By 1985I had already completed my Kundalini apprenticeship with the great Siddha Vethathiri Maharishi, and had co-founded the Self-Awareness Institute and it was going international. But I was being called back to go even deeper, into a practice called Yoga Tapas. Concurrent with my kundalini training with the Maharishi, I had been sitting with the Arch-yogi Sri Sri Sri Shivabalayogi Maharaj who was pushing me to increase my meditations to eight hours a day. Shivabalayogi was going to leave his body soon so he called me to complete my tapas, for yoga training, with him in India. So, in late 1991 I closed down my business, got rid of my stuff, and traveled to India to sit with my gurus.

First, I flew to Madras, now Chennai, to see my root guru the Maharishi (Vethathiri). He has a nice ashram near the ocean and was gracious enough to make room for me to sit and meditate near him. I told him I wanted to begin my yoga tapas with him, so I began sitting in meditation twelve or more hours a day. He even cleared his calendar so he could join me in meditation. This is when I cleared the time space continuum. The inspiration to write my book The Theory of Existence and Science of Consciousness came from sitting with my Swamiji. After completing my stay in Chennai, I moved to Bangalore. First, I went to Whitefield to pay my respects to Satya Sai Baba, who had guided me -psychically - as a child living in Southern California, later gave me his spiritual name of Sai the first time I met with him in person, (SAI also stands for Self Awareness Institute), and who guided me to do advanced yoga training with the Maharaj (Shivabalayogi) who was also in Bangalore.

After paying my respects to the Maharaj, he gave me his blessings and instructions to begin my yoga tapas. From the ongoing twelve hours a day, I built up my sadhana to fourteen, then sixteen, then eighteen and twenty hours a day over weeks and then got up to sitting a continuous 23 hours a day for forty consecutive days and nights. People often want a description of the experience, but there is nobody having an experience, there is only the reality itself and it is every persons destiny to realize it for themselves…to awaken. After completing my accelerated yoga tapas, Shivabalayoga gave me several pounds of vibutthi (sacred ash) and asked me to give initiation into Dhyana meditation and give Shaktipat in his absence, since he knew he was leaving his body soon, and did. I’ve continued to initiate thousands of people all over the world as instructed and it’s growing.

After being in silence and solitude for so many months I didn’t want to be around people to talk, but a friend who had been watching over me had been doing his own sadhana and by sitting together so much we could communicate psychically quite well. So, I would pick up his questions and then write out the answers on these paper napkins, because it was the only paper in my room, and then I would slip them under his door because I still didn’t want to talk. The bliss was so sublime. After several weeks he collected quite a few paper napkin notes, and when we read them in class the class requested that we compile them into a book. So, I did, it’s called The Awakening, An Evolutionary Leap in Human Consciousness. It’s on Amazon. Hope you are inspired.

From the heart, Steven S. Sadleir, Sai

Amazon link https://tinyurl.com/y7joydha