I recently completed assisting my first prison course at Gurugram District Jail, and my experience feels like nothing short of a series of miracles.
I witnessed calm and chaos, followed by unexplainable divine intervention. The course most likely wasn’t just for the inmates; it seemed like it was happening for all of us. Words flowed from my mouth as if they weren’t mine—thoughts that were not my own, yet exactly what the participants needed to hear to find some peace.
Out of the many experiences that left me in tears, one stands out.
During the eye-gazing process, we had an odd number of participants. While I was meditating along with the inmates during the Kriya, one inmate’s name kept popping up in my mind. Before the process began, I sent for her, unsure whether she would be willing to participate. Surprisingly, she came.
As the process unfolded, she started crying inconsolably. Later, she shared that earlier that morning, all she had asked from her children—whom she hadn’t met in six months—was to hold their father’s hands and look into his eyes. During the eye-gazing process, she felt as though she could finally see him and hold his hands.
I couldn’t believe my ears. Such is the mystery of the Divine. You never truly know what you are doing for the people around you. Sometimes you feel you have done nothing, but when you allow the Divine to work through your physical presence, you witness miracles all around.
When you are in an environment like that, it is easy to blame situations on fate or karma. Yet, without much effort, we heard inmates saying, “We know things are going to get better.” Another said, “I want to go back to my village and open an Art of Living center.” Yet another shared, “Sudarshan Kriya is giving me an incredible amount of strength to deal with all the mental and physical abuse I see around me.”
Before these eight days of Seva in the Jail Course, my small mind thought the experience would be about witnessing the struggles of the inmates and managing the challenges of travel, hot weather, and juggling work. Surprisingly, none of that came in the way. In fact, everything flowed more smoothly than on ordinary days.
I am certain that much changes in the minds and lives of our participants through the course. But when I allowed myself to flow in the direction of my Master, I couldn’t believe what I was capable of or how subtly our consciousness begins to expand, allowing us to see the bigger picture.
Nilanshu
