The little girl had left the glitzy world of the Indian modelling and film industry and had moved from the chaotic city of Mumbai to a sacred place in a quiet valley in the Himalayas. She didn’t care about fame or fortune. She was on a quest to change her life, to find peace and to start living for others instead of endlessly satisfying her own wants and needs. She had given away all her belongings save for a few bits and pieces that she needed on her new journey. Now, she lived in a little mud hut on a riverbank, right next to a quaint little temple.
The little girl’s brother and the angel flew all the way from England to see her. They stayed in a hotel in the nearest town, though. They couldn’t live in the austere conditions the little girl lived in, but they did come to see her every day. They travelled by taxi for around an hour each way along the winding mountain roads.
In the sacred place, the little girl, her brother and the angel prayed in the temple together everyday. And they met the little girl’s guru for the first time. The guru was her spiritual guide, the person who was helping her to heal and find the divinity she was searching for.
While with her in the Himalayas, sometimes, the little girl’s brother was okay with her and sometimes he was a bit angry at her. When he was hungry especially, it was difficult for him to keep his feelings to himself. Once he had eaten, he was completely fine again with the little girl. He had been taking his medication regularly, and the health of his brain seemed more stable than ever.
The little girl was so happy that her brother and the angel had come to see her that she did her best to ignore the bad times and she enjoyed the good times with them. The little girl and her brother even danced together during the kirtan in the temple with her guru. It was one of the most memorable moments of her life.
On the last day of their trip, the little girl’s brother and the angel sat in the little mud hut with her. They had a big question to ask the little girl. This was the reason they had come all the way to see her.
The big question?
They came to ask for money.
The family business with their father was struggling. They said they wanted to set up a new business and needed a big wad of money to do it. They asked the little girl to give them some of her money. They said it would only be a loan and that they would pay her back a bit each month, like a salary.
The little girl had a nest egg of savings by this point. The amount they wanted was around a third of it. Although she loved her brother and the angel, she was hesitant. One of the main reasons was that she had been through a lot of pain and trauma in her life because of her daddy’s violence and ill-treatment of her and her mother for years. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
During her divorce, her daddy had taken over her ex-husband’s share of the family business. The little girl had left her marriage empty-handed. She hadn’t fought her husband for a single penny. Money wasn’t important to her. It had never been.
Even though the little girl was very poor back then and was moving from place to place without a home, her daddy never assumed she had any rights to the business, and he never offered her a position or income from it. And the little girl never questioned this.
Instead, he gave the little girl’s brother a position as company director in the business.
Why?
Well, because he is a boy.
And, in that family’s culture, the boys get everything and get to live at home and have their mothers and sisters cook and clean for them (even if those women also have a job, mind you). Then, the boy marries a woman who moves in with them, and the mother’s role extends to the new blushing bride. The boy never has to lift a finger in the house. You get the picture.
But the daughters in that family’s culture… what happens to them?
Well, they get married off.
And what happens if it doesn’t work out? Well, it hadn’t happened before in this particular family’s history, not ever on her mummy’s side nor on her daddy’s side. This little girl was the first. The daughters-turned -wives before who had a difficult marriage suffered in silence and never tried to live a different way.
This little girl was different, though. She wasn’t afraid to step into the unknown, alone, away from people whose intentions weren’t the best, to discover what life had to offer beyond what she already knew.
This family, with this culture and beliefs, didn’t know how to react. To her daddy, the daughter who leaves her marriage is a shame to the family; even if she’s suffered trauma or needs help, it doesn’t matter. In her daddy’s eyes, she should have just stayed married. She’s not their problem anymore.
…
So, back to the family business that the little girl’s daddy and brother were running. It did so well that they bought a new big house where the angel wife moved in with them. The little girl could never go and live there, though, because, sadly, it usually ended in violent words or actions towards the little girl.
Fast forward a few years, and the father’s health was ailing more. He didn’t sleep until very late at night, and he smoked a lot and drank a lot. And the little girl’s brother’s brain had been through a lot of brain attacks. It was then, quite expectedly, very difficult for them to keep the business running successfully, even though the lovely angel wife had left her job teaching little children to join them and help out.
And so, here they were now, the little girl’s brother and his angel wife, in this sacred place, worried about their future and asking her for money.
The little girl felt for them. She asked her brother and the angel if her daddy was involved. The little girl’s brother stayed quiet throughout the conversation. The angel looked her in the eyes and confirmed that he wasn’t. She said it was just their own, new business, that their daddy had nothing to do with it, that they would pay her back a certain amount every month until it was paid off, and that they would pay for her flights whenever she wanted to go to England to visit them or anywhere.
The little girl, in her mud hut by the temple, in the sacred place, believed every word they said. She loved them very much, and so, she said, “Yes.”
Because she was going to go into strict solitude for the next few months to work on purifying her mind and wouldn’t have any contact with the outside world, she left them with a way to have full access to that account, managed by a trustee.
Continues in Part 5
Dear loved ones,
You will see that I have disabled the comments box going forward. It’s for a couple of reasons.
- 1. Because you write such wonderful, loving words, and it makes me feel uncomfortably shy. I don’t know how to respond to your kindness. The strength to keep going on this path where I would have crumbled before, the courage to write my truth, stand up for myself with humility and live fearlessly now comes from my faith in my guru and the Divine Mother and the safety and protection I feel under Their watch.
- 2. Because I don’t want anything negative to be said about the characters in my story, I love them dearly. And the story isn’t over yet.
Everyone, at times, may intentionally or unintentionally say or do things that will have far-reaching consequences beyond what they could ever have imagined. Â These actions or reactions can come from a highly complex set of circumstances and beliefs. It’s not as simple as someone did a ‘bad’ thing and is, therefore, a ‘bad’ person. We are constantly changing and evolving. The way we feel about something or someone now can be the complete opposite the very next moment.
But if we only speak the truth, then we can’t feel anxiety, fear or stress because of our own words — we have nothing to hide.
And if we operate from a place of divinity, we understand why people say or do what they do, and, because we understand the bigger picture, we can forgive anything.Â
In my eyes, everyone has the right to be forgiven, especially if they have good intentions, try to communicate with love or show remorse, and they aren’t repeating their actions.
I’ll leave you with that thought 🧡