Experiment #18: Using a Spiritual Name
The story behind the spiritual name that was given to me and what using it has meant in my life
If reading time is hard to come by or you’re interested in a more human experience, there is a “Read-to-You” version of this article.
An experiment with
“E” for Engage with Spiritual Teachings
on the
M.O.N.K.E.Y. B.A.R.S.
~
For more:
Read M.O.N.K.E.Y. B.A.R.S. explainer
Read “E” explainer
See all “E” experiments
We parked and walked into the community hall of the Ruscombe Mansion Community Health Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
There were lots of shoes in the entrance way, so we took our cue and removed ours before silently entering the room where a number of folding chairs were set up.
There was a piece of paper on each seat with a couple of unfamiliar prayers printed on them. I picked mine up and sat down.
Even though I didn’t know anyone other than my wife, Rachel (see Experiment #17: I Am Grateful for the Chance to Have Felt the Kind of Love In My Life that Carl Feels in the First Ten Minutes of Pixar’s "Up"), I wasn’t uncomfortable—the vibe felt welcoming, comforting, and calm.
It was my first meditation with Awake Yoga Meditation.
A chime rang.
A woman dressed in orange came out, sat down in front of the group that had gathered, and said a few words before facilitating a silent meditation.
After about twenty minutes, we said some of the prayers on the piece of paper and chanted Aum three times (see Experiment #9: Aum). Then the woman in the orange led another meditation—this time a guided one.
I felt an immediate connection to this place and had a sense that it might be the kind of place I had been hoping to find, which I described in Experiment #3: Observing as:
“If The Four Agreements were a church, I’d go every Sunday.”
If you’ve been reading this Substack, you know that I hold Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements and his teachings from the Toltec tradition in high regard and that it was my spiritual touchstone long before anything else really.
Though Awake Yoga Meditation did not teach the Toltec tradition, there was incredible resonance with it, which actually intrigued me even more. How could these two spiritual traditions be teaching something so similar?
After the meditation service, I was invited, along with the other attendees, to greet the woman in orange, who they called Swami Nityananda. She smiled and gave me a warm hug and told me I had a nice voice, which she must have heard when we chanted Aum.
I came to the next meditation and the next one and kept coming back.
I started participating and volunteering.
I started having what they called “spiritual conferences” with Swami (a title in the Hindu tradition that is comparable to the Christian priest or the Jewish rabbi). And I started getting to know people in the community. I loved it. I still do. And, as I’ve mentioned before, now consider it my spiritual home.
The only thing that made me feel ever so slightly uncomfortable, at least at first, were the names. I usually have a hard time remembering names, but I found it particularly challenging at Awake Yoga Meditation because they were so different from anything I had heard before. They were Hindu or Sanskrit and I just couldn’t remember them for the life of me.
Being new in a community and asking someone to repeat their name after having already met them a few times was definitely not ideal, but it was a small price to pay for the kind of spiritual growth I was experiencing.
How did I know I was experiencing spiritual growth? I was feeling much more inner peace and as I wrote in my notes from one of those early meditation services:
“If you want to know whether you’re making spiritual progress, measure by the amount of your inner peace.”
I like this advice. Swami credited it to her teacher’s teacher’s teacher, Swami Yogananda, who was the inestimable spiritual leader and author of the bestselling book Autobiography of a Yogi.
After a couple of months, I learned that many of the people in the community had an English given name, but preferred to use a Sanskrit name in the community.
After a meditation service one day, I asked Swami why some people had Sanskrit names. She told me that if someone is inspired to ask for a spiritual name, the tradition is that she will meditate on it and then share a name signifying a suitable spiritual quality with that person. They can choose to accept it and use it or not.
Without hesitation, I asked for a spiritual name and have been experimenting with it ever since.
Dhruv (which rhymes with “groove”)
A couple of meditation services later, Swami handed me a small slip of paper that said:
Dhruv (pron. Dhroov)
Stable and firm in God’s love
A polestar of heavenly light
I took a picture of it because it felt significant.
She instructed me to meditate on it and when I was ready, let her know which name I would like her to use moving forward.
I did just that.
What came to me was that even though, at the time, I did not feel “stable” or “firm in God’s love” or anything like a “polestar of heavenly light,” I did feel honored, grateful, and curious that Swami had chosen this name with this meaning for me and felt that it was good fit.
The name felt like a polestar itself, actually—like a north star. It felt like something I could grow into—something I wanted to grow into.
I visualized what it would feel like to have people call me Dhruv, introduce myself as Dhruv, and tell my family that Dhruv is my spiritual name. It felt weird, to be honest, but also kind of exciting.
It felt like I was on the precipice of making a bigger commitment to myself—like I had been sampling the teachings of yoga philosophy up until this point, but that by accepting the name, I would be really committing to learning the teachings and integrating them into my life.
So when the moment came, I told Swami that I’d like to use the name Dhruv.
How experimenting with the name has helped
Looking back on it now five years later, it makes me think of something that Swami Premananda, who was Swami’s teacher’s teacher, said. He said:
“Hymns, sacrifices, ceremonies, religious ordinances, and other rituals of all times, are merely outer forms to awaken love of God in [us].”
It strikes me that receiving a spiritual name is a kind of ritual that really is just another outer form designed to help “awaken love of God” within—like a baptism or a bar mitzvah.
Now when I say “awaken love of God,” I will be honest and say that I still swap out the word “God”, as I’ve mentioned before in Experiment #7: Yearning through Prayer. Or I follow the invitation I heard while visiting a loved one’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where they invited their members to partner with a Higher Power “of their understanding.”
These mental modifications help me move past some of the negative associations and ambiguity I feel when I hear the word “God.” They’ve helped me answer, at least for myself, “what is God” and also why I would want to “awaken love of God” within.
Here’s how it plays out for me:
When I hear the name Dhruv, it reminds me of my understanding of God. So, again, instead of “God,” I’ll say The Source or Divine Intelligence or Field of Consciousness or Infinite Consciousness or The Divine because my understanding of God, which I explored in Experiment #7: Yearning through Prayer, is like a field of consciousness in which everything exists and through which everything is created.
I understand this field to be alive. It’s a “being” in that sense like an ocean. This Infinite Consciousness is vibrating with frequencies that we would recognize as the feeling of love. The description in 1 John 4:16 works well for me:
“God is love.”
All of creation (including our lives) are waves in this ocean—this field, this Divine Intelligence, this love. We are always able to “awaken” love within us because we are created with love. It’s what we are made of—made from. We are always connected to it. We are always part of it.
Even if we are feeling spirit-depleting emotions like anger, frustration, self-doubt, self-judgment, jealousy, loneliness, etc., these are just masking love in the way that kicking up mud in a stream masks the clear water.
This helps me remember why I want to “awaken love of God” within me. In my understanding, God is love. Love is God. We return to clarity by focusing on love and love contains a range of spirit-uplifting emotions like happiness, joy, peace, calm, compassion, gratitude, and so much more, as I described in Experiment #1: Sharing the Top Ten Things I Do Regularly to Create a Happier Life.
Simply put, living in spirit-uplifting emotions feels good. Period.
My spiritual name just becomes another tool in the belt that can help tune my attention to what Swami Nityananda so beautifully describes as the “frequency of love” (see Experiment #1).
It’s another tool that helps our spiritual progress, which Swami Yogananda reminded us is measured by our inner peace. Or in other words, love.
How I’m experimenting with it now
I’m still experimenting with Dhruv. I introduce myself to new AYM community members with it and use it within the AYM community. It feels like part of my spiritual practice (and I’m still very much growing into it!).
Despite the initial awkwardness around remembering everyone’s names, I did eventually get them all down. I also now really appreciate the purpose these names serve within the community and the role they play in someone’s spiritual unfoldment.
I have not experimented with using Dhruv in the workplace or with my family or with friends or anywhere else—and I may not. We’ll see. I did think about using it as an artist name for a minute, but decided against it.
The experiment expands today because I’m sharing the name with you. If you call me Dhruv, I will answer—and you’re welcome to call me Dhruv. I do plan to continue using Jonathan as my name on Substack, in my artistic endeavors, and in professional settings.
Not for nothing, I do love my name Jonathan. It means a lot to me that my parents gave me that name and it, too, has a polestar quality to it. I am still growing into it. According to The Bump:
“Jonathan has a powerful religious meaning of ‘gift of God’ or ‘God has given.’”
I’m grateful for spiritual progress and unfoldment any way it comes.
Have you experimented with a spiritual name? Has it helped you focus your attention on spiritually uplifting thoughts? Does your given name have spiritual significance? I would love to hear your thoughts. Leave them in the comments so we can all benefit.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a very happy day.
With love,
Jonathan (Dhruv)