NINA RUBINSTEIN ALONSO reminisces about the early days of Heartfulness in the West.
Shahjahanpur, India
I’d been in a gloomy mood when my husband Fernando suggested I try meditation with his friend Jim who lived nearby. He had been to India and met a guru named Babuji. From the first sitting I felt heart-connection. And I wondered where this had been all my life. But I still had questions, and wondered if the calm I felt meditating could be self-hypnosis or fantasy.
To be certain, I had to travel to Shahjahanpur and meet Babuji. Fernando came, too, and we spent hours with Babuji every day, spiritual energy flowing in a loving, pure atmosphere. There were no charges, not even for our meals or our room at the ashram, donations optional. During evening meditation the hall doors stayed open and we heard birds chirping as they fluttered to their nests in a high corner, a reminder of the physical world.
Dole, France
Hundreds of people are in a huge tent. Chariji scans the crowd then says, “Please start meditation.” I’m deeply absorbed until I hear buzzing, not sure where it’s coming from, suddenly I hear a yelp as if someone got stung or scared by a bee. Then silence continues until Chariji says “That’s all,” ending the sitting. Not sure what happened, I opened my eyes and notice everyone seems fine. The bee, or whatever it was, has gone.
Madras, India
Group meditation is on the second floor of a building in Madras. We’re seated close together but it’s comfortable, and I’m grateful to be with Chariji though still jet-lagged and fuzzy-headed from hours of travel. Meditation is deep until hollering starts from the building next door, people yelling, then clattering and pounding. Later we learn the racket was from construction, but it didn’t matter as I was so deeply absorbed, noise was happening but it didn’t disturb.
Manapakkam, India
Years later, we’re at the Babuji Memorial Ashram in Manapakkam, thousands of people in the hall, just settling into meditation when a loud microphone-amplified voice from a mosque nearby starts calling people to prayer, chants repeating on and on. Doesn’t matter, as we’re in another realm, meditation unbroken. The thought arises that we’re all reaching for the divine by various routes, wish everyone accepted differences, didn’t argue, didn’t hate each other, didn’t attack and murder over divergent paths, leaders, histories.
Copenhagen, Denmark and Munich, Germany
For weeks we meditated with Babuji and Chariji in a large house in Copenhagen, then came by train to Munich. But this living room is small, latecomers are seated outside in the garden as the weather is mild. After an especially deep sitting Sonia and I are in a nearby restaurant when my heart starts beating so intensely I can’t eat. I ask a trainer what it means, but he’s not sure. I get a chance to ask Chariji, and he looks at me with a deep gaze then says that what I’m feeling is an overflow of love for the Master, beloved Babuji which resonates, feels true. After a few hours the intensity of the heartbeat softens. I always feel heart pangs during sittings, sense the flow of Transmission.
Paris, France
We’re at a university auditorium, and Babuji, elderly and frail, needs assistance walking to his chair on the right side of the stage. Chariji’s sitting in the center preparing to give the sitting when I see ripples of light moving through the air, visible waves of energy like ripples flowing from Babuji’s heart to Chariji, sense that these ribbons of heart light will be transmitted to us during the sitting. I close my eyes and the meditation is intense, so pure and absorbing that I forget what I saw before it started. I only remember those ripples of light years later during another meditation with Chariji, a glimpse of what’s being given to us.
My Ballet Studio, Mass. Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts
We’ve been meditating here Sunday mornings for many years, a rectangular basement space set up for ballet, simple and quiet. A few arrive late, some leave early but meditation is undisturbed by mortal motions. When Covid hits in March 2020, I’m forced to close the studio after teaching there for twenty-six years.
Lake View Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts
Construction noise starts early, bulldozers hauling earth in the yard next door. Even after decades of meditation I feel intense emotions while dealing with problems I don’t know how to solve, fears about what’s next. I’m unsure how I'll maintain this house that’s in my name, partly because Fernando already owned another property, mostly because he’s generous and loving. But now he’s gravely ill with lung cancer, enduring years of chemo treatments, and I fear losing him.
In 1985, Chariji visits and gives group sittings in our living room, but he notices my anxiety and gives me an individual sitting in my small upstairs meditation room. While walking outside I point out flowers called Forget Me Nots, and he says they’re spiritual reminders of constant remembrance. Later that afternoon he strolls down my driveway carrying a stack of pizzas as he heard that whoever was supposed to coordinate lunch for our Cambridge group forgot. Smiling with loving generosity, he hands each of us a slice.
Before leaving he asks to meet my husband who’s been resting in bed all day, and Fernando agrees, slowly making his way downstairs. Chariji shakes his hand and thanks him for his hospitality, and I feel Transmission flowing with love and compassion. Fernando’s love and sensitivity brought me to meditation years earlier, and when he passed away the following year, July 1986, Chariji stayed in touch with me, told me to write, answered my letters with immense kindness and generosity. He told me that meditation sustains us, “change after change.” About the spectrum of human pain Babuji used to say, “So suffering.”
A few years later, Chariji came to New York and we met at Kamlesh Patel’s home on Staten Island, the dear one we now call Daaji, guide of Heartfulness. A small group gathered around his dining room table then, but these days our numbers are enormous in Kanha Shanti Vanam and elsewhere as the Mission keeps growing.
