Talk:Rudi (Swami Rudrananda)

Adi Da & Rudi
I recently added what seemed like a fairly straightforward paragraph about Adi Da Samraj's years as one of Rudi's devotees. It was removed on the grounds that the Adi Da "renounced" Rudi, which seems odd given that the Adi Da frequently speaks about how Rudi was his first guru (see: the Adi Da's autobiography and many of his other writings and discourses.) Timothy Horrigan (talk) 22:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You make a reasonable point. I've gone ahead and reinstated the sentence.TheRingess (talk) 02:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have undone the change once again. Adi Da indeed renounced Rudi and turned to Muktananda for help instead.  In "The Kundalini Experience", Dr. Lee Sannella (a personal friend of mine while he was alive, and follower of Adi Da) wrote, "Finding that Rudi's yoga contradicted his (Adi Da's) own intuition that the spiritual process is found in self-discipline rather than self-surrender, Adi Da turned to Muktananda for help.", p.125.  Additionally, if one is to mention a former student in the body of Rudi's biography, then all of Rudi's thousands of students - or at least his current senior teachers - should be mentioned as well, and this would make for a most unwieldy biography.  If Adi Da is to be mentioned at all, I would perhaps propose a new section called "See also" and then add Adi Da's name as a pointer off to his own biography.--Cminard (talk) 20:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * An example of the "See also" use can be found in the Bhagawan Nityananda biography (Rudi's guru). Rather than wedge in information about Rudi into Bhagawan Nityananda's personal biography, I chose instead to list Rudi's entry in the "See also" category. --Cminard (talk) 22:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Also a good point. There could be a see also section or a section for notable students.  Either way there does need to be references for all teachers/students mentioned.  Those mentioned should probably fit Wikipedia's guidelines for biographical notability, that way you don't have to mention the thousands of students/teachers, only those who qualify for their own articles.TheRingess (talk) 23:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion. I have deleted the Teachers section and replaced it with a See Also section.--Cminard (talk) 15:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

POV
I have added a POV tag to the article because it is, by and large, written from the point of view of someone who accepts the claims made. For example, under "Middle Years" is the statement "At age 20, Albert...experienced a deep spiritual awakening..." This statement accepts the claims made, which is not NPOV. This is pretty characteristic of the article. The author(s) should go through it and make it NPOV. Articles can be nominated for deletion over problems like this.

Sardaka (talk) 10:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * To the moderator - the author who entered this comment works actively on the Shree Muktananda Ashram article.--Cminard (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * As a moderator has not addressed this, I have added quotes to the statement in question and removed the POV tag, as this statement - along with all other similar statements - comes directly from Rudi's autobiographical material. Appropriate references have been provided for all statements in this article.--Cminard (talk) 00:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Spiritual Cannibalism information
Rudi published his first and only book, Spiritual Cannibalism, with Links Books, in 1973. Two other editions were published by Rudra Press. Editions two and three are missing 135 sentences that originally appeared in the first edition in 1973. Following are the page numbers from the first edition and the number of sentences missing on each page:

Dedication - 1, Introduction - 45, p.3 - 12, p.5 - 1, p.9 - 5, p.17 - 4, p.38 - 3, p.40 - 1, p.51 - 1, p.54 - 2, p.76 - 9, p.85 - 1, p.124 - 8, p.125 - 9, p.129-130 - 34. Of particular note is the sentence on p.85 that was omitted: "My initiation by Swami Nityananda took place two years after his death."--Cminard (talk) 13:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Title
Shouldn't the title be either Rudi or Swami Rudrananda, redirecting to the same article? -- Shruti14 t c s 14:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There are already entries for Rudi and for Swami Rudrananda in Wikipedia, and so that would not be possible. See the disambiguation references at the top of this article.--Cminard (talk) 23:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Rudi trivia
I was one of the group of young students living with Rudi in his New York home at the time of his death. One of my jobs (we all had jobs) was to run the cassette recorder on all lectures during class. At some point during Rudi's last lecture in the meditation room in his home, the recorder started to hum and the tape was completely eaten by the recorder. The topic was heavily laced with his dream of dying soon and that he would not have another birthday. We were young and I for one kind of blew it off. A few days later, the plane crashed. I've always been a bit haunted about the memory of that class and reflected on why that lecture of the many I recorded was lost forever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Floydfan007 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Rudi & Muktananda
This article omits mention of the late Swami Muktananda, with whom Rudi studied for about ten years and who was, without question, the biggest spiritual influence on Rudi. Rudi went to see Muktananda in India several times a year for many years and was one of his hosts on Muktananda's first visit to the U.S. To omit mention of Muktananda here is like writing an article on Elizabeth Taylor without any mention of Richard Burton or vice versa. The omission is so glaring and shocking that it casts serious doubt on the entire contents of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.83.212.54 (talk) 16:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * At the end of the article in the 'See also' section is a cross-reference to Muktananda's entry, where it states that Rudi sponsored his trip to the US in 1970. Rudi and Muktananda were fellow disciples of Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri. Rudi never 'studied' with Muktananda, and Muktananda was certainly never any kind of a 'spiritual influence' on Rudi either.  The only reason Rudi associated with Muktananda at all was so that he could gain access to the Bhagavan Nityananda's shrine in Ganeshpuri, as Muktananda had assumed control of the shrine after Bhavgavan Nityananda's mahasamadhi in 1960.  In 1971, Muktananda's behavior toward Rudi became so appalling that Rudi chose to break all contact with him, even though it meant never being able to travel to the shrine again.--Cminard (talk) 14:58, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is true that Muktananda's behavior toward Rudi was appalling and that after many years of being associated with Muktananda, Rudi chose to break all contact with him. However, it is also clear from the tapes of Rudi's talks that Rudi received a large number of energy transmissions (shaktipat) from Muktananda which were essential for Rudi's spiritual growth (which is a form of teacher-student relationship). Rudi learned many things from Muktananda's example (if only from his bad example), e.g., the danger of turning an ashram into an organization devoted to guru worship (and it's a pity that some of Rudi's more famous students didn't learn the lesson Rudi learned). Rudi also expressed on one of his tapes gratitude to Muktananda for demanding that Rudi break his connection with Nityananda. Of course, Nityananda had been dead for many years at that point, and it's rather a mystery what Rudi's connection with him consisted in. One might think that this must have been a very private matter, though Rudi did of course talk about it a lot. He said, for instance, that it took him six years to absorb the energy he received from Nityananda upon his first meeting with him (in 1960 or 1961) before Nityananda died. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.83.228.25 (talk) 14:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Given the amount of misinformation about the role of Muktananda in Rudi's life, I have added citations to the article. Rudi only wanted two things from Muktananda.  The first was the title of swami, which could not be bestowed upon him by Bhagawan Nityananda as he had taken mahasamadhi after the first time that Rudi met him.  The second was continued access to the shrine at Ganeshpuri.  Anything that Rudi said or did regarding Muktananda was simply to placate his ego in order to obtain these two items, including referring to Muktananda as his 'teacher'.  The connection to Bhagavan Nityananda that Rudi spoke of was his initiation.  Rudi was, in fact, initiated by Bhagavan Nityananda two years after his mahasamadhi.--Cminard (talk) 04:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)