By Joel B. Belinan
More or less 34 years ago, in 1988, I decided to follow the philosophy or the way of life of Ananda Marga (Path of Bliss). I met Ananda Marga (AM) two years earlier (1986) due to an invitation of some classmates for a lecture relative to the events that had been unfolding that time. That was when the dictatorship of then Pres. Marcos just got overthrown in the peaceful EDSA Revolution. The Cordillera said, yes, and the Cordillera autonomy fever started to take hold.
Immediately after the EDSA revolution the revolutionary government of then Pres. Cory Aquino reached out to the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) and the Cordillera Bodong Administration (CBAd) for a peace talk. At that time I was still in high school but already engrossed in activism as most of the youth were in the various campuses. Luckily, I was not that impressed with the leftist propaganda as I was looking for something unique.
During that lecture, the speaker focused on the issue of the people in the Cordillera, what it should do to face the present and future socio-economic and political challenges. It never touched on a deeper philosophy but it left a thought in my mind that what the lecturer had discussed must have had some deeper origin.
Time flew fast. At that time I got hooked with the local group called “Anak Kabunian Kami” (AKKA), then from time to time, senior cadres joined us for some medical mission and mass feeding activities at certain areas in Baguio or Benguet. These seniors usually did some kind of chanting then they would sit on crossed legs or in lotus position in a corner with their eyes closed for some time before taking their food. I later learned that the process was called Yoga Meditation. This made me ask questions that led me into attending spiritual philosophy lectures on the AM philosophy and the result was my formal initiation into the AM Tantra Meditation.
Then in 1988 after having been in the AM group for already two years, I decided to undergo the training for a basic missionary of the AM organization. The training was 45 days, 24 hours regimented routine, and a complete socio-economic, political and spiritual training. If I remember right, we were 36 trainees but 3 guys quit. I and five other young guys from Benguet were barely of legal age compared to our co-trainees especially those from Mindanao and Visayas, some of whom were already 40 years old. Our trainer was Acharya Kritashivananda Avaduta, a very senior monk of the AM organization and a respected Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) scholar and writer.
I will give you a picture of what the training was like on a 24-hour basis. We woke up at 4:30 AM for our early morning spiritual chanting followed by 15 minutes of collective meditation, then by 5:00 AM we would have completed our morning duties (answering the call of nature, bath, and other things), some were assigned for cooking while others did the cleaning of the surroundings and inside the training center, while some did their laundry, etc. At 7:00 AM we would all gather at the main hall for the morning collective kiirtan (chanting) and collective meditation before our breakfast at 8:00 AM. By 9:00 AM we all had to attend our morning session class which was usually about spiritual philosophy. By 12:00 noon we would gather for collective meditation and, by then, all should have finished their noon bath while those assigned to the kitchen would be preparing the food for lunch.
Lunch was served at 1:00 PM. By 1:45 PM to 2:15 PM everyone was required to observe “Maonabhrata,” a complete silence on some individual spots to concentrate on one’s second lesson, a spiritual mantra given to us individually by our respective Acharyas (spiritual teachers). From 2:30 to 4:30 we would then attend the afternoon class by the trainer which was usually on social philosophy. After that, we were given time for physical activities like sports.
By 6:30 PM we were expected to have been done with the physical activities including our afternoon bath in time for the evening collective meditation. Supper was served at 7:30 followed by a 30 minute personal study, then evening walk at the road nearby before the evening class from 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm.
At 11:00 PM we did a short midnight collective meditation before lights-off at 11:30 midnight. At this point, a group of (3 to 4) trainees were dispatched to the public market, usually at the Divisoria, the biggest public market in Metro Manila, to collect food, including vegetables. This was called SPT or spiritual, physical training. Yes, in Manila, public markets were busiest between 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM.
By the way, the food at the training center were strictly sentient or vegetarian. And of course, we were expected to follow such a diet throughout our lives. Apart from that, no cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, and prohibited drugs. On top of those, every trainee was very strict in the observance of the 16 points or the physical and spiritual discipline of the organization including the observance of four times a month fasting. A violation meant a corresponding punishment from the Shraman. And all these things were being guarded by an assigned monitor and an assistant monitor.
The 45-day training might be one of the best things that ever happened to me and may have been the foundation of what I am today. Not as a successful person in terms of economic achievement but a proud person following a way of life that values more the spiritual and intellectual sides of life. A way of life where we look at the entire universal creation as a part and parcel of one universal family and, hence, should be cared for by us humans as the most evolved entities of all creation.
After our training, we were then called Local Full-Timers (LFTs) of the organization. We were individually assigned to different places of the country and some were immediately deployed abroad. By the way, the AM as an organization is a worldwide group. After being assigned to my particular department’s office in Manila for some time, I was sent to our South East Asian base in Singapore. From our base in Singapore, we frequently (sometimes as fast as twice a week) traveled to various countries in South East Asia (SEA) particularly Malaysia, Indonesia Thailand, and the Philippines. Others were assigned to Vietnam which just started issuing missionary visas. The countries of Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Cambodia were not yet open at that time and the South Asian countries of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, and, yes, India. For almost six years my life was dedicated to a life of a “modern monk” always rushing where our organization sent us to serve the suffering humanity. I went thru many experiences in the field which can be related here in the future. **
