Touched By Fire (My Spiritual Quest and Life With Sri Swami Rama)

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This book is a remarkable portrayal of the sculpturing of a spiritual teacher. In it, you will see rare glimpses of the invisible hands of the Divine as they mold a spiritual master, the man we know today as Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. Fortunate are those who know they are meeting a true master, either personally or in the pages of a book. Encounters with such people do not happen without divine grace. This I know from my own personal experience.

I write this preface with reverence for Panditji and with deep humility, for I myself am far from sacred learning and spiritual wisdom. But as I read these pages, I found myself identifying with the happenings recounted here, many of which are almost too incredible to be believed. Seeing can be the beginning of believing. At the very least this book will introduce you to a living sage who is readily accessible and with whom you can communicate-one who lives divinity in all its aspects, one who has been sculptured by spiritual immortals.

Here is just a sampling of this divine sculpturing: Panditji was born into a family of royal teachers. As a young boy he would sneak into his father's private room to read the scriptures. His instincts and inclinations led him to Sanskrit school, which he reached the first time by crossing a flood-swollen, snake-ridden canal. What took others months and years to learn took him only days. Thrown in a compost pit six times by his uncles who wanted to acquire family land, the boy had his first physical experience of the presence of the Divine.

He enrolled in a famous university, but his rural background made him a misfit. In his final undergraduate year, he realized his parents were unable to provide for his higher education, and so he began walking upstream along the bank of the Ganga in search of divine guidance. On the way he met a great saint, who blessed him and told him, ''Your job is to continue walking. When you really get exhausted, then simply stop and wait, and remember that He will pick you up."

This saint told him to go visit his parents. When he arrived at their village home, his family was being visited by their long-lost and very wealthy friends. These friends insisted on taking the young man back to the university (they lived in the same city and had arrived in their personal car-in those days very few owned one) and being a family to him while he studied for his graduate degree.

It is through this family that, a few years later, Pandit Rajmani walked into an unfamiliar building in Delhi, got into an elevator, and landed on the floor where his supreme spiritual master, Swami Rama, a sage of the Himalayas was waiting for him. On seeing Panditji, Swami Rama said, "I have been waiting for you. When are you coming to the States?" Months later, Panditji asked Swamiji, "How did I come to that hotel? Did you know that I was coming? Was it a coincidence?" Swamiji replied in two sentences: "The way of Providence is mysterious nothing is accidental. Haven't you heard that the teacher appears when the student is prepared?"

These are only a few brief examples. The entire book is a gold mine of spiritual history to be read and contemplated again and again. The more we swim in the waves of spiritual waters, the more we realize how little we know.

As we dive deeper, more is revealed to us. And then we realize how short one lifetime is to experience the ocean of it all. Pandit Rajmani Tigunait is a custodian of the lineage of sages-and he himself is an immeasurable spiritual treasure. And we, the fortunate ones, are in a position to read and meet-him today. Remember-nothing is accidental!