The divine soul indicated to Anamika that she must practice her meditation at 3.30 a.m. and I advised her to practice both in the morning and the evening, while maintaining regularity in the time as well as the place. Anamika’s interest was now growing and she had even begun to regulate her food intake. She would now wake up at around 3.30 a.m. to begin her meditation for around 1.30 to 2 hours. She then followed this up with another session of meditation in the evening at about 7.30 p.m., practicing for some 1.30 to 2 hours.

I had requested some of her fellow trainers and teachers to be present with her for the duration of her meditation. There were times when Anamika would go deep into meditation and she would have to be brought out of the state by others. Sometimes, she would even tilt to one side of her position and fall during meditation, without even realizing it. Hence, 2-3 of her fellow trainers would chant the Navkaar mantra or Logass (a Jain hymn) to bring her out of her state of meditation. It was only then that she would slowly emerge from her meditative state.

At times, I would also be present when she would meditate in the evenings. By the expressions on her face, I could determine when she was able to visualize the divine soul and was in her presence. Once it so happened that during her meditation, another student crossed the room and passed between her and the dais. Almost immediately, Anamika asked him to move away because it appeared that the person was getting between her and the divine soul and interrupting her communication.

On another day, during her meditation itself Anamika got up, and taking a cloth, began to wipe the stage at the place where she visualized the divine soul, as if she did not find the place clean enough.

The entire process was extremely astonishing and often seemed unbelievable. Neither me nor my colleagues had any experience of any such visualization or how to proceed in such a situation. It was, however, my belief that since Adhyatm Sadhna Kendra was associated with the discipline of meditation, there should be laid down a proper practice for pursuing the deeper levels of meditation. Only then will we be able to find the answers to all the unresolved questions in this domain and open avenues to new developments in this direction.

Anamika’s progress was one that brought much happiness but at the same time there were some misgivings, particularly among those of her colleagues who were feeling inconvenienced by having to stay with her at odd hours. Many of them had begun to believe that she was perhaps putting up an act for the sake of impressing me and that there was no truth to her claims.

Upon seeing the behaviour of her colleagues and upset at having become an object of ridicule, Anamika began to request me to allow her to meditate by herself so that her friends do not get inconvenienced.

But this was only the tip of the iceberg. There was plenty more to be unveiled.