19 Aug 2009
I very much liked Joel's post at the beginning of this thread and I thought I would share some of my personal experiences with dristhi for the sake of the discussion.
My first introduction to BK meditation by a friend of mine was something like : « Look at the middle of my forehead whilst I play this taped commentary and you remain aware of yourself as a point of light in the middle of your forehead ».
It was peaceful and relaxing but I did not have any special experience. Now that I am thinking of it, it was not an easy thing to concentrate on three things simultaneously. Trying to concentrate with the eyes open and seeing things through the window in the background was a bit of a challenge but I liked the idea of the point in the forehead. The concept of the soul made sense to me and I found that focusing on a point made concentration easier and thought specially useful that I was carrying that point around with me all the time and did not need any external support like an image or a candle burning, etc.
As much as I can recall, I was mostly trying to keep my attention on « I the soul, a point of light in the middle of my forehead », whilst the tape was playing without me paying much attention to it. I do not remember if my friend told us (we were 4 or 5 in the room) why he was asking us to look at his forehead and I do not remember what I thought of it but I was perfectly comfortable with it. After all he was a good friend and I trusted him. I guess that for me it was just a spot to put my eyes on and keep them still so not to be distracted by anything else around.
I never thought of hypnosis and would not have been scared of that since I had tried to get hypnotized before and it did not work. If I could not be hypnotized when I wished to, how could I be against my will? To me the whole thing was an experiment. I had been interested in meditation but never found anything I was comfortable with. I had no expectation, was not interested by trance , the occult or paranormal or anything like that. My interests were Truth, Peace, Justice and Non-Violence.
A few months later I made my first visit to a BK Center. I met my friend there for the evening meditation. The Center’s sister-in-charge was sitting on the gaddhi giving drishti whilst a commentary on tape was playing, with dimmed red light in the room. Again I listened only loosely to the tape whilst looking at the Sister’s forehead but I was mostly trying to stay focused on my own forehead, trying to keep my thoughts on « I am a soul, a point of light... », not so much repeating words in my mind or putting the thought in my head but trying to feel it from within. Again, I was not expecting anything specific from it. To me it was an experiment and I wanted to explore the thing and see if there was any validity to it and if it was worth pursuing.
When the Sister’s drishti came on me, I was already very absorbed in the meditation process and had reached a stage where the concentration did not require too much effort and I was very relax. During the few minutes that she was looking at me and a few minutes afterward, I had a most extraordinary experience of the soul, the Soul World, peace, bliss, a sense of eternity and so much more. The climax was what I thought to be an experience of God’s love.
It was God in the form of a Mother, not God the Father. I felt like I was the « long lost and now found again child » who had come back home and was greeted by his Mother, that She had been waiting for me and was welcoming me with open arms and heart. I felt myself resting my head on Her breast whilst She was flooding me with unlimited totally benevolent love, a love that I never ever felt before, not even from my own mother. It felt like I had reached home and for the first time of my life I felt understood.
I do not intend to discuss here what it really was, if it was really God (at that point I knew nothing of the BK’s teachings on God) or if it was self induced or some kind of hypnosis. I just want to share my experience for the purpose of this thread on drishti.
Not for a second did I think that the love I felt was coming from the Sister but I thought that this drishti thing might have facilitated the experience. If she was well « tuned in » into the meditation energy, it might have helped me to « tune in » too. I did not feel that she was trying to control my mind or influence me in any way. The whole thing felt rather benevolent and benevolence has always been the basis of my practice of taking and giving drishti.
I used to think that all the teachers and people running Centers, etc, were selected on the basis of their wisdom, purity and benevolent feelings and thus that taking dristhi from them could only be beneficial and enhance the meditation experience. I found out soon enough that it was not so and that there are all kinds of negative influences going on and thus for me it soon became not so much a matter of taking drishti but a matter of giving drishti.
It became a second nature for me to look at people whilst keeping the awareness and feeling that I am a soul, a point in the middle of the forehead, and with the awareness that they are souls, looking beyond the skin and the appearance, beyond the status, the role, etc, to the being and the inner qualities, and I would always make sure to have benevolent feelings in my heart.
Whether the other person was sitting on the gaddhi conducting meditation or I was the one conducting meditation or simply meeting people in everyday's activities, this would be my practice. If it was difficult for me to generate only genuine good feelings for someone, I would do my best to try put my mixed feelings aside and simply be a channel for God’s benevolent feelings to flow through me.
I remember picking up heavy energies from people sometimes and feeling like a sponge absorbing it and I had to work hard to keep myself in that channel mode and there were times when those people were magicaly lightened of their burden.
I think that my pure intent and attitude have been my protection against malevolent energies floating around within the BK world, although I remember an instance where I started to pick up some heavy energy surrounding me when taking drishti from the Sister who was reading the Murli at our Center. It did not feel that it was coming directly from her but that she was channelling it and I was not able to get clear of it. So much that I decided to take a week off and go to the zone headquarters to celebrate the 18th of January.
My experience from the drishti I got from the zone-in-charge during the meditations there, as well as my experiences when I was meditating by myself whilst there, broke the spell and freed me from the strong grip that that negative energy had on me but it took me another year and a half before I felt totally free from its influence. I do not know much about psychic influences but it seemed to me that this negative energy was anchored onto one of my own negative energy which was the tendency to harbor feelings of guilt. As far as I can remember I never had any strong experience of feeling guilty since.
It did not take long for me to feel that something was wrong in the attitude of taking drishti from a Senior whilst expecting to get something from it, somekind of a boost or some special experience, etc, and, thinking that we are all Brothers after all, I started adopting the attitude of « giving » drishti to Dadi and others. « Let me share pure and benevolent feelings with you » type of attitude. And if the feelings I could pick up from the other side were good I would happily enjoy them, otherwise I would just keep giving and let go of the rest.
None of that has ever been taught to me. One wonders if the Seniors are aware of all the negativity mixed into BKs drishti, the arrogance, the bossiness, the intrusiveness, even the hatred. New ones should be fully warned and educated about it.
I had many beautiful experiences of sharing drishti with friends and like minded people where there was reciprocity and a nice flow of benevolent energy.
I recently met with a friend of mine who have left the BKs and had been wanting to have a relationship. She had a boyfriend for a while but they had just broke up. She was still recovering from her trauma of leaving the BKs and now she was going through this whilst she was also losing her job. I had been supporting her when she stepped away from the BKs and we became good friends. She was not in tears or anything but she said that she was going through an emotional roller coaster. At the time of parting and saying goodbye, we spontaneously had a few seconds drishti exchange and I unexpectedly came closer to her and gave her a gentle hug.
I say unexpectedly because I am not a very touchy type and very seldom do I hug anyone, especialy within the BK world and even more so because a BK Brother is not supposed to hug a Sister. So this was very unusual for me. It just happened without me thinking.
Then she grabbed me tight and it lasted a few more seconds. When we were done with the hug her face had turned red and her eyes were wet and she had to go. I felt alright with it although I wondered what it was that pushed me to give her a hug and if it was the right thing to do. Was it psychic influence? Was she consciously or unconsciously sending vibes that she needed a hug? Was it an unconcious desire from my side? I do not know. We never talked about it since but I am expecting to see her soon and I will bring it up.