A Life Less Ordinary- The Truth

Swaminiji Amritananda was born in Auckland and grew up in Remuera, the youngest of three siblings. In her early 20s she realised that spirituality was her calling.

“I wanted to know the Truth,” she says. “What this world is about, and who am I? The big ‘I’, not the little ego.” Like many of her generation, her spiritual quest took her to India. There she met teachers and yogis and did voluntary nursing work in a village. But when her money and her travel visa ran out, she was still no closer to enlightenment. She left India, disappointed, but still believing it held the answer.

Swaminiji found work in Melbourne and saved to return to India, organising to travel to the Himalayas and work at a children’s hospital. Just before she left, however, friends told her about an Indian holy man called Swami Chinmayananda who was giving a talk at Melbourne University. Swaminiji decided to attend. “His clarity and depth of knowledge blew me away,” she says. So much so that she talked her way into staying briefly at his ashram when she got to the Himalayas. As chance would have it, they would arrive there at the same time.

The day she was due to leave, though, Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister, was assassinated. “Everyone said I should put my travel on hold,” says Swaminiji, “but I decided to go.” She was 22 years old at the time. “When I got to Delhi, the city was on fire. There were Molotov cocktails, fighting in the streets... it was chaotic.” Swaminiji managed to jump on the last train up through the Punjab, but that was no less distressing. “Every 30 minutes the train would stop and the army would come on. I’d get dragged off, have my passport scrutinised, then get bustled back on again. I’d had no contact with guns before that.”

When Swaminiji finally got to the ashram, the retreat had been cancelled because no one was travelling. But when things quietened down, Swami Chinmayananda arrived and she was there to meet him. “I immediately knew that this man was capable of giving me the Truth. And that was it. I never went to the hospital, but ended up, on his suggestion, going down to Mumbai and studying Vedanta there for three years.” Those three years were to define Swaminiji’s life.

The centre where she trained was part of the Chinmaya Mission, one of 300 centres worldwide. There they teach Vedanta – studying one’s true nature, knowing the world, and the nature of the absolute. Though relatively new to New Zealand, in India Chinmaya Mission is a household name. As well as the training centres, they operate hospitals, research centres, nurse training facilities, retirement homes, 26 colleges, and 180 schools.

On completing her studies, Swaminiji returned to the Himalayas to reflect on what she had studied, falling in love with the region’s pristine nature, so steeped in spirituality. Knowing that she had to return to the West, she prayed she would find herself in a place with similar serenity and beauty. “And my prayers were answered,” she says, “because I ended up in Nelson, with the Maitai and the mountains all around.”

Once here, Swaminiji started the Chinmaya Mission’s first centre in New Zealand. That was 14 years ago. Since then she has followed her remit to propagate the knowledge of Vedanta. During a recent ceremony in India, she was bestowed the honorific Sanyasa, meaning one who has renounced and who is established in this knowledge. This is a high honour. There are few Western Chinmaya swamis and swaminis in the world, and only herself in Australasia.

Swaminiji’s work is varied. She runs yoga classes, meditation courses, and study groups; she takes retreats, public talks, and children’s classes, and she hosts Chinmaya Mission dignitaries and organises their commitments here. Her teaching is open to anyone with a sincere interest in self-knowledge.

As for how she feels about her life so far: “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she says with a smile.