Gurumayi Chidvilasananda - Biography

Biography

She was the oldest child of a Mumbai restaurateur; he and his wife were devotees of Swami Muktananda in the 1950s. Her parents brought her the first time to the Gurudev Siddha Peeth ashram at Ganeshpuri when she was five years old. During her childhood, her parents brought her, her sister, and two brothers to the ashram on weekends.

After she had been initiated by Muktananda through shaktipat at age fourteen, she moved to the ashram as a formal disciple and yoga student. At age fifteen, Muktananda made her his official English language translator and she accompanied him on his world tours.

On May 3, 1982, she was initiated as a sannyasin into the Saraswati order, taking vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, and acquiring the title and monastic name of Swami Chidvilasananda, (literally, "bliss of the play of consciousness"). At this time Muktananda formally designated her as one of his successors, along with her brother Subhash Shetty, now known by his monastic name of Mahamandaleshwar Nityananda.

Sharing her experience, Chidvilasananda wrote:

“At one point during the pattabhisheka, the ceremony during which Baba Muktananda passed on to me the power of his lineage, he whispered soham and aham Brahmasmi in my ear. I experienced the mantra as an immensely powerful force which rocketed at lightning speed throughout my bloodstream and created an upheaval in my entire system. I instantly transcended body-consciousness and became aware that all distinctions such as inner and outer were false and artificial. Everything was the same; what was within me was also without. My mind became completely blank. There was only the pulsating awareness ‘I am That,’ accompanied by great bliss and light. When my mind again began to function, all I could think was, ‘What is Baba? Who is this being who looks so ordinary, yet has the capacity to transmit such an experience at will?"

Muktananda died in October 1982.

The two co-gurus disagreed in 1985. According to his 1986 interview in Hinduism Today, Nityananda left by his own choice, deciding to cease to be a Siddha Yoga Sannyasi but wishing his sister well as sole guru. In 1987, Nityananda founded the Shanti Mandir ('Temple of Peace'), a separate organization which "continues the spiritual work of his Guru, the renowned sage Baba Muktananda, whom he succeeded in 1982." Shanti Mandir runs two Ashrams in India, and — like Gurumayi — one in New York State.

In 1992 she incorporated the PRASAD Project in the United States. The PRASAD project is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nation.

In 1997 she founded the Muktabodha Indological Research Institute with its own publishing imprint, Agama Press.

Swami Chidvilasananda "is a superb singer", with a "deep, resonant contralto" voice which she uses to great effect when leading her devotees in chanting. She has recorded several CDs of chanting, including the mantra "Om Namah Shivaya".

Reporters for Salon.com and The New York Post have speculated that Swami Chidvilasananda was the guru featured in Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love and its film adaptation. Gilbert has not identified by name the real-life ashram and guru featured in the book.

The New York Times, The New Yorker and Salon.com have all claimed that Chidvilasananda’s ashrams have attracted celebrities, including Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith, Isabella Rossellini, Diana Ross and Don Johnson. The Telegraph states that Scottish pop singer Lulu met Gurumayi.

In 1994, Lis Harris noted that Gurumayi's ashram in New York State is "sleekly modernized, in country-club-glitz style" from three prewar Catskill hotels "in neatly landscaped grounds" of 550 acres, and had "an estimated market value of fifteen to seventeen million dollars" in 1994. The ashram was able to earn "well over four million dollars" in 1989 selling books and other merchandise, and by running workshops (called intensives).

Her critics believe that she associates with celebrities and runs opulent ashrams. They believe that behavior contradicts what is expected of a renunciate.

Author Linda Johnsen observed the appearance of wealth at the ashram and took it positively. She noted that the ascetic traditions of yoga are only one type and that others exist. She quotes a Brahmin priest who told her "The Goddess is beauty and wealth. Prosperity is a gift of the Mother."