Bindu 23 - engelsk 7.p65 - Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School

ut on the living room floor, wasn’t so
easy. I was not to fall asleep, nor do
anything else. At first I couldn’t
understand the meaning of this. I lay
there and looked around. But then,
when I had been lying there for a while,
I closed my eyes and began to realise
what a revolution it was, just to lie and
be still. My senses opened and the more
I used the exercise, the more aware I
became and the more I calmed down.
This is an exercise that I still use and
teach others with great enthusiasm.
Anders Laugesen: Were your
parents interested in Asian mysticism
and yoga?
Swami Janakananda: No, not at
all, but they were both devout
Christians. And there was an incident
early in my life that possibly made
them even more so.
My mother was a nurse, and very
active within the Methodist Church
where she did social work trying to
help people who had gone astray and
were in social distress. I don’t know
whether my father was especially
religious when she met him.
Something happened to him in those
years before I came along, where he
incidentally joined a church other than
that of my mother. I have often looked
back on this with a smile, as I
experienced a very great tolerance in
my home - especially between my
parents’ different churches. One was
the Methodist Church and the other the
Apostolic Church. The Methodist
Church was cosy and safe, it was the
Jerusalem Church in Copenhagen. We
went there especially at Christmas,
Easter and so on. But on ordinary
Sundays, we would attend the large
grey wooden building which at that
time was at Østerbro in Copenhagen.
That was the stronghold of the
Apostolic Church, where my father
was an Elder. It was an entertaining
church, with a large stringed orchestra
and choir that really went for it, a large
baptismal font, or rather a little
swimming pool, where people were
baptised in white robes and white
socks. My mother and I always sat
right next to the font and got a few
splashes into the bargain. It was a
strong experience to attend church on
Sunday morning - until I grew up and
started resisting, as one does... They
prayed very loudly and spoke in
tongues all at once, and they often
stood up and raised their arms in the
air. Interesting foreigners from other
countries often came to visit and were
interpreted from the pulpit. All that
was exciting...
Anders Laugesen: Was it rebellion
against your father and mother that you
didn’t choose to work in an
ecclesiastical environment ...
Swami Janakananda: It started a
little bit earlier than the typical teenage
rebellion, and I don’t think that at the
time it was directed towards my
parents, but rather was a stance against
what I saw and experienced. I think I
began to resist already at the age of 10
or 11. We moved around a lot also. For
some years I went to boarding school
and saw things from a distance. But let
me begin earlier.
You said you wanted to talk about
reincarnation today, but I had an
experience of a slightly different kind
when I was two years old. It made a
great impression on everyone. I was
dying. The doctor had actually given
up on me. He had gone home. I lay
there hovering between life and death -
I was probably close to crossing the
threshold of death. I had an experience,
which I later had confirmed in various
literature. I saw a being of light
standing in front of me. It was simply
made of light, and there was no doubt
that it was a being. When I look back, I
sensed it as if it were in the room
where I lay - now it is so long ago, that
I don’t remember whether I was in the
body or somewhere else, but that’s how
I remember it anyway. When I spoke
about it later, my parents thought it was
an angel - it was interpreted
immediately.
I don’t know how this has influenced
the rest of my life. People who have
experienced this as adults, can notice a
change in their attitude to life, but I
was only between two and three years
old.
Shortly before my condition
worsened, I asked my parents: “But,
why don’t you pray?!” - Two years old,
how could I have thought of that? Can
a child just say something like that, in
complete seriousness, to his despairing
parents? Or does one bring something
with oneself into life? I said: “Pray for
me!” - and so they did. They were
deeply shocked, I know that. All the
Elders in the Apostolic Church
interceded for me, and my mother
prayed. And she phoned the priest at
the Methodist Church, and he prayed
and I don’t know who else prayed. I
wasn’t very old so it’s just what I’ve
been told.
After the experience with the
luminous being, I became conscious
again. Immediately I asked for some
milk, and was given a glass, despite the
doctor’s order that milk was the one
thing I was not allowed to have,
perhaps to avoid the formation of
mucus in the respiratory passages.
Then my mother phones the doctor and
tells him: “Now the boy is sitting up in
bed, drinking milk.” He comes as fast
as possible to give her some sedatives.
He figured I was dead and that my
mother had begun to imagine things.
11