Her Life

Swamini Turiyasangitananda (Alice Coltrane) has traveled the path of spiritual re-awakening along the terrain of sacrifice, surrender, and joyful obedience to reach the summit of spirituality known as God-realization. Today her spiritual legacy stands alongside ancient saints and sages who boldly renounced their lower nature, false illusions, and personal ambitions.

Biography

Alice McLeod, fifth of six children, was born to parents, Solon and Ann McLeod August 27, 1937. She grew up in an atmosphere enriched with prayers and hymns of praise to God. As a youth her heart resonated with the spirit side of life. The McLeod home on Detroit's east side imbued all family members with spiritual and moral principles of love for God and kindness toward others. Alice's cultivation of her musical talent from the age seven prepared her to serve in the wider community. She played piano and organ for the junior and senior choirs of the family's Mount Olive Baptist Church as well as other Detroit churches.

Her musical career expanded in the late 1950's. She spent time in Paris studying with Bud Powell. Some years later she met and married the legendary John Coltrane. Together they forged a new music genre that transcended cultural boundaries. It unified peoples across cultural lines.

In 1967 John passed away, leaving Alice to raise their four children. It was a time of change and adjustment for the family. Her firm faith in God fortified her with spiritual strength during that difficult time.

Sometime later, Alice entered an austere period under the Lord's divine guidance. For six months, her time was spent in isolation, fasts, prayers, and increased meditations of sleepless nights. When she had completed this austere time, called tapasya, the Lord bestowed on her high blessings: renunciate initiation, divine anointing. Her spiritual name, Swamini Turiyasangitananda means the Lord's highest song of transcendental bliss. At that time she also received the Lord's holy mandate to "Go and Serve My people."

Shortly after her directive from the Lord, Swamini's ministry of wisdom teaching and sacred sound manifested. Her devotional songs, arrangements, and chants of God's holy Names exuded sound vibrations that purified, uplifted, and transformed both chanters as well as listeners. The sacred sound vibrations elevated the atmosphere whenever and wherever the sacred sounds were heard.

Sublime Vedic wisdom was disclosed in Swamini's three volume inscriptions, titled Endless Wisdom and Divine Revelations. The Lord's prediction of her having a 'school' eventually materialized when The Vedantic Center was founded by Swamini in 1975. Later in 1983 the Center established an ashram (spiritual community) in the rustic Santa Monica Mountains. Dedicated to honor and follow the teachings of Avatar, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, it was named Sai Anantam Ashram.

During Swamini's thirty-two year ministry she taught and demonstrated that the purpose of human life is to realize the soul's eternal relationship with God.The practice of meditation, prayers, fasts, chanting and cultivation of devotion, were the basic tools given to initiates. These regular practices help to still the mind and awaken the soul's true identification which becomes lost in secular conditioning and mundane associations.

As a devoted servitor of God's people, her loving ministry of teaching, healing, and transmitting devotional music from the higher realms, has uplifted the human spirit of millions to the transcendental realm of inner peace, light, and universal love.

In January 2007, Swamini ascended to the spirit side of life. Her entire life demonstrated that the true purpose of human life is to cultivate devotion for God. She taught that all of humanity is a divine radiation from the One Supreme Lord. Like other ascended sages, Swamini's eternally liberated spirit lives on in the hearts and lives of those that she edified, uplifted, and guided to higher levels of enlightenment.

Shankari Adams
Initiated Student of Swamini Turiyasangitananda

Does The Guru Ever Die?

The Guru never dies because she lives in the disciple. That she may so live , she spends her life entering into the disciple in the form of her idealism, her ideas, her vision, her attitudes, her sense of values. Her aim and objective for living is to ceaselessly and continuously strive and work so that she may live forever in and through each and every one of her disciples. The bright light of a candle never ceases to shine once another candle has been lit by its flame. It itself may be snuffed out, but it is already burning brightly upon another candle through another wick in the selfsame light.

Ponder this well! You are the being through whom the Guru lives. This is an honor. This is a privilege. This is a great good fortune. It is also a responsibility; it is a duty; it is a truth to be known and kept in mind always: ‘I must be what the Guru has taught me to be. I must be what the Guru was.”

You must make the vibrant spirituality of the Guru live within you, the sublime idealism of the Guru live within you, the spiritual teachings of the Guru live within you. Her loftiness of character and conduct should live within you. Her divine nature and the divine way she lived her life should be relived in you. Looking at you, the world should understand the divinity of your Guru.

“Obedience is better than reverence.” (Swami Shivananda) Thus if the disciples know the difference between imitation and emulation and follow her through emulation and obedience, the Guru never dies. Gurudevi Swamini Turiyasangitanandaji will never die as long as there are sincere striving aspirants like all of you trying to walk the path of divine life, ever striving to fulfill in your thoughts, words and deeds the essence of her teachings.

Who then can say that Swamini Turiyasangitananda was and is not? She is and she shall ever continue to be. Why? Because each one of you represents a radiant facet, a shining aspect of her noble, divinely lived life. Therefore, in and through her disciples, she lives and continues to inspire thousands.

This is a great privilege. This is a great Guru seva. May you be engaged in doing it, and may you discriminate at every step so that you keep on emulating her and not go off on a tangent merely imitating her.

In the spiritual world, the Guru never dies. The disciples ensure that the light of the Guru, the inspiration of the Guru, the wisdom teachings of the Guru will be perpetually present in human society in and through each one of themselves.

The Guru lives, and she shines through each one of her disciples. Each one of you, therefore, are living lights of the Turiyasangitananda ideal of divine life. May God and Swamini’s grace and blessings enable you to do this most effectively, most fully and most successfully for the benefit of humanity.

-(Revised and adapted from “Does the Guru Ever Die” 1999, by Swami Chidananda)

A Daughter Speaks

In 1976  our mother stepped forward in her spiritual commitment and resources. She purchased land for an ashram in 1983. This community served as a spiritual refuge for those seeking higher consciousness.  The location, among the Santa Monica Mountains in Agoura outside Los Angeles, became a figurative and literal home for the students of Vedic teachings.  Alice, an African American woman teaching Eastern Indian philosophy in the Western world, served as the spiritual anchor of the community for more than 30 years.

In her years as the founding spiritual director she enhanced the lives of all, both within the family, and those of the greater community of the Sai Anantam Ashram. We are left with the great legacy of her teachings, spiritual literature, music, and vast wisdom. Her presence today remains as vibrant as when she walked the earth.

With the highest praise, love, and respect, I thank you...

Om Shanti, Mother Turiyasangitananda.

Your Daughter,

Sita Michelle