Veda is Nature’s Language – with Sarah Chenkin

Sarah Chenkin played many roles (hippie, psychologist, farmer), and now, she’s enjoying retirement studying Sanskrit and learning to recite Veda…

By Sophia Ann French

My first psychedelic experience was in college. I was studying literature and art history and had just finished reading a book called The Harvard Psychedelic Club. I was intrigued by the lives of Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil, so when I was given a chance to try LSD, I experienced my first trip. Even all these years later, I clearly remember how nature seemed to come alive when I was tripping. When I started practising asana, I felt a similar lightness. When I explored consciousness and started educating myself about Indic Knowledge Systems, I realised that while psychedelics might give us glimpses into the infinite, it is still an induced, unreal, temporary state. I am not a self-realised person, and I only have a passing experience of psychedelics, but the thing I am sure about is that both offer deeply profound connections with nature. So when Sarah Chenkin started telling me about her experiments with psychedelics and how Veda recitation feels like she is communicating with nature, I completely understood and agreed. “When I recite mantras in the woods, I feel like the woods are responding to me. I feel absolutely one with nature when I recite in nature. It’s not surprising, Veda exalts nature…,” says Sarah.

While most people I connect with in Veda Studies come from a yoga background, Sarah’s journey has been different. From fighting for free speech at the 1969 Berkeley riots to travelling with hippies in Asia, from listening to lectures on consciousness by Timothy Leary to finding the truth of Indic knowledge in Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s teachings, she has experienced spirituality in myriad forms, and it all came together with Veda recitation. Excerpts from our conversation…

On How it All Started

Sarah: My first experience of consciousness was when I tried psychedelics as a teenager. It was the 70s, and Timothy Leary’s work influenced me, so I ‘Turned Out, Tuned In and Dropped Out’ (laughs). Leary taught at Stanford then, and my father was also a teacher there, so I lived on campus. But the thing with an experience like being on LSD is that life never feels the same after it, so I started acting out and was sent to boarding school in Boston. When I returned from boarding school, I was a graduate student at Berkeley, and the US was such a mess at that time — it was the time of the Chicago 7 trials, there was a nuclear threat, and I just wanted to leave. So I left the US and went with some hippies to Hawaii. While living there, I learned to chant some Buddhist text, which was so beautiful. So then I decided to go to Japan. The person I moved to Japan with was a student of Suzuki Roshi in San Francisco, so I first learned meditation from him, and he taught me mantras. I loved it, and then I was introduced to the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, and I started reading all of his books… I eventually returned to the States, re-enrolled at Berkeley, and got a PhD in psychology. Throughout my career as a psychologist, I learned that the best way to help people is to pray for them. Being a psychologist is like being in a lab that allows you to study reality and human behaviour. It’s incredible how much of what people think is real is not. I also discovered Vedic astrology at this time, and I honestly felt it was a great way to get to know a person’s personality. But, these practices aren’t allowed in Western clinical psychology. So I did a lot of things and even had two children. But as soon as I retired at 65, I went to the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in Saylorsburg and was deeply affected by Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s teachings and Vedanta. I love Sanskrit, and I wanted to study it. 

While at the Gurukulam, one of Swamini Svatmavidyananda Saraswati’s students, who had learned the Rudram from Shantala, led me to Shantala. That is how I started reciting with Veda Studies. I had no idea I would be studying in the Teacher Traning Programme, but reciting Veda and learning it in Devanāgarī is the only way to get immersed in Sanskrit. 

On the The Way of Veda

Sarah: I don’t attend the Indica Veda Studies Teacher Training Programme only because I want to teach. What I gain most from this programme is the in-depth knowledge that Shantala offers about the rules of punctuation, grammar, and pronunciation… I would never have access to that without this TTC programme. Most importantly, I think the people in the programme are what makes this programme so powerful. Shantala leads the way in teaching people how to get along, value each other, and work together — she does it just by being herself. It’s so valuable how she shares about relationships, culture, and paramparā, giving so much context to the practice. For example, she even told us about the tradition of building a house and the rituals…And I love that she shares so much. For example, when she shared the Sāma Veda recitation. I mean, where else can an American experience that? These are the things that are valuable to me during the TTC. I have been involved in chanting for several years, and the longer I practise, the more connected I feel to myself and the people around me. I respect myself and people so much more. Veda recitation has made me realise that we must move beyond our ego. For example, when I am reciting, all my attention has to be on the text, making my mind focus until I forget myself. So, reciting Veda teaches me to go beyond myself and my ego. This quality makes me a better person; it makes me more compassionate and makes me love my Self, which allows me to love other people, too. 

Sarah’s Adventures in Tiruvannamalai 

Sarah: I have travelled to India, and it was such an interesting experience. I signed up for this retreat and was supposed to be staying in this resort near Chennai. I felt that was a little weird because I was thinking, ‘ok, I am in India and in a resort?’ I had to go into town one day to get a phone chip, and I remember this lady on a scooter gave me a ride. I finally felt I was getting a real taste of India on that scooter. So, I left the resort and ended up in a hostel in Tiruvannamalai, and I loved that experience. I even did the Pradakṣiṇa of the Arunachala hill, an important holy place dedicated to Śiva in South India. 

To me, that was experiencing real India, not the resort. I went to the temple in Tiruvannamalai every day for the daily prayers, and it was so cool.

On Learning and Teaching Veda

Sarah: I think people who come to Veda recitation have done it before. I don’t think people who come to Vedic chanting have had nothing of it in a past life. It’s just something that attracts us because of its sacred nature. The tradition of Veda recitation is highly sacred, and it pulls people who commit to it. You don’t come to Veda; Veda comes to you. I advise people who want to study to always have a study group. Of course, the teacher is the most important person, but that’s not enough. You need the support of fellow students, especially if you are not in India and attending a school where they teach Veda recitation. But if you’re in the United States, for example, you know you won’t be able to progress very far because of the difficulty of the material unless you have other people who are also interested in learning. So have a good study group. Reciting Veda means learning to care for other people who don’t need you for any reason at all. It is my learning from all spirituality — giving is the way to live.

To get in touch with Sarah, email her at [email protected]