Akuli


I got an email the other day that reminded me of a story I had forgotten about.

The email came from the brother of a longtime disciple who is still in the Center. Apparently, their mother's health is declining. Having lost touch with his sister, the brother wrote me hoping that perhaps I could help him get the message to his sister.

His sister is Akuli.

When I first met Akuli, her name was "Mirriam." She was a mousy girl who worked seemingly endless hours at Annam Brahma for little money. Then one day, she disappeared. It turned out that -- like my old friend Pulin -- "Mirriam's" family had her kidnapped by deprogrammers.

Unlike Pulin, however, there was never any concerted effort made to find "Mirriam" and get her back, that I had been aware of anyway. I suspect this was because almost as soon as she was discovered missing, she was back among us.

As it turned out, "Mirriam" had taken a different approach with her captors than Pulin had with his. Instead of playing along with them, "Mirriam" simply chanted Guru's name. Out loud. Over and over again. This apparently lasted a couple of days, until her captors could take no more and released her.

That's how "Mirriam" became Akuli.

God knows what drives some parents to be so colossally stupid. Misguided love, I suppose. Religious zeal? Plain old ignorance? The zeitgeist of the 1980s probably played a role, too, what with the 1978 Jonestown massacre still fresh in the minds of so many.

None of that is a real excuse though and I wonder if I would have had it in me in later life to forgive my own parents had they made the same mistake. I'm not so sure. Having your adult child kidnapped and held by the lowlifes who perpetuate deprogramming is unforgivable. Had it happened to me, I doubt I would have had the poise, self-control, and one-pointedness that Akuli demonstrated.

I'm sure one great benefit Akuli realized from that horrible experience, though, is the fact that her faith is stronger than those who would try to do her harm.

She's the stronger person.

If there's one person who might forgive a parent for such a crime, it would be Akuli.

Here's an interesting story by Akuli, whose spiritual name literally means eagerness or enthusiasm (I think).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

David Moretti

Image
On October 18, 1981, I got the word that Sri Chinmoy had accepted me as one of his disciples. I was 16, a junior in high school. Young as I was, the story behind my applying to join what some in my family believed -- perhaps correctly -- to be a Hindu religious cult stretched back a few years and is a story of happenstance, serendipity and interesting personalities. Over the following nine years of my discipleship, I would meet some of the most unique individuals I've ever met and I'll do my best to draw attention to them as my story unfolds. First, though, I want to acknowledge my boyhood friend, David Moretti (pictured above). Dave was my best friend through grade school. His father worked for the Almaden winery when there were still vineyards in Silicon Valley, and his mother worked for a local bank. Unlike my parents, Dave's mom and dad hadn't divorced. I spent just about every day after elementary school hanging out at the Moretti's house. When the whole...
Read more

Hear Me Roar

Image
The time for former women disciples to come together, "in numbers too big to ignore" as Helen Reddy sings in her famous song, is now. With the huge exception of Jayanti Tamm -- and her book Cartwheels in a Sari -- there have been precious few examples of what the disciple life was like from a woman's perspective. That should change. There are now scores of women who spent significant time in the Center leading extremely disciplined lives, who are now living outside the shadow of the Center, standing on their own, each of whom have distinct and unique voices. I'd really like to hear from them (you all know who you are). And I don't mean just in guest posts here (though I love them). What I'm really advocating is a site for women, by women. Something like a spiritual Double X site . I take inspiration again from Jayanti, who is perhaps laying the foundation for such a site at her blog -- read the latest lion's roar here . That's Helen Reddy in the pho...
Read more

Lavanya - A Guest Post

Image
I WAS NOT AS SPECIAL AS YOU AND I THOUGHT This is the story of a few pivotal experiences of my 31 years in the Sri Chinmoy Centre. Telling it makes me feel sad, mad, ashamed, and foolish for staying and serving for so many years after I knew things were not as they should be, starting with our divine leader. Still, when I finally left the Centre, I swore to myself that I would never tell what I knew about him, and until recently I thought I never would. But when I left the Centre, I thought I knew what was true about Chinmoy, when actually I knew almost nothing. Now, as the real Chinmoy is gradually being revealed by piecing together all of our experiences with him, it seems I can’t keep my own story tamped down any longer. It needs to be told.  It’s not a good story, not a happy story, and I am not a heroine – on the contrary. But life is telling me it’s time to speak up. I probably should have spoken long ago. I definitely COULD have spoken about 40 years ago. Maybe I...
Read more