Introduction

On the Siddha Yoga path, we learn—and we have the experience—that the teachings of the Guru transcend such differences as race, religion, nationality, and cultural background. It is something that our Guru, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, spoke about as recently as Mahashivaratri of this year. It is also a principle that Gurumayi’s Guru, Baba Muktananda, would teach about often in satsang.

Every year on Easter, I am reminded of this truth. I did not grow up observing Easter (at least not in the traditional, religious sense), but because of Gurumayi’s teachings about Easter, because of the respect she has always given to what it symbolizes, I have come to feel a special affinity for this holiday. Easter, as Gurumayi teaches, is a time of awakening and reawakening. It is a time to remember the value of life.

These themes were evident in the Siddha Yoga satsang that Gurumayi held on April 4, 2026, in honor of the Easter holiday. The satsang, titled “Breathe In the Spirit of Spring,” was live video streamed from the Bhagavan Nityananda Temple in Shree Muktananda Ashram. It took place within the Siddha Yoga Universal Hall—“the scintillating blue dome,” as Gurumayi has called it.

During the satsang, we invoked Lord Shiva—the Adi Guru, the supreme Self personified, he who oversees all the many movements and fluctuations of this manifest universe. Under the Lord’s auspices, life begins and ends and begins again. We listened to the kinetic beat of the damaru, Lord Shiva’s drum, which resonates with the primordial sound AUM—and to the exultant hymn “Shiva Shiva Shiva,” sung by the music ensemble. We chanted the namasankirtana Jaya Jaya Shiva Shambho in the majestic Darbari raga, after which we offered arati to the Guru. We also listened to Ben Williams, a scholar of Sanskrit and South Asian religions, as he spoke to us from Kashi (also known as Varanasi or Benares). This city in the north of India is renowned in Indian culture and scripture for being a dwelling place of Lord Shiva.

At Gurumayi’s request, Ben read a passage that she had selected from Baba Muktananda’s spiritual autobiography, Play of Consciousness. Ben later shared with me that this is his favorite passage from Play of Consciousness. It is one that he has contemplated deeply since he first read it as a teenager, and he has shared and discussed this story with many Siddha Yogis and friends over the years. So when Ben received Gurumayi’s request to read it, he was astonished by the synchronicity.

Not only that, Ben told me that for the past two years, he has been engaging in an extensive study of Baba’s words. He has made it a practice to read excerpts from Baba’s books every morning before chanting and meditating. Ben said, “This was one of the most beautiful and well-timed seva invitations I have ever received: to read Baba’s words, which I have recently been forging a whole new relationship with, and to then discover that the passage was one I loved so dearly.”

In the passage, Baba recounts the story of a saint who was approaching his death. The saint, who knew that his time on earth was nearing its end, made a point of thanking those that had supported him throughout his life. Lastly, he thanked his own body. Baba details the specific expressions of gratitude that the saint makes to his body, and then Baba encapsulates the key lesson for us to learn from this story.

For this next “Meditation” on the Guru’s words, Gurumayi has asked that I focus on Baba’s words from Play of Consciousness. Gurumayi explained that it is imperative for people to understand what Baba is conveying to us here about the value of the human body and of human life. Too often in this world, human life is treated as expendable. Every day, lives are being lost to war, disease, famine, natural disasters, and other tragedies of this kind. As I’ve written before, it is easy to become desensitized to death when it happens so relentlessly around us, and at such a massive scale. This is perhaps especially the case when these deaths feel removed from us—when they don’t immediately affect those we know or the groups that we identify with.

I think what can happen, when we get so used to death—and death en masse, to put it baldly, death occurring in ways that might register as shocking if they weren’t so common—is that life, too, loses some of its sheen in our eyes. It seems paradoxical, I know. But I do believe that a kind of fatalism can set in when we accept, on some level, that this is how the world works. That others die, that we die, that we are all just numbers waiting to be called. We can become irreverent in our approach to life—in how we treat ourselves, in how we are with others. The unspoken question—the question that rattles just beneath the surface of our conscious mind—is: “What does it matter?”

One reason the Gurus’ teachings are so powerful is that when we work with these teachings—when we contemplate them with diligence and care—we can arrive at an answer to this question. We can experience that answer. Life does matter. We know it in our being. Life is precious. We can list the numerous reasons why.

This next “Meditation” will be a little different from those previous. For one thing, I’ll be focusing on Baba’s words. Additionally, I’ll be keeping my contemplations a little more…concise…this time around. I’ve spoken about how wonderfully insightful your comments have been in response to “Meditation on Gurumayi’s Words”—how it’s clear that you have been thinking deeply about the Guru’s words and about the thoughts and questions that I have been sharing about these words. Our digital Sadhana Circle has been a fertile source of inspiration and learning—certainly for me, and I hope for you as well.

So, in a way, I am turning it over to you this month. Of course, I will still be sharing some of what I think. I’ll still be inviting you to consider the same questions that I’m asking of myself. But I’m eager for your thoughts to take center stage—and for us to discover, together, just how vibrantly alive and relevant Baba’s words remain fifty-plus years after he wrote them.

“Meditation on Swami Muktananda’s Words” will be featured in installments throughout the month of April on the Siddha Yoga path website. It is, as I believe you’d agree, a most fitting way to usher in the spring season and to move toward our celebration of Baba Muktananda’s birthday month in May.