IThe Yantra
In February and March of 1998, in two sessions, one at Hospet and one at Shirdi, I learned the “Sri Sai Kaleshwara Maha Lakshmi” Sri Chakra yantra: its energy system, its philosophy. I learned to draw the yantra from memory and began practicing and charging the mantra system.
IIThe Commission
In May 1998, during his Yoga Samadhi program in Penukonda, Sri Kaleshwar asked me privately to make a Sri Chakra coin. A medallion 1–2 inches wide, that could be worn around the neck. Silver or gold, he said. He wanted each coin to weigh one ounce, the gold as well as the silver. Medallions struck today are made far lighter, to save cost. These were not.
Back in the United States I worked on a prototype. I made the drawings, found an artist, and had the yantra rendered as black line ink art, six inches by six, the scale a die-maker needs. That was late-nineties technology. The art is transferred to a die, and each piece is struck by hand. The first test came out one-sided, the Sri Chakra only.
IIISanta Monica
In February 1999, Sri Kaleshwar came back to America and gave a public program at UCLA. From LA he called me and invited me to come meet him. After the program, he invited me to the small apartment of a devotee in Santa Monica where he was staying. I had thought the invitation was private. He had invited about twenty other people! We sat on the floor, wall to wall, while he lay on the only couch after an exhausting program, his head on a pillow.
I sat on the floor next to the couch, and showed him the single-sided medallion. He said it was good. “Put a picture of me on the back,” he told me, “and bring them to India the next time you come.”
IVThe Image on the Back
The image on the back of the coin is a photograph of Sri Kaleshwar in the midst of a miraculous manifestation. A rose in his hand seems alight, the camera catching the instant of transformation, the next instant it was a handful of fragrant vibhuti that he showered over the room as a blessing. The photograph was taken by Philip Lipetz, who gave permission for its use without hesitation.
I went back to the artist for the second drawing, at the same six-by-six scale, for a second die. Then I found a printer for the run. They were struck in two runs, the front and then the back, in Nevada City, California.
From his instruction to the finished coins, I handled them alone. I was the coin printer. I still have the bill of sale for the minting, and the artist’s original ink line sketches, the drawings transferred to the tool-die to make the print heads. The dies came to me afterward.
There was one batch. I carried it to Penukonda in July 1999, for Guru Purnima: one hundred and eight in silver, nine in gold.
VGuru Purnima, 1999
On the night of July 29, 1999, he told us: “By 10:30 p.m. exactly I’m going to take off.”[1]
He was going to leave his body in yoga samadhi. He told us why.
I’m giving special boons to everybody who attended this program, who was completely here when I leave with my soul, who was in my presence in these circumstance meditating the program I gave, they’ll get incredible soul tanks fulfilled.[1]
Then he said who would keep the body. “Clint will take care I hope. I’m believing on this crazy guy completely. He’ll take care of my body.”[1]
I sat at the foot of his bed. He told us what would happen at the moment he left: “When I’m going to take off, my soul energy is coming to everybody to give blessing then taking off.”[1] When he left, the energy poured into my lap. Then the students came one by one to touch his feet. “It was like we were standing in water.”[2]
Before he took samadhi, he gave me permission to lay the relics next to him while his soul traveled. He gestured to show me where: on the bed, at the right side of his abdomen, to the side. I laid them there.
Three times I checked his body. “3 times, each time the same. No vital signs.”[2] I wrote afterward, “the samadhi has nothing to do with the vital signs. We do the vitals signs for our minds.”[2]
He was gone about twenty-four hours.
The day after, he gave me permission to enter his room. I went in and took the bag back.
VIWhat He Asked the Mother
The next evening he told us where he had gone. A gathering of nearly two thousand souls, most without bodies. He spoke first.
“And when I talked I asked Mother Divine to easily handle the negativity, to give the permission who is linked to my soul they can easily handle the negativity.”[1]
He had wanted to stay. “Actually I wanted to dissolve my energy in Mother Divine but he brought me out.”[1] Ramakrishna Paramahamsa brought him back.
VIIThe Line He Gave
The night he returned, he began with one line and asked if we had it.
Om Maha Papa Prakshalana Sai Shakti Raksha. Got it?[1]
The next evening he explained it. “Papa means the negativity, illusion, karma, depression, bad results, bad thoughts.”[1] And: “Sai Shakti Raksha means the energy of the Sai right now you, at the moment, you are using to destroy all the things entire in your life until your soul reaches the Sai.”[1]
He taught us to say it first, on ourselves, before we touch anyone else. “It means then you’re completely wearing the bullet proof, the positive proof. You are energy proof.”[1]
I send this line with every relic.
VIIIThe Master’s Hand
A week later, at Hampi, he spoke about the malas we wore.
But coming through the master’s hand, if the master held it and gave it to you, it’s a good hook to wearing around your neck.[1]
The same day he taught what he called Atma Sandhana Yoga: how a student keeps what the master gives. “If one time you got God’s blessing, the master’s blessing, then you can keep that forever and ever through the Atma Sandhana Yoga process.”[1]
He used a seed. “Like a point, the master means it’s a point, just a point, a dot. It’s important. From there you can create everything.”[1]
IXThe Sale
He asked that they be sold as a benefit for the ashram. He set the prices himself: the gold at three thousand dollars, the silver at one hundred and eight. The nine gold sold out. Forty-seven of the silver sold.
Sixty-one remained.
XTwenty-Seven Years
At his instruction, the bag of remaining silver was brought back to the US, “The spiritual people really need it.” They were stored carefully in my altar. In December 2000 I moved to India. I lived at my master’s feet in Penukonda until after his mahasamadhi in March 2012.
The relics stayed lost to memory until early 2026, when they were found in my personal altar and transferred to the power object cabinet at the DMC. Twenty-seven years after that Guru Purnima.
XIA Detail in the Yantra
The yantra on the coin carries an error. In the lower three upward-pointing triangles, the horizontal base line should sit below the inner three circles. On the coin, two of those lines pass through the circles. He did not clarify this detail until later in his teachings. By the teaching as it stands now, it is a defect.
In a mysterious way, the defect marks the relic for what it is. With the blessing it received beside his body in yoga samadhi, no piece struck since could replace it.
