I grew up in a family of yogis. Back in the 70’s when yoga and meditation was only just beginning to be the thing my mother and father (separately it should be noted) came across Ananda Marga Yoga and Meditation through classes in the universities, and met the yogic monk who was bringing Ananda Marga meditation to Australia. They each got involved in it not just for the personal development side, but also because of the vision of doing something important for the world, and they got deeply involved, did their intensive basic training, visited the enlightened master in India and eventually got together and had me their first child. This was an important background to my growing up. From the beginning I was surrounded by a certain level of spiritual depth and wisdom, and saw things like meditation and yoga as being just normal things that adults did. It probably gave me a little bit of a softer landing into the physical reality than if I had been born into a more conventional family. I do not think that my parents are to blame or to thank for how I turned out. I believe that to a large extent I am to a large extent who I am simply because that is who I am – whether because of past lives, or the nature of my soul. One could go into deep discussions about the cause of people being different, and I do have some thoughts on the matter, but in the end it does not matter that much. The fact is that we are different, and we each have our talents and our gifts (and our difficulties as well). But for me being quite a sensitive soul it would have been much harder in less sensitive situation. I do give thanks for that solid foundation in my life.
As a baby I had colic – I cried a lot often unconsolably, and my mother suffered it. (It should be noted that I still cry very easily. Some things never change). But she does tell a story of how this issue as a baby was overcome. Personally I think a large part of my suffering must have been due to my sensitive emotional nature – the reason I think that is, because it is still to a large part the reason for most of my suffering in life, and surely even as a baby I would have been sensitive to the imperfect nature of the energies and emotions being thrown around. So my mother got worn down by my crying and eventually at a meditation retreat gave me into the hands of one of her friends and went for a walk in the bush (please note that in Australia the bush means the forest – we don’t call it the forest because it is so dry as to be halfway to desert, but there are a lot of trees and plants, a kind of beautiful, but a little bit harsh natural environment.) She prayed to her spiritual master Ananda Murtii the founder of ananda marga – for help with me she said I can’t handle it anymore please help (Great spiritual masters are seen as being so close to God as to their not being much difference – God in human form – similar to how Christ is seen in the west – actually the idea of the Christ as the one that leads you to God the father is pretty much identical to the way Ananda Murtii is seen as Taraka Brahma – God the bridge that guides you to Nirguna Brahma the Divine void.) So my mother prayed and her prayers were answered. She says she felt the master’s presence walking beside her – not that she looked, but he seemed to be there, and he spoke to her and said “Do not worry about him he is mine to look after”. And as she surrendered that burden to him, and therefore in some way to God – she returned to find me no longer troubled and I did not cry in that same unconsolable way ever again.