WHO AM I ?

My story came to me December 2002 in Goa while meditating.

I was born 13 of August 1936 in a small village in Kashmir on the foothills of the Himalayas. My mother had been childless for 12 years before she had her first child, a boy, but that baby died at 28 days. Later my mother told me she went crazy with grief. She had a dream of a boy riding with a camel carvan. The boy told her "don't worry, I will come back." She always believed I was that boy.

A year later my eldest sister was born, and my mother became happier although she could not forget the dream and longed for the boy she had seen in the dream. My sister's birth was a consolation for my mother although, being a girl, her birth was not greeted with the same celebrations as had she been a boy.

Six months later my mother was again pregnant with me. When her time came she did not want elders sitting outside the house as was the custom in that area. It was a breech birth and, although she was in some difficulty I was born healthy at 8am. It was raining and pouring, and the lanes were flooded.. Because I was a boy there was a big celebration. Astrologers were called who predicted that I will be AMIR or FAQIR. After me came five more babies, but I always had a special place in my mother's heart.

Although I was an active child, my mother told me that I nearly died five or six times suffering from convulsions, and each time I was brought back to life as if by a miracle.

In contrast to my loving mother, my father was strict man, believing that I was a naughty child, and I received frequent beatings. When I was eight years old I ran away , and received yet another beating upon my return home.
Why did my father beat me so much?
My mother's unconditional love sustained me through my childhood. Although uneducated, my mother was a spiritual woman who believed in the goodness of my soul.

There is only 16 months between my eldest sister and I, so when I was born she was jealous. She used to snatch the bottle of milk my mother had given me, drink it, then put the empty bottle back in my mouth. Even now our relationship is that of love-hate. She is very pious, reciting from the scriptures every morning, a habit I used to find irritating. All that recitation never seemed to lead to any peace of my mind for either of us.

Her visits to my house by the Ocean were a mixture of delight and ordeal. We always seemed to fall back to our child-hood ways of bickering and arguing. One morning I took her along the beach with me to a beautiful place at the edge of the Ocean where she could sit with her books while I completed my morning walk. From where she was sitting, she could see me, and she would follow me home. This arrangement seemed to lessen the disharmony between us.

To be continued......