By Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

August 15 — what an auspicious day!  Today I honor the greatest gift of all, freedom.  Muktananda received MahaShaktipat Diksha from Nityananda on the day that India became free from foreign rulership.  One who was named “Bliss of Liberation” was given the gift of liberation on the day that India attained liberation.  Was Nityananda playing with us?  Of course!

This is all Shiva’s play, a cosmic and intensely personal dance of delight, Shiva being the universe while being you in the universe.  Shiva becomes the individual by binding himself, then takes birth again and again in the quest for Self-Knowingness, yearning to be free.  Now and again Shiva gets peeks of himself, tantalizing tastes of his own immortality.  What an enchanting play:  action, adventure, comedy, drama, suspense and documentary, all at the same time.

My life pivots around that moment when the blue light of Consciousness streamed from Nityananda’s eyes into Muktananda’s eyes.  I was not there, yet my life began in that moment.  I was physically born less than one year earlier, but the purpose of my life was set in motion.  I didn’t know for decades, but Muktananda knew.  Nityananda knew his gift would benefit millions.

When Muktananda brought Shaktipat to America, he called it a Meditation Revolution.  He planted the seed of enlightenment in so many people, yet it all came from Nityananda.  He kept telling us this, “I do nothing.  It’s all my Baba.”  I couldn’t hear or understand him because I didn’t yet know how to receive.  Muktananda had already given me Shaktipat many times, but I still didn’t know how to truly receive.

But on that day, India’s day of freedom, Muktananda received the gift of freedom from one who was already free.  The fulfillment of Muktananda’s dream, even the prophetic name he’d been given when he took sannyas, was accomplished.  Well, he had to meditate for nine more years before he really knew what he’d gotten.  It’s like if someone gives you the gift of the sky; how will you see all of it?  You have to learn how to surrender.  Then you not only see it, you become it.  And even more.

Today I honor the greatest gift of all, freedom.  Not the freedom of a nation, though this is India’s Independence Day.  This is the 73^rd anniversary of a bound soul being set free.  Such a great soul, Muktananda, he then set others free.  I am only one amongst many who owe our life to Muktananda.  And he got it all from Nityananda.  Jai Nityananda!