The Initiation [Hardcover]

Donald Schnell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

In many ways, Prema Baba Swamiji was a typical New Age seeker. He explored meditation and Indian philosophy, made the obligatory visits to ashrams in India, took a degree in chiropractic medicine, and studied hypnotherapy. He even co-wrote an alternative health book with his wife.

However, in 1997, at the age of 42, his life took a radical turn. He was summoned to India by his teacher and encountered the "deathless avatar" Babaji, and was initiated into one of the oldest monastic traditions, The Order of the Swamis, in a remote temple in the South of India.

The Initiation relates the author's extraordinary encounters, where saints and deities appear and offer guidance, and sacred objects materialize from thin air. It is a spiritual adventure story that includes encounters with an Indian rabbi, levitating gurus, disappearing taxi drivers, and psychedelic (without the use of chemicals) mystical experiences. It is also the story of one man's quest for answers to the "big" questions: Who am I? Where do I fit in the universe? How can my life have meaning? How can I touch the infinite?

The Initiation is a journey of self-discovery, allowing abundant possibilities. With the power to open minds, Swamiji's words allow a spiritual awakening, and an affirmation of identity. A true story capturing one man's profound experience in India, The Initiation bears a timeless, transformational message.

Editorial Reviews

Review

But few in our culture realize that living Gurus walk among us in every age, including this one." -- From the foreword by Marilyn Diamond

About the Author

Prema Baba Swamiji was born in 1955, and raised in the American Southwest. He has degrees in computer science, education, and chiropractic medicine. He is married to Marilyn Diamond (co-author of Fit for Life) and is the co-author, with Diamond, of Fitonics. The couple resides in Miami Beach, Florida.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: Element Books Ltd (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862048207
• ISBN-13: 978-1862048201
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,388,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Spiritual Book I've Ever Read, July 29, 2000

By 

Cindy C. (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Initiation (Hardcover)

THIS BOOK HAS CHANGED MY LIFE LIKE NO OTHER! I have read most of the popular spiritual books by all the well known authors. The Initiation is the first book to give me a profound PERSONAL spiritual experience. I am not the same person since I read it. It touched my heart so deeply that I now feel I have been initiated. I have a such a new awareness about myself, the world, and others I am sure I have gone through a form of enlightenment. Everybody notices, and when they ask me what's happened, I can only say,"Read The Initiation!" I am happier, stronger, more peaceful, and I am able to love like never before. I repeat, THIS BOOK HAS CHANGED MY LIFE! I'm telling everybody I know to get it. I think it will be one of those books everybody on the planet will soon be talking about. I wish I could thank Dr. Schnell personally. He must be amazing!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bringing forth divine love, August 30, 2000

By 

Joanna Campe (Northampton, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Initiation (Hardcover)

For those who read and were influenced by such books as The Autobiography of a Yogi, and Be Here Now of Ram Dass, or are simply walking their own path looking for inspiration, this is a new book of a powerful spiritual journey, that of Dr. Donald Schnell, initiated as Prema Baba Swamiji and of the avatar Babaji's continued teaching through him. I was greatly moved by the story of his initiation and the playful mystical experiences he has with Babaji and his humility as he shares those experiences with the the reader. He shares what he has learned and received through his initiation and now brings forth for those who wish to receive such divine gifts. I was also very touched by a great love story, that of him and Leelananda, his wife Marilyn Diamond. I hope to do a workshop with them soon to receive the blessings of their teaching. This book points a way to bringing divine love into our everyday awareness and as a way of being in the world and truly transforming our world.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Describing the Indescribable: A Journey to Enlightenment, October 5, 2002

By 

Cynthia Sue Larson "www.realityshifters.com" (San Francisco bay area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Initiation (Hardcover)

If you've ever wondered what it feels like to experience divine enlightenment, THE INITIATION is the book you've been waiting for. Author Donald Schnell shares his extremely personal journey to India where he meets the immortal Babaji yogi, and describes what many would consider to be the indescribable. After all, how can one adequately convey the way the world looks when all illusion (maya) is stripped away? Yes, miracles are possible, but they are only "siddhis", or sacred gifts which are not the true essence of reality. Siddhis like manifestation, teleportation, and levitation are joyous to behold, but are not meant to distract us from seeing the miraculous nature of the universe which is present here right now.

Schnell not only describes the way the world looks when one feels the joy and bliss of divine awareness, but he does so in such a way that the feeling of this loving state of consciousness is bestowed upon the reader. I felt like I had received many blessings as I read this book, and I know my life will be ever the richer for it. Schnell describes many details of how it felt to undergo a very special kind of initiation from the moment when he felt suddenly called to India, to the wondrous miracles he encountered as he traveled across India, to the culmination of his trip in his initiation into the yogic order with his new yogic name, Prema Baba Swamiji. The accounts of his meetings with Babaji are a joy to read -- Babaji appears to still be in his early twenties, in spite of the fact that he's been teaching students for hundreds of years. He grants Schnell's request for a photograph of him by materializing one. He also materializes a very beautiful and sacred crystal, which is still molten-hot and malleable when it appears in Schnell's hands out of thin air.

While THE INITIATION is ostensibly an autobiographical account of one man's journey to enlightenment, this book is actually much more than that. THE INITIATION feels like it has been blessed to convey the inner vibration of love that Babaji and Prema Baba Swamiji wish for readers to feel and know. For when we come to recognize this state of blissful awareness, or Premananda, we realize that we, too, have made the journey to enlightenment.