The Miracle of Anna

by John Nelson

  Filled with emotion, Jade stood up and ran to the nearby bathroom. Maggie turned to her daughter. “Anna, why don’t you and Gish go outside and play with Bodhi before we start class.”

  “Not mean to upset her, Mommy.”

  “We’ll talk about it later. Go now.”

  Maggie refilled their teacups and set out some of rice crackers and black bean hummus. After a while Jade returned, her eyes still red; she sat down and took a sip of tea and dipped a cracker in the hummus and munched on it.

  “Sorry. But my grandmother was so precious to me, and hearing about her kind of overwhelmed me.”

  “I understand, and Anna needs to learn to be more discrete.”

  Jade vigorously shook her head. “Oh no, no, no. Don’t admonish her for being who she is.”

  “But, as you can imagine, that has been a topic of discussion between Joseph, me, and Ma hi’ Ma.”

  Jade nodded her head. “Yes, I would imagine in this culture that such an expression would be alarming to some and can see why you chose homeschooling.” She stood and picked up her purse. “My husband and I are so happy to have met you and Anna and for you accepting Gish into your school. It will be a… great education for him, as if he were in an ashram.”

  Maggie walked her to the door. “On sunny days, we usually walk to the park along the lake after lessons, and you can pick Gish up there today, if you like, after three o’clock.”

  They shook hands with good eye contact and Jade left.

  As Maggie walked across the living room to the backyard to gather her students, she thanked Lord Krishna for bringing such a wonderful family into their lives and looked forward to the lessons they would bring. During the first few weeks of schooling, it became evident that Gish was mentally precocious and that he was very good at arithmetic, or so it seemed to Maggie from their preliminary explorations of the subject. This seemed to spark Anna’s interest in her studies. At first Maggie wondered if her renewed interest was competitive, but figured that was her own projection. Anna liked Gish and seemed interested in what interested him. However, the boy seemed less inclined to meditate and in other spiritual pursuits, which was curious to Anna and provided a lesson of its own.

  One night after dinner and their nightly walk with Bodhi, Anna asked, “Mama, why does Gish not like to meditate? He is smart.”

  Maggie closed her eyes and gathered her inspiration. “Anna, in most of us, the development of the mind and ego comes first, even in those given a spiritual or religious education.”

  Anna thought about this for a moment. “But, as children, if spiritual devotion came first, would it not make difference?”

  “Even a spiritual education is partly a mental experience.”

  “But, if children meditate and are one with the divine, like me, would they not be more whole?”

  “I suppose they would be, but we have to honor Gish’s own inclination.” Anna nodded her head but was still bothered by the topic. “But, there is a reason why Gish found his way here, and I’m sure that by just following your own… inclinations, he will get what he is meant to learn from you.”

  Anna nodded her head. “Mama, you smart sometimes too.”

  “See. You’re rubbing off on me.”

  Anna looked at her with those all-knowing Buddha eyes. “I wish we rub off some of the dark spots in your aura.”

  Maggie smiled, accustomed to her daughter’s precocious spiritual insights. She took her head. “In time, my dear, in time.”

  This did bring up a concern of hers. Being exposed to her daughter’s elevated energy 24/7 had greatly advanced her own spiritual development, but that was mostly by osmosis, which is what happened to Ma’s devotees at the ashram. However, this was no substitute for her own spiritual practice, and she needed to apply herself more assiduously. She was not inclined to meditate for long periods of time like Anna, but realized that on their walks in the park and on the beach, there was more of an opportunity to focus on the natural world to quiet her monkey mind or concerns. Maggie had noticed, especially on walks along the seashore, that Anna rarely spoke and seemed to become one with her surroundings, which was a kind of active meditation. She decided to include more excursions into nature or even mountain treks into their outings, and use it to expand and quiet her mind further and hopefully nurture her own spiritual aliveness.

  Chapter 20

  Over the school year as Maggie instructed Anna and Gish, and as they had constant daily interactions, she began to notice a change in her daughter. She was becoming more balanced between her inner and outer lives, and more socially oriented than Maggie would have expected given her earlier reluctance. Likewise Gish was developing an inner life and was meditating with Anna instead of taking afternoon naps. What also helped was that Agam and Jade invited them to celebrate Hindu and secular holidays at their home with its large garden and palatial setting and with plenty of friends who had children Anna’s age. Jade and Maggie had become close, and Maggie felt more comfortable with her and Agam than with many of her Western friends, even Ma hi’ Ma’s devotees. She wondered about this difference and attributed it to them having grown up in the sacred Indian culture, or the last remnants of it as the new generation became more and more Western, especially given their high-tech orientation. But, Maggie also became aware that these celebrations were attended by several local unattached Indian men who went out of their way to interact with Maggie and her daughter. After turning down social invitations from several of the men, Maggie decided it was time to have a talk with Jade.

  “You don’t want to find a husband for yourself and a father for Anna?” Jade asked innocently to her friend’s entreaty.

  Maggie smiled as they sat in the alcove of her house having tea one morning, and watched Anna and Gish playing in the backyard with Bodhi. “No, or at least I don’t feel inclined that way.” Jade stared at her with mild concern. “I know, it doesn’t seem… natural, but Anna has opened up a whole new dimension of spirituality to me, and it seems sufficient right now.”

  “You know all of these men are meditators and come from devout families, or I wouldn’t have invited them to our celebrations.”

  “They are all lovely men and a good catch, as we say, for most women, but not me, or not now.”

  Jade nodded her head. “I’ve heard you talk about Anna’s father, Thomas. Is there some possibility there?”

  “I had wondered about that, and had even invited him down last year, but neither of us seemed inclined to pursue a relationship, or maybe weren’t… ready is a better word.”

  Jade reached out and touched Maggie’s hand. “I understand. I’ll pass the word to all these brokenhearted would-be suitors.” Jade smiled. “And I won’t invite them to our gatherings in the future.”

  Maggie immediately shook her head. “Oh, no. Don’t do that. They seem like your extended family. And I really enjoy their company, if not their romantic attention.”

  That afternoon, after Jade had picked up Gish at the park, and while Maggie and Anna walked Bodhi around the lake, her daughter asked, “Mrs. Chandra not happy about something?”

  “You noticed?”

  “Her aura is usually rose colored, but dark today.”

  Maggie laughed. There was no hiding anything from this child. “I just told her I was not interested in her male friends in a romantic way.”

  Anna smiled. “You are waiting for Daddy?”

  “No, dear. I’m just content the way I am, or the way we are.”

  Anna nodded her head and was quiet for a while. Finally she spoke up. “Maybe it is time we spoke to Joseph.”

  “Anna, Joseph is your spirit guide, not mine.”

  Anna gave her mother one of those ageless looks. “Joseph feeds the God in both of us.” With that she walked ahead with Bodhi and allowed her mother time to absorb this wisdom.

  Over the next few days Maggie could see Anna looking for opportunities to shift them to Joseph’s garden, but she was disinclined to follow through on he
r daughter’s invitation, which the girl honored. She had often found herself in the same position with her guru Ma hi’ Ma when dealing with spiritual challenges, and would seek out her own answers first before asking Ma her perspective. She felt gurus were Wayshowers and not substitute parents for the spiritually immature, and preferred to take the lead in her own development. While the coupling that had produced Anna was mostly the result of a physical attraction, she now felt that it was also driven by some higher aspect of herself that seemed to have made the choice for her. Given the result she was inclined to seek its guidance. So Maggie posed the question, “why am I choosing a celibate life,” and waited for synchronistic revelation.

  Days later she received a flyer in the mail from the Bodhi Path Center, announcing a guest lecture by one of the leaders of the worldwide Kundalini Yoga movement. While Maggie mostly practiced Hatha yoga, she had had kundalini awakening experiences, or so they had seemed to her, and figured a lecture about raising energy up the spine to the higher centers may be an answer to her earlier request. So two weeks later she took Anna with her to the lecture on a balmy Friday night. Standing in line she noticed several women looking askance at her, and figured it was about bringing a child to such a heady lecture. When questioned about this issue on other such occasions, she had simply told people that “Anna reads the energy behind words she may not understand and discerns their meaning,” and left it at that.

  Swami Ananda, an elderly man with long locks of gray hair, a high creased forehead, and kind brown eyes, did not speak about the techniques of yoga that could raise one’s energy to the ultimate crown chakra opening, but about the importance of moral principles and a sacred lifestyle. He told of how too many Westerners use intense yoga practices or tantric sex to speed up the process of awakening the kundalini, like everything else they do, but in their lives they fill their minds with depictions of graphic sex and violence and their bodies with tainted food. “The soil must be fertile for the divine seed to be nourished and to spring to life.” Looking around Maggie saw that many in the audience were looking for quick fixes, and this formula did not sit well with them. Afterward most made their way out of the hall. Maggie took Anna up to Swami who was talking with a few of the more receptive attendees in front of the stage.

  Swami was listening to one of them when his eyes found Anna and followed her down the aisle. Noticing the shift in his attention, the woman stopped talking and stepped back. Swami knelt down and Anna ran into his arms. After a long embrace, Swami lifted her up and sat her on the edge of stage. He turned to Maggie and just stared at her for a while.

  “You know?”

  “I do, Swami.”

  The others leaned forward trying to make sense of this cryptic exchange. Swami looked deeply at Maggie and then took her aside. “I know of what you seek. The passage way is opened, just allow the child to touch the bottom of your spine.”

  Maggie bowed her head. Swami stepped back to Anna. “So child, what make you of what I said?” This raised a few eyebrows among his small adult audience.

  Anna sagely nodded her head. “All things are awakened by the grace of God.”

  Swami smiled. He turned to Maggie. “You must bring the child to India… when the time is right.”

  “My daddy lives in India,” Anna added.

  Swami looked at Anna closely. “Ah, so it is Thomas, Vinanda’s Kundalini Yoga teacher,” Swami said, nodding his head. “I shall have a word with Swami V.”

  Maggie was not sure of what the holy man planned, but she had long ago released her own designs on Thomas and his part in their lives. The lights in the hall blinked, and the group walked up the aisle and strolled out into the warm night. Swami’s female assistant gave Maggie a card with his contact information, and then whisked him away to the airport for his trip to San Francisco and the next stop on his U.S. tour.

  Driving back from the event, Maggie looked over at Anna who was uncharacteristically quiet. “Soon, Mommy, we go to India to visit Daddy.”

  “So you’ve got it all planned for us?” Maggie asked factiously.

  “No, Mommy. I just read God’s plan better.”

  Maggie laughed. What could she say to that retort?

  When they arrived home, Anna asked. “You ready?”

  Maggie looked at her daughter. She could not have heard what Swami had said to her privately. “Ready for bed?”

  Anna shook her head impatiently. “Ready to poke the snake.”

  Maggie just shook her head in amazement. This was a common phrase about awakening the body’s kundalini energy that was often characterized as a snake winding its way up the spinal cord. “Let’s wait, Anna. Mommy is tired tonight.”

  Anna nodded her head and placed her small hand on her mother’s arm in a precociously reassuring manner. They stepped out of the car and walked into the house, and they both quickly prepared for bed. Maggie dreamed that night of Thomas and making love with him, and woke up hot and bothered, and wondering how long she could wait to “poke the snake,” but of course, this was not what Swami had indicated or had even warned against: sexual congress in and of itself. There may be another step, and she waited for that to appear in her life.

  Chapter 21

  After that night Maggie had several more dreams of making love to Thomas and then of other men she knew. At some point she either had to follow through on this inclination and date, or begin the awakening process that Swami had suggested. So, a little at lost on how to proceed and not wanting to rush into it, she agreed to talk with Joseph. Anna again magically transported their spirits to his celestial garden where he was sitting dressed in his customary white suit on a marble bench at the lily pond. They took a seat on the bench across from him. He closed his eyes in meditation and they did the same. Time passed and at some point Maggie was prompted to open her eyes and found Joseph smiling at her.

  “From what I gather, sacred sex is no longer as sacred as the ancient tantric tradition had once intended it,” Joseph said.

  “Yes, it seems, from what I’ve heard, to be more about slow sex than anything sacred, or an excuse for promiscuity.”

  Maggie was just a bit uncomfortable talking about this subject with her daughter present and glanced at her.

  Joseph smiled. “Anna is in her spirit body and ageless at this moment. Not a child, despite her appearance.” Maggie nodded her head. “The premature or precipitous awakening of the kundalini energy can be harmful to the unprepared.”

  “As I’ve heard and why I’m here.”

  Joseph stared at her and Maggie could almost feel the tendrils of energy reaching out to her. “I believe, however, that this awakening of energy would be more advantageous than the customary alternative, which seems to have brought you here.” Maggie smiled. “But, what I would advise, unlike this swami’s suggestion, is that you focus on clearing your chakras one by one first… to open the way.”

  “And Anna would know how to do that?” Maggie asked tentatively.

  “She can add energy that will flush out what one of your more advanced swamis calls ‘incompletions’ or the ego’s disconnected thoughts, desires, and fixations that sap your energy.”

  “Sounds like a long-term project.”

  “If it were quick and easy, everybody would sign up,” Joseph said.

  Maggie nodded her head, and then there was a shift of energy and they were back on the sofa in their living room.

  “So, you ready, Mama?” Anna asked.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Anna closed her eyes as if getting instructions and told her mother to turn over on the sofa and lie on her stomach. Maggie did that and Anna laid her hand at the bottom of her mother’s spinal column around the coccyx, or tailbone. The energy emanating from Anna’s hand created a swirling pattern somewhat like a vortex, if one could see it, that penetrated and flushed out the karmic residue in her first or root chakra. After a while Anna removed her hand to allow the energy to settle into this chakra.

  Maggie cou
ld feel the warmth surrounding her lower spine which stirred up feelings about support and safety, or the lack thereof during periods of her life. This was the root chakra’s focus. She instinctively knew to just “feel” the feelings as they arose, and eventually the energy dissipated or seemed to be absorbed by the body, and new feelings arose in their place. She rolled over on her back; Anna had turned the lights down and retired to her bedroom. Maggie just lay there as new feelings arose, these about family and support issues, her father’s expectations for her, his disappointment that she didn’t become an academic like him. Other episodes in her childhood arose when she didn’t agree with or follow through on suggestions by the adults around her, including priests and teachers, who would subtly withdraw their support. This went on for several hours, and as she felt her way through each level of the first chakra, and there seemed to be seven of them, the energy became integrated.

  Finally Maggie stood up and prepared herself for bed, knowing that this was just the start of a long process. She first stepped into his daughter’s room and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you, Angel.” In the dim light it seemed like Anna smiled in her sleep.

  Maggie allowed this clearing to settle in for a month or so, and when she felt that her first chakra was sufficiently “tuned up,” Anna repeated this clearing with her mother’s second or sex chakra. After twenty minutes or so, Anna withdrew her energy and told Maggie that she would have to perform this clearing in stages, but she could begin to integrate what this first session had brought up. Maggie understood and thanked her daughter, who again retired to her bedroom and quickly fell asleep. From the first touch of her hand and the circulation of energy in this chakra, images arose that were rather distasteful for her. The “prettification of children” in our culture, especially young girls, has often made them the unconscious focus of repressed or blatant sexual energies in their parents and other adults. Maggie recalled as a six-year-old being made-up with lipstick and mascara in a party dress cut so short to reveal her panties at every turn. “Oh, how precious she looks,” were calls from the adult birthday party guests, many of whom would bounce her on their knees or hold her on their laps. It was all rather unconscious and nothing overt, but it was a premature exposure and she now was able to clear this residue of her unconscious resentment of these incidents. This was followed by the sexual games children play, and then onto her teenage years where the games weren’t so innocent. It took nearly three hours to integrate only some of this sexual clutter, but it was a good start.