Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: From Hollywood to the Himalayas
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati’s new memoir book, From Hollywood to the Himalayas, tells her story of Grace and Inner Transformation.
An Interview with Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: From Hollywood to the Himalayas
Originally from Hollywood, California, and a graduate of Stanford University, where she holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati is a renowned spiritual leader and motivational speaker who has served nearly 25 years in humanitarian and spiritual service.
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati currently serves as the Secretary-General of the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, an international interfaith organization dedicated to clean Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH). She is also the President of Divine Shakti Foundation, which runs free schools, vocational training programs, and women empowerment programs.
Sadhvi also serves on the United Nations Faith Advisory Council on Religion; the Steering Committee For Partnership For Religion And Sustainable Development (PaRD), an international body comprising the Governments of twelve countries (including United States, UK, and Germany), the United Nations, the World Bank, the African Union, and the world’s renowned faith-based organizations; and the Steering Committee for the World Bank-United Nations Campaign with international faith-based organizations of the “Moral Imperative To End Extreme Poverty.”
Sadhvi has spoken at several United Nations events, including with the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, and at many high-level international conferences and summits.
Sadhvi has received numerous national and international awards and recognition for her work with Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, and women’s upliftment and empowerment.
OMTimes: For our readers who are not familiar with your work, can you describe your journey in the US and India?
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: My journey is truly a journey of grace. I grew up in California in a family and an environment of great opportunity and a great privilege. I had everything that we are told one needs to be happy. I had wonderful parents, an outstanding education, a great social life, and everything that one could hope for. I graduated from Stanford University and was doing my Ph.D. in Psychology. However, what wasn’t apparent from the outside is that I also struggled a lot. I had experienced significant challenges, suffering, and even trauma in early childhood. And that led me into great struggles in my adolescence and early 20s. I suffered from severe bulimia as well as anxiety and depressive episodes. I received the best that our Western model of psychology and psychiatry could offer, and I learned to manage these issues. But no one ever told me that I could become free.
At the age of 25, I traveled to India with a backpack, not consciously seeking or searching. I agreed to go to India only because I was a strict vegetarian and loved the food. On the banks of Mother Ganga in Rishikesh, India, in the lap of the Himalayas, I was given such an extraordinary experience of grace and blessings that I knew that was where I was meant to stay. I was taught how to truly let go, let go of pain, grudges, and even have the identity as the one who had suffered. I learned truly how to be free. For the last 25 years, I have lived at Parmarth Niketan Rishikesh, one of Indias largest spiritual institutions and the largest ashram in Rishikesh. Under the guidance, teachings, and blessings of my guru Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, I learned the power of service to heal and connect us to the Divine. We mistakenly live our lives asking “what for me?” while the true question should be “what through me?” I have spent the last 25 years learning how to be an instrument in the hands of the Divine. It has been indeed an extraordinary and blessed experience.
OMTimes: What is it that inspired you to write this book?
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: On the urging, encouraging, and insistence of several very good friends who are bestselling authors and leaders in the transformational world in America, I realized the importance of helping people in this country understand that grace, freedom, and deep, powerful spirituality are available for everyone. Tragically, too frequently, especially in this country, we feel that we are not worthy of grace. The vast majority of people are moving through the world with a sense inside them that they are not worthy enough, not good enough, not pure enough. We feel like we have to do things better or differently or do more to be worthy of grace and God’s love to be worthy of the highest freedom and awakening.
What I have learned and experienced is that that isn’t true. Grace is there for you regardless of what’s happened to you. Despite what you have done or any of the decisions or choices, you have made in your life—being them either consciously or unconsciously. Grace is there as soon as you open your heart to grace, the same way that the sun is shining, but we are only able to experience it and benefit from it when we open our curtains and our windows. Many people look at me and think that I have been cut from a different cloth. I know I am seen, by far too many people, as somehow inherently different and that that is why I could access the grace, the blessings, the experiences, and awakening. The point of sharing all of the deep, intimate, and very vulnerable aspects of my life was to make sure that people understood that I was not cut from a different cloth, that I did not come out of the womb enlightened, that I understood suffering, pain, challenges, and even trauma. And that I also understood and experience freedom. And awakening. And deep joy, bliss, and inner peace. And therefore, so can everyone! That is what I do sincerely want people to understand for their own lives.
OMTimes: So, what then are the topics and themes of the book?
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: The overarching themes are the ones I mentioned above. The fact that grace is there and available for all of us regardless of what has happened to us. Regardless of what we have done or chosen. Also, there is an important theme of letting go and forgiveness as a major, essential, non-negotiable aspect of freedom and awakening. There are also many additional themes, primarily around both healing and transformation as well as around acceptance and expansion. First of all, one of the most significant themes and topics of the book is that we cannot only manage our suffering, pain, and false identities, but we can be free of it! Before going to India, I had always been told that the very best I could ever hope for was to manage my pain, challenges, trauma, and the unskillful but well-intentioned ways I tried to deal with the pain and trauma. I was taught that I could learn, for example, to manage my eating disorder, but no one ever said I could be free of it. I was told that I could learn to manage the pain of what I had experienced but was never told that I could be free of it. The healing and transformation that I experienced were not about management but it was about freedom. Through grace and blessings, and also, of course, through a lot of work, I was able to let go of the identity as the one who had suffered. It was as the one to whom these things happened, as the one who was addicted. That’s when fundamental transformation happens. Transformation is not about management. It is about absolute freedom. But, additionally, there are many topics and themes around issues like being a woman in religious India, taking vows of renunciation, being celibate, service as the highest spiritual practice, being in a relationship with family members while on a spiritual path!
OMTimes: So, do you think people have to go to Rishikesh and stand on the banks of the Ganga to have this type of experience?
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: Not! Of course, I always, always encourage people to come home to Rishikesh. I remember the first time my guru, Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, said to me, “Welcome Home.” It felt like the most incredible homecoming, not only of the body but also of the heart, soul, and spirit. I have seen innumerable people over the last 25 years have that same experience when they come. It may not be the same, of course. Nonetheless, the power of that place, the power of Ganga, is undeniable. There is a reason that Indians travel from all over the world just to come and behold Mother Ganga’s waters and have a dip in Her waters.
However, none of this is a requirement, criterion, or prerequisite for an awakening or freedom. This is just how it happened for me. It was my dharma to be living my life as a Sanyasi, a spiritual renunciate, in Parmarth Niketan Ashram, in the lap of the Himalayas. However, everyone’s dharma is different. Therefore, everyone’s path will be different. What matters is that, wherever you are, is your heart open? It is the openness of the heart, not the physical location of the body, that creates the space for grace to flow in our lives.
OMTimes: So, what advice do you have for someone living, for example, in Los Angeles or New York or any other city of any non-Indian, non-banks of Ganga place if they want to find grace, freedom, and transformation?
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: The first and most important piece is that our hearts must be open wherever we are. Typically, what happens is that we get very stuck, stuck in our ways of thinking, ways of believing, ways of acting, and ways of living. We filter everything that happens both within us and in the outer world through those pre-programmed filters. That is why we keep creating and recreating the same patterns in our lives. Those patterns of thought and patterns of belief, and patterns of living keep us stuck. So regardless of where you are physical, your heart has to be open to that presence of grace that, very frequently, surprises us and takes us in a whole new direction. Your ears, especially the inner ear, have to be open to the voices, signals, and signs of the universe telling you how to move and what to do. Think of the caterpillar. The caterpillar is crawling along the ground for its entire life, and then one day it hears a voice, or gets a sign, or feels some signal, and suddenly it knows it has to climb the tree. It has never climbed the tree. It has no idea what to do once it climbs the tree. But it goes because it listens to that voice, or sign or signal. Then it gets another sign, voice, or signal that says, “Now go out onto a branch and weave yourself into a cocoon.” It does. Amazingly! Never having woven a cocoon or seen a cocoon, it obeys. Then finally, there is the voice, signal, or sign that tells it, “Now you can fly!” And it does! Amazing!
Continue to Page 2 of the Interview with Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati
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