My teacher Rama was a magical being

My teacher Rama was a magical being, an enigma whose presence was so quietly breathtaking it silenced the mind. His extraordinary perception enabled him to see the divine in his students. He ached for our own awakening and would stop at nothing, even death, to advance our self-discovery.

Rama was not necessarily nice; he was accurate. This approach was a jolt to my Western sensibilities. I didn’t come to trust or love him for a long time. I was drawn to study with Rama because he simply made more sense than anyone I'd ever heard. Never using notes, his words were clear and lucid verbal expressions of understandings and perspectives of my own mind and my deepest feelings. Being with him was like coming home.

Rama was a hard teacher and he raised the bar of his expectations constantly. Yet all of us who studied with Rama, who withstood the rigors of his training, completed the challenging tasks he assigned and learned to adapt to change, found ourselves on a journey of incredible personal development. By holding us to his impeccable standards, driving us with his powerful will and bathing us in golden light while splitting our sides with his humor, in spite of our doubts and negativity, our lives were transformed. As our consciousness expanded through Rama’s methods, we were able to accomplish amazing things on the material level while transcending our selves through wondrous meditations and powerful spiritual epiphanies. These ongoing experiences are bona fide miracles through which I have come to believe in Enlightenment and recognize my teacher as its divine emissary.

In my heart, in life or in death, Rama will always be my teacher, my light and my world. I can only say thank you Rama, thank you.

Joan H.