There are 25 people standing in my living room—and on the staircase—singing, "Om Namah Shivaya." A percussionist from Blue Man Group is playing a djembe drum. A very conservative-looking man rings tingsha bells. Hands are clapping; some people are dancing.
In the middle of it all is a cheerful, middle-aged man with tanned skin and dyed-yellow, close-cropped hair, dressed in an orange khourta and white pants, hands raised to the air. He begins to rap —in Sanskrit—to the music in the background (from his latest dance CD, Wings of the Dawn, dedicated to the memory of Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who lost her life in the Columbia shuttle explosion), thrusting his arms forward in mock-gangsta style, revealing arms covered with colorful tattoos of Hindu deities. As his rap ends, he enthusiastically boasts:
"Swami's in the house!"
You can say that again.
Welcome to satsang, Las Vegas- style. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, my partner and I played hosts to a quasi-spiritual gathering in our humble Henderson abode. Yogis, dancers, performers and friends were drawn together by Dr. Swami Ramananda, a man who is all at once a Hindu guru, yoga instructor, author, actor, recording artist, professor and celebrated interior designer. A man who effortlessly transitions from schmoozing with Hollywood royalty one evening to leading participants on a spiritual journey the next day, without missing a beat.
Why was Swamiji (as he is affectionately called) holding satsang at my house in the first place? As with most things, it started with my on-the-path-to-enlightenment, yoga-instructing better half. She received word of the swami's residence in Las Vegas and decided to call him to see if he would be interested in making an appearance at an upcoming interfaith conference. She expected to get an answering machine or an assistant; surely, a world-renowned spiritual leader and author would not take the call of just any mere mortal.
As fate would have it, Swamiji doesn't normally answer his phone. But on this occasion, he did. As those of the spiritual kind would tell you, that's providence. And Swamiji would agree.
One might ask why a globe-trotting, orphanage-building guru would choose to settle down in Sin City, as this one did about two years ago. Swamiji doesn't find this ironic at all.
"This town needs a lot of light to balance the Maya that's here," Ramananda says.
For the non-Hindus among you: Maya is the illusion of a limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled, a veiling of the true, unitary Self, also known as Brahman (thanks Answers.com!). As Swamiji likes to point out, the Strip is a perfect example of this: All the resorts have elaborate façades that create the illusion of reality, but of course, behind them all are the real machines that make everything happen.
Vegas as an analogy for the struggle between illusion and truth is one thing, but Swamiji also has more practical reasons for being here.
"Las Vegas is a beautiful town," Ramananda says. "I have great meditations here."
According to Swamiji, in Los Angeles, great meditations were hard to come by. There were too many gunshots and police sirens. He tells a funny story—as he often does—to emphasize the point:
"My mother saw a bright light shine on her one Christmas. She thought it was the Lord. Of course, it was just police helicopters."
With Swamiji, it's all about the mother. Ramananda's tale of how he came to be reads like a comic- book origin story. He began having dreams at the age of 10 about a beautiful woman telling him, "I am your mother, come to India!" Of course, the young boy had a mother right there with him in New York, a woman who encouraged her son to pay attention to his dreams and remember the mysterious woman's words.
At 18, the future swami headed to the University of California, Berkeley, in the midst of mid-1960s unrest and antiwar sentiment. After telling a Hindi professor about his recurring dreams, passage was arranged for the young man to go to India to find his "Mother."
Following numerous trials and tribulations across Southeast Asia and in India—alienation, isolation, adventures with swamis—the near- starved guru-to-be was "rescued" by the very woman he had been searching for, Sri Sri Anandamayi Ma. At this first meeting, inside her old Packard draped with marigolds, she christened him Ramananda, believing the young American to be the reincarnation of an Indian sadhu (holy man) who died years before.
The rest, as they say, is history. Ramananda spent the next eight years with Anandamayi Ma, returning to the U.S. at her insistence, so he could carry her energy to "all of Her children who cannot come to India." He became a yoga teacher and Swami, went back to school, traveled extensively (including 17 trips back to India since leaving Mother's side), established yoga centers and ashrams in California and India, and completed a Ph.D. in Indian Philosophy and Yoga from Shefferton University in London three years ago.
Swamiji has found the Vegas Valley to be a well-suited base for his work. His alter ego's feng shui design consultation portfolio includes spaces like the Foundation Room atop Mandalay Bay. He resides in a nondescript town house on the east side of town, and likely unbeknownst to even his neighbors, a veritable shrine to Anandamayi Ma exists inside.
Here, working in relative anonymity, Swamiji can focus on his various projects, like his orphanages in India, or a new school for the deaf in Henderson of which he is a board member. He can spend time with friends like Tony and Jill Curtis. (Seeing the actor's art displayed at Curtis' MGM Grand birthday bash, Swamiji told me, "I'm used to seeing Tony's artwork unframed in stacks on his floor.") And of course, the swami can hold satsang.
Satsang, according to Swamiji, means associating with people on the path (yes, it's that vague). Typically, a satsang gathering involves singing, prayer, music and food.
"It's critical in this time period to have satsang," says Ramananda. "We are in Kali yuga, in terms of the Indian calendar. Kali's purpose is to devour our ignorance."
Well, if chanting, bobbing along with MC Funky Swami, and munching down on vegetarian goodies will help devour some ignorance, then Las Vegas is well on its way to enlightenment. Attendees to the satsang were overwhelmed by the swami's presence, as evidenced by their beaming post-satsang smiles and rabid purchasing of his latest book, Bliss Now, a throwback to hippie-era tomes like Ram Dass' Be Here Now. At the end, Swamiji pledged to be available for more satsang gatherings—after his return from a book promotional tour in Europe.