Nelson - The Miracle of Anna: an Awakened Child

First published by Roundfire Books, 2019

Roundfire Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., No. 3 East St., Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9EE, UK

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Text copyright: John Nelson 2018

ISBN: 978 1 78535 929 3

978 1 78535 930 9 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017962585

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of John Nelson as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

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To Sri Anandamayi Ma, whose early life story was the inspiration for this novel.

By John Nelson

Starborn

Transformations

Matrix of the Gods

The Magic Mirror

I, Human

A Guide to Energetic Healing

What I am, I have been from my infancy.

Anandamayi Ma

When asked years later about the pregnancy and birth of her daughter Anna by dreamy inquirers expecting to hear sacred tales with celestial harbingers, Maggie would laugh and irreverently tell them, It wasnt an immaculate conception, for sure, although her guru did foretell Annas birth and sanctity. Actually, if her unborn babys ability to talk to her was a sign of her elevated spiritual status, there was also that to consider. So they would smile indulgently at Maggie and glance at each other with doubtful looks to remind themselves that holy water can be carried by tainted vessels.

Such zealots were rarely in tune with her daughters presence as a child and later in life, for Anna was the most present and least starry-eyed person she had ever known, and Maggie had met a few on her own spiritual journey. This may seem surprising given the mystical trance states that Anna so readily came to occupy and which first drew attention to her as an awakened child. To illustrate this point, Maggie loved to tell the story of coming upon her two-year-old daughter in a trance state and being mesmerized by the childs saintly aura, only to have Anna tell Maggie, with her eyes still closed and her trance undisturbed, Mama, water boiling.

Maggie had been unprepared for the arrival of any child, not least one with Annas spiritual lineage. She had been visiting her guru Ma hi Mas ashram in Northern California for the Hindu Maha Shivaratri festival in mid-March, or the great night of Lord Shiva. There she met Thomas, a Kundalini Yoga teacher from Seattle. He was tall and thin with a mop of curly brown hair and as limber and sexy as a feline. Maggie was immediately attracted to him. She attended one of his classes, and when Thomass delicate hands touched her to correct a posture, Maggie felt surges of energy running up and down her body. Lithe and below average height, she was light-haired with green eyes and a heart-shaped pixie face, and drew a lot of male attention. While some teachers are known to activate the kundalini energy in their students, Thomas was not that advanced of a practitioner. This was due more to Maggies sexual response than to any transference of Shakti. She had been celibate for a while from a lack of opportunity and disposition but recognized the stimulated energy. The attraction was mutual as Thomas found the need to constantly adjust her postures that first session. Finally, one of the other female students petulantly told them to get a room, will you?

This stifled their budding relationship as they avoided each other for the rest of the week. It was a large ashram and there were many religious activities to keep them occupied and apart. But, as fate would have it, the following Saturday the two of them found themselves sitting across from each other in the wide meditation circle surrounding their guru during the early-evening satsang. They tried to focus on her discourse, but inevitably their eyes came to rest on each other, and Maggie became noticeably flushed by this eye exchange. That night a group of them headed over the mountain to Santa Rosa for dinner and spiritual discussion before their one-day fast. Thomas arranged to sit next to Maggie at the long dinner table, and they talked to each other exchanging personal histories and spiritual perspectives and rarely took part in the general discussion.

Do you paint with oil on canvas? Thomas asked at one point.

Im more into watercolors and depictions of mystical landscapes.

A budding Turner? he teased.

Maggie smiled. A budding Langford.

Thomas laughed. I like that. A woman claiming her power.

Maggie nodded her head in appreciation, but she had to cross her legs to manage the stirring energy. At the end of the night, it became obvious to all that Thomas and Maggie needed to spend more time together, so those who came with Thomas in his van stuffed themselves into the other van and drove back to the ashram. The two of them sat in the vans bucket seats in the parking lot talking until two oclock in the morning, while Maggie waited for him to make the first move. Finally her alluring smiles drew the desired response; Thomas blew up an air mattress and they made love in the back of the van.

They used condoms the first two times, but that was all Thomas could scare up, and stores were closed at this hour. Knowing her monthly cycle, Maggie figured it was safe to continue; she just couldnt get enough of him, or was something else driving this coupling, she would soon wonder? They made love again, and the intensity of their sexual congress created a perceptible glow around them both. Finally, they fell asleep wrapped around each other on the air mattress with a blanket flung over them. Their tryst ended rather abruptly hours later when a cop pounded his fist on the side of the van and told them to move on. They hurriedly dressed and drove back to the ashram in time for morning prayers. At the convocation hall, they entered separately five minutes apart, and didnt seem to draw anybodys interest. But, at morning satsang, Ma hi Ma was answering a young womans inquiry when she abruptly stopped, scanned the room, and her eyes came to rest on Maggie. The intensity of that long stare did attract attention, and she soon found the assembly gawking at her. Was this the ashrams equivalent of The Scarlet Letter?

Ma hi Ma smiled and closed her eyes, swaying in her customary ecstatic trance state, which lasted some thirty minutes and at least drew attention away from Maggie back to their guru. At noon prayers, one of those chosen to attend to Guru summoned Maggie to an audience with her. Oh shit, she thought. Now Im going to hear it. She followed after Prema, a waiflike creature who seemed to walk on air, and once again all eyes were focused on her. Their guru lived in the main house, or the Palace as everyone called ita converted plantation house with white Dorian columns, high ceilings and massive windows, all impeccably kept clean. The ceiling of the temple room had been converted into a dome shape with skylights, its pine wood floors covered with Persian rugs and embroidered pillows with Hindu art. Ma hi Ma sat atop a small mountain of them and smiled at Maggie, who gingerly made her approach with hands in folded prayer mode and her head bowed. Her guru was a Westerner, actually from Boston and of Irish descent, and while she had lost her Southey accent, she still retained the direct manner of a street fighter.