The Parliament of the World’s Religions isn’t just seminars. There are crafts, schools, art, and other representations from the many cultures and religions that are present at the Parliament. I went to the exhibit hall to look at crafts, books, jewelry, shawls, clothing and all kinds of merchandise from the 220 distinguishably different faiths at the conference. The exhibits room was vast, and a friend from home and I meandered around for a couple hours. One interesting place we came upon was an imposing portable Hindu temple with golden statues and pillars, where Balasons, young girls who were brought up in a temple, were saying prayers of healing. They were dressed all in orange, I suppose technically it is saffron. You could get “scanned” by the third eye of the Balasons who would diagnose you and heal you. The whole thing was frightening to me. How does one walk up to the Balasons? What do you do when you get up there? What was all this? What could a teen know about me or the world? I was really skeptical about all this. Furthermore, you were supposed to kneel in front of the Balasons, and I don’t kneel in front of anyone.
There were men and women loitering around the Balason temple who seemed to be part of the outfit. I asked an elderly woman in a sarong if the girls were Yoginis (female yogis), and was told that they were higher than Yoginis. My octogenarian friend generously did some recon for me. She went up for a healing. The young Balason prayed over my friend and told her to think of strength, say she is strong, and move more. Afterward, my friend seemed to glow and did move faster throughout the rest of the day. I thought about all this. And decided that next day I would go up there and see what the Balason would do for me. It was exposure to things like this that brought me to the Parliament.
Next day, I returned to the Nithya Spiritual Healing shrine, as I found out it was called. I spoke with a beautiful middle-aged white woman in a sarong about what I was getting into. I was thinking, “What’s a white girl like you doing here?” But, of course, I couldn’t ask her, or so I thought. She told me that the healing was called Nithya, and that the Balasons were disciples of the Guru Paramahamsa Nithyananda. I inferred that the Nithya healing was named after their Guru. A male in white Indian clothes, came up, and, when I told him I was going to write an article about this, he gave me all kinds of information. This sect are worshippers of ParamaShiva (Lord Shiva). Their Guru is His Holiness Paramahamsa Nithyananda. The Balasons have had their third eye opened by the Guru. I decided to take the plunge.
They brought me a medical waiver to fill out. Then I stood in line. There was always a line all day long to see the Balasons. Mostly women. Standing in line, I was a mixture of skepticism, balanced with an open mind. Today, people were sitting in front of the Balasons, instead of kneeling. That, I could do. My turn came. The young Balason carried herself with authority, confidence, and detachment. She had no ego. She stunned me by speaking about a psycho-spiritual issue that had been plaguing me most of my life. Then she said a second one. And she was dead-on. She closed her eyes and prayed a short while and said, “The healing is done.” That meant our session was over. She was right. Right about everything about me—a stranger—and about the healing. What she said to me was not the kind of general thing that would apply to everybody. They were important issues I had, that I needed to hear articulated in words to make me understand how much of a problem it was and release I felt when it was articulated. “Of course,” I thought. She saw me with her third eye—me a skeptic.
Though the healing was free, they did have a donation box. In my gratitude for the healing, I went to drop a donation into the box and saw the white woman who had assisted me with the forms and procedure. She smiled a smile of gratitude when I dropped in my donation. I looked her in the eyes and said, “There’s something to this!” She smiled, saying nothing. I knew she knew I understood.
David Fekete 