Teaching in tandem
June 2023
Suma Varughese interviews Sadguru Rameshji and Guruma Kusumji, an enlightened couple whose simple and powerful teachings have
been awakening seekers to their true identity
In the 21 years that I worked with Life Positive, it was my good fortune to meet scores of gurus. Each was a delight, and my encounter with them remains embedded in my mind. And yet it is not often that I experienced the elation I did at the end of my interview with Sadguru Rameshji and his wife, Kusumji.
Guruji, as he is called, was a businessman, and Kusumji, a housewife. The couple, residents of Hyderabad, led happy, productive but unexceptional lives, until the bug of spirituality bit Guruji hard. Husband and wife ventured into spirituality together and emerged enlightened a few years later (on the same day!).
There is an ease, openness, honesty, and amity about the couple that is disarming. My conversation with them flowed smoothly, and two hours disappeared like magic. The harmony between the duo, who seem to have moved in tandem all their married lives, is a striking example of what married life could really be.
Their teaching too is very attractive. Freeing the seeker of all rites, rituals, and practices, they strive to restore them to their natural selves, to the Source, as they put it. The heart of their approach is to help separate the aspirant from his mind. Although presiding over an as-yet small community, Guruji affirms that most of his followers are established in enlightenment. A young businessman, Vikas Agarwal, says, “Anything material is temporary; we know we are permanent. With this perception, we enjoy everything, even what we were unable to do earlier.”
V. Shivaswamy adds, “I’m in a blissful state. I don’t get angry anymore now and don’t get affected by others’ anger either.” Shivaswamy’s wife, Indira, was cooking when a teaspoon of mustard seeds slipped from her hand and dropped to the floor. Along with that dropped her identity with her ego self. “We experience emotions, but we know we are not those emotions, and that makes us blissful,” she says.
Ramesh Karwa, another businessman, says, “Business has tripled with less effort and less tension. Earlier we used to get affected by the smallest acts; now nothing really affects us.”
Guruji and Guruma have an ashram (spiritual retreat) in Hyderabad called The House of Enlightenment and hold regular talks in the country and abroad. Guruji has also written a couple of books. His first, Soul Selfie, traces his spiritual journey while also conveying the essence of his teaching. The second, Soul Mantra, goes deeper into how to overcome the miseries of everyday life and stay established in bliss. Enough said. Time to hand over the baton to Guruji and Guruma. Enjoy!
It’s wonderful to have you both. Guruji, do you always give an interview along with Guruma? Yes, we are one. We appear to be two. Whatever you ask, whatever we discuss or talk about, sometimes it may come through my mouth, sometimes through hers.
Would you say that both of you are enlightened? Yes, we believe so.
It’s amazing that both of you have been going step by step onto the path.
We have always been together. Even before I got into spirituality, even when I was in business, if I went out anywhere, we’d go out together. We travelled the whole world together, we got into spirituality together —same guru, same Swamiji. The best part is that we both got enlightened on the same day.
This is simply amazing! I have not come across an example like this. Guruji, you were a businessman before you moved into spirituality. What are the qualities that made you a good businessman?
One was gut feeling. Secondly, good nature, behaviour . .
In what sense?
Guruma: Guruji had one aspect that none of his friends had. He would take everyone along. He believed everyone was equal. Those who did not get along with other business people, favoured Guruji because he would give them respect, help them feel that they were the best, that they were capable, and encouraged them to come and help him.
That was so spiritual on your part . . . SR: I didn’t know that I was being spiritual, but my nature was such. In fact, I used to invite my competitors to my factory and show them all my secrets. There were many competitors in the same industrial area, and everyone wanted skilled workers and supervisors. We were the second largest in the country in HDP woven sacks, the bags which are used for packing fertilisers and cement, and we had a lot of skilled manpower. Everybody used to take away our people. I would call them and tell them that whoever wanted any skilled person from me, should just send me the name of the person. I would remove him and they could take him.
It looks like you had no insecurity. Absolutely none. In fact, major fertiliser and cement companies used to float tenders to purchase these bags, and 10 to 30 of us would file those tenders. I would open my tenders and show them my rate, and tell them that they could fill up a little lower than my rate and get the orders. I did this especially for the smaller
Close Encounter 21
units. If we quoted $5/- per bag, I would tell them to quote $4.95 per bag and get the order.
This actually worked in your favour? Always. The big companies knew that I was doing this. If they wanted 10 lakh bags and all the small people had bagged the order, they would increase their requirement to 20 lakh bags and give me an order of ten lakh at my pricing.
This is the way of the Universe. Beautiful . . I always believed competition was in the mind. You don’t really have to fear competition. Today, we tell people to attract positive vibes—that is enough. Your fate, your destiny, will be made just by those positive vibes. You’ll earn blessings. So, somehow, this is what we were doing. Today, I realise that we were unknowingly following a spiritual concept.
Guruma: Actually, Guruji’s father and Guruji, never used to promote enmity. They used to go out of their way to repair relationships. They would go and ask forgiveness if they had done any wrong and maintain cordial relationships with everyone.
His father was also like this?
Guruma: Yes . . .
SR: All this came from my father. He is 91 years old. And in my life span of 65 years, I have not seen him shouting, getting angry, or anxious even once. He’s gone through such phases in life. He was on top, then became zero, and then again on top and then zero but never zero internally. He never bothered. For a couple of months, I knew he had nothing even to feed the family, but there was never any stress in his mind.
Guruji, I read that at one point you wondered, What next? Can you tell me a little bit about that phase? What happened?
For almost 20 years, I was in business. Every moment of those 20 years, we enjoyed life. Whether I was in the office or with family or travelling outside. Both of us travelled the entire world, the country, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Friends, partying, money, creation, name, fame. I was very high-profile when I was in business. I would ensure that at least once in two days I was written about in the newspaper. I had many reporters as friends, and I used to meet the then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, several times. I was the president of the all India association in my sector. What others would do in 100 years, I did in 20 years.
Then a thought came to me, What next? And whom am I working for? I found I was working for thousands of workers, for the income tax department, for the electricity department, for the sales tax department, and for banks from whom I had taken a loan and was paying interest. They were sitting quietly in their air
conditioned offices and making me work for them. That was the time my maternal uncle, my first guru, told me to start meditating for five minutes every day.
You did not tell him anything about what you were going through?
No. We had a lot of respect for him because he was a bal brahmachari; he had left his house at the age of 15. So out of respect, I told him I’d do it. He gave me a mantra. I started meditating for five minutes, but five minutes gradually stretched to five hours. In a span of six months, I was meditating for hours and hours, until I found it difficult to ride both horses. I was gaining so many experiences, having so many revelations, that I decided to quit my business. I said I would follow this path now.
When did this happen?
I started meditating in ’92-’93. Around ’94-’95, I decided to quit. My guru was into hatha yoga practices, and I went deeper into them, which included a lot of yogic kriyas. I used to swallow five metres of cotton cloth—both of us, in fact— and take it out. That was a yogic practice. He also made me do kundalini yoga. I used to levitate and have out-of-body experiences. I realised there was more to life than this materialistic world. Around the year ’95, we met Poornananda
Swamiji, our second guru. Mamaji used to tell me, “I will get enlightened after two to three births, and you will take more time.” A thought came, If there was something like an ‘ultimate state’ Mamaji was trying to attain, then I should be able to get to that state in this birth itself. I could not trust my future births. And somebody should be there who can take me to those states. Within two months, Swamiji came to Hyderabad. One of our common friends took Mamaji to meet Swamiji, and I went with him. The first guru took the disciple to the second guru. When Mamaji asked Swamiji about out of-body experiences, astral travel, and piercing the fourth, fifth, and sixth chakras [subtle energy centres], Swamiji’s answer was so confident that it impacted my mind very much. He was very casual about it and believed it was attainable in a few easy steps. Following this, Guruma and I went together to meet Swamiji, at Srisailam
Rameshji and Kusumji with their family members in Hyderabad
Then on December 8, ’99, both of us were in a whole different state. The whole Universe became one for us, and we experienced a fountain of bliss. We were feeling this since morning, but neither knew the other was feeling it too. After breakfast, when I shared with Guruma what I was experiencing, she shared that she too was experiencing the very same thing. around ’95-’96. Within three to four years—in 1999—Swamiji helped both of us attain the state of enlightenment.
What was your exact experience?
Basically, the enlightened state is nothing but a culmination of whatever you have been going through—a process. When following the hatha yoga practices with Mamaji, I used to meditate for almost 15–18 hours at any time of the day or night. I used to do a lot of heavy pranayama [yogic breathing]. I remember when we were in Badrinath, my pranayama used to create so much heat in my body that I would sweat profusely in that temperature of -5°C.
Without my conscious awareness, Swamiji started reducing my meditation and pranayama. After some time, meditation and pranayama became zero, and we started evolving at jet speed. After every session with Swamiji lasting two to three hours, we’d feel we were in a different state. He would give us the purest knowledge. When we were with Mamaji, he’d talk about the Bhagavad Gita and the Puranas, whereas Swamiji never referred to any scriptures, or shastras, but just the essence of everything. Then we realised that he would give his shakti [power] along with the gyana [knowledge]. This is how the process went on constantly for three to four years. Then on December 8, ’99, both of us were in a whole different state. The whole Universe became one for us, and we experienced a fountain of bliss. We were feeling this since morning, but neither knew the other was feeling it too. After breakfast, when I shared with Guruma what I was experiencing, she shared that she too was experiencing the very same thing. Swamiji was at our house that day. When we shared with him what we were feeling, he said that it was the ultimate enlightened state and that we’d continue to be in that state for eternity. And that’s how it’s been since.
So how did the transition to becoming gurus happen for both of you?
Actually, we had no interest in becoming gurus. We were at home, at peace, and in a state of total happiness and inner joy for a couple of years. Acquaintances used to occasionally ask about meditation or some other subject, and we used to share whatever Swamiji revealed to us, and it was the highest universal knowledge. Those who benefitted brought others.
Guruma: Then we started organising sessions in someone’s house, some kitty parties. Guruji was good at yoga, so he used to give talks on yoga as well.
So it was a very natural evolution?
Absolutely. We didn’t have any such thought in our mind. We never imagined we would have an ashram, because we are not from that culture. We were essentially business people, North Indians, not exposed to spirituality or the scriptures, nor had we attended any discourses. Slowly, it grew and spread to more areas, newer cities, abroad—US, London—all over the world.
You’d left business behind; you were not working. How was money happening? Had you saved enough?
Guruma: That’s the biggest question we have in our minds too.
SR: Even today, we don’t charge anything for ourselves. All our programmes are free, except for the Rishikesh retreats. Almost every weekend, I used to be in Bombay [now Mumbai], conducting hundreds of programmes
a couple of years ago. So, it’s just Swamiji’s grace; everything was taken care of. When I quit business, my savings were sufficient to sustain our lifestyle for two to three years. My father used to ask me what we would do after that. I replied that I didn’t know and that Swamiji had offered to shift us to his ashram if we found it difficult to continue living in the city. He guaranteed that he would take care of my family. My daughter was around five years of age, and my son, around eight. Everyone used to taunt me asking how I could leave my business, how I would see to their needs, how they would grow up, how they would get married. I just replied that I didn’t know anything. My priority right then was spirituality, and I would follow that path. I assured my father that I would never abandon my family and that we would always stay together. We may not have been able to continue the same lifestyle that we had; we may have had to live in a 10 by 10 space, so I was mentally prepared for that. If needed, I’d take up some job to meet the needs of the family, but I’d never abandon it. My father was reassured by that and told me to go ahead and pursue spirituality. For the last 25 years, to date, I don’t