I believe the greatest gift my mother gave me was to teach me full blown Hindi when I was just about 4-5 years old; so at an age when kids in my class grappled with learning to read and write Hindi alphabets in school I could rattle off difficult sanskrit rich pure Hindi not only in reading and writing form but could accurately understand it too.
I was just 7 years old when I first read Ramayan, the unabridged Tulsi Ramayan with translation, then went on to read quite a lot of Upnishads, Puranas, Mahabharat, Gita and several other religious texts. By the time I was out of my primary school I had fairly well understood some serious questions like what is life, why are we here,what is cycle of birth and death, what happens when we die etc etc. At age 9 I recieved Guru Diksha from a renowned spiritual person who had also given guru diksha to both my parents.
I was in class XI.
There was a police guard comprising of 2 police contables posted by the Police Department at our house for our security. One day I just bumped into friendship ( aquaintanceship) with one of the constables and I discovered he was a great spiritual sage sort of person. (I will refer to him as B here.) Apart from being very spiritual, selfless and religious, he also knew palmistry though followd a strange method of reading the lines which was neither the commonly known Hast Samudrik nor English palmistry. By looking at the lines he could tell exact map of one's house complete with number of rooms and stories and make some future prophesies which in my own experience have come true although I doubted them at that time.
Very soon we ( my elder sister and I ) grew very close to him. We would get up early in the morning finish our domestic chores and go to him to spend the whole day with him. He lived in a little tin shed at the farthest end of our house. He had a very sweet voice in which he sang various hymns and bhajans and shlokas and I loved to hear him sing.
Only a week had gone by.
We were in the habit of discussing spiritual or religious topics. He asked me if I knew about traveling through "sukshma sharir". ( I don't know how to write that in English but I'll try. In Indian spiritual science humans are supposed to have 2 bodies, "the Sthula" ( or fat or visible ) which we see and the "Sukshma" (or the minute) which we cannot see. The Sukshma body however has immense powers unlike the Sthula and is capable of doing anything, even tasks like flying, going into space, passing through solid objects, traveling long distance etc.) and I replied yes. He asked me to try. We both closed our eyes, concentrated on the object ( our house ) and soon found we both could see similar things. We both saw a woman in a dirty white saree wandering on our land and she rather furtively hid her face on my approaching and sped away. She who was perhaps ( because I am not sure )the hapless landowner who was a childless widow from whom papa had purchased the land. She had died after selling the land and was rumoured to be very sad.
The next morning when he was singing his routine bhajans I randomly concentrated and was amazed to see a hazy Lord Krishna present nearby,and actually faintly dancing by tapping His feet. I told him so but he could not see him.
2 days passed.
Girnar
It was a cold December night and we all sat in a group around a wood fire. My sister, brother and mummy were also present. He suggested we both take a long distance travel now. He instructed me to stay close behind him, not to look at any other object which might pass me by, not to be frightend if I saw something scary shaped and remembemy my Guru first.
" Say you are going to Girnar", he said.," and begin concentrating." He had picked up on Girnar just randomly and because he said he knew there were some rishies or sages there. I had heard this name for the first time in life.
In one quarter of a minute we both were on the house top and then in open air...!
"Don't look here or there, come straight on behind me.'
A little while later maybe just about 2 minutes we reached inside a dark and rocky mountain cave. We both were still together. Suddenly I saw a sage in orange robes quietly busy in tapasya.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"Who?"
" That yogi?"
"I cannot see any yogi"
"There's a yogi in orange clothes doing tapasya."
"I cannot see him. He must be a great rishi. Just bow to him in respect and don't disturb him"
I bowed to him and moved away. But as I did so I found there was another rishi in another cave and then many more rishis in other caves all doing tapasya in profound concentration; one I remember had very big ears almost hanging on his shoulders like clothes and one looked very angry and had opened his eyes to see me but as he saw me he broke into a smile and closed his eyes again.
I also discovered that they were visible only to me and not to him. And then there came a cave in which he could not enter. he told me to go alone while he was waiting outside.
And there I saw my God R...!!!
As beautiful like nothing on this Earth and clad in full warrior dress all gold and yellow just minus his bow and arrow... Instead of bowing down to him in respect as I should have done, I went and clung to his legs like a baby. In return he smiled affectionately and patted my back. He was very tall, my head could only reach his knees. Light was emnating from every part of his body.
B was right there outside but he could neither see anything nor enter. I was crying in ecstacy. he told me to come but I said I could not leave him. And when I tried leaving Him I would again clutch His legs with greater grip than before. finally I just tore myself from him crying really badly. Before final seperation He just said lovingly'Sab kuch bhog ke mere aana' and he disappeared leaving me truly like a fish out of water. I frantically started searching for him there in the cave but He was now nowhere.
B could sense my condition. He gently told me to follow him back. I was completely distraught with grief and almost out of control of my emotions, yet mad with delight that I had actually met Him. I followed him back and in less than 2 minutes we were both back in our house.
I was in no condition to talk - I was too overwhelmed. I spent the whole night in sobbing. I could not think of any other thing than the fact that I had met Him.
Kailash
The next night he suggested we try going to kailash.
As usual, we remembered our gurus, closed our eyes, concentrated and found ourselves in open air speedily moving with everything deep below us. Then we reached kailash. Just befor reaching kailash, B again experienced inability to move forward and had to stay behind.
I landed on kailash. On reaching there I was immidietly aware of a faint chill in air. There appeared to be off white hard snow like the appearance of unpolished crystal or like white sea salt every where from which very faint different colours glinted as they caught light. I went a few steps further and saw a lake, frozen or not, I cannot tell but it was very white and had different and faintly coloured lotuses blooming in it. I took a few steps away and then saw a huge huge tree with dull green leaves, and some leaves even strewn on ground below. Under the tree sat huge huge lord Shiva. He was also off white almost unpolished crystal like coloured and was engaged in tapasya. I didn't look at Him very closely. There was profound silence everywhere. I quietly went up near Him, bowed down to Him without saying anything to Him and returned back almost instantly.
Previous Birth
The fourth day.
He appeared quite impressed that I had certain poweres lying dormant inside me of which even I was not aware and which were more powerful than usually found in people who spend a life time and God knows how much hard efforts and tapasya in achieving them.
''You must have been something great in your previous life. Ok, lets find out who you were in your previous birth.''
He closed his eyes and concentrated. He exclaimed...a bit shocked...!
" You appear to be a queen in Jhansi... Very sacred and very religious...."
He instruceted me to concentarte on this subject and see if I saw something.
I did so and found a broken wall of a fort in Jhansi on a slightly uneven terrain as if hilly area from which wild grass appeared to be growing now; the next sight I saw, was of a Shivalaya somewhere close by.
I could not understand the images. but he confirmed that it was Jhansi and a fort which had been my abode in my last birth.
That was probably my last ramble in thought or spirit form. The realisation that I had some superior spiritual powers made me very humble and anxious not to misuse them. I remember having read that these powers are often gifted to distarct a human being from reaching God so I just stopped doing it and have never done so again since that day. I don't even know if those powers are still with me or not.
We continued spending our major time with him discussing religious books, places and spiritualism, and hear him sing. I loved him like a real father and he too was very fatherly in love. Unfortunately his posting was changed and he had to leave. For another 2-3 months he continued coming to visit us 3-4 times and then stopped altogether. One night I just dremt him saying goodbye to me and since then I have never met him again. Although I had his address too but I never tried to contact him again.
I have accpted him as my second guru.
Several years later, I visted the famous Jhansi fort and could see nothing familiar as I had hoped I would. However I did see a Shivalya ( and I had forgotten litrally everything about seeing a Shivalaya in my spiritual ramble ) there earlier where the queen used to worship.
