For 15 years, monk Raya Nitai has spread knowledge of yoga practices at campuses across the country. OU is one of his favorites to visit.
Wearing washed out jeans, a knit winter hat and a knapsack full of enlightenment, Raya Nitai strolls up and down South Court Street stopping anyone who strikes him as “eccentric” or “hippie-looking.” As soon as he captures someone’s attention, he reaches into his bag and pulls out the same books that offered him spiritual transcendence many years ago. His speech is almost always the same.
“Hi my name is Raya, I’ve been a monk for almost 15 years now, and I want to give these to you,” he says as they flip through the pages of Hindu mantra together. “They’re ancient texts on yoga and meditation, and for a small donation, they can be yours.”
Most people stop and speak with him for a moment, but some walk past without so much as a “no thank you.” Only a few busy college students donate their cash and walk away with the key to self-realization in their book bags.
But this doesn’t faze Nitai.
“Mostly I try to approach everyone, because everyone is a spirit soul,” Nitai said. “Even if people aren’t naturally interested in spiritual life, it’s my duty to try to inspire people and make them aware of something that maybe they haven’t thought of before.”
Throughout the years, Nitai estimates that he’s travelled to about 150 college campuses in order to spread Bhakti yoga across the country. He said out of all of the campuses he has set foot on, Ohio University stands out.
“Even though I haven’t been here very much, Ohio University is one of my favorites because it’s kind of like a hippie college,” Nitai said.
He distributes 75 to 100 books on a “good day.”
“I always think about what college I would go to, because I’ve been to almost all of them, so this kind of environment — a little college town where the college is basically the town — is the perfect setting.”
Brian Collins, a professor of comparative religion, said monks frequently show up in Athens, because of the population of college students and its proximity to New Vrindaban, a Hare Krishna community four hours away in West Virginia.
“I’ve seen (New Vrindaban) send people here to sell books,” Collins said. “Three people in my class already had copies of Bhagavad Gita because they were given to them by people like Raya.”
Nitai was a college student in Ohio before he began his own spiritual journey.
While selling marijuana, LSD and mushrooms at Ohio State University during his college years at Columbus State Community College, Nitai came to believe his actions were wrong and decided that he wanted to do something more with his life.
He then picked up Dharma, The Way of Transcendence by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and found that the path of Bhakti yoga was for him.
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“(Prabhupada) presented concepts in the book that I could tell were not readily propagated by others, but at the same time they sounded like very solid ideas or concepts,” Nitai said, pulling the orange book out of his grey, worn-out knapsack. “So I thought this might be a unique or interesting esoteric secret knowledge.”
Interest in Eastern religion and culture exploded in the 1960s when Prabhupada traveled to the United States from India to bring the message of Krishna, an Indian deity, to Western culture. It has been increasing ever since, Collins said.
About 20.4 million Americans practiced yoga in 2012 — a 29 percent increase from 15.8 million in 2008, according to a study by the Yoga Journal and Sports Marketing Surveys USA. With the increase of yoga in American popular culture comes a lesser understanding of the philosophical and esoteric side of the practice, said Christa Schwind, yoga practitioner and teacher of Eastern and comparative religions.
“I argue that American yoga is kind of like a mash-up song, so it uses and references the past, but it very much reflects the present,” said Schwind, whose interest in yoga began in 2003 after a private yoga session on the beach of Costa Rica. “It borrows these little pieces from Hinduism and then changes them in America so that it can be understood.”
Nitai agreed Americans divorce yoga from its spiritual meaning, instead focusing on its health benefits.
Nitai has spent a total of three years training at Rupanuga Vedic College in Kansas City, but unlike traditional colleges, graduation does not exist at this small seminary school. There is a minimum of three months and a maximum of five years for intense training, but monks can visit and further their training whenever.
While passing through Rupanuga about seven years ago, Nitai met Nick Seeley, a young man serious about devotion to Krishna, but lacking perspective. Nitai invited Seeley to hit the road and taught him the way of distributing books and aspects of devotion and service to Krishna along their cross-country journey.
“He put into perspective … the greatest service that we do as monks is to give knowledge to people,” said Seeley, who distributes books in California. “No matter what happens in my life, I’m probably always going to be doing this. And I’m never going to waiver.”
The main tenant to be accepted in Nitai’s religious beliefs is the chanting of Krishna mantra, which purifies the consciousness. Four illicit activities, called the pillars of sinful life, must be rejected in order to advance in the yoga process, Nitai said.
Intoxication, eating meat, engaging in premarital or illicit sex, and gambling are the pillars of sin that hold up the roof of sinful activities. To Nitai, the power of chanting, or mantra yoga, is enough to give a person the strength to avoid these illicit activities all together.
Although getting college students to quit drinking, having sex, eating meat and engaging in frivolous activities seems like a lost cause, Nitai continues his journey of enlightenment regardless.
Besides distributing books from the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Nitai spends his time writing music for his alternative rock band, the Saffron Pistils, to spread esoteric, Bhakti yoga knowledge in a different, non-traditional outlet.
“Saffron Pistils sounds like a big time band name, and that’s what I wanted,” laughs Nitai. “It’s actually the part of the plant that we (monks) dye our orange cloth with, so it’s intricately involved with the yoga process. And there’s another aspect that’s like when you dye something, that color goes everywhere; it changes things and it bleeds. So hopefully everyone in the future … (gets) some of the saffron pistil dye on them.”
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