachers, includinghis father and grandfather. But he is not interested in religion.
"I don't talk about religion, I talk about spirituality. It doesn't matter what religion you are. My God is love." As a 12-year-old, I suggest, he can't have had much experience of love. But he is adamant that he knows all he needs to know. "I believe I am only a medium. God wanted me in this way, so it is His inspiration. I do what I do, I heal people, but only because of His energy."
As Swamiji sits and adjusts the mic, he carefully attaches a digital recorder to it. Later, when I have an opportunity to interview him in his hotel room, he suggests that I watch the DVD that he has made of himself entering and leaving the cave, and I can also check out his website. This is a young man with a foot firmly in the world of modern technology and with an aptitude for self-promotion. I jokingly ask him if he has a degree in computer science.
"I went to school, but at 12 I had to leave because I'd become so busy with my programmes," he says. "And when I started travelling, I didn't know any English. But I don't care, I'm not shy."
The swami emerged from the cave in December 2000, and was welcomed by thousands of people, and film crews from all over the world. But it was to escape the world that he went into the cave.
"In India , spiritual people do this practice of living in silence. If you want to meditate, and concentrate, then you don't want to get disturbed. "I wanted to be able to concentrate, so I built the cave and I made it soundproof. There was no door and no window, it was sealed with bricks. There was one small slit to put food in, but they could not see me."
"In the cave, what did you have with you?" I ask. "My God" he says simply.
There was a toilet. And a mattress to sleep on. There was very little food. But he had been prepared.
"I had done long periods of silence, five or six months, many many times. We also do a lot of fasting, in India. For 12 years, I did that. And for the last two years that I was in the cave I ate only milk."
Interestingly, he didn't actually lose weight. When he emerged from the cave he weighed 46 kilos, exactly the same as when he went in. He had a routine of meditating, yoga and sleeping. The experience, he says, was not remotely difficult.
"It was wonderful!" he says, laughing. "Total bliss."
Coming out was the difficult bit. He describes it as quite shocking. But while he was in the cave, he says, he had evolved spiritually enough to be able to heal other people. And he was now on a mission, to teach and to heal.
"Chakras are the energy centres in the body," he says. "If there is a blockage or an imbalance in the chakras, that causes an imbalance in the body. Each chakra has its own energy field and it affects the body both physically and emotionally. So I work with the chakras, I give energy to them and move energy between them. If you ask me how it works, I will say by God's grace! I am nothing. When I see that people get benefit, I just thank God."
He offers to let me experience a healing. I accept. He warns me that generally people are naked for the healings, although it is not necessary. Some people, he says, would be uncomfortable about being naked and would be unable to relax, which would affect the healing. I consider, for a moment. To hell with it, I decide. I will be naked. After all, I reason, he's very cute, so if he does molest me, I don't mind.
The healing involves me lying on a bed and him chanting, blowing and touching different parts of my body. The base chakra is at the perineum, between the anus and the sexual organs, so it is a very intimate experience and I would recommend it only if you are very comfortable with that kind of thing.
Afterwards, he seems unfazed by the intimacy. I feel energised, but slightly embarrassed. The embarrassment wears off when he continues to talk normally. People give donations for the healings, and the money goes to an ashram in Vrindivan which provides food, shelter and education for deprived children.
He says he's not interested in money. "I have not bought anything for myself, new clothes or whatever. Even my robe has been donated. I don't care about such things."
Will you ever get married?I ask.
"I am very happy. Why would I get married?"
Suddenly he giggles.
Surely people who are married can be happy? I ask.
"Yes." Still giggling.
"You are still young, Maybe you will change your mind."
"If I change my mind, I will inform you. Give me your phone number!" He laughs uproariously.
"How old are you?" he asks.
I make him guess.
"You don't look 39."
"You don't look 33," I say.
I tell him his face has no lines. He is chuffed. I sense that he has some normal weaknesses, after all.
"Do you read newspapers?" I ask. "I will read the Sunday Independent . But generally I don't have time."
"So you don't watch TV?"
"No."
"He was watching The Osbournes ," his assistant pipes up. He giggles again. "Was I?"
"What do you think about the Dalai Lama?" I ask.
"I never met him."
"You were saying the other night he's a right f**ker!" the assistant reminds him.
He laughs uproariously again. "I never said that!"
"Do you ever say bad things or think bad things?"
"No. Never."
"Not even when somebody does something bad to you?"
"Why would I? It is notmy way."
I consider. In many ways, this young man has attained total mastery of the mind and of human desires which lead, as the Buddha said, to inevitable suffering. "Do you think there is hope for a normal person to be like you?" I ask.
"Yes, why not?"
"You are not superhuman?"
"No. I am normal, like you."
I think about my life. About how much of it is concerned with buying, consuming, achieving, and communicating with other people.
"Do you think it would be possible for me to go into a cave for three years?" I ask.
"Why not?"
"Would I go mad?"
"You can see me. Am I mad?" Most people would say it is mad to isolate yourself in the dark for years. Perhaps he is mad, I tell him. On the other hand, perhaps it is the rest of us who are mad.
Swamiji's workshops continue today and August 5-7. Call 01-432 3861 or visit www.swamiji.co.uk
- Victoria Mary Clarke
