I had never witnessed so much love coming from a human being - Alan Wherry
September 10th, 2007
I had always been fairly lucky in life, making a reasonable living, rising through hierarchies, owning a home, having a nice wife and children. However, I was an devout atheist of some 33 years standing and aware that I was living in a state of despair - and worse, I was turning into one of those nasty, bitter old men that most people rightly steer well clear of.
I was working in Soho Square, London and one day in September 1990, as I left my office for lunch, I saw a poster of Shri Mataji. My attention was immediately and compellingly drawn to her face. I read the text on the poster, there was to be a Public Program at Hammersmith Town Hall that coming Friday evening. My ego/conditioning kicked in, and I thought, “It’s probably a cult, one of the those Indian things.” But each time I left the office, as if drawn by some magnetic force, I found myself looking at her face - I had never seen a face like it, it embraced a huge spectrum of emotions and feelings.
On the Friday of the program, by a series of unexpected happenings, I found myself free to attend, and Hammersmith Town Hall was more or less on my way home. There was a brilliant introductory talk, straight from the heart, by a Sahaja Yogi. Shri Mataji then appeared, wearing a beautiful white sari. Again, I was transfixed, I had never witnessed so much love coming from a human being, and what She said had me in a state of bliss and wellbeing. When She gave Self Realization, to my utter astonishment, I felt the cool breeze on both hands. She invited questions and my blissful state of thoughtless awareness was temporarily interrupted by a series of what seemed banal, trivial and irrelevant questions, all of which She answered with equanimity and good grace.
On my way home, as I navigated the Chiswick roundabout, I realized that my life would be utterly changed by the evening’s encounter.
Indeed, after only a few days meditating, my despair evaporated like the early morning mist warmed by the sun, and after only a few days meditating, I found that my cynicism had gone, I could be as a young child again, open to the possibilities of life. Several bad habits disappeared too, and, for example, whereas I had given up cigarettes a hundred times before, from that evening on, I never smoked again.
There were about 1000 new people present that night and some months later, a Sahaja Yogi asked me if I knew how many of the 1000 were still attending Sahaja Yoga. I guessed a few hundred, but to my surprise, he said, “Just you.”
My gratitude to Shri Mataji is incapable of being expressed in words. She gave meaning and value to my life, and since then I have seen many thousands know the same kinds of transformation.
Alan Wherry
New York City