Well, I suppose you can guess what happened next.
The following month, the little girl got a message from her family telling her they couldn’t afford to send her a repayment that month… or the next, or…, you guessed it, the next.
The little girl didn’t know what to do. She was still a weak little girl. She hadn’t yet learned to stand up for herself so people couldn’t take advantage of her anymore.
The little girl was due to go off into solitude for three months into the wilderness of Kenya to fulfil her only wish, to connect with the Divine Source. She didn’t want anything to get in the way of that. So, she decided to let it go. She was, after all, on the path of letting everything go.
Off she went to the arid plains and found herself living cheek-by-jowl with the animals of Kenya’s wild, surrounded by acacia trees, and facing the majestic mountain, Kilimanjaro.
The little girl meditated with tenacity, calling out to whatever was out there in the Universe to show her what was beyond her physical senses. She wanted more than anything else to discover her Truth.
This was the little girl’s second attempt at solitude. Her first had been a disastrous and traumatic four months. But the little girl kept telling herself, that if even the demon Ravan could cut off head after head for his God, so could she for hers.
And this time her determination paid off.
This time, the little girl had her first experience of connecting deeply with The Divine in solitude (she tells me she’ll write about it all properly very soon).
The little girl was beside herself with joy.
When she emerged from solitude and checked her emails, she saw a message from her mother. She learned her parents had visited the sacred place in the Himalayas where she lived. The little girl was over the moon after her experience in solitude, and of course, no matter what had happened in the past, the first people she wanted to share her joy with were her family.
Instead of going back to the Himalayas, the little girl flew up, up, up and over to England, where they lived. They had no idea she was coming. She was overflowing with love and forgiveness, especially for her father.
Letting go of everything her father had done to her in the past, she wanted to surprise him and give him a big hug.
Ding Dong! She rang the doorbell. Her mummy, daddy, brother and the angel were happy to see her too! It was love and hugs all around. Even the little girl’s brother was happy to see her and wasn’t disturbed by her presence this time.
As the little girl stayed a while, the family took her to see their ‘new business’, and they asked her to perform a prayer ceremony there in blessing. The little girl readily agreed.
But when she got there, she realised, it wasn’t a new business at all.
It was the same one – the very same business that the little girl’s father had started with her ex-husband, the business presumably meant to provide for her after her divorce but hadn’t.
The business was the same; however, the building was new. They’d moved from the old factory warehouse they used to rent to a brand-spanking new one that they said they now owned.
The little girl felt very confused. Didn’t the angel tell her that it was a new business they wanted the money for and that it had nothing to do with her father?
Nobody explained anything to the little girl. There was no ‘sorry’, not a mention of being duped. It just was what it was. The little girl with her heart still flowing with love and forgiveness was happy to see that her brother’s brain seemed more well than ever, and so she didn’t say anything either. Her brother was not stressed about the business anymore. He seemed to have a new zeal for life with the new warehouse, just like he had when he had gotten married.
The little girl did the prayer ceremony for them and never thought to ask about the rest of her nest egg that her family had access to. She didn’t know anything about investing money. All she knew was that her brother and the angel had asked for one-third of it for their ‘new business,’ and the rest was in bonds and that the family were managing for her. It never occurred to the little girl that if it was invested on her behalf then she should be receiving an income from it. She had never understood the word ‘dividends’ before. She learned this concept much later.
Soon, it was time to say her goodbyes, and none the wiser, the little girl headed back to her sacred place in the Himalayas.
When some little studio-type homes were being built in the sacred place, the little girl’s family sent her enough money from her nest egg to purchase one for herself. It was extremely cheap compared to studio apartments in London and the little girl was happy that she finally had a place to call home.
But, a home itself isn’t enough, she needed to pay her living expenses. The little girl had become a little monk by now who had dedicated her life to serving others. As beautiful as her life was, being a little monk didn’t pay in anything other than smiles and peace, which were great, but didn’t cover her rice and beans. Her guru was a non-traditional Gurumonk Himself, and He believed that His monks didn’t need to rely on society to fund their needs. All his monks were capable and educated and He encouraged them to turn their passions and skills into a meaningful vocation that made a difference to the world.
The little monk had just started sharing her life experiences at the time on os.me and was receiving some support for her writing on the blog. As kind as the donor’s hearts were though, it wasn’t very much and the little girl knew that it alone wasn’t sustainable in the long run.
The little monk repeatedly asked her family to invest the rest of her money into a property in England and put it on rent so she could live off the income, subsidised by her writing. She didn’t need much living in the Himalayas, and so with this plan, she would likely have some security for the rest of her life and could continue sharing her life experiences and serving others on her chosen path.
Over and over, she emailed her family with suitable property listings she had found online. But, over and over, they came back with excuse after excuse. Her father sent her elaborate emails telling her that he was doing his best to release the money from the bonds but it would take time.
As far as she was aware, her family had only taken a third of her nest egg, just the shell, and her home in the Himalayas cost only a fraction of it. So, there should have been enough to put into a one-bedroom property or a studio flat in London.
Then came the bombshell news. Her father finally told her in an email that his business was struggling, and so he had already, without asking, taken the white of her egg too. He had stolen it.
The little girl realised that the remaining yolk was not going to be enough for her property.
When she had learned this news, she was in a solitary place again. This time she was staying in a village in the desert of Kutch in Northwest India. She was there to go deeper into her spiritual practices and still her mind more, but when she found out her father had now stolen from her. Forget stilling her mind, she was heartbroken.
Her father had hurt her physically and emotionally as a child and she had forgiven him. She knew he had always been a man who didn’t speak humbly or truthfully. His life, she observed, had always been of exaggeration and falsehoods, from the image he needed to portray to the public, to now, it seems manipulating his own family into bidding to his will.
The little girl finally understood what had happened with the shell of her nest egg.
Her darling brother had his sweet angel wife had been cajoled (to put it very kindly) to go all the way to the Himalayas and lie and say whatever they could to get that money out of the little girl. The father had frightened them telling them that they would lose everything and that the little girl’s money was their only hope. They had seen him lie and take with a sense of entitlement for years and they now thought it was fine for them to do the same. It had gone so far that they actually didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.
When a person of authority, or worse still, a parent makes you think it’s okay, you actually think it’s okay. You might even think you’re acting with good intentions.
It’s this culture of not being honest that destroys families. It starts with the small things, then it becomes a deeply ingrained habit.
It’s where there was so much secrecy about her brother’s poorly brain. “Don’t tell anyone … Protect the reputation … It’s something to be ashamed of … We don’t want to worry other people with this.”
And about business and money: “Take what you can … Don’t tell the truth. Hide what you really have. Don’t admit to anything. We’re entitled to it.”
Even after the little girl’s father got his hands on her money, it didn’t help him at all. The business was failing anyway. The little girl’s brother’s brain was of course still poorly, and he was in a far from stressless environment. He wasn’t in therapy either; he made huge mistakes with suppliers and clients. The father’s heart was failing too, so he couldn’t work like he used to. And so, out of desperation, the father stole from his daughter. But, of course, the business went belly up anyway. The father wrote an email to the little girl saying that the bonds where her money was invested had collapsed and that all her money was gone, and that was that.
With no business to run anymore, her father retired, the angel returned to working in a school and the girl’s brother took up a less stressful job, driving for a motor company.
But then, the poor lad was feeling so good, he stopped taking his medication. His brain became very unwell again, he was let go from his job and he ended up in hospital, again.
Once out of hospital, he spent the next six years at home, mostly in bed. He didn’t want to work. He wasn’t having any therapy. He spent all day in bed listening to the negative and destructive voices in his head. Some days, he would emerge from his room and go downstairs without showering to hurl abuse at his father and mother and to eat. He’d eat whatever was on the kitchen table if he fancied it, but usually filled himself with fast food like Mcdonald’s breakfasts and heavy, oily and spicy paneer, and bread and chips (fries) dishes from the Indian restaurants around, washed down with fizzy drinks and desserts. His waistline grew as deep and round as his depression on top of the thing called schizophrenia that he had been diagnosed with.
In the years prior, the little girl’s mother had been so stressed out she was given a diagnosis of lupus and was forced to leave her job in the civil service. She was now home and had no choice but to cook and clean for the family and deal with her ailing, demanding and difficult husband and son. She ensured the main housework was taken care of, and that a full dinner was prepared and on the table at 4:30 pm every day when the angel came home from work. Just before the angel arrived home was when the little girl’s brother would shower and put on fresh clothes and a smile. Then, after dinner at home, he’d usually ask his angel wife to go out to get a takeaway of some more junk food or some dessert with him.
The time when the nasty virus hit and the little girl’s brother couldn’t eat so much junk food as all the restaurants were shut, his brain was unsurprisingly well. Everyone in the house saw it. He was losing weight and he was happier than he’d been for a long time. As soon as the restaurants opened, he fell right back into his old patterns and his brain became more poorly again.
The little girl visited her family a couple of times during these six years, and she was alarmed beyond despair at her brother’s decline. By the fifth and sixth years, the brother she had once known had completely disappeared. This man was a stranger to her. Moody, grumpy, angry, demanding, and, sadly, he was attacking her again.
There were times when she had to run out of the house and lock herself in her mother’s car and he would be screaming expletives and banging on the window until someone brought him back into the house. Once she, her brother and the angel had tried to go out for lunch together. The angel went to park the car, and then all of a sudden, the little girl, with her heart thumping with fear, had to run away from her brother down the road of a busy shopping high street, because he began screaming at her calling her those same horrible names again. The little girl always tried her hardest to be objective about it and not take it personally. She knew it was just his illness, but it was hard for her not to be traumatised by it each time something like this happened.
Of course, the little girl knew it was imperative for her brother to get the right help. She tried to convince her mother and the angel to help her brother get physically healthy, as that would help his brain too. He needed to get his body moving with some kind of exercise every day and have a reason to get out of bed and shower, not just when his wife came home from work. He needed to eat healthier food, that was a no-brainer. He needed therapy and regular medication reviews. The mother said he didn’t listen to her and the angel would have to try. Time after time, gently, the little girl kept asking the angel to help her brother. Time after time, the angel would respond with “Yes, you’re right, he needs to get moving, he needs a purpose to get out of bed, he needs therapy.” But after every conversation, weeks would pass and nothing would change. The little girl also wrote about him and her experiences helping people with the same kind of poorly brain here, hoping something might change soon. She could see there was a lot that could be done to help her brother. Sadly, she couldn’t do it herself as the voices in his head told him his sister was evil. And so, day after day would pass with her brother laying in bed most of the day and filling himself with junk food and cigarettes.
The little girl wondered, with both her parents living on a small pension and the angel, the only one going out to work, where was the money coming from for all her brother’s food and cigarettes? This was London, and London prices, especially since the deadly virus had hit, had skyrocketed. The little girl’s brother could easily eat three meals daily from a restaurant or a takeaway. Her brother and the angel also paid all the bills of the house. And as the angel had many weeks off annually from her job at the school, they went on around three to four nice vacations a year. How was all this possible on just the angel’s salary?
Was there more to this that the little girl just didn’t see? Was there something else aside from her brother’s mental health that they weren’t talking openly about?
Continues in Part 6