An Unexpected Phone Call
My guru, Shivalinga Swamy, knew hundreds of people scattered throughout India's southern states of Andra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A few were members of his large extended family, but the majority were priests, business associates, politicians, government officials, students, farmers or clients. All of these people spoke one or more languages in the Dravidian language group: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Shivalinga Swamy lived in Bengalaru/Bangalore in Karnataka, so Kannada was his preferred language.
English is also spoken in South India, but it is mainly used for official purposes in government offices, which is probably a holdover from the British colonial years. Guruji spoke English, but it was never his language of choice. He had difficulty understanding my American English accent because he had been taught what they call “The Queen's English,” which sounds like those who speak English in the U.K. He would say to me, “Slow down, Frances, don't talk so fast.” Sometimes this worked, but other times Vinnuacharya, who was also my teacher, had to act as our interpreter.
Shivalinga Swamy conversed easily in all four of the Dravidian Languages wherever we traveled. In fact, I remember him using three different cell phones on our bus trip to the Ayyappan Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. I never knew if all three phones were his or not, but they may have been. They were all the flip phone type typical of that era (2005-2008). Smart phones weren't available yet. Hours went by as Guruji made calls and received calls. Sometimes he answered them. Other times he handed the phone to a student to take a call. It was like a communications juggling act with non-stop conversation – talking and traveling – traveling and talking as the miles streamed by. I just sat and observed, for nothing was conducted in my one and only language – English, AMERICAN English!
Sometimes I wondered why he took me with him to so many places, but I never asked him about this. I suspect there were probably several reasons. But in retrospect, I think he took me along because he knew that in the future I would write stories about my experiences with him and his student, Vinnuacharya. As a jyotishi, a Vedic astrologer (one of his numerous abilities), he knew that I had a heavily aspected moon in Gemini, so I was astrologically programmed for communications of all kinds. I had already spent years writing songs and teaching children to read. So why not add a book or two to the list?
True gurus know past, present and future events for their students, so Shivalinga Swamy knew that I would be inclined to write biographical and autobiographical accounts in the coming years. But first I had to have the experiences. Therefore, I needed to accompany him. It is also common for a guru to have one student who plays the role of “scribe.” Karmically, this may have simply been my role to play.
I became accustomed to my life in India with my two teachers, and I had no plans to return to America. But unknown to me were karmic threads being woven back in Michigan, and I was part of that developing tapestry. My daughter Erika's marriage was dissolving, and she needed someone to help her take care of Gaja, her son who was only a few weeks old. Erika couldn't stay home with her baby because she had to keep her job.
Shivalinga Swamy knew everything that was taking place in this unfolding family drama. Gaja had been a student of his in a previous incarnation, and his recent birth in America was certainly no accident. So I found myself on a flight back to Kalamazoo, Michigan. I became Gaja's “nanny,” Erika kept her job, and I adapted once again to life back in America. I wrote about this initial adjustment period in my book, Driven by the Divine, p. 90, in the story entitled “A Bottle of Milk for Gaja, and Some Happy Tea for Me.” I knew that I would help take care of Gaja for a few years, as long as I was needed, but I didn't know for how long. I figured Guruji would let me know about that when the time came, and he did. But that part of the story comes later.
Shivalinga Swamy left his body in 2010, a few months after I returned to Michigan, but he didn't forget me. From time to time he would visit me in a dream and hold me. I remembered that this was one of Lord Ayyappan's names: “God who holds his devotees.” Vinnuacharya kept in touch with me too as the months and years progressed.
In 2014, Shivalinga Swamy visited me in a different way. I lived in an apartment near my daughter, Erika. Gaja was in kindergarten, and Erika's daughter, Mantra, was in middle school. Erika had done very well designing books at the Upjohn Institute. She had handled her finances well and had even managed to purchase a house in a safe friendly neighborhood. She had also designed three books and seven songbooks for me. We also recorded songs together. Creatively speaking, we had a rather unusual mother-daughter relationship.
I kept in touch with family and friends through phone calls and emails. I hardly ever used my cell phone though. I mostly sent and received emails. Sometimes my phone didn't ring for days, which was fine with me. So when I heard the phone ring that morning it startled me. The sound jolted me out of my quiet reverie. I was not expecting a call from anyone, and my friends knew I preferred emails.
I let the phone ring three times before answering it. Automatically I said, “Hello,” but no one said hello in return. They were already speaking, but I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. I said, “Hello, who is this?” Then in a split second I realized what was going on, and I knew who had phoned me. I felt it, heard it and knew it all at the same time. The bliss transference was unmistakable. I didn't ask “who is this?” anymore. I knew it was Shivalinga Swamy. Instead of holding me in a dream he had called me on the phone from some heavenly domain within the causal plane.
The speaking continued, but it was not from any earthly language. I knew that. It was impossible to describe, breathtakingly beautiful to hear, and exquisitely perfect in its construction. It was, indeed, the perfect language, and it conveyed pure bliss to the listener.
A master yogi can use language to represent things on all three planes or worlds of existence: the physical (Bhuloka), the astral (Antarloka) and the causal (Shivaloka). Once a soul reaches the exalted state of nirbikalpa samadhi it can travel to any of the three lokas. “Loka” means “place” or “location.”
Shivalinga Swamy sent me a message which my higher self understood. He programmed my brain for bliss. Remarkably, this all took place in about 15 to 20 seconds, and it was conveyed through a cell phone! I remembered how I had watched Guruji juggle calls on three cell phones as we rode on the bus to Sabarimala Temple. How utterly sweet and totally appropriate that he would choose to communicate with me in this way. He knew I would know it was him. I wished the phone call had been longer. Twenty seconds wasn't much. I wanted to hear him speak that bliss-filled perfect language again. I sat still and let the experience soak into me.
I wondered if he had used the original first language of Earth before it had split off into other languages and dialects thousands or even millions of years ago. And I wondered if it might have been what some linguists theorize as Proto-Sanskrit, the perfectly constructed language preceding Sanskrit, the language of Vedic scripture. Both were possible.
But beyond my pondering and analysis I realized that Guruji had sent me an experience of bliss through sound/vibration, the words of which were not necessarily translatable into words in any language. Speech is a representation of vibration, and vibration is creation, which is AUM. Guruji had phoned me from the causal plane, the abode of Lord Shiva. I immediately remembered one of my favorite names from the 108 Names of Lord Shiva - “God who creates through sound.”
“Everything is an image of the ecstacy of the creator.” “Brahmananda Swaroopa. Isha Jagadisha. Akhilananda Swaroopa. Isha Mahesha.”
English is also spoken in South India, but it is mainly used for official purposes in government offices, which is probably a holdover from the British colonial years. Guruji spoke English, but it was never his language of choice. He had difficulty understanding my American English accent because he had been taught what they call “The Queen's English,” which sounds like those who speak English in the U.K. He would say to me, “Slow down, Frances, don't talk so fast.” Sometimes this worked, but other times Vinnuacharya, who was also my teacher, had to act as our interpreter.
Shivalinga Swamy conversed easily in all four of the Dravidian Languages wherever we traveled. In fact, I remember him using three different cell phones on our bus trip to the Ayyappan Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. I never knew if all three phones were his or not, but they may have been. They were all the flip phone type typical of that era (2005-2008). Smart phones weren't available yet. Hours went by as Guruji made calls and received calls. Sometimes he answered them. Other times he handed the phone to a student to take a call. It was like a communications juggling act with non-stop conversation – talking and traveling – traveling and talking as the miles streamed by. I just sat and observed, for nothing was conducted in my one and only language – English, AMERICAN English!
Sometimes I wondered why he took me with him to so many places, but I never asked him about this. I suspect there were probably several reasons. But in retrospect, I think he took me along because he knew that in the future I would write stories about my experiences with him and his student, Vinnuacharya. As a jyotishi, a Vedic astrologer (one of his numerous abilities), he knew that I had a heavily aspected moon in Gemini, so I was astrologically programmed for communications of all kinds. I had already spent years writing songs and teaching children to read. So why not add a book or two to the list?
True gurus know past, present and future events for their students, so Shivalinga Swamy knew that I would be inclined to write biographical and autobiographical accounts in the coming years. But first I had to have the experiences. Therefore, I needed to accompany him. It is also common for a guru to have one student who plays the role of “scribe.” Karmically, this may have simply been my role to play.
I became accustomed to my life in India with my two teachers, and I had no plans to return to America. But unknown to me were karmic threads being woven back in Michigan, and I was part of that developing tapestry. My daughter Erika's marriage was dissolving, and she needed someone to help her take care of Gaja, her son who was only a few weeks old. Erika couldn't stay home with her baby because she had to keep her job.
Shivalinga Swamy knew everything that was taking place in this unfolding family drama. Gaja had been a student of his in a previous incarnation, and his recent birth in America was certainly no accident. So I found myself on a flight back to Kalamazoo, Michigan. I became Gaja's “nanny,” Erika kept her job, and I adapted once again to life back in America. I wrote about this initial adjustment period in my book, Driven by the Divine, p. 90, in the story entitled “A Bottle of Milk for Gaja, and Some Happy Tea for Me.” I knew that I would help take care of Gaja for a few years, as long as I was needed, but I didn't know for how long. I figured Guruji would let me know about that when the time came, and he did. But that part of the story comes later.
Shivalinga Swamy left his body in 2010, a few months after I returned to Michigan, but he didn't forget me. From time to time he would visit me in a dream and hold me. I remembered that this was one of Lord Ayyappan's names: “God who holds his devotees.” Vinnuacharya kept in touch with me too as the months and years progressed.
In 2014, Shivalinga Swamy visited me in a different way. I lived in an apartment near my daughter, Erika. Gaja was in kindergarten, and Erika's daughter, Mantra, was in middle school. Erika had done very well designing books at the Upjohn Institute. She had handled her finances well and had even managed to purchase a house in a safe friendly neighborhood. She had also designed three books and seven songbooks for me. We also recorded songs together. Creatively speaking, we had a rather unusual mother-daughter relationship.
I kept in touch with family and friends through phone calls and emails. I hardly ever used my cell phone though. I mostly sent and received emails. Sometimes my phone didn't ring for days, which was fine with me. So when I heard the phone ring that morning it startled me. The sound jolted me out of my quiet reverie. I was not expecting a call from anyone, and my friends knew I preferred emails.
I let the phone ring three times before answering it. Automatically I said, “Hello,” but no one said hello in return. They were already speaking, but I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. I said, “Hello, who is this?” Then in a split second I realized what was going on, and I knew who had phoned me. I felt it, heard it and knew it all at the same time. The bliss transference was unmistakable. I didn't ask “who is this?” anymore. I knew it was Shivalinga Swamy. Instead of holding me in a dream he had called me on the phone from some heavenly domain within the causal plane.
The speaking continued, but it was not from any earthly language. I knew that. It was impossible to describe, breathtakingly beautiful to hear, and exquisitely perfect in its construction. It was, indeed, the perfect language, and it conveyed pure bliss to the listener.
A master yogi can use language to represent things on all three planes or worlds of existence: the physical (Bhuloka), the astral (Antarloka) and the causal (Shivaloka). Once a soul reaches the exalted state of nirbikalpa samadhi it can travel to any of the three lokas. “Loka” means “place” or “location.”
Shivalinga Swamy sent me a message which my higher self understood. He programmed my brain for bliss. Remarkably, this all took place in about 15 to 20 seconds, and it was conveyed through a cell phone! I remembered how I had watched Guruji juggle calls on three cell phones as we rode on the bus to Sabarimala Temple. How utterly sweet and totally appropriate that he would choose to communicate with me in this way. He knew I would know it was him. I wished the phone call had been longer. Twenty seconds wasn't much. I wanted to hear him speak that bliss-filled perfect language again. I sat still and let the experience soak into me.
I wondered if he had used the original first language of Earth before it had split off into other languages and dialects thousands or even millions of years ago. And I wondered if it might have been what some linguists theorize as Proto-Sanskrit, the perfectly constructed language preceding Sanskrit, the language of Vedic scripture. Both were possible.
But beyond my pondering and analysis I realized that Guruji had sent me an experience of bliss through sound/vibration, the words of which were not necessarily translatable into words in any language. Speech is a representation of vibration, and vibration is creation, which is AUM. Guruji had phoned me from the causal plane, the abode of Lord Shiva. I immediately remembered one of my favorite names from the 108 Names of Lord Shiva - “God who creates through sound.”
“Everything is an image of the ecstacy of the creator.” “Brahmananda Swaroopa. Isha Jagadisha. Akhilananda Swaroopa. Isha Mahesha.”