GURU OF THE CHAKRA - THE SPINNING WHEEL OF ENERGY, (continued):


You may hear sounds, he tells them. First you will bear the chirping of birds. That will become faster and then come the bells, then the conch, then the vena (a deep, sustained tone), then the rhythm of drums. Then you will feel a very pleasant experience in the throat, then hear the sustained sound of the flute then a big drum and the whole body feels it's pulsating. Then comes the sound of an elephant and, lastly, you hear thunder.

"When you come to this point," he tells them, "you hear a non-stop sound called naada. It is the sound of the entire universe. It is a sound that makes one feel completely divine, joyful."

Behind him, a large mirror allows the students to see the straightness of Shyam's spine. It is an example he sets because he believes and teaches that it is the center of the body from which he can diagnose their physical and psychological problems.

It has been a long day for Shyam, one of the two days during the week that he spends at the New York center. He has been driven to New York by George, a student and co-worker, has lunched with Mary, the psycho-therapist who just lost her husband, and has dropped off his wife and son at his grandmother-in-law's Upper East Side apartment.

Throughout the day he has given therapies, including a demonstration of the tamboura for John a Portuguese diplomat from the United Nations.

Shyam spends Sunday mornings at the home of psychologist Patricia Carrington and her psychiatrist husband, Dr. Harmon E. Ephron, in Kendall Park. Also in attendance at recent session were Princeton psychiatrist Paul Weber and Ann Medlock, co-founder of SOLO (for divorced and widowed women) and a public relations specialist.

It was second Chakra discussion day and Shyam and Dr. Ephron got around to a discussion of father images.

"Americans are always looking for a father figure. But President Kennedy was not a father figure, Shyam maintained. "Johnson was a corrupt figure and so was Nixon and, suddenly, the country was fatherless. There was a wave of neurosis so strong I could see changes in peoples' faces. In the last 15 years, the most fatherly looking people have been imported to fill this country's spiritual needs. "

"Yes," added Ephron. "People go to Europe not for its youth, but for its antiquity. The people we import from India have to have a big beard and a fat belly."

During the morning, Dr. Carrington curled up on her couch, in the fetal position, to illustrate the way a person's sleeping habits may reflect his or her psychological makeup.

It is a much more informal session than the ones held in either Princeton or New York, and Shyam laughs at the interruptions of a tape recorder that isn't working and a dog who wants to play.

This month, Bhatnagar leaves to give an address in Luxembourg, where he has been appointed honorary professor of Chakra therapy. From there he will visit his center in Munich. In June, he will lead a 23-day "Journey to the Source," a "vacation for mind, body and soul" that will take 8 to 15 people into the Himalayas to explore the basics of vegetarianism, the traditional Indian system of healing, breath and biorhythms.

When Bhatnagar is away four to six months of the year, one student, John Myers answers questions, and George Herrington, another assistant, leads purifications and teaches cooking.

"One man came to me last week," muses Bhatnagar. He said, 'I want you to give me a miracle. I was told you could show me a miracle.' I said to him, 'Who told you that? What exactly did they say?' 'I want you to do something,' he said, 'that will make me believe in God.'

"Well, I told the man he would have to see me several times. But he never came back. He wanted push-button enlightenment."

He acknowledges the attraction he holds for some students. Being given godlike proportions is what he calls "the irony of this occupation."

"I have enough bad habits so that when a student begins to feel this way about me, I am able to show him that I am human.

"What I do is bring them to the house and let them see that I have a wife and family. People do idealize you, though." he adds.

Shyam, who says he's worked with some 2,000 people over the last 10 years, is as philosophical about his appeal as he is about the Hindu approach to life and self-awareness.

"People like to associate great powers with me," he told the weekly gathering of psychiatrists and psychologists last month, "that I may or may not have.

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