The early years

On a trip to the Seychelles, I took Yogananda’s book “Autobiography of a Yogi “. Either my wife or I would read out loud from the book while the other would be playing on the beach with our son Romeo.  While discovering this marvellous world of spirituality and Divine love, I was yearning to meet such a Master on this planet. Back in Europe, I went to visit a spiritual centre established by one of Yogananda’s disciples in Assisi. This, however, was not enough to satiate my thirst. I searched on the Internet for spiritual Masters that were alive on the planet. It took me another few years to eventually find my true spiritual Master, Swami Vishwananda. At the time, He was still living in Mauritius with His parents.  In the room where He had grown up, in Quatre-Bornes, images of saints cover the walls. On the shelves are statues of various deities. Each object is covered with Vibhuthi (sacred ash), which the visitors, as well as His parents, at the beginning mistook for dust. The layer is sometimes so thick that the head of the Murti (statue) hardly sticks out of the mountain of ash.  In Mauritius, Swami Vishwananda first had a little temple built on His parents land, with their permission, where every week Bhajans were sung. Later on in time, in the garden of His friend’s house, He built the first Ashram, thanks to the generosity of this family. There is a little chapel filled with statues of the holy Virgin Mary. These statues have been purchased at the many pilgrimage sites in Europe: Lourdes, Merdjegurje, Pontmain, Loretto, Rome, Pelvoisin, and Fatima.