I came very late to the Vedanta table and its feast. I was born in 1954 and currently live in west Australia in a country town. In the late 1960's, some school friends and I were having a sleepover. We were a bunch of silly giggling 14yr olds who had been up all night. I was so tired, so lay on my tummy to rest and one of the girls touched my sacrum; I immediately saw/felt a snake shoot up my spine. No references existed in my western culture about that! An awakening of some sort, and with it a drive to find the truth began.

I was happy in my church but left at 16 when the new minister preached against the Buddha.  I didn’t know much about who Buddha was but resented the plea from the pulpit to avoid him. My mother was worried!

I then spent time visiting various churches and gave up after a few months. Idecided western philosophy and psychology and humanistic movement was an open minded approach to life's big questions. Jung seemed a good chap.
 

I finished high school, studied chiropractic in the US and then returned to Australia where I married, worked, and became exhausted, deeply frustrated with my life.

In the 1990's I began visiting India and began Vipassana; it was such a relief to find it! The many beautiful experiences and insights in mother India saved my life.

 

In the 2000's I went to Tiruvannamalai with friends knowing nothing about a Siva mountain or Sri Ramana Maharshi. I came across nondual teachings of Ramana for first time, but found it impossible to access. I also realized I needed a living teacher.

 

A year later I went to Kolkota with one of these friends who knew of Thakur and Mother. We visited Dakshineswar and I wept at first seeing Kali Temple; I had never seen anything so beautiful. Then off to Belur math where I sat for meditation at Mother's Samadhi where I was overwhelmed with feeling, never to be forgotten.

After many trips to Kolkota, Jayrambati, Udhbodan, Belur Math, Dakshineswar, Kali Temple, I saw the Himalayas for the first time in 2007. I stayed in a cottage outside Almora, at Kasar Devi and started going to arati with the nuns at their lovely ashram surrounded by mountains.

Mataji suggested in 2009 that I might go to Sri Sarada Math in Kolkota and have diksa mantra from Pravrajika Baktipranaji which I did in Nov 2009. I was fifty five at the time.

What attracted me? A Drive for the Real, to KNOW what is most compelling and valuable-finally. THIS beyond which one cannot go. Stillness. A million billion pranams of gratitude and surrender to Thakur and Ma.  Om purnamadah,purnamidam...