By Swati Sharan
TORONTO: The impact Shirdi Sai Baba has had on the life of Swami Shivkrupanand, the founder of Samarpan Meditation or Samarpan Dhyan, is immeasurable. As Sai Baba’s medium, Swami Shivkrupanand was able to take samarpan meditation on to a global level.
The samarpan meditation technique has been practised for generations in the Himalayas. Swami Shivkrupanand was chosen to bring it to society because of being a householder who had the ability to manage in society and yet was spiritually elevated enough that he could communicate with his gurus in the Himalayas. His gurus expressed how they wished to have samarpan brought to society but now they were no longer in the condition to come back to society. So Swamiji did as his gurus wished and came back to society full-time after 18 years of going back and forth between the Himalayas and society.
But when doing so, he became limited in how many workshops he could do because he didn’t have enough funding. He often says, “When I used to say I’ll do a workshop next month, people would think it was because I was busy. But the real reason was because I didn’t have enough money. All I had was the 500 rs that Guruma (his wife) would give me from her savings from her job as a teacher. When that money would be over, I would say to people, come back next month.”
Swami Shivkrupanand also didn’t want to accept money because he was told by his gurus that this knowledge of samarpan meditation was to be given for free. So Swamiji would only take the cause as far as Guruma’s finances would stretch. At this point, Sai Baba made Swamiji a medium for carrying out his different auspices of social services. (Note: This happened not because Swamiji was a follower of Sai Baba. Rather this was because Sai Baba needed a living guru who could reach out to his followers and felt Swamiji to be capable of doing so. One such example included helping one of Sai Baba’s followers reach the crown chakra (energy centre). Sai Baba needed a spiritually elevated enough to physically touch and scale the backbones to the crown to do so).
So during this same time period one day, Sai Baba appeared to him and said, “Don’t ask for money but if someone offers it to you, take it. “
So Swami Shivkrupanand started accepting the money but he would put back any extra money that anyone gave into the Shirdi Trust. His take was “I come with my money and I go with my money. I don’t want an extra ounce of anyone else’s money.” Sai Baba appeared to him again. He said, “You’ve still left the door open for your ego by not accepting money when others give it out of love or respect. If you want samarpan to grow on a global level, you’ll have to start accepting people’s donations when they give it to you.”
Since then, samarpan meditation has expanded globally with centres all over the world with people of different nationalities and religions. This meditation technique has flourished because it transcends language and cultural barriers. It focuses on the actual divine experience.
This past spring, in cooperation with the Shirdi Trust, Swami Shivkrupanand paid homage to Sai Baba by doing a live eigth-day meditation workshop in Shirdi. The results of the meditative energy flowing there were dynamite.
So as part of our tribute to Sai Baba for his birthday which falls on Dushera, our Toronto chapter would like to welcome everyone to a week-long birthday tribute. We bring to you the video version of Swami Shivkrupanand’s 8-Day Introductory Samarpan Meditation Workshops in Shirdi.
If you would also like to know about future opportunities, please feel free to get in touch with us. We have chapters across the GTA and also do one day workshops. People of any faith or culture are welcome and we are open to travelling for the workshops.
The workshop info: Oct 11, Oct 14-18- 7 p.m. , Oct 12-13- 4-6 p.m., 108 Ranee Ave, Toronto ON M6A 1N2 (near Yorkdale Mall) For more info, call/text 416-893-8418 or email anandpunit@gmail.com or visit www.samarpanmeditation.org
(Swati Sharan is a journalist based in Toronto)
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