god with special characteristics, later was used for
the Moon as well.
Chandra, too, is a god, one of the nine planets,
and the leader of the stars. Whereas in the West
the Moon’s appearance is likened to the face of
a man, in Indian mythology, the Moon has the
form of a rabbit. The Moon is understood to be
swallowed by a headless snake at the time of
eclipses and regurgitated again later. The nectar
of immortality (AMRITA) is found on the Moon in
plenty. The crescent Moon is found in the topknot
of SHIVA.
Further reading: John Dowson, Classical Dictionary of
Hindu Mythology, Religion, Geography, History, and Lit-
erature (Portland, Oreg.: Trubner, 2003); E. Washburn
Hopkins, Epic Mythology (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1986).
Charaka See AYURVEDA.
Charles, Master (1945– ) founder of
Synchronicity Foundation
Master Charles is a popular American meditation
teacher, who combines the teachings of Swami
MUKTANANDA (1908–82) with the insights provided
by contemporary psychology and parapsychology.
Master Charles Cannon was born on March
14, 1945, in Syracuse, New York, to Italian Ameri-
can parents and raised as a Roman Catholic. At
one point he seriously considered joining a Cath-
olic religious order, but in his later teen years he
backed away from the church. He practiced Zen
Buddhism for a period and explored parapsychol-
ogy. Then in 1970, some friends who had recently
returned from India showed him a photograph
of Swami Muktananda. Seeing the picture had an
immediate and intense effect upon him. In the
midst of the altered consciousness into which he
had moved, he had a vision of God as Mother (a
relic of his earlier devotion to the Virgin Mary),
and she instructed him to go to Muktananda.
He obtained a copy of the first of Muktananda’s
books, Guru, which had just been published in the
West, and soon afterward left for India.
Cannon settled in at Muktananda’s ashram
in Maharashtra (about 75 miles from Mumbai).
He remained in India with his guru for 12 years
and for a period he served as Muktananda’s pri-
vate secretary. Halfway through his stay, he took
vows of renunciation (SANNYAS). Shortly before
his death, Muktananda instructed him to return
to the United States. His experience with Muk-
tananda culminated in his reaching a state of pure
consciousness, which Master Charles described in
mystical language.
Back in America, he withdrew from the Sid-
dha Yoga Dham, the organization that perpetuated
Muktananda’s work, and settled in rural Virginia.
He also dropped the garb of an Indian monk,
began wearing Western clothing, and began to
call himself Brother Charles. A small commu-
nity gradually gathered around him. In 1983, he
founded Synchronicity Foundation to facilitate
his work and built a sanctuary to hold various
meetings and classes. As his leadership manifested
he assumed the name Master Charles.
Unique to Master Charles’s teaching activity
has been his mastery of contemporary data, gen-
erated by transpersonal psychology and parapsy-
chology, concerning MEDITATION and altered states
of consciousness. He integrated this information
into the meditation he learned from Muktananda
to create what he termed the Synchronicity High-
Tech Meditation Experience.
Master Charles continues to teach and develop
his scientific form of meditation from the head-
quarters of the Synchronicity Foundation in Nel-
lyford, Virginia. He publishes compact discs of
meditative music that use binaural-beat technol-
ogy to induce meditative states.Further reading: Master Charles, The Bliss of Freedom:
A Contemporary Mystic’s Enlightening Journey (Malibu
Calif.: Acacia, 1997); ———, Synchronicity Experience
(Nellyford, Va.: Synchronicity Foundation, 2002).K 104 Charaka