WALKING WITH A HIMALAYAN MASTER . Review on Walking with a Himalayan Master - Justin O Brien

Walking with a Himalayan master is a book about Swami Rama Written by his disciple Justin O’ brien . It is not a biography and it is not a record of Swami Ram’s most momentous events in life. This book shows Swami Rama as an ordinary man like any of us and at the same time very casual mention of his miracles. Along with Swami Rama you would also read about other yogis who attended an international yoga conference conducted by Swami Rama in the untied states. Swami Rama was a yogi from the Himalayas and his birth was predicted by a famous yogi “Bengali baba” who later became swami Rama’s guru from his child hood. Swami Rama grew up playing on the Himalayas.

Swami Rama shot in to fame when he went to united states and gave a demonstration of his yogic powers subjecting himself at Menninger foundation research institute(Topeka ,Kansas USA ) on biochemical energies or biofeedback. He moved the needles kept 10 feet away by just looking at them. He had stopped the heart for 16 seconds and the doctors supervising the experiment was horrified at seeing ECG and shouted to swami rama to stop the experiment. ( Swami Rama actually wanted to stop the heart for 15 minutes and he asked for two days time for yogic preparation and fasting, but that project was cancelled because the testing specialist doctor said that he would be satisfied if any one could stop the heart for six seconds ).

He has also proved the power of the brain to record the speech of other persons even when asleep. In the lab, using electro encephala graph , researchers assured themselves that Swami Rama was fast asleep and he was in fact snoring. He told the researchers at Menninger institute that he would get up after half and hour and exactly half an hour after he got up from sleep. Some of the research scholars went down stairs for tea while he was asleep. Some of them went upstairs for a chit-chat. Some stood in the same lab and had discussed various issues. After getting from sleep , swami gave an exact account of what they have discussed in the room , what the people talked to each other in the tea shop down stairs and what the people talked about upstairs including each and every dialogue.

Swami Rama was undoubtedly a great Himalayan yogi. He produced tumours on the both of his forearms in front of the scientists at his will. When a biopsy was conducted one of the tumours was a cancer tumour. Immediately after he deliberately absorbed both the tumours in to his arms again while all the people at the institute were watching it. Both tumours were simply gone. He made cuts on the hand without bleeding and the wounds healed at his own touch apparently without leaving a scar. These and other experiments are on record and anyone can read about them on web sites of Meninges foundation research institute , USA.

The book essentially shows that even American disciple can be a loyal disciple. The book also shows the ordinary side of a great Indian yogi. How the yogi’s live ? what they eat and what they think ?

In the very first introduction the author found to a bit surprise that Swami Rama had a cigarette packet with him and the yogi told him that he had the habit of smoking. He cooks. Drinks tea too many times almost with a compulsive habit. In an interview before the publishing of the book Justin told the reporter that Swami Rama played cards with him. The book appears to have treated miracles of Swami Rama in a very casual manner.

What is the intention of the book ? we do not surely understand except that Justin and his wife Teresa were disciples of Swami Rama and how hard they worked and how he sacrificed his career to move along with Swami Rama to set up Himalayan yoga institutes in two or three different places in USA. These institutes are successfully running even to this day and the author also like Swami Rama has completely detached himself with any of these institutes. If the author , Justin wanted to bring a message from Swami Rama by writing a book on him , it did not serve the purpose.

He wrote the book because Swami Rama told him to write the book long before he died. If he wanted to show how Swami Rama was a great yogi by writing this book he may have been succeeded only to a little extent. But if he wanted to show , how an ardent t disciple he was , and how he sacrificed so many pleasures of ordinary life , may be Justin O’ brian has been completely successful in writing this book. You can not compare this book with “An autobiography of a Yogi” because that was much better book written by swami paramahamsa Yogananda. You can not compare this book even with his master’s own book “Living with Himalayan masters” . Justin O brien did not do justice to some of the Indian yogis he mentioned in the book . One was yogi Ramananda who could break chains with three-eight inches thickness to hold the elephants. Yogi Ramananda was a little , thin , small individual who gave the demonstrations of Yoga power in the American universities. He would roll leaves like a cigar and put them between index finger and middle finger. He would press it . the cigar like roll is cut and both pieces fly in either direction. There is so much of casual mention of other yogis that you do not even understand them as yogis !!

Even then I suggest that one should definitely read this book if at all an Indian want to know his heritage. The book was well received in US. The book does not in any way reveal many other secrets of yoga and it is not the purpose of the book. But even then a foreigner thoroughly enjoys reading the book which mistakenly gives an impression that yoga means postures and breathing !!