The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami

by Radhanath Swami

At the same time, I was also beginning to understand that to hate those who hated me was to share the same disease.

breath. How was it possible for such a small child to possess such hate? I was to be haunted by repeated nightmares of his stare. I thought how frightening it was to see how impressionable children are. By family and surroundings, they can be conditioned to love, fear, or hate before they are even able to reason.

And to reach the sea, each ripple of the river must let go of its present state to surrender to the current.

I realized that our free will could convert a curse into a blessing or a blessing into a curse.

All beautiful forms of this world are in the process of transformation. Nothing is stable. With every moment, our reality is changing. Mother Ganges, like nature, is constant, but no manifestation of hers remains. Likewise, all that we hold dear in this world is imperceptibly vanishing. We cannot cling to anything. But if we can appreciate the beauty of the underlying current of truth, we can enjoy a reality deeper than the fickle waves of joy and sorrow.

This bittersweet experience of developing dear relationships, then moving on to never again see the people I was meeting was part of the life I had chosen.

the river of time, the ultimate equalizer.

“If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know who you are.

“The universal quality of religion,” he went on, “is compassion to other living beings. To sacrifice for the good of others is true dharma.”