I met Swamji in May of 2007 and today I know that everything really is auspicious. I had the opportunity to experience the ashram before programs began and to engage in programs offered by the mission. I have encountered Nithyananda’s presence in the US and have found him to always be kind and gracious.

Perhaps some people were looking for a messiah in Nithyananda, and maybe some were looking for a special place in the organization. I can’t recall that I was looking for anything when I first encountered him. I had a malady of physical ailments at the time. I asked him if he could even heal the syndromes for which western medicine could only supply drug cocktails which made matters only words. I never asked for healing, but I was healed. All comes into balance one way or another. The entire planet and every individual is constantly in that process of experience correction or balance in a myriad of ways. Regardless of what we want in this life, it is life, and learning never stops.

For some people all this tabloid news about Swamiji may be easier to assimilate due to a particular mental set-up. Though we are all expressions of divine, seeing Swamiji portrayed as much man as God may be far more simple than seeing him as God incarnate.

I love Swamiji, and he has been a great positive influence on my life. The gift he has for sharing the sacred scriptures with such simplicity, the teachings and techniques so deep and transformational, the opportunity to express love and devotion for God through service or whatever means is available—the practice of putting something/everything/Existence before self---incomparable to anything I have yet known or experienced. And I have years to go, ever expanding.

Nothing is ever as it seems. We never know the causes or effects of any situation, no matter how bad we may interpret it to be in the present.

Since the news broke that a great spiritual leader has succumbed to the desires of the flesh, my awareness of the things for which for I am grateful continue to flood my being. Because of his programs and teachings, my constant habit is to call on the name of God continuously, as an expression of gratitude, be it upon arising in the morning, getting daily preparations for food, work, and family, getting into the car, walking up the sidewalk to the office, looking out or up or in, enjoying the sky, the air, the sounds of the birds, the beauty that surrounds me, eating, in fellowship with friends, or calling it a day and lying down to rest in the evening. Becoming more aware of my thought processes and my motivations has brought a degree of mental clarity to my professional and personal life that I never thought possible. It is a comfort, a reassurance knowing that God is my constant companion. It has been and continues to be the prefect practice, making me aware of the God of all and the God within—a perfect practice of acknowledging God in, above, before, and during all that I do.

Swamiji has always told us that the miracles and manifestations of divine happen completely apart from him and his 6-foot form, and how the time would come that he would take us beyond that form. How thankful I am to have had such a beautiful and graceful form to help me establish more fully in a very personal relationship with Divine.

There is no sorrow, no sadness—only a fullness knowing that I am in, one with, radiating and expressing Nithyananda, eternal bliss.

Thank you, Swamiji, for all that you have given. My love, respect and gratitude to you always. Nothing can negate the positive imprint you have made on my life.

Donna Stone