by Patanga and Premananda

This is about the many oneness-experiences me and Premananda had since (and even before) we met. We are starting with Patanga´s stories. (I hope I can recollect the main ones!)

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Stories from Patanga

It was before my first April Celebrations in 2006. I had been reading a short résumé about the life of Sri Ramakrishna's monastic disciples. A certain name struck me the most, that of Swami Premananda. I identified with the character himself, plus the name "Premananda" was ringing inside my head for quite a few weeks, for no rhyme or reason apparent. I even thought Guru might give me a spiritual name, etc. However, I felt it was not yet time for me. So I was back to the question: why this name rings so much inside me?

I then went to New York for the April Celebrations. It turned to be the one I felt the most that I was living inside my heart. I would often come back to my accomodation after seeing Guru physically during long functions and sit on the shrine with my backback still hanging on my back. I just kept on meditating, praying or talking inwardly to Guru until exaustion. Those were really golden moments.

On a certain day I was helping to bag prasad with a number of boys. Right in front of me was this particular boy, called Jan. I liked him very, very much, even though we did not speak much and there were many others around. He mentioned a tendency to repeatedly push himself beyond limits and then suffer for it - a tendency which we both have in common.

A few days later, by the end of Celebrations, Guru called for "Husiar's helper", which was Jan. He was not there. Anyway, some other time Guru called again and there he came. Guru gave him the name Premananda! The very name that had been ringing inside me for weeks and weeks!

Often people see Premandanda and myself walking together and ask "Are you brothers?" In the beggining I would try to explain, but after a certain hundred times I just say a smiling "Yes!" Which is not far from truth.

Occasionally somebody would tell me "So are you in Oslo now?" (Premananda lives in Oslo), or "I liked your singing yesterday" (I was not singing yesterday, but Premananda). This escalated to certain heights!

One day after a morning function on the Christmas trip in Singapore, as I was taking prasad, the person who was leading the meditation looked at me clearly and said: "I shall make your announcement tonight". I was completely stunned. She really was looking at me. But announcement? She must have read my face of wonder and tentatively asked: "You are Premananda, … aren't you?" "No", came the answer from me and some other boys around. That evening an announcement was made that concerned Premananda!

The funny thing is that we do look alike, but not too much. I have brown hair; he has blonde hair. I have darker skin than him; he has a very fair skin. I think it must be something in the consciouness/vibration/heart-oneness/etc that makes people mistake us for each other.

During Celebrations of August 2013, I went to see ayurvedic physician Dr Kumar. When he saw me he bowed most soulfully and said "Namaste, Premananda". Premananda was going to him frequently those days, so it is not a matter of long term memory!

By this time I should come to the point where we came to mistake one for the other too. Premananda had this experience in Malaysia, on the Christmas trip of 2010. As he came out of bathroom, he saw himself on the large bedroom mirror and, surprised, thought it was me! To settle the matter, during the Christmas Trip of 2012 in San Diego, I came out of the bathroom and, looking at the bedroom mirror, surprised myself to think that Premananda was right in front of me!

When organizing roommates for the annual Christmas Trips, Shubhra thought to herself: "I think these two are going to like each other". Barely did she know we are good friends!

That also comes to the point where we seem to have the same kind of experiences in other spheres: Centre life, health, etc. Sometimes they are equal, sometimes alternate. It is, however, hard to remember these facts as I write now. For example, we both had chronic health problems (exaustion) for the last few years. I started first and got better first. He started later and got better later. Other years times we would talk on the phone, only to find out we were both unwell or just recovered from some flu.

Premananda was born on the 13th of May, I was born on the 27th of October. (These are some of Sri Chinmoy's most favoured numbers - 13th April 1964 is the day he arrived on the West, and 27th August 1931 is his birthdate.)

We are almost the same height and weight. We both sing in Kailash's group. We are both very fond and feel connected to the teachings of the Christ, even though neither of us ever went to church. When looking at him Premananda’s grandmother would often joyfully exclaim eyes alight “You are going to be a priest!” People frequently tell me, Patanga, that I look like a priest.

Premananda is very skilled in communication and acting. I, however, am right on the opposite! We both like learning Bengali for Guru´s songs. But now Premananda is an expert! (And we both learned a little Japanese during youth)

Another funny thing is that I do not feel the need to talk to him very often. I live in Brazil, and he in Norway, and we do spend quite some time together in New York or on the Christmas Trips. But it seems that the connection works from afar and I do think dearly of him very often. Premananda is one of the three people that really feel like being my actual and most tangible family (a family within the family of disciples). With most people there is a certain need to be polite, etc. But with him I just feel so confortable.

Some stories by Premananda

In November 2006 the annual Christmas Trip went to Turkey. This was my first ever Christmas Trip. One evening in the hotel in Antalya, I happened to sit with the Brazilians during dinner. I think after less than a minute, Filipe, who later got the name Raviratha, surprised me by exclaiming exuberantly, “ You look just like Israel!” (You can guess who Israel is, he later received the name Patanga). Ashirvad agreed joyfully, “Yeah! It’s true”, and seemed the other Brazilians were in accordance, too. Even though I had briefly seen Patanga on the Celebrations of the year, and finding him an exceedingly nice and proper fellow, I somehow in my mental conception world, clearly thought him to be European, perhaps with some Asian roots, but clearly European, and not even a thought about him being from the Americas, so at the dinner table I had no idea who they were talking about! Many times during the meal Raviratha would exclaim things like “Wow! Your smile! It’s just like Israels”, and “Wow! The way you did that is just like Israel”,  and again “It’s so amazing! You look just like Israel”. This was followed by Ashirvad exclaiming joyfully “Yeah!”, and the other Brazilians agreeing in various ways, from nodding to some Brazilian words and the like. Their joy was infectious, and I could tell they all liked this Israel very much! I couldn’t wait to meet him!

I was not able to attend April celebrations 2009, due to difficulties in Oslo during the construction of our second café. However, many of my friends swore that they had seen me there. No doubt, they had seen Patanga.

Arriving to the Christmas trip in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia a few days before Christmas 2010, I was so happy to find that I was sharing a room with Patanga, even thought it was just for one night, in transit to Pangkor Island, Malaysia. I really hoped that we would continue to be roommates on the Island, and was thrilled when that was so. A funny experience from there is one time when I was doing some chores in our room when I turned around... I froze as I was suddenly looking at a living me, less than a metre away, even though there was no mirror there. After what seemed like a few long drawn-out seconds, my image started moving on its own, while I was perfectly frozen. For an instant I thought this must be some kind of spiritual experience, my image getting a life of its own. Then the normal sets and configurations of our present physical reality re-awoke in my mind, and it dawned on me that it wasn’t me standing there. After the initial shock, I’d remember that there ensued much hilarity when I realized it wasn’t me, but Patanga!

Actually, many times it has happened that I have seen Patanga walking down the street, resulting in me being in mildly shocked awe for a moment, because I’m seeing myself walking there. Then it dawns on me with joy “Ah, it’s Patanga!” It’s funny how this situation has repeated itself so many times, and will most likely continue to repeat itself. No wonder people mix us up. Anugata once found himself in the same momentarily perplexed state as me when he saw us together. A split second after realizing what he was seeing, he jokingly exclaimed “Oh my God! I’m seeing double!”

Those long ago peregrinations that led to discipleship owe much to a dear and now departed companion, my wife Subarata. I first met Subarata in the mid-1970s in New Zealand, our two lives intersecting in what seemed a chance occurrence in a very random, fortuitous universe.

Irish-born and fiercely independent, she had asked her parents for a one-way ticket to New Zealand as a 20th birthday present, and they had consented – and so it was that I first met her in 1975 in the city of Hamilton. Through chance or fate, she knew somebody that I knew and on this particular day both of us decided to visit this mutual friend. I hitchhiked 400 miles, she had flown 13,000 miles – and when we met on that summer afternoon long ago, in an instant we became friends.

Beautiful Collision

There is a song I like called “Beautiful Collision” by a popular New Zealand musician who describes these everyday, arbitrary intersections of lives, the chance encounters, the endless possibilities of life weaving and colliding all around us. The song reminds us of how the little moments of impulse or choice shape our endless tomorrows. If we had lingered here a little longer, started that conversation, said “yes” instead of “no,” perhaps “no” instead of “yes,” taken a chance, placed a bet, passed through that door, smiled in response, made the hard choice… it might all have turned out differently. Subarata was one of the beautiful and fateful collisions that did occur in my life.

She had blue sky in her eyes and questing in her heart, a little wildness in her. I saw that Subarata was a nomad, a wanderer, that we shared the same journey – I knew I had met a kindred spirit. In a shoulder bag she carried Lao Tzu’s mystic teachings, the Tao Te Ching – she had underlined things, words and phrases, grasping at the heart of the book and devouring its wisdom hungrily. She was responding to the same things as I was, searching for her way forward, stumbling through the maze.

There are probably thousands of people out there in this world with whom we share deep similarities of interest and temperament, inner connections and spiritual kinship, people who could have filled our whole lives in the other endless possibilities of existence, the beautiful collisions that might have taken place. Mostly, we never get to know them – but we see them in our meditation classes, meet them on journeys, pass them in any street, our unknown family within the larger human race. Subarata was one of those that I actually met.

Animal friends

Reclusive by nature we lived in remote places, often going for months without seeing anybody. Subarata loved animals – in one mountain hideaway she acquired three pet wild pigs, two beautiful Border Collie dogs called Scruffles and Scobie, a white Palomino horse named Trigger, four nameless and disapproving hens, some zebra finches and a madly eccentric pet lamb called Darley. Goats also lurked, and once a pet fawn – unsnared from a fence – stayed for a brief convalescence. (I wrote a story called Animal Friends »)

A formality

When Subarata's visa expired the Immigration Department gave her three days to leave New Zealand, so in the small South Island town of Motueka we got married in a registry office. We were both indifferent to marriage, so there was no ring, no flowers – it was as meaningless as signing a bank deposit slip, but it enabled her to stay.

Unseen by us, the simple act of scribbling our careless signatures on a piece of paper heralded a deeper commitment. It was a postscript from some past, the prelude to some future, both a consequence and a beginning in a much greater fabric of time. We were setting forth together on a much greater journey than all of our wanderings of the earth, yet the journey’s beginnings, we felt, lay elsewhere in a faraway time.

We did not bother telling anyone of this formality – it meant nothing to us. Only years later, when the two of us were driving with my parents to a faraway town, I turned to my mother and said, “By the way, did I ever tell you we are married?” My mother, Anne, was astonished, then a little rueful we had not told her earlier. But then she laughed and turned to Subarata the nomad, the gypsy, with a great smile, hugged her and said, “You are a brave girl to marry my son, and I love you for it!” My mother loved us too much to be upset for long.

The Past is Dust

In the sweet long-ago we tried many jobs – fruit-picker, security van driver, hotel domestic, arborist, back-country farm manager, labourer, demolition worker, secretary, bogus night auditor, bored ministerial speechwriter, river rafting guide, baker’s assistant, landscaper, geological mapper – and those rootless years were littered with abandoned careers. I had a talent for writing glowing personal testimonials about ourselves, fake references and employment histories too good to see us turned away, and work came easily.

For two seasons we chased the blue skies of summer, picking fruit up and down New Zealand, our clothes stained with the red blood of raspberries, the purple of blueberries, yellow juice of pears and peach, green sap of crushed leaves. We lived in a hired caravan, worked from dawn’s fading stars till dusk’s darkening skies, the green globes of apples and other fruits melting back into the orchards’ deepening shadows. When that wandering feeling came, we simply moved on, stopped at road junctions and tossed a coin – north, west, east?

One by one we were discarding all the usual choices of life, the hypnotic lies of material happiness, like a tick-sheet of unwanted possibilities and selves: not this, not this; no, not that. We took refuge in constant change, as though discoveries would be made and happiness found simply through perpetual motion. Restlessness, a sense of relentless questing, ran like a strong undercurrent through our lives. The future was open-ended, the blank slate of tomorrows held no certainties – whimsy, chance or the murky nudgings of fate would decide.

Years later, we sat with our Guru - Sri Chinmoy - in a restaurant on Auckland’s Ponsonby Road, and he asked us a little about the bygone years. Guru somehow knew a little of my own regrettable past, the safari and hunting days, and he asked what animals I had eaten!

Before I could go into any awkward detail, Guru now mentioned all of the furred and feathered things he had once eaten – the fish, birds, animals of his childhood. Then he looked at Subarata and, with a lovely smile, confided to her, “Once I even ate some pigeon.” Before she received her soul’s name, Subarata’s name had been Pidgeon Cunningham! Guru remembered very well, enjoying this little ambiguity.

For me, Guru’s knowledge of my past unburdened me of remorse and karmic wonderings. That door was now firmly closed and the past now truly dust, even if there was a lot of it. When Guru and God – are they not perhaps the same? – came into our lives and tapped us on the shoulder, we saw that everything else had been a readying, a preparation for discipleship. One kind of freedom had been replaced by the possibility of another, the great freedom of God-discovery.