This My Unknown Life: The Life and Teachings of Swami Ambikananda [Paperback]

"This my unknown life" seems a fitting epitaph for a saintly god-intoxicated Mauritian who lived most of his adult life in relative obscurity in England, attracting a small but fervent coterie of disciples and devotees. In fact Ambikananda chose the title himself as well as predicting - years before the event - that the author would indeed write such a book.

Ambikananda had an extraordinary devotion to the great Sri Ramakrishna, and he regarded the equally wordy Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as the holiest of holy texts. This explains why this rambling book is structured as it is - a collection of reports of the swami's thoughts, words and deeds arranged in a chronological order, together with a few phtographs that faithfully record how this strange man lived and work.

Ambikananda was the guiding light behind the brief success of UK "mantra-rock" band Quintessence in the early 70s, and this book shows just how much of a debt they owed him. Across the pages this lover of God staggers, drunk with a special kind of divine intoxication, and above it all shines the humanity, humour and warmth of a man who never had the formal schooling to be accepted as a monk by the Ramakrishna order. Instead, he danced his own path and you cannot help but fall in love with a teacher who turns up at his first meeting with his first real disciples carrying bags of food - including a chicken - and toys. He then proceeds to cook the food.

The book is especially good in its descriptions of the early days, when this humble man tries to knock his drug taking hippie devotees into some semblance of order to pursue spiritual discipline. And it faithfully records his extraordinary blend of Mauritian patois, inspired revelations, obscure ramblings and determinedly syncretic vision where Jesus appears at the front door and the Divine Mother Kali manifests through his body. Miracles and wonders abound, and a sense of bemusement that he was as little known as he was, given that other teachers with far bigger Egos strode the stage at the time.

Worth the read, but the one caveat is that this is book is REALLY long. Nevertheless, dripping with pearls of spiritual wisdom!

Those looking for spiritual gems will not be disappointed; this book is a bough laden with them. Don't be daunted by its 600 pages, they make delightful reading. Like an oasis beneath a starry sky these pages are a place to dip into and immerse oneself in; a source of rest and rejuvenation. Poetic, humorous, sometimes child-like, sometimes chiding, impatient, sharp, playful, tender, ardent, ever truthful, this wondrous teacher, Swami Ambikananda, mad with an unbridled love of God, sings to the heart, and urges the 'in-dweller' in each of us to awaken and to love.

The journal format of the book opens a window onto the past, enabling the reader to peek into, and then become a fly on the wall of, the Swami's kirtans. These were extraordinary gatherings of prayer, music, dance and spiritual discourse, spanning almost 30 years until the Swami's passing in 1997. Ambikananda's passion for God, his emphatic injunctions, scoldings and entreaties to his devotees to awaken, his colourful metaphors (sometimes mixed) his play on words, and his phrases darting like a needle in and out of a tapestry that is ever being worked, ever being enriched - all these transport the reader on an expansive journey inward.

Of particular interest are the Swami's evolving meld of Hindu-Christian devotion, his penchant for personal sacrifice and for certain Christian visionaries, and his embracing of dogma that was challenging to some devotees. We get a sense of Jai Narain, referring to himself in the third person, as being at times bemused, perplexed, critical, cautious, as well as clearly devoted to the teacher. And we get a taste of Ambikananda as being hard to please, grouchy, and even alarming in his departure from the orthodoxy that some followers were seeking.

There have been many fine compilations of the teachings of enlightened masters. This book differs in that it offers the reader a sense of being in an unfolding relationship with 'the Man' himself. The final impression is of a powerful, deeply generous and passionate soul, ever devoted to his followers and to their awakening, cooking food for them, tinkering with the engine of a car to give to a friend, dancing his life in exaltation to a melody from another realm - and most importantly, his urging to love.