An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Prabhupada (1896–1977)
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada followed in Caitanya’s line. 
He renounced married life to become a sannyasin, studying and writing 
prolifically on Vedic scriptures. His English translation of the Gita, the 
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
contains his own helpful commentary. In 1965 he 
left India to take the teachings of Vaishnavism to the West and although 
he arrived in America without resources, he founded the International 
Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) a year later. Often known 
as the Hare Krishnas, devotees chant the holy name of Krishna in order 
to purify their minds – a form of bhakti
 
or worship leading to 
mukti
or 
liberation from endless reincarnation. George Harrison of the Beatles, 
popularized the chant in 
My Sweet Lord
. 
By practical experience also, one can perceive that by chanting this 
maha-mantra
, or the Great Chant for Deliverance, one at once feels 
transcendental ecstasy coming through from the spiritual stratum.
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Mother Meera (1960– )
Kamala, later to become known as Mother Meera, was born in 1960 in 
Southern India. She was aware of going towards lights at the age of three 
and attained the spiritual state of absorption of 
Samadhi
aged 6. Her 
Uncle, Mr Reddy recognized her unique qualities and took her under his 
wing, staying at the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. In 1981 
they went to Germany and a year later Mother Meera married a German. 
She lives in Balduinstein, where she gives Darshan, a silent communica-
tion of light, to people who flock to her from all over the world. 
She is seen as an avatar, a representative on earth, of the Divine Mother, 
the sacred feminine, also considered to have become manifest in other 
ages as the Hindu Goddess Kali and the Virgin Mary. Mother Meera’s 
task on earth is neither to teach nor start a religion, but to call down the 
Paramatman Light, meaning the light of the supreme being, to humanity.
Paramatman is in everything, in all creation – earth, water, fire, sky, 
animals – at all times. But we can see the Light only sometimes. The 
Light has the quality of love, grace, power, bliss, jnana. . . . It is the 

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
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effect that matters: an unmistakable and extraordinary lightness and 
happiness and peace.
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