Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: From Hollywood to the Himalayas

For us, tragically, most of us would answer that voice to climb the tree with something like, “Don’t you know I’m only a caterpillar? I don’t climb trees or weave cocoons, or fly. I crawl on the ground. So, what are you trying to do? To make a fool of me? Maybe make me kill myself? Make me waste the next two weeks of my life?” That’s how tragically, most of us react and move through the world. So, the most important piece is to be open and listen for that voice truly and then listen to it when you hear it.

The second most important part, wherever you are in the world, is to realize that whatever you are holding onto is doing you more harm than good. We hold on to these patterns to these identities because they are familiar and, therefore, safe. To be free genuinely free, you have to be prepared to let go of those patterns. You have to realize that your freedom is more valuable than being stuck in whatever story or drama, or identity you are holding onto. It is more important than waiting for someone to finally come around and apologize for what they did years or even decades ago. It is more important than your comfort in the labels and identities you hold for yourself. Freedom can only happen when we make it our highest and most valuable goal.

OMTimes: You share the incredible story of your epiphany and awakening, which provides the spiritual basis for your journey. What should a reader waiting for such a moment of spiritual power and wait and beauty do to find it?

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: It isn’t about doing. It is actually about un-doing. Spiritual truth and beauty and presence are always here and always available and accessible. The problem is that our minds, attention, focus, and lives are so focused externally on achieving, acquiring, obtaining material possessions, more wealth, more success, certain relationships, a more attractive physical body, and so much else. We have forgotten the content in our rush to beautify the form! So, what I would say is that an un-doing is what is necessary. An un-doing of the present ways you identify so fully and completely as your role, title, relationships, and physical body.

There is a beautiful meditation practice called “Neti Neti,” which reminds us not this, not this, not this. I am not this body. I am not the clothes I wear, nor the blood flowing in my body. We go through, in this meditation, Through all of the different aspects of the physical body. We are even going into our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and memories. All of those are products of the chemical and electrical activity in our brain. As we remove the attachment and identify with what we are not, space opens for us to experience who we are truly. And into that space, grace flows.

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Hollywood to the Himalayas describes Sadhvi’s odyssey towards divine enlightenment and inspiration through her extraordinary connection with her guru and renewed confidence in the pleasure and joy that life can bring. Now one of the preeminent female spiritual teachers in the world, Sadhvi recounts her journey with wit, honesty, and clarity and, along the way, offers teachings to help us all step onto our own path of awakening and discover the truth of who we really are—embodiments of the Divine. Hollywood to the Himalayas is the enlightening memoir of a reluctant spiritual seeker who finds much more than she bargained for when she travels to India.