Amritananda

Our Beloved Grandfather, Ankapalli Guru Garu

By Sue McNiel

Guru Garu's help is a very important and strong part of my development as a person – second only to our Guruji – Sri Amritananda Saraswati. Even though I only met Guru Garu once, he has and continues to help me in dream time. I love him, but also try to avoid him. Let me explain.

The major thing he used to do in the dreams, would be to use irony, humor, zaniness, and CONSEQUENCES to teach his lessons. He was very opposed when he discovered an attachment to something. He would say - "You want something?! Ok, (twinkle, twinkle) I'll get it for you". (Uh Oh!) He would do all kinds of out-of-the world stuff and say "You believe this? Ok, then watch this!"

His actions were very spontaneous and could not be typecast in any way. For instance, when I first met him I was coached by friends and well-wishers beforehand that he was a Swami (therefore, don't touch him) and that he could read your mind (therefore, put all desires out of your mind in his presence, or there will be trouble). Not only did he touch me – he made me sit so close to him, so much that any closer and I would have been in his lap.

But he thwarted my other plans to control the situation. Given my yoga training – I kept my mind blank alright; but my paltry attempt failed. Somehow he just went back to what I had been desiring the previous week – which happened to be a Sri Chakra Meru. I had even given up on acquiring one. He gave me the Meru alright (naughty, naughty - never give a Meru to a non-Hindu-born female); and dropped the holy object into a Mickey- Mouse lunch box from a height of two feet in the air.

He must have laughed at our open-mouthed, incredulous stares. The symbolism of it all has not been missed, though. After experientially learning the consequences of my attachments – which were somewhat painful(?!) – I figured out the teaching real fast. An attachment is an attachment is an attachment--whether it is a car, a Meru, Tantra, or Sri Vidya itself. An attachment is not THAT. And he wasn't going to let me get away with mistaking anything else for THAT. Boy, is he strict and he doesn't mess around.

Wa do (A Native American – "Thank you") Grandfather.

Note: Minor editorial changes were made to the original write-up to maintain consistency of style among different published materials.