Empowered – powerful transformations

by Diana Ialamova, Qatar

I would like to start this experience sharing with expressing my gratitude to Mohanji for finding me in this lifetime. I couldn’t be more grateful for this connection to the Source, the Parabrahma, brighter than a million suns. My gratitude to the wonderful Empowered program trainers, who have worked tirelessly to deliver Mohanji’s teachings to the world. This is my humble attempt to share some of the transformations and experiences as a result of this program.

Mohanji says “The most important book to read in this life is to read yourself. Know yourself.”

My journey with Mohanji started back in November 2019, when Devi Mohan visited Qatar, where I currently reside (I am originally from Bulgaria), and conducted a program here. My connection began funnily, with a huge resistance towards the Guru principle. Being in the “spiritual” and “energy healing field” for many years before that, I considered myself somewhat advanced in the field. I never thought of having a Guru, why would I need one? Being European and Christian-born, all these Hindu stories of Gurus and disciples seemed quite distant to me. I believed in the Universe and spirituality in general, hence I considered those gurus as something unnecessary that stands between ordinary people and the Universal consciousness. This was my limited understanding at the time. Little did I know what was awaiting me, little did I know that very soon I would start referring to Mohanji as my Guru and start calling him Father.

My rocket-speed transformation began, and I never looked back. My whole world turned upside-down only a few months after establishing a connection with Mohanji, which at the time was distant, I only met him physically in 2022 after the covid lockdowns. I was blessed to unlearn many of the theories I grew up with and considered solid principles of a successful life and get into the field of the unknown, on the path of fire that burns so much of unwanted baggage that stands in the way of living a liberated life. Everything was happening so fast, that I started writing down my experiences so that I do not forget later. I will share some of these experiences shortly, however, my focus here is on sharing my transformation as a result of attending Empowered, Mohanji’s signature program, that encompasses the core of his teachings.

I was blessed to attend the original Empowered program back in 2022, delivered by Mohanji himself, all the way from 1 to 5, with more than 1000 people attending the Zoom sessions.  I remember how I was trying to absorb every word he spoke. I was eager to practice every technique he gave us. The more I contemplated on the material provided and the techniques, the more transformation I was able to observe within me. His teachings are so simple, yet extremely powerful. They made me realize that for most of my life, I’ve been looking outside me, instead of inside. The inside had many shadows, both from this as well as previous lives, and some of those were scary to face. With Mohanji having my back, I started peeling the layers of the onion one by one and going deep inside, at times feeling truly happy and light, alternated by phases of facing my deepest fears and anxieties.

If I have to summarize the months after the first Empowered series, these were times of many ups and downs, periods of calamities followed by the brightest and happiest moments, and a lot of internal cleansing that eventually led to feeling lighter, happier, and more content with life. Being able to witness my own transformation, I decided to take the next step and dive even deeper, by signing up for the Empowered 1-4 refresher in April 2024. The beauty of it being delivered by trainers and in smaller groups is that the core of Mohanji’s teachings is presented in a very concise, yet powerful and informative format, with time for questions, contemplation, and group discussions to clarify important points.  There is a lot to contemplate throughout the program, however, I’ve noticed that each course has a set of key takeaways for me to reflect on.

My key takeaway from the first Empowered series, which I decided to take to a deeper level now, was that spiritual progress is measured not so much by what we gain, but by what we lose. Elevation of awareness automatically takes place when we drop anger, hatred, jealousy, pride, greed, ego, and the need for comparisons and competition. Easier said than done. Mohanji talks a lot about the two D’s in the path of knowing yourself – discipline and determination. All techniques and exercises given during the program, are oriented towards reinforcing the importance of those.

If one is not ready to do the work for themselves, or not seeing the point of doing that, there is no need to waste their time. A Master will tell us where to look, but not what to see. Master’s job is not to constantly clear the garbage that we keep on accumulating. There has to be a level of understanding of one’s responsibility towards themselves. Past needs to be erased. Many painful memories and disappointments that pull us down, need to give way to good thoughts, words, and actions for our life to change for the better.

I particularly liked the “week of no complaints” challenge, a week of constant observation of complaints and feelings of no acceptance on all levels – thoughts, words, and actions. I’ve seen significant benefits for myself as a result of this week, hence willingly decided to extend it to 2 weeks, and as I am writing this, I am already in the 3rd week. Being in an observation mode and constant awareness has helped me dive deeper into peeling the layers of the onion of my own constitution, thus bringing onto the surface some of the painful impressions, simply to be cleared from my system. It also revealed some of my own hindrances towards living a liberated life. No matter how much we think we’ve got it all, there is always something hidden under the carpet. The important thing here is to identify it through awareness, contemplate, and see what can be done about it.

I have been for a while under the impression that expectation, judgment, and resentment have already left my system. However, during the contemplation exercises, I realized that there is an area for improvement. The more I was going deeper, the more unpleasant stuff started to surface. I felt the need to be in complete silence, sometimes cry, and express those deep emotions. But at the same time, I had to go to work, which would take me away from the silence mode.

Then something interesting happened. Out of nowhere, I got a cold, or at least this is what I initially thought, with symptoms of severe body aches and discomfort on a physical level. I had no choice but to stay home for two days until the symptoms subsided. Apart from the physical pain, which I later realized was due to those painful impressions surfacing on a physical level and waiting to be released, the rest of the two days were magic. The time spent in silence was the best thing that had happened to me at the time. Usually, when I get sick, I would distract myself by reading books and watching TV. But this time was different, all I wanted was to be in silence.

So much has been brought to my awareness and cleansed during these two magical days. When I started to feel better physically and returned to ‘normal’ life, it suddenly dawned on me that Mohanji had provided me with the opportunity of having my own mini-Empowered 5, the time spent mostly in silence and contemplation.  While attending the 1-4 refresher, I had this deep desire to attend Empowered 5 in person, however knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do that in the coming months. Mohanji has heard this desire of mine and given me a mini version of Empowered 5, how amazing was that! This realization brought to me a feeling of immense gratitude. If I were to go to work during these 2 days, I would be suppressing everything that was trying to leave my system. Instead, I was allowed to release various blockages, some of which were quite heavy, so I decided to request a Mai-Tri session to help ease the sensations.

I also practiced regularly the Pause technique, which helped me to withdraw from certain situations and negative thoughts before they reached the level of words and actions. I’ve also spent some time going through my notes from the first Empowered program and comparing the progress on overcoming certain hindrances toward spiritual progress.

One of the major achievements I noticed, was the significant reduction of procrastination. Although I am in a much better place compared to a few years ago, I am still working on it. Looking back, I realize this has been one of my biggest hindrances. The funny thing is I never realized that until I connected to Mohanji. My mind must’ve been very creative in coming up with all sorts of excuses and comfort zones, just to cling to procrastination as a safe zone. It was so subtle that it took me a while to figure it out. Being on the Raja Yoga path, a lot of my comfort zones have been burnt, and a lot of acceptance has taken place instead, which made me more flexible and fluid. Mohanji says one of the signs of spiritual growth is increased flexibility. So, this tells me I am on the right path. But I learned an important lesson to never underestimate the mind and the patterns that it carefully guards.

While comparing my state during the first Empowered with now, I’ve noticed as well the change in how I respond to situations and people, especially the challenging ones. I have recently been presented with a situation where certain people have literally been trying to trigger an emotional response from me. Using the power of the Pause technique, I managed to contain my irritation, which if left free would probably lead to an argument. Instead, I managed to withdraw and get back to it from the point of clarity and constructive conversation, which made such a difference in a positive way.

Another situation took place, where a pattern of thoughts and worries related to poverty consciousness suddenly emerged and was brought to my awareness through the similar behavior of three different people, in the span of only a few days. I did not pay attention to the first person.

The 2nd put me on alert and I started noticing some level of irritation and complaint on a thought level as to why these people exhibit similar behavior and kind of impose it on me. When the 3rd person presented with the same, I decided to surrender this to Mohanji and just pray for his support and guidance so that I do not further contaminate my space. The answer was instantly given to me, the whole situation was a mirror image, a reflection and projection of my own worries and anxieties that were so well hidden behind the mind’s Leela, that I failed to even notice from the start. The moment this awareness was given to me, the whole thing just dropped, it vanished, evaporated. And I was no longer irritated at those people as I realized they were just a projection of my internal state. Gratitude to Mohanji for providing the experiences, through which significant awareness and cleansing can take place.

I noticed as well that cleansing took place not only during the waking state. A lot of cleansing happened and also many questions were clarified during the dream state. Thank you Mohanji for holding the space for me to clear up this hangover from the past.

The last experience, which I would like to share as part of this post is related to the subject of binding, awareness, and detachment. In the car, I have Mohanji’s eye card firmly attached to the top of the car dashboard, which I often glance at while driving, and it gives me the feeling he is with me and protecting me. When travelling abroad, I usually give the car to some friends to drive. After my recent travel, when I got the car back, the eye card was missing. I looked for it everywhere in the car, it wasn’t there. I asked those friends, however, no one could give me a good enough explanation as to how the card went missing. I could feel anger and resentment building up in me.

At the end of the day, it was my Guru’s eye card, which had been blessed and had so much meaning to me. How could it just go missing, did anyone destroy it and not tell me the truth (even if it was by accident)? I had questions and doubts and this wasn’t giving me peace of mind. I was literally occupied by the emotions building up, I temporarily lost clarity, and I wasn’t fully present, simply put I was badly affected and my mind was in the path of creating an entire drama movie. After some time, I applied the Pause technique so that all these emotions did not come out through words and take the wrong way until I calmed down and thought about it with clarity. I prayed to Mohanji to help me clear my head and help me understand what this was all about.

At this point, I knew that the particular situation was provided to bring awareness, but awareness of what? I instantly heard Mohanji saying to me “Don’t worry. As long as I am always in your heart, that’s the connection that matters the most, the eye card is good to connect through, however, it is also just an object, the real connection is in the heart. Forgive and forget.” Wow, what powerful words! I instantly knew why this experience was given to me, to experience attachment and binding, so that the awareness of its negative impact can help me clear my system as quickly as possible from any residual that can cause further binding through emotions, anger, and resentment.

It became crystal clear to me why Mohanji always tells us to be careful of anything that creates binding, in this case, my reaction to the situation, as well as the fact that I was too attached to an object, even if this was the eye card. I would’ve never thought about this as an attachment, since it was related to Mohanji, however, I remembered one of Mohanji’s talks where he says we shouldn’t create an attachment even to the Guru. Since I am a person, who is not very particular about material possessions and I do not cry over the loss of small things, I always thought that I’ve kind of mastered this part of my life. Until this moment, when I realized that Mohanji was making me peel the deepest of the deepest layers of the onion through something precious. The moral I took from this experience was:

• attachments can be deeply rooted and may present in a very subtle way; it takes a great level of awareness to realize and overcome
• I am glad I applied Mohanji’s teachings by applying the Pause technique, which helped me to contain my anger on a thought level before it reached the level of words and actions which can be dangerous as words and actions cannot be taken back
• the awareness helped me to quickly detach from the binding emotions, which automatically lifted the fog off my brain and provided clarity
• I managed to see this as a Leela that provided the time, space, and role players for me to experience. In my heart, I even thanked the role players for being part of my experience and helping me reach those deeper layers.

For some of you, the above reflections will sound familiar, I am sure many of you have been through similar situations and experiences. For others, this may be an eye-opener to all the possibilities that one can explore in the loving, yet powerful presence of a Master like Mohanji. I am eternally grateful for this connection as it continuously helps me cleanse unwanted baggage from my system, and make me realize my true potential.  

Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 27^th June 2024

|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI ||

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