—
Mr. Reddy kept a small farmhouse for himself in a secluded spot near the forest a few miles from Chandepalle, and it was here that Kamala began to spend most of her time in the months following the incident. Away from the prying eyes of family, she and Mr. Reddy were able to speak openly about Kamala’s identity and the details of her spiritual experiences. “She knew she could tell me everything because I believed her,” Mr. Reddy told Adilakshmi. “She could trust me. She knew I would do everything I could to help, protect, and prepare her.” Kamala described traveling through astral worlds, encountering divine beings, gods and goddesses, as well as “supramentals” with elongated bodies and translucent skin. “Those were the happiest days of my life,” Mr. Reddy said. “Sometimes, Mother would wake me in the middle of the night to tell me where she had been and what she was doing. She would sit at the end of my bed and tell me everything, what the gods had said to her, what lessons she had learned, what amazing and beautiful sights she had seen. So simply and with such childlike wonder. I came to understand who she is.”
Antamma and Veera were troubled by this unconventional friendship but did nothing to stop their daughter from spending all her time at the farmhouse. They were witnessing the fruition of the spiritual nature they’d seen in Kamala since childhood: the trances, fits, and strange behavior. She told Mr. Reddy that she had been visited, since the age of three, by “different lights” that became her teachers. Kamala had never needed her parents’ guidance, and now, when Antamma and Veera visited the farmhouse, it was as if they weren’t even related. On days when Kamala was in samadhi, Antamma and Veera were instructed to sit in the front yard, along with the other visitors from the neighborhood. According to Mother Meera, these trances became open-eyed in time, as Kamala learned to maintain this state of intense concentration in the midst of ordinary life.
—
As these masterful powers revealed themselves, Mr. Reddy became ever more convinced that Kamala belonged in a spiritual community where her presence could be fully appreciated. He dreamt of introducing her to the elders of the Aurobindo ashram. Since the death of Sweet Mother, there had been no spiritual leader in Pondicherry, and Mr. Reddy believed that Kamala could fill that role, despite her youth and the ashramites’ loyalty to their deceased guru. Blinded by his own affections, Mr. Reddy was unaware of how very naïve this notion was. He was a man on a mission, having become persona non grata after leaving his family in Chandepalle, where he was universally mocked as a heartsick buffoon. “People say I gave up everything for her,” he told Adilakshmi. “But this has been my greatest joy.”
The plan to introduce Kamala to the ashram elders in Pondicherry began to take shape. First, he would take Kamala to a sanctuary place for a time of preparation, nearly two hundred miles away in Mahbubnagar. Then they would travel to the Aurobindo ashram, where he hoped his teenage protégée would be recognized as the great soul she was, and welcomed with open arms. Like a mother fussing over her debutante daughter before her presentation at court, Mr. Reddy worried over Kamala’s appearance, outfitting the girl in silk saris and khussa (homemade embroidered shoes), placing gold bangles on her slender wrists and jasmine blossoms in her hair. He instructed her in how to eat Western-style and to properly address strangers. These ministrations were mostly unnecessary; not only was Kamala self-assured and naturally graceful, but her innate ability to read other people far surpassed Mr. Reddy’s. She apparently enjoyed his loving attention and indulged Mr. Reddy’s need to play her protector, something she would do until the end of his life.
Finally satisfied with Kamala’s progress, Mr. Reddy took her by train to Pondicherry on February 28, 1974, settling them into a borrowed apartment near the ashram. Strolling along Pondy’s immaculate streets, Kamala told Mr. Reddy that she felt at home for the first time in her life. This experience of homecoming was confirmed when they visited the tomb shared by Sweet Mother and Sri Aurobindo. There, Kamala was personally welcomed by the mystic couple in a vision she later shared with Mr. Reddy:
I went to the tomb and did pranam. I could see clearly how the bodies of Sweet Mother and Sri Aurobindo were laid in the tomb. I saw Sri Aurobindo as a young boy surrounded by members of his family. And then I saw Sweet Mother and Sri Aurobindo waking up, as if from a trance. Sweet Mother walked to a chair under a tree in the ashram and sat down. I ran to her. Sweet Mother caressed me, took me into her lap, and blessed me. She handed me the flower “Prosperity.”
Mr. Reddy began to introduce Kamala to his ashram friends, who were impressed by the teenager’s quiet presence but unmoved in their loyalty to Sweet Mother. The only exception was Adilakshmi Olati, a well-born young woman who had been Mr. Reddy’s ward at the ashram. Adilakshmi had been eager to meet the mysterious farm girl who’d so captivated her mentor in Chandepalle. Like Mr. Reddy, Adilakshmi had come to Pondicherry against the wishes of her family and with a fervent desire for spiritual life. Having finished an MA in philosophy, Adilakshmi was bound for a suitable marriage when, at nineteen, she slipped out of her parents’ house and made her way to the railway station in her hometown of Madanapalle. Adilakshmi intended to catch a train to the city of Poona, where she hoped to become a disciple of a famous guru there. At the station, she handed her money to the clerk at the ticket window and was “accidentally” given a train ticket to Pondicherry when the clerk “misheard” the destination. In a movie script, this plot twist would be too coincidental to be believable in light of what came later. Yet according to Adilakshmi, this is precisely what took place.
In her book, The Mother, Adilakshmi describes this convergence of unlikely circumstances. “I had to find God or die,” she writes. Years before meeting Kamala, Adilakshmi had intimations of encountering a Divine Mother to whom she could dedicate her life. “I had heard her name before I met her and felt, for no reason I can explain, that she was very close to my heart,” Adilakshmi continues. “We in India do not think of the gods and goddesses as far away. They are all around us. They walk our streets, they come to us in dreams.” On the afternoon Mr. Reddy brought Kamala to Adilakshmi’s bungalow for tea, she recognized the girl immediately as some form of divine being. “Her spiritual power was obvious to me,” Adilakshmi explained. “I never had a single doubt.” This devotion has never wavered, in fact. “People always ask me, how do you know that Mother is divine?” she goes on in her book. “Well, I have lived with her for thirty years! I see her sometimes for twenty-two hours of the day. I am not a stupid, love drunk person. I watch, I observe. I know she is absolutely unlike me. Do you imagine I would give up my life to her had I not known?” Considering Adilakshmi’s hardheaded demeanor, the answer would be a definitive no.
Though Mr. Reddy was eager to introduce Kamala to the ashram elders, cautious responses from his cohorts in Pondicherry suggested that such a meeting was premature. Instead, he decided to send Kamala to a finishing school at a hostel for orphan girls near Hyderabad. Though she had no earthly desire to study, or any need for such “finishing,” Kamala once again allowed him to play Pygmalion to her Galatea. These eighteen months at the girls’ hostel would comprise Kamala’s only formal education (though it was Adilakshmi who would later teach her to read and write). Cramped by the school’s curriculum, Kamala endured classes in sewing, cooking, and home economics in order to please Mr. Reddy. She seems to have been popular with the headmistress and her fellow students, and was a quick study, but she kept to herself at the hostel, much as she’d done back home in Chandepalle.
In fact, Kamala was about to embark on an education of a very different order. On December 12, 1974, she had an experience in which her body was introduced to an intensified form of spiritual energy. This is how she described it to Mr. Reddy. “I was not in good health for ten days and did not know what to do,” Kamala reported.
Then I slept and heard a voice say, “Ask for the darshan of Paramatman.” I did not know that Paramatman was the Supreme Lord. My heart drove me on and a Mother appeared to me and as
ked me, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Mother,’ I answered, ‘I heard a voice and I am going to Paramatman.’ The Mother didn’t say anything.
At dawn I woke up. I was not well. I slept again from seven till midnight. My whole body was shaking with pain and fear. Then I heard a voice as loud as thunder, as if it were being made by thousands of people. When I woke up, I saw I was alone, and said, ‘Paramatman, I don’t know who you are and I have never even heard your name. Don’t trouble me like this because if I stay in this condition I’ll die in a few days.’ I waited to see if the pain would return.
After six a.m., I saw Paramatman’s dazzling light. At eight a.m., I woke up and my body felt much better. After this experience, I knew why my body became weak and tired. It was because it knew that Paramatman’s light was going to enter in.
This appearance of the Paramatman Light signaled Kamala’s readiness to offer the light to others in darshan, which she did for the first time after leaving the hostel and returning with Mr. Reddy to Chandepalle. One day while sitting outside the farmhouse, Kamala was asked by a passing neighbor if she would give him her blessing. Kamala instructed the man to kneel in front of her; then she took his head between her fingers, held them there for a minute or so, released his head, and stared for another minute into his eyes. Later asked about the origin of these gestures, the same ones she uses in darshan today, Mother Meera says simply, “They came.”
Not long after, Kamala had a dream in which she was visited by the goddess Durga—among the most powerful female deities, the wife of Lord Shiva in Hindu scriptures—who explained, “The girl Kamala is henceforth to be known as Mother Meera.” This instruction came with an additional message to be passed along to Mr. Reddy: he was not to leave her side for a moment. “Mother would go into samadhi for fourteen hours without a break,” he said. “She would eat and sleep very little.”
Her true work in the world, as Mother Meera, had begun.
2
WHAT IS DARSHAN?
QUESTION: In darshan, do you always use the Light to do your work, or do you also work in some other way?
MOTHER MEERA: It is through the Light alone that my help comes.
Darshan is a Sanskrit word meaning “presence” or “manifestation of the Divine.” In India, darshan is most commonly used to describe being in the company of a holy person, an encounter that focuses, heightens, and intensifies the spiritual consciousness of the devotee. “The constant flow of love and light which emanates from [great beings] makes an irresistible appeal to the inner feeling of the aspirant, even when he receives no verbal instruction from them,” explained Meher Baba, another self-proclaimed avatar (1894–1969). Silent himself for the last thirty-plus years of his life, Meher Baba used only an alphabet board to communicate. “Man has had enough words,” said that great Parsi master. “I came not to teach but to awaken.”
Mother Meera communicates through silence as well, speaking directly to the hearts of those she meets, cutting through the chattering, turbulent mind. “In silence, you can receive more,” she assures us. “The true experience of bliss is beyond words.”
While the darshan ritual appears simple from the outside, the process itself, as Mother Meera describes it, is surgically complex. When she holds our heads in her hands, this is what she claims to be doing:
On the back of the human being is a white line running up from the toes to the head. In fact, two lines start from the toes, rise along the legs, join at the base of the spine and then become a single line reaching to the top of the head. The line is thinner than a hair and has some knots in it, here and there, which divine personalities help to undo. When I hold your head, I am untying these knots. I am also removing other kinds of obstacles from your spiritual practice.
Directing this Light through her fingertips, Mother Meera describes accelerating our spiritual progress by untangling these energetic knots during darshan. With these obstructions removed, the light is free to rise in the body. “When I touch your head, the light moves upward in the white line,” she explains.
It indicates, like a meter, the development of your sadhana. When there is no progress, the light moves downwards along the line, showing the degree to which your sadhana has deteriorated. When the light is continuous from the toes to the top of the head, the person may have many experiences and visions, although some people have visions and experiences without this white line. When the line gets to the top of the head, people have the Paramatman darshan. When the line has gone above the head, then there is a constant relation to Paramatman.
When Mother Meera releases our heads, she stares directly into our eyes. This second part of darshan appears to be more exploratory in nature.
I am looking into every part of your being. I am looking at everything within you to see where I can help, where I can give healing and power. At the same time, I am giving Light to every part of your being. I am opening every part of yourself to the Light. When you are open, you will feel and see this clearly.
Mother Meera’s darshan prompts drastically different reactions from different people. Responses range from sublime to neurotic, peaceful to disturbing, grateful to angry, liberating to confused. I heard three first-time attendees at darshan tell dramatically contrasting stories over a two-day period. A thirty-five-year-old bank teller from Heidelberg reported that when she looked into Mother Meera’s eyes, it felt as if she were “drowning in a sea of color and light.” An American attorney nearing seventy, wearing an Hermès scarf and diamond earrings, admitted that encountering Mother Meera had roused her darkest shadows. “As if I were smeared with something terrible,” she said. “All this shame came up to the surface. I went back to my hotel room and sobbed afterward, feeling like she’d seen the monster in me.” (The second night, she reported being “filled with love.”) A forty-two-year-old chemist from Haifa, decked out in dreadlocks, a yarmulke, and an Eminem T-shirt, told me that he felt split in two. “My lower half was all lit up, energized. Actually aroused,” he said. “But my upper half felt like I’d been hit with a brick. Especially my head.”
Others, like myself, tend to feel very little during darshan yet have extreme aftereffects (the space between my ears seems to vibrate like an empty barn after a tornado). These responses to darshan are wholly subjective and have nothing to do with any difference in what Mother Meera is offering. “Reactions depend on the children who take, not on the Mother who gives,” she points out. “Darshan is completely impersonal on my side. I give what is needed.” Mother advises us not to pay too much attention to our subjective fantasies: “Try not to impose your difficulties on me or project on me your own hidden problems. There is no such thing as a bad darshan.” Her only suggestions for optimizing the experience are openness and receptivity.
Darshan invites us to practice what Sufis call “lunar” attention, rather than our usual “solar” attention. The lunar view is more trusting and relaxed than the solar, where energy is beamed out from the eyes to project power and dominance. Lunar attention relaxes our defenses and allows us to welcome the outside world in. Such openness can seem counterintuitive in a culture where power is prized and vulnerability undervalued; when you’re led to believe there’s a lot to hide, the prospect of being seen completely can seem terrifying. Nonetheless, it remains our deepest human longing to be seen without judgment for who we are, recognized for our essential goodness, free of shame and self-defense, exposed, accepted, and blessed without condition.
There’s an enlightening parable told in India that illustrates this universal longing. The insecure seeker is compared to a child sobbing in his mother’s lap. The mother strokes the child’s head and rocks it against her breast with infinite love and infinite patience. Finally, the child stops crying and gazes up into the luminous eyes of the mother who is holding him. The child feels her radiance and begins to sense, for the very first time, who and what he actually is, the progeny of this great mother, joined to her in body and spirit, never abandoned and never alone. When she s
miles, the child learns to smile, too. And in that moment of silent love, he knows that he has found his way home.
3
LEAVING INDIA
When Kamala arrived in Pondicherry for the second time, as Mother Meera, her fame began to spread. Dr. Bhose, the ashram physician, was called in to examine her and was so impressed by the fifteen-year-old that he suggested the ashram leaders come together to meet her for themselves. This interview took place in the home of Arabinda Basu, a close disciple of Aurobindo’s, and was attended by a handful of silver-haired seniors wearing spotless white kurtas and dhotis. As Adilakshmi reports in her book, The Mother, a reporter for the national news agency UNI was also present.
At first, the elders were primarily interested in Mother Meera’s visionary encounters with Sweet Mother and Sri Aurobindo. “Do you feel their presence always?” Basu asked. “Or do you feel that they appear before you on occasion?”
“Always,” Mother Meera said.
“How do you know that they are Sweet Mother and Sri Aurobindo?”
“They introduced themselves to me,” she told them.
“And what are their forms?”
Mother Meera described them as “resembling their physical forms” but “full of energy and light which take different forms.” Her answers seemed to arise with no forethought or conjecture. There was no attempt to convince her audience that she was telling the truth. Startled by her focus and self-assurance, the men went on to ask Mother Meera questions about her own life. “Why do you not get rid of all your physical troubles by higher forces?” one of them wondered, knowing of her bodily symptoms.
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