The House is Full of Yogis by Will Hodgkinson

Author:Will Hodgkinson [Hodgkinson, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘What you have to accept,’ said Will Lee, as we played, or rather, as he ruthlessly outmaneouvered me in, a game of chess, ‘is that the whole thing is very worrying indeed. Nev’s gone completely freaky.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I replied, as he trapped me into a checkmate after five moves. ‘He’s not freaky at all. He’s just seen the light.’

It was a week after the party, we were back up in the Lees’ attic, and Will Lee was contemplating Nev’s induction into the Brahma Kumaris. The party had proved to be the worst in the history of the Hodgkinson family; worse even than the time Uncle Richard stood on a table stacked with glasses of champagne and attempted to do a pirouette. I didn’t like the way Anne and Pete, Sandy and John, and Will’s own father had been so opposed to the Brahma Kumaris. It wasn’t that I was all for it. I just didn’t want to see Mum and Nev dismissed as cranks by their closest friends. Sandy had called Mum the following day, asking her if she and us boys needed to come and stay with her for a few days, to take a break from it all, get a bit of normality. I later found out that Sandy told Mum Nev had been love-bombed, showered with adulation by a cabal of exotic, witch-like women in order to pull him into their cult. Cults demand two things from a new convert: rejection of previous beliefs and cutting off family and friends. Nev’s worldview had already been transformed from a rational to a faith-based one. Next would be the disconnection from the people closest to him. The family would be cast aside. It was only a matter of time.

At the time, I was sure Sandy was wrong about Nev and the Brahma Kumaris. It was disappointing to witness what I took to be a form of closed-mindedness and disapproval. Sandy had always been so … modern.

Now Will Lee was coming down against them.

Will leaned forward in his beanbag. ‘You don’t seriously believe in reincarnation, do you?’

‘Why not? We’ve got to come from somewhere.’

‘But Nev was always so sensible. How can he really believe the world has only existed for 5,000 years?’

With a sigh, I lay back and gazed up at the skylight. ‘I don’t know. He just seems convinced about it all. It’s funny. Before the party I really wished the Brahma Kumaris would all go away. Since then, I’ve become rather fond of them. Anyway, I’d better be getting back. We’ve got a bunch of them coming over tonight.’

The BK sisters didn’t end up staying for long. They meditated with Nev in his room for half an hour before we all ate the thali they had brought with them. I had to say, the chapattis, rice, sambhar and sabzi were a definite improvement on our usual diet of nut roasts and dhal stews. When they left, and after Nev went to bed at nine so he wouldn’t be too tired for his regular four a.

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