Awakened: Meetings with Indian Saints

Michael O'Callaghan, Ph.D.

I must confess that I am a "seekers" junky. I love to read books about people on a quest for truth or about their visits to various masters, gurus and/or saints. This book is right up my alley. The author (a female despite her given name "Michael") is a trained psychologist who has practiced TM for 30 years. I am not sure if she is a TM teacher, but she is steeped in the teachings and knowledge of Maharishi, and lives in a meditating community in Austin, Texas. Like a number of long–time practitioners of TM she feels the lack of a personal Guru.

Her quest for the personal touch takes her to visit various Indian saints who come to America. Finally, she strongly connects with one of these saints and it results in her undertaking a pilgrimage to India to spend more than a month in an Ashram with Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Swamiji. Her experiences are, in many respects, quite extraordinary and very credible. The book is very intimate in its details and not exaggerated or adulterated. Whether or not you have been to India you will identify with the details of her culture shock and with her trying to reconcile her Western fixation on hygiene with the "letting it go" mindset necessary to adapt to Indian life in an Ashram's very primitive facilities.

But, there is a lot more in this book than her trials and tribulations with personal hygiene. She gets to the essential elements of truth and the great teachings of this remarkable Swami. She relates a number of fascinating experiences, which include both the paranormal, and the supernormal powers of her Swamiji.

She also has chapters dealing with visits to Amachi, Karunamayi, Mother Meera, and Viswamji Viswawaguru, an incarnation of Dattatreya. Ms. O'Callaghan covers a lot of ground in a very succinct and straightforward manner.

If you like spiritual adventures, this is a must read. I give it my highest recommendation because it is so honest and profound, in both the knowledge and the experiences.

Review by Len Oppenheim.