mrinalini -2

Mrinalini Mata...

was born in 1931 in Wichita, Kansas.

Known in her pre-monastic life as Merna Brown [Ierse naam: 'Mirre''...] she spent a good portion of her youth in southern California. Described by others as a deeply religious and shy child, the young Merna first met Paramahansaji at the San Diego Temple of SRF, when she was fourteen years old.

Her mother had begun attending Paramahansaji’s services at the San Diego Temple, after her older daughter became interested in the Guru’s teachings, and had several personal interviews with the Guru.

Paramahansaji took a deep interest in the future Mrinalini Mata even before meeting her, and encouraged her mother to bring her to the temple. After several entreaties [smeekbeden], she was able to convince Mrinalini Mata to accompany her to one of the Sunday services.

Out of a sense of loyalty to the church in which she had been raised, Mrinalini Mata had been reluctant to attend services of another religion. But she eventually agreed to visit the SRF Temple, after her mother explained that Paramahansaji’s teachings beautifully reflected the same philosophy as Christ taught.

With her Bible tucked under her arm, the determined young Merna entered the SRF San Diego chapel one December day in 1945. Upon seeing Paramahansa Yogananda for the first time, she later recounted, she was filled with “a tremendous feeling of peace” and a sense of “something anciently familiar”...

~SRF-portret~
n.a.v. overlijden
(2017?)