At a friend's insistence, I agreed to go to a meeting in Baltimore where tapes of Hilda's New York classes were played. I was suspicious: Gurus held no interest for me whatsoever and I wasn't interested in anyone who went by their first name. Then the tape started. When Hilda's voice came on, I immediately felt a sense of uprightness and strength, as my whole being snapped to attention in a single laser beam of bright, centered energy. I pictured Hilda as a short, slightly overweight woman in a crisp, tailored suit.

She started talking about God. At that point in my life, God was the infinite Source that was "out there" but not a part of me, not a personal experience. Hilda began talking about how God lives inside of us. She went on in a sing-songy way, saying, "God lives in me, I live in God. God walks in me, I walk in God," telling us to go on like that to ourselves. At that moment, an amazing thing happened to me. As if struck by a bolt of lightning, I fully inhaled the Truth of her words and "knew" everything she said! Suddenly, the gap between myself and God disappeared and I experienced God as a personal, intimate part of myself. I felt the reality of God's oneness within me in a way that I hadn't since I was a child. From that second on, I would never be the same and Hilda Charlton would forever remain the instrument of profound transformation in my life.

— S.K., Maryland

Before meeting Hilda, I was cynical and sarcastic about God and religion. At the first meeting I went to, I felt out of place amidst all those flower children, but something happened: a huge 80-foot-tall Jesus appeared with hands outstretched, as that simple, unassuming lady in the sari onstage kept talking in her inimitable way. I felt it was important not to hang onto Hilda's coattails but to put her message into action. To this day, I can't believe it happened, but events pushed me into becoming a volunteer at Sing-Sing Prison, something I'd never dreamed of doing. I talked about Hilda to the men in the cell block where no visitors had gone before.

When possible, I sneaked pictures of her to the inmates. Some of the men who were so fragmented on heavy medication that they couldn't even say a complete sentence remembered Hilda's name. Each week when I visited them, they'd come over to me and say, "Hilda! Hilda!" Some of them had Hilda dreams. When I came to the Skanda puja at the Hindu Temple and learned that Hilda had just passed, I couldn't believe her chair was empty. She had come to me in spirit and taught me a dance the night before — after her passing. I still remember the joyous movements of calling others towards the Light.

— R.R., Connecticut

When I came to Hilda's class, I was a tough, streetwise New York City bohemian-type in my late twenties. I had brought myself up on nineteenth century romantic poetry, and I thought angst and "the suffering of the artist" was where it was at. I came into her class to find several hundred adults jumping up and down with silly smiles on their faces, singing, "Happiness, happiness, happiness is me." I was pretty disgusted, especially with myself for coming to such a place looking for something, but I had paid my subway token to get there, so decided to stay.

I listened to her talk with my supercritical mind, closed my eyes unwillingly for the meditation, and as she led us through it, to my surprise it seemed as though I shot up out the top of my head and hovered there. By the end of the class, I felt as though thousands of pounds of darkness that I hadn't been aware of had been lifted off my shoulders. In those first weeks, quite suddenly, I became a happy person. In her presence, I felt as though everything I'd always been searching for was inside my own heart.

— C.B., New York

Hilda always seemed to have the vitality of a little girl. She was always excited about something and yet she could be extremely profound; she had all kinds of gradations in her character. What stuck in my mind from her classes were the one-liners she would come up with, such as "I never met a holy person without a sense of humor." Or "If you fail a test, you can always take it again," which I always thought was very consoling.

I didn't hang around Hilda as much as my wife Karen did, but whenever I came over to her apartment, she always made me feel like I was a king, like I'd done some marvelous service by allowing Karen to come over -- as if I could have stopped her. But I accepted that. And she would always give me a present each year and thank me for all that I'd done for her. I'd think, "What did I do for her?" But I just took the present. And one of the things that really got to me was when we arrived on Christmas with our little boy David and Hilda said to everybody, "Make way for the holy family." That really sent me flying. I thought, "My gosh, I really am holy, aren't I?"

— M.B., New York

I went with Hilda and 50 others on the 30-day trip in December 1983 to India and Europe. We were at Lourdes, and it was freezing cold. I had seldom had a chance to be closely at Hilda's side, but that day, I was doing errands for her, finding out where things were and what was happening. She would say, "Come with me now," and I was, like, "Wow! This is great." We were up on the top grounds of the Cathedral, and I had to walk with her down a long set of winding stone stairs to get to the bottom.

Now during that whole trip going to India and here and there, I was having my moments with Hilda where I didn't exactly see eye to eye. It wasn't exactly the way I like to travel — too much of get here, get there, take this luggage, get on the train, get off the train, all this stuff was getting to be a little too much. And there we were walking down the stairs, and she said, "Give me your hand." She held my arm and I held her arm and she said, "Now let's just get in step." And she did a little rhythmic skipping step, "tadum, tadum, tadum." It helped quite a lot. To this day I still remember that image of walking down the steps and getting in step with Hilda, with God and my true Self.

— B.F., New York

I wrote a note to Hilda in class asking her prayers for my roommate, whom I'll call "R." She was not consciously on a spiritual path and was complaining of constant neck pain. Hilda read my note and asked me to bring my friend to class the following week. Easier said than done -- R. is a homebody and sensitive soul. Subway rides from Brooklyn to Manhattan for work had caused her such discomfort, anxiety, and strange physical sensations that her father had been driving her to work for a few years.

Weeks went by, and R. still refused to come to class, even with a ride. Well, Hilda isn't stopped so easily! She introduced herself to R. in a dream and served her tea. R. did not know that Hilda served tea to her houseguests in the waking world. Shortly after that, R. had a dream that she and her dad were in a traffic jam in the Brooklyn Battery tunnel. Hilda appeared out of nowhere and said to R.: "You don't have to go this way any more." Very soon after, she got a job in Brooklyn that is a short bus ride from her home. Thank you, Hilda, for looking after life's smallest details with such love!

— J.L., New York

Hilda' presence and ability to make a difference in one's life transcends time, body, mind, space and emotions. My life was never the same after she touched me in 1970. Where her hand had been on my chest and forehead, there glowed a light in each place within me. I never saw that light again, but during the next 18 years, each meeting with Hilda was equally profound and uplifting. Since her passing, she shows up in my dreams about every five or six months, giving me a lesson and a jolt of love and power. She'll come three times during one week, and then I won't see her again for another five or six months, while I digest what she gave me.

— A.F., New York

We were all with Hilda at Glastonbury, where there is a special fountain that was sacred to the Druids, the Chalice Well. It has a wall and a garden, and we did a little ceremony with the water and everyone drank it. When we got back to the hotel after being at the well, Hilda realized that she had lost a little stone that someone had given her the day before at Stonehenge. All of a sudden, something came over me and I said, "Hilda, I'll find it for you." Something in me said, "I need a young man without reproach." So I looked around and there was Brad, and so I said, "Brad, come with me." And so off we went to the garden. It all seemed very simple.

We got there and there's like a million stones. We started looking around everywhere, and we found nothing. What to do? All of a sudden down the hill came this extraordinary looking woman with a scarf over her head. I still remember her marvelous green eyes. She came in without a word and took the cup and went to the fountain. She got the water and gave it to Brad. Brad didn't know what to do. I said, "Drink it!" So he drank it. And she gave it to me, and I drank it. She didn't say anything else. She turned about and she left.

We went back to the fountain and there on the wall was the stone that Hilda had lost. Now that was extraordinary! Well, we were enchanted with ourselves. We took the stone and we rushed out to find Hilda. "Hilda! Hilda! We found the stone!" We told her the story, and she got furious. She said, "Haven't I taught you anything?!" The point was that with any out-of-the-ordinary being, we should always say silently three times "I challenge you in the name of Jesus" to make sure they aren't negative. And I had not challenged this woman. That critical lesson to use discrimination has always stayed with me. Of course, she kept the stone!

— A.N., New York

Hilda had the subtlety and delicacy to teach vast lessons in the simplest of life's happenings. In 1984, a group of us traveled with Hilda in England, and on the bus, I began praying that I would get to sit next to Hilda at lunch. My prayer came true. As I sat down across her, my mind could only imagine the words of wisdom that would flow from her divine lips... There are not too many foods I hate. Unfortunately, tomato juice is one of them.

After I sat down, Hilda looked at me with a slight smile on her face and handed me her glass of tomato juice. I probably turned several shades of red. "You don't have to drink it, dear," she said. My mind raced: Could I really fail a test with my teacher over a glass of tomato juice? I felt the fear flowing through me. I knew her teachings on mastery, on overcoming likes and dislikes, but somehow it seemed easier listening to a lecture on the subject than to actually drink that awful red liquid in front of me. But I did drink the juice that day. In drinking it, across from Hilda, I felt a little freer inside.

Some little part of me opened. I haven't had a glass of it in the 10 years since, but somehow it doesn't matter. The simplicity of that lesson is still potent in my life. Partly it was the love she conveyed to me; partly it was the humor of the whole event; and partly it was the understanding she had of me and all my fears.

— B.B., Connecticut

I met Hilda just as she returned from India. It was right before Christmas. A girl I new invited me to her house because she was having a few (very few, she specified) people over to her East Side apartment where she was going to serve a small buffet for a lady that had just arrived from India and was going to show a film of Sai Baba. Even though I had been meditating and doing yoga for well over a year with Yogi Dinkar, who was part of and later a split from Maharishi Mahesh Yoga Transcendental Meditation group, I didn't know who Sai Baba was. Yogi Dinkar had returned to India and I was kind of lost and praying for guidance.

There were very few people indeed at the party. The film was shown and Hilda spoke afterwards. I was in heaven. I had no idea what would happen from then on, but while people were going to the table to serve themselves, Hilda was sitting in a small room right off the living room and I just went, sat next to her and asked if there was a chance that she could possibly teach me. She said to come to her house the first Friday of the New Year at 6:00 p.m. I asked, What was I supposed to bring? (I might have been thinking initiation fees, as they were doing in New York at the time.) She answered, "An open heart."

So I went on the appointed date, we meditated in her bedroom, where she had a sofa bed that was closed to receive visitors. We sat on the floor. There were maybe five or six of us. Hilda sat on a small children's chair. She talked a little, we sang, meditated and I thought I had just gotten off the "local" and gone on to the "express." I immediately felt the connection between Hilda and St. Therese (Little Flower). With my eyes closed, I could see Hilda moving in the little space that was left in the room with her arms open and moving them in circles, as she usually did. Except that I had never seen her doing it. And from her hands I could see rose petals falling...

As time went on we moved the meetings from her bedroom to the living room, until the living room became too crowded and there were people filling the length of the hallway to the very front door. Latecomers had a hard time squeezing in. One night I was sitting right in front of her and she raised her hand and said that due to the fact that we couldn't all fit in there anymore, one side of the room, which she pointed, would skip the following Friday, and only the other side would come and then skip the Friday after that. I was sitting right in the middle, so I figured, as brokenhearted as I was, that I would join one of the two groups. However, as we were leaving the apartment that night, Hilda put her right hand on my heart and said: "You come every Friday, because you are looking for God."

From then on we all know what happened: the meetings got moved around until they finally settled for a while at St. Luke's in Greenwich Village (Lucky me, that was just a few blocks from where I lived). Then we got moved around again, mainly because of space, and we finally settled at St. John the Divine. It wasn't much later that I had to leave the apartment in the Village and I really couldn't afford the move. Besides, since I shared that apartment, it was really big and I was wondering if I would end up in some kind of a dump.

But not so! A sculptor friend of mine had left the city to live in the country and she had less and less use for the apartment that she used as a studio in the Upper West Side while she was living at El Dorado Towers. So she thought it would be a good idea if I moved in there, rent free, until I could afford it. The apartment was the same size as the one I had in Greenwich Village. Except that here, I was living by myself. And the address on West 108th St. was six blocks from Hilda's and 4 blocks from St. John the Divine. When Hilda came to visit for the first time to bless the apartment I couldn't wait for her to get there and see it. After the meditation she just said: "God takes good care of you." I lived in that apartment until I moved to Mexico in '81.

More experiences that come to mind: A dear friend of mine had given himself to alcohol and drugs. I could see it coming for a long time and I could see how helpless one becomes in trying to avoid the inevitable in a case like his. He eventually moved out of New York, I had stopped seeing him for quite a while. He wrote a couple of times and I could see his life just falling apart. He finally ended up in a Rehabilitation Center in the Midwest. One morning I woke up from a dream in which this fellow was trying to reach me on the phone, and I , in the dream, was trying to reach him also. As soon as I got up, the phone rang . It was he. He had just received notice that his father had died, he couldn't handle it and he said he knew I was the only person he could talk to. With God's (and Hilda's) blessing he was finally cured and left the Center to start a new life in Florida.

On his way down from Minnesota, he stopped in New York to see me. We made a dinner date with some friends in a restaurant and then we stayed there after everyone had left and we talked and talked. We left the restaurant and walked towards Central Park and we talked and talked and sat on one of the benches at the edge of the park and we talked, went into a bar, we both had cokes and talked so more. Almost towards morning, I walked him to his hotel. We chatted a little more and, as it was beginning to dawn, I took a cab home. When I arrived at the apartment, it was just about 6:00 a.m. Michael Swerdlow had been living there too for a while. Ever since I began taking frequent trips to India. As I walked in, Michael said: "Hilda just called, she wanted to know where you were, because she hadn't found you in the ethers."" Of course," I said," I didn't sleep last night." And went to the phone to explain to Hilda what had happened.

As a student of Hilda, I never believed in working on developing certain powers. I understood fully that powers develop by themselves if you follow certain disciplines and strive for perfection in the love and omnipresence of God. I was so glad to find out that you don't have to be a saint to have miracles happen and so sad to see the way that we humans overlook miracles and called them by other names, such as luck or coincidence. Some miracles are just natural laws that we are not being able to reach or understand. It is really what Hilda called "God in action." Therefore. we never studied telepathy, or did any kind of exercises to achieve that sense, or whatever it is that is called, but here is an example. What would you call it? There might be some "kids" around who would still remember this.

Hilda was sitting in her living room one late afternoon with a few of her kids. I don't remember what it was that was being discussed, but Hilda said that I would know something about whatever it was she said she wanted to talk to me so she started calling out my name, asking me to call. I was walking on Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan. I happened to pass by a phone booth and the idea came into my head to call Hilda. All of this happened very quickly because I went right to the phone booth and started looking into my pockets for change. All of a sudden, a passerby stopped and asked me, "What do you need?" I said, "I need a dime to make a phone call." He said "Here," handed me a dime and walked away. I called Hilda and whoever answer the phone said very joyously: "It's Lionel!" I could hear the laughter and the cheering, but I couldn't really figure out was going on until Hilda got on the phone and explained.

— L.F., Mexico

As a student of Hilda's in the late '70's and early '80's, I am more than ecstatic to have found her website today. What a delight to have this connection established!

Stories about Hilda? My whole life is a Hilda story. She has profoundly influenced my life and in turn, those of the people I meet. My kids have known Hilda without meeting her because of what she has given me. Any religious ceremony or activity I find myself attending is viewed from the perspective of Hilda's uniquely ecumenical training. Her manner of teaching, the depth and reality of her love of God, her fun with God and the world are inspirational even yet.

When I heard of Hilda's passing, I could hear her 'yahoo-ing' across the universe in her freedom. Despite the tears that fell, I couldn't help but smile.

— R.F.

Although I never met Hilda while she was in physical form, I am always profoundly touched by by her books. Recently I was reading "Pioneers of the Soul," a compilation of Hilda's last teachings. by In one of her talks, she planted a seed in my heart and the seed sprouted and grew. Hilda was talking about the Divine within us, and suggested that we "Practice being God" and allow the Divine to see through our eyes, hear through our ears, think and act through us (not a new idea, but a very good reminder!!) I sat on the front porch and pondered this "Divinity within."

On a whim, I stood up and went to the porch railing and listened. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore a few blocks away. Oh Lord, listen, can you hear the waves! Please, use my ears and listen to your splendor. Together, He and I listened to the birds singing their morning song. We looked across the road and over to the railroad tracks and watched the Amtrak shuttle whiz by on its way to LA. I invited the Divine to look through my eyes and bless those silhouettes we saw in the early morning light. We watched the neighbor children walking to nearby bus stops and a jogger run by. We looked at the expanse of lawn, the colorful flowers in the flower bed, and the snail crawling up the wall of the house. We gazed down lovingly at two loyal dogs curled at our feet. Oh what a sweetness!! My heart felt light and full of love. I seemed to feel just a inkling of that Love God has for all His creation.

Hilda planted this seed and it grew and blossomed and brought me such joy that morning and all through the day as I tried to remember to let the Divine see through me, hear through me, speak through me, BE ME. Sai Baba tells us over and over that we ARE DIVINE. He calls us Premaswarupa, embodiments of love. Most of the time I forget to "Practice to be God", but on that glorious morning of practice, I experienced a little of that Divinity Within. Thank you Sai Baba! Thank you, sister Hilda, for teaching me from beyond.

— V.J.

I was in Hilda's apartment, and at the time I was suffering from an acute case of lead poisoning. Hilda walked into the kitchen where I was speaking with somebody and she said to me very sternly, "You, into the living room. I've got to talk to you." So I very gingerly walked into the living room fearing I was in trouble again, and I sat down at the table. Hilda walked in and sat down next to me. Then she took my hand in hers and said, "How did you get this terrible lead poisoning? I'm so worried about you. What are you doing about it? What do the doctors say?" It was her wont to not give power and energy to a sickness, rather to deny it, but here she was accepting it almost. And I told her, "It's not so bad. We're working on it. Don't worry." And the next thing I knew, she lay her head down on my hand and she started crying. And she's getting my hand all wet! I said, "Oh, don't cry, Hilda. It's not so bad." She lifted her head up, put her finger to her lips and said to me very sternly, "Sshh! Quiet! Don't talk!" And she put her head back in my hand and resumed her crying. A few weeks later, I was considerably improved.

— B.W., New York