Pranapratishta in Skanda Vale and Scotland, June 2023
By Linda Abrol, Netherlands
Looking around at Heathrow Airport, I had a strong feeling that I should enter this particular restaurant. I was looking for Hemant and Priti and the whole Mohanji UK ‘gang’ that had passed passport control sometime before me. I had met them before checking in for my flight. I had had some problem with the machine since the name on my ticket didn’t exactly match the name on my passport.
Somebody else had booked my ticket and had, by mistake, filled in my married name. Hemant had kindly persuaded me not to ask at the counter but try the second option, a passport scan instead. It worked! Without him, I most probably wouldn’t have experienced what I was going to experience right now, for I would have surely gotten into trouble at the counter.
Walking through the restaurant, I heard my name and looked straight into the beaming face of Eric from Canada. Subhasree sat opposite him at the table and said: ‘Mohanji saw you walking just now, and he mentioned it to us.’ Mohanji was sitting there! I looked at him, and in my excitement to see him, I forgot all about my pranaams. I heard him say to Thea, who was standing close: ‘Find a bigger table so that all of us can sit.’ He immediately made me feel welcome. Otherwise, I would have quickly said hello and left to allow them their privacy.
This was not a small thing for me, although Mohanji says everything very casually. With one sentence, he cured six months of pain and loneliness. In December 2022, I moved in with my sister and stayed there until this journey. Apart from our trip to Shirdi in January 2023, when we had a revival, I only saw my husband occasionally. I had to make this move, for it was unbearable for me to stay at home continuously.
May everyone be happy, and may there be only winners, was my prayer. This marriage needed some big-time cleansing. The universe created this magical chance just when I needed it most and when I prayed intensely for a solution. The very next day, after my prayer, my sister told me she had decided to leave her apartment in the city to be out in nature for a few months. She invited me to stay in her house for the time being. I was extremely surprised and grateful for the opportunity – thanking Mohanji with all my heart – but extremely sad at the same time. Anna’s house was empty, and so was my heart.
Although I had faced much more extreme situations than this in my life, I had never felt so isolated, lonely, desperate, doubtful and locked out as in these months. I had a deeper existential fear than after the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness in June 2022. At that time, I had a lot of support. But this time, it seemed my best friends had forgotten me, and my near ones unanimously deemed it fit to find some or the other fault with me.
Apart from my dear sister, I couldn’t explain much about my situation to others, for I am not the type to throw mud. And if I had to explain a bit, I tried to stick to talking about my own feelings, challenges and my understanding of the situation. If I said a bit too much to anyone about the truth as I perceived it, I deeply regretted it afterwards. I didn’t want to be judgmental. I knew righteous indignation was sanctified quicksand for a sadhaka.
Familiar issues – even the ones I had faced courageously and successfully in the past – of abandonment, fear of judgment and anger and a feeling of not belonging reared their head but multiplied by a thousand times in strength and duration. No matter how much I witnessed my emotions and thoughts, how many mantras I repeated, how much vastly cleansing work I had done in the past, and how much I remembered all the wisdom of Mohanji and the Masters, I couldn’t help but feel lonely and misunderstood. There was no end to it.
As a topping of the misery cake, all the physical symptoms of the life-threatening autoimmune disorder that I was miraculously cured of in autumn 2022 came running back. But actually, I could totally accept the concept of dying, but living without feeling loved and understood… I simply couldn’t stand it anymore.
Why did all this happen? Mohanji tells us not to analyse. But I know for sure that I had given him permission to cleanse me completely when I walked my Kailash Yatra simply around his body in October 2022, during Empowered 5 in Serbia. Since then, my life has become a rollercoaster, and I had nowhere to cling to, identify with, hold on to, go for comfort or security, no job to distract me, no duty to perform. I was nothing in my eyes, and I meant nothing to anyone. Which was not true, but it felt extremely true.
My energy frequency crashed to extreme lows. When I thought I had seen the bottom of the well, someone would show up out of nowhere, finding another fault with me until one day, I relaxed in the midst of my despair, feeling all alone in a dangerous world, and this time a shift happened. I simply accepted. What if no one wants to walk with me? What if no one understands me? What if no one will ever understand me and sees who I really am or support who I want to be, not seeing my pure intentions? So be it! If I have to walk alone, I will walk alone.
No one understood me forty years back when I was the only one eating healthy food, doing yoga, restraining from eating meat and hardly drinking any alcohol. Why would anyone understand me now that I have chosen an even more extreme path? And being very, very sensitive, I couldn’t even understand myself. Let me walk alone, then. So be it! This gave me strength.
In his ashram in Bangalore, during our last visit in November, I had asked Mohanji: “I don’t want to take my karma by simply running away from my relationship. What should I do?” I explained to him how I felt.
Mohanji replied: “Grounding. The base of the tree should be spirituality. Spirituality should be the only option for you.” He knew that was my only desire. “No matter what happens, it may rain, the wind may blow, and it may be hot or cold, but the tree stays.” I asked him how I could see that practically with the storm and all.
Mohanji replied: “You have taken birth. One decision. No other matters. Nothing is touching you. Just like the tree. Rain or sun …”
“Just acceptance?”
Mohanji: “Emotions are all temporary. They only attack you when you are awake to it. Imagine Sita, for example, is shouting at you (he looked at Sita next to me), and you are asleep, then you won’t be able to hear her. It is like that. We are deaf to the situation and keep smiling. So that it doesn’t bother you, stay grounded. The issue of marriage is ownership. Ownership is the trap. Marriage should be purposeful. For a purpose. One common purpose and two people walking together.
See these girls; they walk with me (Mohanji pointed at the rooms where Milica and Thea were). I always tell them, “It won’t be easy for you. Infatuation, imagination, and hallucination won’t work here. Clarity works. If, in this lifetime, you want to attain liberation, it will happen. But that should be the only purpose. Existence is the only purpose of the tree.
Life is your only purpose. Life gives you different experiences. It changes time. It changes your age. It changes your experience pattern, structure, constitution, and character traits. Rain is happening, thunder is happening, etc., but the tree is stable because it is rooted in the ground, not in activity. Activity is for remembrance and alignment. Spirituality means: what you are. What is inside you. This is the ground which is stable. Be rooted there. Whether you like it or not, activity-wise, the tree is stable.”
“And what about the storm?”
Mohanji: “Silence. If the wind uproots you, if you can get up, get up. A relationship is temporary. I am talking about permanence.”
This took my focus away from feeling ‘I am hurt’, and I decided to simply see if a mutual focus would reappear and at the same time keep up or build up the ‘strong and steady tree mode’.
If the last six months were the test for Mohanji’s teachings from November 2022, I didn’t quite live up to the mark. But since failures are the stepping stones to success, I will see them as mere experiences and refrain from whys and judgments.
After arriving in Skanda Vale on Wednesday, Jana, Britta (my travelling companions from Germany), and I settled in our assigned yurt in the silence of the magical valley. We dedicated ourselves to our assigned tasks the next day, and the preparatory ceremonies for the Pranapatishta took place on Monday. Mohanji was invited as the chief guest and, under the guidance of five outstanding pandits, he participated in the puja in the Yaga Sala, a huge tent next to the new Shirdi Temple where the life-size Shirdi Sai Baba statue would be placed and consecrated.
When Mohanji got up after the puja, I stood in the double row of people he walked through. I did not expect to get my long-awaited Mohanji hug at such an intense high energy frequency time, so I was not prepared for the fact that when he saw me, he wrapped his safe arms around me and pulled me close to him in the warmest hug ever. Someone took a picture, and all the emotions of the past six months can be read on my face. The pain gave way to a moment of bliss, coming home and relief – all visible on my face simultaneously. I am overjoyed with this picture!
I had no questions during this 10-day journey and was just happy. That happiness continued seamlessly in Scotland, where the stunningly beautiful MCB (Mohanji Centre of Benevolence) of Mohanji Foundation UK was sanctified with the consecration of Ganesha, Dattatreya and Shirdi Baba statues. In Scotland, I especially enjoyed the family feeling, the sense of belonging, and being allowed to do seva together – with Mohanji and Devi always nearby and very accessible in our midst.
It was as if the whole ten days journey was the degree that came my way after a long and difficult exam. Whereas the study period had involved exclusion, lovelessness and judgment, the ‘degree’ was filled with unity, recognition and warmth. Well, if life is a continuous journey, let me not get stuck with the idea that I have got some degree. Tomorrow there will be another challenge.
During the Kriya Intensive in July 2023, Mohanji said (forgive me if I don’t repeat his words literally): ‘If you are in the depth of despair, during your most trial times, don’t expect your friends or loved ones to stand by you and hold your hand. They may not.’ That was my ultimate confirmation. When you are in one of the dark nights of the soul, you are alone. The truth lies in accepting it. But everything will come back to you when the time is right.
|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI ||
Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 27th July 2023
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