Transcript of an interview with Mrs. Yoya on 12 January 2006
Abstract
Most people cannot fathom the subtle world. The fact that there is much more than what their eyes can see is something that is difficult for most to accept. However many seekers of the SSRF are able to perceive the subtle world in varying degrees. Some seekers are able to perceive various aspects related to Spirituality such as, the subtle perception of divine energy, divine consciousness, ghosts (demons, devils, negative energies, etc.) etc. in a state of meditation or otherwise. Some of them are artists.
Salient features of Yoya as an artist
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The following characteristics make Mrs. Yoya stand apart as an artist who draws pictures of what she sees in the subtle dimension.
• She has a diverse range of drawing styles.
• She draws relatively fast.
• She does not need to use an eraser while drawing.
• Some of the visions that she gets are in accordance with the religion she professes, i.e. Christianity.
• She is able to perceive subtle things in a wakeful state itself, i.e. without going into a state of meditation.
Q: Can you tell us something about your childhood?
A: I was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia on 25 April 1980. Due to an ailment, I became 70% hearing impaired at just 10 months of age. As a result, I showed delayed milestones for speech. I began wearing hearing aids at 12 months of age. I commenced schooling in a regular school for hearing children, which was one of my first major achievements, as it is very rare for children who do not hear to achieve that. It took 5 years to prepare me for that.
Q: How is your hearing now?
A: Presently i wear state of the art hearing aids, donated to me by a Swiss company for which I am a good will ambassador. Both my hearing and speech have improved but yet it is far from good. I can comprehend the speech of a person who may be a couple of metres away as I have a good command over lip reading. I have a photographic memory and my eyes act like my ears. I observe a lot of details that others do not pay attention to. My visualisation is also very good.
Q: As a child with partially impaired hearing, what sort of childhood memories do you have?
A: At that age, it was a cause of concern more to my parents than to me. In childhood, when other kids would go to play, I had to practice speech. I was in school practically since one year of age as i went for rehabilitation of speech. I was in training around four hours per day at age of three to five. Inspite of all this, I must say, I was lucky to have had an otherwise normal childhood. Even as a child I loved to draw. My first drawings were done when I was just two years old. Even at that age, I showed good control over the pencil and could draw a butterfly almost perfectly. Several of my early childhood drawings resembled angels, without ever having seen one in a story book or on television. I was exactly five when I drew my first perfect angel.
Q: You mean to say that even as a child of six, your visualization power had developed sufficiently?
A: It was not the conventional visualisation of an artist based on imagination, rather it was a vision. I started getting visions from the age of five. At times when I was not thinking about anything in particular, I would mentally visualise a picture. I would not pay attention to it as it would be only a part of a picture such as a pen in a hand or only half a picture not making any sense or sometimes an entire picture not conveying any meaning. So, I used to forget about it. But 2 or 3 years later, I began to visualise the entire picture in a complete context.
When I was seven, I perceived a vision of some picture of eyes on wings and an animal with wings, which I drew. Several months later, along with my father I visited Sveta Petka, a church in Belgrade. There I saw the same pictures on the walls and ceiling of the church of which I had a vision. I was shocked! I excitedly told my father about the vision that I had some months earlier and how all the details matched what we were looking at here.
Q: Did you train to be a professional artist?
A: Yes, I did attend drawing schools, but it was more out of a passion for drawing than as a career choice. An artist from Belgrade guided me in improving my art. When I was twelve years old we moved to Washington D.C., U.S.A. There I studied drawing at the Torpedo Factory Artists’ School for Youth for a year and then at the City of Falls Church Community Artists’ School. For the next two years, I attended the Summer School Artists’ programme of the prestigious Corcoran School of Art.
It was during this time that I lost interest in attending art school as we would be asked only to draw a copy of an object while I wished to draw independently using my imagination or sketching the visions that I used to get. So I dropped out of art school as it stifled me and started drawing on my own, which gave me much happiness.
Q: What did you do after that?
A: At the age of 16, I took up modelling as a career which entailed travelling extensively. My mother would accompany me on my trips. Our travelling on modelling assignments lasted for about two years. But these two years changed our lives for good.
Q: Can you elaborate on that?
A: During these tours many a time my mother would feel depressed. She did not have any faith in God at that time, yet all the same she was on the quest for something that would make her happy. My drawings made her feel better and helped her to develop faith in God but only to an extent. When I used to console her by telling how much God wanted her to live, she used to feel that it was not Yoya but someone else who was talking to her through me. At that time, I did not realise that I was being used as a medium by some spiritual energies.
It was during one of our tours that we came in contact with Mrs. Sharon Clarke Sequeira who was involved in the mission of spreading Spirituality in U.S.A., under the guidance of the Spiritual Science Research Foundation (SSRF). She was instrumental in my mother becoming actively involved in spiritual pursuit. Almost everyday she would go to meet her and they would discuss spiritual concepts and principles.
At that time, I was not interested in what Sharon taught and would sit on a swing in the park and watch them from far. However while they spoke, I would see visions of a yellow light encircling them. This intrigued me. I acted as a medium to draw. I drew what I saw and showed it to them which reinforced their conviction that God was at work during their discussions. Later, my curiosity about Spirituality was also aroused. It was then that my mother asked me to chant the Name of God according to the religion of my birth. I commenced chanting the Name of God when I was 18 years old and perceived its uniqueness. I thus developed an interest in it.
Q: What do you mean by ‘acting as a medium to draw’?
A: ‘Acting as a medium to draw’ is drawing under the influence of some entity. When you are a medium, that entity sort of takes possession of your mind, intellect and body. What you draw is not out of imagination resulting from the stretching of one's intellect but rather is something that is beyond the mind and intellect and yet perceived as a vision while being under the influence of the entity.
Q: How did you recognise that you became a medium for another entity to draw through you while you were drawing?
A: When I would get visions as a medium and not as myself, my face would change and become more pale. I would breathe differently and more heavily. I was often unaware about what I had drawn. My mother had to ask several questions on what I intended to convey through my drawing. Somehow she always knew about it a few seconds before I commenced drawing. Visions mostly came fast and very rarely slowly. The visions would be as large as a television screen. The visions I saw were mostly in divine colours; colours which we never see otherwise. I could see visions from the past as well as the future and these would come to me in my dreams too. When I would see the vision I would feel good, perceive a lot of energy within me and feel happy. I would wish to see more of it, as it would make me curious. I could see only the main vision; the other things in the vision looked blank.
As a medium I could draw as well as speak. My voice used to become extremely clear and I would experience difficulty in breathing. Since I would speak very fast, later I would be unable to remember what I had spoken.
When it was all over, I would feel very exhausted and would have an experience like I was falling. My face would become pale and there would be lack of energy to even talk. I would also feel very thirsty.
I shall also tell you the observations of other seekers when I acted as a medium for an entity and then spoke. When I operated as a medium, my attitude would change, my voice would become very clear, quite authoritative and would sound like a male voice. Seekers perceived strong energy emanating from me and felt that the expression on my face and eyes appeared very intense as if I was concentrating deeply. My breathing would be heavy. Though my voice would be very loud, no one would comprehend anything, as it would change completely.
All these changes do not happen during normal visualisation by an artist.
Q: What is the use of the pictures that you draw, as a medium?
A: A few years ago His Holiness Dr. Athavale explained that the only way to obtain higher knowledge in countries outside of India is through a medium and hence it is valuable there as it reinforces faith. However in India, there are several Saints of the highest spiritual level who experience Bliss. Therefore a medium is not accorded any importance here. He also said that after one makes spiritual progress there is no urge to see visions of the past or the future. The reason one loses interest in visions is that they only give one faith in the initial stages but do not assist one in realising God.
Q: So in short, you consider that your drawing of the pictures of the subtle visions is helpful for your spiritual progress?
A: Yes. It is my service to God. SSRF is intrinsically a research organisation as the name suggests. During one of my visits to H.H Dr. Athavale, He explained to me how I could use my talent of drawing for the spread of Spirituality, so that people could experience a divine feeling when they see my drawings. He explained further that when drawing pictures of Lord Jesus and Mother Mary, They would not sit as models in front of me but that I would have to perceive Them from within. To be able to perceive Lord Jesus I should chant (repeat) His Name. As I augment my chanting, They would materialise before me to a greater extent and finally, They would appear right in front of me. Then, God will not be in an abstract form such as some rays, etc. but instead I would be able to visualise the manifest form of Lord Jesus, which I could draw. The drawings will bestow the spiritual experience of that vision on the people who see them.
Q: How do you prepare yourself to draw?
A: There is no preparation. I perceive subtle things in a wakeful state itself, i.e. without going into a state of meditation and at will, i.e. I can perceive the vision I want to see. A few seekers who are artists and are able to perceive subtle visions, see them only for a fraction of a second and hence are unable to draw them later. Due to my photographic memory, I am able to draw even after the vision ceases to exist.
Q: What different things would you see?
A: There are a whole lot of different things. I can see angels, deities and even the unmanifest form of Saints and God as well as know their supernatural powers. I also get visions of the past and the future. I can see the distressing energies, i.e. ghosts (demons, devils, negative energies, etc.) troubling a person or them haunting a particular area. From May 2001, I am able to perceive the unmanifest form of God, i.e. God in the form of divine energy.
Q: So then, drawing the subtle dimension is your way of offering your service unto the Truth?
A: H.H. Dr. Athavale explained my mode of self-expression in the following way - While others express their spiritual experiences through words, I express them through pictures. I talk through my pictures; it is my way of communication. Rendering service unto the Absolute Truth through art is only one of the aspects of the spiritual practice.
Examples of some of the subtle pictures drawn by Yoya. Click on each of the link below to view the picture.
- Effect of prayer on ghost.
- Picture of a sorcerer.
- Picture of a sorcerer.
- Mechanism of action of holy sacrament.
- Hand writing of the spiritually evolved.
- Prayers and blessings.
- Worldly attachment.
- Destiny of seeker and non seeker.
Q: How has it helped you progress spiritually?
A: I would rather like to answer your question holistically. I shall tell you how my life has undergone a change after I started practising Spirituality since 1998. In August 1999, H.H. Dr. Athavale had informed me that my speech and hearing ability would improve up to 30% by undertaking spiritual practice. My speech was incomprehensible to a great extent then. A few who could comprehend my speech did so with a great deal of concentration and only after my repeating the sentences several times. Prior to my visit to India, my speech showed slight improvement. When I visited India in December 1999, I commenced repeating (chanting) 6 turns of the rosary of ‘Sree Gurudev Datta’ and ‘Hail Jesus’ each. Consequently, my hearing and speech improved further. My speech has improved considerably in the years 2000 and 2001. It is comprehensible to everyone without their making much effort. This improvement has occurred without resorting to any treatment from a physician. In 1999 while in Tokyo, I saw a vision of my marriage to Cyriaque, a fellow model whom I had met in 1998. He was very understanding in my quest of the ultimate Truth right from the very begining and wholeheartedly supported whatever I did in this direction. By chanting even he found that a lot of problems in life can be overcome. He too has become a seeker now.
In June 2001, I went to pay obeisance to a Saint from Mumbai (Bombay) in India, H.H. Joshibaba who had attained mastery over the Path of Nullifying Distressing Energy. He gave a remedy for my speech improvement. The treatment was a spiritual one and beyond the comprehension of the intellect. Therefore if one uses one's intellect, the remedy sounds like a very strange and unusual one. However it was charged with spiritual healing energy.
The treatment involved putting a teaspoonful of burnt jaggery (coarse brown sugar) on a handy blackboard (slate) and then licking it up. H.H. Joshibaba performed a ritual subtly and blessed the blackboard before giving it to me.
Q: What advice would you give to our readers who are in pursuit of happiness?
A: Bliss is a divine quality. The way sweetness of sugar can be felt only by tasting it; likewise Bliss can be attained only by realising God. Try to feel Him if you cannot see Him. Think of Him always, develop a desire to realise Him. Surrender unto Him. That will awaken your spiritual emotion. If you do this regularly you will definitely experience God.
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