Rudra
Rudra, “the howler,” is the father of the MARUTS,
the storm gods of the RIG VEDA, but is also known
for causing disease and for healing. The epithet
SHIVA, “the benign,” is given to him in the Rig
Veda (though he is most often fierce), and thus he
is conflated in Indian tradition with Shiva himself.
In scholarship the term Rudra-Shiva is commonly
used in the description of Shiva. The explicit iden-
tification of Rudra and Shiva as Lord is first made
in the SHVETASHVATARA UPANISHAD of perhaps the
fourth century B.C.E.
Uncharacteristically honored alone and not
in concert with other divinities, as so many Vedic
divinities are, Rudra causes diseases of cattle and
men with his bow and arrows and is propitiated
and appeased rather than loved. In his fierceness
he is associated with desolate and distant places.
Further reading: Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van
Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the
Sanskrit Puranas (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1978); Stella Kramrisch and Praful C. Patel, The
Presence of Siva (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1981).
Rudrananda, Swami (1928–1973) American
teacher of Shaivism and Siddha Yoga
Swami Rudrananda, a Brooklyn-born disciple
of the Shaivite GURU NITYANANDA, was a popular
spiritual teacher in the United States.
Born Albert Rudolph in Brooklyn, New York,
Swami Rudrananda grew up in the Depression era
without a father. He relates that as a child he dem-
onstrated psychic gifts and could go into trance and
tell fortunes. At the age of six he saw two Tibetan
lamas materialize and prophesy that the spiritual
gifts they were implanting in him would be realized
at age 31. As a young adult, he owned and operated
an Oriental art shop in New York City.
In 1958 at age 30, Albert traveled to India to
find a spiritual teacher. There he met his guru,
Swami NITYANANDA, at Ganeshpuri, near Bombay
(Mumbai). The meeting with Nityananda was to
change the course of his life. Nityananda was a
mahasiddha, always in a state of bliss and trance,
who did not write or found any organization. His
teachings were his direct transmission of spiritual
force, and his utterances given in a profoundly
immersed state were recorded by his pupils.
Nityananda transmitted the creative life force or
SHAKTI directly to disciples. Through this trans-
mission or shaktipat, the power of kundalini was
aroused in the disciple, who could experience an
identity with the divine.
Albert had many extraordinary experiences
with Nityananda, who even after his death appeared
to Rudi and transmitted Shakti to him. However, it
was Swami MUKTANANDA, one of the primary dis-
ciples of Nityananda, who initiated him into SAN-
NYAS in 1966 and gave him the name Rudrananda
(affectionately shortened to Rudi). Rudi was Muk-
tananda’s first Western disciple, and it was Rudi
who took Muktananda to the United States. In
1971 Rudi broke with Muktananda, who wanted
him to turn over his ASHRAMS and students.
Rudi’s practice, as was that of Nityananda and
Muktananda, was in essence Shaivite, although he
did not focus on the philosophical aspects. Instead
he was concerned to extract the content from the
container. His entire teaching was centered on
providing spiritual nourishment to his students,
to insist that they develop a real practice so that
they could create their own internal spiritual
mechanism and connection to higher spiritual
forces. Rudi was known for assuming his student’s
KARMA or spiritual tension, a negative energy that
prohibits spiritual growth. This appropriation of
others’ karma he called spiritual cannibalism (the
title of his autobiography). Rudi was said to have
removed cancer from one disciple by taking on
that person’s karma.
In 1973 Rudi died in the crash of a small
plane, en route to a lecture.
Rudi taught from his own center in New York
City and opened his first ashram in the United
States in Big Indian, New York. Eventually nineRudrananda, Swami 369 J