In Salem I became an ardent devotee of Karttikeya, a deity quite popular among Tamils. He appeals to the mystical as well as material impulses of the common man, and that suited me just fine. Moreover, I'd never forgotten the childhood vision I'd had at his shrine. Occult 'self-worship' (ahamgrahopasana) is very prominent among Karttikeya's devotees. During Thaipusam, a festival held each year in early spring, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who flock to his temples in Tamil Nadu, Ceylon, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius - wherever South Indians have put down roots - are taken possession by the god and the horde of ghosts who serve him. In the trance of Karttikeya, some even thrust spears through their tongues or cheeks. Yet they feel no pain, nor do they even bleed; they prophesize and perform minor miracles, 'becoming' the god for a while.

When we met again, the tantra master was much more forthcoming. I was greeted with a warm embrace and invited to relax under the banyan tree. I sensed that I now belonged. In an awed voice I asked him, "What was it that I saw?" He chuckled at my neophyte's excitement. "So, you were impressed?" I nodded. "You saw Mohini, a demoness from the underworld."

In that little town under the foothills of the western ghat in Kerala, there was just one real building which was a small temple with a tile roofing. The temple was surrounded by huts and shanties. When I arrived, there was a competition going on in the market place between two tantrics who had selected an onlooker from the crowd to be their medium. They had him standing stiff as a bamboo in trance. One tantric pointed a stick at him and said “lay down” he fell flat! The other pointed and said “get up” he rose up straight without bending a limb.

The divine arrives in our lives at a pre-destined time. Like a mother who has the welfare of her child uppermost in her mind and will feed her child with the best she has, the divine will hand feed us at the right time - not before, not after.

The sacred oracle (tamra pothi) of Achyutananda Das is a series of blank copper pages. Once a questioner has asked his questions, the answers mystically appear engraved on the blank pages. This is one of the few verifiable mystical occurences in the world that can be seen by anyone, even today. The following is an interview recorded Wednesday July 29, 1992 between Manamohan Mahapatra (MM) and Pandit Amareswar Mishra (AM), the reader of the oracle, explaining how he came to possess it.

The coming of the year 1974 saw my mind roiling with confusion. I had become a bibiliophage, a gourmand of esoteric books on everything from astrology to Zoroaster. And I'd been offered tantalizing glimpses into heightened states of awareness by beings mysterious and divine. But it all had left me fundamentally bewildered. So many paths to so many goals - which one should I dedicate myself to? Which one led to Truth?

If you want to become a high priest of humbug, fine - but you are surely not going to do it on company time!" The chief accountant, SVS, a spartan, no-nonsense company functionary with a schoolmaster's mien and sense of metaphor, was addressing me with volume control turned up for the benefit of everyone else in the office. He'd had it up to the eyes; it was time to put his foot down. I continued sketching my picture of Dattatreya as if I hadn't heard him.

It was the end of June, 1974. As per a recent agreement with the workers' union, the company was to dispense a semi-annual cash bonus along with this month's regular pay allotment. Our department's job was to do the calculation of each employee's bonus percentage. But two of our men had gone on leave. SVS was in a fix - how would all this work be finished before payday, tomorrow?

The first welcome I got upon my arrival at Sai Baba's ashram was from a large group of ragged beggars sitting outside the front gate. Past them, flocks of well-off people crowded into the compound; that meant Sai Baba was here now. I viewed this scene with decidedly mixed feelings. "He is supposed to be God", I considered, "and his followers say he has the power to remove misfortune, disease and poverty - so why are these beggars loitering here just outside his own house?

A day or so later I asked my friend to take me around the village. We went to the Chitravati river, but since it was the dry season there was no water, just a sand channel. On a rocky mound near the riverbed stood a tamarind tree from which the Sai Baba is said to have magically plucked mangos and other fruits during his youth. I clambered up the rocks and sat beneath it. At the time I was not aware of the significance the Sai Baba's followers attached to this tree; I only happened to go there because it looked like a suitable spot for meditation.

You first separate yourself from the body; then you identify yourself with the mind, and then you function on the mental plane, with this fine body just as you do on this physical plane. Through concentration, you rise above the body-consciousness; through meditation, you rise above mind; and finally through Samadhi, you realize your spiritual nature. These are three important exercises of Antaranga Sadhana in the achievements of Kaivalya, the final beautitude.

Sometimes, during meditation, you will get very powerful and dazzling lights, bigger than the sun. They are white in color. In the beginning, they come and disappear quickly. Later on, they are steady and they become fixed for ten to fifteen minutes according to the strength and degree of concentration. For those who concentrate at the Trikuti, the light appears in the forehead; while for others who concentrate at the Sahasra Chakra, the light manifests itself at the top of the head. The light is so powerful and dazzling sometimes that you have to withdraw yourself from looking at it and break the meditation.

Various kinds of lights manifest during meditation owing to concentration. In the beginning, a bright, white light, the size of a pin's point will appear in the forehead in Trikuti which corresponds tentatively to the Ajna Chakra of the astral body. When the eyes are closed, you will notice different colored lights such as white, yellow, red, smoky, blue, green, mixed color, flashes like lightning, like fire, burning charcoal, fire-flies, the moon, the sun and stars. These lights appear in the mental space, Chidakasha.

During the course of meditation, one day you will feel that you have separated yourself from the body. You will have immense joy mixed with fear; joy in the possession of a new light, astral body; and fear owing to the entry in a foreign, unknown plane. At the very outset, the new consciousness is very rudimentary in the new plane, just as in the case of a pup with newly opened eyes on the eighth or tenth day on the physical plane. You will feel that you have a light air body and perceive a rotating, vibratory, limited, astral atmosphere with illumination of golden lights, objects, beings, etc. You may feel that you are rotating or floating in the air and consequently there is fear of a fall.

The following event took place in 1992 in the city of Coimbatore in South India, and it involves the mystical appearance of Srila Prabhupada, who entered samadhi on November 14, 1977 in Vrindavana, India. The first account is given by Mr. Kannan, in whose house the appearance of Srila Prabhupada took place. The second account is given by his wife, Purnima. Mr. Kannan is a disciple of Swami Shantananda, the guru of the 'Shiva Family', a religious organization based in South India. His guru, Swami Shantananda, is a direct disciple of Swami Shivananda, the founder of the Divine Life Mission. 'Hare Krishna swamiji' is a disciple of Srila Prabhupada to whom the vision occured.