Origins – About Swami Rama

 

The Himalayan Institute was founded in the United States by the sage Swami Rama, who was born in 1923 and brought up from an early age by the great Himalayan master Bengali Baba. He studied with other sages and adepts in the Himalayas and Tibet, and distinguished himself at the University of Allahabad in northern India. In his late teens, the unconditional infinite love he had been receiving from his master and the other sages led him to a spontaneous state of ecstasy, which he described in these words;

“One lovely evening, it seemed to me as if a ray of light all of a sudden broke through the mist, and I wondered what it might mean. The same evening thou gavest me a glimpse of the love divine. And then I heard His name uttered from thy lips, shedding new light over my destiny.”

After more years wandering with Himalayan sages and intensifying his practices, he was, in the late 1960s, sent by his master to the West with the words;

“Now you are ready to create a bridge between East and West, between spirituality and science. Go to the West and share with them the wisdom of the sages, remembering that you are simply an instrument of the tradition. Your job is to deliver the message of the sages, create bridges, and help people connect the body, breath, mind and soul.”

He reached the USA and quickly attracted many followers, who by the end of the 1970’s, had established the Himalayan Institute in a 400-acre residential campus at Honesdale, a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. As Swami Rama began delivering the message of the sages, the Institute became a centre of spirituality and holistic living. He trained physicians, psychologists, and philosophers to run seminars helping people overcome their mental traumas, depression, loneliness and anxiety.

His audiences were drawn by his innate compassion and down-to-earth understanding of the difficulties people faced in bringing order and happiness to their lives. He taught them to discover the secret of breath, to unlock the potential of the mind by meditation, to grease their duties with love to overcome friction, and keep their spiritual practices within their capacity to avoid hurting themselves and others.

(Read about Swami Rama’s life in his book ‘Living with Himalayan Masters’- see bookshop).

Himalayan Institute in the UK

The UK branch of the Himalayan Institute in London was started in 1991 by Peter Glover, who had studied meditation and spirituality since the late 1950’s, and met Swami Rama in 1989. Based in West Ealing, the UK branch runs weekly classes in yoga, breath, relaxation, meditation and philosophy. It holds weekend and week-long retreats and also sells books, and yoga materials, as well as distributing ‘Yoga Plus’ (the Institute’s bi-monthly magazine) to about 250 subscribers.

The Institute is a registered charity, and mostly relies on voluntary effort. Each year its members elect a Principal and Executive Committee to run its affairs. Enrolments, book sales, advertising etc. are dealt with by a part-time paid administrator based in Ealing, while bookings for retreats and subscriptions for ‘Yoga+’ are handled by volunteers in Sussex and Lancashire.

The Institute respects all faiths and religions, and makes no attempt to convert those who come to it. It aims at a practical blend of the traditional philosophy and psychology of the East with the discoveries of science in the West.

HIMALAYAN INSTITUTE (Reg Charity 1048336). 020 8567 8889

 
Tribute to Peter Glover

Late President of the Himalayan Institute of Great Britain.

It is hoped that everyone has heard by now of the death of dear Peter Glover on Friday 10th November 2006 after a long illness, borne with great patience and cheerfulness. Notifying all those who had come under his wise influence over the years proved to be a difficult task, and inevitably some were missed. To them go our apologies.

The Himalayan Institute of GB owes its existence to Peter’s vision and inspiration, and many other individuals and organisations benefited from the uniquely fine influences that he received and lovingly passed on to others during his full and eventful life.

From an early age Peter was inspired to search for the hidden meanings behind scriptures and church teachings. In the late 1950’s he was attracted to the School of Economic Science in London, where, over the next thirty years, working with others to ask and examine the real questions of life, he was given considerable responsibilities. He came to understand, in an extremely practical way, the importance of refining attention, studying scripture, meditating and serving others.

Meeting Swami Rama in the late 1980’s added new dimensions to his understanding, particularly of the way breath, relaxation and hatha yoga enhanced meditation and peace of mind, and this led him to found the United Kingdom branch of the Himalayan Institute in Ealing. Courageously for his age, he trained as a yoga teacher and began giving classes locally. He also toured Britain, encouraging other yoga teachers and their groups to learn meditation and the philosophy of yoga.

Peter Glover was a lesson for us all in practical spirituality. To be taught by him was to experience someone with inner peace, grounded in his own being, radiating a firm yet kindly authority. Even the most difficult question was invariably met with a gentle smile, a deep pause, and a self-evidently appropriate answer. He had cultivated that quiet welcoming awareness dedicated simply to the reality of the present – the state that leads one naturally to know Oneself - about which the Bhagavad Gita says;

“In the still mind the Self reveals itself.
From the depths of meditation a man draws the joy and peace of complete fulfilment.”

Tasmai shri gurave namah.

John Howell
Principal
Himalayan Institute of GB
January 2007

About John Howell

John Howell has been Principal since 2004. He studied meditation, philosophy and karma yoga during a 30-year association with Peter Glover, as well as attending Swami Rama’s last seminar at Honesdale in August 1993, and other retreats there since. From 1995 he assisted Peter by taking weekly philosophy and meditation groups for the Institute in London, and leading retreats, especially since 2004.

His vision for the Institute is encapsulated by the famous lines from Plato’s ‘Theatatus’;-

“We seek for wisdom, not in sense experience at all, but in that other way of knowing, whatever called, in which the mind is alone and engaged in being.”

John is a retired schoolteacher, married to Sylvia, a psychotherapist. They have two children and three grandchildren and live in Richmond, London.