Once long ago my soul was born from the Cosmic Mother, in a similar way this incarnation on Gaia was born from a human mother. It is so difficult for a soul to descend into dense vibrations and Earth's gravity. Initially, I the soul, spent a lot of out of the body in astral realms during long hours of sleep. This made it easy to slowly adapt to my soul's new garment, a baby's body. When the body's base needs for food and poop were needed, the baby cried, though the nature of female body I had adopted was quite calm. My twin brother, however; who was playing the role of fear, cried often and was difficult to breastfeed. My gentle and loving mother's caress and cradling was most blissful. I was happy to have her back as my mother, as in one of my previous lives I had lost her as my mother when I was just a child. That impression of the pain of losing my mother's unconditional love was still with me. Now I was in her arms again. An expression of the divine mother as my mother. My father (who was also my father in the same past life) came to check on my mother and picked me up from the cradle, he smiled at me, kissed me, and spoke to me in baby language. I could barely see anything from my physical eyes, but I felt everything, and knew many things intuitively, as most babies do.
My twin brother was in another cradle next to mine. My aunt was holding him, with my uncle (my father's brother) looking on. It was the mid 60s on the planet, in the month of September and so much was happening around the world. I was born into a Kashmiri Pandit family in Srinagar, India, a turbulent part of country which was relatively stable when I was born. My father, SadaShiv Bhatt, was a surgeon, working in the medical university hospital where we were born. My parents had recently returned from England where he studied and worked as a surgeon. It had been nine long years of my parents trying for a child, my mother, Sharada, was given fertility pills, and now they had twins.
We stayed in the hospital for five days, after which we moved to our new home. My parents, uncle, and aunt, lived in a beautiful wooden bungalow on the north side of the famous Dal Lake of Srinagar. The house staff was so happy to see us as they opened the gate to our long driveway. Autumn was setting in, leaves were turning colors and falling from the trees in our picturesque yard. As we exited the car, my father picked me up from my mother's lap, I could feel the cool air for the first time. I was well bundled in hand knitted soft wool jersey, cap and booties. Our nanny, whom everyone called Aaya, was standing at the entryway with others to honor our first entry into our home with a lit oil lamp on a plate with some flowers and rice. The air in the house was pleasant with the subtle scent of Deodar and walnut wood. Aaya ji, as I later called her with respect, said that the children's room had been prepared and kept warm, so we headed upstairs to our cozy room. My twin brother and I were nursed and went to sleep. My mother could also rest now.
Unbeknownst to anyone else except my twin and I, several family members who had passed on came to see the newborns and celebrate. It is joyous for them as well. This included our great grandfather, and grandparents from both sides of the family. There were also some Kashmiri spiritual masters who came in their etheric bodies that had connections to our family, as well as our guides for this life. These guides where already giving us messages and knowledge pertinent for our days ahead. My twin and I also had long telepathic conversations at the soul level and shared our experiences of this new life.
The next day, the sixth day from our birth, we were given a herbal purifying bath, which is one of life's milestone rituals, Samskāras, in the Vedic tradition. In the past the umbilical cord was partially left and it dried and fell off naturally, after which this bath was given. Perhaps common in our native traditions as well. Then on the eleventh day is another important milestone, in Kashmiris it's called Kah Naethar, commonly known in Sanskrit as Naam Karan ceremony, somewhat like baptism, where we are given our names according to our birth star, Nakshatra. Each constellation has two or three prominent or ruling stars, which totals twenty seven (27) Nakshatras. Vedic philosophy says that each object has a resonant frequency and so also each Nakshatra is associated with four letter sounds. This sound vibration resonates with the souls that are born under its influence. Therefore when we call a person by the name that starts with this sound it has a harmonizing effect on the soul. Interestingly, as my twin and I were born forty minutes apart, we were born under different Nakshatras.
Some family members and close friends had come for our naming ceremony. Panditji (priest) came late and started the ceremony immediately. He had created our birth charts according to Jyotish, Vedic astrology, and wrote our names according to our Nakshatras. My twin brother was given the name, Abhinava, to be called Abhi for short. Abhinavagupta was a famous Kashmiri Shaivite philosopher, a mystic and aesthetician from the tenth century in Kashmir. He was also considered an influential musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logician. I was given the name Lalleshwari, or Lalla for short, which was also the name of a famous mystic saint of Kashmir from the fourteenth century, venerated both by Hindus and Muslims over the centuries. These were names that we as souls had chosen, though as the drama plays out we are not aware of these higher truths. Many masters, divine beings and ancestors were also present at the ceremony in their astral forms.
The scent of the offerings in the prayer, flowers, camphor, ghee lamp, filled the room and purified the environment. There can be no celebration in India without food! It was the first event after our birth, and that too after so many years of waiting for a child, so the celebrations were grand and many Kashmiri delicacies were prepared for the feast called Wazwan. We as babies were tired and we taken by Aaya ji upstairs to be cradled to sleep while the elders engaged in vibrant conversations downstairs. After everyone left, the dozen or so house staff also ate, and our family sat together talking over Kashmiri tea, kahva, about family and friends who came.
Our childhood was spent in utter bliss, much like heaven, in the shadow of the grand Himalayas, the beauty of the Kashmir valley, crip clean air, open spaces to run and have fun, and be nurtured by our extended family. Occasionally we had Pujas and Abhishek at home to honor the great One undivided consciousness, Rudra or Shiva in Kashmiri Shaivism, or for Narayan the primordial Being in the Vaishnav tradition of our ancestors. On one such occasion when we were four, there was a Puja. Sanskrit chanting was going on, and the room was filled with scent of incense, camphor, ghee, and flowers. I remembered this fragrance and the feeling of these sacred offerings for the rest of my life. However; Abhi was agitated and restless. He was usually hyper and couldn't sit still, even though my mother tried to talk him into sitting quietly. He threw a tantrum and left the room. I however; couldn't keep my eyes open. My mind was absorbed in the vibrations of the Mantras and I slowly drifting into a deep trance, to be later awoken with the tapping on my shoulder by my cousin who was handing out the Prasaad (similar to a Catholic Mass at the end of which everyone is given wine and bread). My aunt was singing a Bhajan while playing the harmonium, my mother chimed the cymbals, and Panditji rang the prayer bell while chanting some Mantras to conclude the Puja.
Then I saw a saint like person, a translucent figure, walk down the middle aisle in the room blessing people on both sides with his right hand and smiling. I was neither shocked or scared, I was in a different state of awareness, one in which I seemed to have a 'knowing'. I did not realize that no one else could see him except me, and at that young age I could not differentiate between what was normal and mystical. That recognition came later when I grew up. When he disappeared after blessing everyone I saw the clock on the back wall, the time was 11:11am. Many years later I found out that the saint that appeared was Bhatt Kalshar. He was famous for the hymns he channelled that were written into the Sikh text, the Adi Granth. This was at the time of Guru Arjan Dev, in the latter half of the 16th century. Bhatt Kalshar brought along with him ten other Kashmiri Pandit Bhatts to be with Guru Arjan. All eleven of these Bhatts composed hymns that were incorporated into the Adi Granth, which later became the Guru Granth Sahib. One of the common phrases in Sikhism, "Wahe Guru" was actually introduced by the Bhatts, as it's a common term in Kashmiri Shaivism. Most Sikhs do not know this. Bhatt Kalshar was also one of our family's forefathers, his portrait was in our Puja room.
"Zainab!" I yelled running, slipping and sliding in my slippers, "wait for me". Zainab, my five year old classmate and best friend, ran ahead of me laughing. She ran right through the entrance of her modest home and hid behind the door. Her father, Ali, stood there watching us. I came inside and asked, "Salaam uncle, have you seen Zainab?" He just smiled. Hussain, her seven year old brother, stormed into the room and pulled Zainab out from behind the door, producing her in front of me saying, "here she is Lalla". "Stop it Hussain! Leave my hand!" Zainab broke her hand free from his grab, "Chalo Lalla, let's go upstairs". "Wait Zainab," said aunty from inside the kitchen, "eat something first".
Four older brothers of Zainab returned from the Madrassa, the Islamic study school where they went after regular school. We all sat around the long wooden table, Zainab's six siblings, father, and us. Aunty and Zainab's eldest sister served us food and pink milk tea. Both of us were in our own world talking about what we would play next while the older siblings and uncle were discussing more serious affairs. Just then, two very intense looking men, uncle's friend and son, came to pay a visit. They were greeted, asked to join us on the table, then served tea and food. Once we finished the elders were moving to the living room area, while Zainab and I were heading upstairs. The young man who had come with his father stared down at me, then suddenly put his hand forcefully on my shoulder saying, "Eh, she's a Kafir! Why you have her as your friend?" I froze with shock. Ali immediately intervened, removing his hand off my shoulder saying, "She's not a Kafir! And it's none of your business!" Young Ali starred daringly into the much taller and muscular young man. Both the fathers stepped in and de-escalated the situation. While my heart was pounding and mind numb with fright, Zainab pulled me towards her and embraced me in her arms. My hands and feet were trembling. I felt too uncomfortable to stay, so I moved away from Zainab, and ran out of the house. Our driver was standing at a distance, "Amir kākā", I yelled, "chalo - let's go!" I opened the back door of car and sat inside panting. "What happened Bitiya?" Amir asked. "Nothing, I just want to go home now," I said.
That night, in my sleep, as I shot up into the astral realms, like we all do, I was joined by my spirit guides in long flowy white robes and light bodies. There also were the souls of Ali, Zainab and Wahab, the young man who had called me "Kafir", a non-believer of Islam. Here however; we did not have those identities of man made religions or their beliefs used to control humans for power. There are universal laws here, and no one can deny truth or true reality. The lives we were living on the planet were like a dream, like a movie which we saw from here together with our guides, while we slept in our beds on earth.
So who are we? We are divine sparks of Source, though various in the roles we play, there is an underlying canvas of consciousness that connects us. There really is nothing but Source, the Supreme Being. Here we were, souls from various soul families, that existed in other realms of creation. We came for an important transition for humanity, to evolve beyond human identities. We were here to demonstrate to humanity through our own evolution. Removing the narrow boundaries created from human limitations. There are higher evolutionary virtues like compassion, cooperation, humility, service to others; and lower vibrational vices like fear, hatred, ignorance and arrogance. It was this differentiation between virtues and vices that man ignored and focused on the differences of identity like religion, nationality, gender and status. Simply put, there are good and bad people in all religions and nationalities. It was also important for certain groups to move from exclusivity of "heaven" for "believers" to an inclusivity for all of humanity and beyond.
Our souls were given telepathic messages by our guides to keep nourishing our intuition and connection with our Inner Being as well as Supreme Being. To live in the realm of energy, while adapting to the world of matter. To follow our inner guidance, and trust our hearts. We were told that by our presence alone we would lift the vibration of earth, and serve others by being an example. Lastly, they soaked us with a blissful light so loving that, that is beyond comprehension. Rejuvenated we were ready to return to our bodies. That is how we spent our nights together, quite a contrast from what our characters were experiencing on the planet.
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