What opened my eyes

When M. became leader, it was clear among the Swiss parents that we were senior enough to decide on when we wanted to send our kids to Rome. We had diplomatically made it possible to have our kids come back home from Rome for the summer vacation (1991) and in September, G. (the Italian leader) became more and more insistent that the kids had to get back to Rome.

At that time A. (an Italian Sahaja Yogini, a big financial contributor) told me that G. needed money for his own living, and that was the main reason why he needed the Swiss kids back. I spoke with M. (new Swiss leader) about it and I suggested that we keep sending the money every month as normal but that we, and not G.'s financial needs, decide whether or when we send our kids to Rome.

M. agreed with me and at the following Puja in Cabella he would bring the matter up to G. By that time, only few parents had access to this sensitive information, as we wanted it to keep it confidential so that at no point in time G. should feel hurt. We were all agree that considering the work the Roman were doing for our kids, it was natural that some kind of financial compensation should be granted to them. I specifically had kept it totally secret from my wife to keep her away from trouble. Sending her children away for long months was always particularly painful to her.

Though she was still on Mataji's target I knew that if she would know about the real cause for this forced separation from her children she would react.

I take a break here, as you need to know that my wife had already been through the traumatic experience of direct punishments from Shri Mataji. The leader before M. was a power-abusive fanatic who enjoyed Shri Mataji's 100% support.

My wife and I had our first child in January 1987. She was pretty young, 19 years old, I was a big idiot aged 24. Shri Mataji had arranged our marriage within 48 hours in India the year before. Already 2 days after the delivery of our first son, I was blamed for dropping my Sahaja Yoga priorities because I went to visit my wife at the clinic instead of attending collective meditation: A mistake which brought the almighty attention of the leader on us.

We were living in a small ashram with another couple and a few bachelor boys. The leader would put pressure on us, officially inviting himself with short notice for dinner and meditation to our ashram, in reality for the only purpose to check on us. I was in the army and I would come only on the week-ends home, when he once invited me to do some havanna in the nature, God knows where. I told him we had other plans and he obviously got pissed-off. My wife took the phone from my hands and basically told him, politely though, to mind his own business, to stop separating us for so-called Sahaja Yoga reasons.

She had fallen in his trap: An Indian girl had the nerve to react to a senior leader. A few months after, the matter was reported to Shri Mataji during her annual visit to Switzerland. My wife was sent to Rome for 9 months, with a baby she wasn't allowed to approach. At the end of those 9 months, Shri Mataji gave me instructions to send my wife with a one-way ticket to India if she would argue with the leader again. Since then, my wife was part of the silent crowd of repressed women, who can be easily identified as they sit in the end row during pujas, shivering that the baby they carry in the arms would cry in public, keeping a fake smile so as not be blamed for making a sad face, avoiding any situation where their presence would be noticed, in a word, a life of fear that many Sahaja Yoginis have known as their daily bread.

G. took it very badly, defensively he only answered that it was Shri Mataji's will, not his, that these kids had to be sent to Rome. He took the matter up to Shri Mataji. Her reaction was incredibly out of proportion. She called for all the Swiss parents, she yelled at us like I've never heard her before, accusing us of being as always so miser. (Though money was never the issue and we were known to be damn generous).

She shouted madly to a Sahaja Yogini like mad, the girl was flat bowing, pulling her ears, and she would abuse her "stupid woman, useless creature" shouting so loudly that I felt for the first time that something was wrong. I chased immediately that evil thought out of my mind.

At the end of the blast, she asked for everyone to leave and asked me to stay alone with her. She wanted absolute privacy and asked me to follow her in her room. Some may know that feeling, you are going to get into real trouble but in the same time you are thoroughly enjoying the privilege of being with her alone.

I still remember her words " I want you to tell me who started this rumour". I told her it was A.(the big contributor) Shri Mataji immediately told me with a straight look in my eyes, "No it wasn't her, never mention her name again" and said she will look into the story. The following day she called me before the puja alone and told me she had found out the truth: The culprit was my wife. She was totally bhootish and had to be sent to Austria, and the kids immediately to Rome.

For the first time in my life I argued "Shri Mataji it's impossible, still now my wife knows nothing about all this", she got very angry and said "how do you think anyone can hide anything from me". I was in pieces, for the first time I thought: I'm out of this shit. The thought didn't last long enough.

Back home that same evening told my wife what had happened, all I could tell her was to consider the whole thing as a test. 3 days after she was in Vienna, and the following week-end I drove my kids (aged 1 and 4) to Rome. That following week-end I met A. (the Roman big contributor) in Cabella, on my way to drop the kids in Rome. She told me that Shri Mataji had spoken to her and asked her not to share that kind of information with the Swiss parents. Mataji knew Alessandra was the initiator of those real rumours, but preferred a better political decision to put it on an easier target: my wife.

This was in September 91. My family went through real hell, considered as bhootish and split in different corners of Europe. G: even had the nerve of telling my wife that he would slap her face if she would phone or try to get in contact with her children. September, October, November, December. I asked through the leader to give me some news about our future, Shri Mataji always said it was to early to send back my wife to Switzerland. I hoped after the India tour we would get more news, nothing.

My wife asked W. and H. (Austrian leaders) to find out. Nothing. January, February. I lost patience, we could not take it any longer, we had no future in Sahaja Yoga: In Rome plans were made so that my eldest son goes to India one year earlier, and that the young one, like other kids of divorced parents, should stay permanently in Rome.

I still thought that this was all a test, forcing myself not to question Shri Mataji's divinity. In the beginning of February, I took the car, picked up my wife in Zurich, she had left Melichargasse during the night, and we drove to Rome to pick-up the kids. We were out, physically, not mentally, Sahaja Yoga was so much part of my inner being, I would suffer from vomiting in the morning. I was full of fear that I had done the wrong thing, turning my back to God because of family attachments.

Only a year later I could get my mind to analyse the whole story and realise Shri Mataji's real self.