Of course, appearances mean nothing, or very little, to a swami, the title generally used for Hindu religious teachers or any learned person. But there is the matter of the saffron robes, colored as fire to signify the swami's promises to followers.

“Saffron is a symbol of a fire that will consume all attachments to the world,” O'Brien said, as he sat in his well-stocked library. “A swami approaches the world without those attachments and yet, we are all encouraged to enjoy and use the world. But fire also warms, and therefore we must open to people and be kind and compassionate. And finally, fire illuminates, therefore we should study and learn and teach — pass on all we know.”

O'Brien, 67, has taken a religious name, Swami Jaidev, which means God's Victory in Sanskrit, the language that undergirds his philosophy. His ordination into the world of swamis culminates a lifelong search for the essence of mysticism.

A graduate of Catholic schools and the University of Notre Dame, O'Brien joined a Dominican Catholic monastery in Berkeley, Calif., after military service and a three-year stint as a stockbroker.

“I'll tell you what shook me,” O'Brien said. “The guy sitting across from me had three heart bypasses. The guy on the other side only had half a stomach. So, I did the only intelligent thing I could do, I joined a monastery.”

O'Brien went into the monastery hoping to discover a mystical path.

“I couldn't find it,” O'Brien said. “So I made a list and I went around to every monk. I did interviews, and they all told me to relax — they patronized me. I was very disappointed, and I became a rebel. So they decided to throw me out. They voted me out of the monastery.”

But that was the push O'Brien needed to move beyond the religion of his childhood. In the next few years, he earned degrees in religious studies and completed a doctorate at Nijmegen University in the Netherlands.

He also fell in love with Theresa King and married.

And he met and became a devoted follower of Swami Rama, a well-known leader of the Bharati philosophy in the United States.

King says her 33-year association with O'Brien has revealed a man of many gifts.

“He's highly intuitive, and he is a healer,” King said. “He's been blessed with quite a bit. Swami Rama gave him powers. I also think he was born with a couple of talents and then when he met Swami Rama, those talents and powers were boosted.”

Swami Rama, an Eastern mystic and founder of the Himalayan International Institute in Honesdale, Pa., became well known in religious and philosophical circles when he was tested by physicians and scientists for supernatural powers. O'Brien, who has written extensively on the topic, says the results of those tests proved that Swami Rama could drastically alter his heart beat and blood pressure.

“He stopped his heart by making it beat three-hundred times a minute which stopped the process that moves the blood through the brain. They also put him on a bio-feedback device, and he fell asleep and yet he was completely aware of his surroundings.

“When they asked what happened he said, `My body went to sleep, but my mind stayed awake,'” O'Brien said. “He wanted to show that the mind truly is something beyond the brain.

“They also asked him about cancer,” O'Brien said. “Swami Rama said, `What do you see.' A mole popped up on his arm and then another on his other arm. One was benign, and the other was malignant.

Then he made them disappear and he did that 22 times.”

His relationship with the mystic led to new personal growth and work.

“Swami Rama called me in one day when I was teaching at Loyola University in Chicago, and he told me that I could always remain a university professor but I would never grow as a human being. Theresa and I decided to completely give ourselves to Swami Rama's philosophy. We founded a center in Glenville, Ill., and then in 1977 we founded the center in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania where Swami Rama taught until his death in 1996.”

O'Brien and King then were sent to foreign ports, to Japan to initiate the World Conference on Peace and to London to work at the Marylebone Clinic in London and teach wellness and spirituality at the University of London Medical School.

In 1988, at the invitation of Charles Bates, another teacher and devotee of Swami Rama, O'Brien and King moved to St. Paul to resume their teaching mission. O'Brien became a professor at the College of St. Catherine and an adjunct teacher at St. Mary's College. King began creating a publishing business, Yes Publishers International, that develops books on self transformation of the body, mind and spirit.

In time the three friends — O'Brien, Bates and King — initiated the Alpha Institute that offers classes in Hatha yoga, wellness, meditation and spirituality.

Michelle Crane, 31, a three-year student at the Alpha Institute, said before she met O'Brien, she was “working too many hours and not taking care of herself.

“My management style is much more focused,” Crane said. “I make decisions more readily. And in my relationships, personal or professional, I'm a lot more calm with people. I know what they need because I'm healthier.”

Crane said the secret is to absorb all that O'Brien teaches and practice it without reserve.

“If I practice my hatha yoga positions, do my breathing and the nutrition, my stress goes down and my creativity goes up.”

Now O'Brien, or Swami Jaidev as he will be named in the future, will continue teaching the precepts of Bharati to his students. His admission into the highest levels of philosophical leadership took place this year, when Swami Hari Harananda journeyed from India to St. Paul to ordain him.

“Now we must ask, `What are the frontiers of the mind?'” Swami Jaidev said. “We do know there is more wisdom in human nature than we ever dreamed.”

Clark D. Morphew